OF EUROPE AFTER THE WAR.
AGGRESSIVE BLOCS EMERGE
Beginning of the Nuclear Era
p Those closing days of history’s bloodiest war saw a new era dawning over mankind: the nuclear era. The vast power that lay dormant in the nucleus of the atom could have given people an abundance of heat, light, food and other goods. But it so happened that first to come into possession of atomic energy was a capitalist country—the United States of America. And the energy that could have been a source of new hope for millions made its debut—in the hands of the leaders of the imperialist world—as an instrument of suffering and death.
p On August 6, 1945, an American flier, acting on orders from H. Truman, president of the United States, pushed a button, and a minute later Hiroshima, one of Japan’s biggest cities, lay in ruins. "The city,” according to Japanese accounts, "was a mass of rubble. The scene everywhere was one of unparalleled horror. Charred and burnt bodies lay in heaps, in the very attitudes and postures in which the blast had overtaken them. The skeleton of a tramcar was crammed with corpses hanging on to the straps. Of those who remained alive many were in pain from burns that covered most of their bodies. Wherever one looked one encountered sights remindful of hell.” Two days later a similar tragedy was visited on Nagasaki.
p Nothing can ever justify the calculated cruelty of the American leaders. There was no question of military necessity, for the fate of the war in the Pacific theatre had already been decided: at that precise time, by mutual agreement among the Allies, the Soviet Union was to join in the war with Japan. It has been admitted by General Chennault, in command of the American air force in China, that the Soviet Union’s entry into the war was the decisive factor that hastened the end of the war in the Pacific and would have been such even if the atom bombs had never been dropped.
369p One may well ask what made the American Government decide to use the atom bombs and thus turn the remarkable achievement of human genius into a lasting threat to the world. The answer is that its sole aim had been to put pressure on the Soviet Union at the critical moment when the foundation of a post-war world system was being laid.
p The American bourgeoisie had suffered no tangible losses in the war. Mushrooming defence orders had expanded US industrial production by 2.5 times. The United States accounted for over 60 per cent of the industrial output of the capitalist world, 33 per cent of its exports, over 50 per cent of its merchant marine tonnage, and 70 per cent of its gold reserves. The defeat of Germany and Japan had removed, at any rate for a long time to come, the American bourgeoisie’s keenest competitors in the world markets.
p Its allies, notably Great Britain and France, had exhausted their resources and were forced to look to the United States for financial aid.
p The economic and, later, the political and military imperialist centre of gravity had once again shifted from Europe to the United States. In this situation the idea of undisputed world domination which had first been hatched in the United States several decades ago now appeared to American politicians as capable of relatively effortless realisation.
p Serious obstacles, however, did stand in the way of its realisation. These were the Soviet Union, now a great socialist state, and the People’s Democracies that had emerged in the 1940s. The hopes for a weakened USSR had not come true: on the contrary, the USSR had come out of the war stronger than ever before. At the time when the first shots rang out in 1939 on the GermanPolish frontier the socialist system comprised only two states: the USSR and Mongolia. By the end of the war the working class and the peasantry had taken over in seven European countries, namely, Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Bulgaria, Hungary, Rumania and Albania. In addition, progressive elements in Eastern Germany had begun, with the active aid of the Soviet Government, to reorganise their country along democratic lines. Popular revolutions were making good headway in a number of Asian countries. In China, the Communist Party controlled by the end of the war an area with a population of 100,000,000.
p The exhaustion or possibly even the collapse of the Soviet Union and the concomitant suppression of the workers’ movement as a whole, which the reactionary circles had counted upon, had thus failed to materialise; and the forces that stood for progress, democracy and socialism, headed by the USSR, had become a powerful factor in international relations.
370p When he made his plea for the use of the atom bomb against Japan, US Secretary of State Byrnes argued that that would induce the Soviet Union to be more tractable. According to an American radio broadcast in the autumn of 1945, the point of view of the Anglo-American leadership was that Russia would be destroyed if she didn’t “behave”.
p The blasts of the first atom bombs ushered in a new period in the foreign policies of the imperialist states, which came to be known as atom diplomacy or the cold war. The essence of this new policy was to bring continuous pressure to bear upon the Soviet Union and the fledgeling People’s Democracies. The United States took upon itself to tell the East European countries how they were to solve the problems of their internal development. In China, the United States intervened in the civil war on the side of the Kuomintang government.
p The temper of public opinion, however, and the political climate in the early post-war months, reflecting as they did the recent victory won by the Allied nations in a ruthless war against the fascist countries, kept the governments of the United States and Great Britain from adopting an overt anti-Soviet policy so soon after the end of the war. The victory over the fascist coalition had bolstered the forces of democracy in all countries. In the United States, Left-wing trade-union organisations now wielded greater influence, and since 1946 the Progressive Party had stepped into the picture. In Britain a Labour Party government stood at the helm. Communist Parties were enjoying growing prestige. In 1943 the Communist International decided for a number of reasons to disband. [370•1 With the new stage of development of the world communist movement new tasks had arisen before it and, moreover, the Communist Parties themselves had accumulated a wealth of experience and learnt to solve difficult problems engendered by class warfare.
p In France, the first post-war elections (1946) gave the Communists 5,500,000 votes, i.e., 28.6 per cent of the total. In Italy the Communists received 4,400,000 or 20 per cent of all votes, and nearly 25 per cent in Finland. In 1945, 1946 and 1947 Communists were members of the governments of nine European countries, namely, France, Italy, Belgium, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Austria, Finland and Luxemburg.
In 1947 Communist Parties existed in 76 countries as against 61 in 1939. The number of Communists had more than tripled in the bourgeois countries during the war to reach 4,800,000. With the 371 war over, important steps were taken to assure working class solidarity on an international plane. A World Federation of Trade Unions (WFTU) was formed at a World Trade Union Congress held in Paris in September 1945. The trade unions of 56 countries joined the WFTU, including the USSR, the USA, Great Britain, France, Italy, Poland, China, India and Indonesia. Two more international organisations were established towards the close of 1945. These were the Women’s International Democratic Federation and the World Federation of Democratic Youth.
The Cold War
p During 1945, and to some extent during 1946 and 1947, representatives of the USSR and the Western powers were generally still able to reach agreement on many important international political problems. This was manifested at the creation of the United Nations Organisation, the Potsdam Conference, and the drafting and adoption of the peace treaties with Italy, Rumania, Hungary, Bulgaria and Finland, the countries which participated in the Second World War on the side of nazi Germany.
p In the spring of 1946, however, there occurred an event which many historians and journalists viewed as a turning-point in postwar international relations. On March 5, 1946, W. Churchill, former British prime minister and outstanding Western political figure, made a speech at the American town of Fulton (Missouri), in the presence of President H. Truman, which declared relentless political war against the Soviet Union. Churchill called for a show of strength for the benefit of the Russians, which was to be achieved through a union of all Anglo-Saxon countries against socialism. The speech became a programme of action for the imperialist camp in the international arena. There ensued the longdrawn-out cold war period, which involved an armaments race, the setting up of American bases around the perimeter of the USSR and the People’s Democracies, and the formation of aggressive military blocs.
p Thoroughly alarmed by the growing strength of socialism and by the scale of the revolutionary movement, the American monopoly bourgeoisie wanted the armed forces of the United States, now in possession of the atom bomb, to take upon themselves the role of a world policeman, a sort of fire brigade ready to rush to any part of the globe in order to extinguish any fires of popular unrest. General Taylor, who became later chief of staff of the American army and US ambassador in South Vietnam, claimed that the United States was capable of policing the world and establishing a world-wide "pax Americana".
372p An early embodiment of this policy was the proclamation, in March 1947, of the Truman Doctrine. In a special message to Congress, the American president claimed for the United States the right to interfere in the domestic affairs of other countries. By virtue of this doctrine the American Government gave financial and military aid to the reactionary monarchist regime of Greece and to the Government of Turkey, whose policy at the time was violently anti-Soviet. The true motives of that aid were revealed by Walter Lippmann, a leading American publicist, when he wrote that the choice had fallen upon Turkey and Greece not because they were shining examples of democracy but because they were strategic gateways to the Black Sea and the heart of the Soviet Union. In exchange for this aid, which would only enrich the ruling circles of the two countries, the United States obtained the right to establish important military bases on the territory of both.
p Shortly after the Truman Doctrine was proclaimed the US governing circles elaborated a programme of economic aid intended to salvage bourgeois Europe, weaker now as the result of the war and the successes of the Left-wing, democratic forces. Called the Marshall Plan, after the secretary of state of the United States, it was intended to rally the capitalists of various countries behind the United States to combat the Soviet Union and the international workers’ and national liberation movements. The American imperialists wanted to take advantage of the economic difficulties encountered by the newly-emerged People’s Democracies in order to lure them away from the socialist camp and into the orbit of their own influence, as in the case of Czechoslovakia, which they tried to enlist in the Marshall Plan.
p The bourgeois politicians in the key posts in the various West European countries willingly fell in with the American programme in spite of the fact that it involved serious infringement of their countries’ sovereignty and considerable strengthening of the economic positions of US monopolies in Europe. American executives began to control the finances and foreign trade of the countries receiving US “aid”. As a sequel of the Marshall Plan measures were initiated by the governing classes of the West European countries to curb the Communist Parties and other progressive organisations.
