Written: 2 June 1933.
Source: The Militant, Vol. VI No. 41, 2 September 1933, pp. 1 & 4.
Originally published: Harpers Magazine.
Transcription/HTML Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Trotsky Internet Archive.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2015. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.
Diplomatic routine has its advantages so long as events move along the old tracks. Confronted with new great events, it wanders off. A most dangerous thing is not to appraise any enemy exactly only because his system extends beyond the bounds of routine. To reduce the problem to the assertion that Hitler is a demagogue, an hysterical person and a comedian, means to close one’s eyes so as not to see the danger. It is not all hysteria that leads to the seizure of power. At any rate, there must be method in the hysteria of National Socialism. Woe to those who do not understand this in time! The leaders of the German labor organizations refused to take Hitler seriously: while they considered his program reactionary and utopian, they proved incapable of appreciating his dynamic power. The same danger may be repeated in the domain of world politics.
Up to May 17, many thought that Hitler would proceed with violence in the question of the Versailles treaty, and that he would apply to the European regime the same methods as to the Reichstag building, Marxian literature and the Jewish department stores. Nobody really knew where the lightning would come from and where it would strike. But neither could anybody predict twenty-four hours in advance the crushing of the trade unions according to all the rules of a gangster assault upon a bank.
Hitler’s speech in the Reichstag staggers one with its unexpected pacifism. By this alone it has attained its most immediate aim. It is always advantageous to take an opponent by surprise. Hitler is developing his first success. His adversaries are fairly embarrassed. Highly experienced diplomats have allowed themselves to be at least halfway assuaged by a few well-calculated pacific sentences, after having allowed themselves to be frightened by Papen’s strident phrases. John Simon has gratefully noted in the Chancellor’s speech the moderate tone of a statesman. That is also the impression of Austin Chamberlain. Contrasting Hitler to Papen’s the Morning Post has discovered in the declaration the “soft accent of the South”. The entire press has declared: The whole atmosphere has suddenly become less tense. At the same time, the hypothesis has been expounded: the shrewd diplomat Mussolini has brought Hitler to reason; the pressure from Washington has doubtlessly not been without influence. And consequently: the chances of the disarmament policy have manifestly increased. What a flagrant blunder! The psychological secret of the hubbub is simple: whoever expects to meet a madman brandishing an axe and encounters instead a man with a Browning hidden in his hip-pocket, cannot fail to experience a feeling of relief. But that does not prevent the Browning from being more dangerous than the axe.
There is no lack, on the other hand, of distrustful people who see in Hitler’s declaration only an episodic maneuver occasioned by the unfavorable echo to the speech of Papen: it is enough, at least for a few weeks, to deceive public opinion and then one will see. An all too simple explanation! The menacing harangue of Lord Hailsham provoked by the speech of Papen may, it is true, have served as the impulsion to Hitler’s intervention. But all this relates to the order and to the tone of political declarations, that is, it touches only the technical side. Behind the diplomatic fencing, however, are concealed much deeper factors and plans. It would be just as false to take Hitler’s pacifism at its word as it would be to dismiss the declaration of a “demagogue” without penetrating into its sense. The political problems consist in establishing the inner relationships between Hitler’s declaration and his real plans, that is, to try to understand by what ways Fascist Germany hopes to attain those ends which it cannot and will not name The past must already have adequately shown that if there is fantasy and delirium in the policy of National-Socialism, this does not mean that Hitler is incapable of weighing realities: his fantasy and delirium are in expedient conformity with his real political aims. That is our point of departure in the appraisal of the internal as well as the foreign policy of National-Socialism.
The guiding philosophical and historical ideas in the declaration are truly pitiful in their pretentious mediocrity. The idea proclaimed by Hitler of the necessity of re-adapting the state frontiers of Europe to the frontiers or its races, is one of those reactionary utopias with which the National-Socialist program is stuffed. Present-day Europe is decomposing economically and culturally not because its national frontiers are imperfect, but because the old continent is cut up in every direction by customs prison walls, separated by the disorder of the monetary systems, that is, systems of inflation, and crushed by the militarism which Europe requires to insure its dismemberment and its decadence. A shifting of the internal frontiers by a few dozens or hundreds of miles in one direction or another, would, without changing much of anything, involve a number of human victims exceeding the population of the disputed zone.
