Full text of "Facts and Fascism"

Mr. & Mrs. Bruce Scott Box 1131, Station 1 Coos Bay, Oregon *■ FACTS and FASCISM ■fltiiisi mmm& ■fi||Ill iilltS llpl mm . _ : Books by George Sjeldes You Can* £ Print That Can These Things Be? World Panorama The Vatican Iron, Blood & Profits Sawdust Caesar Freedom of the Press Lords of the Press You Can't Do That The Catholic Crisis Witch Hunt The Facts Are . . . by c^vir^T) c^Ti cut nuc VJrJCr IvLj ill o JtllwJU JtiO Assisted by Helen Seldes 1 I ; In Fact, Inc., New York nam & Copyright 1943 |y In I^ct, Inc. 25 Aitor Place, New York 3, R Y. Fifth Edition 1 Primed in the United States by New Union Press 412 ^Dedication THIS BOOK IS DEDICATED TO ALL WHO ARE FIGHTING FASCISM EVERYWHERE. CONTENTS FART ONE THE BIG MONEY AND BIG PROFITS IN FASCISM i: Fascism on the Home Front n 2: Profits in Fascism: Germany 16 3: Big Business Bossed Mussolini 34 4: The Five Who Own Japan 48 5: Who Paid for Franco's War? 57 6: The Nazi Cartel Plot in America 68 7: NAM: The Men Who Finance American Fascism 80 PART TWO NATIVE FASCIST FORCES 1: The American Legion 105 2: Fascism in U. S. Industry: The Ford Empire 122 3: Lindbergh: Spreader of Hitlers Lies 139 4: The Reader's Digest 158 5: NAM Mouth Organ: Fulton Lewis, Jr. 184 PART THREE OUR PRESS AS A FASCIST FORCE 1: The Press in Chains 203 2: Berlin-Chicago-New York Axis 212 3: Poison Pen Pegler 229 4: Wallace's Suppressed Speech 244 s: The Press and War Profiteers 6: The Suppressed Tobacco Story 268 Conclusion 274 Appendices 277 Index 287 "~ — — 1 — — — — ■ The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism ill IS Is CHAPTER I FASCISM ON THE HOME FRONT The time will come when people will not believe it was pos- sible to mobilize 10,800,000 Americans to fight Fascism and not tell them the truth about the enemy. And yet, this is ex- actly what happened in our country in the Global War. The Office of War Information published millions of words, thousands of pamphlets, posters and other material, most of it very valuable and all of it intended to inspire the people and raise the morale of the soldiers of production and the soldiers of the field; but it is also a fact that to the date of this writing the OWI did not publish a single pamphlet, poster, broadside or paper telling either the civilian population or the men and women in uniform what Fascism really is, what the forces are behind the political and military movements generally known as Fascism, who puts up the money, who make the tremen- dous profits which Fascism has paid its backers in Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain and other nations. Certainly when it comes to relating foreign Fascism with native American Fascism there is a conspiracy of silence in which the OWI, the American press, and all the forces of reac- tion in America are united. Outside of a few books, a few pamphlets, and a few articles in the very small independent weekly press which reaches only a few thousand readers, not one word on this subject has been printed, and not one word has been heard over any of the big commercial radio stations. Faraway Fascism has been attacked, exposed, and denounced by the same publications (the Saturday Evening Post for exam- The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism pie) which for years ran articles lauding Mussolini and his notable backers in all lands; and the Hearst newspapers, which published from 1934 to Pearl Harbor dozens of signed propa- ganda articles by Dr. Goebbels, Goering and other Nazis, now call them names, but no publication which takes money from certain Big Business elements (all of which will be named here) will dare name the native or nearby Fascists. In many instances the publications themselves are part of our own Fascism. But we must not be fooled into believing that American Fas- cism consists of a few persons, some crackpots, some mentally perverted, a few criminals such as George W. Christians and Pelley, who are in jail at present, or the 33 indicted for sedi- tion. These are the lunatic fringes of Fascism, they are also the small fry, the unimportant figureheads, just as Hitler was be- fore the Big Money in Germany decided to set him up in business. The real Fascists of America are never named in the com- mercial press. It will not even hint at the fact that there are many powerful elements working against a greater democracy, against an America without discrimination based on race, color and creed, an America where never again will one third of the people be without sufficient food, clothing and shelter, where never again will there be 12,000,000 unemployed and many more millions working for semi-starvation wages while the Du- Pont, Ford, Hearst, Mellon and Rockefeller Empires move into the billions of dollars. I call these elements Fascist. You may not like names and labels but technically as well as journalistically and morally they are correct. You may substitute Tories, or Economic Royalists, or Vested Interests, or whatever you like for the flag-waving anti-American Americans whose efforts and objectives parallel those of the Liga Industrial which bought out Mussolini in 1920, and the Thyssen-Krupp-Voegeler-Flick Rhineland indus- try and banking system which subsidized Hitler when Naziism was about to collapse. Their main object was to end the civil liberties of the nation, destroy the labor unions, end the free Editor, *» t ACt to- ^ toV - enthMlMt i« — «.«h. I tow tod * w»** r of eBW " ^ ,<» «, ** for »^ing mm ,.I»f«t.» I to« to*» « to ttoou* *>*»* Sincerely yoorst g. ft. «aU* e# The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism press, and mo Ice more money at the expense of a slave nation. Both succeede d And in America one similar organization has already made the following historical record: 1. Organized big business in a movement against labor. 2. Founded the Liberty League to fight civil liberties. 3. Subsidized anti-labor, Fascist and anti-Semitic organiza- tions (Senator Black's Lobby Investigation). 4. Signed a pact with Nazi agents for political and economic (cartel) penetration of U. S. (Exposed in In Fact). 5. Founded a $i,ooo,ooo-a-year propaganda outfit to corrupt the press, radio, schools and churches. 6. Stopped the passage of food, drug and other laws aimed to safeguard the consumer, i.e., 132,000,000 Americans. 7. Conspired, with DuPont as leader, in September, 1942, to sabotage the war effort in order to maintain profits. 8. Sabotaged the U. S. defense plan in 1940 by refusing to con- vert the auto plants and by a sit-down of capital against plant expansion; sabotaged the oil, aluminum and rubber expansion programs. (If any of these facts are not known to you it is be- cause 99% of our press, in the pay of the same elements, sup- pressed the Tolan, Truman, Bone Committee reports, Thur- man Arnold's reports, the TNEC Monopoly reports and other Government documents.) 9. Delayed the winning of the war through the acts of $-a- year men looking out for present profits and future monopoly rather than the quick defeat of Fascism. (Documented in the labor press for two years; and again at the 1942 CXO. Conven- tion.) Naturally enough the President of the United States and other high officials cannot name the men, organizations, pressure lobbyists, and national associations which have made this and similar records; they can only refer to "noisy traitors," Quislings, defeatists, the "Cliveden Set" or to the Tories and Economic Royalists. And you may be certain that our press will never name the defeatists because the same elements which made the above 9-point record are the main advertisers and biggest subsi- 14 Fascism on the Home Front dizers o£ the newspapers and magazines. In many instances even the general charges by the President himself have been suppressed. In Germany, in Italy until the seizure of govern- ment by the Fascists, the majority of newspapers were brave enough to be anti-Fascist, whereas in America strangely enough a large part of the press (Hearst, Scripps-Howard, McOormick* Patterson) has for years been pro-Fascist and almost all big papers live on the money of the biggest Tory and reactionary corporations and reflect their viewpoint now. ^ On the anti-Fascist side, unfortunately, there is not one pub- lication which can boast of more than one or two hundred thousand circulation, whereas the reactionary press has its New Yor\ News with 2,000,000 daily, its Saturday Evening Post with 3,ooOjOOO weekly and its Reader's Digest with 9,000,000 monthly, which means up to 50,000,000 readers. It is a shameful and tragic situation that in America, with 132,000,000 persons of whom 50,000,000 read anti-labor and anti- liberal propaganda in Reader's Digest, only a few hundred thou- sand buy and read intelligent, honest, unbribed, uneorrupted publications, issued in the public interest. 15 CHAPTER II PROFITS IN FASCISM: GERMANY It seems to this writer that the most important thing in the world today next to destroying Fascism on the field of battle, is to fight Fascism which has not yet taken up the gun. This other Fascism will become more active— and drape it- self in the national flag everywhere— when military Fascism has been defeated. So far as America is concerned, its first notable Fascist leader, Huey Long, a very smart demagogue, once said, "Sure well have Fascism here, but it will come as an anti-Fascist movement/' To know what Fascism really is and why we must fight it and destroy it here in America, we must first of all know what it is we are fighting, what the Fascist regimes really are and do, who puts up the money and backs Fascism in every coun- try (including the United States at this very moment), and who owns the nations under such regimes, and why the natives of all Fascist countries must be driven into harder work, less money, reduced standard of living, poverty and desperation so that the men and corporations who found, subsidize and own Fascism can grow unbelievably rich. This is what has happened in Germany, Italy, Japan and other countries; it is true to a great extent in Spain, Finland, Hungary, Rumania, the Polish so<alled Republic, and although not one standard newspaper or magazine has ever breathed a word about it, the same Fascist movement—the march of the men of wealth and power, not the crackpot doings of the two or three dozen who have been indicted for sedition— is taking place in Amer- ica. 16 Profits in Fascism: Germany ^ These matters are all related, both as systems of government and as business enterprises. It is the purpose of Part I of this boofc to show who really owns the Fascist International, who profits from it, and just how far the United States has gone along the Fascist line* . The true story of Hitler-Germany is the real clue to the sit- uation everywhere. In 1923, after his monkeyshines in the Munich Beer Hall Putsch, Hitler received his first big money from Fritz Thyssen. January 30, 1933, Hitler came into power after a deal with Hindenburg and the big Prussian landlords (Junkers). Since then, and in all of vast occupied Europe, Hit- ler has been paying off the men who invested in Fascism as a purely money-making enterprise. A personal dispute put Thys- sen out, but his brother and the thousand biggest industrialists and bankers of Germany have as a result of financing Hit- ler become millionaires; the I. G. Farbeaindustrie and other car- tel organizations have become billionaires. Big money entrenched itself completely after the departure of Fritz Thyssen, with his rather quaint ideas of placing limits on corruption in business, with his repugnance to the murder of Jews as a national policy, and other rather old-fashioned ethi- cal concepts of monopoly and exploitation which he inherited from his father and which did not encompass robbery and bloodshed as means of commercial aggression. The cartels moved forward with the troops. There were, of course, exposes of Hitler as a tool of Ger- many's Big Money, written before he became dictator, but inasmuch as publication occurred in small non-commercial weeklies which few people read, or in the radical press, which is always accused of misrepresentation (by the commercial press which is always lying) the fact remains that few people knew what really was going on. This conspiracy of silence became even more intense when the big American and other banking houses floated their great loans for Hitler— and other fascist dictators in many lands. As early as 1931 Gerhard Hirschfeld published in