Unpatriotic History of the 2nd World War

[whichfinder]

Date: Sunday, 11 November 2012 - 6:00pm

Venue: The Socialist Party's premises, 52 Clapham High Street, London SW4 7UN

Directions: About five minutes walk from Clapham North tube on the Northern line

James Heartfield introduces his new book Unpatriotic History of the Second World War in which he argues that the Second World War was just as much as the First World War, a conflict, on both sides, between rival imperialist powers for a re-division of the world and not, as popularly portrayed, a "people's war" of "democracy" against "fascism". He shows that this was just the ideological smokescreen to disguise the imperialist economic and strategic interests that were the real issue.

Both sides screwed down their working class, regimenting them and reducing their living standards. Both sides committed atrocities. After the German conquest of Europe, for the first few years the land war was fought in Africa (they've just celebrated the 50th anniversary of the battle of El Alamein), the Middle East and Asia as the dominant imperialist powers fought to defend their empires. When the war did spread to Europe again the winning powers installed regimes favourable to their interests in what Heartfield describes as "the second invasion of Europe".


Free entry and refreshments

Audience participation

Event organised by the SPGB

[hetz]

James Heartfield introduces his new book Unpatriotic History of the Second World War in which he argues that the Second World War was just as much as the First World War, a conflict, on both sides, between rival imperialist powers for a re-division of the world and not, as popularly portrayed, a "people's war" of "democracy" against "fascism".
Yep, it was totally a war between rival imperialist powers such as the USSR and Germany.
I don't know how can the fact that WW2 was a war against fascist aggression be refuted.

[whichfinder]

I don't know how can the fact that WW2 was a war against fascist aggression be refuted.

Easily. Come to the talk and hear the myth dispelled :rolleyes:

Governments on both sides of the Allied/Axis divide fought for world hegemony in a brutal fashion ranging from the Holocaust to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs. The war began as a fight between imperialist 'have nots' (Germany, Italy, Japan) against imperialist 'haves' (Britain, France, Russia). Thus it ended with the defeat of the former and a new carve-up of the world on Cold War lines. Stripped of anti-fascist rhetoric, the Allied governments fought to protect, extend, or create empires.

[Q]

Will there be a video of the talk?

[whichfinder]

Will there be a video of the talk?

No, but there will be an audio recording.

[whichfinder]

No, but there will be an audio recording.

The recording of James Heartfield's talk has been uploaded to our audio section -

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/audio/unpatriotic-history-2nd-world-war

[Avanti]

it was both

both a war between

imperialist powers

and a people's war

between fascism

stalinism

and liberalism

over the future of the earth

it was also

the birth woes

of a new world

and

don't forget

a hollywood war

with good guys

allying with anti-heroes

and satanic monsters

against evil guys

with nice uniforms

[Yuppie Grinder]

Living conditions in the social liberal west improved immediately after WW2.

[GoddessCleoLover]

Hitler was the devil incarnate. The Nazi program was to murder the Jews and enslave the Slavs. I am glad that Hitler lost and the pretensions of the Nazis and the Fascists were destroyed. As much as I disdain Stalin's misleadership, nonetheless the heroic soldiers of the Soviet Army were able to destroy the Nazi invaders and hunt down Hitler and force him to commit suicide. Job well done.

[Sir Comradical]

Ultimately this questions boils down to whether you believe the USSR was a workers' state, degenerated or not, that was worth defending. The USSR survived because it recognized the antagonism between imperialism and the USSR, and also between the relatively new fascist imperialist powers and the already well established "democratic" imperialist powers (the dictatorship of the bourgeoisie can take both "democratic" and fascist forms). I think the USSR was worth defending and so I consider any position that in retrospect argues that the Soviet working class should have been defeatist to be utterly criminal, especially since the anti-fascist struggle was for many people a war for basic survival.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I do not believe that the Soviet state was worth defending, but Hitler posed an existential threat to the Soviet peoples, and the people of the Soviet Union were worth defending. They defended themselves with valor and destroyed the invaders and their march on Berlin forced the rat Hitler to kill himself rather than face the consequences of his criminal actions.

