Rise of Hitler Spiked German Army Deals With Stalin
Rise of Hitler Spiked German Army Deals With Stalin The Basic Values and loyalties of Democracy By John Dewey «ALUES and loyalties go together, for if you want to Inow what a man's values are...
...t In his speeches could be felt the appreciation of the link between the new foreign policy with its orientation to the western democracies, and the need for democratic traction to achieve those internal objectives which then confronted the Russian Communist party...
...It quickly became the chief labor organization in the country and was the recipient of government patronage...
...was the Callas labor group...
...Although Carranza later turned against his labor supporters, the union movement grew considerably under his regime and took an important part in the overthrow of the Carranza government and the establishment of the Obregon-Calles coalition in power...
...The backbone of Social Democracy, which backed rapprochement with England and France, was broken...
...There has been little labor erganization in .the republic, and what unions there have been were in the banana plantations near the Costa Rican frontier...
...The unions remain as strong as they were, but under new management, and tiie Communists have lost most of their influence...
...in the sphere of international labor'policy, the United Front with the erstwhile "social fascist...
...Stalin won but his joy was shortlived...
...Hitler advanced himself as the candidate for this role and the Reichswehr accepted him, placing its resources and connections at his disposal and shielding him against repressive measures on the part of the democratic government...
...A s the results of this disastrous foreign line became clear, as it was apparent that Soviet Russia was in danger of finding itself completely isolated, Stalin's position as the leader of the party was jeopardized...
...4 ATTEMPTS at labor organization in Honduras have been feeble...
...The Pan-American Federation of Labor has attempted to get affiliates organized in the various countries, and the anarcho-syndicalists have had affiliates in Borne, while the Communists have had at least paper organizations in several Central American nations...
...Cardenas was glad to make use of the unions in his fight with Calles...
...We shall miss the second most important lesson the present state of the world has to teach us if we fail-to see and to feel intensely that this belief must now be greatly extended and deepened...
...Costa Rica has had more of a labor movement than have most of these countries...
...IJITLER came to power with slogans of war against not only the * Comintern but Soviet Russia as well...
...The break did not come...
...Of course this reversal was only a tactical move...
...There are phrases, sanctioned by religion, regarding the sacredness of personality...
...The efforts of the Reichswehr to create its own political organizations of the Stahlheim type met with little success...
...He tried to fight back...
...The disciples of this school believed that the main objective of German policy was to weaken Russia, to detach large chunks of its territory, to" expel or extirpate the "natives" and replace them with German settlers...
...Labor leaders held important positions in the governments of these two men—Morones becoming Secretary of Labor and Industry—and the C.R.O.M...
...The successes of 1931-1932 strengthened Hitler to such an extent, however, that he was no longer willing to act as the instrument of the Reichswehr...
...became very powerful, at one time claiming as many as two million members...
...He asked of Hitler only that he abandon his aim of partitioning Russia and following in the footsteps of • the Teutonic Knights...
...It participated in the expropriation of the oil fields and the railroads—strikes were the immediate cause oT both—and the unions took a very important part in managing the confiscated industries...
...The present Martinez dictatorship is quite effective in preventing labor organization of any kind...
...This revolt which almost succeeded in capturing the capital, was finally suppressed...
...The entire policy of alliance with Soviet Russia pursued by the Reichswehr and the Wilhelmstrasse with such persistence for 15 years, hung in the balance at that moment...
...It likewise progressed among the intellectuals...
...It djjot be denied that our American, democracy has often SM more in words of...
...The spring of 1933 w« marked by a number of raids against semi-official Soviet trade organizations in Hamburg...
...The democratic republic founded at Weimar soon left the stage, and the Reichswehr, friend and ally of Stalin, did not take its place...
...Blomberg was then acting on the special instruction...
...But the propaganda of the Soviet Union, Italy, Germany and Japan is easily identified by the fact that in every important matter the words used gate to be read in reverse...
...He was v e r y cautious in expressing his views, and this very caution made him a particularly dangerous foe of Stalin, because in the shifting struggles within the party, it was important not to frighten the rank and file by sudden departures from familiar patterns of policy...
...The C.T.M...
...The l*st important iabor action in Honduras was in 1932 when the banana workers on the United Fruit Company's plantations struck against a 20 per cent wage cut...
...Soviet Russia, in their eyes, was certainly that devil...
...but rather the Reichswehr leaders who helped Hitler take power...
...Leipzig and other citie...
...The government intervened in favor of the company, and the leaders °f the strike were deported arid the workers forced to return to work...
...They stood fast behind the President in his struggles with the reactionaries at home as well as with the imperialists abroad...
