[lbo-talk] [Fwd: Cretinism, electoral and otherwise]

Russell Grinker grinker at mweb.co.za
Fri Aug 17 03:54:14 PDT 2007


Of course the German economy was seriously damaged. But the destruction of working class defensive and political organisations under fascism and their suppression under post-war occupying forces can't be ignored either. A key point is that a working class (communist/social democratic) tradition of political independence in war-time that was inherited from the First World War experience had been totally lost by the end of the Second World War - and not only in Germany. In fact this had largely happened by the end of the Spanish Civil War in which the best of a generation of international working class militants was eliminated. An entire left political outlook had thus been defeated by 1945: not good for a fightback under conditions of military occupation during which effective unions and left-wing politics were prohibited in Allied-occupied Europe.

Chris Doss wrote:

--- Russell Grinker <grinker at mweb.co.za> wrote:

The German working class was totally smashed by

the end of the War. If I remember, pre-Hitler era living standards were

only again achieved by the late '50s.

--

I think AN is wrong about, well, everything, but I think the smashed living standards have something to do with the German economy having been pulverized by bombs.



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