Chapter 124 Italy Has a Leader

It was already the end of January 1925. It had been a year since Comrade Lenin passed away. His successor (although Lenin was reluctant to let him take over) Stalin had already firmly established himself as the leader of the Soviet Union. Just a few days ago, at the Bolshevik rostrum meeting, his opponent Trotsky was removed from his posts as People's Commissar of the Army and Navy and Chairman of the Revolutionary Military Committee.

However, the personnel changes in the Soviet Union had no impact on the Soviet-German cooperation. In the year after Lenin's death, the relationship between the two sides further deepened. First, the "Soviet-German Military Cooperation Agreement" was signed in Moscow, marking the official start of comprehensive cooperation between the two countries in the military field.

In April 1924, under the full promotion of Hessmann, a delegation headed by German Rear Admiral Arnold Spindler visited the Soviet Union and signed an agreement with Soviet Navy Commander Zov on the joint development of aircraft carriers, submarines, cruisers and destroyers.

Soon after, the experimental aircraft carrier "Lenin", which had been mostly built (this carrier nominally belonged to the Soviet Union), was sent to the Leningrad Shipyard to start laying the flight deck, along with submarine design drawings weighing several tons, hundreds of German engineers and technical workers in the shipbuilding industry, and a large naval officer corps.

At the same time, a contract was signed to help the Soviet Union repair the Leningrad Shipyard (Petrograd was renamed Leningrad in 1924 to commemorate Lenin) and the Black Sea Shipyard, and greatly improve their technical level.

In November of the same year, the "Soviet-German Automobile Industry Cooperation Agreement" with a total contract amount of more than 560 million marks was signed in Moscow. According to the agreement, a joint contractor consisting of Mercedes-Benz, Opel, BMW, M.A.N and Krupp will undertake the construction of a large steel-automobile joint venture on the Volga River. The project will start in the spring of 1925 and will be completed in 5 years.

Just one month later, another "Soviet-German Oil Cooperation Agreement" with a total contract value of more than 500 million marks was signed in Baku. According to this contract, Germany's Farben (formed by the merger of Agfa, BASF, Bayer, Casella, Griesheim Electrochemical Plant, Weller Chemical Plant, Hoechst, and Kahler in 1924) will undertake the expansion and repair of oil fields and the construction of a super-large refinery in Baku. The project will start in early 1926 and will be completed in 1931.

In addition, a "electrification construction" contract with a total value of more than 600 million marks is also being negotiated now - the so-called "electrification" is actually "electricalization", building power plants and power grids. After the end of the civil war, the Russian Bolsheviks attached great importance to the so-called "electrification" and regarded "national electrification" as an indicator of the realization of communism. Since this view was proposed by Comrade Lenin, who has become a saint, Stalin also regarded the early realization of national electrification as a top priority after coming to power.

Obviously, with the recovery of the Soviet Union's economic strength and Germany's escape from hyperinflation, the comprehensive cooperation between the two countries will usher in the first climax in the next few years.

While the Soviet-German cooperation is heating up, the German industry itself has also ushered in an investment climax. This is not only because the cooperation with the Soviet Union has brought demand, but also because of the benefits brought by the "kind compensation plan" in the "Keynes Plan".

In order to fulfill its compensation obligations, Germany must naturally increase its industrial output significantly. According to the negotiations between the German government and the reorganized Allied Compensation Commission, Germany's compensation will consist of six major categories: raw materials (mainly coal), machinery and equipment, ships, automobiles, civil aircraft, mainly chemical raw materials, and steel.

Among them, raw materials (value) will account for 30% of the total compensation amount, machinery and equipment will account for 15%, ships will account for 15%, automobiles will account for 14%, aircraft will account for 10%, chemical raw materials will account for 9%, and steel will account for 7%.

All industrial categories involved in the production of "compensation products" naturally received large loans from the Industrial Promotion Committee. After Hindenburg and Ludendorff were elected as German president and vice president, this committee changed from a "civilian institution" back to a government agency. Not only was it responsible for promoting the development of German industry, but it was also responsible for negotiating with the Allied Reparations Commission to formulate a "compensation plan" for the next year.

Because the Keynes Plan and subsequent negotiations only determined the proportion of various compensation items and the total price of compensation items to be paid each year, as well as the types of compensation items required by each country. It did not involve specific products and pricing, so before each "compensation year", the Industrial Promotion Committee had to conduct a lot of negotiations with various countries to finalize the "annual compensation plan".

According to the Keynes Plan, 1926 will be the first compensation year. Therefore, the Industrial Promotion Committee is particularly busy, and Colonel Hersman, as a member of the Industrial Promotion Committee, naturally has to assume corresponding responsibilities - this is the work he asked for from Karl Haushofer, and he and Val T. Trahnau are responsible for negotiating with the Italians.