...It openly proclaimed thatwith respect to Russia it wished to return to the tradition of the Teutonic Knights...
...The section on foreign policy was nothing more or less than an open appeal to Hitler and his entourage to come to an understanding for a continuation of the old policy of a Russo-German alliance...
...It used its power ruthlessly in an attempt to draw all rival groups—which included the independent railroad unions and the anarcho-syndicalist C.G.T.—into the C.R.O.M...
...To wreck Social Democracy a party was needed which could combine extreme nationalism with coarse and unprincipled social demagogy...
...The principal figure in this new political drama was Sergei Kirov...
...Many small planters supported this strike, and it was finally compromised with some of the workers' demands being (ranted by the company...
...Before the plebiscite, however, special talks went on between the Reichswehr leaders and Stalin in which the former guaranteed that they would not permit Hitler to come to power...
...and even Calles" more or less half-hearted support was not enough to save it...
...Labor and socialist organization is undoubtedly proceeding under difficulties at the present time...
...They looked upon Russia as a stable state whose destruction was neither feasible nor desirable...
...But the hundreds and hundreds of thousands of persons who have been tortured, ;who have died, who are rotting in concentration camps, prove that talk may also be tragically costly, and that democracy to endure must hold it immensely precious...
...the liberties of free speech, free jifclication and free assembly than in action...
...rBE freedom which is the essence of democracy is above all the freedom to develop intelligence...
...It was a closely knit group of men...
...The foundations of this policy were laid down by Bismarck...
...Even so the results were not lasting...
...The proposal of the authors of the plebiscite was rejected, but the authority of the government was undermined when it won by only a small majority...
...The "fraternity" which was the third member of the democratic trinity of the France of the Revolution has never been practiced on a wide scale...
...Mexico Only Central American Nation With Strong Labor, Liberal Movements By Robert Alexander American Correspondent of the Buenos Aires Doily Vanguardia f*HE countries of Central America are almost' entirely W one-crop countries and have little industry...
...Although there was some labor organization and a few sanguinary strikes under the Diaz dictatorship, real organization did not begin until its overthrow in 1910...
...Nationalism, expressed in our country in such phrases as "America First," is one of the strongest factors in producing existing totalitarianism, just as a promise of doing away with it has caused some misguided persons to be sympathetic with Nazism...
...The Communists organissd the Federacion Sindical Hondurana which tried to organize in the banana regions...
...They are selected and weighed irith no reference to anything but their effect upon others: Criteria for judging slight deviations from fact are in the possession of every reasonably mature person, for his experience enables him to judge of probabilities...
...It has been discouraging to American democrats to see how shallow has been loyalty to this value in those fellow Americans who, while professing democracy, have still defended suppression or liberty of speech, press and creed in the Soviet Union...
...Thus the struggle to change the foreign policy: of the Soviet Union merged with the struggle to cleanse Bolshevism of those elements on its ideology which were kindred to fascism...
...it is the essence of cooperation...
...Rise of Hitler Spiked German Army Deals With Stalin The Basic Values and loyalties of Democracy By John Dewey «ALUES and loyalties go together, for if you want to Inow what a man's values are do 'not ask him...
...had a creature, the Labor Party...
...We are warned that we must feed and nourish this particular loyalty with much more energy and deliberate persistence than wa have done in the past—beginning in the family and the school...
...Since that time there has been little or no labor organization in Nicaragua...
...continued an independent existence...
...One would have supposed that any American would by this time have enough of the democratic spirit in his very blood so that he would need nothing more than suppression to enable him to judge the policy of a country, no matter what one supposes it can say for itself on other matters...
...They needed Russia at this time to support all their maneuvers against the Allies...
...But that the ipirit of democracy is, nevertheless, -alive and active is proved by the fact that publicity is...
...B*ut eomplete inversions of truth are astonishingly confusing...
...The Party has been torn by splits in the last year or so, and has definitely lost ground...
...He expressed his readiness to support the German struggle against Versailles as in the past...
...Then the Reichswehr put it on its feet...
...The Reichswehr leaders apparently were convinced that they were in a position to give such guarantees...
...Only one group in the German Nationalist fold rejected this foreign policy...
...The documentary evidence of his struggle is to be found in his report at the XVII Congress of the Russian Communist Party in January, 1934...
...This was the first sizable workers' political organization to grow up in the Republic of Panama, for the Communist Party never gained much ground there...
...The German politicians of the other Nationalist camp based their calculations on an entirely different theory...
...In National Socialist circles in Berlin there w-as open talk of an impending assault by Storm Troopers against the Soviet Embassy to mark the break of diplomatic relations with Moscow...
