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.

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  1. Seawriter Contributor
    Seawriter
    @Seawriter

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Folks, stop feeding the troll.

    Because vulgar abuse always works well when making a case.

    Zafar is not going to be convinced no matter what he is told.

    Not at all. I just haven’t been convinced by what you’ve said so far. Take some personal responsibility.

    And you never will be. You are trolling. You are the one who needs to take personal responsibility. Several people have made reasonable cases for Nazism being socialist and you have dismissed them. At this point you are either being pigheaded or you are trolling.

    • #61
  2. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Folks, stop feeding the troll.

    Because vulgar abuse always works well when making a case.

    Zafar is not going to be convinced no matter what he is told.

    Not at all. I just haven’t been convinced by what you’ve said so far. Take some personal responsibility.

    And you never will be. You are trolling. You are the one who needs to take personal responsibility. Several people have made reasonable cases for Nazism being socialist and you have dismissed them. At this point you are eith

    What is eith?

    (Also – I haven’t found these arguments reasonable or convincing. You can blame me [easy, imo self-indulgent and a  bit fatuous] or reconsider the cases that were made [less easy and also perhaps requiring a little effort])

    • #62
  3. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    davenr321 (View Comment):

    Arbeit Macht Frei- you know it!

    The fact that the Nazis were socialists ought to be settled. What they were not was Marxists-Leninist socialists, nor were they American Left-Liberal socialists.

    They only wanted socialism for Germans for Germany. Getting there required mobilized, mechanized hate.

    that didn’t turn out well.

    But Naziism is a socialist political philosophy that was put into practice. They even filmed it for us.

    Yes, Goebbels, whose pamphlet I referred to, actively disapproved of Marx and Marxism.

    • #63
  4. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    I Walton (View Comment):
    Black racists radicals are useful to our left as are white racists cornered by silly anti racist leftist rhetoric.

    Speaking of Black racists, I was wondering what practices of socialism have been uniformly employed, and all I could think of was aggregation of power, sadism, economic destruction, and accumulation of wealth at the top — and then I thought of Patrisse Cullors, a “trained socialist” who co-founded an overtly socialist BLM, took millions of BLM donation money, and bought a mansion, furnished it with crystal and flowers, and hired armed guards.

    Sweet, sweet socialism.

    • #64
  5. Flicker Coolidge
    Flicker
    @Flicker

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):
    It’s pretty impressive that Germans have managed to do under the EU what they failed to do in two world wars — dominate Europe.

    Yeah, I was talking to a (wealthy) British financier and he made the point that the Euro and the EU were created for German control of Europe and were successful.  This was in 2019, before covid and Ukraine.

    • #65
  6. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Flicker (View Comment):

    I Walton (View Comment):
    Black racists radicals are useful to our left as are white racists cornered by silly anti racist leftist rhetoric.

    Speaking of Black racists, I was wondering what practices of socialism have been uniformly employed, and all I could think of was aggregation of power, sadism, economic destruction, and accumulation of wealth at the top — and then I thought of Patrisse Cullors, a “trained socialist” who co-founded an overtly socialist BLM, took millions of BLM donation money, and bought a mansion, furnished it with crystal and flowers, and hired armed guards.

    Sweet, sweet socialism.

    Four homes, and I believe she called herself a “trained Marxist.” The difference between being a trained socialist and a trained Marxist is that a trained Marxist has more books to fail to understand.

    • #66
  7. davenr321 Coolidge
    davenr321
    @davenr321

    Zafar (View Comment):

    davenr321 (View Comment):

    Arbeit Macht Frei- you know it!

    The fact that the Nazis were socialists ought to be settled. What they were not was Marxists-Leninist socialists, nor were they American Left-Liberal socialists.

    ??

    What is a non-Marxist socialist? I do not believe this is a thing.

    Dr. Goebbels explained in the document linked by David Foster above. Also, Nazi Culture by George Mosse has eyewitness accounts of National Socialism in action. Hitler, in Mein Kampf, does explain his hatred of communism a bit, too. Really unpleasant reading, but I find it necessary.

    Essentially, Marx’s socialism eliminates the individual, ultimately to transform persons into those who do according to their abilities in exchange for their needs; the State vanishes as all are part of the communist society; the means of production are the collective property of the proletariat.

    National Socialism, on the other hand, values German individuals from whom their toiling further progresses the German State. All Germans (volk, etc.) are provided-for and rewarded by the German State thusly. The means of production are owned by the collective German State, that, naturally, is worshiped by the Germans.

    Are these the same thing? They’re both socialism, certainly.

    • #67
  8. Percival Thatcher
    Percival
    @Percival

    Democracy and socialism have nothing in common but one word, equality. But notice the difference: while democracy seeks equality in liberty, socialism seeks equality in restraint and servitude.
    — Alexis de Tocqueville

     

    • #68
  9. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Folks, stop feeding the troll.

    Zafar is not going to be convinced no matter what he is told.

    I don’t think @zafar is a troll. He can be a little sea-lion-ish sometimes, but he’s certainly not alone in that. 