[Yuppie Grinder]

Gramsci Guy, I have to disagree with you. Were not the millions of Germans who were raped and killed in WWII just as worth defending? A communist does not take sides in intercapital war. A proletarian internationalist is opposed to imperialist war without exceptions.

[GoddessCleoLover]

With respect to the Great Patriotic War, I cannot agree with equating the Germans and the peoples of the Soviet Union, since the Germans were the aggressors. German deaths were a tragedy and Soviet Army's raping of German women was a despicable crime, but the Soviet peoples had the right to defend themselves against the existential threat posed by Nazism.

I have tried to conceptualize World War Two as an "intercapital war", but ultimately I just don't see it that way. Such an analysis glosses over the fact that Nazism was more than just another form of capitalism. Hitler planned to force-march the Ukrainian and Russian people across the Urals, a barbaric plan that would have resulted in the deaths of tens of millions, a Slavic Holocaust would have been the result. Under these circumstances, the peoples of the Soviet Union acted in fulfillment of that most fundamental human right, the right not to be exterminated.

[Yuppie Grinder]

I don't think the lesser of two evils approach really works and incidents like the mass rape in Germany prove this.
Do you take an orthodox Trotskyist position of the USSR?

[Ocean Seal]

I don't think the lesser of two evils approach really works and incidents like the mass rape in Germany prove this.
Do you take an orthodox Trotskyist position of the USSR?
The rape in Germany, as disgusting as it was, was not a programme of the USSR, rather a vindication of the Soviet soldiers themselves. Hitler on the other hand did have intentions to kill and enslave all Slavic peoples. I think that fighting fascism or resisting colonialism is worth doing even from the perspective that you will fight against your national bourgeois leaders when you are done. But in the case of the Nazis I think that there is a special case because of their extreme expansionism, and commitment to the extermination of entire races. I really think that the thought of you and your neighbors being forced into a slave camp and subsequently murdered (by neighbors I mean everyone that you know that looks like you) is enough to make you appreciate the sensitivity of the situation.

[Sir Comradical]

Gramsci Guy, I have to disagree with you. Were not the millions of Germans who were raped and killed in WWII just as worth defending? A communist does not take sides in intercapital war. A proletarian internationalist is opposed to imperialist war without exceptions.

Okay, what should the Yugoslav and Greek partisans have done under fascist occupation? Hand out pamphlets to Axis soldiers and local collaborators?

[Sir Comradical]

I don't think the lesser of two evils approach really works and incidents like the mass rape in Germany prove this.
Do you take an orthodox Trotskyist position of the USSR?

Four thousand Red Army officers were brought to trial after the war for alleged crimes against civilians. Also, shooting soldiers in front of their units for rape without a formal trial was standard. Read:


"Next topic – about our [Red Army] behavior in Germany. Although a strict prohibitive order was in effect, I should say that there were some facts of both the pillage and rape. I remember how one marauder was shot in front of the unit’s formation. Initially I consider this punishment as too severe. However, after I came to know that he not just robbed these civilians but also beat them unmercifully, I changed my mind. There were also cases of raping German women. I remember a widely known fact of a group rape when 33 soldiers raped a German woman." - Red Army veteran Safonov IvanovichOn the other hand the fascists actually did murder six million Jews and the invasion of the USSR killed 25 million people, so drawing some kind of moral equivalence between the USSR and the fascists is quite silly to say the least.

[Grenzer]

With respect to the Great Patriotic War, I cannot agree with equating the Germans and the peoples of the Soviet Union, since the Germans were the aggressors. German deaths were a tragedy and Soviet Army's raping of German women was a despicable crime, but the Soviet peoples had the right to defend themselves against the existential threat posed by Nazism.

