Date: Wed, 17 Sep 1997 23:32:02 -0400
Subject: M-G: COCKROACH! #82 


COCKROACH! #82

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1. Hitler's willing executioners.

2. Re: Putting People Outside of History

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Hitler's willing executioners.

Andy wrote:

> Then why didn't fascism in Italy lead to mass murder?

Andy,

It did! In Africa...Futhermore I agree with Tony's arguements against
you on this. In fact now I understand why you defend the fascists rights
to free speech! Your theory and practice are connected. It is the
classical liberal mystification of fascism you are presenting here as
some sort of "Marxist" course in suicide. The point is that National
Socialism in Germany drew Nationalism through a modern
capitalist/imperialist instrument to its conclusion in order to defend
its interests in the last round of inter-imperialist rivilry which led
to a redevision of the spoils..

If the Jews were used as the human material for Hitler's plans it was
hardly based on any kind of mythical or mystification of just about
everybody hating jews. But in the position that jews as a specific
people and class held during this period. Mainly as tradesman, small and
large business men,
and the role that this played against the poor and working class.

Fundementally Hitler's program of race hate and extermination was linked
to a very small group of fanatic Nazis's. But it found a grey area in
the mass because of the Jews class position in society as being the
family who owned a local business or apartment house who people owed
money too.

In the case of the Gypsies, it was more on the base of them being
thought of as outside of mainstream society and the myths of them being
a pack of thieves. Just as in Afrika with the Italians extermination of
Somalians and Etritreans because of the classical Italian colonialist
role saw these peoples as "inferior" and needed to be ruled. By the way
the ideas proved in Africa by the Italians to exterminate Africans by
loading them in to trucks and gassing then to death was used by Hitler
before  modern capitalist society in the form of the predessor of (Bayer
Aspirin?) discovered Cyclon B as a superior method to wipe jews out.

Going back in history we had other forms of "genocide" based on class
relations. How about the American Indian. It was ideologically posed as
the Heathens but in reality was the question of expansion and living
room!

Just as in India today we have sterilization as and organised form of 
Genocide against
the lower elements of caste society.. But this also has to do with living 
space and not some fucking liberal mystification..

Today with fascism on the rise, fascist ideology at least in Europe is
propaganda in the form of how foreign nationals (mostly those with dark
skins) are being subsidized by "our" tax money. In fact it is the Nazis
vanguard that is taking the inability of the capitalist/imperialist
system to work out a system which provides for all . That poor and
working class people can be draw into this stuff hardly proves you
liberal and mystifying theory. In reality it only proves that the
Leninist Vanguard was lacking that could have shown another way out. In
fact much of the discussion about the victory of fascism and its
consequences is being taken up by you in a very utopian-non class
related- petty bougeois liberal campaign which tries to blame everything
on the backwardness of the masses and them being influenced by all kinds
of garbage (to a certain extent true). But you completely leave out the
most vital historical factor of who leads what where. In this case
fascism being the storm troopers as a last defense of a system which
Lenin called the higest stage of capitalism and which is directly
counterposed by the vanguard of the proletariat and its party who fight
for a superior system.

I won't get in to the point about Stalinist betrayal. But this in fact
was the fundemental cause for the victory of fascism and in fact the
COMINTERN which derived out of the Russian Revolution and destroyed by
Stalin was the only real fundemental ideological force that could have
changed the course of history. Your total denial of who leads what where
is the fundemental problem with your entire line. It is the line of the
petty bougeois intelligencia who need to find a moral justification for
there own existence..

In fact throwing up this educated garbage as theory fundementally shows
that Andy does not want to be part of the class struggle and take sides,
but wants to declare fascism as some sort of fucking act of god along
with his cohorts like Goldhagen who write mountains of material which is for
consumption and confusion. I think it was Tony who said something about
Fascism has to be met today and stomped out because it is in fact the 
gathering of those elements who in fact are the last line of defense against 
the decaying and rotting capitalist/imperialist system. But unless we can 
organize a Communist International which is the vanguard of Proletarian 
state power and a planned economy in a transitional period to the communist 
society, we will always be seeing somebody or specific group or groups of 
people that will be used as holacaust victims.

