Date: Mon, 12 Feb 1996 08:06:27 +0100
From: Luciano Dondero <DOND001-AT-IT.net>
Subject: Re: Germany - Carlos's questions (part 1 - Germany and Europe)


Carlos wrote:
<CEP> The real challenge for Marxists is to anticipate the general
<CEP> movement of classes, regimes, governments ... we need to prepare
<CEP> the ground for our intervention years before things happen.         
<CEP> Otherwise we will remain reacting to facts "accompli".  The new
<CEP> raise of German imperialism maybe one of those things we are not
<CEP> really prepared to deal with.  THat's why I'm asking all these
<CEP> questions.

I agree with you entirely both on the necessity and on the fact we (meaning
the Marxist movement overall) are not prepared.

But quoting (paraphrasing) Gramsci for once, "the ability to analyse a
situation is dependant upon the ability to intervene in it". And in the
absence of strong nuclei of revolutionary parties and a new Communist
International, I'm afraid that the task in front of us is much more difficult.

Nevertheless we should pursue the discussion, and here is my attempt to
provide you with some partial and tentative answers (raising a few questions
myself...)
It is divided in various parts, because it would be too long to send around
in one piece.

Part one: Germany and Europe

Carlos wrote:
<CEP> Certainly, Germany had achieved enormous advantages of belonging
<CEP> to the European unity and while the Union is still rsisted by
<CEP> Brittish and others, has gained momemtum (at least for Germany
<CEP> and other countries)...

European unity is essentially a joint French-German pursuit - these are the
countries that benefit most from it in a more strategic sense (I leave aside
the question of the handouts for patronage and the like to the more
depressed areas). Now, France is where anti-German feelings run perhaps
stronger than in any other European country. So how does one explain that link?

The European project started for the combination of several factors, but to
simplify things a bit I would say that two elements got together to make it
real: (A) US-NATO's interest in creating stronger bonds within Western
Europe to fend off the Soviet bloc (remember that when this thing started
going, in the late 1950's, the Soviet Union and its partners were doing
rather well economically.)
(B) French imperialism's (in the person of de Gaulle, who was a real
statesman) aim to build a stronger Europe to counter US domination, and to
keep Germany in check. France, this is a smaller point, but may have loomed
somewhet larger in their views, had just relinquished control of the
coal/iron-rich lands of the Saar back to the Federal Republic. The European
"Common Market" really took off as an expansion of the Steel-Coal Economic
Community that had been established a couple of years earlier. 

The EEC, however, is not going to be, in any way, shape or form, what the
British fear most - that is, some kind of supranational government, with a
single currency and the like. Talking from the particular angle of Italy,
which is a country that would obviously benefit from a unified currency and
related things, it is a fact that nobody really projects any kind of
diminuition of the prerogatives of the national state. Neither now nor in
fifteen-twenty years time.

The steps that are being taken so far throughout Europe go in the direction
of facilitating the circulation of capital and labour across the various
borders, to make the various European countries better capable to battle
against their non-EEC competitors (United States, Japan, China, Russia??) -
but as for reducing the tensions within the EEC, they are rather
ineffective. Witness to that the regular "fishing/wine/oil wars" that flare
out among the more agricultural countries in the Southern part of the EEC.

German imperialism's aims of dominating Europe have progressed in a peaceful
manner thanks to the EEC, but they can only go so far, before facing (1) the
need to have a strong military force to use whenever necessary outside the
German borders (which is why the presence of German troops in Bosnia is a
serious warning) and (2) resistance from its neighboors.

 Carlos wrote:
<CEP> Is that sentiment homogeneous throughout Europe?  In Russia,        
<CEP> Hungary, the Zchek republic, Croatia, certainly in significant      
<CEP> sectors of Eastern Germany, Slovenia and some other Eastern         
<CEP> European countries German capital is pretty much welcomed and
<CEP> it is accomplishing important investments and expansion.
<CEP> It was my impression that Germany targeted specifically the 
<CEP> countries named above for economic investment and not Poland
<CEP> or Romania and others which were considered without the minimum
<CEP> infrastructural capacity to adapt to to the german productive
<CEP> apparatus ...

Well, Poland, together with the DDR and Czechoslovakia, was part of the most
industrial areas of Eastern Europe. Furthermore, please remember that the
European borders have changed a lot in the course of this century - unlike
America (North and South) - which means that there is quite a big chunk of
Poland which used to be claimed as "rightfully German" right up to the
1970's by the *official government of West Germany*!! (If you went into any
German embassy or consulate, even in the 1980's you could find on the wall a
map of "Germany within the borders of 1937"...)

After gobbling up East Germany - which really is only "middle Germany" in
the eyes of the "true nationalist" - the appetite was wetted for more. What
about Silesia (South-Western Poland)? What about Stettin and Danzig, the
Pommern (North-Western Poland)? What about Eastern Prussia (the Kalinigrad
region of the former USSR)?

It was not economical calculations that kept German capital out of Poland.
Rather, it was a sober (or somber?) realisation that they could not go there.

But it this generalised, Carlos asks? Well, yes and no. If you take Croatia
and Slovenia, for instance, Nazi Germany was very important to help
asserting their nationhood in the face of the democratic imperialist powers.
No surprise if they love Germany these days: after all "democratic" Germany
did exactly the same things, in the process plunging former Yugoslavia
through another nightmare.

But this is connected to the need of these countries to counter Italy, which
is locally a more important imperialist power than Germany - after all,
Italy has an army and a fleet right up to their borders, and in Italy there
has been a relatively soft-spoken debate about whether something should be
done to recover "Italian" lands (like Istria and Dalmatia, including cities
like Rijeka, Split and Dubrovnik...) from the break-up of Yugoslavia.
"Uhm... we better have a big brother on our side."

Lenin once said, in his criticism of Rosa Luxemburg's positions on the
national question: "For the mouse, the biggest animal is the cat". A lot of
the infighting and feuds and alignemnts throughout Europe, otherwise rather
hard to understand, become clearer if we manage to figure out who looks like
the "cat" to a particular "mouse" people or ethnic group.

Those countries that embrace German capital do so with the understanding
(pious illusion?) that they will be able to use that to build their own
strength and keep it at bay. But you will see that the farther away you go
from the actual borders of Germany, the more relaxed people are about doing
that. 

By the way, but this is really another way to underline this point, the
peaceful and peace-loving country that is supposed to be Switzerland, is in
actual fact a country armed to its teeth, with a very well-organised
territorial army which can get to battle readiness in something like 36-48
hours. You might figure out who this is aimed against, now that fears of a
Soviet invasion have somewhat receded.

Next will be part two: German reunification

Comradely,
Luciano
--Luciano Dondero--



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