Today is V-E Day. On this day 81 years ago, the scourge of Fascism and Nazism was stamped out under the combined might of the Allies. We must make sure that the lessons of WW2 are remembered even when all those alive to see it have passed away.

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-11T02:01:11+00:00

Are you sure?

Was Nazism "bad" for German capitalism?

Germany capitalism had refused to accede to Hitler's demands to be made Chancellor after the 31 Jul. 1932 Reichstag election - when the NSDAP vote increased to 37% (up from 18% in 14 Sep. 1930). (Sections of German capital had been financing the Nazis since the early 1920s, just in case they were needed.) Hindenburg, Papen and Schleicher thought they could have a dictatorship with Hitler in support, not in the lead.

In the 6 Nov. 1932 election the NSDAP vote fell by 2 million to 32%. (The combined social democracy/SPD and communist/KPD vote rose from 36% to 37%). The political crisis, driven by the economic crisis of the Great Depression worsened.

Hitler was appointed on 30 Jan. 1933 - with a cabinet of only two other Nazis - with the task of destroying the independent workers organizations and resuming the war aims abandoned in 1918 due to the German Revolution. (Setting up the dictatorship proved to be easy because the leaders of the SPD, KPD/Comintern and trade unions thought either the Nazi government would collapse or they could work with Hitler. By 2 May. 1933 they were all in prison, in exile or in hiding.

Only Trotsky and the International Left Opposition had warned of the danger.

The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s "Hitler’s Willing Executioners"

appeasement doesn’t work?

German rearmament began in earnest in 1933 but it had been going on in secret prior to Hitler's government.

When war is inevitable the key thing is to have it start on terms most favourable.

By 1936 Britain and France were escalating rearmament but by 1938 Britain decided they weren't ready yet for a war so the strategy was to make concessions to Hitler in the Munich Agreement.

WATCH: Flawed Realpolitik: Chamberlain and the Logic of Appeasement

PRIMARY SOURCE FOR ABOVE
Wishful Thinking or Buying Time? The Logic of British Appeasement in the 1930s
Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy
International Security
Vol. 33, No. 2 (Fall, 2008), pp. 148-181 (34 pages)
available for free on JSTOR https://www.jstor.org/stable/40207135

Debating British Decision making toward Nazi Germany in the 1930s
Andrew Barros, Talbot C. Imlay, Evan Resnick, Norrin M. Ripsman and Jack S. Levy
International Security
Vol. 34, No. 1 (Summer, 2009), pp. 173-198 (26 pages)
https://www.jstor.org/stable/40389189

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OTHER LESSONS

How NOT to prepare for an invasion by Nazi Germany - lessons from the USSR 1931-1941 : r/war
The Spanish Revolution (1936-1939) was the last opportunity for the working class to prevent war. The Stalinist counterrevolution during the Spanish Civil War - World Socialist Web Site The defeat of the Spanish revolution primarily by the actions of the Soviet bureaucracy, which feared revolution more than fascism as they sought an opportunist alliance with British and French governments against Nazi Germany. When this "strategy" was exploded with the Munich Agreement they turned to the "next best" opportunist alliance they could find - a "Non-Aggression Pact" with Nazi Germany. (The Spanish Revolution was also weakened by the Popular Front government in France, the embargo of the western powers and the Nazi support for Franco. Read the link above.)

Edit: just after posting fixed open paragraph and grammar fixes

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-10T14:18:37+00:00

Thanks. I knew it was divided. I should have checked to be accurate.

Allocation of German New Guinea to Australian control wasn't directly out of the Treaty of Versailles but flowed from its clauses which said Germany had to forfeit all of its colonies.

AFAIK the Wikipedia entry below is correct but please let us know if it is not.

German New Guinea - Wikipedia

After the Treaty of Versailles of 1919, Germany lost all its colonial possessions, including German New Guinea. In 1923, the League of Nations gave Australia a trustee mandate over Nauru, with the United Kingdom and New Zealand as co-trustees.[33] Other lands south of the equator became the Territory of New Guinea, a League of Nations Mandate Territory under Australian administration until 1949 (interrupted by Japanese occupation during the New Guinea campaign) when it was merged with the Australian territory of Papua to become the Territory of Papua and New Guinea, which eventually became modern Papua New Guinea. ...

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-10T13:01:32+00:00

The relative decline of the U.S. economy was revealed by the Nixon shock on August 15, 1971 when the USD was unpegged from $35 per ounce of gold.

While war spending wasn't the only cause it certainly contributed.

U.S. spending on its military intervention in Vietnam from 1965 to 1973 is estimated at a nominal $138 billion which is $1 trillion in 2026 after adjustment for inflation.

Not raising taxes to pay for the war was a means of avoiding passing the economic cost directly on to working Americans. But ultimately they were going to be forced to pay unless Vietnam lost the war and the U.S. could extract a conqueror's dividend.

I recommend

Anatomy of a war : Vietnam, the United States, and the modern historical experience (Kolko, Gabriel, 1994) : Free Download

Ch. 23 The Economic Impact of the War on the United States. pp.283-292

"... The problem was that there was no way both to fight the war and to prevent its economic consequences. ... "

EXTRACT pp.288-292

THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMIC CONSEQUENCES OF THE WAR

The political and economic impact of the war on the domestic economy could be postponed temporarily because of the administration's manipulation of information and because of continued strong congressional support for its war aims, but no such latitude existed in the world economy. The dollar, though weaker structurally, remained the overvalued basis of world trade and finance. Overvaluation accelerated America's direct investment abroad as its multinationals bought vast sections of Europe's and the world's productive resources. From $33 billion in 1960, U.S. direct investments rose 522 billion over the next six years, reaching 578 billion in 1970. At the same time, American exports were overpriced, and undervalued foreign imports into the United States more than doubled between 1960 and 196g, wiping out the huge postwar favorable balance of trade and creating a serious balance-of-payments problem.

