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Switzerland and the World

By a Swiss Correspondent

THERE is a Swiss "malaise" which is often talked of in Switzerland. With its almost untouched resources, its high standard of life, its well-preserved institutions and traditions, Switzerland stands like a rock amidst impoverished and devastated countries, surrounded by closed frontiers beyond which commences the misery of Europe.

The visitor from abroad who expects to discover in Switzerland a paradise on earth is very surprised to find that the inhabitants of that country suffer from a deep-seated fear. It is the fear of isolation, an isolation which threatens to extend to all spheres of the life of the Swiss people.

Mr. Bevin has defined his vision of world peace as a state of affairs in which he can go to Victoria Station at any moment and without any trouble buy a ticket to any place in the world. This is not a revolutionary vision, nor indeed one that that is specifically socialist. A politician of the Manchester era would probably have talked in a similar vein. This is exactly the picture the average Swiss citizen has of an orderly and peaceful world and one which corresponds exactly to his needs.

Great Britain pursues an active policy to keep the lines of communication to the world open. Switzerland, without notable influence on world politics, seeks to fit into the world in such a way as to ensure that her citizens can always travel, work, buy and sell everywhere. This is the most simple and prosaic definition of permanent neutrality.

In a Europe continually torn by rivalries and wars, the Swiss attitude has for centuries been the counterpart to the British. Whilst balance of power was the British way of preserving her own strength while building up her Empire, neutrality was the Swiss method of making possible what has been called the "Swiss world economy". There has persisted a typically British attitude due to the fact that British people, wherever they went, knew they had the whole British Empire behind them. Similarly, there has developed a typically Swiss attitude. The Swiss people appeared everywhere as private individuals representing not national interests but purely their own, and Swiss neutrality signified the radical renunciation of national power and of aims obtainable by national power.

Switzerland had no foreign ambitions, no colonial interests, no active economic policy, no alliances, no enemies; and it was this that gave Swiss entrepreneurs, traders, technicians and workers the freedom to work everywhere without evoking that suspicion which is so often caused by foreigners who are successful. They did not claim the protection of the State, and the State took no responsibility for them. When, for instance, towards the end of last century almost all the European States intervened in China to "protect the interests of their citizens", the Swiss Federal Council declared that on principle Swiss people abroad were responsible for their own business and could not claim the protection of the Swiss Confederation. Thanks to this absence of political protection, but also to the independence of the Swiss citizen, his passport was for him the best reference in the world, a readily accepted proof of his personal freedom of movement, a freedom which in the days of mercenary armies included even the right to fight as an individual or in a closed formation in the service of foreign Powers.

We may or may not find all this very meritorious. At any rate the Swiss thought it very sensible and appreciated the high degree of personal liberty that went with it. It made it possible for the functions of the State to be reduced to a minimum of internal administration and control. Decentralisation was carried to great lengths in the whole structure of the State. Switzerland became an ideal stronghold of political, economic and spiritual Liberalism, a Liberalism which, as long as a century ago, served as an example to the British Free Trade Leagues. The Bowring[1] Report to the House of Commons on the Swiss Manufacturies (1936) says almost everything that can be said on the subject. A small country, to which the soil gave nothing but water, stones and a narrow strip of arable land between mountain ranges, a country without access to the sea and to the main lines of communication, and without power and protected markets, has won for itself a position in world economy unparalleled in view of the small number of its inhabitants. "Two million people", Bowring wrote, "have tried, under the most adverse conditions, to carry out freedom of trade as a political system". By now there are four million, and on Europe's poorest soil lives its richest people.

To understand the uniqueness of this case, we need only consider for a moment what it would have meant if in the development of any other industrial country coal, iron and access to the sea had not been present. The wealth of Switzerland is due to the work of its people and to their spirit of enterprise. Another factor must, however, be added to explain their success. The capital produced could only have been accumulated during centuries of peace (with one interruption, the Napoleonic wars) and a very wide scope was available for Swiss initiative and enterprise in the world.

