The Origins of Totalitarianism
Page 90
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23 Compare Carlton J. H. Hayes, op. cit., who does not differentiate between the mob and the masses, thinks that totalitarian dictators “have come from the masses rather than from the classes.”
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24 This is the central theory of K. Heiden, whose analyses of the Nazi movement are still outstanding. “From the wreckage of dead classes arises the new class of intellectuals, and at the head march the most ruthless, those with the least to lose, hence the strongest: the armed bohemians, to whom war is home and civil war fatherland” (op. cit., p. 100).
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25 The plot between Reichswehr Genera! Schleicher and Rohm, the chief of the SA, consisted of a plan to bring all paramilitary formations under the military authority of the Reichswehr, which at once would have added millions to the German army. This, of course, would inevitably have led to a military dictatorship. In June, 1934, Hitler liquidated Röhm and Schleicher. The initial negotiations were started with the full knowledge of Hitler who used Röhm’s connections with the Reichswehr to deceive German military circles about his real intentions. In April, 1932, Röhm testified in one of Hitler’s lawsuits that the SA’s military status had the full understanding of the Reichswehr. (For documentary evidence on the Röhm-Schleicher plan, see Nazi Conspiracy, V, 456 ff. See also Heiden, op. cit., p. 450.) Röhm himself proudly reports his negotiations with Schleicher, which according to him were started in 1931. Schleicher had promised to put the SA under the command of Reichswehr officers in case of an emergency. (See Die Memoiren des Stabschefs Röhm, Saarbrücken, 1934, p. 170.) The militaristic character of the SA, shaped by Röhm and constantly fought by Hitler, continued to determine its vocabulary even after the liquidation of the Röhm faction. Contrary to the SS, the members of the SA always insisted on being the “representatives of Germany’s military will,” and for them the Third Reich was a “military community [supported by] two pillars: Party and Wehrmacht” (see Handbuch der SA, Berlin, 1939, and Victor Lutze, “Die Sturmabteilungen,” in Grundlagen, Aufbau und Wirtschaftsordnung des nationalsozialistischen Staates, No. 7a).
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26 Röhm’s autobiography especially is a veritable classic in this kind of literature.
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27 It is well known that the anti-Stalinist splinter groups have based their criticism of the development of the Soviet Union on this Marxist formulation, and have actually never outgrown it. The repeated “purges” of Soviet bureaucracy, which were tantamount to a liquidation of bureaucracy as a class, have never prevented them from seeing in it the dominating and ruling class of the Soviet Union. The following is the estimate of Rakovsky, writing in 1930 from his exile in Siberia: “Under our eyes has formed and is being formed a great class of directors which has its internal subdivisions and which increases through calculated co-option and direct or indirect nominations.... The element which unites this original class is a form, also original, of private property, to wit, the State power” (quoted from Souvarine, op. cit., p. 564). This analysis is indeed quite accurate for the development of the pre-Stalinist era. For the development of the relationship between party and Soviets, which is of decisive importance for the course of the October revolution, see I. Deutscher, The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879–1921, 1954.
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28 In 1927, 90 per cent of the village Soviets and 75 per cent of their chairmen were non-party members; the executive committees of the counties were made up of 50 per cent party members and 50 per cent non-party members, while in the Central Committee 75 per cent of the delegates were party members. See the article on “Bolshevism” by Maurice Dobb in the Encyclopedia of Social Sciences.
How the party members of the Soviets, by voting “in conformity with the instructions they received from the permanent officials of the Party,” destroyed the Soviet system from within is described in detail in A. Rosenberg, A History of Bolshevism, London, 1934, chapter vi.
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29 These figures are taken from Victor Kravchenko’s Book / Chose Freedom: The Personal and Political Life of a Soviet Official, New York, 1946, pp. 278 and 303. This is of course a highly questionable source. But since in the case of Soviet Russia we basically have nothing but questionable sources to resort to—meaning that we have to rely altogether on news stories, reports and evaluations of one kind or another—all we can do is use whatever information at least appears to have a high degree of probability. Some historians seem to think that the opposite method—namely, to use exclusively whatever material is furnished by the Russian government—is more reliable, but this is the not the case. It is precisely the official material that is nothing but propaganda.
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30 Stalin’s Report to the Sixteenth Congress denounced the devations as the “reflection” of the resistance of the peasant and petty bourgeois classes in the ranks of the Party. (See Leninism, 1933, Vol. II, chapter iii.) Against this attrack the opposition was curiously defenseless because they too, and especially Trotsky, were “always anxious to discover a struggle of classes behind the struggles of cliques” (Souvarine, op. cit., p. 440).
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31 Kravchenko, op. cit., p. 187.
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32 Souvarine, op. cit., p. 575.
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33 The watchword of the SS as formulated by Himmler himself begins with the words: “There is no task that exists for its own sake.” See Gunter d’Alquen, “Die SS,” in Schriften der Hochschule für Politik, 1939. The pamphlets issued by the SS solely for internal consumption emphasize time and again “the absolute necessity for understanding the futility of everything that is an end in itself” (see Der Reichsführer SS und Chef der deutschen Polizei, undated, “only for internal use within the police”).
