The Trouble in Berlin (1948)

From the August 1948 issue of the Socialist Standard

It stands to reason that when rival Powers are forced to unite by fear of a common enemy the one thing that cannot fail to bring their loving association to an abrupt end is the destruction of their enemy. Ostensibly the four Allied Powers agreed together to occupy the four Zones of Germany in order “to keep the Germans down” ; but only the very simple believed it would last. The destruction of German might in 1945 was bound to have the same kind of sequel as it had in 1918. Then it was France and Britain that were soon at daggers drawn, this time, with Germany crushed, it is Russia and the Western Powers that fear each other and are trying to win support for their respective policies among the Germans themselves. All the occupying Powers were in an awkward position when it came to making advances to the Germans. They had to explain by what right they remained in occupation of Germany after the end of the fighting. To each other they kept up for a time the fiction that they were united allies who were in Germany because each wanted the other to be there just out of comradely feeling and under amicably negotiated agreements.

As their quarrels became more open and heated this ceased to be of any use, especially as both sides accused the other of having broken the agreements. The other and only real “right” to be there was the “right of conquest,” since not even the most brazen politician could argue that they were there by invitation of the population. But when allies get to the stage of arguing about the right of might danger is in the air. When each side accused the other of wanting to split Germany both were evading the issue. Each wanted a united Germany provided the government would be subservient: neither wanted a united Germany which would back the other side. Russia had an advantage because its zone encircled Berlin, the traditional capital, but it still remained to squeeze America, Britain and France out of their sectors of Berlin itself. The latter governments stood on their right to be there by agreement, to which the Daily Worker (10/7/48), retorted with the answer that the Russians got to Berlin first and “invited” the other Powers, to join them because they then supposed that “the British, Americans and French were at one with the Russians in sincerely desiring the united control of Germany.” The major reason given by the Worker is, however, that “the Russians took Berlin with tremendous loss and sacrifice by their own forces. . . .”—in other words the “right of conquest.” The inevitable answer to the argument that one Power holds something by right of force is for some other Power to threaten to use more force to change the “right.” And that was the position in July when all sorts of vague threats of never yielding were being bandied about by both sides. The Observer’s Washington correspondent summed it up as follows: “There is every reason to believe that the American Government, and indeed all three Western occupying Powers, have accepted the risk of war which is inherent in the Berlin note to Russia.” (Observer, 11 7 48).

This Correspondent quoted a diplomatic informant who brightly remarked : “We have put our boat in at the head of the rapids and will just have to see how it turns out.” So the preliminary manoeuvring for the third world war goes on over the, at present, prostrate body of Germany. What the future will bring when some day the boat does “shoot the rapids” everyone can imagine.

In the meantime the palm for stupidity surely goes to the Labour Government’s Home Secretary, Mr. Chuter Ede, who as an ex-teacher must have learned nothing from history and as an ex-soldier must have learned nothing from war. and could actually talk in our age of war “for honour.” Speaking at a British Legion meeting in South Shields he said : “There is one price we are not prepared to pay for peace. That is the loss of our honour.” (Daily Telegraph, 12/7/48).

The joint military occupation of Germany was hound to fail because in a capitalist world the formerly allied capitalisms have real things to fight about among themselves.—the capture of markets and control of regions of economic and strategic importance. If the workers of the world were alive to their common interest in the struggle against Capitalism and for Socialism they would have opposed from the start any attempt to impose a settlement by armies of occupation. The German workers, like the workers of Russia and the West, have to learn to achieve their own emancipation for themselves: and behind the problem of destroying militarism, which is but one of the effects of capitalism, is the fundamental problem of destroying capitalism itself, a task for the working class of all lands.

Edgar Hardcastle

The real motive behind State Insurance. (1911)

From the July 1911 issue of the Socialist Standard

Just as with Labour Exchanges and Old-Age Pensions, so with the latest dodge, State Insurance it is a soporific. All along the line of Liberal legislation an examination shows that the benefits go to the employing class, not to the employed.

In working-class districts all over the country, the people are told from Liberal platforms that poverty and destitution, sickness and disease, are to be vigorously dealt with and eradicated, while at the same time the employers are being assured that these schemes, far from costing them anything, will, in the long run, result in a greater return for the sums that are to be expended.

Lloyd George, at Birmingham, exposed the mockery of the claim that these measures are being introduced to benefit the working class. He said:

“Take a brewer’s horse. How well he is looked after – well fed, cared for, and doctored. If he does not feel up to the mark he has got a guardian there specially looking after him. He says there is something the matter with his horse to-day. He is kept there, is doctored, until he is right. That is not merely humanity, it is good business. Take a machine. If you neglect a machine, a very small matter develops into a big one. It may simply mean that you want to oil a bearing, to tighten a screw. But if the machinist says I cannot afford to allow this machine to rest for two or three days in order to overhaul it, what happens? That machine has a bad breakdown sooner or later, and it may have to be scrapped. It is good business to overhaul a thing of that kind in time before it develops.”

Just so. To keep the worker in a fit condition ensures a greater output, and the increased efficiency resulting from such condition will enable the employer to wring more profit out of his victim, for, while the labour power may cost a little more, the return is certain to be greater.

A paper issued by the Government contains still more significant statements from German employers who have experienced the working of similar insurance schemes. The president of one of the largest associations of employers in the iron and steel industry, basing his opinions on special enquiries addressed to leading firms, says, among other things:

“The laws ‘pay’ employers from their own standpoint, since they, too, are given a greater feeling of security . . . and they are protected against constant disputes with exacting claimants.

“The proof that these laws are remunerative to employers lies in the fact that an employer has an interest in having at his disposal a healthy and efficient labour force.”

From the “Chemical Industry” comes the statement that:

"From the standpoint of the employers these laws are remunerative to the extent that the efficiency of the worker is increased, and without the insurance laws  correspondingly higher wages would have to be paid.”

Herr E. Schmidt, president of the German Tobacco Manufacturer’s Association, says:

“To-day, however, these contributions are booked either to the general expenses account or the wages account – for they are, in fact, a part of wages . . . Speaking as one employer to another, I am of the opinion that the investment in these insurance contributions is not a bad one.”

Apart from the capitalist as employer, the statement of the Poor Law Board of Frankfort-on-Main that “the insurance laws have unquestionably afforded direct and permanent relief to the Poor funds” is reiterated by the thirteen towns quoted.

To sum up the whole question, it is but necessary to quote Dr. F. Lahn, Director of the Bavarian Statistical Office, bearing in mind that the State referred to is a capitalist State, and that “national economy” means for the working class a greater speeding up – an economy in the matter of wages. He says:

“Industrial insurance is regarded by many people as a burden placed on certain branches of economic production, and is judged in the same way as taxation. Such a view is just as one-sided and fallacious as if one were to represent our schemes of sanitation, education, and poor relief as a system of national taxation instead of as important constituents of our national system of social welfare, devised to awaken slumbering powers in the body politic, to use them in the service of the State by the nurture and increase of our productive efficiency to further the national economy and the welfare of the State. If it is true that in the keen rivalry of the nations victory will lie with those peoples which have at command the greatest reserves of strength and health, industrial insurance must take a leading place in this policy of industrial welfare.”

Just as Germany a few years ago recognised that in order to obtain the markets of the world they must have efficient labourers, so to-day the “British” capitalists, ever behind, realise that to combat Germany they must economise, they must obtain a better quality of labour-power – if possible without increasing its cost. Hence there is a welling-up of the milk of human kindness in the capitalist breast, and we get State Insurance and the like.

Twel.

Tiny Tips (2024)

The Tiny Tips column from the December 2024 issue of the Socialist Standard 

… a tiny minority of about 0.6 percent of the population, own 45 percent of the country’s total wealth. For workers… the situation in Germany, is becoming increasingly precarious. 

(WSWS)

… support for Hezbollah — as well as opposition to it — still fall primarily along sectarian lines. Polling by The Washington Institute late last year found that 34% of Sunni Muslims and 29% of Christians expressed a positive view of Hezbollah, while 93% of Shias said they approved of the group. 

