War or Revolution

In the previous issue we pointed out that a proper understanding of the Hoover plan was only possible by recalling the events that had preceded it, both on the front of the class struggle and on the front of the inter-imperialist struggles. The first front was characterised by the extreme dispersion of workers’ agitations in response to the setbacks of the crisis that the workers suffered in all countries, a dispersion essentially due to the crisis that swept through the communist vanguard and temporarily destroyed its function as a decisive factor in the class struggles. The second front, the inter-imperialist front, characterised by the evolution of the forces of the economy towards a new grouping of states around German imperialism destined to oppose the hegemony of the other grouping coalescing around French imperialism.

The events that preceded and accompanied the conclusion of the Franco-American agreement justify what we said in the previous article.

First of all it is necessary to specify what this Hoover plan consists of. We already said that it could not be justified solely in the field of the defence of American capital invested in Germany. And these last few days have essentially proved it: the mass withdrawal of these capitals has occurred at the same time as the flight of important German capital. In six weeks an approximate figure of 20 billion French francs crossed the German borders and this occurred, for the most part, after the Franco-American agreement which sanctioned the implementation of the Hoover Plan. On another plane was to be found the explanation for this plan and that is on the inclined plane where the multiple and intricate contradictions of the situations moving within the framework of the deadly crisis of capitalism are inexorably destined to fall. At the bottom of this plane, the dilemma is that of war or revolution, and the Hoover plan is but an expedient which would like to hold back the inexorable course of these fundamental tendencies, and which at best will only succeed in delaying – never in avoiding – the explosions of the conflicting forces.

It is pointless to linger on partial analyses detached from this or that conjuncture. It is certain that these analyses are indispensable for solving the tactical problems of proletarian action; but as far as the whole situation in which we still live and in which the very forces of capitalism clash in an infernal catapult is concerned, only a general vision can allow a just orientation. Despite the hosannas of prosperity and rationalisation, the time had come, the period had opened in which the equilibrium on which the transitional situation of post-war imperialism had been modelled in every country – and on a global scale – was crumbling. Crises everywhere: in Germany scourged by the burdens of reparations and war debts, as in America where the uninterrupted flow of these tributes had not only failed to preserve that economy, but had made that very imperialism, in 1929-30, the first to be hit by the crisis. Well, in the presence of an economic catastrophe of unprecedented proportions, due to its internal crisis, the communist vanguard did not even know how to outline, in the face of the development of workers’ agitation, the course of their coordination oriented towards the development of the communist revolution.

Lacking this orientation, the forces of the economy and the internal process of the crisis itself could only provisionally orient themselves towards the other solution of the exacerbation of inter-imperialist conflicts.

The Europe that has been living under the Versailles regime for two years now sees these foundations wobbling. The defeated of Versailles have openly posed the problem of the new map of Europe where the conjunction of the German industrial and Danube agrarian basins are the spectre that breaks the ranks of the ’pacifist’ rosary of French imperialism, which sees the defence of its hegemony as increasingly difficult. This imperialism has had to limit itself to saving the shape of its supremacy in the duel with American imperialism.

The French claim to leave the Young plan intact by mobilising unconditional payments no longer through the channel of the German state, but under its direct control and in the form of French investments in Germany, this claim had to be withdrawn.

The other claim to spare the Balkan and Danube states, which are the specific field of operation of French imperialism, from the consequences of the Hoover moratorium, also had to be withdrawn. Moreover, as far as payments in kind themselves are concerned, Hoover succeeded in imposing on French imperialism that a solution must be found not on the general but only on the circumstantial issues, while the general principle of suspension remains in place. Finally, the last problem of the guarantee fund needs a brief illustration. The operation of the Young plan (in other words, of that plan established in The Hague in 1929 that was supposed to ’liquidate’ the war once and for all, and which today is already in tatters) imposed on France, which obtained five-sixths of the unconditional payments (i.e. not subject to moratorium), the obligation to set up a guarantee fund that would come into operation when Germany availed itself of the right to suspend the conditional payments, in their entirety intended to reimburse America by all the European powers.

