GIVES WAY TO ERHARD
By E. Germain
After fourteen years at the helm of the new German bourgeois state, the German Federal Republic, Konrad Adenauer finally gave up his post of federal chancellor, Ludwig Erhard is now the political leader of the German bourgeoisie. What is the significance of this shift? Does it mean "the end of an epoch," as many commentators maintain? Does it herald a . basic change in the policies of German imperialism? ;
Under Adenauer, West German imperialism rose like the fabled phoenix from the ashes of total defeat to again become in a few years the main capitalist power of the European continent. Germany rapidly regained not only economic power but political independence, converting its status from that of -a defeated, occupied country, fragmented into zones control= led by foreign military satraps, into an independent ally of American imperialism, enjoying equal standing with the other Western capitalist allies of Wall Street.
Indeed, if one bears in mind the insistence with which the represen= tatives of the United States campaigned in favor of the immediate rearmament of West German capitalism, the fact that West German generals were granted top posts in the imperialist alliance, that the West German army is by far the strongest capitalist army today on the European continent, it can be concluded that West Germany is in fact Washington's principal’ - and most privileged ally in Europe.
This rapid reversal in alliances was, of course, ‘a result of the "cold war" and the fear that came over the masters of American capitalism at sight of the tremendous rise in strength of the Soviet Union and the steady deterioration of the position of capitalism in the world balance of. power after the victory of the Chinese Revolution, Washingtonts fundamental course since the end of World War II has been to create and fortify a world alliance of capitalist powers against the rising forces of revolution, It is arming that alliance to the teeth in order to oppose each new revolutionary advance -- and to prepare for another world war.
Occupying a strategic position in this world balance of forces, Ger-~ many had to be included in the imperialist alliance. Otherwise all’ of Western Europe -~- with an industrial potential still equal to or greater than that of the Soviet Union -= could tilt toward the camp of the workers — states. Once the U.S. decided on the rapid restoration of West.Germany and its inclusion in the world imperialist alliance, it was only a question of time and diplomacy until German capitalism regained its former economic and military strength.
~ Against Rapid Reunification of Germany
For many reasons, Adenauer was ideal for this role. And it must be admitted that he did a good job for his class, ;
Adenauer is a typical representative of the Rhineland bourgeoisie centered around the Cologne banking houses. which were. always. traditionally. oriented toward the West and hostile to the Prussian Junkers and the old finance-capital centered in Berlin, In fact, after World War I, a part of
these forces toyed with the idea of splitting ‘the Rhineland from Germany, and Adenauer was among them, Intimately connected with the Roman Catholic hierarchy, these circles viewed the partition of Germany after the defeat of Hitler as a blessing in disguise, For the first time a German state came into being in which the Vatican wielded a majority, an impossibility in a united Germany.
Adenauer looked at German reunification with a cold eye for additional rather obvious social and political reasons. In Soviet-dominated Hast Germany, which was later to become the German Democratic Republic, were located the traditional strongholds of the German labor movement, Berlin, Saxony and Thuringia.
True, the Soviet occupation and Stalinist excesses under the Ulbricht regime terribly discredited Communism in these areas, Still, the most probable outcome of free elections would have been an overwhelming Social~ Democratic majority, making rule in a united Germany through classical capitalist parties very difficult.
Moreover, no matter how bitterly the East German workers hated Stalin= ism, they would scarcely tolerate without resistance handing over nation~ alized factories, built with their bare hands at tremendous sacrifice, to former capitalist owners who had not invested a cent in them for almost twenty years. Yet a united Germany, in which completely nationalized industry existed in the eastern part, would create knotty problems for capi-~ talist economy in the western part and quite possibly tip the scales against durable capitalist stabilization in any form,
For all these reasons, Adenauer centered German efforts in foreign “policy on the consolidation of the Western alliance rather than aiming at the reunification of Germany. He supported John Foster Dulles! “brinkman-= ship" policy of "rolling back Communism" to its prewar frontiers -- when the time became ripe for the effort. However, at crucial moments such as the uprising of the Berlin workers on June 16-17, 1953, and Khrushchev'ts erushing of the Hungarian uprising on November 4° 1956, Adenauer followed the tip-off from the State Department to "play it safe* and avoid any military adventure that. could set off World War III. . . and signify the immediate and total destruction of Germany.
