E. Varga

There is no “ultimate” Solution!

(26 April 1923)

From International Press Correspondence, Vol. 3 No. 34 [16], 26 April 1923, p. 289.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for the Marxists’ Internet Archive.

In the debates on the Reparations question, there continually arises the question of the “ultimate solution”. The bourgeois pacifists, together with the social patriots, frantically seek for a way out, which shall render any future clash between the bourgeois states impossible, – an effort which is entirely futile. There can be no permanent peace between the capitalist states. The “theoretician” of permanent peace is Hilferding, who, in a scientific “study” which appeared in a bourgeois publication, recently argued, that there are two ways of overcoming the antagonisms within capitalism: the old method of getting the better of one’s adversary and of free competition, and the new, involving a higher form of combination: Cartel, Trust. Similarly in the domain of international politics, national wars would be superceded by the peaceful removal of the antagonisms by international forms of organization, such as the League of Nations, nationalization etc., instead of differences being settled by recourse to war.

This theory lies – consciously or unconsciously – at the bottom of the whole Ruhr policy of the Social Democrats, upon which we wish to make the following observations:

It was neither the ill-will nor the ignorance of the French and the German bourgeoisies which called forth the world war: and it was not the stupidity of Poincaré which led to the present conflict in the Ruhr, but the innate laws of capitalist society. The French bourgeoisie, interested in heavy industry, on countless occasions sought to come to an agreement with the German bourgeoisie. The German bourgeoisie – in spite of all patriotic phrases, in spite of the passive resistance – is ready and willing to work along with the French. Of that there can be no doubt! The re-drawing of the political frontiers has in no way done away with the connection between French ore and German coal. And yet it has come to the Ruhr crisis! And precisely because the antagonisms are of an objective nature and. are not dependent upon the goodwill or the insight of the politicians!

The reparations questions cannot be finally solved, because

Germany, as a capitalist state, is not in a position to withdraw from the value of her annual production the huge sum necessary to unburden the French bourgeoisie of all material consequences of the world war!
Even if the German capitalists were in a position to extract this sum from the intensified exploitation of the German proletariat, the payments could not be made in any form acceptable to France as a capitalist state. Germany is without money. Will she build houses as reparations? then the French building industry resists; shall she deliver machines? the French machine industry protests, etc. In the past year, France was able to demand from Germany material deliveries to the value of over 700 million gold marks: she has received only a fraction; Serbia has claimed and received considerably more than her share, precisely because she is an agrarian country, which can make good use of the German industrial products.

There is no way out of the reparations question! There is no ultimate solution for it. Today less than ever do the antagonisms of the highly developed capitalist countries allow of reconciliation. After the French bourgeoisie has squandered huge sums on the advance into the Ruhr, after the German Reichsbank – also in accordance with the recipe of Hilferding and the social patriots – has, for the purpose of national resistance, sacrificed the last gold reserves to the great capitalists, the Franco-German bourgeoisie will attempt to effect an adjustment of their interests, – at the expense of the proletariat of both countries of course. But the adjustment can bring no final solution. Germany cannot pay the sum promised: France, as a capitalist state, cannot accept such deliveries of reparations without plunging her capitalist economy into the greatest difficulties. Capitalist economy is not constructed for the acceptance of gifts.

And behind the Franco-German conflict stands the far more momentous Anglo-French conflict. The “Allies” are most rigorously getting ready for one another. Neither the French nor the English bourgeoisie wish to know anything of the “Harmony Theory” of the Social Patriots: Combination upon a higher basis. This theory is good for a stricken bourgeoisie like the German, which wishes in this way to cloak its actual reduction to the level of a colonial bourgeoisie. But as long as a bourgeoisie has the power to do so, it will constantly endeavour to arbitrate the antagonisms with arms.

Therefore: Away with the “Harmony” theory! The class conscious proletariat must know that temporary agreements at its expense are indeed possible and, momentarily, even probable; but that the armed decision of the conflicts cannot be eliminated from the capitalist system. The danger of war is always present in Capitalism; in it there are no ultimate peaceful solutions!

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Last updated on 17 October 2021