The Nazis were socialists…
…but they continue to be labeled right-wing by leftists with an agenda who would like to disavow them and tell the right “bounces off me and sticks to you.” Daniel Hannan attempts to correct the record:
On 16 June 1941, as Hitler readied his forces for Operation Barbarossa, Josef Goebbels looked forward to the new order that the Nazis would impose on a conquered Russia…[In] the place of debased, Jewish Bolshevism, the Wehrmacht would deliver “der echte Sozialismus”: real socialism.
Goebbels never doubted that he was a socialist. He understood Nazism to be a better and more plausible form of socialism than that propagated by Lenin. Instead of spreading itself across different nations, it would operate within the unit of the Volk.
So total is the cultural victory of the modern Left that the merely to recount this fact is jarring. But few at the time would have found it especially contentious.
Read the whole thing, and send it to your leftist friends if you want them to stop talking to you.
A concise definition of the principles of Naziism, written by Goebbels in 1929. The four cornerstones were:
*Nationalism
*Socialism
*A Workers Party
*Anti-Semitism
http://research.calvin.edu/german-propaganda-archive/haken32.htm
my leftist friends were gone way before this… after all, victims of stalin and hitler are a downer at leftist parties when they start grousing or talking about the seas rising and the bright future…
for those that care, i am back to commenting at mancoat forums -MGTOW (men going their own way)…
and no… not leaving here…
as to this article… it wont get far as the left follows stalins designation to put everything to the right of true communism…
so technically, since hitlers socialism was a hybrid (capitalism and socialism = fascism), it was to the right of communism…
but todays socialists do not understand that what they live under is the same as communism, but not full born, or full blown. that is, a puppy resembles a dog, and does not seem unsafe… but when it grows up into a junk yard dog…then what? same with lots of things in nature… their defenseless lesser younger forms, make way to future forms that are anything but..
While true, it’s too easy to dismiss. After all, the Nazis were unapologetic racists, while democrats and socialists are, as everyone knows, virulently anti-racist, right?
Socialism leads to 1984 because socialism is an attempt to achieve the utopia of equal outcomes. Human nature and the operative laws of the universe within which we exist make equal outcomes literally impossible. But the fanaticism of secular socialism rejects critical aspects of reality and, will impose ever greater tyranny in a futile, repeated attempt to ‘finally’ achieve the mirage of ‘equality’.
“Reason is poor propaganda when opposed by the yammering, unceasing lies of shrewd, evil and self-serving men. The capacity of the human mind for swallowing nonsense and spewing it forth in violent and repressive action has never yet been plumbed.” Robert Anson Heinlein
Clearly, humanity has yet to learn that lesson but… they will.
Economist Friedrich von Hayek made the same point in his “Road to Serfdom” (1944), and in an earlier essay entitled “Nazism is Socialism.”
http://www.brookesnews.com/091910hayeknazis.html
It is unfortunate that you are right that the analogy is not a politically correct subject today.
“todays socialists do not understand that what they live under is the same as communism, but not full born, or full blown.” Artfldgr
No less a personage than Nikita Khrushchev agreed; “We can’t expect the American People to jump from Capitalism to Communism, but we can assist their elected leaders into repeatedly and gradually giving them small doses of Socialism, until they awaken one day to find that they have Communism.” — Nikita Khrushchev
I saw the topic come up for a while after “Liberal Fascism” was released. Unfortunately, the idea that “Fascisms = Right Wing” is so hard-wired into people these days that most don’t even bother to look at the evidence. It’s just accepted that, by definition, Fascists are right-wing anti-socialists. I’ve even seen people who are perfectly willing to accept that fascism and communism are essentially the same thing in practice, but still refuse to accept that fascism is right-wing. In their eyes, the whole left and right thing is a big loop that eventually comes around on itself where the two ideologies meet up.
And quoting the Nazis themselves? Those quotes were “obviously” just comments by the Nazis made to fool socialists into blindly following them.
junior:
I think you meant “still refuse to accept that fascism is left-wing.”