Both these factors were encouraged by a certain national policy, or rather by the abstention from a national policy, for this is how the policy of neutrality might be defined. For Switzerland, it must be remembered, neutrality was always the condition of her very existence. It was not a means of standing aside, but of remaining in the middle of the world.

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Isolation Means Economic Decline

No other country is economically as closely linked to world economy as Switzerland. Her whole economy is based upon an international division of labour which allows her to specialise in certain highly skilled industries and trades. To quote a figure in illustration of this fact, one ton of goods exported by Switzerland has on the average nine times the value of one ton of goods imported into the country. The Swiss people live on the "difference", i.e., on the value in labour added to the foreign raw materials or semi-manufactured goods. Cheap mass production is impossible because all costs (materials, transport, labour) are dearer than elsewhere and there is no extensive home market. Thus whole industries have been transferred abroad with only the property rights, the central administration and certain specialised processes remaining inside the country. Already before the Second World War Switzerland had the largest assets in foreign capital per head of any country in Europe. International concerns of Swiss origin, like Nestle[2], Bally[3], Brown-Boveri, Ciba[4] and their directorates, laboratories and special workshops in Switzerland.

The social structure which has developed under these conditions often deceives the superficial observer who thinks that there are no problems because there are only a few large-scale industries and hardly any proletariat. This structure is in reality very vulnerable. It is threatened in its life nerves by the impoverishment of Europe, the disintegration of world economy and the present trends towards nationalisation. The Swiss' fear of isolation has a very real foundation. Isolation means decay.

Switzerland is no longer a country which only lives by its won efforts. A section of its population lives on foreign assets, i.e., by the work of foreign people, and this complicates the picture considerably. As an exporting country, Switzerland depends upon a high standard of living in the other countries, especially since she sells expensive quality products. As an "international capitalist" she is, however, interested in low wages in the countries of her investments and averse to socialist movements or trends towards economic emancipation in semi-colonial countries. For those threaten the security of foreign capital, particularly in sectors of special importance to Switzerland, such as electricity and insurance.

It is true that this distinction is only a rough one. The problem cannot be reduced to a simple contrast between capitalists and workers. The export industries can work for non-capitalist countries, and the Soviet Union, for example, is very popular as a customer with some industrialists, especially amongst those in the machine manufacturing industries. The efforts to improve relations with Russia come mainly from these circles. For reasons of foreign policy, the same circles also give financial support to the "Party of Labour", the Swiss pattern of the Communist Party. On the other hand, the standard of life of the Swiss workers in some branches of industry benefits by the interest and dividends from abroad.

A purely economic interpretation of political attitudes is no doubt always an over-simplification, and Switzerland is far from being ruled by a few finance magnates. But the fact that Swiss foreign policy is governed by economic and technical rather than political considerations is probably responsible for the Swiss public taking little interest in foreign policy, though it has always been keenly interested in world politics. After all, Swiss policy was a "neutral" one and could not be a factor in international power relations. Under these conditions certain capitalist groups directly concerned with international relations have been able to exercise a relatively big influence on Swiss diplomacy above the heads of the ordinary citizen.

Furthermore, Catholicism, strongly organised politically in Switzerland, has for the last few decades played a very important rôle. Catholicism in Switzerland prevails in the backward populous agrarian districts, from which, however, a steady stream of people flows into the towns; for historical reasons it is identified with political reaction. The Swiss Foreign Minister, Mr. Motta[5], who was in office during the whole of the interwar period, was a representative of this political Catholicism and directed Swiss foreign policy strictly on Vatican lines. His chief of department, Mr. Bonna[6], who was dismissed only last year, was a representative of a Geneva group of financiers who hold large foreign investments. This concurrence throws some light upon that attitude of Swiss diplomacy defined by Moscow as pro-Fascist and anti-Soviet: the official glorification of Mussolini as a kind of patron for Switzerland (in fact protection was a mutual affair); the early recognition of Franco; and in particular the refusal, stubbornly adhered to until 1939, to recognise the Soviet Union. In all three cases semi-colonial areas were involved in which Swiss entrepreneurs had invested big sums of capital. In the case of Russia they were lost through the revolution, in the case of Spain threatened by the Republican Government. Italy, too, is not only one of the three "Big Neighbours" with whom Switzerland must always maintain good relations, but also the oldest and most important home for Swiss investment, which has played a decisive part in the development of Italian industry.

