Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi

http://www.marxists.org/archive/bord.../auschwitz.htm

I have to say, after reading the entire text, I find the translator's note at the beginning incredibly idealist, moralistically sentimental, and absurdly hyperbolic.

Yo, I definitely agree. It's seriously grating, after having read the actual text.

^Yeah, after reading it I agree with you guys. The translators note is really bad.

I'll do a more in-depth post sometime later.

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.

I agree greatly with the quote above. I also think it is very idealist when Trotskyists say that the third period's denial of united fronts with social democrats caused the rise of Nazism. Capitalism in crisis is what caused the rise of Nazism. The quote above is very, very good.

War is the capitalist solution to the crisis. The massive destruction of installations, of the means of production and of goods allows production to start up again, and the massive destruction of men cures the periodic “over-population” which goes hand in hand with over-production.

I also really like the quote above. It does seem, as Bordiga notes, that people think the aim of war is victory, but it is actually destruction.

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 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.

I agree and disagree. I think the explanation of the "metaphsicians" has validity while, also, Bordiga's explanation has validity as well.

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. As soon as he enters into struggle the proletariat clearly and concretely sees its enemy: it is a homogeneous class with an historical perspective and mission.

Now, I completely disagree with this. I agree with the "scapegoat" thing, obviously, but I don't think that the reactionary members will magically become non-reactionary as soon as they enter the class struggle on their class side. Now, it increases such a chance when the proletariat see the bourgeoisie as their enemy, but they can still hold racist views.

On the contrary, the petite bourgeois is a class condemned. At the same time it is also condemned to be unable to understand anything, to be incapable of fighting: it can do nothing but blindly flail about in the vice that crushes it. Racism is not an aberration of the spirit: it is and will be the petite bourgeois reaction to the pressures of big capital. The choice of a “race,” that is of the group upon whom the destruction will be concentrated, obviously depends on the circumstances. In Germany the Jews fulfilled the “required conditions” and were the only ones to fulfill them: they were almost exclusively petite bourgeois, and in this petite bourgeoisie the sole group that was sufficiently identifiable. It was only onto them that the petite bourgeoisie could channel the catastrophe.

I think the anti-semitism of Nazi Germany is much more complex than what is mentioned above. To be sure, Bordiga is right, but other explanations are valid as well (such as Hitler used anti-semitism to gain support and took such a belief in a "pure race" to it's logical conclusions, etc.)

But if the Nazis only wanted to rid themselves of the Jews, who they didn’t know what to do with, and if the Jews for their part asked for nothing more than to leave Germany, no one anywhere else wanted to allow them to enter. 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. Only a small portion of the Jews was able to leave. Most remained, despite themselves and despite the Nazis. Suspended in mid-air, in a way.

I don't think, as Bordiga does, that the other countries were incapable of allowing the Jews to enter into their borders, but that anti-semitism, stemming from the same conditions as those in Germany, plagued other capitalist countries. Also, these capitalist countries, as the quote state, could not "absorb" the population.

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.

I do disagree with this, though. While material conditions play a massive role, men also make decision within these conditions. It was Hitler's idea to "organize" the deaths of the Jewish population, and this idea was of course in reaction to material conditions and was able to be implemented inside the material conditions that existed. There is nothing idealist about that.

For his part, Joel Brand had understood, or almost. He had understood what the situation was, but not why it was so. It wasn’t the earth that had run out of room, but capitalist society. And not because they were Jews, but, because they were ejected by the production process, were useless to production.

I agree with the above, but I think it should be emphasized it was through no fault of the Jew, but the fault, again, of capitalist society. (I am not saying the article says any differently).

Overall, an interesting read. The translators note is complete bullshit as well. The next logical step after reading this is not holocaust denial, etc.

http://www.revleft.com/vb/bordiga-an....html?t=179909

http://www.revleft.com/vb/great-alib....html?t=184963

This isnt Borgida, it's martin axelrod, a german french jew.

File not Found. Is there anywhere else I can find an English translation?

yeah one day im going to upload it to something or other http://www.marxists.org/subject/jewi.../auschwitz.htm