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From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 46, 14 November 1949, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The foreign ministers of the Big Three – America England and France – will meet in Paris this coming week to discuss – once again – the problem of Western Germany. There will be, of course, other items on the agenda, but this remains the key and dominant question in the efforts of America to build up a bulwark against Russia.
It is possible that the question of recognition or non-recognition of the new Chinese Stalinist government will come up, with the well-known difference between the United States and England likely to come out in the open. In addition, there is the problem of the failure of Western Europe to proceed to fulfillment of the various dictates given to it, by America with respect to economic policy under the Marshall Plan.
But Western Germany will hold the center of attention, and rightfully so. Less than two months after installation of a new German regime under the Bonn Constitution, that document is proving – as we predicted – worthless and unsatisfactory to all concerned. The new German government, despite its conservative and often openly reactionary character, is pushed into a position where it must demand (and receive) an ever greater measure of independence from the occupational authorities.
Its demands center around the following points, and the creation of a puppet “independent” East German state by the Russians has increased the demand of Western Germans for a solution to this problem.
First, the German government demands increased representation in the various international bodies – World Bank, Monetary Fund – that have been set up. This is one aspect of its insistence upon recognition as an independent government, with embassies throughout the world and with the right of German people to travel about freely. It also reflects the sensational extent to which German production and commerce has revived and plays its part once more in European economy.
Secondly, there is the matter of trade relations with Eastern Germany. The Western German regime, realizing that its sole and most important attraction to the East lies in a thriving and prosperous economic life, wants to take measures helping such a trade revival. One of its important demands, therefore, is an immediate end to the dismantling of Western German industries.
This will undoubtedly be the subject for most bitter controversy at the Paris gathering. In France, where economic recovery has now definitely leveled off and even begun to show signs of decline and stagnation, a violent resistance to increased German productivity has developed. The whole tendency of French policy in the future will be to hold back and stymie all developments in Germany leading toward further independence. Paris will always insist upon “real and long-range control of German industry,” in the words of the New York Times.
This leads us to the third important issue – the question of administration of the Ruhr. At present, the Big Three control this administration, and the German industrialists sit in as a kind of “lost cousin.” Clearly, the German capitalists are not satisfied with this state of affairs, and are pressing for a return of the Ruhr to their complete and unhampered control. The regime of Chancellor Adenauer, it goes without saying, does not propose any nationalization of the Ruhr under state control. It desires a return of this key industrial area to GERMAN capitalist control, the better to strengthen their newly founded semi-state.
Behind all this, of course, stands the much greater issue of German unity and unification of the two separate states. Despite any temporary measures or proposals, this will always remain the real issue until its ultimate solution. One might say that there are THREE kinds of a unified Germany now possible, each represented by various forces.
On the one hand, we have the German Stalinist movement, organized in its puppet state, and entirely subservient to the will of Russian imperialism. They struggle for a unified Germany under a Stalinist “People’s Democracy” regime, with Russia holding all the cards.
On the. other hand, we have the regime of the German bourgeoisie, now organized at Bonn, and in an alliance with the occupational forces. It is, however, more independent and more demanding in its relations with the Western allies than are the German Stalinists. Its objective is the revival of a unified, capitalist and imperialist Germany, acting as the economic heart of Europe.
Finally, there is the mass, inchoate and popular movement for a unified Germany – largely represented in a political form through the German Social-Democratic Party – whose desire is to end all and any form of occupation, subjection to any foreign authority and the need to furnish reparations which have been paid tenfold already These are the working-class, peasant and middle-class forces which desire, in their own way, the revival of a truly democratic and free Germany.
They are not represented at the Paris conference, any more than they were represented at the Stalinist conference which created the puppet state. Both the Bonn state and the East German state are not their creations.
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