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34 The practice itself has been abundantly documented. W. Krivitsky, in his book In Stalin’s Secret Services (New York, 1939), traces it directly to Stalin.
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35 Hitler stated in Mein Kampf (2 vols., 1st German ed., 1925 and 1927 respectively. Unexpurgated translation, New York, 1939) that it was better to have an antiquated program than to allow a discussion of program (Book II, chapter v). Soon he was to proclaim publicly: “Once we take over the government, the program will come of itself.... The first thing must be an inconceivable wave of propaganda. That is a political action which would have little to do with the other problems of the moment.” See Heiden, op. cit., p. 203.
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36 Souvarine, in our opinion wrongly, suggests that Lenin had already abolished the role of a party program: “Nothing could show more clearly the non-existence of Bolshevism as a doctrine except in Lenin’s brain; every Bolshevik left to himself wandered from ‘the line’ of his faction ...for these men were bound together by their temperament and by the ascendancy of Lenin rather than by ideas” (op. cit., p. 85).
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37 Gottfried Feder’s Program of the Nazi Party with its famous 25 points has played a greater role in the literature about the movement than in the movement itself.
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38 The impact of the watchword, formulated by Himmler himself, is difficult to render. Its German equivalent: “Meine Ehre lieisst Treue,” indicates an absolute devotion and obedience which transcends the meaning of mere discipline or personal faithfulness. Nazi Conspiracy, whose translations of German documents and Nazi literature are indispensable source material but, unfortunately, are very uneven, renders the SS watchword: “My honor signifies faithfulness” (V, 346).
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39 Mussolini was probably the first party leader who consciously rejected a formal program an
d replaced it with inspired leadership and action alone. Behind this act lay the notion that the actuality of the moment itself was the chief element of inspiration, which would only be hampered by a party program. The philosophy of Italian Fascism has been expressed by Gentile’s “actualism” rather than by Sorel’s “myths.” Compare also the article “Fascism” in the Encyclopedia of the Social Sciences. The Program of 1921 was formulated when the movement had been in existence two years and contained, for the most part, its nationalist philosophy.
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40 Ernst Bayer, Die SA, Berlin, 1938. Translation quoted from Nazi Conspiracy, IV, 783.
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41 For the first time in Plato’s Statesman, 305, where acting is interpreted in terms of archein and prattein—of ordering the start of an action and of executing this order
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42 Hitlers Tischgespräche, p. 198.
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43 Mein Kampf, Book I, chapter xi. See also, for example. Dieter Schwarz, Angriffe auf die nationalsozialistische Weltanschauung: Aus dem Schwarzen Korps, No. 2, 1936, who answers the obvious criticism that National Socialists after their rise to power continued to talk about “a struggle”: “National Socialism as an ideology [Weltanschauung] will not abandon its struggle until ... The way of life of each individual German has been shaped by its fundamental values and these are realized every day anew.”
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44 See Hitler’s description of his reaction to the outbreak of the first World War in Mein Kampf, Book I, chapter v.
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45 See the collection of material on the “inner chronicle of the first World War” by Hanna Hafkesbrink, Unknown Germany, New Haven, 1948, pp. 43, 45, 81, respectively. The great value of this collection for the imponderables of historical atmosphere makes the lack of similar studies for France, England, and Italy all the more deplorable.
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46 Ibid., pp. 20–21.
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47 This started with a feeling of complete alienation from normal life. Wrote Rudolf Binding, for instance: “More and more we are to be counted among the dead, among the estranged—because the greatness of the occurrence estranges and separates us—rather than among the banished whose return is possible” (ibid., p. 160). A curious reminiscence of the front generation’s elite claim can still be found in Himmler’s account of how he finally hit upon his “form of selection” for the reorganization of the SS: “...the most severe selection procedure is brought about by war, the struggle for life and death. In this procedure the value of blood is shown through achievement.... War, however, is an exceptional circumstance, and a way had to be found to make selections in peace time” (op. cit.).
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48 See, for instance, Ernst Jünger, The Storm of Steel, London, 1929.
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49 Hafkesbrink, op. cit., p. 156.
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50 Heiden, op. cit., shows how consistently Hitler sided with catastrophe in the early days of the movement, how he feared a possible recovery of Germany. “Half a dozen times [i.e., during the Ruhrputsch], in different terms, he declared to his storm troops that Germany was going under. ‘Our job is to insure the success of our movement’” (p. 167)—a success which at that moment depended upon the collapse of the fight in the Ruhr.
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51 Hafkesbrink, op. cit., pp. 156–157.
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52 This feeling was already widespread during the war when Rudolf Binding wrote: “[This war] is not to be compared with a campaign. For there one leader pits his will against that of another. But in this War both adversaries lie on the ground, and only the War has its will” (ibid., p. 67).
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53 Bakunin in a letter written on February 7, 1870. See Max Nomad, Apostles of Revolution, Boston, 1939, p. 180.
