Guerrilla History - People's History of Europe (Part 1 - WWI through WWII) w/ Raquel Varela

Episode Date: December 9, 2022

This episode of Guerrilla History is Part 1 of a two-part conversation with Professor Raquel Varela on the history of modern Europe.  In this installment, we cover the period from WWI through WWII, and it was a great conversation!  The next part will come out next week and will bring us from the end of WWII to today. Raquel Varela is a labour historian, researcher and Professor at New University of Lisbon, and Honorary Fellow at the International Institute for Social History.  She is the author of A People's History of Europe: From WWI to Today.   Help support the show by signing up to our patreon, where you also will get bonus content: https://www.patreon.com/guerrillahistory  We also have a (free!) newsletter you can sign up for, a great resource for political education!

You don't remember den, Ben, boo? The same thing happened in Algeria, in Africa. They didn't have anything but a rank. The French had all these highly mechanized instruments of warfare, but they put some guerrilla action on. Hello, and welcome to guerrilla history. the podcast that acts as a reconnaissance report of global proletarian history and aims to use the lessons of history to analyze the present.

I'm one of your co-hosts, Henry Huckimacki, joined as usual by my two co-hosts, Professor Adnan Hussein, historian and director of the School of Religion at Queen's University in Ontario, Canada. Hello, Adnan. How are you doing today? I'm doing great, Henry. Glad to be with you. Of course, always a pleasure to see you. And also joined by Brett O'Shea, host of Revolutionary Left Radio, and co-host of the Red Menace podcast. Hello, Brett. How are things going for you today? I know that

you're really, really busy these days. So I'm glad that you were able to make it. I am the good kind of busy, but I'm doing quite well, Henry. Yes. Wow. I'm very glad to hear that. And today, listeners were joined by an excellent guest, one that we're going to have a really, I'm sure, tremendous conversation with. We have Raquel Varela, author of a people's history of Europe from World War I to today. Professor Varela is a researcher and professor at the new University of Lisbon, and also is the author of a people's history of the Portuguese revolution in addition to the book that we'll be talking about today. So, hello, Professor. It's a pleasure to have you on the show. Well, hello to all of you. Thank you so much for this

invitation. It's a great honor to be here and debate a little bit the history of Europe. Absolutely. So I guess as a way of getting this conversation underway, I want to get, before we even dive into the history itself, so perhaps we can be a little bit brief with this. How does one begin to undertake a project of the scope and scale of looking at all of modern Europe? Because we're talking about a pretty geographically diverse area, very culturally diverse area. And the time span, as I said from the subtitle, from World War I to today. So even temporally, we're looking at a really big span of time. So this, I mean, just as a non-professional historian, this seems like an absolute gargantuan undertaking. And I'm wondering how you decided to come to

this project and how you went about that process of working through such a huge history? This is a great question. Not sure if I will answer to this, but this is a great theoretical question, which is, I've been recently visiting the Museum of Natural History in Vienna, and suddenly in one of the Babs, Russia has disappeared from Europe, which I don't know if it has to do with his this culture of persecution of Russian altars after the invasion of Ukraine or not, or if it was like this before. But for me, this makes a challenge, because as a historian, Russia is an essential part of Europe. Russia is in fact the biggest country in Europe, and this is not just geographically.

We're not just speaking on the mounds, the Hura mounts, and how does this geographical fits in Europe. We cannot understand all the social revolutions in Europe, all the basic things like the universal suffrage that was extended after the Russian Revolution. And, of course, we can go previously, which I don't go in the book, to the role of how Europe has been systematically pressure Russia towards a dispute of this region, which has happened, of course, in the Napoleon invasions, in Crimea, and during the Nazi fascism. and I, in my opinion, if you allowed me, also during the Ukrainian war we are visiting, this tension, this pressure, it's a constant in the history of Europe. So all of these make us a little, this question, what is Europe, first of all, and how can we, and after saying what is Europe, so who fits in Europe, then we can answer how, difficult is to understand Europe.

So in one of the starting points of my book, I start quoting numbers of what was Europe in the beginning of the 20th century, when my book starts. And now I'm quoting my memory. I believe that England had the territory 80 times bigger than England. and then it goes to France, to Netherlands, et cetera, to Portugal, 20 times bigger than Portugal. So when we speak about Europe,

the challenge is even bigger because it's not about Europe, it's about the world. And this is a conception I have that has a meaning also nowadays, where when we listen a lot about global south, for example, or the divisions between North and South, or the so-called Christian, world, the Islamic world. I think if we understand the social history of Europe,

we understand much better how to change the world and how societies have changed and how they can change is the main reason I think why I've become a historian. I love

history, but I love history because I don't like the world where I live and I I think if I understand history better, I can contribute better to understand how we change the world we live. So, answering to, so why I've chosen Europe? Because in Europe, it's the founding place of the labor movement. It's the place where more, it was much stronger the development of a working class conscience. Europe is the place where the most important revolutions took place in more than history.

So since the French Revolution, but above all in the 20th century, because I'm focused on social revolutions and not on bourgeoisie revolutions, which are more the subject of the 19th century. we, for example, nowadays we see a lot this, I believe, a little bit post-more than identity policy in this geography, which is reclaim a special role to the global south and I think we have to reclaim a special role to Europe, not in an Eurocentric perspective, but in a perspective that if we change Europe, we help to change the world. The role of the working classes in Europe changing the world is a key factor.

So when we look, we can see, we can look to Europe and think about of colonialism and Nazi fascism, but we also can look to Europe and think about of the role of the working classes, the militancy against the colonialism, the revolutions, the social revolutions, the conquest of rights, the defeat of the Najifacis and the resistance to it. So I think we have to be more global and dialectic when we look to the regions. And I hope I've managed to do this. So speaking about Europe is not speaking about Europe, it's speaking about the world. And then, of course, we have to choose.

