Resistance and Revolution in Europe in World War II
1. Trotsky and Revolution
In May 1940, just a few months before his death, Leon Trotsky made a prediction on the period which would follow the second world war: "The capitalist world has no way out, unless a prolonged death agony is so considered. It is necessary to prepare for long years, if not decades, of wars, uprisings, brief interludes of truce, new wars, and new uprisings. A young revolutionary party must base itself on this perspective. ... The question of tempos and time intervals is of enormous importance, but it alters neither the general historical perspective nor the direction of our policy. The conclusion is a simple one: it is necessary to carry on the work of educating and organising the proletarian vanguard with tenfold energy. Precisely in this lies the task of the Fourth International (1)"
In Trotsky's view the "Tempos" would be rapid and the "Time intervals" brief. For instance he could write in 1939 - "One thing I am sure: the Political regime (in the Soviet Union) will not last the war". (2) And in his introduction to the Afrikaans edition of The Communist Manifesto, he said that ''When the centenary of the Communist Manifesto is celebrated the Fourth International will have become the decisive revolutionary force on our planet." (3)
Thus Trotsky’s prognosis on the aftermath of World War 2 was of a new period of capitalist decline, ushering in a revolutionary wave of a world scale, and a “Death agony of capitalism” of a longer or shorter duration. The emphasis on the need to build the Fourth International is evidence of the view that the war itself and the post war period would be a time during which all the objective factors for revolutionary change would be present, only the "subjective factor" - the revolutionary party capable of leading the working class to victory was absent, or, more correctly, represented only in embryonic form by the young Fourth International. The actual course of events was entirely different from this. No one would pretend that the growth of the capitalist economies during the period which has been called "the post war boom" was the result of a mere change of “tempo” or “time interval.” The situation had changed to one where the objective factors for the overthrow of capitalism no longer existed. (The temporary nature of this boom and the contradictions which have brought it to an end, have been discussed fully in other material. (4) )
For many years opponents of Marxism from the left and right used the incorrectness of this prognosis to label Trotsky as an impractical dreamer trying to pluck revolutionary movements out of thin air. But both groups of critics have been ignorant, or have feigned ignorance, of the conditional nature of a prognosis. Any prognosis can be falsified by unforeseen factors. The method of Marxism is not to gloss over ‘mistakes' but to analyse the new developments and revise the tactical and strategic conclusions in their light . If he had lived, Trotsky would certainly have done this.
The vindication of Trotsky's method of analysis - the method of Marxism, can be seen in the historical facts. The final years of World War 2 saw revolutionary developments on a scale probably surpassing those of World War 1, but factors in the way the war developed, unforeseen by Trotsky, led to an unforeseen conclusion. The revolutionary wave was either defeated, channelled into 'safe' parliamentary compromises, or was distorted into undemocratic bureaucratic replicas of Stalin's dictatorship.
2. The Second Imperialist War
For most people, World War II is encapsulated in images of Hitler goose-stepping, John Mills winning the Battle of Britain and John Wayne striding up a Normandy beach. The basic military facts are obscured. The real European wars fought between Germany and Russia with events like the Western Desert campaign and the D-Day invasion merely highly-publicised side shows. Mere casualty figures speak for themselves: Civilian and military casual ties in Britain in the War years were around 350,000 killed (about 0.7% of the population). In the USA the figure was 290,000 (about 0.2%). In Russia at least 15-20 million were killed (7-10% of the population). In Germany the figure was 4 million (6%). For revolutionaries, however, the important question is the unravelling of the driving forces behind the conflict.
On an economic plane, World War II was obviously a 'replay' of World War I. The first World War was the logical outcome of the fact that German capitalism, the most powerful and dynamic in Europe was constricted to the East by the Russian Empire, to the West by decaying French capitalism, and on a world scale by the economic mass of the British Empire. The war led to the crushing of the imperial ambitions of the German capitalist class, to the almost successful workers' revolutions of 1918 and 1923 and to the final desperate decision by sections of the German capitalists to turn to Hitler's fascist gangsters to crush the 'red menace' in Germany.
From 1931 onwards German Nazism succeeded in the task of crushing the labour movement but as far as the German capitalist economy was concerned the problem of expansion still remained; a problem which could only be solved by reversing the decision of 1918. As far as British and French capitalists were concerned, the economic nature of the problem was plain, which was why they attempted to treat Hitler as just another capitalist politician and buy him off with concessions. For the working classes, however, the nature of the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy was equally plain. For politically conscious British workers, the defeat of Mosley’s blackshirts and Franco’s Falange were one and the same struggle as the defeat of Hitler's Nazis. Everywhere fascist forces had to be opposed, whether they were the auxiliaries of big business in Britain and France, or held the reins of power as in Germany.
After the collapse of the French state in 1940, a good proportion of British businessmen and politicians were in favour of a compromise peace with Hitler. (a minority, on the German so-called 'white-list' were even preparing to keep going as a puppet government after a successful Nazi invasion). As far as many strategists of business were concerned, Germany could be left to organise Europe so long as the British Empire was left intact.
On the other hand more far-seeing businessmen and politicians represented by Churchill, scented that such a compromise would not be possible, either because in the short term a deal with Hitler would provoke an explosion of anger from below which could have quickly led to a revolutionary situation, or because in the long term decaying British capitalism could not compete with an economically united Europe under German rule.
So, although the war was presented as a crusade for democracy, the British capitalist class certainly did not see things in that light. In 1941 Churchill and the U.S. President signed the Atlantic Charter to “respect the right of all peoples to choose the form of government under which they will live, ... to see sovereign rights restored to those who have been forcibly deprived of them.” Two weeks later in the House of Commons, Churchill, had to explain "the joint declaration does not qualify in any way the various statements which have been made from time to time about the development of constitutional government in India, Burma and other parts of the British Empire” (5). In other words, those people who had had their “sovereign rights" forcibly removed by British imperialism did not qualify under the Atlantic Charter!
But for the millions who actually fought the war on four continents, the phrases about freedom were a reality, freedom not only from foreign invader but from economic bondage at home. When Ernest Bevin, Labour minister and TGWU leader went to give an official send-off to troops bound for the Far East, the press reported that one private had shouted out 'We’re not coming back to the dole queue this time are we Ernie?" From 1942 onwards, as the war turned against the Nazis, a revolutionary tidal wave began to gather strength. But that wave did not develop in the way predicted by Trotsky for two main reasons.
Firstly the strength of US capitalism meant that once it was committed against Germany there was no possibility of a compromise peace of exhaustion between the various combatants. With generally beneficial effects for U.S. capitalism, British, French and even Russian troops could be given massive material support, as could the collapsing British, French and Italian economies after 1945.
