# Explain fascism please. **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [July 17, 2010, 10:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065 "2010-07-17T22:15:20Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 4:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/41 "2010-07-19T04:48:57Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > No, that’s just a self-serving myth the right puts out there. It’s a No True Scotsman argument - if anyone on the right acts undeniably wrong then just deny they’re on the right. But the reality is there have been plenty of right wing dictators. Fascism is socialist. What’s not left wing about that. It’s the left that is self-serving by denying that it’s leftist. Look at the Nazis economic policies. Left wing, right down the line. Right wing dictators, yes, but they aren’t fascist. Fascists are leftists. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 4:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/42 "2010-07-19T04:57:18Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > Yes. The claptrap that fascism is leftist is a recent invention of the conservative right wing to distance themselves from Hitler and Mussolini. Fascist movements are always completely tolerated and heavily supported by more traditional right wing allies. The fascist takeover in Chili, the long fascist regime in Spain, etc. were heavily supported by right wingers all over the world, and in particular in the U.S. Hitler was financially supported by Prescott Bush in the U.S. Prescott was the father and grandfather of Bush I and Bush II. > > Part of the Fox news style historical revisionism about fascism not being a right wing movement is that they want to make it seem completely safe to keep moving to the right politically. It is not. Excuse me, but this is totally false. And I got it from my political science class on Comparative Government in 1985, long before Fox ever existed. The class was taught by a Communist, no less. A genuine card-carrying member of the CPUSA. The idea that is is right wing is a fiction made up by the left to distance themselves from Hitler. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 5:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/43 "2010-07-19T05:58:04Z")
Claiming that the Nazis were left wing is pure Kool-Aid. And lines like “It’s the left that is self-serving by denying that it’s leftist” and “Socialists love to pretend that the Nazis were not socialists, but the truth is that they were” are ironic coming from conservatives trying to deny reality. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/44 "2010-07-19T06:03:09Z")
> [@](#): > > Look at the Nazis economic policies. Left wing, right down the line. Yes, like how the Nazis abolished labor unions and outlawed strikes. And then signed agreements with major corporations that increased their profits. Classic left-wing economics. Because if there’s one thing Marxism is known for it’s its love of capitalist bosses and disdain for the working class. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/45 "2010-07-19T06:03:24Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > Excuse me, but this is totally false. And I got it from my political science class on Comparative Government in 1985, long before Fox ever existed. The class was taught by a Communist, no less. A genuine card-carrying member of the CPUSA. The idea that is is right wing is a fiction made up by the left to distance themselves from Hitler. Well, this is not Great Debates, it is GQ, and I would refer you and the readers to the Britannica articles on both, or the wiki articles previously referenced. I regret that you were misinformed. In fact, it appears that you were lied to and given disinformation. The Britannica article includes among other things that fascism includes a dislike of parliamentary democracy. None of the parties on the left short of communism dislike parliamentary democracy. Even socialists at their most radical do not dislike parliamentary democracy. Britannica on Fascism, snippet > [@](#): > > Opposition to political and cultural liberalism > > Although circumstances sometimes made accommodation to political liberalism necessary, fascists condemned this doctrine for placing the rights of the individual above the needs of the Volk, encouraging “divisiveness” (i.e., political pluralism), tolerating “decadent” values, and limiting the power of the state. Fascists accused liberal “fellow travelers” of wittingly or unwittingly abetting communism. In 1935 the Cross of Fire berated “moderates”—i.e., democratic conservatives—for indirectly aiding the communists through their taste for “compromise and hesitation.” La Rocque urged the French people to stand up against revolution and its “sordid ally” moderation, warning that, on the final day of reckoning, complicit moderates—“guardians unfaithful to their charge”—would be “at the head of the list of the guilty.” > > Fascist propagandists also attacked cultural liberalism, claiming that it encouraged moral relativism, godless materialism, and selfish individualism and thereby undermined traditional morality. Anti-Semitic fascists associated liberalism with Jews in particular—indeed, one precursor of Nazism, the political theorist Theodor Fritsch, claimed that to succumb to a liberal idea was to succumb to the Jew within oneself. Britannica on Socialism, snippet > [@](#): > > Introduction > > system of social organization in which property and the distribution of income are subject to social control rather than individual determination or market forces. > > Socialism refers to both a set of doctrines and the political movements that aspire to put these doctrines into practice. Although doctrinal aspects loomed largest in the early history of socialism, in its later history the movements have predominated over doctrine, so much so that there is no precise canon on which the various adherents of contemporary socialist movements agree. The most that can be said is that socialism is, in the words of Anthony Crosland, a British socialist, “a set of values, or aspirations, which socialists wish to see embodied in the organization of society.” ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:08am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/46 "2010-07-19T06:08:23Z")
