Smasharoo wrote:
No you haven't. Repost them for me, I must have missed them. Where are the quoted from professors of History saying Hitler was a Socialist?
Huh? You're pretending 2 pages of posting just doesn't exist now? Odd...
http://econ161.berkeley.edu/TCEH/Slouch_Alternatives12.html
Fascism as a twentieth-century doctrine was the invention of Benito Mussolini, who had been a rising if erratic star in Italy's socialist party before World War I. Mussolini, however, became convinced during World War I of the inadequacy of socialism: it had no place for the enormous outpouring of nationalist enthusiasm that he saw during the war, no place for the struggle between nations, and no recognition of the fact that solidarity was associated with the national community--not with one's international class or with humanity in general.Moreover, socialism had no plan for how a post-capitalist economy would operate. Mussolini soon became an ex-socialist, intent on integrating the lessons and appeal of nationalism with the appeal of socialism. The movement he produced he called "fascism." and
Perhaps the dominant theme of fascism as an ideology was that liberal capitalism had had its chance and had failed along several dimensions, which were seen as--somehow--linked together. The first was economic failure: it had not guaranteed high employment and rapid economic growth. A second was distributional failure: either the rich got richer and everyone else stayed poor, or liberal capitalism failed to preserve an adequate income differential between the more-educated, more-respectable lower middle class and the unskilled industrial proletariat; depending on which aspect of income distribution was highlighted, industrial capitalism produced an income distribution that was either too unequal or not unequal enough. Both clearly speak of fascism arising from socialist thought.
Next quote from here: http://20th-century-history-books.com/0299148742.html
Americans find fascism confusing for one simple reason. Historians who choose to write about it are often motivated by a desire, not to elucidate, but to obscure. What they are most keen to obscure is the undeniable fact that fascism was a thoroughly socialist movement. It's amazing the lengths of self-contradiction some will go to, in order to maintain, in the teeth of a mountain of evidence, that, for example, the National Socialist German Workers' Party wasn't a socialist party. Werner Sombart, down the memory hole of history, does not appear at all in the index of this 600 page tome. Neither does Marx, Proudhon, or LasSalle. Lyndon LaRouche (?), however, does makes it into a book on the period 1914-1945. Go figure. If you want the skinny on fascism, see George Watson's "Lost Literature of Socialism." Fascism bitterly opposed the "bourgeois" ideology of capitalism: i.e., individualism, free trade, private property, free enterprise, limited government, and classical laissez-faire liberalism. Moreover, "the whole of National Socialism," as Hitler would freely admit (at least in private) was based on Marx. He explained in Mein Kampf: "As National Socialists we see our program in our flag. In the red we see the social idea of the movement." As even social-democrat Sidney Hook has admitted, "Anti-Semitism was rife in almost all varieties of socialism." (Commentary, Sept. 1978) Wow. Another source not only saying that fascism comes from socialist thought, but specifically mentioning that American's have a hard time seeing it that way because their education systems try to separate the ideologies of the Left, from bad things like communism and fascism.
Here's another source: http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm
Over the last 30 years, scholarship has gradually begun to bring us a more accurate appreciation of what Fascism was. (20) The picture that emerges from ongoing research into the origins of Fascism is not yet entirely clear, but it's clear enough to show that the truth cannot be reconciled with the conventional view. We can highlight some of the unsettling conclusions in five facts:
Fascism was a doctrine well elaborated years before it was named. The core of the Fascist movement launched officially in the Piazza San Sepolcro on 23rd March 1919 was an intellectual and organizational tradition called "national syndicalism."
As an intellectual edifice, Fascism was mostly in place by about 1910. Historically, the taproot of Fascism lies in the 1890s--in the "Crisis of Marxism" and in the interaction of nineteenth-century revolutionary socialism with fin de siècle anti-rationalism and anti-liberalism.
Fascism changed dramatically between 1919 and 1922, and again changed dramatically after 1922. This is what we expect of any ideological movement which comes close to power and then attains it. Bolshevism (renamed Communism in 1920) also changed dramatically, several times over.
Many of the older treatments of Fascism are misleading because they cobble together Fascist pronouncements, almost entirely from after 1922, reflecting the pressures on a broad and flexible political movement solidifying its rule by compromises, and suppose that by this method they can isolate the character and motivation of Fascist ideology. It is as if we were to reconstruct the ideas of Bolshevism by collecting the pronouncements of the Soviet government in 1943, which would lead us to conclude that Marxism owed a lot to Ivan the Terrible and Peter the Great.
Fascism was a movement with its roots primarily in the left. Its leaders and initiators were secular-minded, highly progressive intellectuals, hard-headed haters of existing society and especially of its most bourgeois aspects.
There were also non-leftist currents which fed into Fascism; the most prominent was the nationalism of Enrico Corradini. This anti-liberal, anti-democratic movement was preoccupied with building Italy's strength by accelerated industrialization. Though it was considered rightwing at the time, Corradini called himself a socialist, and similar movements in the Third World would later be warmly supported by the left.
Fascism was intellectually sophisticated. Fascist theory was more subtle and more carefully thought out than Communist doctrine. As with Communism, there was a distinction between the theory itself and the "line" designed for a broad public. Fascists drew upon such thinkers as Henri Bergson, William James, Gabriel Tarde, Ludwig Gumplowicz, Vilfredo Pareto, Gustave Le Bon, Georges Sorel, Robert Michels, Gaetano Mosca, Giuseppe Prezzolini, Filippo Marinetti, A.O. Olivetti, Sergio Panunzio, and Giovanni Gentile. Look. Yet more suggestions that fascism comes from the left and socialism, even if the people doing it claim otherwise.
