underestimated the Communists and the other movements in Asia The necessity to forestall revolutios if Europe logically forced the governments Great Britain and the United States to seek a compromise with Germany; and, known, they devoted all their efforts to this right up to the outbreak of war.
But the logic of German imperialism was quite different. For it, military victory on the European continent and in the British Isles would enable it to achieve simultaneously two aims: to remove for an indefinite period any threat of revolution in Europe and also secure an economic and political basis for future expansion. This programme of German imperialism represented for the British and Arriericans no less a threat, and above all a much more immediate and precise one, than the possibility of revolution in Europe.
Faced with the unavoidable necessity of defeating Germany in order to protect its vital interests, the Anglo-American alliance was obliged to explore another course which might combine the defeat Germany preservation capitalism wide-ranging agreement with the Soviet state and the Communist movement. This possibility showed itself first at the time of the Popular Front, but its first important demonstration, which showed how far the Soviets could go in this direction, was the German-Soviet pact, in support of which the Kremlin did not hesitate to chances of the Chinese revolutionary anti-fascist strategy.
conclusive, as Is well its duel with Germany. with the Italy, force the Communist parties to abandon their Nevertheless, this action was not entirely because the Soviet Union had signed the pact with Germany in a position of weakness, and it was not therefore a sufficient basis to predict Soviet behaviour in a position of strength, such as they. would enjoy if the were defeated. Rut the Rritish and Americars had no alternative to this course, though they combined it with the elementary precaution of acting in such a way that the USSR would be weakened to the maximum in Experience was to show, as we have seen, that the compromise desired by and London was perfectly possible. It enabled them to overcome the underlying contradiction between their main European aims. the dereat of Germany and the prevention of continental revolution. They were less successful in Asia but the responsibility for that was not Stalin's From 1943 onwards, the possibility of a revolutionary outcome to the anti-fascist war in Europe was clearly visible in four countries Yugoslavia and Greece. The defeat of Germany came into sight at the same time, together with the important part to be played in that defeat by the Soviet armies, whose general offensive developed rapidly on al wrons auring me summer ol lilal ycal i was the year when most of the British an American press shouted its warnings, and when the leaders of the Anglo-American coalition demanded the dissolution of the and the clear acceptance by the Communist parties of a political line excluding any prospect of revolution. It was the year in which Stalin willingly accepted these demands, did not affect his strategic and political aims, and indeed could be useful to him as bargaining counters in the great negotiation with the Allies The Yugoslav Communists Moscow's instructions; the Greek Communists hesitated, and during 1944 made concessions to Moscow which were to prove fatal to them.
and Togliatti the neo-reformist turn in these leaders' political views which had begun at the time Popular Front. The leading groups in these two parties, which had been formed in these views offered no resistance this the revolutionary development in France and Italy was seriously threatened; the position was as it would have been in Russia in the course of 1917 if Lenin's 'April Theses' had been rejected by the Bolshevik Party. The bourgeois revolution would have consolidated itself, one way or another, but the proletarian revolution would have taken place, and revolutionaries would still be arguing whether the possibility had really existed and whether or not Lenin was a leftist adventurer, as they are now about France and Italy.
available in English.
CHRONOLOGY European war in Spain. throughout France. A The Communist Parties tion.
1938: Britain we know nothing.
1939: In non-aggression their Fuhrer'.
sues for peace.
British Empire'. 1941: Hitler Communist Japan and Italy). 1942: Japanese and half of New Guinea. 1943: The tide turns.
Comintern German troops.
German
since they resisted similar advances.
1944: accepted Stalin's line possibility of Greece.
and • should be used'.
over. FORTY YEARS AGO, in September 1939, the Second World War broke out in Europe. What was the meaning of this war? Why did it take role did the European working class play in it?
On these pages we reprint a passage from The Communist Movement by Fernando Claudin (Penguin Books £4.75), a book partly devoted to answering these questions.
leader Spanish Communist Party, Claudin under-estimates the crisis of capitalism and the strength of the revolution during and after the First World War. Yet the book contains some of the finest Marxist analysis of the Second World War 1933: Hitler comes to power in Germany.
ruling class is apprehensive, :but breathes a sigh of relief that the spectre of revolution has been exorcised in Germany. 1936: Popular Front victories in France and Spain. General Franco rebels and starts a civil Factory occupations spread , victory for the workers in both countries would put the workers on the offensive against Italian and German fascism.
restrain the struggle within the straitjacket of bourgeois democracy.
937: German imperialism re-arms. French an ritish ruling classes attempt collaboratio and accept Nazi occupation of Austria and British Prime-Minister Chamberlain declares on the German entry into Prague: *...a quarrel in a faraway country between people of whom August Stalin signs a treaty OI Hitler. Stalin declares: 'We know how much the German people love In September Hitler invades Poland. Britain and France declare war on Germany. The Second World War has started.
1940: In April the German imperialist armies occupy Denmark and Norway. In the following two months Belgium and Holland fell. France Expeditionary Force evacuates at Dunkirk. German troops march into Paris. Field Marshal Ironside, Chief of the. Imperial Staff remarks: "This is the end of the invades the Soviet Union. •Parties throughout occupied Europe join or launch a resistance against the Nazis. From now on the USSR will bear the brunt of the war against German imperialism. After à period of debacles the Russian armies fight back. Japanese armies occupy Indochina. Pearl Harbour is bombed and the United States declares war on the Axis Powers (Germany, imperialists defeat imperialism in vital sectors of Asia. Singapore and most of. Burma is occupied by Japanese troops. The Japanese are also in occupation of large parts of China, Indonesia, the Phillipines The Germans are defeated in the Soviet Union. The epic Battle of • Stalingrad results in the surrender of 91,000 It is a decisive defeat for •The prestige of Stalingrad is reflected in the enormous growth of CPs throughout the world. In China the Communist partisans under the command of Mao Tse Tung, begin to inflict reverses on the Japanese as does Ho Chi Minh in Indochina. In Yugoslavia the forces led by Tito register The British and American armies cross the channel and open the Second Front. There is a race for Berlin by the Russian armies from the East and the Allies from the West. The Red Army takes Vienna in April and by the end of the month has reached the suburbs of Berlin. At Yalta there is a meeting between Roosevelt, Churchill and Stalin where Europe is divided into 'spheres of influence. Stalin pledges to prevent revolutions in France, Italy and 1945: In a Berlin bunker the German Fuhrer commits suicide. In Asia the Japanese are on the verge of defeat, but American imperialism wishes to test a new military device. Atomic bombs are used on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. American President Truman says: "I regarded it as a military weapon and never had any doubt it British CP's Daily Worker defends the use of the atom bomb. The war is 13: ст 1979 рaдe9
Britain.
Now, Socialists imperialists