Warm regards
Bob Malecki
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Re: Putting People Outside of History

James Heartfield wrote: 

  I don't want to be contentious for the sake of it, but Andrew Austin
  does have a point that is being lost here. The holocaust was an
  historically unique event that defined the twentieth century in a way no
  other did.

Jim,
Everytime a person takes a piss it is "unique"! But this has nothing to do 
with what is going on 
here.What Andy is doing is putting this stuff on a pedistal completely 
outside of any kind of historical 
or class and political perspective. Rather then seeing the fascist take over 
and following events in any 
kind of marxist perspective he is using liberal bougeois morality connected 
to the reverse version of 
the Nazi"The big lie" and turn it into a Zionist "The Big Myth"that the 
Zionists use in order to make 
sending Jews to be exterminated "unique". In fact there is no difference 
between a Nazi 
concentration camp and all its horrors and the bombing of Dresden. Both were 
imperialist solutions 
and the victims were just as dead. In fact nothing could be futher then the 
truth. All this shit about the 
entire German people willing taking part in the holicaust is one of the 
biggest falsification and 
propaganda numbers in history. In fact it was the Jewish leaders in many of 
the ghettoes that "willing" 
sent off their own people to the gas chambers! Not to mention the whole 
historical struggle leadsing 
up to the fact that the Nazi's took power and completely destroyed the 
organisations and parties of 
the working class long before this shit even started. In fact this was the 
pretext and main reason that 
the holicaust could take place at all.Another aspect of this is American 
"Nazi" propaganda directed 
against the "Japs" who were just vermin to be exterminated in one way or 
another..So who are you 
people twanging guitars for. Imperialism/capitalism as a system means 
extermination in the final 
analisis in one form or the other..

  Now Louis and Robert are right to think that there is a lot of
  mystification there. Even the word 'holocaust' is a misnomer, meaning
  'whole burnt offering' which means to say a sacrifice to God!

  But loaded as the terminology is, the holocaust is not the same as
  slavery or the persecution of the native Americans, nor is Zionism the
  same as Fascism. Those things are to be condemned in their own right,
  but the holocaust is different. How?

  Andrew says that it is because racism their operates without an economic
  motive. But racism often runs against simple economic motivations. In
  Britain the official campaign for tighter immigration laws in the
  sixties was foolish from an economic perspective. But that did not mean
  that it was a free-floating ideology. At first anti-immigrant feeling
  was a spontaneous mood arising out of competition for jobs and other
  resources. But very quickly it was manipulated by the British
  establishment hoping to shore up identification with the nation. Form an
  employers perspective it was a bind. But from the point of view of
  ideological domination of the British working class it was a powerful
  tool for the ruling class.

The above is just garbage.In fact rascism works the way it works today just 
because we are still in 
most cases seeing it in a structure of bougeois structures and economics. 
Fascism is the next step 
when bougeois democratic structures connected to economic structures which 
are no longer viable
in turning a buck or controling the masses. As soon as we go beyond the 
facade of bougeois 
democracy we find that all of the age old rascist and imperialist ideologies 
lead to a blood bath and 
extermination of other peoples. Some along lines of nationalism, others 
rascism and others religion.

In England we have Ireland where the opposing sides unleashed want to 
exterminate the other side 
because of religion. In the former Yugoslavia with the demise of the 
deformed workers state and no 
institutions or revolution or bougeois democracy to replace it we see and 
saw nationalism unleashed 
doing its own mini version of the holicaust. The dropping of the bombs on 
Nagasaki and Heroshima 
were in fact and American version of the holicaust directed at the "yellow" 
japs...Who are you 
people trying to kid here. 

