Weber (Jacobs) Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
From The Militant, Vol. VI No. 9, 17 February 1933, p. 1.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’ Callaghan for the Encyclopaedia of Trotskyism On-Line (ETOL).
The Japanese generals refuse to be checked by the League of Nations. The goal of their ambitions for many a long time, is too close to their grasp to allow it to be snatched away again. Far from giving up Manchuria, the Japanese imperialists plan to extend their conquest and “legalize it by employing the mercenary Manchu tool, Henry Pu Yi, former boy emperor of China. He will make a bid for the throne of North China at Peiping, the Japs supplying the necessary bayonets. Let the League fulminate, let the U.S. intrigue – it is now or never for the bandits of the Far East.
The Imperial Diet at Tokio has given its blessing to the patriotic undertaking “defending” Japan by conquering China. The largest budget in Japanese history, two and a quarter billion yen, has been approved in order to finance another year of aggression in Asia. Direct allotments of 33 percent of this swollen sum are made to the army and navy. The fact that this sum of money cannot be collected in taxation and therefore that the fiscal policy means inevitably greater inflation of the currency than has already occurred, does not disturb the ruling class. For the devastating effects of such inflation will be shifted on to the backs of the workers and peasants. Financing the war in China can be accomplished only by intensifying exploitation at home.
If the capitalists have any misgivings as to the ultimate outcome of a break with Europe and America, they will have to keep mum for the present – the generals are in the saddle. Nevertheless the Tokio stock market registers the fears of the less blood-thirsty section of finance imperialism. Stocks and bonds have tumbled, revealing the Achilles heel of Japanese economy, the lack of adequate finances, one of the first blows to be delivered by the League and the U.S. at Japan, if the imminent break actually occurs, will be the clamping down on loans. It remains to be seen, even then, whether France will abide by such a decision.
The Japanese threaten to shut the door of Manchurian trade to the rest of the world if further pressure for their withdrawal is applied. The imperialist powers have had too much experience with their own method of handling conquered territory, for them to waste any feeling over this threat. Manchuria has been closed to all but Japan since its occupation. American business has reconciled itself to this fact and has turned to the Yangtze Valley for its future Chinese market.
Meanwhile the U.S. government, the political committee of American finance capital, does not sit twiddling its thumbs. It is utilizing the debt tangle to the utmost as may be witnessed by the activities of the League, and particularly of England. It is intriguing with its dollars in China, goading the treacherous Kuo Min Tang on to some semblance of resistance to further Japanese encroachment.
By the irony of history, it may come about that the League of Nations, which at its very inception sent invading armies into Soviet Russia to help suppress the revolution, will be split asunder by its own internal imperialist contradictions before accomplishing its major objective, the isolation and suppression of the Soviets. It seems almost fantastic that the U.S. should grant recognition to the Soviet Union because of “common interests” against Japan. And yet this is taking place before our eyes. That this recognition should result, as Radek planned, in an alliance against Japan of the most reactionary and the most advanced countries, that is, however, still unthinkable. Not so long as the Soviets still represent the dictatorship of the proletariat. The Scott Nearings who predict such an event, are merely predicting without realizing it, the downfall of the dictatorship of the proletariat.
Weber (Jacobs) Archive | Trotskyist Writers Index | ETOL Main Page
Last updated: 17 April 2015