Saturday, September 03, 2011

some notes on the fact that Hitler & Co. were socialists,

and the people who don't like to hear about it. Part of it:
In the Thirties, intellectuals smitten by progressivism considered limited, constitutional governance anachronistic. The Great Depression had apparently proven capitalism defunct. The remaining choice had narrowed between communism and fascism. Hitler was about an inch to the right of Stalin. Western intellectuals infatuated with Marxism thus associated fascism with the Right.

Later, Marxists from the Frankfurt School popularized this prevailing sentiment. Theodor Adorno in The Authoritarian Personality devised the “F” scale to demean conservatives as latent fascists. The label “fascist” has subsequently meant anyone liberals seek to ostracize or discredit.

Fascism is an amorphous ideology mobilizing an entire nation (Mussolini, Franco and Peron) or race (Hitler) for a common purpose. Leaders of industry, science, education, the arts and politics combine to shepherd society in an all encompassing quest. Hitler’s premise was a pure Aryan Germany capable of dominating Europe.

While he feinted right, Hitler and Stalin were natural bedfellows. Hitler mimicked Lenin’s path to totalitarian tyranny, parlaying crises into power. Nazis despised Marxists not over ideology, but because they had betrayed Germany in World War I and Nazis found it unconscionable that German communists yielded fealty to Slavs in Moscow.


3 comments:

Mattexian said...

Thanks for the link, sharing it on FB, despite how many friends it might suddenly lose me. (I figure it's gonna get ugly next year anyway with the election, there's gonna be a whole lot of "unfriending" going on!)

Roger said...

You're quite correct. Adolph Shickelgruber (his real name) was a proud member of the communist party for a long time. His views on state ownership / guidance of business and state control of society are very much in line with our dear leaders current agenda.
Try to tell a liberal / progressive that ole Adolph was a socialist / progressive and you'll have an enraged but wrong lib.

Firehand said...

I've mentioned that to a couple of people before, reactions range from "LIE!!!" from the die-hard lefties to "But he wasn't a REAL Socialist!"

And I think Matt's right; it's going to get real nasty with some people next year as the elections approach; hell, with some of them it gets nasty NOW