Heaven on Earth The Rise and Fall of Socialism Part 2 Segment 1

[Briggsismyname]

The video makes a pretty good point about the difference between socialism and nationalism. Germany and Italy weren't aiming towards an international coming together of the proletariat. They were hyper-conservative bigots who may or may not have actually believed in a master race.

[shmuelposin]

"Nowhere does the reality live up to the ideal." What about the kibbutzim? Those seem like they accomplished their ideal goal pretty well.

[Al149]

NAZI = NSDAP = Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei = National Socialist German Workers Party

Mussolini was a socialist before fascism was developed as a 'third way' between capitalism and socialism.

Just read Wikipedia. It's all there in black and white.

[MRKetter81]

@Al149 I love how it's so hard for people to rap that around their heads... anything but the truth.

[jgolowka]

Russia was not the first socialist state. The Paris Commune (1871) and Mexico (1915) predated it. You can make a case these weren't genuine socialism, but the same can be said of Russia. As for the idea that Fascism was socialist, Mussolini said, "The Socialists ask what is our program? Our program is to smash the heads of the Socialists" (from Wikiquote's Mussolini page).

[rexshele]

@jgolowka hmmm good point regarding Mussolini, but what I think the program was trying to explain was that fascism in some way is an offshoot or at least influenced bysocialism. Marx believed that the socialist revolution was in the hands of the lower (exploited) classes, Lenin believed that revolutionized intellectuals should led the socialist revolt. Guys like Mussolini and Hitler rejected both those ideas and felt the revolution should be carried out by the state itself.

[jgolowka]

@rexshele The program is wrong. Fascism is anti-socialist and has nothing to do with socialism. The founder of fascism, Mussolini, said fascism is anti-socialist. The program is attempting to unfairly smear socialists by equating them with fascists.

[rexshele]

Respond to this video... But it is Socialism (Marxist Socialism to be exact) that was the first political ideology calling for the collective mobilization of the masses to bring about change

[ehrengm]

amazing they don't mention spain (or anything about the anarchist movement including the spanish civil war and the rich history of anarchism in the united states)

[Dudo616]

People who know nothing about history should refrain from making historical documentaries.

[TheDakota671]

Wow! How much more bias could they fit into this documentary?

[HerrKnitler]

Umm the nazis were not socialists. They had progressive socialist programs to better the working classes but that's about it. They structured their society by trying to unify the classes (which is a good thing imo), the government and business.

In fact the social democrats in Sweden basically copied their politics in whole but threw out their nasty ideology of placing people in categories and replaced it with the genuine socialist idea that all men are equal in rights.

[Brzuszek12]

Is the Democratic Republic of Congo, democratic? Clearly not. The same applies here to the 'Socialist' fascist regimes and the Soviet Union where the soviets never meet after 1920.

[chrispollock]

@Brzuszek12 doesn't matter. even if the soviets met, then the soviets would decide the destiny of the individual, not the individual themselves. this is the problem with socialism, that is, the collective ownership of the workplace. it means you can never escape the authority of the committee, and thus, have no individual freedom in and of yourself.

[Eldeecue2]

We clearly really, really need the "Top and bottom" to be added to the common perception of the "just left and right" political spectrum.....it's like trying to parallel park with no depth perception. You just end up making an ass of yourself.

[crackmonster99]

Fascism wasn't socialism. Mussolini himself said it could be more accurately called corporatism. Mussolini abandoned socialism when he couldn't get elected with it. Nazism wasn't socialism either. Sure the name socialism was in the formal title of the National Socialist party but that was because socialism was popular as a theory in europe at the time and it sounded reassuring to the people. Only the brown shirts were socialist leaning for rewarding former soldiers and Hitler killed them.

[arj4bass]

fail fascism and Marxism equal how the fuck can some one say that ...absurd!

[Hunte9753]

Facism is like a clone to capitalism

[BobCassidy]

@Hunte9753 How?

[PsychoPunk1965]

Fascism and Nazism were not socialism.  In fact, they persecuted the left.

