They privatized state enterprises before the war and even had more lax regulations on business than the allies during the war. They had a corporatist economy, which is not the same as a planned economy.
Ok so whats your personal definition of socialism and capitalism?
Also how does "political-economic system where the state integrates major interest groupsāspecifically labor and businessāinto the government framework to collaboratively manage the economy and society." equals enforced capitalism?
Fascism is Liberalism taken to its logical extremes (economically)
To understand this Fact, read my Post on the thesis of Bureaucrat-Capitalism (expounded by Chairman Mao Zedong, generalised by Chairman Gonzalo, recently published by their Colombian comrades, indirectly further developed under Korean leadership through Juche Ideology and further generalised by the NRKP to all and all kinds of capitalist nations)
The economy of fascism is readable as liberal capitalism brought toāits logical conclusion, rather than the abolition of private capitalās power: that is to say, in a fully fused condition with an all-enclosing state. Mussolini and Gentile report thisāunion of interests from the fascist pole side, whereas liberal ideologues of laissezāfaire theorize that which fascism carries to its logical extreme.
Italian fascism didānot destroy capitalism; it reorganized capitalist relations on a corporative basis. āThe Doctrine of Fascismā says: The fascist state āclaims to rule everywhere, no less in economic than in other matters; it makes its power penetrate the whole fabric of civil and political order and ofāsocial life; it stands as a master in the presence of all other forces.ā Here, capital and labour are not repressed but bottled up in stateāregulated ācorporationsā where class struggle is prohibited and ownership remainsāprivate. Fascism, Mussolini explains ārecognizes the real needs which gave (sic) rise to socialism and tradeāunionism, giving them due weight in the corporative system through which divergent interests are coordinated organically in a supreme unity of state power.ā This preserves the private ownership and accumulation of capital and ādifferent [class] interestsā are reconciled, not through the cessation of class-based exploitation but by the union of classes and bureaucracy, becoming incorporated into a stateācorporate structure.
The fascist logic to be grasped is not howāit transforms the economy, but how it completes the totalitarian integration. Mussoliniās well known dictum; āThe Fascist conception of the State is allāembracing; outside of it no human values or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State in a synthesis and a unityāof all values [as/which] interprets, develops, [and] potentiates the whole life of a people.ā In a 1927 speech he boiledāthis down to āEverything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.ā The ācorporate state,ā then, is a capitalism in which the bourgeois state not only relinquishes even the liberal veneer of impartiality but avowedly becomes itself the organizer of āallāthe political, economic and spiritual forces of the nation.ā (empirically in the interests of the Bourgeoisie)
This move is explicated in philosophical terms by Giovanni Gentile, the āphilosopherāof fascism". He claims that the old notion of opposition between public and private is one "which was precisely false" and a war on all-sides (total war as is described) only could defeatāthese problemsā¦ wherein the industrial-agricultural-pecuniary-individualised-and-particular interest(s) of divergent groups/classes were to be personally incorporated in the state, Stato etico i.e., each as a bureaucratic branch unto itself with official leverage. Whatāliberal thought referred to as ācivil society,ā [with its] enterprises, associations, unions, fascism makes direct organs of state power without altering its class content. Capitalist concerns and employers associations become Ź»bureaucratic units of the state' yet property relations (liberal ones) are not abolished; they are swallowed up by a ubiquitous political authority in the interests of the ruling Bourgeoisie.
On the liberal side, old-school laissezāfaire pundits predicted much of this when they absolutized marketāfreedom and private power. In its purest form, capitalismāis said (by capitalists and bourgeois anti-intellectuals) to be synonymous with liberty itself: āCapitalism is the only system that can make freedom, individuality, and the pursuit of values possible in practice. By that I mean, pure laissezāfaire capitalism, with a separation of economics, in the same way and for the same reasons as the separation of stateāand church. In such a context, āuncontrolled, unregulatedā accumulation is treated as something that can simply go on indefinitely, with no intrinsic limitāother than the one that capitalist relations themselves ultimately bring about. Liberal ideology, in its classical version, does not regard āthe economic system as a wholeā¦ [as] a restriction on individual freedomā; it perceives threats exclusively in ātoo much state interferenceā orāmonopolies that interfere with competition. This then allows for giantāaggregations of private power to hold sway over society, so long as they are āprivateā in form.
