And what other sort of weird reactionary peeps have you read just because you were curious about what they had to say?
I read Bordiga’s “Dialogue with Stalin” and his lack of understanding regarding how commodity production can still exist under socialism is really hurting my head.
I’ve read Bordiga’s Report on Fascism and Auschwitz or the Grand Alibi, I thought they were bangers.
I’ve also read his Dialogue with Stalin and I remember thinking it was disingenuous. Bordiga does indeed have some good writings, but by and large I do believe he is a dogmatist and even more so a commandist. I have no interested in reading Mattick, Pannekoek, or any of the Dutch-German Leftcoms, but nevertheless I am always open to reading recommendations.
What do you think of the criticism of Bordiga in the second link? And what do you mean by “banger” (do you support what Bordiga is saying?)?
By that I mean I remember liking both writings, though admittedly its been a long time since I’ve read either (especially the latter), and perhaps I’d be able to see the issues with them now that I have a more firm grasp of theory.
I take back what I said about the latter being a banger, I have re-read the Grand Alibi, and though initially I liked it because it gave a materialist analysis of the holocaust, I now see that it’s overly mechanistic and practically ignores the superstructure. That being said, the critique from Mitchell Abidor leaves much to offer, what does this critic propose instead as the material basis for the holocaust and German anti-semitism?
You can have a materialist analysis of the Holocaust and criticize the denial of the connection of between fascism and capitalism without calling the Jews ‘petty-bourgeois’ (you do not call a group of people petty-bourgeois without evidence) and placing a strange amount of blame on outside factors for the Holocaust (they frame outside countries being at fault for not taking in Jews rather than the Nazis expelling Jews).
More educated people here can explain the Holocaust and German anti-Semitism in a detailed manner, but whoever wrote the article about German anti-Semitism is in the wrong (it honestly seems like material that can be used for Holocaust denial at worst, and at best is a horrible misunderstanding of the Nazis as “not being as bad as they seemed”).
Umm … ok, the libcom article has a frankly placid definition of imperialism (“Capitalist imperialism is above all hegemony on the world market”? What…?), and that writing from Bordiga (if it really did come from Bordiga) is frankly awful.
What is your problem with “Auschwitz, or the Great Alibi”?
I had a problem with Bordiga’s section, not the one criticizing Bordiga.
