In Search of the People (Part II)

(Part I)

The problem for classical Marxists was that workers in the West proved not to be particularly revolutionary at all. They were easily bought off with modest progressive reforms such as shorter hours and better working conditions. They did not suffer alienation in the sense that the very idea of being under the authority of a capitalist did not bother them as long as that capitalist could provide them with ever greater prosperity.

One solution to this problem was Fascism. While we tend to think of Fascism as a right-wing movement, it is important to keep in mind that Mussolini started as a socialist. He then made the perfectly reasonable assumption that he could make socialism palatable in a country like Italy by embracing nationalism and using it to show that the Italian people, as Italians, really did have a revolutionary consciousness. This then led to the acceptance of the Catholic Church as part of the consciousness of the Italian People and even of the bourgeoise, who willingly embraced state control once it was made clear to them that, as Italians, they were not being placed as the villains and their property was not going to be expropriated. (It should be noted that the early Mussolini was not particularly anti-Semitic. Jews had been Italians since the Roman Empire so they were welcomed into the Fascist Party.) From this perspective, it should come as no surprise that Mousellini maintained a high degree of acceptability within leftist circles during his early years. He offered a plausible model for achieving socialist aims by avoiding conflict with the right.  

Marxism's only success in the early twentieth century was Russia, a country that was still transitioning out of an absolute monarchy and still trying to figure out the Industrial Revolution. On top of this, the Czar had managed to bring the entire country to ruin through his disastrous involvement in World War I. So the Bolsheviks managed to seize power by promising basic land reforms to improve the lot of citizens. In the 1920s, it was still plausible to imagine that Marxism would allow the Soviet Union to leapfrog the West and give workers more of the cars and electric appliances that Western workers were beginning to take for granted.

The problem for the Soviet Union was that it was unable to deliver on these economic promises. Furthermore, even trying to outproduce the West in consumer goods would betray the revolution. A worker with a truly revolutionary consciousness would rather labor under the worst horrors of the nineteenth-century factory system as long as it was an agent of the party who was his boss than to enjoy the blessings of Western capitalism if it meant being subjected to a capitalist boss. As such, one had to conclude that the vast majority of Soviet citizens were counterrevolutionaries. Even the seemingly loyal Soviet citizens who honestly believed that the Communist Party could deliver the full abundance of consumer goods had already betrayed the revolution in their hearts. They demonstrated that they did not believe in Communism as a matter of principle. If tomorrow they could be convinced that capitalism could offer more benefits, they would gladly betray the revolution and replace it with capitalism. (Note that this is what essentially happened to the Soviet Union in 1991.)   

This Soviet dilemma explains the Stalinist terror of the 1930s. The attempt to collectivize farms was a failure and led to the deaths of millions, mainly in Ukraine. If you are a good Communist, the explanation for this was that the Ukrainian Kulaks were greedy and sabotaged the plan so they deserved to die. Furthermore, now that we have established that the move toward actual socialism cannot happen unless the population truly develops a socialist consciousness, something most of them lack, the only solution is to declare war on the non-socialist masses in the name of the People. It should be emphasized that, under Stalin, to be guilty of treason, did not require malicious intent. Everyone, particularly those born before 1917, was, by definition, a traitor in spirit. How could it be otherwise if you were born into a capitalist world and instinctually thought in terms of personal benefit? The mark of a traitor was, upon being accused of treason, to deny guilt. Such a person demonstrated that they lacked the proper socialist mindset and still thought in terms of individual actions instead of accepting that they cannot be anything but guilty. The mark of a true socialist believer was to confess and accept any punishment in the hope that this will lead the next generation to develop the necessary socialist consciousness.

Mid and late twentieth-century leftist revolutionaries faced a dilemma. As knowledge of Stalinist atrocities became more widespread, it became harder to openly defend the Soviet Union as any kind of ideal. (This was distinct from taking money from the Soviet Union and working for Soviet interests during the Cold War.) At the same time, Western economic successes made it less likely that urban workers would be willing to risk their unions, pension plans, and welfare benefits on some revolution. As such, leftist revolutionary thought developed along two streams that looked to different groups of discontented individuals to serve as revolutionary classes. These were third-world peasants and members of minority groups in the West.

While classical Marxism had rejected the peasant as a revolutionary class, in the twentieth century they came to be reevaluated. Peasants had the advantage of never being seduced by a capitalist consciousness of individual striving and still maintained a group ethos. Furthermore, while peasants maintained traditional beliefs, outside of Europe and the United States, these were not Orthodox Christian beliefs. Even in Latin America, the Christianity on the ground could assumed to be far enough from Orthodox Christianity that such beliefs could be held up as manifestations of a revolutionary consciousness.

Much as religion suddenly became acceptable when taken out of its Western context, so did nationalism. For example, the nationalism of the North Vietnamese was acceptable as it manifested itself as opposition to imperial powers such as the French and later the Americans. As such, the North Vietnamese demonstrated a revolutionary consciousness and could be counted as a manifestation of the People. Obviously, nationalist movements that were not hostile to the West such as in Poland or Zionism remained illegitimate. Their existence demonstrated that Poles and Israelis lacked a revolutionary consciousness and did not count as part of the People.   

This embrace of nationalism and even religion, despite the fact that these were the things that were supposed to mark someone as a Fascist, eventually led Western leftists to embrace the Arab cause. This started by accepting Arab nationalists such as Nassar but then eventually came to include Islamic fundamentalists such as Khomeini in Iran. From this perspective, the Palestinians became the ultimate “oppressed people.” They combined Arab nationalism with Islam and struggled against Western "Imperialism" by opposing the State of Israel. The destruction and its replacement with Palestine would be the elimination of the Jewish false consciousness of itself as a people and allow for the manifestation of the true Peoplehood of the Palestinians.  

The Government Inspector: An Apology for a Liberal Reforming Authoritarian Czar

When I was little, one of my favorite movies was The Inspector General, starring Danny Kaye. This work is based on a nineteenth-century Russian play, The Government Inspector, by Nikolai Gogol in which the corrupt officials of a town mistake a con-man for the feared secret inspector sent by the Czar to investigate corruption in the land. I loved Kaye's singing dancing and slapstick humor, but it was only as an adult that I could appreciate the work as political satire with its running gags on nepotism and bribery.

Readers may find it ironic, but despite the play's lampooning of government, it managed to be produced in Czarist Russia with the open support of Nicholas I. This support makes sense if you consider that the off-screen hero of the story is none other than the Czar himself, who fights against the corruption of petty local politicians. The message of the story for nineteenth-century Russians was that the traditional local patronage-based system of government with its roots in the Boyar aristocracy was innately corrupt and it needed to be replaced with a strong national state under the control of the Czar. The Czar's chief virtue was that he was above politics and therefore beyond the corruption rampant with petty officials. In order to accomplish his task of creating a just Russia, the Czar must be above the law, with the power to arrest and execute people as he saw fit.

