From WW2 to WW3: How Appeasement and Working-Class Division Paves the Way for War
Insights from Ernest Mandel's "The Meaning of the Second World War"
The tragic echoes of the past resonate profoundly in today's world, particularly in the ongoing war in Ukraine. For Trotskyists, understanding the origins of the Second World War is not merely an academic exercise; it offers vital lessons on how accommodation, concessions, and pragmatic alliances by ruling classes and misleaders of the working class paved the way for catastrophic global conflict. Ernest Mandel, a leading theoretician of the Fourth International, meticulously analysed how the failures of working-class solidarity and the appeasement policies of the bourgeoisie created the conditions for the Spanish Civil War and subsequently, the Second World War itself. These historical insights, found in "The Meaning of the Second World War", illuminate the dangers posed by similar approaches to Russia's growing militarism today.
The Treachery of Appeasement and a Divided Working Class on the Road to WWII
Mandel viewed the Second World War as the "most characteristic expression of bankrupt capitalism" and an "explosion of historical contradictions" that had sharpened to a point where "no other means are available for their solution". It was, he argued, an "inescapably a war for world hegemony", driven by the inherent contradictions of the capitalist system. Key to its unleashing were specific policy choices made by imperialist powers and the Soviet bureaucracy, facilitated by what the Socialist Workers Party (SWP) in 1942 described as the "rottenness incapacity and treachery" of Social Democracy and Stalinism. The Second World War was, therefore, not an accidental catastrophe, but the "culmination of a process of counter-revolution".
The Spanish Civil War: A Proving Ground for Fascism
The Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) served as a grim prelude to WWII, demonstrating the fatal consequences of bourgeois appeasement and the disunity within the international labour movement. Major European powers, such as France and Great Britain, famously "appeared to appease Hitler and Mussolini" through their "non-intervention" policy. This duplicitous stance effectively meant "tolerating fascist intervention against the Republic", allowing Hitler and Mussolini to test their military tactics and ideologies without reservation.
Mandel points to the desires within the French ruling class for a "new order". As early as April 1937, Laval, a French political figure, told a German envoy that France needed a Pétain government. This indicates a segment of the French ruling class was open to, or even desired, a shift towards an authoritarian regime that could better "eliminate trade union strength" and impose a "new order". Such class collaboration and the weakening of workers' power in France contributed to Paris's passive resignation to German hegemony. Furthermore, the "treachery of Stalin and the class collaborationist strategy of the Popular Front" in Spain further contributed to the repression of the Spanish revolutionary left. Instead of uniting and leading a genuine struggle against fascism, these forces made concessions and pursued pragmatic alliances that ultimately weakened the anti-fascist front. The Soviet bureaucracy, for instance, "leaned upon Hitler" yesterday and today "relies upon the aid and goodwill of Roosevelt and Churchill" instead of summoning the workers to a joint struggle. This lack of robust working-class solidarity and the imperialists' appeasement paved the way for Franco and, by emboldening Hitler, made a wider European war more likely.
Enabling Hitler: From Czechoslovakia to the Eastern Front
The pattern of appeasement continued with Hitler's subsequent aggressions. The Munich Conference in September 1938 is a prime example of bourgeois accommodation, where Britain "conceded to Hitler his demands" at the expense of others, such as Austria and Czechoslovakia. Mandel explicitly states that developments in Slovakia were "deliberately planned and executed in order to break up an already truncated Czechoslovakia", refuting claims that this was unforeseen. This appeasement effectively granted Germany a free hand.
Stalin's foreign policy also played a deeply problematic role. His "pragmatic alignment," epitomised by the Nazi-Soviet Pact of August 1939, gave the Third Reich the "green light to Hitler’s aggression". This pact, with its secret protocol for the "fourth partition of Poland", allowed the Third Reich to avoid a prolonged war on two fronts, significantly easing Hitler's path into Western Europe. Mandel highlights Molotov's scandalous formulation in October 1939, asserting that "Germany finds itself in the position of a State that seeks the swiftest end to hostilities and the advent of peace" and that "It is senseless, indeed criminal, to wage any such war for the elimination of Hitlerism". This "whitewashing the Nazis' crimes, and camouflaging their imperialist aims," disoriented workers in capitalist countries and left them unprepared for Hitler's inevitable assault. This reliance on imperialist "allies" instead of a united working-class struggle was a profound betrayal.
