 Hook’s rejection of this argument indicates the distance he had moved from Marxism and Trotskyism. The empirical facts regarding National Socialism could not be identified as a phase within the decadent death throes of international capitalism. Rather, the empirical facts of Nazi aggression and Nazi aims required a practical assessment and appropriate response freed from the blinders of Marxist historical determinism. The policy options had to be examined from the perspective of political and moral realism with an evaluation of their potential consequences.