Considering the history of twentieth-century totalitarianism, in which strong centralized authoritarian regimes went far beyond the sins of petty corruption into the realm of mass murder, I find this brand of liberalism both ironic and frightening. One can see Gogol as exemplifying a failure within the larger Russian intelligentsia (Leo Tolstoy being a prominent exception) that has haunted Russia for the past two centuries. In the absence of the strong individualist and rule of law traditions found in the Anglo-American tradition even reformers were trapped into simply choosing between various kinds of authoritarianism. One could hope to reform the Russian state along the lines of Prussia, with its combination of professional bureaucracy and authoritarian monarchy, one might choose to reform under the radically conservative lines of the Russian Orthodox Church or one might choose revolution under one of the various socialist and anarchist banners.

Yesterday I went with Miriam to a production of an adaptation of The Government Inspector in Pasadena starring Star Trek alums John Billingsley and Alan Brooks. While wonderfully done and worth seeing, I was struck by the fact that the adaptation, instead of confronting head-on Gogol's apology for authoritarian rule, simply updated it to suit modern liberal sensibilities. The mayor and his cronies are straw-men Republicans, who talk about the need for deregulation as a means for granting favors to their friends in big business and how wonderful it is to have an economic recession to keep wages low. There is even a character modeled after Sarah Palin, both in her looks and her mixture of Christian conservatism and individualistic populism. Needless to say, the character is a religious hypocrite and a complete idiot. Not that I have anything against creating straw-men, it is a necessary feature of satire. That being said, such an attitude sets the stage for its own liberal version of Gogol’s reforming Czar.  

If Gogol's off-screen hero was the Czar then this production's off-screen villain is big business. In both cases, the lesson is not that there is something innately corrupting about politics, but that specific politicians are incidentally corrupt. The solution is more government, whether a stronger Czar or more government regulations. That this increased government will have the same flaws as the government it is reforming and that its lack of any tie to formal law or tradition, powerful checks on abuse, will make things worse is never considered. On the contrary, being above the law is deemed a virtue in that it will somehow place government outside of politics. In truth it is only by embracing law can we hope to transcend politics and fight its innate corruption.   

Religious Narrative: Medieval Catholicism, Communism and Islam

One of the surprises of the modern world has been the continued persistence of organized religion. Despite several centuries of Enlightenment criticism, religion remains a powerful force within society. Certainly, within the United States, the vast majority of the population subscribes at least formally to some religion. I would argue that much of this is the result of the inability of secularism to present overarching narratives. Make whatever criticism you want about religions, they tend to be quite good at formulating narratives that allow people to make sense of their lives and all the various parts of their universe. This is important not just for regular people living their social lives, but for intellectuals and in a sense especially for them; it is the people who live in the realm of ideas who need things to click together in a larger whole.

I will start by giving an example from what may be the most intellectually successful religious narrative in history, medieval Catholicism. Take the view of a Catholic living in say 1491; he benefited from living in a world that made sense in ways that we can hardly relate to. In this medieval world, we have Aristotle to explain the natural world. This Aristotelian universe, with its prime mover and essences and accidents, fits neatly with Church teaching, solving the conflict between faith and reason. This system also has political implications. We are in a hierarchical universe were everything from plants, animals and people up to the planets, angels and God have their place in a natural order. Therefore it is only reasonable that human affairs should mirror this reality with a king, nobles, the Church, peasants, men and women each having their place. How does one explain and give meaning to suffering, whether the threat of Islam, schisms in the Church, war, political chaos or simply having to bury a wife and child? Mankind fell to Original Sin, giving Satan power over the Earth. That being said, there is reason to hope; Christ died for our sins so we can go to heaven. If the world looks like it is falling apart we can still look forward to the imminent coming of the apocalypse and the final judgment.

Say what you want about this medieval Catholicism; call it unscientific, anti-democracy, sexist and anti-Semitic. Yes, over the next few centuries, this worldview was rocked by numerous intellectual, and political shifts so that, even if there are still Catholics today, that particular creature the medieval Catholic is now extinct. All this may be true, but medieval Catholicism was an internally consistent system and fit well into the known facts of the world at that time. I would add that this system also proved quite attractive to Jews, particularly those in Spain. (Here is a dirty little secret about pre-modern Judaism. The majority of people who left did so freely out of a desire to assimilate and not due to force or persecution.)   

In the history of modern secularism, there has been only one movement to produce a narrative that could compete with organized religion and that was Communism. Try to look at the world, this time from the perspective of a Russian Jew in 1891. Traditional Judaism does not have much to offer, but to be poor, get killed in a pogrom and wait for the Messiah. Now here is Communism. It may not offer a personal God and an afterlife, but instead, it offers the forces of history to guide us and promise us a better world. Faith versus reason? Science has refuted religion, but Communism is the logical extension of evolution applied to human affairs. How should we order our political and social systems? Communism replaces superstition and religious dogma with scientific rationalism, allowing us to create a just system where everyone is equal. How do you explain and offer meaning to human suffering? The problems of this world are the products by the class oppression by the aristocracy and bourgeois. This, though, simply serves to highlight the iniquities of the present systems and hasten the imminent coming of the people's revolution which will create a paradise on Earth in which everyone will work together for the common good and there will be no prejudice nor anti-Semitism.

Again, one can make all sorts of intellectual arguments against this Communist worldview. Ultimately it was undone by the Soviet Union itself, whose blood-soaked history is a better refutation of Communism than anything else. This should not obscure the power of the Communist narrative in its time. Say what you want about Karl Marx, but he has to be viewed as one of the greatest thinkers of all time simply in terms of his ability to craft a system of thought that allows you to discuss not just politics, but history, art and science as one coherent whole. We in the United States fail to appreciate the Communist appeal largely because it failed to ever gain much traction here, but the Communists nearly did win. Forget about the Cold War. After World War I and in the wake the Russian Revolution Communists, without question, had both the intellectual and moral high ground. With that, they nearly took the entire European continent without a single shot being fired. As for Jews, they walked away from traditional Judaism in mass to follow this Communist dream. (See Clarissa for a further discussion about the religious dimensions of Communism.)

Where does this leave our modern world? Try seeing things from the view of an Arab in 1991. Communism, which was a tremendous secularizing force in the Arab, has come crashing down with the fall of the Soviet Union so now what? Well, there is Islam, not the watered down variety, but a "purified" form from its original source in Saudi Arabia. What is wrong with the world and how do we fix it? The West has dominated us politically, first through direct imperialism and later through the dictators they support and corrupted us culturally through secularism. Only Islam can unite the Arab peoples so they can take back what is rightfully theirs. As for science, we Arabs invented science before it was stolen from us by the West.