By the way, there’s something to be said for the argument that Nazis were trying to fool socialists into thinking they were in league with them. One of the things I’ve thought about the Nazi Party is that it defies conventional left-right designations and was allied with no one, really. In the end, it wanted to be the only party standing. It was also nihilistic and destructive of all other political philosophies, based more on a desire to combine a mythical past with a mythical future in which the goal was control and power. A better distinction to make than left-right would be statist-libertarian. The Nazis were extreme statists, as are most socialists.
But the Nazis were more to the left than the right, by the stated philosophy and by their actions.
” In the end, it wanted to be the only party standing. It was also nihilistic and destructive of all other political philosophies… in which the goal was control and power”
A perfect description of the primary qualities of a totalitarian ideology.
The difference is always clear. In right wing totalitarian regimes, the big shooters wear dress uniforms.
In left-wing totalitarian regimes, the big shooters wear fatigues.
The other difference is that kleptocratic totalitarians generally stay home.
HNN had a symposium on Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism a couple of years ago. Funny how the Left, having used the term Fascist for anyone that was to their ‘right’ for 60 years, suddenly has a fit if someone applies it to ‘liberalism’.
Think Adorno’s F-scale, yes the same guy who was so important in the Frankfurt school. A measure of ‘authoritarian personality’ focused on following ‘traditional values’…so authoritarians following non-traditional values are ok?…got it.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/F-scale_%28personality_test%29
Just to add, in reviewing this I found a more recent incarnation…The Right-Wing Authoritarian scale.
‘Right-wing authoritarians are people who have a high degree of willingness to submit to authorities they perceive as established and legitimate, who adhere to societal conventions and norms, and who are hostile and punitive in their attitudes towards people who don’t adhere to them. They value uniformity and are in favour of using group authority, including coercion, to achieve it.’
From wikipedia
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_authoritarianism
I was originally going to post Jonah’s dissection of the left-historians that went all out in their screeds against LF with Definitions and Double Standards at HNN…so hopefully I can squeeze one more link in
http://historynewsnetwork.org/article/122667
I always like to point out that Benito Mussolini, who developed fascism, was a socialist and communist. His Fascism was the Italian version of communism. Communism lite if you will.
It is true that there is much commonality of belief between Nazis/Fascists on the one hand and Marxists/Socialists on the other; there is also considerable commonality of the personality types attracted to these ideologies. But there are also differences that should be noted. Basically, Marxism is a bastardization of Englightenment thought, whereas Fascism is counter-Enlightenment.
Aldous Huxley:
In the field of politics the equivalent of a theorem is a perfectly disciplined army; of a sonnet or picture, a police state under a dictatorship. The Marxist calls himself scientific and to this claim the Fascist adds another: he is the poet–the scientific poet–of a new mythology. Both are justified in their pretensions; for each applies to human situations the procedures which have proved effective in the laboratory and the ivory tower. They simplify, they abstract, they eliminate all that, for their purposes, is irrelevant and ignore whatever they choose to regard an inessential; they impose a style, they compel the facts to verify a favorite hypothesis, they consign to the waste paper basket all that, to their mind, falls short of perfection…the dream of Order begets tyranny, the dream of Beauty, monsters and violence.
Richard Aubrey:
The difference is always clear. In right wing totalitarian regimes, the big shooters wear dress uniforms. In left-wing totalitarian regimes, the big shooters wear fatigues.
It would be nice if what you said about cloting was true, but you never saw the russian leadership in fatigues… only third world revolutionaries, and the fatigues WERE the uniforms…
one of the most famous of images is stalin in his uniform with rows of medals… just search stalin in uniform. then there is the white uniform that many forget was a uniform.
