Vanity. Were/Are "Nazis" Left-wing or Right-wing?

[PinkChampagneonIce]

This is my first vanity, and I am afraid. However, I am so confused that I am forced to post. I know there are people here who have a much better understanding of political history than I, and hope you can provide some clues. Growing up, Fascists/Nazis were always described to me as "right-wingers." It was only after I graduated from college that I discovered that Nazis were actually members of the National SOCIALIST Party, which would lead me to believe they were actually "far leftists." However, whenever Nazis and neo-Nazis are discussed, as in posts related to the recent Neo-Nazis in Germany, they are always described as "extreme right-wing." This is making me insane. Are/were Nazis leftist socialists, or right-wing fascists? What are the criteria for each?

[aruanan]

Pink,

Read Hayek's The Road to Serfdom, University of Chicago Press (yay!). You'll clearly see the difference between the classical liberal Rule of Law and totalitarianism.

[Sherman Logan]

Acckk.

Sorry, mixed up my idiotic utopian terminology.

In Marxist theology, socialism is the intermediate stage leading up to full blown communism in which the state finally fades away.

[PinkChampagneonIce]

“...in which the state finally fades away.” Like that’s going to happen.......

[Sherman Logan]

Works for me.

Except that in the earlier stages of the system it is quite likely that most even of the leaders actually believed their own propaganda, at least on one level of their thinking.

This belief in the ideology tailed off and then vanished with time and the comprehensive failure of the system, leading to the quite remarkable disappearance of Communism in the USSR without a shot once it turned out absolutely nobody was willing to fight and die for the ideology. Lots of people were still willing to kill for the system, of course, if it was in their own personal interest, but nobody at all believed the propaganda anymore.

Somebody once appropriately pointed out that in 1989 there were more committed Marxists employed as professors at Harvard than existed in all of the USSR.

[PinkChampagneonIce]

Thank you, aruanan, for the reference to “The Road to Serfdom.” It looks like a good read. And thank all you FReepers for a great discussion! I have to go to bed now, so won’t be able to reply to any posts until tomorrow, but if you have any recommendations to books that might enlighten me regarding the development of the various strands of socialism/fascism, both American and European, I would very much appreciate it. Have a good night!

[Sherman Logan]

Quite true. But that was, and indeed still is, the ideology.

[Spktyr]

On the European political spectrum, Nazis were far right. On the US political spectrum, they're either a weird branch of the far left, or so far to the right they've looped around to the left.

Original poster - the political spectrum isn't a line, it's actually a circle. Here's one person's interpretation of same, with "Classic Liberalism" being the central position. I don't agree with his placement of some, but it should help you visualize it. IMHO, Theocracy, Fascism, and Communism should all be at the same point on the circle, as the only thing that *really* differs is the makeup of the controlling parties and their ruling rationale. The end result is the same.

[oyez]

They were glorified alright, but they had that party connection and they controlled it. BTW, Later Russian leaders lost control of it.

[tcrlaf]

bumping this quote for later moonbat bashing...

[paudio]

ping for later

[Sci Fi Guy]

Nazi were clearly left wing. They had an early alliance with Stalin. I think that part of the confusion, might be that facism was a popular world wide movement prior to WW2. Latin American had facist governments as well as spain and italy. Some Middle East nations are still run by Facist parties. After world war 2, facist and communists were enemies, so our simple minded media assumed left verses right.

Of course today, the MSM just uses the term right wing to mean anything bad.

[PinkChampagneonIce]

Spktyr - thanks for the great resource! It looks as if the owner of http://www.conservative-resources is working on just this subject — defining the various isms, etc. But I’ll have to wait, as it is a work in progress. I have bookmarked the site.

[D Rider]

Socialism, on the other hand, would like to arrange things so that the employers have more incentive to care for the employees, so they will all work harder and the government will get it’s cut.....

Actually, Fascism is Socialism, as the government controls all actions. In the more direct form of socialism the government is itself is both the controller and the employer.

Socialists governments do not have a very good record of caring for individual people. Take a look at socialist healthcare, just hope your not old, or can get treatment before your cancer kills you.