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How and Why Fascism and Nazism Became the “Right”

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Abstract

The Left has been represented by various currents that have historically been very aggressive toward each other because they used different tactics and strategies to achieve socialism. Like many intellectuals, revolutionary leftists did not get along with each other very often. Since the inception of Marxism, which is the doctrine of communism—an extreme and distinctive flavor of socialism—the far Left has portrayed adherents of less revolutionary ideologies as enemies of the working people. The followers of evolutionary socialism—the Social Democrats—were accused by the communists of betraying the proletariat. Non-Marxist currents of socialism, such as Fascism and National Socialism, were excluded from the socialist camp and put on the right wing by Marxist-Leninist propaganda. Stalinist political science became a benchmark that set markers to distinguish between the genuine Left and the Right. This article shows the origin and historical background of the artificial shift of Fascism and National Socialism to the right side of the political spectrum.
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How and Why Fascism and Nazism Became the “Right”
By Allen Gindler
Abstract
The Left has been represented by various currents that have historically been
very aggressive toward each other because they used different tactics and strategies to
achieve socialism. Like many intellectuals, revolutionary leftists did not get along with
each other very often. Since the inception of Marxism, which is the doctrine of
communism—an extreme and distinctive flavor of socialism—the far Left has portrayed
adherents of less revolutionary ideologies as enemies of the working people. The
followers of evolutionary socialism—the Social Democrats—were accused by the
communists of betraying the proletariat. Non-Marxist currents of socialism, such as
Fascism and National Socialism, were excluded from the socialist camp and put on the
right wing by Marxist-Leninist propaganda. Stalinist political science became a
benchmark that set markers to distinguish between the genuine Left and the Right. This
article shows the origin and historical background of the artificial shift of Fascism and
National Socialism to the right side of the political spectrum.
Introduction
The prevailing and already traditional point of view, reflected both in school
textbooks and in popular culture, is the attribution of Fascism and Nazism to the ultra-
right wing of the political spectrum. However, any tradition has its origin. This article
posits that the convention of affiliating Fascism and National Socialism with the right
wing originated during the acute ideological war between Marxist and non-Marxist
currents of socialism in the first half of the 20th century. That war had several hot
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outbreaks where Fascists and Nazis eliminated evolutionary socialists and communists
in their corresponding countries and abroad, whereas Bolsheviks did the same to other
fellow socialists. The primary battle was fought during WWII, where the Soviets had
the upper hand over Italian Fascists and Nazi Germany. As the victor in the bloody
war, they rewrote and propagandized their version of history, cementing non-Marxian
flavors of socialism on the right wing of the political spectrum.
Neither the Fascists nor the Nazis identified themselves with the class of
entrepreneurs but positioned themselves primarily as pacifiers between labor and
capital. Mussolini (1933), already the prime minister and head of the Fascist party,
declared that the 20th century “...will be a century of authority, a century of the Left, a
century of fascism… it may be expected that this will be the century of collectivism, and
hence the century of the State.” The historian Florinsky (1938), who was a direct witness
and one of the earliest researchers of Fascism and National Socialism when these two
regimes were formed, presented a clear picture of the socialist transformations in Italy
and Germany, respectively. Another contemporary of Italian Fascism, economist
Pitigliani (1933), took upon himself the task of familiarizing non-Italian readers with
principles of the Corporative State. He acknowledged a significant socialist feature in
the corporate structure of the state:
The function of private enterprise is assessed from the standpoint of public interest, and
hence an owner or director of the business undertaking is responsible before the State for his
production policy. Thus, the State reserves to itself the right to intervene and to take the place of
the individual, should he misuse his rights.
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A prominent representative of the Austrian School of Economics, Ludwig von
Mises ([1949] 2008, 813), straightaway identified Italian Fascism as a “rebuptized edition
of guild socialism.” Murray Rothbard ([2004] 2009, 1273–74) concluded:
All forms of State planning of the whole economy are types of socialism, notwithstanding
the philosophical or esthetic viewpoints of the various socialist camps and regardless whether
they are referred to as “rightists” or “leftists.” Socialism may be monarchical; it may be
proletarian; it may equalize fortunes; it may increase inequality. Its essence is always the same:
total coercive State dictation over the economy.
Although both Fascists and Nazis self-identified their doctrines as belonging to
the left wing, as well as an obvious socialist tilt in the socio-economic structure of Italy
and Germany observed by contemporaries, the left-leaning intellectuals have
vigorously opposed any suggestion that fascism and National Socialism are phenomena
of the left and had a wonderful affinity with the communist regime. Utter denial of the
similarity between far-Left and supposedly far-Right systems has its own fascinating
history and stormy dynamics. In order to trace all the vicissitudes of the struggle within
the European Left, it is necessary to scrutinize episodes of the most turbulence. Periods
of particular interest are divided by the following events of great importance: World
War I, the Bolshevik revolution, the ascent of Fascism in Italy, the rise of Nazism in
Germany, the Spanish Civil War, World War II, and the Cold War. These events forged
general provisions of various leftist currents, crystallizing their opinion on vital issues
of existence.
Before the Great War
Before World War I, the Left movement enjoyed unparalleled development
worldwide, especially in Europe. Perhaps the Left became the most literature-
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productive political movement in the second half of the 19th century and beginning of
the 20th century. They had generated various ideas on how to improve human society.
