# Smurfs. Communists? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [December 9, 2003, 7:38am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880 "2003-12-09T07:38:45Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 6:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/21 "2003-12-10T06:52:11Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ResIpsaLoquitor \* > \*\*Nah, the Smurfs are _Nazis_. \*\* Communists, Nazis, same thing. Let’s call 'em Communazis. But really, I’m with **GIGOBuster** , they’re anarcho-syndicalists. They just don’t have enough smurfs to establish the syndicates yet. Once there are multiple smurfs willing to be the tailors and handymen, rather than just one smurf eponymously named for his profession, I suspect it would evolve that way. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/22 "2003-12-10T07:41:20Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by RexDart \* > \*\*Communists, Nazis, same thing. Let’s call 'em Communazis. > \*\* Don’t go there **RexDart**. It should be enough to notice that both groups hated each other to death. As much as you wish, they were not the same. [http://www.britannia.com/history/euro/3/2\_2.html](http://www.britannia.com/history/euro/3/2_2.html) > [@](#): > > Economically, there was the “purse string” argument. Fascism and Nazism are here seen to have gained popularity as defenders against an imposing Communist menace. With the successful advent of communism to power in Russia, and with the loudly made argument that the abolition of private property would sweep away class differences and create an equitable economy, much of European middle-classdom worked up a fear of the “Bolshevik menace,” the possibility of the forceful overthrow or the subversion of the existing social and political order. Both Mussolini and Hitler made opposition to communism a major element of their ideologies. For Hitler, communism and Nazism were competing world systems, locked in mortal combat. As he stated in his closing speech to the Nazi party rally at Nuremberg in September 1936: “Bolshevism has attacked the foundations of our whole human order, alike in State and society; the foundations of our concept of civilization, of our faith and of our morals all alike are at stake.” > > To many intelligent observers, even those of a traditionally liberal persuasion, Mussolini seemed to have provided in the 1920s a sound political compromise between an uncontrolled capitalism on one side and an uncontrollable communism on the other. Thus Fascist Italy was described as the middle term between two untenable social conditions. It supposedly provided the necessary amount of order and state control without severe interference with the old economic system. **In sum, the dictators of Italy and Germany promoted their systems as the means to reconcile the profound problems existing between labor and management so that capitalism would not be destroyed.** (Emphasis mine) Drifting on the subject: take notice that this “Commie Smurf” conspiracy was debunked already. It **does** make a great band name though! 🙂 ---
**Author:** ![Bryan\_Ekers](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bryan_ekers/32/183_2.png) [@Bryan\_Ekers](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bryan_Ekers)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/23 "2003-12-10T07:44:38Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by The Tooth \* > **I thought they were an autonomous collective.** “Who’s that, then?” “I dunno, must be a king.” “Why?” “He hasn’t got smurf all over him.” ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 7:59am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/24 "2003-12-10T07:59:10Z")
_King Arthur: Well, who is your lord? Dennis’ Mother: We don’t have a lord. King Arthur: What? Dennis: I told you, we’re an anarcho-syndicalist commune, we take it in turns to act as a sort of executive officer for the week…_ Only now I get that reference! 😃 Since Papa Smurf does not give up power and still helps kings and princes, I think this Commie stuff is just a front! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![RexDart](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b77776/32.png) [@RexDart](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RexDart)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 8:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/25 "2003-12-10T08:01:58Z")
**GIGOBuster** , Hayek makes a pretty good case that both movement arose as a response to liberal democracy and capitalism. He also notes that many of the opponents to liberal democracy switched freely between communism and fascism throughout the 20’s. And from the libertarian point of view, both systems are merely different brands of statism, neither is better nor worse than the other. So from my POV, and that of all who believe in individualism, they really are the same thing. The common thread to both is collectivism, either Hitler’s nationalist “Volkism”, Mussolini’s “ideal man”, or communism’s complete suppression of the individual will. We could easily describe the Smurfs as collectivists, and leave it at that. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 8:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/26 "2003-12-10T08:13:53Z")
On that last note, I agree **RexDart**. This should be noticed though: Where else on the web you can get a serious ( :dubious: ) discussion incorporating the Smurfs, Monty Python, Nazis and Communism? Only in the Straight Dope!!! ---
