UP to this point we have simply accepted imperialism as the most significant trend in German politics. In fact, our whole analysis has centered on the problem of Germany’s expansion.
The imperial period confined its preparations for expansion to establishing an army, navy, and a reliable bureaucracy, and to merging the interests of state, industrial, and agrarian leadership. The working classes were excluded. For a time, their political and industrial organizations were suppressed, and when that experiment failed, their ideological isolation and their complete exclusion from public service kept them outside the state and the ruling groups.
The World War of 1914-18 saw the first attempt to incorporate the working classes into an imperialistic system. The Social Democrats and the trade unions actively co-operated. In doing so, they partly betrayed the principles of their party program, but some of them honestly believed that the war was defensive and that they would be able to carry out the socialist mission of overthrowing Czarist Russia, thereby setting free the forces of revolution. But despite an initial success, the attempt to incorporate the masses ultimately failed. The Independent Social Democratic party and the Spartakus Bund grew at the expense of the Social Democrats and the trade unions. The imperialist goal of German industry became so clear that the problem of the peace aims could no longer be sidestepped. At the end, the terrific impact of the Wilsonian ideology completely shattered the ideological basis upon which German imperialism rested.
The Weimar democracy—that is, the Social Democrats, Democrats, and Left-wing Catholics—attempted to build a society that was not imperialistic but was concerned with the internal reconstruction of Germany and its participation in the concert of western European powers. This attempt also failed, because the three partners could not destroy the monster that lay within the German economic system. In fact, instead of smashing the power of the industrial monopolists, they unwillingly strengthened it.
The imperialistic sections of German society found in the National Socialist party the ally needed to provide the mass basis for imperialism. This does not mean that National Socialism is merely a subservient tool of German industry, but it does mean that with regard to imperialistic expansion, industry and party have identical aims.
But how can an aggressive imperialistic policy be carried out today? Not within the framework of a political democracy. General Ludendorff and J. A. Hobson, the leading English authority on imperialism, are in complete agreement on this point. ‘Peoples do not understand aggressive wars, but they have a very good understanding of a fight for the preservation of their own lives . . . Neither a nation nor each individual within it will support the war to the utmost unless there is a sure conviction that the war is for the preservation of their lives.’1 For Hobson, the outstanding phenomenon of our period is that imperialism and democracy have become incompatible. ‘A political democracy in which the interests and will of the whole people wield the powers of the whole state, will actively oppose the whole process of imperialism. Such a democracy has now learned the lesson that substantial economic equality in income and ownership of property is essential to its operation. The defense of capitalism is, therefore, bound up in every country with the destruction or enfeeblement of the public franchise and representative government.’2 History amply proves the truth of Ludendorff’s and Hobson’s views. The First World War is an excellent illustration of this, as we have already indicated. What little democracy and few civil liberties still remained in the Germany of 1914-18 were effective agents in promoting anti-imperialist propaganda, a propaganda that was not imposed from above but sprang from the innermost feelings of the masses. In Italy, the longing for peace and the hatred of war has increased by leaps and bounds since the Abyssinian war of 1896. The history of American foreign relations also provides ample material. The first attempt to annex Hawaii (16 February 1893), undertaken by President Harrison, was a failure. Then President Grover Cleveland withdrew the annexation treaty. The second and successful attempt (16 April 1897) was carried out under great difficulties, although no sacrifice in blood or money was required. Once again, the primary justification of the acquisition was the old slogan of the white man’s burden. The acquisition of the Philippines in 1898 was similarly hazardous. Although ‘innumerable voices now called for an assumption of the armored imperial garb which European powers had just made the fashion,’3 the opposition was so strong that it nearly prevailed.
The history of English imperialism shows similar developments. It may be admitted that popular feeling for imperialist acquisition can often be aroused. Skilful propaganda, such as invasion scares of the kind current during the Boer War in England, the coalescence of what Mr. Weinberg calls humanitarianism and force,4 and concessions to the masses, such as the extension of the franchise or material benefits, can for a time succeed in securing mass support. But such a mass basis is never stable. Opposition may arise and has always arisen. Besides, the imperialistic wars of the nineteenth century did not require high sacrifices in blood and energy. The Spanish-American War is one example, and the Boer War another. No imperialistic war in the nineteenth and the beginning of the twentieth centuries required anything approaching the total mobilization of man power and productivity that have characterized the wars since 1914. None of them made it necessary to transform a nation into an armed camp; none completely changed social life; none revolutionized habits. Still, it is possible, even within a liberal democracy, so to intensify nationalism by skilful propaganda and the granting of material benefits to the lower classes that the war actually appears as the outcome of spontaneous demands by the masses and not as the deliberate policy of a single group.
Throughout the history of modern imperialism, imperialistic propaganda always tried two different approaches: first, to present any war as a defensive one, as a fight for life; secondly, ideologically and organizationally to incorporate the masses into the war.5 The white man’s burden, the mission of a people, manifest destiny are examples of the second kind of approach.6 This kind has never been able to produce support for a large-scale aggressive war. People will not voluntarily decide totally to organize themselves for imperialistic expansion when colossal sacrifices in blood and energy are required. They must be compelled to do so. They must be organized in such a way that they cannot resist. They must be submitted to such propaganda that they do not express open resistance. Their democratic convictions must be uprooted and other ideologies must be implanted.
Nor can such wars any longer be organized in the old framework of counter-revolution and absolutism, where only the war machine is centralized and where it relies simply upon the dictatorial powers of the military command. The war is a total one; no sphere of life remains untouched. Every activity must be subordinated to it; the individual must become completely immersed, must become part and parcel of it. Such incorporation is particularly necessary because a society that has passed through the phase of large-scale democracy can no longer exclude the masses. Organizational, ideological, and propagandistic patterns must be elaborated for this purpose. The new ideology must be democratic, at least in appearance. The rulers and the ruled must be represented as pursuing identical interests; the internal social antagonisms must be utilized and transformed into external aggression.
The new National Socialist doctrine of a racial proletarian imperialism is the culmination of this method. This doctrine fuses two basic elements: hatred of England and hatred of Marx.
The essence of the theory is extremely simple. Germany and Italy are proletarian races, surrounded by a world of hostile plutocratic-capitalistic-Jewish democracies. The war is thus a war of proletarianism against capitalism. ‘This war is the war of the money power against labor and against the creative human being, the embodiment of labor.’ Creative human beings must combine. ‘For all awakening peoples who make labor the focus of their lives, the watchword must henceforth be: workers of all lands, unite to smash the rule of English capitalism.’ With these words, Dr. Robert Ley,7 head of the German labor front, initiated the new propaganda campaign that culminated in Hitler’s speech of December 1940. This speech contrasted capitalistic liberty, namely the freedom ‘for everybody to grab for himself, free from state control,’ with ‘the power of work.’ ‘I built up my entire economy on the basis of work. Our German mark unbacked by gold is worth more than gold.’ The war is depicted as a war for a ‘world of co-operative labor’ against ‘selfishness . . . capitalism . . . individual and family privileges,’ against ‘the accursed plutocracy, against those few dynastic families which administer the capitalistic market for the few hundred persons who, in the last analysis, direct those families.’8
According to National Socialism, capitalism is a Jewish invention; hence, the opponents of National Socialism must be Jews. The Schwarze Korps, the organ of the S.S., repudiated the whole National Socialist racial theory and declared that the English are a nation of white Jews.9 Scholars were at once set to work to prove that English culture and civilization are predominantly Jewish. One such scholar10 has devoted two large books to show how the Jews have conquered and how they rule England. By completely perverting Max Weber’s thesis, he presents the Puritan revolution and the rise of Puritanism generally as the victory of Judaism over Christianity.11 For the purpose of anti-English propaganda, a special periodical against plutocracy and the incitement of peoples, called Die Aktion,12 was launched in August 1940.
