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May Day, 60th V-E Day, 60th Hiroshima-Nagasaki Day, 30th Victory in Vietnam Day
As May Day, International Workers Day, May 1, approaches, this year being on a Sunday with larger than usual celebrations and renewals of commitment to the struggle, this year we also commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps and Victory in Europe on May 8, the 30th Anniversary of the Victory of the Workingclass of the World in Vietnam on April 30, 1975 and the 60th Anniversary of the first act of the Cold War, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
As May Day, International Workers Day, May 1, approaches, this year being on a Sunday with larger than usual celebrations and renewals of commitment to the struggle, this year we also commemorate the 60th Anniversary of the liberation of the Nazi death camps and Victory in Europe on May 8, the 30th Anniversary of the Victory of the Workingclass of the World in Vietnam on April 30, 1975 and the 60th Anniversary of the first act of the Cold War, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945.
For the sake of the younger generation who must carry on, this history is recalled as it is the heritage we all defend daily.
We salute the Red Army that liberated Auschwitz in January 1945, Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945 and Sachsenhausen on April 22, 1945. It was the Red Army that, in spite of the counter-revolutionary Stalin, fought the decisive battle of World War 2, the Battle of Stalingrad of the winter of 1942-1943, and won the race to Berlin against the US, which began its opposition to Nazi Germany with its invasion of Europe in June 1944, 6 years after Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1945, the official commencement of World War 2.
We salute the Americans for liberating some European death camps and for liberating the Japanese prisoner of war camp where my mother, a Holocaust refugee, was imprisoned as a member of the Dutch Army medical corps in the former Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, in 1945, sometime after Pres. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, after they spent a great deal of time conquering real estate in the Pacific Ocean area.
World War 2 ended with an anti-communist warning to the Soviet Union, poised to attack Japan, that the 20th century was to be an American Century, with the unnecessary and unjustifiable nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, forcing us all to live under the terror of the nuclear threat of capitalism and its profit motive.
Just as Victory in Europe Day, May 8, 1945, was the happiest day in the life for the World War 2 generation, who had great hopes that a far better, socialist world would rise out of the ashes of that nightmare, so too is Victory in Vietnam Day, April 30, 1975, the happiest day in the life of the anti-imperialist members of the Vietnam War generation, whose hopes were not so great, but who understood that the "little people in black pajamas" had defeated the mightiest military death machine of the United States, the world had seen since Nazi Germany, thus ending the illusion of the "American Century" 30 years after the world's workingclass ended the illusion of the Nazis' Thousand Year Reich, which lasted 12 years.
Labor was not a major part of the peace movement of the 1960s-1970s as it was primarily a student anti-draft movement ending for the most part with the end of the draft in in 1973. The post-World War 2 prosperity of 1945-1973 quelled serious labor support.
That prosperity is long gone and now, for May Day, the call to organize the unorganized must be loud and clear if we are to stop the war and fascism of the US capitalist class in the 21st Century.
Happy May Day!
For the sake of the younger generation who must carry on, this history is recalled as it is the heritage we all defend daily.
We salute the Red Army that liberated Auschwitz in January 1945, Bergen-Belsen on April 15, 1945 and Sachsenhausen on April 22, 1945. It was the Red Army that, in spite of the counter-revolutionary Stalin, fought the decisive battle of World War 2, the Battle of Stalingrad of the winter of 1942-1943, and won the race to Berlin against the US, which began its opposition to Nazi Germany with its invasion of Europe in June 1944, 6 years after Hitler invaded Poland on September 1, 1945, the official commencement of World War 2.
We salute the Americans for liberating some European death camps and for liberating the Japanese prisoner of war camp where my mother, a Holocaust refugee, was imprisoned as a member of the Dutch Army medical corps in the former Dutch East Indies, now Indonesia, in 1945, sometime after Pres. Roosevelt died on April 12, 1945, after they spent a great deal of time conquering real estate in the Pacific Ocean area.
World War 2 ended with an anti-communist warning to the Soviet Union, poised to attack Japan, that the 20th century was to be an American Century, with the unnecessary and unjustifiable nuclear bombing of Hiroshima on August 6 and Nagasaki on August 9, 1945, forcing us all to live under the terror of the nuclear threat of capitalism and its profit motive.