The general manager and director of the German General Electric Company (who is now also a member of the Industrial Promotion Committee) is wearing a very elegant double-breasted gray suit with wide white stripes. He is sitting in the passenger seat of a Mercedes-Benz 6 car that exudes a strong smell of Cuban cigars, while Hersman and Chloe are sitting side by side in the back.

The Jewish billionaire was a heavy smoker, lit another cigar, and said: "Ludwig, thanks to your arrangement, I became his adviser a few months before the leader seized power, and I can be regarded as the old man of fascism." Revolution. In the past two years, he has taken good care of my business in Italy and made me a lot of money.”

He now also runs a business and is the general agent of Siemens power generation equipment in Italy. After Mussolini came to power, Italy also accelerated the progress of industrialization, of which "electrification" was a focus, so Rathenau signed several large orders.

"Did you ever tell him about me?" Hersman asked.

"Of course, he is very interested in you," Rathenau nodded. "He has wanted to meet you for a long time, so as soon as you arrived in Rome, he invited you to meet at the Palazzo Venezia."

"What do you think of Italy? Does it have the potential for war?"

"War? Italy?" Tranau closed his eyes and pondered for a moment, then nodded and opened his eyes. "If you had asked this question before the leader came to power in 1922, I would have given a negative answer. Ludwig, you should know that Italy is not suitable for the development of industry, coal, iron ore, non-ferrous metals, oil... ...They have no shortage of whatever industry needs. Therefore, Italy's industry is relatively poor and its scale is small. It is not a country that can fight a modern war. But they are lucky to have a leader who is a genius and a genius. A great man, I believe he can change Italy and make the country fit to fight."

Jewish billionaires think highly of Mussolini. In fact, this was a common view in the 1920s. The Italian leader was not only popular in his own country, but also had many supporters internationally, especially capitalists like Val T. Rathenau.

Because the leader and the later head of state were not the same people. The leader was a capitalist, but the head of state was actually a socialist.

Hersman now has an expert level understanding of politics, especially the various isms of the 1920s and 1930s. Now he was basically a political officer like Big Brother Schleicher.

In the 1920s and 1930s, or even in the future, various "isms" can actually be combined. Let’s call this “corporatism.” Take the fascism that currently rules Italy, for example, which is a combination of nationalism (nationalism) and capitalism, plus the National Fascist Party and Mussolini's dictatorship.

Therefore, the governing purpose of Mussolini's National Fascist Party was fundamentally to expand Italy's national interests; and to protect the economic interests of the Italian bourgeoisie and aristocracy. Although the Italian National Fascist Party also established a trade union, it sometimes forced the capital to make some concessions to the workers. But on the whole, the fascist syndicals "lowered" rather than raised costs.

According to Mussolini, fascism also has "three stages". The task of the first stage is to increase wealth (social wealth); the second stage is to concentrate wealth; and the third stage is to distribute all resources. Acquired wealth – refers to increased welfare of the working class.

Of course, the primary stage, oh, it should be the first stage and the second stage will be two very long stages. If it had not been involved in a world war, it is estimated that the third stage of happiness would not have appeared in Italy by the time the leader's successor passed away.

Such a policy determined that Mussolini and the National Fascist Party were a party popular with bourgeois politicians in various countries. Even Churchill, who later scolded the Italian leader as a devil or other unpleasant words, admired Mussolini before the outbreak of the world war.

As for Hitler, who is currently writing "Mein Kampf" in a senior prison cell in Munich, he is actually a "socialist" - from the perspective of Germany and Western Europe in the 1920s and 1930s, he was a socialist!

Hitler’s National Socialist German Workers’ Party stood for nationalism + socialism, as can be seen from the name of the party, and represented the working class—including the middle class, the petty bourgeoisie, and so on. In Germany before the Nazis came to power, They are about as poor as the working class.

Therefore, under the rule of the Nazis, the German working class, petty bourgeoisie, and middle class actually lived quite happily. Later, after Hitler launched the world war, the things he robbed from foreign countries were not only used to maintain the war but also to provide welfare to the German people!

In fact, Nazi Germany was a country with high welfare, similar to that of later countries in Northern and Western Europe. But in Nazi Germany there was no "Mother", only Nazis, no globalization, only the state (nation) above all else. If the world war had not been lost in the end, most of the German people would probably have lived their lives very happily and been buried in their graves with gratitude and love for the Führer.

Therefore, in the later world war, the enthusiasm of German soldiers and Italian soldiers on the battlefield was completely incomparable. The former is to conquer the world for themselves, while the latter is to conquer the world for the capitalists and leaders.

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