This narrative may lack the comprehensive elegance of either medieval Catholicism or nineteenth century Communism but, for those with no better narrative options, this will likely do. I cannot say that fundamentalist Islam will likely prove a spiritual threat to Judaism but, as a physical threat, it certainly is a match to either of the other narratives.        

An Acknowledgement Page That Tells Us Something of the Time in Which it was Written

Robert K. Massie ends his biography of Peter the Great with an acknowledgement page of historical interest in of itself. Peter the Great: His Life and World was published in 1980 so it is a product of the 1970s Cold War. Massie offers his thanks to his friends and collaborators in the Soviet Union:

In writing this book, I made many trips to the Soviet Union. In museums, libraries and at historical sites, I was always made to feel welcome. This was particularly true in Leningrad when people learned that my subject was the founder of their beloved city. For reasons that would seem exaggerated to most Western readers, but that Soviet citizens will abundantly understand, I prefer not to give the names of those who helped me. They know who they are and I thank them.
I ask my readers to try to comprehend what it meant for it to be dangerous enough for a Soviet citizen to help a Westerner write a book about Czarist Russia that one could not risk being openly acknowledged. Keep in mind that this was the “liberal” Soviet Union of Détente, when the Soviet Union finally became open to Western scholarship.

How Theocratic Rulers Can Sometimes Help the Cause of Freedom

Robert K. Massie, in his biography of Peter the Great of Russia, notes about the Hapsburg emperors of the late seventeenth and early eighteenth century were far more interested in being good Catholics and pleasing God then running their kingdom:

At heart, Leopold [I] and after him his two sons, the Emperors Joseph I and Charles VI, did not believe that a chaotic administration was a fundamental defect. The three of them, over almost a century, shared the view that the administration of government was a minor matter, infinitely less important not only for their own souls but for the future of the Hapsburg House than belief in God and support of the Catholic Church. If God was satisfied with them, He would ensure that the House continued and prospered. This, then, was the basis of their political theory and their practice of government. (Peter the Great: His Life and World pg. 222.)

This is not the usual model we associate with this period. This is the age of absolute monarchy and of Louis XIV, where monarchs at the head of centralized States, backed by formal bureaucracies, gained power at the expense of traditional aristocracies. In truth, the Hapsburgs were undergoing the truly critical political evolution of the period, the empowerment of middle-class bureaucrats, just like the rest of Europe. What particularly interests me here is the extent that this does goes contrary to the Whig model where religious piety is supposed to lead to increased autocratic behavior. The monarch rules by grace of God and is not answerable to any mortal being. Limits on monarchial political power are not only bad policy but in fact heresy. In this particular case, the theocratic view of monarchy led to less autocratic views of power. There is something to be said for having a pious king to pray on behalf of the country and leave the running of it to others.

Mother Russia and its Jews Quiz

What happened to Poland at the end of the eighteenth century and how did this affect Jews? (3 pts.)


How and why did Russian attitudes towards Jews differ from those found within western Christianity? (3 pts.)

How did the Russian government propose to deal with its Jewish problem? (Either give several examples or one in great detail) (4 pts.)


Bonus: Where is the city of Odessa located and why is it relevant to its role in the Russian Haskalah? (2 pts.)

1. Poland is divided up in a series of three partitions at the hands of Russia, Prussia and Austria, culminating in 1795 with the elimination of Poland. This resulted in Russia, completely by accident, finding itself as the host of the world's largest Jewish population, something they never intended nor desired.
   
2. Russia, as part of the Eastern Orthodox Church, did not have St. Augustine, the Latin church father par excellence, as part of their theological canon. This means no witness doctrine. As such Russia never had any reason to tolerate Jews to begin with. They never desired Jews nor did they ever invite Jews in. The Western Catholic Church could produce a Bernard of Clairvaux, who could preach a Crusade against Muslims while actively protecting Jews. Russian Orthodoxy, with the rare exception of a Leo Tolstoy, never produced any tradition of philo-Semitism at all.
   
3. The Russian government created the Pale Settlement, essentially saying that Jews could live where they were already, but nowhere else. Even in the Pale Settlement there were limits as to where Jews could live. Czar Nicholas I created the Cantonist decrees, probably one of the most fiendishly clever devices to destroy Jewish life. Jews were to now be subject to the Russian draft instead of paying a tax. (The Russian draft was for twenty-five years. Imagine what the Vietnam War protests would have been like if we were drafting people for twenty-five years.) All groups in Russia could be drafted. Jews though were subject to a special "pre-draft" to get children ready for actual service. Thus the Russian government started grabbing children twelve and even younger to train them for service when they turned eighteen. The Jewish community itself would have to decide which kids went, ensuring that the establishment would protect their own children at the expense of those less fortunate, thus undermining the Jewish community. 

Bonus: Odessa is a port city in the South of Russia on the Black Sea. Contrary to the usual stereotype of Russia as being cold and insular, Odessa is warm and quite cosmopolitan. It is not a coincidence therefore that Odessa would become a major center for the Russian Haskalah (Jewish Enlightenment).
One student wrote: "Claire was relevant because she is a main figure in the 'superhero' Enlightenment. Without her, there would be no cheerleader to save and furthermore, no world." Claire Bennett, from the show Heroes, comes from Odessa, TX. This was actually from a good student who was kind enough to indulge my sense of humor. I am a fan of the show, but still no bonus points though, just a smiley face.

Howard Sachar – Current Israeli Myths and Realities: the Way to Peace

I was privileged to attend the closing of the DCJCC's Jewish literary festival to hear Dr. Howard Sachar speak. Here are my notes of the event and my comments. As usual, all mistakes are mine.