Racial proletarianism is the genuine theory of National Socialism and its most dangerous expression. It is its most fallacious and yet most attractive doctrine. Its fallaciousness is obvious. If gold constitutes wealth, then Germany is indeed poor. But National Socialism insists that gold is not wealth, that all wealth derives from the productivity of man. If that is so, then Germany is the richest country in the world. There is no doubt that the doctrine is attractive. It exploits the hatred of England, a powerful motive in Germany, in many parts of the British Empire, and in many of the Latin-American countries. It exploits hatred of the Jews, aversion to capitalism, and, finally, utilizes Marxist phraseology and symbolism to an ever increasing extent. It is clear that the very purpose of the doctrine of racial proletarianism is to entice the working classes. This point requires further discussion.
The labor theory of value, the class struggle, and the classless society are the three categories basic to the development of Marxist theory in Germany. However much revisionists and orthodox Marxists may have transformed or even abandoned Marxism, there is no doubt that from these three concepts spring the fundamental impetus of the Social Democratic and Communist parties. Marxist theory had spread through the masses. It formed the, focus of all political discussions between and within the two parties. Every tactical measure was argued in terms of Marxist theory, and quotations from Marx and Engels were used in every discussion that touched fundamental problems. No leading socialist dared to throw out the theory of the class struggle; no one dared deny the ultima Thule of a classless society. Even collective bargaining was conceived as a form of the class struggle, and the participation of trade unionists in labor courts and arbitration bodies was hailed as the recognition of that principle. To a foreigner, such discussions may seem ridiculous, dogmatic, and the cause of the so-called ‘immaturity’ of the German labor movement. We do not intend to argue this point. It is indisputable that Marxist theory and symbolism completely permeated the Social Democratic and Communist labor movements and molded their character, and it is in this setting that the theory of proletarian racism must be understood. This theory is an attempt to eradicate Marxism by a process of transmutation. The complete collapse of the German labor movement, resulting in the destruction of the Social Democratic and Communist organization, has facilitated this difficult task. Whether the basic impetus has collapsed too is quite another question.
In the eyes of Social Democrats and Communists, the goal of a classless society and of a higher form of life is not achieved by the enslavement of foreign nations, but by the transformation of the capitalist system and the destruction of oppressive bureaucracy. To achieve such a goal requires supreme courage, willingness to make sacrifices, patience, and intelligence. The struggle against one’s own ruling class is, as history shows, much more strenuous than foreign wars, and international proletarian solidarity is acquired only in a long, arduous political struggle. But National Socialism offers the worker everything offered by Marxism, and without a class struggle. National Socialism offers him a higher form of life, ‘the people’s community,’ and the rule of labor over money, without compelling him to fight against his own ruling class. On the contrary, he is invited to join the ruling classes, to share in their power, glory, and material benefits by being a part of a colossal machine. He need no longer be isolated or strive against the current. He is not asked to show more courage and make more sacrifices than anybody else. On the contrary, Germany’s victory is his victory, the victory of labor over money, of the people’s community over class rule, of true freedom over a liberty that was merely a cloak for exploitation. This doctrine has not been abandoned even after the attack on Russia.
Is the National Socialist ideology successful? Has the theory of proletarian racism really permeated the ranks of labor? Has it definitely destroyed the belief in a democratic socialism or in communism? This is the decisive question, for upon the answer to it depends the fate of Europe. Upon it also depend, to a great extent, the methods of psychological warfare that must be used against Germany. If every German, even every German worker, is a potential Hitler, if the masses stand solidly behind the Leader, if the people are united behind the doctrine of racial proletarian imperialism, then Germany’s opponents can have but one war aim: to destroy Germany, divide her, and keep her enslaved. For if this is the case no attempt to drive a wedge between Hitler and the German people can be successful.
That, indeed, is a view held by many, in particular by those foreign statesmen who did most to destroy German democracy and to support National Socialism in every international crisis. It is these statesmen who wish to shift the responsibility for the victory of National Socialism from their own foreign policy exclusively to the German people. It is true that this argument cannot be lightly dismissed. And it is much more difficult to substantiate the contrary view that the German people do not stand behind National Socialism. Germany’s culture is now nothing but propaganda; public opinion in Germany is manipulated and controlled; and to express oppositional views would mean death or a concentration camp. We have no direct means of ascertaining the real attitude of the German people, and we must develop indirect methods. We shall try to find out to what extent National Socialism has permeated the German people by analyzing the function of the new ideology in more detail, by discussing the origin of this type of social imperialism, by examining those social strata that are most responsible for German aggressive imperialism, and, finally, by investigating the character of National Socialist social organization to see how far it is based on terror and how far on consent. Much of this discussion will be found in the final chapter.
The new National Socialist ideology is clearly a perversion of the Marxist ideology, aimed at ensnaring the Marxist working class. I know of only one instance in which this incorporation of the Marxist workers is explicitly admitted as the aim of the social policy and that is in the ‘Mecklenburg theses of the Union of National Socialist Pastors’ (Protestant) of 29 May 1933. The first thesis begins: ‘Influenced by Marxism and having embraced National Socialism, our people no longer recognizes the old ecclesiastical forms.’ It is, therefore, impossible to retain these old forms, they have to be changed and adapted to this social stratum.13 This concern has resulted in many different attempts, all of which have failed. The ideology of proletarian racism is the new answer to this old challenge.
When we read the new ideological pronouncements, we might almost take them for Marxist analyses embellished with a touch of Spengler, Moeller van den Bruck, and Rosenberg. For example, an editorial in the Frankfurter Zeitung,14 entitled ‘The Sinking World,’ is, in fact, a Marxist criticism of Great Britain. Although, it says, there are rich people in Germany, ‘they have no say in affairs,’ in contrast to England, which is ‘the home of a decaying bourgeois world.’ ‘The bourgeois social system was essential for the destruction of feudalism,’ and thus had great historical merits, but it has outlived its usefulness. ‘Within this world . . . a solemn roar could be heard for more than a century. It grew ever louder and the more one closed one’s ears, the louder and more menacing it became.’ It was the roar of the masses ‘living without free light and air.’ The liberties these masses had were ‘not even sufficient to give them work and daily bread.’
The British upper class secured its own position much more firmly and stubbornly in this so-called democracy . . . In England you find no trace of the new ideas . . . The labor party does not want to overthrow the bourgeois world . . . In England, the capitalist world is not menaced by any danger from within. The British are not against a great and powerful Germany because they are afraid that such a Germany would diminish England’s power. They are against the . . . German ideas because they are afraid that their own world will collapse before them.
This article is in the tradition of Marx, Engels, and Lenin, and is almost indistinguishable from well-known denunciations of the British social and political system. It is constructed around a class analysis of British society, a society in which the ruling classes use the outward forms of democracy for preserving their privileges, in which the Labor party has become a petty-bourgeois organization. The whole system is in a process of decay, desperately fighting against the attraction that the new theory, the new economy, the new society exert upon the deceived masses of the British people.
The part played by the Marxist labor theory of value in criticizing the English economic system is clearly illustrated in a speech by Dr. Dietrich, the federal press chief, entitled: ‘The Spiritual Foundation of the New Europe.’15 ‘National Socialism has recognized that the best foundation of every currency is confidence in the leadership of the state and in the productive forces of the nation.’ German socialism, although it starts from the natural inequality of man, demands that everyone should have an equal opportunity to rise in the social scale. ‘Within the finely spun web of the economic process and behind the veil of money,’ National Socialism has discovered ‘the center of economic power, namely, human labor as the all-animating basis . . . Within the maze of economic concepts, it has found the thread of Ariadne which leads our economic thought along the path to clarity: productive labor. It has dethroned the liberal dogma of the primacy of profits for the capitalists and replaced it by the principle of national productivity.’
