The Origin and Growth of Nazism (Conclusion) (1943)

From the October 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 2.

Like a thunderbolt, the world slump struck German economy amidships towards the end of 1929. The capitalist magnates of New York, London and Paris who had financed Germany’s industrial comeback, hastily called in whatever part of their loans they could lay their hands on. Thus the German crisis assumed even more disastrous proportions than that of other countries. Her industry had rehabilitated itself on foreign credit and when this credit vanished, the bottom fell out from Germany’s reservoir of production.

This crisis of “overproduction” is an inevitably recurring feature of capitalism. It is “overproduction” indeed, over-production of the surplus value accumulated by its capitalist owners and which they cannot use or dispose of profitably. But for the workers it means unemployment and reduced standards of living. For the German masses the post-war years had been a continuous ordeal of extraordinary strain. The new republic had never settled down politically because the economic background was seldom stable enough (in the capitalist sense of “stability”) to allow for the mental adjustment necessary. When, therefore, the government of Bruening (Right Wing Catholic) was defeated in the Reichstag in July, 1930, the electorate went to the polling booths on September 14, 1930, in an atmosphere of a world  crisis which appeared to them as the consummation of years of distress and bewilderment. From this election the Nazis emerged as a mass party. They secured 6,400,000 votes and 107 seats in the Reichstag – eight times the number polled by them in 1928. The percentage of total voters who actually voted jumped from 50 per cent to 73 per cent: nearly four million new voters had entered the lists. It is estimated that most of these, probably three million, hitherto non-political elements, went to the Nazis. Thus the party of  “National Socialism” is revealed as a product of the world crisis – a party of wild despair and wild hopes.

The Nazis owed this unparalleled success to the fact that in the eyes of many their policy and make-up promised a complete break with the past. The fanatical fervour of the “Brownshirts,” their demagogy and displays, did not appear out-of-place under the circumstances. It reflected the neurosis of the modern troubled world. Compared to them, the parties of the republic, particularly the Social Democrats, were compromised with the “old order” and completely lacking in  “dynamic.” The German Communist Party, under the circumstances prevailing a possible rival to the Nazis, secured 3 ½  million votes. They, too, competed for the votes of those who wanted a break with the “old system” (in fact, large blocks of votes repeatedly fluctuated backwards and forwards between the Nazis and the Communists), but their past inconsistency and support of Social Democracy lowered their standing as a political party. And their ties with Moscow limited their appeal as a Russophile organisation. German industrialists  and big business owners now turned in increasing numbers to Hitler’s party as a means of helping them to give Germany what they were pleased to call “political stability.” They themselves, as “Nationalist” and  “Conservative” parties, had dismally failed to secure any backing of consequence among the people. In the September elections they had even lost a good deal of their previous support to the Nazis. In the “National Socialist” movement they saw an organisation that could compete for “mass appeal” with the Social Democratic and Communist  parties whilst at the same time providing a check to the political and economic threats of the disgruntled workers.

The union between the Nazis and a large section of the German capitalist class was publicly sealed by the parliamentary co-operation of Hitler’s party with the “nationalist” bloc led by Huegenberg, the leading business magnate. This does not mean, however, that the two parties had merged or that the capitalists of Germany were willing to commit their fate into the hands of the Nazi leaders. Nor would it be correct to assume that the Nazis from then onwards became the puppets of the German capitalists. There was in fact a great deal of distrust between the two groups. The Nazi movement was at no time comparable to the orthodox political parties which capitalism had hitherto thrown up. They were not a “class” party in the sense that the Conservative Party in Britain is the party of present-day British capitalism. Their membership and supporters held views as varied as the colours of the well known chameleon. The Race-mythology which attempted to concoct a special philosophy of its own, was merely one wing, and not the whole, of the Nazi movement. Its spokesmen is Alfred Rosenberg (this is definitely a Jewish name). The mass-appeal of the Nazis certainly does not rest on the race-myth. The S.A. (Storm-troops) led by Captain Ernst Roehm was largely composed of unemployed as wells as those dregs of society which Marx called very descriptively the “Lumpenproletariat.” It was this body that carried the terror against the Jews and other opponents of the Nazis. Numerically the most powerful section of this political hybrid was the “radical” wing led by Gregor Strasser. Strasser later attempted to detach this wing from the party and come to terms with trade union and Social Democratic elements. He, like Roehm, was later murdered by his former “comrades” in the “blood-purge” of June, 1934.

