Fascism without Hitler

Fascism is hard to define. In so many ways it seems to be a "whatever works" method of accumulating power. It's not even accurate to call it "reactionary" because fascists often tend to emphasize a revolutionary revitalization that combines elements of the tradition with modernism. "Wrapped in the flag" might be a good summary, but what that flag is wrapped around could be a lot of things.
Robert O. Paxton, author of The Anatomy of Fascism, lays out the following definition:

A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
 

Minty_Fresh

Banned
It could be popular amongst anti-colonialist types in Africa, Asia, and Latin America in place of socialism/communism. It's interesting that "Afrofascism" never found a coherent expression even though something like it could totally have found a place in postcolonial Africa. Traditionalism and "restoring traditional African values" was an important ideology in postcolonial Africa, and it could easily merge with fascism to make an interesting ideology that would probably end up underperforming as much as African communism did (see Benin or Congo-Brazzaville).
Mobutu, had he not been so bent on kleptocracy, could have seen fascism as an ideology to follow. He was all about traditional African prestige and the cult of the leader. Savimba was the same way.

There are interesting alternate possibilities for this, though.

The OAS might have been more right wing authoritarian than anything, but there were doubtlessly Vichyist beliefs embedded in some of the officers who participated in it, particularly their feelings regarding the stab in the back by the French Left wing. I'm not saying an enclave French state that may have formed would have been fascistic, but there is reason to think its possible. The same can be said about the British Kenyan community, who were particularly extreme, but their prospects of power were even more limited.

As for any other African Fascist possibilities, perhaps if Marcus Garvey had gotten what he wanted and went to Liberia with a strong supporter group, he would have launched a Fascist coup.
 
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Fascism would have never been popular in Africa simply because of the atrocities commited by the italians especially in Libya an ideology that killed 400000 out of a million there isn't gonna be welcomed , mind the fact that Fascism is a lot similar to imperialism.

European fascism, yes, but that doesn't preclude Africans from developing their own variety.

Mobutu, had he not been so bent on kleptocracy, could have seen fascism as an ideology to follow. He was all about traditional African prestige and the cult of the leader. Savimba was the same way.

There are interesting alternate possibilities for this, though.

The OAS might have been more right wing authoritarian than anything, but there were doubtlessly Vichyist beliefs embedded in some of the officers who participated in it, particularly their feelings regarding the stab in the back by the French Left wing. I'm not saying an enclave French state that may have formed would have been fascistic, but there is reason to think its possible. The same can be said about the British Kenyan community, who were particularly extreme, but their prospects of power were even more limited.

As for any other African Fascist possibilities, perhaps if Marcus Garvey had gotten what he wanted and went to Liberia with a strong supporter group, he would have launched a Fascist coup.

Certainly some key examples, although I wouldn't classify whites in Africa like the OAS, British Kenyans, or for that matter, certain elements of Apartheid South Africa as Afrofascist. That would more stem from European fascism rather than from an indigenous sort of fascism.
 

thorr97

Banned
Thon Taddeo,

Nothing about fascism is left wing.

Oh boy! This is gonna be good!

Your statement and post ignore quite a few basic facts and make a series of flawed assumptions in an attempt to sustain your incorrect assertion. Let me explain this in detail...

First, the originators of national socialism - Fascism and Nazism - were politically left wing from their outset and those political movements were as well.

As an individual, Mussolini was about as left wing a guy as there could be when he started the Fascist party in 1919. Throughout the first two decades of the last century Mussolini was a member in good standing of the Italian Socialist party. He was the Secretary of the party and was the publisher of its official newspaper, the Avanti. It was only when he became to vocal about Italian nationalism, due to his combat experience in the Great War in which he witnessed Italy's national humiliation firsthand, that the Italian Socialists expelled him from the party as that nationalism was viewed as incompatible with the "internationalist" goals of the Socialist movement of the day.

Mussolini then created the Fascist party which didn't abandon Socialism or his left wing political ideology in the least. Instead, it simply married a virulent nationalism to the basic Socialist principles of state supremacy over the individual and of the state's controlling every aspect of both society and the lives of the individuals within it.

In Germany, the National Socialist German Workers Party did the same thing. It fused basic left wing Socialist principles together with an extreme nationalist agenda. The NSDAP was different from the PNF in that it was explicitly anti-Semitic from its outset but, aside from that however, both were vehemently anti-capitalist in their demands for control over the economy and all economic activity within it. Looking at the Fascist's official economic policies and the Nazi's "25 Points" there's nothing either right wing or pro-Capitalist in them at all.