But more important to the fate of the revolutionary wave of the 1940s was the victory of the Red Army and the unexpected emergence of the Russian state as the second world superpower. Between 1937 and 1939 the totalitarian Stalinist bureaucracy had purged the army leadership and threw the Soviet military machine into a state of collapse. Nevertheless, the planning of the Russian economy meant a massive superiority in arms over Germany and an ability to weather the most terrible military and economic blows. As in 1914, the Russian Army had the tactics of a steamroller, flattening opposition by weight of numbers, but in 1914 millions of peasants had arrived in the front line without rifles or even boots. The Red Army of 1941-44, though often commanded in a clumsy, bureaucratic manner, had more and better tanks than the Germans, more and better infantry weapons, more and better aircraft.
The defeat of the German Army in 1943-44 meant that huge tracts of Europe came under the direct control of the Russian bureaucracy. But the Russian victory also refurbished the image of the Russian Communist Party, and made it able to impose its will on the Communist Parties of Western Europe even after Stalin had dissolved the Communist International as a 'goodwill gesture’ to his colleagues Churchill and Roosevelt.
In 1943-45 as in 1917-20, the old capitalist regimes in Europe fell apart as the German armies were forced back. In their place were guerrilla armies which had carried on underground the political struggles of the '30s and puppet Governments arriving on Red Army tanks in the East and in USAAF transports in the West. As in 1917-20, huge revolutionary upsurges in France, Italy, the Balkans, even in Britain, were betrayed by the leaderships of the working class parties. At the end of World War 1, this betrayal had been carried out by the Social Democrat Parties. In Britain, once again, the Labour Party leadership did the job. A massive victory in the 1945 General Election, signifying a tidal wave of support for a transformation of society was diverted into safe parliamentary channels.
The British economy had survived by instituting a kind of 'war socialism' with the state controlling production. Now, rather than taking the logical next step of keeping the plan and dispensing with the capitalists, the Government handed back control to big business. Harold Wilson in 1948 gleefully announced a 'bonfire of controls’.
In other countries, the betrayal was organised by the Communist Party under orders from Moscow. Completely disregarding all lessons from Lenin, the Communist Parties of Europe desperately searched for coalitions with bourgeois parties, sometimes having themselves to set up parties when the last bourgeois politicians had departed with the retreating German troops.
In France, for example, where huge areas were under the control of the C.P. organised partisans, the Communist Party called on partisans to lay down their arms and submit to de Gaulle's military government. In return, the CP was allowed to participate in the first government after the re-establishment of the bourgeois republic. Having done their job of disarming their followers, they were unceremoniously booted out - but not before they had concurred in the return of French troops to Vietnam to re-impose imperial rule and try to crush the Vietnamese revolution. In Eastern Europe a return to the pre-war military dictatorship was obviously impossible, and states in the image of the USSR with state-run economies under the control of communist bureaucracies were set up.
The following chapters outline in more detail the emergence on the world stage of the two superpowers USA and the USSR, and the revolutionary wave in two Southern European countries where capitalism was established and two which developed Russian-style bureaucratic regimes.
The purpose of this pamphlet is to sketch, some of the revolutionary movements that took place in Europe in 1943-46 and to outline the new circumstances created by the successes and failures of these movements in different countries.
WAR - "THE MOTHER OF REVOLUTION"
Trotsky's prediction of the outcome of World War 2 was not the result of a simplistic comparison with the Bolshevik revolution coming as a result of the first World War, but of a thorough analysis of the class forces and attitudes in both the belligerent and neutral countries. War, on its own cannot usher in the socialist revolution; rather, in Trotsky's own words, "In history, war has not infrequently been the mother of revolution precisely because it rocks superannuated regimes to their foundations, weakens the ruling class, and hastens the growth of revolutionary indignation among the oppressed classes." (6)
The capitalist class do not, of course, fight the war themselves. In every country they have to arm workers and peasants to do it for them. The outbreak of wax is usually greeted by an outburst of patriotic feeling, especially on the part of the middle classes and by the less politically conscious workers. However, ordinary workers have to face the realities of military life in the front line, where the class division between ‘leaders’ and ‘led’ is often even sharper than in civilian life. The initial feeling of patriotism and enthusiasm very soon turns to disillusion and contempt for the proclaimed war aims. Especially in a defeated army, disgust at the incompetence of the officer caste means the beginning of the breakdown of military discipline as soldiers start to think for themselves.
The military defeat of a capitalist country means the collapse of the economy and the state machine. Very often in the scramble to hold onto their loot, the propertied classes collaborate with the 'enemy'. This gives an even greater impetus to the forces, trying to overthrow capitalism. But even in the so called 'victorious' countries a revolutionary wave may still occur as troops, sick of slaughter, come back demanding the 'land fit for heroes' that victory was supposed to bring. War, the mother of revolution; how did that gestation take place in the 1940s, and why was the child aborted in western Europe and born deformed in the East?
3. The Emergence of the Superpowers
THE U.S.S.R
In 1939, Stalin signed a non-aggression pact with Hitler, to the disgust and amazement of socialists throughout the world. From the point of view of the Soviet ruling clique, the pact was a desperate necessity, designed to put as many miles of territory as possible between Hitler’s armies and the industrial centres of the Soviet Union. But the bureaucracy was not only afraid of the military might of Hitler, they also feared the possibility of Red Army generals taking a hand in ruling. Having leaned on the Army in the purges of the Party, Stalin saw dangers, especially in reports that Red Army contingents in Spain were coming into conflict with the secret police (NKVD). In any case the NKVD made quite sure that the army was beheaded. Of five ‘Marshalls of the Soviet Union’, three were shot. Out of eighty members of the Military Soviet in 1934, five were left in 1938. Thirteen out of fifteen Commanders, 110 out of 195 divisional commanders, 220 out of 406 brigade commanders were executed, and equivalent purges took place at all levels, down to the level of Company Commander. Obviously the Army was crippled, left in the hands of incompetent friends of Stalin like Voroshilov and Budenny. The Red Army, potentially the most powerful in the world, was humiliatingly defeated by the tiny Finnish army in the 'Winter War' of 1939.
The German attack of 1941 met a defence in utter shambles. Stalin had refused to mobilise for fear of ‘provoking' Hitler. In the first days of the invasion, Army units were ordered not to fire back on attackers. In the first two days 2000 Russian aircraft were destroyed, many drawn up in lines on their airfields as if for inspection. In the first three months of the German invasion nearly a third of the Red Army was destroyed. Even more ominous, German troops in the Ukraine were greeted as liberators by peasants in some areas.
However, once the USSR was attacked, the stalinist bureaucracy was in a completely different position from the ruling classes in the other invaded countries. In most occupied countries, large numbers of businessmen and politicians collaborated with the invaders in order to hang on to their privileges. The Russian bureaucracy, on the other hand, depended for its very existence on the nationalised planned economy. A German victory would have put an end to that; so the privileged bureaucrat was in the same boat as the peasant or worker fighting for their homeland. There was no choice but to strain every muscle in defence of the Soviet Union. Every portion of the economy was turned over to the war effort. Incompetent officers were summarily shot. Bewildered ex-officers found themselves whisked overnight from prison camps and put in charge of armies. In the space of a year the Red Army was transformed as a fighting machine.
