The lacunae in my old school history books

[Magda Hassan]

I know what you mean Malcolm. I had a neighbour with whom I would some times chat with when he was in his back yard looking after his greyhounds. He was a WW2 veteran and just couldn't understand after what the Japanese had done why we (Australia) would be trading with them at all let alone big time. In his mind they were still the enemy. He felt all his time spent as a soldier fighting against Japanese agression was wasted. All the deaths in vain.

But most history is always taught out of context. Certainly in those days and in our school system. Historical materialism was not taught in our schools. History was made by kings and great men not by people or classes or economic forces. WW2 is always presented as an event in itself and not as part of a process of various forces at play. The alliance of the west with the USSR was a convenient arrangement just as the alliance of the USSR with Nazi Germany served it purpose for both unlikely partners. It bought time for the USSR and helped with industrialisation and for Germany it helped them re-arm. When Nazi-Germany presented an unacceptable threat to the ruling classes of Europe an alliance with the USSR was acceptable. When Nazi-Germany was militarily defeated for the ruling classes it was back to fighting the real enemy, the working class, and those who present an alternative to their status quo and put ideas into the heads of ordinary people that they can do it for themselves and don't need bosses/kings/elites to rule over them. The western working classes were given the 'Welfare State' to keep them happy for a while and the ruling classes got to keep their heads and the vast majority of their privileges intact. The USSR has been defeated the welfare state is no longer needed and the class war has now moved into a new level of hyper-exploitation. The 'commie threat' of USSR has been defeated new enemy markets need to be invented to justify the oppression hence the 'War on Terrror' and 'War on Drugs' and why uppity leaders who think they can govern their own country and not be a US client state are targetted like Kim Jong Il, Saddam and Bashar and Gaddaffi.

As well as the Welfare State the workers of the west got 'Hire Purchase' to buy the new goods that they could not afford. People who had lived through the capitalist Depression years would only buy what they could afford. They would go with out until they could afford it. That is not good for business. Industry had done very well from the use of factories tooled up for war production and the profits that came with it. That had to continue. So the working classes were put into debt to keep them working. The Marshal Plan and the rebuilding of Japan and Germany was also very profitable business for the west. Much like Halliburton operates like today. It also kept the workers of those countries who kept the economy going and tied to Western interests under control otherwise they may have over thrown their not so great and inglorious leaders. In both countries there were huge socialist movements. In Japan it was violently put down. In Germany the country was divided.

Any works by Marx, Engles and or Lenin (and others but just for starters) on capitalism, the state, imperialism and the superstructure will cover this. It is all entirely predictable and foreseen ages ago. But certainly not taught in our schools and absent from our history books.