254
PARTISAN REVIEW
socialism, substituting for the real and permanent
resolution
the class struggle in the victory of the oppressed class, an artifici
and temporary
suppression
of class conflict. How has this
brought about? The usual Marxist answer is: one class (the ho
geosie) has through its instrument, the Nazi bureaucracy, es
lished a crushing dominance over the other (the proletariat)
Hence there is a difference only
in
degree between German fascis
and democratic capitalism.
I agree that the Nazis came to power as the agents of the hi
bourgeoisie, but I think that a basic shift of power has come abo
during the seven·year
wehrwirtschaft
effort. (Note that the
best
known leftwing studies of German fascism-Dutt, Guerin, He ·
Schuman, etc.----<:oncern themselves with
how
the Nazis came
power rather than with the internal development of the Nazi stat
especially since 1936.) I think most Marxists have failed to giv
enough weight to two important aspects of Nazism. (1) It diffe
from other forms of repression in being not only terror
from
ab
(the Gestapo, the concentration camp) hut also a political mov
ment
from below
with a "radical" social ideology which attrac
mass support. For years the leftwing press has been full of repo
of widespread unrest in Germany, of low morale in the army.
When war came, however, contrary to expectations, this unre
failed to break above the surface and the army's morale proved t
he remarkably high. (2) Nazism also differs from other forms o
reaction in that, because of the sharpness of the internal social
crisis and the magnitude of the rearming job to he done, the hour·
geosie were forced to give the bureaucracy unparalleled powers
over
its own
(as well as the workers') interests. Granted that this
surrender was made,
in
the beginning, quite deliberately to organ·
ize a more effective prosecution of a war for the common interests
of the German bourgeoisie--as a sort of capital investment, a
temporary sacrifice which would pay big dividends later on. But
in
the course of seven years of "war socialism," strange and (to
Marxists and businessmen alike) unexpected things have hap–
pened. The national economy has come to he organized on the basis
of production rather than profit. It is true that the elaborate mech·
anism of capitalism still persists-loans, credits, interest, divi·
dends, stock exchanges-hut, from being the living heart, the
raison d'etre
of the economy, all this has become merely the hook·