This statement, and a similar one made by Alfred Rosenberg at the opening of the Party Institute for Jewish Research,* even echo the Marxist doctrine of the fetishistic character of bourgeois society. It goes without saying that this analysis is not genuinely Marxist, but pseudo-Marxist. It is directed exclusively against money and disregards the fetishistic nature of the commodity. But the phraseology is definitely shaped by the need for conquering the Marxist masses to whom the terms would be familiar.†
These examples may suffice. We may, by way of contrast, show the adaptation and the transformation of Marxist slogans to meet the needs of national socialist policy.
MARXIST FORM |
NATIONAL SOCIALIST FORM |
Class struggle |
Proletarian war against capitalistic states |
Labor theory of value |
Money as the fetish of the nation’s productive power |
Classless society |
People’s community |
The proletariat as the bearer of truth |
The German race as a proletarian race is the incarnation of morality |
The formulation of the new doctrine is thus in line with the adoption of Marxist symbols, such as the red flag (although adorned with the swastika), the elevation of the Marxist May Day to a national holiday, and the acceptance of many proletarian songs, though with new texts. All this serves the same purpose: to make the theory of racial imperialism the ideological basis of a war of the German people against the surrounding world, this war having as its object the attainment of a better life for the master race through reducing the vanquished states and their satellites to the level of colonial peoples.
The new doctrine was first fully developed by the Italian Enrico Corradini, the founder of the Nationalist party, which had the greatest influence upon Italian Fascism. The Nationalist party and its Blue Shirts were taken over en bloc by the Fascist party, which then changed its name to the National Fascist party.16 The Nationalists were only a small minority but they had more highly trained men than the Fascists and their theories were accepted by the new party. Luigi Federzoni, Alfredo Rocco, Scipio Sighele, R. Forges-Davanzati all derive from the Nationalist party. Corradini, a high school teacher, developed the first consistent theory of a social imperialism based entirely on the incorporation of the masses.17 The theory is, in itself, a hodgepodge of various elements, especially of French ‘integral nationalism’ and of revolutionary syndicalism. The argument is simple. Italy is a great proletarian country. Between Italy and the surrounding states there is the same relation as between the working classes and the satiated bourgeoisie. Italy is imprisoned in the Mediterranean without industrial resources and without a colonial empire. Her nationalism must therefore be social, and Corradini even coined the term socialismo nazionale.18 He went beyond the mere assertion of a need for war and for heroism. He incorporated into his own work the doctrines of Georges Sorel and transformed them into means of ensnaring the working classes.19 The adaptation was not very difficult, since Sorel, the most brilliant and the most contradictory critic of Marxism and liberalism, had never hidden his sympathies for French ‘integral nationalism’ and for the Action française.20 Sorel believed that the proletariat could only achieve its aims by violence, that is, by the general strike, the highest manifestation of solidarity. For Corradini, the highest expression of solidarity is war.21 Sorel maintained that the new classless society could be established only on the basis of the free incorporation of all producers in syndicates; for Corradini, the new order is one of corporations.22 But whereas Sorel understood by producers only dependent workers, for Corradini, as for Fascism and National Socialism later, producers included everyone—employer and employee, master and servant, jointly organized in a corporative system that would replace parliamentary democracy. Corradini, therefore, was the first to advocate the marriage of nationalism and revolutionary syndicalism, a marriage later consummated by Fascism.
It is significant that the development of Corradini’s doctrine took place between 1909 and 1912, culminating in the congress of the Nationalist party at Florence in 1910.23 It was a period of high tension between the contending great powers, marked by the Morocco crisis, the Agadir incident, the Turkish-Italian war of 1911, and the acquisition of Tripoli in 1912. Shortly before the peace treaty in 1912, Italy introduced universal, adult male franchise. The imperialistic ventures of 1911 and 1912 were opposed by the populace. It is characteristic that Antonio Labriola, a Socialist leader with many syndicalist tendencies, defended the Libyan war and considered the annexation of Tripoli good business for the bourgeoisie and, in consequence, a boon to the Italian proletariat. But the Socialists opposed the war even though their opposition was timid. Spontaneous opposition was more powerful; Mussolini himself, then a revolutionary Socialist, passionately attacked Corradini and the Nationalist party, denounced the national flag ‘as a rag to be planted on a dung hill,’24 initiated a propaganda campaign against the Turkish-Italian war, and was sent to prison for a year,
Corradini’s theory is probably the first attempt to utilize the forces making for class struggle to develop an imperialistic socialism.
We have already mentioned the attempts made by Friedrich Naumann in his book, Middle Europe,* to stress the identity of capitalist and working-class interests and the educational influence of the Social Democratic party and the trade unions. We have also mentioned the unbroken line from Friedrich List to Adolf Wagner.† But the most articulate German expression of this theory of social imperialism can be found in the works of Oswald Spengler and Moeller van den Bruck. We are not concerned with Spengler’s attitude toward National Socialism or with the National Socialists’ attitude toward Spengler. These are, for the most part, accidental phenomena. Spengler had a great influence on all German antidemocratic movements and ideologies. Whatever experts may say against his factual statements, his brilliance cannot be denied. The Decline of the West contains observations that, like lightning flashes, illuminate the landscape and bring out new aspects we tend to overlook in the mass of detail. We do not intend to deal with Spengler’s philosophy of history, his morphology, or his cyclical theory, but with two problems formulated in his political philosophy: the emergence of caesarism from the conditions of political democracy, and the need for imperialistic expansion in the form of a Prussian socialism.
The emergence of a Caesar from the womb of democracy has been predicted time and again by French, German, and Spanish counter-revolutionaries. This prophecy derives from a specific theory of human nature, according to which man is utterly corrupt, ignorant, wicked, and incapable of freedom.
The world moves at a great pace towards the constitution of a despotism, the most gigantic and the most destructive that men have ever seen. The road is prepared for a gigantic, colossal, universal tyrant. Everything is prepared for it. Mark it well; there is no longer any moral or material resistance. There is no longer any material resistance: statesmen and rulers have abolished frontiers and the electric telegraph has abolished distance. There is no longer any moral resistance: all spirits are divided, all patriotism is dead. It is a question of choosing between the dictatorship from below and dictatorship from above [God]. I choose the one from above, because it comes from regions which are pure and more serene. In the last resort, however, it is a question of choosing between the dictatorship of the dagger and that of the saber: I choose that of the saber, because it is nobler.25
This was the future that Donoso Cortes, the Spanish Catholic counter-revolutionist, foresaw for humanity during the period of liberal revolutions in Europe in 1848. He did not believe in any hope for a rule from above, namely, the rule of God. The whole issue seemed to be between two kinds of dictatorships: the military on the one hand and the demagogic from below on the other. He preferred military rule. He thus stood in the tradition of Bonald and de Maistre, who, as a protest against the French Revolution, had also denounced liberalism and democracy as the carriers of Caesarism.
