Remus Bleys
14th November 2013, 14:08
Okay, for today I would like to discuss the Great Alibi, or Auschwitz, by Amadeo Bordiga. The reason being that we have been talking a lot about Israel, WW2, and Fascism in a lot of different threads as of late. For those of you who haven’t read it, I suggest reading it here (http://www.marxists.org/archive/bordiga/works/1960/auschwitz.htm). I would like to discuss more in depth on the Holocaust and its material conditions. I do believe that Bordiga is correct, however, I would like to go more in-depth than the article could, considering that the article itself is only eight pages long, and is lacking
(If this is in a wrong board, can a mod move it? Thanks)
Okay, well here goes:
Well, for starters, I think the translator’s note is a bunch of crap. In it, the translator makes the claim that this work is just one-step away from “Holocaust Denial.” When reading it, I was prepared for the worst, but after reading it, I got the impression that if anything, Bordiga proves that the Holocaust had happened.
The “great controversy” surrounding it, I believe, is a result of people not wanting to offend the victims of the holocaust - which honestly makes no sense. This work does not belittle the Holocaust, and it is important to examine why the Holocaust had occurred, to better show that Capitalism needs to be abolished as soon as possible.
The left wing press has once again just demonstrated that racism, and primarily anti-Semitism, constitutes the great alibi of anti-fascism. It is its preferred banner and at the same time its final refuge in the discussion. Who can resist the evoking of the extermination camps and the crematory ovens? Who doesn’t bow before the six million murdered Jews? Who doesn’t shudder before the sadism of the Nazis? And yet, this is one of the most scandalous mystifications of anti-fascism, and we are duty bound to demonstrate it.
In this, Bordiga is pointing out that many of the so-called “anti-fascists” are using the Holocaust as justification for their supposed “anti-fascism” and he says it is his duty to point out how wrong they were.
We see here the fundamental identity of the fascist and anti-fascist ideologies, if we can call them such. Both of them proclaim that it is the thoughts, the ideas, the will of human groups that determine social phenomena. Against these ideologies, which we call bourgeois because they are ideologies for the defense of capitalism, against these past, present and future idealists, Marxism has demonstrated that, on the contrary, it is social relations that determine ideological movements.
The fascsits and anti-fascsits alike are bourgeois ideologies because they believe that society and actions are determined by the thoughts of whoever is in control of the State, and not the social conditions that caused these actions to occur in the first place.
We have demonstrated that, on the contrary, destruction is the principal goal of war. The imperialist rivalries that are the immediate cause of wars are themselves nothing but the consequence of ever increasing over-production. Capitalist production is in fact forced to grow because of the fall in the profit level, and crises are born of the need to ceaselessly expand production along with the impossibility of selling goods. War is the capitalist solution to the crisis.
Bordiga then goes on to explain that War is not started to be a victor, it is started to destroy overproduction. This is why destruction is an inseparable part of capitalism. Genocide is not done to “keep the race pure” or other racialist nonsense - the destruction of both people and things is because of overproduction. The point is not to win, but to destroy. All wars are wars of attrition.
One must be a petit bourgeois crackpot to believe that imperialist conflicts could be settled by a game of belote or around a round table, and that this enormous destruction and the deaths of tens of millions of men are only due to the stubbornness of some, the wickedness of others, and the cupidity of yet others still
A central part of this paper, and a central part of Marxism, is that ideas are not the result of the “ideas of men” or other such liberal hogwash. It is the social conditions that create these ideas, that create actions. This cannot be stressed enough.
The demand for men necessarily regulates the production of men, alike any other merchandise. If the supply is greater than the demand a portion of the workers fall into beggary or dies of hunger,” Marx wrote. Engels wrote: “There is only over-population where there is an excess of productive forces in general, and [we have seen] that private property has made man a merchandise whose production and destruction depend only on demand, and that competition has slaughtered and every day slaughters in this way millions of men.” Bordiga points out the importance of over-population on the work force. He quotes Marx, who explains that the population of people is not on some whim, some amount of arbitrarily decided number. The population directly correlates to how much population is needed, whilst not being too much.
