Capitalism in Decay

The most important question that we should ask ourselves is ‘why?’ Why would a Fascist empire and its innumerable accomplices go through the trouble of persecuting, tormenting, and eventually massacring millions of largely peaceful and mostly unarmed people? How could such an enormous and costly waste of human life possibly have benefitted its perpetrators?

A common suggestion is that the Third Reich encouraged antisemitism because it was useful to scapegoat an innocent minority for society’s problems, distracting people from their real oppressors. This is, at best, only one piece of the puzzle. In order to have a thorough understanding, we need to apply a materialist analysis, which Amadeo Bordiga has offered. His harsh criticisms of actually existing antifascism aside, he provided the most compelling explanation for this tragedy.

Before we address antisemitism itself, a little context is necessary:

[D]estruction 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.

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.

[…]

In 1844 Marx already attacked bourgeois economists for considering cupidity innate instead of explaining it, and showed why the greedy were forced to be greedy. Marxism also has demonstrated the causes of “over‐population” since 1844. “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.”[2] The last imperialist war, far from proving Marxism wrong and justifying its “renewal,” confirmed the correctness of its explanations.

It was necessary to recall these points before dealing with the extermination of the Jews. This occurred, in fact, not at a random moment, but in the middle of a crisis and an imperialist war. It is thus from within this gigantic enterprise of destruction that it must be explained. With this in mind the problem is clarified. We no longer have to explain the “destructive nihilism” of the [Fascists], but rather why the destruction was in part concentrated on the Jews.

[…]

[I]t won’t be difficult to explain if, instead of examining the nature of Jews or anti‐Semites, we consider their place in society.

Due to their earlier history, [most German] Jews find themselves essentially in the middle and petit[e] bourgeoisie. But that class is condemned by the irresistible advance of the concentration of capital. It is this that explains that it is the source of anti‐Semitism, which, as Engels said, “is nothing but a reaction of feudal social strata doomed to disappear, against modern society, which is essentially composed of capitalists and wage earners. It thus only serves reactionary objectives under a false veil of socialism.”

It is important to clarify that the majority of German Jews did not work small businesses out of some congenital compulsion, mind you, but because it was the easiest way for them to make a living given their circumstances. Faithful Judaists avoid working on Saturdays—in fact, many Judaists would rather give up their jobs, even the most luxurious ones, than fail to keep the Sabbath, and this creates a difficulty when working for capitalist gentiles, most of whom prefer that their staff work everyday. Thus, many Jews started microbusinesses so that they could always take Saturdays off.

More obviously, there were no doubt more than a few capitalist gentiles in Europe who wanted either to refuse hiring Jews or to mistreat them more so than their gentile workers, and starting a microbusiness was another way of avoiding that.

Germany between the wars demonstrates this situation at a particularly acute phase. Shaken by the war, the revolutionary advance of 1918–28, ever threatened by the struggle of the proletariat, German capitalism was deeply affected by the worldwide post‐war crisis. While the stronger victorious bourgeoisies (the U.S., 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 petit 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 petit 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 [gentile] petit[e] bourgeoisie [re]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 petit[e] 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, I believe, was the most important reason for the Fascist bourgeoisie’s persecution of Jews: to create a metaphorical sponge that would soak up the worst of capitalism’s consequences. By (hypocritically) charging Jews at exorbitant rates, by forcing them to pay for or absorb the bulk of capitalism’s problems—the debts, the taxes, the inflation, the unemployment, and so on—it eased the burden on petty bourgeois gentiles, making it easier for them to stay in business. As a bonus, it also eliminated some of the petty bourgeois gentiles’ competition.

There were, of course, other reasons, and we’ll address them shortly, but first we need to deal with the objection that some gentile workers fell for antisemitism 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,” “[insert slur here],” etc. But in the proletariat these impulses only occur at the worst moments of demoralization, and don’t last. As soon as [one] enters into struggle the proletariat clearly and concretely sees its enemy: it is a homogeneous class with an historical perspective and mission.

On the contrary, the petit 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 [helplessly] flail about in the vice that crushes it. Racism is not an aberration of the spirit: it is and will be the petit 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 petit bourgeois, and in this petit[e] bourgeoisie the sole group that was sufficiently identifiable. It was only onto them that the petit[e] bourgeoisie could channel the catastrophe.

