Alas Babylon (American Home Front Pt 1)

Excerpts from Alas, Babylon: An Economic Anthology of the Second World War, eds. Timothy Mason and Paul Sweezy ,(Detroit University Press, 1979)

On 21 May, Jack Reed made the first public address about the government’s plans for prosecuting the war against Germany. As the Premier-presumptive, he faced the daunting task of maintaining public support for a war to be waged half a world away, where millions of young Americans would bleed and die for someone else’s homeland.

The Workers’ Party itself had been born in the struggle against such a war a little over twenty years prior, and the irony was not lost on anyone. Pacifism had always run deep in the socialist movement, and now it had become an obstacle to be overcome instead of an ally.

In his initial speech Reed laid out the broad plans of the Central Executive Council. After the end of Foster’s caretaker ministry, a “government of revolutionary unity” would be formed, with the participation of the DFLP and DRP. The Revolutionary Military Council would act as a streamlined “war cabinet” to direct the national war effort in concert with the Soviet Union and the rest of the Comintern.Under its auspices, the Council for the National Economy would streamline higher-level decision making under a centralised War Production Committee.

These particulars were not the main focus, though. Reed spoke off the cuff in a more conversational tone to the small gathering of hand-picked journalists after the prepared speech. He made his more direct appeals for courage and resolve during this “long night,” with the embers slowly dying as the wolves circled the camp. The Soviets had come to the aid of the American worker in his hour of need, and now it was time to return the favor.

Following the declaration of war, the agenda of local soviets, factory committees, community boards, farm bureaus and all the other organs of administration in the workers’ republic turned immediately towards the war effort. Representatives of the Workers’ Party were integrated in this process, but the directive coming down straight from the desk of the Politburo was that they were to be involved to guide , not to dictate. Earnest, autonomous support for the “great crusade” being spoken of in the newsstands and radio shows was sought.

What sort of war this would be was not yet clear. Nothing fundamentally changed overnight, and in fact that open secret now was that the party-state had known this war had been coming for some time and had been quietly preparing for the eventuality. The economy had already been moving to a war footing for nearly a year, and the first rationing of basic commodities had begun in January.

In the aftermath of the Revolt of the Cadres, the workers’ republic had no real political means to enforce any prohibition of strikes or work stoppages. It would fall on the local administration and the voluntary efforts of the factory and shop committees to maintain the production tempos. And with some prodding many of these councils agreed to no strike pledges, wage and price freezes, war bond drives.

[…]

In the early months, public consciousness was focused much more on rationing than on conscription or combat deaths. While millions had served on the front in the Great War, and most people had lost somebody, for most people in the old United States the war experience was one of privation, overwork and bitter tears at the naked injustice and corruption going on at the home front. Many had served, but everyone had gone without common necessities during the war.

The Great War had made a few people very rich. But it also had meant breadlines and empty shelves for many. The rationing system established by the US government had on paper been quite generous compared to the schemes imposed in France, the UK or Germany. But in practice it had meant rolling shortages of most staples, forcing many to turn to profiteers selling bread, beans, rice and cooking fuel at well above the legal ceilings. Many ration exemptions found their way into the hands of wealthy families, luxury restaurants and hotels, and other connected individuals. The rationing scheme did very little to curb the production or sale of many high class luxuries.

On the supply side, the US government’s efforts to hold down wholesale farm prices had ruined many small farmers, especially as they found themselves priced out of the new fertilizer market due to the demand for nitrates in the munitions industry. When these policies resulted in shortages of staple crops, the small farmers again found themselves cut out of prosperity as the government relaxed price controls to stimulate production.

These two problems ran headlong into one another with the federal government’s bulk purchasing of food for the military or to export to their allies. These “G-Men” who negotiated these deals quickly gained infamy as callous and corrupt. In the effort to cut outlays from the federal budget, many turned to dubiously legal measures to force sales, and the uncoordinated nature of these purchases could often result in localized famine

It is one thing to legislate, quite another to put in practice. The Rationing Act of 1939 established the framework for rationing essentials, and the social control of industry ensured that resources and labor would not be squandered so easily. But it required the involvement of millions at all levels of administration to put it into practice.

At the top, the Central Workers’ Government established a Food Commissariat to coordinate food production and enforce the rationing system. It’s first chief commissar, Ramsay Gordon*, had been a machine tractor station administrator in Iowa before receiving the appointment. Gordon took the ration book to be provided by the government to each individual to be a promise from the workers’ republic to every citizen to provide no less than the full allotment.