The assurances given by the National-Socialists that they renounce “Germanization” do not signify that they renounce conquests: one of the central and most persistent ideas in their program is the occupation of vast territories in “the East”, so that a strong German peasantry may be established there, it is not by accident that the pacifist declaration, having suddenly and unexpectedly left the ground of the “ideal” separation of the races, warns in a half-threatening tone that the source of future conflicts may arise out of the “overpopulation” of Europe, primarily of Germany: the East. And when, lamenting the injustice of the German-Polish frontier, he declared that one could without difficulty find “in the East” the solution capable of satisfying alike the “claims of Poland” and the “legitimate rights of Germany”, he simply had in mind the annexation of Soviet territories. The renunciation of Germanization signifies, in this connection, the principle of the privileged position of the Germanic “race” as the seignoral caste in the occupied territories. The Nazis are against assimilation but not against annexation. They prefer the extermination of the conquered “inferior” peoples to their Germanization. For the time being fortunately, it is only a matter of hypothetical conquests.
When Hitler asserts with indignation that the great German people has been transformed into a second class nation, and that this conflicts with the interests of international solidarity and the principle of equal rights for all peoples, this idea rings false from these lips: the whole historical philosophy of National-Socialism proceeds from the allegedly organic inequality of nations and the right of the “superior” races to trample upon and to extirpate the “inferior” races. Taken as a whole, the Hitler program for the reconstruction of Europe is a reactionary-utopian medley of racial mysticism and national cannibalism. It is not hard to submit it to an annihilating criticism. However, it is not the beginning of the realization of this program that is on the order of the day of the Fascist dictatorship, but the re-establishment of the military power of Germany, without which it is impossible to talk of any program whatsoever. It is only from this standpoint that the declaration offers any interest.
Hitler’s program is the program of German capitalism, the most dynamic and the most aggressive of all, and which is at the same time bound hand and foot by the results of the defeat. It is this combination of potential strength and actual weakness that predetermines the exceedingly explosive character of the. aims of National-Socialism as well as the extreme prudence of the most immediate steps towards the attainment of these aims. One can speak today of loosening and gradually untying the knots, but not of cutting them asunder.
Any revision of the treaties, especially of the system of armaments, would signify a change in the present relationship of forces: Germany would have to grow stronger, France weaker. Outside of this, the very question of revision has no meaning for Germany. On the other hand, it is quite clear that the rulers of France will accept no changes that would weaken its position to the benefit of Germany. That is why the Nazis regard as illusory and fantastic any policy calculated upon an improvement of the international position of Germany by way of an agreement with France. It is from this conviction which, as will be seen further on, runs through all the political activity of Hitler, that flows the inevitability of a new conflict between Germany and France. But not today, nor yet tomorrow. It is precisely this “correction” with regard to time that Hitler makes in his declaration and, in this sense, it is not a mere “deception”. When Goering set fire to the Reichstag, he risked nothing but the heads of his agents. The premeditated firing of Europe is a more ticklish enterprise. In its present state, Germany cannot make war. It is disarmed. This is no phrase, it is a fact. Bespectacled students and unemployed with a swastika band are no substitute for the Hohenzollern army To be sure, here and there Hitler can partially violate the obligations dealing with armaments. But he will not resolve upon any open measure on a large scale which would involve him in a direct and flagrant conflict with the prescription of Versailles. Only some “fortunate” circumstances, in the form of complications between the heavily armed states of Europe, could permit National-Socialism, in the very next period, to execute a panther’s leap, its “March 5th” in foreign policy. But in their absence, Hitler will be forced to confine himself to grand diplomatic combinations abroad and to petty militancy contraband at home.
Political strength does not liberate from actual weakness. If the Germany of the Hohenzollerns set itself the task of “organizing Europe” in order thereafter to undertake a new partition of the world, present-day Germany, thrown far back to the rear by the defeat, is forced to set itself once more those tasks which Bismarck’s Prussia solved long ago: the attainment of the European equilibrium as a stage in the unification of all the German territories. The practical program of Hitler is today bounded by the European horizon. The problems of continents and of oceans are beyond his field of vision and can be of practical concern to him only in so far as they are interwoven with the internal problems of Europe. Hitler speaks exclusively in defensive terms: this corresponds entirely to the stage through which renascent German militarism must pass. If the military rule – the best defensive is the offensive – is correct the diplomatic rule – the best preparation for the offensive is to take care of the defensive – is no less Correct. In this sense, Brookdorf-Rantsau, who had a taste for paradox, told me in Moscow: Si vis bellum para pacem.