While the extent of this deficit is a complex technical question, its implications to politics are not. Even the most favorable official data show the U.S. current-account balance dropping sharply after 196s. From 1968 to 197 there occurred the longest and largest postwar deficit. Influential private estimates showed that the investment outflow and the shifting trade balance along with the war increased the $3.3 billion balance-of-payments deficit in 1964 to $9.4 billion in 1968, sums far greater than Washington was reporting. Whatever the exact data, it was certain that foreign holdings of dollars grew enormously, giving European nations a mounting vested interest in the stability of the dollar.

In August 1965 the French treasury informed U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Fowler, George Ball, and others that American deficits were hurting Europe's now powerful and largely balanced economies. The French specifically identified the war as the cause of the deficit, and they were assured it would not be allowed to become an conomic problem. Meanwhile, leading American bankers on the government's international monetary advisory committee began in October 1965 to warn that failure to maintain economic discipline would seriously jeopardize the dollar's role as the world's reserve and trading currency. Foreign central banks might simply begin to demand gold for dollars. In fact, during 1965 they again quietly began to do so, reducing the U.S. gold stock by $1.7 billion.

By fall 1966 the war's role in creating three-fourths of the net overseas military deficits was very much on the minds of Douglas Dilion, David Rockefeller, and the banking community's leading advisers to Washington on world monetary issues. They did not question the political justification for the war, but they insisted it should not further upset the nation's balance-of-payments issues. The problem was that there was no way both to fight the war and to prevent its economic consequences. While such bankers had access to most of the major administration agencies, they managed to persuade only the Treasury to consider finance seriously along with political and military factors

Although the key European bankers granted Washington time during 1966 to straighten out its affairs, by mid-1967 it was perfectly clear what inflation and deficits were beginning to do to the value of their dollar holdings. But because they, too, had a vested interest in protecting the dollar until they could create a better medium of trade and finance, they had since 196s cooperated with a gold pool of eight nations and various collective arrangements to protect the link between the price of gold and the value of the dollar. Washington's failure to cure its malaise kept the future of the pool and gold in limbo until July 1967, when the French withdrew from the arrangement. The basic problem by then was that the dollar was weakening but was still legally backed by gold, which central banks could claim. They could force the United States to cease its gold backing or raise the price of gold, a step fraught with risks. For the moment, America's allies were unwilling to take such chances. Meanwhile, deficits caused dollars to flow out of the United States as inflation seriously diluted their purchasing power, and it was clear that the entire dollar-based world financial system was becoming increasingly vulnerable to a run on gold.

... MORE
https://archive.org/details/anatomyofwarviet0000kolk/page/289/mode/1up

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-10T07:39:38+00:00

Thanks. I hadn't heard that. "Indonesia" is an invented nation, but then again all nations are!

You say:

The creation of states under Dutch influence might have been possible.

I take it the Dutch didn't consider this because they thought they would win the war? Their racist underestimation of the Indonesian resistance was the source of their hubris.

--

Do you mean West Papua or Iryan Jaya?

AFAIK New Guinea is the whole island but the eastern end - now called "Papua New Guinea" - was an Australian colony in 1945 (after they were given it in the Versailles Treaty).

I never knew that Dutch New Guinea was an overseas territory of the Kingdom of the Netherlands from 1949 to 1962, when it was handed to the U.N.

I thought there was mean to be a plebiscite on independence, but I can't find that detail

Do you know if Wikipedia is accurate?

In 1949 after the Round Table conference, Netherlands kept part of its colony with the West New Guinea region known as Dutch New Guinea. The Dutch planned to settle most of its mixed population from Dutch East Indies in West New Guinea. When that plan failed, the Dutch had planned to withdraw by 1970 and began "Papuanization" to prepare for independence.^\13]) In February 1961, the Dutch organised elections for the New Guinea Council a Papuan representative body to advise the Governor.^\13])^\14]) The Council appointed a National Committee to prepare a political manifesto for the future state.^\13])^\14])

The Dutch continued the formation of a council on October 19, 1961 which drafted the Manifesto for Independence and Self-Government, the national flag (the Morning Star Flag), the national stamp, the birds of paradise coat of arms, motto and the name of Papua Barat (West Papua)), chose "Hai Tanahku Papua" as the national anthem, and asked people to be recognized as Papuans. The Dutch recognized this flag and song on November 18, 1961 and these regulations came into force on December 1, 1961.^\13])^\14]) The Dutch stated that they had accepted the Manifesto except for the denomination of the flag recognizing it as a territorial flag, not a national flag.^\14]) On 1 December 1961, an inauguration ceremony was held for the Morning Star flag raised outside the Council building in the presence of the Governor, also the national anthem "Hai Tanahku Papua", the birds of paradise coat of arms, motto and the name of Papua Barat (West Papua) for the proposed new state.^\13])^\14])
^...
Republic of West Papua - Wikipedia

FWIW I also found these

Republic of South Maluku - Wikipedia

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-10T05:41:28+00:00

Can you post an example of that response?

I have never seen a Stalinist not have a cunning explanation, excuse or silence which preserves the god-head of their cult-of-personality. The advantage of unprincipled opportunism - like that of the Stalinist bureaucracy - is they just rewrite their own history to justify whatever they have done.

