Nazis were socialists

[Levee_En_Masse]

My first hope was still that this high treason might still be a more or less local affair. I also tried to bolster up a few comrades in this view. Particularly my Bavarian friends in the hospital were more than accessible to this. The mood there was anything but 'revolutionary.' I could not imagine that the madness would break out in Munich, too. Loyalty to the venerable House of Wittelsbach seemed to me stronger, after all, than the will of a few Jews. Thus I could not help but believe that this was merely a Putsch on the part of the navy and would be crushed in the next few days.
The next few days came and with them the most terrible certainty of my life. The rumors became more and more oppressive. What I had taken for a local affair was now said to be a general revolution. To this was added the disgraceful news from the front. They wanted to capitulate. Was such a thing really possible?

Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, Ch. VII

Hitler here seems clearly reactionary, yet he later spouts rhetoric about a "National Revolution". Why? Because while he hated the proletariat for stabbing the "fatherland" in the back, he also needed pawns to carry out his political program (that of the Nazi party). His particular form of radical nationalism was built upon getting revenge on the working class, but as that is not viable for any ideology, he turns to rhetoric about "National Socialism" and the evils of "international finance" in order to give his reactionary movement a revolutionary character.

Not until the moment when the Center and the Social Democracy were forced to recognize, to their own grief, that the sympathies of the soldiers were beginning to turn away from the revolutionary parties toward the national movement and reawakening, did they see fit to deprive the troops of suffrage again and prohibit their political activity.
It was illuminating that the Center and the Marxists should have taken this measure, for if they had not undertaken this curtailment of ' civil rights '-as the political equality of the soldiers after the revolution was called-within a few years there would have been no revolution, and hence no more national dishonor and disgrace.

Mein Kampf, Ch. IX

So Hitler equates a radical revolution with national dishonor and disgrace...

The German national souls kept privately whispering to each other the suspicion that basically we were nothing but a species of Marxism...For to this very day these scatterbrains have not understood the difference between socialism and Marxism

Reading on, it seems obvious that this was a kind of perverse joke, giving the appearance of socialism to shock the centrist bourgeoisie...not too convincing frankly

It seems that Hitler's denunciations of the "bourgeois government" come not from a radical standpoint, but from a reactionary standpoint. In his opinion, they were too soft, and their Republic allowed the rabble to rise up and engage in revolution. So why would he do this if he is such a socialist radical? What seems clear is that he favors a strong government to put down the autonomous action of the proletariat, because it would be a monkey wrench in the war machine of German nationalism, his ideology.

[Guest]

HAHA. You actually took the words right out of my next post, Leevee! Thats exactly what I was going to post. Hitler was never a Marxist, he was a nationalist through and through. But he was also a socialist.

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Hitler hates the Marxists not for their economics, but because they "stabbed Germany in the back" during World War I with their revolutionary activities. Indeed, he repeatedly claims that Marxism is pro-capitalist; it seeks "only to break the people's national and patriotic backbone and make them ripe for the slave's yoke of international capital and its masters, the Jews." (ibid, p.243) For Hitler, preserving "the economic independence of the nation" from "the international stock exchange" is of paramount importance

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http://www.gmu.edu/departments/economic ... apency.doc

Why do you keep arguing with me, when you prove my points every single time? He wasnt a MARXIAN SOCIALIST. His was a heresy. thats all i was trying to prove.

[JudeObscure84]

in order to give his reactionary movement a revolutionary character.

oh i see. yet what other options does that leave him when jews try ro rule the world through international communism and international finance? Especially since the great depression proved the end of capitalism to him? so he's not a marxist nor is he a capitalist, so im guessing that the only other option is nationalist socialism. think like a nationalist if you want to undertand where he is coming from, not like an anarchist, how many times do i have to explain that to you? You cannot run an economy on nationalist rhetoric alone.

[Levee_En_Masse]

You have this impression that i'm making the same point over and over. But why are you sidestepping my claim that Hitler was against the working class? It's not merely Marxism, he's opposed to the working class as an independent political force, because he believes that they are an obstacle to his goals. And his "socialism" is just a cheap copy of Stalin's central planning. It seems that you're repeatedly dodging many of points and going back to the premise that Hitler et. al were not orthodox capitalists. We get the point, but being against capitalism as a form of opportunism doesn't constitute socialism.