Second, are the actions of the Fascists and the Nazis once in power. Outlawing unions and replacing them with state controlled committees which forcibly brings both the workers and business owners together did not favor businesses at the expense of the workers. Instead, it brought the entire public sector under the control of the state. There's nothing right wing about that. No one would argue that Communism is a "right wing" ideology yet every Communist regime also eliminated independent unions and replaced them with state controlled committees.

The fact that the national socialists banned other left wing political parties and waged a near holy war against Communism in general also does not thereby make Fascism or Nazism thus inherently a "right wing" political ideology. Instead, it was just a competition for "the same market share" by a political group who's ideology differed but in degree from those other left wing political parties. For example, Solzhenitsyn described Communism and Nazism "as being as different as identical twins." Looking at the early history of the NSDAP you will find its original members were virulently left wing in their political views but deeply opposed to Communism due to its inherent links to Russia and thus to foreign control. That was thus a non-starter for such ardent nationalists as who found themselves in these nationalist socialist parties.

Lastly, there's the fact that assertion that "large businesses had no qualms about working with Hitler or Mussolini." That's a very convenient myth started post-war.

The reality is that businesses in both Italy and Germany had little choice but to work with their new Fascist and National Socialist masters. As Sheldon Richman is the editor of "The Freeman: Ideas on Liberty at the Foundation for Economic Education in Irvingtonon-Hudson, N.Y." put it:


Businessmen - "Industrialists" being the then popular term for them - who opposed the new national socialist regimes in their countries found their businesses seized and their personal wealth stripped from by those regimes. And in the run up to national socialists taking control of those countries those "industrialists" were faced with the choice of attempting to exist in a country controlled either by radical left wing fanatics who wanted to declare the industrialists as enemies of the people, seize their businesses, and leave them hanging from lampposts or attempting to exist in a country controlled by radical left wing fanatics who wanted to declare the industrialists as enemies of the people, control their businesses, and leave them what profit they still could generate. That makes their cooperating with the fascists the lesser of two evils by far rather than a "no qualms" thing.

Hitler himself summed this up pretty directly:

“We are socialists, we are enemies of today’s capitalistic economic system for the exploitation of the economically weak, with its unfair salaries, with its unseemly evaluation of a human being according to wealth and property instead of responsibility and performance, and we are all determined to destroy this system under all conditions.”​

That's not terribly "right wing" now is it?
 
I think it would be regarded as something like OTL Panarabism / Arabic Socialism / Arabic Nationalism: A fitting ideology for a developing economy, commanded by the top "engineers" who are creating a unified top down-"reformed" society. There would be critics from the democratic, liberal and centre-left side of things, who'll point out the lack of freedom, the suppression of the opposition and the sidelining (or expelling or out-and-out destruction) of minority groups. And then there would be defenders from both the left and the right. Conservatives will say that suppression against certain groups is necessary, and leftists will cheer the planned economy and some measures that might be falsely interpreted as 'progressive'. Take Gadhafi, for instance. Right-wing nostalgics now say he was okay because Arabs need an authoritarian leader to create order and stability, and that he was a good bouncer against migrants from Africa. Left-wingers say that the situation of women under him were better than under an Islamist regime. In a similar mood, some right-wingers would say that without fascism, the peoples of Europe would have beat the shit out of each other, while a substantial majority would have moved to Communism. Some left-wingers will denounce the human rights abuses, but will point out that the fascists took a strong stand against the evil imperialists, and hey, at least they also suppressed the religious.
 
In addition to my posting above: People might object that no left-winger would have announced sympathy for fascism, because Mussolini wiped out the Social Democrats and the Communists. However, Gamal Abdel-Nassar, Hafez al-Assad and Saddam Hussein also did exactly that, and all of them had their fair share of sympathisers.
 

Thanks for responding. I'll post a longer response tonight.

The Hitler quote is misattributed. The earliest attribution of that quote to Hitler was made by John Toland. In Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1976), Toland attributed the quotation to Hitler in a speech given on May 1, 1927. In actuality, the quote is from Gregor Strasser ("Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future", June 15, 1926.) , who was killed during the Night of the Long Knives. The Strasser brothers did advocate for social democratic reforms and did criticize capitalism (or rather, what they thought was capitalism). But their anti-capitalism was born form their anti-Antisemitism. The Strasser brothers identified financial capitalism with a Jewish conspiracy. The Strassers supported the expropriation of Jewish capitalists (and German capitalists, whom the Strassers believed were complicit in the Jewish conspiracy). Also, the Strassers had no plans to hand over control of the expropriated property to the workers or to the state. Rather, it'd be turned over to nationalist German capitalists.

