The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1930-01-11
iii. Policy of the Bourgeoisie

T. The bourgeoisie has responded to the onset
OF the crisis with mobilization of all its forces
on a scale and with thoroughness comparable
only to the u. S. mobilization for war in 1917
Just as Wilson's War Industries Board and
"Dollar-a-year men" in 1917 formed a super
government of big capitalists, directly taking
over the operation of government in the war
crisis, so Hoover has modified the direct repre-
sentatives of finance-capital in the National
Business Council. Just as Wilson secured
the pledge of Gompers, fer the American
Federation of Labor, of no strikes or wage
demands, so Hoover secured a similar, but
more complete pledge from VIM. Green. The
similarity is not merely upon the surface. The
organ of the U. S. Chamber of Commerce,
from its own point of view, registers the same
facts, when it said "Where does Business
stand? Where does Government stand? The
unqualified answer is that they stand together
The two forces are working hand in hand as
in wartime" Nations Business Jan. 1930). The
present mobilization under Hoover is also war
mobilization-for war against the working
class and toiling masses to squeeze from them
the cost of the crisis, and war internationally,
to redistribute the markets of the world and
crush the resistance of the oppressed countries,
and above all, war against the stronghold of
world revolution, the Soviet Union All these
measures of the bourgeoisie to meet the crisis
necessarily resolve themselves into new
measures of exploitation and robbery. The
pretences of measures to eliminate the anarchy
and chaos of capitalist economy are going
against the very nature of capitalism. Cap
italism cannot abolish its own anarchy, because
this involves the destruction of capitalism it.
self.
8. In this growing merger of the apparatus
of government and big capital, the third part
ner in the triple alliance" the social reformists
'(AF. of L. and Socialist Party) plays an ever
more important role. This is the meaning of the
Hoover-Green agreement, of the bourgeois
press building up the vote of Norman Thomas
and the Socialist Party in the New York, cleo
tons, of the triple alliance of bosses, the state
and the Schlesinger- Socialist Party bureaucrats
in the needle industry, and innumerable de-
velopments of like nature.
Constantly more use is being made of the
"left" reformists of Music & &C., and the rene
gades from communism, Lovestone, Cannon &
Co. They are the most dangerous enemies of
the working class, and the most effective
weapons of the bourgeoisie to break down
working class resistance to naturalization and
war.
8. These developments of bourgeois policy
are examples OIL the general WOrlQ tendency
within capitalism towards fascist rule The
Indignation of the reformsts into the fascist
tendency, is the transformation of reformism
into socialfascism. But it would be entirely
wrong to represel this tendency as already
fully developed Fascism" or that "parliamen-
tarism has ceased to function" What is taking
place is a big step in the direction of the
fascination of the American bourgeois state.
Over the parliamentary government apparatus,
there is being imposed super-government as
the direct ruling organ of finance capital; this
is fascist in tendency, in the sense of RELOCATING
parliamentary institutions to second place, and
making use of labor bureaucrats to break
mass resistance to this process. To compare
Hoover's National Business Council to the
Grand Fascist Council of Mussolini, is, how
ever, only superficial journalistic comparison,
and to attempt to construct an exact political
parallel would be wrong. Fully-developed
fascism includes the use of the DECEASED
petty-bourgeois as the instruments of rule of
big capital, directly imposed by violence upon
the masses. The Fascist Grand Council is
selected by Mussolini and composed of these
petty bourgeois elements. Hoover's Council
on the other hand, are the real masters them
selves, giving their orders to Hoover, the
direct government of the finance capitalists
imposed oyer the still-existing parliamentary
state These specific features of American
fascist development must not be obscured by