  Hitler's racial laws were also a tool for dividing the working class
  along racial lines. But consensus was not the Fascists' method - they
  used terror. Anti-semitism did build on existing divisions in German
  society (in that sense Goldhagen, and Andrew are right). The division
  between Jews and Gentiles, though was not a simple inheritance from
  medieval christianity. Those primitive ideas had taken on a new content
  because of the massive dislocation of Jews from Eastern Europe around
  the turn of the century. Germany wasn't the only country that
  experienced an influx of East European Jews. That is not to say that
  'immigration caused anti-semitism'. Rather the economics of a divided
  labour market were a focus for reactionary sentiments.

Oh really! Well if this is the case then Godena's arguements about the 
American Indians have the 
same law of "displaced" and "influx" of people's apply. However in the 
opposite sense where the 
Indians got wiped out! It all comes down to in the final analisis of who has 
got the most guns and 
power. Custer was the fucking Hitler on a horse of the west! His program was 
extermination of the 
Indians.Just as the bombing of Nagasaki and heroshima was a program of 
indiscriminant slaughter. 
The only difference was there were no bodies to take a picture of by the 
victorious powers. And 
then their is another side of this stuff. How would Hitler and his Japanese 
Allies wrote history if they 
had won.

  None of that in itself 'explains' the holocaust, which Andrew is right
  to say, in itself defies any economic motivation. Race laws, even
  concentration camps can be understood in terms of the special forms of
  domination employed by the German state. But with the holocaust, the
  whole trajectory of anti-semitism has indeed spun out of control.
  Notwithstanding Louis Proyect's plausible objections, I still think that
  Arno Meyer gets the closest. Race laws and fascism get you to the point
  where Jews are denied all personality and rights, imprisoned in camps.
  But only the impending collapse of the third reich, its isolation from
  the imperialist bloc explains this descent into depravity.

This is also a big lie. Who says that this stuff went with economic loss! In 
fact economics is 
connected to living reality and ideology. It is not just a question of 
bucks. In fact normal people 
certainly did not make any "profits" on the "holicaust". But those running 
the operation certainly did! 
Both in the form of profits in producing the camps and gas and all he rest 
not to mention the entire 
military industrial complex and not in the least the systematic confiscation 
of everything the jews 
owned including the gold in their teeth, there hair etc.. War has always 
been the extension of 
economics and capitalist profits and here you are saying this law does not 
apply! Bullshit.

The present solutions to the "influx" problem of foreign nationals and 
immigrants today is a very 
costly project. In fact the minorities in Europe are or could be the new 
victims of the next holicaust 
to solve the problem or same problems that they had in the thirties. In 
other words a cheaper 
solution to the welfare state would be to exterminate them. The only 
difference is that in the 30ties 
the jews had a little economic clout because of their historical position. 
The next time around it won't 
be pictures of the "crystal" night we will be seeing. But the Brown shirts 
going into minority 
neigborhoods burning and killing and in the final analisis loading them on 
trains or what ever to be 
sent off for disposal. Sort of getting rid of the axcess labor and costs 
that fifty years of relative 
imperialist "peace" which as caused the peoble to have more offspring to be 
fed and clothed then is 
healthy for the system in terminal crisis of shrinking markets and over 
production capabilities.

  The holocaust is unique, it carried through the 'logic' of racial
  supremacy (commonplace and unexceptional in the West) to its irrational
  and inhuman conclusion. Other colonial powers had engaged in massacres
  and taken lives in their millions. But despite the occasional outcry (as
  at Amritsar), the relative isolation of these atrocities outside Europe
  meant that white supremacy was essentially intact as the dominant
  ideology right up to start of the Second World War. The holocaust put an
  end to all that. Germany, the most highly cultured of European nations,
  was exposed as having participated in a racial extermination on European
  soil on a scale and with a depravity that inverted the myth of race
  superiority. The Slavic barbarians of the USSR had saved civilisation
  from the cultured German ruling class. The allies - cynically at first -
  distanced themselves from race laws as part of their campaign against
  Germany in the war.