Hitler later said he regretted using the term "socialist" in the party's name. (Turner, Henry A., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (Oxford University Press, 1985) p. 77.)
 
I doubt Fascism would take hold in Africa as the Fascist powers of Italy would still hold colonies. I assume in this no Hitler TL, Germany is under someone like Kurt von Schleicher. I see a rise in Fascism in South America but not Africa. I think Peronism would take a more Corporatist tone rather than a labor unionist one. Brazilian Integralism would hopefully take root, and Vargas would be removed by coup. Plinio Salgado would likely make Brazil more powerful and industrialized than Vargas did. I don't see a Europe with no second Great War, as it would have come eventually. I assume it would be, or the main event would be a Soviet-Fascist war. If there is no Hitler, and Mosley doesn't mess things up, the BUF could become a significant force in British politics. Perhaps entering Westminster during this Soviet-Fascist war, and pressuring to join the side against the Soviet Union. Britain could go Fascist, and France could also see a significant rise in Fascist politics though I doubt they'd have been able to take power on their own. By the 60s (let's say the Soviets more or less lose the war yet still survive and no U.S-Japan war until 1950, which only involved the U.S and Japan, where things happen pretty much OTL). I would see Integralism on the rise in the United States, Brazilian Integralism specifically.

By the year 1990 I think the two Fascist states Italy (PNF) and Germany (DNVP-Plus Fascist party coalition) would still be in power and have managed to achieve Fascist ambitions of strong unified states, Musso is long dead and the party is more democratic, Germany is an Empire, yet still authoritarian with limited democracy. Britain would probably during the 60s have elected Oswald Mosley into power after a likely economic crash caused by world turmoil of which Britain mostly abstained from. We could see a Fascist Britain! Edward VIII is a possible King at this point, depending on butterflies etc. Thus Britain would adopt Mosley's proposals for a Fascist state. In 1990 the Fascist powers and France will likely begin to grant more autonomy to their colonies, without WWII and a weaker Soviet Union and (likely) defeated P.R.C African anti colonialism while still left leaning (at least outside of French colonies) hasn't had the same success as in OTL. Canada and Australia distance themselves from the New Fascist Britain, likely towards the United States. By 1990 I doubt the U.S would still have the two party system, likely the left wing Marxists will eventually form a third party along with an Integralist fourth party, situated with large bases likely in the Rust Belt and the West coast respectively. I doubt either would receive more than 15% of the vote, depending on how the U.S interacts with the rest of the world during the 30s 40s and 50s. It would be interesting how each perceives of the Civil Rights issue, I imagine both would be for Integration, which could hurt the Integralists in the short term but work in the long term. Of course there is no Vietnam war, or it is significantly different. I imagine with a Fascist Britain, France will align herself with the United States once again.

I understand I'm missing many important factors, I'm just trying to show something of what might look like in a no Hitler/Successful Fascist world. To see how a Fascist Britain would work, I recommend Mosley's 100 questions, most if not all of the antisemitism was National Socialist pandering to prevent them from splitting off, which they did try to do anyways with the Imperial League of National Socialists IIRC, so I imagine ITTL there would be much less of that. As in Italy, fascism in Britain (with no Hitler) would likely have had a significant Jewish base, if likely a smaller percentage than in Italy, before WWII.
 
Thanks for responding. I'll post a longer response tonight.

The Hitler quote is misattributed. The earliest attribution of that quote to Hitler was made by John Toland. In Adolf Hitler: The Definitive Biography (1976), Toland attributed the quotation to Hitler in a speech given on May 1, 1927. In actuality, the quote is from Gregor Strasser ("Thoughts about the Tasks of the Future", June 15, 1926.) , who was killed during the Night of the Long Knives. The Strasser brothers did advocate for social democratic reforms and did criticize capitalism (or rather, what they thought was capitalism). But their anti-capitalism was born form their anti-Antisemitism. The Strasser brothers identified financial capitalism with a Jewish conspiracy. The Strassers supported the expropriation of Jewish capitalists (and German capitalists, whom the Strassers believed were complicit in the Jewish conspiracy). Also, the Strassers had no plans to hand over control of the expropriated property to the workers or to the state. Rather, it'd be turned over to nationalist German capitalists.

Hitler later said he regretted using the term "socialist" in the party's name. (Turner, Henry A., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (Oxford University Press, 1985) p. 77.)


