Glimpses of World History

by Jawaharlal Nehru

  All this, in addition to the trade depression and the realization that many of the high officials and big business people were corrupt and incompetent, upset the nerves of the American people. During the presidential election of November 1932 they turned in their millions to Roosevelt, hoping that he would bring them relief. Roosevelt was a “wet”, and belonged to the Democratic Party, which has very seldom provided presidents to the United States.

  It is always interesting and helpful to compare different countries, always keeping in mind their distinctive features. One is tempted, therefore, to compare recent events in the United States with those in Germany and England. The comparison with Germany is a closer one, because both countries, in spite of being highly industrialized, have a large farming population. Germany’s farmers are 25 per cent of her total population; in the United States they form 40 per cent. These farmers count in the making of national policy. Not so in England, where the small proportion of farmers are neglected, although some effort is now being made to revive them.

  One of the outstanding causes of the Nazi movement in Germany was the growth in numbers of the dispossessed lower-middle classes, and this growth became rapid after the German inflation. It was this class that became revolutionary in Germany. This is precisely the class which is growing in America now; it is called the “white-collar proletariat”, to distinguish it from the working-class proletariat, which seldom indulges in white collars Other comparisons are the currency crises, the fall of the mark, the pound, and the dollar from gold and inflation, and bank failures. In England there have been no bank failures because there are not many small banks and a few big banks control the banking business. In other respects the courses of events in the three countries resemble each other; Germany having her crisis first, then England, then the United States. More or less the same class of people, in their respective countries, were behind the Nazis, the British National Government in the election in 1931, and President Roosevelt in his election in November 1932. This was the lower-middle class, many of whom had previously belonged to other parties. This comparison must not be taken too far, not only because of national differences, but because the situation in England and America has not yet developed as it has in Germany. But the point is that very similar economic influences have been at work in these three highly advanced industrial countries, and the results they produce are therefore likely to be similar. This is not so in France (or other countries) to the same extent, for France is still more agricultural and less advanced industrially.

  Roosevelt took office as President early in March 1933, and he was immediately faced by a tremendous banking crisis in addition to the great depression that was going on. Some weeks later he described the state of the country when he took office and he said that the country was “dying by inches” then.

  Roosevelt took swift and decisive action. He asked the American Congress for powers to deal with banks, industry, and agriculture, and the Congress, quite unnerved by the crisis, and influenced by popular feeling in favour of Roosevelt, gave him these powers. He became practically a dictator (though a democratic one), and everybody looked to him for immediate and effective action to save them from disaster. He did act with lightning rapidity, and within a few weeks he had shaken up the whole of the United States by his various activities, and produced an even greater feeling of confidence in himself.

  Among President Roosevelt’s many decisions were:

  1. He went off gold and allowed the dollar to fall, thus reducing the burden on debtors. This was a measure of inflation.

  2. Relieved farmers by subsidies, and got a huge loan of $2,000,000,000 issued to relieve agriculture.

  3. Enlisted 250,000 workers immediately for forestry services and for flood-control work. This was to relieve unemployment a little.

  4. He asked Congress for $800,000,000 for unemployment relief. This was granted him.

  5. He set aside the enormous sum of about $3,000,000,000, which was to be borrowed, for public works to promote employment.

  6. He hurried up the repeal of Prohibition.

  All these enormous sums were to be obtained by borrowing from the rich people. Roosevelt’s whole policy was, and is, to increase the buying power of the people; when they have the money they will buy, and the trade depression will automatically lessen. It is with this object in view that he is having huge schemes of public works where the workers can be employed and earn money. It is also with this object that he is trying to raise the wages of workers and lessen their hours of work. A shorter working day would mean the employment of more people.

  This attitude is in direct opposition to the usual attitude of employers during times of crisis and depression. Almost invariably they try to cut down wages and lengthen hours of work, so as to cheapen their costs of production. But, says Roosevelt, if we are to resume mass production of goods, we must give the masses the capacity to buy them by a mass distribution of high wages.

  The Roosevelt Government has also given a loan to Soviet Russia for the purpose of buying American cotton. The two governments are also discussing the possibilities of large-scale barter between the two countries.

  America has so far been a purely capitalistic State with full and unrestricted competition; an “individualistic” State, as it is called. Roosevelt’s new policy does not fit in with this, as he is interfering with business in a variety of ways. He is therefore practically introducing a great deal of State control over industry, though he calls it by another name. It is really a measure of State socialism, regulating hours and conditions of labour, controlling industry and preventing “cut-throat competition”. He has called it “a partnership in planning, and seeing that plans are carried out”.

