For a Socialist United States of Europe

[p050] FOR A SOCIALIST UNITED STATES OF EUROPE © Attempts by the capitalist class to ‘unify’ Europe are not new. The, German ruling class gied twice, the first time under the Kaiser and_ the second time under fascism. _ Between the wars a section of the French bourgeoisie also made a series of djplomatic manoeuvres in 1929 under the direction of Premier Briand. This almost-forgotten epi- sode was analysed by Trotsky - in an important article of which we print extracts below (the original Russian text appeared in ‘Bulletin of the Russian Opposition’ No 6, October 1929; an English translation was published in ‘The Militant’, paper of the Socialist Workers’ ’ Party of America in the same year. Later it was published in ‘The Fourth International’, May 1945), Trotsky brilliantky foresees the development of European ‘unity’. under the threat of US domination. At one stage he talks of a disruption of the world economic equilibrium in America’s favour *which will _ become the main source of _, crisis—there is no better des- _ cription of Nixon’s decision to take the gold backing from the dollar on August 15, 1971. Trotsky, like Lenin, also makes it crystal clear that 46 European unity as attempted by the capitalist class is com- pletely reactionary. Socialists gan have nothing whatsoever to do with such plans. On the contrary they must struggle for a Socialist United States of Europe as the only means of saving mankind from col- lapse, crisis and war. Only the working class is capable of uniting Europe on this basis. Hence the slogan for a Socialist United States of Europe becomes central to the revolutionary task. Briand senses the need of improving the historical lot of 350 million Europeans who are the bearers of highest civiliza- tion but who find it impossible to live through a single century without a dozen wars and revolutions. For the sake of pacifying our planet, MacDonald has crossed the Atlantic. On the agenda are the United States of Europe, disarmament, freedom of trade, peace. Capitalist diplomacy everywhere is cooking up a pacifist stew. Peoples. of Europe, peoples of the world get out big spoons to swallow it with, Why all this bother? After all, aren’t the socialists in power in the most important countries in Europe, or else preparing to assume power? Yes, that is just why! It is already apparent that Briand’s plan and MacDonald’s plan pursue the ‘pacification’ of mankind from diametrically- opposite directions. Briand wants to unify Europe as a defensive measure against America, MacDonald wants to earn the gratitude of America by helping her oppress Europe. Two trains are rushing to meet one another in order to save the passengers from — train- wreck. How to arrange matters so that the unification of Europe is not directed against America, i.e. without changing the relationship of forces to America’s disadvantage? The ‘Daily Herald’, Mac- Donald’s_semi-official organ, September 10, 1929, charac- terized the idea of the United States of Europe as ‘grotesque’ and even as a_ provocation. Should, however, this fantasy be realized, then the United States of Europe would erect a monstrous tariff wall against the USA, so argued Mac- Donald’s_ semi-official organ, and as a result Great Britain would be caught between two continents as in a vice. And the ‘Daily Herald’ then went. on to add: How could Fourth international Spring 1973

[p051] one expect aid from America by steering a course toward the unification of Europe? ‘To act in this way would be in- sanity or worse.’ One could not speak more plainly. No one knows just what the United States of Europe is supposed to signify in practice. Streseman reduced the whole question to a common mone- tary unit and—postage stamps. That's a bit thin. Briand pro- poses to ‘study’ the problem whose content nobody knows. The basic task of unification must be economic in character, not only in the commercial but also productive sense. It is necessary to have a regime that would eliminate’ the artificial barriers between European coal and European iron. It is necessary to enable the system of electrification to expand in consonance with natural and economic con- ditions, and not in accordance with the frontiers of Versailles. It is necessary to unite Europe’s railways into a single system, and so on and so forth ad infinitum. All this, in its turn, is inconceivable without the destruction of the ancient Chinese system of custom borders within Europe. This would, in its turn, mean a single, All-European customs union—against America, There can be no doubt what- ever. that if the internal tariff barriers were swept away, capitalist Europe, after a cer- tain period of crises of re- groupment and readjustment, would attain a high level on the basis of the new distribu- tion of productive forces. This iS just as incontestable 2s the fact that, given the necessary economic’ conditions, _large- scale enterprises are decisively superior to small ones. But we have yet to hear of small entrepreneurs voluntarily re- nouncing their businesses for this reason, To conquer