In regard to some of its aspects the Marshall Plan was a failure. Thus, its authors failed in their attempt to breach the unity of the socialist countries and draw them into participation in the plan. Nor were they able to cause any visible abatement of class warfare or any decrease of communist influence in Western Europe. On the whole, however, the Marshall Plan did help bring a measure of stabilisation into the capitalist system. Its greatest contribution was to the recovery of the West German economic 373 potential, which was one of the main aims of the American plan. This was entirely in line with the policies of the Western powers in respect of the German problem.
The German Problem
p The Potsdam Agreements were violated by the United States, Great Britain and France in the early post-war years. The occupation authorities of the Western powers looked to the moneyed classes and reactionary politicians in West Germany for support, and not infrequently to former active nazis. Neither an agrarian reform nor the liquidation of West German monopolies were effected, so that a nutrient medium was left by the United States, British and French governments to nourish German militarism back to life again. As early as 1945, when the subject of antiSoviet military blocs was first broached in the Western press, discussion began of the possible inclusion of West Germany in such blocs. General Eisenhower, speaking at a later date, argued that it was in the interests of the United States to have the German army ready to attack in any direction the United States might indicate.
p Associated with such plans for using West Germany as an important member of anti-Soviet military blocs was the policy of ending the four-power control and partitioning of the country. During 1946-47 the American and British zones became associated under a bi-zonal arrangement; and when the French zone joined with them, in 1948, the partitioning of Germany had become an accomplished fact.
p During the first half of 1948 representatives of the four occupying powers were engaged in working out a currency reform for the whole of Germany. On June 20, there came unexpectedly the announcement of a currency reform for the three western zones. There followed an influx of the devalued currency into East Germany, where it still retained its purchasing power. To protect East German economy and to keep out currency speculators the Soviet authorities established a check on all road vehicles arriving from West Germany. The United States, British and French governments refused to submit to this checking system and began an air-lift of passengers and freight into West Berlin. J. F. Dulles, General Marshall’s advisor at the time and later United States secretary of state, recognised that the situation in Berlin could be normalised without much difficulty, but neither he nor his colleagues were in a hurry to do so. In May 1949, the conflict was settled through the initiative of the Soviet Government.
374Meanwhile, however, the Western powers continued to work for a final partition of Germany. On September 7, 1949, the first West German Parliament (Bundestag) proclaimed a Federal Republic of Germany (FRG). Its early acts in the international arena gave clear evidence that the new state was given to militarism and dedicated to the idea of revenge, and that it had been put, as a Soviet Government statement very rightly pointed out, in the hands of those who had but recently collaborated with the nazi regime. And, indeed, the FRG was at that time the only European country to call for a revision of the state frontiers established jointly by the victorious powers after the Second World War. FRG leaders frequently issued statements reminiscent of the old "Drang nach Osten" and “Lebensraum” and other similar slogans. In 1951 the rebuilding of the West German military machine was begun, and many nazi generals were once again invited into service. In 1955, finally, the FRG was admitted into the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation (NATO) and became the closest supporter of the United States.
Military Blocs
p That aggressive bloc had been set up back in 1949 by the United States and included, beside that country, Great Britain, France, Belgium, Holland, Luxemburg, [374•1 Italy, Canada, Norway, Denmark, Iceland and Portugal. Turkey and Greece gained admission in 1952, and the FRG in 1955. This North Atlantic Bloc became the most important military alliance of the imperialist states. Regular NATO sessions adopted decisions on intensification of military preparations, expansion of the military bases network, etc. The NATO was aimed against the USSR, against the entire socialist community of states, as also against the national liberation and democratic movements in general.
p In the early 1950s the United States started setting up military blocs in other regions. The first “fringe” area military alliance was the ANZUS, a Pacific bloc comprising Australia, New Zealand and the USA, set up in 1951. In 1954 the NATO leadership were able to organise an Asiatic branch of the North Atlantic Alliance. This was the South East Asia Treaty Organisation (SEATO), whose task was ostensibly to combat subversive activities, but which was really intended to suppress national liberation movements. Organised by the United States, Great Britain and France, the SEATO comprised in addition Australia, New Zealand, Thailand, the Philippines and Pakistan.
375p Then, in 1955, came the organisation of the Bagdad Pact, comprising Great Britain, Turkey, Pakistan, Iran and Iraq. Iraq withdrew from the pact following the revolution of 1958, and the seat of the pact was moved from Bagdad to Ankara; and in 1959 the name of the organisation was changed to Central Treaty Organisation (CENTO). The United States, while formally not a member of CENTO, was represented in its various important bodies and exercised decisive influence on its activities. Air and rocket bases aimed at the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries were set up by the United States on the territory of practically all the states participating in these military blocs.
p Hand in hand with the reactionary foreign policy of the imperialist governments went suppression of democratic forces at home. For Communists and all “dissenters” a long period of persecution set in in the United States. To voice progressive views was to invite possible loss of job and indictment. In Great Britain many perfectly innocent civil servants were dismissed as a consequence of a "loyalty test”. Members of peace movements became the target of bitter persecution. An atmosphere of unbridled anti-communism prevailed, in which repressions and terrorism thrived.
p Between 1948 and 1951 several prominent leaders of the working class were murdered in cold blood or seriously injured by paid assassins hired for the purpose by reactionary elements. Those murdered were Jorge Calvo, a leader of the Communist Party of Argentina, and Julien Lahaut, head of the Belgian Communist Party. Palmiro Togliatti, the Italian Communist leader, was seriously wounded.
An unheard-of wave of war hysteria now swept over the countries of the North Atlantic Bloc. It was drummed into the ears of the population that the Soviet Union was about to attack Western Europe and the United States. Sharp businessmen advertised atom-bomb-proof shelters, underground hotel accommodations, etc. Imperialist governments used the imaginary Soviet menace to speed up the arms race. During the period between the fiscal year 1938/39 and the early 1950s, United States arms expenditures, per caput of population, had shown several tenfold increases.
Power Balance Shifts
p As visualised by its American authors, the North Atlantic Bloc was to help strengthen the dominant military and political role of the United States in Western Europe. As more and more time lapsed since the end of the war, however, the American monopolies ran into increasing resistance on the part of their European business partners.
376p The most consistent resistance to US efforts to entrench itself in Western Europe was offered by France, which, in 1966, declared its decision to pull out of the NATO military organisation, thereby bringing to light the crisis that had been festering for the past few years within that aggressive body. The United States and its allies in the governing circles of the NATO member-states, were finding it more and more difficult with each passing year to justify the existence of that organisation by pointing to an alleged "Soviet menace" to counter which it had been created. More and more voices were raised in Denmark and Norway, in Canada and Iceland, and in the rest of the NATO member-states in favour of ending their membership upon the expiration, in 1969, of the stipulated twenty-year term.
p This desire to throw off the American dictate was to a large extent attributed to economic factors. During the post-war years shifts were continuous in the "balance of power" within the bourgeois camp, indicating a decline of the importance of the United States in the world economy.
p When the war ended the share of the United States in the industrial output of the capitalist world amounted to 60 per cent; but by 1948 it had dropped to 56.4 per cent, the vanquished countries, that is, West Germany, Italy and Japan, accounting at that time for 7.9 per cent. By the end of the first five post-war years the United States’ share in the global capitalist output had dropped to 53.3 per cent, while that of West Germany, Italy and Japan had jumped to 11 per cent. The shares of Great Britain and France remained unchanged over the period 1948-50. Thus we see the but recently vanquished rivals of the United States, Britain and France, recovering once again and rapidly strengthening their position in the capitalist system. By 1958 West Germany had forged ahead of France in industrial production, and by 1960 she ranked second in the capitalist world.
p There were, however, even more striking changes in the world capitalist market. Immediately after the defeat of the fascist bloc West German, Italian and Japanese exports stood at zero. Even two years later their exports accounted for only slightly over 2 per cent of the aggregate capitalist exports; while the United States still accounted for about 33 per cent of that aggregate. But by 1962 the share of the United States had dropped to 17.3 per cent, while that of the three defeated countries had jumped to 18.5 per cent. Moreover, while in the early post-war years the United States monopolies were paramount in the economy and foreign trade of the capitalist camp, the rapid recovery of their competitors cleared the way for keen rivalry within that camp.
Proof of the intensification of this process was seen in the appearance of various plans for amalgamating and integrating 377 the economy of European bourgeois countries. The European Coal and Steel Community, set up in 1950, was the first state-monopoly association designed largely to assure joint counter-action against the expansion of United States fuel and metal monopolies in the world markets.