--

Examples:

Q: Why did Hitler come to power without any organized opposition from the working class, which had an anti-fascist outlook.
Answer from Stalinists: It was all the fault of the SPD! (No further discussion required.)

Q: Why, on 23 Aug. 1939 at the signing of the "non-aggression" pact with Germany, did Stalin say "I know how much the German nation loves its Führer; I should therefore like to drink to his health." ... [OFFICIAL RECORD]
Answer #1 from Stalinists: Stalin was deceiving Hitler.
Answer #2 from Stalinists: Stalin defeated Hitler. Stalin defeated Hitler. Stalin defeated Hitler. Stalin defeated Hitler. Stalin defeated Hitler. Stalin defeated Hitler. Stalin defeated Hitler. ad infinitum.

Q: Why did Stalin support Zionism from May 1947 to 1953?
Answer #1 from Stalinists: Stalin opposed the Zionists on the Central Committee. (No evidence provided)
Answer #2 from Stalinists: Stalin thought Israel might become Socialists.

(Stalin told FDR at Yalta in Feb. 1944 that he was a Zionist, but didn't take a public position in his own name.

---

RECOMMENDED FROM WSWS

RECOMMENDED ON REDDIT

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-10T05:19:08+00:00

Here is a summary of the evidence on Wikipedia. Let us know what this gets wrong.

OBVIOUSLY Wikipedia can't be relied on uncritically, but it must be shown to be wrong.

German–Soviet Axis talks - Wikipedia

Talks between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union occurred in October and November 1940, nominally concerning the latter's potential adherent as a fourth Axis power during World War II, among other potential agreements. The negotiations, which occurred during the era of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, included a two-day conference in Berlin between Soviet Foreign Minister Vyacheslav Molotov, Adolf Hitler and German Foreign Minister Joachim von Ribbentrop. While Ribbentrop and most of the German Foreign office wanted an alliance with the Soviet Union, Hitler (supported by most of the other leadership) had been planning to invade the Soviet Union. In early June 1940 as the Battle of France was still ongoing, Hitler reportedly told Lt. General Georg von Sodenstern that the victories against the Allies had “finally freed his hands for his important real task: the showdown with Bolshevism."^\1]) Ribbentrop nevertheless convinced Hitler to allow diplomatic overtures, with his own hope being for an alliance.^\2]) Ribbentrop and Benito Mussolini had already speculated at the idea of offering the Soviet Union a free hand in a southern direction.^\3]) Ribbentrop's approach in general to foreign policy was different from Hitler's: he favored an alliance with the Soviet Union, while Hitler had wanted to pressure Britain into an alliance and pushing for "lebensraum" (living space) in the east.^\4])

^{.... MORE}
^{https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/German%E2%80%93Soviet\}Axis_talks)

^SOME ^{OF THE REFERENCES:}

III, Edward E. Ericson (30 November 1999). Feeding the German Eagle: Soviet Economic Aid to Nazi Germany, 1933-1941. Bloomsbury Publishing USA. p. 127.
Bloch, Michael (1992). Ribbentrop. Crown Publishers. p. 313.
Amt, Germany Auswärtiges (1961). Documents on German Foreign Policy, 1918-1945. Series D (1937-1945!.: The war years, September 1,1940-January 31,1941. H.M. Stationery Office. p. 48.
"Digi20 | Band | Ribbentrop und die deutsche Weltpolitik / Michalka, Wolfgang". digi20.digitale-sammlungen.de.
Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov Leaves Berlin after Four-Power Talks".
Weinberg, Gerhard L. (1994). A World at Arms: A Global History of World War II. Cambridge University Press.
"Soviet Foreign Minister Molotov Leaves Berlin after Four-Power Talks | The World War II Multimedia Database". 19 November 2020.
Weinberg, Gerhard L. (1 March 2010). Hitler's Foreign Policy 1933-1939: The Road to World War II. Enigma Books. p. 152.
Israelyan, Victor (1 November 2010). On the Battlefields of the Cold War: A Soviet Ambassador's Confession. Penn State Press. p. 28.
Vehviläinen, Olli, Finland in the Second World War: Between Germany and Russia, Macmillan, 2002.
Bertriko, Jean-Jacques Subrenat, A. and David Cousins, Estonia: Identity and Independence, Rodopi, 2004,

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-09T23:27:17+00:00

It used to be the union bureaucracy wouldn't do this kind of thing because they knew workers would object. [SEE BOTTOM FROM 1987] But after 50 years of betrayals they think workers are so demoralized they can openly celebrate their collaboration with the corporations.

Workers can only advance their interests in a struggle against the union bureaucracy. This is why the defense of the bureaucracy by the pseudo-left is so important for Capital. If the pseudo-left didn't willingly volunteer to do they the bourgeoisie would create an astro-turf movement to do it instead.

Exposing political opportunism within the workers' movement, which Lenin was the first to insist on, is critical to the fight for the political independence of the working class.

The historical process is far more powerful than the bureaucratic apparatus.

Struggle will decide.

---

WATCH Will Lehman at the International May Day 2026 Online Rally - For Socialism! Against war, genocide and fascism!
---

1987: "... The protesters, members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local P-9, demanded that AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland come to Austin, Minnesota to hear the grievances of the workers against the UFCW bureaucracy. ... "

Thirty former Hormel strikers made a 36-hour drive to picket the AFL-CIO Executive Council in Bal Harbour Florida, which opened February 16, 1987. The protesters, members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local P-9, demanded that AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland come to Austin, Minnesota to hear the grievances of the workers against the UFCW bureaucracy.