I don't want to escape directly from your question. we have to go out of this idea that first of all we cannot speak about everything so we have to change we have to choose how we do this I have chosen

a class approach much focus on the social history or the history from below so trying to write about the main moments where the working classes have changed Europe, have resist. So it's a story of resistance, very much influenced by our zine,

which was very much important in my development of my historiography. Yet, I must say that my history of Europe is not the whole history of Europe. So, for example, I was reading today Perry Anderson, a book on the making of his main book on the transition to modern period. The absolutist debate he makes on the regimes of the transition to capitalism. And he says that ultimately we are speaking about politics. So, for example, I would love to read a very good history on politics in Europe in 100, years. And I think if we can merge politics and political organization with the history

from below, which I've tried to make, we'll have a great totality or will be very near a great totality of the comprehension of the process in Europe. I don't know if I've answered or if I tried to escape from your question. No, yeah, I think that's really well said and really, really interesting. I guess now that we've had a sort of overview of your approach, I think we should dive into that first chapter. And you start this text, this people's history of Europe from World War I to today with the common starting place of any analysis of modern Europe, which is World War I. But you also emphasize the Russian Revolution in particular 1917. So can you talk about kind of why you started your book, not just at World War I, but at the

Russian Revolution and what the impact of the Russian Revolution was on the rest of Europe? Well, the Russian Revolution is the end of the first world world. The First World World didn't finish because there were some diplomats who sit it on the table trying to finish the world. What has finished the world was the Russian Revolution. So the Russian Revolution is the armistice, is the end of the world. And this was done in a revolutionary way, was not a negotiation, was not a rational decision of the exam or of the states in Europe was a dramatic revolutionary process.

This means that the masses came to history and decided to make, to stop the world by desertion, a mass desertion, So the peasants left the world and by taking the future in their own ends. This seems a little bit poetic, and it is. Revolutions are very poetic. But what they have done was that the state could not answer to the basic needs of the people in Europe because all the state was concentrated in production of destruction.

This is the economy of war, which, by the way, is quite sad, but we could foreword it, we could foreseen it, sorry, what we are seeing now concerning a war economy, German saying they will go back to militarization, etc. militarization of society means, in my opinion, it's a war economy, it's an answer of capitalist societies towards the economic crisis of capital. And war economy means the production of destruction. Rosa Luxembourg made a wonderful thesis on this at the beginning of the century. So what we have seen at the time that I developed in the book is the levels of starvation, of misery, the cues to have a soup in Europe in most of the countries in Europe, because peasants were recruited to the world, and it's calculated around 20 million people died in the first. world. So it's a process of mass destruction of society. And at the same time, peasants stop

working in agriculture, which leads to dramatic economic scarcity of primary goods. And all the batteries of the states are concentrated in the militarization. The first Soviets, which were built in a 905 revolution in Russia, when they came, when they were reborn in 1917, they were reborn not in a socialist project. The socialist project, again, coming to the centers of Perry Anderson, is a political conscience project. The Soviets were born in a very spontaneous way, then we will see this in all 20th century, which is when the working classes, the population in general, tries to solve basic needs that the state cannot solve anymore. This is how dual power borne.

So what were doing the Soviets in Russia? they were doing distribution of energy, control of public safety, control or distribution of foods, supplier foods, organization of housing. So this is and what has happened there. I think one of the, as it is told, the Russian Revolution, gave the world the world, the world, the world Soviet, and finished with the word Xad. This is a new era we are speaking about. We are speaking about a development of self-determination of humankind with Russian revolution that was never possible before. There was an

attemptive in the Paris commune where you see the decree of universal education, the decree of men and women equal pay. All this, you saw the end of night shifts for workers. We saw this in the commune. In the Russian revolution we see for the first time

the workers took the power of the state by self-organizing dual power organizations which is through Soviet. And this has changed the world forever. All socialism attemptives, in my opinion, have failed, have degenerated because of foreign

invasions, economic blockades, it's a continuous struggle, bureaucracy, degeneration, the loss of the defeat of the German Revolution. All this we can understand. we can understand and helps to explain why the socialist projects didn't develop but what was open in the Russian Revolution was the most beautiful adventure of humankind

was a political proposal that we can all live cooperating and that we can all participate in politics and then that what we produce can belong to everyone. This idea, although the neoliberal, although the extreme right, although the social democrats try to say, look what shows the Soviet Union, the Maoist, the Cambodia, et cetera, shows that socialism is impossible.

What has shown the Russian revolution was that in the conditions of the Russian revolution, isolated, backward country, with. surrounded by enemy states. We had the degeneration of Stalinism, which in my opinion is the counter-revolution. All this is true. But with this, what we

had was the most incredible and developed idea of politics, of science, of arts, look to the futurism in Russia. Vigotsky, Lure, Leonchev in neurology and

psychology, the role of Lenin, Trotsky, Preobrazhensky, Bukharin, whatever, we can disagree. How they have developed politics and history, there is a huge development in economic thinking, in political thinking, the role of education with Vigotsky, the proposals concerning public. policies, what is proposed in Russian Revolution, was never accomplished in any country in the world, including Scandinavia, was that we have to socialize domestic work. We don't subcontract. We don't have, we socialize the domestic work. So people can, the couple can make love when they arrive home. They don't have to share who goes to clean the dishes because we have collective good cantings where people have food and have a social life.

What we have done concerning feelings and the way of life, it's amazing. If you look to Kolentai development of free love, which in my opinion is unfortunately not well known, is all this is about self-determination and developing the humankind as was never before. And all the history of the 20th century was an attemptation by the working classes to follow the Russian Revolution

when they have done revolutions, of course, and an attempt by the bourgeoisie to forget what was the biggest nightmare of their moment when there were questioned, When the population explained, look, we cannot tolerate, you concentrate, you concentrate in your hands, the production of dozens of millions of people. This is unsustainable. I'm really interested in your analysis of the 20s and 30s, you know, picking up from, I guess, these questions.

why didn't the German revolution happen? Why didn't socialists manage to confront the rise of fascism? And also this interesting issue that you raised and pointed out that it wasn't Keynesianism. And some of those kind of early policies after the collapse or crisis of capitalism in 1929 that really rescued the capitalist system, which is, I think, a common narrative amongst social democrats as the whole, you know, need to reestablish these kind of New Deal era welfare society packs, but that in fact it was the war economy. And you mentioned the war economy. And I wonder if there's a connection that maybe it seemed a little implicit, but maybe you could make it more explicit, that it seemed that the war economy was both the solution for the German kind of industrial and financial elites at the same time that it was in the economies of the West and the U.S. as the way out of this crisis and the way to forestall socialist revolutions that had drew inspiration as you were just speaking about from the

1917. So I'm wondering if you could elaborate a little bit more on, you know, this emergence of fascism, its connection in some ways with the war economy, you know, outside of the fascist zone from this socialist perspective and why it was the socialists were unable in this period to mount effective kind of revolutionary movements. Well, thank you for the question. And when we, the New Deal, the 29 crises shown what Marx has predicted in capital. In the beginning of 19th century crisis that Marx analyzes so well, there is a essential contradiction that capitalism cannot solve. Capitalism, when creates profits, creates their own crisis, by,

over production of capital. And this is a big debate among Marxists. We don't have year time to develop, but there is a more, let's say, sub-consumption theory attached to Roseluxenburg and a theory more attached to the value theory and overproduction of capital. In my opinion, we are speaking of overproduction of capital.

