The Americans, however, were quick to learn. They soon realised that the threat to their world supremacy did not arise from a new resurgence of German fascism, but saw that the real enemy was a strengthened USSR and the new workers' states of East Europe.
The US also looked with alarm at the big growth of the workers' parties in Western Europe. In Italy an electoral alliance of the Communist Party and the Italian Socialists-led by Nenni-actually threatened to win a parliamentary majority in 1948. An economically sick, disunited Europe teetered on the brink of collapse. The US correctly feared that this could be a fertile ground for social change.
The demands of the US economy also made it imperative to find new outlets for investment and exports, and the political instability of the 'third world' made Europe and Japan a much
The Labour right and the capitalist class carry on their campaign in favour of the EEC with typically dual standards. On the one hand, they go around declaring that there is absolutely no economic alternative to staying in the EEC. On the other hand, when anyone does come up with a socialist alternative calling for a sliding scale of wages as protection against inflation, work-sharing with no loss of pay, etc., then the Labour right declares that it can't possibly be afforded. And just to ensure that no one calls their bluff, they insist on a religious defence of the "principles of commercial secrecy'-no opening of the books, so that no one can get the figures which would make it very easy to work out a concrete alternative strategy.
Disposing of this rubbish is actually very simple. Even the most broad figures to finance a socialist alternative to capitalism and the EEC. The resources of the red week