Just as Victory in Europe Day, May 8, 1945, was the happiest day in the life for the World War 2 generation, who had great hopes that a far better, socialist world would rise out of the ashes of that nightmare, so too is Victory in Vietnam Day, April 30, 1975, the happiest day in the life of the anti-imperialist members of the Vietnam War generation, whose hopes were not so great, but who understood that the "little people in black pajamas" had defeated the mightiest military death machine of the United States, the world had seen since Nazi Germany, thus ending the illusion of the "American Century" 30 years after the world's workingclass ended the illusion of the Nazis' Thousand Year Reich, which lasted 12 years.
Labor was not a major part of the peace movement of the 1960s-1970s as it was primarily a student anti-draft movement ending for the most part with the end of the draft in in 1973. The post-World War 2 prosperity of 1945-1973 quelled serious labor support.
That prosperity is long gone and now, for May Day, the call to organize the unorganized must be loud and clear if we are to stop the war and fascism of the US capitalist class in the 21st Century.
Happy May Day!
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What a delightfully transparent stream of incoherent and contradictory nonsense, typical for a dyed-in-the-wool leftist. WWII, like WWI before it, was an international competition of capitalist nation-states for access to resources. Each capitalist country (Italy, Germany, the US, Japan, England, and their smaller satellites) was more than willing to sacrifice its soldiers and civilians in a mad scramble for imperial domination across the globe. Working class and poor people had no stakes in that horrific game. The international solidarity of the dispossessed is the force that can finally crush reactionary political movements of the left and the right. Supporting the "heroic Great Patriotic War" of the Stalinists is just as stupid as supporting the United States' war against terror. It's not that fascism and terror shouldn't be stopped, but that the creators of fascism and terror certainly can't be counted on to end what it is that keeps them in power, and certainly not through intrastatist wars. This post shows, more clearly than any essay critical of leftism, the abject bankruptcy of leftism.
The lights went out in Europe on September 1, 1939, when Hitler invaded Poland. The US joined the War in Europe in June 1944, 5 years later, in a race to Berlin, which it lost, as the Red Army arrived in Berlin first, with the US arriving some 110 miles outside Berlin.
Of course, the unofficial start of World War 2 was in Spain when the fascist Spanish General Franco, aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, overthrew the government of the Republic of Spain during the civil war of 1936-1939. The United States government claimed to be neutral in this conflict. The American workingclass contributed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to defend the Spanish Republic.
As the younger generation likes to say, let's rock. Happy May Day!
Of course, the unofficial start of World War 2 was in Spain when the fascist Spanish General Franco, aided by Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, overthrew the government of the Republic of Spain during the civil war of 1936-1939. The United States government claimed to be neutral in this conflict. The American workingclass contributed the Abraham Lincoln Brigade to defend the Spanish Republic.
As the younger generation likes to say, let's rock. Happy May Day!
Where on earth (or elsewhere) does she get her info from? How laughable....
Just when I thought "Socialist" couldn't be any more ridiculous, he posts that last one.
First, Franco wasn't a "fascist"; he was a conservative monarchist who understood that Spain wouldn't be able to be governed by an aristocrat who hadn't been steeled by the war. His grooming of Juan Carlos is evidence of that. Franco wasn't above using the Falange once he'd cut it off at the knees and was no longer a threat to the reactionary regime forced together by the military and the Church. The incorrect epithet of "fascist" on Franco is guilt by association, since Franco was aided by Hitler and Mussolini.
Franco was a major creep and I hope his death was torturously painful, but it is historically incorrect to refer to him as a "fascist."
Second, regardless of whether or not one thinks that the Spanish war was the unofficial beginning of WWII (which would only be true if one thought of WWII and the Spanish war as wars between democracy and fascism--which they clearly WERE NOT), the Spanish war began when the military (which was not under Franco's control until months later, by the way), allied with the Church, landlords, and other reactionary elements in Spain, tried to overthrow the Republican government. That attempted coup (successful in about a third of the country) is what precipitated the civil war, not the other way around as "Socialist" seems to think.