This means that there is a moment where you cannot continue to produce profit because the rise of constant capital over variable capital. This is a kind of gravity law of social and economic history. So you can do a lot of things. You can try to mediate.

You can try to, so we can try to avoid the impact in different ways in different layers but the law is there this is the tendency

the value law to profits tendentially coming down what we saw after the First World world was a huge development of capital accumulation, the so-called the great 20s or the crazy 20s.

Because, of course, when you have a world, you have a full destruction and you have a reconstruction. So if you have a reconstruction, you have huge rates of not just the economy of war, which is the state investing in mass destruction in a massive way, because the first and the second world are all massive ways of destruction. But you also have, in the reconstruction period, a huge period of economic growth.

But when you have a huge period of economic growth, you can foreseen that you have a huge catastrophic crisis. As bigger is the reconstruction, as bigger is the crisis. Because in the process of reconstruction, You have the capital, the constant capital increases dramatically over wages, over variable capital. And there is a moment where capitalists look to their Excel and see, look, the unity costs of labor is so increasing in a dramatic way. Why? Why? Because this is one of the main things in economy that if people don't understand it, they don't understand the world. Just labor produces value. Because when you look to a machine, this is labor. Labor has done the machine. the only origin of value

in the planet is labor when you have huge amounts of fixed capital your origin of labor is shortening necessary this is the origin of crisis in 1929 capitalists were very aware of this

and the only way at this moment where you can recover your profit rate is, of course, extending the labor, working time, hours, short, cut the wages, ask for public money, which was done massively in 2008 crisis. But when the crisis is such a big recession,

this is not enough. You have to burn capital. You have to destroy capital. Why this didn't happen in the 19th century? Because the destruction of capital in 19th century was called colonialism. When you had a huge crisis in 1870, you invade the other countries. You go for low prices of raw materials. You go to dispute land.

you go to dispute means of production but after the First World World there is no place in hurt without an owner without a capitalist owner without a state owner so then

what happened in the First World World was that we cannot go for colonies so we go for the other territories this is the inter-imperalist war of the First World World in the Second World World World we are speaking after 29 crisis, the amount of capital to be burned was much huge

because the production of capital was much use. With tailories, with Fordism, with development of automobile industry, etc. So we had a huge production of capital that has changed in many ways in culture, ways the world will live towards the creation of the small middle classes, the increasing, constantly increasing of the state and the tax revenue, et cetera. And so the bourgeoisie realized they have tried the Keynesian attempt. But there are two types of Kenyan answers, because militarism is a Kenyan answer.

is saying, look, we have to use the money of the states to do worse. Well, that's actually why I wanted to ask that, because in some ways, the military war economy is just an extension of the, so what actually is different of why did it work? I totally agree with you. Keynesianism is a form of canism. So people look to the welfare state and to the New Deal. first of all, the new deal

didn't change the crisis. Why? I will try to explain this and hopefully our listeners will understand. If not, it's my fault, of course, because this is a little bit complex.

If the labor is the origin of value, when I increase the wages, I am increasing the capitalist crisis. If we are socialists, as I am, I'm always demanding wages increase. But this is for the workers.

Because from the point of view of capitalist crisis, the crisis of capitalists, increasing wages will increase the crisis because the problem of capital is when they face the difference between variable and constant capital is wages. So the Keynesian New Deal approach says we want to put money in the society on wages to have more conception and makes the economy work. This makes the economy work in circulation, not in production, because in the production, the origin of the crisis is there.

So capitalists realize this very well and said, look, what we need is a massive destruction of capital. We need to militarize the society. And the first society to do this was Germany by the most terrible political form of history, which was Nazi fascism. And of course, why the Jewish were the target, not first the Jewish. want to be the target for the communists, the socialist, all kinds of political. First of all, because a lot of communists were Jewish, a lot of internationalists were Jewish. In fact, in Hitler speeches, a Jewish comes with a hyphen, the Bolshevik Jewish or the Jewish Bolshevik. So it's always against what, against internationalism.

And the second thing, why they went after Jewish, was to expropriate the small amount of Jewish that were rich. So this is the target. And what they wanted with the Jewish, they didn't want it to kill them at the beginning. They want them to be forced labor workers. So they have opened hundreds of concentration camps that were labor camps. These labor camps were private companies of Germany, dozens of them, and the state had the role to recute forced laborers among Jewish, homosexuals, gypsies, because the gypsies, a lot of them were from anarchist background since the 19th century crisis in Romania and all these areas, and political opponents. all these people were closed in concentration camps where they were obliged to work. Solves the wage problem.

Yes. Nazi fascism. You cannot understand Nazi fascism without understand the labor process of massive fascism. They killed the children and the handicapped people because they didn't produce enough. So these ones were killed immediately. and the political leaders were killed immediately as well because they could be organizers of resistance inside the camps. But the other ones were working until they were dead.

Just after the defeat of Barbarossa operation in Russia, when it was defeated in what is now the dispute in Ukraine, the black Chernitevsky lands, the black lands. So it's high productive in Ukraine. in Syrials, this area of Ukrainian Russia, Hitler wanted this to produce cereals for the empire. And after the defeat in Stalingrad, late 42-43, there was a conference in Van Zey in Germany,

and they have came to the conclusions that after the defeat in Stalingrad, they could not feed seven million people. and the final solution came there. So the aim of the Nazi fascism was not to kill Jewish at the beginning, except children and alicap and old people. Yes, this was from the beginning they consider them non-productive. But the aim was to have them work until that.