The consistent Trotskyist position, as articulated by both Ernest Mandel and James P. Cannon, is that the failures of social-democratic and Stalinist leaderships were decisive. The "abdication of large parts of the labour movement’s leading strata... in the face of colonialism, imperialism and war signified an acceptance of violence, mass slaughter, nationalism and racism" (As Mandel explains, for reasons of "Realpolitik dictated by national bourgeoisies"). The Second International, for instance, was "completely in the camp of the imperialist democracies". Their failure to overthrow the bourgeois order in Germany in 1918 bore "historic responsibility" for allowing a second attempt at an imperialist solution to the world crisis of capitalism.
The Present Danger: Ukraine, Appeasement, and Campism
Today, we observe disturbing parallels between the historical road to WWII and the current conflict in Ukraine. Putin's Russia, acting as an imperialist power, is engaged in a war in Ukraine that arguably serves as a proving ground for its political and military tactics, much like Nazi Germany's use of the Spanish Civil War. Russia's strategic objective, echoing the imperialist aims discussed by Mandel, is to subordinate other industrial states and less developed nations to one hegemonic power’s priorities of capital accumulation.
Some current critiques use the term appeasement to describe certain responses to Russia's aggression. This is linked to "false pacifism" and "campist" tendencies on the left, which are criticised for "tolerating or acquiescing to an aggressor's demands or actions", thereby potentially emboldening Russia or legitimising its gains.
"False pacifism," for instance, is criticised for demanding "peace at any cost", including a willingness to tolerate Russia’s annexation of Ukrainian territory and the continued presence of Russian troops. Such a stance, by ignoring Ukraine's right to self-determination and the demands of Ukrainian and Russian socialists, amounts to capitulation before Russian imperialism. This "peace at any price" would be paid by the workers, youth, and small farmers fighting to defend their country, not by the imperialist great powers.
Campism—the idea that the world is divided into an imperialist US-led camp and an anti-imperialist camp including Russia and China—is condemned for defending dictatorial governments that oppose the US, overlooking their oppressive internal policies or their own imperialist actions. This approach denies Ukraine's right to resist Russian aggression and advocates for peace talks that would effectively lead to the "permanent Russian seizure of Eastern Ukraine". Such stances are a "disservice to all of those people who in countries like Russia, China, Iran, Syria, Venezuela, and Nicaragua fighting for democracy" and undermine genuine anti-imperialism and solidarity.
Just as European appeasement of the Nazis enabled their success in Czechoslovakia and Spain and made WWII more likely, Europe's feeble solidarity with Ukraine today makes it more likely that Russia will expand its hybrid warfare with other European countries. Allowing Putin's regime to "get away with the war sets another dangerous precedent in international relations" by signalling that "wars of annexations are tolerated".
The Way Forward: Revolutionary Internationalism
The lessons from this historical analysis are clear. As the Transitional Programme of the Fourth International states, the "crisis of mankind is reduced to the crisis of revolutionary leadership". The failures of social-democratic and Stalinist leaderships historically enabled fascism and imperialist war. Today, the task remains the same: to build independent working-class parties globally, committed to "revolutionary opposition to all the imperialists", rather than siding with one bloc against another.
Genuine anti-imperialism demands "unconditional support for Ukraine's self-determination and resistance", including its right to acquire defensive means, while maintaining critical independence from all bourgeois governments. We must reject all forms of pacifism that abstain from struggle, recognising that capitalism signifies "permanent war and universal militarism".
Only through building independent working-class movements and fostering "internationalism from below", which supports democratic and social struggles within all countries, can we break the cycle of imperialist war and prevent future catastrophes. To do so requires an "implacable struggle against the bureaucracy" and opportunism within the labour movement that seeks to compromise with oppressors. This is the only path to a world free from imperialist conflict and class exploitation.