Dressing like a dictator: Stalin’s distinctive military chic
Source: Russia Beyond the Headlines
http://rbth.com/arts/2014/08/19/dressing_like_a_dictator_stalins_distinctive_military_chic_39137.html
the SAME can be said for the leader of north korea, and the chinese communists… kim jong un in uniform is an easy one to see – and you can even see him in uniform as a child…
your confusing the imagery they want to project when not formally dressed and when they are formally dressed… so each of the men you saw in fatigues, can also be seen in the full dress uniforms…
you should do a search for each of the dictators, castro, kim jong un, stalin, hitler, mao…
this one of chiang kai-shek is impressive
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chiang_Kai-shek#mediaviewer/File:Chiang_Kai-shek%EF%BC%88%E8%94%A3%E4%B8%AD%E6%AD%A3%EF%BC%89.jpg
even edi amin… franco… castro…
if you go to this page, you can see american presidents in uniform
http://www.presidentsinuniform.com/
🙂
rk Says: Funny how the Left, having used the term Fascist for anyone that was to their ‘right’ for 60 years, suddenly has a fit if someone applies it to ‘liberalism’.
actually its a lot older than that…
http://www.jewishvirtuallibrary.org/jsource/biography/stalin.html
Stalin spent his first years after the revolution building his post as general secretary secretly into the most powerful one in the communist party. After Lenin’s death in 1924, a triumvirate of Stalin, Kamenev, and Zinoviev governed against Trotsky (on the left wing of the party) and Bukharin (on the right wing of the party). Soon after, Stalin switched sides and joined with Bukharin
so technically bill maher is right, stalin was right wing.
and here is the silly way its taught in the US
The Holocaust–A Guide for Teachers
http://remember.org/guide/Facts.root.nazi.html
[it can be quite surprising, but the knesset cant comment everywhere… ]
The Right-Wing Authoritarian scale.
i should have included for you the fact that this scale is completely contrived for the purpose of lumping the independent freedom minded people as the authoritarians and the suggestible and pliant as left wing…
its stems from theodore adorno of frankfurt school fame. to this day, the left tries to violate their own ideological statements of blank slates and so on, and try to be able to give tests and questionaires to establish right and left wing… but its not possible as they are one and the same thing, with the distinctions only being stated as to manipulate someone into making a comparison when there can be none..
the only place where left wing and right wing had any actual meaning was in france at the time of the french revolution…
The Authoritarian Personality
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Authoritarian_Personality
David Foster Says: It is true that there is much commonality of belief between Nazis/Fascists on the one hand and Marxists/Socialists on the other
hitler was a marxist…
what makes fascism different is economic organization. the communists took complete ownership of the means of production, everything belonged to the state in ownership, nothing belongs to the people..
the fascists said that this was a bad thing because it was better not to kill the old people who run things, and instead use them to run businesses. so instead of seizing and becoming owners, they nationalized things, and controlled the rest with inspections, licenses and permits…
given that most people cant give a cogent answer to the differences, is it any wonder that they cant tell that they live in a fascist state moving to a communist one?
the fascists realized that control was equivalent to ownership, but did not carry the weight of responsibility.
or as ford put it, i want to own nothing, but control everything.
we in the modern west of the usa have no idea of this as we do not want to read the peoples ideas, instead preferring to make up stuff out of our beliefs. so we do not get the idea of not owning the business, but controlling how its run… it leaves the business owner responsible, and to blame, while leaving the state under control, and blameless.
there is a lot more, but i will be run out on a rail and unread if i do more.
just one more thing. the point of the erronous understanding is to eliminate actual meaninful conversastion and the ability of someone like foster of actually being able to identify what they live in… the point by huxley fits both if your not one of either… but the truth is that these were economic ideologies and were not casted to social ones until after the war and the arrival of the frankfurt school at columbia, its teachers college and new school
Artfldgr…you badly need an editor, or maybe just a special version of a browser that will make you re-read and think before posting. (I think you were trying to insult me, but you’re such a confused writer that I can’t tell for sure)
In any event, there are material differences between a system that attempts to run businesses directly versus one that leaves them in nominally private ownership as long as they do what they’re told. First, the “nominally private” approach is obviously a much easier sell for people who are already business owners or investors…people who wouldn’t have supported as Socialism calling for expropriation *would* support a National Socialism leaving the in nominal control of their property. Second, “nominally private” provides insulation of the political class from economic performance problems…easier to blame someone else if you’re not running the enterprises directly.