So Nazi fascism, if you go to, Auschwitz, these are camps to produce rubber where Primu Levy writes. It's a private company of rubber. Maltauzen is a private company of rocks. All the camps were camps organized in private companies, which were obliged to compensation after the Second World World. Some of them, very well known nowadays,

Tissan group, buyer, all these groups were part. compensations after the Second World World. But this, of course, there is no compensation for such thing. But what I wanted to say is that the Nazi fascism is a labor answer. But I must say that the militarization of the workforce was done also in U.S., because together with the new deal came the allocation of workforce, the tabulation of prices

of the workforce, this was all decided by Roosevelt. The difference was that US was rich enough and France and England were rich enough. France and England because they had colonies, US because they had won the First World War, they were rich enough to militarize the society without making a dictatorship.

Germany had no colonies, and so the social tensions were much bigger. Germany was about to have a socialist revolution. And so the Nazi fascism is an answer to this. But the process of militarization of society and the process of controlling the labor force was generalized in all these countries, and all these countries, in one way or another knew that the Second World War was the answer to the economic crisis of 29. Why?

Because otherwise they could have support the Spanish civil world. This would be essential to defeat Nazi fascism. They haven't done it. They could, of course, never supported the Hitler regime how they have done in 38 concerning the Czechoslovakia division. So we have to see all the process as a process that gives an answer to the economy. And of course, after the Second World War, I must say that the bombing of the Allies, the bombing of the Germans, and the bombing of the Russians were mainly over civilian and some military targets, the massive bombing.

because the companies, and I quote the data in my book, the companies were not bombed because they knew who would win the world will continue to develop these factories. So factories were not bombed. Bridges were bombed, so military sectors, of course military barracks were bombed, but entire cities as Dresden were born.

bomb as really are who were bombed. But they didn't bomb the factories because they wanted to make economy works again. This is capitalism works again. I want to jump in here with a follow-up question. And at risk of sticking in the same time period in the same region for too long, because I know that our time with you is limited. And this book, of course, does, you know, cover all of Europe for this period, you know, this period of time from World War I up until pretty much the present. But I do have one thing that I want to just get your take on because there's some points of this book that, okay, let me preface this for listeners by saying, I come from a different ideological position than the professor does, but I still really appreciate this book. I really

enjoyed reading it. I got a lot out of this book. And I definitely recommend listeners that you pick this up and read it. That being said, there are some points of this book where I would push back against the portrayal of some events. And I wish that we had a lot more time to go through each of them. Like I'd like to talk about Hungary 56 a little bit more. I'd like to talk about the Berlin Wall and, you know, the reasons for the Berlin Wall a little bit more than you went into in this book. But since we're talking about this period of time, I guess let me just push back on one thing here and get your reaction to it. So one thing, and I'm quoting from the book here, you write, until the last moment, the Stalinist leadership of the German

Communist Party, KPD, intoxicated by its third period sectarianism, dogmatically refused to close ranks in any area of the anti-fascist struggle in trade unions, parliament, any kind of organization with the reformist leaders of the German Social Democratic Party, SPD, which not only kept it away from the bulk of the working class basis of social democracy, as it dangerously divided the forces of the German working class in a conjuncture in which fascism spread rapidly among the petty bourgeois masses of the country. So I'm not debating that there was not, you know, interaction between these parties. That's quite clear.

But one thing that I think that you left out, and I'm wondering why in this part, is why this may have been. Because earlier on in the book, and I'm going back towards the beginning, you do correctly point out that during the crushing of the German revolution, Rosa Luxembourg and Karl Liebnecht were assassinated by proto-fascist groups with the complicity of the social demonstration. Democratic Party. Later on, and this is something that if the listeners, you want something else to read, you can check out the German Communist Resistance, 1933 to 1945 by T. Derbent. He shows in this book, you know, pretty comprehensively that while there was a large mass, the Communist Party was very strong in Germany up until they were outlawed. There was over 100,000 members of their paramilitary formations at this time.

The Antifa League had over 250,000 individuals at this time. You know, they didn't organize very strongly and in a very cohesive way. The leadership of this organization was not very strongly organizing to actively, you know, meet up with all other formations that could potentially be allies in the fight against Nazi fascism. But there were tens of thousands of communists that were organizing together at this time. And I think that one of the reasons why, and this is something that, you know, is forgotten, and I'm not saying that you forgot about it, but something that's not typically appreciated is that one of the reasons why there wasn't this sort of interaction between the German Communist Party

and the Social Democratic Party of Germany is that there was this historical relationship between them where one allowed for the absolute crushing of the movement of the other and for the assassination of its leaders. And so my question is, you know, why is it that with this in mind, I mean, it's something that you do point out in the book, this history between these two formations and the fact that we know based on other works that have come out retrospectively that there were tens of thousands of communists, members of the Communist Party of Germany, that were organizing not with any real sort of leadership. I mean, again, I'm not claiming that the party was, you know, very cohesive in its movement. Why there

wasn't any sort of analysis of why this might have been other than, as you pointed out at the beginning. They were in their third, let me see, I closed the page. Sorry about that. The third phase of third period sectarianism. Let me tell. First of all, thank you for your question. I think that when we look to the disaster of the politics of Stalin towards Germany, which is considering that social democracy is the other kind of fascism, this is a catastrophic policy because social democracy is a counter-revolutionary organization, in my opinion, but not the same as fascism. Fascism is a process of civil war.

Fascism is a process where the bourgeoisie pays and, and finance and organized militias to kill the leaders of the left, communists, social democrats, progressive Catholics, Trotskists, anarchists, whatever. The role of the S.C.R. was to kill the political leaderships. And these were the first one to be in prison by the Nazi regime, because they knew they had to defeat progressive leaderships to come to power. And this policy, was changed in the Congress after the third period by Stalin, making a self-critic in the Stalinist way towards a policy which I found disaster as well, which is the seven Congress

of Dimitrov, which is against fascism we have to make an alliance with everyone, including the bourgeoisie parties, which, in my opinion, has helped to defeat the French Revolution of 1936 so both and problems. Trotky at the time in the debate defended the United Front was that

communists had to be together with social democrats, with all kinds of left, but not with bourgeoisie parties. So when Stalin went from alliance with no one, with alliance with everyone policy.

