p It took several decades —from the conclusion of the AustroGerman Treaty in 1879 to the forming of the Entente in 1904-1907—10 prepare secretly for the First World War. Secret preparations for the Second World War began soon after the First ended, and consumed nearly two decades. Two military coalitions confronted each other long before the First World War: the Triple Alliance and the Entente. There was only one coalition before the Second World War: the Berlin-Rome-Tokyo axis. Britain, France and the United States did not gang up against Germany for the simple reason that they refused to lose hope .until the day the war broke out (and even after) of coming to terms with the nazis against the Soviet Union.

p This difference in the prewar setup reflected deep-going changes in the world arrangement. On the eve of the First World War the globe was totally a capitalist playground, whereas before the Second World War the Soviet Union, the world’s first socialist state, was well launched and developing rapidly. That was the new substantive point that distinguished the situation before the Second World War from that before the First. This time, the imperialist states were bent on resolving their contradictions at the expense of the USSR.

p The second war, like the first, materialised due to the acute contradictions of the imperialist system—contradictions between the biggest capitalist powers, each of which was out to seize new territories, subjugate peoples and establish its supremacy. That was what led to the First World War, 12 which culminated in a redivision of the world in accordance with the existing balance of power. Defeated Germany was deprived of her colonies and of some of the neighbouring territories seized by German conquerors. Yet the social system in Germany withstood the revolutionary onslaught of the people.

p The lessons of that war, of the disastrous defeat, were lost on the German monopolists. On the eve of the first war they clamoured for "a place in the sun”, whereas after it they also had a thirst for revenge. Revenge was what rallied all German aspirers of conquest. And by reason of the uneven economic and political development of capitalist countries, Germany soon caught up and then surpassed Britain and France, her European rivals, economically and militarily. This added fuel to the revenge-seeking ambitions of the German rulers.

p The process was gradual and in the earlier stages a minimum of effort could have averted the subsequent course of events. But neither Britain nor France (nor the United States for that matter) did anything about it. On the contrary, their rulers displayed a "sense of affinity" with the German militarists. Their policy of abetment was camouflaged with assurances to the world that Germany had changed, become democratic, and would never again be a threat to her neighbours.

p The American, British and French monopolies reckoned that German military revival would compensate for the old world’s general debility contracted after socialism triumphed in the USSR. German militarism would not have recovered as swiftly as it did if international reaction, mostly the US monopolies, had not given it a helping hand. Monopoly quarters in the US, Britain and France hand-fed hitlerism, assisting the militarists in their new fascist cloak to prepare for the Drang nach Osten with the avowed purpose of destroying the Soviet Union.

p The myopic anti-Soviet policy of the European and American imperialist bourgeoisie, steeped in hostility for the socialist system and backed by Right Social-Democratic leaders, bordered on outright betrayal of national interests, overstepping that border here and there, in face of the mounting nazi threat. The secret preparations of the Second World War are, in fact, a startling illustration of how the class limitations of the reactionary bourgeoisie and its blind hatred of communism delivered the European 13 countries to disaster and enslavement by German fascist invaders.

p In the years preceding the war, the imperialist states converged along the anti-Soviet course. Yet, uniquely, their convergence blended with a further sharpening of the imperialist drives for world rule. That was why the Second World War at first broke out as a collision of two capitalist groups.

p World imperialism was thus the sole culprit of the Second World War.

p Once again imperialist Germany was its immediate initiator. After its defeat in 1914-1918, German imperialism became more aggressive. Its thirst for world power, an incurable disease, assumed monstrous proportions: it did not hesitate to begin plotting a new war.

p The German monopolies sensed that resistance of the patriotic democratic section of the nation could spike their expansionist designs that gravely menaced the Germans themselves. So they delegated power to the Hitler clique, which, they saw, would impose acquiescence on the people by unmitigated terrorism.

p The fascist coup took place early in 1933. The nazi seizure of power marked a realignment of strength among the monopoly bourgeoisie. The making of home and foreign policy fell under the total control of the moguls of the heavy and arms industry and the most aggressive and most reactionary segment of German finance capital.

p The close alliance between the nazi clique and the German financial oligarchy was cemented by members of the former soon becoming millionaire monopolists. Hermann Goering was the foremost, amassing a fortune by plundering " nonArian" financiers. His concern had a capital of RM 6,000 million, with a fortune of over $3,500,000 in the United States.  [13•1  Joseph Goebbels became a millionaire by marrying Magda Quandt, a banker’s daughter. Adolf Hitler, too, the fascist dictator, was a capitalist of considerable means.

p Even before coming to power the nazis were financed by monopolists. Afterwards, this financial support became a regular subsidy. An Adolf Hitler Fund for German Economy was founded on Krupp’s initiative in May 1933, compounded from obligatory levies on wages and salaries. The workers 14 were made to enrich their most bitter class enemy. The revenue amounted to RM 8,400,000 in the first year, and to RM 20,000,000 in the second.  [14•1 

p The nazis dealt ruthlessly with their political opponents long before they came to power, and shed all restraint once the bourgeois machinery of state fell under their control. Prisons and concentration camps densely dotted the country; camp barracks became a graphic architectural symbol of nazism. "The evolution from baroque to barrack was, in a way, a historical process illustrating the development of German culture under Hitler’s rule,"  [14•2  wrote Balis Sruoga, a Lithuanian writer and ex-inmate of a nazi death camp.

p Nearly a million people  [14•3  languished in prisons and camps, with 200,000 executed or tormented to death. The Communists were exposed to the most brutal treatment of all.