I have tried to conceptualize World War Two as an "intercapital war", but ultimately I just don't see it that way. Such an analysis glosses over the fact that Nazism was more than just another form of capitalism. Hitler planned to force-march the Ukrainian and Russian people across the Urals, a barbaric plan that would have resulted in the deaths of tens of millions, a Slavic Holocaust would have been the result. Under these circumstances, the peoples of the Soviet Union acted in fulfillment of that most fundamental human right, the right not to be exterminated.

I can understand where people who see it as an intercapitalist war are coming from, and I agree with the view that is indeed what it was, but I think the view that neither side should have been supported is flawed for a few reasons.

Firstly, there was no potential for the war to develop into a revolutionary situation. There were no revolutionary proletarian parties of significant strength to really pose the question of state power. Therefore, while saying both sides should be opposed seems appropriate in the abstract, in practice it is actually meaningless. This isn't about the lesser of two evils at all.

In Syria at the present, for example, whichever side wins, the working class will lose in about equal proportion. In this situation, the third camp line can be justified. This is not the case with World War 2. The victory of the Germans would not have been merely "the victory of one faction of capital over the other"(technically, it would have been, but in terms of what it would mean in concrete terms this does not tell the whole story).

Fascism contents itself with nothing less than the total destruction of all proletarian organizations, even the reformist ones. It completely destroys the well being of the class, and precludes the workers from being effectively able to organize as a class. Only a dreamer could believe that proletarian revolution would have serious prospects in such a situation to the same degree that it would in an ordinary bourgeois republican or Soviet Europe.

This is to say nothing of the intense material destruction of the actual workers on a physical level. The horrors unleashed by a Nazi victory would be unimaginable. It's difficult for me to imagine how refusing to take concrete actions to prevent the physical destruction of the working class on such a scale amounts to anything other than a betrayal of class interests. Of course, the anti-defencist partisans will claim that they are working for a "higher cause"(immediate proletarian revolution) which in reality has no realistic possibility of happening in that situation. It's a cop out and hollow posturing of the most cynical and opportunist sort.

The Civil War line is only justified in a revolutionary situation(IE when an actual revolution is a distinct and realistic possibility), otherwise a "peace without indemnities or annexations" is the correct line. In extraordinary situations, an actual defencist line, which takes all due course to preserve class independence, is justified. This is not to be applied on a mechanical basis, but with a serious materialist and dynamic examination of the situation.

I do not believe that the Soviet Union was a proletarian dictatorship of any kind, nor that it was neither qualitatively superior nor qualitatively worse to ordinary capitalism, but Soviet defencism seems to be the best choice in the context of World War 2. I can't speak for Gramsci Guy, but I get the impression that his take on the situation is the same or similar.

This could only seen as a "lesser of two evils" approach when seen in the extreme abstract in which the working class is merely a pawn on chess board entirely divorced from real world conditions and material happenings.

[GoddessCleoLover]

I am happy to endorse Ghost Bebel's well-reasoned post. I do not ascribe to the orthodox Trotskyist theory of the degenerated workers' state, but neither do I ascribe to the Schachtmanite alternative. I am not sure what the class nature of the USSR was, but IMO it was definitely not a workers' state of any kind but OTOH it doesn't seem to have been a capitalist state either.

[The Idler]

No, but there will be an audio recording.
haha role reversal - audio > video.

[Os Cangaceiros]

Generally I tend to take the left communist position on WW2, but I have to admit, reading about the Nazi programme of death camps and literal chattel slavery, it's kind of hard not to support their destruction in the war. It's harrowing reading accounts of the innumerable fucked-up aspects of Nazi society and the actions of the Nazi military.

[Luís Henrique]

Governments on both sides of the Allied/Axis divide fought for world hegemony in a brutal fashion ranging from the Holocaust to the Hiroshima and Nagasaki nuclear bombs.

To put it simply, yes.