This is the change from the third piece. to the Seventh Congress. In my opinion, this can just be explained because Stalin itself knew that a success of the German revolution will put in change the bureaucracy of Stalinism in Russia. So the hypothesis of a rank-and-file revolution from below against Stalin, with a victory of a socialist, revolution in Germany will be much higher, not certain, but much higher. The same time, for example, when we say that Stalin was just possible because of defeat

of the German revolution in 1980 and in 1923, we also have to understand that after the consolidation of Stalin in Soviet Union in 27-28, we also had a consolation. of socialism in one country and the idea that we could deal with bourgeoisie states without questioning them. And this is the Weimar Republic. When happened exactly what you said? It was during this process that the Freikorps could organize in a quite open way. let's make it clear and now it comes to the second way

to the second question which I developed in a book I think the social democracy is always complaining everyone for Nazi fascists but it never complained themselves and it didn't start it just with Rosa Luxembourg assassinate

because in the same way that Staling didn't want to talk with social democracy social democracy didn't want to talk with communists and they closed their eyes when they were persecuted and killed or they were even complices of this. So the role of social democracy in Germany is a tragic role

because when they say, look, we can have a regular capitalism in Germany, a capitalism that will share their profits with workers, where workers have health education, and this is the Weimar Republic dream, which was not a dream we know, because capitalism is always producing their own crisis, and the Weimar Republic was a transition period that showed that the only solution for German working classes

was to support revolution in 18 and in 23, which they haven't done. the 29 crisis didn't came out of the sky. So the period of the Vimar Republic was, you know, this kind of calm sea and below it's a huge earthquake. So when we believe that capitalism can be limited, we are telling lies to the working classes. Capitalism cannot be limited. And this is the story of the Weimar Republic. The catastrophic economy of Germany is a daughter of capitalism.

There was no socialism in Germany in the 30s. It was capitalism. Was capitalism that produced the 29 crisis. So the role of social democracy, for me, is a key role because social democracy doesn't believe in self-organization. of workers. Social democracy believes that capitalism can be regulated.

Social democracy believes that workers shall have alliances with leaderships of the bourgeoisie. And all this has proved a complete failure in the 20th century.

Each time the working classes believe themselves, Denise, they faced awful crisis. As we facing nowadays. Because social democracy is coming in the last 30 years saying, look, we have to regulate neoliberalism. Neoliberalism is capitalism in their decline, and cannot be regulated. So what we are facing now is a terrible crisis, is the Western countries going to a war economy, is the terrible dispute in Ukraine, is it totally sanctions that

work for nothing except to destroy the working classes, both in Russia and in Western countries. The profits are increasing in the biggest companies, not just in the military weapons, et cetera, companies. So I think that one of the lessons of Nazi fascism is that capitalism cannot be regulated. Well, I think, you know, we had a couple of questions. we know your time is short. I think we wanted to end with some kind of recommendations of what you see as the lessons. So you've given us one of these important and key lessons

of this period of the 20s and 30s and through World War II for our current situation, which I think we do see as the dissolution of neoliberalism and the emergence of new right-wing nationalist movements and also of sort of attempts of social democracy. So I don't know if you have any final concluding thoughts on what this kind of period of the 20s and 30s really has to say for our moment now, maybe you can expand a little bit on that Ukraine point of the new war economy because perhaps that's one of the trajectories that we're seeing is that Europe's, you know, response to this. Well, you know, there's also the issue of the fact that the European project as a whole seems now under question in ways that it wasn't 20, 30, you know, years ago. And whether you see the emergence of these ultra-nationalist far-right governments and movements electorally is about putting Europe back on a, you know, war economy, perhaps.

Yeah. Well, I think what we are seeing in the Ukrainian. is an answer of the biggest states in the world to this capitalist decline. So what the big answer of capital after the 70 crisis, so the end of super production of the reconstruction of the Second World World was to delocate to China production and make a huge world competition of the wages. When China entering the market, the workforce around the world has doubled.

But now we are seeing the end of this. We are seeing huge competition between states and companies, and the answer was so-called the green economy. The green economy is the capital saying, look, we don't want to spend money in welfare state. We'll spend all the money in green transition of the companies. Of course, I don't have to say that having your electric car is not green. Green is public transport.

This is ridiculous. But in order to do this, and this comes along with the so-called automation, so facing the competition between Russia, China, U.S., Germany, Europe, etc., you try to have more and more technology. But technology is a fixed cost. So it goes again the other problem, which is you are raising the possibility of a huge crisis. The second thing is that this technology turn demands huge amount of raw materials.

And the majority of these raw materials are in Russia and in China. So NATO is an expansion. organization who is challenging and fighting for the raw materials of China and Russia. And I believe Russia is not, is doing the same. He's fighting for their own territory and he's fighting for these raw materials and is fighting for a quote, of course, the gas prices, all of these. So when I speak on Russia, when I speak on China, when I speak on U.S., I'm not speaking of the working classes of these kind.

country, which are not, of course, cannot be blame of all these politics. I'm speaking of states. I'm speaking of leaders. I'm speaking of capitalists. So what we are seeing, in fact, it's a dispute of raw materials, which seems to be vital in this process of that have chosen Ukraine as the stage. But who goes next? So what I see is a very similar situation to the 30s.

And I come to be absolutely shocked, although very predictable again, the easy way people are speaking, not people, the media, the corporations, the private egemony sectors are speaking on the third world world. these people are not just obscene they don't live just very nicely with starvation of the half of the population they speak about the end of the world naturally it's incredible

because capitalism after the second old word said look we are very good much better than socialists because we promote economic growth with this full employment, full consumption, you all go in holidays. And now capitalism is saying, look, we are going to a third world world. That's what these people that govern the world have to say to us. That's why they have to be defeated. And this is an urgent matter, is our life that is in questioning every day with these people governing.