GUERILLA FORCES
At one time two-thirds of important Soviet industry was over-run by the Germans. But the heroism of Soviet soldiers and ordinary citizens, together with the flexibility given by national planning, even though bureaucratically controlled, turned the tables on the German Army in 1943.
The guerilla forces in Russia were completely different from those of other countries. In France for example in the first years of the war anti German partisans were in as much danger from the fascist state-police as from the Germans. In the USSR, as the Red Army retreated they left arms caches behind and rudimentary guerilla formations, which were soon swelled by cut-off troops and workers and peasants evading forced labour.
Guerilla warfare began immediately in the huge tracts of the USSR over-run in the first months of the war. Those who had welcomed the German forces soon learned their mistake. Right-wing historians often bemoan 'if only the Germans had treated the Ukrainians, White Russians etc. humanely they would have thrown off the Russian yoke’. But that was quite impossible. The German Army, workers in uniform, no doubt behaved as well, or as badly as any other invading army. But the regimes set up behind the front lines were unspeakable. Fascism means gangsters in power. The state machinery is taken over by thugs and perverts. But the people in control in the captured territories were thugs and perverts who turned even the stomachs of Himmler and the Nazis in Germany. One quote from an eyewitness in Minsk the capital of Byelorussia can stand for a million such incidents: “The SD (assassination squads) one day took about 280 [civilian] prisoners from a jail, led them to a ditch and shot them. Since the ditch was not yet full another thirty prisoners were pulled out and also shot ... including twenty three skilled Polish workers who had been sent to relieve the shortage of specialists and had been billeted in the jail” (7)
Guerilla forces behind the German lines grew in strength. German soldiers complained that they never knew when ordinary looking peasant women and children would start firing on them. From one Russian history: “A group of children under the leadership of two twelve year old boys, carried a stick of dynamite to a bridge and placed it in position, taking advantage of a dark night and a sleeping sentry. They lit the fuse and made off into the woods. The bridge was blown to atoms". There are German records of girls and boys of 10 to 14 years old being shot for spying for the guerillas.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE USSR
That the USSR should emerge strengthened from World War II was a completely unexpected result as far as the capitalist politicians were concerned. In the USA big business had been quite prepared to see the USSR bearing the brunt of the war, with a battle to the death between Germany and Russia which would exhaust both. At any rate, they expected Germany to win so that the Allies could step in, deal with the enfeebled German Army and 'rescue’ the huge natural resources of the Soviet Union. That the USSR should emerge victorious against all the odds was a tremendous demonstration of the superiority of a planned, nationalised economy.
In 1943-5 the Red Army conquered 274,000 sq. miles of territory with a population of 24 million. The two major capitalist military powers which had threatened the borders of the USSR, Germany and Japan, were both eliminated. The possibility of an attack by the forces of U.S. imperialism and their allies on Russia (which was seriously suggested by some US politicians) was rendered impossible by the revolutionary movements in the European countries and by the mood of the soldiers and civilians of the Allied countries.
However the Bureaucratic elite in Russia had to resecure their control. The phrase 'missing in action', as well as covering the uncounted millions who died fighting also covered many others, deported or shot as the Stalin clique subdued their own armed people at the end of the War. No objective records exist, but several facts are certain. Any war leader who appeared to be getting a personal following was purged. For example, there was a wholesale purge of the party in Leningrad, imprisoning and executing many of the leaders of the people during the heroic three-hundred day siege. Many guerilla forces had acquired a degree of independence, in some cases going back to the old revolutionary practice of electing officers. This was ruthlessly stamped out. There are stories, admittedly from reactionary sources, that in the Ukraine especially guerilla armies were fighting for national independence until the late '40s. Nevertheless the victory of the Red Army greatly strengthened the hold of the bureaucracy.
THE COMINTERN
As Trotsky had pointed out in 1939, under the Stalin-Hitler pact, Stalin sold not only grain and oil but also the Communist International to Hitler. The European Communist Parties had become agents of the foreign policy of the Russian bureaucracy and this was demonstrated at the beginning of the World War.
In Norway, for example, the C.P. supported the Nazi invasion and attempted to justify it in their propaganda. The French C.P. took an almost pacifist position in 1940, and when Paris was occupied applied to the Gauleiter for the status of a legal party and a permit to publish their paper. At first, they refused to let their members take part in any resistance organisations.
After the invasion of Russia, the orders were reversed. Communist Parties entered resistance organisations. In many countries the C.P. had been illegal before the War with years of experience of underground activity. This, together with the bravery and self-sacrifice of C.P. members enabled the Communist Parties to play a leading role in underground organisations. The tremendous military role played by the Red Army and the leading role played in the resistance enabled the Communist Parties in many countries to regain to some extent the prestige of the October Revolution. The C.P.s were seen by the most advanced workers in many countries as representing an alternative to the capitalist system, and a way forward to socialism.
At the end of the War, however, it became tragically clear that the leaderships of the various national C.P.s were still controlled from Moscow.
Émigré leaders, loyal supporters of Stalin, who had spent the War years in Russia returned to head the Communist Parties of the countries of West and East Europe, and the Communist Parties were purged. We shall see the result in later chapters. The one danger as far as the Russian bureaucracy was concerned was any spontaneous movement from below for a workers revolution: The returned émigrés with, if necessary, help from the Army and secret police made absolutely certain that every movement was under their control.
THE EMERGENCE OF THE USA
From the turn of the century United States capitalism had overhauled British capitalism but America's economic strength had not needed to be backed up by a large military machine. Intervention in the first World War (for her own economic reasons) had led America into a period of withdrawal into isolation from Europe. Even so it was inevitable that the United States would enter the European war, as an Axis victory with the possibility of a United Europe taking control of the remnants of the British Empire would have been a competitor for US capitalism. US involvement in World War 2 proved almost as decisive as that of the USSR.
Even before the war US industry benefited tremendously from sales of arms and military equipment. War orders effectively halted the recession in the US economy which had started in 1938, and provided the opportunity to finally end the mass unemployment which had existed since the 1929 slump right through the New Deal era of the 30's. Far out of range of bombing raids, American industry escaped the war devastation that reduced much of Europe to ruins. By 1945 the US emerged from the war as the major capitalist power, with three quarters of the world’s invested capital and two thirds of the world's total industrial capacity.
Hand in hand with this process was the weakening of British imperialism and hence of its grip on the Empire. It was clear that British capitalism could no longer maintain her colonies, or even hold on to them as economic satellites. The main beneficiaries of this were not the colonial peoples struggling for national independence , but the United States industry which moved in on much of the old British Empire, and took over the role of world capitalist policeman.
US-SOVIET RELATIONS
Although the US capitalist class would have liked to have finished World War 2 by 'liberating' the Soviet Union, the political situation at the end of the war, both at home and abroad, made this strategy impossible. The revolutionary ferment in Europe, and the war weariness of the American people, in particular the troops, forced the allies to accept Soviet domination of Eastern Europe.
