Allied Bombing Policy¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter, published in Socialist Appeal in 1944, argues that Allied bombing policy is not a military necessity of war but a calculated instrument of imperialist strategy, aimed at the permanent destruction of German and Japanese industry to clear the path for American economic domination and the enslavement of entire populations. The core narrative thrust is that the saturation bombing of civilian centres—exemplified by the devastation of the Ruhr cities (e.g., 88 per cent destruction of Bochum) and the firebombing of Tokyo (fifteen square miles burned, a million homeless)—exposes the hypocrisy of Allied moral outrage against German bombing of London and Coventry. The chapter insists that the real purpose is not victory over fascism but the elimination of industrial competitors.
Key claims include that the bombing is directed against revolutionary potential as much as against enemy production. The author cites the intensive bombardment of Milan and Turin after the overthrow of Italian fascism, arguing that the Allies deliberately targeted factories and working-class districts to terrorise and scatter the workers, preventing socialist revolution. This same logic, the chapter contends, applies to the calculated destruction of German and Japanese industrial cities. A further claim is that the bombing prepares the ground for a policy of “reparations in kind”—i.e., slave labour. The chapter quotes Sir Arthur Salter in the Evening Standard suggesting that German workers may be compelled to migrate under authority, and argues that having destroyed German industry, the Allies will round up the German masses for forced labour abroad.
The historical context is the closing phase of the Second World War, when Allied air power was at its zenith. The chapter draws on the Marxist theory of imperialism, framing the war as a rivalry between imperialist powers for world domination, not a crusade for democracy. The polemical target is the official Allied narrative of a war for freedom and civilisation. The chapter explicitly contrasts Allied bombing with that of German fascism, noting that Hitler also used bombing to pursue a thousand-year mastery of Europe, but argues that American imperialism, with Britain as junior partner, hopes to succeed where Hitler failed. The final note is a class-struggle perspective: the European masses have not yet been heard, and they alone will determine the continent’s destiny.