(This is a continuation of my series on supersessionism as a defining feature of antisemitism.)
Marx was not merely an antisemite—he saw Jews and Judaism as a direct refutation of his theories, a threat to his entire worldview.
Yet Marx knew quite well that the Jews were not born bourgeois. The Jewish bankers he hated started off as workers and small businesspeople at best, and worked themselves up to become bankers. In Marxist theory, class mobility was rare and workers under capitalism could only aspire to become "petty bourgeoisie" like shopkeepers. The very Jewish success that he attacks in this article undermine his entire theory at its core.
Violence is very much on the "right side of history" according to the socialists. Marx wanted to see a workers' revolution; when that didn't happen then socialists would just define any attacks on the "imperialists" to be part of their "struggle" as well.
Zionism proves Marxism wrong. Israel proves Marxism wrong. Jews prove Marxism wrong. Judaism proves Marxism wrong. Even the people the Marxists choose as their heroes prove Marxism wrong.
This is not the only way that Judaism is a direct challenge to Marxist principles. To Marx, morality is shaped purely by economic systems, while in Judaism, morality is independent of class or materialism. To Marx, individuals are shaped by their class and economic conditions and have no real free will; in Judaism, free will is foundational. To Marx, all people are defined by their class - proletariat or bourgeoisie; European Jews not only transcended that simplistic buttonholing but also Judaism is centered on both the heights Jews can achieve both as individuals and as a Chosen People, with their class completely irrelevant.
This is the origin of socialist supersessionism, but it is hardly the entire story. Marxist and socialist hate extended to Zionism and Israel.
Israel was heavily socialist when it was founded. The Labor Party dominated politics, and social programs were (and are) an important part of the fabric of Israeli life. The Soviet Union recognized Israel soon after it declared statehood, hoping that it would become a Soviet satellite. Israel showed its Western alignment by 1949, with growing US ties under Truman, prompting a Soviet backlash where the USSR soon became Zionism's most bitter enemy.
One of the ways Israel's success stung most was that it was home to what may be the most successful socialist experiment ever: the kibbutz system. These communal farms soon produced 40% of Israel's agricultural output and were economically viable in the 1940s and 1950s. Contrast this with Soviet experiments in farm collectivization in the 1930s that were massive failures and were (at least) the spark for famines that killed millions.
It was more than just jealousy of Israel's socialist success. The entire reason kibbutzim worked was because they attracted Jews who were not only enthusiastic socialists but also enthusiastic Zionists. They weren't working for the abstract proletariat; they were working for their kibbutzim, for their families, for Israel. They worked together because all Jews are from the same tribe, their fellow workers really were their brothers, not merely comrades. It was Jewish particularism that made kibbutzim work while forced collectivization failed in the Soviet Union. Pride in being part of the Jewish people incentivized the kibbutzniks to work hard; the Soviet system incentivized laziness. As the 1970s-era joke went, don't buy a Soviet Lada car built on a Monday or a Friday because the workers were either hungover or looking forward to drinking - either way, the poor quality of goods created by the centralized economy offered a sharp contrast with the Israeli socialist workers who took pride in their work.
Both the Soviets and Zionists made propaganda posters showing smiling women working on farms. Only the Israeli ones were accurate.
The Soviet hate for Israel grew along with its parallel antisemitism. Defector Ion Mihai Pacepa has detailed how the Soviet KGB created the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) in 1964, drafting its charter in Moscow to frame Palestinians as an oppressed nation needing liberation, a narrative designed to undermine Israel and the West.
After the 1967 victory of Israel over the Soviet-allied Arab states, it went into overdrive, with massive anti-Zionist campaigns not only within the USSR but worldwide. A 1970s London Observer piece claimed Israel ran ‘concentration camps.’ The USSR spearheaded the 1975 UN resolution declaring Zionism as a form of racism. New Left student movements in the West, including groups like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) in the US, adopted anti-Zionist stances, often using Soviet propaganda. Faculty in humanities and social sciences, particularly in fields like postcolonial studies, began incorporating these ideas into curricula - by the 1980s, courses at universities like UC Berkeley framed Israel as a settler-colonial state.
These ideas were not confined to the university. Labor unions, human rights NGOs, political movements and the media were all influenced by Soviet anti-Zionist propaganda. Much of today's anti-Israel rhetoric like "apartheid" and "colonialism" comes straight from Soviet propaganda. From the start, this was not mere criticism of Israel: it was a demand to dismantle Israel and turn Zionists into outcasts. The more Israel succeeded - whether in war or in peace, economically or culturally - the more it exposed the flaws in socialist ideals, showing that the "right side of history" was the wrong side.
This socialist embrace of violence found a natural ally in Palestinian Marxist groups like the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), founded by George Habash in 1967. The PFLP, with significant help from the Soviet Union, embraced terror as its preferred means to achieve its utopian paradise of no Israel. The group mounted infamous attacks like the simultaneous 1970 Dawson's Field hijackings, where the utopian socialist group notably separated the Jews from the other passengers.
The use of terror does not contradict socialism at all. The romanticization of terror continues today with the unbridled glee at Hamas' October 7 attacks, such as the poster at Columbia University comparing the paragliders Hamas used to butcher Jews as "a host of colorful dragonflies."
No wonder today's socialists at expensive Western universities refuse to debate Zionists and instead demand that they want s "Zionist-free" world - a modern echo of Marx’s supersessionist urge to erase Jewish distinctiveness.
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"He's an Anti-Zionist Too!" cartoon book (December 2024) PROTOCOLS: Exposing Modern Antisemitism (February 2022) |
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