Germany Stages a Come-Back (1938)

From the October 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The crash in Wall Street put an end to the flow of money and credits across the Atlantic. German capitalism sang “Don’t let the river run dry.” Short-term loans in Germany were now called in, and there was a rush on the banks. The number of small businesses which went under is legion, and monopoly capitalism (giant trusts) alone could survive the deluge. Unemployment and bankruptcies went up by leaps and bounds. This condition, whilst tragic, served a useful purpose. It enabled the mighty German industries (built by American money) to shake off the foreign fetters, America being in a mess. In this way the gigantic plant and production, with new rails, roads, etc., passed into “Aryan” hands.

The era of monopoly capitalism needs a corresponding moulding of the workers. It needs a human conveyor belt, a producing class as automatic as a machine. How can this be done? Two ways! Eliminate those who think otherwise (always a comparative few) and bluff the unthinking (the vast majority). In Hitler and his gangsters they saw the very instrument, so, placing their money at Hitler’s disposal, they built up their (industrial capitalist) machine. The millions of workers, not understanding Socialism, fell for demagogy of the Nazis, who cunningly used the term “National Socialist.” This cannot happen if the workers know the meaning of Socialism.

Capitalism in Germany having consolidated itself inside, now has to move outside. Fascist or Kaiser, the same problem remains, the problem which no capitalism can evade, the problem inherent in the very marrow of its bones—how to find new markets and new sources of profitable exploitation. Confronting Germany is the same circle as in 1914. French and British capitalism are holding on to their spoils.

The simple rule, the golden plan.

Let him take who may, let him keep who can. 

Playing on the chord of race, Germany spent huge sums of money in subsidising subversive movements in neighbouring territories. This, however, is a two-edged sword. It was quite an easy task to murder and pillage an unarmed, defenceless half-a-million Jews inside Germany, but outside—that is another story. Hitler expresses German capitalism aptly in “Mein Kampf" (page 699), when he says: "The inexorable enemy of the German nation is and always will be France.” French capitalism bars the way to western expansion, and that means British capitalism must stand by France. It also, of necessity, links Holland, Belgium, etc. Baldwin settled that by “our frontiers are on the Rhine.”

Barred from the west by the might of Britain and France, Germany has either to break this circumstantial unity or go east. Italy’s Near Eastern adventure in Abyssinia roused British and French capitalism; both saw an unexpected menace to their dominance in that part of the world. Their anti-Italian attitude gave Germany its chance. Up to this period Italian Fascism ('knowing the breed) did not relish a brother Fascist as a neighbour, and was looked upon as a factor against the eastward trend of Germany. The new situation, however, created a new orientation. It brought Italy and Germany together as “victims” of French-British capitalism and wound up with the Berlin-Rome axis. In this fashion was split the unity of forces against Germany westward and the move eastward facilitated.

We must again quote Hitler in his “Mein Kampf”: “ We stop the eternal march to the south and west of Europe and turn our eyes towards the land in the east.” In addition to the east being the easiest way, it was the safest way. The States en route were small and could in no sense put up much of a fight on their own, with the exception of Russia, who, from a military standpoint, would be a tough customer to tackle, but this was the route and economic necessity a remorseless master. Germany took a chance, invaded and seized Austria—it came off. The first stage had been overcome, and appetites grow by what they feed upon; Austria will do to start off with, but it is the industrial part of the old Austro-Hungarian Empire which matters, and that is now called—Czechoslovakia!

There, in twenty years, with French financial aid, has grown and developed a healthy, young and virile capitalism with a prosperous home-grown capitalist class, who mean to hang on to their right to exploit their workers. This they will do with the usual cries used by capitalism: national independence, or some such catchword. Once again German capitalism is challenging the capitalists of France and Britain. Can she do it? 

Lew.

Notes of the Month: Why Austrian Workers Support the Nazis (1938)

The Notes of the Month column from the September 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

Why Austrian Workers Support the Nazis

H. N. Brailsford, writing in Reynolds, in August 7th, 1938, on the campaign of anti-Semitism in Austria, shows how the expropriation of wealthy Jews of £96,000,000, by the Nazi Government, has given the anti-Semite campaign the appearance of being anti-capitalist in the eyes of the workers. He says: “A big section of the Austrian working-class, watching this attack on the middle-class of Vienna, has come to believe that National Socialism really is a fort of Socialism.” The S.P.G.B. has consistently opposed the stupid notion that State ownership of the means of production is Socialism or in any way even remotely connected with it. But the Labour parties in this and other countries have just as consistently upheld the idea. How then can the workers be blamed for believing that the so-called National Socialism of the Nazis is a “form of Socialism” when they see the possessions of wealthy capitalists, who happen to be Jews, taken over by the State. The taking over of capitalist undertakings appears to be in accordance with what the workers have been taught to believe is Socialism. Believing that, it is not surprising that workers are not very distressed when the capitalists are Jewish. Not only are they not distressed, but, according to Brailsford, “all down the Danube the news of these doings has run, and in the great excitement the Nazi movement grows in Hungary, while the Slovak-Autonomist Party turns openly Fascist.”

