Written: 2 November 1933.
Source: The Militant, Vol. VI No. 55, 16 December 1933, p. 4.
Transcription/HTML Markup: Einde O’Callaghan for the Trotsky Internet Archive.
Copyleft: Leon Trotsky Internet Archive (www.marxists.org) 2016. Permission is granted to copy and/or distribute this document under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 2.0.
The first anniversary of the Nazi dictatorship is approaching. All the tendencies of the regime have been taking on a distinct and precise character. The “socialist” revolution which appeared to the petty bourgeois masses as the necessary complement to the national revolution, has been officially liquidated and denounced. The fraternization of the classes reached its peak when the possessors waived their right to hors d’oeuvre and desserts on a day especially proclaimed by the government in favor of the dispossessed. The struggle against unemployment has culminated in dividing the existing half-starvation rations in two. There remains only the equalization of the statistics. Planned autarchy proves to be nothing more than just another stage of economic decadence.
The more impotent the police regime of the Nazis is in the sphere of economy, the more it is forced to place the weight of its effort upon the field of foreign policy. That corresponds completely to the internal dynamics of the so thoroughly aggressive German capitalism. The startling sudden turn of the Nazi leadership towards peace-loving, declarations can astonish only those who are completely limited in their outlook. What other method than this has Hitler, at his disposal to throw off the responsibility for domestic misery on the shoulders of the external enemy and to pile up the explosives of nationalism under the pressure of the dictatorship? This part of the program which was outlined even before the Nazis assumption to power is being fulfilled today with iron determination before the eyes of the whole world. The date of the new European catastrophe is determined by the time necessary for the rearmament of Germany. It is not a matter of months, but neither is it a matter of decades. A few years suffice to stagger anew into a war, if the internal forces of Germany do not themselves stop Hitler in time.
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Last updated on: 5 January 2016