In Britain the most radical Labour Government ever had been elected largely on the votes of the armed forces. In America the workers in uniform expressed their mood by massive protests against the slowdown of demobilisation. “Bring us home" demonstrations occurred throughout the US armed forces overseas at the end of 1945 and into 1946. Protest even extended to the Marines, the elite corps of the US armed forces. Demonstrations took place in Paris; Christmas 1945 saw 4,000 troops in Manila demanding to be taken home; 3;500 troops in Guam staged a hunger strike demanding demob. Host ominous of all for the capitalist class was the fact that resentment was highest where US ships were being used to carry French troops to Indo-China, and Dutch troops to Indonesia. The discontent among American troops coincided with the peak of a massive strike wave in the United States, the largest strike wave ever in any capitalist country. It was common to see recently returned servicemen, still in uniform, marching with strikers and manning picket lines. With this mood among the armed forces there was no possibility of continuing military action against Russia.
However, open US-Soviet relations had deteriorated considerably by the closing stages of the war. It was no accident that an atomic test in New Mexico was timed for the day before the opening of the Potsdam conference. The dropping of atomic bombs on Hiroshima and Nagasaki, at a time when Japan was already in a state of collapse, was intended as a warning to the Soviet Union.
At the Yalta Conference in 1945 Roosevelt and Stalin as spokesmen of the two rising world powers got together with Churchill from the declining world power to redraw the map of Europe. The vital question was the sorting out of "spheres of interest" - which states should remain under the wing of the US and which under Russian control.
For some countries the decision was merely the rubber stamping of already established governments. In others, particularly where the old capitalist politicians had disappeared and a massive popular movement had arisen, the situation was not at all clear cut.
Stalin, concerned to retain a grip on what he had, agreed that so long as his nominees in Poland, Hungary and Rumania were recognised, US and British capitalism should retain control in Yugoslavia, Greece and Italy.
However, the people of those countries had a say in the matter. In Yugoslavia, Italy and Greece, popular armed guerilla movements were quite certain that there should be no going back to capitalism, whatever British and American generals said. Massive upheavals in all the countries of Europe were on the order of the day.
4 Italy and Greece
ITALY
Italian fascism had come to power nearly a decade before the Nazis. By the outbreak of World War 2 it had already lost its social base among the middle class. Mussolini's announcement of Italy's entering the war was received in gloomy silence by the crowds in Rome. The Italian army entered the war ill-equipped, and with no enthusiasm. Hitler had come to Mussolini’s rescue after Italy's attack on Greece, and the Italian army suffered more than the German army in the retreat from Stalingrad and in the Western desert.
By 1943, the Axis war effort was becoming desperate. Italian industry was being devastated by Allied bombing, and many Italian workers found themselves instantly out of work as their factories were destroyed. To quote a worker in the Fiat works in Turin: "Giovanni Ernesto and myself have been transferred to the assembly department, because our section was knocked flat by the British. We are lucky enough. Over three hundred are out of work, and we will have to wait until the necessary repairs have been made”. On the same day a Livorno operative wrote ''We have stopped production for days and fear it may be weeks. Twelve workers, an engineer, and two women were killed".
In an attempt to maintain production, Mussolini had imposed military discipline on the factories, forcing the workers to remain at work in spite of the bombing. In the first week of March, a protest strike began at one of the Fiat factories in Turin, demanding air raid shelters, anti-aircraft guns and extra pay to meet evacuation expenses for families. By March 10th, about 40 factories were on strike, putting forward the same demands, and also calling for extra rations, a pay rise, removal of police and troops from the factories, and the release of arrested workers. Work was resumed only after an advance on the month's pay was given to meet evacuation expenses. This strike which involved some 40,000-50,000 workers, had been the first strike to be maintained against fascist police and army repression. Although big strikes in Turin were ruthlessly repressed after this, industrial action continued throughout northern Italy in May, June and July 1943. A Turin factory worker wrote on May 14th: “Soldiers and Blackshirt militiamen are now at the entrance of our factory. It is like being in a barracks in here. Then, too we expect at any moment to see enemy planes coming to bomb us.”
Many strikers voiced political demands, including an immediate peace and an end to fascist repression. T. L. Gardini described the following incident: ‘After a big raid on Genoa in June 1943 a group of workers surrounded the Fascist authorities who were inspecting the damage done. The latter could not help noticing the hostile reception given them, and asked what was the matter. The workers replied that they did not want to go on working for a useless war but wanted peace. “We shall get peace when we win", said one of the fascists. “We want to win", answered the workers; "you Fascists will lose. Down with you all! We want a socialist Italy!" The most remarkable fact was that no-one was arrested.’
On the 2nd June the wife of a Fascist general wrote, probably from Genoa: “The dockers are openly turning ‘red'. Can you believe it? They dare to give the Communist greeting and grin at us in the open street. It is impossible to go out without feeling that we are being gazed at by people who hate us. As if my husband were responsible for the air raids! The (Fascist) Party tries to help these people but they receive its help with looks of hate and scorn. How dreadful !' My husband says that the authorities should take stern measures to stop this wave of red revolutionary spirit.”
The Italian ruling class could see that they were facing not only military defeat but a workers revolution. On July 25th 1943 the Fascist Grand Council sacked Mussolini. The removal of Mussolini from above, and his replacement by the 'liberal' fascist General Badoglio, lifted the lid off the tremendous movement that had been building up from below. Italy was in a pre-revolutionary situation. The Fascist Party was disbanded and Badoglio declared his intention to purge Italian public life of Fascism. People came out on the streets to celebrate the fall of Mussolini, and within 24 hours dozens of political pamphlets and newspapers were being openly distributed.
Three days after the removal of Mussolini, the workers of Milan formed workers and soldiers councils' - (Soviets) on the same lines as those which had come into existence in 1918. There we're massive demonstrations in defiance of the police, with demonstrators displaying red flags and hammer and sickle badges. This movement was given no direction by the Communist Party, whose leaders at this stage-were merely tail-ending the workers’ initiative, at the same time giving support to Badoglio and the King, stating in ‘Milano Libera’: “We greet all those, who , understanding the will of the nation, helped ban the tyrant from the top" If the Badoglio government appeared anxious to suppress the more obvious institutions and symbols of fascism, it soon proved even more anxious to suppress the growing political activity of the working class. By the end of July all Socialist and Communist newspapers had been declared illegal and left-wing leaflets were being seized by police.
Curfews were imposed in all major cities, and those disobeying the curfew were shot on sight.
But by the end of August open opposition to the Badoglio government had increased, particularly in the industrial centres of the north. The government was likely to be immediately overthrown unless there was an immediate armistice and freedom of organisation and propaganda for the labour movement.
On September 3rd Italy surrendered to the Allies. But, the Allies had no wish to inherit the revolutionary situation in Northern Italy. Throughout the summer of 1943 they had intensified the bombing of Italy, often singling out workers' districts for particularly heavy bombing; but the Allies' occupation of Italy was halted below Rome. This allowed the Germans time to occupy Northern Italy.
