I have always wondered how the Nazis could gain the support of the masses in Germany, especially when bearing in mind that in 1918-1919 a leftist Revolution had taken place in Germany, and that socialists were in government before the rise of national socialism. The left had a strong base in Germany. Historically, many leftist thinkers and leaders were German such as Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels, Karl Liebknecht, August Bebel, Rosa Luxemburg and Clara Zetkin. But what happened to the leftist movements and their supporters after 1933 in Germany? Why did the German left not resist Hitler as they should? Could it be that they were not as hostile to national socialism as they should be? This could be a possibility which would explain the silence of the German left towards national socialism in those years.
When reading older texts by leftist thinkers, one can discover many (shocking) similarities between the left and the Nazis. As an example, I will here review a famous work by Paul Lafargue who is praised by all the different strands of the European left, from socialists and Marxists to anarchists. According to the ‘Marxists Internet Archive’, “Paul Lafargue (1841-1911), Karl Marx’s son-in-law, was a leading member of the French socialist movement and played an important role in the development of the Spanish socialist movement”. He was “a close friend of Friedrich Engels in his later years” and, like Karl Marx, was “financially supported by Engels”. Lafargue “was one of the founders of the Marxist wing of the French Workers Party” and as the Marxists Internet Archive claims “an advocate of women’s rights”.
“The Right To Be Lazy”, first published in 1880 in France, is Lafargue’s best known work. Though it is only about 50 pages long, it deals with many issues which are still up-to-date. In my article, I will focus only on four issues, namely, Lafargue’s approval of ‘racial hygiene’ and the killing of disabled and elderly people, his defence of slavery, his antisemitism, and his anti-women sentiments.
‘Racial hygiene’
In “The Right To Be Lazy”, Lafargue is obsessed with the idea of a ‘healthy and beautiful race’. His views and terminology show enormous similarities with the Nazi eugenics and their racial hygiene project, though contrary to the Nazis Lafargue regards work as the root of all evil. For him, capitalism and labour lead to physical and intellectual deterioration: “In capitalist society work is the cause of all intellectual degeneracy, of all organic deformity” (Chapter 1). Lafargue argues that work in a capitalist society impairs “the harmonious development of the human organism, for as Dr. Beddoe says, ‘It is only when a race reaches its maximum of physical development, that it arrives at its highest point of energy and moral vigor.’ Such was also the opinion of the great naturalist Charles Darwin” (Preface). Further, he puts forward: “European explorers pause in wonder before the physical beauty and the proud bearing of the men of primitive races, not soiled by what Paeppig calls ‘the poisonous breath of civilization.’ Speaking of the aborigines of the oceanic Islands, Lord George Campbell writes: ‘There is not a people in the world which strikes one more favorably at first sight. Their smooth skin of a light copper tint, their hair golden and curly, their beautiful and happy faces, in a word, their whole person formed a new and splendid specimen of the ‘genus homo’; their physical appearance gave the impression of a race superior to ours.’ The civilized men of ancient Rome, witness Caesar and Tacitus, regarded with the same admiration the Germans of the communist tribes which invaded the Roman empire” (Chapter 1).
In his ‘racial hygiene’ views, Lafargue, like the Nazis, goes so far as to advocate the killing of disabled and elderly people: “The Indians of the warlike tribes of Brazil kill their invalids and old people; they show their affection for them by putting an end to a life which is no longer enlivened by combats, feasts and dances. All primitive peoples have given these proofs of affection to their relatives: the Massagetae of the Caspian Sea (Herodotus), as well as the Wens of Germany and the Celts of Gaul. In the churches of Sweden even lately they preserved clubs called family clubs which served to deliver parents from the sorrows of old age” (Chapter 2).