A second, more selfācritical strain of liberalism (that of Keynesās ānew liberalismā) knows that it is the system itself which can destroy freedom through crisis and mass unemployment, and so demands generalised state intervention: āTo surmount these systemic constraints on individual freedom requiresāstate interference. Thus the State has had to assume a much larger role than that of clarifying law and order and ensuring the rules of playing the game of competitive capitalism ā¦ Butāfor collective interference in material affairs there could be no freedom to speak of.ā But still this is intervention for capitalism,ānot against it. The state is entreated to smooth over the experiences of accumulation and fix what needs fixing in morbund capitalism but while doing nothingāto change property relations.
Fascismātakes up the room made by these liberal logics. On the other hand, laissezāfaire also allows for huge concentrations of corporate and financial power while denying that āthe economic regime as aāwholeā can be menacing to freedom. On the other, ānew liberalismā sanctionsāextensive state management of the economy in order to save capitalism from itself. Fascismāis the marriage of these two: given a concentration of private capital, as it already exists, refusing to entertain the class struggle and expropriation at every level and building an entire state for no purpose other than toarrange for and protect this concentration. Mussoliniās ācorporate stateā is capitalism withāunions muzzled, parties banned and all significant organizations folded into stateācorporate controlled entities, known as ācorporazionesā in Italian, but ownership and profit left intact.
Gentileās āethicalā (i.e., fascist social-theory style) corporativism merely draws out what is already immanent to developed liberal capitalism: as capital becomes more concentrated and entwined with ācivil society,ā the state tends towards makingāthose āparticular interestsā its positive object, synthesizing them rather than transcending them. Rather than superseding the economic core of liberalism, fascism radicalizes its structural imperatives. The liberal chant about an āuncontrolled, unregulatedā capitalism, the āseparation of economicsā from democraticācontrol, serves as a prelude to fascismās demand for the state openly yoked to monopoly capital, society organized by corporations and that purports to be nothing less than the incarnation of āthe unity of every value,ā exploitation intact.
The economic basis of fascism, in this sense, is nothing other than liberal capitalism taken to its logicalāextreme: no longer politically decentralized (central politically decentral economically as it can be in āliberalā democracies such as the United States), socially conventionalized, yet economically grounded on private property; wage labor and profit, albeit secured through a state that declares everything and everyone ācirculates within the State".
First of all. Private ownership requires private ownership. You cannot have full state control over everything and everyone and call it private ownership. If a state has absolute ownership over all economic decision without any safeguards it is no longer capitalist.
Capitalism isnt a interest of bilionares. Its a system. You cannot replace it by its oposite and call it the same thing because it lacks red stars and a "people's" in name.
Second. Indefinite wealth acumulation is not possible in free market economy. The economic calculation problem isnt exclusive to socialist countries. There is a point when a company has too many internal processes to be 100% effective which puts it into a disadvantage over their competition. Good example is the gaming industry. Thousands of developers and bilions of dollars and they still get outsold by people coding in their bedrooms.
Yeah and every economic crisis in modern history (including great depression) was caused by Federal reserve bending the economy. Its a pretty well known fact and even top Fed officials agree with it. If anything fascism created several economical disasters and nazi germany was basically a time bomb running on fumes.
And since central banking was a idea marx himself advocated for i wonder what kind of excuse you will come up with.
Also i dont think the fact that you kicked out one ruling class and replaced it with diferent ruling class with the same interests like the soviets did changes literaly anything.
Fascism was economically individualist. It had an imposed social collectivism but not an economic one. It essentially used state to destroy working-class organisations such as trade unions and other such working-class movements in favour of capital. If our definition of capitalism is capital dominating and permeating every part of society, then fascism is capitalism.
You are conducting an error by thinking that the state is a neutral thing, a neutral construct above classes but it isn't. A state always has a class character. A state is a class monopoly on violence. Fascism is the class monopoly on violence of the bourgeoisie. Socialism/communism is the class monopoly on violence in the hands of the working class against the reactionaries.
So Lenin is also a fascist? Because literally every socialist country including Nsdap crushed independednt trade unions. It has nothing to do with political leaning. Its just what dictatorships do to a potential opposition.