From what I've heard, you've got it backwards. The Strasserists did not like the Jews because of capitalism not the other way around. They would have had at least as much Social reform and welfare as current states in Europe that we see as Social Democratic, as soon as their economy recovered.
 
From what I've heard, you've got it backwards. The Strasserists did not like the Jews because of capitalism not the other way around. They would have had at least as much Social reform and welfare as current states in Europe that we see as Social Democratic, as soon as their economy recovered.

Having done a little more research you might be right. I found a pretty good paper that describes Otto Strasser's beliefs. He believed that capitalism and communism were both equally unpleasant extremes, and that both workers and capitalists should be united under a nationalist state. He opposed both the Kapp Putsch and the Bavarian soviet.

Gottfried said:
In spite
of his socialist posture, he had never accepted
the Marxist notion of class conflict.
There was no unbridgeable gulf that lay between
the bourgeoisie and the proletariat;
for both, in his view, belonged to the same
cultural and spiritual entity, the German
nation. Further, Strasser, unlike the Communists,
disdained a dictatorship of the
workers as much as a capitalist monopoly.
Both expressed the egotism of classes which
had ceased to concern themselves with the
common well-being. Neither Communists
nor capitalists understood what 1914 should
have made obvious to all: that, henceforth,
Germans had to put away their individual
ambitions and social resentments and serve
their people as a whole. The Marxist revolutionaries
in Munich could not satisfy the
yearning for national solidarity which lay
behind this vision. Nor did the social democratic
functionaries in Prussia bring any
lasting satisfaction to its author.

They supported some state intervention in the economy:

Gottfried said:
It was then that Otto and his
brother Gregor became deeply involved in
the Nazi movement; and in October 1925,
they presented a conference of party officials
with their controversial “Bamberg
Program.” Designed to introduce “real
German socialism,” this plan called for the
nationalization of industries and for a more
equitable distribution of farm lands.

Gottfried said:
The Structure of German Socialism
abounds with suggestions on how to adapt
the German economy to the nation’s needs.
These range from the imposition of huge
tariffs to curtail the import of foreign cornmodities
to the investment of property in
the community and its assignment to
worthy individuals as fief. None of
these proposals, we might note, originated
with Strasser. They were modelled on a
previously constructed economic system,
autarky, which organized wealth and the
means of production around the principle
of national self-sufficiency.

However, Otto Strasser apparently abandoned autarky and supported free trade. So Strasserism can characterized as a Social-Democratic corporatism for Germany. I think it might be similar to third-way ideologies like Peronism.

He also seemed to be less anti-Semitic than Hitler, at least by the 1940s. It's quite possible that his earlier beliefs were more anti-Semitic though, as many of his political positions changed as he got older.

Gottfried said:
Gone, however, are the
imputations of these earlier polemics that
the Jews had betrayed the fatherland to the
capitalists or Bolsheviks. Strasser did challenge
the right of Jews to equal citizenship,
but only on the grounds that they were not
yet thoroughly German or Christian. Unlike
the Nazis, however, he was willing to
give them the opportunity to assimilatethat
is, to convert to Chritianity

Most of the results on Google are places like Stormfront, so finding info on his ideology isn't exactly easy. I'm probably on a list now.
 
I'd highly recommend that everyone check out Maverick's The Shadow of Montreux, which features fascism remaining as a political ideology well into the 20th century. Technically it still has Hitler coming to power, but he is overthrown after a war with Italy over Austria. Mussolini dominates the worldwide fascist movement until his death in the late 1950s. In that timeline, France as well as much of the third world goes fascist, and many different forms of the ideology are discussed.
 
I'd highly recommend that everyone check out Maverick's The Shadow of Montreux, which features fascism remaining as a political ideology well into the 20th century. Technically it still has Hitler coming to power, but he is overthrown after a war with Italy over Austria. Mussolini dominates the worldwide fascist movement until his death in the late 1950s. In that timeline, France as well as much of the third world goes fascist, and many different forms of the ideology are discussed.
I'll check that out. I've always thought Balbo was right, I imagine he'll be quite prominent.
 

tenthring

Banned
Fascism represented the interests of the lower middle class, petite bourgeois, and socially conservative rural peasants.

Socialism represented urban proletariate.

Both had support from intellectuals, though today you'll only find them on the left.

Elites, as always, remained pragmatic about maintaining their status as events flowed around them. Though of course they had their leanings and certain eccentricities.

And of course politicians use everyone.

