"In 20 years time, all children in Europe will either be called Adolf or Mohammed."
Them's were the days.
-
We have updated our Community Code of Conduct. Please read through the new rules for the forum that are an integral part of Paradox Interactive’s User Agreement.
"In 20 years time, all children in Europe will either be called Adolf or Mohammed."
Them's were the days.
Literally the first thing the Nazis did in power was, in alliance with conservatives, to destroy the communists, trade unions and social democrats. How leftist/socialist of them!
- 1
The first common fallacy that most make is that "a is leftist, b hated a, thus b cannot be a leftist".
Almost all fascists have come from a socialist background and their biggest opposition was the internationalist imperial thing(no or open borders etc) they wanted to go on, but instead wanted to keep the nation-state. A confusing aspect of history is that fascist regimes usually derived from socialist or semi-socialist regimes, so they're seen as an alternative.
The second common fallacy is that Nazism or Fascism (very different entities) are measured by left/right based on the previous or current political system, despite the fact that they never hid their nature of adopting (usually extreme) elements of both sides.
The third common fallacy, closely tied with the second, is to address their political direction in contemporary terms. These were times where the following was the status quo: Empires were still a thing and only 2-3 of them were crumbling, all related to WW1 to some way (Austro-Hungary, Russia, Ottomans). Communists were on a rise, and by communism it was meant a new way of internationalism. Empires were not geared by nationalism, but by commercialism and prestige, ie it was something elitist and in western Europe it was a conservative approach.
Communists on the other hand, targetted the 'less fortunate', who happened to be the majority. Fascism also targetted the lower middle class and working class but obviously needed the elite in order to achieve whatever it wanted. Don't act as if Communists didn't have backing from elite funds. There are only a handful of exceptions in the 19th and 20th century where major financial backing wasn't there in an uprising of these scales. Even where the Bolsheviks (aka the Reds) were rising, the only truly independent faction were the Greens!
Yes, Mussolini also tried to destroy the communists and the trade unions. The result? He created a national trade union.
On the other hand, while his doctrine was to confront organized religion, he sided with the Papacy. On a theoretical level, fascism is anti-religious, which still is anti-conservative. Communism on paper is pacifist and anti-military, but show me a communist state with no wars, with peace throughout its borders and with no military force. But the same people who still talk about the theoretical aspects of communism reject to talk about other ideologies' similar situations, which is a bit weird. And people tend to forget that fascism is not only Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, but there's also Franco's Spain who is borderline fascist, Salazar's Portugal, Peron's Argentina and a few other minor examples.
The "far left" is anti-capitalist, but not anti-internationalist. The "far right" is also anti-capitalist, but they're also anti-internationalist. It really is a different way from the Cold War ideologies. It didn't survive. There's no need to interpret it in a way that makes is seem more evil or to accommodate whoever's opinion on the two predominant ideologies/tendencies of our world. Let's not forget that Nazism and Communism organized common rallies against the rulers of Germany at the time, before Hitler's rise to power. They still were enemies, obviously, but there was ground of common interest. And iirc, Hitler did invite former members of the Communist Party to join the Nazi Party, since he called those people disillusioned ideologists, whilst he disliked the Socialists because he felt they were traitors and Jews and whatever else was going on in his mind.
If one studies Marx and Engels, he'll notice that Hitler's Mein Kampf has many similarities to them. But there are also major similarities with Mussolini's doctrine. Even eugonics which was a big part of the Nazi agenda, was not something fascists anywhere in the world implemented and wasn't in the Mussolini doctrine, yet you can associate it with the Communist idea of a New Man. Hitler was weird, so instead of brainwashing he prefered to kill off anyone that didn't fit in to his world. But the core idea is not fascist.
Now we're living in a time where the right wing (not far-right) is claiming aspects of liberalism as well, an ideology that was always associated with the left/center-left for over a century. These things are rather fluid historically, so you have to really know when you're talking about. Most people just assume that things were the same as today.
I do agree with a statement I've seen somewhere here. A right wing person will see it as national socialism, while a left wing person will see it as national socialism. I see it as a bad case of both and not as related to fascism as most would. The irony is that famous German - and not only - corporations which produce stuff we all buy (cars, refrigerators, medicine, washing machines and so on) have been launched or have been selected by the Nazi regime to be the core producers and suppliers of the new Reich, yet everyone pretends to hate everything associated with the Nazis. An interesting link here: http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Companies_That_Surprisingly_Collaborated_With_the_Nazis
For the tl;dr guys, it's neither left nor right.