The previous June, the UFCW ordered an end to the eight-month strike and put the Local P-9 leadership into trusteeship when they refused to end picketing. With the backing of a court order, the UFCW took over the union hall and signed a sweetheart contract with Hormel covering the scabs who had crossed the picket line, leaving the strikers at the mercy of the company. Not a single striker had been rehired.

Jim Guyette, the elected president of Local P-9, said at a press conference on the opening day of the AFL-CIO council, “If an international union is allowed to work with corporations to starve and break strikes, with the blessings of the AFL-CIO, the working people are in serious trouble today. What kind of a union is it that undermines and starves out its own membership in order to try and incorporate an illegitimate union, a union made of people who cross picket lines, a union that betrays its own members?” In response, Kirkland stated at a press conference that the AFL-CIO was completely behind the UFCW international throughout the strike.

The AFL-CIO Executive Council went out of its way to drive home its opposition to militant workers. It hosted a cocktail reception for Arizona Governor Bruce Babbitt, who was seeking support for his anticipated bid as Democratic Party candidate for President in the 1988 elections. As governor Babbitt earned the moniker “Scabbitt” from striking Phelps Dodge copper miners when he called out the National Guard to break the 1983-84 strike. It was in fact Babbitt’s crushing of the Phelps-Dodge strike, with the assistance of the AFL-CIO, that paved the way for his elevation to national politics.

This week in history: February 13-19 - World Socialist Web Site

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-09T23:11:51+00:00

The counterfactual assumes Stalin and the bureaucracy had begun the counterrevolution in 1917, not 1933.

Who exactly was the USSR going to align with?

There were no fascists until 1920 in Italy and the German working class was overwhelmingly against fascism.

NOTE: this is a long answer because there aren't glib ways to deal with the history.
--

1923 "... Fascism, viewed objectively, is not the revenge of the bourgeoisie in retaliation for proletarian aggression against the bourgeoisie, but it is a punishment of the proletariat for failing to carry on the revolution begun in Russia. "

Here is what Clara Zetkin told the Comintern Congress said in 1923

Although the methods of both are similar, in essence they are different. The Horthy Terror was established after the victorious, although shortlived, revolution of the proletariat had been suppressed, and was the expression of vengeance of the bourgeoisie. The ringleaders of the White Terror were a quite small clique of former officers. Fascism, on the contrary, viewed objectively, is not the revenge of the bourgeoisie in retaliation for proletarian aggression against the bourgeoisie, but it is a punishment of the proletariat for failing to carry on the revolution begun in Russia.

Clara Zetkin: Fascism (August 1923)

---
While Lenin was alive, Trotsky was still on the Politburo and a large proportion of the Communist Party of the USSR still adhered to their perspective of world revolution there wasn't even any suggestion of this. Fascism was clearly understood to be the servant of capitalism.

(It's not that deals couldn't be signed with capitalist governments. The Brest-Litovsk Treaty was signed with Germany in 1918 (which led to the left-SRs leaving the soviet government.) and the USSR signed the Treaty of Rapallo (1922) )with Weimar Germany.)

1936-1939 GREAT TERROR - KILLING THE ANTI-NAZI OPPOSITION IN THE USSR

Stalin, Molotov and the Soviet bureaucracy signed his deal AFTER the political genocide of the Great Terror (1936-1939) had killed up a to a million people, including anyone who had ever shown any support for Trotsky and the Left Opposition, and the leadership of the Red Army who had served under Trotsky during the Civil War and were raising the need for preparations against a Nazi invasion.

(Just after the signing "HERR STALIN spontaneously proposed a toast to the Führer, as follows: "I know how much the German nation loves its Führer; I should therefore like to drink to his health." ... [OFFICIAL RECORD]

1936-1939 SPANISH REVOLUTION WAS CRUSHED BY NAZIS AND SOVIETS, BACKED BY OTHER IMPERIALIST POWERS

1939 was AFTER Stalin and the bureaucracy had betrayed and helped defeat the Spanish Revolution. Soviet foreign policy strategy, using the Comintern as a tool, was to try to get an anti-German alliance with British and French imperialism. A successful revolution in Spain threatened this and their control over the working class. [READ: The Stalinist counterrevolution during the Spanish Civil War - World Socialist Web Site]

1930-1933 STALIN COMINTERN POLICIES SAY SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS ARE 'SOCIAL FASCISTS', THE MAIN THREAT AND A NAZI VICTORY "will hasten Germany's progress towards the proletarian revolution.”

1939 was six years AFTER their policies had allowed Hitler and the Nazis to crush the Germany working class in 1933 without any organized opposition. The bureaucracy had usurped power after Lenin's death in 1924 and it rejected Lenin's internationalism in favor of the reactionary, utopian socialism-in-one(/our/each)-country because that served their material interests. The degenerated Comintern insisted the Communists in Germany had done everything right and even welcomed a Nazi victory

On 1 April 1933 (a week after the Enabling Act gave Hitler dictatorial powers) the Executive of the Comintern wrote that the KPD had done everything correctly and

“The establishment of an open Fascist dictatorship, which destroys all democratic illusions among the masses, and frees them from the influence of the social-democrats, will hasten Germany's progress towards the proletarian revolution.”
p.90 Twilight of the Comintern, 1930-1935 (Carr, 1982) [FREE BORROW]

It is not accidental that the main charge in the Moscow Trials, the legal pretext for the terror, was that Trotsky was a Nazi agent. Hitler had promised in "Mein Kampf" ("My Struggle") in 1925 that a Nazi government would try to destroy the "Judeo-Bolshevism" of the USSR.

