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“PEACE” COMES TO EUROPE
The belligerents in the second world slaughter have succeeded in reaching a clear cut military decision. Germany has been completely crushed. On the continent of Europe the agony of the imperialist war is thus concluded; the agony of the imperialist “peace” has begun. Amid the blaring trumpets of victory, the “democratic” imperialists are boasting that “civilization has been saved.” They mean of course that the world still remains safe for capitalism. Having survived the war, they confidently expect to survive the peace as well. But what does this mean in reality?
The answer to this question is to be found in Europe. For the second time within twenty-five years, Europe which emerged so terribly impoverished from the war of 1914-18 is confronted with the problem of “reconstruction.” Post-Versailles Europe was able to attain temporary stabilization within 5 years, that is by 1924. But even then, this postwar stabilization of capitalism was due primarily to the absence of mature and genuine proletarian parties in the advanced countries of Europe. World imperialism was thereby enabled to dam up the first wave of the proletarian revolution within the boundaries of the former Czarist empire.
The objective conditions under which the work of capitalist “restoration” must be conducted in the period ahead, however, differ not only quantitatively but qualitatively from the objective conditions in the period of 1918-24. A brief summary will serve to illustrate the new and unprecedented situation.
Europe entered the first imperialist war after decades of unbroken peace, with huge reserves of wealth and the highest living standards in its history. The arena of military operations at that time was restricted to a relatively small sector of the European continent. France and Belgium were the main battlegrounds. By and large, the direct impact of the war was felt by the predominantly agricultural areas of France. The most industrialized sections of Europe, first and foremost Germany, while gravely impaired, could be set in order again. The colonies, another vital sector of the world capitalist system, remained virtually immune. As a matter of fact many of these colonies underwent a certain development in wartime. As a consequence post-Versailles Europe could draw from the outset not only upon its industrial apparatus at home but also upon the raw materials, foodstuffs and other reserves of the colonial empires. Moreover, in the very course of the first imperialist war key sections of the capitalist world economy went through a period of unparalleled expansion.
UNREPEATABLE CIRCUMSTANCES
First and foremost there was, of course, America. Freed from the competition of its European rivals, with the war market in Europe representing an unlimited and highly profitable outlet, with the colossal resources of the North American continent to draw upon, US imperialism developed its productive forces to the highest point attained under capitalism. In Asia, too, capitalist economy was able to record important advances through the hot-house development of Japan’s industries. And in Europe itself, the neutral countries like Denmark, Holland, the Scandinavian countries, and even backward Spain, passed through a period of war prosperity.
Finally the bourgeoisies of the victor countries in Europe England and France—themselves disposed of sufficient resources, supplemented by the pillage of Germany, to postpone for almost two years the inevitable economic crisis resulting from the war. By extending the artificial war prosperity into the initial postwar period they were thus able to weather the highly critical stage of demobilization and reconversion to peacetime production. The combination of all these factors, in the absence of genuine revolutionary parties, made possible the post-Versailles stabilization of Europe. And even then it took half a decade. And even then this stabilization was so temporary that within four years, by 1929, Europe and the whole world were convulsed by the most terrible economic crisis and depression.
Not a single one of the above-listed favorable conditions obtains today.
When the continent was again plunged into the whirlpool of war in 1939, European economy as a whole was in a chaotic condition. The war has completed the devastation of the preceding peacetime period. The arena of military operations embraced the entire continent. Europe’s productive apparatus has been gutted. Even insular England has not been spared, suffering war damage which in all likelihood equals and even exceeds the 1914-18 devastation of France. The country that has suffered the most in point of destruction of the productive apparatus is unquestionably Germany, with the rest of the continent not far behind.
BALANCE SHEET OF THE WAR
On May 6 the New York Times summed up the situation as follows: “Economically, the basis of Europe’s prewar economy is gone.” The May issue of Fortune magazine, one of the Big Business organs in the US, flatly states that not only the economic basis of capitalism in Europe but its financial system and political superstructure lie in ruins. “This time,” says Fortune, “the foremost war victim is Europe’s economic system. Its social, technological, financial order has to be restored in toto .” In other words, it is not a question of capital “repairs” but of rebuilding from the ground up.