Almost all fascists have come from a socialist background and their biggest opposition was the internationalist imperial thing(no or open borders etc) they wanted to go on, but instead wanted to keep the nation-state. A confusing aspect of history is that fascist regimes usually derived from socialist or semi-socialist regimes, so they're seen as an alternative.
The second common fallacy is that Nazism or Fascism (very different entities) are measured by left/right based on the previous or current political system, despite the fact that they never hid their nature of adopting (usually extreme) elements of both sides.
The third common fallacy, closely tied with the second, is to address their political direction in contemporary terms. These were times where the following was the status quo: Empires were still a thing and only 2-3 of them were crumbling, all related to WW1 to some way (Austro-Hungary, Russia, Ottomans). Communists were on a rise, and by communism it was meant a new way of internationalism. Empires were not geared by nationalism, but by commercialism and prestige, ie it was something elitist and in western Europe it was a conservative approach.
Communists on the other hand, targetted the 'less fortunate', who happened to be the majority. Fascism also targetted the lower middle class and working class but obviously needed the elite in order to achieve whatever it wanted. Don't act as if Communists didn't have backing from elite funds. There are only a handful of exceptions in the 19th and 20th century where major financial backing wasn't there in an uprising of these scales. Even where the Bolsheviks (aka the Reds) were rising, the only truly independent faction were the Greens!
Yes, Mussolini also tried to destroy the communists and the trade unions. The result? He created a national trade union.
On the other hand, while his doctrine was to confront organized religion, he sided with the Papacy. On a theoretical level, fascism is anti-religious, which still is anti-conservative. Communism on paper is pacifist and anti-military, but show me a communist state with no wars, with peace throughout its borders and with no military force. But the same people who still talk about the theoretical aspects of communism reject to talk about other ideologies' similar situations, which is a bit weird. And people tend to forget that fascism is not only Mussolini's Italy, Hitler's Germany, but there's also Franco's Spain who is borderline fascist, Salazar's Portugal, Peron's Argentina and a few other minor examples.
The "far left" is anti-capitalist, but not anti-internationalist. The "far right" is also anti-capitalist, but they're also anti-internationalist. It really is a different way from the Cold War ideologies. It didn't survive. There's no need to interpret it in a way that makes is seem more evil or to accommodate whoever's opinion on the two predominant ideologies/tendencies of our world. Let's not forget that Nazism and Communism organized common rallies against the rulers of Germany at the time, before Hitler's rise to power. They still were enemies, obviously, but there was ground of common interest. And iirc, Hitler did invite former members of the Communist Party to join the Nazi Party, since he called those people disillusioned ideologists, whilst he disliked the Socialists because he felt they were traitors and Jews and whatever else was going on in his mind.
If one studies Marx and Engels, he'll notice that Hitler's Mein Kampf has many similarities to them. But there are also major similarities with Mussolini's doctrine. Even eugonics which was a big part of the Nazi agenda, was not something fascists anywhere in the world implemented and wasn't in the Mussolini doctrine, yet you can associate it with the Communist idea of a New Man. Hitler was weird, so instead of brainwashing he prefered to kill off anyone that didn't fit in to his world. But the core idea is not fascist.
Now we're living in a time where the right wing (not far-right) is claiming aspects of liberalism as well, an ideology that was always associated with the left/center-left for over a century. These things are rather fluid historically, so you have to really know when you're talking about. Most people just assume that things were the same as today.
I do agree with a statement I've seen somewhere here. A right wing person will see it as national socialism, while a left wing person will see it as national socialism. I see it as a bad case of both and not as related to fascism as most would. The irony is that famous German - and not only - corporations which produce stuff we all buy (cars, refrigerators, medicine, washing machines and so on) have been launched or have been selected by the Nazi regime to be the core producers and suppliers of the new Reich, yet everyone pretends to hate everything associated with the Nazis. An interesting link here: http://www.11points.com/News-Politics/11_Companies_That_Surprisingly_Collaborated_With_the_Nazis
For the tl;dr guys, it's neither left nor right.
The words left and right already imply that their meaning is always relative and one has to consider what is the "middle" for the given circumstances. In the early 19th century the separation was, like civfanatic stated, between monarchist and anti-monarchist.