Thus under Adenauer German capitalism looked towards the West and the South rather.than the East, The main goal was the integration of Western Europe and increased participation in Western Europe's exploitation of economic lebensraum in the colonial and semicolonial countries of Africa and Asia rather than setting out for early ‘reconquest" of the Lost terri~ tories to the east,
At the same time Adenauer cautiously avoided abandoning the formal claim that the German Federal Republic represented the whole of Germany, He never formally recognized the German Democratic Republic nor the new frontiers in Eastern Europe drawn on the maps at the Yalta and Potsdam conferences. In this way he staked out the future claims of German capi-~talism without pressing for their immediate realization. The ‘Secret of the Economic "Miracle"
“The "miraculous" restoration of Germany's power since 1948 has .a double foundation: on the one hand, the "cold war"; on the other, intensi-
a2 5a ' fied exploitation of ‘the ‘German working class,
Crushed first by the Nazi dictatorship, then by the war and the Allied terrorist saturation bombings of Germany's big cities, and finally by the occuvation and the fearful ordeal of Stalinism, the German working class could not find strength to struggle for power when Wall Street decided to rebuild Germany. The workers had to accept reconstruction on a capitalist basis, a ae
Thus, they had to begin with real wages less than half those of other West European workers. and less than one-fourth the real wages of the © American workers. Such low wages, in combination with a more or less up-to-date technology, permitted an extremely high rate of exploitation and. a correspondingly high rate of profit, with extraordinary possibilities for capital. accumulation. Thatts the whole secret of the economié "miracle." . ,
But the Logic of capitalism works in two directions. The faster the rate of capital accumulation and the greater the production of wealth, the greater the number of workers with jobs and the lower the rate of unemploy~ ment. .The consequence: a rise in the workerst demand. for a share in‘ this increasing wealth, . i
. The extremely low level of wages. in the 1948-50. ‘period assured a considerable margin of "security" for German capitalism, In annual negotiations wage increases of five to ten per cent could be conceded without affecting. Germany's favorable competitive position in the world market, The annual concession bought “social peace"! and a quiescent, reformist labor movement.
Bach year the price was paid until -- after twelve years -- German wages became the highest in. Western Europe, topping even the wage scales of the British workers,
. At this. point, Germany's competitive position came into question, Steel, coal, shipbuilding, even the German specialtiés of optical goods and machine tools, began to lose out to Italian, British and Japanese competitors who benefited from lower wages. To complicate things, full employment barred the effective imposition of "wage restraints" on the trade unions by purely economic means, German capitalism needed a political solution to this increasingly dangerous situation.
The lines of such a solution were clear enough. Preparations must be made for a change in government and the increasing involvement of the Social Democracy in ruling the country.
The leaders of the Social Democratic movement had for their part been. doing their share in preparing for this turn, The vestiges of the former pseudoeMarxist ideology had been liquidated and replaced | by brazen espousal of the "market economy" and private property in the means of production, Participation of the Social Democracy in the government provided the best possibility for "disciplining" the unions, since the: German Social Demo- — cracy still controls a big sector of the trade-union apparatus and is able to throw heavy and effective weight on the side of "wage restraints, "
“This is the main explanation for the clamor of the German bourgeoisie since the 1961 general elections to change the government and to symbolize
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4 the change by letting Adenauer go. Erhard in a coalition government with the FDP {'liberal" party] leader Mende, a typical representative of German industry, signifies the end of the political monopoly exercised by the cpu [Christian Democrats] since 1949 and could mean a transition either towards a Mende=-Brandt or Schroeder=Brandt cabinet, Schroeder seeming to be the man the CDU is now grooming. Coming “Shift in Foreign Policy?
