I joined this usergroup to ask the following question, as I figured posting it on the main board would probably generate a shitstorm... The first time I read Bordiga’s ‘The Big Alibi’ was when someone posted it on revleft a few months ago. One of the left communists here made the comment that the article had been the basis of a media campaign in France to slander left communists as engaging in Holocaust negationism. Prior to that revleft thread, I had only ever seen one mention of this accusation (or similar, anyway) - it was in an IBRP article (see here) I first read around the beginning of this year. In the article there are pretty controversial comments regarding revisionism, which struck me as being almost suicidal in terms of the damage the comments could potentially do to the IBRP. I don’t know the specifics so I’m in no position to judge the factual merit of their comments, but imo in general the IBRP takes extremely principled political positions across the board, so I am not at all calling their intentions into question - it is a very good article overall anyway. In any case part of the article clearly notes the existence of “revisionists of the left”, so it does raise the question of whether the accusation of so-called “ultra-left ‘negationism‘” might be based on something more than ‘The Big Alibi’ (which contains no revisionism, let alone ’negationism’, in the first place). In short, what I am asking is where the accusation of “ultra left ‘negationism’” comes from and whether the accusation has any truth to it (i.e. are there left communists that actually deny the Holocaust...? or alternately, are there left communist revisionists?)
hello The ICC responded with several articles to the attempt to smear the communist left with the charge of 'negationsm' because of its opposition to both imperialist camps in the second world war. The first article linked here explains that certain elements identified as 'ultra-left' but not really part of the communist left did get caught up in some stupid theories about the non-existence of the gas chambers, and this was certainly exploited to the hilt to tar Bordiga and the rest of the communist left with the same brush. Hope this goes some way to answering your questions. http://en.internationalism.org/ir/08...barbarity.html http://en.internationalism.org/node/3767
^Yes, that clears it up a bit, thanks.