[imavaughanstar]

@PsychoPunk1965 Stalin persecuted the Mensheviks and Social Revolutionaries, both of whom were left-wing. Governments persecute right or left, centre, regardless of where they sit politically - they persecute whoever is a threat to their power.

[mowgly3000]

@PsychoPunk1965 what's one man's left is another man's right. Fascism/Nazism was certainly closer to Socialism than to Capitalism, since their emphasis was on central planning economy/government

[PsychoPunk1965]

@mowgly3000 That's an old carnard at this point. Trying to lump Nazism and Fascism with Socialism is a cheap way to have ALL the Right free of blood on their hands when BOTH the extreme Left (communism) and the extreme Right (fascism) are the two systems with blood on their hands.

[joejjohnston]

Nazi economic planning was designed to save capitalism.

[mowgly3000]

@joejjohnston No, read Hayek "Road to serfdom", Nazis were all about welfare-state, central planned economy and collectivism. True capitalists are libertarians

[RaySquirrel]

@PsychoPunk1965 Though the Nazi's did refer to themselves as socialists. And Fascism does make the does make the same appeals to collectivism, and humanizes the state in similar fashion. Fascism does derive from the Italian word "fascio" meaning group or family.

[PsychoPunk1965]

@smoochym Benito Mussolini initially started out as a member of what would be the center left Italian Socialist Party, but would shift too the right. A lesser evil version of this would be the American neoconservative movement which goes back to the hard leftism of Leon Trotsky and fused itself into the fairly hard right conservative wing of the Republican Party WITHOUT the racism and Anti-Semitic bigotry.

[marshallcoll]

@PsychoPunk1965

Stalin persecuted Trotskism: doesn't mean Stalin wasn't a socialist, Hitler persecuted other Nazis, doesn't mean they weren't nazis.

[PsychoPunk1965]

@marshallcoll Alriight, Hitler and many of the Nazis were Christians. Would this mean that all Christians are Nazis then?  If anything, both Fascism and Nazism had a major socially conservative theme to their ideology. Yet would that mean that all social conservatives are like Hitler and Musolini? Okay, then I rest my case. Being socially conservative or Christian is not the same as Nazism or Fascism. Being Social Democratic, Communist, or Trotskyite are not the same as Fascism nor Nazism.

[marshallcoll]

@PsychoPunk1965 You rest nothing. I didn't say christians are nazi or not nazi. I didn't say Social Democrats were the same as fascists. I just said that your assertion that Fascism and Nazism are not socialist because they persecuted left wingers is bogus. NaZi was short for National Socialism. Mussolini was a communist who then adopted a National rather than Class view of society. So abosolutely he was not a Marxist but was definitely a socialist.

[PsychoPunk1965]

@marshallcoll I still believe that Fascism and Nazism represents the worst of the Right while Commnism represent the worst of the Left. This is not an attack on either the center Right nor the center Left, because none of them would have anything to do with Fascism & Nazism on the Right nor Communism on the Left.

[marshallcoll]

@PsychoPunk1965 There I agree with you. Inasmuch as we use the labels Left and Right these extremes represent the worst and often have little in common with much of what we call left and right.

[MRKetter81]

@PsychoPunk1965 You have the most dishonest spinning of arguments.. Nazis, Christians? LoL yeah that's why they take a Christmass tree and slapped a German Swastika on top of it while children surrounded it singing, "Hitler is our savior, Hitler is our Lord.". Yea that's real Christian for you... you're a moron.

[PsychoPunk1965]

@MRKetter81 Hitler used the Christian community to his own political ends. I never said that Hitler was a spokeperson for Christianity. Learn to read and comprehend. Many members of the Nazis were either Roman Catholic or Protestant, and (yes) some dabbled with the occult. And who are you to be calling someone dishonest. It's objective history. You may be entitled to your view, but not entitled to your own facts. Hitler signed a Concordant with Pious XII. Don't re-write history...

[MRKetter81]

@PsychoPunk1965 I've read plenty, and I comprehend you're an idiot.

[PsychoPunk1965]

@MRKetter81 I also comprehended that you are an idiot as well....

