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Jews and Communism
https://arnoldkling.substack.com/ ^ | FEB 17, 2024 | ARNOLD KLING

Posted on 02/17/2024 4:57:10 PM PST by Jonty30

In the collective memory of American Jewry, the entanglement of Jews and Communists merits hardly a footnote.

—Jerry Z. Muller, Capitalism and the Jews, p. 161

For paid subscribers, Jerry and I will be talking about this topic on Zoom on Monday evening, February 26, at 8 PM New York time. I’ll send out a reminder with a link closer to the date.

In my own memory as an American Jew, the entanglement of Jews and Communists has more significance.

The Harvard Library houses a document “Investigation of Communist Activities in the St. Louis, Mo. area. Hearing” This was a hearing conducted in St. Louis by the United States House Un-American Activities Committee in June of 1956.

One of the witnesses called was my pediatrician, who was Jewish. Another was my mother, who also was Jewish. She testified that in 1945, at age 22, her primary job was working as a stenographer in the office of the Communist Party in St. Louis.

The woman who became my mother was introduced to my father through his sister. My Aunt Sarah was a Communist, as was her husband, a machinist and labor organizer. My mother testified that she herself quit the Communist Party in 1947. My father convinced her to do that. My aunt and uncle were not wedded to the party, but they never gave up the cause. My uncle put his hopes in the brand of Communism practiced by Tito in Yugoslavia.

(Excerpt) Read more at arnoldkling.substack.com ...


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To: HereInTheHeartland

That’s your misinterpretation. You don’t understand context, because all your life you’ve never been told the truth about WWI and the events leading up to WWII.


81 posted on 02/18/2024 7:24:15 AM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Free Republic's most controversial and outspoken FReeper)
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To: Jonty30

It was more than that

Fear of pogroms and czarist excess made Marxism and even anarchism look preferable

And more reasons

It’s providential I’ve concluded

Just look at the vanguard of the elite left

100 years later

Only difference is today there’s no czar to fear

But instead behind every righty there’s a potential steely Nazi

It gets ingrained intergenerational

Like how my region derided Yankees many generations after the joys of Reconstruction


82 posted on 02/18/2024 7:30:51 AM PST by wardaddy (. A disease in the public mind)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Your words are expressing admiration for Hitler.
That’s disgusting and shameful.
You are no different than those who admire Marx.
Repent and see the evil you are supporting.


83 posted on 02/18/2024 7:33:09 AM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Have you seen Joe Biden's picture on a milk carton?)
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To: HereInTheHeartland

Still no condemnation of the decadent Weimar Republic that led to Hitler’s rise.


84 posted on 02/18/2024 7:35:02 AM PST by Extremely Extreme Extremist (Free Republic's most controversial and outspoken FReeper)
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To: Fai Mao

They had as good a flag officer on down to platoon leader corps you could muster too

But political people always screwed it up

Plus Barbarossa

And candidly Hitler s obsession with Jews etc diverted attentions that should have been focused elsewhere

I think Hitler in his core resented Jewish success from his very early days and saw them as anti nationalist Bolshies

Most professionals would see it as mental illness

And he got thugs to carry it out

Like Stalin was a thug too

A Georgian criminal who exploited power for status and riches

Lenin was more ideological as was Trotsky

Distrusting and hating Jews in Europe goes way back and has many roots

It becomes the chicken versus egg or dog chasing tail

And it repeats

Folks see what they see it’s hard to be willfully blind

And it’s also understandable Jews flocked to anti czarist politics

Pogroms were often horrific exercises in mass murder

We have to politically destroy the vanguard of the left and wokism

The Soros and Hoffman and Steyer and Weiss and Meathead bank rollers have to be countered and politically destroyed or punished same as non Jews at the forefront of this revolution they have forced on us


85 posted on 02/18/2024 7:49:24 AM PST by wardaddy (. A disease in the public mind)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Freepers like things simple

This notion Nazis and commies are the same has appeal to them

Their confirmation bias thwarts any objectivity

I grew up on the circular political paradigm

Makes more sense to me

Commies totalitarian

Fascists authoritarian

At 12 and 6 o’clock

They use the patriots at the bow and everybody else at the stern model

Good posting btw

Pattons views on leftist Jews wouldn’t be permitted here

Anymore than Sherman’s and to a lesser degree Grants


86 posted on 02/18/2024 7:58:33 AM PST by wardaddy (. A disease in the public mind)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Grasping for red herrings, I see.

All socialism is expansionist. The USSR and (especially) national socialist Germany proved that conclusively. Red China is proving exactly that in the South China Sea, Hong Kong, Taiwan, the Philippines and all of their countries in Asia, Africa and Central/South America (since the announcement of the death of our Monroe Doctrine by our wonderful Uniparty) in debt traps.

Islamic socialism is a form of national socialism, to boot. Is their expansionism in question?

With all due respect, anyone who is flippant about socialism is really ignorant of what it is—or is on its side. Is this the “extremism” you allude to in your handle?


87 posted on 02/18/2024 9:33:36 AM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: wardaddy
Fascism and communism are the same. Fascism was invented by a communist, and that same fellow always extolled “social justice” and redistribution while in power as a fascist.

National socialism is no different from Stalin’s “socialism in one country”, Red China’s “socialism with Chinese characteristics”, Arab/Islamic socialism (which emphasizes a false nationalism) or Lenin’s New Economic Policy to see its roots. And all of it goes back to The Principles of Communism as outlined by Engels:
In all probability, the proletarian revolution will transform existing society gradually and will be able to abolish private property only when the means of production are available in sufficient quantity.
Just different paths to the same end.
88 posted on 02/18/2024 9:50:06 AM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Olog-hai

lol. No.