If there would have been national-socialists in that time, I would call them left. But there were none, this kind of movement emerged later. And at the moment when they appeared, the middle had changed and therefore the meaning of left and right. And that is why national-socialists are an extreme right-wing movement. Their main ideas are that humans are not equal and the greatness of the own nation needs to be shown by all means. Additionally to that they used some collectivist ideas which they borrowed from left movements, but that does not make them left.
If you look at today, the middle has moved furthermore, since most fascist states are gone. Policies that used to be left are now in the middle and conservatives of today are considered as middle-right while everything that involves nationalism is considered as right.
tl;dr: If you are from the early 19th century, you may say that national-socialism is left, but today it is right.
If there would have been national-socialists in that time, I would call them left. But there were none, this kind of movement emerged later. And at the moment when they appeared, the middle had changed and therefore the meaning of left and right. And that is why national-socialists are an extreme right-wing movement. Their main ideas are that humans are not equal and the greatness of the own nation needs to be shown by all means. Additionally to that they used some collectivist ideas which they borrowed from left movements, but that does not make them left.
If you look at today, the middle has moved furthermore, since most fascist states are gone. Policies that used to be left are now in the middle and conservatives of today are considered as middle-right while everything that involves nationalism is considered as right.
tl;dr: If you are from the early 19th century, you may say that national-socialism is left, but today it is right.
That is not true for any reasonable definition of "almost all". Huge numbers of fascists came from conservative, monarchist or religious conservative movements.
Sure and why not the works of Ayn Rand and William Buckley too while you are at it. Ayn Rand loved to rant against the unjustices of institutional elites. Buckley loved to talk about how virtuous people of the dominant culture were being betrayed by having the values of minorities shoved on them. Or how about John Rawls? That veil of ignorance is a social contract and the whole nazi ideology was a social contract. And hey, if we are going to mention social contracts we better throw in Locke and Hobbes too.
You can't just draw vague similarities that mean nothing and then cop out at the end and say "well actually it goes across the left-right divide". The cop out is pointing at the fact that all those comparisons you just drew are superficial and misleading.
- 3
Should have clarified that I was talking about fascist rulers.
As for the rest, you're calling superficial and misleading some things that when you look at the mirror, you're doing exactly the same thing with your POV. It's not as rigid as you want to present it, ie nazism = fascism, they were allies etc etc. You can find things that apply to either side with that kind of arguments. The point is, there is no clear evidence of whether fascism and nazism were left or right wing.
Hitler studied and admired Marx and Engels. I've no idea if he studied and admired the others or if it's just a rant of yours because you don't like some simple facts. He wasn't Marxist obviously and grew to become anti-Marxist (post-Lenin/internationalist influence though), but he admired Marx and copied from him more than any leftist is willing to admit.
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/hitler-and-the-socialist-dream-1186455.html
The only significant, major differences were the racial part, even if Engels was sort of a racist German nationalist and Marx was an antisemite, that leftists today refuse to acknowledge and of course, the Marxist-Leninist joint venture that created opinions that nations do not exist and that we're divided by class etc etc, so the national/global axis was a big setback in the relations between any nationalist(nazis) and internationalist(communists & socialists to some extent). Hitler also hated the conservatives and everyone else who wasn't a Nazi in fact. According to your mindset, that means that Hitler opposed left, right and center, so he was simply floating around the political axis... So once again, Hitler didn't hate the Communists and Socialists because they were leftists, but rather because they were internationalists and many Jews were in their ranks. Don't make it sound as if everyone else loved Hitler.
By which you mean... Mussolini.
Because AFAIK no other 1930s' European right wing authoritarian ruler came from a leftist background.
Fascists and Nazis all over Europe have allied with conservatives, monarchists, clericals and/or nationalists against socialists and social democrats.
I guess that's not "evidence" enough?
There is literally no evidence of that ever happening. Maybe you're confusing Hitler with the Strasser brothers, of the NSDAP's marginalized anti-capitalist wing?
They usually came from the military or the rural areas. Hitler was just nationalist. He had no liberal/conservative etc ideas. Nationalism wasn't a right wing thing then, it was just that internationalism was growing within the left and has stayed there that created this illusion that nationalism = right. Which is also why modern far right movements have been created, because being nationalist, which is part of human nature/identity, became frowned upon due to the leftist state of mind and the neoconservatives didn't wanna piss them off so they just played along and became more liberal.
