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From Chapter II, Racism and Revolution as a Desire to Eliminate the "Disease" from Within the Body of the Nation
Given the conception of the nation as a living organism, there are several propositions that follow logically, and are frequently put forth by racists and revolutionaries: (1) The nation or party is susceptible to disease, i.e., to the possibility that germs, infections, cancers, etc. may invade its body, and cause it to become "ill." (2) The source of the nation's disease may be a particular class of people lying within the body of the nation.
Hitler referred to Jews as a people who are "suffering from a poisonous infection and who openly profess their desire to infect others with the same disease."
According to Lenin: "The way of reform is the way of delay, of procrastination, of the painfully slow decomposition of the putrid parts of the national organism. The revolutionary way is the way of quick amputation, which is the least painful to the proletariat, the way of the direct removal of the decomposing parts."
Dimitrov, an assistant of Stalin, describes the purge of the mid-thirties in terms of the necessity of "cutting into good flesh in order to get rid of the bad."
| It's imperative to understand the dynamic of radical nationalism: the underlying structure of thought that is the source of the sound and fury. In order for you to obtain a copy of this book—and to read it—we are making it available at the very special price of price of $5.95 (list $25.00). To order at this special rate, please click through to Amazon now. |
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| It's imperative to understand the dynamic of radical nationalism: the underlying structure of thought that is the source of the sound and fury. In order for you to obtain a copy of this book—and to read it—we are making it available at the very special price of price of $5.95 (list $25.00). To order at this special rate, please click through to Amazon now. |
What we encounter in these cases is a coherent phantasy, which may be summarized as follows: the nation is a living organism; this organism is suffering from a "disease," the source of which is a particular class of people lying within the body of this organism; in order to cure this disease, and thereby to "save the nation," it may be necessary to "remove" this class of people from within the body of the nation.
This phantasy is a fundamental source of acts of destruction, and particularly of mass-destruction, which are carried out in the name of racist and revolutionary ideologies: the perpetrators of mass-destruction think of themselves, not as murderers, but as men who have undertaken the "necessary task" of removing a disease element from within the body of the nation.
Whether the target of hostility is the Jew, the Negro, the capitalist, or a member of the ruling class, these men are, fundamentally, "exorcists" who believe that the maintenance of the goodness of the nation can be achieved only through the "removal" of a certain class of people from within the nation's boundaries.
The class of people identified as a "disease element," then, may be characterized as a class of people lying within the boundaries of the nation—which is perceived as not belonging there. This class of people, in short, is perceived as an alien element within the body of the nation, an element which must be "rejected"—just as any organism rejects alien elements that invade the interior of its body, and endanger its health. |
