The fairytale of the US as a liberating power has to be done away with - Something about German history and the role of the USA at the installation of Nazi fascism If Bush says e.g.: 'we have taken democracy to Germany' , or 'we have succeeded with the democracy also in Germany and Japan at that time although objections came that these countries aren't capable of democracy', this is completely along the same lines as the bourgeois opinion which day out, day in trickles down on the population. In reality things were completely different, because the Americans had their fingers in the stage-management of the reaction, particularly the fascism in Germany from the beginning since 1919; and especially in the decision of January 1933 to install the Nazi rule, the finally decisive help for the NSDAP, which was facing a dangerous fall, was brought about in an arrangement with American banks and American big magnates and was not at all carried out only from the part of the German reactionaries. In addition, in the Second World War the USA started only then to decidedly fight against Germany when the successes of the Soviet Union hat already prepared the final defeat of Nazi fascism and the Soviet Union had made great blood sacrifices in the fight against Nazi fascism. The truth is that in reality Hitler definitely paved the way for USA imperialism in Europe and Germany. By his whole nature, by his political reaction he prepared the later powerful position of the USA, and this process which has, so to speak, exemplarily run in Germany in the twenties, thirties and forties, happens in many countries again and again. It is the same film again and again, to stay with the words of Bush. First the Americans support reactionaries, play the neutral and pull the strings from outside, then, when the reactionaries have reached rock bottom, they play the liberators, to then look for the next victim, and in between times, they may also immediately take the fascist position themselves. A characteristic example of this is the policy of the massive threat by atomic bombs approximately between 1947 und 1953, when the USA similarly outrageously as again today showed its weapons and made great noise with them. In the events in Germany approximately from 1918 to 1933 the key for the further development up to what happens today is anyway to be found. Also in 1917/18 the USA appeared with the watchword they wanted to bring peace and democracy for Germany and the whole of Europe. The German Social Democrats (SPD) which had quite predominantly supported the imperialistic war by the emperor's regime of Germany before, lined up increasingly on the American imperialism as of 1917. They gradually took its phrases about human rights and made themselves increasingly its tool. At the armistice agreement of 1918 and at the following treaty of Versailles of 1920 the USA showed themselves on the surface as advocate of democracy and opponent of the dictate which was exerted by England and France over Germany. In reality, however, the USA squeezed both states via the debt politics just to the system of Versailles which already carried the shoots of the next war in itself, and had a part in spurring on the suppression of the revolutionary labor movement by the SPD government and extremist right military cliques; from which essential components of the Nazi fascist movement then resulted. The time of the Weimar republic is marked by the Dawes and Young plans, named after two Americans who should settle this question of reparations and debt of Germany. Germany at that time was to pay billions of gold marks up to the year 1988 for the alleged sole responsibility for the war. The American system led to a world economic crisis, just because in Germany and even much more in the colonies a sufficient number of buyers with money to spend for the new goods production, which was operated on higher and higher scales (division of labor by assembly lines etc.), couldn't be found. The world economic crisis dominated the scene as of 1929. The Nazi party which had systematically got its organizational basis within the 6 to 7 years up to then, could pull profit out of this situation under usage of corresponding prejudices and solid material support for a while now. The Nazi party wasn't without inner problems, however. There were several rebellions of the lower ranks of the NSDAP and SA which, mostly very clumsily and in a spontaneous way, were aimed on a petty bourgeois basis at the pro-capital policy of the Hitler group. This all mastered the Hitler group because it had the support from above. The zenith of the Nazi party was finally exceeded in 1932. In the elections in November 1932 a considerable success could be recorded for the Communist Party of Germany (KPD) compared with the Nazi party. The bourgeois parties fell, too. It was also important above all that the KPD with its propaganda increasingly gained a foothold also among the supporters of the NSDAP and, so to speak, threatened the basis of the NSDAP. And in this situation where the opinion grew that the NSDAP doesn't get further any more and so to speak stands before the beginning of the fall, the international capital banded together. On January 4th, 1933, a meeting took place under the management of the notorious British-American-German Schröder Bank in Cologne, consisting of industrial magnates of Germany and Papen and Hitler, in order to bring the Nazi party to power. This led to the notorious 30th of January, 1933. Abroad, about this the opinion is common that the Nazi party had won the majority in Germany. This isn't correct. It had only a third of all voters, and even less, if the non-voters enter the calculation.That the Nazi dictatorship could be set up was only possible upon the basis that the bourgeois parties, primarily the "Zentrum", agreed and the Social Democratic Party kept its resistance in limits. In numerous federal states of Germany there wasn't a majority rule by the Nazis. One could have sharpened the resistance to the Nazi regime from there. But these governments, often also under the leadership of the SPD, capitulated to the Nazi regime of their own accord. One can for all that recognize that the international finance capital