Instead of accumulating everything and making it as if all had the same alliances with their domestic counterparts, why not use actual examples?
Hitler banned the Catholics from political activity. The Catholic Church openly opposed Hitler during his reign.
Mussolini only aligned with the Church because he had to. Without the Church, no ruler could become sole commander. This was Italy's uniqueness.
Franco used the Church against the 'Reds'. The Church had power in Spain and you can only afford one enemy at a time. You're saying he should have aligned with the Reds to take out the Church and then go all out vs the Reds? Not feasible.
Salazar prevented the Church form participating in political affairs.
Metaxas and Greece is different because of the Ottoman empire, the Greek identity and the Christian faith go hand in hand. Not having the Church on your side in pre-1974 Greece was a nuissance. Heck, it's a nuissance in 2016. Though I'm not sure he qualifies as fascist.
Who else is there? If you wanna go outside Europe, Peron didn't trust the Church and limited their say in public affairs. And iirc the Catholic church didn't trust Peron either and tried to have him overthrown.
The one thing leftists don't get, is that ideologies do not really work once you're in power. All one does is to try to find ways to keep power. Otherwise, the leftists wouldn't go "but X was not really communist".
The rise of anti-religionism and/or secularism in Europe comes much after this, so you can't really talk about religion as the only matter. Yet, religion was conservatism, and there's no evidence to support that all fascist leaders teamed up with the Church. Don't confuse tolerance or exploitation for alliance.
But fact remains, there were 2 factions that were militant and wanted to seize power. Fascists and Communists. They couldn't really team up and they could only use what population was present to take command. Fascists got power nearly everywhere they attempted to, simply because they were realists compared to the communists who were idealists and had to convert everyone or kill them first. The fascists, as unlikely as it sounds to a leftist's ears, were more tolerant towards the apolitik population. They knew that they could not create a fascist society from scratch. This is the same for every realpolitik strategy out there obviously.
Where did I say that I was referring to economic policies?
1. The Catholic Church did not openly oppose Hitler. In fact they signed a contract with the Nazi state that required any new bishop to swear an oath to the German state.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reichskonkordat
2. I wasn't solely talking about the Church. Your argument is a Red Herring (and even so, it's notable that you try to evade the facts rather than conceding that in many cases the churches did, in fact, ally with fascist movements against the Left).
Hitler allied with Papen and the Junkers, Franco led a coalition of monarchists, conservatives and fascists; Mussolini was backed by church and monarchy; Salazar literally cribbed his political ideology from the Catholic Church (Rerum Novarum and corporatists) and was supported by nationalists and clericals alike; Perón is probably the closest any of the people you mention came to a "third way" but then again I wouldn't call him an authoritarian ruler per se.
- 1
Where did I say that you were referring to economic policies? I called you out on the complete lack of evidence for any connection between Hitler and Marx.
I'm not evading anything. I even said so earlier, it was more feasible to ally against the Left than with the Left against hte Church. There's no room for ideology when real life is live.
Also, which of these suggest that fascism was right wing? That was my original point. Alliances and all that mean nothing ideologically. In Greece we have a radical left party with a, before 2015 according to Syriza, far right wing party, in a coalition. What connects them is their anti-EU, anti-austerity agenda, not the left/right spectrum. Ideologically, Syriza is closer to KKE or even Pasok(who they 'raided' for personnel), depending on where they want to align themselves on the 'left wing politics' axis. According to your rationale, a Greek government should have never been formed in January or September of 2015 with these two political 'enemies'.
Well if you want more Fascist figure that had a Leftist past there is Mosley in Britain, Valois in France, Ledesma in Spain... .
Fascism as National-Syndicalism used to be indeed an integral part of the Left.
However the opposition of those Social Nationalist to the pacifism expressed by most Socialist party and their hate of bolchevism was the main reason to them cutting ties with the dominant Socialist party in their country.
That schism is less talked about than the Communist-Socialist Schism for some reason but not less important in the development of the current left-right political spectrum.
The main reason why Fascism is considered right wing is that Fascism prefers to compromise with other Nationalist organisation (often conservative) than with other Socialist branch mostly because they already tried and left bitter and also because as an ultra-nationalist movement nothing mattered more (and could be less compromised) than the Nation.
Altough it is true that the Nazi party lacks the "Socialist credential" that more western fascist party have it is still at the very least very influence by Socialism and very much a fascist party.
