Could argue the same for pretty much all ideologies. Where do we draw the line?
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Could argue the same for pretty much all ideologies. Where do we draw the line?
Ideology have a root 'idea' in it. And we could either discuss the ideas or how various people try to implement them. And as people are different they implement the same idea differently even if they truly believe in it.
So the line here is between the theory and the practice. You cannot substitute practice for theory or vice versa.
Because they follow a Stalinist model -- a form of Communist rule. Unless you want to argue that papa joe was not a Communist. In which case the distinction you're seeking is mostly academic.
Stalinist model of what? Stalinism is a cult a personality of a leader in combination with widespread repression and autocratic rule. It have little to do with economical or political theory behind the state. I must point out that political system of the Soviet Union did not change in a significant ways after Stalin's death. And if we speak about economic policy than Khruschev was far more 'orthodox' communist than Stalin ever was. So what the pattern here?
You can probably tell that North Korea have a cult of personality and it is dictatorship and therefore you can call it Stalinist but it do not make it socialist or communist.
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Well, saying the right is conservative seems pretty circular so we have:
-Monarchists, theocrats or religious values in politics
-Law and order above individual freedom
So according to the two criteria you have established, the Nazis are zealous members of the right wing. They were religious zealots who put dissenters to death (jews, jehova's witnesses). They were law and order zealots who were actively hostile towards the concept of individual freedom
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CruelDwarf said:
Whoa! Hey look I hate Stalin as much as the next guy (unless the next guy is a Stalinist) but that is unfair to say there was no economic or political theory behind his rule. If you go back and read the arguments and debates between him and Trotsky or Bukharin or Kamenev and others, you will find them dense with economic and political theory.
Also, I guess I fundamentally disagree with the notion that anything that is political can be without an accompanying ideology. If any party rules over any state it will have an ideology, whether they choose to name it and explicitly outline it or not.
Yeah, and the theory was a socialist one. It was just a separate thing from the Stalinism itself. Because you know - Stalin died in 1953 and Stalinism was dismantled a few years later but socialism remained. So Stalinism is not an integral part of the socialism it was just the way how particular group of people in charge handled the ruling of the country.
Which has been copied by many, many communist governments between 1930 and 1990. Hence people calling Stalinism a "model", because it literally became one of the blueprints for socialist government in the 20th century.
CruelDwarf said:
Well yes and no. It is true that the broader political and economic system of the USSR did not fundamentally change post-Stalin. However, I would argue that Stalinism had its own ideological basis which, if one wanted to, could be fleshed out pretty well based on both explicit speeches and policy positions as well as actual things done by the Soviet Union while under Stalin's rule.
Also, about this:
diegosimeone said:
Yeah but you can make the same claim for democratic, capitalist states. I think I can make a good argument that about 12-13 of the 17 "Demands of the Communist Party in Germany" from 1848 have been wholly or mostly implemented in all of the modern capitalist democracies, particularly in Western Europe.
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Stalin theory was pretty standard socialism. It is not like Stalin institutionalized his ruthlessness and brutality by merging them into the Marxist theory.
Then what makes them right wing according to you?
They weren't religious zealots. The fact that they oppresed a PARTICULAR religion doesn't mean they were Christian zealots. They had no such policy for Muslims. And they didn't really care that much for religion. You're reaching, to the extent of making things up, if you want to call the Nazis religious of any sort.
As for the last sentence, I could say the same about Stalin, Hoxha, Mao, Ceaucescu and every other leftist dictator with minimal variations (regarding welfare etc). Where Hitler also lies btw. There's a very thin line there in what's conservative and what's not. You can't draw a conclusion on its own. And I didn't mean this in an authoritarian stance, but in a tradition sense. More guns, more police, more army etc (for the state), that's the traditional right wing. But not authoritarian style.
You can't just call anything you dislike 'right wing' and everything good in the world 'left wing'. It's simply not the case.
Which supports my claim that the right and the left have been fused in the last 50 years and there's no more anything reminding a traditional right wing party, so people will just call right wing anything they dislike.
Great input, nerd. I'll be looking forward to the book you're composing on the issue, you seem well educated. Maybe when you grow up you can take part in the discussion.
Apparently, they stopped teaching the core values of politics:
Freedom
Justice
Security
Welfare
Order
These are the basic expectations a citizen has from his state. Based on how you prioritize these values, you can give yourself a basic understanding of where you stand in the political axis. Right wing favors Order and Security, whilst left wing favors Welfare and Freedom. Justice is very closely related to Order, but there are various means of achieving it so it's not merged into 1.
what response do you expect when you post an oxymoron as fact? discussion? of what?