Nor has Europe’s colonial empire remained intact. As a matter of fact, the colonies have this time served as one of the main arenas of struggle. The destruction in the Orient has been on a scale comparable to that in the Occident. It will take years to bring back the colonies to their prewar levels of production. Instead of aiding in Europe’s reconstruction, the colonies themselves are in need of rehabilitation. Furthermore the war in the Far East still continues.
The expansion of America’s productive capacity in the present war constitutes in essence a by-product of production for war. Nothing could be falser than the idea that this capitalist colossus has grown richer in this war, just as it did in the last. The monopolies and the other war profiteers have indeed benefited, but the country as a whole has been gravely strained by the war. The current prosperity is a fictitious one. And while the American imperialists possess the reserves with which to prolong the artificial boom of the war into the postwar period, such a repetition of the maneuver employed by the European bourgeoisies in the post-Versailles epoch will only render the inescapable economic crisis all the more catastrophic when it does erupt in this country. So far as Europe is concerned the crisis has long been raging there, and the lowest depths have not yet been plumbed. It is an economic crisis whose scope and intensity may well lead to consequences that will match the suffering and havoc of the war itself.
CAPITALIST BARBARISM
In the midst of charred ruins and famine, unemployment is hitting all-time highs in such countries as France and Italy. The ranks of the unemployed are dwarfed by still another vast army of paupers, the dispossessed populations of wrecked cities and villages, the “freed” slave laborers of Germany, and the bulk of Germany’s own population of 80 millions who have been designated in advance as slaves by the Big Three conferees at Teheran and Crimea. Armies of homeless children are now a commonplace. Their number in France is estimated at half a million; dispatches from Italy paint a picture no less gruesome. The situation in Germany beggars description.
Transplanted to “civilized” Europe today are conditions of mass degradation and misery that have hitherto been witnessed under barbarous Asiatic regimes. That is how far Europe has been hurled back by the war.
The reports of Nazi horror camps, undeniably genuine, constitute only a segment of the horror that Europe has already gone through, and even ghastlier horrors ahead. Reports from Europe blandly admit that the coming winter on the continent will be far worse than at any time during the war itself. The article from May issue of Fortune reiterates that conditions in Europe at peace will be far worse than they were under Nazi occupation, and then goes on to quote “a most distinguished authority” who said:
“In the British and American area of occupation the condition, for the people will be those of a sweatbox, to say it politely.”
Allied propaganda concerning Nazi atrocities is intended to prepare public opinion not only for the savage peace terms for Germany agreed upon by the “Big Three” at Crimea but also for the even vaster abominations of their projected “sweatbox” in Europe.
Under far more favorable conditions it proved impossible for the continent as a whole during the post-Versailles era to return to the pre-1914 levels of production. After a shortlived period of stabilization, capitalist Europe plunged into a crisis which terminated in war. In view of the existing situation what sort of stabilization can Europe possibly look forward to under the decayed capitalist system? The only conceivable “stabilization” would have as its basis greatly reduced levels of production, with the toiling people reduced to the status of coolies and all this solely in preparation for other crises and wars.
THE ONLY WAY OUT
The negative and destructive aspects of capitalism in every sphere of social life have thus come to the fore as a result of the second slaughter of the peoples. All the contradictions, evils and crimes of capitalism have become so monstrously aggravated and multiplied that the very physical survival of the peoples demands its immediate abolition. The very scope of the ruin compels that steps toward socialism be taken without delay. There is no other way for Europe to rise again; there is no other way of salvaging the continent ruined by the war; there is no other way of alleviating the sufferings and tortures of the toilers and the exploited. -
Once the hypnosis of the war is dispelled, it will no longer be possible for the imperialist victors and their Stalinist accomplices to hide the grim truth. The full impact of the war and its consequences upon the consciousness of the duped and tortured millions still lies ahead. The great teachers of revolutionary Marxism warned consistently that under capitalism society was confronted with the alternative: advancement through socialism or regression into barbarism. This scientifically grounded forecast is the reality of our generation. Plunged headlong into capitalist barbarism, the peoples of Europe and of the whole world must seek and can find salvation only through socialism.
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