During the last year of the war, Mussolini was re-installed as the puppet of the German occupation, and, Hitler carried out his threat, to 'hand Italy over to the SS as a plaything'.
But the resistance movement grew. 70% of the, partisans joined the Communist Party which increased from 3,000 members in 1941 to 200,000 by the end of the war. Every town had its Committee for National Liberation. Even the chemistry departments of some Universities began making bombs for the resistance fighters. As the Allies finally advanced through northern Italy, some 300,000 people took part in an armed uprising, with the aim of gaining control before the Allied forces arrived and bringing about a socialist Italy.
The Italian Communist Party was instrumental in the defeat of this movement. The PCI leaders returned from Moscow and a few days later entered a coalition with the capitalist parties, including the Christian Democrats. This coalition set about the task of disarming the people, although in many areas arms were hidden rather than handing them over to the authorities. But it was this political betrayal, along with the allied military presence, pushing the partisans out of the areas which, they controlled, which saved Italian capitalism.
GREECE
Although the Italian attack on Greece had been thrown back, the German Army, once engaged, smashed the Greek Army and the weak British expeditionary force. Even before the axis occupation, the Greek Communist Party had been forced to operate as an underground party under the military dictatorship of General Metaxas. After the occupation the Communist Party began immediately to organise its open face EAM and its military wing ELAS.
As well as attacking the Germans, ELAS also, quite correctly gave attention to smashing right wing movements, such as the royalist force, which were generally more favoured by the Allies for military aid. In 1943 ELAS had received small quantities of arms from the allies, in return for specific military acts, such as blowing up particular bridges. However, much larger quantities of arms came into the hands of ELAS with the collapse of the Italian army in the summer of 1943. Some Italian soldiers even joined ELAS. In 1944 the Allies began to supply arms to other resistance groups, probably with instructions not to use them against the Germans, but to keep their forces intact for use against the Communists.
At Yalta in 1944 Stalin agreed that Greece (like Italy) was to remain in the western (capitalist) sphere of influence. On Stalin's instructions ELAS joined the provisional government set up by British Imperialism, and concurred in a government demand that ELAS fighters surrender their arms to the authorities. At this time ELAS controlled large areas of Greece and had, for example, organised their own police force in the working class districts of Athens. The British Ambassador complained that the country’s economic problems such as inflation could not be solved, because the workers organisations would not allow sackings, even though there was no work to do.
However most ELAS fighters did not surrender their arms, and the British began using the fascist security battalions to push ELAS out of the cities. Ironically the leaders of these organisations later not only led the military coup of 1967 but also included Grivas who commanded anti-British terrorists in Cyprus in the 1950's.
Under these circumstances the Communist Party leaders were forced to leave the government and to organise resistance. They called an armed revolt, and general strike in December 1944.
ELAS quickly crushed the government forces despite heavy RAF bombing raids, and the Allies were forced to divert troops from the war in Italy in order to re-capture Athens. It took a fortnight of bitter fighting for the British to achieve this although the guerillas were ill-equipped for conventional warfare against the British Army. After this defeat ELAS was disbanded, and its members were forced to return home to the revenge of their local bourgeoisie, where many of them were arrested, and tortured or killed. Wartime membership of ELAS was made a crime.
Because of the treatment meted out to them, many of the guerillas clearly felt-that they were no better off than under the Axis occupation, and that they had nothing to lose by taking up arms again. Meanwhile the rift between Stalin and the Allies was growing and it became desirable from Stalin's point of view to create a diversion in Greece while power in Eastern Europe was consolidated. In 1946 the Democratic Army (really ELAS reconstituted) was formed, operating initially from Yugoslavia, and the Civil War began.
The U.S.A., which was taking over from British imperialism in the area round the Mediterranean poured $300 million in aid, mainly military to the coffers of the Greek ruling class, supplying planes, napalm and other weapons and building airstrips. In spite of this, by early 1948, the Democratic Army seemed poised for victory, with 25,000 armed men fighting, plus reserves in Yugoslavia and Albania.
In the meantime, however, the split between Stalin and Tito was deepening, and after Yugoslavia was expelled from Cominform, the Yugoslav frontier was closed to the guerillas, and those on Yugoslav or Albanian territory were disarmed and interned. The Greek Communist Party being pro-Stalin, the Democratic Army’s brilliant military leader [Vafiadis] was purged as a ‘Titoist' and replaced by a loyal Stalinist who understood nothing about military matters.
ELAS had fought the war on a purely military basis. They did not even take the elemental step of expropriating the landlords in the areas they controlled, and when cut off from their major bases by the closure of the Yugoslav border were unable to rally the local population to their defence. Thus, the Democratic Army became doubly isolated: geographically isolated because of Tito’s border closure and isolated politically from the mass of peasants and workers who saw no tangible gains worth risking their lives for. The remnants of the guerilla force were surrounded by government troops near the border with Albania, and starved of food and ammunition, were slaughtered almost to a man. At no stage did the Democratic Army receive aid from Stalin, who had cynically issued the call for Civil War to start with.
5. CZECHS & YUGOSLAVS
CZECHOSLOVAKIA
At Munich in 1936, Czechoslovakia had been dismembered by the British and French leaders in order to appease Hitler and in an attempt to direct German expansion in an Eastwards direction. In the meantime, the Czech bourgeoisie were themselves increasingly looking towards fascism as a solution to their problems, as shown in the growth of the fascist parties in Czechoslovakia.
AI though Czechoslovakia was quite well equipped in military terms, the ruling class did not attempt to mobilise their army or airforce against the Nazi invasion, and many members of the bourgeoisie and bourgeois politicians began immediately to collaborate.
After the occupation of Sudetenland, what remained of Czechoslovakia was divided into three parts. Dr. Tiso, leader of the Slovak Populist Party was appointed minister for Administration of Slovakia, with two leading members of the Catholic and Agrarian Parties as members of his puppet government. Similar measures were taken in the Capartho-Ukraine. The Czechoslovak parliament was then summoned to elect a new President. By the votes of all Czech and Slovak deputies, except the Communists, Dr. Hatha, the Chief Justice of the Supreme Administrative Court was elected. By Act of Parliament Hatha was given authoritative powers including the right to change the constitution. He immediately dissolved the Communist Party.
Tiso, acting on Hitler’s orders, declared Slovakia independent on March 14th. Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia were occupied by Germany. Hatha signed the following declaration: "The Czechoslovak President declares that he ... places the destiny of the Czechoslovak people and country with confidence in the hands of the Fuehrer of the German Reich. The Fuehrer accepts this declaration, and expresses his determination to take the Czech people under the protection of the German Reich, and to guarantee it autonomous development of its national life in accordance with its own particular characteristics."
