• THE SITUATION IN WEST GERMANY
By W BECKER
Economic development in the German Federal Reublic has up till now experienced no serious reverse. True, the rate of growth of overall industrial produc tion is lessening and the diminution of imports from the raw-material-producing countries has not yet stopped. There are also signs of crisis in some sectors of consumer-goods industries. On the other hand, the capital-goods and machine industries, whose orders come largely from within Germany, have a favorable effect on the conjuncture. The explanation of this seeming contradiction lies in the fact that German industry is increasingly entering the field of armaments, and is thus enjoying a stage of rationalization which should render it "fit" for the sharpening competition in the national and world markets.
In coal-mining there is a genuine overproduction crisis as a result of the competition of fuel oils. A second neuralgic point in heavy industry is steel, which for nearly a year now has been operating at from 60 to 70% of capacity. If there is already talk here and there about a break in international steel prices, it is still not yet discernible how much of this is deliberate pessimism. But however this may be, the Federal Republic's economy shows no visible deep-going weakness. In general this must be attributed to the fact that German capitalism is now in process of utilizing the conjunctural reserves, that were lying dormant, in armament and rationalization. There is simultaneously occurring a concentration of capital that leaves far behind the development between the two World Wars and increasingly overflows the national frontiers. This is made clear by widespread capital in•terpenetration among German, French, and Belgian heavy industry, the steady inflow of American capital into the Federal Republic, and increasing participation of German capital in American undertakings.
Hand in hand with this goes a slow breakdown of the "social cushion," ie, the so-called "voluntary extras," which were not tied up with fixed-pay-rates, in the plants. Through the introduction of a shortening of hours, it is being sought - successfully - to avoid a rapid worsening of the "social climate." On the other hand, so far, the workers who are let go can still be quickly taken by other plants. Thus the overall picture still shows full employment, with a simultaneous steady worsening of the social situation of the working class. In the plants insecurity and concern are beginning to be felt. Confidence in the economic miracle's lasting forever is beginning to disappear. At the same time there is a growing feeling of being abandoned, for no class-political alternatives are being offered by either the trade unions or the Social Democracy.
Amid a general political apathy and an inner-political "sour-picklism," the Congress of the Metal-Workers Union (IGM) was held in Nuremberg at the end of September. It shed a few rays of light by making at least formally an anti-Diest demonstration against the complete liquidation of all points on the programme of a socialist or half-socialist economic conception.
And so it seems that in this IGM the realization is making its way that times are getting harder and will in the future bring bigger attacks of the bosses against the living standard of the masses. In this situation it is significant that the biggest union is abandoning its illusions about collaboration.
This result may be credited in the first place to the attitude of the plant and union functionaries of the middle and lower levels. Their speeches at the union congress showed that the IGM could count on the active participation of broad layers of functionaries, if it decided to prepare the metal workers, by a powerful combined action of explanation and partial struggles, for the fights to come.
Up till now there are no signs that the IGM leadership thinks of developing its tactics in the framework of such a strategic plan of class struggle. The underlying reason is that a correct strategy and tactic can be worked out only if one begins by seeking out unreservedly all the mistakes and weaknesses of the past. That would bring about: the destruction of the legend of joint-management through the so-called "worker-directors," and the denunciation of the doubtful role that many of them played in the supervising councils. Another object of serious criticism would be the practice, carried on for many years, of "round-table negatiation" of wage-rates with a hopeful expectation of cheap compromises as a result of referendums, and finally the failure to submit the experiences of the biggest strike movements to a real class-political analysis and to draw the appropriate lessons therefrom, ie, in other words, to regard and lead the unions as "schools of class struggle." Political conclusions should also have been drawn from the analysis of the concentration of economic power and the interpenetration of state and economic power.
The German bourgeoisie is operating with full consciousness of its till now favorable position toward a depoliticized, partly neutralized, and above all leaderless working class. It cyrically throws overboard one of the "sacred rights" of its own "revolutionary" period — the right to an activity of persuasion, and demands against its potential class enemy the death penalty in political warfare. It is becoming ever clearer that Portugal, Spain, and now France, will provide
40 the model on which the German bourgeoisie will organize its state power.
Its mobilization measures follow one after another. Minister of the Interior Schröder asks for the vote of a state of emergency against the danger of communism in a divided Germany, basing himself formally on the treaty about troops. In reality it would be creating a new "Gestapo" whose fields of activity would be shown in "psychological defense" and the death penalty for political offenses.
For years the big shots of the German Socialist Pary (SPD) and the trade unions have affirmed that the German working class, and especially the trade unions, will defend democracy if it should be threatened. Step by step the German bourgeoisie goes forward along the road to the suppression of democracy; step by step the traditional organizations of the working class re-
Meanwhile the Mannesmann trust quietly liquidates joint-management in its holding companies by a simple measure of fusion technique. The trade unions limited themselves to a written protest. In the Kassel labor court decision that holds the I G M responsible for the financial losses sustained by the owners on account of the Schleswig-Holstein strike, the German bosses and the new German class justice prepared the greatest test to date of the I G M's strength and readiness for combat. Up till now it is known only that the I G M has appealed to the Federal Court at Karlsruhe. Not only is there no question of fighting measures, but Brenner, first president of the IG M, says expressly that the union is accepting the decision ; at the same time Brenner also says that it is a political decision that is in question.