a Catholic 17 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism literary weekly a tiny part of the evidence that Hitler was the political arm of the biggest branch of German capitalism, Re- calling that Hitler vowed that the Krupps, the Thyssens and the Kirdorffs, the Mannesmanns, the Borsigs and the Siemens (who are the Garys, Schwabs and Mellons of Germany)— would be stripped of wealth and power, Hirschfeld pointed but that "it is from the ranks of heavy industry, however, that Hitler is drawing much of the money which is making German Fascism something to be reckoned with. Hitler re- ceived considerable support from the heavy industries of Bavaria where he started the Fascist movement. The Borsig works and the Eisenheuttenleute (Association of iron forgers and founders) are important pillars of the Fascist structure, . . . From the machine industry of Wuerttemberg and from many other branches of the iron and steel industries, marks flow into the bulging coffers. In addition, money comes from abroad. Swiss friends sent him 330,000 francs just before last year's elections. Baron von Bissing, the university professor, collected many thousands of florins in the Netherlands . . . German-American friends expressed their sympathy in dollar bills . . . even directors of the French-controlled Skoda-Works (of Czechoslovakia), famous in the manufacture of armaments, may be found among Hitler's supporters." It requires neither integrity nor courage today to say that Hitler was made the Fuehrer of Germany by the biggest indus- trialists of his country. (It does require integrity and courage even today to relate the German men and forces to those in America, to point out the equivalents, and that is why no com- mercial newspaper or magazine has ever done so.) But as early as Summer, 1933, in the Wee\-End Review, a light which shows up Fascism as nothing but a military-political-economic movement to grab all the money and resources of the world was already focused on Germany by the man who wrote under the name of "Ernst Henri." He denies, first of all, the myth that Naziism is a "rebellion of the middle classes." The middle classes, it is true, were 18 Profits in Fascism: Germany most united and outspoken for Hitler, they did in fact send in their contributions, but when "these sons of butchers and publicans, of postoffice officials and insurance agents, of doctors and lawyers" imagined they were fighting for their own inter- ests, when "they swarmed out of the Storm Troops barracks and struck down defenseless workers, Jews, Socialists and Com- munists" they would not have been able to do it, had they not been mobilized by other sources. "Hitler, the idol of this mass, and himself only a petty bourgeois— a petty bourgeois posing as a Napoleons reality followed the dictates of a higher power." The secret, continues Henri, "must be sought in the hidden history of Germany's industrial oligarchy, in the post-war poli- tics of coal and steeL . . . Not Hitler, but Thyssen, the great magnate of the Ruhr, is the prime mover of German Fascism." Thyssen's main undertaking was the German Steel Trust, the equivalent of U. S. SteeL Vereinigte Stahlwerke Aktien Ge- sellschaft, incidentally, was heavily financed by American bank- ing houses— Episcopalian, Catholic and Jewish— throughout the pre-Hitler and Hitler regimes. The Steel Trust was the basis of German economy, and when it found itself in a desperate situation, during the Bruening regime which preceded Hitler, the foundations of Germany were threatened. It was then that the state came to the trust's aid by buying nearly half the shares of Gelsenkirchener Bergwerke, holding company, nomi- nally worth 125,000,000 marks, at a fantastic price, estimated at double the market. Immediately thereafter the political parties of the nation began fighting for control of this weapon. The Bruening regime, Catholic, favored the Otto Wolff- Deutsche Bank group which was affiliated with powerful Cath- olic groups. The Thyssen-Flick-Voegeler group was opposed, although Thyssen himself was a Catholic. Otto Wolff is a lead- ing Catholic, but one of his partners, Ottmar Strauss, is a Jew- ish liberal. Another affiliate of Wolff's was General Schleicher. The rivalry in Germany was something like that between the Morgan and Rockefeller interests in America, except that the *9 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism Wolfr group was known as liberal and the Thyssen group included Flick and Voegeler, political heirs of Hugo Stinnes who had been, Henri says, "perhaps the first National Socialist in Germany." Stinnes, Hugenberg, Thyssen and other multi-millionaire own- ers of Germany had never hidden their participation in political movements nor their subsidization of all reactionary anti-labor political parties. These men put their money into the parties of the right wing and were powerful enough at all times to pre- vent the Social-Democratic Party, which took over the nation (with the aid of the victorious Allies) in 1918 from doing any- thing radical to aid the majority of the people— even if the So- cial-Democrats had sincerely attempted to do so. The historic facts speak for themselves. Germany under Ebert and all the liberal coalitions which preceded the reactionary regimes, which naturally culminated in the advent of big business Fascism, never did more than make gestures towards the working class and permitted joblessness and poverty to increase while the Stinneses and Hugenbergs and Thyssens grew in wealth and power. Thyssen became interested in Hitler in the year of the Beer Hall Putsch, when Hitler was regarded as a revolver-firing clown who would end up in an insane asylum rather than the chancellor's chair. But Thyssen saw possibilities. In 1927 Thyssen took his partner in the Steel Trust, Voegeler, to Rome, they interviewed Mussolini, and when they returned it was noticeable that the Nazi Party suddenly grew rich and began its march to power. In 1927 Thyssen joined the Nazi Party officially and began that cooperation with Hitler which led to the latter's overthrow of the Republic in 1933. "Hitler," writes Henri, "never took an important step without first consulting Thyssen and his friends. Thyssen systematically financed all the election funds of the National Socialist Party. It was he who, by a majority decision and against the most pointed op- position on the part of Otto Wolf! and Kloeckner, persuaded the Profits in Fascism: Germany two political centers of German Ruhr capital, ..the Bergbauyerein Essen and the Nordwestgruppe der Eisen-und Stahiindustrie, to agree that every coal and steel concern had, by way of a particular obligatory tax, to deliver a certain sum into the election cash of the National Socialists. In order to raise this money, the price of coal was raised in Germany. ^ "For the presidential elections of 1932 alone, Thyssen provided the Nazis within a few days with more than 3,000,000 marks. Without this help the fantastic measures resorted to by Hitler in the years 1930-1933 would never have been possible. Without Thyssen's money Hitler would never have achieved such a success, and the party would probably have broken up at the time of the Papen elec- tions at the end of 1932, when it lost 2,000,000 votes and the Strasser group announced its secession. In January, 1933, Schleicher was on the point of hitting the Hitler movement on the head and putting it under his own command. But, just as before Thyssen had raised Hitler by his financial machinery, so now he rescued him by his political machinery. . . "To bring off this coup Thyssen employed two of his political friends and agents: Hugenberg (who is one of the directors of the Thyssen Steel Trust group) and Von Papen. In the middle of January a secret meeting between Hitler and Papen was held at Cologne in the house of Baron von Schroeder, partner of the bank- ing House of J. H. Stein, which is closely related with Flick and Thyssen. Although, thanks to an indiscretion, the news of this meeting got into the papers, a few days later, the conspiracy against Schleicher was ready. The allied group, Thyssen-Hitler-Von Papen- Hugenberg, which was backed by the entire German reactionary force, succeeded in drawing to its side the son of President von Hindenburg, Major Oskar von Hindenburg, who had so far stood by his old regimental friend, Schleicher. In this way the sudden fall of Schleicher and the sensational nomination of Hitler came about. Thyssen had won, and Hitler set the scene for his St. Bar- tholomew's day. . , "What followed was a continual triumph of the capitalistic in- terests of the Thyssen group. The National Socialist Government of Germany today carries out Thyssen's policy on all matters, as though the entire nation were but a part of the Steel Trust. Every step taken by the new Government corresponds exactly to the pri- vate interests of this clique; Stinnes's days have returned. The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism "Thyssen had six main objectives: (i) to secure the Steel Trust for his own group; (2) to save the great coal and steel syndicates, the basis of the entire capitalist system of monopolies in Germany; (3) to eliminate the Catholic and Jewish rival groups and to capture the whole industrial machine for the extreme reactionary wing of heavy industry; (4) to crush the workers and abolish the trade unions, so as to strengthen German competition in the world's markets by means of further wage reductions, etc.; (5) to increase the chances of inflation, in order to devaluate the debts of heavy industry (a repetition of the astute transaction invented by Stinnes in 1923); and finally (6) to initiate a pronouncedly imperialist ten- dency in foreign politics in order to satisfy the powerful drive for expansion in Ruhr capital. All these items of his programs, with- out exception, have been, are, or will now be executed by the Hitler government." (The reader must remember that this prediction was written in early 1933, within a few months of Hitler's triumph.) How did Hitler repay Thyssen? There were general and specific ways. Thyssen was made sub-dictator of Germany (Reichs Minister of Economics), in charge of all industry. The labor problem for Thyssen and all employers of Germany was solved when Hitler abolished the unions, confiscated the union treasuries, reduced labor to a form of serfdom. Specifically, Hitler poured hundreds of millions of dollars into Thyssen's pocketbook by the manipulation of Gelsenkirchener. The new capitalization was 660,000,000 marks instead of 125,000,000. The state, which had owned more than half of Gelsenkirchener, came out holding less than 20% of the new corporation, and Thyssen, who had feared the collapse of his empire, came out king of coal and steel again, and therefore the most power- ful industrialist in the land. Within a few weeks after taking power Hitler used his anti- Semitism for commercial purposes as an aid to his main finan- cial backer, Thyssen. Oscar Wassermann, of the Catholic- Jewish Deutsche Bank, had been chief rival of the Thyssen bankers. Hitler retired him on "grounds of health." Thyssen's one opponent within the Steel Trust, Kloeckner, a Catholic like Thyssen, was forced to resign from the Hitler Reichstag. A 22 Profits in Fascism: Germany charge of corruption was filed against Otto Wolff, who led the financial battle against Thyssen. Goering appointed Thyssen chief representative of private capital in his new Prussian State Council And, finally, the Fighting League of the Trading Middle Class, the little business men who put up their small money and who went into the streets killing and robbing in- dustrial working men and Jews, was ordered dissolved by Hitler early in 1933 because it might menace the upper class. It is with especial interest that one reads Henri's conclusion and prediction a full decade after he made it. He said in 1933: "The trade unions have been destroyed. Thyssen can dictate wages through the new 'corporations' and thus reduce still fur- ther the prices of export goods in the face of English and Amer- ican competition. Armaments are being prepared; Thyssen pro- vides the steel Thyssen needs the Danube markets, where he owns the Alpine Montan-Gesellschaft, the greatest steel pro- ducers in Austria. But the primal objective of this new system in Germany has not yet been attained. Thyssen wants war, and it looks as though Hitler may yet provide him with one." The historic facts are