FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
ENGLISH - LANGUAGE EDITION OF THE THEORETICAL ORGANOFTHE
INTERNATIONAL EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE OF THE FOURTH INTERNATIONAL
GERMANY: THE CRUCIAL STAKE
We are entering a new period of international that at the present time nobody, save the German
On the other hand, the Kremlin is quite aware dominate in the negotiations with the Kremlin.
Number 6
Editorial high tension. Since the Kremlin raised the question of Berlin and the peace treaty with the "two Germanies," international public opinion has been going through alternating phases of alarm and relief.
At the moment we are in a phase of relief. The Kremlin has obtained a "summit" conference in principle, in exchange for a prior conference of foreign ministers. It will consequently soft-pedal matters until the "summit" conference. There will be a beginning of negotiations with a view to a compromise.
But what compromise?
When the Kremlin last November decided to raise the question of the status of Berlin, it was clearly aiming at obtaining and getting ratified a change in the present status quo in Europe, speculating on a new global correlation of forces.
The matter is one of imposing the recognition of East Germany and of eliminating the pro-imperialist enclave of West Berlin. It is consequently a question of thus rendering official the plit of Germany into two states, each having lifferent social regime. Any compromise not es sentially favorable to this possibility would not be able to satisfy the Kremlin.
Why has the Kremlin chosen this precise moment to raise this particularly explosive question? Basically because it considers that the new global correlation of forces is in its favor. Military experts recognize that the moment holds military superiority, including in the field of atomic weapons, thanks to the already commenced mass production of intercontinental ballistic missiles.
Spring 1959 really wants German reunification. Great Britain, and even France, fear a unification that would enormously increase the already redoubtable economic potential of West Germany. Great Britain in particular, more and more outdistanced by West Germany in the. export of manufactures and the conquest of foreign matters in cutently remembation the "Gerties and is rekindling national prejudices towards it. Adenauer does not want German reunification at the present stage, either, fearing to lose the parliamentary majority that his party still holds to the benefit of the Social-Democracy, which has been steadily increasing the percentage of its votes in all recent elections. As for the United States, its German policy is based on lining up with Adenauer.
The Kremlin therefore thinks it can render official a de facto situation that nobody at present would like to change at the risk of touching
Yet between the tacit recognition of the "two Germanies" and the official recognition of East Germany, which would also have de facto control over West Berlin, there is a big difference. allies round to suar to paratreated unde appear to have retreated unde Soviet pressure in the crucial field of Germany and Europe. The repercussions in West Germany and in the entire would risk being profound and uncontrollable.
For this reason, despite the dissensions that have appeared so far among the Atlantic allies, and more especially between the British and the Germans, it is the line of "firmness" that will
tion, drives it to seek compromises with imperial- for unification, has become resigned to the idea
The crusaders of the Atlantic alliance are getting ready to play "on the brink of the abyss," to reject both a unilateral modification in the present status of Berlin and a peace treaty with East Germany. They will, rather, make an offer of an overall deal linking the future of Berlin with the question of German unification and with European "security."
The Kremlin, backed by its Warsaw Pact allies and China, will certainly reject such a proposition. And then there will begin a maior trial of strength, in fact the most important one since the Second World War. It will be seen later along what line of retreat, compared to the present positions of both sides, the negotiation of a compromise might be begun.
It is necessary in any case to understand that the negotiations will be tightly played out, both sides will be playing "on the brink of the abyss," and that the present "relief" will several times in coming months give way to alarm. On both sides, the general staffs have their plans ready for any eventuality, and their forces mobilized to prevent any "surprises"
The reasons for this new international tension in prospect must be sought in the essential postulates of the current international situation. The years are going by without any halt in the mad super-arms race. On the imperialist side, there is no relaxation in this tield. Un the contrary, the military budgets of the principal imperialist countries, as well as their production of atomic weapons, are on the increase; atomic tests go on; the multiplication of military bases throughout the world continues; Japan and Germany are rearming, including soon with atomic weapons.
Faced with this trend, the workers' states are obliged to resort to an analogous military effort, to the detriment of their economic | development and the liberalization of their political regimes.
Under these conditions, coexistence, which is a fact, is far from being carried on "peacefully,' out turns fatally to tension and what is in reality a life-and-death struggle between the two social
In the impossibility of freezing at any given level economic evolution, technical development, military potentials, as well as relationships between capitalist states and dependent states, and social relationships within these states, in the impossibility of freezing as it were the international revolution now in course, "peaceful coexistence" is a chimaera constantly brought into question y "international crises" bringing us "to the brink of the abyss."
It is true that the conservatism inherent in the nature of the Soviet bureaucracy, its fear of the "uncontrolled" propagation of the world revolu-
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL ism and "Yalta agreements" that obtain it ad. vantages in return for outright betrayals of the revolution. This is a factor which, beside mutual fear of an atomic war, has so far operated to prevent our being precipitated from the "brink" into the "abyss" itself.
Nevertheless, the only realistic means of fighting against the aggravation of the danger of atomic war and against war in general is further to weaken imperialism by the victorious revolution in the capitalist and dependent countries.
In order that this fight may become possible, moreover, it must resolve upon its course in relation to the real problems and interests of proletarian revolution and not in relation to the goals of Kremlin diplomacy.
In the case of Germany, to want to weaken imperialism by kceping the country divided and East Germany in "quarantine" means squarely to turn one's back on the German revolution. The masses in both East and West Germany could not long remain reconciled to the permanence of the division of their country. To prevent their wandering off to the paths of reactionary nationalism, there must be clearly traced out for them the perspective of a unfied and independent socialist Germany.
Under present concrete conditions, there could be no question of dismantling the social structures of East Germany for the benefit of a capitalist restoration in a unified capitalist Germany. There could be no question either of subjecting West Germany to the bureaucratic and policeridden political regime of Ulbricht, liegeman nf the Kremlin. The German masses must have the right to build a unified democratic socialist Gerallied on a basis of equality with the USSR and the other workers' states. For such a prospect to be fulfilled, there would be needed a profound evolution in the present situation in West Germany and in the USSR. It would be necessary for the German Socialist Party to take a clear position about the social structures of East Germany and declare itself resolved, on coming to power, not to capitalist society but to institute a genuine socialist regime in Germany. It would be necessary that in the US SR the Kremlin, which determines the fate of the regime in East Germany, declare itself ready to submit the fate of a Germany unified on socialist bases to the free verdict of the German masses organized in the parties of their choice.
This perspective, under present conditions, seems to be an illusion. Yet it is the only one that takes into account the aspirations and interests of the German masses.
The German Socialist Party, in its new plan
of a confederation between the two German sides of the present demarcation line in Germany ward unification. That is a position to be con- framework of a democratic socialist regime.
FOURTH INTERNATIONAL states as a provisional and transitional stage tosidered within the frame of a perspective looking forward to a genuine unification of the country on the basis of a democratic socialist regime.
The pressure of the international masses must in the critical coming months be brought to bear in the direction of paralyzing, possible adventuristic attempts on the part of imperialism, for example, that of forcing access to Berlin manu militari. It must also make itself felt on both
Editorial Notes
3 to demand the unification of the country in the
Without the vigilance and active intervention of the masses, the European masses in particular, there is a danger of witnessing the most perilous yet of exercises 'on the brink of the
Let the proletarian vanguard at least make no mistake about it: such is in fact the stake in the new trial of strength over Berlin and Germany. April 1959