Calling something left or right wing is going to be pretty hard. For one, policies are usually just interest group grab bags when they come out on the other side of the sausage making.
 

Your statement and post ignore quite a few basic facts and make a series of flawed assumptions in an attempt to sustain your incorrect assertion. Let me explain this in detail...

First, I will define what socialism is.

Socialism is a broad movement, with many different currents. It originated in the 19th century in response to the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution. The goal of the socialists was and still is the abolition of capitalism. This would entail the end of all social classes and the end of the state.

Since the mid 19th century, there have been two main currents that can be identified: evolutionary socialists and revolutionary socialists. Evolutionary socialists (whose leading proponent was Eduard Bernstein) believed that capitalism could be reformed away and that socialism could be built within the system. Modern-day social democrats (who believe in reforming capitalism to make it more humane, but who do not support abolishing it) are arguably their descendants. Revolutionary socialists (people like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxembourg etc) instead believed that socialism could only be brought about by revolution. It is important to note that socialists of all stripes opposed imperialism and all forms of nationalism (though some, like Lenin, supported National liberation movements). This simplifies things a bit (for example, I ignore anarchism), but is a decent overview of socialism prior to the First World War.

Some sources on socialist ideology:

Principles of Communism - written by Engels, probably the world's first FAQ
Evolutionary Socialism - written by Bernstein
State and Revolution - written by Lenin, explains the Marxist conception of the state and class society
Kapitalism101 - good introduction to Marxist economics.

The Marxist Internet Archive has a very good encyclopedia about left-wing thought.

At the start of the war, the second international voted to oppose the war. And indeed almost all socialist organizations supported it. The Bolsheviks and the American Socialist Party being among the foremost opponents of the war.

But not all did. The German Social Democratic Party of Germany voted to join the war, which led to a split. The more radical revolutionary socialists opposed the war, and formed the Sparticist League. After the war, the SPD ceased all pretenses of being a revolutionary party, and supported the reform of capitalism.

Yes, Mussolini was a socialist before the war, but his thinking changed radically during the war. He ceased to believe in the class struggle and abandoned all pretenses of socialism:

Wikipedia said:
On 5 December 1914, Mussolini denounced orthodox socialism for failing to recognize that the war had made national identity and loyalty more significant than class distinction.[45] He fully demonstrated his transformation in a speech that acknowledged the nation as an entity, a notion he had rejected prior to the war, saying:

The nation has not disappeared. We used to believe that the concept was totally without substance. Instead we see the nation arise as a palpitating reality before us! ... Class cannot destroy the nation. Class reveals itself as a collection of interests—but the nation is a history of sentiments, traditions, language, culture, and race. Class can become an integral part of the nation, but the one cannot eclipse the other.[49]

The class struggle is a vain formula, without effect and consequence wherever one finds a people that has not integrated itself into its proper linguistic and racial confines—where the national problem has not been definitely resolved. In such circumstances the class movement finds itself impaired by an inauspicious historic climate.[50]

Mussolini continued to promote the need of a revolutionary vanguard elite to lead society. He no longer advocated a proletarian vanguard, but instead a vanguard led by dynamic and revolutionary people of any social class.[50] Though he denounced orthodox socialism and class conflict, he maintained at the time that he was a nationalist socialist and a supporter of the legacy of nationalist socialists in Italy's history, such as Giuseppe Garibaldi, Giuseppe Mazzini, and Carlo Pisacane.[51] As for the Italian Socialist Party and its support of orthodox socialism, he claimed that his failure as a member of the party to revitalize and transform it to recognize the contemporary reality revealed the hopelessness of orthodox socialism as outdated and a failure.[51] This perception of the failure of orthodox socialism in the light of the outbreak of World War I was not solely held by Mussolini, other pro-interventionist Italian socialists such as Filippo Corridoni and Sergio Panunzio had also denounced classical Marxism in favor of intervention.[52]

These basic political views and principles formed the basis of Mussolini's newly formed political movement, the Fasci Rivoluzionari d'Azione Internazionalista in 1914, who called themselves Fascisti(Fascists).[53] At this time, the Fascists did not have an integrated set of policies and the movement was small, ineffective in its attempts to hold mass meetings, and was regularly harassed by government authorities and orthodox socialists.[54] Antagonism between the interventionists, including the Fascists, versus the anti-interventionist orthodox socialists resulted in violence between the Fascists and socialists.[55] The opposition and attacks by the anti-interventionist revolutionary socialists against the Fascists and other interventionists were so violent that even democratic socialists who opposed the war such as Anna Kuliscioff said that the Italian Socialist Party had gone too far in a campaign of silencing the freedom of speech of supporters of the war.[55] These early hostilities between the Fascists and the revolutionary socialists shaped Mussolini's conception of the nature of Fascism in its support of political violence.[55]