He goes on: “Brutal stupidity wins its way because a part of the Austrian workers had not begun to grasp what Socialism means. Yet for education that able party did more than any other in Europe.”

Mr. Brailsford and the Labour Party might do well to ponder the significance of the events in Germany and Austria.

Wherefore Anti-Semitism

“They tell me, by the way, that Musso’s threat to the Jews in Italy—they number between 50,000 and 60,000—is an artful way of getting round his pledge to Neville that he will stop his propaganda in the Near East.

“This anti-Semitism would please the rebel Arabs even better.” (Hannen Swaffer, Daily Herald).

The British Government’s interests are served by Palestine being a home for the Jews. If the Italian Government acquired it they would be in a similar position. Meanwhile the conflict between British and Italian interests expresses itself in Italian anti-Semitism, supporting the Socialist contention that material interests are the basis of sentiment and ideas.

Popular Frontism

George Padmore, author of ”Africa and the Next War,” has some very pointed comments on the “Popular Front” idea in an article in Forward, August 13th, 1938. He shows that Popular Front governments administer capitalism in just the same way as other governments. In Pondicherry, for example, the agents of the Popular Front Government in France shot 150 workers who attempted to stage a stay-in strike when they heard that the Paris workers had taken possession of the factories.

George Padmore shows how far Popular Front governments serve the interests of Democracy: —

“The Spanish Popular Front, looking for aid from France, and clinging to its Moroccan territory, refused the request to grant certain democratic and civil rights to the Moorish delegations which visited Caballero long before the Civil War broke out. Senor Vicens, the noted Spanish educator and adviser to the Republican Government on colonial problems, revealed the impotence of the Popular Front to assist the colonial peoples' progress towards self-determination.

Interviewed in March, 1938, by a representative of the American Negro Journal, Opportunity, he stated: 'The Republic would have granted autonomy to Morocco readily, long ago, except that France would not permit it. France was fearful of the effect on her adjoining African colonies. As soon as Morocco had become an independent state, the French colonies would have demanded their liberation and independence France was not ready to grant them this, and we were bound to France by a spirit of co-operation."

French capitalist interests dare not grant democratic rights to the Moorish colonies, and could not approve of the Spanish Government doing so. Popular Front governments would break up when any element in them tried to use them to grant concessions which undermined capitalist interests. It's a hard world for idealists, but the class conflicts in capitalist society cannot be abolished by Popular Fronts; they must serve capitalist interests or go.

Casualties in The War that is Always With Us

Arising out of a statement on conditions in the mining industry by the Secretary of State for Mines in the House of Commons (July 25th), the following facts came to light: —

In 1937, 869 persons engaged on underground work were killed as compared with 790 in 1936; and the figures for the first six months of 1938 were still increasing. While 471 fatal accidents had occurred up till July 16th, in 1937, the figure for the same period in 1938 was no less than 635.

In one pit it was found that: —

The men, who work naked, lose, on an average, 11 lbs. every time they go down.

In the Pendleton Pits, where conditions were even more severe, as much as 18½ lbs. in weight were lost per day.

And the not less pointed fact was revealed that “more lives were lost from explosions in Britain than in any other country.”

Harry Waite

A socialist view of Austrian politics (1970)

Party News from the May 1970 issue of the Socialist Standard

We set out below part of the address of our Comrade Albert Kurz, fraternal delegate of the Bund Demokratsher Socialister to the Easter Conference of the Socialist Party of Great Britain.

We in Austria haven't a party with a long tradition as you have. And, Comrades, there is a great difference between the conditions you have here and we have. You in Britain have a long democratic parliamentary tradition. Though it is a bourgeois tradition, it is by means of this tradition easiest to spread the great idea of Socialism.

We in Austria, on the contrary haven’t that tradition. We have had one fascist government after another. People who were so-called reds, that means social democrats, were jailed in the year 1937. So they had to turn “blacks", that meant conservatives in order to earn their living. These were the years of the great depression. After the German invasion of Austria in 1938 both the reds and the blacks were jailed by the Nazis. They had to join the Nazi party to avoid persecution. After the year 1945 they were expelled from any public employment for having been Nazis. I don't want even to mention the time of the 19th century in which police spies put their noses in all affairs of public life.

So it is not a surprise that people in Austria haven’t faith in parliamentarians and democracy to the extent that a bourgeois government can be called democratic. So at least officially nobody is being persecuted for being a Socialist. Although many people arc afraid.

You see, these are the great barriers we have in our work.

People grew afraid of being mixed up with politics, for as I told you, they burned too often their hands.

In these conditions we have, we must do our best. We haven’t a paper for such a long time as you. For many years we had a duplicated paper which was published monthly. The last years we have a printed paper, but we can afford to publish it only four times a year.