> [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > The confusion comes from the fact that fascism is not far right, but rather far left. The primary difference between communism and fascism is the nationalism and their views on private property. I don’t think you know what right and left mean (in politics). The primary difference between right and left consists in their differing views of private property. As you rightly say, fascists and communists differed on this point, and that is precisely what made communists far left and fascists far right. What Stalinist and Maoist communism had in common with fascism was their _totalitarianism_, but totalitarianism has nothing fundamentally to do with leftism. Anarchists are leftists fer chrissake! They, and communists, are leftists because both want to abolish or radically weaken the institution of private property, and the capitalist economic system that depends on it. Fascists, by contrast, have no interest in abolishing either private property or capitalism. Rather, they want to integrate capitalist corporations, remaining as privately owned institutions, into the power structure of the state (hence the fascist notion of “the corporate state”). [This also means that the current Chinese leadership, in attempting to promote the development of a capitalist economic system within the framework of a repressive, totalitarian state, are in fact acting as fascists, despite the “communist” label that they inherited from the era of Mao.] In fact, although fascists happily embrace totalitarianism, it is fundamentally antithetical to leftist principles. That is not to deny that communist leaders did in fact create very totalitarian systems, but in communist states the rationale and justification for this was as a hard means to a great end. Even the most totalitarian leftists, such as Stalin, justified the iron fist with which they ruked on the basis that the totalitarian structures that they created would be transcended, and would “wither away” once the difficult process of developing a truly communist economic system had come to fruition. Whether there was ever any real possibility that this would happen is another matter, but it is a fundamental part of what communism as an ideology was about. > [@Cheshire\_Human](#): > > They were enemies not because they were on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but rather because they were rivals for which left wing system would dominate. That is just nonsense. They were rivals for which _system_ would dominate. (Economically) right wing fascism, or (economically) left wing communism. (They also went to war, of course, because Germany and Russia were both big powerful countries trying to dominate the same area of eastern Europe, which lay between them.) ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/47 "2010-07-19T06:15:19Z")
The National Socialists were socialist the same way the Democratic People’s Republic of Korea is democratic. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:18am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/48 "2010-07-19T06:18:22Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > That would be why Hitler led the National **Socialist** Party. Yeah, and civet cats are called ‘cats’, but they’re not - they belong to a different taxonomic family entirely. Just because we call something by a particular name doesn’t mean it actually is - you need to look a lot deeper into something if you really want to see if your assertions are true. For example, socialists support and encourage the development of independent unions as a reflection of the self-organization of the working class. Hitler, on the other hand, actively smashed the independent unions and replaced them with ‘unions’ directly under Party control, often including the factory bosses themselves on the governing boards. On a larger scale, let’s not forget that socialists and communists, both Jewish and gentile, also died in the concentration camps. How does that reconcile with a socialist perspective of solidarity on the left being one of the best ways of making the left stronger? Fascism being right-wing is not a leftist myth. It is a fact. It draws its political power from outside the working class, consolidates its power by actively smashing working-class resistance, and has no problem with big industry as long as it’s run by the right people (i.e. no ‘outsiders’). Much like the civet cat having four legs and a tail doesn’t make it a true cat, the adoption by fascism of a few superficially ‘socialist’ ideas doesn’t make it genuinely socialist, let alone leftist. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/49 "2010-07-19T06:31:56Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > Fascism being right-wing is not a leftist myth. It is a fact. It draws its political power from outside the working class This is simply incorrect. Hitler drew his main support from the working class. I will not deny that Fascism can be right-wing (q.v. Pinochet), but the main historical example of Hitler clearly shows that Fascism can also be left-wing. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/50 "2010-07-19T06:45:24Z")
