Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

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Sid Guttridge
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#16

Post by Sid Guttridge » 06 Jul 2009, 14:33

Double post - Sorry. See below. Sid.
Last edited by Sid Guttridge on 06 Jul 2009, 14:40, edited 1 time in total.

Sid Guttridge
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#17

Post by Sid Guttridge » 06 Jul 2009, 14:39

Hi Guys,

Back when I was on Feldgrau, I looked this up while in the British Library in an encyclopedia on the masacre of Jews in WWII, possibly titled something like The Encyclopedia of the Holocaust. To the best of my memory, Phylo is correct, certainly as regards the timescale, though I cannot recall specifics.

The problem here is that "holocaust" has been used in English since long before WWII and could be applied to the fate of Jews in WWII (or others at other times) without any of the baggage now associated with the so-called Holocaust with a capital H.

Cheers,

Not very helpfully,

Sid.


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phylo_roadking
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#18

Post by phylo_roadking » 06 Jul 2009, 14:57

Bo, you're quite right about the etymology of the modern term "Hispanic" - I was using it rather than type out Puerto Rican, Costa Rican etc. etc. :lol:

Karl
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#19

Post by Karl » 07 Jul 2009, 00:36

A Jew made the connection?

How rich! :lol:

David Thompson
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#20

Post by David Thompson » 07 Jul 2009, 06:01

Let's try for a more scholarly discussion, please.

michael mills
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#21

Post by michael mills » 07 Jul 2009, 06:23

It seems to me that the argument on this thread is about a specific word, "holocaust", whereas it should be about the general idea encapsulated by the word.

it apppears that Engels, in an article in the "Neue Rheinische Merkur" of 13 January 1849, wrote:
All the other large and small nationalities and peoples are destined to perish
before long in the revolutionary world storm. For that reason they are now
counter-revolutionary...

......................................................................................................................

The next world war will result in the disappearance from the face of
the earth not only of reactionary classes and dynasties, but also of entire
reactionary peoples. And that, too, is a step forward.
In relation to those statements by Engels, the source quoted by Homer1 made the following comment:
Today Engels’s viewpoint may seem outrageously politically incorrect,
but in the middle of the XIX century the idea of “historical” and “nonhistorical”
nations was common. It was fi rst voiced by Hegel, who based
his philosophy of history on the principle of the world progress to be accomplished
by Germans and Anglo-Saxons. This, however, does not imply
that Hegel called for destruction of any nations. Engels does not call for
destruction of “counterrevolutionary” nations either; he merely predicts
that these peoples will be destroyed during a world war by those opressed
“ progressive” nations.
The basic idea expressed by Engels was that certain classes and entire ethnic groups stood in the way of progress, and hence their disappearance, or their "perishing", would be a good thing, something that would promote the further progress of humanity.

It is clear that it was such thinking provided the justification for the systematic destruction of whole populations, whether by exiling them and leaving them to perish from starvation, or by actively killing them. The concept that certain groups deserve to be destroyed because they are a hindrance to progress was the basis for both the Soviet decimation of the peasantry by starvation and the german extermination of east European Jewry by more violent means.

In that sense one might justly compare Engels' prediction that entire reactionary peoples would disappear from the face of the earth in the next world war, with Hitler's prediction in his speech of 30 January 1939 that if the jews caused a new world war, it would result in the destruction of the Jewish race in Europe. Hitler hinted that the destruction would be brought about by the peoples of Europe rising up against their Jewish oppressors.

So, it does not matter whether the word used is "holocaust" or "storm". The idea expressed is the same, that the destruction of particular populations is justified.

Karl
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#22

Post by Karl » 07 Jul 2009, 06:32

How old Pentateuch?

How old Septuagint?

When were the last sacrifices made at the temple at Jerusalem???

Not our fault people don't focus David.

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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#23

Post by michael mills » 07 Jul 2009, 06:44

Here is a reference to the publication of the book "Shoat Yehudei Polin" in Jerusalem in 1940:

http://books.google.com.au/books?id=vzB ... t&resnum=6

Note that the words "shoat yehudei Polin" are translated as "devastation of the Jews of Poland". The word "holocaust" is not used.

Thus, this statement by Phylo Roadking
The first known Jewish use of "Holocaust" as a translation for "Shoah" is apparently in 1940 in a translation made in Jerusalem of a book title Sho'at Yehudei Polin, which was translated as The Holocaust of the Jews of Poland.
is mistaken, in that "Holocaust" was not used as a translation for "shoah".

The above source also defines the word "shoah" as meaning "devastation" or "catastrophe". It states:
Unlike "Holocaust" and churban, which connote religious and sacrificial imperatives, "Shoah" suggest devastation and catastrophe in historical and providential categories.
I hope the above is scholarly enough.