This political incoherency is the real explanation of the “Leader-cult.” The more backward and confused politically a people are, the stronger is the gravitation toward absolute personal leadership as a unifying force. Conversely, to the extent that the masses become politically enlightened, the need  for “leadership” disappears.

These differences, as well as the appetites for power of individual Nazi politicians, caused serious conflicts within the movement. But the momentum of the crisis, plus the powerful financial backing from the capitalists, boosted the Nazi Party from strength to strength. In July, 1932, the Nazis polled nearly fourteen million votes, and thus became the strongest single party in the country. To illustrate the unscrupulous lengths to which these political adventurers relied on the credulity of the German electorate (or a large part of it), the following items from their “Immediate Economic Programme,”  published at this election, can be quoted:

“Four hundred thousand houses for single families to be built within a year!”

“To increase the annual yield from German agriculture by two milliard marks,” a fantastic notion.

And, of course, these “revolutionary economists” proposed to abolish the gold standard!

What was the reaction of the so-called “working class” parties to this mortal challenge to all the principles and traditions which the workers since the time of Marx and Engels have built up by their historic struggles? Now, after the event, accusation and counter-accusation are hurled at each other by the parties involved. The worker who has no knowledge of the recorded events is confused. The facts, however, condemn both the Communist Party of Germany and the Social Democrats as equally guilty. The Communists who still claim that they proposed a “United Front” would have defeated the Nazis are, as usual, lying. They had no intention of combining forces with the Social Democrats against Hitler. On the contrary, their avowed purpose was to destroy the German equivalent of the Labour Party by every means, fair or foul. So intense was their hostility that they supported the plebiscite on August 9, 1931 organised by Huegenberg’s reactionary “Stahlhelm” and the Nazi Party, to turn out of office the Social Democratic Government of Prussia. As late as May, 1934, after more than a year of Nazi tyranny, Palme Dutt, the well-known British Communist, declared in his book, Fascism and Social Revolution:

“It would be more correct to say of Social Democracy and Fascism: their aims are the same (the saving of capitalism from the working class revolution); they differ only in their methods.” (Page 155.)

It was a year later, in 1935, when the Russian Government had reason to fear  the threat of war from Nazi Germany, that the Communists obediently turned themselves inside out again and clamoured for “Unity against Fascism.”

And yet no argument can be shown to prove that a combination of Social Democracy and “Communism” would have stayed the Nazi onslaught against the Weimar Republic. This Republic had virtually ceased to exist when Bruening became Chancellor in the spring of 1930. Bruening governed the country by emergency decrees which were authorised by Hindenburg (President of the Republic since 1925). Hindenburg, the Monarchist General, who had not a good word for the republic, but who nevertheless had taken the oath of loyalty to the Weimar Constitution. Bruening’s emergency decrees violated the constitution, but the only party in the Reichstag, who genuinely upheld the principles of Weimar, the Social Democrats, shrank from challenging Bruening and the popular figure of the President who was behind him. They feared that the defeat of Bruening would mean the triumph of Hitler. It was the age-old reformist illusion of compromise; the suicidal tactic of the “lesser evil.” In pursuit of this self-destructive policy the Social Democratic Party of Germany first linked itself with the Junker Generals, then with the catholic Centrists, and lastly again with the militarist Junker, Hindenberg. These alignments sapped the German Labour movement of most of its strength, destroyed the hopes and enthusiasm of  its working class supporters, and finally handed the sorry remains to the Nazis for the death blow. How many more tragic lessons must the workers learn before they abandon once and for all the folly of the lesser evil?

By the end of 1932, the world crisis was at its climax. The markets of the world, glutted by the fertility of modern wage labour, became additionally restricted from the high tariff walls erected by the frightened governments. The Ottawa Agreement barred the way to the raw materials of the British Empire. The capitalist class of Germany were confronted with problems involving their very existence. One half of their industry was at a standstill (the unemployed numbered six and seven millions). Their attempts to impose a semi-military rule on the country through Hindenberg, Von Papen, and general Schleicher, had broken down owing to the hostility of the Reichstag. Germany, although its peculiar development and abnormal condition had, for the time being, brought the democratic forces to failure and disaster, was yet too highly developed to be governed by a regime which did not grow out of a mass political organisation in the country. The Nazis, although they suffered a set-back at the election following their triumph in July, 1932 (they only polled 11,730,000, and thus lost two million votes within a few months, i.e. on November 6, 1932), were the only hope of consolidating German capitalism. Consequently, an agreement was reached between Von Papen (the confidant of Hindenburg) and Hitler, and by it Hitler was installed as Chancellor by Hindenburg in January, 1933. Immediate preparations were made for a further election in order to present the new government to the country as a “national” government so as to strengthen the popular support. The elections, held March 5, 1933, gave the Chancellor, with the backing of the President, attracted millions of additional Nazi votes. Seventeen million votes were cast for them at this election. The seats in the Reichstag were divided as follows:-

