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		<title>A Marxist History of the World part 88: The Second World War</title>
		<description>Discuss A Marxist History of the World part 88: The Second World War</description>
		<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war</link>
		<lastBuildDate>Wed, 19 Jun 2013 06:22:41 +0000</lastBuildDate>
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			<title>Fascism was not merely one kind of imperialism</title>
			<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4380</link>
			<description><![CDATA[We can only understand the war in the context of an understanding of imperialism. Neil has analysed that effectively. But we certainly shouldn't fall into the trap of treating fascism - whether in its Italian or German variant - as simply equivalent to the imperialism of Britain or the USA. German imperialism under Hitler wasn't simply one kind of competing imperialism. Nazism was a political form of capitalism that was qualitatively different from bourgeois democracy. German imperialism in this period was expansionist in a way that posed a threat to capitalist democracy across Europe and beyond - something that, for all its flaws, every socialist should defend. Fascism was of course a massive assualt on the working class and democracy. In the late 1930s this threat expanded from Germany and Italy, due to the expansionist aspirations of Nazi Germany in particular. Socialists recognised that the threat needed to be stopped and therefore critically supported the Allies' war effort. It was necessary, therefore, to adopt a quite different stance from the classic 'the main enemy is at home' position - articulated by Lenin and others in WW1 - and 'revolutionary defeatism', i.e. wanting the defeat of your own ruling class. Instead it was necessary to support efforts to stop Nazi Germany, while remaining critical, e.g. of the inidiscriminate bombing of civilians in Dresden or the Hiroshima and Nagasaki atrocities, and still being willing to oppose the ruling class domestically through strikes etc, and raising radical political demands (also, there were mutinies in the British Army at the war's end). In the run up to WW2, much of the ruling class was guilty of appeasement. It was absolutely correct of most of the British left to oppose this policy, while retaining a critical approach towards British imperialism (of course much of the left abandoned any criticism and opposition, during the war, espcially the Commuunist Party under instruction from Moscow). Dan says, reasonably enough, that Hitler modelled his imperialism on British imperialism in an earlier era - and that concentration camps were not a uniquely Nazi invention. But we also have to recognise the unique and incomparable status of the Holocaust - at least 6 million people, mainly Jewish, systematically killed through advanced industrial means.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Alex Snowdon</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2012 16:38:25 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4380</guid>
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			<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4379</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Churchill preferred fascism to communism, and actually said so. He also endorsed genocide of tribes because he saw them as inferior. Incidentally, Hitler modelled his German empire on the British empire of the 19th Century. The British invented concentration camps. If the technological means for mass murder (used by Hitler in his camps) had been available at the time, I can't see why the British ruling class wouldn't have used them. Look what they did in Africa (responsible for the biggest massacre there, in Sudan). The British ruling class weren't fascist, but fascism represented an attempt to beat them at their own game. Once could be forgiven for thinking that there was parity between the Allies and the Axis.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Dan Poulton</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2012 15:51:19 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4379</guid>
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			<title>reply to tami</title>
			<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4378</link>
			<description><![CDATA[You are right about the reasons many people fought in the Second World War. It was both an imperialist war AND and anti-fascist war. But you cannot conflate the two and imply that the Allied leaders were somehow better than the Axis leaders. All rulers were involved in an attempt to redivide the world in their own interests. This is quite separate from the resistance and class struggles from below which took place at the same time in an attempt to defeat fascism and remodel the world - an attempt which Churchill, Roosevelt, and Stalin resolutely, and when necessary bloodily, opposed. (Beevor, incidentally, is quite good on this. So is Max Hastings. Both right-wing miitary historians, but often quite honest about the treacherous role sometimes played by the Allied leaders.) There are two more entries on the Second World War to come, one of them dealing explicitly with the resistance. Have a look at that when it appears and see what you think. You may feel it corrects the balance.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>neil faulkner</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2012 14:23:12 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4378</guid>
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			<title>RE: A Marxist History of the World part 88: The Second World War</title>
			<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4377</link>
			<description><![CDATA[While this article ia factually correct in a number of regards it utterly fails to take into account the ordinary people who fought in the war because they truly believed they were fighting fascism, and in reality they were. It does a terrible injustice to all of those who fought against Nazism and fascism to simply claim that this was a war of imperialist powers. Hitler was not merely propping up German imperialism but rather his rise to power was a result of its collapse. One cannot draw an equal sign between the Axis powers and the Allied powers. For an excellent objective and well rounded analysis of the Second World War I would recommend Anthony Beevor's new book.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Tami Peterson</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2012 13:55:51 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4377</guid>
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			<title>Re. Stop rape of....</title>
			<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4376</link>
			<description><![CDATA[I suggest as a starting point for William Stuyvesant that he reads the novel All Quiet on the Western Front by Remarque - a fictional account based on his own time in the German trenches in the First World War. The book sold in its millions in the 1930s as it spoke to the real experiences and feelings of those (on both sides) who had survived the mass slaughter.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Steve Parsons</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Wed, 15 Aug 2012 10:39:17 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4376</guid>
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			<title>RE: A Marxist History of the World part 88: The Second World War</title>
			<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4374</link>
			<description><![CDATA[Unfortunately wars are never fought by the rulers, but often they are fought for their interests, not the interests of the people in the street.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>Henry</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Tue, 14 Aug 2012 20:17:40 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4374</guid>
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			<title>Stop rape of history</title>
			<link>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4369</link>
			<description><![CDATA[The war was not fought by Hitler, Stalin, Roosevelt, Churchill or the Japanese Emperor. The war was fought by farmers, peasants, workers, civil servants, housewives, carpenters, The Man in the Street! It were you, or your father or your uncle or your neighbor. Please stop to rape history. Stop deceiving yourself.]]></description>
			<dc:creator>william stuyvesant</dc:creator>
			<pubDate>Mon, 13 Aug 2012 22:27:18 +0000</pubDate>
			<guid>http://www.counterfire.org/index.php/articles/a-marxist-history-of-the-world/15954-a-marxist-history-of-the-world-part-88-the-second-world-war#comment-4369</guid>
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