The link provided by Greg is very good since it was written by an economist, Friedrich Hayek, before the war when it was easier to make objective assessments of the Nazi form of government.
http://www.brookesnews.com/091910hayeknazis.html
Hayek confirmed that, yes, the Nazis were socialists but with a significant difference. Communist socialism was socialism of the proletarian whereas German socialism was socialism of the middle class.
Artfldgr, the 60 years was just a rather parochial observation on my part. I remember taking Social Psych in undergrad, and the F-scale was part of that. That was, well, shortly before Adorno died, so you can do the math.
The F-scale and Adorno’s name stuck with me. And it wasn’t until much later that I managed to fill out the historical tree. Fortunately I didn’t have any long term flirtation with the Left
Goldberg’s piece at HNN gives lots of details on the right-wing epithet being used down thru the history of people (of the Left) grabbing for as much power as they can, and destroying those who stand in their way.
Left and right designations serve better as metaphors than as unambiguous classifications. The difficulty to distinguish between them in practice arises due to overlapping and convergent interests. It’s more productive to judge them on principles and effects.
Left-wing elite create monopolies by design, not chance.
Left-wing ideology emphasizes classes over individuals.
It requires that competing interests are marginalized (e.g. denigration) or eviscerated (e.g. premeditated abortion) in order to facilitate management and exploitation of the “folks” and workers. Right-wing ideology favors a different reconciliation of dignity and value, which when tempered with a suitable religion (i.e. moral philosophy), is more likely to respect human (i.e. individual) diversity.
What’s the matter with you guys? Can’t you tell the difference:
Communism is where a small group of vicious men crawl their way to the top using the utmost brutality, in order to control the state and the economy in the name of the People; whereas
Nazism is where a small group of vicious men crawl their way to the top using the utmost brutality, in order to control the state and the economy in the name of the Volk.
See? Completely different!
Too late. I’ve already stopped talking to them.
I’ve seen the following quotes in various places:
“Nazis are Communists with better fashion sense”
“Communists are Nazis with better PR”
And:
this “justice” that they prate about? how is it “just” to cut off the arms of the able-bodied so they’ll match the handicapped?
opposite of true justice (of course; they deal always in opposites, don’t they?).
Harrison Bergeron
I forget the exact date, but Adolf Hitler have EVERY remaining member of the Reichstag 72 hours to join the Nazi party — AS NAZIS or leave Germany — or be re-educated at Dachau.
Only a trickle of anti-Nazis left.
The rest joined the Party heart and soul. They were also provided, de facto, permanent seats in the Nazi government — along with their crews — for the end of their days.
IIRC this was the August immediately after the Enablement Act. Some three-day weekend, IIRC.
Then, after this ‘conversion’ the Nazis officially cancelled all other political parties in Germany.
True unification had occurred: the one party state.
As readers well know, this is the end goal of Barry Soetoro. He doesn’t believe in pluralism — no, not at all.
One-party total domination ruled:
Chicago
Boston
Honolulu
Indonesia
He honestly can’t imagine a functioning government that is not by diktat.
This unification — politically — of the ENTIRE Reichstag gets little press in the modern age.
It’s even omitted in the original work-up by Daniel Hannan.
Restated: the Nazi party ABSORBED ALL of the Socialist parties — and the conservative parties, too.
This was a totally different, nay unique, solution to one-party domination.
With true Communists, the one-party state is achieved by liquidations far and wide.
This political act, the absorption, goes a LONG way to explaining why it was virtually impossible to organize any anti-Nazi political force in Germany. Hitler had co-opted ALL of the politically active members of that society.
This salient fact now resides in the dust bin of history.
At the time, it was huge, front-page, news.
have = gave
dang typos
blert:
Well, at least Wiki mentions it. I quoted them in a post about the Enabling Act, here:
Sure, the Nazis took up those parts of socialism that served their purposes, but it wasn’t what drove them. That would be crazy-ass, Aryan-only nationalism.
I understand that Hannan and Goldberg and others are trying to make the lefties stop pining the “fascist” label on conservatives, but I don’t think saying, “well, Hitler was a big-bad socialist, too, so there”, is the way to go. That mostly plays into the Twitter-dominated world of one-liners, and, of course, drifts off into Godwin’s law territory.
