There is a common misconception going around. This misconception is not only put forth by conservatives, but liberals, as well. This misconception?
“Communists and Fascists are the same thing. Mussolini was a socialist. Hitler was a socialist. Nazi stands for National Socialist,I mean, it’s in the name!”
Whenever people say these things, they show, with no further proof needed, that they are woefully misinformed and have zero understanding of history. The thing is, the facts aren’t really hard to find. There really is no excuse for not doing so in this country that has been lied to for a very long time. What bothers me the most is the vehemence with which those who fling this utter nonsense and the haughty attitude they affect when informing you of these things. Though I seriously doubt it will affect anyone, I will endeavor to offer a few facts with citations.
While it is true that both Mussolini and Hitler were socialists at one time, it is also true that neither were socialists by the time they came to power. Mussolini was ejected from Italy’s Socialist Party over his support for WW1.
“Mussolini was more of an authoritarian revolutionary than an orthodox Marxist,” says Michael R. Ebner, an associate professor of history in the Maxwell School at Syracuse University, and the author of Ordinary Violence in Mussolini's Italy (Cambridge University Press, 2011). “With the outbreak of World War I, he came to see nationalism and militarism as the keys to revolutionary upheaval. He therefore left behind Marxist economic determinism and pacifism.”1
In response to many Italians supporting socialism after the war because of its ineffectual leaders, Mussolini created the Fasci Italiani di Combattimento, (Italian Combat Squads) which later became his Fascist Party which he used to violently suppress socialists and others who were his political rivals.
“Basically, Mussolini hated the Socialists, and so did the rest of the Fascists,” Ebner said. “One driving force behind Fascist violence was their desire to punish the Socialists for not supporting Italy during the Great War (World War I). The Fascists viewed the Socialists as cowardly traitors, internal enemies, who needed to be eradicated.”1
To conflate Italian fascists with socialists is nonsensical as the above quote shows. Mussolini certainly didn’t consider himself a socialist; he actively opposed and sought to eradicate them.
Hitler did, indeed, belong to the German Workers Party, which he changed the name of to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. Here is what the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum has to say about the early days of the Nazi Party:
The Nazi Party was the radical far-right movement and political party led by Adolf Hitler. Its formal name was the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische deutsche Arbeiterpartei or NSDAP). Nazi ideology was racist, nationalist, and anti-democratic. It was violently antisemitic and anti-Marxist.
In 1920, Hitler changed the Party’s name to the National Socialist German Workers’ Party. “National Socialism” was a racist and antisemitic political theory. It had been developed in Hitler’s native Austria as the antithesis of Marxist Socialism and Communism. Marxists, for example, advocated for the global solidarity of the world’s workers. They called for the abolition of nation states. National Socialists, however, sought to unify members of the German Volk in complete obedience to the state. They called for a strong state to lead the “master race” in the “racial struggle” against “inferior races,” especially the Jews.
Despite its name, the National Socialist German Workers’ Party won little support from industrial workers. This did not concern Hitler, who was seeking to create a mass movement. He aimed to appeal to the many groups that disliked the Weimar Republic and feared socialism and communism.
The Nazis’ campaign platform called to unify all good Germans in the fight to eradicate “Marxism,” meaning both communism and socialism.2
Did you see that? Anti-Marxist, won little support from industrial workers, appealed to groups that feared socialism and communism, eradicate “Marxism,” meaning both communism and socialism. In fact, the first one hundred prisoners to be imprisoned in the first concentration camp, Dachau, were communists.
The first Nazi concentration camp opened at Dachau in March 1933 to imprison political opponents of the Nazi regime. The first 100 prisoners were German Communists.3
Here, he said, Communists, "Marxists" and Reichsbanner leaders who endangered the security of the State would be kept in custody. 4
A report published in the New Republic in 1934 reads:
At the present time the camp harbors about 1,700 prisoners, the majority of whom are either Communists or members of organizations known as sympathetic, such as workers’ athletic and relief organizations. Some hundred prisoners are Social Democrats, Socialist Workers’ party members, students, lawyers and doctors, who were either active politically or known as pacifists.5
Does it sound like the Nazis or Fascists were socialists or communists? They were imprisoning them from the start. The take away? Neither Mussolini/fascism or HItler/Nazis were socialist or communist. That is just what the criminals who run and finance our government want you to think.
As for “it’s in the name”:
Are buffalo wings made of buffalos?
Is cauliflower ear cauliflower growing on your skin?
Is the PATRIOT act patriotic?
Is the Affordable Care Act (ObamaCare) affordable? (come to that, did Obama invent the “care” package that goes by his name? (Hint: No, it is a thinly veiled copy of former GOP Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney’s plan)6
Do hotdogs contain dogs?
Are chicken fingers the fingers of chickens?
Are bear claws made of bears?
You get the picture. When you say Nazis had Socialist in the name that means they were socialist, you sound just as absurd as claiming any one of the above is true. Please, learn a little history, indulge in a little critical thinking and stop parading your ignorance before the world.
Lastly, I will leave you with this:
When the Nazis came for the Communists, I kept silent; I was after all not a Communist.
When they locked up the Social Democrats, I kept silent; I was after all not a Social Democrat.
When they came for the trade unionists, I kept silent, I was after all not a trade unionist.
When they came for me, there was no one left who could protest
-Martin Niemoller7
Sources:
1. History.com
4. The Guardian Newspaper Tue 21 Mar 1933 06.09 EST
5. The New Republic August 8, 1934
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