Posted on 11/30/2003 2:07:27 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
Edited on 07/12/2004 4:10:55 PM PDT by Jim Robinson. [history]
| Fascism | Communism |
|---|---|
| Racial Purity Idealized | Multi-racial (may be anti-semitic) |
| Nationalist (i.e. Italian) | International |
| Animist or Atavistic spiritualism | Atheist and/or idealizing of "human" spirit only |
| Distortion of ethnic history | Distortion of economic history |
| Stressing land and race | Ideological vs. visceral (i.e. "better living through economics") |
| Dictator is first of the race, always essential. | Dictator is temporary figurehead on march to economic justice. |
| Industry is independent partner | Industry is fully state managed |
| Property is owned by powerful individuals | Property all owned by state (but managed by individuals) |
| Communism is considered biggest evil | Fascism is considered biggest evil |
| Manipulates individual on basis of his ethnic membership | Manipulates individual on his class station |
There are considerable differences. But to gloss over the distinctions is naive and disrespectful to the millions that have died as a result of both evils. And they are very different, appealing to human pruriences of starkly different types.
Consider for a moment what Japan's signature on the Tripartite agreement of 1937 was all about. Realize that Hitler, Mussolini, and Tojo were equally terrified of the communist threat, which stood poised to overtake European and Asian nationalist ambitions and to usurp their hold on the national psyches of their citizens.
Fascism and communism are horrifically and historically very different. And the traditional model of communism and fascism wrapping around the spectrum at totalitarian ends is not going to go away because a few political scientists want to simplify it.
I must reiterate what I said before, namely, that business was not "independent," not free to go its way, in nazi Germany. It had as much freedom of movement as was convenient for Hitler at any given time. Otherwise, he told them what to do and they did it.
From Forgotten Communism by Alain Besancon...
Whatever the specific typology, Nazism in these schemes was erased as a category unto itself, and attached definitively either to capitalism or to right-wing fascism. It became the absolute incarnation of the Right, while Soviet socialism represented the absolute incarnation of the Left. In this way Nazism and Communism took their respective places in the great magnetic field of 20th-century politics.
To appreciate the sleight of hand involved, one need only recall that to an earlier generation of historians, it had been perfectly clear that both Italian fascism and German Nazism had socialist roots. Thus, Elie Halévy’s classic History of European Socialism (1937) devotes a chapter each to the socialism of fascist Italy and the socialism of Nazi Germany. (The latter, indeed, had explicitly declared itself to be anti-capitalist.) Then there is the no less compelling scheme proposed as early as 1951 by Hannah Arendt, who spotlighted the essentially consanguineous nature of Nazism and Communism that I remarked upon at the outset, and divided these two representatives of modern totalitarianism from liberal and authoritarian regimes alike.
So great was the triumph of the Communist definition of reality, however, that even today it remains deeply embedded in historical consciousness. French high-school and university textbooks, for example, still "read" the political spectrum from Left to Right, going from the Soviet Union on the Left, to the liberal democracies (with their own Lefts and Rights), to the various fascisms (German, Italian, Spanish, and so forth). This is but an attenuated version of what might be called the Soviet Vulgate.
I see too many oversimplifications in your table. For instance, property in nazi Germany was not restricted to powerful people only. After Hitler's assumption of power, owners of small businesses continued to own those businesses. But the rights of ownership could be (and often were) snatched up by the state at any time, for any reason. What good does it do you to own a business that you don't control? You may as well be living under communism, since all you're doing is carrying out the state's directives, just like one of Stalin's factory managers.
Likewise, ethnic cleansing is not confined to fascist regimes. Look at what the communist Chinese did to the Mongols.
"The Party is all-embracing. It rules our lives in all their breadth and depth. We must therefore develop branches of the Party in which the whole of individual life will be reflected. Each activity and each need of the individual will thereby be regulated by the Party as the representative of the general good. There will be no license, no free space, in which the individual belongs to himself. This is Socialism - not such trifles as the private means of production. Of what importance is that if I range men firmly within a discipline they cannot escape? Let them own land or factories as much as they please. The decisive factor is that the State, through the Party, is supreme over them, regardless whether they are owners or workers. All that, you see, is unessential. Our Socialism goes far deeper..."