Before I was a historian I was prevailed upon not to be an academician, but to go to law school like a good Jewish boy. This lasted for about six weeks. I took several exams, but ended up the subject of a parody by a professor as to how not to take an exam.
Real Zionism is not just about funding lectures but in a willingness to allow one's children to go live there. Part of the challenge of living in Israel is the willingness to accept is that it is not perfect. The Orthodox are a heavy millstone around the neck of Israel. That being said, it should be noted that the first people to return to Israel were not the Zionists but Ultra-Orthodox messianists. We have the example of the followers of Rabbi Yehudah Ha-Hasid. (It should be noted that he was a Sabbatian so not exactly what you or I would consider Orthodox. Far better examples would be that of the Hasidim and followers of the Vilna Gaon who traveled to Palestine in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.) They traveled by mules and wagons to a desert land. They were not productive. They suffered and lost hundreds of people every year to cholera. They were the "sleeping settlement." My grandmother was one of three out of eleven children in a family to grow up to adulthood. That was the culture in which she grew up in.
Haskalah, Jewish humanism, under the influence of European nationalism, would lead to further migration to Palestine, for better or for worse. These points were made at a center of a recent conference to argue for the legitimacy of Jews living in Palestine. This is not the whole truth. By World War I there were only 80,000 Jews in Palestine and over fifty thousand of them were these Orthodox messianists. As late as 1917, the majority of Jews in Russia were members of the Bund. Why did they not come to Palestine? Most Jews who left Russia went to America. More Jews went to racist South Africa than Palestine. What changed was something eccentric and tragic. The eccentric was the Balfour Declaration of November 2, 1917, which proved to provide a compelling increase. This was brought about by British self interest. That year was the worst for the Allies. The French army mutinied. The Italians nearly collapsed. Russia was tottering. It was important that America be brought in. Lloyd George believed that Jewish opinion could be rallied in the United States and Russia. No need to go into the tragic part. The new countries, fashioned in the wake of World War I, saw their Jewish minority as a threat to their new found freedom. This prefigured the anti-Semitism of Nazi Germany. Those Jews who survived the Holocaust were left homeless. No western country wanted to take them in so an alternative had to be given. Russia and France wanted to expel Britain from the Middle East. Truman did not want too many Jews in New York. This took the Zionists by surprise. They were content asking for 100,000 DPs.
Israel once again has to face how it will protect itself. They are in the dilemma of being a small state. Seven years ago Colin Powel said it was no interested in forcing a peace. More recently Secretary Clinton said she wished to encourage both sides to reach an agreement. If this is the case than we are at an impasse. No small state has managed to negotiate boundaries by itself without the interference of a great power. This goes for the Treaty of Westphalia and the Treaty of Paris. Do great powers have the celestial right to enforce their vision on to others? At the Paris conference many of the new countries protested and the borders they were being given. Lloyd George commented that had it not been for the battlefield casualties suffered by the major allied powers this whole issue would be mute. He also noted that their hatred threatened to suck Europe into another war.
I have given testimony on the matter before the Senate and have seen Israel activists, many in black kippot, and I knew that they would not be happy with what I am saying. It was the victorious allies that set forth the Arab mandates and created the State of Israel. Each Arab Israeli war threatens to expand into a larger conflict. Now there is the threat of weapons of mass destruction. There is a need for great powers today to not just serve as mediators but to actively enforce a solution, one that is supported by the silent majority of both sides. This conclusion was reached by Sharon when he pulled out. Ben-Gurion also understood this. After the sixty-seven war he said celebrate, take a few things needed for security, but from everything else we must pull out. We cannot put ourselves as an occupation. He was not listened to and we have seen the results. Fortunately Israel has pushed through and survived even with their bloated defense and settlement budgets. What is now needed is for the great powers to tell the Israelis and the Palestinians what is going to be the final decision about boundaries. This would allow the leaders on both sides to stand up to their own fanatics. Everyone will see that their hands are tied and that the leaders have no choice but to give in.


Despite the Orthodox bashing, I actually liked the speech and think that Dr. Sachar made some valuable points. I found it interesting that Dr. Sachar did not go into detail as to how a "great power," assumingly the United States, would force through some sort of decision. During the question and answer section I asked him how he would avoid turning his own argument into an apology for imperialism and how he would put such a policy into action without putting soldiers on the ground. He proceeded to give the examples of Northern Ireland, how they needed the threat of Great Britain to make peace, and the Czech Republic, how they allowed Slovakia to secede. While both of these things strengthen his original argument, he still completely ignored my question. I am willing to accept his argument, but the obvious implications are unsettling even for someone like me. Do we have no choice but to throw ourselves into another, Iraq, Afghanistan or a Lebanon? I suspect that the implications may be so unsettling for people of a more liberal disposition that they would simply block out the whole issue.

Fifteenth World Congress of Jewish Studies: What is Jewish (If Anything) in Isaiah Berlin’s Philosophy?

Dikla Sher – Isaiah Berlin vs. Hannah Arendt: Their Political Ideas through the Prism of their Jewish Identities

Isaiah Berlin and Hannah Arendt were very different thinkers. Berlin was quite open in his contempt for her. Much of their differences can be seen in their different experiences with totalitarianism and their criticism of Enlightenment. Berlin opposed the over-rationalism of the Enlightenment. The claim that human’s are the same everywhere and should have one reason. This comes from the Platonic ideal of one universal that applies everywhere. Such monism inevitably leads to totalitarianism. Arendt, coming from her personal experience with Nazi Germany, saw the failure of human rights as something beyond any government. Her criticism is political and not philosophical. For Arendt the most important right is to have rights. Such rights are based on societies and not, as Berlin argued, with individuals.
Berlin divided liberty into positive and negative liberty; he preferred negative liberty. True liberty requires examination, active decisions; to be free is to make an unforced choice. The attraction of totalitarianism is that it allows man to avoid action. Arendt distinguished freedom from liberty. True political freedom cannot be ownership but is part of man’s essence. To be free is to act. This action must take place in a shared public space.

Berlin acknowledged a value to nationalism in that it served the need for a common culture. Arendt’s community is not national; she opposed the nation state. In its place she supported a republican alternative. This is not the classic model of republicanism; Arendt went against Rousseau in that there, for her, is no giving up of individuality to the republican state. Instead one takes on an additional identity; thus making the individual life richer.

Neither Berlin nor Arendt believed that one had to be religious. They do not use Jewish sources. Their Jewish identities, though, were dominant. Berlin celebrated Jewish holidays as a way to identity with his community and heritage, which he wanted to continue. Arendt, writing to Scholem, said that she never felt that she had to identify herself as a Jew; being a Jew was a fact of life. Berlin was a strong supporter for Zionism from the beginning. Arendt saw the power of Zionism in terms of taking responsibility for Jewish problems. She turned against Zionism, though, when she found out that it would be a Jewish national state without cooperation with the Arabs. It was a forced solution after the social one had failed.


Joshua Laurence Cherniss – Judaism, Jewishness, and Liberalism in Isaiah Berlin’s Political Thought

There is a difference between Judaism and Jewishness. Judaism here can be taken to refer to a set of given beliefs. Jewishness is to be defined in terms of a culture that one is in dialogue with. In terms of Judaism there is not much there in Berlin. He did not use Jewish texts in his writing. Conditioned by his own views of Judaism as an intellectual position, he viewed Judaism as a series of claims that were outside of reason or ethics. A pivotal example of this is God commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son. Similar to Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Berlin saw this as a move against the ethical. For Berlin, to respect Judaism was to reject it.