It was in fact necessary that identification present no difficulty; they had to be able to precisely define who would be destroyed and who would be spared. 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. But logic had nothing to do with it. The democrat who contents himself with demonstrating the absurdity and ignominy of racism, as usual misses the point.

Harassed by capital, the petit[e] bourgeoisie thus threw the Jews to the wolves in order to lighten its sled and save itself. Not, of course, consciously, but this was the meaning of its hatred of the Jews and the satisfaction it got from the closing and pillaging of Jewish stores. We can say that for its part big capital was happy with the gift: it could liquidate a portion of the petit[e] bourgeoisies with the agreement of the petit[e] bourgeoisie.

Even better, it was the petit[e] bourgeoisie itself that saw to this liquidation. But this “personalized” way of presenting capital gives a poor picture of the situation: capitalism knows no more than the petit[e] bourgeoisie what it is doing. It is under the influence of immediate economic constraints and passively follows the path of least resistance.

We haven’t spoken of the German proletariat. This is because it didn’t directly enter into the affair. It had been defeated [for the most part] and, of course, the liquidation of the Jews could only be realized after its defeat. But the social forces that led to this liquidation existed before the defeat of the proletariat. It only permitted this to be carried by leaving capitalism’s hands free.

And it was then that the economic liquidation of the Jews began: expropriation in all forms, exclusion from the liberal professions, civil service, etc. Little by little the Jews were deprived of any means of existence; they lived on the reserves they were able to save. During this entire period, which lasted until the eve of the war [in Europe], [Fascist] policy towards the Jews was contained in two words: Juden ’aus! Jews out! They sought by every means to favor the emigration of the Jews.

Hence, quoting David Swanson’s Leaving World War II Behind:

Hitler had said when the Évian Conference had been proposed: “I can only hope and expect that the other world, which has such deep sympathy for these criminals [Jews], will at least be generous enough to convert this sympathy into practical aid. We, on our part, are ready to put all these criminals at the disposal of these countries, for all I care, even on luxury ships.”²⁸

Continuing with Bordiga:

But if the [Fascists] only wanted to rid themselves of the Jews, who[m] they didn’t know what to do with, and if the Jews for their part asked for nothing more than to leave [the Third Reich], [almost] no one anywhere else wanted to allow them to enter. And there is nothing surprising in this, since [almost] no one could allow them to enter. There was [hardly any] country capable of absorbing and allowing to live a few million ruined petit bourgeois. Only a small portion of the Jews was able to leave. Most remained, despite themselves and despite the [Fascists]. Suspended in mid‐air, in a way.

The imperialist war aggravated the situation both quantitatively and qualitatively. Quantitatively because [Fascism], forced to reduce the petit[e] bourgeoisie in order to concentrate European capital in its hands, extended the liquidation of the Jews to all of Central Europe. Anti‐Semitism had already shown what it could do; it only had to carry on. 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).

At the same time the situation was aggravated qualitatively. Living conditions were made more difficult by the war, the reserves of the Jews melted away and they were condemned to shortly die of starvation.

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.

It didn’t help matters when a leading Zionist, presumably in an attempt to intensify antisemitism and thereby encourage immigration to Palestine, decided to provoke Berlin. Quoting Rabbi Michael Weissmandl’s Min Hameitzar in Tragic Irony:

Wisliceny, Eichmann's representative in Slovakia and the man with whom Rabbi Weissmandl negotiated successfully to stop the expulsion of Slovakia’s Jews, related that the German ambassador to the United States sent to Hitler the minutes of the Conference of Zionist Leaders and the World Jewish Congress in New York.

At this conference, Stephen Wise, in the name of the entire Jewish people, declared war against Germany. When he read the report, Hitler went mad. He fell flat on the floor, bit the carpet and raged: “Now I’ll destroy them, now I’ll destroy them.” He then gathered together all the [Third Reich’s] leaders to a conference in Wannsee, Germany (January 1942), where they formulated the detailed plans of the “final solution.”

This was either the last straw or the perfect casus belli for the Axis. Either way, immigration had become increasingly difficult. Quoting Faris Yahya’s Zionist Relations with Nazi Germany, page 33:

The Zionist–[Fascist] agreements on emigration continued in this form for two years following the outbreak of the Second World War [in Europe]. However, their smooth operation was disturbed in 1941 after [the Western Axis] attacked the Soviet Union. The [Fascists] argued that the agreements were no longer able to operate owing to their need to give priority to their military situation on the Eastern Front when allocating transport, and to the general disruption by the war of communications in central and Eastern Europe.