European Integration
p In March 1957, the representatives of France, Italy, the FRG, Belgium, Holland and Luxemburg, meeting in Rome, signed a treaty providing for the formation of a European Economic Community, also known as the Common Market or the Six. The treaty envisaged a gradual reduction and eventually the complete abolition of customs tariffs among the six Common Market countries and the establishment of common tariffs in respect of trade with all other states.
p The Treaty of Rome drew a bead on the United States and Great Britain, for the Common Market was called upon to help its members to compete primarily with the monopolies of those two countries. The United States adopted a dual attitude towards European integration. On the one hand the American monopolists realised .that the emergence of the Common Market meant fresh and very considerable difficulties for them in respect of marketing and raw materials supply. On the other hand, however, the American imperialists, being responsible for the organisation and leadership of all anti-socialist forces, were bound to support integration in the name of a common stand of the West against the East.
p The formation of an economic union of bourgeois European states gave rise to a great many sharp contradictions among them. Great Britain was left outside the Common Market, and her bourgeoisie still vacillated between the very questionable benefits of joining the Six and the very real weakening of economic ties within the British Commonwealth. Serious contradictions existed within the Common Market as well. The problems of "agrarian integration" offered a good example. All six member-countries differed in respect of prices on agricultural produce, mechanisation level, climatic conditions, etc. Some of them, namely, France, Italy and Holland, were exporters of agricultural produce; while Belgium, Luxemburg and the FRG were importers thereof. It follows, naturally, that the unification of prices provided for by the 1962 agreement meant a serious change in the entire agricultural structure. The Common Market might mean certain gains for the ones and losses for the others. France would be among the latter, inasmuch as her interests clashed with those of the FRG not only within the framework of the Common Market. The dominance of 378 monopolies, the wholesale purchase of farm produce system, etc., threatened to shift the losses resulting from integration onto the shoulders of the small producers and the consumers. Even the Right-wing journals wrote of "human suffering" among the peasants whom the creation of a common market for farm produce would literally uproot from their holdings. Higher prices on food products, a direct result of agricultural integration, led to the aggravation of class warfare in the capitalist countries of Europe. The hard-fought strikes in Italy, Belgium, the FRG and other Common Market countries and the peasant demonstrations in France were proof enough.
Capitalist integration was a menace to the new, economically underdeveloped states. With the collapse of the colonial system and the failure of the European colonial powers to cope with the rising tide of the liberation movement, the emergence of the Common Market offered them a chance to pursue a policy of collective colonialism in Asia and Africa. The authors of the Common Market had provided for the “association” or partial adherence of a number of underdeveloped countries, which were to remain producers of raw material for European industry, that is, to be forever an agrarian appendage of the industrialised states. Cunningly planned propaganda of this sort of “association” sought to convince these fledgeling states that they would benefit from the abolition of customs duties on the minerals, ores and other raw material which they exported to Europe. But “association” meant the abolition of customs duties on manufactured commodities imported by Asiatic and African countries, and the extremely limited home markets of the underdeveloped countries would become glutted with goods imported from the industrialised states. Their own industries, which had just started developing, would be hard pressed in trying to meet this competition. A number of prominent African leaders very rightly sounded a warning against any support of the Common Market by African countries.
New Stage of the General Crisis
of Capitalism
p Throughout the two post-war decades the development of the imperialist system as a whole underwent important changes. This was especially true of its position vis-d-vis the non-imperialist camp. Such factors as the growing economic and military strength of the socialist countries, the successes registered by the anti-colonial revolution, and the world-wide struggle of peoples for peace set a limit to the opportunities still open to the imperialist states and restricted their ability to determine the course of world 379 events. These factors, as well as the aggravation of class war and the contradictions among the bourgeois countries, and the instability of the economic situation, ushered in, in the second half of the 1950s, the third phase of the general crisis of capitalism.
p Unlike the first two stages, which were associated with the two world wars, this new, third stage was ushered in in times of peace. Once more it has been proved that the progressive development of mankind and the success of the forces of democracy stand in no need of war.
p The world is currently in the midst of a very real scientific and technological revolution, as a consequence of scientific achievements in the spheres of atomic energy, electronics, cybernetics, etc. Where capitalism is dominant, however, this revolution runs riot and leads to painful changes in the pattern of industry, with the discharge of large numbers of industrial workers. Automation of production means not only growing unemployment in capitalist countries, but also greater intensification of labour and greater exploitation of those who retain their jobs.
p Yet it would be a mistake to suppose that any further development of productive forces in the capitalist world is ruled out. There were serious shifts within the imperialist economic system in the post-war years. The process of concentration or monopolisation of the national economy went on in all of the economically developed capitalist countries. There was increasing government interference in the national economy in behalf of the monopolies; and state-monopoly capitalism was growing stronger and stronger in the bourgeois states. In some countries, such as France, Italy, Japan and the FRG, economic development proceeded at one time at a rather rapid rate; but it lacked the element of stability and was mainly of a broken nature accompanied now and then by rather steep recessions. Thus in 1967 the overall rate of increase in industrial production in the capitalist states showed a sharp decline by comparison with 1960-66, dropping to only 2.4 per cent (as against 6.9 per cent in 1966). The gross national product of the capitalist countries increased by only 3 per cent (as against 5 pe: cent in 1966). Yet most typical manifestation of the difficulties encountered by the capitalist economy in the second half of the sixties was the currency complication experienced by all of the leading imperialist states. Urgent measures taken by the governments concerned, such as the devaluation of the sterling and other sterling area currencies or the raising of the price of gold in the USA, served merely to cushion temporarily the impact of the currency crisis that again and again shook the capitalist world.
p Shifts in the social structure and regrouping of social forces were apparent currently in all bourgeois states. These changes 380 meant, essentially, polarisation of populations, thinning out of the middle strata. Real power within the state became increasingly concentrated in the hands of the leading monopolies, which virtually laid down government policy.
p Late in 1963 Averell Harriman, US assistance secretary of state, sought to prevent implementation of the decision of the president of Argentina to annul certain onerous agreements with American firms. Asked by the Argentine Minister Alconada whether he represented the government or the petroleum companies, Harriman replied that he found the question difficult to answer because the companies in question were American companies.
p The increasingly bitter class warfare in the bourgeois countries, however, had a definite effect on the development of state-monopoly capitalism. Where the revolutionary and democratic movement laid a foundation on which a broad anti-monopoly coalition could be built up, for instance, the state enjoyed a measure of independence vis-d-vis the monopolies. In such countries (as in Italy, for example) the governing circles were compelled to adapt themselves to the situation and to implement, under the pressure of the working people, certain measures designed to curb the dominance of the monopolies.
p During the past few decades there had developed in the bourgeois countries a trend towards placing in key positions representatives of military circles associated with the monopolies. This trend had grown stronger since the Second World War. Even General Eisenhower felt it necessary, on leaving the White House early in 1961, to warn the people of the unprecedented growth of the "military-industrial complex" on the American scene. In addition to the reactionary high military circles, the monopolies looked for support to all sorts of neo-nazi parties and “ultra”, racist, “rabid” and other organisations, which fomented the anti-communist hysteria in their respective countries, hunted down all those who did not share their ideas, staged race riots, and so on. The American “ultras” and the leading reactionary monopolies that backed them must be held responsible for the assassination, in November 1963, of the American president, J. Kennedy.
There was a growing conviction among wide sections of the US population that the reactionary activity of the monopolies and militarists was not in their vital interests and simply aggravated the internal problems of the country. This contributed to the formation of new conditions for unity among the population at large in their stand against the domination of the monopolies and their efforts to bring about democratic reforms and achieve peace and security for all nations.
381The USA in the Post-War Period
p Reconversion, or the return to business on a peace-time basis, presented a great many difficulties for the United States. Production facilities had expanded tremendously during the war years and were quite out of proportion to the demands of the home market. American industry thus faced the problem of overproduction as well as that of marketing its output.
p The big corporations, anxious to prevent any sharp drop in their profits, sought a solution at the expense of the workers and farmers. Scores of anti-labour bills were submitted to the United States Congress in 1945 and 1946. All of them were designed to restrict to the greatest possible extent the rights of the workers and labour organisations. Many became acts of Congress. One of the most reactionary acts in the history of the United States was the Taft-Hartley Act of 1947, which provided for the expulsion of Communists from the trade unions; restricted trade unions in respect of fighting for their political rights; outlawed the "closed shop”, established on a nation-wide scale back in 1935 (leaving this problem to be resolved by the states); and empowered the president to defer strikes for prolonged periods of time.
p An unbridled campaign against all liberal-minded Americans was unloosed, and in 1948 the leaders of the Communist Party of the United States were committed for trial. They were convicted under the Smith Act on espionage in favour of a foreign state and sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. All civil service employees were compelled to submit to a special check, and many were dismissed.
p Liberal-minded intellectuals (mainly adherents of the Democratic Party) enlisted the aid of certain trade unions and attempted to fight against this campaign by organising a Progressive Party. In the presidential elections of 1948 the new party lost to the Democratic Party, whose candidate, H. Truman, who had assumed the presidency on Roosevelt’s death in 1945, was re-elected. The economic situation in the United States, meanwhile, was unfavourable. A crisis set in during the election year, which resulted in an 8 per cent drop in the country’s industrial production.
p American intervention in Korea checked any further development of the crisis; and mounting military expenditures breathed new life into some branches of the American economy. Not that the governing party gained anything thereby, for the scope of US intervention (an army of 450,000, an air force and fleet were dispatched to Korea) and the heavy losses sustained by the expeditionary corps had caused a wave of discontent in the United States. In the 1952 elections the victory went to General D. 382 Eisenhower, candidate of the Republican Party, who promised to end the war in Korea.
p The new Administration had even stronger links with the monopolies and business interests in general. Key posts in the Administration went to company owners and managers. All internal government acts, such as the tax reform of 1954, the cut in agricultural production, the new stern measures against Communists, etc., were implemented in the interests of the Two Hundred Families, the true masters of America. The odious witch-hunt went on, headed by the House Committee on Un-American Activities under senator McCarthy. The years 1950-55 were a period of unbridled McCarthyism: vicious persecution of all progressive forces fighting for a peaceful foreign and progressive domestic policies. More than 100 leaders of the Communist Party were sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Special acts passed in the 1950s (such as the McCarran Act, the Humphrey-Butler Act, etc.) were aimed essentially at outlawing the Communist Party. These trials, so called, of the Communist Party lasted into the 1960s; there were twenty in all. Communists were bullied into registering as "agents of a foreign power”, but not a single Party member fell into the 383 snare. Though hard pressed, the Communists carried on their work with the masses, taking an active interest in the various progressive movements and fighting as best they could against the allpervading influence of the monopolies.
