NEW GERMAN 'DRANG NACH OSTEN' EXTENDS FROM RUHR TO SHANGHAI
BROWN, IRVING
New German 'Drang nach Osten' Extends From Ruhr to Shanghai Moscow, Between Both, Hopes Thus to Control Entire World By IRVING BROWN AFL Representative in Europe THE new German "Drang naeh...
...These standards were not sufficient in 1938 and are even less so in 1950...
...Unless an integrated Europe can begin to operate, there is no prospect of solving the enormous production and market problems facing the democratic world...
...And as history has shown, such economic relationships with totalitarian nations give rise to eventual political pacts or traps...
...The trade unions of Europe are beginning to move on this problem after a long period of silence...
...The non-Communist trade union forces have been gathering strength in the past year and are now beginning to make headway against these Russian-inspired strikes...
...What markets in the West will be open to German industry which will permit some solution of the growing and disturbing mass unemployment, now reaching 2,000,000 out of a working force of 12,000,000 in Western Germany...
...Such an economy will be better prepared to resist external economic attacks which are inevitable, given the nature of the totalitarian world and its drive for world power and domination...
...What the Communists are attempting to do in France today can only be explained in the light of . what must have been a military decision on the part of the Soviet state and its international fifth column, the Cominform...
...While the new Russian-German strategy unfolds, the Cominform ha* come out openly in its attack en the Western European economy...
...Unless real strides forward can be made in the direction of greater economic expansion, Western Europe will remain in danger...
...Workers' purchasing power in general is equal to that of 1938...
...The original goals of economic integration and liberalization of trade have not been achieved, thus threatening many of the gains already achieved...
...This instability plagues the economy of Western Europe and underlies much of the political fears for the future...
...if the trade unions are given a decisive voice in the control of the Ruhr coal, iron and steel industries no German nationalist deal with Stalin is possible...
...The workers have seen very quickly that these committees are nothing but committees of sabotage...
...These pro-West forces can prevent the rise to power of a renascent and insurgent German nationalism and prevent entry into a pact with the Russians, who are now offering what appear to be juicy business contracts...
...Not that integration alone will solve the problem...
...On December 21 the seventieth anniversary of Joseph Stalin's birth was celebrnted in Moscow...
...It has openly declared Its aims of promoting, politico-military strikes in the marltime industry to prevent the shipment of defense materials from the U.S...
...This can be found in the organized labor movement...
...This is where capital investments, mainly from the United States, in backward areas—India, Africa, South America, the Middle East—will have to be expanded enormously so that new markets can be created and the standards of people everywhere can be improved...
...The decline in the CP's strength in the legitimate field of trade unionism does not deny that the Communists retain concentrated and disciplined forces in many sectors of the French economy where quasi-military operations can be carried out...
...In the dockers' and maritime unions which the CP controls in France and Italy, they have launched fake slogans of pacifism, attempting to mask their real objectives as agents of Soviet Russia's Foreign Office...
...With the scene becoming set for a riew Soviet move on the world stage, Stalin can retain the initiative and choose where, when, and how new illusions shall be created in the Western world...
...People begin to shake their heads or even prepare to get out of Europe, if possible...
...The factors responsible for such a situation in Franc* today are the following: (1) Workers' complete disgust with the open and undisguised nature of the CGT as a CP tool, resulting in the revolt against political strikes and the exit of large numbers of workers from Communist unions...
...While these offensives of the Cominform and the USSR mount, once again the spirit of appeasement takes hold in Europe...
...This reinforces the almost psychopathic longing to be independent of what is termed the RussianAmerican conflict...
...All of which plays into the hands of the Communists, tending to justify their rash actions and resort to large-scale strikes in spite of the open political motives...
...This1 symbolic joining together of China and Germany via the USSR became a little mora concrete,, when, an February 9, fferf UleJjehV flntayooad that -his Minister of Trade, Herr Handke...
...Th attitude of most employers is such that the non-Communist unions do not expect any reasonable compromises...
...The Communists' open decision to call political strikes and their boasting can only be explained by the hypothesis that the Cominform policy is based on the inevitability of Russia's clashing with the Western world...
...had been taking part in trade negotiations with Mao during the letter's stay in Moscow...
...to the ports of Europe and thus deal a blow to the West's security...