During the Nazi Era

The relationship with the Third Reich is quite a different matter. In the period when "German living space" ideologies and "European big space" propaganda flourished, a memorandum of Swiss big traders coined the counter-slogan: "The living space of Switzerland is the world." This expresses most clearly the reason why, apart from any ideological considerations, Hitler's policy of autarchy and his new "European order" were unacceptable to Switzerland, and not least to Swiss employers and capitalists.

Already before the war Germany had been the most powerful economic partner of Switzerland, and a very inconsiderate partner at that. From 1940 to 1944 Switzerland was completely incorporated in the German "big space". A motor road through German-controlled Vichy France was for a long time her only connection with the rest of the world.

Whilst Swiss employers tried more or less willingly to make the best of this situation (some of them certainly made shamelessly high war profits out of trade with Germany, their only available customer), they could never regard it as anything but a prison in which they would in the long run be suffocated.

It is necessary to register the plain fact that Swiss resistance to German propaganda, infiltration and intimidation was at bottom largely conservative. Looking up the Swiss press of the worst years, 1940 to 1941, we find that at that time some socialist, communist and trade-union organs fell in rather uncritically with "anti-plutocratic" and other slogans of German propaganda, whilst prominent capitalist papers opposed the Nazis and their creed outright and drew the whole fury of the Nazis upon themselves.

The present Swiss Government must go because it embodies the heritage of a period of reactionary foreign

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policy, of a period now felt to have been a humiliating one. It cannot, however, be accused of defeatism; Switzerland would not have survived if this had been the case. During the most critical years, an order of the High Command to the Army and the population was posted up in the public squares asking them, in the case of a foreign invasion, to consider any announcement of a capitulation of Switzerland as forged or enforced, and in any case invalid. This was more than the usual promise not to capitulate, and there is hardly another case where a government has in advance so determinedly destroyed its own chance of later giving up the struggle. The claim that in the case of a German invasion, Switzerland, a country where every citizen keeps his own arms at home, would have become one of the most dangerous and militant resistance areas of Europe, may sound arrogant since the country was spared the test. But nobody who really knows this country will doubt it; the Nazis certainly did not.

The Swiss people had made up their minds about the Nazi problem long before the rest of the world took any notice of the German danger, in fact in the first three or four years of Hitler régime. The two-thirds of the Swiss people who are German-speaking were fully exposed to the first waves of Nazi propaganda which deluged all "German national groups" abroad. As a result, a number of so-called "revival" movements and "national fronts" sprang up in 1933, which worked side by side with many German residents for the aims of the Nazis. But they never assumed any real importance except as centres of conspiracy, and long before 1936, without prohibition or police action, they had been eliminated from public political life. Since then intellectual and human contact between Germany and Switzerland ceased almost completely. In this German-speaking part of Switzerland it was at times dangerous to speak German in public instead of Swiss dialect. This "national defence by spiritual means" was, however, bought at the price of a provincial cultural autarchy, an over-emphasis on the "Swiss way of life", which from a long-term view has its dangers.

The heart of resistance was undoubtedly in the German-speaking parts of Switzerland, whilst the western French-speaking parts were surprisingly open, either directly or via the medium of Vichy, to German propaganda. This position was the reverse of that during the First World War.