that armaments were being prepared, although the British and French closed their eyes to this fact and believed the promise that they would be used only against Russia; the Nazi army did march into Austria and did unite the Alpine works with their own, and it is also true that Hit- ler did provide a war, although it was Thyssens brother, Baron von Thyssen, and Thyssen's partner and successor as head of the Vereinigte Stahlwerke, Voegeler, who reaped the profit, and not Thyssen himself. Naziism paid all its original backers (except one man) and all its present owners colossal profits. The relation between money and elections was more clearly illustrated in the German elections in the decade of 1923-1933 than in any American elections— although a volume could be written to prove that the Republican or Democratic Party which wins every four years is the party (with only a very few exceptions) which has the larger number of millions to spend. *3 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism "Seven months before he (Hitler) got there (the chancellor's seat) he polled hist legitimate maximum of 13,745,731 votes, just over one third of those recorded. Four months later, in the last constitu- tional Reichstag election, he lost over 2,000,000 votes. That was in November, 1932. The huge Nazi Party was rapidly declining; it had been overblown with millions of mere malcontents, victims of the slump, lured in by desperation rather than Hitler's glib tongue and splendid showmanship. Yet, after the landslide of the November elections, the Party was broke to the wide and in what looked like hopeless dissolution. Hitler moodily (not for the first time nor for the last) threatened suicide. A few weeks later he was in power." The foregoing statement is from the Fabian Society of Great Britain. It states the situation truthfully. How then explain what followed? "How had the miracle happened? Goebbels grandly called it *The National Socialist Revolution'; it was nothing of the kind. It was just a bargain with Big Business and the Junkers. Strong in money, power and influence, but with hardly any popular backing, these vested interests (with arch-intriguer Von Papen as their political representative) were worried by the Schleicher government's threat to expose the worst of their graft; they were even more worried by the possibility of a swing to the Left through a coalition of Schleicher and the Trade Unions. That's why the Papen group, having cold- shouldered the slipping Nazi Party for some time, were now keen on an alliance capable of adding a mass movement to their own financial and industrial power. That's how Hitler got his much- needed cash for his Party and his own appointment as Chancellor in a new Coalition Government." Hitler's entire history is one of spending big money to build up a party, big money to get millions of votes, and when his backers' money failed to put him in office, he made the con- clusive deal with them, finally selling out the great majority who voted for him in the belief he would keep his 26 promises, most of them directed against Big Business, the Junkers and the other enemies of the people. 24 Profits in Fascism: Germany Hitler's fascist party was never a majority party. In many countries where several political parties exist— and even in the United States at those times when three major parties are in the field— the chancellor or president elected to office represents only a minority of the electorate. Nevertheless, it is true that Hitler did succeed in fairly honest times before he was able to use bloodshed and terrorism for his "Ja" elections, in making Ms the largest of a score of parties. Why was he able to do this? There are of course many reasons, notably the disillusion of the nation, national egotism, the natural desire to be a great na- tion, the psychological moment for a dictator of any party, right or left, economic breakdown, the need of a change, and so lorth. But important, if not most important, was the platform of the Nazi party which promised the people what they were hungering for. It must not be forgotten that the word Nazi stands for na- tional socialist German workers party, and that Hitler, while lecretly in the pay of the industrialists who wanted the unions disbanded and labor turned into serfdom, was openly boasting that his was a socialist party— socialism without Karl Marx— ind a nationalist-socialist party whatever that may mean. But it did mean a great deal to millions. The followers of Marxian Socialism in Germany, split into several parties, would if united Constitute the greatest force in the nation, and socialism and labor were almost synonymous in Germany. Hitler knew this, jfc capitalized on it. He stole the word. i|j -Hitler was able to get thirteen million followers before 1933 by a pseudo-socialistic reform program and by great promises f i aid to the common people. In the 26 points of the Nazi pltfcrm, adopted in 1920 and never repudiated, Hitler prom- iffed the miserable people of Germany: 1. The abolition of all unearned incomes. 2. The end of interest slavery. This was aimed against all bankers, not only Jewish bankers. 3. Nationalization of all joint-stock companies. This meant 25 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism the end o£ all private industry, not only the monopolies hut all big business. I Participation of the workers in the profits of all corpora- tions-the mill, mine, factory, industrial worker was to become a part owner of industry. 5. Establishment of a sound middle class. Naziism, like Ital- ian Fascism, made a great appeal to the biff middle class, the small business man, the millions caught between the millstones of Big Business and labor. The big department stores, for ex- ample, were to be smashed. This promise delighted every small shopkeeper in Germany. Bernard Shaw once said that Britain was a nation of shopkeepers. This was just as true for Ger- many—and German shopkeepers were more alive politically. They were for Hitler's Naziism to a man— and they supplied a large number of his murderous S.S. and S.A. troops. 6. Death penalty for usurers and profiteers. 7. Distinction between "raffendes" and "schaffendes" capital —between predatory and creative capital. This was the Gregor Strasser thesis: that there were two kinds of money, usury and profiteering money on one hand, and creative money on the other, and that the former had to be eliminated. Naturally all money-owners who invested in the Nazi Party were listed as creative capitalists, whereas the Jews (some of whom inciden- tally invested in Hitler) and all who opposed Hitler were listed as exploiters. The vast middle class, always caught between the aspirations of the still more vast working class and the cruel greed of the small but most powerful ruling class, has throughout history made the mistake of allying itself with the latter. In America we have the same thing: all the real fascist movements are subsidized by Big Money, but powerful organizations, such as the National Small Business Men's Association, follow the pro- gram of the NAM in the hope they will benefit financially when the Ruling Families benefit. In all instances, however, history shows us that when the latter take over a country with a fascist army they may give Profits in Fascism: Germany the middle class privileges, benefits, a chance to earn larger profits for a while, but in the end monopoly triumphs, and the Big Money drives the Little Money into bankruptcy. This is one of the many important facts which Albert Norden presented in his most impressive pamphlet The Thugs of Eu- rope, a documentary expose of the profits in Naziism taken en- tirely from Nazi sources. My thanks are due to Mr. Norden —a German writer who escaped to America and who went to work in a war plant recently—for permission to quote some of the evidence. Norden takes up the matter of Naziism and its promises to the middle class: "If the Third Reich were for the common man, the middle-class would not have been sacrificed to the Moloch of Big Business. If the Third Reich were for the common man, the banks and indus- tries and resources of the sub-soil would belong to the people and not be the private affair of a few score old and newly rich. ... As it is now, it is the rich man's Reich. That is why there is such a widespread underground anti-Nazi movement among the German people. "This war is being waged by the Third Reich, the heart of the Axis, as a 'struggle of German Socialism against the plutocracies.' Goebbels has duped millions of young Germans with this slogan. Not only that: Nazi propaganda outside Germany and particularly in North and South America has succeeded in recruiting trusted followers with this slogan. ... "The Nazi theory of a struggle of the Have-nots against the so- called 'sated' nations is as true as the myth that Goebbels is an Aryan and Goering a Socialist! The following facts, taken from official German statistics, prove that in the Third Reich theze is a boundless dictatorship of the plutocrats; that a small group of mag- nates in the banking, industrial and chemical world hae taken hold of the entire economic apparatus at the expense of the broad sections of medium and small manufacturers, artisans, storekeepers and workers, and are making unprecedented profits. "In his program Hitler promised the middle class preference in all government jobs, abolition of interest on loans, breaking of the power of the trusts and cartels, and dividing up the department stores. Each of these points could only have been carried out at 27 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism the expense of finance-capital to which Hitler had made definite commitments which, in turn, spell ruin for the middle class and workers. . . . The Kampfbund des Gewerblichen Mittlestandes, a Nazi organization * . . had been schooled to destroy Marxism. Every- where they had killed Socialists and Communists, demolished work- ers' headquarters and trade union offices. Now that Hitler had triumphed they wanted to reap the fruits. But the Nazi leaders of- fered them cheap laurels instead—laurels which pleased neither their senses nor their pocketbooks. ... "Never yet in modern history has the middle class, relying solely on itself and without an alliance with other social strata, success- fully played an independent role or triumphed in the social struggle. . . . The Nazi leaders did not hesitate one moment in their deci- sion when the big industrialists and bankers began to complain. One after another, Hitler, Goering and Hess in May, June and July, 1933 —issued sharp warnings against Attacks on business'; and Hess ordered all activities against department stores to cease. . . . Al- ready by August, 1933, the high hopes which millions of little people had pinned on Hitler had been rudely shattered. ... Leaders of the struggle of the middle class against the trusts . . . were sent to concentration camps. Before the month had ended the Fighting League of the Middle Class was no more. . . . The massacre of the entire leadership of the Storm Troopers on the pretext of homo- sexuality closed the short chapter of independent action by the middle class with a smashing political victory by Big Capital. . . , The department store of the Jewish owner Tietz was handed over to a consortium consisting of the three largest banks, the Deutsche Bank, the Dresdener Bank and the Commerz-und Privatbank. . . . The large department store Karstadt ... of its eight directors four are big bankers, one a large exporter and a sixth an influential figure in the Deutsche Bank. . . . "The more Jews were dragged off and murdered in concentration camps, the richer Germany's magnates became. They let the S.S. and S.A. mobs riot and trample all human laws under their hob- nail boots— meanwhile the Dresdener Bank acquired the Berlin bank of Bleichroeder (Jewish bank, patronized by the former Kais- er) and Arnhold Bros. (Jewish bank, one of the best banks in Germany, patronized by U. S. Embassy and newspapers); the Deut- sche Bank seized the Mendelssohn Bank. In the Berliner Handels- gesellschaft, an important private bank, Herbert Goering, a rela- 28 Profits in Fascism: Germany tive of Marshal Hermann Goering, replaced the Jewish partner Fuerstenberg. The Warburg Bank in Hamburg was taken over by the Deutsche Bank and the Dresdener Bank in conjunction with the Montan Combine of Haniel and the Siemens Trust. The latter also took out of Jewish hands