(NBC)

As he watches the world go by each day from the shade of his porch in southern Havana, Ramone Monteagudo, 72, a retired history teacher, has a front-row seat for the wreckage… Now flies swarm over a sea of rubbish in the sticky heat. He watches some of his poorer neighbors — who until a few years ago had enough to eat — pick leftover food out of the rot. ‘When it comes to food and medicine, we’re living through an extraordinarily difficult situation’. 

(Truthdig)

It was done for the Viet Cong in numerous countries during the US involvement in Vietnam. It was done for the African National Congress (ANC). It was done for the Irish Revolutionary (sic) Army (IRA). Across the United States, Europe and Australasia, all three organisations, demonised as terrorist outfits, received tacit, symbolic support from protestors. In some cases, support was genuine and pecuniary. Now, the Lebanese Shia militant and political group Hezbollah, designated a terrorist organisation in a number of Western states, has inspired flag holders to appear at protests against the expanding conflict in Gaza and Lebanon.

(Dissident Voice)

Saudi Arabia has executed 213 people so far in 2024, more than it has in any other calendar year on record, as the kingdom competes for a seat at the UN Human Rights Council. 

(Middle East Eye)

‘. . . The ratepayers’ association and the ANC led municipality are working together to evict poor black people, to destroy our homes and communities. They say that our presence reduces the value of the land, as if value is just a question of the price of the land and has nothing to do with the value of land for the human beings who live on it. They say that we must be removed because we are a health hazard as we must use the bush to relieve ourselves whereas the obvious solution to the lack of sanitation is to provide sanitation. They say that we are ‘chasing tourists away’. The strong element of racism driving all this is often openly displayed on the social media used by the white residents of the gated communities. The black elites who live in the gated communities are silent about this racism”.

(Dissident Voice)

(These links are provided for information and don’t necessarily represent our point of view.)

The Extinction of Petty Enterprise. By Karl Kautsky (1906)

From the June 1906 issue of the Socialist Standard

Continued from May issue

Translated from the German by H. J. Neumann and revised by the Author.

Since the beginning of the capitalist mode of production and until twenty years ago, the decline of the independent petty peasant enterprise has been most marked. The peasant was being reduced to the condition of a wage slave either through his holding becoming absorbed by a large farm or, where such did not exist in his immediate vicinity, through his holding being cut into pieces and sold to his neighbours. This development still continues to a large extent, although it has ceased in some localities owing principally to the aforesaid foreign competition, but partly also in consequence of the migration of agricultural labourers to the towns—a point we cannot deal with here. Statistics, for instance, show us the following results: —

FRANCE	1882-1892
SIZE OF FARM	Increase (+) or Decrease (-)
Under 1 hectare	+ 243,420 hectares
Over 2 and under 5 Hectares	– 108,434 hectares
Over 5 and under 10 Hectares	– 13,140 hectares
Over 10 and under 40 hectares	– 532,243 hectares
Over 40 hectares	+ 197,288
GERMANY	1882-1895
Under 2 hectares	+ 17,494 hectares
Over 2 and under 5 hectares	– 95,781 hectares
Over 5 and under 20 hectares	+ 563,477 hectares
Over 20 and under 100 hectares	– 38,333 hectares
Over 100 hectares	+ 45,533 hectares

(1 Hectare = 2.47 English acres.)

Everywhere, however, we find a decline in that agricultural enterprise which, having a separate existence, is independent of capital. The leasing system and mortgaging increase. In the German Empire, the mortgages on landed property increased in the ten years from 1886 to 1895 by about 23,000,000,000 Marks, and the number of farms held on lease rose from 2,322,899 in 1882 to 2,007,210 in 1895, viz., an increase of 281,311.

Finally, we find a decrease in the entire agricultural population. In the German Empire the number of persons employed in agriculture was 18,704,038 in 1882, while in 1895 the number was 17,815,187, or nearly a million less.

Much more telling, however, than in agriculture is the decline of petty enterprise in industry. Here it is absolute.

INDUSTRIAL ESTABLISHMENTS IN THE GERMAN EMPIRE

		1882	1895
Size according to No. of workers employed	Number of establishments	Number of establishments	Increase or Decrease
Small (1 to 5 workers each)	2,175,857	1,989,572	– 8.6 %
Medium (6 to 50 workers each)	85,001	139 459	+ 64.1 %
Large (over 50 workers each)	9,481	17,941	+ 89.3 %

Between 1882 and 1895 the population increased by 14.5%. The number of workers employed in small industrial establishments was in 1882 still over one half (59%) of the entire number of industrial workers (4,335,822 out of 7,340,789) but in 1895′ the number fell to 46.5% (4,770,669) out of 10,269,269). During the same period, however, the number of workers employed in large industrial establishments was doubled (from 1,613,247 to 3,044,267).

As German capitalism is still young, these are most surprising figures, for the decline of petty industry is generally a tedious process. An example will make this clear. Already in the forties of the eighteenth century, machine weaving, particularly the English weaving trade, produced such keen competition that the misery of the hand weavers became proverbial, and the starvation existing among them produced rebellion. Nevertheless, according to statistics, out of the 491,796 weavers in the German Empire in 1882, 285,444 were still employed in small weaving concerns (employing from 1 to 5 persons), that is to say, more than half. But nobody then maintained that there were good prospects in store for hand weaving, and that its decline was not inevitable in the course of evolution. In England the last hand weaver has been starved long ago. In Germany, too, they are fast disappearing: there the number of persons employed in small weaving concerns decreased from 285,444 in 1882 to 156,242 in 1895. If there are still some hand weavers in existence, that does not prove that petty industry is capable of competing successfully, but merely that the hand weaver is capable of enduring starvation.

The complete disappearance of petty industry is not the first but the last act of the tragedy entitled “The Extinction of Petty Enterprise.” The first effect of the competition with capitalist production is that the handicraftsman—and what may be said of him is with some modifications also applicable to the peasant—gradually sacrifices all that his own or his forefathers’ industry succeeded in accumulating. The petty industrialist grows poor ; in order to stave off his increasing poverty he resolves to be more industrious; the working hours are extended until late at night; wife and children are compelled to assist in the work; in place of expensive adult assistants cheaper apprentices are engaged, and their number disproportionately increased; and while the working hours are extended and the toil is proceeding with ever more feverish speed without rest or interval, food becomes more precarious, and the expenditure for housing and clothing is more and more cut down.

There is no more miserable, wretched existence than that of the petty industrialist or the small farmer who is struggling hard against overwhelming capital.

The assertion that the wage workers are to-day better off than the small farmer and the small manufacturer or trader, is fully justified. This statement, however, was intended to show the workers that they have no, reason to be discontented. But the arrow does not strike Society, at which it -was directed, but private property. If indeed the propertyless are better off than the property-owning small manufacturers, of what value can their property be still to the latter? It ceases to be of advantage to them, it commences to be detrimental to them. If, for instance, the home weaver persists in carrying on his unprofitable concern, although he would be able to earn more in the factory, he does so only because he still possesses something, a cottage, a piece of land for growing vegetables, which he would have to surrender were he to give up his business. To the petty industrialist his possession of the means of production has ceased to be a safeguard against misery and has become a chain binding him hopelessly to utter wretchedness. In his case private property has brought about an effect which is not usually looked for. What a hundred years ago was still a blessing to the handicraftsman and peasant, has turned out a curse to him.

But it may be argued that with this increased misery the small peasant and handicraftsman are purchasing a higher independence and liberty than are enjoyed by the propertyless wage workers. Even such argument is erroneous. Where petty industry comes into contact with capital, it becomes only too rapidly quite dependent upon it. The handicraftsman becomes a home-industrialist and is thus enslaved by the capitalist; his home is turned into a branch of the factory; or he becomes an agent of the capitalist, a salesman of manufactured goods, besides bearing the cost of wear and tear; in both cases he is entirely dependent upon the capitalist. And the peasant who is unable to keep up the competition as small farmer or succumbs to the pressure of usury or taxes, also takes to home industry in the service of the capitalist, or to wage work in the employ of the large fanner. He may become a journeyman, or go to a factory or mine, and leave the work of his little holding to be attended to by his wife and young children. Where then is his independence and freedom? His property alone distinguishes him from the proletarian, or wage slave, but it is that very property which prevents him from taking advantage of the best opportunities to obtain work; it ties him to a certain 6pot and makes him more dependent than the propertyless wage worker. The private ownership of the means of production increases not only the material misery but also the dependence of the small man. In this respect private property has also produced a contrary effect—it has changed from a bulwark of freedom to the means of enslavement.