Notes by the Way: The Last Stage in the Old Austria (1938)

The Notes by the Way Column from the May 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The Last Stage in the Old Austria

The last-minute resistance before the sudden collapse of Schuschnigg in face of the advance of Hitler into Austria gave a dramatic touch to that event, but also requires explanation. An article in the Nation (New York, April 2nd, 1938) provides the necessary details. It will be recalled that Schuschnigg met Hitler at Berchtesgaden and it was at once taken for granted that Austrian independence was already lost. Then, after a few days, Schuschnigg made a bold move to retrieve the situation. A plebiscite was to be taken on the maintenance of independence, and all anti-Nazi elements were called upon to rally round the Austrian Government on a policy of friendship towards Germany but no absorption. Why did the change take place? The answer is that, although Schuschnigg could get no foreign support against Hitler, an influential body of Austrian industrialists and landowners tried to organise resistance because they feared for their own position if Austria became a German province. Not sentiment but profit was their motive. The body in question included the Austrian Association of Industry and Trade, They submitted a memorandum to the Government and two of their members were promptly called into the Ministry which was to stake its existence on the fight for independence. The Nation gives lengthy extracts from the memorandum, some of which are reproduced below: —

  . . . we must defend the independence of Austria. The loss of our independence under present conditions in Germany would be disastrous for us. It would mean the extinction of large sections of Austrian industry, commerce, and the tourist trade. We have been able to reduce the restrictions dealing with foreign currency on account of the increase of exports and of income from abroad, especially from tourists. Our industries are largely dependent on exports. The German currency restrictions would endanger our exports. At the same time we could not expect to be privileged in the matter of distribution of raw materials, which are scarce in Germany. Most of our industries do not belong to those armament industries which are privileged.

The memorandum goes on to point out the interesting situation of the Austrian iron and steel industry and their opposition to absorption. The Austrian iron mines have a relatively low cost of production, iron and steel mills are near the mines, and many industrial plants have been built up on account of the cheap supply of iron and steel. All of this advantage would be lost if Austria came under the control of German iron and steel interests.

  We were opposed to attempts of the Stahlverein to close iron and steel mills which the Stahlverein controls in our country. We were and still are opposed to being subjected to the control of the German cartels and syndicates in the matter of iron and steel prices. Our machine industries will not be able to compete with German industries if we have to buy iron .and steel from the Ruhr mills. . . . Anyway we shall experience an immediate rise of iron and steel prices in the event of the Anschluss. We shall have to pay the German internal price, which always is considerably higher than the world market price or the price we have been paying. 

Austrian agriculture, like industry, would be sacrificed. Instead of buying cheap fodder abroad the Austrian farmers would have to buy dear fodder from Prussia and Pomerania.

The memorandum develops many other points, all directed to the one argument, that most Austrian industrialists and landowners were better off in an independent Austria: —

  We shall not be able to exert as strong pressure in the Prussian State Bureaucracy as can the large trusts of western and central Germany.

The Nation adds that several other industrial and handicraft organisations also sent resolutions and letters which urged Schuschnigg to refuse Hitler's pressure—"They furnish the key to Schuschnigg's surprisingly stubborn resistance—and to the necessity of Hitler's using military power to effect the Anschluss."

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The First Stage in the New Austria

In the long period after the Great War during which the Social Democrats were active and influential, Austrian industrial capitalists more or less adjusted themselves to the position of offering social reforms (largely at the expense of Austrian landowners and agricultural interests) in return for comparative industrial peace and order achieved with the help of the Social Democratic Party and trade unions.

With the world depression and consequent decline of markets the old situation no longer appealed to the weakened capitalists or to the strengthened landowners and farmers. The Social Democrats and the unions were crushed. Violent repression took the place of social reform. Dollfuss, and after him Schuschnigg, repudiated democracy and stood for the form of dictatorship known as the Corporate State.

Now a further stage begins with the entry of Hitler into Austria. German capitalist and landed interests required the crushing of their Austrian rivals and the Government they controlled. So Hitler and his lieutenants deliberately set out to placate the Austrian Social Democrats and Communists and former trade unions. Schuschnigg penalised the workers who fought for democracy in 1934, Hitler promises them reinstatement in their former jobs. Dollfuss used artillery against the blocks of low-rented flats put up by the Social- Democratic City Council of Vienna. Now the Nazis promise to go back to the programme of the Social Democrats.

General Goering, according to The Times correspondent in Vienna (The Times, April 2nd, 1938), has promised work to the Austrian unemployed, and Dr. Neubacher, the Nazi Burgomaster of Vienna, has lifted whole chunks from the former Social-Democratic programme. The Times Vienna correspondent reports him as follows:—

  Dr. Neubacher delivered a speech at the Vienna gasworks recently in which he promised big housing schemes on the lines of those which made Vienna famous under the Social-Democrats, extensive slum demolition, an extension of the municipal services, and the beginning of work on the promised Port of Vienna as soon as possible. He reinstated 80 workmen who had been dismissed because they fought with the Socialist Schutzbund against the Dollfuss Government in 1934, and declared that he did this not as an act of grace, but as a restitution of rights. 