the Cassierer Cable Works. . , . The armaments kings of the Ruhr did not shrink from profiting from the pogroms. As a result of Hitler's persecution of the Jews, the Mannesmann concern received the metal company of Wolff, Nefcter & Jacobi, and the Hahnschen Works; while the big industrialist Friedrich Flick (one of the dozen men who put up most of the money to establish Naziism), today one of the 20 richest men in the Third Reich, seized the metal company of Rawak and Gruenfeld. This list could be expanded at will It illustrates the prosperous business which the solidly established German trusts acquired as a result of the infamous crimes against the Jews. Together with the top Nazi leaders these German financial magnates were the main beneficiaries of the sadistic persecution of the Jews. . . . "Moreover, the turnover tax on big business was reduced to one-half per cent on all commodities, while for little business it was raised to 2 per cent. The decree establishing price ceilings was eliminated so that Big Business under Hitler was able to raise prices on numerous occasions. Thus in two years immediately preceding the outbreak of the present war, tens of thousands of small business- men were able to get prices which just barely covered their own costs, and sometimes were even lower. That is why small busi- nesses were liquidated on a mass scale in Germany. . . . The gov- ernment of the Third Reich, a long time before the outbreak of the war, had passed the death-sentence on over one million mem- bers of the middle class, and carried it out, thus profiting the wealthiest sections of German finance-capital. . . . The result is in- evitably the same; a blood-letting without parallel and impoverish- ment all along the line. Hitler's regime of a people's community' and elimination of the class struggle has hastened, as no previous regime has done, the crystallization of classes in German society, dealing terrible blows to the middle class and favoring the upper ten thousand in striking fashion. In ten years of the Nazi regime the lower middle class in Germany has been more ruined and de- classed than in the preceding 50 years. "In 1932 a tremendous scandal exploded in Germany. It con- cerned the so-called Osthilfe, government subsidies destined for 29 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism the needy farmers, . . . Among the beneficiaries were the House of Hohenzollern and the President of the Republic, Field Marshal von Hindenburg, whose East Prussian property of Neudeck was involved in tax frauds. Hitler promised to suppress the entire scan* da! if he became Chancellor of the Reich. The interests of the aristocracy and of the munitions-kings, whose war-mongering ap- petites were whetted by the appointment of Hitler, coincided. So Hindenburg covered over his scandal of corruption with his dis- graceful appointment of Hitler as chancellor. 'Today the princes and their followers among the nobility are still the largest landowners in Germany. Three thousand aristocrats own 2,630,000 hectares (1 hectare equals 247 acres) of agriculturally tilled land. On the other hand 3,000,000 families of small farmers — 60% of all those occupied in agriculture — own together only i r 500,000 hectares. 0.15% of the landowners each possessing 5,000 hectares own altogether 10,100,000 hectares or almost 40% of the entire land under cultivation. . . . 412 Junkers owned as much land as 1,000,000 peasants (Darre admitted this). "The Reichstag deputies in their S.S., S.A. and army uniforms raised their arms and shouted Heil for several minutes as Hitler told them, after the outbreak of war in September, 1939: *No one will make money out of this war/ One lie more or less makes no difference to Hitler. The fact is, the profits of the upper 10,000 in Germany have reached astronomical proportions in this war. To detect these profits, however, one must know how to read be- tween the lines of company reports. . . . German industry wrote off 'between a half and one billion marks' above the normal amount for reserves, etc., during the period just before the outbreak of the war. This is a clear case of concealing profits. . . . "Exactly 24 hours before Hitler's armies attacked the Soviet Union the Nazi newspapers published a decree that was intended to prove the Socialist character of the Third Reich and to incite German sol- diers to fight the 'bolshevik-plutocratic world conspiracy.' This decree called for a compulsory payment to the State of dividends that exceeded 6%. As if by magic the stock companies immediately began to increase their capital. They did not have to lay claim to their bank credits, but simply converted their hidden profits, their secret and open reserves, into additional capital. Thus the divi- dends decreased in percentage but remained the same in actual profit. By May, 1942, 883 stock companies had already increased their capi- 30 Profits in Fascism: Germany tal from 4,900,000,000 to 7,800,000,000 marks by making use of their concealed profits. . . . Baron von Thyssen-Bornemisza, Fritz Thyssens older brother . . . increased the capital of one of his com- panies, the Duesseldorfer Press tmd Walzwerk to 3 times its former amount. Thus, when he pays 5% dividends now they correspond in cold cash to 15%. « * Another pamphlet which exposes the profits in Naziism is The Economics of Barbarism by J. Kuczynski and M. Witt, who, after showing how by violence and by illegal means dis- guised as legal the Germans have seized the wealth of all occu- pied Europe, arrive at the conclusion that "The European con- tinent in the hands of German monopoly means the end of the United States as a great economic power. It is the first step towards the enslavement of the Americas." The Nazi plan, after taking over all of Europe, has been to use monopoly capital to reduce imports permanently and to increase the volume of cheap exports rapidly. German monop- oly would exclude American goods from all markets except within the two Americas at first, then enter the South and Cen- tral American markets as a formidable competitor and eventu- ally, with the aid of Japan, to exclude the United States and England from both the Asiatic and British Empire markets. All this of course based on a victory of the Fascist Interna- tional. The three principles of fascist economic strategy, according to these authors, are: 1. To achieve the economic subjugation of a conquered na- tion it is essential to control the heavy industries. The first principle of Nazi economic strategy: keep intact, build up, and above all else, take into their own hands the heavy industries. 2. Fascist economy centers on war production. Since it has no interest in the welfare of the masses of people and prefers to depress wages of workers and farmers and lower their stand- ard of living, goods for popular consumption are of secondary importance. Since all the big industrialists are linked with Fas- cism, it is a policy to give the consumer goods manufacturers 3* The Big Money mi Big Profits in Fascism a monopoly for all of Europe. There is therefore a tendency towards decentralization in the heavy industries* with centrali- zation in Germany of consumer goods industry. The Nazi prin- ciple is: kill consumption goods industries outside Germany. 3. The third principle is to increase the numbers of millions dependent upon agriculture with a corresponding increase iti the holdings of the great landed proprietors. This pays back the Junkers who financed Hitler, provides materials for the chemi-: cal industry and profits the same industry in the sale of artificial fertilizers, and furthers the policy of complete self-independence or autarchy. These principles of barbarism, conclude the authors, would, if realized, "put back the technical and economic structure of cer- tain parts of Europe a hundred years or more, while over- developing economy in other parts of the continent." The pamphlet, written before America was attacked by Japan, warns our country that Fascism is an epidemic disease, and that we cannot escape. So far as this writer knows, the only publication of any kind —book, pamphlet, newspaper story, radio address, etc—which shows the relationship between Big Business in America and the international fascist system, is to be found in the works of Prof. Robert A. Brady. The serious student of Fascism must read both books listed below. The relationship of the big money system to the Fascist Party itself is more clearly shown in what happened in Italy than anywhere else. Let us look beyond the Alps. 32 Profits in Fascism: Germany Fritz Thyssea, / Paid Hitler, Farm & Rinehart, 1941. Wee^End ' Review, London* August 5 and 12, 1933. Fabian Society* London, Tract Series No. 254, p. 5. Albert Norden, The Thugs of Europe, German American League for Culture, 45 Astor Place, New York City. J. Kuczynski and M, Witt, The Economics of Barbarism, Interna- tional Publishers, New York. Robert A. Brady, The Spirit and Structure of German Fascism, Viking Press, 1937; Business as a System of Power, Columbia Uni- versity Press, 1943. The Theory of Capitalist Development, by Paul M. Sweezey, Ox- ford University Press, 1943. CHAPTER III BIG BUSINESS BOSSED MUSSOLINI The first modern fascist regime is the Italian. (Fascism itself is as old as history, and although Mussolini is a colossal liar, he told the truth for once when he defined Fascism as Re- action.) Who put up the money for Mussolini? Why did they invest in Fascism? How were they repaid, and who footed the bill? The original Fascist Party of Italy, likewise the Nazi Party which was formed almost at the same time, was subsidized by a handful of the richest industrialists and landowners who wanted to preserve their wealth and power and prevent the majority of people from living a better life. (The American Legion was organized for the same reason: to preserve the privileges of the few and fool the millions who believed better things would come after victory.) Here is the complete list of main subsidies of Mussolini's Fascism — (compiled from fascist, neutral and anti-fascist sources, including Prezzolini, Salvemini, Bolitho and Prof. Robert A. Brady) — and their American equivalents: x. Lega Industrial of Turin. The American equivalent is the Associated Industries of Cleveland (also A. I. of Florida, Mass., Missouri, New York and Utah). Anti-labor organiza- tions, corrupters of the free press, employers of spies, racketeers and murderers as strikebreakers, users of poison gas, all ex- posed by the La Follette Committee. 2. Confederazione Gcneralc deil'Industria. Nearest equiva- 34 Big Business Bossed Mussolini km is the National Association of Manufacturers, which has fillfie 8 ? ooo members but which is run by a small group of men, mm lading the DuPonts, who have subsidized the worst native l.n< 1st outfits in America. The NAM works "in secrecy and by flecek/* according to the final La Follette report, employs prosti- tute college professors, prostitute preachers, and prostitute jour- fialists* (Mussolini is the most famous prostitute journalist of our time; he sold out to the French government for 50,000 francs a month. Documentation in Sawdust Caesar.) $ Associazione fra Industrial! Metallurgici Mecannici ed Af- ftm. Similar to the Iron & Steel Institute, operated by our steel Imious, including Weir and Girdler, one of whom employed the ; llilumnist George E. Sokolsky, the other the idol of West- brook Pegler. 4« Fiat Automobile Works. Similar to General Motors, larg- est stockholder of which is DuPonts which is also the largest tyhsidizer of most native fascist organizations. 5* Societa Ansaldo (shipbuilders); Fiume Oil Corp; Venezia Oiulia steel furnaces, Upper-Italy Hydroelectric Works, and other big outfits. (Equivalents in NAM leadership.) (h Ente Nazionale per le Industrie Turistiche and Grandi Alberghi associations. No equivalents in the U. S., these being the tourist bureau and the hotelkeepers* association, both more interested in having the trains run on time than the trainmen Wing on time — or at all. 7* Landowners Association, chairmanned by Senator Tittoni. IK 8* equivalent: Associated Farmers. The Italian outfit consists of feudal landlords, the superwealthy of the nation and is the amc of poverty and starvation among the farming population 111 Italy. The U. S. outfit includes the packers and canners who control the Farm Bloc in Congress, constitute the Farm fcobby, and are in reality manufacturers of food and the enemies of the homestead farmer. 