was sponsor also at the erection of the Nazi dictatorship. This still
continued when the Nazi party went through many inner crises from 1933
to 1939 and various forces within Germany pondered about how to get rid
of this regime. The Nazi party has, however, been supported every time
from abroad. In 1934 the Polish government supported the Nazi clique by
concluding a friendship agreement directed against the Soviet Union and
based on the common antisemitism. In 38/39 military officers attempted
to depose Hitler. Also in this situation European powers made sure Hitler
got the greatest successes, so that this fall wasn't feasible. These historical questions are processed in a reasonable way neither
in Germany nor abroad. Even less is known about them in the USA where
one doesn't know the details. One barely sees: Hitler = Germany, and the
equation is ready. This essentially is a lie, however. In its nature the Nazi ideology walked all over the whole of the historical bases of the German nation. Of all examples where the USA proceed in a certain layered, scheming way to draw the profit in the end, this German occupation is just the most important one. If one considers which is actually the most important base of the international power of the USA, then one comes onto it that this is the power over Europe. And the power over Europe is safeguarded by the power over Germany. Today, the whole historical question therefore is of great importance again. Now the USA want to use a quite similar method in the Mideast and occupy Iraq for themselves under the sign of democracy, after they have encouraged every kind of right butchery, Islamic fundamentalism and similar things one after each other. Saddam Hussein cooperated over longer ways with the USA as one has known for a long time. In Iran, there was first the shah regime which cooperated with the USA. When it stopped to function according to the USA's wishes, one established the Islamic fundamentalism with which one could make a pact just the same. Now one would like to set himself up as liberator with regard to Iran, who moderates the Islamic regime and shall introduce democratic "human rights norms" also in Iran, without however scratching the substance of Islamism. So the USA would like to set up a system of rule to its taste from the Mediterranean till deep into Central Asia. But this building is projected a little too big, it won't be possible to put in into reality. Rather, the USA is working to let its previous Pax Americana collapse now definitely. If the German government contradicts, there then is an extremely irritated reaction because this relationship is just structured in a special way and it is always said the Germans really must be grateful for what the USA have given them. The situation of the German nation and the complete development is not at all more so now, however, that only pure gratitude is appropriate. The Federal Republic was from the beginning a state on very doubtful feet, what in a brutal way catches on in the end despite the prosperity phase which has existed in between times. The destiny of the Federal Republic is in a certain way a reflection of what internationally happens. It could experience an advancement after 1950 because it had a relatively favorable position within the rivalry between the USA and the Soviet Union and was treated preferentially because one needed it. This situation was also economically advantageous for it. The position of Germany was changing basically at the moment when the former socialist camp, which had been undermined already longtime ago, was now completely dissolved. Germany shall be warhorse for the USA towards the east again. And, if it doesn't fulfill this role just like it is expected or perhaps puts interests of its own against that, then the conflict is inevitably there. If the proletarian, socialist revolution cannot be succeeded with at once, if over many twists and turns in the development at first many democratic objectives can be achieved, it is not at all a wrong objective to favor also a European unification, which first of all puts into reality the equality and the autonomy of all nations of Europe in the relative frame of the bourgeois law. These aren't given at the present time, what is also valid just with regard to Germany. This means that the democratic development in the interest of the proletariat has to do much with the politics within Germany and the European states. In particular if one takes into account that the European continent threatens to slip away step by step, so to speak, from the control by the USA, one understands the present measures in connection with Iraq. It is not by chance that such a political conflict between Europe and the USA occurs, but because there are real contradictions behind it. The European peoples do not feel like it to be played off against Russia and perhaps tangled into a new Eastern war - to the benefit of the USA. The Russian people feels like it just as little to wage wars which dissipate it completely and whose victim it would become at long last. The attack on Iraq and on Arabia, like also the attack on other so-called "rogue states", is only the prelude of the general putting through of the USA hegemony against possible competitors like the Europeans, although these are far from an equal stage of development with the USA, or like China which makes great efforts to achieve parity with the USA. In reality these rivalries are in the underground of what is happening in the Iraq crisis at present. The fairytale of the USA as a liberating power has to be done away with. It also is in the heads of different leftists. What is the so-called Antifa which has dominated the heads of certain leftists for years, then? What did