The Communist Manifesto—Section one—A review

 

By Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels

Reviewed by Steve Halpern

In my opinion, The Communist Manifesto written by Karl Marx and Fredrich Engels in 1848 is one of the most important documents of human history. I found the first section of this document to be especially provocative. Why do I feel this way?

First, we need to understand that the battle of the United States government against the idea of communism was one of its top priorities in the twentieth century. The government prosecuted and sent socialists to prison for merely exercising their First Amendment rights. This was for opposing the participation of the United States armed forces in the First and Second World Wars. The government in this country organized for the murder of millions of human beings in their wars against the people of Korea and Vietnam. They carried out these horrendous actions claiming that they were fighting communism. 

They equated the Stalinist betrayal of the Soviet Union with the word communism. So, I believe it is important to look at what the word communism means in Communist Manifesto. First, I think it is useful to look at the mythology that is embedded into the social norms of every nation where there is capitalism. 

In the United States, as in any capitalist nation, we are raised to believe in certain fundamental concepts. We are told that we have certain democratic rights, like the right to vote. The citizens of a nation vote for government officials and the press likes to call these people “leaders.” 

We know that we must hold down a job in order to make a living. We know that employers have control of the environments where we work. We know that unions have advantages, but those advantages are limited, and it is very difficult to organize a union. We also know that in order to make a living, we need to adapt to this relationship. 

We also know that with the establishment of the United States of America, there were many nasty things going on. There was the genocide against Native Americans. There were the unimaginable horrors of chattel slavery. There was the suppression of veterans of the American Revolution. After these veterans protested conditions of starvation in Shay’s Rebellion, they were confronted by the armed forces of the new government. So, many people question what was gained from the revolution of the thirteen colonies.

The Communist Manifesto

In the first ten pages of the Communist Manifesto, Marx and Engels looked at these questions from a different perspective. They titled their first section Bourgeois and Proletarians. The first sentence of this section is: “The history of all hitherto existing society is the history of class struggles.”

This sentence not only challenges ideas we have been raised with, but it also challenged ideas promoted in the 19th century. Adam Smith was one of the architects of the capitalist system. He argued that while all wealth is created by human labor, there always were laboring and employing classes.

Marx and Engels showed how there were distinct differences between the slave societies of Greece and Rome, the feudal societies of Europe and Asia, and the capitalist societies of the 19th century. The first sentence of the Manifesto argued that in all these societies there were “class struggles” that brought about these transitions. In the following passage, Marx and Engels outlined the changes that took place when the bourgeoisie got the “upper hand” and established capitalist property relations. 

“The bourgeoisie whenever it got the upper hand, has put an end to all feudal, patriarchal, Idyllic relations. It has pitilessly torn asunder the motley feudal ties that bound man to his ‘natural superiors’ and left remaining no other bond between man and man than naked self-interest and callous ‘cash payment.’ It has drowned the most heavenly ecstasies of religious fervor, of chivalrous enthusiasm, of philistine sentimentalism, in icy water of egotistical calculation. It has resolved personal worth into exchange value, and in place of numberless and indefensible chartered freedoms, has set up that single unconscionable freedom—Free Trade. In one word, for exploitation, veiled by religious and political illusions, naked, shameless, direct, and brutal exploitation.”

So here we see how Marx and Engels identified some of the many differences between the feudal and capitalist systems. However, why would the Manifesto argue that the system of exploitation through “religious and political illusions” would be worse than the system of “naked, shameless, direct, and brutal exploitation?”

Both Marx and Engels lived in Germany under feudal rule. The German monarchy expelled them both because of their critical ideas with respect to the ruling powers. Eventually they both lived in Britain, a nation where capitalist property relations dominated.

In 1848, the same year as the publication of the Communist Manifesto, revolutions erupted throughout Europe. In Germany, the revolution was about unseating the royal family from power. Marx castigated leaders of that revolution for failing to use the power they had to bring about a capitalist regime free of feudalism. At that time, Marx was well aware of the horrors of capitalism, but he saw capitalism as a clear advance over the rule by royal families.

Marx supported President Abraham Lincoln in the war against the slave-owning confederate armed forces. While he knew the capitalist politics Lincoln represented, he also knew that the war to end chattel slavery would be an advance for all humanity. At that time, capitalists in the United States also viewed the system of chattel slavery as an obstacle to their consolidation of power. 

