[Pearls Before Swine]

I think it is better to think of the political spectrum as being laid out on a circle. At one side of the circle, you have maximum freedom consistent with a functioning country (some police, for example). On the other, you have complete government control over everything you can do, own, or even think. So, in my view, the Nazis and the Communists are close together.

Now, the question of which direction you transit from freedom to tyranny is interesting. Some of the paths involve European Socialism, and we call those left; while some involve control of industry rather than direct control of individuals—we call those right.

Mussolini started out as a right wing movement. Hitler is harder to figure... he had both left and right features—it was called “national socialism” after all, but his final destination was virtually the same as Lenin’s and Stalin’s from the view of the populace. Secret police, concentration camps, full control.

[magslinger]

I think it is better to think of the political spectrum as being laid out on a circle.

I once thought that but have come to think it isn't so. I now place National Socialism and Islam (which is more a political movement than it ever was a religion) on the extreme left and myself on the extreme right.

[americanophile]

You’re absolutely right. NAZI = National Socialist German Worker’s Party...try to square that with ‘right wing.’ NAZIsm seems to be a hybrid that is essentially socialistic because it’s focused on highly-centralized economics utilized for the good of the collective, the German people, but it’s anti-capitalist in the speculative sense. Hitler declared in Mein Kampf, “The attitude of the State towards capital would be comparatively simple and clear. Its only object would be to make sure that capital remained subservient to the State”. Yet he hated the communists. Hard to peg.

[Ditto]

So, in my view, the Nazis and the Communists are close together.

Pretty much identical, IMHO. Both resulted in a very elite ruling class immune to the laws imposed on the rest of the population. Both controlled all flow of information and the means of production. Both created cults of leadership. Both utilized abject terror to control the population. Both invented enemies, either external or internal feeding existing bias and prejudices and whipped the populace into blind hatred of those enemies. And both eventually became expansionist out of either greed or necessity.

They were the same people. They just used different slogans.