But, it will be urged, private property ensures to the handicraftsman and peasant at any rate the ownership of the product of their labour. Now, this is poor consolation, seeing that the value of these products has declined to such an extent that it does not suffice for the sustenance of the producer and his family. But even this poor consolation is a delusion. In the first instance, it does not apply to the large army of persons who are compelled to take to homework or wage slavery in order to support themselves. Neither does it apply to the majority of the small handicraftsmen and peasants whom overwhelming capital has not yet brought into its direct service, so that until now they have apparently been fortunate enough to preserve their entire independence. It does not apply to all those who are in debt—the usurer holding a mortgage on a peasant farm has a claim, superior to that of the peasant himself, to the product of the peasant’s labour. First of all the usurer has to be paid, and only what remains belongs to the peasant; whether this balance sufficed to maintain the peasant and his family is no concern of the usurer’s. The peasant and the handicraftsman both work as labour for the capitalist as the wage worker does. The difference which private property causes in this respect between propertyless and property-owning workers, is only that the wages of the former is generally regulated according to customary requirements, while as far as the property owning workers are concerned, no such limit exists. In the case of the latter it may happen that after paying the usurer’s interest nothing remains of the product of their labour—that they work for nothing, owing to private property.

If in remote places there are still peasants and handicraftsmen to be found who are not in debt, even they are compelled to pay their tribute to capital by means of the National Debt.

By interest on mortgages and goods on credit, peasants and handicraftsmen pay interest on capital they themselves have employed. By taxes raised for paying interest on the National Debt, they pay interest on capital which the State has borrowed in order to enrich at their expense their very competitors and exploiters—contractors, builders, large manufacturers, great landowners, and others. Militarism and the-National Debt, these are the two means by which the State of to-day succeeds in forcing even the remotest village into the domain of capitalist exploitation, thereby hastening the abolition of peasantry and handicraft. What is the final result of this painful struggle against the overwhelming competition of industry on a large scale? What reward is there for the handicraftsman or peasant for his “thrift” and his “industry,” that is to say for the enslavement of himself, his wife and children, for their physical and mental ruin? The reward for that is bankruptcy, entire disinheritance (expropriation is the artistic term for-it), divorce from the means of production, descent into the proletariat.

That is the inevitable final result of the economic development in Society to-day, a result as inevitable as death itself, and just as death comes as a relief to the person suffering from a painful disease, so under present conditions is bankruptcy hailed with equal satisfaction by the small man as a relief from property which has become a heavy-burden to him. The continued existence of petty industry leads indeed to such demoralisation and misery that we must ask ourselves the question whether we would be justified in delaying its extinction, if that were at all possible. Would it be more desirable that handicraftsmen and peasants should all sink to the position of the hand weavers of the Ore Mountains or that they should become wage workers in great industrial concerns?

This alone is to be considered when efforts are made to maintain petty enterprise, for it is impossible in this age of steam and electricity to place handicraft and small farming in a flourishing condition so that they may bring to the petty proprietor a share in modern culture. The self-supporting small concern, independent of capital, having perfect. control of its means of production and of its products—this system of property holding and wealth producing, upon which in the middle ages and even so late as the seventeenth century all economic existence was based, disappears inevitably before expanding capitalism, which seizes one trade after another. What still survives in the shape of petty industry and at times even newly developed, is nothing but a hidden form of wage slavery, and by no means one of its highest forms. It becomes the last refuge of those unfortunate propertyless persons who cannot find employment in large industrial concerns, and who are too proud to beg, too honest to steal.

(Concluded)

Germany reunites (1990)

From the September 1990 issue of the Socialist Standard

The East German state circus, traditionally one of the most revered in the world, has been closed down. What animals can be sold will be; the rest are to be killed. The market has come to town and the unprofitable circus must go. Into the fertile area of East German magazine sales has come the West German and American porn industry. There are profits there, you see. Ah, the sickly smell of free-market "liberation’’.

If you read the British press it all seems so simple. East German Communism has been swept away. The free marketeers have come from the West to make life good. Germany is to be unified. The Germans are to be the most prosperous of Europeans. Hurrah for capitalism! The reality is different. There never was communism in East Germany, but state capitalism, ruled over by a class of party bosses who ran East German exploitation for their own ends.

State capitalism, not socialism of any description. has failed utterly and now East Germany is to be integrated into the rest of the private-capitalist world. Germany is being unified, but it is still divided between those who own its resources—the capitalists—and those who produce its wealth—the workers. These two classes, whose interests are diametrically opposed to one another, can never be united, except in terms of a national illusion. As for prosperity coming to Germany, there are plenty of workers who will tell a different tale—particularly the more that they are exposed to the harshness of the unregulated market.

Massive unemployment

East German workers face massive unemployment. In the past their jobs, which were often state-subsidised in order to maintain the appearance of full employment, produced goods for the East German national market. Now that market is being saturated by West German capitalist outfits which can sell higher quality commodities than East Germany is able to make. Of the 8000 East German firms, which are due to be privatised in October, the vast majority cannot compete on the open market with their West German rivals. In particular, food, textiles and mechanical engineering firms are going bust.

According to Creditreform, a West German credit-rating company which is now active in the East, there will be two million workers unemployed in East Germany after the October privatisation. The "good news" is that new jobs—just under a million—will emerge by the end of 1991 in new services, notably financial institutions and hotels (Rheinischer Merkur, 15 June). Even if this promised light at the end of the dark tunnel of unemployment proves to be a correct prediction, who wants to move from producing useful wealth to taking jobs counting money in banks or insurance houses, or waiting on tourists? Is that what liberation means? And it should be noted that even if the most optimistic forecasts come true, there will still be over a million unemployed East Germans by the end of next year.

East German workers with jobs are discovering something else: that they are expected to pay West German prices for goods and services, but the capitalists investing in East Germany are only willing to pay old East German wages. So. we see the disgusting contradiction of East German stores with shelves full of hitherto unobtainable commodities, but all that the East German wage slaves can afford to do is look at them longingly.

They were fed the lie that once the Berlin Wall came down they would enjoy access to all the goodies which they had spent years seeing advertised on West German television. Well, the Wall is down, but poverty persists. Is it any wonder that the German press has reported a major increase in petty crime in East Germany? The capitalist explanation is that the East German workers have yet to understand the ethos of private property relations and are recovering from years of state-capitalist frustration. The fact is that they are angry, particularly the young East Germans who were promised a market which would liberate them; they have been offered unemployment or low wages, and commodities which they are too poor to buy. Such is capitalist "freedom".

Struggle against new bosses

Workers who were out in the streets last year to bring down the Honecker dictatorship are now having to struggle against their new bosses. Workers in the East German shoe and leather industry have called nationwide token strikes to draw attention to their plight. More than half a million jobs are at stake in that industry and all that "liberation" offers them is a future job in a hotel or a bank.

The striking workers will be defeated. The hypocritical German capitalists, who showed such theatrical concern for their struggle when it was fought against the old state-capitalist elite, could not care less what becomes of the workers now that they have their grubby hands on the united German shoe industry. At the end of last year the German press was celebrating the struggle for freedom being waged by the newly-formed Free Federation of German Trades Unions, an umbrella organisation of East German non-state unions. The same union called for an increase in net pay of 50 percent as from 1 July this year. The same newspapers who were cheering them on less than a year ago are now denouncing their "impertinent" demands.

The East German workers were right to overthrow the anti-democratic state- capitalist dictatorship of the Communist Party. They were more than right: they were heroic in taking on a force which we now know was planning to put down the rebel workers in the same way as the Chinese dictators did at Tiananmen Square. But the victory of last winter was a battle won. not a war ended. The East German workers had better realise that the owners of the Earth, be they private or state capitalists, Eastern or Western, will oppress and exploit them until they are dispossessed of their ownership and control of the means of wealth production and distribution. The class war goes on. Experience will teach this to the East German workers—as it did to the many Polish workers who recently organised a massive rail strike against their new oppressors in the Solidarity government—but a period of temporary enchantment with the wonders of the illusory free market is bound to occur.

