World War Two

[Labor Shall Rule]

I was reading A People's History of United States, and it raised the question of how the Second World War was a genuine 'people's war'; a conflict against the crimes of fascism. The CPUSA even took a 'no-strike' policy, which drowned out working class militancy in exchange for assisting the war effort. I might be misunderstanding this position, but don't Stalinists and Maoists here generally take the line that it was necessary to get rid of fascism first in order to have anything slightly progressive later? What position do you take?

[awayish]

Just because people 'supported' the war does not mean the war was a 'people's war.' a people's war might be something like everyone in a community rushing into another one and beating them up.

A more basic description might be like this, people are committed to the state structure, they see a 'war' as meaningful in their understanding of social life, and they supported it. Just look at the way 'fascism' or 'nazi germany' seems to, on face value, paint a picture of uniformed colored blocks doing battle. What is really happening though, people organizing themselves in certain ways, mostly through voluntary relations, to kill and harm others. It is a disgusting phenomenon.

[RNK]

The war against Nazism saw many opposites and counterparts temporarily setting aside their differences for a just cause. I wouldn't call it a "people's war" -- that's a very ungenerous slur of the definition of that word. However, if the author means simply that it was a war of the people against Nazism, then sure.

Anyway, yes, communists worldwide did ally with capitalists in order to defeat Nazism, though this is in no way indicative of them abandoning their principles. Unfortunately, the course of the war allowed these capitalists to greatly strengthen their efforts for a globalized market and ushered in the current epoch of super-exploitation.

[Forward Union]

As I said in the last WW2 thread, there were parts of it that clearly had parrallels with peoples war. The class war certainly continued.

In france, Anarchists from Spain, including veterans from the CNT-FAI and The Durruti collumn helped orgnaise the French Resistance. Some however, joined the free french army.

Underground cells continued Gurillia war in Italy against the Italian dictatorship, and refused to give up their arms after Allied victory, arguing for continual revolution until workers power (!) The Edelwiss Pirates attacked the hitler youth until they were eventualyl all executed

The soviet union often kept many of the local Nazi or Fascist party members in their positions, but changed the national flag, and told them to take their orders from Moscow instead of Berlin. :rolleyes:


Originally posted by The Hungarian Revolution of 1956
The Soviet army advanced into Eastern Europe in 1944. If certain people believed that this would lead to liberation, they were soon to be proved wrong. Not only was capitalism not abolished but the old fascist regimes, like those in Hungary, Romania and Bulgaria, which had operated as willing junior partners of the Nazis, were maintained in a sense in that the old political structures were maintained. The personnel of the regimes were for the most part, kept in place. The Soviet leader Molotov remarked that above all "law and order had to be maintained to prevent the rise of anarchy"!


So the "great patriotic war" should not be seen as a "peoples war" against Fascism.

[Labor Shall Rule]

Good posts William Everard.


Anyway, yes, communists worldwide did ally with capitalists in order to defeat Nazism, though this is in no way indicative of them abandoning their principles. Unfortunately, the course of the war allowed these capitalists to greatly strengthen their efforts for a globalized market and ushered in the current epoch of super-exploitation.

Which is not the correct position. It is social chauvinism to support the imperialist bourgeois for any reason, because their wars will claim the lives of millions of workers for the sake of opening markets, securing spheres of influence, seizing colonies, and claiming plots of territory, which will only lead to the enrichment of their class.

Lenin said, “unity with opportunists is the alliance of workers with their own national bourgeoisie and signifies a split in the ranks of the international revolutionary working class.” I don't think he could of said it any better. It is our task to boil the imperialist war into an all-out revolutionary war, and any collaboration with any nation that is tied down in a inter-imperialist rivalry is not justified, even if it is "in defense of the fatherland" after it is attacked, or if it is in the name of "national-liberation," which is simply a distraction that is devoid of a material and historical understanding of the political situation itself.

[Dr Mindbender]

Had Hitler's cause been strangled politically from day 1 before he got to power, then WW2 would have been totally unnecessary. This is why it is so important today for anti-fascists not to forget their role.

[Random Precision]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 29, 2007 03:01 pm
Had Hitler's cause been strangled politically from day 1 before he got to power, then WW2 would have been totally unnecessary. This is why it is so important today for anti-fascists not to forget their role.
Indeed. It is because of this that the Comintern's ultra-left policy during Hitler's rise was so disastrous. By telling the KPD to view the reformists instead of the fascists as the real enemy, they played right into the hands of fascism.

