Dr. Weizfeld replies to the MLM analysis in reply to Question #2

A little while back Dr. Weizfeld had made an elaboration on his analysis concerning our written work to him titled Marxist-Leninist-Maoist response to Dr. Weizfeld

In reply to the MLM analysis in reply to Question #2;


            The string of ideas that are presented as a reply to the question about Antisemitism present a political culture that is assembled by osmosis from the popular cultures which need our further study in the definition of an abstract concept. Antisemitism is a matter of consciousness and is not experienced by those exempted from its hatred. That is why the Afro-American resistance had to teach the non-Africans what European 'White' settler racism was all about. Similarly, we of the Jewish Bundist Diaspora Movement inter-nationally, seek to explain our own sense of oppression for the purpose of forming a reciprocal United Front of self-defense against the fascist, neo-Nazi and police infiltrated forces.

            It is understood that the MLM reply rejects Antisemitism as an irrational hatred. Let us then examine the analysis of what is considered to be behind Antisemitism in order to define it.

            There are many variations of Antisemitism which include the presumption that Jewish people are a particular 'race' apart from any other 'race' of the the human species who actually have a common genetic origin. The same applies to other social formations. And so we are in basic agreement.

            With further examination on the Jewish People we each recognize a number of Jewish Nations together in a People as such. The fundamental common tie to them is that Antisemitism applies to each of them together. We should object to a differentiation that transforms the Ashkenazi European Nation as a whole to be the oppressors of the other Jewish Nations. To consider the political economy of the Jewish political culture it is in the Zionist State context that presents us with the economic marginalization of the Mizrachi Jewish Arabs of the State of Israel's citizens. It is Zionism that carries a racist conception of those Arabs who are also Jewish. Zionism is thus less Jewish than Statist National Chauvinism. There lies the difference between Jewish and Zionist identities. This difference from Jewishness then leads to the interest of the State taking precedence over the Jewish People as a whole who are subjected to the Antisemitism of the Zionist State's allies against the Jewish national minorities, who are actually a majority of the Jewish People. Because of the mistaken context the expression " European Jews persecute any Jew that is not European"  is not coherent and does not apply to all contexts. In any case the Ashkenazim are differentiated into class formations that experience vastly different degrees of social power.

            As for the political identity of the Jewish-American national minority we know that about 80% align or vote with the Democratic Party for reasons that are considered to be "progressive". This minority has relied upon the liberal democratic values provided for in the US revolutionary Constitution even though there remains an abyss between the Protestant and Jewish political cultures. Despite the Christian concept of Judeo-Christianity there is no common interest involved and that formulation is merely an effort to gain legitimacy in the face of the continuing Jewish presence and the failure to assimilate the Jewish national minority. It is in effect the Christian identity of the Nation-State that leaves minorities in a state of submission to the democratic majority. And in the case of the Afro-Americans this remains the case in spite of the Black Church.

            Another form of Antisemitism apart from the racialist eugenics theories found in the US and German political culture, is the Christian tendency to consider Jewish people as "children of the devil" as in the Book of John. This biological metaphor defines all Jewish people as an evil and to be opposed by any means which are sanctified by the Christin deity the Jesus Christ thus resorting to a pagan revolt against the concept of a common human origin. Yet another form of Antisemitism is the populist notion that Jewish people are all a relative upper class of wealthy parasites who feed off the poorest in society - which ignores the existence of class differentiations among the Jewish people and promotes the delusion of a Jewish bourgeoisie that is more powerful than the national bourgeoisie in each country. Another stereotype in political economic terms is the conspiracy theory of Jewish bankers world control. This is why Rosa Luxemberg wrote against this theory in political economy against Plekanov. In any context it is evident that the Jewish bourgeoisie is subordinate to the national bourgeoisie and so to focus on the Jewish bourgeoisie alone is to excuse the national bourgeoisie from its reactionary control. A further form of Antisemitism is the Liberal notion of assimilation which denies the existence of any other nation in society other than the dominant nation and its culture. The centralized State upholds the national identity of the majoritarian Nation and seeks to extinguish the culture of any other Nation. This is based in the principle of majoritarianism which is otherwise known as liberal democracy which its emphasis on the individual and their rights only in exclusion of their national rights. This liberal notion of Assimilation was shared by the Marxist parties of the past which maintained the bourgeois State as the organizational paradigm. As such the Russian revolution maintained the old borders of the Tsarist Empire in spite of the urgings for national liberation which were served with a plate of fine words concerning self-determination that were never implemented. The synagogues were shut down and the Zionist parties were allowed to remain while the Bund was suppressed.  


