BY LEON TROTSKY  
Comrades, whoever wishes or tries today to discuss the destiny of Europe or of the world proletariat without taking the power and significance of the U.S.A. into account is, in a certain sense, drawing up a balance sheet without consulting the master. For the master of the capitalist world—and let us firmly understand this!—is New York, with Washington as its state department. We observe this today even if only in the plan drawn up by the experts.

We observe that Europe, which only yesterday was so powerful and so proud of her culture and her historical past, we observe that in order to get out from under, in order to crawl out on all fours from those fearful contradictions and misfortunes into which Europe has driven herself, she is compelled to invite from across the Atlantic a general by the name of Dawes whose wisdom is an unknown quantity. He may be wiser than Solomon, or not so wise. Nobody knows. [Laughter] And so, they invite him from America and he confidently sits down at a table, and some say that he even puts his feet on the table. [Laughter, applause] And he draws up a precise prescription concerning the regulations and dates of Europe’s restoration. And then this timetable designating the arrival and departure of governmental trains of all the states of Europe is preferred by him to the respective governments for fulfillment. And they will all accept it!…

General Dawes did not appear accidentally from across the ocean, nor is it accidental that we are all obliged to know that his name is Dawes and that he has a general’s rank. He is accompanied by several American bankers. They thumb through the diplomatic papers of the European governments and they say: We won’t permit this; this is what we demand. Why? Because the entire reparations structure will collapse unless America provides the first installment, all told some miserly 800 million gold marks to stabilize German currency. Because it depends on America whether the franc stands or falls; and it depends a little on America whether the pound sterling stands or falls — or does not fall, but just keeps fluctuating. [Laughter] Yes, all this depends on America. And you know that the mark, the franc, and the pound sterling do play some role in the lives of the peoples.  
 
Rise of U.S. imperialism
America’s full and complete entry into the path of active world imperialist policy does not date back to yesterday. If we try to fix the date, we might say that the decisive breaking point in the policy of the United States coincides approximately with the turn of the century. The Spanish American War occurred in 1898 when America seized Cuba, thereby assuring herself the key to Panama, and consequently entry to the Pacific Ocean, China and the continent of Asia. In 1900, the last year of the nineteenth century, the export of American manufactured goods for the first time in U. S. history exceeded the import of manufactured articles. This already made America, so to speak, bookkeepingly a country with an active world policy. In 1901 or 1902 America secured herself the province of Panama in the Republic of Colombia….

[T]he United States assured itself Panama in 1902 and proceeded to dig the canal. By 1914 they had it dug in the rough, while in 1920 the already fully completed Panama Canal opened up the greatest chapter, in the full sense of the word, in the history of America and the whole terrestrial globe.

The United States has introduced a drastic correction into geography in the interests and aims of American imperialism. There is no map here before us, but you can imagine one. As you know, the industry of the United States is concentrated in the eastern part, on the Atlantic side. The country’s west is predominantly agricultural. The entire pull of the United States, more correctly, its main pull, is in the direction of China with the latter’s population of 400,000,000 and the country’s countless, uncharted, and limitless resources. Through the Panama Canal, American industry has opened up a waterway for itself from the east to the west, shortening the distances by several thousand miles.

These dates—1898, 1900, 1914, and 1920—are the dates marking the open entry of the U.S. into the highroad of world brigandage, i.e., the road of imperialism. The decisive signpost along this road was the war. As you will recall, the United States intervened in the war toward the very end. For three years the United States did no fighting. More than that, two months before intervening in the war, Wilson announced that there could be no talk of American participation in the bloody dogfight among the madmen of Europe. Up to a certain moment the United States remained content with rationally coining into dollars the blood of European “madmen.” But in that hour when fear arose lest the war conclude with victory for Germany, the most dangerous future rival, the United States intervened actively. This decided the outcome of the struggle.

And the noteworthy thing is this, that while America avariciously fed the war with her industry and avariciously intervened in order to help crush a likely and dangerous competitor, she has nevertheless retained a reputation for pacifism. This is one of the most interesting paradoxes, one of the most curious jokes of history — jokes from which we did not and do not derive much merriment. American imperialism is in essence ruthlessly rude, predatory, in the full sense of the word, and criminal....

Wilson helped finish off Germany and then appeared, as you will recall, in Europe accoutered from head to toe in his Fourteen Points which promised universal well-being and the reign of peace, the right of nations to self-determination, punishment for such criminals as the Kaiser and rewards to all virtuous people, etc. The gospel according to Wilson! We all still remember it. And the whole of middle-class Europe, and workers too, by and large — the whole of worker-middle-class Europe, i.e., worker-Menshevik Europe subsisted for many long months on the gospel according to Wilson.

This provincial professor summoned to the role of representing American capitalism and dripping from blood up to his knees and elbows—for after all he incited the European slaughter—appeared in Europe as the apostle of pacifism and pacification. And everybody said: Wilson will bring peace; Wilson will restore Europe...  
 
To put Europe on rations
What does American capitalism want? What is it seeking? It is seeking, we are told, stability; it wants to restore the European market; it wants to make Europe solvent. How? By what measures? And to what extent? After all, American capitalism is compelled not to render Europe capable of competition; it cannot allow England, and all the more so Germany and France, particularly Germany, to regain their world markets inasmuch as American capitalism finds itself hemmed in, because it is now an exporting capitalism — exporting both commodities and capital. American capitalism is seeking the position of world domination; it wants to establish an American imperialist autocracy over our planet. This is what it wants.