  This work is being carried on now with the usual American push and energy. Child labour has been abolished. (The child’s age for this purpose is up to sixteen.) Higher wages is the slogan, more pay, less hours of work. “Prosperity Push” this campaign is called, and the whole country, it is reported, has become a giant recruiting poster for this campaign. Aeroplanes dash about broadcasting appeals to employers and others. Each separate big industry is being induced to draw up “codes” fixing higher wages, etc., and pledging itself to carry them out; if it fails to draw up a suitable code there is the gentle threat that the government will do it. Individual employers are asked to sign pledge forms promising to raise wages and shorten the hours of work of their employees. To those employers who take a lead in this matter the government proposes to give badges of honour, and, to shame slackers, a roll of honour will be kept in the post office of every town.

  All this has resulted in some improvement in prices and trade. But the real improvement, which is marked, is in business sentiment and morale. The feeling of defeat has largely gone, and there is, among the large masses of the people, and especially the middle classes, an abounding faith in President Roosevelt. He is compared already to America’s great hero, President Lincoln, who also took office at a time of a great crisis, the Civil War.

  Even in Europe many people began to look up to him and expected a world leadership against the depression. But at the World Economic Conference he became rather unpopular with the delegates of other countries because he directed his representatives to refuse to fix the dollar in terms of gold, or to agree to anything else which might interfere with his great schemes in the United States. Roosevelt’s policy is definitely one of economic nationalism, and he is bent on improving conditions in America. Some European governments do not like it, and bankers are particularly annoyed. The British Government does not approve of Roosevelt’s progressive tendencies. They prefer Big Business.

  And yet Roosevelt is taking a more active part in world affairs than his predecessor did. On the question of disarmament and other international questions, he has taken up a definite and more advanced attitude than that of England. His polite warning to Hitler made Hitler tone down. He is also getting into touch with Soviet Russia.

  The great question in Ame
rica today, and even elsewhere, is: will Roosevelt succeed? He is making a brave attempt to keep capitalism going. But his success means the dethronement of Big Business, and it is far from likely that Big Business will take this lying down. American Big Business is held to be the most powerful vested interest in the modern world, and it is not going to give up its power and privileges merely at the bidding of President Roosevelt. For the present it is quiet, for public opinion and the President’s popularity have rather overwhelmed it. But it is waiting for its opportunity. If there is no great improvement within a few months, public opinion, it is expected, will turn against Roosevelt, and then Big Business will come out into the open.

  Many competent observers think that President Roosevelt is facing an impossible task and that he cannot succeed. His failure will make Big Business supreme again, and with perhaps even greater power than before. For Roosevelt’s state socialism apparatus will then be utilized for the private profit of Big Business. The labour movement is not strong in America, and can easily be crushed.

  Note:

  President Roosevelt’s great attempt to overcome the crisis, and to adapt capitalism to the new conditions, met with partial success, though there was no fundamental change. There was an improvement in the situation. This attempt was in effect based on huge schemes of relief and on transferring to some extent the profits of industry to the workers by persuading the employers to give higher wages and shorter hours. The employers, especially Ford, resisted this as an attack on their freedom. The Codes for industry and agriculture failed, and there were many strikes. But American Labour grew stronger and more class-conscious and a new spirit pervaded it. Trade Unions increased their membership greatly.

  As economic recovery took place, Big Business became more aggressive and resisted Roosevelt. The Supreme Court declared most of the effective clauses of Roosevelt’s two principal Acts, the National Recovery Act, and the Agricultural Adjustment Act, as opposed to the Constitution and therefore inoperative. Roosevelt’s New Deal was thus undermined.

  In 1936 Roosevelt was elected President for a second time by a big majority. His struggle with Big Business continues. The Congress is no longer dominated by him, and it has opposed him in many matters.

  193

  The Failure of Parliaments

  August 6, 1933

  We have examined recent events in some detail and considered many forces and tendencies that are shaping our changing world today. Among the facts that stand out there are two which I have already mentioned but which will bear further consideration. These two are: the failure of labour and the old type of socialism during the post-war years, and the failure or decline of parliaments.

  I have told you how organized labour failed and the Second International went to pieces when the World War broke out in 1914. This was explained by the sudden shock of war, when fierce national passions are aroused and a temporary madness takes possession of peoples. Something very different, and even more revealing, has happened during the last four years. These four years have seen the greatest slump that the capitalist world has ever known, and they have in consequence brought ever-increasing misery to the workers. And yet this has not resulted in creating a real revolutionary sentiment among the masses of the workers generally everywhere, and especially in England and the United States.

  The old type of capitalism is obviously breaking down. Objectively— that is, so far as external facts are concerned—conditions seem to be fully ripe for a change to a socialist economy. But the great majority of the very people who might have desired this most—the workers—have no will for revolution. Revolutionary sentiments have been far more in evidence among the conservative farmers of America and, as I have repeatedly told you, among the lower-middle classes in most countries, who are far more aggressive than the workers. This is most in evidence in Germany, but to a lesser degree it is to be seen also in England, the United States, and elsewhere. The differences in degree are due to national characteristics, as well as to various stages in the development of the crisis.