Please read up on the topic. Fascism of the early 20th century were staunchly anti communist.


89 posted on 02/18/2024 10:03:34 AM PST by Fuzz
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To: Jonty30

Hitler was not a communist.

Claims like this are weird.


90 posted on 02/18/2024 10:17:11 AM PST by Fuzz
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To: Fuzz
Lol, based on what?
(T)he object of the regime in the economic field is to ensure higher social justice for the whole of the Italian people… What does social justice mean? It means work guaranteed, fair wages, decent homes; it means the possibility of continuous evolution and improvement. Nor is this enough. It means that the workers must enter more and more intimately into the productive process and share its necessary discipline… As the past (19th) century was the century of capitalist power, the twentieth century is the century of power and glory of labor.

— Mussolini, 1935

When the war is over, in the world’s social revolution that will be followed by a more equitable distribution of the earth’s riches, due account must be kept of the sacrifices and of the discipline maintained by the Italian workers.

— Mussolini, 1941
The only form of communism that Mussolini openly opposed was what he termed “Bolshevism”, which meant the USSR’s power and not communism per se. Leopards do not change their spots.
91 posted on 02/18/2024 10:21:50 AM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Olog-hai

Based on his statements, writings, actions etc.

He spoke out against state ownership of companies, created the first fascist doctrine and government, communists, as well as socialists, anarchists, were rounded up and often killed, communist partisans tracked him down and killed him.

Before he formed the fascist movement he did admire the Russian revolution in 1917, but for its revolutionary ideals, but abandoned it quickly to propose his fascist ideology in 1919, which was anti communist.

This shouldn’t be interpreted as a defense of Mussolini btw.


92 posted on 02/18/2024 10:45:11 AM PST by Fuzz
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To: Fuzz
So the Bible is wrong when it infers a leopard does not change its spots (Jeremiah 13:23)? Mussolini’s fascism being indistinguishable from communism in practice is that very principle in action.

You responded to post 88. I put a quote from The Principles of Communism in there, where Engels made it plain that their revolutions “would transform existing society gradually”. Lenin instituted his less-socialistic New Economic Policy in response to the evident failure that rapid institution of socialism was driving his empire into. Variations from communism such as fascism and national socialism merely toned down the aspects of “abolition of private property” and abolition of religion due to the societal opposition to both, but the implication of absolute power is the power to transform the extant society according to the will of the dictator.
93 posted on 02/18/2024 11:00:17 AM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Extremely Extreme Extremist

Since you mentioned you are a believer, I would suggest you discuss your tolerance of Hitler with a trusted pastor.
You are way off base with tolerating evil.


94 posted on 02/18/2024 11:15:53 AM PST by HereInTheHeartland (Have you seen Joe Biden's picture on a milk carton?)
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To: Olog-hai

Yeah. You seem to be putting all things bad on one side and labeling it communism.

There are specific definitions of each of these ideologies and there can be some overlap certainly.

The will of the leader, dictator, king, khan, emperor, etc, was the norm for most of our history, but it wouldn’t be considered communism.

As far as the Ethiopian changing his skin color or a leopard changing his spots it refers to character. Megalomaniacs don’t change their desire to be admired or feared and will often use anything to achieve it.


95 posted on 02/18/2024 12:14:35 PM PST by Fuzz
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To: Fuzz

I’m basing my views on what I see and read, i.e. the actions compared to the words of all the left-wing ideologues in question. And you are basing your assertions on . . . ?

Based on what I read and what I see, it is not merely “some overlap”.

I agree that Jeremiah 13:23 is a comment on a man’s character; certainly Mussolini’s character was unchanged from his long years as a communist, said communism being all over his repackaging as fascism. No doubt he had read Engels.


96 posted on 02/18/2024 1:11:41 PM PST by Olog-hai ("No Republican, no matter how liberal, is going to woo a Democratic vote." -- Ronald Reagan, 1960)
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To: Olog-hai

There’s been a great deal written about this subject and there can be some common similar policies or characteristics. It’s what makes them different that causes them to be separated into distinct groups..

An easy way to see at least the difference between communism and fascism is to search for a vent diagram on the two terms.


97 posted on 02/18/2024 2:39:30 PM PST by Fuzz
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To: Fuzz

He was a communist before he became a fascist. Once he was in power, he started making moves to confiscate businesses and property and make them the property of the government.

Do you really think that there is some hard line that separates communists and fascists, that when you are one, you won’t do the acts of the other?

Leftism always evolves towards total ownership by those in power. This is without exception.


98 posted on 02/18/2024 3:06:52 PM PST by Jonty30 (What company makes rubber airplanes? Boeing, Boeing, Boeing.)
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To: Jonty30

/eye roll

No. Not a communist. Wrote a book about all the people he hated. Was in there.

Property of undesirables was confiscated and given to the correct people. The US also confiscated property, like in WW2 and we aren’t communist.

Your second paragraph is bizarre. Won’t do the same acts as the other? Like what? Oppress human rights? Sure, there are overlaps.

The ideologies are defined based on their differences, not similarities.


99 posted on 02/18/2024 3:51:41 PM PST by Fuzz
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To: Fuzz

You’d be wrong.
There is no hard line between any of the differing philosophies on the political left. Liberals always head towards communism over time. There is no such thing as anybody on the left who doesn’t evolve towards total ownership by the government. It’s why the American liberal has moved so far to the left.

So, while technically there may be differing philosophies on the left, the hard wall between any of them is as solid as a soap bubble.


100 posted on 02/18/2024 4:00:20 PM PST by Jonty30 (What company makes rubber airplanes? Boeing, Boeing, Boeing.)
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