8. National Socialism
 Far more important are the forms of fascism presented by the most strongly developed country of capitalist Europe. After having lost the first world war and after being pressed down to entire powerlessness, Germany through fascism was enabled to prepare for a second, more formidable attempt at world power. In the post-war years of misery and humiliation the gradually assembling nationalist youth felt by instinct that its future depended on organisation of power. Among the many competing organisations the National Socialist Party crystalized as the group with the greatest growing faculty, and afterwards absorbed the others. It prevailed by having an economic program, sharply anti-capitalist -- hence denoted socialist -- fit to attract the petty bourgeoisie, the farmers and part of the workers. Directed of course against capital such as these classes know it as their suppressor, the usury capital, the real estate banks, the big warehouses, especially against Jewish capital therefore. Its anti-semitism expressed the feelings of these classes as well as of the academic circles who felt threatened by Jewish competition now that the republic had given equal civil rights. Its acute nationalism gave expression to the feelings of the entire bourgeoisie, by sharply protesting against Germany's humiliation, by denouncing Versailles, and by the call to fight for new power, for new national greatness. When then the great crisis of 1930 reduced the middle class masses to a panic fright, when these, through their millions of votes, made national socialism a powerful party, German big capital saw its chance. It gave money for an overwhelming propaganda that soon beat the wavering liberal and socialist politicians out of the field, made national socialism the strongest party and its leader chief of the government. Unlike other parties in government its first provisions were to make sure that it never should loose its government power. By excluding the Communist Party as criminals from the Reichstag and affiliating the lesser nationalist groups it secured a majority to start with. All important government and police offices were filled by party members; the communist fighting groups were suppressed, the nationalist ones were privileged. Protected by the authorities the latter, by deeds of violence, with impunity could spread so much terror that every idea of resistance was quelled in the people. The daily press first was muzzled, then gradually captured and "equalized" into organs of national socialism. Socialist and democratic spokesmen had to flee to other countries; the widely spread socialist and the not less hated pacifist literature was collected in violent searches and solemnly burned. From the first days began the persecutions of the Jews, that gradually became more cruel, and at last proclaimed as their aim the extermination of the entire Jewish race. As a heavy steel armour the dictatorship of a resolute, well-organised minority closed around German society, to enable German capital as a well-armoured giant to take up again the fight for world power. All political practice and all social ideas of national socialism have their basis in the character of its economic system. Its foundation is organisation of capitalism. Such among the first adherents who insisted upon the old anti-capitalist program were of course soon dismissed and destroyed. The new measures of state control over capital were now explained as the formerly promised subjection and destruction of capitalist power. Government decrees restricted capital in its freedom of action. Central government offices controlled the sale of products as well as the procuring of raw materials. Government gave prescripts for the spending of profits, for the amount of dividends allowed, for the reserves to be made for new investments, and for the share it required for its own purposes. That all these measures were not directed against capitalism itself, but only against the arbitrary freedom of capital dispersed over numerous small holders, is shown by the fact that herein Government was continually guided by the advice of big capitalists and bankers outside the Party, as a more resolute sequel of what had been started already in collaboration with former less daring governments. It was an organisation imposed by the condition of German capitalism, the only means to restore it to power. Under capitalism capital is master; capital is money claiming the surplus value produced by labor. Labor is the basis of society, but money, gold, is its master. Political economy deals with capital and money as the directing powers of society. So it had been in Germany, as anywhere. But German capital was defeated, exhausted, ruined. It was not lost; it had maintained itself as master of the mines, the factories, of society, of labor. But the money had gone. The war reparations pressed as a heavy debt, and prevented rapid accumulation of new capital. German labor was tributary to the victors, and through them to America. Since America had secluded itself from the imports of goods it had to be paid in gold; gold disappeared from Europe and choked America, pushing both into a world crisis. The German "revolution" of 1933 -- proudly called so by national socialism -- was the revolt of German against American capital, against the rule of gold, against the gold form of capital. It was the recognition that labor is the basis of capital, that capital is mastery over labor, and that, hence, gold is not necessary. The real conditions for capitalism, a numerous intelligent and skilled working class and a high stage of technics and science, were present. So it repudiated the tribute, rejected the claims of foreign gold, and organised capitalist production on the basis of goods and labor. Thus, for the use of internal propaganda, always again it could speak of fight against capital and capitalism; for capital was money, was gold that reigned in America, in England, in France, as it had reigned formerly in Germany. The separating cleft, in this line of thought, gaped between the gambling and exploiting usurers and money capitalists on the one side, and the hard toiling workers and employers on the other side. Under free capitalism the surplus value growing everywhere out of production piles up in the banks, looks out for new profits, and is invested by its owner or by the bank in new or in existing enterprises. Since in Germany money was scarce State government had to provide the means for founding new necessary enterprises. That could be done only by seizing the profits of all enterprises