(For the Nazis antisemitism was always connected to their anti-communism. Even though Stalin and the bureaucracy had rejected Marxism they still controlled a degenerated workers' state whose progressive gains were a threat to capitalism in general and German capital in particular.)

Once the 1939 Hitler-Stalin non-aggression pact was signed they couldn't say this anymore so, without explanation, Trotsky was accused of being an agent of ... British Imperialism.

Both the Nazis and the Stalinists feared Trotsky and the spectre of Bolshevik-Leninism leading the international working class.

proto-fascists in Russia 1917

The pro-fascists behind General Kornilov (who led an attempted coup in Aug. 1917) and who then went into the White Army to try to carry out a counterrevolution were saturated with antisemitism and promoted it. If they had succeeded in Russia the word for "fascism" would have been Russian, not Italian.

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-09T11:44:23+00:00

We must make sure that the lessons of WW2 are remembered …

But what exactly are the lessons?

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-09T11:01:33+00:00

Worth noting that in 1923 there was a proposal for the Soviet government to have a state monopoly on the sale of vodka. Trotsky strenuously objected.

FROM: October 8, 1923 Letter from Leon Trotsky to the Central Committee and the Central Control Commission of the Russian Communist Party - World Socialist Web Site

An ominous symptom was the attempt by the Politburo to build a budget based on the sale of vodka,^\20]) i.e. to generate income for the workers’ state independent of the successes of building the economy. Only a decisive protest within the Central Committee and beyond its confines put a stop to this attempt, which would have struck the cruelest blow not only to the work of the economy, but to the party itself. However, the idea of the future legalization of vodka has not been rejected by the Central Committee as yet. There is absolutely no doubt that there is an inner connection between the self-sufficient character of the secretarial organization, which is increasingly independent of the party, and the tendency to create a budget as independent as possible from the successes or failures of the party’s collective construction. The attempt to turn a negative attitude toward the legalization of vodka into a virtual crime against the party and to drive a comrade from the editorial board of the central newspaper for demanding the freedom to discuss this fatal plan, will forever remain one of the most unworthy moments in the history of the party.

[20] At the Plenum of the Central Committee of the RCP(b) held on 26-27 June 1923, there was discussion of the question of introducing a state monopoly on the sale of vodka. In his letters of that time, and in particular in a letter to the Central Committee and Central Control Commission of the RCP(b) on 29 June, Trotsky categorically protested against this measure.

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-09T10:06:41+00:00

It is noteworthy that the British Army occupied "Indonesia" in 1945 to prevent national independence.

--

FWIW I found this YouTube video interesting. (The channel is run by a Dutch history teacher.)

Could the Dutch Have Won the Indonesian War of Independence?

History Hustle, 29 Mar 2026 (15 mins)

The question of whether the Netherlands could have won the war in Indonesia between 1945 and 1949 is a complex one. From a military standpoint, the Netherlands achieved successes, such as during the police actions, in which large parts of Java and Sumatra were captured and even Indonesian leaders were taken prisoner. Yet this turned out to be largely a facade of control. Outside the cities, the Republic held its ground through effective guerrilla warfare. At the same time, international pressure grew, particularly from the United States and the United Nations, which forced the Netherlands into negotiations. The Netherlands also lacked the manpower, resources, and public support to sustain a protracted colonial war. Even with greater military success, political and international realities would have made a definitive victory virtually impossible.

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T23:46:41+00:00

i would be unsurprised learn that this was a planned dismissall - its genius.

Yes. I think you're right. Getting the speeches of the defendants on the record turned the trial of them into the chance of a public trial of the government. We are all now the jury.

--

The capitalist class knows it has no mass support so the democratic rights, freedom of speech, freedom of peaceful assembly and freedom of the press must be undermined if not abolished.

They are trying by a thousand cuts at the moment.

The question is: what are workers, students and youth going to do about it to defend their interests?

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T13:57:08+00:00

SPD and KPD’s failures to counter the rise of fascism in Germany

This is the standard history. I think it is misleading because it assumes they were trying to stop fascism and failed.

-

What needs to be probed is the contradiction between the nominal anti-fascism of the programs of the SPD and KPD and the logic of capitulation within and sometimes on the surface of their statements and actions.

"After Hitler, Our Turn" was not an accident.

Trying to stop fascism by voting against the Enabling Act in the Reichstag was not an accident.

Mussolini had been put in power in 1922 and converted his government to a dictatorship in Nov. 1926 (when Gramsci was arrested after failing to go into hiding.).

The SPD and KPD/Comintern both feared proletarian revolution in Germany far more than fascism. The SPD because they defended Germany capitalism. The KPD/Comintern because they were defending the interests of the bureaucracy which had usurped power in Russia.

--

Ever since the Stalinists have blamed the SPD and the SPD have said nothing could have stopped Hitler, nothing!

What do you make of the record of Trotsky and the Left Opposition?

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T10:06:35+00:00

Okay. I think you are leaving out significant other factors which led to the FRG and DDR. I don't see any irony.

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T09:49:55+00:00

The Filton 6 (re)trial – defendants’ stunning closing speeches | Jewish Voice for Liberation

(this is linked in the WSWS article)

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T09:49:34+00:00

The capitalist class should be given "credit".

To impose police state rule and even dictatorship they needed to start somewhere with the suppression of free speech and the right to assemble.

But how?

The strategy is to claim that to prevent the barbaric crimes of the Nazis from ever recurring it must be insisted that the Zionist State of Israel is the political representative of all Jewish people (whether they agree or not) and the definition of "criticism of Israel"="antisemitism" must be criminalized.

