File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9709, message 340


Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 17:58:29 -0400
Subject: Re: M-I: The Origins of Nazism
From: farmelantj-AT-juno.com (James Farmelant)



On Wed, 17 Sep 1997 15:36:44 -0400 Louis Proyect <lnp3-AT-columbia.edu>
writes:
impossible without fascism. But fascism is not in power. And the 

>
>The victory of Hitler represents a break with Bonapartism, since it 
>represents the naked rule of finance capital and heavy industry. 
>Fascism in Germany breaks the tension between classes by imposing a 
>reign of terror on the working class. Once in power, however, fascism 
>breaks its ties with the petty-bourgeois mass movement that ensured 
>its 
>victory and assumes a more traditional Bonapartist character. Hitler 
>in 
>office becomes much more like the Bonapartist figures who preceded 
>him and seeks to act as a "superarbiter". In order to make this work, 
>he 
>launches an ambitious publics works program, invests in military 
>spending and tries to coopt the proletariat. Those in the 
>working-class 
>who resist him are jailed or murdered.
>
>In "Bonapartism and Fascism", written on July 15, 1934, a year after 
>Hitler's rise to power, Trotsky clarifies the relationship between the 
>
>two tendencies:
>
>"What has been said sufficiently demonstrates how important it is to 
>distinguish the Bonapartist form of power from the fascist form. Yet, 
>it 
>would be unpardonable to fall into the opposite extreme, that is, to 
>convert Bonapartism and fascism into two logically incompatible 
>categories. Just as Bonapartism begins by combining the parliamentary 
>regime with fascism, so triumphant fascism finds itself forced not 
>only 
>to enter a bloc with the Bonapartists, but what is more, to draw 
>closer 
>internally to the Bonapartist system. The prolonged domination of 
>finance capital by means of reactionary social demagogy and petty-
>bourgeois terror is impossible. Having arrived in power, the fascist 
>chiefs are forced to muzzle the masses who follow them by means of 
>the state apparatus. By the same token, they lose the support of broad 
>
>masses of the petty bourgeoisie."
>
Louis:

Did Trotsky ever specifically write about the Nazis' purging of Ernst
Roehm
and the other SA leaders on June 30, 1934?  This would seem to be an
excellent example illustrating the Nazi regime's transition to a
Bonapartist
phase.

			James F.


     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005