Final Solutions offers a ground-breaking and genuinely unique analysis of modern genocide. Sabby Sagall draws on the insights of the Frankfurt school and Wilhelm Reich to create an innovative combination of Marxism and psychoanalysis. He argues that genocide is a product of an ‘irrational’ destructiveness by social classes or communities that have suffered major historical defeats or similar forms of extreme stress. Sagall shows how the denial of human needs and the ensuing feelings of isolation and powerlessness propel groups to project their impotent rage, hatred and destructiveness engendered by these defeats on to the 'outsider' and the 'other'. The book applies this theoretical framework to four modern genocides – that of the Native Americans, the Armenians, the Jews and the Rwandan Tutsis. This is a truly pioneering contribution which adds to our understanding of some of the darkest hours of humanity – and how we can stop them from happening again. 'Illuminates that hottest button of topics - modern genocide. No one has made so cogent a case for a Marxist analysis' - Kurt Jacobsen, University of Chicago, author of Pacification and Its Discontents (2010) and Freud's Foes (2009) 'Disturbing yet enlightening' - Kevin Kenny, Professor of History, Boston College 'Disturbing yet enlightening' 'Illuminates that hottest button of topics - modern genocide. No one has made so cogent a case for a Marxist analysis' 'A hugely ambitious book which covers immense historical ground and attempts to answer one of the most challenging historical and theoretical questions of our time' 'Sagall reaches farther than many in this field, ambitiously working to uncover the shared psychological states that have resulted in a variety of genocidal events throughout time' 'Sabby Sagall asks important questions of psychology, fascism and genocidal murder ... there is much to be gained from his book, particularly his synopses of psychoanalytic thinkers and schools of thought' Sabby Sagall is a former senior lecturer in Sociology at the University of East London. He writes regularly for Socialist Review. Final Solutions Human Nature, Capitalism and Genocide By Sabby Sagall Pluto Press Copyright © 2013 Sabby Sagall All rights reserved. ISBN: 978-0-7453-2653-5 Contents Acknowledgements, ix, Introduction: Capitalism and Genocide, 1, PART ONE: THE ORIGINS OF HUMAN DESTRUCTIVENESS, 1 Why Do People Kill People?, 13, 2 Killers On the Couch, 38, 3 What Makes Killers Tick?, 64, 4 Killing 'Things', 89, PART TWO: FOUR MODERN GENOCIDES, 5 Native American Genocide, 111, 6 The Armenian Genocide, 158, 7 The Nazi Holocaust, 183, 8 The Rwandan Genocide, 222, Summary and Conclusion, 247, Notes, 249, Bibliography, 285, Index, 298, CHAPTER 1 Why Do People Kill People? What impels one human being to kill another, not because the latter has harmed him in any way, but simply because s/he is a member of a certain ethnic, religious or national group? I would argue that no explanation of human action is complete unless it adduces, not only its causes or the conditions under which it occurs, but also its reasons or motives. Experts from different fields, academic and clinical, have offered diverse explanations. In this chapter I shall, firstly, outline some of the theoretical approaches to the question of genocide and ethnic cleansing – those of political sociology, sociology, history and social psychology, including the non-psychoanalytical version of the authoritarian personality. I don't mean to suggest that the exemplars I quote deal fully with the contributions of these disciplines, merely that they represent good examples of their different approaches. I shall attempt to assess the extent to which they fulfil the criterion of providing reasons for genocidal behaviour. Secondly, I shall suggest, where possible, how insights arising out of these diverse methods might be integrated organically into a psychoanalytic Marxist view of history. Towards Understanding Genocide Political sociology To what do we ascribe human destructiveness on such a scale? Recent work in the field of political sociology offers us one kind of answer. Michael Mann's book, The Dark Side of Democracy (2005), on ethnic cleansing and genocide, suggests eight general theses that purport to give us a collective explanation of these murderous phenomena. To summarise briefly the main points: Firstly, murderous cleansing is a modern phenomenon: conventional warfare has increasingly targeted civilian populations; moreover, amid the multi-ethnicity of modern societies, the ideal of rule by the people or 'demos' has often been entwined with 'ethnos' to produce the dominance of a particular group. Secondly, ethnic hostility arises 'where ethnicity trumps class as the main form of social stratification'. In the past, ethnic conflict was rare since most big societies were divided along class lines, dominated by an aristocracy or ot