DBAHC: "National Socialism" associated with a far-right Ideology

Ellis MacVey

Donor
OOC Disclaimer: I do not endorse any form of fascism, especially not OTL! National "Socialism". I also think Nationalism is a spook, and, though TTL's completely different National Socialist ideology is much better and actually did a lot of good, I don't endorse all of its actions either, and am making it very explicitly a mixed bag. I was inspired by the idea of creating a movement that looks similar to Nazism on the surface, but gets more and more dissimilar the more closely you look.

Other OOC: The dominant ideology of this timeline is a form of Workers' Cooperative-based Market Socialism. There are still some capitalist Liberal Democracies out there, but they're mostly in South America and some parts of Africa and Asia, and aren't very relevant. This world is not a utopia, but it isn't a dystopia either.

Okay, so, in our timeline, the term "National Socialism" is associated with the ideology Finnish nationalist rebels and the regime they managed to establish in the wake of the collapse of the Russian Tsardom. For those of you not familiar with early 20th century Finnish politics, their ideology was basically a mixture of weird proto-syndicalism and Finnish nationalism.

They actually did pretty good in some respects. Establishing a strong yet surprisingly decentralized democracy, industrializing the formerly agrarian nation of Finland remarkably fast, doing wonders with wealth redistribution and worker self-management, and let's not forget establishing an independent Finnish state.

However, they also had a lot of negative aspects. They were incredibly nationalistic, of course (it's literally in the name), they were rather jingoistic despite having a militia system that made them much better at defense than offense, they took were mostly-moderate but still rather unproductive and sometimes outright damaging conservative stances on most social issues, they were rather xenophobic (especially when taking reasonable fears about their Russian neighbors to a rather absurd extreme), and, by far the worst of the bunch, their draconian assimilationist and monolingualist policies, which didn't (to my knowledge) kill anyone, but still technically count as a type of genocide under the International Congress' (OOC: TTL's UN) definition.

They dominated Finnish elections for about 20 years before being replaced by the more moderate unionist government that currently rules the country (though the coalition that got them into power, needless to say, has long since broken down). It's important to note that, despite these rather large and glaring problems with the movement, they were generally left-wing and undeniably did a lot of good for Finland.

Sorry for taking so long with the pointless background information (I actually tried to briefly summarize the Finnish Nartional Socialist government's long and interesting history, but as you can see, it was still way too fucking long), but now we know what OTL's National Socialism is, your challenge is to make the term be associated with an explicitly far-right ideology instead of a weird sort of mixed-bag socialist one.

Now, to those of you who think this sounds a bit far fetched, I'd like to point out that several real-life European ultranationalistic, far-right, anti-socialist populist movements in our timeline's early 20th century loved to appropriate socialistic symbolism and terminology, most notably the French Yellow Socialist Regime, the Strasserite Movement in the First German Republic, and Gabriele D'Annuzio's faction in the government of Legionary Italy. It is conceivable that, if an early 20th Century reactionary populist who adopted the label of "National Socialist" and gained power, they could have become infamous enough that their legacy overshadows the legacy of the Finnish National Socialists.

For those of you confused about your objective, your goal is to make the term "National Socialist" and the aesthetics associated with it be historically associated with a psuedo-Legionnaireist ideology instead of an ideology that's actually socialist.
 

Sam R.

As you say, have a class collaborationist movement that puts returns to capital ahead of returns to labour—even if only in practice by collaborating with zaibatsu or combine or holding company while spewing public housing rhetoric. It’ll just be Legionaries in public housing make-up: the same right wing clapped trap but using worker tinged nationalism as a buy off when the class get slapped. Similar thing happened in Finland. Every time the wage grew less than inflation Swedes were persecuted.

OTOH what if Bismarck is forced to dismantle the junkers? Or if Napoleon III liquidates, say, Italians and basque? Or is that off topic because c19? I’d argue the only differences between Bismarck and Strasser was success and aristocracy. And the only difference between the yellow shirts and Napoleon III was Corsican heritage and competence. Now ask yourself: whose competence did I insult?
 
DrakonFin

DrakonFin

As it happens, my grandfather used to support the Finnish National Socialists back in the day. Which was understandable, I guess, as you would have been very much encouraged to do so since first grade in school.