To put it accordingly to reality, the methods of domination of each side were vastly different. No attempt to erase Japan or Germany from the maps and to systematically exterminate their populations were ever made. Attempts to erase Poland, Yugoslavia, Czechoslovakia, Greece, Belgium, or France were definitely made, as well as a systematic policy of extermination of Eastern Europe populations was planned and executed.

To ignore such circumstances is simply to refuse to understand history.


The war began as a fight between imperialist 'have nots' (Germany, Italy, Japan) against imperialist 'haves' (Britain, France, Russia). Thus it ended with the defeat of the former and a new carve-up of the world on Cold War lines. Stripped of anti-fascist rhetoric, the Allied governments fought to protect, extend, or create empires.

The "rhetoric", however, cannot be actually stripped from the war; it was an inherent, and even structuring, aspect of it.

It is sad to see the SPGB sinking into that semi-Stalinist mud.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

it was both both a war between imperialist powers and a people's war between fascism stalinism and liberalism over the future of the earth

it was also the birth woes of a new world and don't forget a hollywood war with good guys allying with anti-heroes and satanic monsters against evil guys with nice uniforms

Quoted for truth. And made legible for clarity.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

Gramsci Guy, I have to disagree with you. Were not the millions of Germans who were raped and killed in WWII just as worth defending?

Sure. Against whom do we want to retrospectively defend them? Who caused their suffering? Soviet - or French, or Polish - aggression, or their own State?


A communist does not take sides in intercapital war.

No, but we defend ourselves when attacked.

We can't ignore that fascist aggression was not just an aggression against other States; it was a direct aggression against the working class under those other States.


A proletarian internationalist is opposed to imperialist war without exceptions.

Sure. The problem is to define what is an imperialist war, and what is not. According to the "reasoning" of some here, it seems the Paris proletariat should have welcomed the Prussian invaders instead of putting up a Commune and resisting both the Prussian aggression and the French capitulation.

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

This could only seen as a "lesser of two evils" approach when seen in the extreme abstract in which the working class is merely a pawn on chess board entirely divorced from real world conditions and material happenings.

Which, of course, is a form of class treason no better than tailing to imperialist sides in imperialist conflicts.

Luís Henrique

[black magick hustla]

look, wwii was an inter imperialist war.

the difference between wwi and wii is that in wwii the proletariat was completely lobotomized by nationalism and democracy. slogans like "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" couldn't exist in an arena where there was no meaningful class for-itself. nothing could have been done to avoid the tragedy and at that point it was pretty much doing what you gotta do to survive. however i will leave the singing of praises for the allies and the talk of the last good war or whatever for the murderous bourgeosie. the talk of "specific conditions" of fascism is just dumb opportunism because the left was historically tied to the geopolitics of the ussr. i'll save my saliva for my dinner rather than for eulogizing the murderous stalin. the fact that there was no meaningful force within the class to have made a stand against wwii speaks tons about the kind of counterrevolution stalin and his kin in the comintern had spearheded.

[black magick hustla]

Living conditions in the social liberal west improved immediately after WW2.

yep, wwii fixed the great repression. spells the fact that capitalism cannot be fixed except through massive destruction that resets capital accumulation.

[black magick hustla]

Hitler was the devil incarnate. The Nazi program was to murder the Jews and enslave the Slavs. I am glad that Hitler lost and the pretensions of the Nazis and the Fascists were destroyed. As much as I disdain Stalin's misleadership, nonetheless the heroic soldiers of the Soviet Army were able to destroy the Nazi invaders and hunt down Hitler and force him to commit suicide. Job well done. "the devil incarnate" lol spoken like a true idealist like gramsci

[GoddessCleoLover]

Meant as an insult, but taken as a compliment. You are as wrong about WW II as you are about Gramsci.;)

[hetz]

slogans like "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" couldn't exist in an arena where there was no meaningful class for-itself. Yeah and because people were fighting for their very survival and for their children not to be made slaves and gassed in some concentration camp.


slogans like "turn the imperialist war into a civil war"
Parroting a phrase can either support your claims, whatever they might be, or make you look stupid.