  Why has labour, which was so aggressive and revolutionary in the early post-war years, become so quiescent and resigned to any fate that may be in store for it? Why did the German Social Democratic Party break down without a struggle and allow itself to be shattered by the Nazis? Why is English labour so moderate and reactionary? And even more so American labour? Labour leaders are often blamed for their incompetence and for their betrayal of the interests of the working class. Many of them no doubt deserve this blame, and it is sad to find them turning renegades and making the Labour Movement a stepping-stone to gratify personal ambition. Opportunism there is unhappily in every department of human activity; but the opportunism which exploits the hopes and ideals and sacrifices of the down-trodden and suffering millions for personal advantage is one of the greatest of human tragedies.

  Leaders may be to blame. But leaders are, after all, the products of existing conditions. A country usually gets the rulers it deserves, and a movement the leaders which in the final analysis represent its real wishes. In reality neither the leaders of labour nor their followers in these imperialistic countries looked upon socialism as a living creed, something to be desired immediately. Their socialism got too much entangled and bound up with the capitalistic system. The exploitation of colonial countries brought them a small share in the profits, and they looked to the continuance of capitalism for a higher standard of life. Socialism became a distant ideal, a kind of heaven to dream of, a hereafter, not the present. And, like the old idea of heaven, it became a handmaid of capital.

  And so Labour Parties, Trade Unions, Social Democrats, the Second International, and all similar organizations, pottered away at petty attempts to reform, leaving the whole structure of capitalism intact. Their idealism left them, and they became huge bureaucratic organizations without a soul and with little real strength.

  The new Communist Party was differently situated. It had a message for the worker which was more vital, more appealing, and behind it the attractive background of the Soviet Union. But even so it had singularly little success. It failed to move the labour masses in Europe or America. In England and the United States it was amazingly weak. In Germany and in France it had some strength, and yet we have seen how little it could profit by it, in Germany at least. Internationally its two great defeats have been in China in 1927 and in Germany in 1933. Why did the Communist Party fail during these days of trade depression and repeated crisis and low wages and unemployment? It is difficult to say. Some say that it was just bad tactics, wrong methods of work. Others suggest that the Party was too much bound down to the Soviet Government, and its policy was thus more a national policy for the Soviet than an international policy as it should have been. This may have been so, but it is hardly a satisfactory explanation.

  The Communist Party as such did not grow among the workers, but communist ideas spread widely, especially among the intellectual classes. Everywhere, even among the supporters of capitalism, there was an expectation, a fear, that the crisis might lead inevitably to some form of communism. It was generally recognized that the old type of capitalism had had its day. This acquisitive economy, this policy of individual grab, with no planning, with its waste and conflicts and periodical crises, must go. In its place some form of planned socialistic economy or co-operative economy must be established. This does not mean necessarily the victory of the working class, for a State may be organized on semi-socialistic lines for the benefit of the owning classes. A State socialism and a State capitalism are much the same thing; the real question is who is in command in the State and who profits by it, the whole community or a particular possessing class.

  While the intellectuals argued, the lower-middle classes, or the petty bourgeoisie, in the Western industrial countries took action. These classes felt vaguely that capitalism and capitalists exploited them, and therefore felt some resentment against them. But they were far more afraid of the working class and of communism taking comma
nd. Capitalists usually made terms with this fascist wave, as they felt that there was no other way of stopping communism. Gradually almost everybody who was afraid of communism allied himself to this fascism. In this way, to a greater or less extent, fascism spreads wherever capitalism is in danger and faces communism or the possibility of it. Between the two, parliamentary government goes to pieces.

  And this leads us to the second outstanding fact which I mentioned at the beginning of this letter—the failure or decline of parliaments. I have already told you a good deal in previous letters about dictatorships and the failure of old-style democracy. This is obvious enough in Russia, Italy, Central Europe, and now in Germany, where parliamentary government had collapsed even before the Nazis seized power. In the United States we have seen how Congress has given the fullest powers to President Roosevelt. This process is evident even in France and England, the two countries of Europe with the longest and most stable tradition of democracy. Let us consider England’s case.

  The English way of doing things is very different from the Continental method. Always they try to keep up old appearances, and the changes are thus not very obvious. To an ordinary observer the British Parliament continues as before, but as a matter of fact it has changed greatly. In the old days the House of Commons exercised power directly, and the average member had a good say in the matter. Now it is the Cabinet or the Government that decides every big question, and the House of Commons can only say yes or no to it. Of course the House can turn out the Government by saying no, but this is a drastic step which is seldom taken, as it would result in a lot of trouble and a general election. So that if a government has got a majority in the House of Commons, it can do almost anything it likes and get the House to agree to it and thus make it law. Power has thus been transferred, and is still being transferred, from the legislature to the executive.