Resistance to the German occupation of March 1939 was left entirely to the ordinary people. The Czech State Anniversary, October 28th, saw demonstrations in Wenceslas Square and the streets of Prague. Many demonstrators were shot, and thousands arrested by the SS. On November 15th the funeral procession of a student, shot on October 28th, was fired on by the German authorities, and two days of street fighting between the SS and the people of Prague followed this. Passive resistance, including industrial sabotage grew throughout 1939 and 1940, particularly in the mining district of Kladno. In the spring of 1941, 60 workers in the munitions factory of Strakovice were arrested and later shot. The same year Slovak peasants began resisting grain requisitioning, and small groups of partisans were formed. In Bohemia and Moravia, passive resistance developed to such an extent that armaments production dropped by 40%.
On 27th September 1941 'Hangman' Heydrich was sent to Prague to try and crush the growing resistance. Hostages were shot by the hundred. Tens of thousands were thrown into prison and concentration camps. By the end of 1942, 180,000 Czech workers had been deported to Germany as forced labour. All Czech cultural activities were forbidden and by September of 1942, about 60% of elementary schools, and 70% of secondary schools had been closed.
Sabotage continued to increase in Slovakia and at the beginning of 1943, organised guerilla warfare began. Slovak army units, and some Czech units had been forced to take part in the attack on the Soviet Union, but after the Germans began to retreat, there were large scale desertions to the Red Army and the Soviet partisans. On September 30th 1943 a brigade of 2,300 Czechoslovaks went over to the Red Army at Melitopol. Similar developments took place in the Ukraine and in White Russia where Slovak units were sent to fight the Soviet partisans working to wreck German lines of communication. In the summer of 1944, the Tiso government declare martial law, and sent the Slovak army to crush the resistance. Insiead, the army joined the partisans, and, on August 24th 1944 ,the Slovak army and the partisans rose against the Tiso government, gaining within a few days control of Eastern and Central Slovakia The Germans, however, sent in strong panzer forces, and the partisans were forced to retreat into the mountains, where they continued to fight until the arrival of the Red Army. The political leadership of the resistance was taken by the workers parties, the Communists and Social Democrats , In Slovakia the Commits and Social Democratic Parties merged during this period.
The extent of guerilla warfare in the Czech part of the country is shown by the fact that about 50,000 German soldiers were killed. In the spring of 1945, the Red Army was advancing west. On May 1st many pits and factories went on strike, including a general strike at Kladno, a big mining and steel manufacturing centre. On May 3rd street fighting began in Prague, and on May 5th a popular rising took control of the city. An unarmed crowd stormed and took over the radio station. Barricades were built as defence against the German tank columns. Street fighting was still going on in the city when the Red Army arrived on May 9th.
During the occupation, the German authorities had taken control of many large enterprises, as well as the major banks, which in turn controlled large sections of industry. The factory owners and managers were in many cases collaborators. Control of the banks passed into state hands, and the workers took over factory management by setting up Works Councils i.e. factory soviets.
By the beginning of October 1945 there were already 9,000 enterprises with over 1,000,000 workers under national management . A provisional government had been formed in which the Communist and Social Democrat Parties had about 50% representation. The miners, then the Trade Union movement as a whole took up the demand for the nationalisation of industry. In the words of the ‘Economist' on 9th February 1946: "The Employees' Committees tried in the first careless rapture of revolutionary enthusiasm, to dictate how the factories should be managed".
The workers were already in control of most large-scale industry when the government declared the nationalisation of about 60% of Czechoslovak industry, including mines, banks, insurance companies; power plants etc.
The Minister for Industry stated: “... the nation demands that the situation should be clarified, and the Ministry must meet this demand. Appropriate decrees and bills are being prepared by a committee. The whole nation demands the nationalisation of these industries. The demand is also backed by the peasants who have received land and who want to see heavy industry and the national resources also in the hands of the nation".
Clearly the working class of Czechoslovakia were moving towards the setting up of a democratic workers state, with officials elected by and accountable to the workers’ own organisations. This situation was far from satisfactory to the Russian bureaucracy. They recognised that a genuine workers’ democracy threatened the whole basis of bureaucratic control. It was for fear of political revolution in Russia (i.e. the returning of control to the working class) that the bureaucracy saw to it that the nationalisation of Czech industry was not completed in 1945. At the same time as nationalisation was announced, the presidential decree on factory and works councils was issued. The first point of this decree was as follows: “The duties of factory councils are to protect the social and economic interests of employees, to control working conditions in the interests of the community and to take part in management in an advisory capacity.”
Instead of creating a workers government based on the works councils, elections were held for a bourgeois parliament, and the capitalist parties remained in the provisional government. The Russian bureaucracy used the military presence of the Red Army to carry out repressive measures, including a purge of the Communist Party, and to prop up the remnants of Czechoslovak capitalism.
As 'The Times' pointed out on 25th July: "In 1945, when Czechoslovakia was full of the liberating Red Army forces, the Czech Communists could have seized power, but they chose not to do so.”
According to the 'Economist' on the 9th February 1946: "When the country was liberated, the councils and committees were really more powerful than the central government, which had no armed forces at its disposal, and which came in from abroad at the heels of the victorious Russians. For months, therefore, much of the government’s time was taken up with bringing the councils and committees into a more normal relationship with the central authority".
This remained the situation until 1948. US imperialism was trying to save Europe from communism through the Marshall Plan. Capitalist politicians, notably Churchill began appealing to the middle class, and the remainder of the capitalist class in Czechoslovakia and other East European countries to oppose Russian domination. On 3rd March 1948 the Manchester Guardian noted: "an increase in anti-Communist literature" in Czechoslovakia and there were demonstrations in Prague opposing Russian opposition to Marshall Aid for Czechoslovakia.
In the face of this threat the Communist parties had to act and gain support of the working masses. A one hour general strike was called and some sections of workers began to be armed. The Czechoslovak parliament was closed, and the nationalisation of the economy was completed.
However, the parliament was not replaced by a democratic workers’ government. The Czechoslovak revolution was carried out bureaucratically and resulted in a mirror image of the Russian state, with control vested in the Communist Party, a faithful tool of Stalin and a military-police apparatus on the Russian model to crush any movement from below.
YUGOSLAVIA
Pre-war Yugoslavia was a backward country which capitalism had completely failed to bring into the 20th century. On the eve of World War 2, 74% of the population made their living from farming, and out of 16 million people, only 380,000 were employed in industry, 240,000 in crafts, and 55,000 in mining. Land reform in the 1920's and 1930's had freed the serfs, and created 2 million tiny holdings of under five hectares, which accounted for 68% of all homesteads. The effect of the Great Slump of 1929-30's was even more devastating for the agrarian countries than it was for the metropolitan nations. In 1929 the debts of Yugoslav peasants increased to 1 million dinars. The land did not really belong to the farmers since the debt-ridden peasant owners tilling the land were really controlled by their creditors i.e. the village usurers and the city banks.
