END OF GERMAN CAPITALISM
217
Utopia. They saw clearly that world capitalism was in desperate
straits, that the great 'have' imperialisms could not afford to make
the concessions that would have integrated Germany once more
into world economy, that the world market had been wrecked by
the 1929 depression, and that international competition in a dwin–
dling market- whatever pious hopes the bankers and rentiers of
London and Paris might have of a peaceful settlement-was bound
to become more and more cut-throat. For Germany, therefore, the
only course of safety lay in autarky, rearming, and territorial
expansion as rapidly as her armed strength-and the weakness of
her enemies-permitted. The German bourgeoisie underestimated
the decadence of world capitalism in general, of the great 'have'
capitalist powers in particular. The Nazis made neither mistake.
Now it is true that the fact that the Nazis' war program was
better
realpolitik
than the bourgeoisie's appeasement program does
not prove its non-capitalist character.
It
would be quite possible
that the war aims of the Nazi bureaucracy were the traditional ones
of capitalist imperialism, and that it was simply a case of the Nazis
understanding better than their own bourgeoisie how to achieve
these aims. This is not the case, however. The war aims of Ger–
many-and the kind of economic and political order that will be
created if she wins the war-are radically different from those of
all the great powers in the last war and from those of America and
England in this war.*
In
Imperialism
and
World Economy,
Bukharin defines "three
fundamental motives for the conquest policies of modern capitalist
states: increased competition in the sales markets, in the markets
of raw material, and for the spheres of capital investment." Impe–
rialist war he sees as an effort to use force against competitors in
these three fields. I think we can take this as a fair summary of
the orthodox Marxist definition of capitalist war aims today. These
aims presume the existence of a capitalist world market-inter–
national exchange of commodities, settlement of trade balances in
gold, an international price structure, the international division of
labor, etc.
____!!_u.kharin, by the way, admitted that possibly ' State capitali st
*Perhaps I should make it clear that, in my opinion, these aims are primaril y
economic
and not an expression of the quality of the German soul (Rauschning) or the
expansive force of the German ego (Mumford ) . But to say that the Nazis are fighting
for
economic
reasons is by no means to say they are fighting for
capitalistic
reasons.
The whole question is whether they will exploit their war gains within a capitalist or
a non-capitalist framework.