"The people about us are unaware of what is really happening to them. The gaze fascinated at one or two superficialities, such as possessions and income or rank and other outworn conceptions. As long as these are kept intact, they are quite satisfied. But in the meantime, they have entered a new relation; a powerful social force has caught them up. They themselves are changed. What are ownership and income to that? Why need we trouble to socialize banks and factories? We socialize human beings."
Adolph Hitler - Rauschning, The Voice of Destruction pp 191-193
In the end, there was little to differ from the de jure socialism practised by the Soviets and their imitators and the de facto socialism of the Nazis. The former was class-based, the latter, race based. Their outcomes were similar in avery respect - mass murder, enslavement and impoverishment.
This is profound. As Horowitz observes, American leftists now denounce Stalinism and Maoism, but fail to recognize the fact that all other forms of communism lead to the same result.
Don't you think that it is the ultimate simplification to arbitrarily categorize the Communist and National Socialist ideologies into the "Left" and "Right" categories that have meant different things every 50 years ever since the terms were coined during the French Revolution?
In 1820's Europe, a member of a Masonic Lodge praising the Constitutional form of government was considered a radical Leftist and the United States of America was considered the most Left-wing nation on the Planet.
During the fall of the Soviet Union, the American Liberal media labelled the Soviet Communist die-hards as "Right-wing".
Originally, "Right" wing meant a supporter of absolute monarchy by divine right who denied the very existence of sovereignty deriving from the consent of the governed.
"Left" wing originally meant a supporter of the individual Liberty.
Now, Left vs Right traditionally mean whatever the political writer wants it to mean.
The same America Liberal media that labelled Ronald Reagan as "Right-wing" because he was "Conservative" in wanting to preserve traditional American values and was extremely anti-Communist saw no irony whatsoever in labelling the Soviet die-hards during the fall of the Soviet Union as "Right-wing" because they were "Conservative" in wanting to preserve traditional Communist values.
If you traditionally define "Right" vs "Left" as State Absolutism vs Individual Rights and Liberties, the both Communism and National Socialism are Right-wing ideologies.
The absolute monarchs of the ancien regime may have invoked "By the Grace of God" and used "France/Britain/Spain" as the boggeyman. The Communists may have invoked "For the Benefit of the Proleteriat" and used "the Capitalists and the Fascists" as the boggeyman. The National Socialism may have invoked "For the Fatherland" and used "the Jews, the Communists and the Liberal Democracies" as the boogeyman.
However, those are all merely rationilizations for exactly the same political bottom line: Absolute power by a political oligarchy that is maitained by force of arms.
Same Church. Different pews.
That, of course, makes most of us on Free Republic traditional Left-wingers which is, in the original meanings of the terms, where the United States has always been since someone got the bright idea to label all political ideology through the prism of the seating arrangement of the French Estates General.
Uh, really.
No position on any political spectrum can lessen the danger government (or the lack of it) may bring to a society. There is no easy formula such as "stay on the right and you'll always be correct." Even on your spectrum, anarchy is at its extreme right.
The emerging spectrum does not exist to supply answers, only to better categorize different ideologies. The old spectrum, with fascism/Nazism on the extreme right and Communism on the far left was not a spectrum at all, instead a circle that leads to totalitarianism no matter which direction you travel, with the only implied solution being to take the middle ground. That is, of course, absurd, because Centrism is usually an illusion since there is no real neutral ground in political disputes oftentimes.
The new spectrum, with anarchy (complete lack) on the extreme right and totalitarianism (complete presence) on the extreme left is the only logical spectrum for all of the political ideologies possible. Minimalist government, existing for few but important reasons and being viewed as a 'necessary evil' that needs to be kept in check at all times, is closer to the extreme right than to the extreme left. The spectrum only ranks ideologies and does not endorse a 'solution,' mainly because different people disagree about what the exact problems to be solved with government intervention are. Therefore, the spectrum never implies that the solution is on the furthest extreme of either of the wings. Nor does it explain why and in what ways government power is employed (in a theoretical sense of allowment) the further you go to the left; only that it is increasingly employed.
Communism and Fascism, then, may be different beasts, but they are still beasts of the same nature of inclination where the spectrum is concerned.
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