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Quote of the Day: Nazism and Socialism
“To Unity [Mitford], National Socialism was a Left Wing revolution and Hitler was a champion of the downtrodden masses.” – Virginia Cowles
This quote comes from the book Looking for Trouble, Cowles memoirs of her years as a war correspondent between 1936 and 1941. The book originally appeared in 1941.
Unity Mitford was one of the Mitford sisters, a family of British aristocrats from the middle of the twentieth century. Five of the sisters, including Unity, were known for supporting fascism in the 1930s. (The sixth became a communist.) Sister Diana Mitford married Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists. (Oswald Mosley was satirized by P. G. Wodehouse as Sir Roderick Spode, the leader of the Black Pants movement) Unity became a Hitler fangirl, so much so that when Britain went to war with Nazi Germany in 1939, Unity attempted suicide. (This left Unity crippled. She died from complications of the suicide attempt in 1948.)
Cowles wrote the quote in describing an encounter with Mitford in Germany in 1937, during the first Sudetenland crisis. It struck me because it described fascism as a left-wing phenomenon. Today, if you ask whether fascism was right wing or left wing, most people would tell you it was right wing. In truth, the only thing it was to the right of was Stalinist Communism. Really and truly, only a little to the right of that. Mussolini, fascism’s father, was a red diaper baby. (His full name was Benito Juarez Mussolini. He was named by his socialist father after the left-wing Mexican revolutionary.)
Hitler was a man of the left, something recognized at the time. Even Great Britain’s foremost fascist families recognized that. In that sense, there seems a lot of similarity between 1930s British fascists and today’s “Antifa” anarchists. In both cases, the activists come from upper-class, well-to-do, and politically connected families. They attempted to dismantle the system by which their families accumulated wealth and turn over control of the economy. education, and life to a strong central government, led by the “best and brightest” (themselves, of course), who would dictate to everyone what they wanted – or else.
Published in Group Writing
Old Benito himself was a socialist before developing his brand of fascism. He was an editor for the Socialist paper Avanti! and a member of the National Directorate of the Italian Socialist Party.
It has been said that Mussolini was disappointed that he couldn’t inspire the Italian working classes (proletariat) to rise up and had to resort to other means to get the revolution he desired.
I had no idea. I much prefer the world of Wodehouse to that of Mitford sisters. Thanks for this tidbit!
See also the Cambridge spy ring, and their friends.
An interesting thing is the disparity of treatment between Guy Burgess, a notorious homosexual, and Alan Turing, who was prosecuted for homosexuality.
The spy Burgess was a well known, if not notorious, homosexual before he defected to the USSR.
Alan Turing on the other hand, despite his invaluable service as a code breaker during WW2, was prosecuted and the court imposed chemical castration.
Turing was not an aristocrat, and lacked the social/political connections that made Burgess immune from persecution.
I think a lot of this putting Nazis on the right is because no one wants to look at the state of Germany prior to Hitler’s rise. I think a lot of things people just take for granted concerning WWII would blow up in their faces.
Interesting point about the Class influence. Also, though, Turing’s partner was just 16…don’t know what age range Burgess associated with.
“To Unity [Mitford], National Socialism was a Left Wing revolution and Hitler was a champion of the downtrodden masses. – Virginia Cowles”
There’s an interesting book by a woman who rose to fairly high position in the Nazi hierarchy. ((‘Account Rendered’, by Melita Maschmann). She says her initial attraction to Naziism was because they seemed to genuinely care about the poor, as opposed to her mother’s snobbish and indifferent attitude.
A bad breakup with a boyfriend (at 17) led her to throw herself into her Party work, and she was on her way. Her main assignment was confiscating farms from Polish farmers and resetting needy Germans onto the land.
“The trouble with you, Spode, is that just because you have succeeded in inducing a handful of half-wits to disfigure the London scene by going about in black shorts, you think you’re someone. You hear them shouting ‘Heil, Spode!’ and you imagine it is the Voice of the People. That is where you make your bloomer. What the Voice of the People is saying is: ‘Look at that frightful ass Spode swanking about in footer bags! Did you ever in your puff see such a perfect perisher?’”
— P. G. Wodehouse, The Pride of the Woosters
Yes! I can hear Bertie now!
Burgess was pretty indiscriminate…
From Ayn Rand, and in my opinion a more precise look at the Nazi vs Communist argument than the old French Revolution terms of Left and Right.
Libertarians have a different issue to contend with. There are times that some Libertarians start morphing into Libertines. Libertines start becoming anarchists, anything goes and the only authority they recognize is their own authority to do as they please to anyone else.
The ‘fascists are right wing’ lie is on the same order as the ’racists all switched sides’ lie. Leftists covering their backsides and the Stupid Party never arguing back.
Here is a well-written summary of Nazi ideology, written by Josef Goebbels in 1929. Four basic principles:
–Nationalism
–Socialism
–A Workers’s Party
–Anti-Semitism
Definitely worth reading.
Honestly, only if you redefine ‘Left’ to align with today’s Conservative American views of the world and then apply it to past events. (Or perhaps it’s redefining ‘Right’ to exclude inconvenient history?)