...The path was cleared for the triumph of the groups seeking revenge...
...The policies of the new Avila Camacho regime are still in the formative stage, and the fate of the labor movement and Communist Party are still questionable...
...In the spring of 1934, a new trend began in the policy of the Russian Communist Party, and of the Comintern...
...Experience demonstrated that the reactionary and conservative organ izations could not reach the minds and hearts of either the workers, the peasants, or the white collar class...
...Consequently they were ready to search for some common ground with the latter...
...Since I cannot discuss all the loyalties that define the values of the democratic way of life, I confine myself to those which are emphasized by contrast with contemporary totalitarianism...
...at home, the reconsideration of the second Five Year Plan in terms of satisfying the needs of the people, primarily those of the peasants...
...So I close by saying that the third loyalty which measures democracy is the will to transform passive toleration into active cooperation...
...To the contrary, an agreement wa* concluded for the renewal of the previous Russo-German Trade Treaty...
...A new union federation, the Confederacion de Trabajadores Mexicanos, was formed, and it set about to use many of the same methods that the C.R.O.M...
...It was noteworthy for the loyalty of its members to one another and to the group in the midst of the shifting personal and party loyalties of Mexican politics...
...They backed all of his policies except his offering of refuge to Trotsky...
...But glfb reciting of the verbal creed is no protection against snobbishness, intolerance and taking advantage of others when opportunity offers...
...was established by a group of labor leaders under the leadership of Luis Morones...
...v i '-, . Labor organizations of Guatemala never rallied more than 12,000 members, and those were probably mostly on paper...
...Tascism in Italy," he argued, "has not prevented the USSR from establishing better relations with that country...
...Observe a pjrson's conduct over a period long enough to note the direction in which his activities tend and you will be able k> tell where his loyalties lie, and knowing them, you will fcnow the ends which stir and guide his actions: that is to g|y, the things that are values in actuality, not just in name...
...pOR it is humanity and the human spirit that are at * stake, and not just what is sometimes called the "individual," since the latter is a value in potential humanity and not as something separate and atomic...
...Such partnership would be more to the advantage of Germany than the amputation of sections of Russia, which would necessarily make the truncated remainder Germany's mortal enemy...
...That was Hitler's National Socialist Party...
...One view regarded the vast Russian expanses as territory which the Lord himself had set apart for German colonization...
...Under Obregon and Calles the C.R.O.M...
...It is said that "talk" is cheap...
...This was in 1932 when the Communists and others led workers in revolt against the dictatorship of President Martinez...
...llilEXICO has a labor movement of great strength and has had one for some thirty years...
...And they were equally glad to make use of Cardenas in order to once again achieve unity...
...In return he allowed these new leaders, under the Presidency of Vincente Lombardo Tolecano, a former subordinate of Morones, to have a free hand in organizing Mexican labor...
...The Pan-American Federation, the Communists and the anarcho-syndicalists have all claimed members...
...His support of collective security was insincere...
...For the lasting success of such a liaison it was of course necessary to obtain positions of decisive influence inside Russia...
...whose very membership was secret for a long time...
...During the entire Weimar era, the Reichswehr was always in search of a force which would enable it to destroy the power of Social Democracy...
...It is sufficient to read Radek's account of his talks in 1919 with Colonel Max Bauer chief of the German Intelligence during the World War and trusted friend of General Ludendarff...
...The organization deteriorated, many of its affiliates seceding, and others disappearing...
...were broken and destroyed by the Fuehrer...
...Upon the outbreak ofrevolution, unionism spread rapidly...
...This result was made possible only through the mobilization of the full influence of the Reichswehr and other groups advocating an alliance with Soviet Russia...
...They advocated building the future on the basis of the closest ties of friendship and long-range political and economic collaboration with Russia...
...grew more intense after the assassination of Obregon and the ascendancy of Portes Gil and Ortiz Rubio to the Presidency...
...With the advent of President Cardenas, new elements in the labor movement had a chance...
...A FTER the German defeat in 1918...
...They both fought the C.R.O.M...
...Just before the downfall of Carranza the Confederacion Regional Obrero Mexicana (C.R.O.M...
...was one of the main bulwarks of the Cardenas regime and was as characteristically the Cardenas labor federation as the C.R.O.M...
...In theory, democracy has always professed belief in the potentialities of every human being, and all the need'for providing conditions that will enable these potentialities to come to realization...
...In the realm of foreign policy this was marked by Russia's entry inta the League of Nations...
...One U rarely aware, with any high degree of perception what lit the values that govern one's conduct...
...Previous to this revolt there had existed two Pan-American Federation affiliates, neither of which amounted to a great deal...
...Stalin did not yield at once...