I scanned this poster of his for your edification.;)

509px-Suomalais-Sosialismin_huoneentaulu.jpeg


THE GUIDELINES OF FINNISH-SOCIALISM (FINNISH NATIONAL SOCIALISM)

INDEPENDENCE
THE RIGHT, CERTAINTY AND EFFICIENCY OF WORK
POLITICAL AWARENESS
FINNISHNESS

SOCIALISM ( - the national planned economy) unites the people, safeguards independence, leads Finnishness into ultimate victory, makes certain the right and efficiency of work, increases the people's standard of living and level of learning, and replaces prejudice and illusions with political awareness.


(OOC: An actual piece of material by the Finnish National Socialist League from 1933. Was this OTL fringe group an inspiration for the OP?)
 

Ellis MacVey

Donor
DrakonFin said:
(OOC: An actual piece of material by the Finnish National Socialist League from 1933. Was this OTL fringe group an inspiration for the OP?)
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OOC: Not really, I just wanted a coincidentally-named different movement to explore, and I figured Finland was the best place to put it.

I didn't read anything about a planned economy in Finland? Is this from their earlier days as an independence movement?
 
DrakonFin

DrakonFin

Scorpio Retindar said:
I didn't read anything about a planned economy in Finland? Is this from their earlier days as an independence movement?
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The Finnish National Socialists were a big movement, and the party had different wings. One thing separating the factions were their views about how much the state should control the economy. The so-called Sirola faction (led by Yrjö Sirola) argued for total state control of the economy since the 20s. They never managed to get into power to make their plans reality, though. I think my grandfather was a Sirola follower in his radical youth, so that might explain the poster.
 
Maeglin

Maeglin

Ugh. Those nutters.

Look people. Putting Swedish-speaking Finns in camps, and just about starting multiple wars over the Åland Islands is enough to disqualify National Socialism as any form of 'Socialism'. Full stop. FFS, the Finnish National Socialists were explicitly denounced by the Labour and Socialist International.
 

Ellis MacVey

Donor
Maeglin said:
Ugh. Those nutters.

Look people. Putting Swedish-speaking Finns in camps, and just about starting multiple wars over the Åland Islands is enough to disqualify National Socialism as any form of 'Socialism'. Full stop. FFS, the Finnish National Socialists were explicitly denounced by the Labour and Socialist International.
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I mean, they were fucking nutters, and also imperialist assholes, but they were still socialists. They had a democratic state where the workers owned and controlled the means of production, and no amount of horrible imperialistic shit can make them not socialists when they fit pretty comfortably under the literal definition of socialism. I'm not playing defense for them putting Swedes in camps and taking non-Finnish children away from their parents to be raised by Finnish parents as part of their assimilation and monolingualism policies, but they were actual socialists despite also doing horrible things.
 
Maeglin

Maeglin

Scorpio Retindar said:
I mean, they were fucking nutters, and also imperialist assholes, but they were still socialists. They had a democratic state where the workers owned and controlled the means of production, and no amount of horrible imperialistic shit can make them not socialists when they fit pretty comfortably under the literal definition of socialism. I'm not playing defense for them putting Swedes in camps and taking non-Finnish children away from their parents to be raised by Finnish parents as part of their assimilation and monolingualism policies, but they were actual socialists despite also doing horrible things.
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  1. You're describing Swedish-speaking Finns as "non-Finns." That's just what they used to say.
  2. They were as "democratic" as bloody Apartheid South Africa. They not only denied the vote to those in the camps, and to religious minorities, they also required proof that you had all four grandparents born in Finland. If you couldn't supply enough proof to satisfy their stacked bureaucracy, they made you sit a ludicrous and impossible language test.
  3. They only cared about Finnish-speaking workers. That's the entire basis of their expulsion from the Labour and Socialist International in 1925 - socialism along linguistic lines is no socialism at all.
 
DrakonFin

DrakonFin

Maeglin said:
  1. You're describing Swedish-speaking Finns as "non-Finns." That's just what they used to say.
  2. They were as "democratic" as bloody Apartheid South Africa. They not only denied the vote to those in the camps, and to religious minorities, they also required proof that you had all four grandparents born in Finland. If you couldn't supply enough proof to satisfy their stacked bureaucracy, they made you sit a ludicrous and impossible language test.
  3. They only cared about Finnish-speaking workers. That's the entire basis of their expulsion from the Labour and Socialist International in 1925 - socialism along linguistic lines is no socialism at all.
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Without making any excuses for the Finnish National Socialist regime, and the fact that they put about one quarter of the Swedish-speaking population into the so-called "transfer camps" (which amounted to labour camps with poor food and even worse hygiene) to eventually settle them into the prospective "Finland-Swedish national homeland" in the Ostrobothnian area as per the "Ruutu Plan", one needs to remember the immediate context of that move.