This is also Spengler’s mood. His philosophy of man is profoundly pessimistic: ‘Man is a beast of prey.’ He ‘knows the intoxication of feeling when the knife pierces the flesh of the enemy, bringing to the triumphant senses wails and the odor of blood.’26 Democracy breeds parties and parties breed a party machine that controls and incorporates the masses and thereby gives rise to a new Caesar. Popular franchise is a fake; the more it is extended, the less is the actual power of the voter. It thereby plays into the hand! of the caesaristic tendencies within the political organizations.27 Freedom of the press keeps man in submission. The press and the electric news services bully him by phrases and catch-words that pour out in an unending stream of propaganda. Spengler would subscribe to Lord Salisbury’s description of the English sensational press and extend it to the press in general, namely, that Harms-worth (Lord Northcliffe) ‘had invented a paper for those who could read but not think and another for those who could see but not read.’28 ‘Three weeks of press work and the truth is acknowledged by everybody.’ ‘This is the end of democracy.’29 In the first place, money destroyed democracy, its weapons of destruction being the political parties and universal franchise, the very liberties that it so highly esteems. With the destruction of democracy begins the era of contending states, led and organized by Caesars who completely control man.30
What is the internal structure of these contending states, especially of Germany? The answer is given in Spengler’s most significant political work: Prussiandom and Socialism,31 first published in 1920. The major concern of this book is once more the incorporation of the Social Democratic party into Prussian socialism for the purpose of imperialistic wars. This is done primarily by redefining socialism. Socialism is freed from Marxism and identified with the Prussian tradition of duty, authority, and hierarchy. Socialism is not international; it is German-Prussian. It is not class struggle, but co-operation under the authority of the state. No parties, no professional politicians, no periodic elections; economic organization in a hierarchic structure must be the order of society. Only by discipline, hierarchy, authority, and obedience can the working class be incorporated.32 According to Spengler, cartels and syndicates betray the coming structure of such an authoritarian corporate state. Once more it is the antagonism between Germany and England that determines the policy of the contending states. In consequence, the question for Spengler is, ‘in the future shall trade rule die state, or shall the state rule trade?’ and the answer is: ‘Prus-sianism and socialism stand jointly against the influence of the British spirit in Germany, against that philosophy of life which permeates our whole life as a people, paralyzes it and makes it soulless.’ This ‘socialism means power, power, and again power. Plans and ideas are nothing without power.’33
This is Spengler’s program of social imperialism. The kind of socialism he had in mind is very clearly set forth in his numerous smaller essays: ‘The Human Vermin,’ that is, the laboring classes, should toil at least twelve hours a day, as under early capitalism.34 Increases in wages and in taxes mean a plundering of the real productive forces.35 The slave state depicted by Hilaire Belloc is the state advocated by Spengler.
What are the ideals motivating this new era of Prussian state socialism, a socialism of war and of imperialism? There are none. ‘The age of theory is drawing to an end.’ Its place is taken by a ‘second religiousness,’36 which is the counterpart of the era of caesarism and which consists in the ‘unchained might of colossal facts.’37
This doctrine is a pagan positivism, and more than anything else in his book it reveals his complete break with the whole of Western civilization. It is significant that the Protestant critics38 of Spengler did not recognize the pagan character of his book, whereas the Catholics clearly saw and denounced it.39 Except for the racial theory, which he regarded as too crude, Spengler’s book contains nearly all the elements of the National Socialist philosophy. The contempt for man and for the masses, for culture and intellect, the insistence on hierarchy and leadership, on discipline and obedience, the elevation of the ‘productive forces’ are as present in Spengler as in Ley or Hitler.
The very same endeavor, the ideological preparation for imperialistic war, is operative in Moeller van den Bruck’s40 work. Once again we cannot say with absolute certainty whether or not Moeller van den Bruck was a forerunner of National Socialism. Alfred Rosenberg emphatically rejects this claim.41 However, Rosenberg believes that the only genuine forerunners of National Socialism were Nietzsche and Richard Wagner, Paul de Lagarde, and Houston Stewart Chamberlain. He regards Moeller van den Bruck, in spite of some compliments he pays him, as a mere littérateur, and his theory as bloodless and artificial. His theory was also rejected because it was the philosophy of the Black Front (Strasser’s group) and of conservative clubs that National Socialism took pains to destroy. To be rejected by National Socialism redounds to van den Bruck’s honor, for he was indeed a littérateur of high merit, translator of Flaubert and Dostoievski, and path breaker for modern French novelists and poets.
We cannot consider the whole of van den Bruck’s theory. We shall stress only two closely connected aspects of it: hatred of England and social imperialism. The leitmotif of the Third Reich is Clemenceau’s ill-famed statement that there are 20,000,000 Germans too many in the world (p. 17). Germany’s claims to expansion are developed around this statement. There are a number of geopolitical formulations (p. 65), but they are not of basic importance. The paramount question is a social one. The whole book is one passionate attempt to divorce the German worker from Marx, to uproot the doctrine of class struggle, and to supplant it by that of war. ‘Before the social problem can be solved for the classes, it must be solved for the nation’ (p. 67). English and French workers can live, whereas Germans and Russians cannot. Neither settlement programs nor emigration, nor Malthusianism nor class struggle, can solve the social question. Settlement programs are insufficient. Neo-Malthusianism is unnatural because ‘nature has willed overpopulation’ (p. 70). The Marxist parties have completely failed, but the idea of socialism is a reality. Socialism must be national, not international, and must think in terms of foreign policy. The class struggle must therefore be replaced by ‘world polities’ (p. 188). Moeller van den Bruck draws the final inference from social imperialism. He is sympathetic to the doctrine of national bolshevism as advocated by the Communist party in certain periods and by Otto Strasser’s Black Front. This conservative revolutionary, who made the term ‘Third Reich’ popular, was driven by a boundless nationalist passion. He is the most articulate, most cultured, and most important representative of the doctrine that culminates in the theory of proletarian racism.
The aim of the doctrine is clear, but there is still the question whether it is successful. Has it really permeated the bulk of German society? The answer will be made easier by an analysis of those social strata that actively supported imperialist expansion.
German imperialism enjoys the benefits of a late-comer* and of a have-not state. It is this fact that gives German imperialism its efficiency and its brutality. In countries like England, Holland, or France, which have outgrown the stage of mere investment and have passed on to colonial and protectorate imperialism, internal anti-imperialistic trends have inevitably arisen. Large-scale capital export creates a capitalistic stratum completely disinterested and even hostile to further expansion, the stratum of the rentier group.42 The rentier, whose income is not derived from productive work and from business activities but from stocks and bonds, is not an aggressor. On the contrary, he is an appeaser, who wants to keep what he possesses and who refuses to incur new risks. The antagonism between the rentier and the activistic imperialist has pervaded British foreign politics since the time of Joseph Chamberlain, and ended with the victory of the rentier under Balfour, Baldwin, and Neville Chamberlain. This antagonism is shown very clearly in Sir Austen Chamberlain’s letters: Politics from Inside.43 It is expressed in the conflict between the Tory Democrats and the old Conservatives. Disraeli and Joseph Chamberlain may be called the forerunners of social imperialism. They were democratic imperialists, basing the expansion of the empire on the working classes, to whom the franchise and material benefits were granted; but ever since Balfour, the rentier class has pressed forward within the Conservative party. It is no longer concerned with expansion; it detests risks. The conflict between the Conservative party became an open one with the issue of free trade against protection. While Joseph Chamberlain clearly saw the impossibility of competing with expanding Germany on the basis of free trade and wanted to create a wall of tariffs around the empire, the rentier group refused to undertake an experiment that would have necessitated the complete reorganization of English industrial machinery involving full concentration and trustification. Balfour was finally overthrown in 1911, but Austen Chamberlain did not succeed him. Bonar Law became the leader of the party and the spokesman of the rentier group. Thus, the imperialistic group had lost the leadership within the Conservative party as early as 1911; regained it only during the First World War under Lloyd George within a coalition government; and finally lost it again under Baldwin and Neville Chamberlain. Germany was acutely aware of this conflict manifest in the English social structure and in English foreign policy. In all forms the German hatred of England assumes, whether derived from geopolitics or German imperialism, England is depicted as a decaying country, the country of a bourgeoisie no longer willing to expand which has violated the primary law of life in a competitive society: the law that one must expand or die.
Germany’s rentier class was wiped out during the inflation. The war had already destroyed foreign investments; the inflation wiped out domestic savings. The annihilation of a prosperous middle class turned out to be the most powerful stimulus to aggressive imperialism, for it was the section of the middle class having but little to lose that whole-heartedly supported the drive by heavy industry for rearmament and for imperialism.