Hitler is counting upon the support of Italy, and within certain limits, this is assured him – not so much because of the identity of internal regime (the purely German Third Reich is, as is known, a frankly Latin plagiarism), as because of the parallelism in – at least their negative – foreign aspirations. But with the Italian crutch alone, German imperialism will not rise to its feet. Only under the condition of support from England can Fascist Germany gain the necessary freedom of movement. Therefore: no adventures, no declarations which smack of adventure! Hitler understands: every blow against the West (a blow against Poland would rebound against the West), would promptly bring closer together England and France, and would oblige Italy to the greatest reserve. Every imprudent, premature, risky act of revenge-politics would lead automatically to the isolation of Germany and, given its military impotence, to a new humiliating capitulation. The knots of the Versailles treaty would be drawn still tighter. An agreement with England demands a self-limitation. But Paris – and Paris is just what is involved – is well worth a mass. Just as the agreement with Hindenburg, through the medium of Papen, permitted Hitler to accomplish his coup d’état in the form of an interpretation of the Weimar Constitution, so an agreement with England, through the medium of Italy, is to permit Germany “legally” to ravage and to overthrow the Versailles treaty. It is within this framework that the declaration of May 17 must be viewed. Hitler’s pacifism is not a fortuitous diplomatic improvisation, but a component part of a grand maneuver which is to change radically the relationship of forces in favor of Germany, and to lay the bases for the European and the world offensive of German imperialism.
However, this is but one part of Hitler’s program and only the negative part: to refrain from premature attempts at revenge is in essence the continuation of the Stresemann policy; it does not suffice to guarantee the active support of England. The declaration of May 17 contains a clear indication on the other, the positive, side of the Nazi program: the struggle against Bolshevism. It is not a question of the organizations of the German proletariat but of the struggle against the Soviet Union. In close connection with the program of the drive towards the East (Drang nach Osten), Hitler takes upon himself the protection of European civilization, of the Christian religion, of the British colonies and other moral and material values, against Bolshevisk barbarism. From this historic mission, precisely and primarily from this mission, he hopes to obtain for Germany the right to arm itself. Hitler is convinced that on the scales of Great Britain the danger of German Fascism to western Europe weighs less than the danger of the Bolshevik Soviets in the East. This evaluation constitutes the most important key to the whole foreign policy of Hitler.
The most important, but not the only one. The National-Socialist dictatorship will not only play upon the contradiction between the West and the East, but also upon all the antagonisms of western Europe: there is no lack of them. Placing a cross over the phantom of Austro-Hungary, Hitler pledges the special attention of Germany to the “young national states of Europe”. He seeks auxiliary levers to re-establish the European equilibrium, proposing to the small and feeble states to rally around the vanquished and not the victor. Just as in its domestic policy, National Socialism has assembled under its banner the ruined and the desperate, in order all the more surely to subject them to the interests of monopoly capital, so in his foreign policy Hitler will strive to create a united front of the vanquished and the injured in order all the more pitilessly to crush them in the future under the weight of German imperialism.
If Hitler has so eagerly accepted the English plan for armaments reduction, it is only because he counted in advance and with full certainty upon its failure. He did not need to take upon himself the odious role of the grave-digger of pacifist proposals: he prefers to .eave that function to others. For the same reason, Hitler is not niggardly with his “warm thanks” to the American President for his declaration in favor of armaments reduction. The more broadly and extensively the program of disarmament is presented before the whole world, and the more inevitably it ends in a collapse, the more incontestable will be Germany’s right to rearmament. No, Hitler is not preparing to overthrow Versailles by violence – for violence one must have power! But he is counting firmly upon the prospect that, after the failure of the British program which he “supports”, England, together with Italy, will support with all their might the right of Germany to strengthen its defense ... against the East. Nothing but defense, and only against the East!
Last updated on: 22 October 2015