[MRKetter81]

@PsychoPunk1965 Seeing how that came from the perspective of the idiot that you are; I don't care what you, "think".

I would also expect you to have the, "You are too" childish retort nailed down pat.

[PsychoPunk1965]

@MRKetter81 You obviously care what I think, or you wouldn't keep posting. I am winning the argument, and it bothers you. Childish? That's the garbage you type. Get laid; you evangelical loser...

[MRKetter81]

@PsychoPunk1965 LOL you're delusional. Keep telling your self what you like anyways moron.

[PsychoPunk1965]

@MRKetter81 I see the cross as your de fault photo on your YouTube account. Is it honestly a Christian virtue to call someone a moron. You can disagree with someone without the name calling.

[suspicious35]

@PsychoPunk1965 With Fascists I generally agree with you. However, while the National Socialists (Nazis) did persecute leftists and communists, they also shared key policy elements which are generally leftist. These elements include: government anti-religious activities, massive government social engineering, state sponsored anti-family activities (the Hitler Youth and all those unwed mothers) and massive government interference in the economy.

[suspicious35]

@PsychoPunk1965 P.S. Mussolini was a socialist for most of his life

[Kawinkedink86]

Socialism Fails and punishes acheivement. Hopefully America never adopts socialism. Privatize as much as possible.

[AppleSouffle]

Kawinkedink86, and you say this in the face of an 8 trillion dollar housing bubble and a massive recession caused by private bankers!

I heard Mr Johnson (He's British, I only remember his last name) on Public Radio. He helps countries in financial trouble. He said the first thing to do usually to nationalize the banks because greedy bankers make an economy weaker or crash all together. In America there is such strong resistance to nationalizing banks, even with this horrible crash.

[shurednichso]

The show looses it here. Calling Hitler a Marxis,though he was since the start,as we see clearly in his "Mein Kampf", anti-marxistic and denied the marxistic terms like the classstruggle .

[Awkerward]

muravchik didnt call hitler marxist. he said in the same way that lenin confabulated marxism, so did hitler, but instead of a classism as an identifying theme he employed nationalism, vilifying Jews as a threat to germany.

[shurednichso]

That is a total negation of marxistic theory. Read it yourself,than you know.

[Awkerward]

yeah, thats the guys point! Hitler was hailing socialism yet rejecting primary marxist principles in theory and practice; he totally misrepresented it.

[shurednichso]

Mah,than i need to advance my englishskills.

Anyway,thank you for the correction.

[ElGeecho]

In his 1922 work "Socialism", economist Ludwig Von Mises argued that many so-called opponents of socialism had in fact accepted as true its basic premises. The fascists sought to reorder society along social, rather than individual means. Despite ostensibly supporting private ownership of the means of production, there was such an extensive system of regulation and regimentation that the means were in fact controlled by the central authority. In this manner, they were de facto socialists.

[shurednichso]

Regulation of private means of production and their outcome is no socialism. So is'nt simple nationalization of means of production socialism.

Further german fascists worked clearly for the interests of the biggest german companys. Leading NS politicians met several times with their owners and said,that they dont have to fear the socialization of their goods and that they will stop the comm. mop. This is well documented.

[theREALshafan]

well you should refute the lies then.

say why the "lies" are wrong, or else you're not helping your cause any.

[strungout7777]

The author, Joshua Muravchik, says socialism gave birth to fascism. That's quite a declaration to make, and it's certainly not a consensus among scholars.

"Common views include that fascism was a response to events during World War I that led to perceived failings of democracy, liberalism, and Marxism for each having favored either individualism or internationalism at the expense of nations and nationalism."

That's from wikipedia (not the ideal source, but a launching pad nonetheless).

[yamaha893]

agreed, its a pretty huge leap.

[libertarianPinoy]

"Common views include that fascism was a response to events during World War I that led to perceived failings of democracy, liberalism, and Marxism..."

To:

"Socialism gave birth to fascism."

doesn't seem that huge a leap.

Considering there are so many socialists who considered USSR or even Maoist China as fascist. Or that nothing in the world was ever really socialist.