UNPATRIOTIC HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (Clapham – 6.00pm)
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Following is a discussion on the page titled: UNPATRIOTIC HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (Clapham – 6.00pm).
Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!I wonder how it compares with A People's History of the Second World War by SWPer Donny Gluckstein (book launch 10th November)
jondwhite wrote:I wonder how it compares with A People's History of the Second World War by SWPer Donny Gluckstein (book launch 10th November)Sounds as if we should review the two books together. From this it appears that the SWP one will take a quite different approach, ie support for the war as an "anti-fascist" war. But where is the book launch taking place?
Gluckstein, SWPer, son of Tony, wrote a dreadful book on 1919 and workers councils that i read. I won't expect too much of his new book.He is something of a hack, (but who am i to protest about plagiarism).One ex-SPGBer and ex-IWWer who worked alongside Gluckstein in Further Education and the lecturers union and knows him personally has a very low opinion of him.
Interesting stuff. The People's History book launch is at Bookmarks, 1 Bloomsbury Street, London, WC1B 3QE, but you need to reserve a space.I understand there were those in the SPGB who argued in favour of fighting to defend democracy during the Second World War? I have no truck with the British state and am wary of the Nazi = special all-powerful evil moral equation. The SWP argue fascists are always a threat but simultaneously always being defeated by Unite Against Fascism. Perhaps there is some other position to hold? Democracy is workers greatest weapon and achieving socialism is our object?
The debate probably began pre-WW2 during the Spanish Civil War. Some members thought the party should be more sympathetic to the Republican forces since it was argued that the machinery of democracy was a pre-requisite for socialism even if still a bourgeois one. If i recollect Dave Perrin's history there was a certain amount of to and froing to reach an acceptable compromise.See the 1936 article http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1936/no-385-september-1936/civil-war-spain Later the Party issued a 1937 editorial on Spain http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1930s/1937/no-393-may-1937/spgb-and-spainThis position was weakened by actual events in Spain such as the rise of Stalinism and the attacks on anarchists. Victory for the Republic was certainly not going to be a victory for working class democracy. The Party position switched emphasis to one that the fight for democracy could not be won through war since war itself by its very nature leads to undemocratic practices such as suppression of free speech etc.By the time the Second World War came along the Party said "The present war is most likely to bring in its trail…less freedom to achieve our purpose than we now possess, whichever side is triumphant in the struggle."Nevertheless, the Party added "The German workers must, it seems, be the means of effecting the downfall of the Nazi system of government. For ourselves we, as Socialists, would render them any service which would assist in their accomplishing the overthrow of their despotic ruling gang, if only to gain for them the immediate means of being able to give expression to their social and political aspirations without fear of being murdered or placed in a concentration camp. Until the working-class movement in Germany or anywhere else can gain the means of emerging from underground into the daylight, their chances of finally freeing themselves from capitalism through Socialism are well-nigh hopeless. To assist in the war against Germany is not the way by which this can be accomplished, we should be slaughtering the very people we desire to liberate from the Nazi yoke. "See this article http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/socialist-standard/1940s/1940/no-426-february-1940/how-can-hitlerism-be-destroyed
Thanks. Just booked to go. In the meantime I see that the book's argument is that the Second World War was a war to re-divide the world amongst imperialist powers, but that unlike the First World War was still "a war worth fighting" as a way " to end the scourge of fascism and Nazism".http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual9/submit/a-peoples-history-of-the-second-world-war.-resistance-versus-empire
admin wrote:Following is a discussion on the page titled: UNPATRIOTIC HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (Clapham – 6.00pm).Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!OOOoops!The event date and venue are missing.It's on Sunday 11th November, at 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. HH
HollyHead wrote:admin wrote:Following is a discussion on the page titled: UNPATRIOTIC HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (Clapham – 6.00pm).Below is the discussion so far. Feel free to add your own comments!OOOoops!The event date and venue are missing.It's on Sunday 11th November, at 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN. HH
Not if you'd clicked on the link provided….. UNPATRIOTIC HISTORY OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR (Clapham – 6.00pm).
Is there going to be anyone there asking about the unput in all of this kafuffle of stalins red fascists? The nazis were not the first or only fascist scumbags. Hope comrades attending, would point this out to our state-capitalist brethren.
Actually, nobody among the 20 members and 10 non-members at the meeting revealed themselves to be one of the "state-capitalist brethren". It was a very good and facinating talk and was recorded (but might not be of good enough quality since we pressed the wrong buttons on the recorder). The only quibble would be that the speaker sometimes used the word "socialst" in a way we wouldn't but we all knew what he meant.As for Donny Gluckstein of the SWP. He argues that the Second World War was both an inter-imperialist conflic for a redivision of the world and a people's war against fascism and so ends up supporting it:
Quote:The Second World War was different in essence from, for example, WWI or the Vietnam war. In its volatile combination of disparate elements it was unique, not only in the sheer scale of its wanton violence against civilians, but as a war worth fighting to end the scourge of fascism and Nazism. ( http://www.historicalmaterialism.org/conferences/annual9/submit/a-peoples-history-of-the-second-world-war.-resistance-versus-empire )This is not the view of James Heartfield who like us sees the war as an inter-imperialist conflict not worth the shedding of a single drop of working class blood. His book vindicates the position we took up at the time.