The anti-Semitism of the current period is totally different from that of the feudal period. This I think, is one of the most important things to remember about capitalism. The anti-semitism of the feudal period was not just some whim, and it did not exist independently of the mode of production. It was fundamentally different, and this is radically important in understanding the relationship between Capitalism and the Holocaust.
Due to their earlier history, the Jews find themselves essentially in the middle and petite bourgeoisie. I would like a source on this. For the purpose of the paper, I will assume that this is true, but this does sound like it can be twisted into Bordiga saying all jews are petty-bourgeoisie, which isn’t the best of things for leftists to say.
While the stronger victorious bourgeoisies (the US, Great Britain, France) were relatively untouched and easily overcame the crisis of “re-adaptation to peacetime economy,” German capitalism fell into complete stagnation. And it was perhaps the petite and medium bourgeoisies who suffered the most, as in all crises that lead to the proletarianization of the middle classes and the increased concentration of capital through the elimination of a portion of small and medium-sized enterprises. But here the situation was such that the ruined, bankrupt, seized, liquidated petite bourgeois couldn’t even fall into the proletariat, which was itself seriously affected by unemployment (seven million unemployed at the worst of the crisis): they fell directly into a state of beggary, condemned to starve to death as soon as their reserves were exhausted.
It is fundamentally important to remember that Germany was a late comer to capitalism, so the distinction between “jew” and “gentile” was of a higher and more easy importance then early capitalists like France, Great Britain, and America. One has to remember that the French, especially Napoleon, had done a lot to dispel anti-semitism, whereas Germany was late coming to capitalism, and was therefore still in the process of “assimilating” the jew into the gentile.
It is doubly important to recognize the situation of Germany. Germany had a heavy-war time economy, and when they lost the war, the exploitation they felt at the hands of the Allied had further ruined the economy of Germany. So, many of the proletariat were unemployed, and there were too many petty-bourgeoisie, so when the petty-bourgeoisie were “proletarianized” they were actually turned into lumpen proletarians. This is a very important aspect to remember of the situation surrounding germany.
It was in reaction to this terrible threat that the petite bourgeoisie invented anti-Semitism. Not so much, as the metaphysicians say, to explain the misfortunes that struck them as to attempt to save themselves by concentrating it on one group. The petite bourgeoisie reacted by sacrificing one of its parts to the horrible economic pressure, to the threat of diffuse destruction that rendered uncertain the existence of each of its members, hoping in this way to save and ensure the existence of the others. Anti-Semitism comes no more from a “Machiavellian plan” that it does from “wicked ideas.” It directly results from economic constraints. The hatred of the Jews, far from being the a priori reason for their destruction was only the expression of this desire to limit and concentrate destruction on them.
This is where most people, including many “Marxists” are confused. Jews were not singled out to make the masses “feel better about themselves.” Jews were not singled out in order to “give the people someone to blame.” Jews were singled out because, as has already been shown, they were not assimilated. Jews were easily distinguishable, and as such, they were a limited target. The petty-bourgeoisie could destroy a part of its own class, eliminate much of its competition, in order to survive. The reason for this is not, as many pseudo-marxists liberals would say “a history of hatred of Jewish people.” This fundamentally makes no sense, especially when considering that antisemitism was not a monolithic idea, it wasn’t static. It changed with the economy. Anti-Semitism had clear material origins, and it is not for us to add metaphysics, to try and assign special relations of the Jew and of the German. Anti-semitism in Germany had clear material underpinnings.
It sometimes happens that that the workers themselves give themselves over to racism. This happens when, threatened with massive unemployment, they attempt to concentrate it on certain groups: Italians, Poles or other “filthy foreigners,” “dirty Arabs,” “niggers,” etc. But in the proletariat these impulses only occur at the worst moments of demoralization, and don’t last.