The Manifesto gave the following reason for why the transition from feudalism to capitalism took place.

“the feudal relations of property became no longer compatible with the already developed productive forces; they became so many productive fetters. They had to be burst asunder; They were burst asunder.

“Into their place stepped free competition, accompanied by a social and political constitution adapted to it, and by the economic and political sway of the bourgeois class.”

Here we see the beginning of the argument that destroys the myth that there is a genuine democracy in any nation where capitalist property relations dominate. The Manifesto gave the following definition of capitalist governments.

“The executive of the modern state is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie.”

The Manifesto also breaks down how capitalism affects our day-to-day lives. One of the advances that came about with capitalism was the institution of an educational system. 

We would all like to have access to an education. In the following passage the Manifesto breaks down the limitations of becoming a so-called professional in the capitalist system.

“The bourgeoisie has stripped of its halo every occupation hitherto honored and looked up to with reverent awe. It has converted the physician, the lawyer, the priest, the poet, the man of science, into paid wage laborers.”

So, while talented people might win a Nobel or Pulitzer Prize, while elite athletes might be paid tens of millions of dollars, they are locked into a system where they are effectively forced to work so someone else can have obscene amounts of money. Marx and Engels labelled the class of people we all work for as the bourgeoisie. 

Workers toil their entire lives so their children might have the means to live rewarding lives. This is what the Manifesto has to say about the family in capitalism.

“The bourgeoisie has torn away from the family its sentimental veil, and has reduced the family relation to a mere money relation”

So, while workers toil their entire lives to provide for their families, we are all locked into a system where we need to generate wealth for a class that views profits as their priority over the needs of workers.    

However, with the emergence of capitalism, the bourgeoisie created a new class that was different from the peasantry or the craft guilds of feudalism. This was the emergence of the “working class—the proletarians.” The Manifesto gave a description of the modern working class in the following quotation.

“A class of laborers, who live only so long as their labor increases capital. These laborers who must sell themselves piecemeal, are commodities, like every other article of commerce, and are consequently exposed to all the vicissitudes of competition, to all the fluctuations of the market.”

Now we can ask a legitimate question. If capitalism is such an oppressive system, then why hasn’t the working class organized to overthrow it? To begin to answer this question, I believe it is useful to contrast the standard of living at the time of the revolution of the thirteen colonies to the reality of the working class today.

Back in the 1700s most working people were farmers who provided for their own means of subsistence. Today most workers have access to a home, a car, a cell phone, as well as access to indoor electricity and running water. In the following passage the Manifesto outlined how the enormous productive capacity of capitalism was and continues to be greater that what existed in all other epochs.

“Constant revolutionizing of production, uninterrupted disturbance of all social conditions, everlasting uncertainty and agitation distinguish the bourgeois epoch from all earlier ones.”

I’ve seen this “uninterrupted disturbance of all social relations” in my lifetime. Many years ago, I was one of thousands of factory workers who toiled in the Philadelphia area. Most of those factories are now gone. Banks invested huge amounts of money to build factories in nations where wages might be two dollars per day or less. The Manifesto reported on how this was happening back in the 19th century.

“The need of a constantly expanding market for its products chases the bourgeoisie over the whole surface of the globe. It must nestle everywhere, settle everywhere, establish connections everywhere.”

This quotation demonstrates how the capitalist system must continually grow. Without continual growth there can be no corporate profits. However, bankers do not like to think about the fact that there are limits to growth. In the following quotation, we see what happens when the capitalist system reaches its limit of growth.

“In these crises there breaks out an epidemic that, in all earlier epochs, would have seemed an absurdity—the epidemic of over-production. Society suddenly finds itself put back into a state of monetary barbarism; it appears as if a famine, a universal war of devastation had cut off the supply of every means of subsistence; industry and commerce seem to be destroyed, And why? Because there is too much civilization, too much means of subsistence.”

I worked at an auto parts manufacturing factory in Philadelphia for 14 years. That factory, as well as numerous other factories in the United States closed. The Philadelphia Inquirer reported that the cause of the close of this factory was “excess capacity.” The Inquirer could have quoted the Communist Manifesto of 1848 that explained how crises in capitalism erupt because of over-production. Those factories continue to be abandoned shells throughout the country.