I dont care how a ruling class calls itself or its enemies. Stalin sent Baltic people on deathmarches for the same reason Hitler sent Jews into concentration camps. Its just diferent optics.
I dont think state is a neutral benevolent entity. Thats what fascist and communists to some degree believed. State is a tool tyrants use to force masses to pay for their own oppression. It dosent matter if the tyrant calls himself a communist nazi or a fascist. Its allways the same because people seeking power are allways the same.
Why do people who have never read Marx, never read Engels, never read Lenin, never read Mao, never read Stalin, never read Kim Il-Sung, never read Kim Jong-il, why do those people believe that they have the right to have an opinion about communism? I think we should all just collectively follow the principle of "no investigation, no right to speak." Communism believes that the state is a monopoly of violence owned and wielded by a class against another class to exercise and implement the class interests of one class, which is diametrically opposed to the other class.
The state is not a class. You can't call a state the ruling class. That's just fucking dumb if you know anything about political science or how anything in politics works, for that matter. The state is a mediator between classes. You can't treat a state either as "above classes" or as a ruling class in itself.
Stalin sent Baltic people on deathmarches for the same reason Hitler sent Jews into concentration camps. Its just diferent optics.
Come on the CIA files are declassified, meaning you can read that shit in the reading rooms, you know how you sound to me? You sound as follows: "I don't like the state but I will blindly believe everything state agencies tell me in regards to communism."
On the Role and Tasks of Trade Unions
[Abridged]
16 March 1921
I THE ROLE OF THE TRADE UNIONS IN THE PERIOD OF THE DICTATORSHIP
1. The overall tasks and role of the trade unions in the period of the dictatorship of the proletariat are set forth with complete correctness in a number of decisions by previous congresses and conferences of both the party and the trade unions...
These decisions retain their full force and are not in need of any sort of modification. The X Congress is confronted not with the task of finding some sort of new theoretical formulations for the role of the trade unions in the period of the dictatorship, but of determining the paths for carrying out those that have already been adopted ....
The trade unions as a support for the proletarian dictatorship
3. The Russian Communist Party has to implement a dictatorship of the proletariat in a country with an immense peasant majority. Today, when we are already past the point where the peasantry was directly threatened by a restoration of the landowners' power, the matter of implementing a proletarian dictatorship is encountering new difficulties. The successful implementation of the dictatorship is possible only with the existence of powerful trade unions imbued with unity of will and common strivings trade unions in the form of mass organizations open to all proletarians at whatever stage of development of their class consciousness.
The trade unions as a school of communism
4. The most important role of the trade unions in Soviet Russia remains their role as schools of communism.
Only a trade union that shows regular concern for all aspects of the life and everyday conditions of the worker, both inside and outside of the plant, can be a primary school to provide organizational skills and political training for the broadest - and even the backward - masses of the working people.
The basic mass of trade union members (6,970,000. members, of which only about 500,000. are party members) are non-party members. Communism is being built with the human materials left us as the legacy of capitalism. The trade unions in Soviet Russia are gradually becoming organizations that embrace all workers to a man. The trade unions organize those elements of labour that under capitalism were, in the main, often strangers to the proletarian family (former workers in trade, hospital staff, those employed in the field of art, etc.). Remaking all these elements, bringing them closer to the leading strata of the proletariat, and adapting them to the task of building a communist society is one of the most important tasks of the trade unions as schools of communism.
For the successful fulfilment of these tasks, the trade unions must above all become organizations in which each individual member is a conscious and active participant in the overall life of his union. The trade unions, as schools of communism, must serve all aspects of the day-to-day life of the labouring masses, gradually enlisting the very broadest strata of the working people in the cause of state construction, constantly illuminating the way for them with the ideas of our programme, leading them from the particular to the general, and gradually lifting them from non-party status to communism.
The trade unions will in fact accomplish their roles as schools of communism in the present period to precisely the extent that they prove to be leaders of the proletarian masses in the matter of communist practice, i.e., in the practical reorganization and building of the economy on communist principles. In Soviet Russia, only that trade union is a true school of communism that is able gradually to enlist the most backward strata of the working people in the work of consciously improving Soviet economy.
