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private property sounds. The expropriators are expropriated. "
Marx expected the workingclass to burst the shell. It is one of the
bitterest ironies of history that the workingclass movement proved
incapable of doing so, and that this economically progressive and
historically necessary task has been accomplished by a political
movement reactionary to the point of barbarism, and working in
the interest of a more effective prosecution of war. It is unpleasant
and disheartening to have to recognize the fact that the Nazis and
not the proletariat have shattered the structure of capitalism, and
that the result has been not the social progress anticipated by Marx–
ists but instead war and reaction in their most hideous forms. Yet
how can one read such a passage and not see that the totalitarian
State has done,
economically,
just what Marx and Lenin looked to
the proletariat to do, namely, created new economic forms which
correspond more closely to the 'socialization of production' than
do the old private property forms?
1. From Schacht's NRA to Goering's Four-Year Plan
No one denies that there have been profound economic
changes in Germany since 1933; no one denies that there has been
considerable friction between the German big bourgeoisie and the
Nazi bureaucracy. The historical problem is whether these changes,
these conflicts involve issues fundamental to the continuance of
capitalism itself, or whether-as in the case of our own New Deal
era-they have taken place within the general framework of capi–
talism. It is my belief that, in both internal and foreign policy,
the struggle of the last five years between the German business com–
munity and the Nazis involved basic issues, that the very existence
of capitalism was at stake, and that the Nazis have by now deci–
sively won the battle. In this section I want to sketch the main
outlines of this historical development.
Three main periods may be defined. (1) March, 1933 to
June, 1934: struggle between the petty-bourgeois 'plebeians' or
'radicals' in the Nazi ranks and the big bourgeoisie, ending in the
crushing of the former, once and for all, by the Nazi top bureau–
cracy in the June, 1934, 'blood purge.' (2) July, 1934 to Sep–
tember, 1936: supremacy of the big bourgeoisie, expressed in the
'economic dictatorship' exercised by Dr. Schacht as Minister of
Economics and head of the Reichsbank; this domination chal-