The Manifesto also reported on how this abandonment of factories for other locations in the world was going on in the year 1848.

“The bourgeoisie has through its exploitation of the world market given a cosmopolitan character to the production and consumption in every country. To the great chagrin of reactionaries, it has drawn from under the feet of industry the national ground on which it stood. All old-established national industries have been destroyed or are daily being destroyed. They are dislodged by new industries, whose introduction becomes a life and death question for all civilized nations.” 

Black Lives Matter

While the Communist Manifesto gives perspective to many of the issues we face, it wasn’t about explaining how to deal with the institutionalized discrimination in the capitalist world. However, it did give us some perspective on this issue.

In the following passage the Manifesto reported on why women and children were being drawn into the labor force.

“The less the skill and exertion of strength implied in manual labor, in other words, the more modern industry becomes developed, the more is the labor of men superseded by that of women. Differences of age and sex have no longer any distinctive social validity for the working class. All are instruments of labor, more or less expensive to use, according to the age and sex.”

In the year 1848 child labor was routine. Families needed the wages of children to meet all their expenses. The labor movement engaged in fierce battles to end this practice. However, today we see instances where children continue to work in horrendous conditions in this country. In the world, child labor continues to be a norm.

In this passage, Marx and Engels reported on how and why women were being drawn into the work environment. For similar reasons Black people, Latinos, and immigrants have also been drawn into the labor force of this country.

There used to be Jim Crow laws in the southern states of this country that barred Black people from using public facilities. Then capitalists in the northern states needed workers to toil at horrendous jobs. So, millions of Black people moved to the northern and western states to escape Jim Crow and fill the factory jobs that were available. This Great Migration occurred for similar reasons as the Manifesto reported with respect to the integration of women into the labor force. Latinos and immigrants also worked at jobs other workers weren’t interested in.

Here we see how the routine drive of capitalists to cut their costs has been the driving force behind the institutionalized discrimination against women, Black people, Latinos, Native Americans, and immigrants. Therefore, today I believe that the struggle to achieve unconditional liberation for all those who are discriminated against is absolutely necessary for the overall liberation of the international working class. 

Workers of the World Unite

The final words of the Manifesto are: “Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have the world to win. Workingmen (Workers) of all countries, unite.”

Reading these words, a worker might say: Are you crazy? I worked my entire life to get the things my family has. I have a lot to lose. Why would someone want me to lose all of that?

To answer this question, I can ask another question. What do workers really have?

Workers who are fortunate might have the means to retire. Many workers like me need to hold down a job to supplement Social Security payments. However, this is not the main point of the Manifesto.

In any nation dominated by capitalism, the working class has no control over the means of production. This means we have no control over our workplace environment, or the prices we pay, or the news portrayed by the media, or the basic priorities of the government. 

The working class is totally dependent on a tiny minority of the population for the money we need to sustain ourselves. Yet that minority—the bourgeoisie—never actually produces any of the goods and services we need and want. 

Because we don’t have control of the productive forces, the standard of living for most workers has deteriorated in the past fifty years. This means that the younger generation, on average, will need to work many more hours to get what the older generation has. This will only be possible if the economy remains stable which is unlikely.

Today there are about 44 million people in this country who do not have enough food to eat. 80% of the world’s population lives on ten dollars per day or less. As a result, the United Nations reports that about 30,000 children die every day of preventable diseases.

Today, the world is witnessing the unimaginable genocide against the Palestinian people organized by the governments of Israel and the United States. 

These were not mistakes by uninformed politicians. Those conditions reflect the very essence of who capitalist politicians are.

As a result of the depression of the 1930s John Maynard Keynes advanced and economic program to regulate the economy. He understood that the unregulated economy of the past contributed to the depression, but his program was a lame attempt to rectify that problem.

Then by the 1970s, Keynes’ program evolved into an unmitigated disaster. So, Milton Friedman wrote several books arguing that the economy needed to go back to being unregulated. As a result of his policies, 30,000 children die every year due to preventable diseases. Friedman received a Nobel Prize for his efforts.