Because the history of the German-speaking Swiss people has been so very different from that of Germany, despite the common cultural heritage, their national characteristics are very different. This difference is particularly striking in regard to their attitude to the State. The Germans, under the influence of their industrial and feudal masters, did their utmost to increase the power of the State in order to gain a leading position in the world. The Swiss, also influenced by their capitalist class, under the pressure of circumstances and with admirable consistency, gained their position in the world by the renunciation of State power. What we call the Swiss State is in reality an enormously complex microcosm of autonomous parishes and of French, German, Italian, Protestant, Catholic, industrial and agrarian miniature States, all with their own cantonal constitutions and governments. Centralised measures can only be introduced very slowly and, at least in principle, only from below. This very complex, conservative State machine has successfully resisted any attempt at nazification and has proved to be a fortress of freedom. It goes without saying that it has also proved to be an obstacle to progress; but this the Swiss people had to take in their stride.

Thus Swiss resistance had little in common with the revolutionary resistance in most countries occupied by Germany. This explains, at least partly, the lamentable failure of Switzerland in dealing with the refugee problem. Certainly a great deal was done, but not as much as could have been done. And the clumsy way in which many sides of the problem were tackled betrayed a considerable lack of genuine human interest. Many factors have played a part in bringing about this failure. There was the bourgeois hatred of the "Reds", which was responsible for the shabby treatment meted out to the Russian as well as the Tito-Yugoslav internees (one of the darkest chapters in the Swiss wartime record). There was the narrow-minded, restrictionist policy in regard to the labour market, pursued by all interested groups from the workers trade unions to the journalists' and artisans' associations. Refugees were forbidden to accept any employment (apart from forced labour) and thus Switzerland, which to-day complains about isolation, was robbed of all the advantages that might have accrued from the presence of about 100,000 refugees of all nationalities. There was finally a lack of solidarity amongst the majority of Swiss people who failed to protest against the chicaneries of police organs. Herein lies, in my view, the main reason for the actual moral isolation of Switzerland - and for her bad conscience.

Summing up: Switzerland is to-day a bourgeois country amidst proletarianised nations. Her wealth is still intact, and at present she enjoys even a period of boom - the artificial boom of a "sale" - but she feels the pre-conditions of her existence vanishing. The part in European reconstruction which she had hoped to play and for which she had prepared has so far been denied her.

Ties with Europe

For Switzerland neutrality remains a condition of her existence, and even of her inner freedom. She will only abandon it in favour of a genuine international order based on law to which the sovereignty of all national States is subjected. The balance in international power relations on which her neutrality rested was, however, seriously shaken during the war and threatened to become completely upset. In the present constellation of Powers neutrality without a correct relationship with the Soviet Union is an impossibility. The establishment of normal relations with Russia and thereby with the whole of Eastern Europe is of deep concern to the Swiss. Hence the satisfaction with which the announcement on March 19th was received that the two countries had decided to renew diplomatic relations and terminate a 22 years' breach. The alternative would have placed Switzerland in the danger of being absorbed in a "western zone" in which she would become little more than an American suburb. The Swiss bourgeoisie may still be tempted to follow this course anyhow should the American Government practise the principles of free trade which it preaches.

The unresolved problems which face Switzerland owing to the prevailing tensions between the "Big Three", her neighbourhood to States whose international status has not yet been defined, such as Germany, Italy and Austria, and especially her proximity to the "German problem", dominate and frustrate the whole of Swiss home policy. Now that the truce of the war period has come to an end, the various parties have entered into lively exchanges of arguments; but they exhaust themselves largely in attacks upon the respective attitudes taken during the war, or they follow blindly certain foreign policies. Even the (Communist) "Party

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Party Struggles in Poland

By a Polish Correspondent

POLAND is undergoing a real struggle for political power. The Lublin Government was created early in 1945. It was not only a hundred per cent. pro-Soviet; it was, with few exceptions, a communist body. The exceptions were dissident socialists, unknown till then to the majority of Polish socialists themselves.

