Re: [Marxism] Gluckstein, Abraham, the Nazis and big business

["Carlos A. Rivera" <cerejota@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

----- Original Message -----
From: "Louis Proyect" <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>



>  Myself, I'll stick with big business.

Which is only a slightly better alternative to blaiming women for the
NSDAP's dictatorship.

It is true that the NSDAP's dictatorship was sealed by the support of Big
Industry, in particular International (British and USonian) Big Capital, but
it is neither the sole factor, nor is it the main factor.

This has a simple, historically verifiable, root:

The NSDAP built the party and ideological infrastructure than won them power
long before German Big Industry took an interest in them. While Hitler had
indeed hit upon some wealthy benefactors early on, this by no means is to be
seen as support of Big Industry as a significant block. You can esentially
speak of four periods of the NSDAP,

* the initial period of the founding and asencion of Hitler,

* period between the publishing of the "Twenty-Five Points" and the Munich
Putsch,

* the Period between the Putsch, publishing of Mein Kampf and winning the
1932 elections

* Period of power and war.

It is only in the second half of the third period, after the 1928 election,
that the NSDAP starts to draw attention of Big Industry. And it is only
after the market crash of 1929 that Big Industry threw itself towards
Hitler, althought this was not by any means total.

This support happened after the NSDAP had become the third political force
in Germany, and had grown from being a completely new force, without roots
in any previous political establishment, and from having several dozen
members, into a party with 500,000 members, armed forces, youth clubs, car
clubs, labor unions, and millions and millions of dollars of revenue
generated by membership fees and book/newspaper sales in a depressed
economy.

In other words, the NSDAP was poised to win, or at least to present a
serious challenge, to those two looming Red Forces, the SPD and the KPD,
even without the support of industry.

In an interesting note, Big Industry in general did indeed support the SPD,
and continued to do so until the great depression plunged Germany even
deeper into crisis, and the SPD's base became more radicalized in their
economic demands. This is a bit that get lost to some of the advocates of
the "blame the Big Industry" school of anti-fascism.

As we can easily establish the the framework of why big industry was not the
sole or main factor of the NSDAP victory (it is beyond my scope in this post
to provide primary source data, although it is there for the taking), the
more complex part is establishing then what DID make it happen. That is more
complex a question, but one I have some ideas about.

I belive they are related to a counter-revolutionary material basis (the
economic situation in Germany, the long history of german war nationalism,
and the conservative nature of German society), coupled with an effective
mass psychology (yes, this is a big part of it, and there is a big lesson to
learn there for us). I am more of the Wilhem Reich school in this sense,
however cooky he got afterwards.

sks


_______________________________________________
Marxism mailing list
Marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/listinfo/marxism