By the time he returned from service in the Allied forces of World War I, very little remained of Mussolini the socialist. Indeed, he was now convinced that socialism as a doctrine had largely been a failure. In 1917 Mussolini got his start in politics with the help of a £100 weekly wage (the equivalent of £6000 as of 2009) from the British security service MI5, to keep anti-war protestors at home and to publish pro-war propaganda. This help was authorized by Sir Samuel Hoare.[58] In early 1918 Mussolini called for the emergence of a man "ruthless and energetic enough to make a clean sweep" to revive the Italian nation.[59]Much later Mussolini said he felt by 1919 "Socialism as a doctrine was already dead; it continued to exist only as a grudge".[60] On 23 March 1919 Mussolini reformed the Milan fascio as the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento (Italian Combat Squad), consisting of 200 members.[59]

So to claim that Mussolini was somehow a socialist after the war is disingenuous at best.

Regarding Hitler's so-called socialism:

Gottfried said:
Essentially
it reaffirmed the socialist elements
of the “Twenty-Five Points,” framed by
Hitler and two early Nazis, Gottfried Feder
and Anton Drexler, in the fall of 1919.
Like Point Seventeen of this document, the
Bamberg Program demanded the confiscation
of all land belonging to the nobility
without compensation. For Hitler who was
bent on conciliating the Junker class and
who had voted against a similar proposal
in the Reichstag of 1925, the Twenty-Five
Points had become a source of embarrassment.
But the Fuehrer wished desperately
to retain the radicals in his movement, so
he grudgingly gave the Strassers their way.

Economy of Nazi Germany said:
At a later time, Hitler said: "Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether... What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism."[12] In private, Hitler also said that "I absolutely insist on protecting private property... we must encourage private initiative".[15] On yet another occasion he qualified that statement by saying that the government should have the power to regulate the use of private property for the good of the nation.[16]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany


Economy of Nazi Germany said:
"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"

"Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists.

"Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic.

"We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one."

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatinterviews1

Hitler later said he regretted using the term "socialist" in the party's name. (Turner, Henry A., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (Oxford University Press, 1985) p. 77.)

Hitler was never very much interested in economics; he was far more focused on racism and nationalism.

So it's quite clear that even if he used the term socialist, he can't be considered one. The 25 points ceased to be politically relevant by the mid 1920s. Although some of the points (regarding welfare etc. are social democratic, all the nationalism is right-wing).

Now that I've established that Hitler and Mussolini weren't ideological socialists, I'll move on to why there regimes were not socialist in any meaningful way.

Now I think I'll define capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system characterized by: capital accumulation, wage labor, commodity production, private ownership of the means of production and investing money. Free markets are not required. In fact, the state has almost always intervened in the capitalist economy. Social democracy, which is descended from evolutionary socialism, is not incompatible with capitalism.

When the Nazis seized power, they engaged in deficit spending and public works projects. This has nothing to do with socialism, and many other governments at the time were engaging in similar programs. Keynes' ideas are not at all incompatible with capitalism, and indeed Keynes hated Marx.

The Nazis also did some nationalization, but they also engaged in privatization, something with socialists and social democrats oppose.

AGAINST THE MAINSTREAM: NAZI PRIVATIZATION IN 1930S GERMANY said:
Abstract: The Great Depression spurred State ownership in Western capitalist countries. Germany was no exception; the last governments of the Weimar Republic took over firms in diverse sectors. Later, the Nazi regime transferred public ownership and public services to the private sector. In doing so, they went against the mainstream trends in the Western capitalist countries, none of which systematically reprivatized firms during the 1930s. Privatization in Nazi Germany was also unique in transferring to private hands the delivery of public services previously provided by government. The firms and the services transferred to private ownership belonged to diverse sectors. Privatization was part of an intentional policy with multiple objectives and was not ideologically driven. As in many recent privatizations, particularly within the European Union, strong financial restrictions were a central motivation. In addition, privatization was used as a political tool to enhance support for the government and for the Nazi Party.