The need for a change has been felt in foreign policy as well as domestic politics, Adendauer's one-sided course in relation to the integration of Western Europe was spelled out by close collaboration with Gaullist France, the creation of a "Paris-Bonn axis" to dominate the Com= mon Market and West Africa, the exclusion of Britain from the European Economic Community and a struggle within the imperialist alliance for "equal say" with Washington, This policy became an increasing source of embarrassment and irritation to the leading forces of the West German bourgeoisie. ; -
In the first place these highly class~conscious men have.a realistic appreciation of the relationship of forces on the European continent. .De Gaullets miniature atomic bomb (only four times the power.of the bomb that. destroyed Hiroshima) gives them no feeling of "security" in face of the military might of the USSR'ts nuclear rocketry. More than ever this boure geaisie wants the "comfort" of the American "nuclear umbrella," wants American troops on the continent and in Germany, and has an itch to get its own hands on nuclear weapons, even if only through a “multilateral nuclear NATO force," :
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The timing of the American army maneuver "Big Lift" was not lost on the German bourgeoisie, As Erhard. stepped into Adenauerts shoes, the "Big Lift" demonstrated the feasibility of transporting whole divisions across the Atlantic in a few hours, From a technical point of view it is clearly demonstrated that American troops need not be kept on the European contin= ent. Time-wise, troops based in the United States are now closer to Ger= many than when they were based in the British Isles in World War II! |
“Big Lift" was the American way of reminding the German capitalists not to take anything for granted. The element of blackmail was obvious. "Give up playing with de Gaulle and knuckle under to the Americans, Other~ wise we might pick up our marbles and get out!"
‘The new German chancellor hastened to indicate his sensitivity to the warning. At the first meeting of ministers of the Common Market powers at which he was present after becoming chancellor, Erhard broke the French= German united front.
Growing competition in the, world market combined with an increasing . drag in the big postwar boom made it more and more imperative for the West German bourgeoisie to bolster their trade defenses abroad instead of being sucked deeper into de Gaulle's rather unrealistic plan for "French supremacy". in Western Europe, Western Germany especially requires rapid exten= sion of the Common Market, already too narrow for the colossal economic. potential that has been created. Western Germany requires rapid penetra~ tion of Asian, Latin-American and North American markets. Consequently the German capitalists take a favorable view of the American imperialist scheme for an "Atlantic zone of free trade." They are antagonized by
we 2a:
French insistence on tariff protection for agricultural goods produced in the Common Market, since this means higher food costs for Western Germany (and thus higher nominal wages) coupled with greater difficulties in form~ ing trade partnerships with food-exporting countries overseas.
For all these reasons, Washington is pleased with the replacement of Adenauer by Erhard and would be even more pleased by the replacement of Erhard by the Social Democrat Willy Brandt, the West German politician who toes Washingtonts line in the most servile way.
But -- one may well ask -- is German imperialism freeing itself from the arms of de Gaulle only to fling itself into the passionate embrace of Wall Street? If economic difficulties become aggravated, might not the Germans again resume politics on their own == on a world scale? Arentt there vast potential markets for German machines and German chemicals in the Soviet: bloc and China? Can't these markets be opened up, or at least can't the threat of opening them up persuade Washington that after all Gere many is now "responsible enough" to be permitted to have a few small nuclear weapons of its own? And once such weapons are in the hands of a new Bundeswehr won't a new and frightening chapter open in the history of diplomacy? oe
It is the perspective suggested by such questions that explains «= among other factors -- the frantic efforts of the Soviet bureaucracy to convince U.S. imperialism that it should underwrite the new frontiers in Eastern and Central Europe through a “nonagsression" pact, and that this: — should be done now before the German ally is strong enough to prevent this by a veto. a
But economic contradictions sharp enough to impel the German bour= geoisie once again along the road of "independent" adventures (if only as blackmail) would also intensify social tensions within Germany itself, It would mean the end of annual wage rounds and thereby the end of German working-class quiescence. A showdown would loom between those sectors of the German labor movement so committed to "collaboration" with the class enemy that even a "wage freeze" is acceptable and those sectors prepared to defend real wages and trade-union rights,
' Whatever the immediate outcome of such a showdown, it would mean the end of the long phase in which the German working class was only a passive object in German politics, a phase that has lasted thirty years, Adenauer's departure may prove to have been a landmark here, too.
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