...This was the policy which the Teutonic Knights pursued seven hundred years ago against the small tribes of Western Slaves...
...intelligence mnsisting of judgment as to what facts are relevant to iction and how they are revelant to things to be done, tad a corresponding alertness in the quest for such facts...
...The Communist Party, meanwhile, although quite weak in the twenties, and persecuted under Portes Gil and his successors, succeeded in gaining considerable support under the free regime of President Cardenas...
...In reviewing at this time the articles and speeches of Kirov, Gorki and Bukharin, there is no question that their minds worked in one direction...
...CPECIFIC evidence exists that at **' the time of the Prussian plebiscite, Stalin was disturbed by the rising extent of Hitler's power...
...The Communists could be used for this purpose only as allies for specific operations...
...Wtthin the party, there were those who challenged not only Stalin's version of the Leninist concept of world revolutipn through alliance with German militarism, but also the notion that international Social Democracy was the vanguard of world fascism...
...ffOWEVER, in the late twenties the C.R.O-M...
...There are still many, too many, persons who feel free to cultivate and express raeial prejudices as if they were Within their personal rights, not recognizing how the attitude of intolerance infects, perhaps fatally as the example of Germany so surely proves, the basic humanities without which democracy is iiut a name...
...And finally came the decision to draft a new constitution on foundations of universal and equal suffrage which would mark the repudiation of the very essence of the dictatorship of the proletariat...
...FN the light of Stalin's overtures at the Party Congress, it is easy - to understand how much more explicit were his proposals during the secret negotiations which unquestionably were held at that tfme...
...It mad^ some headway among the unions and in the peasant organizations...
...The Pan-American Federation of Labor affiliate was also destroyed at this time because many of its leaders were prominent supporters of Sandino...
...It resulted from the United Fruit Company's policy of retrenchment, which meant the cutting of many salaries and the discharge of many...
...In addition to this banana workers' organization there were several craft unions in Costa "Rica in the twenties tod early thirties, and a Federacion: General de Trabajafcres lasted for a little while, but -collapsed because of usuccessful political activity...
...the leading Nationalist circles became ardent followers of the "Bismarck" policy...
...An alliance between the Soviets, with their boundless wealth of raw materials, and highly industrialized Germany could, according to this view, form a vast combine capable of ruling the world...
...Kirov Was Key Figure in Drive for Link to West By BORIS NICOLAEVSKY II 1*HE plebiscite against the Social Democratic government erf Prussia in 1981, conducted by the combined forces of the Hitlerites and Communists at the dictation of the Reichswehr, marked the height of the successes of Stalin's "general line" in foreign policy at this stage...
...It raised labor regiments to fight in the ranks of that leader...
...As I have said, it has never been widely practiced, and this failure is a large factor in producing the present state of the world...
...Fraternity is the will to work together...
...In Berlin there become known details of the stormj audience which the new Minister of War, General Blomberg...
...had used earlier...
...The government backed the Federacion Obrera Hondurenca in 1931, but' support was soon withdrawn and the group collapsed...
...Of the army's "trusted men" who occupied leading positions in Hitler'* organization, some betrayed the Reichswehr and entered Hitler'* service...
...was given a favored position in the field of - union organization...
...communication...
...a well established ¦nit.'' It gives the opportunity for many silly and many false things to be uttered...
...Panama at the present time boasts a Socialist Party which was well on the way to first-rate importance until the Arias, government decreed the suppression of all opposition parties...
...Courtesy The American Teacher...
...began to decline...
...Only because these frank offers met with no response on the part of Germany, was Stalin compelled to put aside his policy of rapprochement with German militarism and to support the policy of collective security...
...They produce a state of daze that endures long enough t» enable its creators to accomplish their will while j^kness still prevails...
...In the end it was not Hitler who cleared the path foi the Reichswehr...
...He obtained their support for the plebiscite against the Prussian, government...
...It is a faith which becomes sentimental when it is not put systematically into practice every day in all the relationships of living...
...Several would-be national federations were started, the most powerful of which was the Casa del Mundo Obrero, which aligned itself with Garranza in the Civil Wars...
...However, all Communist Sefivity was crushed after the United Fruit strike in 1932...
...The same course was advocated during the first World War by Robracb, beginning with plans for the detachment of the Ukraine...
...discussion, in which there takes place purification arid pooling of the net results of the experiences of multitudes of people...
...The white and Negro workers on the Fruit Company's plantations Struck together...
...Yet having decided upon this course, they looked upon it as a long term arrangement during which they were to benefit not only from Russia but from international Bolshevism as well...
...that he return to the Bismarck policy...
...At first his organization was weak and had little influence...
