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geois democracies. A social revolution throwing a new class–
the proletariat-into power would produce even more advanced
methods of waging war, since this new class would be under a
minimum of illusions and would have no interest in salvaging the
status quo
with all its impediments. It would be able to act with
a directness and a realism and therefore an efficiency even Hitler
-after all, only a pseudo-revolutionary-could not match; it
would open up opportunities to the new talents we now so urgently
need.
(2) In this war you see a new phenomenon. The British and
American bourgeoisie, tied to a system of private property hope–
lessly archaic vis-a-vis the economic demands of modern warfare,
are unable to organize production efficiently enough to win their
own imperialist war. Such planning as we have seen has come
from the workingclass. The British did not even begin to create a
modern war economy until
the
Labor Party took over the key eco–
nomic posts last year. In this country, the CIO 'Industrial Coun–
cils' Plan and the Reuther Plan for mass production of aircraft by
the automobile industry are much the boldest and most reasonable
proposals for all-out war production. It is true that the reformist
political
line of the British and American labor chiefs who put
forward. these plans, based as it is on the perpetuation of capital–
ism and hence the subordination of labor to the bourgeoisie, has
made it easy for the ruling class to sabotage them. The significance
of the plans remains, however. In putting them forward, Bevin
and Morrison, Murray and Reuther are speaking as representa–
tives of a class whose interests are in congruence and not in con–
flict with the organization of a planned economy. Nothing less
than this will beat Hitler.
{3) As even the conservatives are beginning to realize, this
is a 'political' war. The lack of any inspiring-or even sensible–
war aims is therefore the greatest weakness of the capitalist democ–
racies. The Churchillian defenders of democracy agree with the
appeasers in that they cannot conceive of any war aims more
desirable than the preservation of the social
status quo.
(They
differ only as to whether 'Hitler or the British Empire would
be
the better preserver.) Thus in Nazi-occupied countries, where
native revolutions could win the war for England, Churchill's
propaganda arouses little response. Actually, the rulers of Great
