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

[Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>]

Carlos:
> Except for rural peasants, who were a politically significant force in
> very few states in germany, the NSDAP shared its political based with the
> KPD. Including the lumpen. This myth of the NSDAP being a
> middle-class/lumpen alliance against the worker-only KPD has no basis in
> historical reality.

Actually, I have taken a close look at this question in an article on
fascism. Michael Mann argued that the Nazis had a proletarian base, but
that is not exactly the case:

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 or E.J. Hobsbawm refer to the working-class resistance to
Hitler or Mussolini, they have something specific in mind. They are
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.

full: http://www.columbia.edu/~lnp3/mydocs/fascism_and_war/fascism.htm

> The KPD even actively recruited from this base:
>
> In the 1920s, the KPD's youth papers routinely appealled to "Degenerate
> youth! Guttersnipes! Pimps! Bums! Thieves! Plunderers!" to join the Party.
>
> A seminal article in this respect, which I have posted many times in many
> lists:
>
> ORGANISING THE 'LUMPENPROLETARIAT': CLIQUES AND COMMUNISTS IN BERLIN
> DURING THE WEIMAR REPUBLIC by Eve Rosenhaft
> http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/2379/evans1.htm

Interesting stuff, but it refers to lumpen elements, doesn't it?

> Yet all those supposedly "progressive" people evidently switched their
> alligeance to the NSDAP or catrastophically failed to rise up in
> resistance. That there was no active german resistance to speak of during
> WWII tells a lot about the mass psychology that developed under German fascism.

Once Hitler set up a totalitarian system, it would be very difficult for
workers to organize. The key to understanding Hitlerism is not mass
psychology but the suicidal policies of the working class parties. These
policies allowed Hitler to take power. Once in power, he could mold German
society to his liking.

> This is were this optimistic view of the German working-class many have
> falls. That there was a huge, important communist party in Germany, that
> the most progresive section of the German working-class at thge time was
> more concious that the most progressive section of the USA working-class
> of today is not in doubt.

If we ever build such a party in the USA, let's hope that it avoids the 3rd
period lunacy that divided the German working class. Fortunately, the
super-sectarian Maoist trends of the 1960s and 70s that tried to adapt the
3rd period to American politics have all died off.



Louis Proyect
Marxism list: www.marxmail.org


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