On Mar 7, 2013, at 3:09 PM, Wojtek S wrote:
> ...A belief that a revolution was imminent after WW2 strikes me as
> pure fantasy...
For serious people at the time, unlike afterborn wiseacres, that "fantasy" was real to the point of obsession.
--Consider the famous dialogue in August 1939 between the French ambassador and the German chancellor: Coulondre: "If we go to war the only winner will be Trotsky." Hitler: "I know, I know."
--Consider the Allied political program throughout the war: Unconditional Surrender--only an occupied Germany would be safe from revolution and occupation would only be possible if Hitler was kept in power to the bitter end.
--Consider the central Allied military strategy: carpet bombing and firestorm bombing against the homes of German workers, a genocidal campaign whose obvious purpose was to cripple the German proletariat.
--Consider Churchill's proclamation in Parliament when he was massacring the Greek workers in alliance with the Greek nazis (and with Stalin): The alternative, he said, was to see "naked triumphant Trotskyism" in Athens.
From the British/French/Russian/American ruling class point of view, the whole significance of Hitler, from the 1920's on, was that he was the only reliable barrier to revolution and as such had to be kept in power.
Shane Mage
"Thunderbolt steers all things." Herakleitos of Ephesos, fr. 64