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Caldathras, sorry but that's ridiculous revisionism. It has long been quite popular on the far right, seems lately they've repeated it so often it's become mainstream, but it is not true. Nazism and Soviet Communism were both bad but in very different ways, and Nazi ideology was extremely anti-socialist. I think when people start saying this kind of thing it's worth remembering how the poem goes:
"First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist."
Obviously they weren't coming for the socialists and trade unionists because they themselves were socialists. They were coming for them because they were fiercely opposed to them. Everyone at the time knew perfectly well that the Communists and Socialists hated the Nazis and vice versa; they were always having big street battles before the Nazis got into power.

And, state elites that control everything function differently from private elites that own everything. It's like saying feudalism was the same as capitalism, just that in feudalism it was aristocratic elites that owned everything while in capitalism it's private elites that own everything--they work different, the difference in what kind of elite is screwing everything up makes big changes in how they screw everything up.

@Purple Library Guy

Revisionism? I was taught this in high school in social/political studies in the mid 1980s. I would be more inclined to believe that your view represents the revisionism. I even remember the teacher putting up a spectrum of Socialism showing Fascism at one end and Communism at the other. Presumably, social democracy was somewhere in the middle.

I should point out that I was talking about Fascism not Nazism. IMO, Nazism was a perversion of Fascism by a group of madmen. Not that this makes Fascism any better an option. That could, I suppose, also be said about Communism as well. In that case, the utopian wet-dream of Marxism, when implemented, became the reality of Communism which was later twisted by the horror of Stalinism.

and Nazi ideology was extremely anti-socialist

Obviously they weren't coming for the socialists and trade unionists because they themselves were socialists.

It is kind of naive to think that it is not possible for socialists to hate other types of socialists. Quoting the (admittedly profound) poem of a former Nazi supporter is hardly proof that the Nazis were not socialist.

Correct me if I'm wrong (FYI, I'm not) but isn't the proper name of the Nazi Party actually the National Socialist German Workers' Party? Wouldn't that contradict your assertion in and of itself?

All I was trying to point out that there are different kinds of socialism, just as there are different kinds of democracy, different kinds of feudalism, and different kinds of totalitarianism. On a very simplistic level, the primary difference between Fascism and Communism is the ownership of the resources and assets. Of course, one can find other differences if one chooses to dig further into the details.

I am not trying to engage in an argument here. I suspect you are younger than I. Your views are formed by the idealogies that influenced your education, as are mine. As, I suspect, would be the views of my father and grandfather, both of whom lived through WW2, the former as a child and the latter actively supporting the resistance to German occupation.

@Purple Library Guy

the difference in what kind of elite is screwing everything up makes big changes in how they screw everything up.

In this we can agree.


Last edited by Caldathras on 24 May 2025 at 6:35 pm UTC

@Caldathras
You might want to check a dictionary for a definition of Socialism. A far-right ideology like Fascism simply cannot be it. Maybe you're simply mixing up your terminology?

At the risk of blatant oversimplification: If workers don't own the means of production, it's not Socialism. If the government doesn't protect and empower the working class (and seek to minimise poverty and inequality), it's not even Social Democracy. And Socialism, in any of its forms, is simply not compatible with a capitalist elite.

Correct me if I'm wrong (FYI, I'm not) but isn't the proper name of the Nazi Party actually the National Socialist German Workers' Party? Wouldn't that contradict your assertion in and of itself?

This talking point is a good example of the far-right revisionism Purple Library Guy mentioned. Policy and actions are what determine a party's position on the ideological spectrum, not the name.

Anyone who didn't learn their history of Nazi Germany from trashy Youtube videos or podcasts knows why the party had "socialist" in the name when it obviously didn't adhere to the ideology, and how Hitler had his own spin on the meaning of Socialism. He actually claimed that Marxists "stole and perverted" the word and he was taking it back or some such nonsense. Yet this is one of the most common arguments that Fascists and others on the far-right spout to try to discredit those on the left.

@tuubi

You might want to check a dictionary for a definition of Socialism.

No offense, @tuubi, but you might want to check an encyclopedia yourself.

If workers don't own the means of production, it's not Socialism

You have defined Communism (or, perhaps, Marxism), not Socialism. Socialism comes in many variants. Karl Marx was not the originator of the idea of Socialism, as many have come to believe. In regards to Socialism, it is generally considered that the resources and means of production should be controlled by the state. Not the workers, the state (i.e., the government). And this does not necessarily imply ownership, either. Capitalism functions quite well with many forms of socialism.

As I was taught long ago, Fascism is typically placed on the right of the socialist spectrum, whereas Communism has been placed on the left of that spectrum. However, in terms of political systems, all socialist idealogies are considered to be left-leaning (i.e., more government intrusion). The true political right leans towards less government involvement in society, not more. The failure to distinguish the difference between the socialist spectrum and its place in the entire political spectrum has led to a great deal of confusion as to what is left or right.

Fascism was developed by two socialists, expanding on the ideas of Karl Marx. What we now know as Nazism was originally called National Socialism. Both put the socialist focus on the nation instead of the working class, as would have been advocated by Marx.