p Yet another development characterised the post-war years: new monopoly groups were gaining strength, those that had made money on arms deliveries between 1941 and 1945 and during the war in Korea. Alongside the New-York-based groups (the Morgans, Rockefellers, du Fonts and others), important influence was now wielded by the Middlewestern group with centres in Chicago, Detroit and Cleveland, the Southwestern group based chiefly on San Francisco and Los Angeles, and the Southern group, centred at Dallas. Each group had its own regional interests and strove to influence government policies. A trend towards a bloc of the Southwestern and Southern groups, which became apparent in the 1960s, meant an even stronger position of the reactionary forces on the American political scene.
p There was no nation-wide economic crisis in the post-war period to match the one that overtook the country in 1929, but significant business recessions did occur in 1948-49, 1953-54, 1957-58 and in the early 1960s, when industrial production fell off by 10 per cent and more. These recessions, together with modernisation of plant and automation of production, accounted for a levelling-out of the unemployment figure at from three to four millions.
p As business conditions grew worse class warfare became more and more intense and strikes gained in scope, involving up to 2,000,000 in certain years. The strikes were bitterly contested, one of the biggest, involving 500,000 metal workers, lasting around four months, in 1959, and ending in victory for the workers. The trade union split was overcome in 1955, when the American Federation of Labor with a membership of around 10,000,000 and the Congress of Industrial Organizations with its 4,000,000 members joined to form one organisation, the AFL-CIO. The leadership remained reactionary, but the amalgamation did improve the outlook for the working class struggle.
p The 1960 presidential elections returned the Democratic Party to the White House. The USA was then busy planning a lightning stroke that would do away with revolutionary Cuba and dissuade any other Latin American country that might want to follow its example. To this end a reckless invasion of Cuba was launched from US territory in April 1961. It ended in failure, for the Cuban people completely defeated the invading force in a matter of three days. Further US attempts to crush the Cuban revolution in the autumn of 1962 brought about a serious international crisis, as we have already seen elsewhere in this study. Constrained to give up the idea of restoring- capitalism in Cuba by force of arms, the US 384 changed to tactics of economic and political pressure to try to achieve the same purpose.
p President Kennedy, taking account of the real power ratio on the international scene, planned to put the relations between the United States and the Soviet Union on a normal footing. Thus, the US governing circles agreed to join the USSR and Great Britain in a treaty banning nuclear weapon tests in the air, in outer space and under water (many other states were to adhere to the treaty later).
p Difficult internal problems, however, took up most of the attention of President Kennedy’s Administration. In order to check declining production in the early 1960s the government introduced a tax reform designed to stimulate business. It meant, essentially, a cut in taxes on capital, that is to say, the transfer of the burden of the worsened economic situation onto the shoulders of the masses. This led to an expansion of the strike movement and increased racial tensions, in the 1960s, to a degree never before witnessed in the country. The Negro population, 20 million strong, rose to wage a determined struggle against racial discrimination, demanding full equality of rights, economic included. Supported by all progressively-minded citizens, irrespective of colour, this movement became one of the most important factors of the nation’s political life.
p Characteristic of the modern stage of the struggle against racial discrimination in the United States is the fact that the South is no longer the main (still less the only) area of Negro revolt. No less than 2 million Negroes moved into the northern states in the sixties, where, however, they have encountered the same colour bar at every turn. Negro workers get less pay than Whites, as a rule, for the same kind of work; and unemployment among Negroes is considerably higher. Large-scale Negro riots have now spread to the country’s important industrial centres and the capital. Demonstrations involving thousands, picketing of racist organisations, anti-discrimination marches to cities particularly notorious for racist rule have swept the country. In an effort to appease the movement the government has introduced a civic-rights-for-theNegroes bill in Congress, thereby stirring to wrath the racists, who want to see the anti-discrimination struggle crushed by force.
p President Kennedy’s policy found no favour with the extreme right. A sizable segment of the press, financed by big business, started a campaign against him; and in November 1963, President Kennedy was shot and killed. The circumstances of his assassination have not yet been entirely cleared up; the official version lays the crime to a single individual, but there is much evidence to show that the president had been removed from the political scene 385 as the result of a plot. Lyndon Johnson, the new president, showed himself considerably more acceptable to the American monopolies as a statesman. Although the civic rights bill was passed by Congress in 1964, its implementation was frustrated on every step. The anti-discrimination struggle therefore subsequently grew even more bitter, often resulting in armed clashes provoked by racist terrorism against the Negro population. In the second half of the 1960s many American towns became the scene of pitched battles between Negroes roused to anger by terrorist acts and police usually reinforced by army units.
p In the beginning of April 1968, Martin Luther King, a prominent fighter for Negro rights and holder of the Nobel Peace Prize, was killed by an assassin, and this new crime of the American racists caused another explosion of wrath. A wave of unrest swept more than 100 towns, including Washington, where a state of siege was proclaimed. Fires flared in many places throughout the capital, as well as in such great cities as Chicago, Baltimore, Pittsburgh, etc. Towards the end of April a vast march of the poor was started on Washington. The purpose of the marchers was to make the government and Congress take steps to improve the lot of those 30 million whom even official statistics classed as impoverished. Mass demonstrations were held on Capitol Hill, in the course of which the crowds were addressed by the leaders of the march. Although these leaders called for peaceful methods in the conduct of the struggle, the authorities, fearing possible outbreaks, ordered the marchers cleared out of the capital. The tent city pitched on the capital’s outskirts was razed by the police, who made a number of arrests, notably among the leaders.
p That was not to be the end of the "hot summer" of 1968, however. High-handed racist acts brought mass outbreaks in various parts of the United States: in Detroit, New York, Birmingham, Toledo and many other towns.
p Sharpened racial contradictions were not the only cause of the heavily charged political atmosphere: a related and equally important cause was the growing struggle of the American people against the US war in Vietnam and its escalation. This war began with the landing of a modest expeditionary force in South Vietnam; in August 1964, the USA went over to a savage air bombing of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam; and year by year thereafter the invasion grew in scope as the US forces on the Vietnamese soil continued to be increased. Despite their substantial superiority in weapons the American invaders failed to break the will and determination of the Vietnamese people to fight and win. They suffered heavy casualties and lost a great deal of military equipment. North Vietnamese anti-aircraft guns and rockets shot down several thousand American aircraft.
386p The US aggression caused great indignation throughout the world, and a powerful movement in support of fighting Vietnam developed in the United States itself. The high cost of the war—$25,000 million were spent in 1967/68—cut a big slice out of the American family’s budget, and this was only a part of the country’s unprecedented total military outlay, which amounted to over $75,000 million for the same fiscal year. Money taken out of the taxpayer’s pocket was generously spent on the maintenance of American troops and military bases all over the globe; on modern weapons supplied to the numerous partners of the US in such aggressive organisations as the NATO, SEATO, etc. All this while appropriations for social needs, education, and help for the needy, etc., were cut year after year.
That explains why the movement for civic rights was closely linked with the struggle to end the American war of aggression in Vietnam. Martin Luther King was hated by the reactionaries not only because he waged a spirited fight for equal rights for Negroes, but also because he was resolutely opposed to the war against Vietnam. One aspect of the struggle to end that war of aggression were the many meetings and demonstrations that attracted more participants than any ever seen in the United States. In April 1967, for instance, roughly 400,000 men and women took part in the anti-war demonstrations in New York and San Francisco. Thousands of American youngsters refused to serve in the armed forces in protest against the Vietnam venture; and many servicemen sought political asylum abroad. No amount of repression was able to check the anti-war movement, which was gathering force with every passing day. [386•1
Post-War Great Britain
p The leading capitalist countries of Europe, that is Great Britain, France and the FRG, also experienced important changes in the post-war period. The disintegration of the colonial system in the years that followed the Second World War ended Britain’s status as the centre of a huge empire with a population until recently constituting one-fourth of the human race. The English bourgeoisie succeeded, it is true, in largely maintaining their economic 387 positions in their former possessions; but their role and influence in the sphere of international politics were seriously damaged. American loans and participation in the Marshall Plan (while the United States retained its monopoly on atomic weapons) in the early post-war years considerably enhanced Britain’s dependence on the United States.
p No sooner was the war over than Britain was dealt a telling blow by the working class and other elements of the British working people. The Conservative Party lost the July 1945 parliamentary elections, for all the popularity of its leader, W. Churchill. The Labour Party that stepped into its shoes stood for outright nationalisation of the key branches of the national economy, a number of social reforms, and continued relations of alliance with the USSR. The Party leadership, headed by C. Attlee, who had replaced Churchill as prime minister, were in a very moderate mood, it is true, but they had to reckon with the wishes of millions of workingmen and white-collar workers and were compelled to live up to some of their promises. So it came that, in 1948, coal mines, gas plants, iron and steel works, railways, river shipping and freight motor transport were all nationalised; but most important of all was the nationalisation of the Bank of England.