The party was founded with the precept of "economic socialism" and Nationalism in mind afterall. It did drift from that as all Fascist party eventually.
Also one should look upon the origin of the word "National-Socialism", the ideology that merges Nationalism and Socialism. This idea is older than hitler and such parties already existed in France and Austria-Hungary long before WWI.
That Fascist were Nationalist first and firemost doesn't change the fact they were also Socialist. This is especially striking if you compare them with the rightist Nationalist they succeeded.
Fascism as National-Syndicalism used to be indeed an integral part of the Left.
However the opposition of those Social Nationalist to the pacifism expressed by most Socialist party and their hate of bolchevism was the main reason to them cutting ties with the dominant Socialist party in their country.
That schism is less talked about than the Communist-Socialist Schism for some reason but not less important in the development of the current left-right political spectrum.
The main reason why Fascism is considered right wing is that Fascism prefers to compromise with other Nationalist organisation (often conservative) than with other Socialist branch mostly because they already tried and left bitter and also because as an ultra-nationalist movement nothing mattered more (and could be less compromised) than the Nation.
Altough it is true that the Nazi party lacks the "Socialist credential" that more western fascist party have it is still at the very least very influence by Socialism and very much a fascist party.
The party was founded with the precept of "economic socialism" and Nationalism in mind afterall. It did drift from that as all Fascist party eventually.
Also one should look upon the origin of the word "National-Socialism", the ideology that merges Nationalism and Socialism. This idea is older than hitler and such parties already existed in France and Austria-Hungary long before WWI.
That Fascist were Nationalist first and firemost doesn't change the fact they were also Socialist. This is especially striking if you compare them with the rightist Nationalist they succeeded.
- 1
I'm not sure exactly what you are responding to here. I was commenting on the problems of the standard of "comparisons can be made" because comparisons can be made to literally anything. That's why I included both modern and classical liberals and conservatives. It wasn't an attack on the right.
You shouldn't conclude that if comparisons can be made to both side we know nothing. You should conclude that particular nugget of semantic reasoning is not useful. Other people suggested alternative standards which are a lot more useful.
Part of the issue is that there are multiple dimensions to the left right divide and in some of these dimensions the Nazis did have policies that most people would call 'left wing'. This does NOT make them a party of the left, however, as they are clearly aligned with right wing across most dimensions. It is worth noting that virtually all parties have some dimensions that come from the opposite pole to their general alignment.
1. Liberty vs authority. No argument here I hope. The Nazis are clearly authoritarian.
2. Internationalist vs Nationalist. Again the nationalism of the Nazis is clear.
3. Labour vs Capital. This is a little more complicated. The Nazis certainly had some left-wing policies in this regard, such as universal paid holidays, but the broad sweep of their policies certainly favoured the industrialists. For example they banned unions, outlawed strikes,controlled wages and gave vast amounts of government contracts to private firms.
4. Equality vs Aristocracy. This is the area the Nazis are perhaps most left-wing. While the Nazis were hardly egalitarian in a complete sense, if you were of appropriate ethnicity and sufficiently loyal to the part it was possible to do well regardless of birth. Hitler feared the traditional Junkers' control of the military and deliberately attempted to make the military a more meritocratic institution (as long as you define party loyalty as the primary merit).
5. Individual choice vs Social conformity. Again this is is an area the Nazi party was clearly very right wing. The traditional virtues of the peasant were extolled and peoples' choices on how to live their lives were clearly restricted. Art and books that were deemed decadent were supressed and destroyed and people who lived lives that did not fit the Nazi model were ruthlessly persecuted (e.g. homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, pacifists)
I hope that this makes it clear that while the National Socialist movement was not uniformly a right wing organisation it definitely fits on the right (and the far right at that) of any single axial definition.
1. Liberty vs authority. No argument here I hope. The Nazis are clearly authoritarian.
2. Internationalist vs Nationalist. Again the nationalism of the Nazis is clear.
3. Labour vs Capital. This is a little more complicated. The Nazis certainly had some left-wing policies in this regard, such as universal paid holidays, but the broad sweep of their policies certainly favoured the industrialists. For example they banned unions, outlawed strikes,controlled wages and gave vast amounts of government contracts to private firms.