So it was now time for plan B: extermination.

It is also at this point that we learn another motive for Fascist antisemitism: creating a source of cheap labour. Continuing with Bordiga:

And it didn’t kill them immediately. To begin with, it removed them from circulation; it gathered [many of] them together, concentrated them. And it made them work while under‐nourishing them, i.e., in super‐exploiting them to death. Killing a man at work is an old method of capital’s. Marx wrote in 1844: “To be led with success, the industrial struggle demands large armies they can concentrate at one point and decimate copiously.”

These [people] had to meet their living costs as long as they were alive, and then those of their death. And they had to produce surplus value as long as they’re capable of it. For capitalism doesn’t execute the men it has condemned unless it profits by that very putting to death.

But [humanity] 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.

While the rest of Bordiga’s article is worth reading, I think that it suffices to end it there.

Another reason is colonialism: much like European colonists found it easier to steal resources (including land) from the indigenous Americans and aboriginal Oceanians than to share them, the Fascists found it easier to steal room and other resources from Jews—among other folks—than to even consider sharing anything. Quoting Carroll P. Kakel’s The Holocaust as Colonial Genocide: Hitler’s ‘Indian Wars’ in the ‘Wild East’, page 20:

By regarding Russian Bolshevism as ‘Jewish rule’, Hitler combined his pathological anti‐semitism with Germany’s need for land in ‘the East’.⁴⁹ Crucially, in his mind, ‘the Jews’ and Germany’s ‘restricted living space’ were the two co‐equal (and powerfully linked) threats to the existence and survival of the German nation and people and, as such, the joint targets (as we shall see) of closely linked [Fascist] policies of ‘race and space’.

In his ideological pronouncements, Hitler blended his obsessive anti‐semitism (aimed at the destruction of ‘Jewish Bolshevism’ and ridding German ‘living space’ of ‘the Jews’) with the concept of a war against the Soviet Union for additional ‘living space’ (needed by the ‘master race’ to sustain itself).

Hitler’s Landsberg incarceration and the writing of Mein Kampf allowed Hitler time to elaborate and more fully develop his earlier thinking about the Jews and ‘living space’ — firmly establishing, in his racial and spatial fantasies, the link between the destruction of ‘the Jews’ and a war against Russia to acquire Lebensraum.⁵⁰

(Emphasis added in all cases.)

This is why the Axis committed the Shoah.

And notice the thread’s title: ‘Why the Fascist bourgeoisie committed the Holocaust’. Not ‘Schicklgruber’, ‘the Nazis’, ‘the Germans’, ‘Germany’ or other such misleading reductions. There were not only Germans but also millions of non‐Germans who willingly participated in the Shoah, with many even acting without orders from Berlin. The Shoah and the Porajmos are not “Germany’s” albatross to bear, nor even “Europe’s”, but the Fascist bourgeoisie’s, if not the upper classes’ in general: they imposed this capitalist system on us and repeatedly turned away refugees fleeing Fascism.

As for the need to link Jews with communism, I think that it is only natural that when any moderners, Jewish or gentile, hit rock bottom and reach the point where they no longer have anything to lose, it is inevitable that they are going to sympathize with communism. Why would a vagrant join an anticommunist’s crusade when the anticommunist blames her for her own poverty, demonizes her as a dirty, drug‐addicted panhandler, and won’t even offer her a snack, let alone housing? Fascism left many Jews in such destitute positions, thus it became even easier for them to see communism’s appeal, already helped by its antiracism and antifascism.

I hope that I have provided you with a satisfying explanation for the Shoah. It is true that we can bring other factors into account, such as the perpetrators’ unpleasant childhoods, the centuries of European antisemitism, the importation of the White Army’s antisemitism, the money to be made from building the tools for extermination and so on, but I wanted to provide you with an explanation that cuts to the bone and reaches the very essence of this tragedy; a materialist explanation.

If you nourish your curiosity instead of repeating what your miseducators taught you; if you analyse the effects of this atrocity and discard the half‐hearted fictions with which the capitalists have draped it in order to conceal its real origins, those being capital’s need to survive and expand, and their abuses of its memory, which consist of justifying wars against the independence of poorer nations; when you have comprehended this, your contempt for capital and its guardians shall be profound indeed. You shall understand that only through the profit motive’s elimination, which the lower classes shall accomplish when it inevitably defeats capital, will the cycle of populicide be broken.