Then, with the economic collapse in 2008, Alan Greenspan, the former Chairman of the Federal Reserve, acknowledged that the Fed made mistakes due to “irrational exuberance.” 

These so-called experts on economics refused to acknowledge that the Communist Manifesto gave the true cause of economic crises in the capitalist system. This is what Marx and Engels called the “epidemic of overproduction.”   

Today we see workers from all over the world protesting the genocide against Palestinians. We are also seeing an upsurge in the workers movement. So, for a moment, allow me to imagine what the world might look like if human needs and not profits were the fundamental priority. 

If this were the case, then the vast surplus value created by the working class would be used for human needs and not profits. So, corporate profits, banks, insurance companies, advertising agencies, corporate law firms, landlords, and the military would not have a reason to exist.

The enormous wealth used by those enterprises could be used to establish lifetime rights for everyone to decent housing, health care, education, food, clothing, transportation, and communication. 

All these enterprises would be organized to work in harmony with the environment. Using the available technology, all these goods and services could be provided by workers who would only need to work for ten to twenty years in their lives. The rest of their lives could be used as they choose.

Karl Marx wrote his final three volumes in books titled Capital. In those books, he wrote about all the many ways that the capitalist system would sooner or later collapse. When that happens, working people will face reality as it is. Masses of workers will be denied the basic necessities so a tiny minority can continue to live in opulence. Then the final words of the Communist Manifesto will become crystal clear. 

“Let the ruling classes tremble at a communistic revolution. The proletarians have nothing to lose but their chains. They have the world to win. Workers of all countries, unite.”

Why did the United States government work diligently to escalate the war in the Middle East?

 

By Steve Halpern

This morning I read two headlines on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer. These were U.S. works to prevent escalation in Middle East and Iran takes conflict to new heights. So, I need to ask the question: Why did the United States government work diligently to heighten an insidious genocide against the Palestinian people? Allow me to report on a few highlights of this unimaginable horror.

For the past 100 years, Palestinians have been brutalized by imperialist powers. For the past 76 years that repression has been directed by the government of the state of Israel. The imperialist powers have supported Israel because it is located in the center of the region where oil is produced. Oil is a crucial commodity for the capitalist world. The Suez Canal is also located in this region. This canal is crucial to international capitalist trade. 

Then the Hamas organized October 7 raid happened. While I didn’t support that raid, given the reality of the past 100 years, some kind of explosion was inevitable. Washington immediately understood that Israel was no longer capable of maintaining a relative stability in this region. So, it vastly increased military support to Israel. The U.S. government also immediately sent warships to the region.

Eventually the South African government went to the World Court and charged Israel with genocide against the Palestinian people. The World Court decided that those charges were legitimate but failed to demand a ceasefire. 

The Israeli government responded by accusing workers for the United Nations relief organization of participating in the October 7 raid. The United Nations has support agencies in Gaza because the people living there have no sovereign government and are occupied by Israel. 

The administration of President Joe Biden responded to the Israeli accusations by stopping all financial contributions to UNRWA. The United States was the major contributor to that organization. This action meant that the genocide against Palestinians would escalate.

The South African government responded to this action by charging Israel with starving Palestinians living in Gaza. Israel responded to this by murdering international workers from the World Central Kitchen who were bringing aid to Palestinians. 

Governments from all over the world condemned the Israeli government for that action. Israel responded to those criticisms by bombing the Iranian Embassy in Syria. This was a clear and unequivocal act of war. 

Iran offered to end this conflict if Israel ended the war against Palestinians. Israel refused to do this, and Iran sent hundreds of drones into the skies above Israel. 

We might consider that the reason why the United States government has supported Israel for 76 years has been to maintain a relative stability in the Middle East. Now, the Israeli government has become the primary obstacle to stability in that region.

Given the history of this region, I believe there is only one way for working people to respond. That is to continue to go out into the streets and demand Ceasefire Now, and equal rights for all Jews and Palestinians from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.

In Memory of Louis Gossett Jr. and his song Handsome Johnny

 

By Steve Halpern

This morning I read the obituary of the Academy Award winning actor Louis Gossett Jr. who passed away at the age of 87. The obituary was written by the Associated Press reporter Beth Harris. 