Nazis………………………………………….288

Social Democrats………………………….......120

Communists………………………..……….......81

Centre…………………………………..…….....73

Huegenberg’s Nationalists ……….…..................52

All others……………………………..…….........14

 Total                                                                     647

88 per cent of the total electorate voted.

Thus the Nazis together with the nationalists, with whom they were in coalition, held a clear majority. The question arises: To what extent were these figures representative of national opinion freely expressed?

The Reichstag Fire (February 25, 1933) had been blamed on the Communists, and this party was certainly at a grave disadvantage. Nevertheless, the party lost only 19 seats compared with the previous election (November 6, 1932) and a mere eight seats compared with the elections previous to that (July 31, 1932). The Social Democrats lost only one seat.

This proves not only that the votes cast were, in the main, representing popular opinion (although it must be remembered the facilities for propaganda were almost wholly monopolised by the Nazis and their Nationalist allies), but more important still, despite the fact that Hitler was chancellor and his Brownshirt thugs roamed the streets at will, a considerable section of the German people, mostly the industrial working class, were yet determined enough to declare their opposition to the new regime, and the new rulers were not able to prevent them from doing so. Only later, when the government had managed to pass a special measure through the Reichstag, did they abolish the old constitution and establish the dictatorship of the “Third Reich.”

It is admittedly an impossible task to assess here comprehensively the import of events to which tomes have already been dedicated, and of which some aspects remain obscure. The main conclusions from the foregoing analysis are stated herewith:

Political democracy was born in Germany under most unpromising circumstances and against an unfavourable historical background. Its birth was not the result of a struggle by the workers nor the desire or need of the German capitalist class. It was thrown to the nation by the defeat of 1918 and the temporary impotence of ruling class elements.

Nevertheless, the power of the constitution was such that only a mass movement could break it. The Nazi Party was able to rally those sections of the masses who were most backward politically and who had not yet shed their dependence on absolutism. Their success was contributed to by the weak and compromising character of German Social Democracy which attempted to combine the role of working class reformist party with the guardianship of capitalist interests. The Communists drew a large section of the working class into opposition to the democratic method and so the elements whose co-operation was essential to ensure a popular basis for the Republic, were split from the beginning.

The militarist class or junkers who had been the real power behind the absolutist throne up till November, 1918, were seriously weakened by the army’s defeat. The re-arming of Germany placed them once again into a key position in German politics. This time, however, they were dependent on mass-parties for their link-up with the people; this was provided in the first period by Social Democracy and other Republican parties. The world crisis in 1930-33 barred the world market and access to raw materials to the capitalist class of Germany (most of whom are industrialists). This determined the capitalist and militarist elements to embark on a policy of territorial annexation involving war. The Nazi Party then appeared as a means of ending the violent political fluctuations and preparing the country materially and psychologically for the coming conflict. The Nazis, therefore, could never have formed a stable regime of any permanency. Their rule was bound to involve a series of climacterics leading to war. They were in the last analysis a party of crisis and war.

Finally, the Nazis owed their triumph directly to the world economic crisis. Thus the periodical crises of capitalism now emerge as a powerful force for the shaping of political mass opinion. In this particular instance the circumstances combined to give the spoils to a party of reaction. But the future may well atone for this setback. With the fuller experience of workers everywhere, the crises to come -“planners” notwithstanding – should provide an immense stimulus to the world movement for Socialism.

Sid Rubin

The Origin and Growth of Nazism pt.2 (1943)

From the September 1943 issue of the Socialist Standard

Link to Part 1.

In January, 1919, the first elections under the new Weimer constitution were held. German Social Democracy polled more than 11½  million votes. Eighteen months later these votes dropped to less than half. As the new republic was synonymous with the German Labour Party – indeed it was there own handiwork – this meant only one thing: sooner or later the democratic republic of Germany would fall and bury the founders beneath the its ruins. The question was: Which political force would achieve the assassination  of German democracy?