it claim? That one must as a matter of priority fight any neo-Nazi grouplets here. At that time, one could already suspect that these are steered by the political police ("Verfassungsschutz"). One knows today that almost 20 per cent of the cadres of the largest Neonazi party, the NPD, are provided, even according to official information, by the political police, which not rarely work in the most pestering and worst racialist Nazi manner in this party. It looks the same all the more at the smaller neo-Nazi groups. They have connections to official groupings, to hostels and similar institutions, from which they are nourished. A whole swarm of so-called Antifa grouplets which deal with nothing else but an alleged fight against these grouplets then buzzes around these neo-Nazi grouplets. This is deceit and swindle at the members of the Antifa in question who really want to fight fascism. The truth is that the USA have stepped into the footprints of the Nazi fascists after 1945 and have gone through some transformations since then. It is also true that modern revisionism, which has disfigured completely the modern communism and finally forced its surrender, is in a close connection to the USA. If, so, today one wants to be Antifa, one also must fight all other variants of fascism as it starts out from the USA but also from other powers. If the so-called democracy argument falls out of the USA's bag, if it has nothing more to offer in this regard, then its ideological building and its justification in front of the international public falls, too. It is not by chance that in the phase of intensification Condoleeza Rice like also Bush himself must finally resort to this phraseology, that they take the democracy to the Mideast. However, this really nobody can take seriously because the USA just make deals with every kind of a rightist current in the world, also at present, and will continue doing this. And if they make concessions with respect to democracy once, then always only for the price that they already plan the overturn within the countries soon. Also in states like Iran the question arises for the proletarian movement, if it fights for democracy and the elimination of the mullah dictatorship, that it must not permit this movement being yoked up to the carts of the US-imperialistic phoney-democratic efforts. Without USA dictatorship also no mullah dictatorship. Without USA wheelings and dealings the Islamic fundamentalism wouldn't be able to play at all such a role. Many examples have been given which show the connections between bin Laden and USA rightists and in particular the Bush clan. For the whole Islamic fundamentalism is characteristic that it waves its pennant "down with the USA " and simultaneously fights and suppresses all forces which could actually develop the fight against US- imperialism out of the peoples. To a true anti-imperialistic movement always belongs the development of democracy, too. Therefore, no essential coupling of such revolutionary, democratic forces neither with mullah dictatorships nor with any ultra-rightist military officers who show not the least form of civilization, can occur. This can never go beyond tactical alliances. Completely different conflicts actually line up in the world. It is everywhere the contradiction between bourgeoisie and proletariat which has intensified in almost all countries. It concerns the USA like the Europeans, like Russia or like China. By the systematic inflammation of a war one also tries to get away of these contradictions, to produce turmoils in the hope that the greatest imperialistic power can win through against it. The peoples completely rightly fight against that. At the moment, the broad resistance under inclusion of all governments which also offer resistance to that is definitely the correct course. The imperialistic war of the USA must be prevented, and if it cannot be prevented, it must at least be isolated so far that the USA harm themselves. It is a good sign that this thinking has today spread among millions, perhaps billions of people. End of Febr. 2003
The importance of the worldwide united front against the Iraq war of the US. How is the opposition by France and Germany to be judged? -About the pro-Bush activities of certain "leftists" It is right that France or Germany or both countries together perhaps could become once a European superpower or the core of such a power under certain conditions. Nobody may deny that the development of capitalism/imperialism in each of the countries can go in such a direction. Where capitalism or revisionism are ruling, an imperialistic development is possible. What matters now, however, is not what could be once in the future, but what is in the present time. At the present time a common European imperialism cannot even be thought of, because these states by far aren't unanimous, they have the utmost political contradictions -to be seen also by the facility the US experienced in splitting the camp -, and a lot of small countries is part of the bunch which have opinions of their own. It is nonsense to talk about a European imperialism at present, because this agglomeration of states of which Europe consists is hardly capable of acting uniformly. It is an anticipation which skips 2 to 3, even 4 possible stages. And the single states like France or even more so Germany are militarily zero in comparison with the US, they aren't bigger than the toe of the US, what concerns nuclear weapons, armament in space, international naval forces - Germany is not at all comparable, but neither France is. Even if only these two states would connect themselves more closely, this still would not change anything basic. Not to speak of the strong pro-American forces which the US have reserved for themselves everywhere here in Europe, and of the fact that the NATO structures are dominated by the USA anyway. To talk about a German imperialism somehow acting independently, which alone or in alliance with France would be