I agree with you that the fiance capital connection does not work, that was my first impression twenty years ago when I was reading Dimitrov for the first time. And certainly the thesis is not fully developed and I agree it was very much posed to fit in with USSR foriegn policy at the time and fitted the normal ideological constructs of stalinism.
I will attempt to quickly reply to what you have stated below but first I would like to play around with the ideas I found intriguing.
Now my personal bias in this is that politically then and now, those I admired in the old CPA of which I was a member, were oldpopular front activists (rank and file rather then leadership) all of whom had high regard for Dimitrov.
I mention this to contextual my disappointment on first reading him (already having a fairly clear idea of the history of Nazism). Dimitrov did not shape up anywhere as well as I had expected and especially fell down on the points you raise and the fact that it is very hard to see a direct political link to Nazism and finance capital.
Later I read parts of Hitler's Mien Kampf (not to be recomended) but some bells started going off. Much of Mien Kampf is various twitterings about Germany's "real" borders etc, and what is in its jumbled fashion a farily clear articulation of Germany's "manifest imperial destiny" as it might have been in 1914 - that is becoming THE European power rather then simply hunting after colonies - in otherwords to become in that day the virtual superpower.
The connections to finance capital need not be all that direct (and I am excluding the big industrialists such as Krupp) bankers did get involved very early on in bankrolling the Nazi's (they generally bank rolled a heap of conservative and right-wing groups nothing special here in otherwords). What struck me, especially in Dimitrov's day was that the primary source about Nazism was in fact Mien Kampf (widely read in Germany and around the world by fascists and non-facists for the same reason - quiet a few old communists had copies from those days).
Hitler's rantings boiled down, extracting the anti-semitism, is really a manifesto of old style and very ambitious German Imperialism. The connection in this way is very straightforward and direct. In effect he was an ideologue for finance capital, not necessarily its direct pawn, in fact his social-economic platform linked directly into the imperialism and to a certain extent this is exactly what he did once in power.
I have not read any Mussolini though he must of written quiet a bit being the ex-editor of a socialist newspaper. I suspect his point of view would have been very similar. One of the troubles is, I think, is the tendancy to overlook what would have been the most obvious to the contemporary observer (the linking of a social program with imperial ambitions). What we do tend to read and see of Hitler, for instance is the more ludricious obessions, what we see very little of as primary source is what might be called, within its own logic, the more rational imperialism expressed.
I beleive that even though this is relatively recent history the distance created by secondary sources to the primary material has lead to a great disparity from what actually happened. For instance I have never read a secondary source that really tried to make sense of Hitler's foriegn policy within German imperial tradition, in fact the emphasis was always on the brinkmanship of the military operations and the obsession with war, but not once suggesting that these ambitious were in fact an attempted realisation of a much older position (the resemblance between WWI and WWII strategically is assumed to be a by product of georgraphy, but also is imperialist policy).
Hakki I mention this not as an attempted rebuttal, because your points a clear and specific, besides they are factually correct. All I am doing is offering a different perspective on the historical material - I am not sure it is right as it may well be an attempt to justify Dimitrov simply because people I admired as activists admired him (some of them thought Stalin was not all bad, very few actually defended him in any way, except within the context of that bloody war and that he had lots of tractors built - ie the Dr Zivargo redeeming passages - this is part of my personal history and is in no way an argument of any kind).
I must admit that the ideas have become so thoroughly absorbed into my historical understanding of Nazism I cannot honestly say that I could depart to a significant degree in this. I neither have the references nor the facts to really justify this and it has been decades since I even skimmed Hitler's tome, but if you have not read it it is worth a glance just as a primary source (it is not something I would willing turn to again).
--- Message Received --- From: "Hakki Alacakaptan" <nucleus at superonline.com> To: <lbo-talk at lists.panix.com> Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 12:15:56 +0200 Subject: RE: Bonapartism, Fascism & our new order
Hakki: Greg, Dimitrov was clearly wrong on two counts:
1 - Finance-capital was nowhere to be seen when the brownshirts first appeared, otherwise why would they have landed in jail? In fact Roehm personifies the transition of Nazism from a spontaneous lumpen movement all dressed up with nowhere to go, to a bonapartist dictatorship hired by German capitalists in fear of a red uprising. The transition was when Hitler killed Roehm (all that gay lovers' spat BS nonwithstanding).
Greg: If I remember rightly the government in Bavaria at the time was Social democrat (1923), anyhow the judges soon reduced the sentance to a short stay (Hitler almost didn't finish his book - or Hess was a slow transcriber - either is quite believable).
I would turn your sentence around concerning the hiring in terms of a Red uprising. That is the Friekorps types, achieved the real defeat in 1919 when Hitler was sniffing around socialist circles, this is Roehm's origin as a Firekorps military leader drafted in quasi-independantly into forming thug battlions of brown shirts. The contest against the KPD which was when money really did get stuffed into Hitler's pockets was defeated electorally in 1933, I do not believe the KPD was in any real position for an uprising from 1919 to 1933, but it was building rapidly even if legally and the threat was met by legal means (despite the frequent street battles). I forget the actual figures during elections, but one motivating reason for Hitler acting so strongly once he was elected was that chances were another election would have replaced him by the communists (he made sure they would not have that chance).