Much better to work hard to get the word out there about the actual destructiveness of socialism and communism.
Soviet Communism and Naziism are two variations on the Marxist theme.
Every Democrat today, without any real exceptions worth noting, is a marxist at heart. The Marxist/Socialist will go to any length for the theory. They will use violence in every imaginable form, from baseball bats to tax codes to murder to get their way.
The horror of America today is that 25% of it’s citizens are Fascist Thugs who will stop at nothing. Every day we see proof of it. Denying this obvious truth at this point is its own neurosis.
Ann – Hannan knows what he is talking about. You don’t.
The truth has its rights. Twitter can go to hell.
Six of one, half a dozen of another. The distinction between communism and fascism is a splitting of hairs. Both seek to install a totalitarian state where the elitists hold sway over every aspect of life. Sort of like Obama’s agenda.
I’m willing to bet if you poll all the neo-nazis you can find and propose that they have to choose between the two parties today, they will find the Repubicans closer to their liking than the Democrats.
As far as it goes, you guys share more with the Nazis than the left.
Do you doubt it? Affirmative action – which side would they be on? Immigration? American exceptionalism? Christian right? Hawkish on war? Nationalism. They ain’t voting for Obamas. They won’t be in anti-police marches. They sure would be for “enhanced interrogation”. No multiculturalism for them. No peaceniks or hippies.
Do you really think they’d lean more left? We know who they are by who’d they pick today. I say the right of today is the most appealing to Nazis.
Tellitlikeitis Says:
December 11th, 2014 at 1:58 am
“I’m willing to bet if you poll all the neo-nazis you can find and propose that they have to choose between the two parties today, they will find the Repubicans closer to their liking than the Democrats.”
Such is fantasy.
The ‘test’ has already been done: in Europe.
The neo-Nazis and conservatives can’t stand each other.
Duh!
There are many similarities between Naziism and Socialism, particularly in the way each enforces their goals. But I really don’t think the “National Socialist” movement was ever, at heart, any more socialist than the Democratic Peoples’ Republic of North Korea is democratic. Individuals within the party may have believed it to be the ultimate expression of revolutionary liberalism, and many liberals worldwide were easily duped into thinking it was, up until it broke the Chamberlain treaty (and then only convinced themselves, with the same wide-eyed naivette, that it was actually the opposite, when the reality was that their own revolutions were no better).
In truth, the Nazi leaders had no plan to implement anything but fascism, which is to the right wing what communism is to the left. In theory, fascism is a strict meritocracy where people are only allowed to keep what they earn and are judged solely by their ability to produce results, but just as with the classic “to each according to his need” of communism, is easily perverted by manipulating the definition of “earned” and “results” to exclude things the fascists considered degenerate, no matter how necessary they were to a healthy economy. And there was nothing more “degenerate,” to them, than the middle class economy that the Jews had built.
Tatterdemalian Says:
“I’m willing to bet if you poll all the neo-nazis you can find and propose that they have to choose between the two parties today, they will find the Repubicans closer to their liking than the Democrats.”
First Tatterdemalian makes up a fantasy poll and then he bases his argument on it. In other words this is typical leftist pablum.
It appears Tatterdemalian has not actually read the previous posts. Greg posted an excellent link to a post by the economist Friedrich August von Hayek who wrote an article in 1933 in which he confirmed that yes Nazis were socialists.
http://www.brookesnews.com/091910hayeknazis.html
Mike: “Soviet Communism and Naziism are two variations on the Marxist theme.
Every Democrat today, without any real exceptions worth noting, is a marxist at heart. The Marxist/Socialist will go to any length for the theory. They will use violence in every imaginable form, from baseball bats to tax codes to murder to get their way.
The horror of America today is that 25% of it’s citizens are Fascist Thugs who will stop at nothing. Every day we see proof of it. Denying this obvious truth at this point is its own neurosis.”
1000 Thumbs Up!
And thank goodness I’m not neurotic.
Liberalism is a moral disease.