When we think of the Hollywood environment Louis Gossett Jr. lived and worked in, we think of the glamor, affluence, and celebrities of the motion picture industry. Beth Harris’ obituary of Gossett gives us an unvarnished view of the underbelly of the reality of Hollywood.

In 1961, Gossett went to Hollywood and received critical acclaim for his role in Lorraine Hansberry’s play A Raisin in the Sun. This was before the civil rights movement forced the government to pass the Civil Rights Act. As a result, Gossett roomed in a cockroach-infested motel.

In 1968, Gossett returned to Hollywood and had a room in a Beverly Hills hotel. Universal Studios rented a car for him with a convertible top. Driving back to the hotel, Gossett was stopped by a sheriff’s officer. The officer told him to turn down the radio and put up the car’s roof. Then eight sheriff’s officers stopped him again and called the car agency to see if the car was stolen.

After his dinner at the hotel, he went for a walk. I’m no lawyer, but I don’t think going for a walk is against the law. Then again, this is the United States of America where the government claims there is liberty and justice for all.

A police officer stopped Gossett and informed him that it was against the law to walk in Beverly Hills after 9:00 PM. Then, officers chained Gossett to a tree for three hours. This is what Louis Gossett Jr. had to say about those experiences.

“Now I had come face-to-face with racism, and it was an ugly sight.” “But it was not going to destroy me.”

Richie Havens and Handsome Johnny

In Beth Harris’s obituary, she neglected to mention that Louis Gossett Jr. wrote a song with Richie Havens titled Handsome Johnny. In my opinion, this was one of the most powerful antiwar songs ever written.

The song is about an imaginary soldier called Handsome Johnny. In the song we follow the horrors of Handsome Johnny in the wars at Concord, Gettysburg, Dunkurk, Korea, and Vietnam. 

Then the song made an unexpected, but logical detour with the following words”

Hey, look yonder, tell me what you see 

Marching to the fields of Birmingham

Looks like handsome Johnny with his hand rolled in a fist

Marching to the Birmingham war, marching to the Birmingham war.

This section of the song is about the civil rights battle in Birmingham in the 1960’s. There police and firemen unleashed attack dogs and fire hoses on children who demanded equal rights in the United States of America. 

The song Handsome Johnny concludes with the following words:

“Hey, what’s the use of singing this song

Some of you are not even listening

Tell me what it is we got to do

Wait for our bullets to start whistling 

Wait til the bombs start balling

Hey, yea, hey, here comes the hydrogen bomb

And, here comes the guided missile

Here comes the hydrogen bomb

I can almost hear it whistle 

I can almost hear it whistle

Yea, yea, yea”

Today, as the world witnesses the Israeli organized genocidal campaign against Palestinians, the song Handsome Johnny by Richie Havens and Louis Gossett takes on new meaning. People from all over the word are protesting against this unimaginable horror. So, I believe we can all imagine how Handsome Johnny is now marching in the streets demanding Ceasefire Now.

Rest in peace Louis Gossett Jr.

Below is a link to a Youtube recording of Louis Gossett Jr. and Richie Havens singing their song Handsome Johnny. Handsome Johnny

Zionism During the Holocaust—The weaponization of memory in the service of state and nation

 

By Tony Greenstein

New Generation Publishing—2022

Reviewed by Steven Halpern

Zionism is the idea that Jewish people from all over the world need a homeland in the nation that was once called Palestine. That idea has been used to murder, steal land, and systematically discriminate against the Palestinian people who have lived on that land for centuries. 

Today the myths of Zionism are exploding in the unimaginable Israeli acts of genocide unfolding in the Gaza Strip. So, in order to strip away all the mythology of Zionism, Tony Greenstein’s Zionism During the Holocaust goes back into the roots of how and why Zionism developed into a military force that is the fourth most powerful in the world.

The myths

For me, in order to put this book in perspective, we first need to think about some of the arguments Zionists have advanced over the years. We can begin with the idea that anti-Semitism has been around for quite a long time in nations all over the world. The Zionists argue that the German Nazi organized murder of about six million Jews is evidence that anti-Semitism is unique in the world.

They argue that after the Holocaust, no nation wanted to accept Jewish refugees. So according to their logic, that reality made the establishment of the state of Israel a necessity to combat anti-Semitism. 