Housing crisis

East German wage slaves who have voted to be led by Kohl and his team of market-lovers. and the other workers conned by the reformist promise of welfare capitalism offered by the SPD, need only peep over the border to Hamburg where their fellow workers, long-standing members of a "free" capitalist nation, face a major housing crisis.

The Hamburg Abendblat (27 April) reports that rents in Hamburg have increased from early 1989 to early 1990 by an average of 33 percent. This figure is second only to Stuttgart where the rent per square metre has gone up 39 percent in the past year. The German housing problem has led to widespread opposition to the granting of housing to East German workers wanting to settle in the more prosperous Western sector. So. after years of waiting for the Wall to come down. East German workers are now being told not to compete with their Western counterparts for cheap or subsidised housing. The new Wall is made of poverty and fear.

The Guardian (27 July) referred to the West German housing crisis as “a political battlefield . . . a social scandal in a land of conspicuous prosperity: the squeezing out of the housing market of tens—perhaps hundreds—of thousands of citizens". The West German Housing Minister. Gerda Hasselfedt, estimates that one in four East German homes are “uninhabitable" and three in four “need to be totally renovated". If new homes are not to be built, and old ones improved, by the state, then who will take on the task?

Private property developers and landlords certainly have no interest to gain in building houses and doing up old ones for the benefit of poor people. On the contrary, with an excess of supply over demand their economic interest is to push up the rents and interest rates on mortgages. As ever, the housing problem is not about an inability to produce houses—last year there was a 14.7 percent increase in German house-building, mainly at the more expensive end of the market. It is about the inability of workers who need homes to pay for them at prices that will bring profits to capitalists.

The housing crisis has also given rise to a wave of anti-immigrant feeling amongst the least enlightened workers. Where Turkish “guest workers" were once tolerated, German racists are saying that that it is bad enough having to compete with other Germans without having to put up with "foreigners". In the riotous celebrations following the German football victory in the World Cup:

East Berlin and Hamburg . . . witnessed bloody battles between police and young right-wing extremists, as well as attacks on Vietnamese, Turks and other foreigners . . . In Cologne a group set on a young Turkish taxi driver trapped in the delirious crowd, trying to overturn his car and lynch him. Police again used tear gas and batons to help him escape . . . (Guardian, 10 July).

The government has responded to this rise in racist insecurity by passing an Aliens Law which is designed to frighten away non-German workers wanting to settle there.

Germany is set to be the new European superpower. If you have millions of Deutschmarks invested in the Bundesbank you may be in for some sharp rises in profits. But most readers of this journal do not. Neither do the West German workers struggling to pay high rents. The hundreds of thousands of East Germans who are being thrown on the scrap heap of the unemployed do not. Nor do those who will have to face cuts in German welfare services which will have to be made so that taxes can be kept down so that German capitalists have money to invest in the East. In East Germany the circus is closing down and the lions are being given a fatal jab; for the wage slaves of Germany the future offers little in the way of either bread or circuses.

Steve Coleman

Is the Pound worth saving? (1999)

From the June 1999 issue of the Socialist Standard

Some said it would never happen, yet on 1 January of this year the Single European Currency became a reality. Five months on, we have seen the fall of Oskar Lafontaine, the German Finance Minister, the resignation of the entire European Commission and the Euro steadily fall in value.

Despite all of this, New Labour has started to come off the fence and demonstrate that they are preparing to recommend Britain’s entry to the project, subject to a referendum of course. This policy shift (especially after publishing the National Changeover Plan), has only intensified debate across the country, spawning a plethora of ad hoc organisations, dedicated to both sides of the argument.

Without equivocation, we in the Socialist Party say that the introduction is a capitalist question which has nothing whatsoever to do with the interests of the working class. Our class interests can only be furthered by the abolition of the capitalist wages system and all money no matter which name our masters wish to give it.

The “pro” and “anti” positions span the political spectrum from right to left. Some of the Eurosceptics to be found on the extremes of the Conservative and Labour parties are actually in favour of EU withdrawal, whilst the majority are just hostile to the Single European Currency. In the case of the Europhiles, they can be found anywhere from the Tory left, the Liberal Democrats through to New Labour. It is interesting to note that the vast bulk of the pseudo-revolutionary Trotskyite sects are defending their own variation of the Eurosceptic position.

Ever-increasing concentration

The Euro project is just the latest (but by no means the last) phase of European capitalism’s attempts to compete as an effective unit on the world stage (especially against the US and Japan). This is not just a political project, as the capitalist media likes to make out, but is rooted in the ever-increasing concentration, centralisation and integration of European capital. Indeed, the prelude to the launch of the Euro was littered with take-over activity. This process itself is part of capitalism’s attempt to restructure itself to the needs of the modern globalised economy.

Perhaps, not surprisingly, we find that the most powerful section of the capitalist class (big manufacturing and finance) are generally the ones pushing for Britain’s entry into the Euro. There are the capitalists who have a big stake in Europe either via importing/exporting or providing finance for take-overs.

It does not follow that businesses with extensive European interests who have supported the development of Europe vis-à-vis the EEC and single market EU, necessarily believe the Euro is a good idea in itself. The CBI, which represents big manufacturing capital, is actually quite divided on this issue despite its leadership being in favour. For many members, it’s not the principle of the Euro which is the problem—it is the economics of it. However, some pro-European capitalists take the view that although the single currency is not perfect, they cannot be left out of it. In fact some argue that early membership would have allowed the British government to influence the shape of the Euro project in their favour.

Bearing in mind that the majority of the British public are not Euro enthusiasts, we should expect to see a big propaganda drive over the next year or two from the powerful pro-Euro lobby (which is likely to involve the government). The most popular argument trotted out by the Europhiles is that an integrated Europe will reduce the risk of another European war because Germany will be kept in check. This is a feeble argument which totally misunderstands the causes of war. The fact that superficially Europe’s capitalists are coming together does not alter the fact that they remain competitors and this is only a marriage of convenience. If, due to capitalist logic, the arrangement should break down, no amount of political organisation at a supra-national level will prevent a war. The example of the United Nations demonstrates this.

Following on from this, we are told that from this position of political stability there will be increased economic growth via increased trade and low interest rates and inflation. The logical corollary of this would be a Europe reasserting itself on the world stage, whilst capable of dealing with its own internal balance-of-power. As pro-Euro economist Christopher Johnson argues in his book In With The Euro, Out With The Pound:

“The Euro, with the UK inside it will become a world currency alongside the dollar and the yen. Britain can thus retain, or even regain, some of its status as a world economic and financial power without giving up its national identity.”

Moreover:

“Britain can avoid German domination of Europe only by joining France, Germany and other European countries as partners in an integrated Europe” (p.197).

Quite where Johnson find the facts to support such optimistic economic reasoning is anybody’s guess. It’s certainly not supported by the first five months of the Euro, which has highlighted many of its contradictions. Firstly, there has been the constant bickering between the politicians and the bankers of the European Central Bank (see January Socialist Standard) which resulted in the resignation of “Red” Oskar Lafontaine, the German Finance Minister, and of course the corruption scandal at the heart of the EU Commission which demonstrates the lack of even basic democratic accountability. And as for the Euro becoming a world reserve currency to threaten the dollar—well it hasn’t happened yet. 

Eurosceptics

However, the capitalist class is multi-faceted and some sections are openly hostile to Britain joining the Euro. These capitalists (generally small and medium size concerns) grouped around organisations such as the Institute of Directors and the Federation of Small Businesses see joining the Euro as a costly adventure. The EU “social market” model is derided as an economic anachronism which will not be able to compete against the low cost, dynamic “free market” US and that Britain’s entry into the single currency will effectively spell the end of the Thatcherite revolution.

