Dead Lefts / Prize Draw and Survey / Name Sale

Dead Lefts

A few times I’ve been in a situation where I’ve needed to nominate a charity - when I’ve had a wager against someone, or when its been insisted that I make a donation as a forfeit. Saying I’d send some money to some INLA prisoners wouldn’t have washed.

I go with the usual Marxist criticism of charity - radical surgery is needed, not a band aid - but, when forced, I’ve generally plumped for the Red Cross as being the charity I’d support.

The idea of the Red Cross, standing above the fray and administering to both combatants, always sounded good. The memory of Lesley Judd explaining all about the organisation long ago, on Blue Peter, still lingers.

Of course, the Red Cross having such an aim shows they have a utopian streak. But I hadn't previously realised that they are incompetent as well.

World War II records

The Red Cross Tracing Service is the place to go to try and find out about someone who disappeared in the time of war. Only the Service can take years to answer queries for information about what they know about the 17.5 million people held in concentration and slave labour camps in Word War II.

There is a joint government commission involved with the handling of the artefacts from these camps - but this body appears to be even worse. The media have reported about its Bad Arolsen, Germany archive and the continuing refusal by the governments to authorise the release of all information and items from the camps.

A lot of these records, personal effects and the like, from the camps are stored in Bad Arolsen - across 16 miles of shelving. Journalists have recently been given access to this store. As well as some poignant relics - a shattered set of false teeth or a smashed pair of glasses - there’s also a collection of some of the camp records.

One of these camp records has been mentioned a lot in the coverage. It’s from the Mauthausen camp in Austria. Its a list describing how 300 prisoners were executed on 20 April 1942. The report apparently goes something like this - 214th prisoner shot in the neck at 12.02, 20 April 1942; 215th prisoner shot in the neck at 12.04 20 April 1942; 216th prisoner, shot in the neck, etc. There’s something quite revealing about the vicious, yet moronic, dolts who write out such a report on their killing fervour rather than just simply stating: 300 prisoners, shot in the neck, 10.00-13.00 20 April 1942.

The dead

These criticisms in the media have included reports, such as from CBS, who said ‘As the Holocaust generation dwindled, pressure has been growing for nearly a decade to open the archive, but was thwarted by irreconcilable divisions over the conditions to ease access.’ In the Guardian, the comments given in criticism of the lassitude are from the Director of the Centre of Advanced Holocaust Studies in Washington. The Guardian goes on to say, ‘others say it is urgent that the archive is opened because the last generation of Holocaust survivors are now in their twilight years.’

And they're all right to say this. But you would get every impression from reading the coverage that all these events - those relics, those echoes of lost lives and those shot in the neck - were Jewish victims of the Nazis.

Six million Jews were killed by the Nazis. And so were many others. There’s a figure calculated for the others exterminated by the Third Reich. It’s also six million.

The inhabitants of the Mauthausen camp were originally ‘Incorrigible Political Enemies of the Reich.’ The earliest inmates of the camp are listed as being socialists, communists, anarchists, homosexuals, and Roma, Bible Students, (a predecessor group to the Jehovah's Witnesses) and Jehovah's Witnesses. Then later Poles and Spanish Republicans were sent there. Then Soviet POWs. And, from 1944, Jews. A bit deeper research discovers that those shot on 20 April 1942 were most probably Soviet POWs (which could, of course, include Jews).

Jehovah’s Witnesses

I'll just pick on one of those lesser known groups, who were imprisoned, to write about.

Jehovah’s Witnesses, imprisoned in concentration camps, were offered a form to sign that stated that they renounced their beliefs. If they added their signature to this document, they were released. Top Nazis visited the camps asking them to sign. Most Jehovah’s Witnesses refused.

The number of Jehovah's Witnesses who died in concentration camps and prisons during the Nazi era is estimated at 1,000 Germans and 400 from other countries. In addition, about 250 German Jehovah's Witnesses were executed - mostly after being tried and convicted by military tribunals - for refusing to serve in the German armed forces.

It takes a particular fortitude to take such a stand. It’s not a million miles from walking the streets and having a hundred doors shut in your face. I commend them for their steadfastness.

Forgotten dead?

It'd be inaccurate to say the knowledge that the Nazis systematically murdered gays, socialists, communists, people with disabilities, etc., as well as undertaking the Holocaust, is almost unknown. But certainly the destruction of six million Jews receives far greater coverage.

And of course, not a few of those six million murdered Jews would also have been communists. They would have been killed wearing a red triangle. I bet there’s quite a few communists, of Jewish origin, who may have found themselves bemused to be commemorated in death as a victim of the Holocaust, and in Israel - when in fact, in life, they would have insisted (like Trotsky) on describing themselves as communist, atheist and anti-Zionist.

(Of course, there's also revolutionary socialists from a Jewish background who would describe themselves as communists AND Jews).

So whilst Pastor Niemöller is known for his statement - "First they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out because I was not a Jew. Then they came for ...' the memory of what he said has sometimes been lost.

The original statement went on to list communists, social democrats, and trade unionists. When Time magazine used the quotation, they dropped both the communists and the social democrats. American Vice-President Al Gore dropped both of these - and the trade unionists. The US Holocaust Museum drops the communists but not the social democrats. And some later versions of the text have added Roman Catholics and homosexuals.

