[Artemis Webb]

I remember sitting through a history class in high school and the teacher was writing the differences between National Socialism and Soviet-type Communism. The differences were few.

If a nation is going to disregard Human Rights and disregard Property Rights (different sides of the same coin) they do not have any God given legitimacy.

[FreedomPoster]

>>I remember sitting through a history class in high school and the teacher was writing the differences between National Socialism and Soviet-type Communism. The differences were few.

The second quote on my FR home page:

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

[tcrlaf]

“sitting through a history class in high school and the teacher was writing the differences between National Socialism and Soviet-type Communism. The differences were few.”

Actually, the differences were many, but not so much ideologicly.

The forced spread of Leninist-style International Communism was stopped during the Polish Wars of the 20’s at great expense in Ethnic German lives, some estimates say 2 Million.

This left a lasting impression on the German People, especially since the formerly downtrodden jews, victims undr the tsars, were leading the Communist Revolution...

[Freedom4US]

I think it is a mistake to try and pick the fly shit from the pepper with respect to fascism, socialism, communism, et al, they are all simply totalitarian dictatorial regimes, so ultimately it is of no matter the brand name on the boot that is smashing my teeth in.

[goldstategop]

Both the Nazis and the Communists viewed society in hierarchical terms. They both agreed on the rule of a single powerful party over society, in the importance of propaganda and in the state being the decisive actor on the world scene. Above all, they both rejected Christianity and resolved on extreme brutality as the means to eliminate their perceived enemies. They both were mass-murdering philosophies marching behind the red banner. The Nazis and the Communists had no real philosophical objection to either the idea of Utopia or getting along famously with each other. If Hitler had not broken his pact with Stalin, the Left would never have blacklisted Nazism. The differences between the two totalitarian philosophies on the whole are trivial while their aims and means on the whole aimed at a similar future: mankind brought under their eternal rule. In short, no person who truly loves freedom could see good in either philosophy yet millions in their time did and today millions more flock in search of equally seductive nostrums. Collectivism is easily surrendered to while freedom, both as an idea and spirit, is difficult to defend in practice because assuming it defends requires responsible and informed citizens. Leftist philosophies only require that one submit and obey. Truly, any objective comparison of Nazism and Communism will bear out this fact as will the programs pursued by contemporary Leftists. In that regard, looking at the world today, the past is prologue to the present - and the future.

"Show me just what Mohammed brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." - Manuel II Palelologus