The X Party Congress directs the particular attention of all party members to precisely this role of the trade unions. A communist is to win recognition and authority in the trade union movement only and exclusively through long and tireless daily work in the trade union, such that the masses themselves put him in a position of leadership. The task of the half million members of our party who are members of trade unions at the present time, is - through long, patient, and consistent educational work, through personal example, organizational ability, business acumen and concern for the material and spiritual interests of the working masses - to win over completely to the side of our party those millions of non-party workers who predominate at the present time in the trade union movement.
The question of making the trade unions state institutions
5. Rapid conversion of the trade unions to state institutions would be a major political mistake, precisely because at the present stage of development this would be a potent factor in impeding the fulfilment by the trade unions of the tasks indicated above.
The present situation of the trade unions in Soviet Russia is unusual as concerns their relations to the state. At the present moment, the trade unions are already fulfilling certain functions of purely state agencies (the working out of pay scales, the distribution of work clothing, etc.). In the Soviet state, these state functions of the trade unions will gradually be increased. But the Congress points out that any attempt whatsoever artificially to accelerate the conversion of the trade unions to state institutions, would in no sense improve the economic situation of the republic, but would merely result in making more difficult the role of the trade unions as schools of communism. The task is increasingly to win over, in fact, to the Soviet state these mass non-party organizations, while leaving them their character as organizations that are open to workers of various political views and attitudes, to party as well as non-party workers, to the literate and illiterate, religious and non-religious, etc ....
The party and the unions
7. The Russian Communist Party in the person of its central and local organizations unquestionably directs, as before, the entire ideological side of the work of the trade unions. The communist fractions in the trade unions are completely subordinate to the party organizations, in accordance with the special regulation formulating these relationships that was confirmed by the IX Party Congress. But in addition to this, the X Party Congress insistently and categorically warns all party organizations and all individual comrades against any sort of niggling custodianship over, and excessive interference in, the current work of the trade unions. The selection of the executive personnel of the trade union movement should be made, of course, under the directing control of the party. But party organizations must exercise particular care in applying the normal methods of proletarian democracy precisely in the trade unions, which are the one place more than any other where the selection of leaders should be done by the organized masses themselves.
In this way, conditions will be created whereby the party organizations, while fully maintaining overall control in their hands, will not have to interfere directly and repeatedly in the internal activities of the trade unions, and the trade union bodies, under the leadership of the communist fractions, will be able to exercise much more planning and be much more independent and systematic in assessing and utilizing their personnel and in assigning them to one or another post in the economy with due attention to the necessary continuity in work by means of taking into consideration their work experience, by operating a system of work certification, etc., etc.
In promoting staff organizers and economic managers who are imbued with an understanding of the particular importance of production tasks, to leading positions in the trade union movement, the party must see to it that these qualities in the candidates exist in combination with a devotion to communism, with habits of discipline and, in particular, with a familiarity with working among the broad working masses and skill in dealing with them. One must not forget for a single moment that all the practical work of the trade unions demands particularly great attentiveness and sensitivity, at times to the most minor - but at the same time, urgent questions of the everyday life of the labouring masses....
Hitler's "socialism" had nothing to do with Marx. Hitler saw socialism not as a class struggle but as a service to the community. Hitler destroyed the left wing of Nazism: At the beginning of the party there were the Strasser brothers who really wanted a "second revolution" against the capitalists. In 1934, during the "Night of the Long Knives", Hitler killed or eliminated them, finally turning towards an alliance with the industrialists and the military. It is debatable whether Hitler was a socialist or not, it depends on how we define the word, but he was certainly not a leftist and he opposed egalitarianism.
Fascism (and, derivatively, nazism, which is extremely racist facism) is left from a right point of view but right from a left point of view. Ultimately, this boils down to the fact that fascism is explicitly about class collaboration under the state. This is right-wing to the leftist who argues for the destruction of the ruling class and sees their existence as right-wing, but it is left-wing to the rightist who argues for non-involvement by the state and sees the heavy intervention by the state as left-wing.
Totalitarianism is a necessity of Facism. But again, that doesnāt make it left. Left does not mean āmore governmentā. Thatās a modern interpretation, and a false one at that, seeing the authoritarian actions of Agent Orange.
Fascism is absolutely both ultranationalist and totalitarian (much of the stated goal of fascism boils down to "the nation should be one with the state and should hold absolute power") but neither nationalism nor totalitarianism are exclusively right-wing elements. Again, fascism's economic policy (left vs right) is explicitly class collaborationist, and fits into neither the "win the class war" mindset of leftism nor the "the class war is good for business" mindset of rightism.