Note that at this point in the argument, you still had not posted a single link or source that supported your argument. Not one. Ok. You paraphrased a discussion with your history professor at Harvard, which did not discuss the specifics of Hitler or Mussulini's ties to socialism, but rather explained how the left can wrap around and become the far right. Nice, but doesn't refute what I'm saying at all.
Next quote was from your link defining fascism. Interesting that you provided a link, but no quotes from it to support your argument:
A fascist government is usually characterized as "extreme right-wing," and a socialist government as "left-wing". Others such as Hannah Arendt and Friedrich Hayek argue that the differences between fascism and totalitarian forms of socialism (see Stalinism) are more superficial than actual, since those self-proclaimed "socialist" governments did not live up to their claims of serving the people and respecting democratic principles. Many socialists and communists also reject those totalitarian governments, seeing them as fascism with a socialist mask. (See political spectrum and political model for more on these ideas).
Italian fascist leader Mussolini's own origins on the left, as a leader of the more radical wing of the Italian Socialist Party, has frequently been noted. After his turn to the right, Mussolini continued to employ much of the rhetoric of socialism, but substituting the nation for social class as the basis of political loyalty. Many other fascist leaders, including Sir Oswald Mosley in Britain and Jacques Doriot and Marcel Déat in France, also began their careers on the political left before turning to fascism.
Socialists and other critics of Arendt and Hayek maintain that there is no ideological overlap between Fascism and Marxism; they regard the two as utterly distinct. Since Marxism is the ideological basis of Communism, they argue that the comparisons drawn by Arendt and others are invalid. Wow. Yet more arguments supporting my arguments. Or at the very least accepting that the "experts" do not agree on the blanket assertion that fascism is a right wing movement. There's worse things then to have people like Hanna Arendt and Fredrick Hayak agree with you (at least on this subject).
At this point, you are still using your Harvard History professor as a source, allthough you have no quote from him refuting my argument. Just your interpretation of what you learned from him at school.
Finally, you start linking things, but you miss the point. You argue that since Spain and Germany were both Republics, that therefore a state could move to facsism without going through socialism first. What you miss of course, is that a Republic can certainly also be socialist. All one needs to do is look at virtually every single European nation today to see that this is true. You skirt the issue as to whether or not those governments practices socialism prior to adopting facsism. You just pretend that a Replublic somehow cannnot be socialist, without even actually arguing the point. Nice..
I don't remember where this came from. Hitler's bio somewhere I think:
Hitler, therefore redefined socialism by placing the word 'National' before it. He claimed he was only in favour of equality for those who had "German blood". Jews and other "aliens" would lose their rights of citizenship, and immigration of non-Germans should be brought to an end.
In February 1920, the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP) published its first programme which became known as the "25 Points". In the programme the party refused to accept the terms of the Versailles Treaty and called for the reunification of all German people. To reinforce their ideas on nationalism, equal rights were only to be given to German citizens. "Foreigners" and "aliens" would be denied these rights.
To appeal to the working class and socialists, the programme included several measures that would redistribute income and war profits, profit-sharing in large industries, nationalization of trusts, increases in old-age pensions and free education.
On 24th February, 1920, the NSDAP (later nicknamed the **** Party) held a mass rally where it announced its new programme. The rally was attended by over 2,000 people, a great improvement on the 25 people who were at Hitler's first party meeting. Again. More evidence supporting the assertion that Hitler was, if not in name, certainly in method, a socialist.
At this point, you finally start to provide links and quotes, but they are relatively insubstantial. I find lots of quotes that state that Hitler isn't a socialist becuase he opposed Communism. Um... Ok. That doesn't mean he wasn't a socialist. It just means that he didn't agree with communism. Faulty logic.
What I particularly love is this quote:
Despite the important differences from other right-wing ideologies, fascism is almost universally considered to be a part of "the right" Ok. Why? Other then arbitrarily labeling it "right", where's their justification? It shares almost no idealogical terrain with any "right" position, and almost all of them with those on the "left", but we lable it "right" because?...
Because most of the people who come up with the arbitrary defintitions of "right" and "left" that we use are proponents of socialism. Socialism is on the "left", so they distance things like communism and facism from their personal beliefs as much as possible.
Look. I've provided probabaly 3 times as many quotes and links, from many different sites, then you have. Almost all of your quotes have come from one source (wikopedia). And even those sources have quotes that support my argument as much as yours.
I really feel you are arguing a strawman here Smash. I argue that Fascism is more closely related to those political ideals arising from socialism. For support, I've provided definitions of socialism, and bullet points involved in facsist regimes and shown how similar they are. You have done nothing but quote other poeple who argue that since Hitler (or whomever else) opposed socialism and communism, that therefore he was a right winger. I believe that is horribly flawed logic. I stand by my assertion that fascism is primarily a left wing socialist based system. I believe I've provided abundant support for my position, both anecdotal and logical. You've provided not one quote that provides an adequate argument for why fascism should not be considered an offshot of socialism other then arbitrary declarations that it must be right wing because it's authoritarianistic. I don't find that to be adequate proof.
Do better.