I don't know if I could help answering this way to, if I could answer to your. question like this? No, it's outstanding. And actually, I know we're going to be respectful of your time and let you go now because I know that you told us at the beginning, this is the time you had to go. But I will just say that, you know, talking about it being a resource conflict also does raise something that's been in the back of my mind a long time vis-a-vis the United States and China. Because, of course, you mentioned a lot of resources are in Russia and in China, but that is nothing compared to the resource richness of Africa. And for, you know, decade, over a century, we've had these neo-colonial relationships

between the United States and places like France in Africa, exploiting the natural resources of these countries in Africa. Just think of the Canadian mining companies and all of the super profits that they extract from Africa, the French oil companies that are operating in Africa. And now as a result of the Belt and Road Initiative, we're seeing a pivot of some African countries towards China in strategic partnerships. And that's something that's, you know, kept me up at night sometimes thinking about how this could be something of a flashpoint because even though the United States and China are not competing head to head directly, the pivoting of some of these countries that are very resource rich towards China might be cause for some sort of conflict down the line. I mean, we are, of course, always seeing this perpetual anti-Chinese sentiment from American leaders.

and, you know, increasingly so. We have something of a new cold war starting with China right now. But it's something that I've been thinking about in terms of the pivoting of these resource-rich countries away from their previous, you know, colonial masters, their current neo-colonial masters and towards a country that doesn't have a positive relationship. Let's be diplomatic and say it doesn't have a positive relationship with the United States and these other neo-colonial. Master's. But like I said, we'll be respectful of your time. Our guest again was Professor Raquel Varela, the author of a People's History of Europe from World War I to today as well as the people's history of the Portuguese Revolution. Thank you very much for coming on, Professor. We only scratched the surface of what we wanted to talk about. Thank you so much. Thank you so

much. It was really nice. We've enjoyed the book so much and learned from it. And I hope we can have you come back on and talk further about it because we didn't touch upon the 50s, 60s, the compact and I hope we can. Thank you so much for your time today. Thank you. Thank you very much. Absolutely. I'll be in touch. Thank you very much, Professor. And listeners, we'll be right back with the wrap up. We're back with the wrap up. We just finished our conversation with Professor Raquel Varela, again, the author of a people's history of Europe from World War I to today. And I really enjoyed the conversation.

And I am looking forward to the second part of the conversation, despite, like I said, you know, pretty stark ideological differences with her myself. And again, I'm only speaking for myself. But I got a lot out of this book, despite those differences. And I don't want anybody to be discouraged by ideological positioning here. I think that it's very important that we reach outside of our own specific ideology, you know, listeners that have listened to the show for a while, we'll know I'm a Marxist Leninist. I'd be very happy only talking to Marxist Leninists until the end of my life. But really, I would not grow intellectually if that was all I did. So talking to people like Professor Varela that come from different tendencies within the left is really enriching for me. And this book was really enriching. So let's get into this wrap up now. Brett, I'm going to toss it over to you for the initial. thoughts following this conversation, which really was not nearly long enough. Yeah, I mean, the first thing that I found very interesting is her analysis of Nazi fascism and how it arose in response to various crises of capitalism.

I found that very helpful. And sometimes that gets wrinkled out of the conversation around the rise of Nazi fascism in particular. But yeah, I mean, I just kind of, you know, disdain the fact that we had so little time. And hopefully we do have a part two because, you know, we, we, we, touched on basically a decade or two of the book that covers many, many decades. I wanted to ask about the Carnation Revolution in Portugal. The British monarchy in the wake of the Queen's death and the role that the British monarchy has played throughout this period strikes

during World War II, something we don't often necessarily hear about in mainstream historical tellings of World War II in May 68 in France, right? So many stuff I wanted to cover and it'll maybe have to wait to another time. But I found it very interesting, very engaging. And also her other work of people's history of the Portuguese Revolution would be very fascinating I don't think we've

I might be wrong but I don't think we've covered Portugal in any real depth in the show have we Henry? Nope, nope so that would be

another fascinating topic so overall I really really appreciate it which we had more time but particularly found that analysis of fascism interesting and her sort of reflections

on us being in a sort of 1930s once again with similar issues but you know those issues are going to be different in detail and the outcomes

and the formations that are organized around those issues are going to be kind of different than they were in the 30s. If for nothing else, then the lack of an international communist movement and the fascism today is taking on different tones than it has in the past. But the same basic political eruptions seem to be occurring, and that's scary, but we have to learn from that period of history if we're going to navigate this rocky period in any way that's not going to be an absolute tragedy. Yeah, I mean, I very much enjoyed this book. And there is so much to discuss. So we definitely want to have a second round and talk about some of the later decades. I think the 20s and 30s, well, the 1917 World War I through World War II, the wars and the interwar period are, of course, very profound for shaping political history. you know, the importance and significance of the transformations that take place during that and the way that their resolve just has a big legacy on the rest of the 20th century, of course. So I think it's important that we really talk about those two decades, but even within them, I think there's a lot that we didn't, you know, discuss. So what I like about it is the way in which she covers. certain important key national context, but is doing so at every moment interleaking with the

kind of continental-wide and where appropriate global kinds of changes and interactions that are taking place. And so that's what I think is very powerful is to look at how the 1917 Russian revolution has these repercussions. You can't understand the history of Europe during this period without reference to it. It's not something that happens in isolation elsewhere. And apart from, you know, national histories of Germany, France, you know, Spain and so on, she's looking at how these are interlinked with one another. And I think part of the reason why is because it is a people's history and foregrounds, most importantly, the position of workers and working classes in their nations, but in an internationalist perspective. And that's, I think,

very important is what brings this together and makes it a people's history of Europe rather than, you know, a survey of, you know, nations and or geopolitics in Europe. And also what makes it, you know, not a generalization of the sort of synthetic history, but is actually, you know, patterned around workers politics, you might say. Like the political history is how this all appears to the working classes in Europe and its consequences for them. So I thought that was important. I would take a little issue with the idea that you really have to, that European history during this period is global history. I think the important point here is that, of course, because of colonialism and imperialism and the expansion of capitalism during this period, that, of course, it's impossible not to, if you're doing global history, understand what's happening in Europe as having devastating consequences or patterning, you know, political life, social life, and economic life in the rest of the world. But I do think, however, that stories of resistance. So one thing I would have liked to have talked about more and hopefully we'll get a chance to is when we, there is a chapter on the anti-colonial revolutions that looks at different.

