Posted on 05/10/2015 1:08:52 PM PDT by MuttTheHoople
The only thing worse than a Fascist, is an Anti-Fascist.
Stalin’s little buttboy (you posted the wiki-link up there) was clearly the right choice for that dictator, but accomplished nothing but pissing off everyone, turning coat, backstabbing, and pushing for an authoritarian, nationalist, hegemonic communist dictator. So, no, there’s no difference.
Stalin’s biggest fear was a Communist takeover of Germany, and with it, the political center of the worldwide Communist movement would have shifted from Moscow to Berlin, even if the KPD paid lip service to Moscow, Germany simply was more advanced in too many ways.
So Hitler got help from Stalin in eliminating most of the leadership of the KPD. Stalin wanted Communism in Germany ultimately, but it was going to be on Stalin’s terms.
“Then by your reasoning, there is no purpose in classifying political/economic systems.”
Or more succinctly, explain how you believe Nazi Germany differs from Red China? Both are socialist, one party, highly nationalistic, aggressive and expansionist, states, that have widespread capitalism as their operating system. Of course, it must serve the state.
How are they different really? Not oompah bands and rice,, I mean in ownership of means of production?
Sounds interesting, but not familiar. Probably happened during the later years — during the Japanese taking of the P’s they just kept on the attack all the time, and were under orders to ignore white flags. BTW, we went too easy on the bastards. Normally I’d be cranked about the Demwit administration’s ignorant handing-over of some Japanese islands (in addition to some islands ceded to Japan by the Russian Empire after that early 20th c war they fought), but it’s difficult to care. I also don’t think they should have been able to keep either Iwo Jima or Okinawa.
“The only thing worse than a Fascist, is an Anti-Fascist.”
Not following that. Fascism is a nightmare, just like communism is. Opposing either of them with gusto is a good thing. Why would a conservative dislike an anti-fascist? That would be like saying the only thing worse than a communist is an anti-communist.
The only place that logic holds true is with smokers. The only thing worse than a smoker REALLY is an anti smoker.
““Capitalism continues under fascism, but not under communism.”
You may not have heard of this one communist nation called “the Peoples Republic of China”. It’s kind of small, you may not have heard of it.
And there’s another single party Communist country called Vietnam.
Both are rather famous for their capitalism and have many
privately owned businesses.
Your example falls apart. There is always this destructive desire to pretend that Nazis are some sort of an anti communist. Its a relic of cold war thinking, but nothing could be further from the truth. It’s destructive because it leads people to mistakenly see Nazis as facing a common enemy in communism.”
My example was from the period in history under discussion.
Obviously since then communism in China and Vietnam has departed from those definitions, and would no longer be classified as communism.
China would be called something other than “communist” as would Russia, the eastern bloc satellites, etc.
They all took on or reverted to greater private ownership, of the factors of production.
Stronger arguments for similarities between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia could probably be made along the lines of “command economy.” BTW
We would then be talking about BMW making airplane engines as ordered by the German federal government, and GM making Volts as suggested and incentivized by the American federal government.
M4L Read
An “anti-fascist” by definition is someone who thinks that anyone who disagrees with them is a “fascist”.
That’s how Communists define themselves, as if they are the one-and-only true legitimate opposition to Fascism. They use the term “Fascism” very loosely.
This makes them far more dangerous than a pure Marxist Nation.
The point is that “communism” comes in 31 flavors. From deity cults, to classic Leninist versions, and they all have always had very different views on property ownership.
And they all call themselves “socialist”. Just as the national socialists did.
All were pushing for communism and income distribution. I seem to remember how greedy Jews were impoverishing innocent working class Germans. If a jew immigrated or was murdered by the state, their assets were forfeited to the state. Some such as real estate and art were directly distributed to other Germans by various methods. Sure sounds like some class struggle and income redistribution to me. A communist would feel right at home.
The Japanese commander in charge of one of the civilian internee camps near Manila basically allowed the prisoners to take control when he heard U.S. troops were approaching to the extent that even one of the more brutal officers named Abiko was killed by the internees and they ground out burning cigarette butts in his dying corpse.
The officer in charge used that incident to get him and the other guards safe passage out. Don't remember the name of the prison, but it was and is a college campus.
I wasn’t using the communist definition of antifascist. I cannot understand how an American anticommunist cannot also be anti fascist.
But I was referring to those who actually self-identify themselves as an “Anti-Fascist”.
And the same rule applies to someone who calls themselves an “Anti-Racist” (which really means anti-White).
Can you show an instance of Hitler declaring himself to be a Fascist?
Although our modern socialists' promise of greater freedom is genuine and sincere, in recent years observer after observer has been impressed by the unforeseen consequences of socialism, the extraordinary similarity in many respects of the conditions under "communism" and "fascism." As the writer Peter Drucker expressed it in 1939, "the complete collapse of the belief in the attainability of freedom and equality through Marxism has forced Russia to travel the same road toward a totalitarian society of un-freedom and inequality which Germany has been following. Not that communism and fascism are essentially the same. Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany."
No less significant is the intellectual outlook of the rank and file in the communist and fascist movements in Germany before 1933. The relative ease with which a young communist could be converted into a Nazi or vice versa was well known, best of all to the propagandists of the two parties. The communists and Nazis clashed more frequently with each other than with other parties simply because they competed for the same type of mind and reserved for each other the hatred of the heretic. Their practice showed how closely they are related. To both, the real enemy, the man with whom they had nothing in common, was the liberal of the old type. While to the Nazi the communist and to the communist the Nazi, and to both the socialist, are potential recruits made of the right timber, they both know that there can be no compromise between them and those who really believe in individual freedom.
-- F.A. Hayek, The Road to Serfdom
There wasn’t a nickel’s difference between the Nazis and the Communists. See they Hayek quote in my previous post to understand why they hated each other.
Nazis and Communists, are like the Bloods and Crips, only difference is the uniform.
You’re understanding is in part correct. The militaries of all the major combatants had been building up during the long peacetime of the “Gilded Age” and were itching to try out all their new toys. Then dominoes fell in successive war declarations based on two alliances, the German Empire (the Second Reich) and Austria-Hungary (the Ottomans came in late seeing an opportunity to regain territory from Russia) on one side, and the British, French, Russians, and Italians on the other. The result shaped the rest of the twentieth century, from America becoming a reluctant participant in a European war, a Soviet Russia (with Stalin at the helm for thirty years), to an obscure Austrian corporal becoming a war hero and later world monster number two.
“Can you show an instance of Hitler declaring himself to be a Fascist? “
Supported and aligned with Franco and Mussolini.
In fact some argue the idea that Hitler admired Mussolini and copied from him.
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