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phylo_roadking
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#24

Post by phylo_roadking » 07 Jul 2009, 16:32

Michael - that's Locke and Littell's translation of the term....and at THAT point in their book they're interested in the etymological origin of the term "Shoa" rather than "Holocaust".
The use of the Hebrew word sho'ah to denote the destruction of Jews in Europe during the war appeared for the first time in the booklet Sho'at Yehudei Polin (The Holocaust of the Jews of Poland), published by the United Aid Committee for the Jews of Poland, in Jerusalem in 1940. The booklet contains reports and articles on the persecution of Jews in eastern Europe from the beginning of the war, written or verbally reported by eyewitnesses, among them several leaders of Polish Jewry. Up to the spring of 1942, however, the term was rarely used. The Hebrew term that was first used, spontaneously, was hurban (lit., "destruction"), similar in meaning to "catastrophe," with its historical Jewish meaning deriving from the destruction of the Temple. It was only when leaders of the Zionist movement and writers and thinkers in Palestine began to express themselves on the destruction of European Jewry that the Hebrew term sho'ah became widely used. It was still far from being in general use, even after the November 1942 declaration of the Jewish Agency that a sho'ah was taking place. One of the first to use the term in the historical perspective was the Jerusalem historian BenZion Dinur (Dinaburg), who, in the spring of 1942, stated that the Holocaust was a "catastrophe" that symbolized the unique situation of the Jewish people among the nations of the world.
http://www.chgs.umn.edu/educational/edR ... ition.html
http://www.holocaustremembrance.net/4De ... CAUST.html

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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#25

Post by Karl » 07 Jul 2009, 23:59

The word appears a lot in Septuagint - the Leviticus verse quoted being the first instance and always as burnt offering. If we look at Lev we see they are very preoccupied with perfection, instructions are extremely specific.

So, how on earth could the near annhilation of His People in Europe be considered 'an aroma pleasing to the Lord?'

The thinking of course as always is modern Israel - the six million being considered the sacrifice for the modern state - in other words it was taken out of its religeous context and placed into a political one: quite disgusting.

In light of the original Jewish scriptures - or Old Testament - and Islam also draws from these - would imagine the term offensive to all three faiths when used to desribe mass mass murder of any human beings.

Karl

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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#26

Post by David Thompson » 08 Jul 2009, 00:43

The question which started this thread was:
I wonder can it be true, because I think world holocaust apeared only after WW2?
I think that question has already been answered several times in this thread, so there's not much left to discuss. I'll wait for a few more on-topic responses before I close it out. If the responses aren't on topic, the thread closure may come more rapidly, like the overshadowing wings of night.

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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#27

Post by pompi » 08 Dec 2009, 19:59

http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/wo ... /03/04.htm
which is a marxists.org archive, has the correct quote for the first part.
"The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way..."

This is an answer to Homer1, who claims that "he checked it [but there is nothing of that sort]".

For the second part, it probably is an English loose translation, but I don't have time to check it now.

Henry Addams
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#28

Post by Henry Addams » 16 May 2011, 00:52

Does this help?

Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.
--Karl Marx, “Forced Emigration,” New York Tribune, March 22, 1853

TYH77
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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#29

Post by TYH77 » 05 Jun 2011, 23:10

Henry Addams wrote:Does this help?

Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way.
--Karl Marx, “Forced Emigration,” New York Tribune, March 22, 1853
:welcome:

----

I love it when Certain Beck-heads [im not saying that anyone here is one] bring up this "Soviet Story" Quotemine, which was also btw the title of Glenn Becks so-called documentary on the subject.


Now as to the touted "quote", we can Break it down into it's two constituent parts, "The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way" and "They must perish in the revolutionary Holocaust". As we can see, it was mish-mashed from two different sources.

Here is the first part in Full!!

"Now I share neither in the opinions of Ricardo, who regards ‘Net-Revenue’ as the Moloch to whom entire populations must be sacrificed, without even so much as complaint, nor in the opinion of Sismondi, who, in his hypochondriacal philanthropy, would forcibly retain the superannuated methods of agriculture and proscribe science from industry, as Plato expelled poets from his Republic. Society is undergoing a silent revolution, which must be submitted to, and which takes no more notice of the human existences it breaks down than an earthquake regards the houses it subverts. The classes and the races, too weak to master the new conditions of life, must give way. But can there be anything more puerile, more short-sighted, than the views of those Economists who believe in all earnest that this woeful transitory state means nothing but adapting society to the acquisitive propensities of capitalists, both landlords and money-lords? In Great Britain the working of that process is most transparent. The application of modern science to production clears the land of its inhabitants, but it concentrates people in manufacturing towns." - Marx, "Forced Emigration"

The context of the "Silent revolution" appears to be a capitalist revolution. Not a Marxist one. In fact, the whole article is about Capitalist development.

Now the second part can be exposed by looking at it's original German.

"Alle andern großen und kleinen Stämme und Völker haben zunächst die Mission, im revolutionären Weltsturm unterzugehen. Daher sind sie jetzt kontrerevolutionär." - Engels, "Der magyarische Kampf"

So it's not Marx but rather Engels. Nowhere in that phrase do i see the word "Holocaust". (Instead, It's "Worldstorm". Different Word methinks) The film simply made the word "Holocaust" up. My suspicion is that it only uses the word "Holocaust" only because it reminds people of the horrors of the Nazi regime. It is a deliberate lie to convince the more credulous viewers that the Nazis are somehow directly related to Marx. And by "revolutionary Worldstorm", Engels was referring to the ongoing event of the revolutionary fervour sweeping europe at the time.

http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/top ... ns-of-1848

In this context, Engels was writing about 'revolutionary' and 'counterrevolutionary' nations, and he is not calling for any notion of Genocide, he's just predicting that 'counterrevolutionary' nations will perish because of circumstance.

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Re: Marx quotation : "revolutionary holocaust"?

#30

Post by David Thompson » 06 Jun 2011, 00:38

TYH77 -- Your post is both off-topic and incoherent. Please review the forum and section rules at http://forum.axishistory.com/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=53962

Consider this your warning.

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