German imperialism

“ The attentive student of the home and foreign propaganda literature of the German Government will realize that the case made by German imperialism, the main argument by which it sticks to power, is this, that the Allied Governments are also imperialist, that they also aim at conquest and aggression, that for Germany the choice is world empire or downfall and utter ruin. This is the argument that holds the German people stiffly united. For most men in most countries it would be a convincing argument, strong enough to override considerations of right and wrong. ”

“ I have always detested German imperialism, and also the phases of exaggerated nationalism which have grown up in every country after the War and have been eliminated one after the other through the simple fact of their being common to all countries, but only after having brought the greatest possible harm to all the peoples, and I cannot say that Germany and her allies were solely responsible for the War which devastated Europe and threw a dark shadow over the life of the whole world. ”

“ From a historical standpoint the new German imperialism is, as we already know, absolutely aggressive. Urged onward by the feverish development of the national industry, German imperialism disturbs the old balance of power between the states and plays the first violin in the race for armaments. ”

“ And finally, German imperialism, appearing in its fascist edition, saw in the seizure of the wealth of the Soviet Union and in its incalculable resources of food and raw materials a base for the realization of their far-reaching aggressive aims to achieve, first, ascendancy over Europe, and, later on, ascendancy over the whole world. ”

“ Is it to be union by conquest or is it to be union by league? For any sort of man except the German the question is, Will you be a free citizen or will you be an underling to the German imperialism? For the German now the question is a far graver and more tragic one. For him it is this: “You belong to a people not now increasing very rapidly, a numerous people, but not so numerous as some of the great peoples of the world, a people very highly trained, very well drilled and well armed, perhaps as well trained and drilled and equipped as ever it will be. ”

“ The spectacle of German Imperialism, boastful, selfish, narrow, and altogether hateful, in its terrible blood-dance through Europe, has been an object-lesson to humanity against excesses of national vanity and national egotism and against Imperial pride. ”

“ It only showed the insane vanity of German Imperialism, drunk with victory, and the absolute incapacity of German statesmen to understand other races, so that they were always applying the simple common measure which was law for themselves: Force, the supreme reason. Naturally, such a brutal demand, made of an ancient nation, rich in its past ages of a glory and a supremacy in Europe, such as Germany had never known, had had exactly the opposite effect to that which Germany expected. ”

“ Having destroyed our allies in the west, German Imperialism would rush in upon us with all the force of its arms. Germany's imperialists, her landowners and capitalists, would put an iron heel on our necks, would occupy our cities, our villages, and our land, and would force us to pay tribute to her. ”

“ German imperialism, then, while it involves the same intellectual presuppositions, the same confusions, the same erroneous arguments, the same short-sighted ambitions, as the imperialism of other countries, exhibits them all in an extreme degree. All peoples admire themselves. ”

“ If German trade with the British colonies is developing more rapidly than that of Britain with the same colonies, that only proves that German imperialism is younger, stronger, and better organised than British; in short, is superior to it. But this by no means proves the superiority of free competition, for it is not free competition fighting against protectionism and colonial dependence in this struggle, but two rival imperialisms, two monopolies, two groups of finance-capital. ”

“ Under a particularly aggressive and offensive imperialism system the Germans were plunged into conflict with most of the rest of the civilized world. But it was repeatedly declared by the British and by the Americans, if not by others of the combatants, that they fought not against the German people but against this German imperialism. The British war propaganda in particular did its utmost to saturate Germany with that assurance and to hold out the promise of generous treatment and a complete restoration of friendship provided there was a German renunciation of imperialism and militarism. ”

“ When Germany unfolded its banner of naval power and world policies it announced the desire for new and far reaching conquest in the world by German imperialism. By means of a first class aggressive navy, and by military forces that increased in a parallel ratio, the apparatus for a future policy was established, opening wide the doors for unprecedented possibilities. Naval building and military armaments became the glorious business of German industry, opening up a boundless prospect for further operations by trust and bank capital in the whole wide world. ”

“ German imperialism, with its organized grip upon education and its close alliance with an aggressive commercialism, was beaten and finished. The militarism and imperialism of Britain and France and Italy are by comparison feeble, disorganized, and disorganizing survivals. They are things “left over” by the great war. They have no persuasive power. They go on—for sheer want of wits to leave off. No European Government will ever get the same proportion of its people into the ranks and into its munition works again as the governments of 1914-18 did. ”

“ Only a few months before the war Germany concluded a very advantageous agreement with England and the other colonial states; why then did the war break out so suddenly? Industrialism and capitalism do not suffice to explain that. As far as imperialism is concerned, it has already been said that the term is used very ambiguously; the German imperialism does no doubt play a decisive role in the war, but it is not only capitalistic and industrial; it arose long before Germany became a capitalistic and industrial country. ”

“ To make Austria its enemy at this time would mean complete isolation, and complete abdication by Germany of its world-political plan. But the weakening of Austria, which would signify the final liquidation of Turkey, with a consequent strengthening of Russia, the Balkan States, and England, would probably accomplish the national unification of Germany, but would, at the same time, wipe out, forever, its imperialistic aspirations. The safety of the Hapsburg monarchy has therefore logically become a necessary complement to German imperialism, the preservation of Turkey its chief problem. ”

“ It is, however, of far less importance in the war aims of the Allies that this and that particular scrap of territory should change hands from the control of one group of combatants to that of the other, than that the present practical ascendency of German Imperialism over the resources of the Polish, Russian, Ukrainian, Czech, Jugo-Slav, Finnish, and Roumanian peoples should cease. ”