I am unsure what I think of this quote. It does point out that racism is not an attitude per se, but he also seems a little bit workerist in here. The idea that the proletariat does not succumb to racism, or that they quickly lose their racism, is demonstrably false. He seems to be discounting the racism that is directed by the proletariat on to the racial minority.
The choice of a “race,” that is of the group upon whom the destruction will be concentrated, obviously depends on the circumstances. This is especially good quote. One has to remember that racism manifests itself in different ways in different places and times. There is no absolute or universal racism, it is created concretely in material conditions.
From this flows the counting up of baptized grandparents which, in flagrant contradiction with the theories of race and blood, would suffice to demonstrate their incoherence.
I am confused by this. First of all, is this true? Secondly, does this mean the baptized jews were stripped of their economic power, and if so, is that true?
But this “personalized” way of presenting capital gives a poor picture of the situation: capitalism knows no more than the petite bourgeoisie what it is doing.
It is important to remember that the german petty-bourgeoisie did not go “We are liquidating our enemies to sustain ourselves as a class.” They genuinely believed that Jews were “inferior” and this was the reason that Jewish people “had to go.”
It only permitted this to be carried by leaving capitalism’s hands free.
It cannot be stressed enough that Bordiga did not think the Holocaust was justified, or that the oppression of Jewish people was justified. Bordiga looked at the Holocaust as yet another reason Capitalism had to be destroyed.
And there is nothing surprising in this, since no one could allow them to enter. There was no country capable of absorbing and allowing to live a few million ruined petite bourgeois
Bordiga had demonstrated that Jewish people were deprived of all economic opportunities, they were rejected by capitalism, because capitalism was unable to sustain them. This resulted in a bunch of homeless Jewish people roaming Germany. Germany would not be able to sustain them even living there, as they were still a “burden.” So, Germany tried to expel the Jewish population. This unsuccessful because the other countries likewise could not deal with it. However, I do think he misses an important point in failing to discuss the anti-semitism of these other countries.
This, incidentally, was in accord with the anti-Semitism indigenous to Central Europe, though the latter was more complex (a horrible mix of feudal and petit bourgeois anti-Semitism, an analysis of which we can’t enter into here). This is one of the things I would like to discuss in this thread.
In “normal’ times, and when it’s a matter of a small number, capitalism can allow those it ejects from the productive process to die on their own. But it was impossible for it to do this in the middle of the war and for millions of men. Such “disorder” would have paralyzed everything. Capitalism had to organize their death. Because of the imperialist War, Capitalism needed to destroy its reserve army of unemployed sooner, it needed to expel them quicker.
And it didn’t kill them immediately. To begin with, it removed them from circulation; it gathered them together, concentrated them. And it made them work while under-nourishing them, i.e., in super-exploiting them to death.
...
But man is tough. Even reduced to a skeletal state they didn’t die fast enough. They had to massacre those who could no longer work, then those they no longer needed because the mishaps of war rendered their labor force unusable. The germans again, did not try to get rid of them. This demonstrates not that the Jew was to be exterminated, but further proves the point about the Holocaust being a result of capitalism. The Nazis had at first tried to work these unfortunate people to death.
The SS were slower to understand. They believed in Western ideals. After the failure of Joel Brand’s mission, and in the midst of the exterminations, they again tried to sell Jews to the Joint [6], placing a “deposit” of 1700 Jews in Switzerland. But aside from them, no one else wanted to conclude the affair. Again, the Germans did not want to make a “pure world.” They tried to sell the Jews, to make a profit. Anti-semitism is showing itself as being more and more of a product of capitalism. However, none could take them. The Jews were not needed as a force of slave labor.
There was nothing to do with the Jews but kill them. Not because their was not enough room on the world, but because there was not enough room on a capitalist world. This is just another reason that capitalism is to be destroyed.
The surviving Jews finally succeeded in making a place for themselves. By force and profiting from the international conjuncture, the State of Israel was formed. But even this was only possible by “displacing” other populations. Hundred of thousands of Arab refugees drag out their worthless (to capital) existences in refugee camps. Let us not talk about how Israel is bad and all, let’s keep discussion on why the Jews were sent to Arabia (to kill the palestinians) instead of simply allowed to die by the West. As in, why the Jew over the Arab?