There is a certain amount of truth in this position. It is clear that if Britain did join the Euro there would be moves to harmonise taxes and costs since British capital would have an unfair advantage over its European rivals. However, it is also true to say that European capitalists have been trying to restructure their own economies for sometime now with attacks on welfare provision and working conditions. The results of this have been violent protests and demonstrations by French and German workers. In reality, Euro capital will try to restructure at home whilst demanding concessions from a British entry.

The Eurosceptics often claim that a single currency with a “one-size-fits-all” monetary policy would inevitably require a single fiscal policy. John Redwood, the Tory arch Eurosceptic, articulated this view in his 1997 book Our Currency, Our Country:

“You cannot have a single currency without a single interest rate, a single banking policy, a single budget and a single finance minister or central bank governor. You are inevitably led to a single taxation policy and a single economic policy. You are close to creating a single government” (Preface).

Although Redwood’s arguments may be more cogent and honest than Christopher Johnson’s, his views are ultimately based upon populist nationalism. Britain would cease to be an independent nation and parliament would resemble little more than a glorified county council under the jackboot of French and German bankers.

This may or may not be true. The question is what difference would this make to the working class? When people like John Redwood start talking about democracy it’s difficult not to laugh.

The main strengths of the “Eurosceptic” position rests on their critique of single currency economics. Firstly, they argue that Europe is not an “optimal currency area” which is a prerequisite for the Euro to be a long-term success. Britain’s trade cycle is synchronised more closely with that of the US and this could cause problems with a common interest rate policy (i.e. German growth may be slowing and Britain’s picking up). This could mean that the currency area was more susceptible to “asymmetric shocks” that could threaten the stability of the entire continent.

Left-wing Eurosceptics with their desire to reform British capitalism have also used “loss of control” arguments. The Campaign for an Independent Britain write in a recent pamphlet:

” . . . opting for economic self governance, rapid growth and full employment means opting out of a single currency” (Burkitt, Bainbridge and Whyman—There is An Alternative, p.65).

It is a supreme irony that left-reformists such as the aforementioned authors and Tony Benn can be on the same side as the Thatcherites, whilst denouncing the Maastricht “Convergence Criteria” and Amsterdam “Stability Pact” for being “monetarist” and “deflationary”. For these people are still labouring under the delusion that capitalist governments can control and influence the economy by using monetary and fiscal policies. They have learned nothing from history.

Clearly, the Tory Eurosceptics (currently under the leadership of William Hague) nominally support the notion of an independent Britain, but in reality represent the pro-US section of the British capitalist class. It is precisely this division between the pro-European and pro-US sections of the capitalist class that will fuel the single currency debate in the coming months.

Indeed, the EU and US seem to be in a perpetual trade war at the moment and such tensions are likely to increase rather than diminish. This makes Britain’s future role even more interesting. If Tony Blair does take Britain further into Europe, how will this affect Anglo-US relations? Perhaps Blair’s strategy will be to play one bloc off against the other?

We have seen the poverty of all the capitalist arguments for and against the Euro and located this debate in its true context. From the petty nationalists to the more “sophisticated” pro-Europeans this is not a debate for the working class. To be “pro-European” or “anti-European” is to fall for capitalist trickery. We should create our own agenda rather than just responding to our masters’ in-fighting. Is the Pound worth saving? A better question would be: Is capitalism worth saving?

Dave Flynn

Sting in the Tail: An Unmarried Father (1992)

The Sting in the Tail column from the June 1992 issue of the Socialist Standard

An Unmarried Father

The Bishop of Galway once attacked clergymen who had four figure bank accounts as Immoral. And unlike some hypocrites in the Church it seems that the reverend gentleman practised what he preached.

According to press reports this godly man sent £65,340 from his bank account to a Ms Murphy in the USA to assist in the rearing of her son. This was in addition to regular monthly payments he had been making for 15 years. It would seem that when this American kid addressed him as "father” he was doing so in both senses.

Here at least is one catholic that does not use contraception. A man of principle and a glowing example to all his flock.

Unfortunately his Irish parishioners have lost this paragon of virtue. He has moved to South America where with less than a four figure bank account he will minister unto the poor!

Untutored Fathead

Another man of principle the Archbishop of Canterbury, Dr George Carey has attacked greed and short sightedness among industrialists.

The saintly Archbishop is certainly not of this world when he is reported in The Independent (11 May) as follows:

Dr Carey said the purpose of trade and industry was to benefit humanity, "not to make profits for shareholders . . ."

”Within our own society, our collective commitment to industrial enterprise will remain underpowered if the fruits of success appear to be concentrated too heavily in the pockets of shareholders and senior executives. For example, massive individual pay rises during a recession do not encourage public support for wealth creation."

With falling church attendances the miracle business could be said to be in recession, but this does not deter Carey living in a palace and riding around in a chaffeur driven Roller!

We Are Not Amused

As head of the Church of England, Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth must get a little annoyed from time to time by such upstarts as the Archbishop going on about greed.

In the good old days of course, It would have been off to the Tower with him and good riddance. But in these democratic days one has got to keep up the pretence that one actually gives a shit about what these loyal objects say.

The Archbishop was very careful to attack only shareholders, industrialists and senior executives in his sermon. No mention of such obscenities as the Queen reputably the richest person In Britain with an estate of £6,500M or the noble Duke of Westminster with a mere £3,500M.

More Classy Antics

It needs little comment from Scorpion. It should be required reading for any dupe of Major's classless society. We refer to Andrew Rawnsley's account of the State Opening of Parliament in The Guardian of 7 May.

The Lord Chancellor was trying to walk backwards without tripping over the Rouge Dragon Pursuivant, animated playing cards were blowing trumpets, Black Rod was getting the door slammed In his face like a Jehovah's Witness . . . the new leader of the House of Lords had landed the trickiest role in the whole ceremonial, that of bearing the Cap of Maintenance. This involves half an hour holding up a pole bearing a purple velvet cap which looks most like a medieval condom...

As Beaumont Herald Extraordinary, Gold Stick In Waiting, The Keeper Of The Gilded Bidet and the rest of the cast of lolanthe did their stuff before an audience of dukes, earls, marquesses and viscounts, Her Majesty outlined her government's plans to create a modern, open and classless society.

Workers Can Fight

For decades West Germany's trade unions have been held up as a shining example to British workers. Instead of going on strike West German unions would simply sit down with the employers and settle matters in a civilised way.

Now that cosy scene is shattered as those same unions are having a show-down with government and business over pay. Postal workers, public sector workers and even the police have struck, with rail and construction workers likely to follow.

The unions complain that their members are being made to pay the cost of German unification.

The liberal weekly newspaper, Die Zeit, concerned that Germany's famed consensus between labour and capital was cracking, accused Kohl of trying to wring money out of the weakest group — workers —rather than fighting rich and powerful lobbies.

The Guardian 25 April

So the "consensus" between workers and employers is over and that nasty old class-struggle, which we were assured was dead and buried in West Germany, has risen from the grave once again.

So Can Bosses

Meanwhile in France the limitation of successful industrial action by workers is being shown once more.

The wages and conditions won by French dockers over the years are under attack and the dockers have come out on strike against a reform proposed by the "socialist” government which would reduce wages and increase hours.

The employers claim that those wages and conditions drive away shipping to cheaper facilities at Antwerp and Rotterdam and have cost 6,000 dockers jobs in the last 10 years.

This is the situation which arises from gains made by workers anywhere. Their success prods capital into finding ways of regaining what it has lost, usually by cutting jobs and introducing new work practices. The workers will, of course, try to improve their lot when circumstances permit.

And so it goes on, this constant struggle in which workers must run fast just to stand still. Political action to replace capitalism by socialism is the way to get off this treadmill.