4. Equality vs Aristocracy. This is the area the Nazis are perhaps most left-wing. While the Nazis were hardly egalitarian in a complete sense, if you were of appropriate ethnicity and sufficiently loyal to the part it was possible to do well regardless of birth. Hitler feared the traditional Junkers' control of the military and deliberately attempted to make the military a more meritocratic institution (as long as you define party loyalty as the primary merit).
5. Individual choice vs Social conformity. Again this is is an area the Nazi party was clearly very right wing. The traditional virtues of the peasant were extolled and peoples' choices on how to live their lives were clearly restricted. Art and books that were deemed decadent were supressed and destroyed and people who lived lives that did not fit the Nazi model were ruthlessly persecuted (e.g. homosexuals, Jehovah's Witnesses, pacifists)
I hope that this makes it clear that while the National Socialist movement was not uniformly a right wing organisation it definitely fits on the right (and the far right at that) of any single axial definition.
- 2
How is authority right wing?
USSR, China, North Korea, Cuba and many other 'socialist' examples were more authoritarian than most regimes throughout history.
Liberalism started as a left wing attitude - French revolution etc - but now it's considered a policy of the center, which both the far left and far right despise.
Capitalist is also internationalst, through globalisation and what not. Nationalism does not equate to right wing. Right wing used to mean aristocracy, which meant empire keeping, which essentially means potting a bunch of different people together to form an entity. How is nationalism right wing, other than the fact that Trotskyists and Leninists are internationalists? It's the same as saying Man Utd represents the city of Manchester, hence Man City cannot represent the city of Manchester.
This is the first situation where left/right can apply. in your paradigms They banned unions and replaced them with...unions. It's not as if they banned them altogether. The rest is true, but where do you draw the line and what weighting do you give to each? It's a mixture of both, you can't really say it was right wing or left wing because it was 60-40% or 40-60%.
Yet another example where left/right can apply, in the contemporary sese. This is a main trait of socialism. Hitler just rebranded it into a heated controversy against anyone 'non-Aryan'.
This is a classic example of late 20th century social liberalism vs conservatism. I'm not really sure there were many left wing political parties out there that accepted homosexuality and other "weird" groups in the 1930s. Those are 1960s and 70s movements, so yeah, be careful not to think in a 21st century way for policies applyng to earlier generations.
I know it's rather trivial, but here's something from BBC relating to this discussion: http://www.bbc.co.uk/bitesize/higher/history/nationalism/nazi/revision/1/
In particular section 3, 4 and 5:
Social controls
The churches
Despite signing an agreement with the pope, The Catholic Youth League was broken up, Catholic priests arrested, and religious teaching banned. Hitler set up a Protestant Reich Church with Nazi bishops. Ministers, such as Martin Niemoller, who resisted were sent to concentration camps.
Youth
To brainwash the young, Jewish and anti-Nazi teachers were sacked and subjects were given a pro-Nazi bias so children would accept Nazi ideas without questioning them. The Nazi youth organisation used physical activities to indoctrinate boys to glorify war while girls were taught to welcome their role as mothers.
Propaganda
Joseph Goebbels, as Minister for National Enlightenment, controlled the media and arts. He made sure that Germans were fed Nazi ideology while other ideas were censored. The glorification of Nazi Germany was emphasised by the Nuremberg rallies and the 1936 Berlin Olympics. These were a message to the world that Nazi Germany was here to stay.
Anti-semitism
From 1933 Jews were removed from public office and the professions. The 1935 Nuremberg Laws deprived them of citizenship. Persecution was gradually increased with boycotts of Jewish businesses until Kristallnacht in November 1938 when the SA looted over 7,000 Jewish shops and arrested 20,000 Jews.
Economic controls
The Nazis tried to make Germany self-sufficient - that is, to produce all the goods it needed without having to rely on external supplies. This could be achieved more easily for some types of goods than for others, so the need to obtain access to oil, for example, was part of the reason for Germany's aggressive foreign policy in eastern Europe.
Employment
The Nazis implemented a major programme of public works, such as building and repairing roads, railways and houses. This significantly helped reduce unemployment, as did large-scale military rearmament. With Germany building up its armed forces, thousands of jobs in iron, steel, aviation and shipbuilding were created. After 1935, conscription of men into the army also helped reduce the unemployment figures. This was seen as a benefit to the country and enabled many Germans to accept Nazi rule.
