File spoon-archives/marxism-international.archive/marxism-international_1997/marxism-international.9709, message 117


Date: Sun, 7 Sep 1997 14:00:06 -0400
From: malecki-AT-algonet.se (Robert Malecki)
Subject: M-I: Reply To james H..


James Heartfield wrote: 

  I agree with quite a lot of what Robert writes. It is true that the
  contemporary trend towards fixating on the holocaust (in English
  speaking countries at least) was motivated by a hostility to an imperial
  rival - and particularly aimed at German reunification (evidence of the
  infamous Thatcher cabinet discussion on the 'German character' around
  that time is well documented). I also agree that a lot of holocaust
  scholarship in the US is motivated by support for Israel (well
  documented by Norman Finkelstein in NLR). For both of these the
  'uniqueness of the holocaust' has indeed been an ideological tool for
  abstracting Nazi atrocities from imperialism.

Jim starts off fine only to in the next part get completely boggled and 
because of this draw a lot of wrong conclusions.

  However, much as you make light of historical specificity, I do think it
  is especially pertinent in dealing with the 'final solution'. Unlike
  other massacres undertaken by imperialists, this one was exposed and
  reviled throughout the Western world. For the first time the 'white
  solidarity' between the big powers fell apart. It is pointed that the
  league of nations refused Japan's proposed anti-racist clause in its
  charter, but that anti-racism was a central plank of the UN Charter
  after the Second World War. Now, of course Robert could protest at this
  point: fat lot of good that did! And he would be right that a single
  clause did not stop the massacres in the Congo, Namibia, Vietnam,
  Malaysia or anywhere else. Of course, the basic structure of inequality
  between the imperial powers and the rest of the world was intact.

Yes exactly, it did not stop the massacres then or today or tomorrow. In 
fact taking the end of the war the Nazi attrocities and Nuremburg as a 
starting point does not show a deviding line which changes things 
dramatically. In fact it only confirmed the hypocracy of the victorious 
powers who for example were putting Nazi's on trial while in India for 
example the British desperately trying to hold onto its colonies took the 
path which involved the extermination of millions.

  However, there had been a profound ideological set-back for white
  supremacy. Offical anti-racism starts with the holocaust: the executive
  orders desegregating the US military for example. Also civil rights
  activists deployed the language of offical anti-racism to further their
  claims - such as WEB Dubois bringing a case against America to the UN
  under its own Charter. In the colonies the discrediting of the white
  supremacy ideology emboldened opponents of Britsh and French rule. Many
  of the anti-colonists had served in the British army in a 'war against
  Fascism' and turned Britain's anti-fascist propaganda against her. Ho
  Chi Minh had developed his guerilla skills while an American ally in the
  war against Axis powers. If you read JF Kennedy's speeches from the
  fifties you will find a fierce denunciation of French and British
  imperialism in Indo-China.

Sure and pigs fly. In fact imperialism was weakened despite its victory over 
"fascism" and you completely neglect the fact of the degenerated workers 
state of Russia and its expansion plus the Chinese revolution which 
imperialism had to face as a fact of life. No wonder they wanted to 
tactically use this kind of rhetoric in order to gain time to consolidate 
its power. Half of the world was up for grabs you know. But just like the 
post war "welfare" reforms and all the rhetoric about 
which you would like to defend your ideas of a great  anti rascist barriere 
being crossed we appear to be heading back to square one again and the pre 
war rascism once again although this time is is not the Jews but immigrants 
and displaced peoples of the third world. And painting up the anti 
"imperialism" of the late 60ties and 70ties without taking up the great 
events taking place in the form 
of the demise of the ex Soviet Union and the Gulf war is ridiculous. At best 
Jim if and I doubt it we crossed some "Rubicon" as you claim well that 
Rubicon has been recrossed and we are now heading in the opposite direction 
and unfortunately from a much weaker position then we had in the thirties in 
the form of the Soviet Union and the gains of October despite the Stalinists.

Another point is that attrocities quite as large as the Nazi holicaust 
appear to be repeating themselves time and again on the African continent. 
Although it is not cyclon B that is being used but the IMF...

Rhetorically, of course, I can see why it is useful to denounce
imperialist domination as a continuation of the same policies of race
superiority that existed befre the war. But in the study of history it
  doesn't make sense to deny that a rubicon had been crossed. Why does it
  have emotional force to characterise Western foreign policy as racist?
  If you had said the same thing in the thirties people would have looked
  around quizzically and asked 'what's wrong with that?', without any
  sense of embarrassment.

Well, Today we can see in Europe we have exactly the same position although 
not directed at Jews but blacks and minority groups of the third world. And 
in the united States we have rascism and state repression to the core of 
minorities. Although not on the level of Cyclon B we certainly that the 
minorities are the ones who fill the jails and starve to death. But in a 
period of war and revolutions where lets say the Bolsheviks were to take 
power in South Africa we could possiby quickly see 
some pretty extrodinary things happen in the United States with a core 
population who have everything to gain and nothing to lose quickly being 
marched off to death camps..

  Quite apart from the historical meaning of the holocaust, Fascism is
  distinct from mainstream reactionary politics in two important ways:
  First, it engaged in mass mobilisation amongst the middle classes,
  drawing them into direct action against the left; second, it deployed
  direct repression to supress working class opposition at home, in a way
  that until then had been reserved for colonial subjects. (Beleiving
  those to be fascism's unique elements, you can see why I was so adamant
  in opposing the Goldhagen thesis of pan-German guilt.) In fact fascism
  is precisely a *departure* from conventional racism, in that it rested
  not on a consensus between the the ruling class and the working class
  leaders, as Britian's imperial policy did, but in direct repression at
  home.

