Re: Land, Bread and Sex!

["Johannes Schneider" <Johannes.Schneider@xxxxxxxxxxx>]

Xxxx Xxxxx Xxxxxx wrote:

> >
>
> hello comrades! I am a new member to the list..
>

Welcome here, Xxxx. Something you would like to add as an introduction.

> >
> > >> It certainly was for the following reason:
> > >
> > >> - strength of the German labour movement (before 33)
> > >> - lost WW I
> > > >- no successful bourgeois revolution
> > >
> > >> Johannes
> > >
> >
>
> Actually, I thought this a while ago when I was reading a book (_The
Making
> of an Atlantic Ruling Class_) about Germany's political/economic strength
> in the international political order after the WWI. Why did the classical
> bourgeois revolution fail in Germany given that the United States, unlike
> the allies, tried its best to rebuild German industrial capacity in the
> years following the war under the Dawes Plan  of (1924)?

I think there is a misunderstanding. The attempt for a German
bourgeois-democratic was undertaken in 1848, but was crushed by the German
feudal forces with active support of Tsarist Russia. In the following years
German bourgeoisie subordinated itself politically under the remnants of
feudalism. As a result of that German unification did not occur in a
revolutionary-democratic way but from above. At the same time the labour
movement got stronger and the bourgeoisie feared a proletarian revolution
more than anything else, thus becoming a reactionary political force. For
that reason a democratic bourgeois revolution was impossible in Germany in
1918.

The only option after WWI was a proletarian revolution. This attempt was
crushed by a combination of brutal force and some concessions to the working
class. Thus the German bourgeoisie saw the democratic rights of the 1919
constitution not as their own gains, but as concessions it had to make to
the working class. Thats why Germany between 1919 and 1933 was no
'traditional' bourgeois democracy (it seems that what you mean when talking
about a failed bourgeois revolution).

> It seems that, at
> that time, there was a massive flow of American capital into German
> economy, financed by bankers like Morgan, Chase National Bank, Chicago
> Investment Bank and so forth. Backed by international bankers
predominantly
> American, the Dawes Plan mostly relaxed the priority of war reparations or
> even terminated penalties and "coercive means to
> payment of reparations". Pijl argues that between "1924 and 1930, $1.239,
> worth of German bonds were sold to American investors; German Industry in
> the same period floated bonds to an amount of $214.4 million on the
> American capital market". One wonders if rising German fascism (state
> monopoly tendency among bourgeosie) was a reaction or a natural extension
> of this American influx of money capital to Germany, since the US was
> targeting after the world  war I at possible Atlantic unity under the
> leadership of US hegemony. German co-optation was necessary against
> Bolshevik threat. Morgan's partner Thomas Lamon financed fascist Italy in
> 1925. The same in Germany,  although fascists were not in power yet.  It
> seems that Germany's defeat at WWI did not seem to effect finance capital
> that much, given US aid.  so what was the Germany  bourgeoisie actually
> suffering from (or different factions of bourgeoisie)?
>

Although the revolutionary forces were defeated in 1919, there was still a
strong revolutionary current within the German working class as well as a
dominant reformist current. In the economic crisis after 1929 a decision
between the old ruling classes and the working class became inevitable.
Beeing cout off from colonies and imperialist extra-profits any concession
to the working class were not possible. Thus the solution was fascism.

I am not sure whether American capital directly financed Hitler, but
certainly they welcomed the way how he crushed all the working class
resistance. After the Bolshevik revolution in 1917 the ruling classes in all
imperialist countries saw a proletarian revolution as a main threat. Hitlers
rise to power was seen by most parts of the bourgeoisie internationally as a
sometimes unpleasant but necessary or even unevitable step to fight
Bolshevism on a global scale.

Johannes