For Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels, history was a story of class struggle. From their nineteenth-century perspective, they saw only two classes exercising an influence on history: the bourgeoisie that dominated society, and the proletariat that was exploited by it. The future, Marx and Engels believed, belonged to the proletariat. They predicted that the concentration of capital would continually increase, as would the exploitation and impoverishment of the proletariat. Finally, there would come a point when there would be no one left who could afford to buy the products of the few remaining big capitalists, and when the ever-expanding working class could no longer contain its
Indignation. That would be the hour of the revolution, the hour of the “proletariat’s elevation to the dominant class," according to The Communist Manifesto of 1848. The “dictatorship of the proletariat" would not, however, be long-lasting, since the working class would proceed to eliminate the old conditions of production and thereby also put an end to “the existential conditions of class conflict, to classes altogether." The rule of the working class would thus lead to the classless society in which “the free development of each is the condition for the free development of all. "773
Here was a message that industrial workers were happy to hear. It addressed everyday experiences in the industrial world such as the significant difference in income between workers and factory owners; the cultural conflicts between the workers’ milieu and bourgeois society; the continual concentration of capital; and the cycle of economic depression. The message of The Communist Manifesto offered those who were dissatisfied with existing conditions a plausible explanation of the contemporary situation as well as prospects for its alteration. The workers’ future dominance, a prediction seemingly based in science, offered consolation in the face of the present day’s misery. At the same time, it promoted self-assurance and a rebellious spirit. The prospect of eliminating class-based society added moral energy to the struggle against business-owners and attracted dissatisfied intellectuals.
Hence, it was no accident that Marxism found much resonance with workers and that, with the expansion ofindustrial capitalism and mass politics in Europe in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, a Marxist movement sought to eliminate the capitalist system through revolutionary battle. Not every faction within the workers’ movement embraced socialist ideas, nor did every socialist follow the teachings ofMarx and Engels, but their adherents frequently constituted an agenda-setting majority within the various socialist parties. In 1891, the Social Democratic Party of Germany (SPD), the strongest and most influential contingent of the “Second Socialist Internationale," adopted its Erfurt Program, which echoed the notion of a world polarized by capital concentration and proletarian exploitation, and supported the goal of “abolishing class dominance."774 Likewise, at their founding congress in 1905, French socialists defined themselves as “a party of class struggle and revolution."775 It did not seem to matter that Marx and Engels had omitted many considerations in their grand analyses, such as the role of all of the other classes and groups seen in contemporary society, the consequences of productivity increases, or the momentum of ideas. On the contrary, it was the superficial unambiguity of the Marxist schema that powered its widespread resonance.
The revolution that brought the Bolsheviks to power in Russia in November 1917 had little to do with the prognostications of Marx and Engels, for Russia was not an advanced industrial society. The industrial working class constituted only a small minority there, and in fact the workers’ and soldiers’ committees that formed following the abdication of the tsar did not even contemplate taking power on a national scale. In these circumstances, Vladimir Ilich Lenin relied on the idea of the avant-garde, a party elite that was to guide the working class along the path of revolution. An assisted socialist revolution in backward Russia would then spark revolution in the main European industrial countries that had long since been "ripe" for it, above all imperial Germany. In reality, the leaders of the October Revolution only managed to remain in power over the long term by relying on armed force and systematic centralization, submitting to a popular desire for an end to the Great War, inflicting rigid terror against all kinds of perceived enemies, and by deftly managing sequential crises.
Lenin’s dream of world revolution went unfulfilled. There was, however, a socialist-inspired revolution in Germany and the proclamation of a soviet republic in Hungary. Although neither of those enjoyed lasting success and subsequent attempts failed, it was the case that national Communist parties established themselves practically everywhere, and submitted themselves to the leadership of the Russian avant-garde. Large segments of the socialist workers’ movement joined the Communist International (normally referred to as the 'Comintern’) in the hope of one day realizing the revolution. New revolutionary movements appeared in the countries of the former Habsburg Empire; in Cuba, Mexico, and elsewhere in South America; as well as in China and Indonesia. Even in Australia and in the United States, small numbers of radicalized workers founded local Communist parties. Lenin and the other Bolshevik leaders, who had in the meantime become the state party of the Soviet Union, dictated the policies of the foreign parties under their authority and organized them in the image of the successful Bolsheviks. In 1922, there were some sixty-one of these parties, and 440,000 members of the Comintern outside the Soviet Union.