...It broke with Obregon, although not with Calles, and he fousrht it both in the union field and in, the political field, whr>re the C.R.O.M...
...The Pan-American Federation of Labor-had an affiliate in the twenties, but this did not outlast that decade...
...Although they often approached the problem from different angles, they really had the same influence on their contemporaries...
...The ability to blend the old and the new made Kirov the chief spokesman "at all the important party sessions at this decisive juncture...
...I M) short, a primary, perhaps the primary, loyalty of aalberacy at the present time is to...
...It failed in this, but in its high-powered recruiting campaigns it built up an organization of large membership and much influence...
...The entire Embassy staff lived in a state of siege for several months...
...This inner connection made the struggle particularly important to the destiny of Russia, but it was the very factor which created new trends within the party which were especially dangerous to Stalin...
...However, the Stalinazi pact dealt Communist influence a body blow, and the assassination of Trotsky practically ended it...
...However, in spite of this collapse of the C.R.O.M., the union movement continued, and most unions which disaffiliated from the C.R.O.M...
...to get a clear picture of the mood in which men of this cast entered into an agreement with the Bolsheviks...
...We may hope that it, not the equality produced by totalitarian suppression, will constitute the "wave of the future...
...A ruthless struggle against these democratic currents became a matter of-life and death to him...
...El Salvador, like Costa Rica, has had one important strike in its history—and that was really a revolt...
...Our anti-democratic heritage of Negro slavery has left us with habits of intolerance toward the colored race—habits which belie profession of democratic loyalty...
...They had no sympathies toward Bolshevism, but to destroy the Versailles system they were willing to mortgage their souls to the devil himself...
...But experience has confirmed tie faith that silly things are of so many different kinds tilt they cancel each other over a period of time, and that falsities come out in the 'wash of experience .as dirt Mies out in soap and water...
...A number of key positions in the National Socialist Organization were occupied by their trusted men and Hitler himself always protected his loyalty to the leaders of the Reichswehr...
...In regard to relations with Bolshevik Russia, the German Nationalist camp split into two basic groups, whose differences rei( fleeted two clashing concepts of Russia which had agitated German1 thinking for centuries...
...those who did not...
...The walkout was accompanied by considerable violence...
...Jo what extent we are actually democratic will in the end it decided by the degree to which the existing totalitarian menace awakens us to deeper loyalty to intelligence, pure fad undefiled, and to the intrinsic connection between it aid free communication: the method of conference, con•altation...
...Therefpre, jfhere has been very little labor organization in any of these countries...
...And if I begin with emphasizing the importance of observing the direction taken by behavior over a period of thne rather than judging by words, it is because at no thne in history have words meant as little as they do today...
...Nicaragua at one time had a labor party, but this group was disorganized at the time of the Sandino revolt...
...had with Hitler...
...of President Von Hindenburg...
...This small clique of union leaders, known as the Grupo Accion, was remarkable because it guided the destinies of the Mexican labor movement for more than a dozen years...
...This influence might be characterized briefly as the effort to oppose the idea of fascism (the complete subordination of individual personality to the interests of the state),-by a new humani s t concept of the rights of the individual within the bounds of the legal rights of the collective...
...I Stalin's theory of "social fascism" which constituted the basis of his entire policy, internal as well as foreign, was subjected to bitter attack...
...There is some truth in the saying, "at the border ]jaj, it is not easy to tell where education stops and pxopaganda begins...
...The attempt to identify democracy with economic individualism as the essence of free action has done harm to the reality of democracy and is capable of doing even greater injury than it has already done...
...The only important strike in the history df the nation was engineered by the Communist-controlled Sindicato de Trabajadores del Atlantico...
...The establishment of the National Socialist dictatorship in Germany did not discourage Stalin...
...There rwas a comparatively Strong Communist Party there in the middle thirties, which had several members of Parliament and had some success in organizing the banana workers of that fief of the United Fruit Company...
...Th.s campaign against the C.R.O.M...
...Often his remarks could be fully understood only by comparing them with the utterances of Maxim Gorki and Bukharin...
...In this connection it is only necessary to consider Colonel Bauer's book: In the Land of the Red Czars...
...The very tenets of religion have been employed to foster anti-semitism...
...In any event it was with this argument that Heinz Neumann placated the German Communists, when acting as Stalin's extraordinary emissary...
...For Stalin, the result of his "farsighted" foreign policy was SB even greater blow than the famine which descended upon Russia in 1932-1933 as the direct consequence of his internal policy...
...One of the worst corruptions that totalitarianism has engendered is its complete* violation of integrity of language...
Vol. 24 • February 1941 • No. 30