It was the imperialists of the allied camp who first used them to justify their war and to justify after their victory the despicable treatment inflicted on the German people. How they threw themselves on the camps and the corpses, showing off the horrible photos and proclaiming: “Look at what bastards these krauts are! How right we were to fight them. How right we now are to give them a taste of their own medicine.” When we think of the countless crimes of imperialism; when we think, for example, that at the very moment (1945) when our Thorez sung of their victory over fascism, 45,000 Algerians (fascist provocateurs) fell under the blows of repression. When we think that it is international capitalism which is responsible for the massacres, the ignoble cynicism of this hypocritical satisfaction is enough to make you sick.
It was the fault of capitalism that the Jews had suffered, not the German proletariat. And many of the so-called “anti-fascists” merely used the holocaust as an excuse to better exploit the german proletariat.
At that same time all our good democratic anti-fascists threw themselves on the corpses of the Jews. And since that time they wave them under the nose of the proletariat. In order to make them feel capitalism’s infamy? No, on the contrary. It’s to make it appreciate, in contrast, the truedemocracy, the true progress, the well being it enjoys in capitalist society. The horrors of capitalist death must make the proletariat forget the horrors of capitalist life and the fact that the two are indissolubly connected. The experiments of the SS doctors must make them forget that capitalism experiments on a large scale with carcinogenic products, on the effects of alcoholism on heredity, the radioactivity of “democratic” bombs. If they show lampshades made of human skin it’s to make us forget that capitalism transforms the living man into a lampshade. The mountains of hair, the teeth of gold, the bodies of men turned into merchandise must make us forget that capitalism made a merchandise of living man. It is labor, man’s very life, that capitalism has transformed into merchandise. This is the source of all evils. Using the corpses of the victims of capital to try to hide the reality, to have the corpses serve as protection for capital, is the most despicable way of using them to the ultimate degree.
When anti-fascists team up with liberals and conservatives, they are being counter-productive. The Holocaust was caused by the material conditions of capitalism, not by the idealist worldview of Fascists. In addition, fascism is no better or worse than a liberal democracy, both result in such terrible deaths and lives are ruined by both.
(If this is in a wrong board, can a mod move it? Thanks)
Okay, well here goes:
Well, for starters, I think the translator’s note is a bunch of crap. In it, the translator makes the claim that this work is just one-step away from “Holocaust Denial.” When reading it, I was prepared for the worst, but after reading it, I got the impression that if anything, Bordiga proves that the Holocaust had happened.
The “great controversy” surrounding it, I believe, is a result of people not wanting to offend the victims of the holocaust - which honestly makes no sense. This work does not belittle the Holocaust, and it is important to examine why the Holocaust had occurred, to better show that Capitalism needs to be abolished as soon as possible.
The left wing press has once again just demonstrated that racism, and primarily anti-Semitism, constitutes the great alibi of anti-fascism. It is its preferred banner and at the same time its final refuge in the discussion. Who can resist the evoking of the extermination camps and the crematory ovens? Who doesn’t bow before the six million murdered Jews? Who doesn’t shudder before the sadism of the Nazis? And yet, this is one of the most scandalous mystifications of anti-fascism, and we are duty bound to demonstrate it.
In this, Bordiga is pointing out that many of the so-called “anti-fascists” are using the Holocaust as justification for their supposed “anti-fascism” and he says it is his duty to point out how wrong they were.
We see here the fundamental identity of the fascist and anti-fascist ideologies, if we can call them such. Both of them proclaim that it is the thoughts, the ideas, the will of human groups that determine social phenomena. Against these ideologies, which we call bourgeois because they are ideologies for the defense of capitalism, against these past, present and future idealists, Marxism has demonstrated that, on the contrary, it is social relations that determine ideological movements.