p The main nazi aim was to prepare, trigger and prosecute a world war that would place the German monopolies into a position of unlimited power. Home and foreign policy was centred totally on this ultimate aim. Planning the “total” campaign, the hitlerites knew that in common their adversaries possessed superior strength. It, therefore, became their main diplomatic objective to keep them divided. Though reckless to the extreme, this policy paid off.

p While the Soviet Union called unceasingly for a united front of peaceful nations to repulse the aggressive nazis, the rulers of the United States, Britain and France opposed this in every way. They were aware of the danger emanating from Germany, but assumed that it was insignificant compared with the advantages they would reap from an eventual war between Germany and the Soviet Union. Their plan was simple: let Germany destroy the Soviet Union and crush the labour movement in Europe, whereupon they would dictate terms to a Reich weakened by its effort in the East. The US rulers concealed their policy of encouraging German aggression in Europe and Japanese aggression in the Pacific behind a cloak of neutrality, and those of Britain and France behind non-interference.

p The nazis were aware of the expectations of the US, British and French monopolists. They constructed their 15 plans on an anti-communist foundation, Hitler and his lieutenants stressing constantly that their war plans concerned the Soviet Union only, not the reft of Europe, and that their purpose was to protect Europe from the "Bolshevik danger”. This, they kept saying, was why the West should help Germany fling off the Versailles constraints and rearm.

p Hitler put it in so many words to his closest associates: "I’ve got to play ball with capitalism and keep the Versailles powers in line by holding aloft the bogey of Bolshevism—make them believe that a nazi Germany is the last bulwark against the Red flood. That’s the only way to come through the danger period, to get rid of Versailles and re-arm."  [15•1 

p His secret manoeuvres succeeded. The US, British and French governments showed extraordinary zeal in clearing Germany’s path. These upholders of Western democracy went so far as to aver that German fascism was a special kind of "democratic arrangement”. And Hjalmar Schacht, the German banker who toured the United States soon after the nazi coup, lecturing before financiers in the biggest cities, did his utmost to back up this specious propaganda. He said, among other things, that the fascist regime was the finest form of democracy.  [15•2  His speaking tour firmed up the friendly feelings of the US monopolies towards Hitler and his regime. They stepped up their action, seeking to reinforce the military-industrial potential and the giant army establishment of nazi Germany. It stands to reason that their endeavours were anything but altruistic. General Motors, for one, cleared at least $30,000,000, and this according to minimised estimates, out of which $20,000,000 were reinvested in industries "owned or controlled by Goering and other nazi officials".  [15•3 

p Economic ties of Anglo-US monopolies with Germany and their prominent part in restoring the armed forces of the German militarists, constituted the economic basis of the “neutrality” and “non-interference” officially professed by the United States and Britain, respectively.

p No capitalist government bothered to act consistently for peace and security against the imminent fascist aggression. And not for a lack of Soviet warnings, which the capitalist press and bourgeois politicians classified as unfounded 16 “propaganda”, on the grounds that the German Government had publicly declared its allegiance to peace and earned the trust of Western governments by its general activity. Nazi war preparations were indeed camouflaged with professions of peace, but their speciousness was obvious.

p The Soviet Union advanced the proposal of a united front of peoples and governments against a new world war. This, in fact, was the purport of the Soviet European collective security plan.

p Yet the aggressors and their abettors poured scorn on the Soviet idea. The nazi government made its disapproval clear through official channels, announcing its hostility to all treaties of mutual aid against aggression. This was not surprising. Its repudiation of collective security was motivated by aggressive intents. But Britain and the United States, too, came out against it. Meanwhile’ Mussolini countered with a plan for a united imperialist front, including Germany. He proposed a "quadripartite pact”, and accord by the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Italy to revise peace treaties, recognise Germany’s “right” to rearmament and assure co-operation against the Soviet Union.

p The four-power agreement of understanding and cooperation was concluded soon after the Hitler coup, on July I5> ^r933- But its architects went down in defeat in their respective parliaments, which refused to ratify it in face of the public outcry. This ended the first Anglo-French attempt, backed by the US imperialists, to build an antiSoviet front and prod the reviving German militarism eastward. However, though unratified, the four-power pact served as a prologue to the Munich deal, a. fateful factor of subsequent international developments.

p The next encouragement of nazi aggression was Britain’s and France’s refusal to act effectively against the Hitler government in 1935, when it began its series of gross violations of the Versailles military articles and the building up of vast armed forces.

p More, unilateral violations of Versailles treaties were followed by a bilateral violation: in June 1935 the British Government concluded a naval agreement with Germany, allowing her to reconstitute a powerful navy, with British firms promising financial and technical aid.

p The US, British and French imperialists thought their cherished goal-a German attack on the USSR—very close. 17 However, far from relieving the imperialist contradictions, their policy of encouragement only added fuel to the fire. The rapid growth of Germany’s military-economic potential, coupled with her war preparations, accentuated the" unevenness in the development of the capitalist countries, tilting the balance of strength in Hitler’s favour. The split of the capitalist world into hostile groups of powers was imminent, paving the way for an armed conflict between them.

The war matured in the womb of the capitalist world. The eruption drew closer. But the process was veiled by the secrecy that impregnated the policy of the Western powers, which thought of war while chattering of peace. The knife to cut the throat of the peace dove was being whetted by the nazis, while the leaders of the United States, Britain and France turned the grindstone. At first, Hitler had not expected this. The German imperialists had every reason to be grateful, but their gratitude was a mere pretence. Their daggers were drawn against France, Britain and the USA, as well as the Soviet Union.