Slavery
To justify his despise of work, Lafargue indicates that in ancient Athens and Rome only the slaves worked, not the citizens. He defends ancient philosophers such as Plato and Aristotle in this respect, and writes: “But our moralists of Christianity and capitalism will answer, ‘These thinkers and philosophers praised the institution of slavery.’ Perfectly true, but could it have been otherwise, granted the economic and political conditions of their epoch? War was the normal state of ancient societies. The free man was obliged to devote his time to discussing the affairs of state and watching over its defense. The trades were then too primitive and clumsy for those practicing them to exercise their birth-right of soldier and citizen; thus the philosophers and law-givers, if they wished to have warriors and citizens in their heroic republics, were obliged to tolerate slaves” (Appendix). It seems very odd that in a debate between a capitalist and a socialist, it is the socialist who defends slavery.
Antisemitism
The first time, I read “The Right To Be Lazy” in its German translation by Eduard Bernstein. There, the word Jew is three times used, each time in a humiliating manner: the Jew as a ruthless, bloodsucking capitalist who brutally exploits children, women and male workers. In the English translation by Charles Kerr, the word Jew is replaced with “Rothschild”, which is not less antisemitic, but less overtly antisemitic. Though I do not speak French, with the help of GoogleTranslator I was able to compare the original French text with the German translation by Bernstein, and to conclude that the negative references to Jews were in both texts identical.
“An advocate of women’s rights”?!
Lafargue infantilises women by indirectly comparing their physical and intellectual condition to that of children and equating women’s work outside the home with child labour. His ideal woman is a housewife who gives birth to healthy and beautiful children, children who are racially superior to us: “The unhappy women carrying and nursing their babes have been obliged to go into the mines and factories to bend their backs and exhaust their nerves. With their own hands they have broken the life and the vigor of their children. Shame on the proletarians! Where are those neighborly housewives told of in our fables and in our old tales, bold and frank of speech, lovers of Bacchus? Where are those buxom girls, always on the move, always cooking, always singing, always spreading life, engendering life’s joy, giving painless birth to healthy and vigorous children? … Today we have factory girls and women, pale drooping flowers, with impoverished blood, with disordered stomachs, with languid limbs” (Chapter 2).
When describing the “capitalist France”, Lafargue uses a language even more misogynistic: “Capitalist France, an enormous female, hairy-faced and bald-headed, fat, flabby, puffy and pale, with sunken eyes, sleepy and yawning, is stretching herself out on a velvet couch” (Chapter 4). The leftists would claim that socialist thinkers, like others, were products of their times and that beliefs and prejudices such as Lafargue’s were shared by all the people living in those times. But this is not true. Look, for example, at the high status of women, regardless of their social rank, in the works of the French playwright Molière (1622-1673) or the Irish playwright Oscar Wilde (1854-1900). The images of the ideal woman promoted by the bourgeoisie have been much more emancipating than those by the left. In attacking the bourgeois woman, Lafargue’s stance comes close to the contemporary Islamists’: “The women of fashion live a life of martyrdom, in trying on and showing off the fairy-like toilets which the seamstresses die in making. They shift like shuttles from morning until night from one gown into another. For hours together they give up their hollow heads to the artists in hair, who at any cost insist on assuaging their passion for the construction of false chignons. Bound in their corsets, pinched in their boots, decollette to make a coal-miner blush, they whirl around the whole night through at their charity balls in order to pick up a few cents for poor people – sanctified souls!” (Chapter 3)
In practice, the policies of the communist regimes with regard to women and motherhood showed more similarity to the Nazi regime’s than to the policies of the capitalist democracies. “Hitler promoted the importance of a stable, traditional family. Men were to be in charge and protect their family. Women were to serve and nurture their family… The Nazis expected women to stay at home, look after the family and produce children in order to secure the future of the Aryan race” (BBC). In the Soviet Union, mothers bearing and raising 10 or more children were awarded the honorary title "Mother Heroine". The award "was established in 1944 and continued to exist until the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991" (Wikipedia).
Conclusion
Despite all the inhumane positions expressed in “The Right To Be Lazy”, the work is still highly praised by the left. Leftist websites, for example, describe the text in positive terms only, without any criticism. This shows that the left is still extremely dogmatic and not willing to critically examine its past.
References:
https://www.bbc.com/bitesize/guides/zxb8msg/revision/1
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mother_Heroine
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