Third, it was the Comintern, Stalin's lapdogs, who organized the International Brigades to "defend democracy" as part of the cross-class (some would say class-betraying) Popular Front. Stalin's use of the Popular Front was a way to attract the French and British to him and away from Hitler and Mussolini by showing them that the Soviets were not really interested in either proletarian revolution or international proletarian solidarity. It was of course wildly successful as a way to destroy any semblance of authentic anti-capitalist working class militance. There are plenty of excellent published studies dealing with the nastiness of the Comintern agents in Spain.
Fourth, what's so great about defending a bourgeois republic? I thought you were a "Socialist."
And a quick note to "Critical Thinker": "Socialist" is clearly referring to D-Day. He clearly forgot that Sicily is part of Europe, and was invaded by the Allies in the summer of 1943.
First, Franco wasn't a "fascist"; he was a conservative monarchist who understood that Spain wouldn't be able to be governed by an aristocrat who hadn't been steeled by the war. His grooming of Juan Carlos is evidence of that. Franco wasn't above using the Falange once he'd cut it off at the knees and was no longer a threat to the reactionary regime forced together by the military and the Church. The incorrect epithet of "fascist" on Franco is guilt by association, since Franco was aided by Hitler and Mussolini.
Franco was a major creep and I hope his death was torturously painful, but it is historically incorrect to refer to him as a "fascist."
Second, regardless of whether or not one thinks that the Spanish war was the unofficial beginning of WWII (which would only be true if one thought of WWII and the Spanish war as wars between democracy and fascism--which they clearly WERE NOT), the Spanish war began when the military (which was not under Franco's control until months later, by the way), allied with the Church, landlords, and other reactionary elements in Spain, tried to overthrow the Republican government. That attempted coup (successful in about a third of the country) is what precipitated the civil war, not the other way around as "Socialist" seems to think.
Third, it was the Comintern, Stalin's lapdogs, who organized the International Brigades to "defend democracy" as part of the cross-class (some would say class-betraying) Popular Front. Stalin's use of the Popular Front was a way to attract the French and British to him and away from Hitler and Mussolini by showing them that the Soviets were not really interested in either proletarian revolution or international proletarian solidarity. It was of course wildly successful as a way to destroy any semblance of authentic anti-capitalist working class militance. There are plenty of excellent published studies dealing with the nastiness of the Comintern agents in Spain.
Fourth, what's so great about defending a bourgeois republic? I thought you were a "Socialist."
And a quick note to "Critical Thinker": "Socialist" is clearly referring to D-Day. He clearly forgot that Sicily is part of Europe, and was invaded by the Allies in the summer of 1943.
The US invasion of Italy, after the decisive Battle of Stalingrad, was not fighting Nazi Germany but rather rescuing Italy from the Reds. It was the Italian partisans who finished Mussolini. It was also the Italian people who saved most of Italy's Jews. Italy was not the key to ending World War 2; the defeat of Nazi Germany was.
Other notable deeds, or misdeeds of the US: American Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in the Soviet Union, the supposed ally of the US, until after the Battle of Stalingrad. US planes flew over the train tracks to Auschwitz but never bombed them, and that is absolutely unforgiveable. In fact, the Holocaust began in December 1941, and it was known to the Allies, inlcuding the US, shortly thereafter. 2/3 of the Jewish population of Europe, the center of the world's Jewish population before World War 2, was allowed to perish, and that is inexcusable. The firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg had nothing to do with fighting fascism and everything to do with attempting to destroy what had been strong centers of radical, workingclass activity before Hitler took power. It was the Red Army that rescued the art treasures of Dresden which we were fortunate to see on tour in San Francisco in the 1970s.
