Changes

Jump to navigation Jump to search
4,390 bytes removed ,  10:06, April 17, 2012
Line 55: Line 55:  
==Marx's anti-Semitism and racism==
 
==Marx's anti-Semitism and racism==
 
Among the money-lenders in London, Marx "made use of the Jews"&mdash;particularly "the Bambergers, Steifer and Spielmann," writes economic historian W.O. Henderson, "to raise small loans and to discount bills of exchange" from his editor&mdash;although he became "furious when they pressed him to honour debts due for repayment," showing "his contempt by always referring to them as 'Jew (or little Jew) Bamberger' and 'Jew Spielmann.'"<ref>William Otto Henderson, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=a9BvGA43rAQC Marx and Engels and the English workers: and other essays]'' (Psychology Press, 1989) ISBN 0714633348, p. 70</ref> (Elsewhere, he called Bamberger a member of "the stock-exchange synagogue.")<ref>Léon Poliakov, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=w39m4aohL9gC The History of Anti-semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner]'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) ISBN 0812218655, p. 424-425</ref>
 
Among the money-lenders in London, Marx "made use of the Jews"&mdash;particularly "the Bambergers, Steifer and Spielmann," writes economic historian W.O. Henderson, "to raise small loans and to discount bills of exchange" from his editor&mdash;although he became "furious when they pressed him to honour debts due for repayment," showing "his contempt by always referring to them as 'Jew (or little Jew) Bamberger' and 'Jew Spielmann.'"<ref>William Otto Henderson, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=a9BvGA43rAQC Marx and Engels and the English workers: and other essays]'' (Psychology Press, 1989) ISBN 0714633348, p. 70</ref> (Elsewhere, he called Bamberger a member of "the stock-exchange synagogue.")<ref>Léon Poliakov, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=w39m4aohL9gC The History of Anti-semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner]'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) ISBN 0812218655, p. 424-425</ref>
−
  −
Marx did not limit his disparagement to his creditors, but extended it to Jews in general. "His private letters are replete with anti-Semitic remarks, caricatures, and crude epithets," writes Marx's biographer, Saul K. Padover: "'Levy's Jewish nose,' 'usurers,' 'Jew-boy,' 'nigger-Jew,' etc."<ref>Saul Kussiel Padover, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=Aw8YAAAAIAAJ Karl Marx, an intimate biography] (McGraw-Hill, 1978) ISBN 0070480729, p. 171</ref> Marx "sprayed anti-Semitic insults at his enemies with savage glee," writes Francis Wheen:<ref>Francis Wheen, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=3KOyuSakn80C Karl Marx: A Life]'' (W.W. Norton & Company, 2001) ISBN 0393321576, p. 55</ref> "The Jew [Heymann] Steinthal, with the bland smile"; "that pig... is a Jew by the name of Meier"; he called the journalist Max Friedländer "the cursed Jew of Vienna," French Minister of Finance Achille Fould a "stock-exchange Jew,"  and Joseph Süß Oppenheimer "the Jew Süß of Egypt." He once referred to a woman who, he wrote, "swamped me with her benevolence" as "the most ugly creature I ever saw in my life, a nastily Jewish physiognomy."<ref>Marx to Nanette Philips, March 24, 1861, reprinted in [http://books.google.com/books?id=UQgiaY9f6Q4C Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels Gesamtausgabe, Volume 11] (Akademie Verlag, 2005) ISBN 3050041803, p. 404. (The text of this letter to his cousin is [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1861/letters/index.htm missing] from the Marxists Internet Archive.)</ref> On another occasion he refers to a Jewish man as "a cunning-looking Jew-boy."<ref>Marx to Engels, August 21, 1875, reprinted in Saul Kussiel Padover, ed., ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=E10EAQAAIAAJ The letters of Karl Marx]'' (Prentice-Hall, 1979) ISBN 0135315336, p. 306. (The text of this  letter is [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1875/letters/index.htm missing] from the Marxists Internet Archive.)</ref> He even called his doctor a Jew for pressing him for payment.<ref>Léon Poliakov, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=w39m4aohL9gC The History of Anti-semitism: From Voltaire to Wagner]'' (University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003) ISBN 0812218655, p. 424-425</ref>
      