Now France wanted to safeguard itself against a possible German moratorium request for next year and thus wanted to exempt itself from the obligation to build up the reserve fund, especially since it had traded – with the Young loan – the same future additional German payments on the unconditional part.

Labour’s Snowden, undoubtedly in the name of ’socialism’, made a point of refusing the intervention of British capitalism in this guarantee fund for the coming year as well. On the other hand, on this ground too, Hoover had the upper hand, and French capitalism had to commit itself to replenishing this guarantee fund to the extent that the German moratorium will take place.

In the dispute between the two imperialisms, the French and the American, it was the latter that finally had the upper hand. And when the so-called agreement was established, the evolution of economic forces within the framework of the maintenance of the capitalist regime was accompanied by the presence of the most favourable conditions for German imperialism, which will serve as a pawn in the manoeuvre of American imperialism against French imperialism.

A different position of forces among imperialisms would certainly have brought to its logical consequences the battle begun with Hoover’s ’generosity’ on the one hand, and Briand’s ’defence of peace’ on the other. If German imperialism were in a position to face war today, we would have gone straight back to 1914. And indeed identical processes had taken place. The ’Union sacrée’ had been re-established everywhere, with the inevitable social-democratic contribution, and it is characteristic that in France, for example, the first word of alarm against the Hoover plan came from the socialist party. Nor was missing the ambassador from German social democracy in Paris. In 1914 it was Müller, in these days Breitscheid, the man from the German union sacrée who met in the French parliament with the man from the French union sacrée, Leon Blum.

But German imperialism is not yet in a strong enough condition to be able to face war, and this fact alone has prevented the contradictions from falling into their natural solution which is war when the other proletarian response, namely the direct struggle for communist revolution, is lacking.

The background of the situation is the presence of an economic crisis of gigantic proportions, with deficits in all the state budgets of the world, with twenty million unemployed, with populations of hundreds of millions starving in the colonies, with the extreme tension of the relations between the imperialisms in struggle, while the de facto conditions for both the revolution (crisis of the communist vanguard) are lacking, and for the war (incomplete preparation of German imperialism), the background of this situation reduces all the showy and impressive plans to expedients, shatters them and puts into increasing evidence the causes of this situation that do not reside in this or that circumstance but invest the whole epoch of the deadly crisis of capitalism.

Social democracy had said of the Hoover Plan that it was ’a breath of peace’, in anticipation of the Disarmament Conference. A breath of peace that immediately agonised in the face of the collapse of the financial apparatus of the very German economy that was supposed to draw sustenance from Hoover’s breath. One of Germany’s four financial trusts collapsed and Luther sought the 25 billion franc bailout to halt the Mark’s flight. American imperialism, which had already given 100 million dollars swallowed up dizzily in the maelstrom of an economy wracked by disruption in the most sensitive apparatus of its functioning, namely banking and finance – due to the lack of de facto conditions of a war – refuses to throw itself headlong into the battle and refuses Germany unlimited credits. And this situation is seized upon by French imperialism, which set as conditions for its intervention the renunciation of the Anschlüss and the construction of the new battleships, returning all problems to the dispute that had preceded Hoover’s gesture and had been interrupted at the French disadvantage with the Franco-American agreement.

In the presence of this situation, nationalist excitement in Germany grows while in vain the irruption of movements of the disbanded proletariat is sought, which is called upon to bear all the costs of the situation that is being perverted.

What is the solution, the immediate way out of the situation? There are only expedients for capitalism. And it is highly probable that every expedient will have the fate of Hoover’s recent one, i.e. it will be reversed a few days after its implementation. The only ultimate solution can be found in the communist revolution. Stalin, in the presence of this situation, has given the word that can most seriously compromise the interests of the Russian and international proletariat. It is by no means without significance that this occurs precisely when the need for the communist orientation of the proletariat is most vivid, most burning. The forces reveal themselves once again at decisive moments.

Faced with the communist organisation turned to ruin by opportunism there remains the problem of the only exit consisting of the victory of the left fractions, which alone can coincide with the victory of the proletariat.