In 1929 the unrest of the workers, peasants, and national minorities created a constitutional crisis. On January 6th 1929 King Alexander staged a coup d’état, establishing himself as dictator. Communists and Trade Unionists were imprisoned and tortured; No elections were held until 1935, the opposition was banned from holding meetings; the press was censored. In the 1938 elections the opposition obtained 45% of the vote, but only 67 out of 373 seats.
The outbreak of war found the ruling class divided among themselves, with the government supporting the German occupation of Austria, and many fascist elements in the ruling class supporting Hitler and Mussolini. On the night of 20th March 1941 a new coup d’état brought to power those sections of the ruling class more sympathetic to the Allies.
The German attack on 6th April revealed the pathetic state of the Yugoslav military and the incompetence of its leaders. The Yugoslav High Command capitulated after only 11 days. Guerilla warfare began almost immediately with the peasants of Herzegovina and Bosnia rising to defend themselves against threatened extermination at the hands of the Ustashi (Croatian Fascists) supported by the Nazis. At the beginning of June the whole of Eastern Herzegovina rebelled. This movement was drowned in blood, but acted as a spur to other areas like Montenegro; from which a number of units had come to the aid of Herzegovina.
On June 22nd 1941, the same day as the USSR was attacked, the Central Committee of the Yugoslav Communist Party met, and instructed the Party organisations to appeal to the people to heighten their resistance. The Communist Party, with 20 years experience of underground activities in Yugoslavia, and a ready-made apparatus in most areas, quickly became the leaders of the partisans. On July 4th, the Communist Party called for an uprising, and set up the General HQ of Partisan detachments, under Tito. Political commissars from the Communist Party were placed in each partisan unit.
Throughout 1941 and 1942 the guerillas were setting up local National Liberation Committees in the areas which they controlled. In November 1942, 54 representatives of these committees were sent to the first conference of AVNOJ (Anti-Fascist Committee for the National Liberation of Yugoslavia) . The AVNOJ programme was for the creation of a democratic republic with autonomous rights of the national minorities. The second conference of AVNOJ resolved in November 1943, that the king could not return "until such time as the people, by their own free will, after the liberation of the entire country, decide the question of the king and monarchy". At this meeting AVNOJ also elected a council and a National Liberation Committee that were to form the basis of a provisional government.
By early 1943, the partisans held 43,000 square kilometres of the interior of Bosnia and Montenegro, some of the Dalmatian coast and some of Slovenia. In many areas, the partisans were desperately short of weapons and had to rely on capturing arms from the Germans and Italians. They had received no aid from the allies, who were supporting the royalist resistance led by Mihailović. By 1943, it had become increasingly obvious that the Chetniks (Mihailović ’s forces) were not fighting the Germans, but had even joined in joint operations with them against Tito’s partisans.
In one battle, in the Nereteva valley, 20,000 Chetniks together with German, Italian and Ustashi forces fought against the partisans. The partisans claimed to have found documents from the royalist government in London on captured Chetnik officers, authorising this attack, and to have intercepted coded messages from Radio London to the same effect.
At his trial in 1945 Mihailović was to give evidence to the effect that three named British officers, had at different times instructed him to carry on warfare against the partisans. Although this was later denied by the British Government, Basil Davidson, a British officer, working with the partisans admitted that the truth behind such accusations lies in secret files; the least that can be said is that it would be difficult for the British services concerned to prove that they were desirous, at any rate before the middle of 1943, of ensuring partisan survival.
The collapse of the Italian army in September 1943, as a result of the revolutionary movement in Italy and the German invasion of Northern Italy was probably the most significant event in the arming of Tito's troops. Of 17 Italian divisions in Yugoslavia, seven were disarmed by the Germans, but the other ten surrendered to the partisans. This almost doubled the quantities of arms in partisan hands. Tito now had 250,000 armed men in the field. Many Italian soldiers joined Tito's partisans, and 8,000 Italians were to die fighting for the Yugoslav partisans. Later in the war, Tito returned the favour by giving military aid; arms etc. to the Italian partisans.
In the middle of 1943 the partisans had been forced to retreat, but after the collapse of the Italian army they captured one area after another. A few Russian tank divisions helped drive the Germans out of Belgrade. But part of the reason for the partisans' success is to be found in behind the scenes deals conducted by the major powers.
At a secret meeting in late 1943, Churchill and Stalin, as well as agreeing that Greece would be dominated by British forces and Bulgaria and Rumania by the Russians, had divided Yugoslavia between Allied and Soviet forces. It was not until the Tehran conference in late 1943 that the Allies came to an agreement with Stalin to give military aid to Tito's partisans. It was only after the post-war balance of forces in Yugoslavia had already been agreed without reference to the Yugoslav people that the Allies gave any significant military aid to the partisans.
From the end of 1943, however, the partisans did get considerable military assistance from the Allies including light tanks. Tito's partisans were now quite a well equipped army, and largely liberated themselves from the German occupation. After defeating one foreign occupation, the Yugoslav people were in no frame of mind to accept another, and Tito declared his intention to "throw into the sea” any Allied units that set foot in Yugoslavia.
The first legislative bodies to emerge after the victory of the partisans were descended from the National Liberation Committee and the Council elected by AVNOJ in 1941.There were about 80 non-communists among 318 members, including the leader of the Democratic Party who was Deputy Premier. In 1944 AVNOJ had passed, regulations nationalising all enemy property. In 1945 this wad extended to include the property of war profiteers, collaborators and “absent persons”. By the end of the war, about 80% of Yugoslav industry, as well as transport and banking were in state hands. On 23rd August 1945 the law on Reform and Resettlement of Land limited the maximum amount of land to remain the property of an individual farmer. Land was given out to landless families, poor families and partisan fighters, with some land going into, state ownership. The dispossessed included large estates, banks, and churches.
The Allies and Stalin had decided at the Yalta conference that representatives of the 1938 royalist government should be taken into the provisional government. Stalin's advice to Tito at this time was to accept the king back and "stab him in the back later”.
The election or November 1945 was more of a plebiscite than an election but less than 10% of the people who voted rejected the list put forward by the People’s Front (The Communist Party and its supporters). One of the first acts of the constituent assembly was to declare Yugoslavia a republic, and to ratify the nationalisations and land reform carried out by the provisional government.
Although some industrial areas had sent people to join the partisans in 1942 and 1943, Tito’s army was largely a peasant army. Yugoslavia was a backward country and land reform was an urgent question. In order to carry out the land reform, and develop the country, the nationalisation of industry and the banks was a necessity. In spite of these progressive measures, and the development of the split between Tito and Stalin, Tito consciously modelled Yugoslavia on the bureaucratic Russian state. The new constitution adopted by the Constituent Assembly in 1946 was based on the Stalinist Soviet constitution of 1936. Under the "Basic Law of State Economic Enterprises", state industry was placed under a hierarchy of ministries and directorates to whom the factory-director was responsible. The rights of Trade Unions were limited to advisory and consultative bodies, and became part of the machinery for transmitting state directives to workers. While the new government took a fairly enlightened attitude to Yugoslav national minorities, 350,000 Germans, many of them workers, were forced to leave the country.
