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From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 34, 8 July 1933, p. 3.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
As a result of the World War, Germany was reduced to hardly more than the status of a colony, becoming economically controlled and exploited by other countries. Approximately 1,300,000 square miles of colonial territory, with a population of more than 12 million persons, was lost as a result of the Treaty of Versailles. In connection with the production of iron, steel and coal, according to the World Almanac for 1933, the Lorraine fields were permanently taken over by France together with the Saar Basin for a period of fifteen years; Aix-la-Chapelle was occupied by Belgium, and in May 1922, 75.4 per cent of the output of Upper Silesia was lost to Poland.
Following their victory, the Allies demanded huge reparations. Later, when it became apparent that the sums demanded could be secured only at the price of sharpened competition by Germany upon the world market a compromise was effected. A large part of the reparations was renounced in favor of a process that would hold Germany down as an industrial rival.
A mortgage was placed upon its railways and industries in order to increase production costs and thereby lessen Germany’s chances as a competitor for world trade. Control of the bank of issue brought about a limitation of credits and high interest rates to further hamper the development of German industry. At the same time the investment of huge sums in German securities brought the more important branches of industry under the direct control of foreign imperialists.
However, while the demands upon Germany have been reduced from time to time as the result of political and economic developments, particularly in the last two years, it is interesting to note that the amount of foreign-owned German bonds was estimated by the Second Committee of Experts at Basle in December 1931, at approximately 400 million Marks; foreign-owned shares and interests in German industries at between 2,500 million and 3,500 million Marks, and the amount of foreign-owned real property at approximately 2,000 million Marks.
The total amount of German foreign indebtedness on February 29, 1932, was estimated by the Statistical Bureau at from 25,600 million Marks (par value, .2382 cents) involving an interest service of approximately 1,225 million Marks per annum. Of this amount approximately 8,392 million Marks are owed to the United States alone, Germany’s leading creditor, of which 3,227 million are in short term and 5,165 million in long term credits.
Such figures are interesting for two reasons. On one hand they shed light on the respite granted Germany by the Hoover moratorium and the reparations “settlement.” The United States, in its role of the leading imperialist power of the world, granted Germany a breathing spell in order to prevent civil war and, if failing in that, to assist Hitler in his fight against the working class of Germany, thereby aiding in not only averting a political crisis for Central Europe but also in protecting American economic interests and markets from the consequences of social revolution.
On the other hand, the figures mentioned above indicate that Hitler is compelled to steer his course according to the desires of Germany’s foreign masters.
While thundering against the Treaty of Versailles and the dismemberment of Germany for the creation of the Polish Corridor, Hitler can make no serious move in that direction. Bankrupt Germany dare not to risk a war with military superior France without a comparatively long period of rapid industrial revival and outside, particularly American, economic support. Hitler cannot free Germany from its “slavery of interest.”
Neither can he stand still. The pressure of German capitalism upon the German working class, intensified by Its defeat in the World War, are too great for that.
So Hitler is compelled to act. He is forced to move toward war and from the logic of the situation it is quite conceivable that Fascist Germany may become the spearhead of an ttack on the Soviet Union from the west while Japan attempts to grab Vladivostok and the Chinese Eastern Railway in the East.
It must be remembered that the workers’ state is a constant bone in the throat of the capitalists. Its existence has been permitted not because Stalinism checked the world work of the Communist International but because of a lack of favorable conditions for intervention. As comrade Trotsky wrote more than a year ago,
“To make intervention possible, a great, highly industrialized, and moreover European empire would be needed – one which would desire and be able, to take upon itself the principal weight of a holy pilgrimage against the Soviets. To be more accurate – a country would be needed which had nothing to lose. A glance at the political map of Europe will convince you that such a mission could be undertaken only by a Fascist Germany. More than that, a Fascist Germany would have no other road left to go. Having come to power at the price of innumerable victims, having revealed its bankruptcy in all domestic problems, having capitulated to France and consequently to such semi-vassal states as Poland, the Fascist regime would be inexorably compelled to seek some sort of a gambling way out of the contradictions of the international situation. A war against the Soviet Union would grow out of these circumstances with fatal necessity.”
Capitalism has developed its productive forces to a point beyond the effective consumptive capacity of the world under the profit system. As a result, in many countries, the present crisis is primarily due to a glut of commodities arising from a narrowing of markets rather than from an increase in the level of production. In Great Britain, for example, by the latter part of 1929 production in many industries had not attained pre-war level. The output of coal was approximately 28 million tons less than in 1913. The British proportion of the world’s output of pig iron was 13.2% in 1913 while in 1929 it fell to 7.8 percent; steel in 1913 was 10.2 percent and in 1929, 8.1 percent. Consumption of raw cotton had declined by 617,000 tons. Yet, during the first two years of the crisis British production had a further decline of approximately 30 percent. Although industrial activity was hardly above the years immediately prior to the war, nevertheless British capitalism was suffering from “overproduction”.
Due to this contardiction the various national units of world capitalism are compelled to expand. They must find additional foreign markets. This they can do only at expense of some other power and the Soviet Union is the one power nil capitalists wish to destroy. They see in an attack upon it not only a chance to destroy a political menace, not only a possibility to shift the much needed reparations from bankrupt Germany to the USSR, but also a chance to obtain a potential field for further expansion – a possible avenue of escape from their present position in an almost blind alley.
However, while the situation points to a probable attack on the Soviet Union by no means does it follow that the Workers’ Fatherland will be destroyed. On the contrary such an attack might apply a spark that would consume at least a large part of world capitalism in the conflagration of social revolution.
In conclusion, however, it must lie pointed out that Stalinism with its neglect of world revolution (and particularly the German situation) from fear of provoking a capitalist attack, instead of preventing such an attack, has helped to transfer it from the realm of imagination to the sphere of probability.
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