What will it do with Europe? It must, they say, pacify Europe. How? Under its hegemony. And what does this mean? This means that Europe will be permitted to rise again, but within limits set in advance, with certain restricted sections of the world market allotted to it. American capitalism is now issuing commands, giving instructions to its diplomats. In exactly the same way it is preparing and is ready to issue instructions to European banks and trusts, to the European bourgeoisie as a whole. . . . This is its aim. It will divide up the market into sectors; it will regulate the activity of the European financiers and industrialists. If we wish to give a clear and precise answer to the question of what American imperialism wants, we must say: It wants to put capitalist Europe on rations…

Rations, as we know from personal experience, are not always sweet, all the more so since this American and rigidly standardized ration is being offered not only to the European peoples but also to their ruling classes who have become very accustomed to sweets. This involves, in the last analysis, not only Germany, not only France but also England. Yes, England, too, has to diffidently prepare herself for the same fate. To be sure, we hear it said often today that America is marching hand in hand with England, and that an Anglo-Saxon bloc has been formed. There is frequent allusion to Anglo-Saxon capital, Anglo-Saxon policy. It is said that the basic world antagonism lies in the hostility between America and Japan. But this is the language of those who do not understand the situation. The basic world antagonism runs along the line of American and British interests. The future will show this more and more clearly.…

This American “pacifist” program of putting the whole world under her control is not at all a program of peace. On the contrary, it is pregnant with wars and the greatest revolutionary paroxysms. Not for nothing does America continue to expand her fleet. She is busily engaged in building light and fast cruisers. And when England protests in a whisper, America replies: You must bear in mind that I not only have a five to five relationship with you, but also a five to three relationship with Japan, and the later possesses an inordinate number light cruisers which makes it necessary for me to restore a balance.

America chooses the largest multiplicand and then multiplies it by her Washington coefficient. And the others cannot vie with her, because, as the Americans themselves say, they can turn out warships like so many pancakes.

The perspective this offers is one of preparation for the greatest international dogfight, with both the Atlantic and the Pacific as the arena, provided, of course, the bourgeoisie is able to retain its world rule for any considerable length of time. For it is hard to conceive that the bourgeoisie of all countries will docilely withdraw to the background, and become converted into America’s vassals without putting up a fight; no, this is hardly likely. The contradictions are far too great; the appetites are far too insatiable; the urge to perpetuate ancient rule is far too potent; England’s habits of world rule are far too ingrained. There will inevitably be military collisions. The era of “pacifist” Americanism that seems to be opening up at this time is only laying the groundwork for new wars on an unprecedented scale and of unimaginable monstrosity….  
 
Bolshevism vs. imperialism
Everywhere, in Europe as well as Asia, imperialist Americanism is colliding with revolutionary Bolshevism. These, comrades, are the two principles of modern history.

I recollect that in 1919 in a conversation with Vladimir Ilyich [Lenin] with regard to Wilson’s arrival in Europe and in reference to the fact that the entire bourgeois press was filled on one side with Wilson’s name and on the other with the name of Lenin, I said in jest: “Lenin and Wilson — these are the two apocalyptic principles of modern history.” Vladimir Ilyich laughed. Naturally, at that time I did not realize with what a vast content history would fill this jest. Leninism and American Imperialism — these two principles alone are now fighting in Europe; these two principles alone cut across both the Atlantic and the Pacific. The fate of mankind hinges on the outcome of the struggle between these two principles.

The American enemy is far more centralized and powerful than the divided European foes. But our own strength, too, lies in concentration and our enemy is concentrating the workers of Europe. The resuscitation of the Second International is only a temporary and surface symptom of the fact that the proletariat of Europe finds itself compelled to feel and fight not within national frameworks but on a continental scale. And the broader the labor masses seized by the need to resist, the broader the base of resistance, all the more revolutionary the ideas which must unfailingly gain preponderance. And the more revolutionary the ideas, all the more favorable the soil for Bolshevism. Every success of Americanism, insofar as Americanism does score successes, will thereby signify the centralization of the soil for the growth of Bolshevism — in a more concentrated and more revolutionary form, and on a more gigantic scale. The future works for us!

Since I am addressing a gathering called by the friends of the physico-mathematical faculty, you will permit me, comrades, after I have given you a revolutionary Marxist critique of Americanism to point out that we do not at all mean thereby to condemn Americanism lock, stock, and barrel. We do not mean that we abjure to learn from Americans and Americanism whatever one can and should learn from them. We lack the technique of the Americans and their labor proficiency. Science is the premise of technology: natural sciences, physics, mathematics.

Now, along this line we are reduced to the last extremity in our need to catch up with the Americans. To have Bolshevism shod in the American way — there is our task! We must get shod technologically with American nails. Today while we are still so poorly shod, we have nevertheless managed to hold our own. In the future, however, the struggle can assume far more terrible proportions. But it is easier for us to get shod in the American way than it is for American capitalism to place Europe and the whole world on rations. If we get shod with mathematics, technology; if we Americanize our still frail socialist industry, then we can say with tenfold confidence that the future is completely and decisively working in our favor. Americanized Bolshevism will crush and conquer imperialist Americanism.  
 
 
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