The moral is obvious. Those who administer capitalism, whether by democratic or dictatorial methods, cannot ignore the views of the mass of the workers, but must seek their support or, at least, their tolerance of what is done. But will the workers be deceived for ever? Has Hitler discovered some new and infallible method of blinding the workers to their own class interests ? Plainly no, for, as is shown above, all that Hitler can do in Austria is to go back to the method employed during the period of influence of the Social Democratic party. The fact that he can think of no other and better method than promising the stock social reforms is proof positive that, sooner or later, the workers who have for the time being been deceived by Hitler, will see through him when they find that the promised social reforms leave capitalism unchanged.

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The Troubles of the Labour London County Council

The Labour Party majority, who control the London County Council, are in a sea of troubles. Trade Unions with members employed by the L.C.C. and the London Borough Councils complain that the joint meeting of the above bodies—dominated by Labour Councillors—curtly rejected their demand for increases of pay to compensate for the increase of prices. The Councillors, of course, are thinking of the rates. More expenditure means higher rates, and higher rates mean fewer votes for Labour candidates at the next elections.

We see masked nurses addressing meetings of nurses employed at L.C.C. hospitals, called to protest against their conditions of service. Mr. G. Vincent Evans, General Secretary of the National Union of County Officers, spoke at one such meeting, and is reported in the Daily Telegraph and Morning Post (April 6th, 1938):—

  . . . when the Nurses Charter was introduced . . . it was felt that the L.C.C. would set an example to the rest of the country.
  Instead, when the testing time came, the L.C.C. showed that such a spirit of leadership was sadly lacking. The result was the use of this inaction as a vicious and indefensible argument for defeating the Limitation of Hours Bill in the House of Commons.
  “It was left to the Middlesex County Council/' he went on, “to become the pioneers of this progressive movement of reform when it introduced the 48-hour working week. The lead was followed by many of the voluntary hospitals and other provincial county boroughs.
  "Surely the great trade unionist movement in London, and throughout the country, must feel that progress has been stultified."

Again the Rates!

Then we find tenants who are to be given the blessings of an L.C.C. housing scheme signing petitions of protest. The Daily Telegraph (March 28th) reports as follows:— . .

  Residents of Bethnal Green are protesting against a proposal by the L.C.C. to demolish their homes and to rehouse them in five-storey flats instead of in two-storey cottages, which they prefer.
  In a petition delivered recently to the King in Council, through the Home Secretary, on behalf of 4,000 persons, it was stated that the cost of the suggested five-storey blocks.would be greater than for two-storey cottages.
  “The argument that more people can be housed on a site by building blocks instead of houses has been blown sky high,” said Mr. William Catmur, on behalf of the petitioners. “The people are in revolt against flat-blocks and want houses with small gardens. Such houses can certainly be provided at no greater cost."
  The petition claims that the local authorities refuse to repair houses which could be repaired, and insist on ejecting the tenants, that they are destroying the businesses as well as the homes of many small shopkeepers, and that they are “behaving with the most outrageous disregard of the law."

In this case again, in spite of the argument used by the petitioners, it is probable that the five-storey flats are cheaper. Otherwise we must assume that the Labour Party, who are responsible for the scheme, have some abstract preference for flats, whether the workers like them or not. In any event, we can be quite certain that if the flats were like those privately-built ones available to people who can afford to pay, and if they were available at rents no higher than those paid now by the Bethnal Green tenants, the latter would raise no objection.

But the L.C.C., in spite of its Labour majority, cannot tackle the real problem—poverty caused by capitalism. All it can do is to nibble at the effects of poverty, hoping to convince the electors that this is better than leaving the L.C.C. to the Municipal Reformers. Labour leaders never learn the lesson that capitalism administered by Labour Councils is so little different that, after a few years, the electors turn again in desperation to the openly capitalist parties. So it will continue to be until the workers decide to have Socialism.

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Major Fey—A Liberal and a Communist Viewpoint

Major Fey, who committed suicide (or was perhaps murdered) when the Nazis entered Vienna, was one of those guilty of the brutal onslaught on the Viennese workers in February, 1934.

The News Chronicle correspondent in Vienna, Mr. John Segrue, was responsible for the following account, published in the News Chronicle on February 17th, 1934:—

  Vice-Chancellor Fey . . . organised the plan that goaded the workers into resistance. Last Sunday, in a speech at Stebersdors, near Vienna, he told the Heimwehr that Dr. Dollfuss was “one of them" and added that he intended to begin work in earnest against his enemies on the following day.

His “earnest work” was to mean artillery fire against workers' homes; and when the fighting was over Fey promised “scores of hangings all over Austria." It was indeed the British Government which actually intervened to stay the slaughter.