Jacques R. Pauwels is the author of The Myth of the Good War: America in the Second World War and would make another useful addition to the analysis of the 2nd World War for the library.http://www.amazon.com/The-Myth-Good-War-America/dp/155028771A collection of his online articles gives a taste of its contenthttp://jacquespauwels.net/ARTICLES.php"The Power Elite was also divided with respect to the handling of foreign affairs. In the 1930s, the US military had no plans, and did not prepare plans, to fight a war against Nazi Germany. On the other hand, they did have plans war against Great Britain, Canada, Mexico – and Japan.The owners and top managers of many American corporations – including Ford, General Motors, IBM, ITT, and Rockefeller’s Standard Oil of New Jersey, now known as Exxon – liked Hitler a lot; one of them – William Knudsen of General Motors – even glorified the German Führer as “the miracle of the 20th century.”[2] The reason: in preparation for war, the Führer had been arming Germany to the teeth, and the numerous German branch plants of US corporations had profited handsomely from that country’s “armament boom” by producing trucks, tanks and planes in sites such as GM’s Opel factory in Rüsselsheim and Ford’s big plant in Cologne, the Ford-Werke; and the likes of Exxon and Texaco had been making plenty of money by supplying the fuel Hitler’s panzers would need to roll all the way to Warsaw in 1939, to Paris in 1940, and (almost) to Moscow in 1941. No wonder the managers and owners of these corporations helped to celebrate Germany’s victories against Poland and France at a big party in the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York on June 26, 1940!American “captains of industry” like Henry Ford also liked the way Hitler had shut down the German unions, outlawed all labour parties, and thrown the communists and many socialists into concentration camps; they wished Roosevelt would mete out the same kind of treatment to America’s own pesky union leaders and “reds,” the latter still numerous in the 1930s and early 1940s. The last thing those men wanted, was for Roosevelt to involve the US in the war on the side of Germany’s enemies, they were “isolationists” (or “non-interventionists”) and so, in the summer of 1940, was the majority of the American public: a Gallup Poll, taken in September 1940, showed that 88 percent of Americans wanted to stay out of the war that was raging in Europe.[3] Not surprisingly, then, there was no sign whatsoever that Roosevelt might want to restrict trade with Germany, let alone embark on an anti-Hitler crusade. In fact, during the presidential election campaign in the fall 1940, he solemnly promised that “[our] boys are not going to be sent into any foreign wars.”[4]That Hitler has crushed France and other democratic countries, was of no concern to the US corporate types who did business with Hitler, in fact, they felt that Europe’s future belonged to fascism, especially Germany’s variety of fascism, Nazism, rather than to democracy. (Typically, the chairman of General Motors, Alfred P. Sloan, declared at that time that it was a good thing that in Europe the democracies were giving way “to an alternative [i.e. fascist] system with strong, intelligent, and aggressive leaders who made the people work longer and harder and who had the instinct of gangsters – all of them good qualities”!)[5] And, since they certainly did not want Europe’s future to belong to socialism in its evolutionary, let alone revolutionary (i.e. communist) variety, the US industrialists would be particularly happy when, about one year later, Hitler would finally do what they have long hoped he would do, namely, to attack the Soviet Union in order to destroy the homeland of communism and source of inspiration and support of “reds” all over the world, also in the US.While many big corporations were engaged in profitable business with Nazi Germany, others now happened to be making plenty of money by doing business with Great Britain. That country – in addition to Canada and other member countries of the British Empire, of course – was Germany’s only remaining enemy from the fall of 1940 until June 1941, when Hitler’s attack on the Soviet Union caused Britain and the Soviet Union to become allies. Britain was desperately in need of all sorts of equipment to continue its struggle against Nazi Germany, wanted to purchase much of it in the US, but was unable to make the cash payments required by America’s existing “Cash-and-Carry” legislation. However, Roosevelt made it possible for US corporations to take advantage of this enormous “window of opportunity” when, on March 11, 1941, he introduced his famous Lend-Lease program, providing Britain with virtually unlimited credit to purchase trucks, planes, and other martial hardware in the US. The Lend-Lease exports to Britain were to generate windfall profits, not only on account of the huge volume of business involved but also because these exports featured inflated prices and fraudulent practices such as double billing.A segment of Corporate America thus began to sympathize with Great Britain, a less “natural” phenomenon than we would now tend to believe. (Indeed, after American independence the ex-motherland had long remained Uncle Sam’s archenemy; and as late the 1930s, the US military still had plans for war against Britain and an invasion of the Canadian Dominion, the latter including plans for the bombing of cities and the use of poison gas.)[6] Some mouthpieces of this corporate constituency, though not very many, even started to favour a US entry into the war on the side of the British; they became known as the “interventionists.” Of course, many if not most big American corporations made money through business with both Nazi Germany and Britain and, as the Roosevelt administration itself was henceforth preparing for possible war, multiplying military expenditures and ordering all sorts of equipment, they also started to make more and more money by supplying America’s own armed forces with all sorts of martial material.[7]If there was one thing that all the leaders of Corporate America could agree on, regardless of their individual sympathies towards either Hitler or Churchill, it was this: the war in Europe in 1939 was good, even wonderful, for business. They also agreed that the longer this war lasted, the better it would be for all of them. With the exception of the most fervent pro-British interventionists, they further agreed that there was no pressing need for the US to become actively involved in this war, and certainly not to go to war against Germany. Most advantageous to Corporate America was a scenario whereby the war in Europe dragged on as long as possible, so that the big corporations could continue to profit from supplying equipment to the Germans, the British, to their respective allies, and to America herself. Henry Ford thus “expressed the hope that neither the Allies nor the Axis would win [the war],” and suggested that the United States should supply both sides with “the tools to keep on fighting until they both collapse.” Ford practised what he preached, and arranged for his factories in the US, in Britain, in Germany, and in occupied France to crank out equipment for all belligerents.[8] The war may have been hell for most people, but for American “captains of industry” such as Ford it was heaven."http://www.globalresearch.ca/fall-1941-pearl-harbor-and-the-wars-of-corporate-america/28159
The recording of James Heartfield's talk has been uploaded to our audio section -http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/unpatriotic-history-2nd-world-war
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