Fragments from the First Seven Months of the War

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At the present time the books in fashion in the military sphere are those which say that defense is the best offense. We see on the Western front the significant sight of all the big military powers intently defending themselves against a nonexistent enemy.

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At sea, Germany is conducting a guerrilla war of the weak against the strong. On the land in general, there is no war. It is as though the countless masses armed to the teeth were intimidated and subdued by their own technology and the fortifications they have created. It might seem at first glance the realization of the old pacifist prophecy that the development of arms has reached such limits as to make the conduct of war impossible. But this is an optimistic fiction.

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Mussolini does not have an international political strategy. He lives from day to day. Globed plans are beyond his capacity. Hence the constant zigzags in his orientation and propaganda. He tried from the very beginning to spurn Hitler’s advances, but in the end he yielded and began to follow Hitler’s lead. At the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish war Mussolini sharply underscored his independence from Germany by attacking the Soviet Union and demonstratively aiding Finland. Now (March 16) Mussolini is again turning toward the Soviet Union.

Neither has Stalin any international political strategy. First and foremost he wants to keep out of the war. This determines his maneuvers.

Both belligerent democracies [England and France] are trying to defend themselves. That is what their world policies boil down to. Everything else is vague and empty talk, which no one believes.

Only Hitler has a global political plan. This plan will lead in the end to a catastrophe, not only for the National Socialist regime, but for German capitalism as well. But on the road to catastrophe, unity of strategy gives the whole policy of Germany exceptional strength. The only government leader who knows what he wants is Hitler.

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The entire policy of Hitler is subordinated to the struggle for Lebensraum. This is dictated by the powerful development of German industry, for which the boundaries of the national state have long become unbearably restrictive. Many journalists excel at catching Hitler in contradictions, when statements in his book Mein Kampf differ from his current speeches. These contradictions are numerous and undeniable. But they are, all the same, superficial.

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It is absolutely obvious, even to Hitler himself, that he overestimated the military power of France and underestimated the strength of resistance from the Soviet Union. His analysis [in Mein Kampf] was made more than ten years ago. Now it is necessary to reexamine a whole series of quantities. France’s hegemony in Europe has been overthrown, without a war. Hitler did not expect this. The objective situation and the relationship of forces proved to be significantly more favorable for his plans than he calculated. Regarding the Soviet Union, things have shaped up differently than Hitler imagined in 1926. The revolutionary strength of Moscow has not only receded but has been totally eliminated in the recent past. Hitler, better than anyone, is able to appreciate the significance of the [Moscow] trials where the leaders of Bolshevism and the civil war, mortally hostile to him, were depicted as his paid agents. The legend that Jews rule the Soviet republic has been shattered by the growth of anti-Semitism within the ruling caste and the removal of Jewish officials from all posts of any responsibility. (In his book, Hitler called Bolshevism the progeny of Hell and defined its historical meaning as follows: “In Russian Bolshevism we must see an attempt undertaken by the Jews in the twentieth century to seize world power” [p. 751].)

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Finally, in a technical sense, the Soviet Union has had great successes. Now numerous factories are producing motor vehicles; the arming of the military has reached significant heights; aviation has advanced; and war industry has developed into a powerful force. It is possible that Hitler decided to make a turn in the direction of Moscow, i.e., radically change his strategy, abandon colonization of the East, and shift his attention to the colonies. To make a turn is not easy. Quite a long interval of silence is needed. It is precisely this interval that the Nazi government is now passing through. In all speeches and newspaper articles, there is virtually no mention of the Kremlin. Hitler made absolutely no mention of the East, or the Soviet government, in his programmatic speech on April 28 of this year [1940]. This could be interpreted as preparation for a radical change of the entire policy of Germany.

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In a speech to the Reichstag on October 6, [1939,] Hitler raved that “the assertion that Germany has plans to expand into Ukraine and Romania and so forth is a fabrication.”

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For Stalin, the alliance, or more precisely, the pact with Germany was necessary to safeguard his own position of neutrality. All that Stalin has agreed to and can offer Hitler is a free hand in foreign policy in the West and to the South, i.e., in the direction of the colonies. The Moscow protocols of September 29 [1939] are aimed at helping Hitler obtain the surrender of France and England but in no way tie Stalin’s hands with a pledge of military aid to Hitler. And this is no accident. To Hitler, this is not enough. To rush into a struggle with England and France — and the United States at the first opportunity — with Italy as his only ally would be too light-minded. In the Mediterranean Sea, Italy could in a very short time be put out of action. Germany would be left alone. Behind her would be a neutral Russia. To what degree could this neutrality be relied on? Hitler cannot pursue such a combination now, expecting to obtain more later, as events put pressure upon Moscow. This transitional state of affairs explains Moscow’s policy toward Berlin, a policy of flirting, biding time, delaying — and the policy of Berlin, which can be characterized as an interval of silence. [It is suggested] that Hitler has by no means abandoned his idea of marching eastward, and is only observing silence now so as not to drive the Soviet Union into England’s arms. This assumption would be more believable and convincing if [Hitler’s anti-British campaign] had not taken on such a rabid and provocative character. The question of colonies has been advanced to the forefront. Maritime relations have been broken off; Hitler clearly indicates that he intends to test his strength against England’s at sea; for that he needs to know his home front is secure. In criticizing Germany’s prewar foreign policy, Hitler persistently repeated that its failing had been its inability to find the necessary allies. Germany suffered a defeat because it left them to the enemy camp. It should have found a common language with Great Britain or at least buttressed itself upon Russia. It did neither, and that was its fundamental crime. It cannot be supposed that Hitler forgot all these lessons and now intends to become an ally of Stalin and challenge the whole world.