Now Fey is dead, victim of his own ambitions and perfidy (he was believed to have played false both to Dollfuss and to the Nazis).

A correspondent draws our attention to the way this event was reported in the Liberal Manchester Guardian and in the Communist Daily Worker (both dated March 17th, 1938).

In the Guardian Fey was given the headline, “Minister who Destroyed the Socialists.”

In the Daily Worker the headline ran: “Austrian Patriot Leader’s Suicide.”

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A Noble Lord on Tax-dodging

The Times recently published an article on tax-dodging, and showed how wealthy people employ the best legal brains to evade income tax and surtax. Other newspapers estimated the loss to the Treasury through this at £50 millions a year.

The Times then published a number of letters on the rights and wrongs of tax-dodging, one of the most enlightening being a letter from that representative of a very noble house, Lord Hugh Cecil. He argued that the tax-dodger is entitled to get away with anything, provided he keeps within the law. If the tax-dodger “acts openly and above board, and clearly conforms to the law, I can see no reason why he should not do anything the law allows in order to lighten the load of taxes.”

This is an ingenuous way of phrasing the claim that wealthy men are entitled to get round the plain intention of Parliament, provided that their lawyers can find the usual loophole. Such is patriotism.

The Times (April 1st, 1938) disclosed that “cases are on record in which members of the House of Commons, who have voted to impose taxes on others, have themselves resorted to evasive operations in order to avoid the very taxes to which they have consented. "

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Bernard Shaw Trips up

Bernard Shaw entertained the readers of the Daily Express (March 26th, 1938) by giving answers to eight questions on world affairs. He ridiculed national frontiers, attacked Hitler for Jew-baiting, denounced Nazi Nordic nonsense as being only an imitation of the “enormous arrogance” of the Jews in claiming to belong to God’s chosen race, expressed appreciation of Hitler’s book, "My Struggle” (“though it is a great pity that he did not read my works instead of Houston Chamberlain’s”), denied that there is any natural reason for the existence of a German Empire—or a British Empire—and thought that war between Britain and France and Germany will only break out "if Hitler loses his head, and is confronted by enemies who have not any heads to lose.”

Altogether a typical contribution. But on one point Shaw fell into a trap, as a reader of the Daily Express promptly pointed out. The question was about returning Germany’s colonies. In the course of his reply, he said: “My slogan is, ‘Africa for the Africans’.”

But it is only two years ago that Shaw was campaigning under the banner "Abyssinia for the Italians.”

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Winston Churchill has Second Thoughts on Spain

At the beginning of the Spanish War Churchill was all for Franco. He has gradually veered round until now, in the Evening Standard (April 5th, 1938), he writes gloomily of the dangers of a Franco victory for British Imperial interests, and regrets that opinion in England and France is so divided as to prevent any action being taken.

  A thoroughly Nazified Spain, retaining its German nucleus, may well be a cause of profound anxiety both to France and Britain. At any rate, it appears to be a matter upon which they should exert themselves, if indeed the faculty of action still resides among them.

It need hardly be said that Churchill’s motives never include any consideration for the exploited. He backed Franco from motives of ruling class sympathy with a dictator and now turns against him when British ruling class interests appear to be at stake.

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What British Seamen Owe to the Empire

If there were anything in the argument of the Imperialists about the advantages of belonging to a seafaring Empire, possessed of enormous naval power, surely the conditions of British seamen would demonstrate the truth or otherwise of their belief. The Times recently published some articles which showed a decidedly unattractive picture of those conditions, and on March 29th a letter was published from Lieutenant-Commander H. G. Boys-Smith, which contained the following: —

  May one who boards over a thousand ships every year (chiefly British and North European) express gratitude for the outspoken articles by your Labour Correspondent of “Ships and Men ” ?
  My opportunities for observation enable me to say, without fear of contradiction, that the accommodation provided for British crews is so much inferior to what is usually found in Scandinavian, Danish, Dutch, and German ships that it constitutes not only a grave wrong to our seamen but an equally grave reflection on British ship-owning interests.

He went on to confirm a statement made by another correspondent that shipowners’ representatives give "hints” that forecastle conditions must not be spoken of.

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Who is Father Christmas?

The Daily Herald (April 9th, 1938) reports that a certain wool merchant who recently died leaving £1,176,813, was known locally as' the Father Christmas of the textile industry, because he made generous gifts to his employees at Christmas time. It will never have occurred to this gentleman that he was only able to become a millionaire because his employees were making "generous gifts” of unpaid labour to him, not only at Christmas, but throughout the year.

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Capitalism's Welfare Work

A Mr. A. Hudson-Davies, who was formerly engaged in industrial welfare work, spoke at the Conference of Management Associations at Oxford on April 1st, 1938, about the employer’s view of welfare work. He confirmed what Socialists have always argued. The following report is taken from the Manchester Guardian (April 2nd, 1938): —

  Mr. A. Hudson-Davies said that under the present dispensation their main job as managers was undoubtedly to find profits for the shareholders, adding: “All this business about welfare activities and improving working conditions is really a matter of making profits in an enlightened way, and there is no point in making a song and dance about it because it costs only a fraction of the outgoings of the company.”