For a United Front to be powerful then we can accept that differing social orders including national minorities can plan a common strategy in spite of the different degrees of social oppression each may be subjected to at any given epoch. For example the German Jewish community of only 1 million was relatively well-off, since the Jewish working class had migrated previously to Poland during the 1400s. Nonetheless the Jewish-Germans had little social power and were taken prisoner and murdered by the Christian Nation-State under the control of the Nazi Party, together with the Catholic Church and the Protestant power. As such the Jewish-American national minority is not engaged in the power mechanism of the US State which is directed by the Anglo & German-American bourgeoisie who control the commanding heights of the economy in the Military-Industrial Complex and the resource extraction industries. Jewish-Americans constitute 1.5% of the population just as the indigenous population comprise the same numbers of residents, about 6.5 million. As such Bernie Sanders could not be a default representative of the Jewish bourgeoisie simply because he is Jewish-American. Bernie is representative of the long-standing united front of the New York Jewish working class activists with the Afro-American civil rights movement. Considering that Sanders is not even a member of the Democratic Party and remains an Independent in an electoral alliance with the Democratic Party and Caucus and in addition considering that the only Party to have endorsed Sanders so far is the Democratic Socialists of America.. then one has to admit that he is not representative of any bourgeois formation. His call for a political revolution and his identification with Socialism are similarly quite distinctive features of his public identity. If then citizens may want to support a Sanders candidacy why should we tell them not to vote for what is perceived as socialism. The question then arises to what degree is Sanders actually socialist. That is also a question that applies to the Canadian social democratic labour party the NDP(New Democratic Party). Some revolutionary socialist formations have joined in the NDP to make of it a truly socialist party and have had some success in doing so. Surely a mass-based social movement combined with the Sanders campaign allows for any further criticism or program that is necessary even while building such a massive United Front. Are not we faced with a fascist power that still sits on a mass base of 45% of the population? Do we not need additional allies who can prevent the fascist take-over of the country? To consider otherwise would be to assume some sort of inevitable historical progression that leads away from reactionary conclusions and brings about the socialist revolution by some automatic process. This was not the experience of the Jewish communities of Europe in the face of Nazism, which succeeded in destroying from 40 to 92% of each such community. In Poland more than 90% of my parents' families were lost. That is why the United Front on the broadest possible principled bases is a necessity. If the fascist movement can kill off the mobilized elements of each community separately to avoid the loss of their control over the State institution and the police then they will do it. The lesson to be adopted was that the German Communist Party's position tolerant of the rise of Hitlerism as if it heralded the rise of its own power was mistaken and led to the annihilation of the membership just as the Bundist members were lost in spite of our leading degree of support amongst the Jewish proletariat.

            At this time Sanders has called for various social programs like Medicare, the Green Plan etcetera which are popular enough but has held back from talking about the take-over of any financial institutions or corporations even though he targets the 1% of bourgeois control with taxation measures to fund the various social programs. On international affairs he has clearly come out for Palestinian self-determination which marks him off from being considered a Zionist. He is in effect a Non-Zionist as well as being an ally of the Afro-American civil rights campaigns. Within such a framework further conclusion towards socialism can easily be made and our presence should be felt. 

             My studies of revolutionary theory certainly include Mao and despite his various contradictions he worked for a socialist revolution and succeeded to a great extent even though the task is not completed and has countervailing tendencies in practice. Mao's appreciation of the national liberation struggle combined with the permanent revolution led the post-WWII colonial revolutions which transformed the world from the original 75 Nation-States of the United Nations to the 194 members who are now present. The colonial revolutions were initially socialist and despite the various counter-revolutionary surrogates that took control, in alliance the former colonial masters, these regimes remain unstable appendages of the original colonial masters, through the agent of the comprador bourgeoisie. The class question in it alignment to the prevailing powers remains the key factor in the former colonial countries and is also the defining political mechanism in the imperialist centers. The class struggle finds expression in the First World Nation-States as well for economic and for social reasons. Socialism is on the agenda for all concerned in this inter-national revolution.

          The previous failures in the developed imperialist countries is not indicative of the stability of imperialist capitalism but is rather the failure to go beyond the bourgeois State itself. Such a State superstructure and frontier serves to corrupt the socialist revolution producing a bureaucratic strata which aspires to becoming a new bourgeois class under corruption. A permanent socialist revolution must go beyond a State structure to being about the revolutionary Constituent Assembly of the basic soviet councils in a Federation with the various social formations in a Federated governing structure with national-cultural-(territorial) Autonomy for First Nations, contiguous national minorities and for urbanized minorities as well as the female gender in the face of the patriarchy of power. Many avenues of work enable us to move forward in this direction including the electoral process, the judiciary and the control of public spaces and in particular the street through mass mobilizations, civil disobedience and resistance.

            Some discussion on assimilation would be appropriate but requires another opportunity to discuss.

            Thanking you for your attention and in solidarity with your objectives, which are shared by the Jewish Bundist Diaspora Movement, I am finally able to provide an elaborated response to your positions.