...Reliable democratic forces in control of the German economic and political system can bar the way to any new German-Soviet political alliance...
...This can help in the long run in the European attempt to eliminate the huge export-import deficit...
...Thus the Soviets have advanced one step further in their drive to conquer the Ruhr and Western Germany through the bait of Eastern markets— European and Asian...
...They have brazenly declared the need for launching political strikes against what they call the "unconstitutional" and "illegal" governments of France and Italy, which are compared to the Nazi occupation governments...
...Ulbricht further revealed that Handke had been "instructed in the negotiations to take into account export possibilities of the West German enterprises...
...Danger still threatens, however, in Oenoa and a few minor ports of Italy and France...
...As one writer in the Fiench newspaper Le Monde has said: "The psychological attitude in Washington today is exactly what it was twelve years ago in Paris...
...Added to this is the Soviet Union's mounting reserve of gold, which plays no role in the internal Russian economy but which can become a terrific weapon in the war against the West...
...To overcome the instability in the economy, the West must begin to move with daring and audaciousness toward new concepts such as: (1) Liberalization of trade, breaking down of customs barriers and free manpower migration...
...The next E.R.P...
...It reflects also the fact that the Soviet Union is geared to pursue a world policy which risks war not only by its own military-slave labor economy but by the transformation of the Cominform parties and their front organization* into arms of the Russian military machine...
...At the side of Stalin were Mao Tse Tung, leader of the Chinese Communists, and Walter Ulbricht, president of the Soviet-dominated East German Republic...
...This has created fear among the workers about the future growth of unemployment...
...Europe, after too many wars, still exhausted and demoralized, is easy prey for any kind of so-called "appeasement" or "neutrality" talk...
...Up to the present this military strategy has failed to win over the mass of workers, who are beginning to see through the political masquerade of the French and Italian Communist leaders...
...In the name of "peace" the Russians pursue a policy which risks war...
...The "let's sit down and talk it over with Joe Stalin" speeches that have - been coming out of Washington have hurt the cause of real peace and at the same time aided the present Russian "peace" program...
...4) Expansion of capital investments—government and private—on a vast scale in order to develop new markets in the backward areas...
...Along with a united Europe there must be strong action taken in the United States to continue to lower tariff barriers so that Europe can increase its deliveries to the dollar area...
...WHILE THE THREE HOT POINTS in the cold war—France, Italy and Germany—become more and more involved in Russia's attempt to expand, the economy of Western Europe has reached a critical stage requiring drastic decisions for the future if the initial progress of the Marshall Plan is to be maintained and expanded...
...If America is to accept the implication of its present foreign policy visa-vis the Soviet Union and the entire totalitarian world, an adequate fore/gn economic policy must be developed consistent with our alleged policy of no appeasement and a political boycott...
...New German 'Drang nach Osten' Extends From Ruhr to Shanghai Moscow, Between Both, Hopes Thus to Control Entire World By IRVING BROWN AFL Representative in Europe THE new German "Drang naeh Osten" is under way...
...What will the West do...
...What can it do to resist this growing menace of a new Eastern orientation on the part of Germany...
...However, no repetition of the 1947 and 1948 general strikes, which so crippled and damaged the economy of France, is in th* offing...
...Europe will need new markets throughout the world in order to get away from its enormous dollar deficits and improve its financial position to the point where it can pay its own way when Marshall Plan aid ends in 1952...
...But if unemployment continues to mount and no economic solution is forthcoming from the Western world, these growing economic relationships with the East will constitute the material foundations for a united Germany under Soviet domination...
...Therefore we need political allies in Germany mot» thaffi economic soltTtions...
...The present economy of Western Europe has just about reached 1938 levels as far as the standard of living of the people is concerned...
...2) Integration of the Western European economy with a common currency and central banking arrangements...
...To safeguard the West's political and military strategy, the economy of the West must become strong enough to withstand the integrated economy of the totalitarian world, which is beginning to wage economic warfare on all fronts...
...All Eastern European nations are in negotiations with the Chinese not only to expand their own operations and assist the Chinese Communists but also to make up for any present and future losses of trade with the West resulting from the East-West cold war economic boycott...
...The meaning of the new Soviet offensive against the West in the maritime industry reveals not only the Russian concern with the possible military strengthening of Western Europe...
...The worldwide peace propaganda of the Soviet Union thus masks an openly aggressive program of world political and military conquest...