It is not just socialists who understand the US was not fighting fascism in World War 2. This writer has met conservative middle class Jews who explicitly state that as far as they are concerned, because of the victory of the Red Army at Stalingrad, the Red Army saved all our lives. The bitterness with the US in not being serious in saving the lives of Jews and defeating Nazi Germany as quickly as possible is also universal in the Jewish community, whether atheists of Jewish descent, socialists of Jewish descent, religious Jews or reactionary capitalists who happen to be Jewish. It is this outrage that has fueled support for the US military base to protect US oil profits in the MidEast, commonly known as Israel. This outrage is expressed in many books. One of the best is Beyond Belief by Deborah Lipstadt. The reason for this lack of commitment to defeat of Nazi Germany was of course that it was profitable to support Hitler. See Trading with the Enemy by Charles Higham, American Swastika by Charles Higham and Who Financed Hitler? by James Pool. One of those trading with the enemy was Pres. Bush's grandfather.
The primary focus of the war in Europe was the defeat of Nazi Germany and that is why the race to Berlin is crucial.
Happy May Day!
Other notable deeds, or misdeeds of the US: American Lend-Lease aid did not arrive in the Soviet Union, the supposed ally of the US, until after the Battle of Stalingrad. US planes flew over the train tracks to Auschwitz but never bombed them, and that is absolutely unforgiveable. In fact, the Holocaust began in December 1941, and it was known to the Allies, inlcuding the US, shortly thereafter. 2/3 of the Jewish population of Europe, the center of the world's Jewish population before World War 2, was allowed to perish, and that is inexcusable. The firebombing of Dresden and Hamburg had nothing to do with fighting fascism and everything to do with attempting to destroy what had been strong centers of radical, workingclass activity before Hitler took power. It was the Red Army that rescued the art treasures of Dresden which we were fortunate to see on tour in San Francisco in the 1970s.
It is not just socialists who understand the US was not fighting fascism in World War 2. This writer has met conservative middle class Jews who explicitly state that as far as they are concerned, because of the victory of the Red Army at Stalingrad, the Red Army saved all our lives. The bitterness with the US in not being serious in saving the lives of Jews and defeating Nazi Germany as quickly as possible is also universal in the Jewish community, whether atheists of Jewish descent, socialists of Jewish descent, religious Jews or reactionary capitalists who happen to be Jewish. It is this outrage that has fueled support for the US military base to protect US oil profits in the MidEast, commonly known as Israel. This outrage is expressed in many books. One of the best is Beyond Belief by Deborah Lipstadt. The reason for this lack of commitment to defeat of Nazi Germany was of course that it was profitable to support Hitler. See Trading with the Enemy by Charles Higham, American Swastika by Charles Higham and Who Financed Hitler? by James Pool. One of those trading with the enemy was Pres. Bush's grandfather.
The primary focus of the war in Europe was the defeat of Nazi Germany and that is why the race to Berlin is crucial.
Happy May Day!
No list of US-Nazi collaboration books is complete without the New York Times bestseller, IBM and The Holocaust by Edwin Black. Without IBM, the Holocaust was not possible.
Chapter 1, page 22, has this scene:
"One December morning, even as the numbered man Cheim, in his tattered uniform, stepped quickly toward the Bergen-Belsen [death camp] Hollerith office to stay warm and to stay alive, another man, this one dressed elegantly in a fine suit and warm overcoat, stepped out of a new chauffeured car at 590 Madison Avenue in New York. He was Thomas J. Watson. His company, IBM--one of the biggest in the world--custom-designed and leased the Hollerith card sorting system to the Third Reich for use at Bergen-Belsen and most of the other concentration camps. International Business Machines ALSO SERVICED its machines almost monthly, and TRAINED NAZI PERSONNEL to use the intricate system. Duplicate copies of code books were kept in IBM's offices in case field books were lost. What's more, his company was the exclusive source for up to 1.5 BILLION punch cards the Reich required EACH YEAR to run its machines."
Clearly, it is the profit motive of capitalism that must be abolished, which only labor can do.
Happy May Day!
Chapter 1, page 22, has this scene:
"One December morning, even as the numbered man Cheim, in his tattered uniform, stepped quickly toward the Bergen-Belsen [death camp] Hollerith office to stay warm and to stay alive, another man, this one dressed elegantly in a fine suit and warm overcoat, stepped out of a new chauffeured car at 590 Madison Avenue in New York. He was Thomas J. Watson. His company, IBM--one of the biggest in the world--custom-designed and leased the Hollerith card sorting system to the Third Reich for use at Bergen-Belsen and most of the other concentration camps. International Business Machines ALSO SERVICED its machines almost monthly, and TRAINED NAZI PERSONNEL to use the intricate system. Duplicate copies of code books were kept in IBM's offices in case field books were lost. What's more, his company was the exclusive source for up to 1.5 BILLION punch cards the Reich required EACH YEAR to run its machines."