8, Banca Commerciale of Milan, Banca Italiana di Sconto, |||||t other leading banks, the equivalent of the Chase, National jljlyj Guaranty Trust and other banks which have spread dol- 35 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism lar imperialism in Mexico, Cuba, and the rest of Latin Amer- ica, As early as 1923 the fascist Prezzolini wrote: "During the days of the coup d'etat Mussolini's hotel was liter- ally besieged by the most notorious speculators of northern Italy, The Confederazione Generate deli'Industria published a communi- que in which it claimed to have played an active part in the solu- tion of the crisis ... the Ferrone brothers, formerly heads of the Ansaldo Company and of the Banca Itaiiana di Sconto, who had dropped out of sight after the panic of 1921, have come to life again/* Italia reported (November 1, 1931) that the subsidizers of Fascism included the brothers Perrone, Pogliani, Borletti, Odero and Mazzotti of Fondi Rustici and the Isotta auto works. Bor- letti, a textile manufacturer and owner of the Rinascente de- partment store, also subsidized d'Annunzio in the Fiume ad- venture. Concludes Italia: "In 1931 among the richest men in Italy were the Fascists who had had the good sense to put considerable money in foreign issues or send them abroad, notably C. Volpi, Arnaldo Mussolini, M. Ciano, Balbo and Beneduce." Bolitho reported {Manchester Guardian and New Yor\ World in the early 1920'$) that when De Vecchi burned the liberal newspaper Avanti in Rome "this for the first time gave the Fascists general press notice and attracted the attention of great capitalist bodies, the Lega Industriale . . . Associazione fra Industriali . , . Confederazione Generale dell'Industria. • . . This latter body openly, the rest credibly, have continued to be the biggest subscribers to Fascist funds. . . . Those shrewd fel- lows of the Confederazione deirindustria, the factory owners' organization of Milan, whose generosity is visible though dis- creet, at every stage of Fascism's progress, through Benni and Gino Olivetti managed to induce Mussolini and the (Fascist) Grand Council to accept 25,000,000 lire for the purpose of the Party, in its conquest of the South." Mussolini was subsidized by the Italian equivalent of our 36 Big Business Bossed Mussolini MAM and similar Big Money outfits shortly after tie seizure #| the factories in 1920. la March, 1919, fascist agitators caused the workers to seize f|e Pranchi-Gregorini plant. Mussolini called this a "creative strike/' because the workers intended to run the plant for their #wn benefit. One of Mussolini's colleagues wrote: "At Dal- ftitte he was the Lenin of Italy." At this time Mussolini was frying to get back into the labor movement. When the factories of Milan and Turin were occupied by the Workers Mussolini held a conference with Bruno Buozzi, who 4%m held a place equivalent to that of Sam Gompers in our American Federation of Labor. He proposed using the factory Ittupation as the beginning of a military movement to seize lome and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. Buozzi indignantly kicked Mussolini out— labor believed in the demo- little political processes, and the main proof was that not an act of violence marked the factory seizures, although the press H the world for a month ran daily lies of bloodshed and firrorism. Within a few days Mussolini had sold the same idea to the liners of the occupied factories— only this time the same Blackshirts were to be used to create a dictatorship of Big Busi- ness, rather than of workers. Signor Agnelli, head of Fiat, admitted to Buozzi that Mussolini actually had dealt with Oli- vetti, of the Confederazione delllndustria, while dealing with Buozzi. (This document in Chapter VIII of Sawdust Caesar.) Olivetti and company put up the money. Mussolini took Rome. And in payment to the subsidizers his first important act was the abolition of all labor unions— the equivalent of our A, F. of L., C. I. O. and Railroad Brotherhoods. From the day he became dictator Mussolini began paying back the men who paid him in 1920. He abolished the tax on Inheritance, for example, because it was supposed to end big fortunes, and that of course meant loss of money for the rich, who had in a body gone over to Fascism after 1922. But Musso- lini did not have the courage to abolish the political democratic 37 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism system all at once, and he had many opposition parties which criticized and attacked him. His chief opponent was the So- cialist deputy Matteotti. The reason Matteotti had to die was because he committed the one unforgivable crime in a Fascist nation: he exposed the profits in Fascism. There is no program, no policy, no ideology and certainly no philosophy back of Fascism, as there is back of almost every other form of government. It is nothing but a spoils system. We too in America have a spoils system, which is talked about every four years when a President is elected, and sometimes when a governor is elected, but this refers largely to a few jobs, a little graft, a considerable payoff for the boys in the back room of politics. It is also true that we in America have ruling families, men and corporations who put up most of the money for elections, and do not do so because one candidate has baby blue eyes and the other is beetlebrowed. It is done for money, and the investors in politics are repaid. But Fascism is a sys- tem whereby a handful of ruling families get the entire nation. It was Matteotti who discovered in 1924 that Mussolini, who had "marched" to Rome in a Pullman sleeper in 1922, was be- ginning to pay back the secret forces which had paid the money to put Fascism in power. On May 27th, a few days before he was kidnapped and as- sassinated by Mussolini's gangsters and family friends, Matte- otti denounced in the Italian parliament a law which would have given a monopoly in oil to the Sinclair firm— the same corpora- tion run by Harry Sinclair which was involved in the filthy muck of the Teapot Dome Scandal, and incidentally the same Harry Sinclair who told Dorothy Thompson that he and his associates put up most of the money to buy the Presidency of the United States every four years. On June 10, 1924, when the entire front pages of the Ameri- can press were given over to the Loeb-Leopold case in Chicago, Matteotti was killed by Mussolini's own orders, and not a line appeared in most newspapers. On the 16th Arnaldo, brother 38 Big Business Bossed Mussolini §f the Duce, printed a warning in his Popolo d' Italia against public clamor for an investigation of the murder, saying such a |i«pest was in reality a demand that Mussolini abdicate. But lli London Daily Herald told the truth. Matteotti, having chal- Jiiged the Sinclair oil deal, had prepared a documentary expose* froviiig that Balbo, Grandi, Arnaldo Mussolini himself and the liggest men in the Fascist government had been engaged in § tremendous graft and corruption deal in relation to the oil 'ifenopoly. For all this the Undersecretary of Home Affairs, Finzi, was Iftade the scapegoat; the evidence was plain that he was among the grafters, and as he was also one of the big financial profit- eers of a Fascist law legalizing gambling, he resigned in an llproar. In apology the Roman press said that "thousands of jailbirds have joined the Fascist Party since the March on Rome" and that Finzi was not a good party member. Finzi was a small shot. Matteotti was using the Sinclair oil graft scandal to hit at the big shots, and the Fascists were throwing Finzi to the mob to save the real profiteers of the *y*tcm. Matteotti had prepared a documentation which showed that the big bankers, the great industrial baronies such as An- saldo, the great landowners and the war profiteers who had made billions while Italy hungered, were to be given the wealth erf Italy. Here is a small part of Matteotti's documentation: Ansaldo; A decree-law of June 14, 1923, supplied national funds for refloating this private corporation whose owners had been chiefly responsible for the bankruptcy of the Banca di Sconto. The Fascist regime, with 72,000,000 lire (against 78^ 000,000 lire worth of shares given the creditors), became almost halt owner; it also took a mortgage for 41,500,000 lire. Fascism subsidized the Ansaldo shipbuilding company at 900 tire a ton. It gave Ansaldo 230 locomotives for repair, without accepting competitive bids. fiume Mineral Oil Refining Company. On April 29, 1923, the Fascist State purchased 18,000 jhares of this corporation for 39 I«<? Big Money and Big Fro fits tn tascism 8,300,443 lire. It made itself party to the success of this private firm. Among the new directors the State put on the governing board were three of the "Fascists of the first hour," Dino Gran- di, Massimo Rocca and Iginio Maerini. Banking Houses: The Banca di Roma was in the same straits as the Sconto. When the latter failed it appealed to Mussolini as a friend and subsidizer of the Fascist movement, and Musso the Duce repaid the directors by bypassing the old law requir- ing them to make good the bank's losses. One of the men who profited most was a certain Senator Marconi, member of the board of the Sconto, who suddenly joined the Fascist Party in October, 1923. In November, Matteotti showed, he was relieved of the financial burden of putting up his fortune to repay the poor devils who had trusted the Sconto and lost all their money. This is, of course, the same Marconi who claimed he had in- vented the radio-a claim disputed by several. That Marconi made a fortune in wireless is beyond dispute. War Profiteers: Every nation had a war profiteering scandal after 1918. Mussolini, in his demagogic orations in which he promised everything to everybody, said that he would take back every cent the profiteers made. At the very time he was saying this, Mussolini, as Matteotti later revealed, was accepting big money from the very same profiteers for organizing his Black- shirts and outfitting them with castor oil, clubs and revolvers. The various regimes before October. 1922, had begun the in- vestigation of thewar profiteering frauds and seveS suits re- suited in large sums being regained. Mussolini had denounced these suits as slow, the sums returned as small : he promised quick suits and complete confiscation of all the property of the war profiteers. On November 19, 1922, less than a month after he took office, Mussolini with a sweep of his pen wrote Decree No. 1487 which abolished the Committee of Enquiry into War Profiteering, and the crooks who paid for his election were re- lieved of all worry. Railroads: The Societa Italiana per le F. S. del Mediterraneo, a private railway line, was granted treasury bonds up to 100,- 40 Btg Business Bossed Mussolini ooo ? ooo lire by Decree 1386 of June 17, 1923. A concession for the construction of 800 kilometers of Sicilian railroads was granted two important Fascist industrialists, Nicolini and Romano; the cost of the work was to be about a billion lire, and no govern- ment returns, rights, or privileges were $$ked. It was purely a big payoff to early subsidizers of Fascism. Peasant Lands: On this subject an entire book could be writ- ten. The whole history of early Fascism centers upon this prob- lem. As early as November, 1918, and internationally in the days of the peace conference of Versailles, the promises of "land for the returned soldiers" were being made by leading states- men of the world, and notably by Giolitti, Orlando, S^niuno and other Italians. But in most lands there was no public domain, and little land available at a small price. There was, on the other hand, a feudal system — it still exists in fascist countries such as Poland, Hungary, Rumania, etc—where a few land barons were even more powerful nationally than the industrial barons of the mills, mines and factories. From Armistice Day to the "March" on Rome there had been a slight agrarian reform in Italy and considerable seizure of land by impoverished and dispossessed peasants, Mussolini in his (fake) radical days had urged the returned soldiers and the landless farmers to seize the estates of the wealthy. At this time a new movement arose, the Populari, or Catholic Popu- lar Party, led by the priest Don Luigi Sturzo, which had as its chief aim the restoration of land to the farmers. However, whenever some of his restless and impatient followers seized some land, Don