for this purpose, after allowance of a certain dividend for the shareholders. So it established itself as the central leader of economy. In the emergency of German capitalism the spending of capital could not be left to the will and whim of private capitalists, for luxury, for gambling or foreign investment. With strict economy all means must be used for reconstruction of the economic system. Every enterprise now depends on the credit assigned by the State and stands under continuous control of the State. The State for this purpose has its economic offices of experts, in which the leaders of the big enterprises and concerns by their advice are dominating. This means a complete domination of monopolist capital over the smaller capitalists in a system of planned economy. Conscious organisation has replaced the automatism of gold. Germany, though striving after autarchy, could not exist without importing raw materials from outside, paying for them, because it had no money, by exports of its own products. Hence commerce could not be left to the arbitrariness of private dealers, to the wish of the public for superfluous or foreign fancies. When all sales shall serve the necessary reconstruction Government has to supervise foreign commerce by rigid prescripts, or take it in its own hand. It controls and limits every transfer of money across the frontiers, even tourist travels; all drafts on foreign debtors must be delivered. The State itself takes up large-scale commerce, purchase as well as sale. The great difficulty of the old economic system, the transition of commodities into gold, the selling of the goods, the primary cause of so much faltering and crisis, is thereby automatically solved at the same time. The State, as universal dealer, is able in every purchase contract to stipulate that the same value of its product shall be bought, so that no money is needed. Or expressed in another way : in selling its goods it asks to be paid not in money but in kind, in other goods : German machines against Hungarian wheat or Roumanian oil. Gold is eliminated from business by direct barter of goods. But now barter on a gigantic scale, of the produce and needs of entire countries at once. Private dealers in the other countries seldom have such monopolies as are needed here; moreover such big transactions, especially of materials serviceable to war have political consequences. Hence the foreign governments have to step in. If they were not yet adapted to such economic functions they now adapt themselves; they take in hand the disposal over the products, and in their turn go to regulating commerce and industry. Thus State control in a big country leads to state control in other countries. A new system of economy, the system of direct barter of goods, is introduced into international commerce. It is especially attractive to the rising countries that are purveyors of raw materials. They now get their machines and canons, without in Paris and London contracting heavy loans that would bring them into financial dependence. Thus German economic expansion is ousting English and French capital from those countries; and it is accompanied by political expansion. With the new economic system the ruling classes there adopt the new political ideas, the fascist system of government, that increases their power at home and better fits their needs than an imitation of parliamentarism. Politically they are drawn nearer to Germany. Thus what at first, according to old economic ideas, looked a paralysing weakness, the lack of gold, was now turned into a source of new force. German capitalism saw a new road opened towards resurrection and power. This could not but have an enormous influence upon the ideas and feelings of the bourgeoisie, especially upon the capitalist and intellectual youth. It had experienced the poverty and dejection in the post-war years, the desperation and impotence under the Weimar republic; now again it saw a future full of hope. When a class, from pressure and dependence, sees looming up a future of greatness with as yet unlimited possibilities, enthusiasm and energy are awakened; it clothes the coming world with the garb of exalted ideologies inspiriting the minds. Thus national socialism speaks of its conquest of power as a grand social, political and spiritual revolution, far surpassing all previous ones, a revolution that ends capitalism, establishes socialism and community, one destined to renovate society for thousands of years. What really happened was only a structural change of capitalism, the transition from free to planned capitalism. Yet this change is important enough to be felt as the beginning of a new grand epoch. Human progress always consisted in the replacing of instinctive action, of chance and custom by deliberate planning. In technics science had already replaced tradition. Economy, however, the social entirety of production, was left to the chance of personal guessing of unknown market conditions. Hence wasted labor, destructive competition, bankruptcy, crisis and unemployment. Planned economy tries to bring order, to regulate production according to the needs of consumption. The transition of free capitalism to capitalism directed by State-dictatorship means, fundamentally, the end of the pitiless fight of all against all, in which the weak were succumbing. It means that everybody will have his place assigned, an assured existence, and that unemployment, the scourge of the working class, disappears as a stupid spilling of valuable labor power. This new condition finds its spiritual expression in the slogan of community. In the old system everybody had to fight for himself, only guided by egotism. Now that production is organised into a centrally directed unity, everybody knows that his work is part of the whole, that he is working for the national community. Where loss of old liberty might evoke resentment an intense propaganda accentuates the service of the community as the high moral principle of the new world. It is adequate to carry away especially young people into devoted adherence. Moreover the anti-capitalist fiction of the exclusion of the gold, by persistent propaganda is hammered into the minds as the new reign of labor. Community and labor find their common expression in the name socialism. This socialism is national socialism. Nationalism, the mightiest ideology of the bourgeoisie, stands over all other ideas as the master they have to serve. The community is the nation, it comprises only the fellow people, labor is service of the own people. This is the new, the better socialism, entirely opposed