They argue that during the establishment of the state of Israel there may have been some war crimes, but Jewish people needed to defend themselves, and the overall goals of the 1948 war to establish Israel were justified. Today they argue that the Israeli Defense Force is invading Gaza because Zionists feel this is necessary to defend the seven million Jewish citizens of Israel.

From their perspective, efforts to hide Jews from the Nazi Holocaust were isolated. The 1993 film Schindler’s List was portrayed as a relatively isolated event where a capitalist made a heroic effort to save the lives of thousands of Jews.  

The reality

Ok, those are the myths. There is a kernel of truth in the argument that anti-Semitism has been around for a long time. There were pogroms, or racist raids that murdered thousands of Jews in Czarist Russia. Anti-Semitism to one extent or another existed in many countries in the world.

Then there is the other side. Initially only a tiny minority of Jews supported Zionism. The Zionist idea that Jewish people could only thrive by living in Palestine was seen by many Jews as anti-Semitic. The pogroms against Jews supported the idea that Jews were an obstacle to non-Jews. The Jewish idea of leaving Europe and moving to Palestine was in fundamental agreement with the anti-Semites.

If the establishment of the state of Israel was about protecting Jews from anti-Semitism, we might ask the question: Why did the Zionists make a number of deals with the Nazis that facilitated the Holocaust? What are the facts?

The Transfer Agreement

When the Nazis came to power in Germany in 1933, the German economy was in dire straits. The world became aware that the Nazis routinely brutalized Jews in Germany. There had been successful boycotts spearheaded by Jews against the anti-Semitic practices of the Ford Motor Company and Czarist Russia. So, when the Nazis came to power, there was tremendous sentiment for an economic boycott of Germany. 

Because of the dire straits of the German economy, this boycott had the real potential to create an atmosphere hostile to the Nazis that could have removed them from power. The Zionists who represented a tiny percentage of Jews at that time, saw their opportunity to make a lot of money.

So, the Zionists arranged to have a meeting with a viciously anti-Semitic leader of the Nazis, Hermann Goring. Goring understood that while he hated the Jews, the Zionists had something he wanted. So, they came together in what became known as the Transfer Agreement.

The Nazis would allow some Jews to emigrate to Palestine. The Nazis had already confiscated much of the wealth of those Jews. Goring agreed send some of that money to Palestine. In return, the Zionists would work to put an effective end to the boycott against Germany. 

As it turned out, the thousands of Jews that the Nazis allowed to emigrate to Palestine were the most affluent. They had the ability to leave Germany whenever they wanted. So, the Nazis got exactly what they wanted and the Zionists, in effect, got nothing.

So, the Zionists contributed to compromising the effectiveness of the boycott. This was also because corporations in capitalist nations wanted to do business with fascist Germany. Most corporations were indifferent to the horrors inflicted on the Jews and were primarily concerned with their profits. 

Along those lines, there was the Zionist—Nazi organization called Judenrate. Wherever the Nazis took power they organized the Judenrate or Jewish police in the Jewish communities. The following passage is from a Nazi observer in Krakow in 1940 who,

  

“was struck by the contrast between poverty and filth in the Jewish quarter and the business-like luxury of the Jewish community headquarters, which was filled with beautiful charts, comfortable leather chairs, and heavy carpets.”

Rudolf Kraztner

The Nazi leader Aldolf Eichmann came to Hungary to facilitate the transport of hundreds of thousands of Jews from the collection camps to the concentration camps. The Nazis wanted to avoid the Jewish resistance they encountered with the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. So, Eichmann had a meeting with Jewish political officials in the Zionist Jewish Agency. This is what Eichmann had to say about that meeting.

“One man stood out among them. Dr. Rudolf Kraztner. . .an ice-cold lawyer and fanatical Zionist. He agreed to help keep the Jews from resisting deportation—and even keep order in the collection camps—if I would close my eyes and let a few hundred or a few thousand young Jews emigrate illegally to Palestine. It was a good bargain. For keeping order in the camps, the price of 15,000 or 20,000 Jews. . .was not too high for me. . .there was a very strong similarity between our attitudes in the SS and the viewpoint of these immensely idealistic Zionist leaders.” 