Present day

In today’s world, a few Balkan bigots get taken to the Netherlands and slung in jail for their murders, rapes and more. The utter depravity of Serbian fascists taunting Muslim civilians they were about to murder for sectarian reasons has now recently put some of them in jail - albeit just five years for one guy. It’s also good to see - slowly, and doubtless missing many - proceedings being brought against those who undertook the Rwandan Genocide.

No justice

But there’s one group for whom no-one gets helicoptered to the Hague. They are those who rub out resistance fighters, liquidate Leftist revolutionaries, garrot guerrillas and kill communists.

I was reading recently about the child of a Chilean communist party leader. She last saw her father in 1977. Thirty years later she finally got to hear what happened to him. Her murderer told how he put a plastic bag over his head, injected cyanide into his veins and then dumped his body, weighed down with a railway sleeper into the Pacific from an army helicopter. At least she got to hear about the outcome.

Between 1978-1992, Major Roberto D'Aubuisson was a central figure behind the death squads killing Leftist rebels and non political civilians during the Civil War in El Salvador. D'Aubuisson was described as a ‘pathological killer’ - by a former US Ambassador to that country.

There’s little question of daughters getting to hear about what happened to their fathers at the hands of D'Aubuisson’s men. Because often they rest alongside their infants, their siblings, their partners, their parents and the whole of the rest of the village in the same mass grave where the death squad dumped them. D'Aubuisson was never prosecuted.

The overthrow of the Sukarno regime in Indonesia by Suharto in 1965 saw the murder of an estimated - 300,000 or 500,000 or 1,000,000 - Leftists or Left supporters, principally from the Indonesian Communist Party. Suharto went on to rule Indonesia as its dictator for decades. He’s listed by the anti-corruption body, Transparency international, as embezzling more money than anyone else in World History - US $15-35 billion. (That must be one hell of a tough competition to win.). He's never going to be prosecuted.

Legacy

I quite like what I saw of the film Schindler’s List about the Holocaust. It’s one of those films of which I’ve only seen excerpts; I will sit down and watch it all, one day. My favourite Holocaust film is probably The Pianist. Adrien Brody plays his role well. There are others, such as ‘Life is Beautiful’ (supposedly named from one of Trotsky’s last statements) with the distinctive Roberto Benigni. There's many more and they will help keep the Holocaust known culturally for a long time.

I can think of one film relating to the massacre of the Indonesian Lefts. It’s called ‘The Year of Living Dangerously' and ‘stars’ Mel Gibson.

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Prize Draw and Survey

The answers have trickled in from the curt to the courteous; the responses have been from every continent (well, except Antarctica) and many conurbations.

The Southpawpunch Prize Draw and Survey rolls on.

You’re here reading this. Wouldn’t you like it to be an even better read?

So let me know what you like and dislike - and more - about the site. Fill in the Survey. Enter the Prize Draw.

It’ll take you less than five minutes and you can enter the Prize Draw to possibly win a £20 (or local currency equivalent) Amazon token.

I’m sure you'll want to use this to buy Engel’s Anti-Dühring or similar, if you should win.

So go on. Click here.

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The Wheel - name sale

I revealed, last week, about my role as the last remaining person with the authority to name Left groups. I do this through my possession of the Wheel - it’s a naming system, that with a flick of the wrist of its Bakelite discs assigns your group an official Left name.

I also reported about how I usually negotiate about the name, and its price, with your party’s franchise owner or other central committee members. But in change of policy, and in the interests of transparency, I’ve decided to instigate a new system of direct sales to the spear carriers, as well as to the leading men.

Buy Now

Have you ever wanted to split away from your party?

Do you need your profile boosted through a snappier acronym for your group?

Are you more 'Leninist Marxist' than 'Communist Workers'?

Contact me to discuss how I can help.

For Sale

‘Revolutionary Communist Party’ (condition - used, very soiled condition) £10,000.

‘Socialist Labour League’ (condition - parts need replacing due to frantic overuse and long term storage) £4000.

‘Fourth International’ (worldwide rights) (condition - currently occupied by squatter but case pending in the court of historical materialism) £2.

‘International Socialists’ (one previous owner, genuine reason for sale due to emigration from those politics) (UK and Iran). £6500.

‘Big Flame’ (condition - some fire damage, special ‘heritage’ brand, suitable for retiring baby boomers, comes with Afghan and selection of tie-dye shirts). £79.

‘Militant’ (condition - golden opportunity to revive a brand but no warranty implied over rights to copyright of name.) £5000.

‘International Marxist Group’ (sale due to retirement of aging owners) £199.

Buy One, Get One Free

I'm pleased to be able to offer a limited time BOGOF deal on some less well-used brands.

Prepare for the inevitable parting of the ways. Buy two versions of your name and then sell the other name (at a healthy premium) to future splitters.

Or hold onto all the derivations of your name - to prevent those who abandon the class struggle (those you kick out for not grasping the detail of your united front twist and turns) misleading the vanguard.

A three-word name has 3x2x1 = 6 derivations. Buy them all for just 4 times the price of a single!

Advance Notice

To be released, 2008!

The ‘6th International’ - make you reservation now! £2.99 with £5 discount off the cover price of next Harry Potter book.