Berlin was engaged in the situation of Jews in a post emancipation world. For Berlin this emancipation was a failure. This larger course of Jewish history comes from his experience with the Russian situation. There was more persecution, but Jewish life enjoyed a greater coherence and integrity. It was not surprising to Berlin that Zionism was more successful in Russia than in the West. Jews had a model in the Russian intelligentsia to imitate, which Berlin greatly admired this. Berlin also had his experience with British Jewry. They lacked persecution but suffered from a class conscious society. They were caught trying to fit into society that was not made for them, wearing clothes that did not fit. For Berlin liberty was a matter of choice. To be deprived of choice is to be denied the fundamental dignity of a human being. The tragedy of the Jew was that choices were not open to them.

(During the question and answer section there was some discussion of A. N. Wilson’s attack on Berlin as the “dictaphone don” in the Times Literary Supplement, which depicts Berlin in ways that were quite contrary to that of the panelists.)

History 112: World War II

1. The Soviet Union seems to be largely ignored and get away with all that they did during WWII in the end being one of the allies defeating Germany and keeping largely what they had won. Despite the fact that this led to the Cold War between the US and USSR, overall it seems as if the USSR got away with a lot because Germany was once again set as the major instigator of the conflicts. So, I guess the question is why that is?

Once the Soviet Union was attacked it became our good ally. Watch the Frank Capra films “Why We Fight World War II.” These were American propaganda films made for the army during the war. Soviet atrocities are completely ignored. Capra even ignores the existence of Ribbentrop-Molotov. You will hear nothing about how the Soviets were co-conspirators in this.


2. In the text it mentions a friendship pact between Hitler and Stalin. I was slightly confused by this section having never learned this throughout my schooling. So did USSR have concentration camps that they sent Polish people too? Did USSR invade countries also before the war started?

Yes the Soviet Union had concentration camps. They were called Gulags. Yes the Soviet Union engaged in genocidal activities to destroy the cultures of subjugated peoples like the Poles and the Ukrainians. The Soviet Union engaged in acts of aggression, just like the Nazis, against nations such as Poland, Lithuania, Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Romania. Unlike the Nazis, Soviet oppression did not end with 1945. It continued all the way up to the fall of the Berlin wall in 1989. The fact that your teacher did not see fit to pass this information on to you means that either you were not paying attention or that your teacher was some liberal with an ideological interest in ignoring Communist crimes. This is different from Nazi crimes which have the implicit lesson on the inherent evils of Fascism. Some people have a problem with unapologetically saying that Communism is an inherent evil.


3. American children learn about the atrocities of the Holocaust at an early age. Yet some may never learn about the genocide in the Ukraine we discussed last week. I was wondering if in other places, this is reversed. Do we learn more about the Holocaust because it was more terrible or because we have a large and powerful Jewish population? I find it bothersome that so many other instances of genocide, both past and current, remain largely unknown among the general American population. I'd like to know how you feel about this subject, especially since you are Jewish and you are more closely tied to these events than me.

“The Jewish lobby” plays a major role in putting the Holocaust front and center in American culture. I do not see anything sinister in this. There are many Jews in positions of cultural influence and they use it to their advantage. It helps if you can have Steven Spielberg to make movies for you. I am sure the Armenians and the Ukrainians would love to have him. That being said there is something special about the Holocaust. This was not a case of millions of people dying due to extreme government negligence nor is this a case of a breakdown in government order with armed soldiers or mobs going out of control and massacring people. The Holocaust happened because some very smart people in suits, ties and with college degrees sat down and planned it. They wished to annihilate a specific group of people and, armed with the full resources of a modern state, they pursued that goal with remarkable efficiency.


4. Davies said "The Poles thought that their task was to hold off the German advance for fifteen days until the French crossed the German frontier in the West; in fact, they faced the impossible task of holding off both the Wehrmacht and the Red Army on their own. The French launched no offensive; the British limited their assistance to dropping leaflets over Berlin," (1000-1001). Davies doesn't really go into any further detail about this, but has any other historian explored this? Was it another instance of miscommunication--as was seen in WWI with the telegraph system? Or can the British and French be partially blamed for the devastation that engulfed Poland? It seems like perhaps England and France's disregard for their Polish ally has been buried underneath their eventual victory. Why didn't they help Poland as the Polish were expecting?

Neither the British nor the French were prepared for any serious military action. This was one of the reasons why Hitler decided to make his move against Poland in September of 1939 instead of waiting. There was a French “invasion” which I am familiar with from reading William Shirer. He was an American correspondent, who worked in Germany into the war. He reports how the French made a big deal about their actions. He then went and talked to some of his contacts in the German army and find out in great detail how little the French were doing. Shirer would later go on to write the Rise and Fall of the Third Reich.


5. Wouldn't it have been obvious to the German's that turning against the Soviet Union was a bad idea? I mean, it caused them to be land locked between enemies on the East and West, plus the Soviet Union, from what we read, seemed to be a world power. Why didn't Germany try to formulate a peaceful position with the Soviet Union?

You have to keep in mind that Germany was at war with England and it was a reasonable assumption that the United States would eventually come into the war on the side of England. You have to admit that there is a certain logic to trying to take out the Soviet Union while the situation in the West was still relatively quiet. This plan almost succeeded; the Soviet army was almost completely annihilated in a matter of months. You would be hard pressed to find a country that ever suffered a military disaster like what the Soviet Union did. You are not going to find a country that ever managed to come back from such a disaster.


6. This questions isn't really about the reading but over the weekend I watched the movie "Valkyrie." I was just curious to know how historically accurate the movie is? Also I am curious to know if you think the plan to overthrow Hitler ever had a good chance of success?

I have not seen the movie so I will refrain from commenting on it. The case of Valkyrie is a good litmus test as to ones views on the power of individuals. Let us imagine that everything had gone according to plan and the bomb had eliminated Hitler. Now what? The German staff officers, who planned this, put a lot of thought into how to get Hitler and they planned that part well. It failed for reasons outside of their control. They made an utter mess out of trying to seize power in the hours after the bomb went off. That was the important part, not their ability to assassinate one man. I imagine that if Hitler had died in the blast then Goebbels, Himmler and Goering would have stepped in and the Third Reich would have continued.


7. Do you believe Germany planted spies within the French/British governments?

It is not a question if they did or did not. We know for a fact that the Nazis did. The British counter-intelligence services were quite effective, though, in capturing German spies and forcing them to pass on false intelligence.


8. How did Switzerland manage to maintain its neutrality during WW2?

The official reason, at the times, was that Switzerland possessed a well trained army and an advantageous defensive position. What we now know is that the Swiss government was actively cooperating with Hitler. They helped launder gold plundered by the Nazis, some of it even from the teeth of dead concentration camp inmates.