This is just trying to cover up the barbarious other historical campaigns 
that have taken place in 
history going back to the Spanish Conquistadors! Germany could have gone and 
entirely different 
way. Because this time in history we had the great October Revolution in 
back of us. But the 
COMINTERN under the leadership of Stalin blew it with his Zig Zag politics 
connected to building 
socialism in one country. You and all the rest like Andy are in fact denying 
the concious factor and 
helping to build the liberal anti-communist and anti German myth. This also 
can be seen in the light of 
the present situation internationally of growing Inter-Imperialist rivilry 
and I believe that Andy and the 
crowd he defends feel this in there bones! Thus all of a sudden the 
Holicaust stuff has suddenly 
become so fucking important and profound. You people are creating or trying 
to create pro 
American Imperialist propaganda by taking this shit up again. It is no 
coincidence that these days the 
questions coming up of what happened with the "Nazi" gold and the Holicaust 
are suddenly 
appearing all over the place.

Inter-imperialist rivilry is causing this stuff. Partially because the main 
Imperialist combatants are 
fundementally the same as they were in pre-second world war history. In fact 
the whole Lady Di 
thing is also a British version of imperialist preparation for things to 
come. What really would have in 
interesting would have been if Di's jetset boyfriend had been a German and 
not a rich Arab who's 
father owns have of London..

  The impact of the holocaust can be felt throughout the rest of the
  century. From that point the imperial powers found that white supremacy
  was a compromised ideology. Official anti-racism dates from then.
  (That's not to say that they abandoned racism, on the contrary it
  continued to be a powerful tool, but it also became a much more
  problematic one). It is difficult to imagine how much has changed since
  the holocaust, because we ourselves are so much a product of it. But
  read the most enlightened thinkers pre-1945 and you will find them
  endorsing anti-semitism, eugenics, racism in a manner that seems quite
  extraordinary, because their is not a hint of embarrassment attached to
  the often expressed idea 'I am a racist'.

This is exactly the kind of thinking that puts the holicaust on the 
pedistal. In fact it was and is only 
one particular expression of imperialism/capitalism gone berserk. The 
trenches in world war 1 was 
another historical version of the holicaust and the bankruptcy of this 
system. And probably more gas 
was used in the trenches then during the "holicaust" durinf the second world 
war.

The only real difference between the holicaust in Germany and the Indian 
massacres in America 
were two distinct historical periods. Germany as and expression of the death 
throes of the 
imperial/capitalist system. And in America the death throes of and earler 
fuedal, hunter tribal society 
by the on coming bougeois revolution and expansion.. Just as the birth of 
Socialist society through 
the dictatorship of the Proletariat will also be a bloody event. Because we 
are working in the context 
of great historical contradictions based on both mysticism, left overs from 
fuedal society the church, 
and not in the least imperialist society and all of its incredible rascist 
and bougeois ideology based on 
a previous historic period and its own hysterical creations of "truth"..

  There is an industry now created to discover evidence of racist and
  anti-semitic ideas amongst our best-loved heroes from the past.
  Churchill was a racist according to historian Andrew ('Dog bites man')
  Roberts. Sweden had a eugenic policy. GB Shaw, the Webbs and DH Lawrence
  all wanted to exterminate the masses. Scientists of all political
  stripes thoght that eugenics was a wholly laudable science. Of course it
  is an absurdity. The real revelation would be finding somebody who did
  not hold some kind of race prejudice. The error is to take our post-
  holocaust sensibilites and imagine that we would find them reflected in
  people pre-holocaust.