We know already what has happened behind the scenes with that government. The Polish Communist Party has always had only a very small following among the Polish workers, and practically no influence among the Polish peasantry, who formed two-thirds of the pre-war population of Poland. In 1937 the Comintern dissolved the Polish Communist Party, thus weakening the communist influence still more. Only after June 22nd, 1941, was the Communist Party rebuilt, under the name Polska Partja Robotnicza (P.P.R. - Polish Workers' Party). The attitude of Soviet Russia to Poland in September, 1939, her behaviour in the eastern part of pre-war Poland between 1939 and 1941, and the Ribbentrop-Molotov[7] Pact, were not the best ways of strengthening sympathy for a Soviet party among Poles.

When the Lublin administration was created under direct Russian influence and pressure, its influence was very small indeed. Its condemnation of the Warsaw uprising and the hostile attitude which it displayed towards the bulk of the underground movement under the German occupation made it even more difficult to find a common language with the overwhelming majority of the Polish nation, her socialist workers, democratic peasantry and patriotic intelligentzia, who could not accept a break with their country's heroic past.

The communists then tried to build up special groups of their followers, calling them by political names belonging to other parties. Thus they built the so-called Peasant Party (S.L.), a Democratic Party (S.D.), and a Christian Labour Party (P.P.).

With great difficulty this artificial structure of the Lublin régime was maintained. The Lublin administration could hold on as long as the war was on, when the Russian Army and the Soviet political police were able to work openly, protecting its moves against the still fighting German Wehrmacht. Subsequently it started to build its régime, its apparatus, on the basis of some political and social reforms, urgently needed in Poland.

The Social Heritage

Between the two world wars, in the relatively short period in which Poland was an independent State (1918-1939), there were three big problems which were the centre of all political struggles. They were: the overdue agricultural reform; the building of a sound industry; and the liquidation of the feudal past in the spiritual climate of the country.

The structure of agricultural Poland after 1918 was unsound and unjust. It was very different from the reformed agrarian society of the Baltic States; it remained close to the position in Hungary. About seven millions of her population, or 31 per cent. of her country population, belonged to the peasant proletariat. Holders of dwarf and small farms (from two to five hectares) made up 65 per cent. of all farms. They covered 14.9 per cent. of the total agricultural area. At the same time 19.000 large estates, each of over a hundred hectares, covered 73 per cent. of the total agricultural area. In other words, 73 per cent. of the agricultural area was owned by 0.6 per cent. of all farm holders.[8]

The structure of industry was based on cheap exports rather than on the home market which, because of the poverty of the masses, was very small. This weak Polish industry tried to solve its problems by organising itself in powerful trusts and cartels, very often subsidised from the half-empty government treasury. As a result, Polish workers got low wages, and the consumer, being also the taxpayer, had to pay twice for the inefficiency of the industrial magnates.

The development of the social classes in Poland was interrupted at the end of the 18th century, when the country was divided amongst her three neighbours: Prussia, Russia and Austria. The fight for national freedom, which thereafter occupied the thoughts of all patriotic Poles, gave the sons of the Szlachta, the feudal class, leadership of the country's political and spiritual life. The peasantry were able only slowly to acquire a national conscience. The occupying Powers did everything possible to delay this process, holding the peasants in a state of illiteracy (Czarist Russia period) or trying to assimilate them into their schools (Bismarck period in Germany). The bourgeoisie were young, politically inexperienced and partly of foreign origin (Germans). Altogether this gave the old feudal class a spiritual predominance in the national life of the country. The 20th century, with its acute social conflicts, put this group on the extreme Right of Poland's political life. They were intolerant, narrow-minded and reactionary. Their youth, in the higher schools and universities, were wildly anti-semitic and often fascist-minded.

This class provided in the independence period (1918-1939) the leaders and followers for the Pilsudski[9] dictatorship and the Nationalist Party (O.N.R.).