Sturzo would get together some money and make a settlement with the owner, because he was a strict legali- tarian. A study of the history of early Fascism shows that it con- centrated its violence and its oratory against the Catholic Party, not against the Left. It was not until Mussolini hired an American press agent in 1925 to help float the Morgan froo,- 000,000 loan and the Dillon, Read & Co. loans to the municipal- ities, that the myth of "fighting Bolshevism" was invented to 41 The Big Money and Btg Profits in Fascism please Wall Street. There was a tiny, ineffective Communist Party in Italy, and a large and powerful Socialist Party with which Mussolini could do (and did) business. But Mussolini could not appease the Popular! of Don Sturzo, and he could not do anything to stop the agrarian reform movement. As Bolitho wrote in 1925: "The enemy was not, however, the Com- munists, but the Catholic peasants of Don Luigi Sturzo's Peo- ple's Party which was preaching seizure of land." The landowners (and the industrial owners) were Musso- lini's chief backers. No one knew of the subsidies he had re- ceived from the great estates. Immediately on becoming dic- tator Mussolini granted his first important interview to the press of the world. He said: "I love the working classes. The supremest ambition and the dearest hope of my life has been, and is still, to see them better treated and enjoying conditions of life worthy of the citizens of a great nation. ... I do not believe in the class war, but in coopera- don between classes. The Fascist government will devote all its efforts to the creation of an agrarian democracy based on the prin- ciple of small ownership. The great estates must be handed over to peasant communities: the great capitalists of agriculture must submit to a process of harmonization of their right? with those of the peasants." This interview was printed in America on November 15, 1922, but on January n, 1923, less than two months later, Mussolini issued a decree-law which dispossessed all the small peasants who since the war had settled on the seized lands of the "lad- fundia" of the great landowners. Needless to say, there has been no agrarian reform, no division of estates into small hold- ings, no "harmonization" of "the great capitalists of agricul- ture." The landowners were paid off with a return of all land which had been given the landless and by the employment of the Biackshirt Militia which prevented any further attempts to divide the land. Mussolini's one stroke in issuing this decree-law restored more Big Business Bossed Mussolini profits to more Fascists than probably any act ia the totalitarian history of that land. Although Mussolini himself had not laid up a cent— w a million dollars— as has Hitler, he has made it possible for all "Fascists of the first hour;* be they bankers or burglars, to make all the money possible out of his success. Dumini, the actual murderer of Matteotti, was given vast sums of money by Mussolini and the Fascist Party. Cesare Rossi, one of the founders of the party, was granted the right to sell concessions to foreigners. It was Rossi yvhom Matteotti was to expose as dealing with the Sinclair Oil Company for the oil monopoly. The graft was to be shared between him and Filippelli and Marineili, also implicated in the assassination, and because the others tried to make him the scapegoat Rossi wrote confessions which were later published. In its July, 1934, issue, a song of praise for Fascism, Fortune magazine (owned by Henry Luce, a Morgan partner, and other powerful and wealthy Americans) told of the great corporations and how they progressed under Mussolini. Montecatini, for example, was listed as having assets of $77,000,000; it consumes 10% of the nation's electricity, it is managed by Guido Done- gani, with funds from the Banca Commerciale Italiana. Done- gani is "a fascist from the very beginning." Montecatini owns 51% of Acna chemical company, and I. G. Farben, the Hitler cartel, the other 49%. Signor Giovanni Agnelli, manager of Fiat, is "one of the fi- nancial backers of the march on Rome, he stands high in Fascist councils and has been a senator since Anno I of Fascismo. He owns La Stampa, the leading Turin newspaper. ... . Riccardo Gualino of Snia Viscosa, occupies the same place in Fascism-for-money history as the bankers and industrialists who backed Hitler and whom Hitler purged. But Fortune in 1934 reported: "Along with Agnelli of Fiat and several other big capitalists, Gualino helped finance the march on Rome and in the early years of Fascism flourished mightily." He went to jail later along with other Fascist notables who resorted to 43 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism common swindling in addition to the legal Fascist way of draining the nation of its wealth. Martini & Rossi, the vermouth and cocktail lords, is run by Count Napoleon Rossi di Montelara, a member of the Fascist party. Fratelli Alberto and Pietro Pirelli own a $10,000,000 company which in 1933 made a net profit of $1,500,000 thanks to Musso- lini's help. The Pirellis control 39 joint stock companies with a capital of 7,818,000,000 lire. Agnelli controls 32 such corpora- tions with a capital of 1,890,000,000 lire. Senator Ettore Conti, president of the Banca Commerciale— the bank once headed by Giuseppi Toeplitz, one of the many fascist Jews who sup- ported Mussolini, and who was treasurer and cashier for Fas- cism—controls 18 firms with a capital of 3,474,000,000 lire, "The significant facts to hang on to," concluded Fortune, "are these: if you were an early Fascist, or contributed gener- ously to the March on Rome, you are likely to enjoy the busi- ness benefits that accrue to a high position within the Fascist Party." Curiously enough Fortune (and Luce's other publications, Time and Ufe), which had a long record (before Pearl Har- bor) of applauding Fascismo, will not even now print any news which would in any way indicate that there is at least a slight resemblance between the former object of their affection, and the constant love of their lives, the American Big Business equiva- lent of the Fascist industrial system. Ever since Pearl Harbor courage is not required to speak out against faraway Fascism. The Scripps-Howard papers, which are under the reactionary rule of a man who never got over the fact he was permitted to kowtow to the Emperor of Japan, the Hearst papers, which had a deal with the Nazi press and which published signed propaganda articles of Goering, Goeb- bels and Co., Patterson's New Yor\ Daily News, which said "Let's Appease Japan" because Japan was a good customer, and which favored betraying China because China did not put as much money into American pockets as the Hirohito regime, AA TT Big Business Bossed Mussolini let °^ vetoed America's most influential newspaper, the New York Times, was friendly to Mussolini, employed Italian Fascists as correspondents, played up the news from Franco's side, turned against the New Deal, attacked the Wagner Act, and still represents Reaction. have used flaring headlines against the three brands of Fascism which rule the three chief enemy countries. But there are surely not a half dozen newspapers— perhaps not even three— which have ever had the courage to show the relationship be- tween foreign and domestic Fascism. You will have to read the free and independent press, which is largely the press of small unbribed weeklies, and a few pam- phlets and book to get the truth. The truth is not in the com- 45 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism mercial press because the truth is a dagger pointed at its heart, which is its pockecbook. Native American Fascism is largely A? polk, of ,ho employe,, of gaagtterv st oolp ig oo„, & spies, poison gas, and anti-labor propaganda; it is the fascism of the NAM, the Associated Farmers and Associated Indus- tries, the Christian American Association; the KKK, the Com- mittee for Constitutional Government, the Constitutional Edu- cational League, the U. S. Chamber of Commerce, the old Lib- erty League and its present subsidized outfits, and the Royal Family which unfortunately controls the American Legion. In addition to the books and pamphlets given in the docu- mentation at the conclusion of this chapter, the following state- ment made by Professor Gaetano Salvemini of Harvard is noteworthy. Professor Salvemini told Reporter Joseph Philip Lyford of the undergraduate daily that "a new brand of Fas- cism" threatens America, "the Fascism of corporate business enterprise in this country." He believed that "almost too?* of American Big Business" is in sympathy with the "philosophy" of government behind the totalitarianism of Hitler and Musso- lini; the bond of sympathy between Big Business and the Fas- cist Axis, said the professor of history, lies in the respect of American industrialists for the Axis methods of coercing labor* There are two means which the industrialist can employ to crush labor, Professor Salvemini explained; one way is to hire strikebreakers to "crack the workers' skulls," the other way is to pass a law outlawing strikes. "Mussolini has used both methods in Italy," Professor Salvemini asserted; "in America Big Business has only been able to use the first." But business is definitely sympathetic to anti-strike legislation, he added, and compared the organization of the Ford plant at River Rouge to the organization of the Fascist auto industry, and the strike- breaking methods used by Ford there to those which had been used by Italian industry to crush the workers on the eve of Mussolini's rise to power. Salvemini's statement, based on Italian Fascism, paralleled the statement which Ambassador Dodd made on returning to 4 6 if 11 3=t£ : ::' . ■ I Big Business Bossed Mussolini | America from Germany. Both these men noted the relation- I s hip between foreign Fascism and American business monopolies I and the handful of super-industrialists who rule most countries If for their own profit. BIBLIOGRAPHY William Bolitho, Italy Under Mussolini; New Yor\ World dis- patches, 1925. Giacomo Matteotti, The Fascists Exposed, London, 1924. Gaetano Salvemini, The Fascist Dictatorship. Harvard Crimson, April 22, 1940. George Seldes, Sawdust Caesar, Harpers, 1935. 47 CHAPTER IV THE FIVE WHO OWN JAPAN Every Japanese gun, bullet, torpedo, ship and airplane that has killed or wounded an American soldier, sailor, airman or marine has meant actual cash money in the pocket of Emperor Hirohito. When the "merchants of death," the armaments manufac- turers who had a financial interest in waging previous wars* and who still do in fascist dictatorships, were exposed in 1934, it was found that Mitsui and Mitsubishi were the Japanese members of the cartel, and that the reigning family was a large stockholder in both. Hirohito owns 3,800,000 acres of land with all the buildings on them, many being tenements from which he makes a rent; the total value when the yen was still 50c was estimated at 637,- 234,000 yen. The son of the Sun Goddess has also invested 300,000,000 yen in the Bank of Japan, the South Manchuria Railroad, the Yokohama Specie Bank, Nippon Yusen Kaisha (the shipping line of the Mitsubishi firm), the Imperial Hotel of Tokyo, and Mitsui and Mitsubishi enterprises. In the wave of disillusion which swept over the world after the Treaty of Versailles and proved that the old march of the im- perialists would be resumed and that all international idealism (Woodrow Wilson's for example) would be destroyed, many secrets were uncovered and one of the most sensational was that concerning the international of blood-the cartels of the mer- chants of death, the armaments makers, who made a profit on The Five Who Own Japan the guns, the shells and the bullets. The manufacturing cor- porations in many instances were found linked to governments and to have arranged, even in wartime, for the continuance of their dividends and distribution of their profits. There were several hundred members of the cartels, but only fifty were powerful and of these the handful which influenced world events and formed the Harvey United Steel Co. cartel, the Nobel Dynamite Trust, the various rifle, gunpowder and similar cartels were: Krupp in Germany, Vickers- Armstrong in Britain, Schneider Creusot in France, Skoda in Austria-Hun- gary, Terni-Ansaldo in Italy, Mitsui in Japan and the Bethle- hem Steel Company and DuPont Empire in the United States* Charles M. Schwab's Bethlehem held 