The enemies of the republic were numerous. There were the avowed capitalist parties, representing the German industrialists and big business. These parties called themselves “Nationalist.” They feared the working class backing the Social Democrats; above all, they were afraid that the more extreme section of the workers, organised in the “Spartakus” group (later the Communist Party of Germany) and in the “U.S.D.P” (Independent Socialists), would gain the upper hand over the moderates. There were the numberless right-wing splinter organisations which only a system of proportional representation could call into a precarious existence. The real threat, however, came from the army, or more properly speaking, its “illegal shadow”, the “Free Corps.”

However, all of them lacked the one essential which in the last analysis can alone carry a political party to victory – they lacked mass-support. Political murders, putsches and intrigue were the order of the day in Germany in the early post-war years. Governments came and went at yearly intervals or even less. The inflation in 1922-1923 sent the mark into the pit of depreciation – so bottomless that even the best mathematical minds could not peer into it without toppling. Nevertheless,  the ramshackle structure of the newly-born republic held, because none of its enemies had succeeded as yet in building a mass-party. The mass-parties at that time were still on the side of the republic. Apart from the Social Democrats, who believed in the republic to the very last (and, let it be stated, kept a solid core of support among the industrial working class numbering about six million), three main parties, all of them openly capitalist, proclaimed their support for the Weimer constitution and participated in the coalitions which governed Germany for ten years until 1930. There were the Democratic Party (Liberals, never strong, soon to disappear), the Catholic Centre Party (party of the agrarian Catholic South), and the German Peoples’ Party (Conservative, leader Gustav Streseman). The last two parties ratted on the Republic at the critical moment.

During the first two years of its existence, the Nazi movement had to content itself with the province of Bavaria as its main sphere of influence. In this locality it quickly gained a notoriety quite out of proportion to its numbers. Bavarians are by temperament the least stolid and by political standards the most backward of the “German” people. The showy effects and fury of language and methods used by Hitler and his colleagues drew their attention even if it did not at first gain their support. It is by no means paradoxical that Bavaria, the first stronghold of the Nazis, had also been the first and only German province to proclaim itself a “Soviet Republic” – as short-lived as its first President, Kurt Eisner, who was assassinated shortly after assuming office. Conditions and people alike provided fertile ground for an “extremism” that was utterly irrational as it was based merely on violent discontent without an inkling as to the real cause of the post-war distress. And the foundations of centuries had been swept away: the Bavarian Monarchy, the semi-feudal hierarchy – in short, dependence on the older order was no longer available and the population as a whole was not ready as yet to work along the lines of the new, democratic constitution which demanded at least a modicum of political self-reliance. Into this political vacuum the Nazis poured their crude mixture of “radical” and patriotic propaganda. Their theme song was simple and catching: “The people of Germany were suffering for their defeat of 1918. But this defeat was not achieved honestly on the field of battle! No, the German army was not beaten by its foes abroad; it was stabbed in the back by the enemies of the people in Germany itself, the ‘Marxists’.” (All supporters of the Weimar constitution were dubbed “Marxists.”)

Granted the premise, the rest was not difficult to swallow. And no political party in Germany denied it. Only a Socialist movement  could explain that victory and defeat do not materially affect the economic position of the workers, but a socialist movement did not exist in Germany. The Communist Party, forced through its dependence on Moscow to sacrifice working class interests to the varying needs of Russian foreign policy, bewildered and disgusted by their political somersaults the more militant workers who were looking for an alternative to Social democracy. Able and tested men such as Paul Levi and Daumig left the Communist Party rather than serve as stooges to the Comintern.

The lessons of the Russian and Italian dictatorships were not lost on Hitler and his associates. The method of intimidating opponents by physical violence suited the social riff-raff of military adventurers and professional thugs that constituted the active core of the early Nazi party. Already, in 1920, Hitler had been sentenced to a month’s imprisonment for breaking up an opponent’s meeting. During these early years the Nazis were only one of many small nationalist and anti-semitic organisations. Three factors, however, soon gained it more prominence than any of its rivals. (1) Its useful connections with groups in the army; (2) The oratorical powers of Adolf Hitler; (3) That it made serious attempts to influence the workers, shopkeepers, professional men, etc., by means of a theoretical platform containing all the “radical” ingredients that look so attractive to the strugglers for existence. The Nazi party, like its bitter opponents in later years, the Communists, was never thought of as “Reformist,” although its economic programme simply stunk of the old hash served up by every reformist party throughout the capitalist world. “Provision for the aged,” “Protection for the small trader,” “Education for the talented children of the poor,” and so on, ad nauseum.