Some authors see the beginnings of the Cold War in this cooperation of Soviet state power with the international revolutionary movement. That view is inaccurate in the sense that Communist revolutionary strategies were aimed primarily at seizing power in individual countries, and only then unleashing the world revolution. Furthermore, neither the occasional formation of antiBolshevik fronts, nor the liberal-democratic internationalism of the American president, Woodrow Wilson, after World War I, constituted a foe for the international Commun world movement. There existed ideological antagonism, but not a geopolitical threat. Thus, one cannot speak of an international East-West conflict before the formation of the anti-Nazi coalition during World War II.
It is the case, however, that the link between Soviet power and an international movement that sought to topple the bourgeois-capitalist order meant that East-West tensions had social and domestic ramifications in addition to the ideological one. The dictators of the Soviet Union (and later of the other Communist states) regarded themselves as the avant-garde of a world revolutionary movement that sooner or later would also emerge in the capitalist countries. Their dictatorial regimes were not merely held together by force and terror, since they could depend on those who benefited in terms of material gain and social status fTom the establishment of Communist regimes. At the same time, there were Communist movements ofvaried significance in the countries beyond the Soviet Union, and these movements counted on the support of Moscow. Thus, those who felt threatened by the Soviet Union feared not only for their independence, but also for their assets and their entire way of life.
The partnership between a revolutionary movement and Soviet state power was not without its tensions and frictions. As early as Lenin’s time, the Soviet leadership forced the other Communist parties to accept modes of organization and strategic concepts that did not necessarily correspond to circumstances in their own countries. When in doubt, revolutionary ambitions in individual countries were subordinated to the interests of the Soviet Union, and after the collapse of hopes for a rapid world revolution, those ambitions were no longer at the center of Moscow’s policies. Once Communists had taken power in other countries, especially after 1945, traditional conflicts between states as well as other conflicts of interest continued inside the boundaries of the socialist camp. Preserving the authority of the Soviet leadership over the Communist world movement was an unending task, for "renegades" repeatedly popped up and required neutralization by the Soviets. Under Iosif Stalin, such people often faced physical liquidation. Additionally, there were always convinced Marxists who rejected Soviet leadership from the outset exactly because they took their Marxism seriously;
They regarded Lenin’s voluntaristic construction of history as an adventurous departure from orthodoxy. Likewise, there were those who sympathized with the Soviet Union but who did not subordinate themselves to any party discipline, and who did not want to tie themselves down ideologically. Connections between the Communist world movement and national societies were thus fluid.
The Great Depression that followed the Wall Street crash of 1929 brought the Communist movement new adherents and sympathizers. This world economic crisis had been set off by a crisis of overproduction in the United States and led to persistent unemployment at levels previously unimaginable. At the deepest point of the crisis (1932-33), some 22 percent of British workers were idle, 27 percent of those in North America, 32 percent in Denmark, and no less than 44 percent in Germany. After this collapse, employment levels recovered only gradually. In Britain, for example, a hard core of 16 to 17 percent remained jobless, as did some 20 percent in Denmark.776 In contrast, unemployment was nonexistent in the Soviet Union. Indeed, Stalin could point to new achievements year by year in the industrialization ofthe country. The Marxist crisis theory thus gained plausibility, and many of the unemployed as well as intellectuals set their hopes on the Soviet model as an alternative to the discredited liberal system.
More than Communism, however, it was the Fascists who really profited from the world economic crisis. One after the other, liberal regimes on the European continent were replaced by authoritarian ones or by totalitarian forms of mass mobilization. When this occurred in Germany, the interests of the Soviet state and of Communist sympathizers once again converged. The general interest in countering Fascist threats and containing the expansion of National Socialist Germany reunited them in a common front. At the Seventh World Congress of the Comintern in the summer of 1935, the Communist parties were obliged to commit themselves to the so-called "Popular Front" strategy. Up to that point, they had been instructed to direct their "main thrust" against social democrats and to win the support of workers who were oriented toward social democracy. Now, however, they were to ally themselves not only with the social democrats but also with all anti-Fascist forces, including those of the Right. In France, the Communists thus proceeded to support a moderately leftist anti-Fascist government that initiated social reforms such as the forty-hour week and annual paid vacation. In Spain,
Communists participated in the defense of the republic against the uprising of a fascistically oriented military. This brought them new adherents and new sympathy. In France, the number of party members rose fTom 30,000 in 1932 to 330,000 in 1936, the first year of the Popular Front government, while the number of votes they registered jumped from 700,000 to 1.5 million. Literary figures such as Arthur Koestler and Andre Malraux became involved in the Spanish Civil War on the side of the Communists.