to the international socialism of Jewish Marxism that by its doctrine of class war tore the national unity asunder. It had made the German people powerless; national socialism makes the national community a mighty unbreakable unity. For national socialist doctrine the nations are the entities constituting mankind. The nations have to fight for their place on earth, their "living space"; history shows an almost uninterrupted series of wars in which strong peoples exterminated, drove out or subjected the weaker ones. Thus it was and thus it will be. War is the natural condition of mankind, peace is nothing but preparation of future war. So the first duty of every people is to make itself powerful against others; it has to choose between victory or downfall. Internationalism and pacifism are bloodless abstractions, yet dangerous because they are sapping the strength of the people. The first aim of national socialism was to make a powerful unity of all German-speaking people. Through adversity of historical development it had been divided into a number of separate states, only incompletely united in Bismarck's former Reich -- the Austrian part remaining an independent state -- moreover mutilated by the victors of 1918. The call for national unity met with a wide response in the feelings, even of such isolated groups as the German settlers in Transylvania or in America. In consequence of the interlacing of living sites of different races, as well as by economic connections, the principle of political unity of course encounters many difficulties. The German-speaking town of Danzig was the natural harbour for the surrounding Polish hinterland. The Czecho-slovak State as a Slavonic protrusion separated the Northern and the Austrian Germans, and included on the inner slopes of the frontier ridges ( Sudetes ) an industrious German population. Under capitalism such abnormal cases are not solved by any fair principle of equable dealing, but by power against power. So they were the direct motives that gave rise to the present world war. From the first day preparation for war was the leading thought of national socialism, the goal of all its measures. For this purpose industry was supervised and regulated by the State, for this purpose private profits and dividends were cut down, for this purpose the investment of capital and the founding of new enterprises was reserved to Government economic offices. All surplus value beyond a certain profit rate for the shareholders is taken by the State for its needs; these needs are the supreme common interest of the entire bourgeoisie. In old capitalism the State had to procure money for its needs by taxation, sometimes by the cunning method of unfair indirect taxes; or, if by direct taxes, conceded grudgingly and under suspicious control by the propertied citizens, and considered as an unrighteous incursion upon their personal expenditure. Now this is all changed. The State by its own right takes what it wants directly at the source, the chief part of the surplus value, and to the capitalist owners it leaves some remnant fixed at its own discretion. No more the State has to beg from the masters of the means of production; it is itself master now and they are the recipients. An enormous increase of financial power compared with other States; but indispensable for success in the world fight. And again national socialism in this way shows off before the people's masses as the power that curbs capital, by enforcing it to deliver the main part of its profit to the common weal, to the community. Moreover the State is direct master of production. In the old capitalism, when the State had with difficulty extorted money for war expenses from Parliament, or borrowed it under fat provisions from the bankers, it had to spend it on the monopolistic private arms industry. These concerns, internationally connected, though they paraded as national firms, Krupp in Essen, Schneider in Le Creusot, Armstrong in England, not only took their big profits, but without conscientious scruples impartially supplied enemies and allies with the most perfect and newest inventions. It looked as if war were a puerile play of politicians to fatten some few armament capitalists. To national socialism, however, war is the most serious affair, for which an unlimited part of the entire industrial apparatus can be used. Government decides what big portion of the total steel and chemical industry shall serve for armaments. It simply orders the factories to be built, it organises science and technics to invent and try new and better weapons, it combines the functions of military officer, engineer, and inventor, and makes war science ( Wehrwissenschaft ) the object of special training. Armoured cars, dive bombers, big submarines with ever more perfect installations, rapid torpedo boats, rockets, all of new construction, can be built in secret. No information reaches the enemy, no sensational daily press can publish any notice, no parliament members can ask information, no criticism has to be encountered. Thus the arms are heaped up during years of feverish war preparation till the moment of attack has arrived. In old capitalism war was a possibility, avoided as long as possible, or at least disclaimed, a war of defence mostly on the part of the old satisfied Powers. The new upgrowing powers, aggressive because they have to conquer their share in the world, have a positive aim that strains the energy much more intensely than does the negative aim of mere passive defence of existing conditions. They are "dynamic"; in military tactics this character is represented in the irresistible impulse of the well prepared mass offensive. Thus German capitalism, by installing a national socialist government completely dominating the entire economic life, provided itself with an incomparable war machine. The question may be posed, however, whether it did not shoot past the aim. In striving for power over the world, did it not lose its mastery at home ? Could the German bourgeoisie still be called the ruling class ? German state control is no state socialism. The State is not, as it is in Russia, owner of the means of production. In Russia the bureaucracy of State officials collectively owns the industrial apparatus; it is the ruling and exploiting class, appropriating the surplus value. In Germany there is a numerous bourgeoisie, directors of enterprises, free employers, officials, shareholders; they are the owners of the means of production living on surplus value. But now the two functions of the shareholder are separated; the right of disposal is