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The campaign against Great Britain is being conducted now in the German press in virtually the same tones as it always was during a war and never before a war. At the center of this campaign is what one might call a history of English colonial plundering. In Arbeitertum, the official organ of the Labor Front, we find a series of articles which depict the cruelties committed by the English during the colonization of various parts of the world. It points up the contrasts between the lavishness of official buildings and the poverty of the Hindu masses, provides photos of Hindu poverty, and so on. In a word, the lowly race of Hindus has no better friends and the Anglo-Saxon aristocrats no sterner critics than the German National Socialists. The British government has been so astounded by Germany’s propaganda against Britain and against Britain’s efforts to encircle and strangle Germany that it has fully revealed its own naivete — expecting gratitude from Hitler for services it had rendered him.

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[But at the same time another note is being sounded.] Hitler commented in his April 28 speech to the Reichstag that his struggle, his persistent desire to bring friendship and collaboration between Germany and England, were dictated by his own personal feelings… . “Throughout all my political activity, I have never ceased defending the need for close friendship and collaboration between Germany and England.”

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In Poland, Hitler simply condemns millions of people to physical annihilation in order to clear the arena for Aryan settler colonies … thus preparing and expanding his base for a strike to the East.

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In the German-Italian alliance, Italy represents the immeasurably weaker side as a result of its geographic position as well as the level of its economic development. Italy stands to suffer the hardest blows and even in the event of success, will be limited to receiving only crumbs. In Spain, the role of Italy was immeasurably more significant than the role of Germany; however, right now, in the economic benefits derived, Germany leaves Italy far behind. For this reason, Spain resists joining the Axis in every way it can, since Spain’s lot as a member would be to pull chestnuts out of the fire for its more powerful allies.

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Of course, the USSR can cope with Finland, but the blow dealt to the Kremlin’s prestige in the eyes of the world will to a certain extent be reproduced within the country.

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The fate of this same country, Finland, shows that now it is not so easy to unite Europe under the fascist fist. Moreover, on this course, Germany will meet in its first steps the uncompromising opposition of the United States. A victory for Germany and its unification of Europe means only Germany’s move toward an open struggle for domination of the world, including Latin America, with the support of Nazis inside the United States.

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In which countries can one first of all expect a revolution? Obviously in those where a weaker economic foundation is subject to destruction by war earlier than in other countries. Such was czarist Russia during the last war, and after it followed Austria-Hungary. Then came Germany’s turn: in spite of the high productivity of labor, its lack of raw materials undermined its lopsided economic foundation.

Sumner Welles is going to Europe February 17 to hold talks on a future world that will rest “on a firm and stable basis.” This is easier said than done.

Republican Senator Johnson from California even thinks there is no reason to send Sumner Welles to Europe: “We should mind our own business.” Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson does not indicate where the borderlines of “our own business” have been drawn. The borders of “our own business” include the same space that Hitler calls the Nazis’ Lebensraum. Wars occur because different nations want to draw the borders of their own vital space in a different way.

On February 16, the chairman of the Republican [National] Committee in the United States, John Hamilton, said: “Today some nine million unemployed walk our streets. Another ten million are dependent upon government for their food and shelter, chained to made work which they must either take or starve. And why? Because the great masterminds of the New Deal said that our system of free American enterprise had reached the end of the road, that the law of supply and demand had been abrogated, that our only salvation lay in aping the European systems of planned economy and abandoning the American way which had led us to the heights we attained during a 150-year journey.”

This same Hamilton said February 16: “What a pathetic spectacle it is to see those in high places preaching the necessity of saving democracy everywhere but in the United States.”

It is impossible to possess with impunity the most powerful industry, more than two-thirds of the world’s gold reserve, and ten millions of unemployed.

Americans of varying political orientations visit me in my seclusion. I follow the press in the United States closely. My general impression of the ruling class of the great North American republic is its general disorientation. One can heap as many severe condemnations on foreigners as one wants. But that is not enough. What is necessary is a program for humanity to get out of the blind alley it is now in, moreover a blind alley that ends with an abyss. A program is necessary. I hold that neither the ruling class of Europe nor that of America has such a program. In this fact alone lies the strength of the extreme wings. One may, like [Herbert] Hoover, equate Bolshevism with the plague. However, strong words alone are not enough to resolve great historical problems.

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A totalitarian regime does not at all mean that the entire people has suddenly grown foolish. It means that the best part of the people has been suppressed and intimidated but has not stopped thinking. At the opposite pole, part of the population has an interest in maintaining the totalitarian regime. Between these two extremes is the disoriented mass of the people, which awaits further developments before joining one side or the other.

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Of course, the Soviet Union in its present form is in no way an indication of the road that the peoples of the world must take in the future. However, the experience of all other countries, the experience of the most civilized countries at least, since the war and the Versailles peace also clearly shows people what road not to take.

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The present world convulsions are the tragic confirmation of Marx’s prognosis and at the same time an unmistakable sign that the denouement is drawing near. After terrible historical experiences, humanity will come out onto a new road, for which all of its previous development has laid the foundation. The seventeenth and eighteenth centuries opened the way for reason into technical areas and, in part, the governmental sphere. But the bourgeois revolution proved incapable of bringing reason into the realm of economic relations. In this area, the unlimited dominion of blind market forces has continued. In order to deliver humanity from chaos and insanity, it is necessary that the rule of reason not be restricted to science and technology but become firmly established in the realm of economic relations. Society will be constructed on a rational model, just as machines are now. State barriers will be knocked down. Natural resources will begin to be exploited in keeping with the interests of all humanity, as a socialist federation of peoples.