[Comrade Rage]

That, and the KPD did not start focusing enough attention on antifa street activities until it was too late. The sense of complacency ('Oh those Nazis don't have a chance of attaining power!") should be challenged as soon as it rears it's ugly head.

That said, the KPD had a good reason for choosing to fight the reformists. The Social Democrats had allied with the Freikorps to crush the Bavarian Communists in 1919.

[Random Precision]

Originally posted by COMRADE [email protected] 29, 2007 06:12 pm
That, and the KPD did not start focusing enough attention on antifa street activities until it was too late. The sense of complacency ('Oh those Nazis don't have a chance of attaining power!") should be challenged as soon as it rears it's ugly head.

That said, the KPD had a good reason for choosing to fight the reformists. The Social Democrats had allied with the Freikorps to crush the Bavarian Communists in 1919.
Well, yes, I won't deny the bad blood between the SDP and the KPD. But I know which one, the fascists or the reformists, I would spend my time fighting in that situation.

Also, the KPD disastrously ignored the threat of fascism. Even after Hitler took power and they were kicked out of the government and being supressed, the KPD issued a statement saying that all was well, and Hitler's regime would collapse soon due to its internal contradictions, to be followed immidiately by the proletarian revolution. Simply incredible!

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by Ulster [email protected] 29, 2007 03:01 pm
Had Hitler's cause been strangled politically from day 1 before he got to power, then WW2 would have been totally unnecessary. This is why it is so important today for anti-fascists not to forget their role.
If Germany had not been crippled economically by the Treaty of Versailles, it is unlikely the Nazi's would have ever risen to power. Attributing the rise of the Nazis to the failure of anti-fascists is giving the latter too much credit.

[Random Precision]

Originally posted by Killer [email protected] 01, 2007 09:30 pm
If Germany had not been crippled economically by the Treaty of Versailles, it is unlikely the Nazi's would have ever risen to power. Attributing the rise of the Nazis to the failure of anti-fascists is giving the latter too much credit.
That's far too shallow for me. How about if the Spartacist revolution in Germany led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht had been victorious, the Nazis would have never come to power, and in addition we might all be living under international socialism right now?

[Killer Enigma]

Originally posted by catbert836+October 01, 2007 10:46 pm--> (catbert836 @ October 01, 2007 10:46 pm)
Killer [email protected] 01, 2007 09:30 pm
If Germany had not been crippled economically by the Treaty of Versailles, it is unlikely the Nazi's would have ever risen to power. Attributing the rise of the Nazis to the failure of anti-fascists is giving the latter too much credit.
That's far too shallow for me. How about if the Spartacist revolution in Germany led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht had been victorious, the Nazis would have never come to power, and in addition we might all be living under international socialism right now? [/b]
Based on your post, we might well attribute any event going differently as having potentially prevented the Nazi's from rising to power. However, the Treaty of Versailles is directly responsible for creating the material conditions upon which fascism takes root (according to both Trotsky, Gramsci, and to an extent, Marx when we look at his writings on petty-bourgeoisie reaction). Trotsky does blame the German communists for not winning over the petty-bourgeoisie and instilling class consciousness in the working class but no credible historian will tell you that was the main cause of Nazi dominance. It only further facilitated what was already inevitable from the Treaty of Versailles which destroyed Germany's right to self-determination and created economic depression.

[Random Precision]

Originally posted by Killer [email protected] 01, 2007 11:14 pm
Based on your post, we might well attribute any event going differently as having potentially prevented the Nazi's from rising to power. However, the Treaty of Versailles is directly responsible for creating the material conditions upon which fascism takes root (according to both Trotsky, Gramsci, and to an extent, Marx when we look at his writings on petty-bourgeoisie reaction). Trotsky does blame the German communists for not winning over the petty-bourgeoisie and instilling class consciousness in the working class but no credible historian will tell you that was the main cause of Nazi dominance. It only further facilitated what was already inevitable from the Treaty of Versailles which destroyed Germany's right to self-determination and created economic depression.
Hey, I'm not denying anything you said. But I think that a succesful socialist revolution in the Germany of 1919 would have gone a long way toward preventing the rise of Nazism in the Germany of 1933, Versailles Treaty or not.