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From Labor Action, Vol. IX No. 19, 7 May 1945, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The collapsed fascist regime of Germany has announced that its Fuehrer, the mass murderer, Adolph Hitler, is dead. He has been succeeded by Admiral Doenitz, commander of the U-boat fleet and of the German Navy. The report is that Hitler died in the Chancellery.
So many theories have been advanced about Nazi post-war plans, the establishment of a vast underground movement, the disguise of their leaders so that they may once again lead their movement of human scum, the secretion of millions of dollars by these leaders in various countries of the world, that doubt is cast about the truth of the Nazi announcement.
Whether the report of Hitler’s death is true or not cannot be of too much importance. Dead or alive, Hitler’s power is ended for all time. If his own party of murderers does not take his life, if the Allied powers plan any protracted trial of this butcher, he cannot escape the vengeance of the people, in the first place, the German workers. They will take his life.
The Nazi Party is finished, too. The overwhelming defeat it has suffered in the war cannot be overcome. It stands before the world and the German people as a party of defeat, as a harbinger of war, death, destruction and mass misery.
The interesting aspect of the whole war is that fascism in Germany and Italy, agents of their respective capitalist classes, the political system of the monopolists which existed for the sole purpose of destroying the labor movement and guaranteeing the profits of the same monopolists, is destroyed by rival capitalist powers. The urge for profit which drove the German, Italian and Japanese ruling classes to war against the ruling classes of the Allied powers, led to the destruction of the political system to which all capitalist classes aspire when faced with rebellious working people.
Before the war broke put, before the imperialist rivalries had reached a bursting point, the capitalist classes of the United States, Great Britain, France and the other nations looked with great admiration on the regimes of Germany, Italy and Japan. That’s the way to do things, they said. No trouble with labor. Why? You just destroy the labor movement. You establish a regime of the concentration camp, the police jail, the pistol, the whip and the hangman’s knout. That is why the capitalists the world over admired Hitler and Mussolini.
Their admiration ceased when the rulers of those countries sought to advance their economic interests against the Allies. Then it became a war to the death as to who shall survive and keep the riches of the world. In this war, one set of imperialist powers set out to destroy another. And in this war, the fascist systems of Germany and Italy were crushed.
The job of destroying fascism, however, is not ended. Fascism remains a threat to the people, the working class above all, as long as capitalism exists. The way to get rid of this threat, the way to get rid of war, the way to get peace, freedom and plenty for all, is to abolish the capitalist system and the power of the capitalist rulers. The way to get real peace, freedom and security is to establish the free society of socialism.
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Last updated on 13 June 2016