Its “revolutionary” content was signified by its title, “National Socialism.” State capitalism, misnamed “State Socialism,” had been a feature of German capitalism since Bismarck. Long before that, Marx had dealt contemptuously with the trickery of certain capitalist elements to palm off their cry for help from the State as “Socialism” (see Communist Manifesto, 1848, chapter on “True” or “German” Socialism). The defeat of 1918 had weakened the German capitalist class considerably and many of them were looking to State control as a solution. The Nazis were thus bidding for capitalist support whilst at the same time deluding the workers who had been taught to regard Nationalisation as “Socialism.”

Further, the Nazis posed as “Unconstitutionalists.” In 1923 they were in fact determined to overthrow the existing government of Bavaria in a coup d’état. With the dismal rout of the Nazi street-fighters on November 9, 1923, the Nazis abandoned the idea of a coup and set themselves the task of winning the masses. Hitler, who together with the late General Ludendorff had led the “insurrection,” received a sentence of nine months’ imprisonment. Altogether Hitler had cut a sorry figure during this affair. He – the man who claims to have won an Iron Cross, first class , during the last war – fled at the sound of the first shot. After his release from prison, Hitler reconstituted the party into a legal, parliamentary organisation. Nevertheless, the opposition to “the system” (as the Nazis cleverly called the Weimer republic) plus their vicious abuse of the opponents, as well as their incessant baiting of Jews, maintained for them a reputation of being “revolutionaries.” And let there be no misunderstanding: they were “revolutionaries” in the sense that they aimed at a political revolution: the elimination of the democratic constitution which permitted minorities, including the Nazis, to exist. And the army of thugs, the “S.A” and “S.S.” (“stormtroops”), ostensibly maintained to keep “order” at Nazi meetings, provided the sinister substance to Hitler’s demagogic threat: “When our Party comes to power, heads will roll.”

But in those days few took the Nazis seriously. The stabilisation of the German currency and the world-wide economic recovery after the post-war slump, kept the party small. In the elections of May, 1928, they polled 800,000 votes. Comparing the figure with the vote given to the Social Democrats (9 million) who could have foreseen that in less than five years the Nazis would be the political masters of Germany?

Sid Rubin

(Final part published next month, October 1943)

Editorial: The German Situation. (1932)

Editorial from the August 1932 issue of the Socialist Standard

The problem that concerns capitalists in general is freedom to accumulate profits without economic or political hindrance either from economic conditions or from dissatisfied workers and impecunious sections of their own class. In each country each section of the capitalist class seeks to gain the lion’s share of the wealth plundered from the workers. The International interests of groups (large trusts for. instance) again cut across these other interests and produce further complications.

On the main issue there is unity, but on sectional issues there is conflict. Hence the divergent policies which at one time and another throw up alleged representative men and which provide professional politicians with a fruitful field to build up ephemeral reputations and fortunes.

Germany is at present torn with internal strife produced by the class conflict of wage-worker and capitalist, complicated by the minor clashing of capitalist national and international sectional interests. The general dissatisfaction has been increased by the ineptitude and wavering policy of the Social Democratic Party which has tried to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds. Since the end of the war this party and its supporters have sought to hold power by means of compromises and alliances; at one time crushing the workers at another fighting mock battles with the capitalists. In the end it has reaped the contempt of the capitalists and the distrust of the workers.

The war and post-war conditions gave an added impetus to the complete industrialisation of Germany and converted the old landowners (Junkers) into modern agricultural capitalists. These together with the industrial capitalists who serve agriculture, and the Bankers and Traders are the interests behind Von Papen. Prussia is the centre of these interests and contains roughly two-thirds of the total population of. Germany. Heavy industry (coal, iron and steel) centres in South Germany and has strong international connections and interests which demand stable government, the curbing of workers aspirations, and an “enlightened” policy abroad.

The bureaucracy in Germany is very highly developed and positions in it are the object of and the bait for the small investors and shop-keeping sections together with the families of the old army officers. Hitler appeals particularly to these groups and also to disillusioned workers.

There is much in the Hitler movement that directly serves the interests of the German capitalists but there is an element of disorder and incapacity in it that inspires them with doubt. Hence from the beginning they have distrusted it and alternately given it support and withdrawn their support from it according to their immediate interests and ideas. In other words it has and will be used only Where it serves the interests of those who control the means of wealth production, etc., in Germany.