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Implemented policies. Self-declared socialist could be considered a right-wing if he implements right-wing policy. Because actions are more important than a self-designation.
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I read some exotic political theories, around here. Well, I guess we need some kind of glossary to debate.
Indeed the usual left/right classification was born during the french revolution : The words themselves refer to the side of the Convention nationale where our first representatives seated. However, we had much more exotic categories at that time, with jacobins, montagnards, girondins ... The nowadays classification is a result of Louis XVI's execution vote : The left side voted yes, the right side no. So, until at least WWI, this division means progressive republicanism (left) against social reaction(right), be it republican (most for the sake of compromise than real fervor before the early XXth century) or monarchist. For instance, the Parti Radical was considered as a leftist party, while it defended a brand of demoliberalism. The original left is liberal, a reaction to royal and aristocratic abuses, most notably against property, which angered the bourgeois class which seen nobles as economic parasites. Excepted Germany (Well, Bismarck would disagree), socialist parties were seen as political weirdos and threats by both left and right.
Ironically, socialism owns much to Bismarck : While he intented to bar it from power by "stealing" and applying its agenda (Workers regulation, unionism ...), it proved the efficiency of such reforms and the benefits a country could extract from the newly found prosperity of its subjects (Death and Taxes).
To resume socialism (by the terms of its inventors, not post-liberal revolution description), it aims to establish an egalitarian society (the terms are important, egalitarianism is not the same as supporting equality) by the seizure of the means of production, and in truth the means of power. This seizure, it's communism, when workers put every part of economy, politics, and military in common for the betterment of society. So : Base society --> Communism --> Socialism. Because the goal of socialism is to unify all proleterian classes all over the world, the concepts of nationality, religion and cultural antagonism are rejected, as well the establishment of a social, economic or political hierarchy. Ideally, socialism means an unified humanity ruled by councils of equals, without any part of society less considered than another.
The core belief of nationalism, on the other hand, is quite similar originally to socialism, which explain the confusion of the two (Which aren't exclusive) : From the 9th century to the 19th, Europe was divided between rival families, and common identity had virtually no weight, religion excepted (which did matter, but was also ruled by dynastic interests). Nationalism permitted low born population to find a common interest in power : The land belonged no more to a person, but to the group. When the First French Republic discovered a French Nation, it was in fact a community. Nationalism became the favorite meal of authoritarian regimes because it promised progress of the community through the wise guiding of chief, in the same way capitalism became the meritocratic excuse if the powerful (we rule because we are the strongest).
Fascism can be leftist, but national socialism cannot. The first is an unwanted child, the second a fraud.
Fascism is the believe that perfect equality can only be achieved with the guiding hand of the state and, to guarantee the operation's sucess, need to bind every aspect of society to its will. Mussolini was indeed a communist, originally, and he was known before WWII to laugh at idea of cultural superiority or racialism. He wanted to reestablish a Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was fond of multiculturalism and syncretism (Just consider the slow evolution from "greek" republican polis system to a persian divine imperial regime, or the popularity of the cult of Isis). Yet, in the same way Lenin used the tsarist reference to assert his personnal power, Mussolini used racism to explain his regime's own failures.
National Socialism has an original flaw, disqualifying it from being branded as leftist : Its core belief is the superiority of a minority over the rest of humanity (Aryan supremacy, völkich influences, establishment of a strict social and racial hierarchy), placing it in total opposition with socialism (Remember the Internationale motto : Workers of the world, unite !). While Stalin supported "communism in one state" to evade Trotsky's internationalist shadow, Hitler had always been in favor of supremacist Grossdeutschland, whose conquests were to serve the survival of german population, and germans only. Some of you will point out the name of the NSDAP. Just remember the context : Weimar Republic was still recovering from the Spartakist uprisings, Kapp coup shown that nationalist monarchism was still powerful in Germany, and the society was deeply divided and its national glory tarnished by the war. NSDAP played on both inequalities issues and national proudness. After its electoral success, there was no more socialism or illusion of socialism in its practice of power, however : THe economy was at the hands of powerful industrial ententes (The Krupps are the best exemples), much like the japanese Zaibatsu, and access to the administration was conditionned by racial and political criterias.
To rationalize a bit this agressive block of text : Fascism may be an hybrid of leftist agendas and nationalist reference, yet it constitutes an original ideology, the term "Third Way" is accurate to describe it. National Socialism, however, is only a mere reactualisation of the XIXth century antisemitic monarchism (The führer is a monarch, yet not a royal) sustained by the original pre-WWII german corporatism.
Edit : "Implemented policies. Self-declared socialist could be considered a right-wing if he implements right-wing policy. Because actions are more important than a self-designation".