capable of considerable competition with the US, is eccentric already for the simple reason that it doesn't exist. What matters is not what potentially could once be, but what is really there now. Russia is in such a way inwardly washed-out, in such a way infiltrated and politically and economically depending from the US, much stronger than from the Europeans, that also in the case of Russia one cannot talk but of a conditional independence. Most likely China has to be named as a former socialist country, with today obviously capitalist structures, which would be capable of resistance at the present time. But also there the USA have their irons in the fire and want to interfere in the class struggles of this country in their own way, to hawk "human rights and democratic fight" and a new variant of bourgeois democracy against the revisionist structures. And they don't have such bad cards there at all, since there serious conflicts line up. In addition, they intend to play off the so-called Tibetan independence, the so-called independence of Sinkiang and possibly of further parts, in order to get on in this way also against China. Because of this the Chinese independent position also hasn't developed very far. So the USA all in all are the absolutely dominant factor at the present time. How has this come? What is this based on? It is based on the fact that we had two superpowers, that modern revisionism has spoiled the biggest portion of the formerly communist world and has simultaneously contributed to the sole power monopoly of the USA, up to the self-dissolution of the Soviet Union and the state system allied with it, so that the USA alone remained. And this unusual constellation of imperialism, which we have at the present time, is what now shapes the situation. Due to the objective laws the power of the USA, viewed in international political terms, crumbles, that is there are trends of tearing apart their Pax Americana, and they want to repair it by all their political-military measures now again. Under the present conditions it is not at all wrong in our opinion to favor and to promote that the Europeans, Russia and China act commonly, that they best together with others, e.g. with Brazil, with South Africa, Mexico, if possible Canada, act against the USA and isolate them. This would cause this rotten quirk of the USA to fail at the present time. And it is the only material factor in my opinion which really could cause the USA to fail now. For a class struggle or a class war which would be able to considerably attack the USA, doesn't exist at present, we'll perhaps have to wait for it for ten years, perhaps less, and demonstrations cannot anyway put a stop to the US' measures - but the USA would have to fear a total confrontation with virtually all the remaining states. This is the only factor which hinders them, and this factor must be strengthened. One must get pointed ears, therefore, if so-called leftists who have run behind pacifism over all the time, exactly now attack movements which take part in supporting this united front, like the peace movement and also the movement of these states. It is all about to prevent the USA from this criminal war. However, if this isn't possible, they must be forced at least to carry out this war alone or only with Great Britain. In this case there would still be something good, because in this way they decidedly undermine their own position of power. With regard to this, the efforts of C. Rice and C. Powell are well understandable, that they try with all means to break through this isolation. And one could have had doubts against it that the USA dare to carry this through against the remaining world of states. If they do it, though, then a new situation arises with the consequence of new tasks. There are many weak points in this front. Let us take Germany for once. This German government drives the economy against the wall. With big talks nothing is won. The ecologistic conception leaning on windmill vanes while ruining the own industry and preferentially treating services, as propagated by Schröder some time ago, is completely out. The German economy is in free fall, and it is only a question of time that this government, if it doesn't get it, is overthrown by another bourgeois government. The USA could therefore also put hopes that somebody like Angela Merkel (chairwoman of the Christian Democratic Union, CDU) would come to power, that it then would come to the break in Europe, and the advantage for the USA would be the result. A dangerous potential for Europe is given in the CDU. I would like to emphasize again and again: Although we belong to those who creatively apply Marxism and do not declare that Marxism is something to be put prior to reality or is something sacrosanct, as it appears in the wording of some programmes, although, thus, we belong to those who put the concrete analysis of the reality in the first place, making use of all historical experiences among which Marxism occupies an extraordinary special role, we nevertheless also belong to those which continue to have the principles of Marxism like the dictatorship of the proletariat or Lenin's analysis of imperialism, the analysis of the irreconcilability, the necessity of the development of capitalism in the democratic stage, that is quite classic Marxist-Leninist theses, as basis. We analyze the culture, we analyze the problems arising in the context of the development or of the putting into action of all these principles, and take them into account. We always try to grasp the concrete situation, and in certain situations it sometimes happens that a certain diplomatic confrontation on the international scale takes a predominant role which cannot be put against the social struggle. On the contrary, the democratic development favors the development of the class struggle, which still is to come on the globe, which surely has its beginnings in the present world, but is still not capable at the present time to step in on a larger scale in the international development. The attacks and machinations of US-imperialism, or e.g. the ecologistic insanity of the German bourgeoisie or other particularly reactionary phenomena, all basically serve to strangle the class struggle already in the cradle, in the development of the democratic approach. In our opinion, this ultra-reaction will be finished soon, because it gets tangled up in the deepest contradictions at all corners and ends. March 13, 2003