The fascsits and anti-fascsits alike are bourgeois ideologies because they believe that society and actions are determined by the thoughts of whoever is in control of the State, and not the social conditions that caused these actions to occur in the first place.
We have demonstrated that, on the contrary, destruction is the principal goal of war. The imperialist rivalries that are the immediate cause of wars are themselves nothing but the consequence of ever increasing over-production. Capitalist production is in fact forced to grow because of the fall in the profit level, and crises are born of the need to ceaselessly expand production along with the impossibility of selling goods. War is the capitalist solution to the crisis.
Bordiga then goes on to explain that War is not started to be a victor, it is started to destroy overproduction. This is why destruction is an inseparable part of capitalism. Genocide is not done to “keep the race pure” or other racialist nonsense - the destruction of both people and things is because of overproduction. The point is not to win, but to destroy. All wars are wars of attrition.
One must be a petit bourgeois crackpot to believe that imperialist conflicts could be settled by a game of belote or around a round table, and that this enormous destruction and the deaths of tens of millions of men are only due to the stubbornness of some, the wickedness of others, and the cupidity of yet others still
A central part of this paper, and a central part of Marxism, is that ideas are not the result of the “ideas of men” or other such liberal hogwash. It is the social conditions that create these ideas, that create actions. This cannot be stressed enough.
The demand for men necessarily regulates the production of men, alike any other merchandise. If the supply is greater than the demand a portion of the workers fall into beggary or dies of hunger,” Marx wrote. Engels wrote: “There is only over-population where there is an excess of productive forces in general, and [we have seen] that private property has made man a merchandise whose production and destruction depend only on demand, and that competition has slaughtered and every day slaughters in this way millions of men.” Bordiga points out the importance of over-population on the work force. He quotes Marx, who explains that the population of people is not on some whim, some amount of arbitrarily decided number. The population directly correlates to how much population is needed, whilst not being too much.
The anti-Semitism of the current period is totally different from that of the feudal period. This I think, is one of the most important things to remember about capitalism. The anti-semitism of the feudal period was not just some whim, and it did not exist independently of the mode of production. It was fundamentally different, and this is radically important in understanding the relationship between Capitalism and the Holocaust.
Due to their earlier history, the Jews find themselves essentially in the middle and petite bourgeoisie. I would like a source on this. For the purpose of the paper, I will assume that this is true, but this does sound like it can be twisted into Bordiga saying all jews are petty-bourgeoisie, which isn’t the best of things for leftists to say.
While the stronger victorious bourgeoisies (the US, Great Britain, France) were relatively untouched and easily overcame the crisis of “re-adaptation to peacetime economy,” German capitalism fell into complete stagnation. And it was perhaps the petite and medium bourgeoisies who suffered the most, as in all crises that lead to the proletarianization of the middle classes and the increased concentration of capital through the elimination of a portion of small and medium-sized enterprises. But here the situation was such that the ruined, bankrupt, seized, liquidated petite bourgeois couldn’t even fall into the proletariat, which was itself seriously affected by unemployment (seven million unemployed at the worst of the crisis): they fell directly into a state of beggary, condemned to starve to death as soon as their reserves were exhausted.
It is fundamentally important to remember that Germany was a late comer to capitalism, so the distinction between “jew” and “gentile” was of a higher and more easy importance then early capitalists like France, Great Britain, and America. One has to remember that the French, especially Napoleon, had done a lot to dispel anti-semitism, whereas Germany was late coming to capitalism, and was therefore still in the process of “assimilating” the jew into the gentile.
It is doubly important to recognize the situation of Germany. Germany had a heavy-war time economy, and when they lost the war, the exploitation they felt at the hands of the Allied had further ruined the economy of Germany. So, many of the proletariat were unemployed, and there were too many petty-bourgeoisie, so when the petty-bourgeoisie were “proletarianized” they were actually turned into lumpen proletarians. This is a very important aspect to remember of the situation surrounding germany.
