* * *¶
Core Argument¶
This chapter dissects the Anglo-American loan agreement of 1945–46, arguing that it represents not a temporary expedient but the formal subordination of British imperialism to American capital. The core narrative is one of strategic defeat: British capitalism, having exhausted its reserves and liquidated its overseas investments during the war, is forced to accept terms that strip it of its last defensive weapons in the coming trade war. The author’s key claim is that the loan is a deliberate instrument of American imperial policy, not an act of allied solidarity. The provisions tying sterling to the dollar and binding Britain to the Bretton Woods system are presented as mechanisms to curtail British export competitiveness by preventing currency devaluation. The evidence marshalled is substantial and drawn from bourgeois sources themselves: The Economist is quoted at length to show that Britain must increase manufactured exports by over 100 per cent and capture one-fifth of world trade in that category—a task the magazine itself calls “clearly impossible.” The chapter draws on the historical context of inter-imperialist rivalry, comparing American wartime Lend-Lease to Britain’s earlier practice of financing other powers to fight in her interest. The war’s real outcome, the author insists, is not the defeat of fascism but the elimination of Germany as a rival and the reduction of Britain to a satellite. The polemic is directed at multiple targets: the Labour government, which accepts the loan and thereby incurs the odium of implementing capitalist policy; the Tories, who ostentatiously abstain or vote against while offering no alternative; and the Stalinists, who are lumped with the union leaders in demanding speed-up and intensified exploitation. The chapter reserves particular venom for the notion that the loan will enable recovery, arguing instead that the subsidiary conditions—forcing Britain to make dollars available to the sterling bloc and banning discriminatory trade practices—open the Empire markets to American penetration. The conclusion is blunt: the agreement will break down, a slump worse than 1929–34 is inevitable, and the only way out is a Leninist policy of expropriation without compensation, workers’ control, and a state monopoly of foreign trade. The chapter ends with a direct appeal to Labour and Communist workers to prepare for the coming battles and support the Revolutionary Communist Party as the sole source of truthful warning.