“The Spoil of Europe” (1942)

Book Review from the October 1942 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Spoil of Europe by Thomas Reveille. (Allen & Unwin. 10/6)

The author evidently, knows his German and his Germany, and from the point of interest of the Socialist, this is a book which relieves one of the task of ploughing through pages of the usual descriptions of the Nazis and the Nazi machine, in order to obtain some idea of the mechanism of the German administration, although the book sets out to prove how the Reich is plundering Europe.

Germany has taken over the whole of the banking system of Europe “to mobilise the surplus of capital in Western Europe for financing of Continental objectives.” Germany, in fact, has become Europe’s banker, but with a new principle. “That soil and labour rather than gold should be the basis of a currency is the recurring Nazi assertion.” (P. 22.)

That this should support the “banks create credits” cranks here is smashed by the chapter, “The Golden Haul,” where the author asserts that all the gold holdings of Europe’s banks have been seized by the authority of the Reichsbank and “gold certificates” given in its stead and so likewise the gold of private persons, together with the legal “sequestering” of gold held by banks in their name abroad so that the Reichsmark notes all over Europe have some sort of gold backing.

The comprehensive picture of the State administration of industry and agriculture, in which each industry has its own “Industrial Board,” together with the Labour Front—the organisation for the industrial workers—which is dominated by the political party of the Nazis in the shape of the “Nazi Party Factory Cell Organisation” (N.S.B.O.) leaves the Socialist with the impression that the whole outfit was copied straight from the Russian State system and adapted to German capitalist conditions.

The German worker is told that this is the German version of Socialism. “The worker need not consider himself the inferior of the employer, because all members of the German Volk are ‘equal.’ Strikes and lock-outs are forbidden, and the recalcitrant employer is tried before ‘Courts of honour,’ and is fined for offending against the social honour of work” (p. 22). Real wages are kept down and “thrift” encouraged by stringent taxation and savings, in order to divert the new income from consumers’ goods to armaments, with the reduction of interest on investments from the previous 6 per cent. to 3½ per cent. from January 1st, 1941. (P. 226.)

The full name of Germany’s set-up is the “National Socialist German Workingman’s Party,” a title that is all things to all men, and advantage has been taken of the slogans and aspirations of men ranging from Jew-haters to Communists, industrialists and monarchists.

The technique employed differs somewhat from the Communist method, as the author points out. “The Communists pursue methods known as boring from within, while they are out of power. As soon as the reins of state have been seized they unmask themselves and start a clean slate by destroying everything before them. The Nazis are much smarter. They continue boring-from-within methods well after they have assumed power, and never come out into the open until all opposition has been brought within their control, adopting any pose necessary to do this” (p. 27).

That the German ruling-class plan by all means to become the complete masters of Europe is labouring the obvious, but what is not obvious is their attitude to Britain and her Empire. According to Reveille, the Reich had no intention of invading or smashing Britain, or her Empire, but to keep her neutral with her navy here, not steaming away from a defeated Britain. And even when war was declared every effort in the way of offers of peace were made, with a scheme for recognising Germany’s hegemony of the Continent, and a free hand in her land policy, while the Reich would acquiesce in British overseas supremacy, and pledge her might as the guarantee of the British Empire.

“A model for the accord of world markets already exists; this is the agreement concluded at Dusseldorf in March, 1939, between Reichgruppe Industrie and the Federation of British Industries. Both were official bodies, and the agreement was sponsored by the Reich and Chamberlain Governments” (p. 308).

That Churchill ended this policy of “appeasement,” backed by the role of the United States of America becoming the arsenal for the democracies, while the Luftwaffe, plus the flying emissary Hess, attempted to “induce Britain to ‘voluntarily’ fulfil her assigned role in the Fuehrer’s grandiose plan,” is the burden of the last pages in the book.

Appended is the National Social Party Programme, declared by Hitler to be “immutable,” and no Socialist reading it could (except for the clauses dealing with Jews and non-Germans) say whether it was drawn up by Communists or any other reformist organisation. Take only a few.

“We demand the abolition of a professional army and the creation of a people’s army” (clause 22).

Socialists will remember this as the aim of the old Bolsheviks and the substance of the “People’s War” nonsense to-day: “In view of the terrible sacrifice in money and blood which every war inflicts upon the people, we demand the integral confiscation of all wartime profits, the nationalisation of all existing trusts” (clause 12).

The Labour Party or the I.L.P. could not beat this clause as a war cry. In fact, the Labour Party recently evaded the issue of the nationalisation of the mines of Britain and fell in with a scheme propounded by the Tories, which left the owners in possession.

“The Spoil of Europe” leaves untouched any conclusions of a theoretical nature. But it can be said that the military needs of countries preparing, then waging war, are the driving forces, whereby because of the mechanical nature of modern war, all production of field or factory must be co-ordinated.

There are independent writers who argue that the anti-democratic features of State-capitalism arise out of the very machinery necessary to run it, that in so far as a whole country’s resources are integrated and brought under control of the State, that this can be pictured as being one productive unit, where, as in an up-to-date works, if one division of labour gets out of step, no time is lost in ending the stoppage. The State officials therefore become responsible for the dragooning of everything and everybody, to fit into the centralising plans issuing from the higher authorities. Propaganda, and this includes the arts, stage and literature, is controlled, with the motive of allowing nothing to interfere with the direction that the leaders have laid down.

Although substantially true, this dictatorship which can allow of no political opposition, cannot be regarded apart from the phenomenon of war, in which the fear of defeat, invasion, or worsened conditions, can be the lever, used by the dictators to move the masses to collaborate in plans which virtually deny them the right to organise independent of the State.

It must also be borne in mind that the totalitarian countries have performed a “forced march” of their economic systems in order to balance, and be prepared against, the slow, yet highly industrialised, states which they will clash with in war.

This war has given some cruel lessons to the workers of the power of the capitalist state, for the state is but the “executive committee” of the ruling class, and it is in being to promote the interests of the ruling class. Yet it exists solely because the working class is wedded to capitalism, and bound to the fortunes of its commercial rivalries, its wars and poverty.

State-craft has added stage-craft to its arts and the workers are induced to cheer the very caricatures and skits of their own aspirations. Capitalism robed as “communism” and “Socialism” in full German battle kit can make their bow before thunderous audiences.

Members of the S.P.G.B. propose that the working class take the state-power into their own hands, to establish Socialism, the class-less society. The workers will be convinced of this necessity by Socialist education, driven home, unfortunately, by bitter experience. Thereafter the State will “wither away.” the need for its existence ended, never to return.

Frank Dawe