the outlets the big capitalist must first ruin the small one. The situation with states is similar. Tariff barriers are erected precisely because they are profitable and indispensable to one national bourgeoisie to the detriment of another, regardless of the fact that they act to retard the development of economy as a whole. Since 1923 we have had to conduct a struggle to have the leadership of the Communist International deign, finally, to take notice of the United States, and to understand that the Anglo-American antagon- ism constitutes the fundamental line along which world group- ings and world conflicts occur. This was considered a heresy as far back as the era of the Fifth World Congress (middle of 1924). US role We were accused of ‘over- estimating’ the role of America. A special legend was invented to the effect that we had pro- claimed an epoch of the dis- appearance of European capi- talist contradictions in the face of the American peril. Ossinsky, Larin and others spoiled not a little paper in order to ‘de- throne’ the might of America. Radek, in the wake of bour- geois journalists, demonstrated that ahead lies an epoch of Anglo-American collaboration, Temporary, conjunctural, epi- sodic forms assumed by the reciprocal relations have been confused with the essence of the world process. Gradually, however, America came to be ‘recognized’ by the official leadership of the Comin- tern which began to repeat our formulas of yesterday, without forgetting, naturally, to add each time that the Left Oppo- sition overestimates the role of America. The present stage has once again assumed the form of military-naval ‘collaboration’ between America and England, and some French newspapers have even expressed fears of an Anglo-Saxon world dictator- ship. The United States of course can and probably will utilize the ‘collaboration’ with England to tighten the reins on Japan and France. But all this will represent phases not toward Anglo-Saxon but American domination of the world, including Great Britain. In connection with this pers- pective, the leaders of the Comintern may once again repeat that we are unable to see anything ahead except the triumph of American capital- ism. In much the same way, the petty-bourgeois theoreti- cians of ‘Narodnikism’ (Rus- sian Populism) used to accuse the pioneer Russian Marxists of failing to see anything ahead except the victory of capitalism. These two accusations are on a par. When we say that America Trotsky on Socialist United States of Europe is moving toward world domination, it does not at all mean that this domination will be completely realized, nor, all the less so, that after it is realized to one degree or an- other, it will endure _ for centuries or even decades. We are discussing a historical tendency which, in actuality, will be criss-crossed and modi- fied by other historical ten- dencies. If the capitalist world were able to endure several more decades without revolu- tionary paroxysms, then these decades would unquestionably witness the — uninterrupted growth of American world dictatorship. But the whole point is that this process will inevitably develop its own contradictions which will be- come coupled with all the - other contradictions of the Capitalist system. America will force Europe to strive for an ever-increasing rationalization and at the same time will leave Europe an_ ever-decreasing share cf the world market. This will entail a steady aggravation of the difficulties in Europe. The competition among European states for a share of the world market will inevitably become aggravated. At the same time under the pressure of America, the European states will ende@our to co-ordinate their forces. This is the main source of Briand’s pregramme of the United States of Europe. But whatever the various stages of the development may be, one thing is clear: The constant disruption of the world equilibrium in America’s favour will become the main source of crises and revolu- tionary convulsions in Europe * throughout the entire coming period. Those who hold that Euro- pean stabilization is assured for decades understand nothing at all of the world situation and will inevitably sink head first in the swamp of reformism. If this process is approached from across the Atlantic Ocean, fl.e. from the standpoint of the fate of USA, then here too the perspectives opened up _ re- semble least of all a blissful capitalist idyll. The pre-war power of the United States grew on the basis of its internal market, i.e. the dynamic equilibrium between industry and agricul- ture.-In this development the war has produced a_ sharp a7