The problems faced by German imperialism were different from those of Great Britain in still another respect. British imperialism in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was directed against colonial, semi-colonial, or weak powers; and Great Britain had its colonial wars fought primarily by native armies under British command. Germany was faced with the world already divided among states possessing large armies or navies. As no peaceful redistribution could be achieved, as international cartels and the carving out of economic spheres of interest were not sufficient, only war remained. The first attempt was 1914; 1939 the second. But Germany fully learned the lessons of 1914, that the preparation for war has to begin in peace, that war and peace are no longer two different categories, but two expressions of one and the same phenomenon, the phenomenon of expansion. The domestic structure of society must be transformed in order fully to utilize all the productive forces of society for war. In particular, labor must be incorporated, must become part and parcel of the totalitarian structure. Material benefits, terror, and propaganda must uproot any pacifist or socialist convictions.
There exist two basic types of imperialism, popularly known as ‘haves’ and ‘have-nots.’ Each of these must be subdivided. Each is different in its ideology, technique, and aim. The following diagram will facilitate an understanding of these types, which, however, do not mean that a ‘have’ state must eternally remain satiated. It can, under certain conditions, turn into an aggressor, but will then, today, inevitably become fascist.
IMPERIALISM OF SATIATED POWERS
PURE ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM:
Trade (Commercial) Imperialism—free trade—universal international law—competitive structure of economy—no changes in the domestic political system—retention of independence by the object of expansion combined with certain rights for the imperialist power, trading zones, port privileges, etc.
Investment imperialism—protective tariffs—beginnings of regionalism (spheres of interest)—monopolization and trustification—no changes in the domestic political system—independence of the desired territory economically undermined.
POLITICAL-ECONOMIC IMPERIALISM:
Colonial Imperialism—attempted ideological incorporation of the masses (‘democratic’ imperialism: Disraeli, Joseph Chamberlain, Italy in 1912) but no change in the domestic system—incorporation of the needed territory into the imperialist power with colonial status.
Protectorate Imperialism: attempted ideological incorporation of the masses (white man’s burden, etc.)—monopolization and trustification—capital export—political protection of investments by curtailing the independence of the subdued state.
IMPERIALISM OF THE ‘HAVE-NOTS’
‘SOCIAL’ IMPERIALISM:
Continental Imperialism—ideological and organizational incorporation of the masses—autarky—highest stage of monopolization and trustification—new Monroe Doctrine—transformation of subdued states (civilized) into colonies.
World Imperialism—ideological and organizational incorporation of the masses—the continent as the kernel—proletarian racism as the ideology and the lever for world imperialism.
Our contention is that Germany’s imperialism is primarily the policy of its industrial leadership, fully supported by the National Socialist party; that the other classes merely follow that leadership or even resist it. This contention must be proved. Such proof can only be given by showing the historical growth of imperialism in Germany, by analyzing the attitudes of the various classes of society toward aggressive war. Such an analysis will in turn strengthen our contention that imperialistic war is the outcome of the internal antagonisms of the German economy.
As a key to the attitude of the German people toward war, we may use their behavior toward Great Britain.44 We have already stressed the fact that hatred of England is present in all doctrines that enter into the National Socialist ideology. Neither Friedrich List’s desire for alliance with Great Britain, nor Adolf Hitler’s hope for collaboration with Great Britain as expressed in his autobiography changes our view. This collaboration was demanded primarily on the assumption that England is still a world power of enormous strength and that it is better jointly to exploit the world than to risk a war against England.
The configuration of the hatred of England within German society shows a curious picture, which was for the first time laid bare by the late, extremely gifted, German historian, Eckart Kehr.44 In German society, England was the object of both veneration and hatred. The conservative agrarians, primarily concerned with securing protection for their grain production, had no economic objections to the bulk of British trade and industry. They were merely out to preserve the German economic structure so as to retain their socio-economic and political influence. They did not strive for world domination but for protection and security. Politically, however, England appeared to the conservative agrarians as the incarnation of evil, that is, of parliamentary democracy and universal franchise. England represented that type of government that was most opposed to the conservative form of life.
The attitude of the conservative agrarians toward Russia was just the opposite. In the latter part of the nineteenth century, Russia appeared increasingly as the competitor of Germany’s agrarian production and thus became to the agrarians the object of economic hatred. But politically, Russia appeared to the conservatives as the ideal. Its absolutism was venerated and admired.
The attitude of German industry was diametrically opposed to that of the conservative agrarians. England was the feared and hated competitor, arousing all the resentment that a ‘have not’ feels against a ‘have.’ At the same time, German industry admired English constitutionalism, which ever since Montesquieu had been the model according to which all liberal movements in Europe molded their policies. German industry, on the other hand, liked cheap imports of foodstuffs and grain from Russia, since cheap imports would prevent the raising of wages. It despised the Russian absolutistic system. Graphically presented, the picture looks like this:
Liberals (industry)—politically against Russia; economically against England.
Conservatives (agrarians)—economically against Russia; politically against England.
But instead of the ‘hatred of England’ and the ‘veneration of England’ cancelling each other, the political aversion of the agrarians and the economic resentment of the industrialists merged into one all-comprehensive and decisive ‘hatred of England.’
The occasion for this merger was Tirpitz’s naval building program.
The Conservative Agrarians were never very much in favor of the Tirpitz naval building program. So much is clear after the perusal of the two large volumes of memoirs by Count Westarp,45 for many years leader of the Conservative party. This is never explicitly stated, for the book was published in 1935 under the National Socialist regime. On the contrary, admiration for Tirpitz is frequently expressed. Nevertheless, Count Westarp clearly distinguishes Conservative policy from the policies pursued by the National Liberals and the Pan-German League. According to Westarp, the Pan-German League, about which we shall have to say a few words later, represents western Germany, free conservatives and national liberalism, but not the Conservative policy.46 Westarp rejects, for instance, the policy of the Pan-Germans during the Morocco crisis of 1911, takes pains to keep aloof from what he calls the ‘Utopian war aims’47 of the Pan-Germans from 1914 to 1918 and constantly stresses the national liberal influence on the policy of aggressive imperialism and annexation.48 Throughout his memoirs, this true Conservative reveals a considerable dislike of the National Liberal party, the out and out annexationists, though for obvious reasons he does not dare openly to attack them, especially because, after 1900, conservatives and liberals reached an understanding.
It is, indeed, the most striking phenomenon of Germany’s history that the industrial bourgeoisie, unable or unwilling to fight for parliamentary democracy and submitting to the semi-absolutistic system of the empire, directed all their political energy toward an aggressive imperialism. German political liberalism was never mild and humanitarian; it was aggressive and brutal—even if the form seemed democratic. As early as the bourgeois revolution of 1848, Pan-German and annexationist programs and ideas become fully apparent. Georg Herwegh, a genuine democratic leader of 1848, and a poet of considerable distinction, wrote a poem in 1844, in which he expressed the dream of a German navy as the bearer of Germany’s greatness: ‘Und in die Furchen die Kolumb gezogen, geht Deutschland’s Zukunft auf (Germany’s future takes the course plotted by Columbus).49 The wide freedom won by this navy will, so he maintains, liberate Germany from England’s ‘grocer spirit.’50
Alfred Vagts,51 with his keen sense of the social basis of foreign policy, has drawn our attention to two such famous liberals. Varnhagen von Ense in 1836 expressed his hope for the incorporation of Holland into Germany, and as early as 1848 formulated an outline of a democratic or social imperialism. ‘It may come to pass that we shall demand Alsace and Lorraine from France, the Baltic countries from Russia. Such things Black-Red-Gold can do. Up to now, this has just been a beginning.’ Vagts also reports that in 1861 a liberal and a creator of Prussian public opinion advocated an aggressive policy toward France and Denmark: ‘Only in the field of facts and deeds can the German question be solved, and only our absolutist inactivity and our endless gabbling [sic] have failed to do so.’52 In 1914 Franz von Liszt, outstanding criminologist and international lawyer, demanded the incorporation of the Scandinavian countries and of Turkey within the German orbit.53
In his well-known pamphlet Händler und Helden (Traders and Heroes, Munich and Leipzig, 1915), Werner Sombart contrasted the commercial and utilitarian spirit of the English to German heroism. England’s spirit is that of the trader whose attitude toward life is summed up in the question: ‘What can life give me?’ (p. 15). English society is plutocratic; English morality is characterized by Bentham’s ‘hundsgemeine’ (vile) maxims (p. 19); the English state is nothing but a giant commercial enterprise. In contrast, Germany has a mission to fulfil, she has to spread the German heroic spirit, the German idea of the state.