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54 The “Catechism of the Revolutionist” was either written by Bakunin himself or by his disciple Nechayev. For the question of authorship and a translation of the complete text, see Nomad, op. cit., p. 227 ff. In any event, the “system of complete disregard for any tenets of simple decency and fairness in [the revolutionist’s] attitude towards other human beings ...went down in Russian revolutionary history under the name of ‘Nechayevshchina’” (ibid., p. 224).
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55 Outstanding among these political theorists of imperialism is Ernest Seillière, Mysticisme et Domination: Essais de Critique Impérialiste, 1913. See also Cargill Sprietsma, We Imperialists: Notes on Ernest Seillière’s Philosophy of Imperialism, New York, 1931; G. Monod in La Revue Historique, January, 1912; and Louis Estève, Une Nouvelle Psychologie de l’Impérialisme: Ernest Seillière, 1913.
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56 In France, since 1930, the Marquis de Sade has become one of the favored authors of the literary avant-garde. Jean Paulhan, in his Introduction to a new edition of Sade’s Les Infortunes de la Vertu, Paris, 1946, remarks: “When I see so many writers today consciously trying to deny artifice and the literary game for the sake of the inexpressible [un évènement indicible] ..., anxiously looking for the sublime in the infamous, for the great in the subversive ..., I ask myself ...if our modern literature, in those parts which appear to us most vital—or at any rate most aggressive—has not turned entirely toward the past, and if it was not precisely Sade who determined it.” See also Georges Bataille, “Le Secret de Sade,” in La Critique, Tome III, Nos. 15–16, 17, 1947.
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57 Goebbels, op. cit., p. 139.
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58 The art theories of the Bauhaus were characteristic in this respect. See also Bertolt Brecht’s remarks on the theater, Gesammelte Werke, London, 1938.
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59 The following passage by Röhm is typical of the feeling of almost the whole younger generation and not only of an elite: “Hypocrisy and Pharisaism rule. They are the most conspicuous characteristics of society today.... Nothing could be more lying than the so-called morals of society.” These boys “don’t find their way in the Philistine world of bourgeois double morals and don’t know any longer how to distinguish between truth and error” (Die Ceschkhle eines Hochverräters, pp. 267 and 269). The homosexuality of these circles was also at least partially an expression of their protest against society.
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60 The role of the Weltanschauung in the formation of the Nazi movement has been stressed many times by Hitler himself. In Mein Kampf, it is interesting to note that he pretends to have understood the necessity of basing a party on a Weltanschauung through the superiority of the Marxist parties. Book II, chapter i: “Weltanschauung and Party.”
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61 Nicolai Berdyaev, The Origin of Russian Communism, 1937, pp. 124–125.
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62 There is, for instance, the curious intervention of Welhelm Kube, General Commissar in Minsk and one of the oldest members of the Party, who in 1941, i.e., at the beginning of the mass murder, wrote to his chief: “I certainly am tough and willing to co-operate in the solution of the Jewish question, but people who have been brought up in our own culture are, after all, different from the local bestial hordes. Are we to assign the task of slaughtering them to the Lithuanians and Letts who are discriminated against even by the indigenous population? I could not do it. I ask you to give me clear-cut instructions to take care of the matter in the most humane way for the sake of the prestige of our Reich and our Party.” This letter is published in Max Weinreich, Hitler’s Professors, New York, 1946, pp. 153–154. Kube’s inte
rvention was quickly overruled, yet an almost identical attempt to save the lives of Danish Jews, made by W. Best, the Reich’s plenipotentiary in Denmark, and a well-known Nazi, was more successful. See Nazi Conspiracy, V, 2.
Similarly Alfred Rosenberg, who had preached the inferiority of the Slav peoples, obviously never realized that his theories might one day mean their liquidation. Charged with the administration of the Ukraine, he wrote outraged reports about conditions there during the fall of 1942 after he had tried earlier to get direct intervention from Hitler himself. See Nazi Conspiracy, III, 83 ff., and IV, 62.
There are of course some exceptions to this rule. The man who saved Paris from destruction was General von Choltitz who, however, still “feared that he would be deprived of his command as he had not executed his orders” even though he knew that the “war had been lost for several years.” That he would have had the courage to resist the order “to turn Paris into a mass of ruins” without the energetic support of a Nazi of old standing, Otto Abetz the Ambassador to France, appears dubious according to his own testimony during the trial of Abetz in Paris. See New York Times, July 21, 1949.
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63 An Englishman, Stephen H. Roberts, The House that Hitler Built, London, 1939, describes Himmler as “a man of exquisite courtesy and still interested in the simple things of life. He has none of the pose of those Nazis who act as demigods.... No man looks less like his job than this police dictator of Germany, and I am convinced that nobody I met in Germany is more normal....” (pp. 89–90)—This reminds one in a curious way of the remark of Stalin’s mother who according to Bolshevik propaganda said of him: “An exemplary son. I wish everybody were like him” (Souvarine, op. cit., p. 656).
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64 The remark was made by Robert Ley. See Kohn-Bramstedt, op. cit., p. 178.