MIA > Archive > Arthur Rosenberg
From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 43 [25], 14 June 1923, pp. 410–411.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.
Public Domain: Marxists Internet Archive (2021). You may freely copy, distribute, display and perform this work; as well as make derivative and commercial works. Please credit “Marxists Internet Archive” as your source.
Facts are very hard things, and the occupation of the Ruhr area by Poincaré is one of these hard facts. This has been followed by the second equally hard fact of the bloodless-bloody Ruhr war, with its attendant disruption of European economics. Poincaré has thus a very strong trump card in his hand at the present time, one which be did not possess before the 11th of January: that is, the possibly of temporarily relieving, at least, the worst confusion in European business life and European production, by means of a cessation of the Ruhr war. M. Poincaré intends to be well paid for any concession, and he presents his bills in London and Berlin alike.
It takes two to make a war, strictly speaking, or to make a peace either. But in this case one of the partners in the duel, the German bourgeoisie, need not be taken into account. The willingness of German capitalism to capitulate is already sufficiently obvious, and the leaders of the German Socialist Party, up to the very highest “ruling” powers, are resigned to the inevitable. Elective declamations are still being made, and these effusions are even being posted up on the hoardings, to awaken the impression that they are to be taken seriously. But nobody with an idea of the situation can be deceived for a moment; the understanding between Schneider and Stinnes will not be wrecked on the famous “passive resistance” in the Ruhr.
But will England not intervene? Will Mr. Baldwin, in his capacity as the strong and practical man of finance, not call the “militarist” Poincaré to order. Will Cuno not be able to rely on British diplomacy in the forthcoming negotiations? Those who put such questions fail to observe that during the past half year the relations of the capitalist powers of the world to one another have fundamentally changed. Lloyd George’s methods are truly a thing of (he past; the days are gone when the English government worked against the trench, and vice versa, on the banks of the Rhine, and in the Orient and Russia. Under Lloyd George, the Entente had degenerated into a community of persons agreed on one point only, i.e. that they could not agree at all: But now there is again a real possibility that the Entente may be restored from a mere caricature to a political actuality.
This change in England’s relations to France has been brought about, to a great extent, by the appearance of a third competitor on the field of European Oriental affairs, namely, America. When the national assembly in Angora accepted the Chester concession, and when the French and English capitalists saw themselves deprived in common of the fruits ot many years of exertion, sacrifice, and intrigue, then the Entente was again united in the Near East. The Lausanne solution of the Dardanelles question was the introduction of a fresh period at Russo-English conflicts; the non-confirmation of the Urquhart treaty by the Soviet Government followed, eventually resulting in Lord Curzon’s ultimata. The essential point of this is, that the Russia a line adopted by the London government now essentially coincides with the Russian line of the French government. Here again the Entente is a reality once more.
The English bourgeoisie was forced by the pressure of circumstances to undertake the settlement of its American debt. But no capitalist class will bear the burden of such payments for long, without at least trying to shake them off. The American capitalists are raking is the pounds sterling, without making any adequate return for them. The petroleum and shipping competition between England and the United States is keener than ever. At the present time, the English bourgeoisie is carrying on a very far-sighted policy: at the moment, with 1½ million unemployed at home, it is not possible to risk a war adventure. But preparations are being made for what is to come; the “economical” conservative government of England is extending its air fleet is feverish haste, and is sacrificing many millions of pounds for the new naval base at Singapore, destined to serve as a fulcrum for the British squadrons in the Pacific during the next war.
Under these circumstances, Mr. Baldwin must endeavor to ensure an understanding with France along the whole line, including the Ruhr as well. He will make isolated attempts to modify the all too hot-headed projects of French society for conquest. But Baldwin will not oppose Poincaré in any decisive question; on the contrary, the joint Anglo-French pressure will speedily put the German government in the desired position. And as regards the other countries of the Entente, the Belgian bourgeoisie is politically and economically bound up with the French, and Mussolini has so many cares at home at the present time, that the powerful Fascist foreign policy is only observable at banquets just now. Nothing more is to be heard of it outside the sphere of champagne and roast joints. Cuno’s memorandum, as it now lies before us, the result of innumerable return-inquiries among all possible and impossible authorities abroad – the well informed Berlin correspondent of the Manchester Guardian states that the note was altered 10 times before being despatched – will not suffice M. Poincaré. For, quite apart from passive resistance, the German government promises no payment whatever for the next 4 years; after this period the German national railways are to raise a surplus of 500 million gold marks (from what?). A tax on German property is to bring in a like sum (how well we know these taxes on German property!), and then there are certain other indirect taxes which are to bring it certain other, but quite indefinite amounts of gold millions, in this form the thing is still very airy. But M. Poincaré, with the aid of Messrs Baldwin and Stinnes, will soon compress the Cuno air into liquid form. Entente capital will take good care that the guarantees offered it are really rendered “tangible”. And the administration of the guaranteed revenues, beginning with the German railways, will be taken over by the German trust magnates according to the wishes of their French patrons.
It is not by accident that, precisely at the time when Cuno was preparing his memorandum, the co-operation of Schneider and Stinnes in the Alpine Mining Company became openly official. The German and French capitalist rulers are already working together in Austria, they are working together in Upper Silesia, and they will work together in the Ruhr.
The so-called solution of the reparation question, in the form now projected, will prove no solution. It will merely increase confusion in the end. The central European giant trust now forming will increase the misery of the proletariat everywhere, stimulate proletarian resistance, and accelerate the proletarian revolution.
Last updated on 15 October 2021