detached from ownership. Under big capitalism the right of disposal is the most important function of capitalist ownership; we see it in America in the holding companies. Then the owner in his character of exploiter only retains the function of receiving part of the profits. In Germany Government took for itself the right of disposal, the right to manipulate with capital, to direct production, to increase the productivity and to distribute the profits. For the mass of the bourgeoisie there remained the detailed work of directing their enterprises and gambling with the shares. Since production and import both are determined by the State, private dividends could not be spent in another way than by buying industrial shares, i.e., by returning the profits as new capital into State-controlled industry. Thus big capital retained power. Surely its expectation when it put national socialism at the head of the State, of finding obedient servants, was disappointed; the old masters of industry and banks had to share their power with the new masters of the State, who not only partook in the directing but also in the pocketing. Big capital in Germany had not yet taken the American form of an unassailable property of some families; capable men of daring from anywhere could rise to the leadership of big concerns. Now they had to share their leading power with other men of daring risen to power by way of politics and party fight. In the economic offices the leaders of big business meet with the political leaders in the common task of regulating production. The dividing line between private Capitalists and State officials disappears in the coalescing of functions. Together they are master of the State and of the means of production. With the deep changes in economic and political conditions a new state of mind pervaded the German people. The mutual connection and dependence became stronger, gradations of value and rank were felt, the authority of leaders, the obedience of the masses imposed themselves; consciousness of subordination in large entities accompanies planned economy. And above all, in the entire middle class there is a strained nationalism, a passionate will to fight for world power. Though growing spontaneously out of the new conditions this new spirit was not left to develop freely; for in that case opposite ideas and forces would arise at the same time. It was the object of an intense one-sided propaganda. To make these feelings a spiritual force binding the entire nation into a fighting unity, they were fostered and developed by special means. Propaganda and education were made the task of a separate State department, endowed with unlimited financial means. All usable forces of publicity, of science, literature and art were set to work systematically to cram the national socialist ideas into all the heads, with exclusion of all deviating spiritual influences. This implied a complete spiritual despotism. Whereas under former systems of despotism the daily press was only muzzled or harassed by a stupid censorship, often outwitted by the wits of editors, now the entire press was annexed by the Party and provided with party members as editors. The national socialist State was not only master of the material life of man, it was also master of the spiritual life, by means of the Party. No books or writings expressing deviating opinions could be published; foreign publications were carefully controlled before being admitted. Secret printing of independent or opposite opinions was not only punished severely as capital crime, but also rendered difficult by State control of all materials. It is intellectual cowardice that shuns dispute on equal terms and dares to attack and insult the adversary only after he has been fettered and muzzled. But it was efficient; the party press was able, without compensation, day by day to force upon the readers not only its doctrine but also its biased representation or misrepresentation of facts and happenings, or to omit them entirely. Notwithstanding all preconceived distrust of one-sided information, the ever repeated, never contradicted views, so well confirmed by the facts presented, must in the long run take hold of the minds. The more so as they were presented as part and result of an attractive doctrine, the ideology of community and labor : the end of selfishness and exploitation, the new reign of devotion to the people's weal, regulated work and prosperity for all, the common exertion for the greatness and the future of the nation, with severe punishment of course for all its enemies. At the same time all verbal intercourse was strictly controlled. The party everywhere had its members and adherents, in the offices, in the shops, all inspired with the moral duty to denounce for punishment, as enemies of the community, all who expressed other opinions, ventured criticism, or spread rumours. Thus no opposition could form, except in the extreme secrecy of insignificant groups; everywhere a feeling of utter powerlessness prevailed. Thus, compared with the ancient forms of despotic rule, modern capitalism showed an enormous progress of efficiency in the technics of suppression. Whether we take the English Tory Government in the beginning of the 19th century, that had no police force, or the Prussian absolutism or Russian Czarism in later times, with their primitive barbarous cruelty, they all present the spectacle of stupid helplessness, normal for a government living far from the people. In the English courts editors and authors made a tough fight for reform and freedom of press, applauded by the people when they went to gaol. The Czarist gaolers often could not conceal their respect for the revolutionaries as representatives of superior culture. Repeatedly Prussian police, trapped by the better organisation of the socialist workers, had to suffer exhibition as simpletons before the courts. Now that was all over. The new despotism was equipped with all the engines of the modern State. All force and energy that capitalism evokes is combined with the most thorough-going tyranny that big capital needs in order to uphold its supremacy. No tribunal to do justice to the subject against the State. The judges are Party members, agents of the State, dismissed if they are soft, bound to no statute book, administering justice after decrees from above. Law suits are public only when needed for propaganda, to intimidate others; and then the papers bring only what the judge deems adequate. The police consist of strictly organised and disciplined ruffians provided with all weapons and methods to beat down the "Volksgenossen." Secret police again were all powerful, were more capable than it was in olden times. No law secured anybody from being put in gaol, for unlimited time, without trial. The concentration camp, formerly invented as a War measure against guerrillas, now was installed as a form of mass-prison with hard labor, often accompanied by systematic cruelties. No personal dignity was respected; it did not exist any more. Where petty bourgeois coarseness, turned into perverse abuse of unlimited power, was provided with all the inventiveness of modern capitalism, cruelty against the victims can reach a pitch rivalling the worst barbarousness of former centuries. Cruelty as a rule is a consequence of fear, experienced in the past or felt for the future, thus betraying what is hidden in subconsciousness. But for the moment all adversaries were made powerless, silenced and intimidated. Spiritual tyranny was supplemented by incessant propaganda, especially adapted to the younger generation. The rulers know quite well that they can win over only very few of the older generation of workers who, grown up in the nobler ideas of Social Democracy, preserved these as a precious remembrance, though bereft of practical use. Only for the younger adults who experienced Social Democracy in its decline, as ruling party, the propaganda could be effective. But it was in the upgrowing youth which it did itself educate and shape, that national socialism placed its hope as material for its new world. It cannot surprise that it here met with great success. As no party or group before it concerned itself with youth. National socialism appointed able leaders well versed in modern psychology, disposing of ample financial means, who, with entire devotion assembled and educated the youth in an all-embracing organization. All the innate feelings of comradeship, of mutual aid, of attachment, of activity, of ambition could develop in young people. They were filled with the self-confidence of being an important part of the national community with an important task of their own. Not to win a good position for oneself, the highest ideal of the youngsters in capitalist society. but to serve and forward the national community. The boys had to feel future fighters, preparing for great deeds, not by learned studies but by vigour, pluck, fighting capacity and discipline. The girls had to prepare for the future of being heroic German mothers; increase of population, as rapid as possible, was a condition for strength in the world fight. With ardour the children imbibed the new teachings that far outweighed the spiritual influence of their parents and teachers. Against these they acted as fervent champions and spokesmen of the new creed, especially educated for that task. Not simply to extend the propaganda into home and school, but still more to report to their new leaders home disputes and controversies. Hence to act as spies and denunciators of their own parents, who under the threat of severe punishment had to abstain from any attempt to educate their children in their own spirit. The children belonged to the State, not to the parents. Thus for the future war an army of millions was prepared unrivalled for enthusiasm and devotion. Such an education implies careful protection against any opposite influence that could evoke doubts, uncertainties and inner conflicts. Doubts and inner conflicts, to be sure, produce strong characters, independent thinkers; but for such national socialism had no use. What it needed, and what it tried to rear by one-sided teaching of the one sole truth, was blind faith and, based thereon, fanatical devotion, expedient for irresistible assault. The strength of national socialism lay in its organisation of the material production, of physical forces. Its weakness lay in its attempt to uniformize the mentalities, the intellectual forces, in both cases by brutal constraint. Most of its adherents and spokesmen came from the lower middle class, rough, ignorant, narrow-minded, desirous to win a higher position, full of prejudices, easily addicted to brutality. They came to power not through intellectual but through physical and organisational superiority, by daring and combativeness. They imposed their spirit of violence upon the dominated intellectuals and workers. Thus respect for brute strength, contempt for science and knowledge was bred in the upgrowing generation; for the ambitious, instead of painful patient study, an easier way to high positions led through party service that demanded no knowledge but only sturdy drilling, physical training, rough force and discipline. Big capitalism, however, cannot develop without science as the basis of technical progress, and without an intellectual class with important functions, economic and social. Furthering and encouragement of science is a life interest for capital. Its new political system brought it into contradiction not only with humanity and culture, but also with its own spiritual basis. To uphold its dominance it suffered to decay what constituted its force and justification. This will avenge itself when in the contest of capitalisms for world power the highest perfection in technics is imperative, and its neglect cannot be made good by physical constraint. The great scientific and technical capacities of the German people, of its engineers, its scientists, its workers, who brought it to the front of industrial progress, now chained to the war chariot of big capitalism and, enhancing its fighting strength, will be wasted and spoilt in this bondage. National socialism, moreover, tried to impose its very theory upon science, in giving to nationalism the theoretical expression of the racial doctrine. Always German nationalism had taken the form of worship of the ancient Teutons whose virtues as a mirror for the effeminate Romans had been exalted by Tacitus. German authors had exposed the theory of the "Nordic" race, superior to other races and destined to dominate them, and nowadays represented by the Germans and some adjacent peoples. This theory was now blended with anti-semitism. The special capacities of the Jews for commerce and money dealing, for medicine and jurisprudence had, half a century ago already, aroused strong anti-semitic feelings among the petty bourgeoisie and in academic circles. Neither among the great bourgeoisie, that by its mastery of the industrial surplus value was without fear of Jewish finance, nor among the working class had they any importance. Anti-semitism was a sentiment of the lower middle class; but most adherents of national socialism came from these