Once the Nazi machine started rolling there was no turning anything into anything, even in 1945 the German soldier didn't surrender that easily, didn't desert en masse, didn't do anything really.

Turning a imperialist war into a civil war isn't a matter of proclamations and nice words ( something Trotsky learned in the early days of Brest Litovsk ), it is first and foremost a question of certain objective conditions and , of course, the capability, skills and organization of the most progressive layers of the working class, that is to say the revolutionary consciousness of the working class in general.

[Vanguard1917]

We can't ignore that fascist aggression was not just an aggression against other States; it was a direct aggression against the working class under those other States.

As Heartfield's book outlines, so was the aggression of the allied imperialists.



The "rhetoric", however, cannot be actually stripped from the war; it was an inherent, and even structuring, aspect of it.


You're seriously arguing that the British empire and the US - the world's leading imperialist forces - declared war on Germany for anti-fascist reasons?

[Luís Henrique]

look, wwii was an inter imperialist war.

It certainly was. The point would be, was it only an imperialist war, or was its nature more complex, juxtaposing more than one aspect?


the difference between wwi and wii is that in wwii the proletariat was completely lobotomized by nationalism and democracy.

If such sentence was uttered by any other poster, I would call it "idealist nonsence".

There were of course many differences between the WWs, first and second, and one of them might have been the level of consciousness of the proletariat. But, frankly, WWI was met with enthusiastic patriotism by the working class at large, in each and every country that played a major role in it. The final debacle, in which the proletariat-in-arms of most countries tired of the butchery and rose against their commanders, came only after four years of horror and undecidable war. That was topped to the fact that foreign occupation, be it of French territory by German troops, or of German territory by French troops, was at worst an increased nuisance against the background of the absolute horror of factory-like war. This points to a second difference between the wars: German occupation of foreign territory in WWII was much worse than an increased nuisance (and the war at the frontlines, at least in the beginning, was decisively different from the nonsencical butchery in WWI: real territorial gains could be obtained with less sacrifice than was needed to achieve twenty yards in WWI).



slogans like "turn the imperialist war into a civil war" couldn't exist in an arena where there was no meaningful class for-itself. nothing could have been done to avoid the tragedy and at that point it was pretty much doing what you gotta do to survive.

Pretty much, but evidently there was no possibility of individual survival, so people gathered under the banner that seemed more likely to help them in doing what you gotta do to survive. If that was a Stalinist-backed partisan army, or a British backed web of spionage, it most probably varied with location and personal inclinations of the victims of Nazi aggression.


however i will leave the singing of praises for the allies and the talk of the last good war or whatever for the murderous bourgeosie.

I think we can all leave that to them. On the other hand, an actual and precise analysis of WWII must go way beyond merely labeling it "interimperialist war" and concluding our position regarding it should be the same as regarding WWI.


the talk of "specific conditions" of fascism is just dumb opportunism because the left was historically tied to the geopolitics of the ussr.

I must disagree. The specific conditions of fascism were very specific indeed. As you yourself say, "at that point it was pretty much doing what you gotta do to survive". To survive what, if not fascist aggression and domination? Or do you take the line that Germans under American occupation would have had to do "pretty much" "what you gotta do to survive", too?


i'll save my saliva for my dinner rather than for eulogizing the murderous stalin. the fact that there was no meaningful force within the class to have made a stand against wwii speaks tons about the kind of counterrevolution stalin and his kin in the comintern had spearheded.

Thay is certainly part of the problem, though evidently if we are not idealists who adhere to Great Men theories, we must see that other factors might have been at work. Factors that are probably related with the differences between WWI and WWII, which the simplist analysis that reduces one to the continuation of the other hides instead of exposing.

And anyway the "Third Period" Stalinist line, according to which there was absolutely no difference between bourgeois democracy and fascism was certainly a very integral part of the "kind of counterrevolution" Stalin and his bootlickers led at the time. Or was Stalin revolutionary before Dimitrov "corrected" his line?