There were two progressive forces in Poland's political life. One was the socialist movement represented by the Polish Socialist Party (P.P.S.) and the Jewish Socialist Party (Bund), with a history of heroic struggle starting in the eighties of last century. The other was the peasant movement, often divided, but strongly united in the time of the Pilsudski dictatorship.

Unenviable Position for Socialists

The Lublin administration took up the struggle against the Right-wing parties - something of which was vitally necessary if the country's life was to be cured of its old weaknesses. But to do it successfully the support of all progressive forces in Poland was needed. The fact that the communists were a small minority group and were backed by the Red Army and the Soviet Secret Policy (N.K.W.D.) made it impossible for them to win the support of the population for the indispensable though at times unpopular social measures and reforms. The same government had to agree to the changes in Poland's frontiers, which meant for the man in the street the loss of half of his country in favour of a neighbour who had come into the war two years later than Poland.

The Yalta Agreement brought into the government Mr. Mikolajczyk[10] and two other real representatives of the genuine Peasant Party. After some struggles, the Lublin Peasant Party remained only as an insignificant communist group. The peasant movement was rebuilt as P.S.L. and not only re-united all the old followers of this party and the very strong and radical youth movement (Wici), but took away from the communist-sponsored group nearly all its members and most of its leaders.

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The socialist movement has not developed in the same way. The Prime Minister of the Lublin and afterwards the Warsaw Government of National Unity, Mr. Osobka-Morawski[11], is a sincere socialist. But he, and the group who control the National Executive of the P.P.S., are rather aloof from the feelings of the Polish socialist workers and intelligentzia. The official leadership of the P.P.S. has been trying to create an atmosphere of understanding with the P.P.R. - the communists. In Poland's situation such a trend in the socialist movement is understandable and of advantage. But at the same time a "holy war" has been declared against the old party leadership, which had the support of the socialist workers during the underground period. Anyone who does not look on the new myth of the "United Front" with the communists as being the last word in political wisdom, who is critical of the real dangers in a communist totalitarian régime, and would like to curb the excesses of the communist-controlled "security" police, is branded as "reactionary". One day the official paper of the P.P.S. printed a warning that every party member who opposed - even within the party - the "United Front" policy would be expelled. Freedom of opinion in the Socialist Party is much broader than in the P.P.R., but it is still very limited indeed.

A few months ago Mr. Zulawski[12], leader of Poland's Trades Union Congress and a distinguished socialist, who helped in Moscow to prepare the Warsaw Government of National Unity, vainly tried to legalise a Polish Social-Democratic Party. The Government suppressed this move, probably fearing that the new party would achieve, as Mr. Mikolajczyk had achieved in the Peasant Party, the liquidation of the Lublin leadership of the official P.P.S. Mr. Zulawski then joined the Socialist Party, bringing with him hundreds of old and young socialist workers who were active in the pre-war P.P.S. and during the Nazi occupation.

The situation in the P.P.S. can be described in this way. At the very top, among the editors of its papers and in the national Executive, there are still people who belong to the Lublin period. The local committees of the Party, with few exceptions, oppose the political line of the Party leadership. They demand "an independent socialist party in an independent democratic Poland". Ninety-five per cent. of the Party's rank and file whole-heartedly support this view.

The Warsaw Government is a coalition government, but it is a strange coalition, strange because the weakest group in the country is the strongest group in the government, and vice versa. The communists represent roughly 3 to 5 per cent. of the population, but have all the key positions in their hands: Presidency, Security, Foreign Office, Trade, Industry, Information and Propaganda, Ministry for Western Poland, and Commander-in-Chief of the Army.

Grave Electoral Decisions

The problem of free elections in the Western European sense does not exist in Poland at the present time. The extreme Right opposition is illegal, fighting with murder as a weapon. But unfortunately it does not look as if the communists are ready to accept a more just division of power (and governmental positions) among the parties now taking part in the Government of National Unity.