The reaction of the bosses to the Kassel decision says more than any deep-going commentary on the unconstitutionality of the decision. The IG M is no longer feared; it is not even respected. The bosses feel pity for it, do not want to "ruin" it, but expect from it a "correct behavior," so they say, that the amount of the demands for damages based on the decision will depend on the "social climate." In short, they want to force the I G M to "class peace" conces-
If the metal workers want to prevent their union from experiencing a most dangerous development which can paralyze it, and with it the whole trade-union movement, for any capacity for fighting, then they must, immediately and with all their strength, demand a detensive action in the form of propagandist and agitational struggles about wage and rate policy. The situation is growing more precarious from month to month. If the German bourgeoisie can unchallenged collect the building stones for its "strong state," then at the first hard blow the big organizations will collapse like houses built of cards.
What the Social Democracy is doing is no better. The so-called "Fight Atom-Death" movement, whicl had all the preconditions for becoming a genuine po-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL pular movement with the distinguished participation of well-known scientists, physicians, and teachers, as well as the student youth, is dying more lamentably than the ignominiously defeated St Paul's Church movement against rearming. Ideologically in a hopeless contradiction between the old "socialist reformism" and the impatient desires for adaptation of the new S PD strata of successful petty-bourgeois, burgomaster and ministerial candidates, directors of disability funds and joint-management, trade-union bosses and professional presidents of plant councils, lacking any conception of the role of the state in the late capitalist epoch, the leadership of the S PD is helplessly adrift. It is living politically from hand to mouth.
Political vegetating has become a style of political living for this Social-Democratic leadership. When what is needed is differentiation, the SPD convulsively seeks "agreement," as at the Berlin session of the Bundestag. Joint jeremiads on the lack of freedom in the zone, instead of showing up the bourgeois hypocrisy about reunification. It agreed to vote a joint declaration with the government parties, while at the same time Adenauer in the election struggle was giving it one slap in the face after another.
On the outbreak of the Berlin crisis the SP D first just babbled the usual bourgeois phrases about freedom. The platitudes about a "joint" foreign policy between "the government and the opposition" became a flood. Finally, however, Ollenhauer, the first president of the party, called for the floor and announced a sort of official stand of the party: the solution of the Berlin crisis is possible in the long run only within the framework of a broader settlement about the reunification of Germany, the control of armaments, and a zone free of atomic weapons (the Rapacki Plan). Side-by-side with this, the ruling burgomaster of Berlin, Social-Democrat Willy Brandt, was developing his own "domestic policy". And so there is an official Social-Democratic position to which scarcely any notice is paid; but there is no clear Social-Democratic policy in this important national question.
This example is quite classic for demonstrating Social-Democratic impotence. The Social-Democracy is incapable of bringing before the masses a conception correct in itself, in order to politicize them and get them into movement. The Berlin crisis, which can develop into one of the hardest fights between the East and West, will find the masses, the way things are going, either indifferent or coöperating with the bourgeoisie. It will then be seen whether Willy Brandt will undertake the role of a German Mollet, for which he seems predestined. The S PD election victory in Berlin — among other things an answer to the Russian initiative — was in the first line his doing. The masses did not vote between two political alternatives. They voted for the "strong man" Willy Brandt, whose arrogant big talk in the absence of any real alternative, was more imposing to the voters than
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL the arguments, weak and without a fighting presentation, offered by the "official" party.
The recommendation by the parliamentary fraction. for voluntary entry of S PD members into the Federal army is the latest egg laid by these "leaders" of the German working class. This coup provides the "Fight Atom-Death" movement with a third-class funeral and practically completes the capitulation before the faits accomplis of the Adenauer government.
Be it said to the honor of the party members that there is spreading through the ranks a big unrest, and in part even an indignation, which went to the degree of threats — and even acts — of walking out of the S PD. Weighty discussions broke out. These gave especially the revolutionary socialists the possibility of pointing out, on the basis of this theme, the flagrant contradictions which everyone sensed. There was even afforded the opportunity here and there to raise the question of the class nature of the state and the role of the state as an instrument of the ruling class.
The inner-party differences concerning the position taken by the parliamentary fraction are of contributory importance insofar as they permit — where left elements find some echo among the membership — the softening-up of the ground for discussion of the draft of the S PD basic programme. This programme, which deserves mention only because of its lack of any solid basis, tries to bring into agreement the petty-bourgeois governmental hopes of the careerists and the social interests of the working-class base — an idea which is as illusory as the synthesis between the conflicting class interests of the bourgeoisie and the proletariat.
While the official Social-Democratic ideology and practice gradually slide to the right, the trade unions, on objective grounds, are more and more developing into a "natural left" within the working class and into a left tendency within the Social-Democracy.
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The "almost fighting words" exchanged between Kiel and Nuremberg, between the Christian-Democratic Congress and the Metal Workers' Congress, which were, so to speak, carried out in a symbolic way, reflect this objective situation in their own way. There in Kiel the conscious strategists of the CDU in full awareness of their strength ; here in Nuremberg the strongest industrial union of the German Union Federation as a last refuge before the total liquidation of the remains of socialist thought and determination, the class organization as the potential breeding-ground for the growth of a new class consciousness.
If it depended only on the trade-union practice of the majority of the trade-union leaders whether and how far the German working class in the Federal Republic wakes up to a new class-consciousness, the prospects, on the basis of past experiences, would be more than doubtful. The objective situation will more and more create the conditions under which the German working class can enter into broadening and sharpening defensive struggles. That would enable it to win enough time to collect experience and to build up a new leading cadre that is willing and able to dominate the coming struggles tactically and strategically Whether and to what extent this will happen depends above all on the trade-union organizations and therefore to a large extent on the behavior and activity of the leaders at the middle and lower levels in the plants and unions. The lessening of consciousness and will to resist, signs of which are visible, especially in the Ruhr today, can develop into a serious obstacle for a fighting trade-union strategy, if the workers do not soon, through their organizations, straighten their backs and grow infused with self-confidence.
In the sense of these developments the revolutionary socialists must make the greatest efforts to strengthen their own cadres, to be at the level of coming tasks.