The point is that Andy and his friends are doing exactly just that. Putting 
the holicaust on a pedistal. 
It comes back to his recent revelations on how to fight "fascism" today 
which he OPPOSES 
smashing FASCISM IN ALL ITS FORMS IMMEDIATELY AND WITHOUT MERCY. 
BECAUSE THEY ARE OPENLY and clearly the the point guards of the only 
solution imperialism 
in its death THROES has shown us recently IN HISTORY. He in fact with his 
activity on this list 
against opposing the fascists and putting Nazism and the holicaust on a 
fucking pedistal become 
either unconciously or conciously the liberal defenders of the future REAL 
nazis! There is no real 
difference between the program of let say the National Front or Carl E. 
Hagens party in Norway 
which presently has 25% of the vote in the uppcoming elections. It is 
imperialism/capitalism and its 
advanced guard preparing for a new showdown..

  I think it is a mistake to say that Israel's race policy is akin to
  Fascism because Israel is not an imperial power like Germany. I am
  saying that the category 'Fascism' ought not be detached from the real
  conditions that gave rise to it historically and applied to any
  reactionary regime or movement that formally fits the bill. If anything
  Israel's policy in the region has been made possible by US support. As
  the American government has shown they have no hesitation in massacring
  Arabs by their hundred of thousands when they feel it serves US
  interests. But even the Gulf massacre was done in the context of a war,
  however unevenly balanced.

This last by Jim is just absurd. And he is falling into the liberal spiders 
nest of Andy and his cohorts. 
On and emotional level I suggest that Jim take a look at the pictures coming 
from the middle East 
and how the supposed Islamic fanatics are being treated. Blindfolded, back 
bunded on their knees in 
the sun. Viscious terror and torture of a Kind "Nazi" way in order to get 
information from these 
people under the cover of defending the Zionist state. Many of these people 
are certainly being 
indiscriminately arrested and tortured. On the other side we have Islamic 
fundementalism gone 
berserk with indiscriminate murder through suicide bomb patrols not to 
mention what would happen 
if a Israeli were to be captured alive. The point is that both 
Imperialism/capitalism which certainly the 
Israeli state is even if small in relationship to America or Germany 
expresses one form of the future 
holicaust unleashed if they get their way. Just as religion in the form of 
Islamic fundementalism based 
on Imperialist/capitalist economic relations in the form of oil can also 
very well lead to a new 
holicaust if they get the upper hand.

Only by having a clear class perspective in relationship to a revolutionary 
leadership which sees 
Imperialism/capitalism in its death throes as the  bottom line for all 
modern holicausts in what ever 
form they might take to exterminate peoples or groups of peoples is the way 
forward.

The present trend on this list is counter-productive and as Godena says 
extermely dangerous 
because it is a tendency to capitulate to a certain version of 
pro-imperialist propaganda which puts 
the Holicaust in Germany on a pedistal. It also as the situation is today 
the frantic expression of our 
liberals gone berserk and jumping on the anti-German imperialism bandwagon 
in favor of their own 
imperialism. using the holicaust in order to prepare the masses for a new 
holicaust to save the world 
in the form of anti German propaganda is and outrageous skandal on any 
Marxist list. And that 
Hinrich has jumped on this bandwagon (perhaps out of liberal German guilt) 
is particully disgusting. 
The future head quarters of the Communist International should have its 
rightful place in Berlin. 
Because it was the German working class who without a revolutionary 
leadership and betrayed by 
the Stalinists and the Social Democrats who were the only force that could 
have stopped the 
holicaust despite which form it might have taken in the last historical 
epok. Just as it will only be the 
proletariat which can stop future holicausts despite the form they might take.

Trotsky gave lesson after lesson after lesson (Russia, Italy, Spain,Germany) 
in the last historical crisis 
which led to the victory of Fascism and the 2nd world war. And it appears 
that our liberals on this 
list have learned nothing! In fact deguised in fake "Marxist" terms this 
debate is a liberal cover to 
defend America and the Zionists before a new imperialist showdown..

Warm regards
Bob Malecki
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