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To: TopQuark
"Nazi" is an abbreviation for the National Socialist Party. Were you joking?

I doubt he was. I had an argument with a couple of libs here at work a couple of years ago about this very subject. "Were the Nazi's a party of the right, or a party of the left". They said, with some justification, that the name really doesn't matter. After all Saddam's forces were the Republican Guard, and that doesn't mean they liked Ronald Reagan, or George Washington for that matter. Many sociast countries have "Republic" in their name, even though they are about as from from a "Republic" as they could be.

However the Nazis used government to control society, in economic as well as social affairs. That's makes them socialist in my book, and thus leftists. They certainly weren't the party of "Rugged Indivdualism" were they, nor were the Facists, nor the Japanese militarists, although the latter was farther from the general socialist ideal than the others. Some say the Nazi party was a creation/tool of the German Industrialists, but in reality they were used and controlled by the Nazis just as everyone else was.

41 posted on 04/11/2003 5:56:11 PM PDT by El Gato
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To: El Gato
Some say the Nazi party was a creation/tool of the German Industrialists, but in reality they were used and controlled by...

But they were not owned by.  State ownership of the means of production is part of the definition of socialism, isn't it?
43 posted on 04/11/2003 6:08:13 PM PDT by gcruse (If they truly are God's laws, he can enforce them himself.)
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To: El Gato; ladyinred
The name is not conclusive by itself --- that is your argument, and it is valid. But to say that a socialist party that is proud of its socialism and carries it on its banner is something else. To say that they were NOT socialist is flatly wrong.

I can tell you were the confusion comes from --- and no, it's not just the liberal plot to hide the true nature of the Nazis.

It is not one street that we have and choose to be on the left or right side of it. There are at least three dimensions: economics, politics, and culture. One can be a fiscal conservative and culturally liberal, for instance --- and that is the proper designation. It is trying to put such a square peg into a round hole that creates confusion.

Consider, for instance, Russian communists today. They are on the right of the spectrum politically, although they belong to the revolutionary, leftist, communist party. Russian nationalists --- a bunch not unlike some of our libertarians --- are cultural conservatives, but they are the revolutionaries now, who want to change everything.

The German Nazis were on the left both economically and politically but their nationalist, racist position placed them firmly on the right culturally. Because this one dimension stands out most of all in the minds of people --- camps, Holocaust, murder of civilians, burning villages of the "lower races" --- the Nazis are perceived as being on the right, as they actually were on this particular dimension.

Observe that this has nothing to do with whether one is a socialist. Marx was a globalist in terms of how the revolution was supposed to come about. Lenin instead was a "nationalist" and developed a theory of a communist revolution in one country." Nobody questions that both of them were dedicated socialists. The dimension of nationalism-internationalism is superimposed on that which defines a socialist. And along that defining dimension, Nazis were socialist and called themselves so.

65 posted on 04/11/2003 7:22:35 PM PDT by TopQuark
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