Kraztner and others were fully aware that the hundreds of thousands of Jews who were being deported would be sent to the extermination camps. Because of his deal with Eichmann, he kept that information from the Jewish community and encouraged them not to worry about their deportations. 

About 4,000 Hungarian Jews escaped to Romania and avoided the Holocaust. Had Kraztner informed Jews of the Holocaust, thousands more might have been saved. 

Kurt Becher, Dieter Wisliceny and Krumey were leading Nazis who organized for the execution of thousands of Jews in the concentration camps. Towards the end of the war, these Nazis understood that their cause was lost, so they began organizing efforts to save a few Jews.

As a result, Rudolf Kraztner defended Becher, Wislinceny, and Krumey when they were on trial in Nuremburg. They were found not guilty because of Kraztner’s testimony.

Then, Malkiel Gruenwald exposed information that Kraztner knowingly kept information about the extermination camps from the Jewish community. This facilitated their deportation to the concentration camps. Kraztner responded by suing Gruenwald for libel. The Israeli government supported the libel suit against Gruenwald.

At the 1955 trial, Gruenwald’s lawyer presented evidence confirming that Kraztner was a collaborator with the Nazis. The judge in the trial agreed and dismissed the charge of libel. 

Then, in 1957, members of the Israeli terrorist organization Lehi assassinated Rudolf Kraztner. 

The Israeli Supreme Court didn’t like the ruling confirming that Kraztner was a Nazi collaborator. That verdict compromised the core reasons why the state of Israel was established in 1948. So, in 1958 the Israeli Supreme Court reversed the decision by the lower court in the libel case against Malkiel Gruenwald.

Marek Edelman

We can contrast the Zionist defense of Rudolf Kraztner to their indifference and hostility to Marek Edelman.

Marek Edelman was a cardiologist and a leader of the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. He managed to escape the Nazi defeat of the uprising and survived the war. Edelman eventually became critical of the Zionist repression of Palestinians. He remained in Poland and was honored by the Polish government at his funeral. No one from the Israeli embassy in Poland attended his funeral and Edelman was treated as a nonperson by the Israeli government.

Zionist indifference to the Holocaust

Why did the Nazis give support to the Judenrate? The Nazis made the extermination camps that murdered millions of Jews a top secret. However, there were prisoners who escaped those camps and the members of the Judenrate became aware of the mass murders. 

Yet, the Judenrate made decisions to keep this information from the Jewish community. They actually escorted Jews to the trains that would take them to the concentration camps. They oftentimes told the passengers of those trains that they would be welcomed by the Jewish community when they reached their destination, “with open arms.”

Had the Jews known of their eventual fate, thousands or possibly millions of Jews might have found refuge and escaped the mass murder. Two-thirds of the Jews who made up the Judenrate were Zionists. 

A central theme of Greenstein’s book was how the Zionists were indifferent to the Holocaust when it was happening. Their primary goal was the establishment of the state of Israel. While there were Zionists who fought against the Nazis, this wasn’t the policy of the leadership of the Zionist movement.

Why does Greenstein believe that it was indeed possible for many Jews to be rescued and avoid death in the concentration camps? Greenstein lists about 18 countries the Nazis occupied. In each of these countries there were organized efforts to find refuge for Jews and many others who were being victimized by the Nazis.

Many Jews refused to be boarded on the trains going to the camps. They oftentimes went to rural areas where farmers gave them refuge.

The Soviet Union and the church

The actions of the government of the Soviet Union during those years need a bit of background. The Russian Revolution was a watershed moment in human history. The Revolution put in power a government that did its best to serve the interests of the vast majority of the people who lived in Czarist Russia.

The combined effect of the First World War, the Civil War after the revolution, the disruption of the economy, and the effects of famine had a severe toll on the Soviet Union. As a result, Joseph Stalin became the central leader of the country and betrayed everything the Revolution tried to accomplish. Stalin actually organized to murder most of the central leaders of the Russian Revolution. 

With the 1917 Russian Revolution, the Bolsheviks outlawed anti-Semitism. When Stalin betrayed the revolution, anti-Semitic attitudes returned. When Stalin agreed to a non-aggression pact with the Nazis, he didn’t protest the vicious anti-Semitic policies of the Nazis.