http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf

Plenty of American businesses had no problem working with Nazi Germany

https://www.thenation.com/article/kodaks-nazi-connections/#sthash.Uyt47O5x.dpuf
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PhAxFw0GiP4C&pg=PA148&dq=chase+bank+nazi&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kodWUoGOCYPCtQaX2YH4Bg#v=onepage&q=chase bank nazi&f=false
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/07/world/chase-reviews-nazi-era-role.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/270849.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...MW-dynasty-breaks-silence-over-Nazi-past.html
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hdQBTcscxyQC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=BMW+nazi+luftwaffe+engines&source=bl&ots=7QRxU4upyG&sig=XWSXFTxgYrhCDGf0ViFXrB4nzrU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=u5taUpceosrRBZCsgGg&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=BMW nazi luftwaffe engines&f=false
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ls-step-grandchildren-are-hidden-billionaires
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/bayer-nazi-role-article-1.701925#ixzz2hE4H5dMk
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HjUTDX1iSPYC&pg=PA18&dq=bayer+nazi+gas&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YUdVUpXzGq2b0wXR34HICA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=bayer nazi gas&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=reaULlRvTgwC&pg=PA28&dq=inventor+of+aspirin+bayer+felix+hoffman+or+Arthur+Eichengrun&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iElVUtKvOa2r0gXFvIDwBg&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=inventor of aspirin bayer felix hoffman or Arthur Eichengrun&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kractQ2Eiz0C&pg=PA99&dq=allianz+schmitt+policy+insuracne+nazu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jKNaUtb8Nsqb0AWXx4DYBw&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=allianz schmitt policy insuracne nazu&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3h6MVlpGYbYC&pg=PA117&dq=allianz+insurance+payouts+nazi&hl=en&sa=X&ei=caRaUuGNCuGc0AXN4YGACA&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=allianz insurance payouts nazi&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vh7sx2xtjGEC&pg=PA196&dq=standard+oil+nazi&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KGZVUo2KJsWf0QX0v4DoBA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=standard oil nazi&f=false
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-used-slave-labour-in-Nazi-German-plants.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.highereducation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3832141.stm

So it seems that the industrialists, even industrialists in America had little problem working with the Nazis. Do you think that people like union-busting Henry Ford would really support a socialist regime?

Capitalists did very well in Nazi Germany.

Unfortunately, I don't know as much about Italy, so I'll try to do some more research.
 
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Your statement and post ignore quite a few basic facts and make a series of flawed assumptions in an attempt to sustain your incorrect assertion. Let me explain this in detail...

First, I will define what socialism is.

Socialism is a broad movement, with many different currents. It originated in the 19th century in response to the rise of capitalism and the industrial revolution. The goal of the socialists was and still is the abolition of capitalism. This would entail the end of all social classes and the end of the state.

Since the mid 19th century, there have been two main currents that can be identified: evolutionary socialists and revolutionary socialists. Evolutionary socialists (whose leading proponent was Eduard Bernstein) believed that capitalism could be reformed away and that socialism could be built within the system. Modern-day social democrats (who believe in reforming capitalism to make it more humane, but who do not support abolishing it) are arguably their descendants. Revolutionary socialists (people like Marx, Engels, Lenin, Luxembourg etc) instead believed that socialism could only be brought about by revolution. It is important to note that socialists of all stripes opposed imperialism and all forms of nationalism (though some, like Lenin, supported National liberation movements). This simplifies things a bit (for example, I ignore anarchism), but is a decent overview of socialism prior to the First World War.

Some sources on socialist ideology:

Principles of Communism - written by Engels, probably the world's first FAQ
Evolutionary Socialism - written by Bernstein
State and Revolution - written by Lenin, explains the Marxist conception of the state and class society
Kapitalism101 - good introduction to Marxist economics.

The Marxist Internet Archive has a very good encyclopedia about left-wing thought.

At the start of the war, the second international voted to oppose the war. And indeed almost all socialist organizations supported it. The Bolsheviks and the American Socialist Party being among the foremost opponents of the war.

But not all did. The German Social Democratic Party of Germany voted to join the war, which led to a split. The more radical revolutionary socialists opposed the war, and formed the Sparticist League. After the war, the SPD ceased all pretenses of being a revolutionary party, and supported the reform of capitalism.

Yes, Mussolini was a socialist before the war, but his thinking changed radically during the war. He ceased to believe in the class struggle and abandoned all pretenses of socialism:



So to claim that Mussolini was somehow a socialist after the war is disingenuous at best.

Regarding Hitler's so-called socialism:





https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Nazi_Germany




https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatinterviews1

Hitler later said he regretted using the term "socialist" in the party's name. (Turner, Henry A., German Big Business and the Rise of Hitler (Oxford University Press, 1985) p. 77.)