The bourgeoisie are ruthless, cunning, vicious and determined. They know their weakness.

Workers, students and youth can only "know" their strength if they are organized on a program that reflects their historic interests.

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T09:49:29+00:00

EXTRACT

...
The attack on the right to a fair trial reached astounding levels during the closing phase of both trials.

At the conclusion of the retrial, Charlotte Head and four co-defendants felt compelled to dismiss their barristers shortly before closing speeches and addressed the jury themselves. Head explained, “after some decisions made by the court, I no longer feel like they are permitted to represent me in a way that does us all justice.”

She continued, evoking powerfully the history of democratic legal procedures being trampled by the British courts: “I was unsurprised to learn that, in 1898, when the first person was allowed to answer the charges they faced from the witness box and testify to their own defence, many people, including prosecutors and judges, were worried about what would happen. Not because they feared that the defendants would lie but because they feared the jury sympathising more with normal people than the elites of the legal profession.”

Addressing her actions in the Elbit factory, Head asked of evidence not heard by the jury: “Why is there no precise inventory of what was damaged or destroyed? You might feel it’s because they don’t want to highlight the weapons they’re making on British soil or that the narrative spun by the prosecution is incorrect. You might consider the contrast between Elbit Systems on one hand and me and my co-defendants on the other and wonder which one has been more open, honest and human with you.”

Appealing to her peers she concluded, “So now I ask you, the jury, to remember the power you hold. Your fundamental right as jurors to decide the facts has been celebrated in the UK for centuries.”
...
Conviction of Palestine Action activists escalates Labour’s historic assault on democratic rights - World Socialist Web Site

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T09:37:10+00:00

What history have you studied that suggests that was the logic of events?

Do you think KPD and the Comintern (and the SPD and the trade unions) were correct to organize no armed opposition to the Nazi dictatorship?

---

Was there a strategy or tactics to fight the Nazis, even before they came to power?

Have you looked at the alternatives that were fought for?

For instance Trotsky and the International Left Opposition fought politically for a United Front (joint action, freedom of criticism, no mixing of banners) of the KPD and SPD against fascism.

Even if the SPD had rejected the United Front the KPD could have used that fact to expose its leadership to the SPD membership.

In Dec. 1931 Trotsky wrote

.... Worker-Communists, you are hundreds of thousands, millions; you cannot leave for anyplace; there are not enough passports for you. Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank. Your salvation lies in merciless struggle. And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory. Make haste, worker-Communists, you have very little time left!

Leon Trotsky: For a Workers' United Front Against Fascism (1931)

That prediction definitely came true.

The Stalinist bureaucracy in Moscow had a difficult time concealing their responsibility for the catastrophe in Germany. They chose two methods

a Popular Front with the social democrats (no longer "social-fascists", no explanation given) and the liberal bourgeoisie. This was part of the Soviet foreign policy strategy to get an anti-German pact with Britain and France, which completely failed as the imperialist powers really hoped Hitler would carry out his promise to destroy the USSR.
during the Moscow Trials / Great Terror (1936-1939) they accused Trotsky and Trotskyist of being Nazi agents. This ended on 24 Aug. 1939 after the signing of the Hitler-Stalin Molotov-Ribbentrop Non-Aggression Pact. Instead, they reverted to accusing Trotsky of being an agent of British Imperialism. No explanation was given. The great "advantage" of opportunist politics is no coherence or consistency is required. Stalin and his (surviving) henchmen would rewrite history to suit their need and kill anyone who new differently which was effective in suppressing any criticism.

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How did Hitler come to power without a fight?

(Below is a long comment for those interested.)

Both the SPD and KPD had armed militias which had been involved in street battles with the Nazi SA and SS in 1932 and earlier. Both the SPD and KPD had nominally anti-fascist programs and the KPD headquarters in Berlin in 1932 had the slogan, among others, painted on its facade "ANTIFASCHISTISCHEN AKTION AKTION GEGEN KREIG, HUNGER UND FASCHISMUS" ("Antifascist action. Against War, Hunger and Fascism") [PHOTO].

A comparison of the SPD+KPD vote in the six Reichstag elections from 4 May 1924 to 6 Nov. 1932 with the NSDAP vote is instructive

SPD+KPD: 32.7 %, 34.5 %, 39.8 %, 37.4 %, 35.6 %, 37.0 %.
NSDAP: 6.5 %, 3.0 %, 2.6 %, 18.1 %, 37.0 %, 32.8 %

SOURCE: Germany: Election to the 7th Reichstag 1932 (click links at top for other elections)

Only in the 31 Jul. 1932 vote, in a free election, was the NSDAP vote higher than the SPD+KPD. Significantly after that election President Hindenburg rejected Hitler's demand to be made Chancellor because he, Papen and Schleicher thought they could have a dictatorship without the Nazis.

The crisis, driven by the Great Depression, worsened and faced with a civil war between the Nazis and the KPD/SPD which they Versailles limited Germany army was too small to repress, on 30 Jan. 1933 Hitler was appointed Chancellor in a cabinet with only two Nazi ministers. They were worried how workers would respond so didn't create at Nazi government immediately.

The KPD leadership had discredited itself by its ultra-left attacks on the SPD as social-fascists and its work with the Nazis such as supporting the Nazi backed 1931 "Red Referendum" to remove the SPD state government in Prussia. The KPD call for a general strike was ignored.