    To be fair, no one debating him is going to be convinced either, “no matter what they are told”. 

    (I think it’s pretty obvious that Nazis were a flavor of socialists. I don’t think it’s obvious why anyone should feel strongly about it one way or the other. They all — socialists, fascists, Nazis, and various combinations of these — suck.)

     

    • #69
  10. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Terry Mott (View Comment):

    Nazis may not have been socialist in the purest sense of the term. They were fascists, more or less, which were distinct from socialists in much the same way as horses are distinct from donkeys. American conservatives recognize that they are both equines. Others obsess over the fact that horses are generally faster and have shorter ears, so they’re not the same thing.

    The bottom line is that Nazis, fascists, communists, socialists, Maoists, Marxists, Democrats, progressives, Antifa, etc., are all statist-collectivists. Their propaganda may differ, and their claimed aims may diverge at times, but their goals coalesce around authoritarian utopianism. It really doesn’t matter whether they focus on race, class, gender, or some other issue. They’re all mules that do little other than kick down their stalls and bray at the “injustices” of society. As a farm boy, born and raised, take my word for it that if you’re kicked in the head by either a horse, donkey, mule, hinny, or zebra, you won’t spend much time obsessing over which type of equine kicked you.

    Great, great comment. Also, I learned a new word! Thanks.

    • #70
  11. Bob Thompson Member
    Bob Thompson
    @BobThompson

    Zafar (View Comment):

    davenr321 (View Comment):

    Arbeit Macht Frei- you know it!

    The fact that the Nazis were socialists ought to be settled. What they were not was Marxists-Leninist socialists, nor were they American Left-Liberal socialists.

    ??

    What is a non-Marxist socialist? I do not believe this is a thing.

    A Muslim. Islam is a state religion in several countries and the government form is collectivist as is Islam.

    • #71
  12. Zafar Member
    Zafar
    @Zafar

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Folks, stop feeding the troll.

    Zafar is not going to be convinced no matter what he is told.

    I don’t think @ zafar is a troll. He can be a little sea-lion-ish sometimes, but he’s certainly not alone in that.

    To be fair, no one debating him is going to be convinced either, “no matter what they are told”.

    (I think it’s pretty obvious that Nazis were a flavor of socialists. I don’t think it’s obvious why anyone should feel strongly about it one way or the other. They all — socialists, fascists, Nazis, and various combinations of these — suck.)

     

    Sea-lion-ish?

    • #72
  13. Stina Inactive
    Stina
    @CM

    Western Chauvinist (View Comment):

    Thanks for this. I’ve been thinking of starting a series along the lines of Matt Walsh’s What Is a Woman? I was going to start with What Is a Fascist?

    It seems quite apparent that fascists fall into the collectivist category along with socialists (Hillary’s “stronger together” motto in Romanesque terms would be “fascii.”). Nazis were collectivists of the Aryan sort — Nazi collectivists against everyone else. It’s pretty impressive that Germans have managed to do under the EU what they failed to do in two world wars — dominate Europe.

    Its opposite is individualist, which America embodies — or used to. But even individualism can be radicalized, which is the trap libertarians often fall into. We are social creatures, but society flourishes best when the protection of individuals’ natural rights is the main (if not the sole) purpose of government and we still have common (rather than “diverse”) cultural agreement on the important stuff. Like what a woman is, for example.

    I think it’s meaningful to distinguish between top down collective organizing and bottom up.

    • #73
  14. Charlotte Member
    Charlotte
    @Charlotte

    Zafar (View Comment):

    Charlotte (View Comment):

    Seawriter (View Comment):

    Folks, stop feeding the troll.

    Zafar is not going to be convinced no matter what he is told.

    I don’t think @ zafar is a troll. He can be a little sea-lion-ish sometimes, but he’s certainly not alone in that.

    To be fair, no one debating him is going to be convinced either, “no matter what they are told”.

    (I think it’s pretty obvious that Nazis were a flavor of socialists. I don’t think it’s obvious why anyone should feel strongly about it one way or the other. They all — socialists, fascists, Nazis, and various combinations of these — suck.)

     

    Sea-lion-ish?

    Sealioning origin story.

    • #74
  15. lowtech redneck Coolidge
    lowtech redneck
    @lowtech redneck

    Zafar (View Comment):

    davenr321 (View Comment):

    Arbeit Macht Frei- you know it!

    The fact that the Nazis were socialists ought to be settled. What they were not was Marxists-Leninist socialists, nor were they American Left-Liberal socialists.

    ??

    What is a non-Marxist socialist? I do not believe this is a thing.

    Socialism was a (misguided) ideal and movement before Marxism; its been too long to give specific citations, but I distinctly remember Marx criticizing the socialists of his day, as their ideas and aspirations did not include communism.

    • #75
  16. Roderic Coolidge
    Roderic
    @rhfabian

    Fascism was tribalism based on nation and class in Italy and  on race and class in Germany.

    In other words, the same crap that’s been going on since the dawn of history.

    In the 20th century the damage of tribal conflict was magnified a million times by modern methods of warfare.  

    • #76
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