Blut und Boden, which is pretty much the Nazi’s ‘thing’, are not Leftist issues.
Edited to add:
Of possible interest.
(Also, Nancy Mitford, another sister, wrote some pretty good books – if you like popular history her “The Sun King” is really quite engaging.)
Umm . . . Unity Mittford believed Hitler to be a man of left. A SOCIALIST. That is not a modern reinterpretation.
Unity Mitford was nuts.
But she is not contradicted by her other contemporaries (including her sisters or Moseley) or even other Nazis. Your argument falls into the “no true Scotsman” logical fallacy.
I don’t think the Nazis were Leftists because their ideology did not hinge on class but on race.
What is the logical argument that the Nazis were Leftists? (I mean beyond quoting Unity and her pals.)
Yikes. This makes me burn and yearn for a class-less society. No wonder communism won’t stay dead.
That they were socialists. It was in their name. That Mussolini was a socialist and built his Fascist Party from socialist principles. To you the Nazis cannot be socialist because no true socialist would be a Nazi. That’s the “No True Scotsman” fallacy. Come back when you have something better than that.
But then what of Hitler’s banning of trade unions, socialists, and communists? Mere propaganda or maybe pure power grab or just his megalomania?
BTW, he who may not be named made the case for the leftism of the the Nazis in Liberal Fascism.
Stalin banned trade unions and other socialist parties, such as the National Socialists and the Troskyists. By your argument he was not a socialist either.
Like the Democratic Republic of North Korea is democratic? Or the Deutsche Demokratik Republik was democratic? Like that?
What were these? Please be specific.
I said that socialist ideology and analysis hinges on economic class.
Nazi ideology and analysis hinged on race. Not on class. So how is it socialist or Leftist?
It’s an honest question. You may genuinely believe that the Nazis were Leftists, I’m trying to understand why.
Because it advocated socialist principles. It did hinge on class. Just because it is racist doesn’t mean it cannot be socialist. Today’s Progressivism, which is Marxist and socialist, is profoundly racist. You are being blinded by your focus on race. Socialism of all stripes is a profoundly self-contradictory philosophy filled with fallicies, it can easily take tossing in one more self-contradictory fallacy. Fools adopt foolish and contradictory positions. That’s the nature of fools.
Would you all believe Joseph Goebbels? Just a bit on nazis being socialist. A 1932 edition of his 1929 pamphlet lists descriptions and justifications of national socialism. Five headings are: 1- Why Are We Nationalists? 2- Why Are We Socialists? 3- Why a Workers’ Party? 4- Why Do We Oppose the Jews? and 5- Revolutionary Demands.
And Goebbels’ socialism was about class. Here is just the beginning of the section “Why Are We Socialists?”
“We are socialists because we see in socialism, that is the union of all citizens, the only chance to maintain our racial inheritance and to regain our political freedom and renew our German state.
“Socialism is the doctrine of liberation for the working class. It promotes the rise of the fourth class and its incorporation in the political organism of our Fatherland, and is inextricably bound to breaking the present slavery and regaining German freedom. Socialism, therefore, is not merely a matter of the oppressed class, but a matter for everyone, for freeing the German people from slavery is the goal of contemporary policy. Socialism gains its true form only through a total fighting brotherhood with the forward-striving energies of a newly awakened nationalism. Without nationalism it is nothing, a phantom, a mere theory, a castle in the sky, a book. With it is everything, the future, freedom, the fatherland!”
Sounds like socialism to me. And there’s a lot more just on socialism. Again, this 4,000-word pamphlet was published in 1929 and reprinted in 1933 by Joseph Goebbels.
Okay. Read these:
Mussolini: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce: The Rise and Fall of Il Duce
Mussolini
Benito Mussolini: A Life From Beginning to End (World War 2 Biographies)
Mussolini: A Biography
Mussolini and the Rise of Fascism (Text Only Edition)
Good enough?
Which ones?
How did the Nazis implement these?
He was selling a product – of course he wrapped it in what would appeal to the most people.
Sounds self-contradictory and incoherent to me. It literally makes no sense.
Goebbelsian, even.
We get it Zafar. You don’t wish to believe the Nazis were socialist. You have that right. Your beliefs don’t change the facts, but since you cannot be convinced, there is no use trying to change your mind. At this point Corriea’s Law kicks in, and there is no further sense in responding.
So Goebbels advocated socialism but it doesn’t fit your modern personal interpretation of socialism, so Goebbels didn’t know what he’s talking about. “He was just a lying salesman.” As if all true socialists aren’t lying salesmen.
And, yes, no socialism makes sense. That’s why socialists have to keep redefining it. It makes no sense, it fails, it must be reinstituted, and so they rebrand it.
But I get what you’re saying: You know socialism. Socialism is a friend of yours. And Goebbels was no socialist.
By the way, I knew you wouldn’t accept the words from the horse’s mouth.
Actually I am asking you what was socialist about their ideology and program and you seem unable to tell me.