p A yet more dangerous hotbed of another imperialist world war appeared shortly in Central Europe with the rise of Nazi Germany. The German imperialists, notwithstanding their defeat in the First World War, had not desisted from their aggressive plans. Having outstripped her old rivals, Britain and France, in industrial development by the late 1920s, Germany set about rebuilding her military power in order not only to take revenge for the defeat, she had sustained, but redraw the map of Europe at her own discretion.

p The National Socialist Party which had come to power in Germany openly declared its objective of establishing a "new order" in Europe and the world. The progressive press was perfectly right in describing the 30th of January, 1933, when Hitler became the Chancellor of Germany, as the "Black Day" for Europe. German monopolies backed up the Nazis who promised to restore the power of Germany, crush the revolutionary movement inside the country and open the way for German imperialism to grab foreign lands.

p The Nazis intended to start carrying out their aggressive designs by setting up a strike force in Central Europe in the shape of a Nazi Reich with a population of 90-100 million of people of the so-called Aryan origin. "Austria belongs to this nucleus”, Hitler argued in 1932. "This goes without saying. But it comprises, besides, Bohemia and Moravia, as well as the Western regions of Poland... The Baltic states are part of this nucleus also.” The population of Poland, Czechoslovakia and the Baltic states, except the 14 Germans residing there and the "elements fit for Germanisation”, was to have been destroyed or evicted. Nature is cruel, Hitler maintained, and if the Nazis can, without the slightest pity, send the cream of the German nation into the crucible of war, they can, with even greater reason, "destroy millions of people of an inferior race".^^15^^

p The Nazis planned to subject a whole system of vassal states to this Nazi Reich and create a "thousand-year empire" with the German "race of masters" dominating them all. That was to have been followed up, according to the Nazi plans, by a full-scale expansion into other continents. Their ultimate goal was world supremacy.^^16^^

p When the Nazi chancellor set out his programme before the German army chiefs, on February 3, 1933, he announced his plan to strengthen the Wehrmacht to the utmost so as to achieve "political might”. That "political might" was to be used, Hitler declared, for: "Winning more living space in the East and its ruthless Germanisation".^^17^^

p The German Nazis saw a cruel and merciless total war as the way to establish their world domination.^^18^^ “War”, Hitler said, "is the most natural and the most common thing. War is ever, war is everywhere. There is no beginning, no peaceful end. War is life... So / want war." ^^19^^

p The ambitions of the Nazi Reich in foreign affairs were based on the aggressive aspirations of German imperialism, militarism, landed aristocracy and big monopolies, which had been harboured ever since the days of Bismarck, but the Nazis imparted a particularly sinister character to them.^^20^^

p Having drawn their own conclusion from Germany’s bitter experience in World War I, the Nazis decided to advance towards their goals step by step, crush their adversaries one by one, starting with the weakest. A possibility of yet another war on two fronts at once—in the East and in the West—looked like a dreadful nightmare to them. "The mistake of confronting England, France and Russia should not, of course, be repeated”, ^^21^^ von Ribbentrop said.

p The Nazis made full use of their diplomatic service to disunite the possible adversaries and collude with some of them against others. They intended to abide by those treaties and agreements for just as long as they found that to be of benefit to themselves. "Why mustn’t I conclude treaties in good faith today so as to break them in cold blood 15 tomorrow?"^^22^^—Hitler declared. The "threat of Bolshevism" was another argument the Nazis played up trying to set the nations of Europe apart. Hostility towards tlio USSR was, the Nazis hoped, to have assured them the sympathy of the reactionary forces of all capitalist countries.

p The Nazis considered the routing of the USSR and seizure of Soviet lands to be their major task, but they realised how complex it was. "Soviet Russia”, Hitler said, "is a difficult task, I can hardly begin with it." ^^23^^

p A feverish German arms build-up ensued. The Nazis coined the motto "guns before butter”. The magnates of German industry blessed that policy. In April 1933 the Imperial Federation of German Industries submitted to Hitler a plan for industrial reorganisation to prepare for war.

p In October 1933 Germany walked out of the Geneva Disarmament Conference, thereby showing to the entire world that she was on the warpath, and made no bones about it. At the same time, the Nazis announced their withdrawal from the League of Nations as it, too, could have been a certain hindrance to their plans for total aggression.

p There was an alliance of aggressors in the making, setting out to carve the world up and bring it under their own domination. They had fascism as their ideological weapon— an undisguised terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialistic elements of Big Business.

p The world situation as it shaped up came under scrutiny at the 17th Congress of the CPSU(B) in January-February, 1934. The policies of Japan and Germany, with extreme reactionaries, fascists and warlords in power, made it absolutely clear, as the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) stated in its Report to the Congress, that "there are frantic preparations under way for a repartition of the world and redivison of the spheres of influence”, for a new imperialist war. "Once again, just like in 1914”, it was pointed out at the Congress, "the parties of bellicose imperialism, the parties of war and revenge, are coming to the fore.” The danger of fascism was especially emphasised. The Report of the Central Committee of the CPSU(B) pointed out: " Chauvinism and preparation for war as basic elements of foreign policy, and the taming of the working class and a reign of terror in home policy as an indispensable means of 16 strengthening the rear of the future war fronts—that is what preoccupies most the present-day imperialist politicians.” That applied to German imperialism, first and foremost.^^24^^

So it was demonstrated at the Congress that imperialism as a social and economic system was breeding another world war and that fascism was playing a special role in engineering it. "Fascism is war" was the conclusion the Communists made under those particular circumstances.