Editorial: The Class Struggle. A Lesson from Germany. (1927)

Editorial from the February 1927 issue of the Socialist Standard

There are large numbers of people who believe that discontent and social upheavals are caused by the propaganda of “agitators,” and conversely that they can be prevented by counter propaganda. For them Czarism was overthrown by Lenin, the miners’ strike was the work of Cook and the class struggle was created by Marx. They are unable to distinguish between the observation of facts and their causation. Marx did not preach the class war in the crude sense of desiring class hatred, either for its own sake or for any other purpose. What he did was to observe that in society as it existed before his eyes there was an employing, property-owning class and a propertyless employed class. No-one disputes this as the statement of an obvious truth, but for Marx it was not only interesting but also historically important. And having observed and examined the class division and consequent class struggle Marx rightly urged the need to apply this knowledge to current political movements. The workers must, he said, recognise that at bottom their movement, like the preceding movement by capitalists to establish and promote capitalism, is a class movement. It must eventually define clearly its class aim of transferring the means of production from private hands to the community. Marx never supposed that he, or other Socialists, “invented” the class struggle or the idea of Socialism. Socialism is the product of Capitalism in that the facts of the existing system gradually force themselves upon the notice of the workers. The task of the Socialist propagandist is to hasten recognition of the facts of social development by directing the workers’ attention to them.

The Socialist could not hope to propagate Socialist ideas outside of capitalist conditions or before the existence of capitalism. The propagandist with the Socialist idea is himself only the product of those conditions. A handful of Bolsheviks, intelligent and devoted though they may be, cannot build Socialist society in a country—Russia—which is overwhelmingly peasant in composition and organisation. They can and are doing the good work of speeding up development on modern industrial capitalist lines. Similarly unlimited capitalist propaganda in industrial Germany and England cannot prevent, it can only delay, the growth of Socialist ideas in the minds of the workers. It is with great pleasure that we read of an enquiry undertaken by the International Catholic Labour Unions “into the sentiments of those German workmen who are organised in the Roman Catholic ‘Christian Trade Unions’ which have a total membership of more than 600,000.” The enquiry is reported fully in the Manchester Guardian (January 1st, 1927) from which the following is reproduced :—

“INDUSTRIAL PEACE” IN GERMANY.

Views of Catholic Trade Unionists.

(From our Berlin Correspondent). 

“The idea of “industrial peace” and of “reconciliation between workmen and employers” has been promoted with as great energy, skill and sincerity in Germany as in any other country. Leading German industrialists, even when they themselves are Conservative, have publicly declared that Germany cannot be governed without the help of the working class, and that Germany should have a coalition Cabinet in which the Socialist party is represented.

What German workmen themselves think of “industrial peace” has been rather a mystery, to which the Labour Press has given no satisfactory clue. But members of the Roman Catholic Centre party have, on behalf of the International Catholic Labour Unions, made an inquiry into the sentiments of those German workmen who are organised in the Roman Catholic “Christian trade unions,” which have a total membership of more than 600,000.

The result is of extraordinary and universal interest. The Christian trade union, which have been criticised as “unrevolutionary,” as subservient to the Church, and as hostile to the class war, form the moderate right wing of the German Labour movement.

The inquiry has been conducted with that complete honesty which the German Centre party always shows when it tries to establish facts that are important to itself. Questionnaires were circulated amongst the Roman Catholic clergy throughout the industrial districts of Germany as well as amongst the officials of the Christian trade unions. The following is a brief summary of the main subjects of the questions, as well as of the answers that were returned. Many of the answers are detailed enough to fill a book, and many were after long discussions with the workmen. In every case the questions relate to Roman Catholic workmen organised in the Christian trade unions.

I. — RELATIONS BETWEEN WORKMEN AND EMPLOYER.

The general tendency of the answers is to record growing enmity. The mildest expression used is “cold neutrality.” Other answers mention “estrangement,” “distrust,” “opposition,” “tension,” or speak of downright hostility. One answer says that the employers “have no soul and no conscience,” and another that “the purely capitalist attitude of most employers does not allow trustful co-operation to grow up. . . . In the factory the workman feels that he is not treated like a human being. … In public and political life he sees that the employers are, for the most part, on the side of reaction, and hostile to democracy.” The possibility of any improvement is denied. Some of the answers show that the industrial peace overtures made by German employers have aroused nothing but suspicion. Those employers who are themselves Roman Catholics are criticised with special severity. One answer says that “there is bitterness over the fact that Roman Catholic employers limit their Catholic ethics to their private lives and are anxiously concerned not to allow these ethics to appear in their business activities.” Many complaints are made about the “soullessness” of the big industrial concerns. Complaints from smaller factories and workshops, where a more personal relationship between employer and employed is still possible, are, on the whole, less acrimonious.

II.— THE CLASS WAR.

Intellectually and as a Christian the Roman Catholic workman condemns the class war. But, as many of the answers show, hostility towards the possessing classes has a deep emotional influence upon him. Workmen who have no property of their own and are entirely dependent on their wages are filled with a sense of insecurity and dependence. They feel an ever-deepening resentment, “especially when wealth is displayed before their eyes by the propertied classes. It is their daily experience that the propertied treat the non-propertied classes as beings of a lower order — nothing, indeed, embitters a workman more than this.”

III. — THE INTELLECTUALS.

A common fate in the years of revolution and inflation created some fellow-feeling between workmen and intellectuals, but almost all traces of this have vanished. It is only “in an occasional priest or an occasional physician that the workman sees a true friend nowadays.” Generally speaking he likes and respects the clergy who are engaged in welfare work, but the clergy and the Roman Catholic Church as a whole are losing their hold upon him. An answer from the Rhineland states that “one must be blind in both eyes not to see that the authority of the clergy is dwindling.”

IV. — SOCIALISM.

There has been a great change; for whereas Roman Catholic workmen in Germany used to be hostile to Socialism, they are now no longer so, except in a purely theoretical manner. Almost all the answers agree on this point, although they vary in their attempts to explain it. In the economic struggle there is practically no difference between Socialist and Roman Catholic workmen. If the Church were to wage war on the Socialist movement, it could not, so the answers emphasise, expect the Roman Catholic workmen in Germany to show the slightest enthusiasm for such a war.

V.—COMMUNISM.

On the whole the prestige and the persuasive power of the Communist movement have diminished. It still takes a hold on those who think that Socialism is not coming quickly enough. Its influence on young and undeveloped workmen is considerable. The attempt to make Communism attractive to Roman Catholics by representing it as a kind of primitive Christianity has met with some success.

VI.—THE YOUNG GENERATION.

Youthful Roman Catholic workmen on the whole show great mental independence and an inclination towards Radicalism. They observe the formalities of the Catholic faith but without religious enthusiasm. There is a broad tendency amongst them to strive for a united trade union movement, irrespective of faith. Considerable numbers are attracted by the semi-military organisations of Fascist Right and Communist Left.”

Here we have extraordinary evidence of the truth of the materialist view of history. The highly organised, richly financed and skilful propaganda of the Roman Catholic Church is helpless against the educational effect of the actual conditions of working class life. Marx truly described religion as the “Opium of the People,” but to misquote a Biblical saying, “Man cannot live by opium alone.” In the long run he demands material comforts, and rejects the social system with the religious apologists for it, because they offer him the opium of religion when what he needs is bread.

Why war is no accident (2000)

From the August 2000 issue of the Socialist Standard 

War is not a freak of history, nor an accident of policy. Rather it is the continuation of business competition by other means

The fate meted out to the innocent population of Iraq, due to the terror and sanctions imposed upon that country by Britain and the US, is not a freak of history, nor an accident of policy. Rather, it is the continuation of an old game, and the re-use of policies deployed successfully, and equally devastatingly, elsewhere.

The noted historian, Eric Hobsbawm, in his essay “Barbarism, a Users Guide’, cites how, over the course of the century, the Enlightenment principle that “civilised warfare [sic] is confined to the disablement of the armed forces of the enemy” has declined. He finds the cause of this change in the “concept of total national mobilisation [which] shattered” this vital principle of “civilised warfare” [sic]. Hobsbawm however, offers no notion as to how this happened, or why the world should be sliding towards barbarism.

Hobsbawm’s “enlightened” idea of warfare was indeed compatible with a society in which warfare was the preserve of an elite, which was separated from the relatively independent communities in the villages and far flung towns—which was the economic conditions of the eighteenth century under which these ideas developed. It was thus able to conduct its warfare within terms of the social surplus upon which this elite generally existed.