> [@](#): > > This is simply incorrect. Hitler drew his main support from the working class. Yeah, by telling the workers he would protect them from the Socialists and Communists. Heck, Reagan drew support from the working class. Does that make him a socialist? > [@](#): > > I will not deny that Fascism can be right-wing (q.v. Pinochet), but the main historical example of Hitler clearly shows that Fascism can also be left-wing. No it shows that some conservatives will support a Fascist like Pinochet or Franco or, in a pinch, Mussolini. But when a Fascist crosses the line and starts declaring wars against the wrong countries and killing the wrong people, he suddenly becomes a Socialist. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Second\_Stone](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@The\_Second\_Stone](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Second_Stone)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/51 "2010-07-19T06:45:30Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > This is simply incorrect. Hitler drew his main support from the working class. I will not deny that Fascism can be right-wing (q.v. Pinochet), but the main historical example of Hitler clearly shows that Fascism can also be left-wing. This is just flat out wrong with respect to Hitler. Please provide a citation to a neutral and authoritative source that the Nazis were left wing. The Nazis gained power with the money of the aristocracy and monied interests, outlawed labor unions and assassinated all Nazis who did actually proclaim socialism, such as Roehm. The Nazis were virulently anti-communist and in fact blamed the Reichstag fire on communists without any evidence when in fact it may have been the Nazis who started the fire. ---
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/52 "2010-07-19T06:47:51Z")
> [@](#): > > That would be why Hitler led the National Socialist Party. Lenin changed the Russian Empire into the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Does that make him a Republican? ---
**Author:** ![Palo\_Verde](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Palo\_Verde](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Palo_Verde)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 6:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/53 "2010-07-19T06:49:54Z")
This discussion is interesting, should I request the thread be moved to GD? ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 7:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/54 "2010-07-19T07:17:29Z")
> [@Quartz](#): > > This is simply incorrect. Hitler drew his main support from the working class. No he did not. He drew his support from the petty bourgeoisie (and later big capital when they realized he was a viable alternative) by demonstrating he could beat back the working-class threat of socialism. There was mass working-class opposition to Hitler and the Nazis, but it was led by parties who either didn’t take this threat seriously or who were following Stalin’s criminal policies. Fascism is not a working-class movement, nor is it leftist or socialist. ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 8:43am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/55 "2010-07-19T08:43:07Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > No he did not. Who do you think made up the bulk of his supporters? Who were members of the SA, the Stormtroopers, etc? The middle class wasn’t that big. Who do you think voted for him? > [@](#): > > He drew his support from the petty bourgeoisie (and later big capital when they realized he was a viable alternative) by demonstrating he could beat back the working-class threat of socialism. Incorrect. He got their support because he demonstrated that he could beat back the forces of communism, not socialism. Communism was a threat to them; National Socialism wasn’t. > [@](#): > > There was mass working-class opposition to Hitler and the Nazis, Correct. There was considerable conflict between the Nazis and the Communists, with the Nazis the victors. > [@](#): > > Fascism is not a working-class movement, nor is it leftist or socialist. Simply incorrect: it can be. ---
**Author:** ![Olentzero](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/90ced4/32.png) [@Olentzero](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Olentzero)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 10:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/56 "2010-07-19T10:06:57Z")
No, it simply cannot. On May 2, 1933 barely four months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, every trade union office in Germany was broken into and raided by state troops and Nazi Party members, with many trade union officials immediately sent off to concentration camps. The main trade union, the ADGB, had been created and sustained by the SPD - the Socialist Party of Germany - for over 50 years until that date; a week later the offices of the SPD itself were occupied by the SS and the party forcibly dissolved. The SPD were not communists by any stretch of the imagination, so by your twisted definition they should have been left alone as not a threat. > [@Quartz](#): > > Who do you think made up the bulk of his supporters? Who were members of the SA, the Stormtroopers, etc? The middle class wasn’t that big. Who do you think voted for him? American workers vote for the Republican Party in elections. Does that make the Republicans a bastion of socialism? You can’t label a party ‘socialist’ simply because workers vote for it and support it; you have to look at its leaders, and the content of its actions and tactics. We can start with a select quote or two from Goebbels and Hitler themselves on their attitudes towards the working masses: [QUOTE=Goebbels] _Propaganda has only one aim: to win the masses. And any means that serve this end are good._ [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Hitler] _[Propaganda is] a means to an end… its effect for the most part must be aimed at the emotions and only to a very limited degree at the so-called intellect… The receptivity of the great masses is very limited, their intelligence is small._ [/QUOTE] [QUOTE=Hitler, again] _In the big lie there is always a certain force