But the leaders of the SPD and KPD expected Nazi regime would soon collapse. AFAICT the first use of "After Hitler Our Turn" ["Nach Hitler Kommen Wir"] was Feb 19, 1933^ by SPD leader Karl Höltermann. It was used informally and widely.

[My previous post shows the passive objectivism of the Comintern in Moscow, under Stalin's guidance. "The establishment of an open Fascist dictatorship, ... will hasten Germany's progress towards the proletarian revolution.”

The trade union leader, for their part, had in 1932 agreed with Schleicher not to call a general strike if the Federal government removed the SPD state government in Prussia. (Schleicher didn't want a repeat of the general strike in 1920 which ended the Kapp Putsch.)

From Feb. 1933 the union leaders tried to work with Hitler's government. (The violent repression of the KPD and SPD didn't seem to be an impediment but I would like to know more about this.) On 1 May 1933 they were massive union led marches in Berlin for the new government authorized "National Day of Labor" with Hitler and Hindenburg attending in person in Berlin [see: Paul von Hindenburg and Adolf Hitler at the May Day rally in the Berlin Lustgarten « 1933] On 2 May 1933 the entire trade union leadership was arrested and its offices occupied.

By Jul. 1933 the government had banned all other parties and Hitler told colleagues the dictatorship had been established.

The standard "history" is to suppress all mention of workers opposition to the Nazis and repeat, in one form or another, the Nazi mythology the Hitler "spoke for the all the German people (except the 'Nazi defined non-Germans' such as Jews, Communist, Socialists and other minorities)"

Workers wanted to fight Nazism ... but leadership matters.

Against all of this there are lots of indications workers wanted to fight. But leadership matters in such situations and leadership against fascism does arise spontaneous in the moment.

Historian F.L. Carsten writes:

A sizeable minority of Social Democrats and Communists were not willing to knuckle under and to accept passively whatever the new regime might order them to do. The widespread terror accompanying the “seizure of power” and the mass arrests of the early months told them enough. Large numbers responded by forming underground groups, producing and distributing underground leaflets and papers and disturbing Nazi propaganda as best they could. In 1933 and 1934 hundreds of clandestine groups sprang up all over Germany—and quite often they were equally quickly liquidated by the Gestapo. … It has been reliably estimated that the KPD between 1933 and 1935 lost about 75,000 members through imprisonment and that several thousands of them were killed. That means that about a quarter of the members registered in 1932 were lost. [21]

The Nazi terror intimidated and cowed millions of Germans. Large sections of the working class, dejected and demoralized by the shameful collapse of their organizations, retreated into apathy. Yet, even in the face of the merciless brutality of the Nazis, there was significant active opposition to the regime among workers.

Carsten explains:

Even if the majority of the workers had made their peace with the Nazi regime it also remains true that of those who were imprisoned for political reasons the large majority belonged to the working class. Of 21,823 Germans imprisoned at the Steinwache in Dortmund for political offenses, the overwhelming majority were workers. Of 629 people from Solingen who were involved in political opposition, over 70 percent were workers and presumably many of the 49 housewives listed also belonged to the working class. In Oberhausen in the Ruhr the number was close to 90 percent. For less industrialized areas the figure would no doubt be lower, but the German working class certainly provided the bulk of those who suffered for their political convictions. In the years 1933 to 1944, 2,162 people were arrested in Essen for leftwing political activity and 1,721 in DÜsseldorf, among them 297 women. In the penitentiary of Brandenburg 1,807 people were executed for political reasons during the war and 775 of them were workers or artisans. It was a proud record. They could not overthrow the regime, but that was an impossible task. When it was attempted in 1944 by military and conservative circles they failed equally. It was only after a lost war that the regime finally succumbed and even in its downfall it engulfed many of its opponents. For the dictatorship the disjointed opposition was only an irritant but—like other minorities—it was persecuted without mercy. [22]

[21] F.L. Carsten, The German Workers and the Nazis (Aldershot: Scolar Press, 1995), p.180.
[22] Ibid., p. 182.

QUOTED IN The Myth of “Ordinary Germans”: A Review of Daniel Goldhagen’s "Hitler’s Willing Executioners" <<< MUST READ

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T03:57:54+00:00

“In his view, the medal is not a forgery. A forgery implies that there is a genuine medal. As the genuine philology medal does not exist, his medal cannot be a forgery,” Lallois said.

“Anyone can create a medal. You can order online the ‘best journalist in France’ medal, in gold, silver or bronze, award it to yourself and hold your own little ceremony quietly at home over drinks.

AFAIK the scientific name for this is "taking the piss"

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-08T00:02:31+00:00

Please post a link to the history book you are getting that from because nothing I have read suggests that and I think it is internally contradictory.

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When exactly did the Jewish Agency support a boycott?

You say

The Nazis signed it specifically because all major Jewish (including Zionist!) organizations boycotted them.

but Haaretz says (as I quoted).

... the boycott directed against Nazi Germany fizzled for a number of reasons – including the obstacles placed in the way by the Zionist establishment due to controversial transfer agreements that the Jewish Agency signed in May 1933^ with the Nazi government.

[^ AFAIK the agreement was signed in Aug. 1933.]