It was in reaction to this terrible threat that the petite bourgeoisie invented anti-Semitism. Not so much, as the metaphysicians say, to explain the misfortunes that struck them as to attempt to save themselves by concentrating it on one group. The petite bourgeoisie reacted by sacrificing one of its parts to the horrible economic pressure, to the threat of diffuse destruction that rendered uncertain the existence of each of its members, hoping in this way to save and ensure the existence of the others. Anti-Semitism comes no more from a “Machiavellian plan” that it does from “wicked ideas.” It directly results from economic constraints. The hatred of the Jews, far from being the a priori reason for their destruction was only the expression of this desire to limit and concentrate destruction on them.
This is where most people, including many “Marxists” are confused. Jews were not singled out to make the masses “feel better about themselves.” Jews were not singled out in order to “give the people someone to blame.” Jews were singled out because, as has already been shown, they were not assimilated. Jews were easily distinguishable, and as such, they were a limited target. The petty-bourgeoisie could destroy a part of its own class, eliminate much of its competition, in order to survive. The reason for this is not, as many pseudo-marxists liberals would say “a history of hatred of Jewish people.” This fundamentally makes no sense, especially when considering that antisemitism was not a monolithic idea, it wasn’t static. It changed with the economy. Anti-Semitism had clear material origins, and it is not for us to add metaphysics, to try and assign special relations of the Jew and of the German. Anti-semitism in Germany had clear material underpinnings.
It sometimes happens that that the workers themselves give themselves over to racism. This happens when, threatened with massive unemployment, they attempt to concentrate it on certain groups: Italians, Poles or other “filthy foreigners,” “dirty Arabs,” “niggers,” etc. But in the proletariat these impulses only occur at the worst moments of demoralization, and don’t last.
I am unsure what I think of this quote. It does point out that racism is not an attitude per se, but he also seems a little bit workerist in here. The idea that the proletariat does not succumb to racism, or that they quickly lose their racism, is demonstrably false. He seems to be discounting the racism that is directed by the proletariat on to the racial minority.
The choice of a “race,” that is of the group upon whom the destruction will be concentrated, obviously depends on the circumstances. This is especially good quote. One has to remember that racism manifests itself in different ways in different places and times. There is no absolute or universal racism, it is created concretely in material conditions.
From this flows the counting up of baptized grandparents which, in flagrant contradiction with the theories of race and blood, would suffice to demonstrate their incoherence.
I am confused by this. First of all, is this true? Secondly, does this mean the baptized jews were stripped of their economic power, and if so, is that true?
But this “personalized” way of presenting capital gives a poor picture of the situation: capitalism knows no more than the petite bourgeoisie what it is doing.
It is important to remember that the german petty-bourgeoisie did not go “We are liquidating our enemies to sustain ourselves as a class.” They genuinely believed that Jews were “inferior” and this was the reason that Jewish people “had to go.”
It only permitted this to be carried by leaving capitalism’s hands free.
It cannot be stressed enough that Bordiga did not think the Holocaust was justified, or that the oppression of Jewish people was justified. Bordiga looked at the Holocaust as yet another reason Capitalism had to be destroyed.
And there is nothing surprising in this, since no one could allow them to enter. There was no country capable of absorbing and allowing to live a few million ruined petite bourgeois
Bordiga had demonstrated that Jewish people were deprived of all economic opportunities, they were rejected by capitalism, because capitalism was unable to sustain them. This resulted in a bunch of homeless Jewish people roaming Germany. Germany would not be able to sustain them even living there, as they were still a “burden.” So, Germany tried to expel the Jewish population. This unsuccessful because the other countries likewise could not deal with it. However, I do think he misses an important point in failing to discuss the anti-semitism of these other countries.
This, incidentally, was in accord with the anti-Semitism indigenous to Central Europe, though the latter was more complex (a horrible mix of feudal and petit bourgeois anti-Semitism, an analysis of which we can’t enter into here). This is one of the things I would like to discuss in this thread.