of credibility, because the broad masses of a nation… more readily fall victims to the big lie than the small lie… It would never come into their heads to fabricate colossal untruths and they would not believe that others could have the impudence to distort the truth so infamously… The grossly impudent lie always leaves traces behind it, even after it has been nailed down._ [/QUOTE] It should be painfully clear that the Nazis intended to win mass working-class support through manipulation rather than speaking truth to power, which is the aim of genuine socialism. Furthermore, let’s take a look at some action on the ground in the weeks leading up to Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor. In 1928, a body called the National Socialist Organization of Factory Cells, or NSBO, emerged in Berlin. By 1929 it was an affiliate of the Nazi Party, and claimed to have participated in 117 strikes between April 1932 and January 1933. On the surface it sure looks like something socialist - but at the same time as the NSBO was emerging, Rudolf Hess was speaking on a fundraising tour among German businessmen, raising millions of marks in the process. Nor did these kind of actions prevent the Nazi Party from being invited into right-wing pro-capitalist coalitions like the [Harzburg Front](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harzburg_Front). Moreover, the Nazi commitment to working-class action is clearly illustrated by the number of strikes the NSBO backed in the months immediately prior to Hitler’s appointment: in September and November 1932, it backed a total of 74 strikes; in December 1932, when Hitler began talks with von Hindenburg to negotiate the chancellorship, it backed only 2. In other words, Hitler mobilized workers when he needed to convince von Hindenburg he was a force to be reckoned with, but once he achieved his purpose the workers were no longer useful. Genuine socialism, on the other hand, supports and promotes the independent self-activity of the working class in order to strengthen it, not as a means to personal political ends. Fascism is not and cannot be a leftist or socialist movement. For fascists, the working class are a means to their own ends, to be manipulated, then discarded and crushed once those ends are achieved. Socialists and communists see the need to teach the working class that they themselves are the means to their own liberation and would have the working class become its own leader. Your simple, repeated, and unsupported assertions that fascism can be a leftist or socialist movement just don’t hold water. Although I expect traces will remain, no matter when or how this particular lie is nailed down… ---
**Author:** ![Quartz](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/quartz/32/267_2.png) [@Quartz](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Quartz)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 10:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/57 "2010-07-19T10:21:53Z")
> [@Olentzero](#): > > No, it simply cannot. On May 2, 1933 barely four months after Hitler’s appointment as Chancellor, every trade union office in Germany was broken into and raided by state troops and Nazi Party members… Political infighting is the nastiest. You are free to ignore history and even try to rewrite it. The rest of us will look at the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 1:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/58 "2010-07-19T13:26:32Z")
> [@Little\_Nemo](#): > > Claiming that the Nazis were left wing is pure Kool-Aid. And lines like “It’s the left that is self-serving by denying that it’s leftist” and “Socialists love to pretend that the Nazis were not socialists, but the truth is that they were” are ironic coming from conservatives trying to deny reality. So I guess my Communist professor was a conservative, Fox-watching (although it didn’t exist, yet), right-wing nutjob? :dubious::rolleyes: ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 1:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/59 "2010-07-19T13:34:10Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > I don’t think you know what right and left mean (in politics)… Having minored in Political Science in school, and having had professors ranging from Communist to conservative, I think it likely that I have a better idea what it means than most people. Why do you think **you** have a better grasp of it? ---
**Author:** ![Cheshire\_Human](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/5f8ce5/32.png) [@Cheshire\_Human](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Cheshire_Human)\ **Post date:** [July 19, 2010, 2:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065/60 "2010-07-19T14:22:25Z")
> [@The\_Second\_Stone](#): > > This is just flat out wrong with respect to Hitler. Please provide a citation to a neutral and authoritative source that the Nazis were left wing. The Nazis gained power with the money of the aristocracy and monied interests, outlawed labor unions and assassinated all Nazis who did actually proclaim socialism, such as Roehm. The Nazis were virulently anti-communist and in fact blamed the Reichstag fire on communists without any evidence when in fact it may have been the Nazis who started the fire. University poli sci departments acceptable? These are the first two on the first page of my Google search that mentioned it at all: > **[Mussolini's Intellectuals](https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691127903/mussolinis-intellectuals)** > > Price: GBP 40.000000 Note the first line in the second paragraph. [http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/fascism](http://www.auburn.edu/~johnspm/gloss/fascism) Note the “Strict regulation and control of the economy” in point 9. Good enough, or do you need more? 😛 [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/explain-fascism-please/547065.md?page=4)