The socialists are placed in a dilemma. Elections without a bloc would give the Peasant Party a sure majority (it would have the votes not only of its natural and legitimate followers, but also of those who were unable to vote for one of the "illegal" Right-wing parties). Nobody knows how the communists would then react, backed by the all-powerful Soviet neighbour. Would they start strikes, which they are now suppressing? Would they undermine the new government in which they would play an insignificant rôle, until the intervention of Soviet Russia brought internal peace to the country? Would such a short period of electoral freedom not lead to the final destruction of what remains of Poland's independence?

These are the reasons why some sincere and genuine socialists in Poland are supporting the idea of a bloc, which means in reality the stabilisation for the time being of a communist-dominated coalition government. They are aware that it would have the opposition of the majority of the population, but are trying to make the best of Poland's geographical and political situation. Many prominent Polish socialists are, however, of a different opinion. They believe such a government would compromise the idea of Democratic Socialism among the Polish people and throw them into the arms of dangerous reactionaries and semi-fascists. They fear that the only result of these manoeuvres would be a communist dictatorship, fighting a nationalistic and reactionary population. They think that a bloc of the socialists and communists against the peasants would alienate the workers from the majority of the people who still dwell in the villages and on the farms.

Your correspondent is rather doubtful about the advisability of holding early elections in Poland. There are signs that the elections to the Diet will be postponed for some considerable time. But in any case Poland now lives in a state of growing tension, and the prospects of a victory for Social-Democracy do not, alas, look very promising.

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of Labour" has nothing original about it except its unconditional support of the Soviet Union and its stubborn demand for the abolition of neutrality. It has taken over without any additions the programme of the Social Democrats. This "Party of labour", which for a time was swept forward by a wave of general enthusiasm for the Soviet Union, failed to consolidate its successes because it had nothing to offer on home policy. For some months its stagnation has become evident.

Any attempts to suggest better "structural reforms" in Switzerland seem hopeless in view of the uncertainty as to the kind of world and the kind of Europe into which they would have to fit. For the unparalleled dependence of Swiss economy and social structure upon world economy, that is upon factors outside its control, makes any autarchic experimenting impossible. As everywhere else, war has enforced a planning of scarcities, but there is hardly any basis for a policy of planned reconstruction. Apart from measures of social welfare, only a few sectors of economy such as electricity can be planned on a national basis. Socialism, in spite of the strong position of the two socialist parties, has no chance as yet in Switzerland. It can only get it either by the establishment of an international economic order or by the final collapse of the "Swiss world economy". To-day all energies of this country press outward, to break the isolation enforced upon it for so many years. Without participation in the material and spiritual reconstruction of Europe, Switzerland cannot exist, and without close links with the world, she would be condemned to an impoverished and colourless existence. In Switzerland the mood of an old-fashioned Liberalism still prevails. The fact that one year after the end of the war frontiers are still closed, that economic and military barriers cut off neighbouring countries from the Swiss literature, machines, technicians and workers they badly need and demand - that is the cause of what we call the Swiss "malaise".

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The German Problem

The following article is taken from the ,,Rheinische Zeitung[13]" (March 20th, 1946), one of the first Social Democratic papers to be published in the British Zone of Germany. We reproduce it (in translation) both on account of its intrinsic value to socialist thought and as a welcome indication of the good sense and freedom with which such political questions are now being discussed.

TO unbiased politicians and observers the "German problem" is extremely simple. In accord with the declarations of the Allies, Germany should be deprived for all time of her capacity to wage wars of aggression. Two measures are indispensable to this end: the destruction of the war industry proper, and the stabilisations of a system of government which, by its very nature will work for the peaceful solution of international conflicts and abide by the decisions of international courts of arbitration.

