Guns instead of butter

The old German tune in new American setting

(The following article appeared in the July 24, 1948, edition of Pravda and is translated from the Russian.)

The recent decisions of the American Congress to issue colossal spending amounts for "military needs" was greeted -- as should be expected -- with rejoicing on Wall Street. The bourgeois press of the USA compares this to the well-known Marshall Plan, which, according to the bible of American banking circles, Business Week, is as much a part of the American war program as are the expenses for the Army and Air Force.

Apart from further strengthening the arsenal of the USA, the new funds for the military, like those of the Marshall Plan, are being issued for two distinct purposes: to set up an artificial rise of "business activity" and to delay advance of an unavoidable economic crisis. American experts are assessing those funds as "subcutaneous injections," necessary to sustain the condition of the "patient, who has symptoms of periodic loss of vital powers."

The new military funds mean major new orders for aircraft and shipbuilding companies, ammunition factories, chemical plants, automobile corporations, etc. The new military funds mean new income for big businesses.

So it is. But there is a question: at whose expense are those orders issued? Who will pay the bills for armaments supplied by those companies? For that question the only answer is: Bills for military orders, as well as for the Marshall Plan, will be paid by the same American taxpayer, the common American, who is already weighed down by fiscal duties. Let's mention that federal taxes in the USA, according to the American business press, have reached the level of $46 billion per year, against $44 billion during war years and $5 billion in 1939.

The ruling circles of the USA do not even care to hide that they intend to put on to the backs of workers the burden of these new extraordinary state expenses, which have been issued to delay an upcoming crisis. Thus, the report of the President's Economic Council for the first quarter of 1949 states that:

"In spite of increasing military expenses in the USA, the American nation should temporarily give up its postwar hopes for a better quality of life, or at least reduce them. Every citizen should understand that further use of the productive potential for the needs of the armed forces unavoidably leads to some sacrifices in the public consumption. This is our particular variant of the old alternative (the choice between two possibilities) -- guns or butter."

Advisers of the U.S. president can only be thanked for the terrifying openness with which they placed into the weaponry of American propaganda this old slogan by fascist bastard Goering. But who said "a" must also say "b." And following those stunning declarations by the president's economic advisers, the political agents from Wall Street started an energetic program to put the old slogan into practice.

With this in mind, we should not overlook the article that recently appeared in the very same issue of Business Week discussing the methods of changing the American economy to fit specifically the slogan "guns instead of butter." This article was printed under the strange headline, "The Economic Consequences of World War III." The first impression is that Business Week followed the trend of fantastic novels about the possible next war, though generally speaking fantasy is not a characteristic of the strictly prosaic nature of this American "business" magazine. A closer look at the Business Week article reveals that a discussion about World War III and its possible consequences is necessary for the magazine to achieve a certain goal -- to substantiate this unprecedented attack on the elementary rights of the workers, which has already started to develop in the USA.

The story in Business Week starts with the lyrical memories of the previous war: "In many ways the Second World War was not a disaster for the United States" -- the author states fondly -- "in fact it was a tragedy, but there were some aspects welcomed by the USA: the elimination of unemployment, general rise of income and blooming business activity." Here, the author of the editorial pauses, his forehead darkens, and his breathing becomes even deeper: "But there will be none of these things during World War III."

And here Business Week begins to forecast to its readers all sorts of calamities that supposedly are threatening the United States. It is doing so evidently in an attempt to convince Americans to forgo democratic freedoms, to submit to the necessity of installation of a police regime dictatorship in the United States, and to agree with the further worsening of the economic situation of the working class.

This is how the future of the United States appears to Business Week and to those whose interests it represents:

"This time, according to the power of irrefutable logic, there will be nothing except sheer force. ... There will be a sharp decrease in the supply of goods accessible to the citizens. Instead of paychecks rising, all will receive less. Where there is no carrot left, there is still a stick. (!) ... We will not be able to carry the next war without telling everybody where to work, what to do, how much to be paid for work. Other measures will be an indisputable ban on strikes; all those attempting to organize strikes will be judged as traitors. All civic rights, obviously, will be awfully reduced. ... That means that, as in the case regarding strikes, all aspects that normally seem innocent will become suspicious. For example, even helpful and positive critiques of the government's actions will be counted as treachery, and will be eliminated. ...

"Thus, in regard to materials, workforce and money, the next war will result in a higher degree of police authority. ... This time there is nothing except for the lashing whip."

To do justice to Business Week, we shall say that they made all deductions from the official declaration of the Nazi slogan "guns instead of butter" as an action program for the USA! But why is Business Week coming to this revelation now, knowing perfectly well that no war is threatening the United States from any side? Here and now, we are approaching the central point of this article of the Wall Street agents. Told in the manner of a fantastic tour of the future, an openly fascist plan of attack on the working class suddenly takes the following turn:

"Let's look at what will happen if a real war does not occur, but only a fast-growing armament program -- that is, a partial mobilization that falls between the present situation and full-scale mobilization. This is absolutely far more possible than a real war. ... The politics of power -- a diplomatic war -- presents its own requirements."

So that's what's at the bottom of it! First should be noted the respectable magazine's acknowledgment that the USA is conducting politics of power. It turns out that all this cloudy reasoning about what might happen if war were to break out was only the prelude, and the tale (and not just a tale but rather a real story!) is here:

"Expenditures on the defense budget are already harmful for the economy. If this continues from year to year, it will entail unbearable tension -- lack of material, lack of work force, and price increases. Let's admit that the diplomatic war will require a new set of game chips, for example arming Western Europe in the way of 'Lend-Lease,' or weapons for civil wars that we fight ourselves or are funding (many thanks for one more worthy confession! -- Pravda). Then, almost certainly we will have to fall under certain control measures. The balance of prices and income will destabilize. We have not yet passed the inflation problem, caused by government expenses during the Second World War. We are absolutely not prepared to deal with new inflation, which is piling up on the old one. ..."

Business Week does not finish this sentence, it is not dotting all the i's and crossing all the t's. But all the reasoning in this curious article leads us to a conclusion that would be favored by those who inspired the whole article: The plan of Draconian reductions of the basic rights of the United States working class, expressed by Business Week, is not dealing with the distant future. Wall Street wants to implement the program right now, without delay, and with its roll of the dice it is placing on the table, in an adventurous political gamble, gaming chips smelling of gunpowder.

This, "diplomatic war" as Business Week puts it, is not cheap for Americans. It is not cheap to enter the new "business" of "funding civil wars"! And it is no wonder that the organizers of diplomatic war and advocates of power politics (again one recalls the German slogan of "Machtpolitik," the politics of power) already are winding up the discussion about unusual political measures and resurrecting Goering's slogan, "Guns instead of butter."