History 112: The Russian Revolution (Q&A)

In class today we did the Russian Revolution, going from Russia’s participation in World War I, the February and October revolutions, the Russian Civil War through the rise of Stalin. Like last quarter I assigned a section from John Scott’s Beyond the Urals. Scott was an American who worked in the Soviet Union during the 1930s.


1. In your opinion, do you think the revolution was brought about by Russia's involvement in WW1, or was it an inevitable occurrence?
2. Some of the readings suggested that the Russian government was already in anarchy before being overtaken by the Bolsheviks. What caused the anarchy other than the war?

The Czarist government had serious problems and World War I was a major crisis. All governments have their moments of crisis. Crises, though, have a way a bringing to light the depth or lack of which of any government. A more able government could have survived a crisis like World War I. As with the financial crisis in France which highlighted the failures of the Monarchy, World War I put the Czarist government in all of its disfunctionality on display and they did not survive.

3. For class today, I cannot help but remember how closed off I thought the Soviet Union was immediately after its revolution. How is it that this American worker was able to so easily get work and a visa into Russia at this time?
4. At which point did the Soviet Union become an enemy of the US?

The funny thing about the Soviet Union between the end of the Civil War and the start of World War II is the extent they remained in contact with the West. This is not the Cold War. At this point the Soviet Union still believed that it could win the ideological struggle with the West on economic grounds. Considering that the Great Depression was going on, this was not as implausible as it might seem. Post World War II America is an unchallengeable economic superpower. Also both sides are facing off with nuclear weapons. This makes for a far tenser situation. The post World War II Soviet Union is not a place where an American citizen would be very welcome.

5. Was this a common thing for young people to leave the US to find work in other countries?

I certainly would not view this as something common. It is a theme that shows up in a number of writers during this period. For example Ernest Hemmingway was this traveling American, doing different jobs in different countries. This formed the basis for many of his novels.

6. The whole Davies text is about the cruelties performed by Stalin. Why did the people of Russia and the politicians not over throw him if he was so crazy and killing millions of innocent people? Why was he ever allowed to get into that kind of power?

The question you have to ask yourself is who was supporting Stalin. Stalin by himself was just one man. He needed an entire bureaucratic apparatus to carry out his plans and kill millions of people for him. One of the things that I like so much about Scott is that he gives you a picture of Russian society where people are willing to go along with Stalinism because they believed that, despite the hardships, Stalin’s push to industrialism would benefit them.

7. Usually when learning about World War II you hear more about Hitler than you do Stalin, in terms of war crimes who was considered to be the worst?

I would respond by saying that it is not obvious to me that Hitler was worse. Stalin has benefited from a number of things. While most Americans see Nazi ideology as inherently evil, Communism manages to get away with at least having good intentions. People are therefore willing to “forgive” Communism for its crimes. Americans feel guilty over the persecution of Communists in this country. I guess you can say that Americans are lucky that they have never faced a homegrown Communist movement that posed a serious political threat. Jews have done an effective job at keeping the Holocaust in the public eye through Holocaust movies and school curriculums. I suspect that things would be different if you regularly had movies and lesson plans on the Ukrainian “Holocaust.”

8. I notice a lot of dictators in the past had good public speaking skills (Hitler for example). Was Stalin also one? Would you say his speeches were more about scaring people, or more about encouraging people to do what he wanted?

One of the interesting things about Stalin was that, unlike Lenin or Trotsky, he was that he was never much of an orator. He stayed isolated in the Kremlin and sent out orders from there. He was the hidden deity of the Soviet Union.

History 112: World War I

For the class on the First World War, in addition to the usual reading form Norman Davies, I also assigned a piece written by Ohio State’s own Stephen Kern. Kern examines the role of the nineteenth century communications revolution, particularly the telegraph, in the breakdown of diplomacy in the summer of 1914. Kern argues that the new speed in communication encouraged an aggressive style of diplomacy built around extreme ultimatums; comply to all of our demands within the next week or we will declar war.

1. Was WWI avoidable? For example, if all these alliances hadn't been made, would it have remained a small conflict?

The interesting question is did these alliances make war inevitable. Once alliances were being made everyone had follow suit or risk being vulnerable. What we have here are a lot of good intentions gone completely to pot.


2. The July crisis seems like something that could never have happened without the new technologies allowing rapid communication, but at the same time it seems like rapid communication should allow for better negotiating due to the fact that it doesn't take days to relay messages from one side to the other. Perhaps the time delays for slower communication methods allowed for a cool down period, but they could also allow for more time to prepare for war during the process, so how significant is it really that new technology allowed increased speed of communication between the various sides? This is leaving aside the issue of more widespread and public knowledge of events which I view to be a mostly separate issue, though it does tie in of course.
3. Kern said in "July Crisis" that "this telegraphic exchange at the highest level dramatized the spectacular failure of diplomacy, to which telegraphy contributed with crossed messages, delays, sudden surprises, and the unpredictable timing," (268). How can he attribute it all to the failure of diplomacy when Germany pressured Austria to mobilize troops before the ultimatum was even sent to Serbia? If blame is going to be placed, couldn't it also be placed on Germany, who pressured Austria into war out of self-interest? Or am I getting this all wrong?

The timetable for mobilization is one of the main causes of World War I. The general staffs of all the countries involved had detailed war plans in place and everyone knew that the other side also had detailed plans. Everyone knew that victory depended on who could get the first jump, that precious day or two to get their armies in motion. This being the case no one could afford the luxury of sitting back trying to negotiate and make the good faith effort for peace.
The question of German responsibility is quite real. Part of the problem is that because the Versailles treaty went to such extremes it has become common to accept the German apology that everyone was equally responsible. Without question Germany was the aggressor in this war. Their biggest sin being that they trampled over Belgium’s neutrality; a treaty that they themselves had signed on to. Kern, if I am not mistaken, does acknowledge the aggression issue. The German high command made the decision to push for war based on the calculation that by 1917 Russia would have completed its rearmament program, making German war plans obsolete.

4. I was wondering, why are the telegram messages in our reading so short? Were all telegrams short? And if so, is there a reason for this? Perhaps they paid for telegrams based on the number of words? It seems like to me, longer messages would be more appropriate in determining whether to declare war or not!

Telegrams are electronic messages sent across wires using Morse code. The process is expensive and every word costs money. Think of telegrams as an early version of text-messaging; they encourage a similar thought process. Last I checked the consensus about texting is that it does not exactly encourage responsible behavior. Imagine Kaiser Wilhelm texting Czar Nicholas: “WTF! Y r dead cuz." At least the leaders of Europe were not sending nude pictures of themselves through telegraph wires.


5. If Russia had no commitment to side with Serbia, why did they do it? What would make a country want war, was it stimulating to their economy, as World War II was during the depression? Or were there other factors?

