Allies against fascism?

[James Heartfield]

In message <sa00059b.074 at mail.ci.detroit.mi.us>, Charles Brown
<CharlesB at CNCL.ci.detroit.mi.us> writes
>This also applies to the non-aggression pact that the Soviets signed with 
>Germany before the war. It is only with hindsight, that we know the extent of 
>the Nazi horrors. In the late 30's,  though Germany was highly militarized and 
>undemocratic, the full meaning of Nazi fascism as equivalent to world historic 
>war crimes and crimes against humanity was not established until the war itself. 
>German fascism was not necessarily worse than Francoism from the standpoint of 
>the 1930's.  The distinction between Germany and the other capitalist countries 
>was not as sharp as it was after the war, and which we can see with hindsight.
>

I don't agree that you can minimise the disastrous impact of the non-
aggression pact. (Nor does it seem to me that the error turns on failing
to understand the special nature of fascism.) The point was that the
Soviet leadership openly collaborated with the Nazis on a political
level, giving credence to their regime and movement. Ilya Ehrenberg's
memoirs make it quite clear that the pact went way beyond merely
pragmatic avoidance of conflict to open collaboration.

Since the principal victims of the Nazis special measures were members
of the KPD, this was particularly cynical. Strategically it was a
disaster for the left, because it made them apologists for fascism.

In its own way, the subsequent policy of the 'People's Front' with the
imperialist Churchill was just as foolish. It was the weakness of the
Stalin leadership that they were incapable of making simply pragmatic
deals (as Lenin did in exchanging grain for US technology) but felt the
need to go further, justifying these tactical alliances politically.

Hence the false counterposition of 'peace-loving' and rapacious
imperialisms - as if imperialism could ever be progressive.
-- 
James Heartfield