The destruction of the armaments industry is a simple matter. But - the argument runs - any possibility of sudden or secret re-armament must be prevented, and therefore every industry which might easily be adapted to war purposes must be destroyed (e.g. the production of heavy tractors must be prohibited since it could easily be converted to the production of heavy tanks.) If, however, this argument is followed to its logical conclusion we arrive at the destruction of almost every branch of industry since, with few exceptions, all workshops could produce materials that are important for the prosecution of war. Fortunately, we can dispense with this argument, because the re-armament of Germany was not at all an easy matter, and it started, let us not forget, as early as November, 1918. The Kaiser went, but the Generals stayed and with them the General Staff. Most of the rebels of the Kapp[14] Putsch in 1920 were left unmolested ("unthinkable that Reichswehr could shoot on Reichswehr", was General Seeckt's[15] convenient excuse!); the production of Panzerkreuzers took priority over the improvement of social services; the Reichswehr was purged of republicans. After Hitler came to power conscription was introduced, the re-militarisation of the Rhineland took place - a flagrant breach of the Locarno Pact - and then open re-armament to the tune of 90 milliards came into full swing, culminating with the War.

All this happened in an uncannily open fashion, so open that whoever dared to expose the German armament industry's violation of international obligations was heavily punished (Bullerjahn[16], Ossietzky[17]). Thus the history of German re-armament points to one conclusion: there was nothing secret about it.

Why did the Great Powers do nothing to oppose German re-armament? The explanation of this mystery brings us to the core of the German problem. For if we treat the German problem as primarily one of safe-guarding peace, it is no longer purely and specifically a German problem of Europe, and indeed of the whole world. We would like to formulate it as follows. The complete control of German industrial productions and the ruthless prevention of any misuse of German plants for open or camouflaged war production could and should be the responsible for the organization of peace. Once such controls are effectively established. German industry can work for reparations and contribute to the reconstruction of Europe.

This seems to dispose of the German problem in so far as potential international conflicts are concerned. In reality, however, things are not so straightforward because the Big Powers are by no means greed on this simple solution. It is claimed that peace should be safeguarded by the creation of strategic frontiers and bases, by annexations and the migration and annihilation of whole peoples, by secret weapons, alliances and so forth. But hardly anyone suggests the limitation of national sovereignty in the sphere of armaments, and the prevention of aggression by the abolition of national armies and their substitution by an international police force. The reason for this absence of an international policy for the safeguarding of peace can easily be found. The Powers do not feel sufficient confidence in one another to entrust their own national interests in the sphere of foreign policy to a supra-national institution.

Such an attitude is not surprising - although none-the-less harmful - on the part of people who believe in "my country, right or wrong". Far more deplorable is the fact, that the very people who are familiar with these ideas seldom advocate them, in spite of the fact that they are part of their own programme. This applies in particular to international socialists. We do not doubt that socialists in various countries have talked and written enough on the subject. But the International, the one body which could weigh up the conflicting national interests and at least suggest a possible solution, has so far not spoken, for the simple reason that it does not exist. In view of the burning international problems and conflicts of the European Continent - the minority question, the expulsion of whole peoples, the frontier question in Eastern and Western Germany, the vague suggestion of an "internationalisation of the Ruhr and the Rhineland", the relationship between communists and social-democrats - every true socialist feels that the absence of a Socialist International is a real disaster.

It may seem that all this is remote from the German problem. In reality it is the very essence of it. For a Socialist International would be charged with the task of working out solutions acceptable to all who love peace, and in addition would be capable of giving support in all countries to those forces which alone can apply these necessary solutions: to the freedom-loving, militant socialist workers and their allies amongst the progressive peasantry and the middle classes. Even if to-day a Socialist International has no power to implement such solution, they should still be worked out and put before the suffering peoples so that all may see that socialists at least can agree amongst themselves as to the proper solution of international conflicts.

Published by the International Publishing Co., 7. Carteret St., London, S.W.1, and printed by The Walthamstow Press (T.U.), Forest Rd., London, E.17.