As, however, capitalism developed the relative independence of rural towns, regions and of the military structures, became gradually eroded as the whole world was swallowed up into an integrated market economy. Everyone became absolutely dependent upon everyone else. Thus, eruptions of military conflict could no longer be confined to the combatants alone, as the shock waves spread out throughout the whole economy. Hence, Hobsbawm observes, that such societies had to mobilise the population to war generally: “[capitalist societies] do not fight…like bodies of professional soldiers, for whom fighting the war does not require hating the enemy.” War could no longer be a gentlemanly pastime, played with a set of rules to make things fair.

Hobsbawm’s basic error is to accept the distinction between official war, and peacetime, the start and end of the game declared by the gentleman players. His Arcadian depiction of enlightenment warfare neglects the continual use of state military forces against the lower classes, the regular insurrectionary slaughters, and the like. He neglects the fact that capitalism is a system “based on a state of perpetual war” (Morris). Just because an end of play is called, it does not mean that the slaughter ends.

The twentieth century has not been about the decline of an official distinction between war and peace, but rather, a growth in the scope and magnitude of the capitalist war.

First world slaughter

The First World War provides a case in point, where this universal warfare was pursued. Not content simply with seeing something like 9 percent of the world’s population dying on the battlefields (Hobsbawm) in order to secure capitulation from the gentleman players in Germany, the British ruling class also followed a policy of blockade against Germany, even after the end of the war. The effects of this course of action were devastating, and utterly indiscriminate. Not only, thus, were supplies disruptive by the usual wastage of resources due to war, but exacerbated, across the whole of central Europe by Britain’s blockade. In Germany. some 800 people perished every day from starvation: in the first months of 1919 30% of babies born in Berlin died, and the figure was 85% in Dusseldorf, due to a shortage of milk.

The Blockade—the cordon sanitaire— was also turned into a device for trying to crush the Bolshevik regime in Russia, and as a result, exacerbated no doubt by Russia’s own civil war, some 50 million people across the North of Russia faced starvation in 1919. Across all of central Europe, some 200 million faced death by famine.

All of which was the result of conscious policy. The British Minister responsible for the blockade wrote “I regard the blockade as the easiest and cheapest method of applying pressure to Germany.” The force, eventually for abandoning the policy of starving Germany into submission, was the threat of loss of control. President Wilson sent the Allied Blockade Council an illuminating telegram “Food relief is now the key to the whole European situation and to the solution of peace. Bolshevism steadily advancing westward, poisoning Germany. It cannot be stopped by force but it can be stopped by food.” The New Statesman at the time perceptively observed that food relief “cost something not far short of continuing the war”, which, of course, was precisely what it was for.

Likewise, during all that time of peace and victory, troops continued to pour into battle for the benefit of their country’s capitalists. The Great Powers of the world banded together to plunder fallen Russia, in the midst of its chaos. British, French and American troops landed at Archangel – ostensibly to secure Allied munitions from falling into German hands; Japanese and American troops landed at Vladivostok: and – since no war would be complete without it – British troops seized the Caucasian Oil fields at Baku. The defeat of the official Gentleman players merely meant that the winning powers were free to use their strength against the workers in the losing states in order to seize the assets and booty on offer there.

Those assets included human beings. Since their capacity for war was in no way related to an inherent antagonism to their foes, when Germany was defeated the allies demanded that German troops in Russia be handed over to their use against the Bolshevik foe. There are no permanent enemies, only permanent interests, and the name given to the game depends soleIy upon the interests of the day (all these incidents are described in 1919 Red Mirage by David Mitchell).

Second world slaughter

Apologists of capitalism would claim, however, that World War I was a monstrous carnival of imperialism, madness run rampant. They would point to the Second War, and declaim loudly that it was a just war, where the actions of the Allies were intended to stop just such atrocities. Indeed, James Bacque in his book Crimes and Mercies sets out such a case, despite the fact that his book deals with precisely with the horrors meted out by the Allied occupiers of Germany. Asserting that the allied crimes were simply vengeance and hawkishness run rampant, he lauds the eventual triumph of dovism. The stories he relates, though, point to a bleak continuance of the exact same policies as after the first war.

On the Eve of the allied victory, the leaders of the victorious countries accepted a plan drawn up by American Secretary of the Treasury Henry C. Morgenthau, to de-industrialise Germany, and forever end the threat it posed, leaving it at a not-quite agricultural level of economy.

The usual historical accounts of the war tell of the atrocity that was the blockade and starvation of the Netherlands; and many accounts tell of the perfidy of the Russians in blockading Berlin, and the heroic allied airlift to save that city. What these accounts miss out is that Britain, France and America subjected their sectors of occupied Germany to just such a treatment themselves. In 1944 the average Dutch ration was 1,397 calories per day, and 1,554 in 1945. In the British zones of occupied Germany the official ration was 1550, and for six months in 1946 it fell down to as low 1,000 calories. In the French sector, conditions including a daily diet of 450 daily calories were recorded. All this, while the occupying armies and the staff lived in comfort.

On the 8 May 1945 General Eisenhower issued a proclamation forbidding civilians to feed German POWs under pain of death, and all the while, thousands of prisoners languished in Allied camps, unable to return to rebuild their communities, and dying due to maltreatment. The occupying powers again took POWs to rebuild their own economies, as virtual slave labour—in the name of reparations. Further, the occupiers removed industrial capital to use for their own economies, leaving Germany in a state that it only reached 25 percent of pre-war production.

The cumulative effect of the ongoing economic attacks on Germany, after the formal ending of the war, was that by 1950 it is estimated that some 5 million Germans died as a direct or indirect result of the conditions imposed on Germany. Where foreign policy demanded it, food could be found – Britain managed to send food to Greece where – as in Italy – the war continued as a counter-insurgency struggle against the locals. The siege was only lifted, again, when chaos and collapse threatened allied control over Europe.

To accept the official distinction between war and peace, the official distinction between “friend” and “foe”, is to buy into an ideology meant to disguise the reality of continuous warfare. Not a decade passed last century without British troops being in the battlefield. Regardless of the stated intentions, of the apparent excuse for beginning a war, the only reason ever is the pursuit of the interest of the capitalist class, which they will enforce without rule or reserve upon the working class. Hoping that war can be carried out in a gentlemanly way, that it can be carried out without inflicting suffering on the working class is pie in the sky. The destruction of resources, of wealth, that is inherent to war is diametrically opposed to the interests of the working class.

Pik Smeet

Finland, The Balts, and the Baltic (1939)

From the November 1939 issue of the Socialist Standard

Finland was for centuries a vassal to the Swedes, and the lands of the conquered were given to the powerful and faithful of the conquering baronage.

In 1809 the Russians seized Finland, and by possession of the Gulf, made safe the channels of St. Petersburg. Apart from this purpose, Russian Governments left the economic and political dominance of Finland to the Swedish barons, or came in only to buttress their oppressions.

The Swedish overlords had nothing but contempt for the conquered race. Its language was ostracised, its literature suppressed. Official positions were the perquisites of the Swedo-Finnish upper class. The holders were unimpeachable. The language, even of the courts of law, was Swedish, and into these courts the Finnish people had to take their interpreters or learn the language of the master class.

The Government was Parliamentary. Parliament consisted of four Houses. It was a delusive democracy.

1st, The House of Nobility, in which sat the Swedo-Finnish feudality—hereditary, non-elective, self-appointed.

2nd, The House of Clergy—elected by the clergy.

3rd, The House of Burghers—elected by property-holders within the cities.

4th, The House of Peasants—elected by property-holders outside the cities.

The nobility and clergy were, as usual, the two arms of tyranny. They exercised the veto against even the few upon whom the pretence of self-government had been conferred. The labouring, wage-earning mass had no vote.

In 1906 the Finnish workers revolted. The Four-house Parliament was swept out of existence, and the first reformed Parliament of Finland contained 20 Social Democrats out of a total membership of 200.

At the 1916 election the Social Democrats won a majority of seats (103 to 97), and from their membership formed the first Social Democratic Government of Finland.

In July, 1917, the Finnish Parliament carried an “Independence Bill.” The Russian Government (the Second Provisional) vetoed the Bill and dissolved the Parliament.

No sooner did the November Revolution take place in Russia than the reactionaries in Finland jumped to arms, overthrew the Finnish Government elected by the votes of the people, set up an arbitrary Government, in which there was not one Social Democrat. But, in a few weeks the Finnish militia and Labour organisations consolidated their forces, rose up, smashed the reactionaries, and restored to power the men elected in 1916.