Many in his ministry, and those on the Central Committee had wanted to ease into the rationing scheme. Gordon argued and convinced them to implement comprehensive rationing immediately for most consumer items and food. It was no use, he argued, to subject the public to the constant malaise of dwindling rations covering an ever expanding list of goods. The reality of the total war would be faced immediately instead, and from there the government could work to relax restrictions as the supply situation improved.

The rationing system encouraged the utilization of volxkuchen, factory canteens, and other social eateries to reduce food waste. The Food Commissariat also developed a program to provide supplies and training for community gardening and other local food production, and integrating them into school curricula. It was hoped that if young men in polytechnic felt they were doing their part for the war effort by planting vegetables and doing after school work, they might be less apt to lie about their age to enlist in the military.

The other part of the rationing system was food subsidy. Most basic food staples would be subsidised to ensure steady supply and prevent turning to black market. The federal direction of food production sought to encourage standardisation without reducing quality. The new breads developed by the Subsistence Research Laboratory were designed to use regional grain varieties and enriched with high protein soya flour as well as essential vitamins. The results were sometimes bland, but local bakeries were given options for add-ins of available local ingredients to provide variety.

The rationing system would accelerate the changes in the regional American diets. It brought new recipes to the home cooks, many of which would continue to have enduring popularity. Changing labor allocation diminished the importance of fresh dairy and red meat. Cultured milk products, soya, and rice became common staples. Formerly ethnic and regional dishes gained broad national popularity: spaghetti, pizza, lamian noodles, kimchi, and borscht, to name a few.

The largess gained by rationing and efficient agricultural production plans would be used to support the war effort, and on this mark the government dedicated its efforts to ensuring everyone knew what a difference tightening their belts would make. The food surplus wouldn’t just support the WFRA, but also all of their allies in the war. One of the first missions of the WFRA’s First Motion Picture Brigade involved documenting the food situation in the Soviet Union for use in film reels. Every tonne of grain shipped would mean another Soviet peasant could under arms defending his home instead of tilling the soil and waiting to fall victim to the Germans. Ration books were distributed with inserts that had the picture and brief bio of an allied civilian abroad whose life was being helped by American food provisions.

[…]

Directing this industrial might towards the war effort would be of paramount importance. And for all of the emergency powers the government laid claim to under the war effort, the relationship between the state, community, and individual changed surprisingly little during the war. While the American public was initially hesitant to be led into a foreign conflict, a very real, earnest patriotism developed within the polity. The revolutionary fervor which had begun to wane exploded into full force once more. While the Party and the state certainly massaged this revolutionary surge, the logic of democratic totalitarianism was in full force. The American people very quickly convinced itself that the show-down with fascist reaction truly would be the war to end all wars. It would be the “final conflict” that they sang about in “The Internationale” that would bring an end at last to man’s inhumanity to his fellow men, and sweep aside the last bulwarks of the old order.

Consequently, the state would rely as much on the enthusiastic democratic participation of American proletarians in all spheres of the war effort as it would on its new emergency powers. The eagerness of workers to do their part, to tackle the problems that would be faced with both ingenuity and hard work, would play a vital role in smoothing the transition to total economic mobilization. Nowhere was this more evident than the role of the Shipwright’s Federation in revolutionizing the production of ships. No task was more daunting than the task of supplying, not just the American military, but also the war effort of the Soviet Union, across ten thousand kilometers of mostly hostile ocean. And no triumph was greater than the mass produced Liberty Ship, the brainchild of ambitious shipbuilders like Clay Bedford. By the end of the war, merchant ships were being built in a tenth the time, with a quarter of the man-hours in labor, than the pre-war average.

For all of the genius of production, American workers still had a lot of catching up to do, and the logistical strain of fighting half a world away was a daunting task even with the immense economic advantage America held. Even enemies convinced of the utter degeneracy of the American people, who had been “mongrelized” at the direction of “Judeo-Bolshevist” doctrines, could not ignore the elephant in the room. Hitler had initially been entirely dismissive of the threat posed by American communists across the Atlantic. America, under Nazi ideology, was a nation with a history of racial mongrelization and soft-headed moral degeneracy. Ruled at first by Jewish finance capitalists, and now under the thrall of Jewish communism, Americans were considered effeminate and weak. Their libertine challenging of old social mores, and commitment to the social advancement of women in a multi-ethnic society were considered laughable, and the deployment of American troops to the Soviet Union was not considered something that warranted a serious change to the invasion plans (Hitler had initially doubted that Americans would even have the stomach to stand beside their “brutish and bestial” Soviet allies). *[WPA]: Works Progress Administration *[NBI]: National Bureau of Investigation