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Facts and Fiction About the Empire

The Sunday Chronicle (April 3rd, 1938) had articles by two well-known people, both of whom touched on the question of the standard of living of British workers. They flatly contradicted each other.

Sir Philip Gibbs, in “The Story of the British Empire,” said: —

  Youth in Britain to-day . . . well clothed, well fed, well housed . . . owes everything to the Pioneers of Empire.

Mr, Duncan Sandys, M.P., in “Politics from the Inside,” wrote about the Children’s Minimum Council, the aim of which is to ensure “that no child shall, by reason of the poverty of its parents, be deprived of at least the minimum of food and other requirements necessary for full health.” They gave a luncheon, the menu being based on the British Medical Association’s minimum diet necessary for health, costing, at present prices, 6s. 6d. a week per person. Mr. Sandys says: —

  . . . it is unhappily the fact that even this frugal fare is beyond the reach of every unemployed man without separate means who has a wife and children to support. What is more, very many of the lower paid wage earners are just as badly off . . . there are actually over four million people in this country who cannot afford to spend more than 4s. a week on food.

It would seem that Sir Philip Gibbs' pioneers of Empire might have been better employed putting things right at home than in extending capitalism’s evils to the unfortunate inhabitants of other countries.

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Who Makes Politics Disorderly ?

After Mr. Shinwell had slapped the face of Commander Bower in the House of Commons the latter (who, unfortunately, suffered some injury through the blow) issued a message to a Conservative Parliamentary candidate, saying that Mr. Shinwell’s action is an indication of the kind of disorder we may expect when Socialists get power. As Mr. Shinwell’s Party is the Labour Party, not the Socialist Party, and as it is committed to reforming capitalism, not abolishing it, the reference to Socialism by Commander Bower should be taken as an indication of the profound ignorance of Conservative M.P.s. But regarding the conduct of M.P.s, there are a few other things to be said.

In the first place, the Conservatives themselves have a black record. The Conservative Evening Standard (April 6th, 1938) says this: —

  Commander Bower’s taunt and Mr. Shinwell’s reply, with physical violence, were equally unjustifiable.
   It is . . . an unpleasant feature of the present huge Government majority that there are a number of Conservative members who are utterly unmannerly in their treatment of the Opposition, and who are ready to hurl any taunt, however offensive, across the floor of the House.

The News Chronicle (April 5th, 1938) recalls that. “for systematic brawling” it is necessary to go back to the early ’eighties (the Liberals, Tories and the Irish then had the House to themselves), when hardly a night in the whole session was free from "scenes,” and that the late Lord Cushenden “once threw a book at Winston Churchill and hit him in the eye.” In April, 1924, Mr. Amery hit Mr. Buchanan, and more recently Mr. Beckett (now a Fascist) ran off with the Mace.

When we turn from the Members of Parliament, who, presumably, ought to be able to set a good example to their constituents, and examine the conduct of the constituents themselves, we of the S.P.G.B. can say that behaviour of audiences at meetings is good.

But, then, the S.P.G.B. makes a point of allowing questions and opposition at propaganda meetings and the audiences appreciate the fact that no attempt is being made to fetter the expression of opinion.
It is interesting to notice the tribute paid by the Commissioner of Police for London to the workers who march in demonstrations. (See Report for 1936, Stationery Office, Is., p. 25.) He comments on the increased number of meetings in 1936 arising out of events in Abyssinia and Spain and out of the March of Unemployed, and says :

  But these meetings were in every case orderly, and the conduct of the unemployed marchers beyond reproach.

Shinwell and Bower should not be above learning from their constituents how to behave.

Edgar Hardcastle

Will There Be Another War? (1938)

From the April 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

At no time since the end of the Great War has the talk of war, the fear of war, the imminent probability of war, so weighed upon the minds of men and women as during the last few years. For a decade following the Great War the comforting reflection prevailed that it could not happen again, pacifist sentiment grew, and books and plays portraying the horrors of war became popular. Then events happened in rapid succession. Japan conquered Manchuria, Italy Abyssinia, and now Germany has marched into Austria and has wiped it out as an independent State—the latter event throwing the whole world into consternation, because of the implied threat to French and British capitalist interests. What is the explanation of the German invasion of Austria and why should British capitalists appear to be so shocked by it?

Quite obviously, the political union under one government of people speaking the same language and having the same traditions is in itself not a sufficient explanation. In fact, English statesmen, Tory and Labour, have approved the idea, and when a few years ago the attempt to form a customs union by Germany and Austria was frustrated by France the same Labour and Tory Pecksniffs wagged their heads sadly at the bitterness of the French. The explanation for the British capitalists’ concern is that the event threatens to bring the danger of war perilously near its own doorstep.

What is the position?