very circles. Jewish immigration from the East after the first world war, introducing its primitive trade methods of barter, and the appointing of Jews in political offices in the Weimar republic intensified the hatred and made anti-semitism the main creed of the most influential new leaders. Thus racial theory became the central doctrine of national socialism. Real Germans were not all the German-speaking inhabitants of Germany, but only the "Aryans" -- the same held good for surrounding peoples as the Scandinavians and the Dutch; the English were too much corrupted already by capitalism. The non-Aryan cohabitants, the Jews, have no rights; the allowance to settle they misused by assembling capital and by robbing and insolently suppressing the Aryans. So now they were expropriated and the persecutions gradually increased to rough abuse and deliberate extermination. National socialism by means of its political power forced this racial theory upon science. It appointed the spokesmen of the doctrine as university professors, and profusely procured funds for publishing books and periodicals for its vindication. That the amount of scientific truth in it is extremely meagre could be no hindrance. Capitalism in power always elevates to official science the doctrines that serve its purposes; they dominate the universities everywhere; but criticism and opposite opinions have the possibility to express themselves, albeit not from official chairs. Under national socialism, however, all critical discussion of the official doctrine was made impossible. Still more grotesque was the extension of the racial theory to physics. In physics Einstein's theory of relativity was considered by almost the entirety of physicists as a most important progress of science, basis of numerous new developments. But Einstein was a Jew, and so anti-semitism took a stand against this theory. When national socialism came to power the Jewish professors, men of world fame often, were dismissed and expelled; the anti-semitic opponents of relativity were hailed as the genial spokesmen of "German physics," the expression of sound and simple Aryan intelligence, against "Jewish physics," consisting in crooked theories contrived by Talmudian distortion of thought. It is easily seen that that "sound Aryan intelligence" is nothing but the simple-mindedness of petty burgher thought inaccessible to the deeper abstractions of modern science. In the fight of German capitalism for world power anti-semitism was not needed, was rather a disadvantage. But it had no choice. Since the bourgeoisie had not dared to join the people's fight, 1848, to win domination, it had to surrender to the lead of other classes. First of the landed aristocracy with the Kaiser, who, by their stupid diplomacy, were responsible for the defeat in the first world war. Now of the petty burgher party and its leaders, who made this fad the basis of a policy that by evoking scorn and intense hatred all over the world, prepared for a new defeat. From the beginning national socialism gave special attention to the farmers. The platform of any petty burgher party spoke of ridding the farmers from exploitation by mortgage and banking capital. Moreover, for the impending war it was imperative that Germany should feed itself and have sufficient raw materials. So an organisation of agriculture, as essential part of the wholesale organisation of production, was necessary. It was expressed in the national socialist ideology of the farmer class, inseparably united with the soil, preservers of the racial strength of the forebears, the true "nobility of blood and soil." It had to be protected against the dissolving influences of capitalism and competition, and connected into the whole of planned production. Conforming to the reactionary forms of thought of the new system this was done by reviving mediaeval customs and forms of bondage abolished by the French revolution. Thus mortgage was forbidden; the farmer was not allowed to invest foreign capital for ameliorations. If he wanted money for his farm he could go to the State offices, and thus his dependence on the State increased. In his farming he was subjected to a number of prescripts restricting his liberty. In the first place as to the products he had to cultivate; since agriculture had to feed the entire people, a difficult problem with the dense population, and still more so in war time, an exact fixation of needs and proceeds was necessary. The sale, too, was organised. The products had to be delivered to purchase offices, at prices fixed from above, or to agents visiting the farms. Theirs was the all-important task and duty : the feeding of the national community. This truth, however, they had to swallow in the form of complete subjection to Government measures sometimes even amounting to direct seizure of the crops. Thus the farmers, formerly free in, for better or worse, fighting their way through the vicissitudes of capitalism, were turned into serfs of the State. To meet the emergencies of big capitalism, mediaeval conditions, under flattering names, were restored for the farmers. To the workers no less attention, though of a different kind was given. For the great aim of conquering world power the internationally minded working class, fighting capitalism, splitting national unity, had first to be made powerless. So the first work of the revolution of 1933 was to destroy the social democratic and the communist parties, to imprison or banish their leaders, to suppress their papers, to burn their books and to transform the trade unions into national socialist organisations. Labor was organised not by the workers and for the workers, but by capital and for capital, through its new governing agents. The "labor-front," directed by State-appointed leaders, took the place of the unions where, formally at least, the workers themselves were master. Its task was not to fight the employers for improvement of working conditions, but the promotion of production. In the productive community, the factory, the employer was the leader and must be obeyed, unconditionally. The national socialist leaders of the labor-front, often former officials of the unions, treated with the employer and brought forward complaints; but the latter decided. It was not the intention of national socialism to make the workers helpless victims of employers' arbitrariness; the latter also had to obey the higher dictators. Moreover, for its great aim, the world fight, national socialism needs the goodwill, the devoted collaboration of all, as soldiers and as workers; so besides incessant