p All these were progressive measures, and, as such, received the approval of the British workers. But the Labour government went no farther, and when it was defeated, in 1951, and the Conservatives once more stood at the helm, it turned out that four-fifths of Britain’s industry was still in the hands of private owners. Nationalisation had been applied primarily to the older, obsolescent branches of the national economy, where the owners were unable to finance the much-needed reconstruction. The modernisation of these industries at public expense was in line with the interests of a considerable segment of the capitalist class, inasmuch as the British industries’ ability to meet competition in the world markets depended in large measures on the physical state of the coal mines, power plants and transportation facilities. Moreover, the owners of nationalised enterprises had been paid a more than handsome indemnity of £2,500 million.
p The inconsistent policies of the Labour government at home and the anti-Soviet and anti-socialist colouring of its foreign policy, which in reality tagged along in the wake of the aggressive foreign policy of the imperialists in the United States (even as far as participating in the American venture in Korea), produced bit by bit a feeling of disappointment among the Labour Party membership. The 1950 elections resulted in the loss of many Labour seats. In 1951 Attlee decided to risk re-elections and the Labour Party suffered a resounding defeat. Economic difficulties were largely 388 responsible for this, such as the fuel crises of 1947 and 1951, the adverse balance of payments, and repeated recesses in industrial production. The Conservatives returned to power again, to form a government headed by W. Churchill (who would be replaced in 1955 by A. Eden).
p The Conservatives could not, of course, put the government’s domestic policy in reverse, that is to say, denationalise industry or abolish the social insurance system set up by the Labourists. But the bourgeoisie could now count on full government support in their attack on the living standards of the people at large. Churchill and his successors made adroit use of the current international tension to advance their aim at home, which was to make the working class shoulder the burden of the costs associated with the country’s economic difficulties, militarisation of production, etc.
p Around £20,000 million were spent on armament by the Conservatives over the period 1951-63. A lot of money was invested in the development of atomic weapons.
p In 1956 the Eden government, acting in concert with the governments of France and Israel, staged an attack on the Egyptian Republic in an attempt to regain Great Britain’s position in the Suez Canal zone. [388•1 The attack failed completely, thanks, in a measure, to the firm stand taken by the British working class against the aggressive policy of the Conservatives. In the beginning of 1957 H. Macmillan was appointed Prime Minister (owner of an important publishing firm, he was distantly related to the royal family).
p The policies of the Conservative government continued to favour the interests of the big capitalists, and it was hardly surprising, therefore, that class warfare grew more and more intense in England. Nation-wide strikes followed, such as in the engineering industry (1953), the railways (1955), the shipbuilding and once again the engineering industries (1957), showing that the workers were determined to defend their social gains. Local elections and elections to trade union bodies, on the other hand, where the Communists achieved signal success, gave evidence of a swing of the working class to the left.
p Repeated shifts were made within the government, by which the Conservatives hoped to appease the working class. The wide publicity given to a case of corruption involving the Secretary of State for Defence forced Macmillan’s resignation towards the close of 1963, when A. Douglas-Home took over as head of the Conservative government. In the parliamentary elections of October 1964, however, the Labourists won by a majority of votes and 389 returned to power after an interval of thirteen years. The post of Prime Minister was given to J. H. Wilson. The new government had only a small margin of votes in the House, which was the reason it gave for rejecting the policy that Harold Wilson, who had supported the Left wing of the Labour Party while in the opposition, and other party leaders had promised to follow if elected. Some eighteen months later the Labour leadership decided to hold mid-term elections in order to bolster its position in Parliament. A number of preliminary social reforms were introduced, which were in fact just so much window-dressing and were intended to win for the Labour Party the favour of the masses: a slight increase in pensions, partial rent control, etc.
p In the parliamentary elections of 1966 the Labourists achieved considerable success: their majority in the House now amounted to 97 votes. There was nothing to prevent them now from carrying out the programme they had presented during the election campaign, for which millions of Englishmen had voted. That, however, they did not do. The Labour government came in for growing criticism throughout the country, especially after the mid-term elections. This criticism was aimed above all at measures designed to bolster the national economy and based mainly on freezing wages but including also restriction of the right to strike, inasmuch as strikes were now bound to follow: a special law provided for legal action against trade unions having recourse to strikes.
p The Labour government’s policies merely increased the serious economic difficulties besetting Britain. Industrial production was either marking time or dropping. Unemployment went up 70 per cent between the close of 1965 and the close of 1967. The gravity of these difficulties was brought home with particular force by the acute currency crisis that had hit the country. While this could be attributed to such objective factors as the liquidation of Britain’s colonial empire, diminishing revenue from colonial exploitation, and the increasing difficulty of meeting competition in foreign markets as a consequence of Britain’s relative industrial backwardness, an important contributing factor was the political line followed by Britain’s governing circles, which remained essentially unchanged since the Labour Party had taken over from the Tories. This was particularly true in regard to Britain’s active participation in various aggressive military blocs, associated with military expenditures far in excess of her ability to bear (£2,115 million in the fiscal year 1966/67). In the international arena Britain’s rulers firmly tied their own policies to those of the aggressive circles in the United^States.
p Britain’s vast military expenditure was a heavy burden on its economy, for which it was vitally important to preserve the balance of payments to other countries in a state of equilibrium. The 390 pound sterling suffered a grievous blow when the Suez Canal became inoperable as a result of Israel’s aggression against the Arab countries in the summer of 1967; British losses resulting from this and other consequences of the war ran to $1,000,000 daily. Late in November 1967, Britain announced a devaluation of the pound sterling by 14.3 per cent in respect of the dollar. This measure was preceded by a fresh attempt of the British ruling circles to ease the situation by joining the Common Market. This action encountered a firm French veto based on the "special relations" existing between Britain and the United States and on the fear lest Britain’s economic instability and excessive dependence on the import of foods and raw materials might affect unfavourably the national economies of the Common Market countries. While the devaluation of the pound benefited Britain to some extent by increasing her exports, it did not solve her financial difficulties, and she had to keep borrowing heavily from international banks to keep these difficulties from getting out of control.
p The Wilson government’s internal and foreign policies produced sharp dissension within the Labour Party membership. Thus, 62 members of the ruling party voted against the government when the military budget came before Parliament in February 1967. The British Trades Union Congress of September 1967 repudiated—for the first time in the history of the British labour movement—the main lines of the Labour government’s internal and foreign policies. The Labour Party suffered impressive defeats in various elections, local and parliamentary by-elections, which spoke of a considerable loss of popularity. Much prestige was lost by the Labour Party leadership through the attitude taken by Wilson and his followers toward the Rhodesian racists, who had proclaimed Rhodesia’s independence in order to keep the native Negro population from any participation in governing the country. Their absolute refusal to use force in regard to the racist Smith regime settled any doubt as to where the sympathies of the rulers of Britain lay.
Wilson was trying to manoeuvre. In an effort to strengthen again its influence with the people the government decreed, in the same year, the nationalisation of the steel industry, giving the state control over 14 important steel companies, on the same basis, of course, as when the former Labour government was in power. These manoeuvres, however, could not compensate for the great harm done to the Labour Party’s prestige by the Wilson government’s policy. A reflection of the serious discontent may be seen in the active movement of democratic Britons on behalf of peace in Vietnam and against the support given by the British ruling circles to the US intervention in Vietnam.
391France in the Post-War World
p The end of the Second World War found France in an extremely complicated political situation after four years of nazi occupation and the rule of the traitorous Vichi government. Those who had fought in the ranks of the Resistance Movement were calling for serious social and economic reforms and above all for the nationalisation of banks, iron and steel works, power plants and coal mines. The Communist Party and a considerable part of the Socialist Party membership were fighting, moreover, for the formation of a democratic government capable of conducting progressive domestic and foreign policies. The Communists strove to achieve greater unity of action with the Socialists.
p Another strong political force were former Resistance members from among the bourgeoisie, associated with General de Gaulle, the Catholic bourgeois party formed in 1944, known as the Popular-Republican Movement (MRP), and the old Radical and Radical-Socialist Party, now active again. Their respective leaders feared any at all radical changes and fostered anti-communist sentiments.
p A bitter clash developed, to begin with, over the future state structure in France and the new constitution. Two constituent assemblies had to be elected successively and three nation-wide referendums conducted, all within a year, before a new constitution was finally adopted, in October 1946, which recognised the more important democratic gains of the French people. The political struggle reflected the powerful influence of the Communist Party over the various strata of the working people. In the 1946 elections the Communist Party received 5,500,000 votes or over onefourth of all, more, in other words, than any other party.
p For three years (i.e., 1944-47) Communists were represented in the government—for the first time in the history of France. They took an active part in the nationalisation of the big banks, the coal mining industry, several automobile and aircraft companies, big and medium-sized power stations and gas companies. Both through the government and by other means the Communists worked energetically to reconstruct the country’s economy and raise living standards. They were able to secure longer vacations for young workers, larger pensions for the old, and larger disablement allowances. Meanwhile, the bourgeoisie was bending its efforts to eliminate Communists from the government; and in May 1947, the reactionary elements got what they wanted, through the "good offices”, incidentally, of P. Ramadier, the Socialist premier.
p With the Communists no longer represented in the government, many of the gains made by the democratic forces went by the board. Thus, some of the nationalised industrial plants were 392 returned to their owners; and workers’ representatives were removed from the administrative bodies of nationalised enterprises. In 1948 France adhered to the American Marshall Plan, which increased her dependence on the United States. Another factor contributing to the growth of this dependence was the colonial war started in December 1946, in Indo-China, where the French monopolies tried to re-establish their dominance by force of arms.
