{"id":1073,"date":"2019-03-11T16:34:27","date_gmt":"2019-03-11T16:34:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wsm.prolerat.org\/?page_id=1073"},"modified":"2019-10-21T14:07:52","modified_gmt":"2019-10-21T13:07:52","slug":"the-rise-of-hitler-a-warning-to-the-workers","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/the-rise-of-hitler-a-warning-to-the-workers\/","title":{"rendered":"The Rise of Hitler: A Warning to the Workers"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
April 1933, U.K.<\/a><\/pre>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
The rise of Hitler to power in Germany is an event which the workers \nof all countries should study with care. It is not an isolated \nphenomenon, but part of a world-wide overflowing of discontent. It is \nnot a coincidence that the three years since the oncoming of the crisis \nlate in 1929 have witnessed the abrupt and sometimes violent overthrow \nof governments in different parts of the capitalist world. “National” \nGovernments in the United Kingdom and many of the British Dominions; the\n advent of De Valera in the Irish Free State; the colossal defeat of \n“Prosperity” Hoover in the USA; repeated cabinet crises in France; \npolitical revolutions and counter-revolutions in South America; the \nRepublic in Spain; political crises in Scandinavia; expulsions of \nleaders and reversals of policy in Russia; no country has escaped the \neconomic consequences of a capitalist world which is seriously out of \njoint.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nEach country has witnessed the consequent political stresses and strains\n of new discontents, and new slogans, which had generally brought about \nnew political groupings and new figure-heads. The universal insurgency \nexpresses itself in different ways according to the traditions, \nexperience and constitutions of the various countries. A century ago \nsuch economic crises brought to a head deep underlying social conflicts \nand produced the revolutions of  ’30 and ’48, with their violent \noverthrow of kings and absolutist constitutions. Nowadays the more \nadvanced countries have developed systems which permit easier adjustment\n to new pressures, avoiding the disturbance and expenses of the appeal \nto violence. Countries which have not travelled so far along the road of\n capitalist democratic government still resort to the old method of the \nbomb, the rifle, and the machine gun, the mass demonstration, the \nbarricade, and the organisation of insurrection in the armed forces.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIn a broad way the cause and the effect are the same everywhere. \nEverywhere capitalist private ownership reigns. Everywhere the rulers \nmust serve the interests of the capitalist class, but everywhere it is \nan over-riding condition of social life that rulers cannot ignore the \nactive discontent of the mass of the population. The discontent, even \nthe open rebellion, of individuals and minorities can be bludgeoned into\n acquiescence, but when great masses of the population are driven by \nintolerable conditions into organising for common action then the rulers\n must sooner or later provide a safety valve; placate the movement or \nfind means of dividing it; turn it into new directions or harness it \ndirectly to the capitalist state. In no other way can capitalism \nmaintain itself.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nLong before the war the British ruling class learned how to incorporate \nradical politicians and labour leaders in the parties of capitalism. The\n German capitalists in 1918 jettisoned the Kaiser for a similar end. \nFifty per cent of the German voters had registered their disillusionment\n and war-weariness by voting for the reform programme of the Social \nDemocratic Party. German capitalism thereupon “digested” the SDP and \nwatched it stabilise German capitalism in the troubled post-war years. \nThe military and civil associates of the Imperial Kaiser humbled \nthemselves to the “upstart” labour leaders because they had to have \nsomeone who could control the workers and keep them loyal to the \nfundamentals of capitalism. So for fourteen years the Social Democrats, \neither in coalitions or in “friendly opposition”, worked out their \npolicy of bargaining for reforms as price of their support. The outcome \nwas inevitable. They have shared the fate that has always overtaken \n“Labour” politicians and parties when they accept responsibility for the\n administration of capitalism. Discontent with the effects of capitalism\n cannot for ever be stifled by Labour promises of better times or \napologetic assurances that things might be worse. The membership and \ninfluence of the German SDP declined year by year until it had shrunk to\n a third of its former size. Part of the loss was picked up by the \nCommunist Party, but in the meantime a new group had arisen, led by \nHitler. At the election on March 5th he received 17,266,000 votes (43.9 \nper cent) and his allies, the Nationalists, received 3,132,000 (8 per \ncent), giving him a clear majority. The Social Democrats received \n7,176,000 (18.3 per cent) and the Communists 4,845,000 (12.1 percent).\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIn one important respect Hitler’s Nazis are just like the Social \nDemocrats and the Communists; they are all parties of discontent. Hitler\n promises work for the workless; secure government jobs in the police, \nthe Army or the Civil service for 100,000 of his members; higher prices \nfor agricultural products to help the peasants; and protection for the \nsmall investor and little shopkeeper squeezed by the big stores and the \nbanks.