Underneath all the above mentioned groups is a large and dissatisfied working class, with low wages, hard conditions and an unemployed section numbering over six millions.

For some time, prominence in the news has been given to the growth of the Hitler movement and to the clash between it and the Catholics, Social Democrats and Communists. On July 20th the situation took a dramatic turn when President Hindenburg appointed the German Chancellor, Von Papen, to be Commissioner of Prussia, and dismissed the Prussian Government which was a coalition of the Social-Democrats with the Catholic Centre Party. A very important result of this move was that it gave the Federal Government direct control of the Prussian Police—a body almost as formidable as the army.

The Social Democrats at once raised the cry that this was an attack on representative government, but they cannot dispute the fact that dissatisfaction with their own activities has robbed them of much of their support among the workers, and has made Hitler’s party the largest in Germany. At the Prussian elections in April, 1932, the votes cast for Hitler’s party totalled 8,000,000 as compared with 4,670,000 for the Social-Democrats and 3,370,000 for the next largest party, the Centre Party. Similarly, the fact that Hindenburg was able to use the Presidential powers specified in Article 48 of the German Constitution and dismiss the Prussian Government was due to his having been elected by the German voters in April. He was elected with the unqualified support of the Social-Democrats and the Centre Party.

The Presidential elections clearly illustrate the uselessness of the Social-Democrats' policy of compromise and bargaining. In 1925 they withdrew their own presidential candidate and officially supported the Centre Party’s candidate, Dr. Marx, an avowed anti-socialist, because they declared that it was imperative that the republic and democracy should be saved from the rival candidate, Hindenburg. They failed, and Hindenburg was elected.

At the next presidential election, in 1932, the Social Democrats and the Centre Party officially supported Hindenburg because they said that it was imperative that the republic and democracy should be saved from Hitler. This time the manoeuvre appeared to be successful in that the Social Democrats gave their votes to the man who topped the poll—Hindenburg. Now three months later they are indignantly protesting that the republic is being betrayed by Hindenburg.

The decline of the Social Democrats and the rise of Hitler is an evidence of the disrepute into which their crooked policy has brought them.

The German Elections (1919)

From the February 1919 issue of the Socialist Standard

How they support our contentions

In the December 1918 Socialist Standard we stated that if a General Election were held in Germany the working class there, having the vast majority of the votes, could place a Socialist Government in power should they desire to work for the establishment of Socialism. An Election has now been held, and its results must be exceedingly disappointing to those who claim that the riots in Berlin and other towns showed that the German working class were ready – nay, eager – to see Socialism brought into existence.

The Press reports give the following as the result of the Election:

Majority Socialists                        164 seats
Independent Socialists                     24 seats
German Democratic Party               77 seats
National People’s Party                   34 seats
Christian People’s Party                  88 seats
German People’s Party                    23 seats
Other Parties                                    11 seats
                                          Total     421

The Daily News (24.1.19) divides the above parties into two groups, the first three forming what it calls the “Left”, and the remainder the “Right”. But this division conceals, rather than explains, the real position of the various parties.

The “Christian People’s Party” is the old Clerical Centre Party wearing a new name in the attempt to trim its sails to fit the new conditions. The “National People’s Party” is the old Conservative and Junker organisation with a new label to hide its old crimes.

The German People’s Party is composed of the large industrial and financial capitalists and has made a rather poor show, due, doubtless to the wages disputes raging throughout Germany.

The German Democratic Party is made up of Liberals and Republicans and corresponds approximately to the Asquithian Liberal Party here.

Despite the Daily News division all the above parties are supporters and defenders of the capitalist system and are utterly opposed to the abolition of wage slavery. Combined they hold 222 seats, and if we add the 11 seats of the other anti-working class parties there are 233 avowedly capitalist members against 188 so-called Socialist members. But still this does not complete the survey.

For years we have pointed out that the Social Democratic Party of Germany – now called the “Majority Socialists” – was not a Socialist party. Its persistent support of the capitalist parties at elections, coupled with its advocacy of capitalist reforms, marked it off as merely a reform party similar to the Labour Party in this country, though it carried a Socialist name. And there was another important fact connected with its growth.