Workers' conditions
The Labour Front prevented strikes. Many Germans preferred low paid jobs to unemployment. Kraft durch Freude (Strength through Joy) was an organisation set up to make lives better. This meant loyal workers received benefits such as subsidised theatre visits, sports facilities as well as cheap cruises. Although some disliked being regimented even in their leisure pursuits, others enjoyed the better facilities.
The production of the people's car (the volkswagen) from 1938 suggested Nazism was benefiting workers because they could put their name down for one of these cars and save money each week for two years to buy one.
Incomes
The government controlled wages and prices but, despite this, the standard of living dropped under Nazi rule. Resources that might have gone towards improving supplies of goods for people to use were diverted into the public works programme and into rearmament.
What this meant for ordinary people
It is easy to think that all Germans were affected by the Nazis in everything they did, but in practice many were able to continue with everyday life without much change, as long as they were not among the groups that the Nazis persecuted. They may have been irritated by the propaganda and censorship that restricted what they could read in newspapers or see in cinemas or the theatre, but for some there were compensations in Strength Through Joy, in regular employment or even in lower crime rates - as one historian has said, "if nothing else, dictatorships make good police".
There was also a good deal of support for the foreign policy that sought to overturn Versailles - events like the reoccupation of the Rhineland and the Anschluss with Austria were popular, and seen as evidence that Germany was recovering from the humiliations of Versailles.
This does not suggest that Nazi Germany was a pleasant place to live - unless of course you were one of the Nazi elite. There was always an undercurrent of fear, an element of unpredictability, and for persecuted groups it was a terrible tragedy. But many ordinary people learned to put these things in the background and to get on with their lives. Only a few, however, were brave and committed enough to take their resistance beyond "grumbling" and become active opponents of the Nazis.
That's from the BBC*, not me. Just clarifying.
*addressing school kids though, so it's very basic and superficial stuff.
*addressing school kids though, so it's very basic and superficial stuff.
This is a perfect example of why these arguments aren't on the level. Banning a union and replacing it with a party apparatus that you call a union IS banning unions all together. They made unions illegal. The words were there but they were completely hollow. Unions as forces to negotiate on behalf of their members did not exist.
There is a case to be made that the far left and the far right often arrive at similar methods. For instance the Soviet block banned unions as well, replacing them with toothless "unions" of party apparatchiks. These unions also did a horrible job negotiating for their supposed members (with occasional interesting exceptions). But that is purely the provenance of the far left, not the left in general. Extremism untethers the idea from it's original motivations and constraints. It would be no more right to say that the Nazis are left because they are like the revolutionary communists then to say that the revolutionary communists are right because they are like the Nazis. And please note I'm saying both arguments are wrong so dont treat the rhetorical device as a thesis like last time.
While the revolutionary communists and fascists both arrived at fake unions they did so for different motivations. The communists were creating an extreme version of the idea of collective action. Collective action was best done by supporting the revolution, the party was the revolution so the party should control collective action. The nazi's were creating an extreme version of loyalty to the state. Politics should be limited to loyalty to the state, loyalty to the state was supporting the nazis, unions were politics so unions should be controlled by the party.
Now you might say that the end results are the same so why should we care about the motivations. Well it's a discussion of extremist movements. Extremist movements are those that stray from the original results. So the motivations behind their extremist ideology are what we have to work with. It's not perfect but it's a hell of a lot better then acting like a party organization relabeled "union" is the same as a union that represents it's members.
- 1
Loyalty to the state, true. But where does that lie? Patriotism or statism? One is non-linear (which modern leftists gave up to the far right to exploit as their unique agenda) and the other is complicated. Whereas statism is au contraire to liberalism, which has a leftist background, it is also an anti-capitalist (on the individual level) and definitely not a right wing stance.
Things get messy if you wanna call Nazism "far right", because there are only a few actually right wing policies and shared ideology and most of them aren't really that extreme. If you wanna hand nationalism/patriotism to the right wing and say that the left is by default anti-nationalist and anti-patriotic, be my guest. But I don't agree with Marxism-Leninism = Leftism, whilst everything else just isn't left. Nationalism and/or patriotism isn't right, center or left.
Things get messy if you wanna call Nazism "far right", because there are only a few actually right wing policies and shared ideology and most of them aren't really that extreme. If you wanna hand nationalism/patriotism to the right wing and say that the left is by default anti-nationalist and anti-patriotic, be my guest. But I don't agree with Marxism-Leninism = Leftism, whilst everything else just isn't left. Nationalism and/or patriotism isn't right, center or left.