Luís Henrique

[Luís Henrique]

As Heartfield's book outlines, so was the aggression of the allied imperialists.

No, not of the same kind and intensity at least.


You're seriously arguing that the British empire and the US - the world's leading imperialist forces - declared war on Germany for anti-fascist reasons?

No, I am not arguing that, either seriously or in jest, nor I can see how my previous post could be misconstrued as such.

Luís Henrique

[whichfinder]

The basic cause of modern war is the international rivalries inseparable from capitalism. The particular background of WW11 was the formation of the German-Italian-Japanese alliance and their concerted effort to expand at the expense of weaker neighbours and of the older colonial powers, notably Britain, France and Holland.

Italy and Germany had long before 1914 entered into the colonial scramble but they developed late and found all the best territories and strategic ocean highways already dominated by the 'older and fatter bandits'. The line-up before 1914 was, on the one side, the 'Triple Alliance' of Germany, Italy and the Austro-Hungarian Empire, and arrayed against their expansionist ambitions the 'Triple Entente' of Britain, France and Russia. The background of the first world war was the clash in the Balkans. Germany aimed to move through the Balkans across the Dardanelles and onwards, taking in the Middle East with its oil resources and strategic importance. It was given dramatic expression in the planned Berlin-Baghdad railway. Such a thrust meant cutting off Russia from its Balkan protégés and an outlet to the Mediterranean, and meant severing the British Empire life-line through the Suez Canal to India and beyond. France with her African interests was as vitally concerned as Britain to stop this German dream of world power.

When the war came in 1914 Italy deserted the Triple Alliance while Turkey joined it. Part of the Allied bribe to Italy was the secret promise of a rich share in the spoils of victory – a promise which Italy claimed was never kept.

Later on, in the early nineteen-twenties, with Germany prostrate and Russia weakened by the civil war and Allied intervention, Europe was dominated by France and the French system of alliances with Poland, Czechoslovakia and Romania, a system aimed both against the revival of Germany and against Russia. The British Government, following its traditional European balance of power policy, saw the need in the interest of British capitalism of helping Germany recover to offset French preponderance. A new factor came into 'being after the world crisis in 1931: the coming to power in Germany of the Hitler dictatorship.

The 1931 crisis was the breakdown in the system of international payments. Country after country went off the gold standard. The Wall Street crash of 1929 had triggered off a slump in trade and a contraction of the world market. Gold became concentrated in the hands of capitalists in the US, Britain, France and the countries associated with them. These states also had a monopoly of access to most of the sources of raw materials in the world.

The world thus became divided into two groups; those countries which had the gold and raw materials and those which lacked them. Germany, Japan and Italy were in the second group and in a bid to solve the problems this presented, the governing parties organised on an aggressive totalitarian basis and resorted to policies which challenged the other, dominant group. To get gold and currencies to buy essential raw materials the totalitarian states tried dumping, i.e. selling their products below cost. In their trade with other countries they used devices which avoided gold, such as barter and bilateral trade agreements and credits which had to be used to buy their goods.

All these devices tended to tie their trading partners to them and thus take them out of the world market. The decline in the use of gold threatened the financial centres of London and New York. London was also threatened as the centre of dealings in raw materials. Pursuing these policies Germany had considerable success in Southern Europe and Latin America. Japan made headway in the markets of Southern Asia. In 1931 Japan used armed force in Manchuria to set up a trading monopoly there. In the past the imperialist powers had decided on an open door policy for trade with China as none of them was strong enough to exclude all the others. Now Japan was trying to do just this, a policy which inevitably led to conflict with America and Britain. Italy used force to get an overseas market in Abyssinia in 1935.

The dominant powers decided on a determined campaign to regain the markets lost to the totalitarian countries. German, Japanese and Italian goods were boycotted. Credits were offered to the countries of Southern Europe to win them away from dependence on Germany. The more successful these policies were the more desperate became the economic position of German capitalism. Without the funds to give credits, force appeared to be the only way. Hence the annexation of Austria in 1938 and the breaking up of Czechoslovakia in 1939.