...While the West stands on the eve of serious new economic difficulties in addition to present existing contradictions the Eastern world of the Soviet Union and its allies is being welded into a fighting, integrated political, economic and military machine...
...3) The beginning of the end of full employment and the slight rise of unemployment in certain areas...
...No matter what the West does in the way of integration, expanding markets and the opening of new market art as, the fact remains that Germany will still neve to seek markets in the East...
...They have also been excellent fuel for the Arcs of all those individuals, groups or tendencies seeking to find an exit from reality in dreams of neutrality...
...The integrated economic world of the East is a challenge to the West to move boldly and quickly in the direction not only of European integration but toward a wider and vaster concept of an intercontinental economy, with expanded markets based on mass consumption...
...In port after port, the Communists have been voted down...
...Can Western Europe and the United States provide not only markets but an Jntegration of the West German economy into the Occidental world...
...However, more than the mere offering of markets Is necessary to prevent the threatening -Oerman-Russian alliance...
...But even this will not be enough...
...The illusory search for "neutrality" has grown in recent months as talk about the atom and hydrogen bombs dominates the thinking of people and makes the headlines of every European newspaper...
...This cheap political trick came with poor grace and a good deal of demagogy from one who has contributed so much since hi^ speech at Fulton, Missouri, to arouse the world: to new dangers of war coming from the East and the need for what the London Economist has called "agreement through strength...
...Many of the West's industries are competitive to Germany's and therefore do not easily permit the kind of complimentary arrangements usually possible between industrial and non-industrial areas...
...The "unity" propaganda campaign is being energetically pushed throughout Germany by innocent German patriots as well as by Soviet agents in all sections of society—business, church labor and government...
...In addition to the markets of Eastern Europe, Ruhr industrialists cannot but cast longing eyes on the great and vast areas of primitive, underdeveloped China now resting in Communist hands...
...This time the drive- to the East extends to the very shores of the Pacific Ocean For the Russians are now attempting to win the battle of the Ruhr via China and thus conquer all of Germany...
...trade union conference will meet on April 17 in Rome to formulate a common over-all policy on the problems of economic integration, customs barriers, currency convertability, liberalization of trade, manpower and migration...
...Even the British election campaign was enlieened by the injection of the peace issue when Churchill, of all people, Joined the league of lonely and frightened politicians in search of Stalin's company...
...Such diversions and bypaths from the major task of strengthening, militarily and economically, the democratic world heightens the danger of a coming war and diminishes the chances of democracy to win if war should come...
...The speeches of American statesmen in recent weeks haven't helped to dissaude Europeans from again falling into the Munich atmosphere of 1938, when the masses longed for peace while the totalitarian dictators planned for wars...
...The basic deficit in the Western European economy remains, totalling $3,300,000,000, while unemployment continues to rise in several countries—Germany, Belgium and Italy...
...But the danger is not yet over, sijice this was a mere prelude to the opening of the first free collective bargaining negotiations in Fiance since 1935...
...This campaign Is reaching a crescendo in France and Italy, where the Communists are attempting to transform the trade unions into instruments of Soviet military strategy...
...THE URGENT NEED for West European integration in which Germany plays Its part has become the order of the day...
...That this kind of nonsense should come from the United_States, indicating that American policy may not remain firm or may seek new deals with the Russians, is bewildering to those people and forces who have been loyally attempting to build a democratic Europe capable of playing an important role alongside the Americans in the fight to maintain not only a peaceful but a free world...
...Integration into Western Europe must be backed up ,by a.^$l£cy oftsupporting, the internal forces o? Germed democracy, which are the only guarantee aguinst this rising tide of the East...
...3) Reduction of American barriers to imports from abroad...
...5) Eventual integration of the entire Western world's economy as a prelude to a future political union which is indispensable to any permanent solution of the present economic difficulties...
...This symbolic demonstration of Russia's major concern with China in the East and Germany in the West sums up Soviet aspirations for eventual world domination...
...2) The improvement in the economic situation since 1945 which, although not satisfactory, is equivalent to 1938...
...The attempt of the French CGT to pull general strikes on February 17 in the"~hoal and railroad industries failed miserably...
...The latter have attempted to set up so-called "committees of peace...
Vol. 33 • April 1950 • No. 16
