Thank you for the explanation.
I used to employ Trotsky to wrap up my explanation of why Nazi’s were leftists. Historically, the falling out between Hitler and Stalin provided the confusion that liberals employ to assign Nazi ideology to the right. “They were enemies, weren’t they?” My response to this nonsense is that Trotsky and Stalin weren’t exactly on opposite ends of the political spectrum.
There wasn't a world war between Trotsky and Stalin.
I understand and agree that Nazism and Stalinism had a lot in common, but the fact that the bloodiest war in world history was fought between them wasn't insignificant and did much to establish them as opposites in both the popular and the academic mind.
I think it's not so much that Nazis and Communists were together on the left as that the idea that politics can be reduced to a simple two-dimensional model is too reductive. You can find different ways to put different ideologies on opposite sides of the political spectrum, but there isn't one way that beats out all the others.
Another example would be Lucky Luciano and Dutch Schultz.
They were both gangsters who shared the same basic ideology.
So why did they fight?
Answer: because - they were both gangsters who shared the same basic ideology.
They fought over turf. They fought over territory, wealth - whatever there was to take. So did Hitler and Stalin.