4,301 shares in the Har- vey cartel. Albert Vickers was chairman. It should be noted here that just as American Big Business was found at the time of the first World War to be linked to Japanese Big Business through the Harvey cartel, Nobel inter- national trust and other agencies, so just before the outbreak of the Global War it was discovered that the international of money was even stronger than ever. One of the links was the L G. Farbenindustrie, which Hitler and Goering controlled and which involved Standard Oil, Standard Drug, General Motors, General Electric and other of our greater corporations. Just as American Big Business was linked to Japan through the Harvey combine (steel), the Nobel Dynamite Trust (muni- tions) and the other munitions cartels before the last war, so before the Global War there were the usual international cartels in which both the U. S. and Japan shared with Germany, Italy and other nations. In addition, according to the San Francisco journalist John Httman, "among the owners of Japanese business are Interna- tional General Electric, which operates plants through its sub- sidiary, Tokyo Shibaura; Westinghouse Electric International, associated with Mitsubishi Electric Manufacturing Co.; Tide Water Associated Oil, handled by Mitsubishi; Libby-Owens- Ford, represented by the Nippon Plate Glass Co.; Standard Oil, 49 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism with a known direct investment of $5,000,000, exclusive of frozen credits and oil in storage; Ford, and General Motors, with approximately $10,000,000 sunk in Japan proper; Eastman Kodak, and Singer Sewing Machine, with big organizations in the Japanese Empire; United Engineering & Foundry Co., holding a large stake in Shibaura-United Engineering Co. "Besides these shares in the industry of Japan proper, Ameri- can capital is heavily invested in Manchukuo and other exploi- tation companies of a Japanese origin scattered throughout the Far East/' In Japan one of Mitsui's partly owned corporations is the Nip- pon Steel Works, but this firm was controlled by Vickers. Their French connection was through the Franco-Japanese Bank, founded with the aid of Schneider Creusot, whose 1933 report stated that "our bank has acquired important participation in various activities of the Mitsui group, a group destined to have a fine future." Baron Hachirumon Mitsui was reported at the time as con- trolling 65% of the industry of Japan, with the Japanese royal family owning a large interest in the Mitsui Consortium. Mit- sui, referred to in the Japanese press as King of Armament- makers, Emperor of Steel, Caesar of Petroleum, and Demigod of the Banking System, owned or controlled most of the mines, factories, steamships, newspapers and commercial enterprises of the first order, not only in Japan but in Korea, China, Indo- China, Manchuria, the Philippines and Hawaii. The conquest of Manchuria was popularly said to have been instigated by Mitsui, and there is no doubt that this firm was the largest beneficiary from the coal and steel Japan seized. This firm also gained most from the first Sino-Japanese war. It was also credited with dictating Japan*s peace terms at the end of the Russo-Japanese war, using the Tokyo Foreign Office as one of its many handy instruments. It may be re- membered that one of the points Japan would not cede was the occupation by its troops of North Sakhalin, and they remained there until the oil deposits were leased to Japan. Russia was 50 The Five Who Own Japan forced to agree. The lease was then given by Japan to one of the owners of the government and nation, the Mitsui Consor- tium. The so-called "Asia for the Asiatics" doctrine, which means simply "Asia for Japan," found Baron Hachirumon Mitsui its chief exponent. This is a Monroe Doctrine which marches with banners and is followed by an army of salesmen and ex- ploiters. Hachirurnon's fascist imperialism burned even more ardently in his successor, Baron Takakimi Mitsui. "Japan's financial oligarchy," wrote Anthony Jenkinson for the Institute of Pacific Relations, "is composed of great family trusts known as Zaibatsu. Its leading members are the Houses of Mitsui, Mitsubishi, Sumitomo and Yasuda. Between them they own the greater part of industry, trade, banking, and ship- ping. By 1937 they controlled more than one third of the total deposits in private banks, 70% of the deposits in all trust com- panies, and one third of total foreign trade. By controlling the banks, they controlled the smaller Ldit institutLs through" out the country." The income tax returns of 1938-39 showed that Japan consists of a vast majority of farm workers and farmers and industrial workers who earn less than the equivalent of $10 a week. There is almost no middle class, only 1,500,000 or about one family in 40, which earns less than $2,500 a year, but on the other hand there is a small rich and powerful ruling class consisting of 3,233 persons with incomes of $50,000 or more a year. The top flight consists of 7 persons who paid an income tax on more than $2,000,000 each. {New Yor\ Times, April 2, 1939.) On July 30, 1 941, income tax authorities announced that dur- ing the year 1940-41 there were 24 millionaires who paid more than 1,000,000 yen each in income taxes, the total for the two dozen being 57,000,000 yen. Baron Takakimi Mitsui was listed as the richest man in the country (although actually he is not richer than the emperor) ; he had an income of 7,500,000 yen and paid 4,450,000. Kichizaemon Sumitomo, earning 5,800,000 annually, was next, and after him Baron Kikoyata Iwasaki, head 5i The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism of the Mitsubishi interests, who makes 3,800,000 yen a year. In all countries where the regime in power prohibits the full development of the nation's industries — or the manufacturers and raw materials producers themselves limit production (the economy of scarcity), as in the United States— there must be poverty. In Japan, thanks to the fact that four industrial fami- lies and the royal family have colossal wealth— Mitsui is said to be richer than Ford — the majority of the people, farmers and workers, are poor. Moreover, the International Labor Office of the League of Nations reported in 1938 that one quarter of the entire population did "not earn enough to maintain health and efficiency." Official Japanese statistics as of May, 1941, show the average wage for men at 82 yen ($19.25 at cur- rent rate of exchange) and 31 yen ($7.30) for women. The trade unions were abolished in 1940 when the royal- military dictatorship began following the Fascist Axis line in action as well as form. "Workers," writes Jenkinson, "were or- dered to become members of the League for Service to the State through industry," which approximates the Mussolini labor cor- porations and the Nazi Hitler's forced labor. The Minister of Welfare in announcing the abolition of the trade unions made this statement: "Our primary aim is to drive communist ideas and dangerous social thoughts from the minds of the people by ordering the dissolution of the established labor unions, which have a tendency to sharpen class consciousness among workers, which hamper the development of industry, and dis- turb the peace and order of the country." November 23, 1940, the Japanese Patriotic Industrial Society, or Sampo, absorbed the League, and claimed it had 4,500,000 members. It was declared to be a wing of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association. This Imperial Rule Assistance Association (IRAA) is an out- right fascist body. Up to July 6, 1940, there had been many parties in Japan, which gave the nation the semblance of a con- stitutional monarchy in accordance with its Constitution, granted by the Emperor in 1889 and modeled on that of Bis- marck's Prussia. Like Prussia it created a Diet consisting of 52 The Five Who Own Japan a House of Peers and a House of Representatives actually elected by popular vote. Leading parties were the Seiyukai and Mia- scito, both controlled by the big industrialists, the Zaibatsu (very much as our Republican and Democratic Parties are frequently, but not always, controlled by the National Association of Manu- facturers). In i 93 6, however, the Minseito Party came out against Fascism and won a victory and the Social Mass and Proletarian Parties elected 23 working men to the Diet. But on July 6, 1940, the Social Mass Party was ordered di$- solved, and within a few weeks all other parties dissolved "vol- untarily." An attempt to form a Laboring People's Party was suppressed. This left the IRAA in control, a one-party system without an official dictator, but Japan is actually a fascist dictatorship ruled by the Emperor, the Army and Navy, and the Zaibatsu" No one can tell where the political rule and industrial owner- ship of these three elements (Royal Family, Big Business, Mili- tary) begin and end; they mtermingle and draw their money profits from the same seizure and exploitation of foreign lands, exploitation of the impoverished majority not only of Japan but Korea, Manchuria and China. * Japan has been described as an ancient feudal, modern eapi- talistic, fascist dictatorship. Wilfrid Fleisher dubbed it a "col- lective dictatorship." Fascism, as any study of Hitler-Germany shows, has been built up as a system of super-colossal robber barons, thanks largely to the international cartels, of which I. G. Farbenin- dustrie was the largest. Nationally, all forms of Fascism have flourished thanks to the aid the state has given them in maintaining monopolies or trusts. In every instance where business men subsidized a reactionary party— whether it was the Fiat works in Italy paying Mussolini or a landed estate owner bribing a Rumanian premier— the party and the most powerful few of the subsidizers have always engaged in forming national monopolies when they took over the rule of the country. 53 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism Professor Brady is the only economist who has related the "peak associations" or Spitzenverbaende as they were known in Germany— that is, the biggest trade associations, such as the NAM and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce— with the subsidi- zation of fascist movements, and shown how business, whether or not it is officially on the throne, has in all countries become a political power— in fact, the ruling power behind the thrones of fascism. In Japan, the "peak associations" are dominated by the Zai- batsu, or four ruling families, who are comparatively more powerful and richer than the thirteen ruling families of America. "Almost all economic organizations in Japan" stated the Monthly Circular issued by Mitsubishi Economic Research Bu- reau of December, 1937, "have developed after the World War. Excepting chambers of commerce and industry, they have no legal basis, but as governmental control of the national economy becomes stricter, the part played by these organizations is neces- sarily of greater importance. The most representative organiza- tions, the members of which include all branches of the national economy, are the Japan Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Nippon Kogyo Club, Nippon Keizei Renmeikwai, and Zen- sanren." The Chamber of Commerce is quasi-governmental. It belongs to the International Chamber of Commerce, and is dominated by the Zaibatsu, The Kogyo Club "exclusively rep- resents the interests of large industries which developed during the World War," and is compared to the Union League Club by Dr. Brady. Nippon Keizei Renmeikwai, the Japan Economic Association, is comparable to the Federation of British Industries of London (which is the equivalent of the NAM) and the U. S. Chamber of Commerce. Zensanren (Zenkoku Sangyo Dantai Rengokai) is the National Federation of Industrialists which is described in the Monthly Circular already quoted as having for its main objective "protecting employers' interests against attack from the labor movement." Says Trans-Pacific: "It is that the Federa- 54 The Five Who Own Japan tion was organized to present a united front of capitalists against the labor class." In 1937 the government brought all the leading employers and business confederations together in the Japanese League of Economic Organizations, which Brady describes as a sort of pri- vate National Defense Council for business enterprise. He con- cludes: "It would be hard to imagine a much higher degree of policy-determining power