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 8:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/27 "2003-12-10T08:49:25Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ResIpsaLoquitor \* > \*\*Anyway, it’s been years since I’ve seen Gargamel, but I’m pretty sure he had a raspy voice and was always after gold. \*\* You did not connect to Gargamel to any Judaic features. You did connect him to features which are associated to Jews by Antisemits. Ergo: somebody who says that the smurfs are Antisemit fosters Antisemitism, since he is creating the connection between Greed and Jews. ---
**Author:** ![nicky](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/f0a364/32.png) [@nicky](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nicky)\ **Post date:** [December 10, 2003, 12:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/28 "2003-12-10T12:57:21Z")
I did read a long time ago some crackpot-fundie-Xtian book which claimed the Smurfs were part of the Satanic conspiracy. Papa Smurf solves the smurfs problems with a potion = endorsing magic = Satanism. Im not joking. ---
**Author:** ![Guinastasia](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guinastasia/32/5751_2.png) [@Guinastasia](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Guinastasia)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 5:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/29 "2003-12-11T05:53:37Z")
Well, there WAS that Flash cartoon “The Smurfs: The Lost Episode”. But that was more of a hedonistic Roman orgy. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 6:20am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/30 "2003-12-11T06:20:09Z")
[rabid marxist] Donald Duck is an Amerikan Imperialist tool! [/rabid marxist] ---
**Author:** ![ResIpsaLoquitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 7:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/31 "2003-12-11T07:40:50Z")
> [@](#): > > Ergo: somebody who says that the smurfs are Antisemit fosters Antisemitism, since he is creating the connection between Greed and Jews. Maybe I’m a little thick here…are you stretching the Gargamel = Jewish thing beyond its already-apparent absurdity, or are you calling me an anti-semite? Sweet mother, all I did was mention a stereotype that ALREADY exists–not one that I hold to. (Y’ever see Mike Myers as the Jewish lady who says Barbara Streisand is like “buttah”? Lighten up.) ---
**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 8:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/32 "2003-12-11T08:21:35Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ResIpsaLoquitor \* > **Maybe I’m a little thick here…are you stretching the Gargamel = Jewish thing beyond its already-apparent absurdity, or are you calling me an anti-semite?** I don’t stretch anything because I never say that the cartoon is anti-semite in the first place. However, all I am saying is that Gargamel features greed only, and in the cartoon no connection whatsoever had been made with Jews. Now, by saying that the cartoon is anti-semite because Gargamel is greedy, you postulate a connection between greed and Jews which was never in the cartoon. Even if the stereotype already existed before you, nobody mentioned it in the cartoon. Gargamel is greedy, and so what? Why Jews, where are the Jews? ---
**Author:** ![ResIpsaLoquitor](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b3f665/32.png) [@ResIpsaLoquitor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ResIpsaLoquitor)\ **Post date:** [December 11, 2003, 8:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880/33 "2003-12-11T20:42:01Z")
Well, of course nobody mentioned it in the cartoon. The whole thing’s a gag. The Smurfs = Nazis (and concurrently, Gargamel = Jewish) is an OLD gag that, as far as I know, dates back to the 1980s and the “Castle Smurfenstein” video game. Nobody takes it seriously; there’s just a number of parallels that, if one wanted to go looking for them, could lead one to suspect that the Smurfs are a disguised Nazi metaphor. (Cf. the Pit thread about Johnny Hart and the B.C. cartoon. If you want to find bigotry, just go looking for it.) Concurrent to it is the joking speculation that if the Smurfs are Nazis, then Gargamel must be Jewish, because the cartoon applies Jewish stereotypes to him. Do _I_ think that Gargamel’s a Jew, even a badly portrayed one? No, and I’m sorry if my humor wasn’t clear enough. Do I think that Jews are greedy? No. Do some people? Sure. Me, personally, I think _all_ people are greedy, so I hope that my prejudices are equal opportunity. We now return you to your regularly scheduled confusion. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/smurfs-communists/217880.md?page=1)