Contrary to the assertion of @Purple Library Guy, Hitler did not hate the Communists. He considered them brothers and said so publicly. Hitler did, however, silence anyone he believed opposed him.

FYI, my understanding of the political realities of the first half of the 20th century pre-dates YouTube. Please do not attempt to denigrate my opinions by suggesting they are influenced by social media.

This is the last I have to say on the matter.


Last edited by Caldathras on 25 May 2025 at 6:57 pm UTC

@Caldathras

No offense, @tuubi, but you might want to check an encyclopedia yourself.

I know the difference, and I did mean to say dictionary. They seek to provide a short, to-the-point definition of a word or term, as opposed to an extensive explanation you'll find in an encyclopedia. Although I do recognise that different dictionaries (and encyclopedias) also have biases and might not always agree, especially when it comes to politics and other controversial subjects.

This is the last I have to say on the matter.

That might be for the best as you seem badly misinformed on these subjects, and unwilling to do even the tiniest bit of fact checking to back up your arguments. If your school truly taught you that Fascism is Socialism, your teachers didn't know what they were talking about, or were misleading you on purpose. I mean, write "is fascism a form of socialism" into any search engine and the only sources you'll find that say "yes" are ones pushing an easily confirmed right-wing agenda. That should tell you something.

And yeah, I know the "rules" in my previous reply were overly simplistic and easily nitpicked. That's why I put the disclaimer in front of that paragraph. But okay, here's another try: Socialism requires that the means of production are socially controlled, either by the state or collectively, and thus it's not compatible with Capitalism and private ownership.

@tuubi

you seem badly misinformed ...

Funny. I could have said the same thing about you. I just chose to be polite and end the conversation. I didn't see you backing up your claims either.

You are not going to convince me and I am not going to convince you. Let's just call it a day, shall we?


Last edited by Caldathras on 26 May 2025 at 1:59 am UTC

Left and right have never been about amount of government. They have been about what government is for. There have been various specifics on both sides--sometimes the right is about racism, sometimes it isn't; sometimes it's about free trade or free markets, sometimes it isn't; usually it's about heavy policing and lots of jails, but sometimes it isn't. On the left, social anarchists want the means of production to be owned directly by the people, in co-operative sorts of things, with governance as direct democracy operating on very small scales and nothing you could really call a state or government at all, which is a strong contrast to your more centralist socialists that want a strong state owning much of the means of production, sort of on behalf of the people.

But the core feature that the right wing never abandons is resistance to egalitarianism. For the right, elites are the goal. In democracies, the right comes up with a lot of theories about why elites having more power and/or money is good for everyone . . . because that's just how economies work so as Thatcher put it "there is no alternative"; because entrepreneurs will create jobs if they have money, because meritocrats or technocrats know how to do things better and so will run society more effectively, on the flip side because the poor are inherently lazy and need their superiors to make them work harder if anything is going to get done, because it takes a strong leader to put down the (insert scapegoat here), so on and so forth. But the point behind all the rationales is that there should be hierarchy and it should be fairly steep and the group at the top should have as much as possible of the wealth and power. And when there is no democracy they tend to just drop most of the rationales, because they don't have to convince the lower orders to vote for them. So . . . what government is for, on the right, is law enforcement, the military, subsidies for favoured groups such as corporations; in capitalism it's for rearranging the rules to move money from other people to capitalists, and making that process as invisible as possible.

Hierarchy is pretty intractable. If you want to run something big like a whole country, it's very hard to get rid of (although I have personally come up with an idea for how such a thing might be done). But the idea of the left fundamentally is to push towards more egalitarianism. The social anarchists stay purist about this, renouncing all hierarchy by simply not trying to run big things at all, instead hoping for something like tons of hopefully friendly but independent little town-sized enclaves and tons of little socially controlled firms. This is sweet but most people who aren't social anarchists would consider it a very limited solution (and one which would find it very hard to defend itself against anything more organized). So, you get other sorts of socialists with increasing amounts of centralism and tolerance of hierarchy for the sake of making big things work. This does not make them farther left--if anything, I think there's a strong argument that the social anarchists are the farthest left you can be. It does make them more prone to betraying the basic egalitarian concept, when people at the top of the hierarchy say hey, I kind of like power. But where in right wing politics, steepening the hierarchy is the point, in left wing politics it's not supposed to happen--left wing hierarchies are supposed to act as if everyone was still equal, even though they aren't. This in my opinion is very difficult to pull off for any length of time, and of course it's even harder if there's no democratic control over the hierarchy. But it's still probably better to have as your political basis the idea that any hierarchy around is a necessary evil than the idea that hierarchy is fundamentally a Good Thing that we should have more of.