The alliance between Communists and Western democratic forces was plagued by tensions because the former did not by any means give up their hopes for revolutionary upheaval, and hence sought unceasingly to bring the Popular Front under their control. There came a break in the anti-Fascist alliance in August 1939 when Stalin, in an abrupt modification of his containment policy, made a pact with Hitler. The Communist Party (which had been banned in Germany since 1933 and faced persecution there) was now ostracized in the democratic countries. In France, it was banned. The Italian socialists in exile broke their ties to the Communists. After the victory of Francisco Franco’s forces in Spain, a cruel persecution of the Left ensued.
The German attack on the Soviet Union in June 1941 led to a new and expanded version of the Popular Front program. It was now to extend to all countries occupied by the National Socialists and was to encompass all national forces fighting Nazism, and not only the Left. Communists therefore participated in the diverse national resistance movements and subordinated themselves to non-Communist leaders where power dynamics necessitated it. In France, the Communists acknowledged the authority of General Charles de Gaulle. In Italy, they joined the 'Committee of National Liberation’ and subordinated themselves to the 'Corps of Volunteers.’ In order to reduce mistrust on the part of his new Western allies, Stalin even took the step of officially disbanding the Comintern on May 15, 1943. Covertly, foreign party leaders were still required to follow his directives.
Communists played a major role in resisting the National Socialists, and the contribution of the Red Army to the defeat of Germany and its allies was tremendous. The Soviet Union paid for this victory, clutched from the jaws of defeat, with no fewer than 27 million lives, perhaps half the total killed in World War II. Both the Communists’ resistance to the Nazis throughout Europe and the decisive role of the Soviet Union brought the Communist parties new members and newfound sympathy in the liberated countries of Europe. The idea of a broad coalition of anti-Fascist forces gained much acceptance. At the beginning of 1944, Ivan Maiskii, returning to Moscow after serving as Soviet ambassador in London, perceived signs that government in the liberated countries would now move in the direction of "a broad democracy in the spirit of the Popular Front idea." As he said, "There are grounds for assuming that these principles will prevail in countries such as Norway, Denmark, Holland, Belgium, France, and Czechoslovakia without external pressure." Elsewhere, the victorious powers, "primarily the USSR, the USA, and England," would need to provide assistance.777
It was indeed the case that the Communists managed to make significant gains in the first elections held after the war. In Finland, the Communist-directed People’s Democratic Union won a surprising 24 percent of the vote in March 1945. In France, the Communists became the largest party with more than 26 percent of the vote in October 1945. In Czechoslovakia, they gained 38 percent in May 1946, after the withdrawal of Soviet occupation forces. In Italy, they registered 19 percent in June 1946. In Scandinavia and in the smaller West European states, the Communist vote ranged between 10 and 13 percent in the period.
The context for these electoral successes was a general shift to the Left in the European political spectrum. After the British Labour Party achieved an impressive victory at the polls in July 1945, social democratic parties in other states also increased their share of the vote and some of the new Christian democratic parties secured their victories under the banner of a "Christian socialism." As the failure of liberalism had now been followed by a failure of Fascism, many Europeans saw their countries on the path to social democracy, not to be built through revolutionary upheaval, but rather by the nationalization of key industries and by the expansion of the welfare state.
This prospect was all the more attractive given that the consequences ofthe Great Depression had never really been overcome in any European country. Only in Germany had unemployment been eliminated by the end of the 1930s, and the devastation of war had then reduced the country’s productive capacity to ashes. Germany had lost 13 percent of its capital equipment, Italy 8 percent, and France 7 percent. The monstrous loss of human life - more than 17 million dead in the European countries alone - signified further decreases in future production potential. One year after the end of the war, by which time transportation systems had largely been reestablished and many American loans had already begun to flow into reconstruction, total production in Britain and in the Scandinavian countries was only marginally above prewar levels. In France and in the Benelux countries, the figure was 89 percent, in southern and Eastern Europe approximately 6o percent, and in Germany still only 40 percent.778
World History