Ever since its foundation in 1866, German national liberalism has advocated an army and navy, expansion, and colonial acquisition. The fight that Eugen Richter, as the representative of the Left Liberals, undertook against army expansion was unsuccessful even within his own party, especially because Richter’s hostility was primarily based on fiscal reasons. From 1893 on, German Liberalism has never actively fought against the expansion of the German military machine.
In the field of naval construction, German liberalism was even the originator. This aspect of the history of German liberalism and of the whole problem of the social bases of German naval policy is admirably presented by Eckart Kehr54 in a book that is indispensable to an understanding of German imperialism. It proves convincingly that the stimulus to naval construction came from the industrial bourgeoisie, and not from the crown, the civil service, or the Conservative party. The National Liberal party, as the party of the industrial bourgeoisie, gradually abandoned liberalism, which was still fully evident in the program of 12 June 1867, and concentrated primarily on military and naval rearmament.55 But perhaps even more characteristic are those men who were considered the true representatives of German liberalism: Theodor Barth, Max Weber, and Gerhart von Schulze-Gävernitz. They represented democratic liberalism in its hopes of breaking down the privileges of the conservative agrarians by supporting a navy and advocating an imperialistic foreign policy. Emil Rathenau, father of Walther Rathenau, founder of the General Electric Corporation, as well as Georg von Siemens, his great competitor, both belonged to that group.
These trends merged or culminated in the Pan-German League56 founded in 1890 (actually bearing that name since 1894). This league was the direct result of Germany’s colonial policy and the direct ideological forerunner of the National Socialist party. Of all the patriotic associations set up in imperial Germany, the Pan-German League was undoubtedly the most aggressive and the most repulsive. Although never strong numerically, it had an extraordinary propaganda apparatus, continually agitating for land and sea rearmament, for colonial expansion, and for an aggressive anti-English policy. The League never hesitated to attack the monarchy when the foreign policy of Wilhelm II did not fit into its plans. It utilized Anti-Semitism whenever and wherever this appeared necessary. During the First World War it was, of course, the most radical annexationist group. The political affiliations of the members of the League57 are extraordinarily interesting:
47 per cent of the members belonged to the National Liberal party.
15 per cent to the Conservative party.
15 per cent to the Deutsch Soziale and Reform party (violently Anti-Semitic).
14 per cent to the Reichspartei.
9 per cent to the wirtschaftliche Vereinigung (Anti-Semitic agrarians).
Included among the members of the League were such illustrious German national liberals as A. Bassermann, Heinze, and Gustav Stresemann. The two leaders of the League both came from the liberal camp. The League closely collaborated with all the other patriotic organizations, such as the Navy League, the Colonial League, the Society for Germans Abroad, the National Security League (Wehrverein), the Society of German Students, and so on. The statistics of the social composition of the group are not very revealing. In 1914, for instance, 24 per cent belonged to the teaching profession, 31 per cent were businessmen, 12 per cent were officials, 8 per cent were physicians, and the businessmen came primarily from small and medium-sized businesses. The conclusion that ‘there seems to have been no connection before the war between big business and the Pan-German League either financially or in membership’58 may be correct. But this does not tell the whole truth, for there is not the slightest doubt that the League’s propaganda served, the interests of big business, whatever may have been the motives of the other members of the League.59
The internal connection between naval propaganda and the needs of German business was clearly established in a resolution of the national liberal youth movement in 1902, that is, immediately after the passing of the new naval construction bill. ‘Even after the implementation of the last naval building program, the German navy does not seem commensurate with the importance of German shipping and does not seem adequate for a powerful, independent, foreign policy.’60
At no time was the aggressive part played by the industrial leadership—so reluctantly accepted by the agrarians—clearer than between 1900 and 1902, on the occasion of the adoption of the Tirpitz naval program. Tirpitz himself, with masterly clarity, stated the aims of a German navy in his famous memorandum of 16 June 1894. ‘The starting point for the development of a fleet must be the maritime interests of the nation . . . A state which . . . has . . . maritime or world interests must be able to . . . give expression to them and must be able to make its power felt . . . within its territorial waters. Rational world trade, world industry, to a certain extent deep sea fishing, world communications, and colonies, are impossible without a fleet capable of asssuming the offensive.’ And in his memoirs he adds, ‘The navy never seemed to me to be an end in itself, but always a function of these maritime interests. Without sea power Germany’s position in the world resembled that of a mollusc without a shell.’61 Here the role of the navy as the guardian of German commerce and as an instrument of offensive, that is, of aggression, is clearly stated, and it is characteristic that in order to achieve such an aim, Tirpitz always supported Wilhelm’s continental alliance, an alliance with Russia, so as to have Germany’s eastern flank free against England.62 For his purpose Tirpitz never hesitated to utilize all available propagandist machinery,63 to collaborate with all existing patriotic organizations, and even to set up a propaganda agency of his own. In order to foster navy-mindedness, the Naval Society was founded in 1898. It was the creation of Tirpitz and of the two most powerful armament manufacturers, von Stumm-Halberg, who owned the newspaper Die Post, and Krupp, who owned the newspaper Neueste Nachrichten.64 After some propagandist preparation, industry opened the campaign for a new naval expansion (1899), fully supported by Tirpitz. The promoters, too, believed that the naval bill was an excellent outlet for the deep resentment aroused by the government’s unsuccessful policy of oppression against the Social Democratic party. This first propagandist campaign, initiated by Stumm’s Post and backed by the patriotic groups, petered out. It was taken up a second time when, in his famous speech of 18 October 1899, the emperor publicly demanded a strong fleet. The two newspapers we have mentioned at once reopened the campaign for a strong fleet, with the result that the first draft of a new naval bill was published. So strong, so open became the relation between patriotism and big business that many honest nationalists, especially Berlin university professors, began to attack this miscegenation. Yet in spite of this denunciation, industry held fast to its program. In a meeting of the central union of German industry on 13 February 1900, the resolution to go on with the program was openly proclaimed and the only change made was to substitute a patriotic ideology for the business theory.65
Yet it was just this naval bill that threatened to overthrow Miquel’s concentration policy, the union between industry and the agrarians. The conservative agrarians attacked the bill, trying to induce the Catholic Center to vote against it. The agrarian organization, the Bund der Landwirte, remained if not openly hostile, at least extremely skeptical. The naval bill was finally passed as a result of a shameless bargain between industry and the agrarians. On 1 May 1900, the naval bill and the grain tariffs were interlocked, and Miquel’s policy of concentration triumphed. To industry, the fleet, world politics, and expansion; to the agrarians, tariffs, the maintenance of the social supremacy of the conservatives; and as a consequence of this settlement, to the Center party, political hegemony.’66 Theodor Mommsen, the great liberal historian, denounced this bargain as the ‘union of Junkerdom and Chaplainocracy’ (rule of Catholic priests)67 and even Adolph Wagner, himself a convinced imperialist, lashed out at the merger of patriotism and business, attacking the boundless greed for profits.68
Just at this period the expansionists recognized the need for incorporating the masses and letting them share in this huge business venture. For this purpose, the economist Ernst von Halle, a hireling of the naval ministry, appointed to issue propaganda on behalf of the naval program, formulated the social imperialistic policy in the following words: Germany ‘can successfully undertake political competition with other nations only if she really has behind her the support of the great masses.’ Such support can only be secured by a progressive social policy. The primacy of foreign policy must therefore determine social reform. ‘If we do not succeed in merging social reform policy and world policy into a higher unity, the German people of the future will no longer possess the right of self-determination in its domestic and in its foreign policy, but will have them determined by other, foreign nations.’69
The higher unity into which social reform and world politics merged was National Socialism and it is ironical that this decisive formulation of the National Socialist ideology emanates from Ernst von Halle, who was born with the name of Levy.70
We may thus say that while expansion into the sphere of British influence was demanded by German industry and the Liberal party, the Conservatives and Catholics, though at first reluctant, ultimately subscribed to it as a part of the bargain that secured their social and political power.
