cross‐posted from: https://lemmygrad.ml/post/459183

At the end of World War I, the Western Allies, after much discussion, agreed that a territory should be formed partially from two German states, Prussia and Bavaria, and sponsored by the League of Nations. This was the Territory of the Saar Basin, a European microstate that existed from 1920 to 1935.

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Both the French and German ruling classes envied this territory for its abundance of coal and its strategic utility, and it had been a source of contention between them in previous decades. Its independence from both was essentially a compromise, with the condition that the French state would control the coal mines, and after fifteen years there was to be a plebiscite deciding on its fate.

For the 1935 plebiscite, voters had three options: ‘either returning to Germany, or being united to France, or remaining under the government of the League of Nations.’ France’s invalidation of German citizenships, among its other decisions, severely reduced any chances that it could have had in winning the plebiscite, and the League of Nations’ multinational Governing Commission sometimes acted without consulting the public, reducing any chances that it could have had there, too. Thus, the Fascists had much of their work already cut out for them; faking the results would have been unnecessary.

Most of us in 1935 voted to continue the current arrangement due to the lack of better alternatives. Nevertheless, these efforts proved to be in vain:

The results of the plebiscite were unexpected and very disappointing to advocates of the continuance of the status quo. On the other hand, the event bore out the advance predictions of the [Fascist] leaders, who were themselves somewhat surprised, as were neutral observers, by the extent of their overwhelming victory. Of the 528,105 votes cast, 477,119 were for union with Germany, representing over 90 percent of the valid ballots.

Only 46,613 voters cast ballots for the status quo and but 2,124 for union with France. The plebiscite was also remarkable in that the vote for Germany did not fall below 83 percent in any voting district a circumstance, incidentally, which made easy the ensuing decision of the Council.

Taken out of context, one would be highly suspicious of these results, and suspect that the Fascists must have tampered directly with the plebiscite. However, no such evidence exists in support of this suspicion:

By contrast, the people of the Saar, though deluged with [Fascist] propaganda and exposed to the most thoroughgoing “enlightenment,” were legally free to read anything they pleased and to listen to anyone whom they wished to hear.

Moreover, the Governing Commission and the Plebiscite Commission took pains to see that the public platforms, auditoriums, and arenas were not monopolized by the [Fascists], and that the inhabitants were not terrorized at the polls. But the overwhelming vote for union with [the Third] Reich was so impressive that only one conclusion could be drawn, namely, that the [Fascist] régime was not distasteful to most of the Saar inhabitants, and that they preferred it even to an efficient, economical, and benevolent international rule.

To be sure, there were some who regarded the Third Reich with so much aversion and fear that they fled over the border to France when the results of the plebiscite became known. But there were only about three thousand three hundred of these (in addition to the eight hundred refugees who had previously fled from the Reich) from a total population of about eight hundred thousand.

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

The events of 1922 and 1933 already suggested that so‐called liberal ‘democracy’ fails to prevent fascism. The Saar Basin plebiscite of 1935 not only supports this view, but indicates that many ordinary adults consciously chose Fascism over a liberal régime; it was not a phenomenon that the ruling class immediately imposed on an utterly unwilling majority.

This may be a reason why the subject rarely receives anything more than a passing mention whenever somebody brings up the subject of Fascism. It’s true that the Territory of the Saar Basin was a microstate, something generally of limited interest to people, but it was significant for a few reasons: it had an abundance of important resources, and it was one of the first steps that the Third Reich took on its way to becoming an empire. This helped legitimate Fascism. A few years afterwards the Third Reich would annex Sudetenland and Austria, and it seems almost as if the German bourgeoisie’s ambitions simply snowballed thence.

Much as the capitalist class of today has successfully duped many ordinary adults into thinking that the status quo is either beneficial to them, harmless, or at least the best of all possible worlds, the Fascist bourgeoisie could do likewise with Fascism. Coercion was a means to this, but it was the last resort, not the first. People can still consent to their own oppression.