than is indicated by the combination of the Zaibatsu and its concentric cartel and federational machin- ery. The hierarchy of business control seems well-nigh com- plete." The government of Japan and the business interests of Japan are bound together "from center to circumference." "What is being accomplished is the gradual rounding out of a highly coordinated fascist-type of totalitarian economy." Professor Brady points out the fact that it was because the old system of feudalism prevailed longer in Japan than elsewhere that "the new Japanese totalitarianism has been easier to achieve than in any other major industrial-capitalistic country." The "feudal and patriarchal-minded hierarchies of business" and the political and military bureaucracies were identified and central- ized. Government and business are more intermarried in Japan than anywhere else, much more so than in the ruling family of Goering-Hitler and company. But all in all the fascist pattern is pretty much the same in all countries where wealth and power have taken over the military-economic-political rule. Professor Brady writes that in Japan the elements "are not greatly dis- similar to those noted for other totalitarian systems of the gen- eral fascist type." He lists: > "1. The Zaibatsu, the monopolistically-oriented enterprises cen- tered around them, and the extensive network of trade associations, chambers of commerce, cartels, and similar bodies of which they are the acknowledged leaders, constitute an elaborate, semi-legal, hierarchy of graduated economic power. . . . "2. The hierarchy works very closely with the civil and adminis- trative bureaucracy of the state. ... This constitutes the Japanese version of National Socialism 55 The Big Money and Big Props in Fascism "3. The military is becoming increasingly part and parcel of the same control pyramid. . "4, And finally, the psychopathic, ideological, propaganda cement which holds the Kokutai (Corporate State) amalgam together in the fused power of Shinto (the main religion) and Bushido (Pre- cepts of Knighthood)/* DOCUMENTATION AND REFERENCES: Anthony Jenkinson, Know Your Enemy: Japan, American Council, Institute of Pacific Relations. Robert A. Brady, Business as a System of Power. Carl Randan and Leane Zugsmith, The Setting Sun of Japan, Random House, 1942. 56 CHAPTER V WHO PAID FOR FRANCO'S WAR? Fascism in Spain was bought and paid for by numerous ele- ments who would profit by the destruction of the democratic Republican Loyalist government. There were generals who wanted glory and others who wanted the easy graft money some of their predecessors had made* There was the established Church, and more especially the powerful Society of Jesus, which had suffered loss of property when King Alfonso was thrown out. There was the aristocracy, and there were other elements as there are in all fascist regimes, but more important than all these forces combined was the force of Money. The Big Money conspired with General Saxijurjo and die Nazi government in early 1936 to establish a fascist regime which would not only protect profits but insure bigger profits at the expense of the majority and end the heavy fear that the masses preferred the benefits which even a weak republic could obtain for them. Prominent among the owners of Spain and Fascism are: 1. The Duke of Alba. Of him it has been said that he could cross Spain from the French border at Irun to the outskirts of Gibraltar and never take his feet off his own land. True or not, it is a fact that he is one of the holders of vast lands, in a nation where thousands starve to death and millions pray for two or three acres. 2. Juan March. This multimillionaire crook is typical of one clement of all fascist regimes. In Italy Mussolini had his mur- derers and assorted gangsters whom he gave big graft jobs and 57 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism made into millionaires as a reward for their aiding him before 1922. Hitler's assassins are known. March has a penitentiary record as a common smuggler, and also a record as the holder of the state monopoly in tobacco. He is said to have put more millions into the Franco movement than any other man. 3. Rio Tinto. This is one of the biggest mining ventures in the world. Big British and Spanish capital is invested in it, and it is a truism that all big capital prefers a fascist regime, which it can own completely, to a democracy where elections change things— and the tax rate. The British probably have the con- trolling interest in Rio Tinto. When Claude Bowers, American Ambassador to Spain, suggested to the British Ambassador that if Franco won Britain would have Hitler at Gibraltar and per- haps lose the control of the Mediterranean, "the lifeline of em- pire," the British Ambassador answered that "private interests at home are stronger than national interests." He meant that Rio Tinto and other Spanish mine, electricity, railroad and other stockholders in Britain preferred Fascism and even Hitler in Spain to the safety of Britain itself. In all agrarian countries— notably Poland, Hungary, Spain, Roumania— the big landowners are almost without exception fascists. The Duke of Alba, who put millions into the Franco investment, was joined by all the Spanish holders of estates who, with the Church, had owned the best and largest areas of fertile Spain. There had been no large seizure of land under the Republic, but all the liberal parties were pledged to agrarian reform. Big pieces of land had been bought from the great landlords and parceled out— in three or four acres and perhaps ten— to several thousand landless. The Republic did accomplish something, but although it was not anything very big, it was enough to scare the multimillionaire estate owners. They therefore joined the conspiracy with Franco so that they could keep the land. It was as simple as all that. Of course the people of Spain— the vast majority, the farm- ers and workers— wanted land and a decent living. Franco 58 Who Paid for Franco's War? therefore did the usual fascist thing: he made big promises. The Republic had divided several hundred thousand acres among the impoverished. Franco repeated the Republic's prom- ises. Here, for example, is the rabidly fascist Coughlinite paper, The Tablet of Brooklyn, which (believe it or not) is also the official organ of the largest diocese in the world. Said the Tab- let in 1937: "General Franco Starts Land Movement "Cordoba, May 26. — General Queipo de Llano, in Ecija, a small town in Andalucia,. has formally settled 100 peasants on small par- cels of land, the first of a series of such experiments by General Franco to interest the peasant in a small holding of his own. . . . Franco has stated that all workers on outlying farms and haciendas must be given facilities to hear Mass every week." It is indeed an amazing item. In 1936, about election time, when the Fascists were beaten and thrown out of office, peasants in many parts of Spain thought the great day had arrived, and they helped themselves to land. In many districts there was violence as the Republic ejected the men who had seized the soil. The Republic promised the land-hungry peasants would get land — later— and legally. Now the American fascists re- port Franco making an "experiment ... to interest the peasant in a small holding of his own" What corrupt irony! In its issue of March 19, 1938, the native fascist Tablet re* ported that Franco (blessed by the Church and called a "child of God" although he had pinned the bleeding heart of Christ on the tunics of the bloodthirsty Moors, some 150,000 of whom had been imported to do most of the fighting) had given a total of 17,000 acres of land to the peasantry of Spain. This appears to be something more than it is. Republican Spain from 1931 to 1936 had failed to satisfy the needs of the peasants— thanks to sabotage by the wealthy — and had succeeded in distributing only 13,000,000 hectares of land, which is some 30,000,000 acres. Thirty million was not enough, because the impoverished peasantry numbered many millions, and that fig- 59 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fascism urc would have allowed too few acres per family. However, it was something. In the Twenty-Six Points of the Phalanx, the ruling Fascist Party of today— all other parties have been abolished and Spain is totalitarian— the nation was to be turned into "one gigantic syndicate of producers," so that there would be plenty for all, instead of superabundance for only the rich, as had been the case under both monarchy and fascist dictatorship; the banks were to be nationalized, land was to be irrigated, and those large estates which were found to be neglected were to be broken up. What does the balance sheet today show of the Franco "ex- periment" of ioo parcels of land, the distribution of a glorious total of 17,000 acres in 1938, and the promise that at least neg- lected estates would be broken up? The writer-journalist Thomas J. Hamilton presents the latest and final report: "The landed aristocrats of Spain . . . had little real cause for complaint against the Franco regime which addressed itself to the work of undoing any damage to their interests that they had suf- fered from the Republic. This was not large. The grandees had been frightened by talk of breaking up the great estates, but they had managed to sabotage the Republic's first Agrarian Reform Law and the second was just getting into operation when the Civil War began. Only a few hundred thousand acres had actually been taken over, either in accordance with law or as a result of the move- ment among the peasants in the Spring of 1936 to seize the land without waiting for the slow operations of the government. "The test of any Spanish regime was its attitude toward this fundamental question, and it may be supposed that some of the grandees had anxious moments when Franco adopted the Phalanx program with its demand for land reform. Carlists and moderate royalists together, however, proved more than strong enough to pre- vent the regime from harming the interests of the landowners. All land which had been occupied by the peasants, legally or otherwise, was returned to the owners, and soon there was no longer even any mention of breaking up the great estates. . . . "In general, the old nobility, fighting very much the same type 6b Who Paid for Franco's War? of fight that it had under the Republic, managed to keep the Phalanx from hitting its pocketbook." Mussolini's prediction, made years before the Global War broke out in September, 1939, that the entire world was lining up in two camps, Fascism and Democracy, and that it was "Either We or They,*' showed itself a matter of fact in the so- called civil war in Spain. It was actually a rebellion of the military leadership-which committed wholesale treason by be- traying the government to which it had taken an oath of al- legiance-armed and paid for by the vested interest, The "We" consisted of Fascists from all parts of the world, hun- dreds of thousands of soldiers from Germany, Italy and Portu- gal, all fascist lands, whereas the "They" of Democracy con- sisted of some 30,000 men of the International Brigade, not one a conscript soldier as were all on Franco's side, but every man a volunteer, a man of intelligence, a first fighter against Fas* cism. (Of the foreigners on the Loyalist side about 7 oo were Russians, mostly aviators and technicians, and not one infan- try soldier. The press of America, Britain and other countries as usual lied about Russian aid and perpetuated the myth that the Loyalists were Communists.) On Franco's march to Madrid he took not only the labor union leaders but a large percentage of the industrial workers of each town he captured, lined them up, and shot them down with machine guns. In Madrid the Fifth Column of Fascism killed as many of the working class as it could. From Madrid early in 1937 this journalist wrote to the New Yorf{ Post that Fascism had made it a class war in Spain; that Fascism was determined to kill off all leaders of the working class so it could enslave the workers, whereas the Loyalists hid as their objective the redistribution of land and wealth. The most enlightening proof of a class war was given in Ma- drid on the 7th and 8th of November, 1936, when the capital was given up as lost, when the censors in the Telefonica let the newspapermen send out the most pessimistic reports, and the 61 The Big Money and Big Profits in Fa