After the Great War, as part of the business of breaking up German alliances, the Austro-Hungarian Empire was broken up and Austria was created an “independent” State and maintained in that position by the allied enemies of German capitalism. Germany’s conquest of Austria means more than the surface appearance of just the union of German-speaking people. It means that German capitalism has recovered from the dismembered condition in which its victors left it after the Great War. It means that Germany has developed the economic, military and political power to throw off a dominance exercised over it by similar forces stronger than its own. Any capitalist who faces the realities of the capitalist world, who can see through the mealy-mouthed pieties which the event has provoked, knows that Germany could not have achieved the same result by any other means than those used. Germany has been undergoing industrial expansion, which until recent years had been restricted by the political situation inside Germany and by competitive forces outside it. In response to their needs, Nazism developed to solve the domestic problem for the German industrialists and the problem of their clash of interests with capitalist competitors outside Germany.

As Mr. Winston Churchill points out, the Nazi mastery of Vienna dominates all the roads, railways and rivers upon which the States of the Little Entente depend for their military cohesion, and all the countries of Central and South-Eastern Europe depend for their economic life. Vienna, the ancient capital of a once mighty empire, is the ganglion nerve-centre of the trade and communications of all countries of the Danube basin, and others besides.

Thus Germany has achieved a position of strategic military importance, besides gaining the power of economic dominance in Central Europe formerly possessed by France and her allies.

What, then, are the chances of war?

Unquestionably, the expansion of German capitalism will demand opportunities for raw materials and trade which will conflict with those powers who already have a grip on the world’s sources of supply and markets. Must—need—this conflict break into war? The plain and simple fact is that the factors likely to lead to war to-day are more alive than at any time since 1914. Enormous military machinery has been created at staggering costs, in order to defend existing possessions and advantages—or to gain them. This process has gone on because respective capitalists do not intend to concede what they have and because they cannot obtain what they have not without force. It would represent a bad investment if the purpose for which armaments were built up were forsaken. But what of the possibility that the fear of "war being the end of civilisation” will act as a brake? This pious sentiment is very little short of a wish-fulfilment. It is doubtful whether any capitalist really believes war would be continued to the point where “civilisation” was destroyed beyond power of recuperation. It is more likely that capitalists, if the armed conflict occurred, would hope for and aim at a short war of a violent and decisive nature—resulting, perhaps, by reason of its shortness and violence, in no greater

loss in cost and destruction of property than would a larger war fought with less effective military weapons. In short, the position is that in the present condition of the capitalist world a war fought out for that rich, ripe plum—the British Empire—is ever an imminent possibility.

But if war comes the workers will not be told that it is a quarrel over markets and trade, and fought out in the interests of the capitalists. They will be told anything but that—the humbug, the liar, the Press, the pulpit, the Labour leader, the Tory, the sincere and the insincere would join together to persuade the workers that it is war to preserve peace—democracy—the independence of Austria.

The independence of Austria! It is a lie and a myth. For twenty years the meaning of the word has been foreign to Austrian capitalist and worker. For twenty years Austrian capitalists have been in the pockets of the French and British capitalists. The rulers of Austria, whom Hitler suppressed, were Fascists, the tools, until Hitler stepped in, of Mussolini, the exterminators of Austrian democracy and of Austrian working-class industrial and political organisations, the bloody murderers of Austrian working men and women when the Christian-Fascists took power in 1934.

The independence of Austria is not at stake. British capitalist interests are; and when the miscalled Communist newspaper, the Daily Worker, headlines an article which demands that the British Government take action in defence of Austrian independence with the slogan, “Britain’s Honour at Stake,” they are playing the capitalist game of deluding the workers.

The Austrian question represents a quarrel between the capitalists of Europe over the wealth they own and want to own. The working-class bone is not at stake. Socialists will play no part in obscuring the issue in this quarrel or any future quarrel between the capitalists of Europe. 

Harry Waite

The German Drive Through Central Europe (1938)

From the April 1938 issue of the Socialist Standard

The collapse of Germany at the end of the World War was completed by an economic blow delivered, with crushing vigour, by the Allied Powers at Versailles in 1919. Valuable sources of raw material, such as the Ruhr basin, Silesia and Alsace-Lorraine, were stripped away. Her erstwhile allies, Austria and Hungary, were reduced to unimportant geographical areas, and their territory made over to the new states of Czechoslovakia and Jugoslavia. The whole trend, therefore, of German policy has been to obtain a reversal of this crippling verdict. Hitler has merely given it fresh impetus and new direction.

One of the first tasks for the German ruling class under the Dictatorship was to find allies in a Europe of rapidly changing orientations. With this in view, a ten-year pact of non-aggression was concluded with Poland in 1934. The way then became clear for the “Drang nach Osten,” the much proclaimed “Drive to the East." This is nothing more than an attempt to control important sources of raw materials, embodying ideologically the vision of a great Germanic Empire. So one of the first tasks was to wean Austria from French and Italian influence. The culmination of this process was on February 12th last, when Dr. Schuschnigg met Herr Hitler at Berchtesgaden, Hitler’s mountain home near the Austrian frontier. An ultimatum was presented to the Austrian Chancellor, while German troops were massed on the frontier.