The capitalist class in Germany has always been somewhat nervous of the working class there, having, as Engels points out, something to learn from the English capitalist class in this respect. This nervousness was shown in various repressive measures culminating in Bismarck’s Anti-Socialist laws. Repressive measures for the working class, however, also hit the small capitalists and traders in their operations. These latter, who usually form an active portion of the Liberal Party, found the main body of their organisation too timid to fight over these measures, and saw them slink behind the more determined Junker section when there were any signs of trouble ahead. Mr. Small Capitalist had to look for another organisation that was really prepared for the Liberal reforms, and it was at hand in the shape of the Social Democratic Party. Since the days of its famous “Gotha Programme”, so trenchantly trounced by Marx, it had even challenged Bismarck’s rulings. So the small capitalists joined this organisation in large numbers till the total votes ran into millions.

It is clear as noon-day that these votes were neither Socialist nor intended to help forward the cause of Socialism. The “acid test” came with the war. Then, as the Labour Party and Hyndman section here, the German Social Democratic Party supported this capitalist war on their side. Only a small number of the Left wing protested, and Karl Liebknecht was slimed with the praise of the capitalist Press of this country, which, since the signing of the Armistice, have used the foulest language at their command to blacken him in the eyes of the workers. Then came the split and the formation of the “Independent Socialist Party” by the Left wing referred to above.

With the fall of the Kaiser on the signing of the Armistice the Junkers went temporarily under a cloud, and the various sections of the Liberals joined with the Social Democrats to carry on in the interval.

Karl Liebknecht’s attempt to rouse the workers to seize power for themselves as a class met with considerable opposition even in his own stronghold, Berlin. This showed how small was the number of the German working class who were ready to assist in establishing Socialism. The number who understand it must, of course, be smaller still.

The German Election has shown, with the cold, relentless logic of figures, how much Socialist propaganda still must be done in Germany, as elsewhere, before the working class will be in a fit state, and ready, to establish Socialism.

While the old Clerical Party and the Junkers have tried to hide their disreputable pasts under new labels, the Liberals have come out with a party of their own: the German Democratic Party. In spite of this many Liberals have been reassured by the actions of the “Majority Socialists” during the interval, and have maintained their allegiance with them. Hence the “Majority Socialist” vote cannot be claimed to be more than a mixture of advanced Radical and ordinary Labour votes.

Due to their action in opposing the later war-credits the “Independent Socialist” vote is a much more reliable index to the number of Socialists in Germany. Even here, however, the breaking away of the Spartacus group adds to the difficulty of forming a sound judgement till more detailed information is available. Until then even the most optimistic who have any acquaintance with German conditions, cannot claim more than the 24 “Independent Socialist” members as an expression of the desire for Socialism on the part of the working class in Germany.

There, as in all capitalist countries, the fight for the Social Revolution has yet to take place.

Jack Fitzgerald

Political Notes: Labour's nuclear duplicity (1980)

The Political Notes Column from the November 1980 issue of the Socialist Standard

Labour's nuclear duplicity

An article in the Guardian (September 25) is pretty revealing about the way the Labour Party leadership (and in particular the last Labour government of 1974-79) struggled with the task of doing all the dirty work necessary in the interests of British capitalism while at the same time keeping at arms length all those naive Labour idealists who had believed in the sincerity of their leaders’ protestations—while they were in opposition.

The article is a review of a book called Britain and Nuclear Weapons by Laurence Freeman. The story is all too familiar. The Labour Party in opposition had said all the usual “progressive” things about disarmament, like “Ban the Bomb”. When the Foots and the Benns and the rest of the slippery conmen had become the government, the needs of British capitalism took over — including the need to replace the ageing Polaris submarines with spanking new models (and not much chance of doing a trade-in—almost unused, one owner, immaculate trim . . .). The book “explains the embarrassed silence of the Labour Party leadership throughout the ’70s while £1,000,000,000 was being spent on a new Chevaline warhead for the Royal Navy. As a separate issue, the nuclear deterrent had been quiescent for a decade. The important thing was to keep it that way, maintaining the force without drawing attention to it”.

Such is the contempt of the Labour leaders for the sheep who follow them. And how justified this was, was evinced by the antics on the issue of the nuclear deterrent at the shambles which they called a Conference. Here we had these same leaders with the impudence to support more of the same CND rubbish that had been exposed for what it was by the end of the ’60s. And why should they not? They knew that not a single delegate in the Winter Guardians (the pun was made by the typewriter but let it go) would tackle them on their record. It’s the old story, of course. As long as workers behave not like homo sapiens but like sheep, they must expect their leaders to go on fleecing them.