For one thing, the conflicts over Åland were a big issue in raising anti-Swedish sentiments in Finland, and they absolutely started with the purely irredentist Swedish takeover of the islands after the Russian Tsarist government fell. And then, of course, von Rosen's "National Coalition" government was the first in the Baltic Sea area to start the ethnic cleansing game by rounding up the Finnish-speakers in the Swedish Tornio River valley to "repatriate" them to Finland in the 20s. When we look at the escalation of the Finnish National Socialist regime's minority policies, it is obvious that the "Ruutu Plan" was a reaction to the previous Swedish actions against Finland (in the Ålands) and the Finnish-speakers in Sweden. As a matter of fact, the authors of the plan practically spell that out in their preface to the published edition, even pointing to the Swedish nationalists' symbol by the reference to the "latter-day crusaders with their hooked cross".

Then when we look at the Russian regime's actions against the Finnic Karelians at the same time, and then at what happened in the Baltic area with the Baltic Germans, in the 20s and 30s everyone up around the northern part of the Baltic Sea was engaged in some form of ethnic cleansing, or very nearly so. This, again, does not excuse what the Finnish regime did, but I believe it is an important bit of context to help understand why and in what atmosphere the National Socialists engaged in their most drastic anti-Swedish policies during the "Years of False Peace".
 
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Ellis MacVey

Donor
Maeglin said:
  1. You're describing Swedish-speaking Finns as "non-Finns." That's just what they used to say.
  2. They were as "democratic" as bloody Apartheid South Africa. They not only denied the vote to those in the camps, and to religious minorities, they also required proof that you had all four grandparents born in Finland. If you couldn't supply enough proof to satisfy their stacked bureaucracy, they made you sit a ludicrous and impossible language test.
  3. They only cared about Finnish-speaking workers. That's the entire basis of their expulsion from the Labour and Socialist International in 1925 - socialism along linguistic lines is no socialism at all.
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1. No. They also did that to Russians and even the Sami.
2. Okay, you have a point. People making apologia for Finland would say that it's different because whites were the minority in South Africa while Finns are the majority in Finland, but that's an incredibly lame excuse, since Swedes and Russians did face a similar level of oppression in Finland to blacks in South Africa, and didn't even really get token "homelands" to supposedly make up for it. The all four grandparents policy was just a proposed policy that was never actually implemented, but the fact that it had the level of support that it did is pretty fucking telling.
3. I suppose you have a point. Exclusionary socialistic policies are by nature not true socialism, and I absolutely agree with their expulsion from the International.
 
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Sam R.

And yet the ALP or Labour in New Zealand weren’t castigated by the international workers movement.

I guess you’ve just gotta hide your camps better.
 
Maeglin

Maeglin

DrakonFin said:
For one thing, the conflicts over Åland were a big issue in raising anti-Swedish sentiments in Finland, and they absolutely started with the purely irredentist Swedish takeover of the islands after the Russian Tsarist government fell.
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Oh come on. Only the most virulent anti-Swede would make such a claim. As per the Kerensky Letter, Sweden was permitted to take back the islands in exchange for military assistance in the Civil War. And they were welcomed by the islanders with open arms. It's not the islanders' fault Helsinki views them the same way that Argentina views the Falklands.

And then, of course, von Rosen's "National Coalition" government was the first in the Baltic Sea area to start the ethnic cleansing game by rounding up the Finnish-speakers in the Swedish Tornio River valley to "repatriate" them to Finland in the 20s.
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Historiographical estimates of the National Coalition's round-ups have been shrinking as more evidence comes to light. Sure, it wasn't exactly nice - nowhere in Northern Europe was - but the Swedish Government was dealing with the assassination of local officials.

Then when we look at the Russian regime's actions against the Finnic Karelians at the same time
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Hey, if more people (other than Sweden) had been willing to help Kerensky, those nutters in Petrograd would never have got near the levers of power in the first place.

(But we're going off topic. Say what you like about the National Coalition... at least they never pretended to be socialists).
 
Maeglin

Maeglin

Sam R. said:
And yet the ALP or Labour in New Zealand weren’t castigated by the international workers movement.

I guess you’ve just gotta hide your camps better.
Click to expand...

They weren't camps. They were East Asian and Pacific Processing Centres. There's a difference.
 
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