Russia saw itself as the “big brother” of all Slavs. So they wished to protect their Serbian “brothers” from the Germanic Austrians. The Serbs would not usually be inclined to accept such “brotherly assistance, otherwise known as a takeover, but in this case they were in desperate need of help.

6. Why were Germany and Great Britain so protective over defending the interests of Austria and Belgium, respectively?

Austria was allied with Germany. This was in large part due to the brilliant diplomacy of Bismarck, who made a point of giving Austria a very generous peace treaty after Germany defeated them. Both Germany and England had signed a treaty guarantying the neutrality of Belgium. Germany, under the very un-Bismarck like leadership of Kaiser Wilhelm decided to ignore this very inconvenient fact and invaded Belgium. Great Britain on the other hand kept to the treaty so they came to the defense of Belgium. They were helped in this matter in that they had an understanding with France about coming to their aid in the event of being attack by Germany. How much did Kaiser Wilhelm have to antagonize people to drive even the British into siding with the French.

7. Which side was the first to use air planes in WWI and when was the first air battle?

Airplanes were already in use before World War I. World War I certainly marked the first large scale use of airplanes. Keep in mind that airplanes had, at this point, been in existence for a little over a decade so they were still highly experimental.

8. I am a little confused, In the Davies text it says Japan declared war on Germany, and Japan was an Asian associate of the allies, but Japan had issues with China, and China joined the allies. How does this work?

For one thing China did not enter the war until much later. Countries are usually very willing to put aside long running conflicts, at least temporarily, in the face of more immediate danger. So Japan and China were willing to take a break from each other to pursue their designs on German holdings.



9. In relation to all other wars leading up to America's involvement in World War I, was this a hard decision for America to make, in terms of lives to be potentially lost, man power, and resources in general?

America, for most of the war, strongly supported neutrality. Woodrow Wilson won re-election in 1916 based on the campaign promise to keep America out of war. This failed to take into account Kaiser Wilhelm ability to antagonize the American public with his decision to wage unrestricted submarine warfare. By the time America entered the war, the American public was gripped by a xenophobic hatred of everything German to the extent that ethnic Germans were being lynched in the streets by angry mobs.

History 112: Putting in a Good Word for Comrade Stalin

As readers of this blog and those who know me in person are aware, I am politically fairly conservative, at least by college campus standards. I view Communism, at least the variety that believes in the use of force to achieve its aims, in only slightly more favorable terms than Nazism. Even that is largely due to the fact that, as the grandson of Holocaust survivors, Nazism is something personal. In truth, expropriating the wealth of all those with something worthwhile to steal before sending them off to their deaths is hardly an improvement over expropriating the wealth of your least favorite racial group before shipping them off to their deaths. The later makes you a mass murdering racist. The former makes you a mass murdering hostis humani generis (enemy of the human race).

With this in mind, I found myself bending over backwards, in class, to defend Joseph Stalin’s five year program to industrialize the Soviet Union during the 1930s. To be clear, this move by Stalin was a humanitarian catastrophe to rival anything down by Nazi Germany. While there was a full scale famine engulfing the Soviet Union, caused by lousy economic theory and even worse science, the Soviet Union was shipping wheat to the West. In essence the Soviet government allowed upwards of seven million people to starve to death in the Ukraine in order to buy machinery. In addition to this tens of millions of people were shipped off to Siberian gulags as class enemies. As a historian, though, it is my job to get past the polemics and even, in some sense, to redeem those being studied. I want my students to learn something more from me than just “Stalin and Communism were evil and that western intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw, who traveled to the Soviet Union during the 1930s, were dupes for praising it.” To say that Stalin and Communism were evil, while true, is of little interest. The historical method, though, forces us to make things interesting by asking questions such as why, if Stalinist Russia was as bad as it was, did people support it. Why would a sane rational person support Stalin?

During a period in which the entire western world was gripped by the Great Depression, the Soviet Union was experiencing a rise in production. While mass unemployment was the norm across the western world, the Soviet Union had full employment. The Soviet government was bringing roads, machines and electricity to people who never had them. Thanks to Communism, millions of people who never had the opportunity to learn to read or get an education were now being given the chance to go to school. This is not to deny the very real dark side to Stalinist Russia, but this side is also real.

The assigned reading for this class, selections from John Scott’s Behind the Urals, proved to be remarkably useful for this person. Scott was an American steel worker who traveled to the Soviet Union in 1931 and worked at Magnitogorsk, one of the major Soviet industrial centers built during this period. While Scott came to the Soviet Union as an idealistic believer, his first hand experience soon soured him. As such Scott is perfectly willing to criticize the Soviet government and is quite frank about the human cost of Stalin’s actions. That being said Scott’s main purpose is not to attack Stalin or the Soviet Union, but to recount his experience and to give a sense of the people he worked with, most of whom he treats quite positively.

I will take it as a mark of honor if one of my students were to complain that I am a Communist, using my position to ensnare innocent young minds into my political ideology.

AJS Conference Day One Session One (Patronage, Trust, and Agency: Networks of European Jewry)

(Synopses of lectures based on my notes. As always all mistakes are mine.)


Francesca Bregoli (University of Oxford)
“Livornese Hebrew Printing, Patronage, and Jewish Intellectual Networks in the Eighteenth Century”

This paper focused on the relationships between R. Chaim Yosef David Azulai (1724-1806) and R. Yehuda Ayash to their patrons, who made it possible for their books to be published, particularly by being able to provide access to books. There was no capitalist printing until the nineteenth century; before this printing was done through patronage. When we think of patronage we are used to thinking of either the Feudal model or the Renaissance model; we need to consider an alternative, one that is not hierarchal but is the result of a mutual relationship. One did not choose to engage in patronage. There is a give and take. The patron is a member of a political elite. He is not able to devote himself to study. He hires a rabbi in his stead. This explains the common theme that we see in dedications were the patron is described as a scholar, knowledgeable in all the human and divine sciences. In affect the patron is made the author and the author is put in the background. This goes against the traditional model of Sephardic merchants being irreligious. (To me this just sounds like Sephardic merchants imbibing the Catholic values of the surrounding Italian society; one can get an “indulgence” by being a patron of the faith. You do not need to be religious. The clergy can be religious for you.) Azulai and Ayash were already established figures so they would have been courted by patrons, wishing to support them in their publishing endeavors.

(The models of patronage that occurred to me as possible influences were those amongst Jews in Andalusian Spain and in the general society in Renaissance Italy. I asked Francesca about this and she responded that she was actually thinking in terms of the situation in Poland with merchants supporting Hasidic rabbis.)