p Industrial production continued to grow, surpassing, in 1951, the level of 1929, largely as a result of the increasing exploitation of the workers. Moreover, German firms, who had been the chief rivals of the French trusts in pre-war times, had temporarily disappeared from the world markets, and this, too, contributed substantially to the relatively rapid growth of industrial production in France. However, France was unable to avoid on several occasions considerable recesses in production.
p Defeated in Indo-China, the French imperialists unleashed, in the same year 1954, another colonial war, this time in Algeria. This war lasted over seven years, took a toll of thousands and thousands of lives, and cost billions of francs. Meantime the French working class waged a vigorous fight over both economic and political issues. One demand was to raise wages, which lagged increasingly behind the soaring prices. Another was to end 393 colonial wars and the armaments race. Strikes increased in number, and they were better organised than before and prosecuted with unparalleled stubbornness. The efforts of the working class and other strata of the working people were rewarded with substantial gains. Wages were increased by 5-15 per cent for various strata of the proletariat. And the French Government’s decision to call off the war in Indo-China came as the result not only of military reverses, but also of the unceasing anti-war campaign carried on by the French people and particularly the Communist Party.
p Membership in the governments, which replaced one another, in the 1950s, in fairly rapid succession, generally included representatives of the MRP, which was quite closely linked with clerical circles, and the Radical-Socialist and Socialist parties. General de Gaulle, who had headed the French Government after the liberation, had officially kept clear of the political struggle since 1946, remaining, however, a kind of focal point for his followers, now united in the Assembly of the French People ( Rassemblement du Peuple Francais—RPF), a party which maintained contact with certain important moneyed circles.
p Discontent was rife among the Right-wing political groups over French military reverses in the war in Algeria and the failure of the intervention against the Egyptian Republic in the autumn of 1956. In May 1958, this discontent took visible shape in a revolt staged by officers of the expeditionary force and a segment of the French settlers in Algeria.
p The Communist Party, meanwhile, sought to build up a united front of the country’s democratic forces, with which to counter the reactionary insurgent elements. At this crucial point the leaders of the Socialist and bourgeois parties started a drive to impose General de Gaulle above all parties, and on June 1, 1958, the National Assembly confirmed his appointment as president of the Council of Ministers. That was the end of the Fourth Republic: the new regime came to be known in the press as the Fifth Republic. A new constitution was drafted and promulgated that same year, turning France into a republic with exceptionally broad presidential prerogatives and curtailed powers of Parliament. The election law promulgated simultaneously with the new constitution provided for two rounds in elections (except in cases when the first ballot gave a candidate more than one half of all votes) and party alliances in the second ballot. This facilitated the formation of electoral blocs of Right-wing parties against the Communists. In the very first elections carried out under the new law the Communist Party, which had collected nearly 4,000,000 votes, won only ten seats in the National Assembly.
394p In December 1958, de Gaulle was elected president of the French Republic. In 1966 he was re-elected to that post. In the economic sphere, the efforts of his government were directed toward promoting the export operations of the French monopolies, to which end everything possible was done to stimulate continued concentration of production and capital, which was expected to raise the economic potential of these monopolies to the level of the leading monopolies of the capitalist world. Concentration of agricultural production was similarly promoted, resulting in a more than 30 per cent decrease in the country’s rural population over the period 1954-67.
p During the second half of the 1960s the class struggle in France grew more and more acute, partly owing to rising prices, which employers refused to compensate by corresponding wage raises. Co-ordinated action on the part of all of the leading trade unions put into the hands of the workers a powerful weapon with which to combat arbitrary action by the monopolies: lightning general strikes like the 24-hour strikes that took place in May and October of 1966. There was a sharp upswing of the strike movement over the year, more than 3 million man-days being lost in 1966 as against 980,000 in 1965.
p Lack of unity among the forces struggling against the personal power regime, so characteristic of the first five years of the Fifth Republic, had diminished with time. In 1965 the non-Communist Left-wing parties, such as the Socialist, the Radical-Socialist, the Democratic and Socialist Resistance Union and others, joined to form a bloc which was named the Left Democrat and Socialist Federation (or Left Federation). Negotiations were begun between the French Communist Party and the Left Federation, which revealed an identity of views on a number of important political issues. In December 1966, the FCP and the Federation reached an agreement concerning common tactics to be used in the elections to the Chamber of Deputies scheduled for March 1967. The two sides agreed to support, in the second round of the elections, those of their candidates who would gather, in the first round, the most votes in the related constituency.
p This gave the Left-wing forces a resounding victory. The biggest number of votes was collected by the FCP, which offered a programme designed to curb the power of the monopolies ( including nationalisation of leading branches of industry and the big banks and insurance companies) and give broad sovereignty to the people. The FCP gathered 1,000,000 more votes than in the last elections, winning 32 more seats. The government’s majority in the Chamber dwindled to a minimum. Nevertheless the government succeeded in obtaining from the Chamber special powers for itself, namely, the right to issue, over a specified 395 period of time, decrees having the force of laws. Invoking this right, the government put through, in 1967, a reform in the sphere of social insurance which introduced harsher insurance terms by reducing rates, retarding pensionable age, etc. The total loss to the working people resulting from this reform amounted to 3,000 million francs.
p The Fifth Republic’s foreign policy was quite tortuous. The fruitless and unjust war against the Algerian people begun some time past lasted a few years longer to end in 1962 with the signing of a treaty recognising Algeria’s independence.
p At the same time the French Government considerably strengthened the country’s independence on the international scene by ending the economic and political dependence on the United States typical of the Fourth Republic. This was most forcibly demonstrated by her withdrawal from the NATO military organisation, announced by the French Government in 1966. By April 1, 1967, all American and Canadian armed forces as well as all NATO headquarters, bases and stockpiles on French territory had been evacuated, in compliance with the French Government’s request. Her new independent approach to important international issues was revealed also in the stand she took on the American war of aggression in Vietnam, which she condemned, just as she condemned Israel’s aggression against the Arab countries. France insisted on the withdrawal of the American troops from Vietnam and those of Israel from the occupied Arab territories.
p The French Government followed a consistent policy aimed at strengthening relations with the Soviet Union and the other socialist countries and at the dissolution of military blocs in Europe. It repeatedly declared that it considered the frontier between Poland and the German Democratic Republic final.
p The serious internal contradictions that had been growing sharper and sharper for months exploded, in the spring and summer of 1968, into class conflict of such gravity as France had not known for years. The events began when students at Sorbonne demonstrated in early May in protest against their low living standards, and against inadequate facilities, obsolete equipment, etc. The police took over the university premises, and this added fuel to the demonstrations; barricades went up; and more than a thousand were injured. On May 13, labour demonstrated its solidarity with the students by staging a 24-hour strike in demand for democratic reforms in higher education and an end of repressions against the students.
p Simultaneously, the workers came out with their own demands. On May 16, the Renault Automobile Works were struck, the strike quickly spreading to hundreds of other plants, to turn into a general strike of unprecedented scope: 10 million workers went 396 on strike at the summons of the CGT and other trade union federations. There were many instances when workers occupied factories, where strict order was maintained. The workers’ demands included: repeal of government measures in the sphere of social insurance; higher wages and pensions; a shorter working day; and full recognition of the trade unions’ rights in industry. Political aims directed against the personal power regime in France were stressed more and more as the strike continued. Political consciousness of a high order, and discipline and unity were displayed by the strikers; anarchistic elements that attempted to provoke riots were thwarted in their efforts.
p As the general strike developed, paralising all life in the country, the atmosphere grew increasingly tense. The government appeared confused: de Gaulle’s first act was to announce that certain reforms would be introduced, which would be put to a referendum in the middle of June; but he then rejected this plan, dissolved the Chamber after consultation with top-rank military leaders, and announced that new elections would be held on June 23. Tank and mechanised army units were drawn up in a circle around Paris. Former OAS leaders were amnestied and released from prison, and leaders of the extreme Right (Bidault and others), currently in emigration, were allowed to return to France in the hope of securing the votes of their supporters. At the same time de Gaulle made several changes within the government, expelling members least acceptable to the masses and replacing them with members of his own party’s Left.
A violent anti-communist campaign was unleashed by the bourgeois parties during the election campaign in an effort to put on the Communists the blame for the bloody clashes that had taken place during the student demonstrations, whereas the ultraLeft, pro-Chinese elements had been the ones actually responsible. The hardships were also played up which had resulted from the general strike prolonged by the obstinacy of the employers, who refused to discuss the workers’ demands with representatives of the trade union federations. To parry the onslaught of the big bourgeoisie the French Communist Party and the Left Federation rallied jointly to the support of their candidates in the second round of the elections. But the undemocratic majoritarian balloting system, the "communist menace" campaign waged to frighten the middle classes, and the short duration of the election campaign had done their work: the ruling party, en bloc with the "independent republicans”, gained many more votes than before; and the FCP gathered 4,433,000 votes in the first round and largely held its own, but was able to win only 34 seats in the new Chamber, as against 73 in the elections of 1967. The Left Federation suffered even heavier reverses, winning only 57 seats instead 397 of 118. The position of de Gaulle and his supporters in the Chamber had grown stronger. The monopolies, however, had been forced to make certain concessions as a result of the vigorous activity developed by the masses: French labour was given an average wage increase of 12 per cent, following the events of May 1968. That, however, did not solve the urgent internal political issues that France had to face.
