Working class support for the Nazis?

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

>A significant minority of NSDAP [Nazi] voters
>and members, around 20%, probably more,  were working class because Nazi
>propaganda was able to seem more radical than the 'left'.  The tiny number
>of German Trotskyists didn't have a way of beating Hitler because they had
>no independent politics; that was one of the tragedies of the situation.
>
>Colin

Michael Mann believes that 20th century Marxism has made a mistake by
describing fascism as a petty-bourgeois mass movement, since "scientific"
sociological investigations have turned up working class support. He
develops these points at some length in an article "Source of Variation in
Working-Class Movements in Twentieth-Century Movement" which appeared in
the New Left Review of July/August 1995, which is largely meant to refute
classical Marxist understandings of the nature of fascist movements.

If he is correct, then there is something basically wrong with the Marxist
approach, isn't there? If the Nazis attracted the working-class, then
wouldn't we have to reevaluate the revolutionary role of the working-class?
Perhaps it would be necessary to find some other class to lead the struggle
for socialism, if this struggle has any basis in reality to begin with.

Mann relies heavily on statistical data, especially that which can be found
in M. Kater's "The Nazi Party" and D. Muhlberger "Hitler's Followers". The
data, Mann reports, shows that "Combined, the party and paramilitaries had
relatively as many workers as in the general population, almost as many
worker militants as the socialists and many more than the communists".

Pretty scary stuff, if it's true. It is true, but, as it turns out, there
are workers and there are workers. More specifically, Mann acknowledges
that "Most fascist workers...came not from the main manufacturing
industries but from agriculture, the service and public sectors and from
handicrafts and small workshops." Let's consider the political implications
of the class composition of this fascist strata." He adds that, "The
proletarian macro-community was resisting fascism, but not the entire
working-class." Translating this infelicitous expression into ordinary
language, Mann is saying that as a whole the workers were opposed to
fascism, but there were exceptions.

Let's consider who these fascist workers were. Agricultural workers in
Germany: were they like the followers of Caesar Chavez, one has to wonder?
Germany did not have large-scale agribusiness in the early 1920's. Most
farms produced for the internal market and were either family farms or
employed a relatively small number of workers. Generally, workers on
smaller farms tend to have a more filial relationship to the patron than
they do on massive enterprises. The politics of the patron will be followed
more closely by his workers. This is the culture of small, private
agriculture. It was no secret that many of the contra foot-soldiers in
Nicaragua came from this milieu.

Turning to "service" workers, this means that many fascists were
white-collar workers in banking and insurance. This layer has been going
through profound changes throughout the twentieth century, so a closer
examination is needed. In the chapter "Clerical Workers" in Harry
Braverman's "Labor and Monopoly Capital", he notes that clerical work in
its earlier stages was like a craft. The clerk was a highly skilled
employee who kept current the records of the financial and operating
condition of the enterprise, as well as its relations with the external
world. The whole history of this job category in the twentieth century,
however, has been one of de-skilling. All sorts of machines, including the
modern-day, computer have taken over many of the decision-making
responsibilities of the clerk. Furthermore, "Taylorism" has been introduced
into the office, forcing clerks to function more like assembly-line workers
than elite professionals.

We must assume, however, that the white-collar worker in Germany in the
1920's was still relatively high up in the class hierarchy since his or her
work had not been mechanized or routinized to the extent it is today.
Therefore, a clerk in an insurance company or bank would tend to identify
more with management than with workers in a steel-mill. Even under today's
changed economic conditions, this tends to be true. A bank teller in NY
probably resents a striking transit worker, despite the fact that they have
much in common in class terms. This must have been an even more pronounced
tendency in the 1920's when white-collar workers occupied an even more
elite position in society.

Mann includes workers in the "public sector". This should come as no
surprise at all. Socialist revolutions were defeated throughout Europe in
the early 1920's and right-wing governments came to power everywhere. These
right-wing governments kept shifting to the right as the mass working-class
movements of the early 1920's recovered and began to reassert themselves.
Government workers, who are hired to work in offices run by right-wingers,
will tend to be right-wing themselves. There was no civil-service and no
unions in this sector in the 1920's. Today, this sector is one of the major
supporters of progressive politics internationally. They, in fact,
spearheaded the recent strikes in France. In the United States, where their
composition tends to be heavily Black or Latino, also back progressive
politics. But in Germany in the 1920's, it should come as no major surprise
that some public sector workers joined Hitler or Mussolini's cause.

When Trotsky referred to the working-class resistance to Hitler or
Mussolini, he had something specific in mind. He was referring to the
traditional bastions of the industrial working-class: steel, auto,
transportation, mining, etc. Mann concurs that these blue-collar workers
backed the SP or CP.

There is a good reason why this was no accident. In Daniel Guerin's
"Fascism and Big Business", he makes the point that the capitalists from
heavy industry were the main backers of Hitler. The reason they backed
Hitler was that they had huge investments in fixed capital (machines,
plants, etc.) that were financed through huge debt. When capitalism
collapsed after the stock-market crash, the owners of heavy industry were
more pressed than those of light industry. The costs involved in making a
steel or chemical plant profitable during a depression are much heavier.
Steel has to be sold in dwindling markets to pay for the cost of leased
machinery or machinery that is financed by bank loans When the price of
steel has dropped on a world scale, it is all the more necessary to enforce
strict labor discipline..

Strikes are met by violence. When the boss calls for speed-up because of
increased competition, goons within a plant will attack workers who defend
decent working conditions. This explains blue-collar support for socialism.
It has a class basis.



Louis Proyect
Marxism mailing list: http://www.marxmail.org/