Marx's anti-Semitism was intertwined with racism. One one occasion when fellow socialist Ferdinand Lassalle (who regularly loaned Marx money) refused him a loan, Marx complained to Engels:
 
Marx's anti-Semitism was intertwined with racism. One one occasion when fellow socialist Ferdinand Lassalle (who regularly loaned Marx money) refused him a loan, Marx complained to Engels:
Line 63: Line 61:     
Marx's style was shared by his companions: his wife referred to Lassalle "the little Berlin Jew,"<ref>William Otto Henderson, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=a9BvGA43rAQC Marx and Engels and the English workers: and other essays]'' (Psychology Press, 1989) ISBN 0714633348, p. 71</ref> while Engels called him a "greasy Jew."<ref>Paul Johnson, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=VIKGCHT1sbwC A history of the Jews]'' (HarperCollins, 1998) ISBN 0060915331, p. 350</ref>
 
Marx's style was shared by his companions: his wife referred to Lassalle "the little Berlin Jew,"<ref>William Otto Henderson, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=a9BvGA43rAQC Marx and Engels and the English workers: and other essays]'' (Psychology Press, 1989) ISBN 0714633348, p. 71</ref> while Engels called him a "greasy Jew."<ref>Paul Johnson, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=VIKGCHT1sbwC A history of the Jews]'' (HarperCollins, 1998) ISBN 0060915331, p. 350</ref>
−
  −
Marx's disdain was directed not merely at people, but extended to Judaism itself: "the Israelite faith is repugnant to me," he wrote.<ref>Robert S. Wistrich, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=uqbaAAAAMAAJ Revolutionary Jews from Marx to Trotsky]'' (Harrap, 1976) ISBN 0245527850, p. 30. The Marxists Internet Archive bowdlerizes this to "[http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1843/letters/43_03_13.htm I dislike the Jewish faith]," but the word Marx used&mdash;''widerlich''&mdash;is generally translated as [http://translate.google.com/#de|en|widerlich disgusting], [http://www.dict.cc/deutsch-englisch/widerlich.html foul], [http://en.bab.la/dictionary/german-english/widerlich abominable], etc.</ref> He wrote to Engels from Ramsgate: "Many Jews and bedbugs hereabouts."<ref>Sigmund Krancberg, ''[http://books.google.com/books?id=cmspK8ine2QC A Soviet postmortem: philosophical roots of the "Grand Failure"]'' (Rowman & Littlefield, 1994) ISBN 0847679284, p. 59, n. 13. (The text of this August 25, 1879 letter to Engels is [http://www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1879/letters/index.htm missing] from the Marxists Internet Archive.)</ref> In thus lumping Jews together with parasites, Marx prefigured a trope that would later figure prominently in the writing of the [[Nazi]]s.<ref> E.g., "...that parasitic nation which, particularly at the present time preys upon the honest portion of mankind; I mean the Jews." Adolph Hitler (tr. James Murphy), [http://gutenberg.net.au/ebooks02/0200601.txt Mein Kampf: zwei Bände in einem Band] (Bottom of the Hill, 1938), p. 138; "Antisemitism is exactly the same as delousing. Getting rid of lice is not a question of ideology. It is a matter of cleanliness. In just the same way, antisemitism, for us, has not been a question of ideology, but a matter of cleanliness, which now will soon have been dealt with. We shall soon be deloused. We have only 20,000 lice left, and then the matter is finished within the whole of Germany." Heinrich Himmler, quoted in Hugh Raffles, "[http://publicculture.org/articles/view/19/3/jews-lice-and-history/ Jews, Lice, and History]," ''Public Culture'', Vol. 19, No. 3 (Fall 2007), pp. 521-566</ref>
      
===Marx's anti-Semitism===
 
===Marx's anti-Semitism===
SkipCaptcha, Automoderated users, edit
7,178

edits

Navigation menu