Cornelia Aust (University of Pennsylvania)
“Jewish Commercial Networks in Central Europe: Trade, Trust, and Bankruptcy”

This paper dealt with the networks of Jews as military suppliers for European armies in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth century. Historians have traditionally viewed networks as static and have taken them for granted. We need to consider the position of the merchant and the ability to access commodities. Bills of exchange acted as currency. This relies on a system of trust; fake bills were quite common. In order to succeed under such circumstances one required carefully placed people in different places. Networks built around families are quite useful. An example is the situation in czarist Russia. Merchants were a privileged cast of Jews; this status could be passed down to only one child. This was something useful, but it had to be used strategically; which child gets the official status and how does one place the child to best take advantage of it?

Francois Guesnet (University College London)
“Jewish Political Networks and the Pogroms of 1881-82; Indentifying Agents, Objects, Motivations”

This paper was about the mechanisms for spreading reports on the pogroms of 1881-82 in Russia to the outside world. The czarist government tried to clamp down on reports, but such reports did reach the outside world and ignited international protest. Three major Jewish political networks passed on information, though they were operating from essentially the same sources. This makes a lot of the information problematic. The point of such political action was to send letters abroad to arouse European protest with exaggerated accounts. This also served to delegitimize those within the Jewish community who still advocated negotiating with the Czar.


Matthias B. Lehmann (Indiana University)
“Response”

The study of modern Jewish history tends to focus on the nation state narrative and the major issues of emancipation and assimilation. Talking about networks served to go beyond these issues. The networks discussed here cross international lines so we cannot deal with them state by state. These networks also are not related to religious observance or even conversion to Christianity. Networks are dynamic that happen rather then simply are.

Secular Theodicy: A Review of Day of Empire (Part I)

The biblical narrative, particularly in Judges, Samuel and Kings, serves as a type of theodicy. The authors of these various books wish to convince the reader that the welfare of God’s chosen people rests on their obedience to God’s will. If things go well it is because the Israelites were righteous and if things do not go well it is because they sinned. While this may be true (And I am certainly inclined to think that there is something to this.), such a notion lies outside our knowledge as historians; historians are not prophets and can claim no knowledge about God’s existence, will, or plan for human history. Thus the biblical theodical model of historical narrative is unusable for the writing of history. Those who attempt to write such history (Be they Rabbi Berel Wein, Rabbi Avigdor Miller or Rabbi Yosef Eisen.) are not historians but intellectual frauds.

The problem is that we have no fixed standard with which to judge whether any given society is living a godly life. Our knowledge of God’s will, even from a religious perspective, is rather open ended so we have no clear-cut means of evaluating a godly society. How many points does a society have to score in order to count as godly and how many points are various actions worth? How many points does a society lose if they allow women to wear mini-skirts; what about if they tolerate club-wielding hooligans beating up women over the length of their skirts? Furthermore, since every society is a mixture of good and bad, we have no way of knowing if a given society is being rewarded for the righteousness of the few or punished for the wickedness of the few. Sodom and Gomorrah being the exceptions, every society can be assumed to have at least ten righteous people. So if a wicked, ungodly society succeeds it can always be passed off as due to the intercession of the righteous few. Conversely, if disaster strikes a righteous godly society it can always be passed off as punishment for the secret sins of the wicked few, hiding their idols/television sets behind their doors.

This sets the stage for radical levels of intellectual dishonesty if one wishes to try writing such a history. Since there are so many movable pieces one can fix the results to suit any desired conclusion. It is a heads I win tails you lose situation. God might have brought the Holocaust in order to punish secular Jews and saved the secular state of Israel in the Six Day War in the merit of the Orthodox minority. This of course may very well be true, but I could play this game to come up with anything that I want. For example, if you would indulge me in a little reductio ad absurdum, I could, with equal plausibility, argue that God is a Nazi, who treasures his German people, and wishes to lead them to greatness if only they would follow his will. In pursuit of this goal, God uses world Jewry to chastise the Nazis.

God gave the German people victory, as of the fall of 1941, over Poland, France, and the Soviet Union as a reward for obeying their divinely sent Fuehrer, Adolf Hitler, and to allow them to rid the world of the Jewish race. (God did not allow them to defeat England because he wanted there to remain a threat so that his German people would continue to cry out to him. Alternatively, God was being patient with the British people, also members of the German race, and was giving them one last chance to abandon the rule of Winston Churchill and return to the Germanic fold.) The fact that things turned against Germany can be attributed to the fact that they did not pursue the destruction of world Jewry with the proper zeal and show pure undiluted faith in their Fuehrer. The fact that the Germans had to turn to gas chambers and abandon the use of Einsatzgruppen as their primary mode of killing Jews showed a lack of Jew killing zeal. According to the Wannsee conference, the use of Einsatzgruppen as mobile firing squads was proving ineffective as it was having a negative on its members. Clearly, if Germans had been full of the proper Jew-killing zeal they should have been lining up for the honor of being able to personally shoot Jews and they should have been able to carry out this task with joy and a gladdened heart. Germans should have been able to kill Jews with the same gusto as the Poles and the Ukrainians, who, immediately upon being liberated by Germany, took it upon themselves to slaughter their Jewish neighbors. No German should have suffered negative psychological effects from carrying out such tasks. Later on, at the end of the war, many in the German high command thought that the elimination of Hungarian Jewry should take a back seat to fighting the advancing Soviet forces. There were even those like Himmler who wanted to make a deal with the Allies in order to save the Jews in exchange for protection after the war. It took a mere colonel like Adolf Eichmann to see that Hungarian Jewry was dealt with. Not only did the German leadership not pursue the murder of European Jews as they should they also failed to show the proper faith in their Fuehrer. Over and over it was demonstrated that Hitler was right yet there were those who questioned his decisions to hold the line on the Russian front and in North Africa. The lack of faith was so profound that members of the German high command attempted to assassinate Hitler. God miraculously saved Hitler by causing the bomb to be moved thus allowing for Hitler to survive with only some busted air drums and a withered hand.

Since the German people failed to properly follow God and their Fuehrer, God gave them into the hands of their enemies, the Americans, and the Russians, who put an end to the Third Reich and divided Germany up into East and West. Not only that but God allowed the Jews to rebuild their state and gain victory over the Arabs so that now world Jewry could exercise their power directly and not just through the banks and Hollywood. Next, God allowed for a wave of Jewish-inspired liberalism to sweep the Western world, forcing all proud lovers of the German race and ideals to have to go underground and live in secret. But even in these dark times, God has not abandoned his German people. As a comfort to the German race, he allowed them to kill off a third of world Jewry in the Holocaust. This serves to comfort the German people and as a sign of God’s promise to completely annihilate the Jews, restore the German people to their former glory and bring about the Final Reich.

(To be continued …)