It was during the elections of 190771 that the extent to which imperialistic ambitions had permeated the German people became manifest. The parliament of 1906 had been dissolved by Chancellor von Bülow, because his colonial policy had been attacked by the Catholic Center and the Social Democratic parties, who sharply criticized the military rule in German southwest Africa and the corruption of the colonial policy, especially through monopolistic contracts. The government and its party went to the poll with a slogan that this election must determine ‘whether Germany is capable of developing from a European power into a world power.’72 The gospel of imperialism was preached by the colonial secretary, Dernburg—significantly enough a banker and a Liberal—by the whole Liberal movement, by the many nationalistic leagues, and, last but not least, by the central league of German industrialists. But the election campaign also developed into a bitter fight against Catholicism and Socialism. This counter-attack on the Center party soon had its desired effect. The party became frightened into continually asserting its nationalistic, patriotic, and even imperialistic aims, and restricted its own attack to the abuses in the German colonial administration. The elections of 1907 resulted in a defeat for Socialism but not for the Catholic Center, and in the victory of all the imperialistic parties.73 The Socialists, though losing but few votes, lost about half their deputies. The Liberal-Conservative block began to rule, and the Center party, as a consequence of the elections, shifted more and more to the right and practically displaced its radical leadership.
The attitude of the bourgeois parties is, therefore, clear: they either strove for, or at least supported the imperialist leadership of the industrial groups.
But there is still the important question whether world politics and social reform merged into a ‘higher unity,’ as von Halle demanded. It was precisely over the issue of imperialism that there was dissension within Socialist theory and within the Socialist movement. It was over this problem that a section of the revisionists within the Social Democratic party attacked orthodox Marxism; it was primarily over this issue that Lenin attacked all social democratic movements throughout the world. The attitude of the working classes toward imperialism not only was the paramount political question, but the Social Democrats were conscious of the fact. Formulating the issue in a very crude way, the question was really whether the German worker should actively support, or at least tolerate, Germany’s expansion in order to share in the material benefits that might possibly be derived from it.
The elections of 1907 gave rise to an overproduction of articles, pamphlets, speeches, and debates on imperialism and colonialism, and all leading Social Democrats participated in the debates. The conflict came to the fore at the international socialist conference at Stuttgart in 1907 and at the Social Democratic party congress at Essen in the same year. Three trends emerged in this discussion: the revisionist, the anti-imperialist-orthodox, and the social-imperialist.74 Parvus, a leading orthodox Marxist who became one of the chief social imperialists during the First World War, had attacked colonialism during the election campaign and republished his pamphlet after the defeat in 1907.75 His pamphlet is remarkable in many respects: in its denial that monopolization and cartellization automatically further the interests of the working classes; its insistence that colonies, far from raising the standard of living of the German worker, would on the contrary reduce it; and its analysis of the German ruling groups, which he even then depicted as composed of cartel leaders, bank directors, and high state officials. He was supported in his ciiticism by Rudolf Hilferding, the leading party theorist.76 Colonialism, for Hilferding, was the necessary outcome of capitalism. Though the rate of profit in German industry was then very high because of cartellization and protective tariffs, he argued it was threatened by over-accumulation. In consequence, German industry had to expand beyond Germany’s frontiers. For Germany as a late-comer this expansion was difficult to achieve. Four such previous attempts, in Brazil, East Asia, Morocco, and Turkey, had been frustrated. But German industry would not hesitate to repeat the attempt. It would, for this purpose, strengthen its domestic domination. It had already succeeded, or was on the point of doing so, in winning the conservative agrarians, the Catholic Center, and the whole liberal movement, and would finally organize the whole of public opinion. If it succeeded in this task, it would turn against the proletariat, for in contrast to England, German imperialism was reactionary and ‘must be reactionary, because the resistance of the working classes is already too great’ (p. 163).
That, however, was not the view of the whole party.77 While the party’s official scientific periodical, Die neue Zeit, mainly expressed the view of the orthodox section, the Sozialistische Monatshefte, edited by Josef Bloch, was the organ of the social imperialists and of the group that demanded a continental orientation of Germany against England.78 This group abandoned the attack on capitalism, and tried instead to get as much as possible for the worker. But this revisionist attitude split into two separate wings. The first, led by the theoretical spokesman Eduard Bernstein79 sought to shift the social basis of the Social Democratic movement by including in it the lower middle class, represented by left liberals, and worked to promote a union of these two groups. It therefore tried to incorporate into the Social Democratic movement those strata of society that suffered most, perhaps even more than the worker, from the monopolistic structure of society. In consequence, Bernstein became the leader of the pacifist group within the Social Democratic party, going over during the war to the anti-war Independent Social Democratic party.
The other wing, however, was definitely ‘social imperialistic,’ and we use here the term in its original meaning, of an imperialistic policy desired by and for the working classes. This group despised the left liberals and the petty bourgeoisie,80 and sought an alliance with the captains of industry. It fully accepted colonial expansion as a boon for the working classes, expecting rising wages and a quickening of the natural life of capitalism, which would hasten the coming of socialism.81
At the two congresses, it became clear that the adamant hostility of the German delegations to colonialism had lessened and views were expressed that distinguished between good and bad, human and inhuman imperialist policies. The enraged orthodox majority pointed out what was perfectly true, that the German delegation to the international congress consisted mostly of trade-union delegates who were more susceptible to social imperialist ideas than was the party leadership and membership. Nevertheless, even among the orthodox party leaders, unconditional rejection gave way to conditional rejection.82
It was during the First World War that the social imperialist tendencies within the Social Democratic party became particularly virulent. The classic expression of this trend is Heinrich Cunow’s book, Is the Party Bankrupt?83 Cunow, a professor in the University of Berlin during the Weimar Republic and an economic historian of great merit, made the jump from revolutionary opposition to the full acceptance of imperialism, arguing that the imperialist development of capitalism was a natural process that could no more be resisted than the introduction of labor-saving machinery. Anti-imperialism was therefore as nonsensical as was machine wrecking in earlier days.84 Paul Lensch85 became the most ardent propagandist of that group. He was aided by the former revolutionary, Parvus.
It is often maintained that the social imperialist trend became a powerful movement within the Social Democratic party. This incorrect assertion is based on the fact that the huge majority of the party and of the trade unions were patriotic and supported the war. But the social patriotism of the majority of the party was directed against Russia, against Tsarist absolutism, while the hostility of the social imperialists was primarily directed against England.86 To distinguish between the two trends is imperative, despite the fact that they overlapped and often coincided in practice. There is no doubt that the huge majority of the party remained uncontaminated by social imperialism, and never accepted the fallacious reasoning that class interests can best be served by warfare against imperialist competitors.
How little headway was made by social imperialism in the party was amply proved by the party’s development under the Weimar Republic. Not social imperialist revisionism triumphed, but the pacifist and petty bourgeois outlook of Eduard Bernstein. It was English Fabianism that, under the Weimar Republic, triumphed over orthodoxy, although the orthodox formulas and slogans were retained. Throughout the history of the Social Democratic party during the Weimar Republic, no responsible labor leader went the way of social imperialism except August Winnig,87 a former trade-union chairman, who, as provincial president, sided with the Kapp Putsch, had to leave the party, devoted his literary abilities to advocating the social-imperialist gospel, and finally joined the National Socialist party.