I don't want to justify or criticise the KPD in this (i have never found a great amount of material about them) but would suggest that what really frightened the bourgeoisie in Germany was not an uprising but the communists being democratically elected (forcing them into a Spanish situation without the natural advantage Franco enjoyed). Here the Nazi's and their methods were indespensible. In otherwords I am shifting the emphasis from when the Social Democrats held sway and the communists were ultra-militant but the Nazi's hardly in existence, which is what you are referring to, to when the social democrats were on the nose and the Communists were neck and neck with the combined conservative block - social democratic votes being channelled to the right with little success. Here Nazism became vital for the entire German Bourgeoisie, at least that is how I would argue it.
Hence I do not disagree with you if we confine ourselves up to 1923, but it is the next ten years where I would concentrate as to showing where everybody really sat around the table. It was in fact Hitler's disavowal of Putsch methods which led the Nazis into becoming ever more significant (the Munich putsch was afterall a joke).
Hakki: 2 - Krupp and Thyssen are clearly not just the "most regressive, bellicose, etc." section of finance capital.
Greg: Quite correct and despite Krupps interests in armanments (this is not meant ironically - the fact was that the Krupp corporation was anything but bellicose in terms of Germany, they did too well on the export market). Memory fails me but Thyssen was a banker? (I will assume so and further in my ignorance possibly suggest he was a leading financial figure and Krupp like in his attitudes as well).
My expression was clumsy and I deserve to be pulled up on it. The interests of finance capital, may not be expressed directly by that capital (afterall they are involved in all soughts of international deals - such personal views would be unworkable). Rather I think that given Germany's actual position, given the nature of imperialism, the ones which expressed the interests of fiance capital, as German capital, were problably not even directly connected with it (besides the actual financial wizards were probably too savvy to fall for such a carrot), howver as the leading form of capital there are many more connections to it (hangers-off, speculators, frustrated ambitions ect) who saw their future being tied to the imperial expansion, certainly the ambition had lots of support well outside the rarieifed atmosphere of those actually in change of large amounts of finance capital.
My criticism is thus, that the relations of capital are often much wider then the mere appearance of property as a private or semi-private property form, that many who do not have a direct connection with this property identify with it - much like the servants of an aristocratic house might, quite regardless of the aristocrats personal perspective (I am thinking of the street wars in Romeo and Juilet where the heads of the house were actually more inclined to peace then their servants and other relatives).
I tend to see class in this fashion, that is of many different cords pulling in distinct directions and sometimes at a long distance.
HAKKI: Stalinists couldn't stomach the fact that Hitler hijacked a part of the working class. It went against their idea of historical determinism, and consequently threatened the omniscience of the Great Leader. So they invented the Dimitrov kludge.
GREG: There is more than a grain of truth in this, obviously I think there is more in the Dimitrov kludge then you do, but I recognise kludge when I see it and it is certianly there. In fact that was my first impression.
Greg:
|| As for structuralist analysis steming from scholastic circles,
|| it may have its place but is bereft of being able to pose the
|| right questions in the first place - sociological definitions
|| interest me not at all. I am not accusing you of moving down
|| such a path, as you mentioned these only in passing, but
|| classification is not a way forward. I can be accused of
|| prejudice in this, but at least it is a thorough-going prejudice.
||
|| Marx may be an antique (old and valuable) but not I think
|| antiquated by any means, and certainly does not stink of
|| intellectual decay as much as many live and kicking socialologists do.
Hakki: You're right on there. Reducing the struggle against the protofascist coup to the scholarship of ethically compromised, sanitized theories of fascism is the classic maneuver for sidetracking the struggle of the left, like when pomo replaced marxism and social studies replaced class studies (such as there were). The French left may be sucking up to their pomo philosophers out of contrition for their maoist sins but in the US there are no such indigenous causes, it's all a matter of the pipers' payers calling the tune.
Greg: Obviously we both have the same reaction to sociological dribble - what amazes me is that a class of paid ideologues (for I am always amazed at the childish outpourings) has a veneer of respectablity. They seem to survive purely on the basis of being recognisied as "experts" as the unconvincing, emptiness of their outpourings beggers belief - almost makes you pine for the integrity and intelligence of Max Weber then suffer these shadow boxers (I hate Max's work with a vengence - mainly because it is the most sophisticated bourgeois theory I have yet read in this area, his pupils must have him turning in is grave).
Sorry for the spleen venting, touchy subject. Once I thought about an academic career (not seriously - I was a hopeless student) but the sociologists, psychologists and their ilk and influence soon drove that from my head (give me a conservative but intelligent historian any day, or even a classical philosopher steeped in Hume). The quasi-sciences are my pet hate (imagine what I think of post-modernists who don't even bother with a veneer of supporting facts or any regard for truth at all - even that of the pratting pretense of sociologists - anyone in academia has my sympathy - what a putrid mess it has all become).
Again apologies to all on the list, I must have my spleen seen to one day ; )
Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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