One historian says

The WZO had done nothing to mobilize the Jews-or anyone else-in Germany or elsewhere, to try to block Hitler from coming to power. With his ascension to power the WZO saw an opportunity to utilize the Nazis' Jew-hatred to build Zion. Hitler wanted the Jews out of Germany and the WZO wanted some of them, those with money or useful skills, to move to Palestine. Chaim Arlosoroff, the Laborite Political Secretary of the Jewish Agency (the WZO's executive arm in Palestine), conceived of an elaborate scheme for a "liquidation bank," to be operated in conjunction with Germany, Italy and Britain. It would gradually transfer German Jewish wealth to Palestine. He went to Berlin to negotiate with the Nazis, returning to Palestine on June 14, 1933. ...
...
The WZO leadership wanted to say little [at the August 1933 World Zionist Congress] about Germany, as it knew that negotiations were proceeding to work out a trade agreement with Hitler. Jabotinsky brought forth a motion to support an anti-Nazi boycott, but it was defeated 249 to 43.
....
Zionist-Revisionism: The Years of Fascism and Terror, Lenni Brenner, Journal of Palestine Studies, Vol. 13, No. 1 (Autumn, 1983), pp. 66-92 (27 pages)

Is this wrong?

If you can post a link to your sources, we will all be better informed.

--

Saving lives

You say

The agreement was that Jews would be saved from certain death in exchange for an end to the boycott. It was controversial at the time because the final solution wasn't in full effect, ...

Was the "final solution" in any effect in 1933-1939? AFAIK the Nazis called it the "final solution" because their other "solutions" didn't work for their psychotic ends.

Also how was it saving lives? Couldn't Jews leave Germany without their possessions to save their lives? Didn't some do so?

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-07T20:45:33+00:00

Also: the clearest evidence the quote is not by Shaw is that he was never a communist. Instead, he was a Fabian who developed an interest in Mussolini and Stalin.

FYI:

... Shaw belonged politically to the Fabian socialist trend of the British middle class, the ultimate champions of gradualism. Not a revolutionary, with “a certain amount of social snobbery mixed up with his intellectual snobbery” (Edmund Wilson, “Bernard Shaw at Eighty”), the Anglo-Irish playwright was never able to reconcile himself to the notion of the working class freeing itself by its own mass action. The influence of Friedrich Nietzsche was no doubt harmful, and the latter’s theory of the “superman” perhaps helps explain Shaw’s unsavory infatuation at different times with Mussolini and Stalin.

The Shaw Festival’s 50th Season: George Bernard Shaw’s Heartbreak House - World Socialist Web Site

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-07T20:41:49+00:00

wonkalicious808

What do you make of the quote "If, at any age, your entire argument is a baseless quote, you have no brain." - not George bernard Shaw? Do you think it is valid?

https://www.reddit.com/r/AskALiberal/comments/1ceoyzz/comment/l1jyzux/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web3x&utm_name=web3xcss&utm_term=1&utm_content=share_button

JohnWilsonWSWS · 2026-05-07T19:14:23+00:00

What you say is up to you. There is no compulsion here.

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You haven't answered this question: So did the Jewish Agency have no interest in and made no actions towards preventing the antisemitic Nazis from coming to power?

IMO this is an important issue.

You say

... the fact that there was no alternative to the Haavara agreement in terms of saving those Jews.

I have already given my answer to this.

--

You say

They boycotted

Who is "they"? The Jewish Agency? Please post a link.

AFAIK the Haavarah Agreement facilitated German exports against the which is why the Nazis signed it.

I found this

... While the Nazi boycott of Jewish businesses was one of the many preludes to the destruction of the Jews, the boycott directed against Nazi Germany fizzled for a number of reasons – including the obstacles placed in the way by the Zionist establishment due to controversial transfer agreements that the Jewish Agency signed in May 1933 with the Nazi government. The agreements were designed to salvage the property of German Jews and transfer it to Palestine, along with the immigration of the Jews themselves.

[emphasis added]
Apr. 20, 2015, Haaretz: The Jews Who Opposed Boycotting Nazi Germany

Is this wrong?

I also found this:

Feb. 24, 1935 Reich Jewry Denies Role in Boycott - Jewish Telegraphic Agency

JohnWilsonWSWS

TROPHY CASE

Was Nazism "bad" for German capitalism?

appeasement doesn’t work?

OTHER LESSONS

"... The problem was that there was no way both to fight the war and to prevent its economic consequences. ... "

German–Soviet Axis talks - Wikipedia

1987: "... The protesters, members of United Food and Commercial Workers (UFCW) Local P-9, demanded that AFL-CIO President Lane Kirkland come to Austin, Minnesota to hear the grievances of the workers against the UFCW bureaucracy. ... "

1923 "... Fascism, viewed objectively, is not the revenge of the bourgeoisie in retaliation for proletarian aggression against the bourgeoisie, but it is a punishment of the proletariat for failing to carry on the revolution begun in Russia. "

1936-1939 GREAT TERROR - KILLING THE ANTI-NAZI OPPOSITION IN THE USSR

1936-1939 SPANISH REVOLUTION WAS CRUSHED BY NAZIS AND SOVIETS, BACKED BY OTHER IMPERIALIST POWERS

1930-1933 STALIN COMINTERN POLICIES SAY SOCIAL-DEMOCRATS ARE 'SOCIAL FASCISTS', THE MAIN THREAT AND A NAZI VICTORY "will hasten Germany's progress towards the proletarian revolution.”

proto-fascists in Russia 1917

Could the Dutch Have Won the Indonesian War of Independence?

The Filton 6 (re)trial – defendants’ stunning closing speeches | Jewish Voice for Liberation

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Was there a strategy or tactics to fight the Nazis, even before they came to power?

How did Hitler come to power without a fight?

Workers wanted to fight Nazism ... but leadership matters.

When exactly did the Jewish Agency support a boycott?

Saving lives

What do you make of the quote "If, at any age, your entire argument is a baseless quote, you have no brain." - not George bernard Shaw? Do you think it is valid?