On the morning of February 16th it was announced that pro-Germans had been appointed to key positions in the Austrian Government and police. At the same time, Austrian Nazis undergoing sentence were released from jail. Germany's complete control of Austria was merely a matter of days.

As a bar to further progress stands the opposition of Czechoslovakia. Here the problem is different. With a population of 15 million and an area of 55,000 square miles it was formed at the end of the Great War out of the Austro-Hungarian monarchy. The districts of Bohemia and Moravia in the north-west were originally Austrian; while Slovakia and Ruthenia were Hungarian. There is also a small but important part of Upper Silesia ceded by Germany. Bohemia projects like a bastion into Germany. Mountain ranges form a strong natural barrier, broken by the valleys of the Eger, Elbe and Oder, which provide the only practical entrances into Czechoslovakia from Germany. On the south the “Moravian gateway" admits access from Austria.

If Germany, with the aid of Austria, were by a pincer-like military movement enabled to nip off this region, the remainder of Czechoslovakia, which is agricultural, but otherwise poor and resourceless, would be easily reduced. The Bohemian basin around Pilsen, Brno and Silesia is rich in coal and iron—commodities very necessary to German capitalists, whose present sources of supply are insufficient for their needs. Moreover, Bohemia and Moravia have great and profitable textile, boot, glass, steel and armament industries. In order to resist such an invasion from Germany the Czechoslovakian Government has created a large army and air force, well organised and equipped. In addition, the frontiers are strongly fortified and defended at assailable points. In return for a loan to build armaments, Rumania was asked to guarantee that the Czernowitz railway, from Russian Ukraine to Czechoslovakia, would be completed in order to ensure a ready transit of troops and goods in time of war.

German attempts to awaken pro-Nazi sympathies among the dissident minority have proved less fruitful than in Austria. The Sudeten Germans are a racial group chiefly clustered along the German frontier. The Government has repeatedly refused them minority rights, such as the Slovaks enjoy; and in spite of frequent appeals to the League of Nations they have received little satisfaction. The movement in 1933 was unified under Konrad Henlein into the Sudeten Deutsche Party, and possibly received financial support from Germany. But there are considerable differences of opinion within the minority and only a few demand complete alliance with the Third Reich. Moreover, attempts have been made by the Government in the scheme of frontier defence to stiffen the nationalist morale of these minorities.

Against this must be put the fact that Czechoslovakian frontiers are land-locked. Her outlets to the sea are the rivers Elbe and Oder, both through Germany. There are railway exits to Italian ports of Trieste and Fiume on the Adriatic, and to Danzig on the Baltic. There is only one other route to the sea, via the traffic-laden Danube through the plains of Hungary, Jugoslavia and Rumania. Moreover, the encirclement of Czechoslovakia by unfriendly powers is nearly complete. Hungary, on the south, hopes that the outcome of a successful war would be the return of the large estates handed over to Czechoslovakia in 1919. German diplomacy has the task of converting this “ unfriendliness ” into, at least, passive hostility. The circle is incomplete by the absence of Rumania. At this juncture, it is hardly likely that Germany will risk the hazards of war, which would certainly invite the opposition of France, Great Britain and the U.S.S.R. It is worth noticing in this connection that the fall of M. Goga’s Government in Rumania on February 10th, which undoubtedly had pro-German sympathies, was occasioned by pressure from Moscow, Prague and Paris.

It may be that fresh alignments of the capitalist powers of the world may alter this outlook, even in the near future. Nothing, however, is so likely as that eventually, when they are unable to prosecute the struggle for markets and cheap sources of essential supplies by diplomatic means, they will turn to war. To the working class of the countries concerned the conflict will be presented as one to preserve democracy and individual rights (Czechoslovakia claims to be the most democratic of the Central European countries); or to maintain the Germanic ideal against Bolshevism, World Jewry and “bastardised negroidisation." This is the delicate language of “Mein Kampf."

No Socialist could take exception to the struggle of the workers to preserve a democratic platform. On the other hand, we cannot support any movement which encourages workers to sacrifice themselves in defence of capitalist wealth. If working class history has any meaning for those who wage the struggle to-day, it is that the association of workers with capitalist movements has led only to their division and confusion. The clearest presentation of the class struggle leads to another conclusion; that every movement of the workers must be waged on the basis of unity with their fellows and of fundamental opposition to the capitalist class. If in Czechoslovakia, and other countries, where minority movements obscure the final issue, thousands of workers were fighting for Socialism, then the minority movements would collapse overnight. There is one thing the Czechoslovakian capitalists fear more than racial dissidence or German invasion; that is the growing understanding and rising power of the working class.

K. Devereux.

C. J. Kilner.