“ Only as the material conditions for the destruction of capitalism and the abolition of class society can the effects of the capitalist triumphal march through the world bear the stamp of progress in an historical sense. In this sense imperialism, too, is working in our interest.
The present world war is a turning point in the course of imperialism. For the first time the destructive beasts that have been loosed by capitalist Europe over all other parts of the world have sprung with one awful leap, into the midst of the European nations. ”

“ Already a local Parliament gives to the population a sense of autonomy, while the palace and constant presence of an Imperial prince affirms the fact that German Imperialism, far from engrossing and centralizing all the activities and powers of the empire in Berlin, recognizes that German nationality is large enough and great enough to admit of many capitals, many individualities, and many separate State growths within the sure compass of one great organism. ”

“ On the one hand, a slow industrial development, a stagnant population, a nation living on its investments, concerned chiefly with foreign financial business, burdened with a large number of colonial possessions that it could hold together only with the utmost difficulty. On the other hand, a mighty young giant, a capitalism forging toward the first place among nations, going out into the world to hunt for colonies. English colonies were out of the question. So the hunger of German imperialism, besides feeding on Asiatic Turkey, turned at once to the French heritage. ”

“ Moreover, an extraordinary increase in the power of Russia, England and the Mediterranean States would result. For German imperialism, therefore, the preservation of this accommodating apparatus of the "independent Turkish State," the "integrity" of Turkey is a matter of necessity. And this necessity will exist until such time as this state will fall, having been consumed from within by German capital, as was Egypt by England and more recently Morocco by France, into the lap of Germany. ”

“ German imperialism was stronger because of the wonderful organization and ruthless discipline of "its" armies, but as far as colonies are concerned, is much weaker than its opponent. It has now lofet all of its colonies, but has robbed half of Europe and throttled most of the small countries and weaker peoples.. ”

“ One peculiarity, perhaps, there is in the outlook of German imperialism, and that is its emphasis on an unintelligible and unreal abstraction of "race." Germans, it is thought, are by biological quality the salt of the earth. ”

“ Certain Allied groups having apparently made up their minds that the ‘democratization’ of Germany would suffice to put an end automatically to Prussian militarism and to German imperialism, it was concluded at Berlin that a considerable number, at least, of their adversaries, being weary of the war, might be willing to content themselves with a merely formal satisfaction of their demands, in order to have an ostensibly honorable excuse for bringing it to an end. ”

“ Since then, imperialism has buried the old bourgeois democratic program completely by substituting expansionistic activity irrespective of national relationships for the original program of the bourgeoisie in all nations. The national phrase, to be sure, has been preserved, but its real content, its function has been perverted into its very opposite. Today the nation is but a cloak that covers imperialistic desires, a battle cry for imperialistic rivalries, the iast ideological measure with which the masses can be persuaded to play the role of cannon fodder in imperialistic wars. ”

“ It may be useful therefore, at the present time, to point out that not only is the aggressive German idea not peculiar to Germany, not only are there endless utterances of French Chauvinists and British imperialists to be found entirely as vain, unreasonable and aggressive, but that German militarist imperialism is so little representative of the German quality, that scarcely one of its leading exponents is a genuine German. ”

“ By that time I believe German imperialism will be shattered, and it may be possible to anticipate the {89}end of the armaments phase of European history. France, Italy, England, and all the smaller powers of Europe are now pacific countries; Russia, after this huge war, will be too exhausted for further adventure; a shattered Germany will be a revolutionary Germany, as sick of uniforms and the imperialist idea as France was in 1871, as disillusioned about predominance as Bulgaria is today. The way will be open at last for all these western powers to organize peace. ”

“ He speaks of war as certain to take place 'the instant' the German forces are assured of 'superiority at every point,' and he discovers that the motto of German foreign policy is that Germany strikes when Germany's hour has struck. Germany does not happen to have struck anybody since 1870, and she struck then to secure national unity, and to put an end to {339} the standing menace of French imperialism. ”

“ Domestic problems of economic development and national unification were all-absorbing, and capitalistic imperialism was quite outside the scope of German policies. France and Russia, not Germany, were the disturbers of British tranquillity in the Orient. ”

“ Its eyes are directed especially toward the Albanian coast of the Adriatic, should a new regulation of Balkan affairs take place. The Triple Alliance, having already sustained a severe blow in the Tripolitan war, was destroyed by the acute crisis in the Balkans during the two Balkan wars. The Central Powers were thus brought into conflict with the entire outside world. German imperialism, chained to two decaying corpses, was steering its course directly toward a world war. ”

“ Under the circumstances the question of victory or defeat becomes, for the European working class, in its political, exactly as in its economic aspects, a choice between two beatings. It is, therefore, nothing short of a dangerous madness for the French Socialists to believe that they can deal a death blow to militarism and imperialism, and clear the road for peaceful democracy, by overthrowing Germany. Imperialism, and its servant militarism, will reappear after every victory and after every defeat in this war. ”

“ So long as it shall remain unsolved, victory will be out of their reach. On the other hand, when this one point has been settled, all the other special war-aims of each of the Allies can be fulfilled with ease.
Assuming now that the problem of Central Europe has been solved, could it be said that the resulting peace would be ‘without annexations and indemnities’? Plainly not: for this peace, if it is to break up forever the autocracies of the Central Empires, must, for reasons of nationality, [Pg 60] change the existing frontiers, which have made Austro-German imperialism possible. ”