The ultimate problem for the left is that they have a terrible time trying to make the world work like their theories want it to. The ultimate problem of the right is when they do manage to make the world work like they want it to, the results suck horribly. (The ultimate problem of the centre is their total unwillingness to do anything good, and their complete willingness to allow evil to happen as long as they cannot obviously be blamed)

Soviet Communism and socialism have an odd relationship. So, Soviet Communism was a Marxist-based ideology although it's hard to know what Marx would have thought of it. And they pretty much bought into Marx's ideas about inevitable historical progression between systems. It was supposed to go from feudalism, to capitalism, to socialism and then ultimately to communism. The Soviet Communists were according to their theory in the process of building socialism. Actual Communism was the goal, but they were clear that they had not gotten to that goal yet. Actual Communism is this weird utopian poorly defined thing; Marx thought that after Socialism was well established for a while the state would ultimately "wither away" and there would be this post-scarcity classless paradise where people could work at what they wanted to when they wanted to. I have no idea how that's supposed to work and I don't think anyone does. But anyway, the Soviets considered the system they were operating to be socialism--communism was a future aspiration.

As to the "Socialist" in "National Socialist" . . . it was a ploy. You gotta realize, Socialism was really quite popular in Germany at the time. There were large numbers of Socialists and Communists; they nearly took over the government immediately after WW I, and were only stopped by some tactical assassinations by a proto-fascist group called the Freikorps. So putting "socialist" in the name had a chance of getting some support from the naive . . . and after all, getting support from the naive by lying has always been the core fascist game plan. But the Nazis' funding always came from wealthy industrialists. They wanted a right wing force that could face down the Communists in the streets.


Last edited by Purple Library Guy on 26 May 2025 at 5:58 am UTC

@PurpleLibraryGuy

Thats the crux of the matter - if GSC wants to censor Russian stuff they might as well remove the name STALKER and start a new game franchise (where they can do what they want), because STALKER is the invention of Russian authors (they even admit to this when making the first games). If they keep that, then any attempts at "censoring Russian stuff" is hypocritical and the result of Ukrainian propaganda


In addition, when talking of "Russia killing countrymen" or "Russia destroying their stuff", the number of civilian casualties for a war of this intensity is very low from Russias side. If you want an example of what war truly looks like - look to Gaza. Every other claim in that regard is pure propaganda. Russia has gone out of its way to avoid civlian targets as much as possible. In addition, if Ukrainians want to "ban Russian things" they may as well start with banning their own infrastructure that was built by the Russians during their period of administration. Look at Ukrainian power plants, they survive multiple missile strikes (this is the legacy of the Soviet Union) whilst Spanish/Portugese power grid goes down from strong winds. One way to look at "Russia destroying Ukrainian stuff" is Russia is technically helping Ukraine fulfill its goal of "derussifying itself" by destroying things they built.

@Caldathras

You said it yourself - Nazism/Fascism is backed by private capital so by definition it cannot be socialist, as socialism implies collective control of the means of production.

Communism is a form of "economic democracy" where the means of production belongs to the worker. It seeks to give workers the means to economic self determination (viewing economic self determination as more important than the performative political "self determination" seen in the Western world)

Nazism (aka National Socialism) was by Hitlers own admission named as such to confuse and trick people at the time into thinking Nazism was socialist (as that was in vogue) and thus voting for them. It worked when Hitler won the Chancellory.

Like I said these are two entirely different ideologies. Also funny you repeat propaganda about communism "being authoritarian" when within the USSR for example, there was plenty of self determination and self organization at local political levels

@Cato-the-younger

From the way others have written to you, I assume you are Russian? Or, live in one of the former Soviet satellite states? I cannot presume to understand every detail of what things were like for Soviet citizens. Yes, looking back at what I wrote, you are correct -- I was echoing Western propaganda and making assumptions about the how things were under Soviet rule. If you have firsthand experience, clearly your knowledge is greater than mine. Unbiased information is difficult to come by no matter where we reside.

I do not want to wade back into the "Fascism is a form of Socialism" debate, as clearly the views of what constitutes Socialism are too dogmatic here. I would like to make the point, however, that, under Fascism, while the means of production may have been privately owned, control was supposed to be in the hands of the state. Mussolini, generally considered to be one of the founders of Fascism, was reportedly hostile to private corporations and the free market economy. Whether this hostility appeared in practice, I haven't been able to discover yet. I also cannot speak as to whether all forms of Fascism from that era followed along the same lines. In seeming contradiction, modern definitions state that Fascism is the ultimate synthesis of state and corporate business. Perhaps this applies more to Neo-Fascism?

And, yes, I have been checking my facts.

I find it interesting, your statement that the means of production belonged to the worker. Is this truly the case -- using a single factory, as an example -- that the workers in that factory made all the decisions without any interference from the bureaucrats in the government above? This would be remarkably similar to an employee-owned business here in the West. If so, this is certainly not what Western propaganda has led us to believe.

Thanks for the polite correspondence. It is appreciated.


Last edited by Caldathras on 26 May 2025 at 9:00 pm UTC

@PurpleLibraryGuy

I may have been confusing liberalism vs. conservatism with left vs. right, then. After all, it is possible to be a left-leaning conservative. It is also possible to be a right-leaning liberal. This tends to make things too complicated for the polar thinkers out there.