By now the conflict of economic interests was coming to a head. Germany was trying to keep its gains in Southern Europe by all means, including force, and Britain and France were using credits to undermine German influence. There was no backing down on either side. War would break out as soon as Britain and France decided to resist force with force. This was delayed as long as possible, particularly because of the vague anti-war feelings of British and French workers; but in September 1939 when Germany invaded Poland WW11 began.

In a few years Russia and the US were drawn in also. It was a war which blazed over all Europe and Asia and parts of Africa. WW11 was fought between rival groups of capitalist states over markets and sources of raw materials. It was not about democracy or Fascism. No one country can be blamed as the capitalist system is international. It was capitalism which caused the rival states to come into conflict.

No capitalist war can ever justify the spilling of a single drop of working-class blood.

http://www.worldsocialism.org/spgb/education/depth-articles/politics-and-conflict

[GoddessCleoLover]

Millions of Slavs knew that the Great Patriotic War was about whether or not they would become Hitler's slaves or would they resist Nazism. They chose to resist Nazism and bravely fought against the odds to destroy the Nazi invader and hunted down Hitler until he chose the coward's way out rather than face the consequences of his actions. I sympathize with many LeftCom ideas, but am also confident that the greatest quasi-leftcom theorist, Rosa Luxemberg, would have supported the Soviet resistance to Nazism.:thumbup1:

[RadioRaheem84]

There were three layers of reasoning when defending WWII and they came from three different groups who fought the war:

1.) The top brass leaders and war planners who saw the defeat of the Axis powers as a means to restructure the globe along different imperialist lines.

2.) The average working person with no particular political affiliation who saw the German/Italian/Japanese war machine as an existential threat and knew of it's path of destruction and decided to defend themselves.

3.) The unsung heroes of WWII; the Partisans, Resisters, Communists, Socialists anti-fascist struggle that like number 2 saw the existential threat and the War as a result of inter imperialist power struggle.

Let's not forget the years before WWII. The rise of Fascism was no natural occurrence. It was bankrolled in an effort to quash the rising tide of Socialist/Communist and even Anarchist sentiments and clashes in Europe. Fascism, like Von Mises, point out, saved European capitalism from Communism. But then of course came all the inter-imperialist conflict with expansion and conquest of new markets, new colonialism and extermination of the population.

The only other way I can describe it is if the United States, facing exhaustion, went berserk and starting just being openly aggressive and was joined by a few other nations in exerting it's empire. How would the proletariat fight against something like that? Ally with China and Russia even though you know they have their own inter-imperialist plans too?

[Luís Henrique]

I sympathize with many LeftCom ideas, but am also confident that the greatest quasi-leftcom theorist, Rosa Luxemberg, would have supported the Soviet resistance to Nazism.:thumbup1:

I think she would, too. But I also think she had absolutely nothing to do with "left communism". In other occasion, I somewhat flippantly described her as a "right-communist", and not only because she had a striking ability to be "right" where everybody else was wrong, but mainly because she clearly rejected the Platonic conceptions of the working class that pervade most of the left - Stalinist, Trotskyist, "left-communist" alike - nowadays, and that allow the "fuck the individual workers" attitude that we see, for instance, in this thread.

Luís Henrique

[black magick hustla]

[QUOTE=hetz;2541341]Yeah and because people were fighting for their very survival and for their children not to be made slaves and gassed in some concentration camp.


Parroting a phrase can either support your claims, whatever they might be, or make you look stupid.

except you didn't read my post, try again, cuz this is what i basically said

[hetz]

WW2 wasn't an inter-imperialist war, at least not since June 22th 1941.

[whichfinder]

More by James Heartfield

http://libcom.org/history/world-war-class-war

http://libcom.org/history/war-europe-what-happened-james-heartfield

http://libcom.org/library/second-world-war-battle-books-james-heartfield