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

[Russell Grinker]

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.