So the Yugoslav state, although modelled on the bureaucratic pattern, came about as the result of a genuine popular movement, based on the peasant partisan army. This resulted in the much more ‘democratic’ nature of the state and the rupture with Stalin in 1948. Nevertheless, because of the subsidiary role played by the working class, 'here was no possibility of genuine workers’ democracy springing up as the immediate result of the revolutionary overturn of Yugoslav society. The history of Yugoslavia since that date, the twists and turns of state policy, the re-emergence of the national question has demonstrated that although the country has been transformed from the backward peasant economy of the '30s, there is no possibility of a smooth evolution to socialism without a political revolution, and no possibility of building a socialist state in one weak Balkan country.
EPILOGUE
COUNTER REVOLUTION AND WORLD BOOM.
From the Italian workers uprisings of 1943 to the Czechoslovak general strike of 1948, workers in one European country after another moved into action. As we have seen, in the West the workers’ movements were allowed to dissipate their strength by the combination of reformist leaderships (backed by US capital) and Communists Parties subservient to the wishes of the Moscow bureaucracy. For Stalin the aim was 'peaceful co-existence’ to consolidate and rebuild the devastated economy of Russia, or, if the workers were to move, they should be firmly under Moscow control with no possibility of acting on their own initiative.
In Britain, in France and in Italy this "counter-revolution with a democratic face” proceeded relatively peacefully. In West Germany, under the control of British, French and US forces, a capitalist state machine was re-established. Trade Unionists, picking their way back painfully from the front, or from the concentration camps, found new ‘US-style’ Unions being set up by US ‘advisors’ (many of whom turned out to have close links with the US secret forces, the OSS and CIA). Similarly, in the East, states in the image of Stalinism were set up. Rather than being the fruit of a workers revolution that had degenerated, the Stalinist states of Eastern Europe, with the partial exception of Czechoslovakia and Yugoslavia, sprang into being as fully formed bureaucratic states complete with parasitic bureaucracy, secret police, muzzled press etc. all imposed by the bayonets of the Red Army. Nevertheless, with the dispossessing of the old aristocrat and landlord class and the expropriation of the economy, a genuine social revolution was instituted.
In the capitalist west, the defeat of the workers’ movements laid the basis for a new post-war boom. All the economic pre-requisites were present, but this fact was only realised by one section of the tiny Trotskyist movement that had survived the war. In complete contradiction to the leadership of the so-called ‘IVth International’ who predicted an immediate era of slump and war, the Revolutionary Communist Party in Britain pointed out:
"The classic conditions for boom are present in Europe today - a shortage of capital goods; a shortage of agricultural produce; a shortage of consumer goods. These shortages impose new miseries for the masses and new strains on the system. These conditions engendered by wilful destruction and the normal processes of decay of capitalist slump , are here produced by the havoc and devastation of totalitarian war. This devastation did not lead to the overthrow of the system by the victory of the proletariat. In the same way as recovery follows a slump which does not lead to the overthrow of other systems, so the restoration of the productive forces will follow the present chaos, even on a capitalist basis." (8)
The counter-revolution with a democratic face laid the basis for the stabilisation of capitalism for twenty years. (even the R.C.P. only foresaw a boom of some 10-15 years). But the stabilisation of capitalism could only be maintained in the first instance by massive injections of credit from the US to get Western European capitalism moving again. This was the aim of the Marshall Plan of 1947-50. The job of ‘Marshall Aid' was: “To produce a strong production effort in each country directed particularly at the modernisation of equipment and the expansion of exports, particularly to the American continent.”
US capitalism had to play this philanthropic role, not only to forestall any possibility of a revival of the revolutionary movement in Europe; it was also necessary for the world market to begin to grow again to forestall any difficulties at home when the war industries were turned over to peaceful uses.
By the same token, the bureaucracy of the USSR had to maintain their international power. Puppet governments in Eastern Europe meant not only a safety zone against any threat from the west but also a workshop for rebuilding the devastated industries of the USSR. So a strong grip was maintained on the so-called 'Peoples Democracies’ to deal with attempts to face towards the west (as in Czechoslovakia in 1948) and with internal workers uprising (as in Germany in 1950).
The revolutionary wave subsided in Western Europe. By 1950 the newly stabilised capitalist regimes were on the verge of an unprecedented period of economic growth. Communist attempts to take power by the ballot box in Italy and by civil war in Greece had been defeated with the help of US money and arms. In Eastern Europe similarly the Russian Bureaucracy imposed its grip on the governments of its satellites with the exception of Yugoslavia.
In general, the ‘Iron Curtain' described by Churchill in 1946 was cranked down from the West as much as from the East. The Russian bureaucracy had no interest in expanding into western Europe, neither did the western capitalist governments seriously believe in the possibility of popular uprising in the east to restore capitalism.
THE END OF THE BOOM
The boom lasted nearly twenty years, a period of growth in the world capitalist economy unparallelled in history. Nevertheless, like any other boom period, it was bound to end. On the one hand, the revolutionary wave, defeated in the west, led to the freeing of the subject nations of the British, French, and Dutch empires. At first the new politically free but still economically enslaved nations of the 'third world’ gave an added boost to the boom. Later, the impossibility of any economic stability on a capitalist basis in these countries produced the opposite effect.
At the same time in the capitalist countries the economic boom led to the growth and strengthening of the working class. A new generation of workers grew up who had not suffered the defeats of the '20s and ‘30s and took as a right those things such as the right to unionisation and , the Welfare State, which had seemed dreams before World War II. The leaders of this mighty movement in all the capitalist countries were individuals to whom socialism was at best a word to be mouthed on May Day. The leaders of the Labour Party, of the SPD, even of the PCI and the French CP believed (together with some ultra-left groups such as the International Socialists) that the boom would last forever, that the problem was now one of redistribution rather than revolution. The 1970s left them demoralised, disorientated and searching for policies of any variety other than revolution. A trade Union leader of 50 has spent all his or her adult life in the years of capitalist boom, so not surprisingly, with no theoretical understanding they find themselves in uncharted waters unable to give any sort of lead, able only to hamper the movement from below of the workers.
The end of World War II saw the birth of a generation of weapons such as the long range rocket and the Atomic Bomb which could for the first time in history lead to the destruction of life on Earth. Lenin predicted after World War I that if socialism was not triumphant there would be a World War II, World War III etc. until humanity reverted to barbarism. Technological developments have shortened that series. The prospect that now faces humanity is socialism or destruction. In the coming years the leadership of the mighty workers movements of Europe will be tested and found wanting. That is why it is vital for those leaderships to be replaced by leaders who have learned the lessons of history. A new Hitler, a new Mussolini, would mean not only misery but annihilation. That is why the lessons of Marx, of Engels, of Lenin and Trotsky have to be learned and relearned for the foundation of the victorious workers party – the Internationale that unites the human race.
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| The back-page of the pamphlet - listing the references and some further reading |
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