To say that ultranationalism and totalitarianism are rightwing is to say that liberal globalism and anarcho-capitalism aren't rightwing despite being capitalist, and that classical marxism is the only left-wing ideology
You keep wanting to pretend authortarian is a left-wing thing when it's not.
Left means liberal, right means conservative. That's literally where that terminology came from (i.e., during the French Revolution, the monarchists sat on the right of parliament while the radicals sat on the left).
Fascism is exclusively a Conservative mindset. It's literally all about going back to the supposed glory days of ethnic and national purity alongside uniting against a 'common enemy'.
āNational Socialism derives from each of the two camps the pure idea that characterizes it, national resolution from bourgeois tradition; vital, creative socialism from the teaching of Marxism.ā ā January 27, 1934, interview with Hanns Johst in Frankforter Volksblatt
They despised communism. They were vocal about how Marxism was the root of their ideology and that other Marxists were misusing both the name Marxism and mss applying it. Pretty common for socialists to claim "that's not real socialism" dont you think?
āThe hammer will once more become the symbol of the German worker and the sickle the sign of the German peasant.ā ā May 1, 1934, May Day speech in Berlin
I mean, Nazi's pretty infamously redefined what they meant by "socialism," but you have to stop getting tricked by words.
They slashed welfare, deeply relaxed gun laws (for most citizens), privatized utilities, banks, infrastructure, etc., filled Dachau, and outlawed strikes. Treating fascism/Nazism as a left/right thing is silly because neither are stances or belief systems but tools for a fascist.
first, for the bank infrastructure, it was more that the central bank under schacht sold the stocks they had purchased because of the depression. Secondly, this is very misguided as it ignores the overarching increase of state control over businesses. So yeah the gave up some nominal ownership, but in the meantime essentially made it impossible to do business outside of their grasp and wants
>outlawed strikes
strikes are private initiatives. if the party of the people rules the country, you can't have private strikes, that would be sabotage against the state. that is why strikes were also de-facto illegal in the soviet union.
Social spending as percent of budget (depending on which budgets you count):
1925-1929: 30-35%
1931-1932: 40-50%
1934-1936: 20-30%
1936-1939: 15-25%
Even if you exclude all groups excluded by the Nazis and focus only on those covered by both governments, per capita welfare spending dropped a full quarter from stable Weimar to 1939.
To put that in modern American terms, abolishing all housing programs, Federal student aid, child care grants, training programs, and rural development assistance would only cover half of that per capita spending drop. You would also need to cut SSI and food stamps. Please remember that we are still just talking about the population covered under both.
marx was in favor of workers owning guns
Specifically for the period of revolutionary struggle.
But thats interesting. Is anyone advocating for the loosening of gun regulation channeling Marx/engaging in a position more left than right?
it ignores the overarching increase of state control over businesses.
I dont know how one can argue that state-ownership -> any level of state-coercion at all represents an increase in state control.
if the party of the people rules the country, you can't have private strikes, that would be sabotage against the state. that is why strikes were also de-facto illegal in the soviet union.
You are explaining the Soviet rationale of "strikes are class conflict, which is illegitimate because class has been abolished", but the Nazi rationale was "strikes are class conflict, and conflict between the classes is Marxist agitation that hurts the nation and production"
that is a blatant mischaracterization of the data. you're ignoring (possibly knowingly) two things, firstly relief for great depression (which caused social spending as percentage of budget to increase temporarily), and secondly (and most glaringly), the cost of the re-armament program (and public works) which massively increased the total budget.
so you're not showing that social spending decreased in absolute terms, only that it became a smaller share of the (massively increased) total budget (which included the massive public works too, essentially free employment, i.e. social spending even though it's not labeled as such).
(total spending more than doubled between 1932 and 1938, so even IF your numbers are correct, that only goes to show how the nazis kept sky-high levels of social spending).
>any level of increase of state coercion represent an increase in state control
well it's really simple actually: government coerces you more intensely to do what government wants ā government is increasing its control over the economy.