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nImmediately on taking office Hitler imposed fresh taxes on the big \ndepartmental stores and chain stores with the professed object of \nhelping the small shopkeepers. He promised also to find posts for \nout-of-work professional men (doctors, lawyers and others), and it is \nbecause a relatively large number of bankers, proprietors of big stores \nand the more successful professional men are Jews that the party has \ntaken on a violently anti-Jewish character. Every Jewish doctor driven \nout of practice, every Jewish lawyer barred from the courts, every \nJewish schoolmaster and civil servant dismissed, makes another vacancy \nfor one of his members. He was supplied with funds by German heavy \nindustry, by armament manufacturers both in Germany and in France, and \nby American and other business men and financiers who had investments in\n Germany for which they needed protection. With the help of these funds \nHitler’s party has known how to rally all kinds of discontent into a \ngreat movement representing half the electorate of Germany. Therefore \nHitler has had to be “digested” as fourteen years ago were the Social \nDemocrats. The stately and imperious Hindenburg and the aristocratic Von\n Papen, representing the military caste and big landowner, have had to \nreceive on terms of equality the Austrian house-painter Adolf Hitler. Dr\n Hugenberg and the Nationalist Party, representing big industrial \ncapitalists, have had to enter into coalition with him. Hitler will now \nhave to administer capitalism. He will have to curb the demands of his \nfollowers, disappoint them, and ultimately lose many of them to new \npolitical adventurers, whereupon the capitalists and landlords who now \nuse him will scrap him and use his successor.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe great lesson to be learned from the decline of the Social Democrats \nis the sterility of the policy of reforms and of reform parties. The day\n on which a reform party reaches power is the day on which the evil \neffects of capitalism begin to sap and undermine the strength of the \nparty, turning the members’ blind loyalty first into bewilderment and \nthen into dissatisfaction, causing them to drift into new parties.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe depths of mental bankruptcy of the reformists are shown by the \ncomment of the Fabian New Statesman (London, March 11th, 1933). After \nexplaining that Hitler scored because he appealed, with banners and \nuniforms and parades, to the electorate’s love of glamour, the German \ncorrespondent of the New Statesman says that the Social Democrats should\n have done the same, and should have given more prominence to pageantry \nand less prominence to social reforms. In other words, the workers are \nto be enticed, not even by the old plan of “bread and circuses”, but by \ncircuses without the bread! This is what forty years of Fabian reformism\n has brought to the working-class movement!\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nThe second lesson is one which has been entirely missed by the Labour \nPress in Great Britain, that is the evidence given by the Hitler episode\n of the overwhelming importance of controlling the political machinery. \nSix months ago, although the largest party in Germany, Hitler was not in\n control of the German Parliament and the machinery of government. He \nwas ridiculed and derided by the members of the Government, and insulted\n by President Hindenburg. His party officials were hauled into court on \ncharges of treason, and thrown into prison. Others were forced to flee \nthe country. His newspapers were suppressed, his offices were raided by \nthe police, his troops were forbidden to parade or wear uniforms in the \nstreet. When they attempted defiance they were driven off just like the \nCommunists.\n<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nNow, having become possessed of the political machine and confirmed in \npower by the electors, he is able to turn the tables on his former \nopponents. He has removed the Governments of all the States of Germany. \nFormer Cabinet Ministers have been arrested, beaten and made to suffer \nmany indignities. Newspapers have been suppressed and their offices \nraided\u2014from Conservative Catholic newspapers at one end of the scale to \nSocial Democratic and Communist newspapers at the other. The Communists,\n in spite of their 5,000,000 voters and their year-long boasting of \ntheir belief in “mass action” and military revolt, have been cowed into \ncomplete submission without offering any real resistance whatever. \nEvents are proving to them what they refused to learn. The organised \npolitical majority which controls the political machinery of the modern \nState is in a position to dominate, and can enforce submission on \nminorities. There is no road to Socialism except through the control of \nthe machinery of government by a politically organised majority of \nSocialists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Back to the History Index<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n
\n\n\n\n
Back to the World Socialist Movement home page<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
April 1933, U.K. The rise of Hitler to power in Germany is an event which the workers of all countries should study with care. It is not an isolated phenomenon, but part of a world-wide overflowing of discontent. It is not a coincidence that the three years since the oncoming of the crisis late in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":2648,"parent":0,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"magazine_newspaper_sidebar_layout":"","footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1073","page","type-page","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1073","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1073"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1073\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2649,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1073\/revisions\/2649"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2648"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.worldsocialism.org\/wsm\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1073"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}