global regions and their relationship to Europe. And I think there's a lot more that needs to be thought through in how you discuss that in order to understand how genuinely global history and a global perspective. And things do look very differently. Non-Western historians and people who study non-Western histories in the global South look at colonialism and the histories of that resistance in a variety of different ways that might not be all captured in a very brief chapter, but I'm very glad that at least there was this chapter about anti-colonial resistance, because that's a huge and important topic, I think. So that almost you have to go dialectically the other way as well. It's not just, okay, we study and understand Europe,

and that helps us understand how transformation might happen in the rest of the world, but it's also how these liberation movements, how workers struggles in those places, the continuation of neocolonialism and imperialism in the kind of post-war and post-colonial environment is also shaping Europe. And one little point that you get on that is when you see, for example, even in the World War II chapter, World War I, there could have been much more discussion of colonial troops, but even in the World War II chapter, when we're talking about, you know, the Spanish Civil War and the victory of Franco, it's so crucial that you know, there wasn't declarations and solidities with anti-colonialism that could have perhaps separated Moroccan troops that were absolutely vital to Franco's victory. Like, you do not have Franco being successful if he doesn't have control over Morocco and the colonial troops there in order to fight against, you know, left forces that want to democratize and socialize.

you know, Spain. So the failures at certain points of really understanding anti-colonialism for various reasons. Europe's history would be so different. And it comes back a little bit to, I would have asked about Césaire's point that, you know, this tragedy of World War II, the way it's talked about, oh, how terrible fascism was on Nazism, is that that is colonial violence that is brought into Europe, and, you know, against other Europeans. I think she would agree with that because her analysis was that some of the labor crises of capitalism and the need for destruction of capital that happens and, you know, in the war economies of the 30s, you know, and why Germany turns to this direction is because they don't have the colonies to brutally, you know,

enforce with this warfare and violence, the kinds of rescue of capital, you know, through its destruction and reconstruction that, you know, the other other economies and colonial powers have, right? So I think that that's there. It just needs to be integrated, I think, a little bit more into how we think of the relationship between Europe and the rest of the world. So anyway, fascinating stuff. I hope we'll get a chance to talk more with Dr. Varela. Well, first of all, I'm sure that we will. I'm going to try to set up two more episodes that there, a part two for this book, like the post-World War II era. But I also want to talk about the book on the Portuguese Revolution of People's History of the Portuguese Revolution,

because that is a really fascinating work. It is a really fascinating event. But Adnan, you almost took the words out of my mouth with regards to the colonial question and the treatment within this book. So I do want to just, you know, have the listeners think for a second about, you know, what is the proper treatment of the colonial question with when you're looking at a history of Europe? Because of course, you can look at how events taking place in the colonies have impacted Europe. As you mentioned, you know, Moroccan troops and Franco. We can talk about, you know, the carnation revolution itself in many ways was precipitated by these anti-colonial struggles in Portuguese colonies, you know, places like Mozambique and Guinea Basao, Angola, et cetera. I believe there

was five and, you know, I named three of them, but I'll make a mistake if I try to go through the full list. But in any case, you know, these anti-colonial revolutions were really pivotal in kicking off the Carnation Revolution and ending the, you know, somewhat fascist Salazar regime in Portugal. And so in many ways, the colonial question and events in the colonies themselves, are inextricably tied to events that are taking place within Europe. It's also true, of course, and as she pointed out several times within this chapter that you pointed out, at nonchapter five anti-colonial revolutions, that if you look at the events of Europe, you can also see the reflections of the events of Europe within the colonies and not being reflected back into Europe,

you know, per se, but you can look at that relationship in both ways, how things that are happening in the colonies are impacting Europe and how things that are, that are happening in Europe are impacting colonies. But we also can think about, and this is something that, you know, unless I glossed over it, was not really touched on very much, is the fact that the colonies in themselves and the neo-colonial relationships that have been perpetuated after the colonial era in many ways are what are propping up, what are, you know, considered to be the social democracies of Europe,

Without the extraction of super profits, the exploitation of these people, you know, we talk about the imperial mode of living in several episodes that we've done. We've talked about labor aristocracy time and time again on the show without discussion of how these neo-colonial relationships are set up for the extraction of these super profits and the extraction of resources. in many cases directly, that European history would be completely different because they wouldn't have the resources and the material and the capital in order to do the things that have made Europe, Europe. Europe today is inextricably tied with the fact that it has been exploiting these former colonies, now neo-colonial states, for, as I said, well over 100 years. So it's a very interesting question, and I'm just curious, you know, briefly perhaps, how we should think about the colonial question within a history of Europe, you know, how do we thread that line of

thinking about the colonies being a critical component of this, but also thinking of it as a history of Europe? Well, I mean, I think maybe one of, this is why I was also interested, and hopefully we will get a chance to talk a little bit more. I was also interested. I was also interested in why the periodization, the way it is, it's an interesting periodization, and also this question of Europe and the European project itself in the European Union. I mean, what gives Europe its identity in this new kind of construct first in the post-war period with the European economic community, but then subsequently in the era of neoliberalism with the formation of the European Union.

And this is all post, you know, 89, 92 types of developments. And yet, I think it's interesting that she doesn't want to demarcate that as sort of the key transition. Like in some ways, and this is something that hopefully in the second discussion we have, we can talk about, is that the pact, the sort of post-war bargain or pact of the welfare society, you know, she says really comes to an end with 2008. Of course, we've had 40 years, 30 years, by 40 years at that point of neoliberalism, where austerity politics is increasingly being implemented and the European Union is almost a formation to guarantee and support that.