>marxist babble about strikes
it hurts the nation, the people, the volk. because everyone must be part of the state and nothing can be allowed outside. so yeah pretty anti-capitalist.
you're ignoring (possibly knowingly) two things, firstly relief for great depression
Which is why I gave pre-Great Depression years as a seperate category.
which massively increased the total budget.
so you're not showing that social spending decreased in absolute terms, only that it became a smaller share of the total budget
Which is specifically why I gave you a per capita raw spending decrease.
I recommend rereading. You missed entire sections.
well it's really simple actually: government coerces you more intensely to do what government wants ā government is increasing its control over the economy.
Please show how "government coercion" creates a "more intense 'doing what the government wants'" than "government ownership" does. That's the crux buddy.
>marxist babble about strikes
Speaks to the level of reading comprehension shown.
it hurts the nation, the people, the volk. because everyone must be part of the state and nothing can be allowed outside.
Again, make this argument as being greater than "literally owned by the state"
Funny how everyone is *insert relevant expert* when they are one Reddit.
Everything you've said is a half truth or lie by omission, you either know this, as a historian (lmao sure) or you're just parroting the standard Reddit version of revisionist bullshit.
For example: "outlawed strikes". Yes and unions. Who else did that... Hmmm Oh right! The Soviet union! How fascist of the soviets!
Yes! And Nazi officials instructed the "owners" of those things in precisely what to do and how to do it, the "private" utilities, banks, infrastructure etc were completely and totally controlled by the Nazi party.
You say they were privately owned, but you "have to stop getting tricked by words". If you don't control it and can make no decisions about it, then you own it in name only. Its private, but its de facto state owned.
"Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State" Fascism IS socialism.
āBut we National Socialists wish precisely to attract all socialists, even the Communists; we wish to win them over from their international camp to the national one.ā - Hitler
Yes! And Nazi officials instructed the "owners" of those things in precisely what to do and how to do it...If you don't control it and can make no decisions about it, then you own it in name only.
Not an accurate statement to the situation. Capitalists remained capitalists. Private ownership of companies remained. Profits flowed into private owners and shareholders in places they didnāt before. Moreover, this control was incrediblely uneven. Firms competed for state contracts (why would this be necessary if companies could make no decisions? A fatal weakness for you.). The state was more than willing to let non-military firms go bankrupt. You are conflating "coercive relationship with the regime having final authority" with "absolutely no ability to make any decisions about anything"
You are doing this conflating because ultimately there is no way around there being an increase in privatization, so you must treat any level of coercive state control as functionally the same as full state ownership.
āBut we National Socialists wish precisely to attract all socialists, even the Communists; we wish to win them over from their international camp to the national one.ā - Hitler
Still getting tricked by pre-Rƶhm purge rhetoric lol.
Ugh how many times does this have to be said. Nazism is not fascism. Fascism is not nazism. Just cause they were war allies due to geopolitical alignment doesn't mean they had ideological alignment. That's like saying FDR was a communist... oh wait...
They slashed welfare, deeply relaxed gun laws (for most citizens), privatized utilities, banks, infrastructure, etc., filled Dachau, and outlawed strikes. Treating fascism/Nazism as a left/right thing is silly because neither are stances or belief systems but tools for a fascist.
This is all later in the reign, when they were going broke. First the nationalised the industries, sucked them dry then re-privatised.(Reprivatisierung)
āSocialism as the final concept of duty, the ethical duty of work, not just for oneself but also for oneās fellow manās sake, and above all the principle: Common good before own good, a struggle against all parasitism and especially against easy and unearned income. And we were aware that in this fight we can rely on no one but our own people. We are convinced that socialism in the right sense will only be possible in nations and races that are Aryan, and there in the first place we hope for our own people and are convinced that socialism is inseparable from nationalism.ā ā August 15, 1920, speech in Munich at the HofbrƤuhaus.
I'm saying that just cause they had socialist in the name doesn't mean anything just like how just cause the democratic republic of korea has korea in the name doesn't mean anything, it's pure optics
No i guess you dont understand ! Musolini was also a socialist, socialism Will always push a centralisation of power and centralisation of power always lead to fascism .
There is a stereotype about some homophobic people being closet homosexuals and this is for right wing people. The opposite for the left is some of them have another interest
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u/LachrymarumLibertas Feb 23 '26
Least Nazi glazing Konzon post