Revival of Reaction in West Germany
p We have already seen that the defeat of the nazi Reich failed to bring true democracy to the western part of Germany. Since its creation in September 1949, the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) was ruled in the course of twenty years by the ChristianDemocratic Union (CDU), representing the big bourgeoisie. Closely linked with clerical circles, this Party succeeded in winning the support of the masses, though its leadership was reactionary. K. Adenauer, the Party leader, filled the post of chancellor of the FRG for fourteen years. In the sphere of internal policy (as, indeed, in that of foreign policy) the Christian Democrats actively co-operated with the Western occupational authorities.
p The government coalition included also the Free Democratic Party (FDP), which reflects the interests of that segment of the bourgeoisie, which is associated mainly with light and manufacturing industry, trade and the merchant marine. The Social Democratic Party (SDP), which is very influential among the working people and a segment of the intelligentsia, belonged to the opposition.
p Allied decisions regarding the abolition of the monopolies were never carried out in the western part of the country. On the contrary, the share of the big monopolies (with a capital of over 50 million marks) nearly doubled by comparison with the prewar figure: in 1961 they held 70 per cent of the total capital stock. 150 big businessmen controlled three-fourths of the country’s economy. Characteristic of the rural areas was the gradual impoverishment of the small peasants.
p The refusal of the FRG Government and the occupational authorities to democratise the country was manifested particularly convincingly in the impunity actually enjoyed by many active nazis, and in the persecution of the German Communist Party (GCP), which was banned in 1956. Thousands of former nazis held responsible government jobs. The formation of the West German army, the Bundeswehr, started with the re-enlistment of 104 former generals and several thousand former officers of the nazi Wehrmacht. Former nazis were especially numerous 398 in the diplomatic service, where they made up 85 per cent of the entire personnel, and in the judiciary.
p Economic development in the Federal Republic of Germany proceeded at a relatively faster pace than in the other countries of Europe (except Italy) and in the United States so that it ranked second in the capitalist world in respect of industrial production. This was due to the fact that Germany’s defeat and the ensuing dislocation offered the German bourgeoisie a convenient pretext for keeping labour wages at a comparatively low level, which increased the profits of the monopolies, their subsequent industrial investments, and the increased ability of German industry to meet competition in foreign markets. Keeping wages at a relatively low level was made all the more easy by the influx of more than 10,000,000 Germans from lands returned to other countries. Homeless and unemployed, these people were willing to work for whatever they could get.
p Substantial financial aid provided by the United States was another factor contributing to the rapid development of the West German economy, for the United States regarded the FRG as a bulwark of its policies in Europe. A final advantage of the West German economy over its rivals was that prior to 1955 the FRG had no military expenses to speak of, saw to it, in other words, that money wasn’t wasted.
p The country’s intensified militarisation, which began in 1955, caused a lag in the rate of development of those industries, which were not directly concerned with building up the war machine. The militarisation drive inaugurated by the FRG adherence to the North Atlantic bloc affected literally all aspects of West German life. Compulsory military service was introduced in 1956, and by 1965 the FRG had completed the formation of an army of 500,000, which, while formally under NATO command, could be used by the West German militarists at their discretion.
p Branches of the Imperial Soldiers’ Union, Expatriates’ Union and other similar organisations functioned throughout the country; their aims included propaganda of a war of revenge, revision of Germany’s post-war frontiers with adjacent states, and a general revision of all the consequences of the Second World War. When L. Erhard, former minister of the national economy and vice-chancellor, replaced K. Adenauer as chancellor, in October 1963, it was hoped both in West Germany and abroad that there might be a shift in the government’s policy. But the new chancellor’s activities soon showed that he would follow the old policy, embracing such aims as protection of the interests of the big capitalists, suppression of democratic freedoms, revision of certain decisions stemming from Germany’s defeat, and possession of nuclear weapons.
399p Erhardt, who had come to power on the crest of a high business activity, sought to establish a theoretic foundation for this activity and claimed that the FRG had attained "social stability" in the interests of the "common good”. The actual situation, however, exploded this concept at every turn.
p The rate of growth of industrial production began to decline in 1965, dropping 1.3 per cent in 1966; and in 1967 a serious recession set in. In February 1967, unemployment reached the figure of 700,000. Class contradictions sharpened. And the governing CDU/CSP coalition began to lose its supporters, which resulted in growing dissatisfaction with Erhardt among the party leadership. He was also held responsible for setbacks in the sphere of foreign policy. Thus, the government was charged with pursuing an unsound policy in regard to the German problem; with failure to obtain nuclear weapons (strong opposition to this had developed even within the NATO); with the deterioration of relations with France, which had come out for the recognition of the Oder-Neisse frontiers; and so on.
p The crisis came to a head on December 1, 1966, when a coalition government was formed of members of the CDU/CSP and the Social-Democratic Party (SDP), headed by G. Kiesinger of the CDU Right wing. W. Brandt, SDP chairman, was given the post of vicechancellor and foreign minister. Among the members of the government was also J. Strauss, chairman of the CSP, whose activities as minister of war in the Adenauer government had produced a big political scandal a few years ago.
p The coalition government was forced to face squarely the growing economic difficulties (1967 saw a 2.5 per cent decline in industrial production). National economic development was feeling the consequences of the government’s policy of militarisation. In 1967 direct military expenditures alone totalled 19,700 million marks or roughly 25 per cent of the country’s budgetary appropriations. Over 5,000 million marks were additionally appropriated yearly for the maintenance of NATO foreign military contingents dislocated in the FRG and the reserve frontier defence forces (which the country’s ruling circles wanted to reconstitute as an integral part of the army). Heavy investments were being made in building up a domestic atomic and rocket industry that could be quickly switched to the production of nuclear weapons.
p Within the “grand” coalition, predominance passed, as might have been expected, into the hands of the Christian Democrats, who succeeded in adopting the sort of decisions that least suited the masses. Of these, the most extreme was the so-called emergency powers act, which had become the subject of controversy already under the Erhardt government. The crux of the matter 400 was that the ruling circles were intent on nullifying the significance of the Bundestag (Parliament), just as the nazis had done soon after seizing power, so as to have a free hand in taking any internal political measures they might find expedient should the situation take a turn for the worse, however slight. The emergency powers act provided for a possible complete cancellation of the people’s democratic rights and the assumption of dictatorial powers by the government, with the latter deciding whether or not there were sufficient grounds for the action.
p There was a truly mass movement to oppose the passage of the act, headed by the West German trade unions, which are among the leading sections of the FRG’s progressive camp. The May 1966 trade union congress endorsed the working people’s resolution to stand fast in defence of the rights conferred upon them by the constitution of the FRG. Many liberal-minded intellectuals and prominent scientists and scholars (such as M. Born, the physicist, and K. Jaspers, the philosopher) joined the movement to prevent the passage of the emergency powers act.
p Nevertheless, in May 1968 it was passed by the Bundestag.
p The democratic segments of the population were particularly incensed bv the government’s attitude toward the menace of neonazism, which had grown sharply during the late 1960s. Minor existing neo-nazi organisations joined, in 1964, to form the socalled National Democratic Party (NDP), which launched a regular nazi-style virulent chauvinistic propaganda campaign accompanied by increasingly frequent anti-semitic outrages, cases of desecration of graves and memorials to the victims of nazism, and by terroristic acts against progressive public figures.
That the struggle against the government’s anti-democratic measures and preparations for war was expanding may be seen by the so-called Easter Marches, which were bringing together men and women from all walks of life. Roughly 130,000 took part in the Easter March of 1966, and 150,000 in that of 1967. Their slogans were: "Cut Military Expenditures!”, "Repeal Emergency Powers Act!”, "Stop Vietnam War!" (in which the FRG ruling circles were giving the American aggressor substantial aid), “Ban the NDP!”, etc.
Italy in the Post-War Years
p Italy has travelled a complicated way during the post-war period. When the war came to an end, her economy lay in ruins. Unemployment and misery were continuous for a large segment of the country’s population. The eradication of the fascist regime, 401 conducted while Italy was occupied by Anglo-American troops, failed to produce any substantial shifts in the country’s socioeconomic pattern.
p The forces of democracy waged a determined campaign for progressive reforms. These democratic forces comprised members of the Resistance, which meant first of all Italy’s working class with its two parties, Communist and Socialist. In this atmosphere the wealthy classes pinned their hopes on the Christian Democratic Party (GDP) formed in 1944. Backed by the Catholic clergy, this organisation acquired great political power, and its leader, de Gasperi, headed the government for eight consecutive years. The Christian Democrats were nevertheless compelled, in the early post-war era, to invite Communist and Socialist participation in the government. The representatives of these two parties succeeded in bringing about the implementation of several important decisions, such, for instance, as the decree on the farming of unused landed estates by landless peasants; the decree establishing a sliding wage scale; and the prohibition of job dismissal without trade union approval.
p In June 1946, a nation-wide referendum resulted in the proclamation of a republic in Italy; and this successful conclusion of the Italian people’s struggle to end the monarchy was largely due to the fact that the Italian Communist Party and the Italian Socialist Party had worked in complete mutual accord to achieve that purpose.