In “normal’ times, and when it’s a matter of a small number, capitalism can allow those it ejects from the productive process to die on their own. But it was impossible for it to do this in the middle of the war and for millions of men. Such “disorder” would have paralyzed everything. Capitalism had to organize their death. Because of the imperialist War, Capitalism needed to destroy its reserve army of unemployed sooner, it needed to expel them quicker.
And it didn’t kill them immediately. To begin with, it removed them from circulation; it gathered them together, concentrated them. And it made them work while under-nourishing them, i.e., in super-exploiting them to death.
...
But man is tough. Even reduced to a skeletal state they didn’t die fast enough. They had to massacre those who could no longer work, then those they no longer needed because the mishaps of war rendered their labor force unusable. The germans again, did not try to get rid of them. This demonstrates not that the Jew was to be exterminated, but further proves the point about the Holocaust being a result of capitalism. The Nazis had at first tried to work these unfortunate people to death.
The SS were slower to understand. They believed in Western ideals. After the failure of Joel Brand’s mission, and in the midst of the exterminations, they again tried to sell Jews to the Joint [6], placing a “deposit” of 1700 Jews in Switzerland. But aside from them, no one else wanted to conclude the affair. Again, the Germans did not want to make a “pure world.” They tried to sell the Jews, to make a profit. Anti-semitism is showing itself as being more and more of a product of capitalism. However, none could take them. The Jews were not needed as a force of slave labor.
There was nothing to do with the Jews but kill them. Not because their was not enough room on the world, but because there was not enough room on a capitalist world. This is just another reason that capitalism is to be destroyed.
The surviving Jews finally succeeded in making a place for themselves. By force and profiting from the international conjuncture, the State of Israel was formed. But even this was only possible by “displacing” other populations. Hundred of thousands of Arab refugees drag out their worthless (to capital) existences in refugee camps. Let us not talk about how Israel is bad and all, let’s keep discussion on why the Jews were sent to Arabia (to kill the palestinians) instead of simply allowed to die by the West. As in, why the Jew over the Arab?
It was the imperialists of the allied camp who first used them to justify their war and to justify after their victory the despicable treatment inflicted on the German people. How they threw themselves on the camps and the corpses, showing off the horrible photos and proclaiming: “Look at what bastards these krauts are! How right we were to fight them. How right we now are to give them a taste of their own medicine.” When we think of the countless crimes of imperialism; when we think, for example, that at the very moment (1945) when our Thorez sung of their victory over fascism, 45,000 Algerians (fascist provocateurs) fell under the blows of repression. When we think that it is international capitalism which is responsible for the massacres, the ignoble cynicism of this hypocritical satisfaction is enough to make you sick.
It was the fault of capitalism that the Jews had suffered, not the German proletariat. And many of the so-called “anti-fascists” merely used the holocaust as an excuse to better exploit the german proletariat.
At that same time all our good democratic anti-fascists threw themselves on the corpses of the Jews. And since that time they wave them under the nose of the proletariat. In order to make them feel capitalism’s infamy? No, on the contrary. It’s to make it appreciate, in contrast, the truedemocracy, the true progress, the well being it enjoys in capitalist society. The horrors of capitalist death must make the proletariat forget the horrors of capitalist life and the fact that the two are indissolubly connected. The experiments of the SS doctors must make them forget that capitalism experiments on a large scale with carcinogenic products, on the effects of alcoholism on heredity, the radioactivity of “democratic” bombs. If they show lampshades made of human skin it’s to make us forget that capitalism transforms the living man into a lampshade. The mountains of hair, the teeth of gold, the bodies of men turned into merchandise must make us forget that capitalism made a merchandise of living man. It is labor, man’s very life, that capitalism has transformed into merchandise. This is the source of all evils. Using the corpses of the victims of capital to try to hide the reality, to have the corpses serve as protection for capital, is the most despicable way of using them to the ultimate degree.
When anti-fascists team up with liberals and conservatives, they are being counter-productive. The Holocaust was caused by the material conditions of capitalism, not by the idealist worldview of Fascists. In addition, fascism is no better or worse than a liberal democracy, both result in such terrible deaths and lives are ruined by both.