The German revolution and the future¶
Core Argument¶
The chapter argues that the imminent military defeat of Nazi Germany does not represent a victory for capitalism, but rather the confirmation of Trotsky’s 1940 prognosis: the epoch of bourgeois states is exhausted and must give way to a socialist federation of peoples. The author contends that Hitler’s downfall was not a refutation of this perspective but its vindication, because the contradictions of world capitalism forced the war onto a global scale, and because the decisive destruction of the Wehrmacht occurred on Soviet soil. In however distorted a form, this military outcome reflected the superiority of the coming socialist society over a decaying bourgeois order.
The central claim is that the Nazi occupation of Europe has destroyed the social foundations of capitalism on the continent. The chapter cites the Economist as a source of bourgeois alarm, noting that the middle class in France and other occupied countries has been decimated by Nazi labour conscription, war damage, bombing, and economic dislocation. In the countryside, a similar process has occurred on a smaller scale. This material ruin is compounded by a profound psychological shock: the collaboration of the native bourgeoisie with the invaders has shattered the habitual acceptance of bourgeois rule. The chapter insists that the peasantry and petty bourgeoisie, alongside the working class, will inevitably seek revolutionary solutions to the agony inflicted by the capitalist regime. The harsh school of war will teach the masses rapidly, and all political tendencies will be judged by their capacity to deliver material relief.
The historical context is the comparison with 1918. The chapter asserts that the present crisis of bourgeois rule is far more profound than that which followed the First World War. The collapse of fascism in Italy is presented as a mere shadow of the coming convulsions. The polemical target is implicit but clear: those who would interpret the Allied victory as a restoration of stable capitalism in Europe. The chapter argues instead that the Nazis have bequeathed to the victors a legacy of social storms unprecedented in European history, and that the only viable outcome is the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeois order.