propaganda, good treatment as far as possible, was serviceable. Where heavy exertions and extreme hardships were demanded from them the reward was praise of their performance of duty. Should they be cross and unwilling, hard constraint would make it clear that they were powerless. Free choice of their master has no sense any longer, since everywhere the real master is the same; the workers are transposed from one shop to another at the command from above. Under national socialism the workers were turned into bondsmen of State and capital. How could it happen that a working class, appearing so powerful as the German one in the high tide of social democracy, almost ready to conquer the world, did fall into such utter impotence ? Even to those who recognized the decline and inner degeneration of socialism, its easy surrender in 1933, without any fight, and the complete destruction of its imposing structure came as a surprise. In a certain way, however, national socialism may be said to be the regular descendant of social democracy. National socialism could rise to such power only on the shoulders of the previous workers' movement. By closer examination of the inner connection of things we can see that not only communism, by its example of State-dictatorship, but also social democracy had prepared the way for national socialism. The slogans, the aims, the methods contrived by social democracy, for the workers, were taken over and applied by national socialism, for capital. First the idea of State socialism, consciously planned organisation of the entire production by the centralized power of the State. Of course the democratic State was meant, organ of the working people. But intentions do not count against the power of reality. A body that is master of production is master of society, master of the producers, notwithstanding all paragraphs trying to make it a subordinate organ, and needs develops into a ruling class or group. Secondly, in social democracy a leading bureaucracy already before the first world war was acquiring mastery over the workers, consciously aspiring at it and defending it as the normal social condition. Doubtless, those leaders just as well would have developed into agents of big capital; for ordinary times they would have served well, but for leaders in world war they were too soft. The "Leader-principle" was not invented by national socialism; it developed in social democracy hidden under democratic appearances. National socialism proclaimed it openly as the new basis of social relations and drew all its consequences. Moreover, much of the programme of social democracy was realized by national socialism; and that -- an irony of history -- especially such aims as had been criticized as most repulsive by the middle class of old. To bring order in the chaos of capitalist production by planned regulation always had been proclaimed an impossibility and denounced as an unbearable despotism. Now the State accomplished this organisation to a great extent, thus making the task for a workers' revolution considerably easier. How often the intention of social democracy to replace the automatism of market and shop by a consciously organised distribution has been ridiculed and abhorred : everyone equally apportioned for normalized wants, fed and clothed by the State, all alike mere specimens. National socialism went far in the realisation of this bogus. But what was meant in the socialist program as organised abundance is introduced here as organised want and hunger, as the utmost restriction of all life necessities in order that as much of productive force as possible remains for war materials. Thus the socialism the workers got was parody rather than realisation; what in social democratic ideas bore the character of richness, progress and freedom, found its caricature in dearth, reaction and suppression. The chief blame on socialism was the omnipotence of the State, compared with the personal freedom in capitalist society. This freedom, to be sure, often was no more than an ambiguous form, but it was something. National socialism took away even this semblance of liberty. A system of compulsion, harder than any slanderer ventured to impute to socialism, was imposed upon mankind by capitalism in its power and emergency. So it had to disappear; without liberty man cannot live. Liberty, truly, is only a collective name for different forms and degrees of bondage. Man by his bodily needs depends on nature; this is the basis of all dependencies. If life is not possible but by restraining of the free impulses they must be restrained. If productive labor can only be secured by submission under a commanding power, then command and submission are a necessity. Now, however, they are a necessity only for the succumbing capitalism. To uphold exploitation it imposes upon mankind a system of hard constraint, that for production itself, for the life of man, is not required. If a fascist system, instead of being shattered in world war were able to stabilize in lasting peace, a system of organised production providing as it pretended an abundance of all life necessities, even then it could not last. Then by necessity it must perish through the inner contradiction of freeing mankind from the constraint of its needs and of yet trying to keep it in social slavery. Then the fight for freedom, as the only desire left, would be taken up with irresistible force. The workers cannot foster the easy illusion that with a defeat in world war the role of national socialism will be played out. The epoch of big capitalism is rife with its principles and instigations. The old world does not come back. Governments, even those styled democratic, will be compelled to interfere with production ever more. As long as capital has power and has fear, despotic methods of government will arise as formidable enemies of the working class. Not always in the open form of violent middle class or military dictatorships; they may also take the appearance of labor governments, proceeding from labor fights, perhaps even in the disguise or under the contradictory name of council governments. So a consideration, on broad lines, of their place and role in the development of society does not seem superfluous. A comparison with the rise of another new class formerly, the middle class, may offer an analogy, uncertain though, and surely to be used with caution, and with the reserve that now the pace of social evolution is much quicker, but has to go farther and deeper, than it was in former centuries. The rise of the bourgeoisie took place in steps of gradually growing power. From