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From Labor Action, Vol. 13 No. 47, 21 November 1949, p. 4.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
The Big Three conference last week of Acheson, Bevin and Schuman at Paris, which was concerned mainly with arriving at a unified policy toward the liquidation of the program of dismantling German industries; ended rather indecisively by leaving the actual negotiations to the high commissioners of the respective powers. These negotiations will involve the “concessions” to be wrung from the Adenauer regime in West Germany in exchange for the end of dismantling.
The allegedly common agreement of the Western powers on this issue cannot reconcile the differences among them which have been and will continue to be centered around the economic potential which Germany should retain, and therefore the role Germany is to play. The issue of dismantling has been, to be sure, of vital importance to the Germans; and it is because of this – that is, the tremendous political pressures which the continuous dismantling together with the acute unemployment situation in Western Germany set up – that it was bound to be stopped.
The French and British, however, will not tire of proposing and attempting to impose new methods by which to keep Germany in chains. They already have demanded that the Bonn government accede to the Ruhr statute which removes the industries located, in the districts adjoining that river permanently from German sovereignty and places restrictions on their production which are only remotely governed by the needs of the German people (or any other people for that matter). They demand various “security” guarantees which include a ceiling on steel production, etc.
The immediate cause leading up to the parley was the numerous instances of violation on the part of the American High Commissioner, McCloy, of Allied “unity” – that is, the latter made a number of statements favoring and promising the end of dismantling, and on several occasions was reported to have prevented shipment of already dismantled plants without consulting his French and British colleagues. This rather undiplomatic attitude must have emphasized to the Europeans that America would go to considerable lengths to press for the realization of its aims on the continent; and the unconditional endorsement which McCloy received from Acheson put the official seal on the former’s actions.
All this would he of relatively minor importance only if it were possible for the U.S. to impose its will by the mere exertion of its tremendous economic and political weight. However, the regimes of. Western Europe have long ago achieved a degree of internal stability and therefore a relative independence and freedom of action which allows them to assert their own interests as against those of the U.S. with some prospect of success.
They continue to be dependent upon America; but in a world in which the American “way of life” is threatened by a thousand known but incalculable forces, America cannot spurn or alienate its allies. From this fact arises the dilemma of U.S. foreign policy.
The aims of the United States in Western Europe are dictated essentially by military considerations. Against this it may be argued that, in the short run at least, the U.S. is interested in ensuring a widening area of export markets; that, for example, the pressure by the ECA (Marshall Plan) for the “integration” of the economies of the countries of Western Europe arises from a desire to create a large economic unit in which mass sales to a mass market can be realized.
For narrow and reactionary reasons of their own, the French and British are opposed to this plan. Why are the Americans determined to overcome this opposition? If they were able to go beyond economic-military considerations, why could they not have given in to the French proposals, expressed in an underhanded, non-official way, which would orient Germany’s trade toward Eastern Europe and Russia, thus hoping to eliminate an obnoxious competitor in the rest of the world?
The French people, including the French capitalists, are neither interested in another world war nor in the military designs of the Americans on their country as a base of operations. Any child knows that France will be swallowed up by the Russians in case of war unless a deal can be made with them. Hence the French would not be harmed, one way or the other, if Germany’s trade were to go east.
The Americans, however, cannot allow their potential enemies to be strengthened by any such trade. If they could they would engage in it themselves, and that this is not their intention is proved by the growing list of “strategic” materials and machinery which cannot be shipped to Russia or its satellites. (There are now even lists of technological data which the U.S. government asks U.S. producers not to disseminate in these countries.)
The Americans are desirous of a relatively strong Western bloc in which a revived Germany, given its powerful industrial base and skilled and plentiful manpower, would play a primary role. The more attempts they make to bring this desire to fruition, the deeper becomes the antagonism between them and the French and British. Nor is this antagonism compensated for them by very rosy perspectives in Germany.
The Adenauer regime, most probably on the prodding of the Americans, has been quite conciliatory on the dismantling issue. It has proposed that dismantling cease in exchange for the payment of reparations from current production and the delivery of new machinery similar to that which had been slated for dismantling. It also offered substantial shares of West German industries for sale, etc.
In thus accepting the principle of reparations as politically expedient, Adenauer advances a program which serves to strengthen German industry. McCloy too has been reported in favor of reparations from current production, which is an .obvious reversal of U.S. policy from what it has been since Potsdam. The method of exacting reparations has ostensibly been the chief issue dividing the U.S. and Russia in Germany. The latter has always favored reparations from current production, while the former opposed reparations until Germany would become economically “self-sustaining.” Both, however, subscribed to the “Level of Industries Plan,” devised at Paris in early 1946, which had as its consequence the dismantling of all “surplus” (i.e., “above level”) industries.
The Adenauer regime, which represents largely the big industrialists and their managerial personnel, is not as yet in a position to do “anything else than to accept America terms if it wants German industries revitalized. America in turn is compelled to grant more and more independence of action to the German industrialists and their government, if it wants them to become the keystone of an “integrated” Western Europe and as a price of their abstention from coming to terms with the Russians. The Germans are still utterly dependent upon the occupant’s of their country; but to take advantage of their rifts among the great powers that oppress them is their indisputable right and a compelling necessity.
To realize this idea politically involves a slow and enormously complex process. Yet the very existence of this possibility puts American policy in Germany in jeopardy. It has not been difficult for the Americans to prevent the spread of Stalinist’ influence in Western Germany; in this they had the help of Russian policy in the Eastern sector. It will in the future be their far more difficult task to prevent Germany from becoming “neutral,” with its industries either oriented toward the East or pressing for ever greater shares in the world markets under pain of lending its strength to the Russian economy.
The Russians have not, of course, confined themselves to a passive policy in Germany; but the relative stability of the Western German government and the perspectives, limited though they be, which have been created with it, have given the Americans important political advantages so far. The Russians have thus suffered a setback, and this may be surmised from their creating a “people’s democracy” in Eastern Germany, not only without holding elections but also without giving a single major government post to any but trusted Stalinists.
This may have been prompted by the opposition of the Poles and Czechs to a revived Germany; the point is that the Russians remain far weaker in. Germany than the Americans and they cannot dare as yet to overrule this opposition. Their renewed attempts to gain a base among militarists and former Nazis, etc., will suffer from the competition of the Americans in the West, acting through the Bonn government. Yet these are relatively transient factors and the Americans are rightly worried over the potentialities of Russian policy.
Thus the Paris conference and its attendant circumstances have again revealed the many obstacles facing U.S. foreign policy, the deepening dilemma in which It finds itself. By the same token it should also have revealed to all who think independently that to resist the demands of the American State Department means to gain the time necessary to create the independent political forces which can oppose both Russian and American dictates.
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