This pal above me said in one line what I wanted to explain with a whole book. Damn you.
Indeed the usual left/right classification was born during the french revolution : The words themselves refer to the side of the Convention nationale where our first representatives seated. However, we had much more exotic categories at that time, with jacobins, montagnards, girondins ... The nowadays classification is a result of Louis XVI's execution vote : The left side voted yes, the right side no. So, until at least WWI, this division means progressive republicanism (left) against social reaction(right), be it republican (most for the sake of compromise than real fervor before the early XXth century) or monarchist. For instance, the Parti Radical was considered as a leftist party, while it defended a brand of demoliberalism. The original left is liberal, a reaction to royal and aristocratic abuses, most notably against property, which angered the bourgeois class which seen nobles as economic parasites. Excepted Germany (Well, Bismarck would disagree), socialist parties were seen as political weirdos and threats by both left and right.
Ironically, socialism owns much to Bismarck : While he intented to bar it from power by "stealing" and applying its agenda (Workers regulation, unionism ...), it proved the efficiency of such reforms and the benefits a country could extract from the newly found prosperity of its subjects (Death and Taxes).
To resume socialism (by the terms of its inventors, not post-liberal revolution description), it aims to establish an egalitarian society (the terms are important, egalitarianism is not the same as supporting equality) by the seizure of the means of production, and in truth the means of power. This seizure, it's communism, when workers put every part of economy, politics, and military in common for the betterment of society. So : Base society --> Communism --> Socialism. Because the goal of socialism is to unify all proleterian classes all over the world, the concepts of nationality, religion and cultural antagonism are rejected, as well the establishment of a social, economic or political hierarchy. Ideally, socialism means an unified humanity ruled by councils of equals, without any part of society less considered than another.
The core belief of nationalism, on the other hand, is quite similar originally to socialism, which explain the confusion of the two (Which aren't exclusive) : From the 9th century to the 19th, Europe was divided between rival families, and common identity had virtually no weight, religion excepted (which did matter, but was also ruled by dynastic interests). Nationalism permitted low born population to find a common interest in power : The land belonged no more to a person, but to the group. When the First French Republic discovered a French Nation, it was in fact a community. Nationalism became the favorite meal of authoritarian regimes because it promised progress of the community through the wise guiding of chief, in the same way capitalism became the meritocratic excuse if the powerful (we rule because we are the strongest).
Fascism can be leftist, but national socialism cannot. The first is an unwanted child, the second a fraud.
Fascism is the believe that perfect equality can only be achieved with the guiding hand of the state and, to guarantee the operation's sucess, need to bind every aspect of society to its will. Mussolini was indeed a communist, originally, and he was known before WWII to laugh at idea of cultural superiority or racialism. He wanted to reestablish a Roman Empire, and the Roman Empire was fond of multiculturalism and syncretism (Just consider the slow evolution from "greek" republican polis system to a persian divine imperial regime, or the popularity of the cult of Isis). Yet, in the same way Lenin used the tsarist reference to assert his personnal power, Mussolini used racism to explain his regime's own failures.
National Socialism has an original flaw, disqualifying it from being branded as leftist : Its core belief is the superiority of a minority over the rest of humanity (Aryan supremacy, völkich influences, establishment of a strict social and racial hierarchy), placing it in total opposition with socialism (Remember the Internationale motto : Workers of the world, unite !). While Stalin supported "communism in one state" to evade Trotsky's internationalist shadow, Hitler had always been in favor of supremacist Grossdeutschland, whose conquests were to serve the survival of german population, and germans only. Some of you will point out the name of the NSDAP. Just remember the context : Weimar Republic was still recovering from the Spartakist uprisings, Kapp coup shown that nationalist monarchism was still powerful in Germany, and the society was deeply divided and its national glory tarnished by the war. NSDAP played on both inequalities issues and national proudness. After its electoral success, there was no more socialism or illusion of socialism in its practice of power, however : THe economy was at the hands of powerful industrial ententes (The Krupps are the best exemples), much like the japanese Zaibatsu, and access to the administration was conditionned by racial and political criterias.
To rationalize a bit this agressive block of text : Fascism may be an hybrid of leftist agendas and nationalist reference, yet it constitutes an original ideology, the term "Third Way" is accurate to describe it. National Socialism, however, is only a mere reactualisation of the XIXth century antisemitic monarchism (The führer is a monarch, yet not a royal) sustained by the original pre-WWII german corporatism.
Edit : "Implemented policies. Self-declared socialist could be considered a right-wing if he implements right-wing policy. Because actions are more important than a self-designation".
This pal above me said in one line what I wanted to explain with a whole book. Damn you.
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