How little headway was made by social-imperialist doctrines within the Social Democratic party can also be seen from its Russian policy. At Rapallo, in 1922, under the aegis of Foreign Minister Walther Rathenau, Germany concluded her first treaty of friendship with Russia—a clever counter-thrust to French diplomacy. The idea of using Russian help in the fight against Versailles belonged to the stock-in-trade of many groups in Germany. Count Brockdorff Rantzau, the German ambassador to Russia, who had refused to sign the Versailles treaty, was one of the first. Alliance with Russia was regarded as a means of fighting capitalism and imperialism, the ‘God-fathers of Versailles.’ Hugo Stinnes, the leading German industrialist, as a protest against the Ruhr occupation, painted at the Spaa conference the picture of a proletarian revolution. National-Bolshevik groups, especially the Widerstand group of Ernst Nieckisch, up to 1935 advocated a fight of the East against the West. The German Reichswehr secretly collaborated with the Red Army—partly in order to gain experience with new weapons that were forbidden to Germany by the treaty of Versailles, partly because the Bismarckian tradition of establishing friendly relations with Russia was still strong.
The Social Democratic party never supported Russo-German friendship as a means of breaking the power of England and France. For them, the League of Nations represented the very last word of rational international relations. That, of course, did not imply hostility to Russia. On the contrary, they never supported the foreign policy that sought an alliance with Soviet Russia against the Western powers.
Within the ruling classes hatred of Russia was as powerful as hatred of England. The vastness of the Soviet territory, the masses of men, the gigantic wheat fields, the iron ore, the oil fields were always a great attraction to European capitalism. As early as 1917, General Max Hoffmann, who signed the treaty of Brest-Litowsk, conceived the idea of a fight of the Western powers against Bolshevism. In 1920, he suggested this to the Social Democratic party in Berlin, and was rebuked. In 1922, he prepared a memorandum offering Germany’s assistance to the Western powers in a fight against Bolshevism.88 During the First World War, the imperialists were as hungry for Russian wheat and oil, and for the Baltic ‘settlement’ space as for Longwy, Briey, Alsace, Lorraine, Belgium, and British colonies. Friedrich Naumann’s view has already been mentioned.* Paul Rohrbach was one of the apostles of Ukrainian autonomy under German sovereignty. The geopoliticians held the same views. We have already seen that the implication of MacKinder’s theory is not necessarily a German-Russian alliance; it can just as logically be the incorporation of Russia into Germany.†
Both England and Russia appeared as the objects of German expansion—against Russia, one could join the anti-Bolshevik chorus; against England—one could make imperialism social. The Social Democrats were immune to hatred of England and hatred of Russia. Much as the party hated bolshevism, it never lent its help to any interventionist crusade against Soviet Russia.
So deep is the abyss between National Socialism and the old Social Democratic spirit that only a handful of Social Democratic labor leaders went over to National Socialism—a few in the central organization of the Social Democratic trade unions, here and there an editor of a socialist paper, here and there a party and a trade-union secretary. But the great majority of all party and trade-union functionaries remained either aloof or in opposition. This attitude is the really lasting merit of Social Democratic education. The defensive mentality that the party and trade unions had developed from 1914 to 1932, though it turned out to be catastrophic for the existence of the Weimar Republic, prevented the party officials from actually supporting the regime. Compared with the French trade unions and with the French Socialist party, the German movement died a heroic death.
The latest phase of National Socialist theory, the doctrine of proletarian racism, of social imperialism, has failed to gain a complete hold over the masses. The old party and trade-union bureaucracy does not collaborate with the regime. The large majority of trade unionists and Social Democrats are not National Socialists. Throughout their history they have resisted the seductive theory of social imperialism; there is no reason to believe that they support it today. The repressive social policy of the National Socialist regime gives additional substance to our contention. But we cannot, of course, say that Social Democrats and trade unionists are openly hostile to National Socialism. That would be asking too much of them. They are waiting. Their old organizations have been destroyed. Their belief in the usefulness of their organizations has gone. But even the younger generation, which was not indoctrinated by the Social Democratic party and by the trade unions, shows just as little National Socialist sympathy.
When we discuss the social structure of National Socialism, we shall draw attention to an outstanding phenomenon: thorough indoctrination of the masses is always accompanied by almost complete terrorization. This is necessary because of the contradiction between the enormous capacity of the productive apparatus and the destructive uses to which it is actually put. Even the most unenlightened worker is forced to ask himself whether it is possible to reconcile the flattery of the masses, the aping of Marxist ideology, high productivity, and terrorism. Even the most self-centered worker will, almost every day, come up against the question why so developed an industrial apparatus as the German has to be kept together by terror. Unlimited productive power, terror, and propaganda cannot create National Socialism among the workers. On the contrary, the workers are more likely to move along revolutionary syndicalist lines, to evolve ideas of sabotage and of direct action, ideas that were frowned upon by Social Democrats and Communists alike, but which might be considered by them as the sole means of asserting man’s dignity within a terroristic system.
The picture is not very different in regard to the communist worker. The Communist party, as we have seen, has been prepared for social imperialism by the doctrine of National Bolshevism. It is therefore possible, and even likely, that some groups within the communist movement, especially the lowest paid workers, were susceptible to social imperialist theories up to the outbreak of the German-Russian war. But the National Bolshevist slogan of the Communist party was merely the formula of a corrupt leadership frantically searching for propaganda devices that would allow them to compete with nationalism, and National Bolshevism was never spontaneously accepted by the communist masses. It was accepted by the uprooted proletariat, by the Lumpenproletariat, especially by many groups belonging to the Red Fighting League, which, to a considerable extent, became absorbed by the Brown Shirts and the Black Shirts. Moreover, the National Bolshevist slogan was abandoned by the Communist party when it became clear that the communist masses turned against nationalism and National Socialism in spite of the attempted collaboration by the Communist party with the reactionary groups. The last remnants of National Bolshevism, especially among the lowest paid strata of the communist workers, were finally driven out by the actual social policy of National Socialism, which was most terroristic against these very groups. It is the unskilled, untrained worker, especially the road builder, who has probably received the worst treatment and whose rights and interests are sacrificed almost daily.
The social imperialist ideology is, however, probably fully accepted by the uprooted middle classes, so far as they have been organized within the National Socialist party. For these strata of the middle class are genuinely anti-capitalistic. For them, the new theory is really the formulation of a psychological demand for greater dignity. Under the Weimar Republic, to call a member of the middle class a proletarian was, in his view, to express contempt for him. But to call him a proletarian today is to invest his position with the highest possible dignity: that is, to name him a fighter for a greater proletarian Germany against the surrounding capitalistic world. The S.S. man is anti-capitalistic and today he seems proud to be called a proletarian. The former retailer or handicraft man, the dispossessed peasant, the unemployed intellectual who never had time or money to finish his studies, the elementary school teacher, all these groups dislike capitalism as much as Communists and Social Democrats did. For them, the doctrine of social imperialism is an adequate expression of their longings and an adequate formulation of their claims for dignity and security. For them, socialism is an untenable doctrine—since they hate the very basis upon which the socialist doctrine rests: that is, the equality of men. In addition, the doctrine of social imperialism is, as it has always been, a device of the ruling classes, a device as old as imperialism itself. Social imperialism is the most dangerous formulation of National Socialist ideology. It appeals to all those groups throughout the world who are in danger of proletarization: peasants, retailers, artisans, teachers and other intellectuals; it appeals to the unemployed, to all those who in the process of monopolization have lost security but do not want to be called proletarians. It becomes especially dangerous since it contains one element of truth: that the German economy is highly developed, is efficient, and contains many progressive elements. The amazing efficiency of Germany’s technical apparatus, coupled with the social imperialist doctrine, is today Germany’s greatest weapon. It is to the structure of this economic system that we now have to turn.
* Cf. p. 124.
† Cf. p. 193.
* See p. 140.
† See p. 104.
* See p. 14.
* See p. 140.
† See p. 146.