Parliament reassembled. It declared for a Finnish Republic. Karl Manner, the Speaker of the 1916 Parliament, was made first President, and Oskar Tokoi, first Prime Minister.

Mr. Frank Anstey, M.P., member of the Australian Parliament, states in his book, “Red Europe” : “This Government the Allies refused to recognise, but they did recognise and subsidise every conspiracy for its overthrow.”

The Baltic being then controlled by Germany, and the Arctic ports icebound, the Allies could not send troops. The Swedish Government would have put in troops, but the Swedish Labour organisations threatened a general strike. The reactionary factions in Finland appealed to Germany.

In March, 1918, German warships and transports appeared off Helsingfors, and German troops were landed.

In April the Republic was overthrown and a Dictatorship set up under the protection of German bayonets.

Mr. Anstey, referring to this episode, says: 

“Thus once more was it demonstrated that the capitalist and landed classes, the master class in every form, prefer the occupation of their country by a foreign foe, to the government of their country by a working class that in any way threatens their predatory powers.”

In this same month, April, 1918, Mr. Haines, the United States Consul in Finland, made a report to the American Government. He reported that the landowners and money classes of Finland had asked the Swedish Government for assistance, but that the Swedish Labour organisations threatened a general strike if Swedish troops were sent to Finland. He stated that the help of the Allied Powers had been sought, but for various reasons was not available, and then he added:

“Therefore there was no alternative but to fall back upon Germany.”

No sooner was the German-sustained capitalist Government established in Finland than the British Government intimated its readiness to recognise it and to enter into diplomatic relations with it.

The united action of the reactionary White Guards and of the German army of occupation in Finland was secured by a united command. The supreme command was held by the German General, Von der Goltz, and command of the Finnish reactionary regiments by the Swedo-Finn, General Mannerheim.

Mannerheim used the German-trained Jaegers and men of the land-owning class, with such of their servitors as they could certify as safe. These made a force of about 50,000, and these, supported by the Germans under Von der Goltz, put the rebellious population to the sword. David Soskice told the Manchester Guardian there was “terrible slaughter,” and the London Times, referring to the ‘splendid’ work of Mannerheim, says that it broke the back of the rebellion, and that “the Germans quickly finished the job.” The Times casually mentions that, “out of about 80,000 prisoners, 30,000 are dead.” “Dead” is a sweet and luscious word for wholesale slaughter of rounded-up human sheep. Out of a population of 3,000,000, over one hundred thousand perished.

The Germans smoke-screened behind a so-called “Finnish Government,” rounded up and wiped out in cold-blooded “law and order” slaughter thousands of men, women and children. They arrested and imprisoned 80 members of the 1916 Finnish Parliament. Only one got out alive. Some were executed and others were reported “dead.”

In the latter part of 1918, when the German overlords found their populations were rising, their ships of war flying the Red Flag, and their warriors declining to fight, then they opened negotiations for an armistice. Allied commanders stipulated many things for Germany to do, but there was one thing it stipulated that Germany should not do. It was not to withdraw any more troops from the occupation of Finland or the Baltic Provinces.

From Finland the Germans had begun the withdrawal of their troops in September, and it became evident that without foreign bayonets the local reactionaries could not exist. In early October, while the war was still on, and weeks before the declaration of any Armistice, the Finnish butcher, General Mannerheim, left Finland, came to England, was the guest of the Government and, interviewed by the English Press, he spoke of the “splendid work done by the Germans.”

The working class crowds of Stockholm howled at Mannerheim, “You murderer,” and in Norway the Government so feared a popular rising that they asked him to keep out of the country, but Havelock Wilson’s Union carried this man backward and forward without protest.

It is to the credit of the Finnish working class that they have kept the spirit of class-consciousness alive.

In March, 1919, on a jerrymandered franchise, with 100,000 of their best dead, or in gaols, or off the rolls, with no free speech and with a rigid suppression of working-class newspapers, they scored 80 out of 200 seats.

They have learned much by bitter experience. If they had got a majority their representatives would have been imprisoned or shot.

The working class of Finland are still doing their best in the circumstances in which they find themselves; they still lean too much to reformism, but they have a noble record, and in the coming struggle we can depend upon them to continue to do their bit.

The chief seaports and cities of the Baltic Provinces were founded by German traders in the thirteenth century. From that date they have been the master class, controllers of land, finance and industry, the exclusive holders of local political power, and the imposers of economic slavery upon the local races.

For two centuries the German Balts were the staunch supporters of Czarist Governments. In return they were permitted to be sole rulers in the Baltic Provinces, and Czarist soldiery were always at their disposal for the subjection of the rebellious workers.

The Baltic masses, therefore, staggered under a double yoke, that of the German Balts and that of the Russian bureaucracy—the former were the economic taskmasters, the latter the military oppressors. The German Balts and Russian autocracy were akin, but since the Balts came closer to the daily life of the people, the Baltic masses had a more implacable hatred against the German Balts than even against the Russian autocracy.

The Russian revolution of 1905 showed how intense was the hatred of the Baltic peasants to their brutal Teutonic landlords, and only the influx of many Cossack regiments saved the Baltic Barons from utter extermination.

On April 12th, 1917, the first Provisional Government of Russia granted “Home Rule” to the Baltic Provinces, and as such autonomy meant government by peasants and proletarians, the Baltic baronage of landlords, trade lords and financiers saw their robber power disappearing. Thus they agitated for intervention, annexation, salvation of their perquisites and possessions from the wrath of the Baltic people, and their cry for liberation was taken up by Germany.

On January 2nd, 1918, Herr Vorst, the correspondent in Russia of the Berliner Tageblatt, put the case thus: 

“Should the Baltic Provinces remain united with Russia or obtain self-government, the social and economic predominance of the German Balts will be abolished through the uprising of the people. The German Balts look to Germany for protection against the local proletariat.”

The Brest Treaty (March, 1918) left the Baltic Provinces of Esthonia and Livonia within the Russian State, and Soviet Russia left to these Provinces self-government. At once a deputation of Baltic capitalists visited Berlin and appealed for the occupation of their country by a foreign State. The German Government complied, and thereafter German steel and German guns kept the people in subjection.

And when Germany could no longer do the work Britain took up the task, and either acted alone or in collaboration with Germany.

On Sunday, December 29th, 1918, the local Lithuanian regiments held a meeting in Riga and declared for Lenin and the Soviet Government of Russia.

On December 30th the joint action of German and British troops was agreed to by their respective Governments.

On January 1st, 1919, the Lithuanian troops were designated “mutineers,” and German and British troops marched out against them, overcame them, and compelled the survivors to carry arms against their own race and country.

On January 2nd the working population rose en masse; the German soldiery refused to fight and the British were compelled to evacuate Riga and the surrounding country.

In this situation it was determined to secure high-priced “volunteers” for the unreliable conscript armies. The “National Committee” of German Baltic Barons, the Committee that twelve months previously had petitioned Germany to annex the Baltic Provinces, were heavily financed by the Allied Powers to organise a German volunteer force, and recruiting offices were at once established in Berlin and other cities. The Manchester Guardian, January 8th, said, “The irony of the situation is that the German Baltic Barons are the most reactionary gang to be found anywhere in the world.”

In the middle of January came the Spartacist risings in Germany, as a protest, amongst other things, against the German-British intervention in the Baltic Provinces.

During January and February, 1919, British ships of war were convoying German troops from one part of the Baltic to the other. Von der Goltz was invited across from Finland. He took charge of the Baltic land operations while the British Fleet protected his rear.

What has followed is now current history.

The working men of the Baltic and Scandinavian countries are well informed, and are watching the events now transpiring with intense interest.

They, like us, are caught in the web of conflicting imperial interests; the dropping of the mask by Soviet Russia has caused a hurried regathering of forces.

The present line-up is not likely to be permanent; a regrouping of Powers may be expected before the war is over. The class-conscious know where they stand and those who are not at present in that category will by hammer-blows be driven into an understanding of their position.

Charles Lestor