German elections

As expected, the Social Democrat-Liberal coalition under Helmut Schmidt won the German elections at the beginning of last month. Once again we have to record the sad fact that the working class in a country have misused the power the vote gives them and have returned to power political parties pledged to maintaining the capitalist system which is the root cause of the problems they face. For the German Social Democratic Party, despite being descended from the party which Marx and particularly Engels had mistakenly hoped could be an instrument for socialism, has long since ceased even to pretend to want to change the mixture of private and state capitalism which exists in Germany and other Western European countries.

The only surprise—though quite without significance—was the relative success of the Liberals, or “Free Democrats”. At one time the possibility of them not winning any seats in the Bundestag was seriously discussed, but in the end the threat posed to them by the “ecologist” Green party came to nothing. Most of those sympathetic to the ecologists failed to put their vote where their mouth had been, a bogeyman like the demagogic Christain Democratic opposition leader, Franz-Josef Strauss, being enough to send them scuttling back to vote for the Social Democratic Party as an imagined “lesser evil”.

One factor in the German workers’ misuse of the vote might be that they were not encouraged to treat the election as a serious affair. Anybody visiting a German town in the weeks leading up to the election could be pardoned for thinking that he had come at Carnival time. He would not have been able to walk down a shopping street without being offered badges, balloons, stickers, wine, beer and, maybe, even a leaflet, though most of this would have been taken up with a smiling photo of some candidate and his name in big letters plus a list of vague electoral promises.

The two big parties organised mass rallies at .which the political level was no higher than at the conventions of the Republican and Democratic parties in America-brass bands, rhythmic chanting and foot-stamping and cheering whenever the great Leader—Helmut or Franz-Josef—paused, precisely to allow for pre-arranged cheering to break out. There can’t even be the satisfaction of recording that a reasonable percentage chose to abstain as a vague sort of protest against this farce which the major parties made of the election. For the turn-out was over 90 per cent and of these nearly 98 per cent voted for one or other of the three major parties.

Cynicism

Following the recent assassination of the former dictator of Nicaragua, General Somoza (no tears, by request), the obituaries referred to the fact that the country had been run as a family property of the Somozas for fifty years. The founding father (founding uncle, actually) was a murderous tyrant in the best South American tradition. This Somoza’s rise to power was engineered by the USA and when the attention of the President was called to his monstrous tyranny, he replied in the immortal words: “I know he’s a son of a bitch. But he’s our son of a bitch”. And who was this president? Nixon? Johnson? No, the great reforming New Dealer—Franklin D. Roosevelt himself.

Nuclear survival

The Observer (October 5) had a report from America which gave a grisly account of what was in store for those who were lucky enough to be part of the small minority who survived the holocaust of a nuclear war. With lethal doses of radiation all around, and with the impossibility of organising any sort of life amid all the destruction, the only iron rations a sensible person would have with them would be the “formula” which the Euthanasia Society is going to publish (in a booklet which it seems they dare not issue). It has of course been clear all along that even if such extreme measures as covering your head with a jacket, whitewashing the windows or—the ultimate defence—hiding under the staircase where the Angel of Death can’t find you, would save you from the effects of a megaton H bomb onslaught (and obviously the writers of the government pamphlet on the subject must have been wetting themselves laughing while they were writing), you would be awfully jealous of those who were lucky enough to have been killed and free from the pain of life in this capitalist vale of tears.

Not that this has prevented a mini-boom in nuclear shelters—there is, as they say, one born every minute. And a man called Popkiss—the son of a Chief Constable, no less—has, according to the Guardian, published a book whose first edition has sold out (get your order in for one of the next edition at once). Scorning the government measures as quite inadequate, Popkiss gives better instructions for the lucky readers. This includes methods of getting to the countryside as soon as Armageddon starts. This is going to be difficult, it seems, because the authorities will block the roads with their traffic and their tanks. But Popkiss has no doubt that he will be able to get away. He has carefully noted all the back doubles out of Southampton where he lives. And if you buy the book you will get to know all these useful tips. (As the Guardian reporter pointed out, Popkiss will find that all the back doubles of Southampton will be blocked by all the thousands of readers of his book. However, he will have made a pile out of it by then. You can’t win ’em all. And you can’t take it with you.)

Does nobody want to know the little fact that there is a simple method of avoiding a nuclear holocaust? Simply abolish capitalism, the cause of all wars in the modern world (and of all the other social evils as well). Why wait till the bombs are falling?

L. E. Weidberg