OK I could almost buy the above. But this is in fact you are leaving out 
some other quite clear examples which came previous to Germany. Spain and 
Italy for example. However being that the Jews in this particular point of 
history played the historical role that it did had more to do with Germany 
being in the center of Europe and both Jewish capitalism and displaced 
persons from earlyier pograms in Eastern Europe and the former Czarist 
empire. But the mobilisation of the middle 
class and the lumpen strata came first in Spaion and later on in Italy 
before Germany to supres the working class. However they are linked in that 
first the defeat of the Spanish revolution and then the victory of Italian 
fascism and then the victory of the Fascist in Germany was certainlt a 
mighty blow 
on this continent. Al of these events are connected and lead to the gas 
chambers. Not in the least the complete bankruptcy of the Third 
International under Stalin..

  I must take issue with your promiscuous use of terms like 'racism',
  'nationalism', 'holocaust' to artificially elide quite distinct
  conflicts. In no sense is Irish nationalism equivalent to Unionism. The
  one is motivated by a desire to liberate Northern Ireland from military
  occupation, the other by the desire to continue that occupation. This is
  the final outcome of formalistic thinking: the violence of the oppressed
  is seen as identical to the violence of the oppressor.

The above could only be true if one believes that Green Nationalism is more 
progressive then Orange Nationalism which I don't. I think that both sides 
if they were to get the military and political power would be quite capable 
of some very nasty things. Which leads to the question of What the IRA or 
its predessessors were doing cozying up with the Nazis during the war? for 
example.

  Alive as Robert is to the ideological deployment of the uniqueness of
  the holocaust in support of Anglo American and Zionist policies, I think
  he has missed out the more contemporary twist in imperial ideology.
  Nowaday's the Western powers have tended to discover 'holocausts' all
  over the place. In Rwanda and Burundi, in Bosnia and in Cambodia, the
  West is eager to shout 'holocaust'. Why?

Because it is the modern version of the bougeois state trying to bring 
"civilization" to the third world on the back of NATO troops and American 
gunships. It is just the modern version of christianity sending missionaries 
to Africa for example. Not really new just take a look at the Italians in 
somalia and etreia or the British in South Africa during the Boer wars.. 
That just the German Nazi Holicaust 
is used as and example was determined by the victorious imperialist allies 
with the help of Joe stalin.But it does not change the fact that earlier and 
later crimes imposed on poor and working class people in different 
historical periods was any better or worse just another way to destroy 
people in order to defend the system..

  In the first instance, it is because under the UN charter, the discovery
  of 'genocide' provides the legal justification for military
  intervention. That is why western agents have been eager to portray the
  civil wars in Rwanda and Bosnia as 'genocidal'. If they can show
  evidence of genocide then military intervention becomes acceptable under
  the UN charter and in the eyes of the world. Second the demonisation of
  opponents in the former Soviet bloc and the third world as 'Hitlers'
  prepares public opinion for military intervention. Thirdly, the
  relocation of 'genocide' from the West to the third world
  retrospectively minimises the responsibility of the Western ruling
  classes for the real holocaust, by portraying genocide as a failing that
  only Africans and Slavs would succumb to today.

Exactly and that is why Communists defend unconditionally against 
imperialist intervention. At best Andy's version of this shit is pointing 
the finger at the Germans while the modern rascists are using the Holicaust 
to for example use their smart bombs intead of cyclon B in Irak during the 
Gilf war.Actually the last in a nutshell is and extension of exactly what 
Andy and his crowd are saying only 
extending it not only to the Germans but the africans, Slavs and perhaps in 
the future the former Soviet Union under the guise of defending bougeois 
democracy. In reality it is rascism and fascism in clothed in the deguise of 
bougeois democracy. As the crisis deepens we will perhaps see the American, 
German and Japanese variant of this kind of activity as they try to find 
allies in the coming confrontation between the major imperialist powers. 
thus already we see a distinct deferentaion in the former Yugoslavia where 
the Germans have hopped on the croatian horse, the Americans on the Bosian 
Muslim horse and the Russians half heartedly on the serb horse. It will be 
the fundemental 
imperialist contracdictions that will decide the future and who and what are 
considered the enemy.Whether we use pre war linguified retoric or post war 
"Holicaust" rhetoric the actors and their motivations are basically the 
same. Otherwise we have completely wrong in our analisis and we are 
in a new age of super imperialism and just cleaning up the leftovers of the 
previous era..However I doubt it.. In the final analisis imperialism as the 
highest stage of capitalism means just either the prospect of war and 
revolutions in going forward or backwards in the long run. One side or the 
other must be victorious or the real possibility of this system not only 
generating some new form of 
holicaust but in fact extinguishing all organic life on this planet..

Warm regards
Bob Malecki
------------------------------------------------------- 
Check Out My HomePage where you can, 

Read or download the book! Ha Ha Ha McNamara, 
Vietnam-My Bellybutton is my Crystalball! 

And Now the International Communist League Page! 
Just push on the "Spartacist" Button. 

Or Get The Latest Issue of, 

COCKROACH, a zine for poor and working-class people. 

NEW! "RADIO TIME"  In cooperation with Stratfacts, Bob 
Malecki will be giving occasional reports to Stratfacts 
Radio audiences in the United States. Text for these 
reports now on line. 

http://www.algonet.se/~malecki 

Back issues of Cockroach and my book at 
http://www.kmf.org/malecki/ 

------------------------------------------------------- 
  



     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---

   

Driftline Main Page

 

Display software: ArchTracker © Malgosia Askanas, 2000-2005