Stalin’s primary international goal was to coexist with the imperial powers. This was to ensure that his personal dominance of the USSR would continue. Because of Stalin’s pact with the Nazis, he instructed the Communist Parties throughout the world to oppose war against Germany. 

Because of this pact, the USSR supported the Nazi invasion of Poland. The Nazis took control of half of Poland and the USSR took control of the other half. The Nazis also received political, economic, and military support from the USSR as a result of that pact. Stalin did nothing to protest the Nazi repression against the Jews who had been forced into the Warsaw Ghetto. 

Stalin was taken completely by surprise when the Nazis invaded the Soviet Union. Millions of Russian people died unnecessarily because Stalin refused to prepare for the German invasion. 

Tony Greenstein estimates that between 1.5 and 2 million Jews escaped the concentration camps because they had refuge in the Soviet Union. In other words, had the Nazis defeated the USSR in the war, it is probable that many more than six million Jews would have been murdered in the Holocaust. 

Operation Barbarossa the name used for the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union began on June 22, 1941. The first extermination camp was Chelmno that was set up around December 4 1941. The Nazis established the other concentration camps in the spring of 1942.

Initially the Nazis murdered 12,000 Soviet prisoners of war at Auschwitz. While the Soviet Union eventually defeated the Nazis, over twenty million people from the USSR died in the war. This was the overall context of the Nazi decision to change from merely brutalizing Jews to ordering their mass murder. 

     

We might also consider that while many Jews found refuge in the Soviet Union, the Christian Church also played a significant role in saving the lives of many Jews. This was in spite of the fact that the leadership of the Church barely protested against the Nazi organized brutality against the Jewish community. Rank and file Christians did the bulk of the work in hiding Jews from Nazi persecution.

So, while the Soviet Union and Christians saved the lives of many Jews, Zionist members of the Judenrate aided the Nazis in escorting Jews to the trains that took them to the concentration camps. The Nazis would eventually murder most of the members of the Judenrate.

Zionists use the Holocaust to defend their brutalization of Jews and Palestinians

While the Zionist leadership did little or nothing to defend the millions of Jews the Nazis murdered, they made the Holocaust the primary reason for the establishment of the state of Israel. However, the Zionist drive to murder and steal the homes of Palestinians came into conflict with a bit of history. 

For the most part, anti-Semitism didn’t exist in Palestine before the drive to create the state of Israel. At the time of the formation of Israel, about 60% of the population was Palestinian. Terrorist gangs coerced about 750,000 Palestinians to leave their homes. Yet the Palestinian population in no way contributed to the anti-Semitism that Jewish people experienced in other parts of the world.

Most of the Jews who came to Palestine spoke several languages that included Yiddish. Many Jews came from the Arabic speaking world and Arabic was their primary language.

Only about one percent of the Jews who initially came to Israel spoke Hebrew. The Zionist terrorist gangs of the Irgun, the Stern Gang, and the Hagenah worked to coerce Jews to stop speaking their native language and speak Hebrew. As a result, the Zionists effectively erased the entire history of the Yiddish language. 

Those gangs also repressed any Jews who protested against the Zionist terrorists who murdered Palestinians and forced them to leave their homes. Jews who came to Israel from the Arabic speaking countries were systematically discriminated against. Clearly, these were all anti-Semitic acts carried out by the Israeli government.

The Zionists also worked to discourage governments from around the world from accepting Jewish survivors of the Holocaust. The Zionist priority was to populate Israel with as many Jews as they could manage.

So, when we look at this history, I believe we gain a fresh perspective about the Israeli organized genocide that is unfolding in the Gaza Strip today. The Zionist Israeli government has always been a repressive political force.

There is a clear solution to the crisis in the Middle East. This is to give all the Palestinians living in the occupied territories equal rights to Israeli citizens. The core policy of the Zionists movement and the Israeli government has been to deny Palestinians equal rights.

The Zionists argue that anyone who protests against the Israeli organized genocide in Gaza are anti-Semitic. That argument can be effectively answered with the question; Why not give Palestinians the same rights as Israeli citizens?

Tony Greenstein has given us a thorough unvarnished history of Zionism that puts the current Israeli organized genocide into a clear perspective.