Clearly, it is the profit motive of capitalism that must be abolished, which only labor can do.
Happy May Day!
I know what the person above meant by stating the Holocaust began in Dec 1941. In actuality, not only did it begin in Sep 1939, some even maintain it began at least a year earlier with Kristallnacht if not before.
Hitler Stopped by Franco is the first book to deeply examine the relationship between Franco and Hitler during World War II.
Despite the smiles in this picture, Franco's relationship with Hitler was anything but cordial. Hitler Stopped by Franco shatters the myth that the two men were friends and allies, and is backed up at every turn by historical records. The following is a comment by the great Spanish scholar, Stanley G. Payne, Hilldale-Jaume Vicens Vives Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"[Franco], just out of the Spanish Civil War, had no intention of entering another, greater war on either side, and... by setting an unreachable price for Hitler to pay for his cooperation with the Caudillo was "buying peace with words," tightrope walking between two swords, hoping for the entire conflict to go away without any involvement. Despite the Civil War debt to Hitler, Franco resisted the Führer's threats and cajolery and did not permit the Wehrmacht to enter Spain, carry out Hitler's plan to close the Mediterranean to British shipping and consequently force the end of World War II in 1940 before the United States could be ready to enter. The real events depicted in this narrative did occur and this one man's actions, although entirely self serving on behalf of Spain, may well have tipped the balance of World War II in favor of the allies."
http://hitlerstoppedbyfranco.com/franco_hitler.htm
Despite the smiles in this picture, Franco's relationship with Hitler was anything but cordial. Hitler Stopped by Franco shatters the myth that the two men were friends and allies, and is backed up at every turn by historical records. The following is a comment by the great Spanish scholar, Stanley G. Payne, Hilldale-Jaume Vicens Vives Professor of History, University of Wisconsin-Madison.
"[Franco], just out of the Spanish Civil War, had no intention of entering another, greater war on either side, and... by setting an unreachable price for Hitler to pay for his cooperation with the Caudillo was "buying peace with words," tightrope walking between two swords, hoping for the entire conflict to go away without any involvement. Despite the Civil War debt to Hitler, Franco resisted the Führer's threats and cajolery and did not permit the Wehrmacht to enter Spain, carry out Hitler's plan to close the Mediterranean to British shipping and consequently force the end of World War II in 1940 before the United States could be ready to enter. The real events depicted in this narrative did occur and this one man's actions, although entirely self serving on behalf of Spain, may well have tipped the balance of World War II in favor of the allies."
http://hitlerstoppedbyfranco.com/franco_hitler.htm
The Constitutional legality of the Republic was overthrown in 1934 by the Socialist and the Communist Party, which called a civil war aimed to imposse Stalinism in Spain.
I recommend you start by reading the "Homage to Catalonia", by George Orwell, and the works on Stalin and Spain by the American historian Stanley G. Payne.
"First, Franco wasn't a "fascist"; he was a conservative monarchist who understood that Spain wouldn't be able to be governed by an aristocrat who hadn't been steeled by the war."
Franco was a monarchist indeed.
" His grooming of Juan Carlos is evidence of that."
Juan Carlos means the restauration of monarchy, which has been in existence in Spain since the 5th century, but for eleven months in the 19th century (First Republic, started in 1868) and the Second Republic (started in 1931).
" Franco wasn't above using the Falange once he'd cut it off at the knees and was no longer a threat to the reactionary regime forced together by the military and the Church"
It was not only the Phalange and a part of the army who joined him, but he had many civilian supporters, not belonging to any party. The reason for this was that the "Democrats" were carrying out a slaughter, even of Communists and Anarchists.
As for the Church, hey were one of the main targets: according to historians, those "Democrats" carried out the biggest persecution of Christians after Dioclecianus.
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