Hitler was never very much interested in economics; he was far more focused on racism and nationalism.

So it's quite clear that even if he used the term socialist, he can't be considered one. The 25 points ceased to be politically relevant by the mid 1920s. Although some of the points (regarding welfare etc. are social democratic, all the nationalism is right-wing).

Now that I've established that Hitler and Mussolini weren't ideological socialists, I'll move on to why there regimes were not socialist in any meaningful way.

Now I think I'll define capitalism. Capitalism is an economic system characterized by: capital accumulation, wage labor, commodity production, private ownership of the means of production and investing money. Free markets are not required. In fact, the state has almost always intervened in the capitalist economy. Social democracy, which is descended from evolutionary socialism, is not incompatible with capitalism.

When the Nazis seized power, they engaged in deficit spending and public works projects. This has nothing to do with socialism, and many other governments at the time were engaging in similar programs. Keynes' ideas are not at all incompatible with capitalism, and indeed Keynes hated Marx.

The Nazis also did some nationalization, but they also engaged in privatization, something with socialists and social democrats oppose.



http://www.ub.edu/graap/nazi.pdf

Plenty of American businesses had no problem working with Nazi Germany

https://www.thenation.com/article/kodaks-nazi-connections/#sthash.Uyt47O5x.dpuf
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=PhAxFw0GiP4C&pg=PA148&dq=chase+bank+nazi&hl=en&sa=X&ei=kodWUoGOCYPCtQaX2YH4Bg#v=onepage&q=chase bank nazi&f=false
http://www.nytimes.com/1998/11/07/world/chase-reviews-nazi-era-role.html
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/270849.stm
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/history/...MW-dynasty-breaks-silence-over-Nazi-past.html
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=hdQBTcscxyQC&pg=PA34&lpg=PA34&dq=BMW+nazi+luftwaffe+engines&source=bl&ots=7QRxU4upyG&sig=XWSXFTxgYrhCDGf0ViFXrB4nzrU&hl=en&sa=X&ei=u5taUpceosrRBZCsgGg&ved=0CEEQ6AEwAw#v=onepage&q=BMW nazi luftwaffe engines&f=false
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ls-step-grandchildren-are-hidden-billionaires
http://www.nydailynews.com/archives/news/bayer-nazi-role-article-1.701925#ixzz2hE4H5dMk
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=HjUTDX1iSPYC&pg=PA18&dq=bayer+nazi+gas&hl=en&sa=X&ei=YUdVUpXzGq2b0wXR34HICA&ved=0CDEQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=bayer nazi gas&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=reaULlRvTgwC&pg=PA28&dq=inventor+of+aspirin+bayer+felix+hoffman+or+Arthur+Eichengrun&hl=en&sa=X&ei=iElVUtKvOa2r0gXFvIDwBg&ved=0CGMQ6AEwCA#v=onepage&q=inventor of aspirin bayer felix hoffman or Arthur Eichengrun&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=kractQ2Eiz0C&pg=PA99&dq=allianz+schmitt+policy+insuracne+nazu&hl=en&sa=X&ei=jKNaUtb8Nsqb0AWXx4DYBw&ved=0CD8Q6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=allianz schmitt policy insuracne nazu&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=3h6MVlpGYbYC&pg=PA117&dq=allianz+insurance+payouts+nazi&hl=en&sa=X&ei=caRaUuGNCuGc0AXN4YGACA&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAQ#v=onepage&q=allianz insurance payouts nazi&f=false
https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=vh7sx2xtjGEC&pg=PA196&dq=standard+oil+nazi&hl=en&sa=X&ei=KGZVUo2KJsWf0QX0v4DoBA&ved=0CDoQ6AEwAA#v=onepage&q=standard oil nazi&f=false
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-used-slave-labour-in-Nazi-German-plants.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/national/daily/nov98/nazicars30.htm
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/mar/29/humanities.highereducation
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/3832141.stm

So it seems that the industrialists, even industrialists in America had little problem working with the Nazis. Do you think that people like union-busting Henry Ford would really support a socialist regime?

Capitalists did very well in Nazi Germany.

Unfortunately, I don't know as much about Italy, so I'll try to do some more research.
Just to add to this RE Capitalism in nazi Germany; if anything from an economic perspective Nazism was the last resurgence of the Cartel system of imperial Germany, the system being brought back ironically against the interests of the middle class in many ways. As a result, businesses could often make serious demands economically to the point of IG Farben running their own concentration camp.
 
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