[Levee_En_Masse]

But i'm probably getting off topic here. Hitler can only be called socialist in the sense that Lenin could call himself a socialist, yet both of their ideologies result in political power constituting itself as a different ruling class (the bureaucracy), which means that things really don't change. Working people are still alienated in their everyday lives, and ultimately exploited. However, this isn't automatically the result of all radical working class movements. To the point on the other thread about the influence of Sorel, Sorel was himself a Leninist, so to discuss him outside of that context would be a bit dishonest. Appendix III in His Reflections of Violence is entited "In Defense of Lenin" (you can see it on Amazon).

[Guest]

We get the point, but being against capitalism as a form of opportunism doesn't constitute socialism.

well my point is that marxism and its heresies are deadly. they are wrong and anything anti-liberal is consituted in my book as flawed. especially if we look at it from historical expierence, right Leevee?

And how do you know that being against capitalism is a form of being "opportunistic". see thats the arrogance that i dislike about the form of debate you're taking with me. it has to be in the name of socialist working class brotherhood or nothing, right? there is no way to define it elsewise, right? hitler was not an oppprtunist who used socialism as a guise, he believed in socialism as a means to supply the national interest. when we put limits and measures on what constitutes socialism ( a very flawed and imprecise economic practice to begin with), you can start saying that anything that came in the name of socialism, was not real socialism, and try again, and again, and again....

But i'm probably getting off topic here. Hitler can only be called socialist in the sense that Lenin could call himself a socialist, yet both of their ideologies result in political power constituting itself as a different ruling class (the bureaucracy), which means that things really don't change. Working people are still alienated in their everyday lives, and ultimately exploited. However, this isn't automatically the result of all radical working class movements. To the point on the other thread about the influence of Sorel, Sorel was himself a Leninist, so to discuss him outside of that context would be a bit dishonest. Appendix III in His Reflections of Violence is entited "In Defense of Lenin" (you can see it on Amazon).

So then Lenin was not a socialist either! Well, by gum neither was Che Guevarra, Mao, The Sandanistas or the Viet Cong.
Leevee, all you are pretty much doing is exactly examining why you are not a socialist. because it does just that, create a new ruling class. this is why you are an anarchist, atleast I hope you are, considering that you've read Bakunin, Kroptkin, and Chomsky, which refute socialism and communism in general. Reject Stalin, Lenin and authoritarianism in general. It still doesnt seem to explain though how it is not a marxist heresy or not socialist.

[JudeObscure84]

http://www.akpress.org/2001/items/roadtofascism

This is a good book to start with Leevee. Believe me its hardly bias.

[Levee_En_Masse]

well my point is that marxism and its heresies are deadly. they are wrong and anything anti-liberal is consituted in my book as flawed. especially if we look at it from historical expierence, right Leevee?

.........when we put limits and measures on what constitutes socialism ( a very flawed and imprecise economic practice to begin with), you can start saying that anything that came in the name of socialism, was not real socialism, and try again, and again, and again....

So then Lenin was not a socialist either! Well, by gum neither was Che Guevara, Mao, The Sandinistas or the Viet Cong.
Leevee, all you are pretty much doing is exactly examining why you are not a socialist. because it does just that, create a new ruling class. this is why you are an anarchist, at least I hope you are, considering that you've read Bakunin, Kroptkin, and Chomsky, which refute socialism and communism in general. Reject Stalin, Lenin and authoritarianism in general. It still doesnt seem to explain though how it is not a marxist heresy or not socialist.

Whoa, i'm an anarchist, but I have no problem calling myself a libertarian socialist, and I do often. Anyway, I think what i've been trying to get across is that i'll accept that Fascism was on some level a Marxist heresy, but there were obviously other ideas contributing to it that weren't revolutionary in the slightest. So i'll accept that statement to a degree, but i'm arguing because of the implications of such a sweeping statement without consideration of the other contributing factors/ideas. And I don't want to sound like i'm saying that Che, et. al were a bunch of "revisionists" or fakes just because I disagree with their views. I say of all of them that they're ultimately not socialists because they very visibly authoritarian approach creates a new ruling class which constitutes a new type of exploitation. True believers can come in the name of socialism, but with many of the examples you mentioned it was clear to many that their socialism only established a new form of exploitation. But, for the sake of not sounding like Comrade Prachanda (a Maoist) on the Anarchism 101 boards, i'll admit that Fascism and Stalinism were part of an ugly legacy of socialism. Of course, I should add then that that's not the only legacy.

[vaguelyhumanoid]

Did Hitler want the workers to control the means of production?
I thought not.
Nazis were state capitalist, end of story.