the powerless burgesses of the early middle ages they lead to the merchants and guilds ruling their own towns, fighting the nobility and even vanquishing the knight armies in the open field; an essential element in the mediaeval world, yet only islands in an ocean of agrarian power. By means of the money power of the burghers the kings rise as masters above the other feudal powers, and institute centralized governments in their kingdoms. Their absolutism often is spoken of as a state of equilibrium, when the nobility was no longer, the bourgeoisie not yet strong enough for mastery; so a third power, protecting the privileges of the one and the trade of the other class, leaning upon them both, could rule both. Until, after new growth of trade and industry, the bourgeoisie is so much strengthened as to overthrow this rule and establish itself master of society. The rise of the working class in the 19th century was the rise of a powerless, exploited, miserable mass into a class with acknowledged rights and with organisations to defend them. Their unions and their political parties may be compared somehow with the guilds and the town governments of the burgesses, an essential element in the all-powerful capitalist world. Whereas, however, the burghers could build up their money power separately, leaving the nobility with its landed property alone, the workers now, to build up their economic power, have to take the means of production from the capitalists, so that immediate fight cannot be avoided. Just as then in the further rise the old institutions, the independent town governments were destroyed and the burghers subjected by the biggest of the feudals, the princes, masters of the lesser aristocracy, so now the old organisations of labor, unions and parties, are destroyed or subjected by big capitalism, thus clearing the way for more modern forms of fight. So there is a certain analogy between former absolutism and new dictatorship, a third power above the contending classes. Though we cannot yet speak of their equilibrium, we see that the new rulers appeal to labor as the basis of their system. It is conceivable that in a higher stage of the power of labor, camouflaged dictatorships may come up founded upon the support of labor, transient attempts to keep the workers in submission before their final victory. Historical analogy may also be useful to show that development does not necessarily go along exactly the same lines everywhere. Later middle class mastery in Holland and England, by a fight against absolutistic attempts, developed out of the mediaeval urban privileges, without having lived under absolutism. In the same way now it might be that, whereas in some countries fascist dictatorships arise, in other countries the conditions are lacking. Then forms and conditions of the workers' fight will also be different. It is not well imaginable that in countries where personal liberty is firmly rooted in all classes, such as England and America, complete slavery could be established, though single measures of fascist character are possible. Capitalist domination there is founded on finer, more spiritual elements of power, more efficient than rough violence. Then the power of the workers for a long time will remain poor and unconscious; practical necessities will enforce partial steps in the direction of council organisation, rather than a great revolutionary fight over fundamentals. The growth of clear consciousness of class and the organisation of production are a far more extensive and laborious task, when the mind is filled with middle class ideas and when society is full of unorganised small trade. In countries with strong fascist dictatorship, on the other hand, the heaviest part of the workers' task is the direct fight to overthrow it. There dictatorship has gone far already in clearing away small trade with its feelings of independence, as well as middle class ideas. The mind is bent already on organization of industry, the idea of community is present, though practice is a sham. The hard pressure forcing all into the same harness of servitude, regulating production, rationing consumption, uniforming life, evoke resentment and exasperation, only to be kept down by harder suppression. Because all physical power and an enormous spiritual power lie in the hands of the rulers, the fight demands from the workers the highest degree of devotion and courage, of clear insight, and unity. The same holds good if capitalism should succeed in establishing one supreme dominating power over the entire earth. The object of national socialist dictatorship, however, the conquest of world power, makes it probable that it will be destroyed in the war it unloosened. Then it will leave Europe ruined and devastated, chaotic and impoverished, the production apparatus adapted to war implements, entirely worn away, soil and man power exhausted, raw materials lacking towns and factories in ruins, the economic resources of the continent squandered and annihilated. Then, unlike in the Germany of 1918, political power will not automatically fall into the hands of the working class; the victorious powers will not allow it; all their forces now will serve to keep it down. Whilst at the same time new rulers and leaders present themselves with promises and programs of a new and better order, and the allied armies are liberating the European continent for the exploitation by American capitalism. Then, in this economic, social and spiritual chaos it will fall to the workers to find ways for organising themselves on class lines, ways for clearing up their ideas and purposes, ways for first attempts in reconstructing production. Wherever a nucleus of organisation, of fight, of production is growing, wherever wide embracing connections are tied, wherever minds are struggling for clear ideas, there foundations are laid and a start is made for the future. With partial successes won in devoted fight, through strong unity and insight progressing by gradual steps, the workers must build their new society. It is not possible as yet to foresee the coming forms of social strife and activity in the different countries. But we may say for certain that, once they understand it, the consciousness of their great task as a bright star will guide the workers through all the difficulties on their path. And that the certainty that by their work and fight they build up the power and unity of the working class, the brotherhood of mankind, will elate their hearts and brighten their minds. And that the fight will not end until working mankind has won complete freedom. |