So I wonder, you know, about the periodization there, and this is all I think really needs to be understood, partly in terms of also the wars, you know, the refugee crisis. And this is a return in some ways to these kind of colonial, cultural and racial demarcations. I mean, all of the anti-immigration politics that emerges in response to the failure of the European neoliberal project kind of resurrects this ideal of the colonial. era and of fear and hatred for, you know, cultural and racial and religious others that harkens back to this older sort of legacy, socially speaking, of the colonial era. I mean, it's something that has to be factored, I think, pretty much at every stage of the modern history of Europe, is you can't really think about it or understand it without integrating the colonial question or even, you know, I think as her analysis was showing, the absence of colonies, you know, and a colonial empire itself imposes various conditions for these European, you know, nation states. I mean, why does fascism emerge in Italy and Germany? Italy failure at colonial, you know, in managing a colonial empire. You know, tries to control Libya, goes into Ethiopia, but this is really doesn't, you know, work out for very

long right they're kind of the weakest of these and it's because they you know consolidate a nation state much later than you know both in germany and in in in in italy they consolidate a nation state much much later and that they don't have as a result the opportunity to then use become a colonizing you know nation state to the success of the dutch the belgians the you know british and above all the british the french and the portuguese and the spanish and as a result they have a kind a different history. So I think understanding fascism in the way that she is encouraging us to think about it as part of a way in which there isn't the option to create a solution for the crises of capitalism through, so they have to turn to fascism, I think makes a lot of sense. And so I think

at every stage, colonialism and the absence of a colonial empire, you know, is really part of understanding Europe, Europe's history all through this period. Thanks, Adnan. And Brett, any thoughts on that question? And I'll give you the final words on this as we wrap up. So anything that you want to add on this conversation or anything that you want to look forward to for a perspective, you know, hopefully soon occurring part two of this conversation. Take it away. Yeah, just as the final words, I really appreciate Adnan, you know, laying all that out. I think it's really interesting. And, you know, I kind of think as we look into the future, you know, what the darker end of the possibilities are

and a sort of the fear of like a new era of colonialism and fascism with the left defeat in the face of climate change and in the face of, you know, increasing capitalist crises. We see how these things have been resolved or attempted to be resolved historically. And we're entering a new period of multiple crises with this backdrop of climate change. And certain areas, certain areas that have been underdeveloped, in particular Africa, or parts of Africa, may be susceptible all over again to a new wave of unapologetic colonialism, emanating out of more or less fascist states in Europe or North America, and what the anti-colonial struggles that that could recreate.

You know, like sometimes this idea of history being this long, arduous arc in the direction of progress, it can blind us to the fact that in lots of instances, there are dead ends, there are, you know, there are redoubling downs on previous errors of horror and tragedy, and there is no guarantee whatsoever that this period of raw colonialism and Nazi-like fascism is well behind us. And so that kind of, you know, that makes me think in dark thoughts about the future, of course, and it just redoubles the necessity of real social. socialist, internationalist, anti-colonial opposition to this, to this new wave of crises and the reaction by the ruling classes to it. Yeah, great notes to end on. And I really do hope that

we have that next conversation, because like I said, there's so much that we could say, and we only got up to World War II. And the book goes from World War I to today. So as you can see, listeners, we did not make it nearly halfway through the story of modern Europe. But hopefully in part two we'll be able to do that. So let me turn it back over to you guys, let the listeners know how they can find you. Brett will start with you. How can the listeners find you and your excellent podcast that you host? Thank you. You can find everything I do at Revolutionary LeftRadio.com over at Red Menace. We're getting ready to start our fall series on anarchism. So we're reading The Conquest of Bread next month for those interested in that.

And then on Rev. Left, we have a really, a lot of really interesting episodes coming out, not the least of which is a really interesting interview I did with the uh with a communist organization in Ukraine um and actually we had a translator and everything henry helped us you know had the connections to make that happen and i found it was a really interesting perspective to have marxist leninists in ukraine and their analysis of the situation is absolutely fascinating so that'll be coming out soon i was really glad to help set that up brett anytime you want anybody in eastern europe let me know that's uh you know my uh stomping grounds these days adnanan how can listen to find you and your other excellent podcast that you host and tell them what the previous

episode was because even though this episode that we're recording right now won't come out for a while, the last episode that you put out is really excellent and relates to the fall anarchism topic for Red Menace. Yeah, absolutely. Well, you can follow me on Twitter at Adnan A. A. Hussein, H-U-S-A-I-N. And also check out the M-E-G-Lis podcast, M-E-E-E-E-A-I-N. And also check out the Mudgellis podcast, M-A-J-L-I-S, the one that's sponsored by the Muslim Society's Global Perspectives Project and not Radio Free Central Asia. And we recently had an interesting conversation with a former PhD student of mine, Dr. Muhammad Abdou, who is author of the new book that just came out this summer,

Islam and Anarchism, Relationships and Resonances, and it's a wide range. kind of critical dialogue here between, you might say, a critical analysis of Islam via the values and ethics of anarchism and an argument that anarchism has a lot to gain and learn about through, you know, a spiritually grounded, revived kind of, you know, Islamic reinterpretation, that it has some things to contribute to our understanding of, you know, revolutionary change. And so it's a very interesting conversation. That also, we just scratched the surface. So I'm hoping that there might be future conversations with Muhammad Abdou and, you know, do check it out.

Also, I am launching a sort of open, online drop-in course. the crusading society. By the time this comes out, it should already be well underway, but anybody who's interested in joining, joining that conversation and sort of the roots of Islamophobia, the common roots of Islamophobia, anti-Semitism, and white supremacy, you know, you might be interested to check out the course and making medieval history all too relevant, I'm sorry to say, to what we're dealing with in our own in our own time. So you can find out more about that by checking me out on Twitter. Yeah.

And I can tell you that anytime that I am free at the time that you're doing those courses, I will be in the audience if not. Don't worry. And also, you know, I just want to say about that episode, listeners, that's another one much in the spirit of this episode of where even if you have ideological differences, you're from a different ideological tendency than the person who is the guest on the episode, you will get so much from it. I really got a lot out of that episode despite the fact that, again, I'm from a

different ideological tendency, but it really was an enriching conversation. So I do highly recommend everybody listen to that, whether they're an anarchist, Muslim, or not. I am neither of those two things, and I learned a lot from the conversation. So it was a really, really good one. Thank you. It's none for that. Listeners, as for me, you can find me on Twitter at Huck 1995. You can follow the show on Twitter at Gorilla underscore Pod. G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A-U-Square. You can check out our free newsletter, which rounds up all of the recent things that we've been doing as well as gives reading suggestions and listening suggestions from the hosts as well as former guests of the show by going to guerrilla history.substack.com. That's G-U-E-R-R-I-L-A

History.com. And you can help support the show. Keep our lights on by going to patreon.com forward slash guerrilla history. Again, with guerr-R-I-L-A, so forward slash guerrilla history. donation is really appreciated. We try to give you some bonus content there, and all of the donations do go a long way to allowing us to make as much content freely accessible to everyone as we possibly can. So on that note, listeners, until next time, Solidarity. I'm going to be able to be. Thank you.