[p052] break. The United States ex- ports capital and manufactured goods in ever great volume. The growth of America’s world power means that the entire system of American industry . and banking — that towering capitalist. skyscraper—is rest- ing to an_ ever-increasing measure on the foundations of world economy. Incapable But this foundation is mined, and the United States itself continues to add more mines to it day by day. By exporting commodities and capital, by building up its navy, by elbow- ing England aside, by buying up the key enterprises in Europe, by forcing its way into China, etc., American finance capital is digging with its own hands powder and dynamite cellars beneath its own foun- dation. Where will the fuse be lit? Whether it will be in Asia, Europe or Latin America—or what is most likely in various places at one and the same time — that is a second-rate question. The whole misfortune is that the incumbent leadership of the Comintern is totally in- capable of following all the stages of this gigantic process. It shies away from facts by means of platitudes. Even the pacifist agitation in favour of the United States of Europe has taken it by surprise. The question of the United States of Europe regarded from the proletarian standpoint was raised by me in September 1914, i.e. at the very beginning of the (last) imperialist war. In the pamphlet, ‘The War and the International’, the author of these lines sought to demon- strate that the unification of Europe was _§irrefutably advanced to the forefront by Europe’s entire economic de- velopment, but that the United States of Europe was con- ceivable only as the political form of the dictatorship of the European proletariat. In 1923 when the occupation of the Ruhr once again posed acutely the fundamental prob- lems of European economy (primarily coal and iron ore) and coincident with them also the problems of the revolution, we succeeded in- having the slogan of the United States of Europe officially adopted by the leadership of the Comin- tern. But the attitude toward this slogan remained hostile. Not being in a position to reject it, the Comintern leaders re- garded it as an abandoned child of ‘Trotskyism’. After the col- lapse of the 1923 German revolution, Europe lived the life of stabilization. The basic revolutionary questions dis- appeared from the agenda. The slogan of the United States of Europe was forgotten. It was not included in the programme of the Comintern. Stalin explained this new zig- zag with remarkable pro- fundity: Since we cannot tell the order in which the various countries will accomplish their revolutions, it follows that it is impossible to predict whether the United States of Europe will be necessary. In other words, this means that it is easier to make a prognosis after the event than before it. As a matter of fact, it is not at all a question of the order in which revolutions will be accomplished. On this score one can only speculate. But this does not relieve the European workers, nor the International as a whole from the necessity of giving a clear answer to the question: How can European economy be snatched from its present state of dispersion and how can the popular masses of Europe be saved from decay and enslave- ment? World scale The trouble, however, is that the economic ground for the slogan of the United States of Europe overthrows one of the basic ideas of the present Comintern programme, namely: the idea of building socialism in one country. The essence of our epoch lies in this, that the productive forces have definitely out- grown the framework of the national state and have assumed primarily in America and Europe’ partly _—continental, partly world proportions. The imperialist war grew out of the contradiction between the productive forces and national boundaries, And the Versailles peace which terminated the war has aggravated this con- tradiction still further. In other words: thanks to the develop- ment of the productive forces capitalism has long ago been unable to exist in a_ single country. Meanwhile, socialism can and will base itself on far more developed productive forces, otherwise socialism would rep- resent not progress but re- gression with respect to capi- talism. In 1914 I wrote: ‘If the problem of socialism were compatible with the framework of a national state, it would thereby become compatible with national defence.’ The formula Soviet United States of Europe is precisely the political expression of the idea that socialism is impossible in one country. Socialism cannot of course attain its full de- velopment even in the limits of a single continent. The Socialist United States of Europe represents the historical slogan which is a stage on the road to the world socialist federation. But the communist parties have their hands tied. The living slogan, with a profound historical content, has been expunged from the programme of the Comintern solely in the interests of the struggle against the Opposition. All the more decisively must the Opposition raise this slogan. In the person of the Oppo- sition the vanguard of the European proletariat tells its present rulers: In order to unify Europe it is first of all necessary to wrest power out of your hands. We will do it. We will unite Europe. We will unite it against the hostile capitalist world. We will turn it into a mighty drillground of militant socialism. We will make it the cornerstone of the . World Socialist Federation. October 4, 1929 Fourth International Spring 1973

[p053] Statement by the International Committee of the $th International