p As for the role of the imperialists in the United States, they made systematic use of Italy’s post-war economic difficulties to interfere in that country’s domestic affairs. An all-important precondition of American “aid” was the removal of working class representatives from the government. De Gasperi’s machinations resulted in the formation, in May 1947, of a one-party Christian Democratic cabinet. Republicans and Right-wing Socialists who had broken with the Socialist Party to form, in 1952, a party of their own, known as the Italian Social-Democratic Party, were later admitted to partnership.
p Even in these conditions, however, the Italian constitution adopted in December 1947 became, thanks to the efforts of the people at large, one of the most progressive among the bourgeois states. The new constitution not only confirmed the normal democratic freedoms, but also proclaimed the right to work, to social security and to education. It forbade any revival of the fascist party; offered autonomy to the various regions; and provided for the nationalisation of important industries as well as for workers’ participation in their administration. A peace treaty was signed in February 1947, and became a favourable factor in Italy’s postwar history. The participation of the Soviet Union in its drafting 402 ensured the inclusion of provisions favouring the country’s peaceful development along democratic lines.
p Italy’s first post-war parliamentary elections were held in April 1948. They were won by the Christian Democratic Party, which received 12,000,000 votes, while the Communists and Socialists received 8,100,000 votes in all. Class warfare was on the increase at the time, strike followed strike, and hordes of peasants, thousands strong, were seizing landed estates. In July 1948, P. Togliatti, eminent leader of Italy’s workers, was attacked and seriously wounded by an agent of neo-fascist organisations. The attack prompted mass action on the part of the working people. A three-day strike of protest followed, in which 7,000,000 took part. Here and there frightened officials surrendered their rule to representatives of the workers.
p When the panic subsided, however, the Right-wing forces opened a counter-offensive, backed by the military and economic might of the United States. In the summer of 1948 the government brought Italy into the Marshall Plan system and in April 1949, signed a treaty bringing the country into the North Atlantic alliance. Laws were made, designed to .restrict democratic rights of the working people. Class feeling was still at flood tide, however, and the governing circles were compelled to make some concessions. One such concession was the agrarian reform of 1950-51, which turned over to the peasants 1,500,000 hectares of land.
p The 1953 elections showed a definite swing to the Left, Communists and Socialists getting 10,000,000 votes or almost as many as the Christian Democrats, who remained at the helm of state power. In the meantime changes were taking place in the country, which were to become manifest in its political life.
p To begin with, economic development had been picking up speed during the 1950s, and by 1961 industrial production was 2.5 times that of -the pre-war level. The Italian bourgeoisie had grown stronger, but during the years that the national economy was on the upswing it had lost a traditional ally: the landed proprietors of the South, who would never forgive the Christian Democrats their agrarian reform. The lower and middle strata of the bourgeoisie, victimised by the all-powerful trusts, developed growing anti-monopoly sentiments. Flexible tactics and strategy on the part of the Communists, in addition, not only prevented any recession of the workers’ movement in the conditions of an industrial boom, but actually helped it gain in vigour and scope.
p The Communist Party drew up a programme of "the Italian way to socialism”, based on close co-ordination of the fight for socialism and the efforts to democratise the society. The 403 Communists called for the formation of a new democratic majority in the country, that is, a majority comprising Communists, Socialists and Catholic workers; and for radical structural reforms in the interests of the people. They offered to come to an understanding with the Left-wing Catholic elements. This policy proved very fruitful for the Italian Communist Party, as may be seen from the results of the 1958 and 1963 parliamentary elections, in which it received, respectively, 6,700,000 and 8,000,000 votes.
p The leftist trend that had become apparent in the early 1950s was influential in determining the attitude of the Christian Democratic Party leadership, in which new political figures gained prominence, such as Gronchi, who held the post of president of the Republic from 1955 to 1961, Fanfani, Moro, etc., who felt that the Party’s political course required some modification. It was a question of reaching an understanding with the workers’ movement in order to weaken Communist influence and divert the workers’ attention from genuinely revolutionary aims. This policy came to be known as the Left-Centrist line. It was backed by the leadership of the Italian Socialist Party, whose leader P. Nenni, who had renounced in the late 1950s the traditional co-operation between Socialists and Communists, entered the "Left Centre" government formed by A. Moro. The anti-communist character of the government and the support lent by the Moro-Nenni cabinet to the North Atlantic military bloc evoked discontent among the Left-wing Socialists. In January 1964, they withdrew from the Socialist Party to form the Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity.
p The economic development of Italy in the 1960s offered evidence of numerous contradictions. Industrial production as a whole showed a high rate of growth. Italian capitalism greatly increased its ability to meet competition in the world markets; and there was a considerable increase, thanks to the solicitude of the government, in the monopolies’ share in production and in the power of the monopolist associations, which consistently introduced the discoveries and inventions of the current scientific and technological revolution.
p This industrial upswing was not nation-wide, however. It affected solely the industrial North and thereby made even more striking the difference between the highly developed areas of Northern Italy and the perpetually stagnating agrarian South. Agricultural production was growing at a snail’s pace. Such meagre industry as existed in the South tended to shut down, with truly tragic consequences, as in the case of Battipaglia, where the closing of the local factory aroused a storm of indignation which ended in the police opening fire on the workers. High rates of industrial 404 development notwithstanding, hundreds of thousands of Italians were forced to leave the country every year in search of work.
p A law on economic programming was passed in 1967 in an effort to mitigate the glaring disproportions characteristic of the Italian economy. But the action of the Left Centre government did not affect the real causes of the country’s contradictory economic development.
p The admission of the Italian Socialists into the government served to bring closer the positions of that party’s leaders to those of the leaders of the Social-Democrats (Saragat, head of the SDP, was then president of the Republic). Both leaderships expected that a union of their parties would strengthen their position visa-vis their Left Centre allies, the Christian Democrats, who often forced them to support decisions that were extremely unpopular among the masses. The autumn of 1966 saw the fusion of the two organisations into a United Socialist Party of Italy (USP). While its leadership backed the idea of a Left Centre coalition, there was a Left wing within the new party, which opposed the idea of a bloc with the Christian Democrats and wanted a closer understanding with the Communist Party.
p Rank-and-file Socialists were highly critical of Left Centre foreign policies, which were essentially much the same as the policies of the old purely bourgeois governments. The main issue here was that of membership in the NATO and the deployment of US military bases in Italy. The government chose to ignore the wide movement for Italian withdrawal from the NATO, which gathered momentum particularly in connection with the expiration of the 20-year term of the pact. Despite the truly massive demonstrations of the Italian people against the war in Vietnam the country’s ruling circles refused to condemn the American aggression or to join in the demand for the cessation of the savage air bombardment of the Democratic Republic of Vietnam.
p Exposures regarding the reactionary coup d’etat planned in the summer of 1964 by the Italian military intelligence service (with the connivance of the American Central Intelligence Agency) were a damaging blow to the prestige of the Left Centre coalition. The Italian intelligence service had many politicians shadowed, chiefly those of leftist leanings, including members of the government. Several prominent members of the Christian Democratic Party, including the then president Segni, were implicated in these unseemly activities. All of which compromised the Socialists, too, and could not but affect the results of the general elections of May 1968.
p The Italian Communist Party’s struggle for the adoption of a democratic policy in lieu of that pursued by the ruling circles in infringement of the people’s vital interests, and its consistent 405 efforts on behalf of the people’s political and social rights, for an independent foreign policy, and peace for Vietnam—all gained the party many new supporters. The Communist Party proposed a broad programme of social and national regeneration, which included such objectives as drastic steps to deal with the backwardness of the South; a new and much more comprehensive agrarian reform; jobs for all Italian citizens in need of work; wider trade union rights in industrial enterprises; democratisation in the field of education; etc. The parliamentary elections of 1968 gave the Communist Party 11 new seats in the chamber of deputies. In the elections to the Senate, the Communist Party and the Socialist Party of Proletarian Unity, presenting a common list of candidates, gathered 8,500,000 votes.
The United Socialist Party, on the other hand, was badly defeated in the parliamentary elections, thus paying for coming to the elections en bloc with the forces of reaction. In the elections to the Senate, for instance, it lost 1,200,000 votes by comparison with the votes gathered by both the Socialist parties in 1963. This lamentable consequence of its participation in the Left Centre coalition served to sharpen dissension within the United Socialist Party. Shortly after the elections, pressure exerted by the advocates of an independent policy caused the Socialist ministers to withdraw from the government. A one-party government was formed by the Christian Democrats; its instability, however, became evident from the very start, and it lasted only a few months. Despite the fact, however, that the crisis of the Left Centre concept was clearly demonstrated by the results of the elections and many other signs, the Socialists’ penchant for ministerial chairs prevailed once again. In the new Left Centre government headed by Rumor of the Christian Democratic Party P. Nenni accepted the foreign minister’s portfolio.
Notes
[370•1] The Communist International was dissolved in the interests of closer union of the broader masses in the fight against fascism.
[374•1] These five European states had joined to form, in March 1948, the first post-war military bloc, the so-called Western European Union.
[386•1] When the book was about to go to press, news arrived of an event of great political importance. On January 27, 1973, the four-party agreement on ceasefire and restoration of peace in Vietnam was signed in Paris. This was a brilliant victory for the Vietnamese people, as well as for the socialist countries and all peace forces supporting the people of Vietnam in their struggle against the US imperialist aggression. The agreement will undoubtedly contribute to the restoration of peace throughout Indo-China.
[388•1] This important link in overseas communications had been nationalised by Egypt a few months earlier.