How has it historically
come to today's US' monopoly of power? How at all could it come to it that today the US has such a monopolized power? This leads to the question of modern revisionism. It was the modern revisionism of N.S. Khrushchev and his successors which for decades made possible the cooperation between the US and the Soviet Union and simultaneously produced a rivalry between them; both cooperation and rivalry were bound to make the sources of socialism in the world run dry, at any rate to a considerable part. The monopolized position of the US results from nothing else that, firstly, this help from the part of modern revisionism took place, and that finally modern revisionism has driven the Soviet Union itself as a revisionist power into dissolution, so that the US has been left with the complete monopoly. It has influence on a very large portion of the governments of the world, it sits everywhere in the revisionist so-called workers' parties with its agents, its influence, its money and its ideology and prevents the necessary corrections from taking place. This particularly clearly comes to fruition now, when we have in fact mass movements directed against the US war, and suddenly there are some so-called leftists appearing from every corner who warn that now there could be a German-French imperialism, a matter which is in fact theoretically basically correct, but completely wrong in today's situation. For today it is not about whether such an imperialism theoretically is possible in the future, but quite concretely about putting the brakes on an imperialistic hegemonic power which represents a dangerous war threat for the world. Therefore it is good if it is achieved that such a power as represented by Bush is checked by a united front of the most various forces, also of states. Socialists who oppose it automatically hold out their hands to Bush. This modern revisionism is the decisive thing for comprehending how at all it has been possible that the US has reached such a dominant role. If modern revisionism led by the Soviet Union hadn't developed historically in this way, then the competition between the capitalist states would be much stronger today; under the conditions given, however, it just takes more time till adequate rival powers can form at all which break this single monopoly of power. For the labor movement it is the worst situation of all, if one single power exists which terrorizes and checks all the others. The practical furthering of such a monopolization of power corresponds to Kautsky's theory of ultra-imperialism which holds that it is the logical product of imperialism that at the end one such single power exists. We don't share this view at all. The law of rivalry must inevitably win through also between the different imperialists. But in the present situation we just have the dominance and the hegemony of the US imperialists. Opposed to this, we of course also further it if forces like the Chinese revisionists offer resistance against the US-imperialistic hegemony at the present time, although we criticize them in the strongest terms what concerns their domestic policy, although we further the class struggle within China against them and know that the fall of revisionism is unavoidable. We welcome it that France and Germany, for example, bar the war, at all events partially bar it as far they can afford that at all. That such representatives like Angela Merkel (chairwoman of the German Christian Democratic Union) literally offer the US their services, is rightly met with disgust by the predominant majority of the population here. And then so-called leftists come and say, this united front is bad because it promotes the potential German-French imperialism. This is a complete distortion of what is necessary here. This is like certain Trotskyites in France who in the situation of the confrontation with Nazi-Germany proclaimed "the main enemy stands in our own country", therefore we now have to fight the military, that is to fight the resistance against the Nazi-facist army. This is the Trotskyite-fascist variant of the wrong doctrine that this is always the task. In reality, it is not always the same situation as 1914. In the propaganda of certain "leftists" today also the absurdity can be found, that Lenin's criticism of imperialism, that is of financial capital, is "antisemitic", and there are overtones like that Marxism, too, finally leads to antisemitic propaganda. This is already an indication of a direction in the political attempts of the imperialists we have to reckon with. For in the last consequence, Bush and his cohorts push into a direction which depict every form of socialism and all the more the irreconcilable class struggle basically as potentially terroristic and dangerous for the US' development. This logically implies the attack on Marxism, and here one can see what it means if certain groups now behave like that. In several theorems of his, for example against "militant visions of class, nation, and race" Bush takes phrases we have longtime known from independents ("Autonome"). We have to realize that the extreme point of this evil opportunistic swamp as always points into the direction of what imperialism intends soon. March 4, 2003 The editorial staff here has taken various records of oral contributions
by Klaus Sender (Hartmut Dicke) concerning questions which arise around
the war on Iraq, and has combined and structured them.
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