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From Labor Action, Vol. 14 No. 14, 3 April 1950, pp. 4–5.
Transcribed & marked up by Einde O’Callaghan for ETOL.
(Continued from last week)
A statute for thte Ruhr industries was first contemplated after the meeting of the Council of Foreign Ministers at London in the winter of 1947 had broken down, and plans for the establishment of a West German government were made by the Anglo-Americans. That is, control over these industries had to be retained in the latter’s interest; but if their foreign policy was to have a reasonably strong social base on which to operate, the industries could not permanently be withheld from the Germans.
Furthermore, pressures exerted by the French, who wanted the Ruhr separated from Germany proper, and the Russians, who wanted a share in its control, had to be counteracted. There also were reports that American steel interests, in order to avoid expansion of their own productive facilities, were eager to stabilize and raise German steel production, thus also forestalling the expansion of French facilities, which would obviously not be as easily controllable as those of Germany, if controllable at all.
Under Military Government Law No. 75, promulgated in November, 1948, so-called trusteeship associations for coal and steel were set up. They were to reorganize into smaller units (“deconcentrate”) and run the individual enterprises. These associations consisted of Germans only; its members were to be and are representatives of management, labor and the “public.”
As is well known, the representatives of management were practically all deeply implicated with with Nazi politics and the Nazi war machine; moreover, they are the dominant elements in the associations. (We eannot go into details regarding the managerial representatives but refer to Commentary of April, 1949, the New Republic of March 21, 1949, and the numerous dispatches in the press.)
The trusteeship associations are holding the Ruhr industries “in trust” until “final disposition” has been made of them. Under the law, this final disposition of the properties was to be left to a popular referendum.
The International Control Authority was created in December, 1948; its chief purpose was to be the control and allocation of steel and coal production (but not its ownership or administration). The Germans were allowed merely an observer who had no vote.
As it is, the authority has never yet functioned as such. Actual control over production has been (since 1945) and still is in the hands of the Combined Steel and the Combined Coal Control Groups (composed of British and Americans). The work of these control groups is to cease with the curtailment of the activities of the occupation forces, whereas the authority is supposed to continue to function indefinitely. The authority being a public body, is or will necessarily be subject to various pressures (such as are the proposals of the AFL and CIO).
But the arrangements made, by the Allied High Commission: in respect to the ownership, etc., of the industries will be decisive for the effectiveness with which the work of the authority will be carried out. This, in turn, means that no matter how much the authority is improved arid reformed, it will always be limited by the social and juridical structure under which the actual operation of the industries proceeds.
“Decartelization”. and “deconcentration” have been the fictions under which American policy in the Ruhr has been applied. "The only real effect of the decartelization program so far has been to furnish an excuse for putting off or preventing socialization,” reads a statement of the American Jewish Committee.
The essentially anti-democratic policy which the fiction of “decartelization” covers up has repeatedly been revealed by such instances as the invalidation of socialization measures, enacted on the basis of the expressed will of large popular majorities, by the military government. Such measures were enacted in the states of Hesse and North Rhein-Westphalia. The military governor justified his intervention by stating that only after a central government had been instituted should such issues be referred to the populace.
A similar treatment was accorded the legislative introduction of the principle of co-determination, under which the workers in a plant have a voice and a vote in the economic policies of the plant.
Now that a central government exists, the premise on whiqn the military government’s intervention was justified will most likely be forgotten. The impending "final disposition” of the Ruhr properties, according to recent press dispatches will supersede all the major provisions of Law No. 75 including the one that the German people should have a voice in it.
It is true that under tne so-called Petersburg (West Bonn) Agreement of last November the Germans will be permitted a full-fledged member on the authority; but after all that has been said above, it is obvious that this member cannot represent the interests of the German people.
It should be clear then that the steps advocated by the AFL and CIO in opposition to present U.S. policy are, under the circumstances, mainly formal in character. Possibly, if they were adopted, they would allow a somewhat greater leeway for the play of social forces. But the growing power of the German bourgeoisie would scarcely be affected thereby.
When it is proposed, for example, that. Law No. 75 be retained, a fetish is being made out of the fact that the trusteeship associations do not own by “hold in trust” the Ruhr industries. In reality, these associations have served and are serving the German magnates and their managers as a vehicle to ride back into their old positions.
Coupled with this proposal is the demand that the industries not be returned to private ownership. But who the owners are to be is not stated although it is implied that the trusteeship associations should be made permanent. Such compromises, between “free enterprise” and government control (with labor participating), however, usually work out in favor of private enterprise and are certain to do so especially in occupied Germany.
By contrast, the program of the German Social-Democrats on the Ruhr industries is far superior. They too call for the integration of these industries with those of Northwestern Europe but with Germany as an equal partner. The industries would be nationalized (the principle of codetermination exercised by the plant workers being, presumably, an integral feature of nationalization, as it was in the above-mentioned aborted socialization measures of individual states). The distribution of their products would come under the control of an international body.
In order to enforce such a program, it would be inescapably necessary that the German workers be called into the arena of political struggle; and this struggle would logically and necessarily be directed against both the German bourgeoisie and the Anglo-Americans. Quite possibly, American trade-union officials have advanced their compromise for the very purpose of avoiding such a step. But they are mistaken if they believe that democracy in Germany can be had by making compromise proposals or by merely putting pressure on influential personages in the State Department.
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