Unpatriotic History of the Second World War

by James Heartfield

Sixty million people died in the Second World War, and still they tell us it was the Peoples War.

The official history of the Second World War is Victors History. This is the history of the Second World War without the patriotic whitewash.

The Second World War was not fought to stop fascism, or to liberate Europe. It was a war between imperialist powers to decide which among them would rule over the world, a division of the spoils of empire, and an iron cage for working people, enslaved to the war production drive.

The unpatriotic history of the Second World War explains why the Great Powers fought most of their war not in their own countries, but in colonies in North Africa, in the Far East and in Germanys hoped-for Empire in the East. Find out how wildcat strikes, partisans in Europe and Asia, and soldiers mutinies came close to ending the war. And find out how the Allies invaded Europe and the Far East to save capitalism from being overthrown.

James Heartfield challenges the received wisdom of the Second World War.

Genres: History, Nonfiction, Politics, War, World War II, Military Fiction, World History

557 pages, Paperback

First published October 10, 2012

Reviews

[Nandakishore Mridula]

Read a review of this book... I think it is high time that somebody highlighted the fact that the Second World War was a war for world domination, rather than a "just war" of the "virtuous" Allied forces against the "evil" Axis forces. To me as an Indian, the British Empire was as evil as Hitler's Germany, and I see no difference between the killing of six million Jews and 3.5 million Bengalis (through the artificially created Bengal famine). The only good thing that came out of the war was that all these international goons went bankrupt and had to pull out of their colonies. Hats off to Heartfield for calling a spade a spade!

Top priority on my to-read list.

[Andrew Cox · Rating 5 out of 5]

A brilliant counter to all the propaganda that still portrays the Second World War as a 'just war'. Heartfield shows us that WW2 was far from just and was a war between imperial powers that subjugated ordinary people to a brutal conflict that was not inevitable. The war gave vent to much ugly racial ideology not just on the part of Nazi Germany, but also the allied colonial powers: a perfect example being Churchill's racist comments about the Chinese and Indians, whom the UK was supposedly fighting on behalf of, expose the ugliness of class and imperial interests. Before we bring up the Holocaust, it is worth pointing out that in 1942 Britain adopted a policy of starving its imperial Bengali subjects into submission by destroying paddy fields. This was a war between elites and not the 'people's war' as often portrayed in many popular, post-war accounts. It is interesting how the senseless carnage of the First World War is often juxtaposed with WW2 to imply that the latter conflict was a morally just war. There was much senseless carnage in WW2, not just the ruthless slaughter of European Jewry by the Nazis, but also there were many unnecessary atrocities against the axis powers too: the comprehensive bombings of Hamburg and Dresden, which were displays of military might which killed many civilians with the intention of demoralising ordinary Germans; the use of nuclear bombs against the Japanese at Hiroshima and Nagasaki at the very end of the war. Heartfield also shatters the myth that the atomic bombings of Japan were necessary to save lives because of another myth that the Japanese did not believe in surrender - they had already been suing for peace 6 months in advance of Hiroshima. Not all axis soldiers were 'willing executioners' either, another myth propagated to demonise German and Japanese war atrocities while glossing over allied brutality such as the attacks on Dresden, which did not really come to light till 20 years after the war. The Second World War was a conflict that got out of hand with really disastrous consequences for ordinary people and this book cuts through so much of the fog around this conflict and dares to challenge the uncritical orthodoxy, cum codswallop, that portrays a grotesque theatre of imperial carnage as a war for the freedoms we supposedly enjoy today. Brilliant book, which I recommend everyone to read.

[ben engel · Rating 3 out of 5]

A great overview of the history of the Second World War from a rather politically eclectic author. Heartfield makes the case for World War 2 being that of a war between imperialist powers, as an opposed to the 'official' narrative of the war as a 'People's War against Fascism'. The Allies did not participate in the war for the sake of protecting freedom or democracy, nor defending Jewish people from the atrocities of the Nazis, but rather for the continuance and protection of their imperialist spheres. Further, the Allies have a littany of atrocities of their own, whether it the firebombing of Tokyo or Dresden, the nuclear bombing of Hiroshima and Negasaki, the mass execution of Polish officers at Katyn, not to mention the racist everyday practice in the war of killing surrendering Japanese soldiers. Ultimately, Heartfield demonstrates that the Second World War was a war between imperialist powers to decide who recieves which spoils of empire, to decide who is in charge of the exploitation of the mass of working people.

sadly, the author is a former lefty turned complete right wing zionist fuckwit on twitter. so yeah 3 stars is all ur gonna get champ

[Sean Smart · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very interesting left wing and alternative history of World War 2, very thought provoking, and covers a lot of details, like the Bengal famine and the mutinies of allied troops, that most other histories omit. I dont agree with some of his statements about the former USSR however.

[Jack Daniel Christie · Rating 2 out of 5]

Equating the cynicism of the imperial powers with the cynicism of the USSR creates a flattening of context that makes the 20th power global power struggle into a war between equivalent evils--Orwell's ending to Animal Farm, effectively, where the pigs wind up playing cards with the farmers, and they become indistinguishable from one another. The USSR, for all of its faults--and there were many--still represented a comparatively "benevolent" global project (even with its supposed "cooperation" with imperialist powers). Heartfield bemoans the Allies "betraying" soon-to-be Eastern Bloc countries by letting them fall within Soviet dominance, which is a f*cking farcical take that also somewhat implies that the alternative would be somehow more just, like what the Allies did in West Germany, Italy, Greece, etc. with their clandestine terror campaigns, or what proceeded these "occupations" in the form of collaborationist regimes. Look where the Eastern Bloc countries are now, in a post-Soviet world, and tell me they're better off now that they've been "freed."

This equivocation actually winds up undoing the entire "unpatriotic" history when one considers that the book's anglo readers are unlikely to be from Russia, and focusing on a "we're bad but so are the Soviets" argument actually does, in fact, support the objectives of the bourgeois nations by enabling a generalized cynicism for all states and systems bereft of context.

Otherwise a decent reference text.

[Robin · Rating 5 out of 5]

Worthy read especially about a war that is considered almost holy and thus anhilating any discussion before it begins, if one perceived to deviate from the official and 'accepted' account.
There are other political implications too , especially when the Victor's (esp the US) crushed popular grassroots movements across Europe, some of which demolished democracy in many a European countries. All this aside from the fact that Asians and Africans who fought and became cheap cannon fodder in the war were not liberated themselves and some of these liberation movements esp in Africa that started in the post war period have yet to realize their original dreams of liberalisation.

Recommend the book.

[Z sha · Rating 1 out of 5]

Sloppy research and ended up just putting the US and the allies as better anyway.