The Left appreciated observing numerous revolutions, upheavals, strikes, sabotages,
and protests that shook European countries during that period. It gave them fertile
ground to derive various scenarios on what the end of capitalism would look like.
Leftists’ political ideas differed on methods, tactics, and strategies but agreed on the
common enemy—capitalism.
The second half of the 19th century was dominated by the socialist ideas
advanced by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. Marxism was one of the most influential
and revolutionary teachings. It seemed to be an unshakable and intransigent ideology
equipped with the so-called scientific political economy, materialist dialectics, and
historical materialism. Marxism attempted to scrupulously explain the inner
mechanism of human societies’ advances and ways of attaining a bright future. This
teaching brought hard-core revolutionaries together; however, it is erroneous to suggest
that Marxism embraced all of socialism. Instead, Marxism is a particular and extreme
current of socialism called communism. In other words, Marxism is undoubtedly leftist,
but the Left is not entirely Marxist. Marxism did not invent socialist thought, which
originated centuries earlier and is known by the collective name “Utopian Socialism.”
Marxism’s founders initiated the communist camp and clearly distinguished
themselves from contemporary socialists, whom they contemptuously called “so-called
socialists.”
Engels (1969, 81–97) identified three categories of socialists: reactionary socialists,
bourgeois socialists, and democratic socialists. The first category included adherents of
feudal society who clearly saw all the evils of capitalism but wanted to cure society by
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restoring the old aristocracy’s rule, the guild masters, and the small producers. Engels
added them to the list of enemies of communists, as he understood that they wanted
something that is utterly impossible—to reverse the history of societal evolution.
The bourgeois socialists intended to keep capitalism but improve it through
comprehensive welfare reforms. Engels (1969, 81-79) emphasized that “Communists
must unremittingly struggle against these bourgeois socialists because they work for
the enemies of communists and protect the society which communists aim to
overthrow.”
According to Engels, the last group—democratic socialists—shared the majority
of communists’ political objectives but stopped short of accepting all provisions of
Marxist doctrine. They were satisfied with achieving goals within the framework of
social democracy. Communists engaged in partnerships with democratic socialists and
tried to convince them to embrace communist thought in its entirety.
Hence, socialism included many currents that were hostile to each other to a
more considerable degree than to their common enemy—the democratic capitalist state.
Marxists suggested quite radical ideas and treated their fellow socialists as politically
illiterate dreamers equipped with neither strong theory nor a plan to reach a socialist
paradise. Those who dared to cooperate with the bourgeoisie were uncompromisingly
designated as enemies of the socialist idea. Nevertheless, even representatives of non-
conformist socialist currents did not universally accept Marxism.
Russian revolutionary anarchist Mikhail Bakunin expressed heavy criticism of
Marx’s provisions during the First International Congress. Namely, Bakunin (1873)
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disagreed with Marx on the proletarian dictatorship and the role of the state. He
accused Marx of being an authoritarian and a proponent of statism:
The theory of statism, as well as that of so-called revolutionary dictatorship,” is based
on the idea that a privileged elite,consisting of those scientists and doctrinaire
revolutionistswho believe that theory is before social experience,should impose their
preconceived scheme of social organization on the people. The dictatorial power of this
learned minority is concealed by the fiction of a pseudo-representative government,
which presumes to express the will of the people.
There were further disagreements between Marx and Bakunin.1 Bakunin’s
critiques did not influence Marx whatsoever; irreconcilable differences resulted in a
schism between these two revolutionary movements—Marxism and anarchism. Shortly
after that, The First International was split, and both branches dissolved in several
years.
The lesson to be learned and remembered is that left-wing intellectual circles
were vibrant, yet at the same time, a hostile environment. Despite the fact that the Left
has only one common enemy—capitalism—intractable contradictions in the tactics and
strategies of its overthrow have made them implacable adversaries. Even though the
bourgeoisie was their openly proclaimed enemy, they were treated less harshly than
opponents from their Left circles, who were treated like vile traitors. History has shown
that as soon as one of the left-wing parties gains real power, it immediately persecutes
its fellow socialists from other factions.
1 Bakunin suggested that secret revolutionary societies should become hotbeds of the revolutionary
uprising, whereas Marx flatly rejected this proposition. Finally, they contested the role of the peasants in
a revolutionary movement. Bakunin argued that they might play a leading role, but Marx insisted that
the proletariat should be designated as the sole agent of change.
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Revolutionaries were very impatient people; they wanted the socialist revolution to
happen during their lifetime. As nothing of the sort succeeded by the end of the 19th
century, revolutionaries became puzzled and asked themselves whether Marx’s theory
adequately reflected historical processes.
On the academic front, the prominent economists of the time, representing the
Austrian economic school, had pointed out profound contradictions in Marxian
economic theory. Thus, Böhm-Bawerk repudiated the fundamental provisions of
Marxian economics in his dedicated work Karl Marx and the Close of His System (Kelley,
1948). He showed that commodities were not exchanged in proportion to the amount of
labor incorporated in them, as Marx thought. This fact alone invalidated Marxian “laws
of value and surplus-value,” which meant that subsequent theoretical implications were
gravely jeopardized, as well.
Furthermore, countries of liberal democracy had not been developing according
to the Marxian doctrine, either. The Marxian dichotomous model of modern capitalist
society, consisting of just two opposing classes—proletariat and bourgeoisie—did not
correspond to reality. Marx overlooked the middle class’s growth trend, which has
become the dominant stratum of society in industrialized countries. Besides, the
division of the nation into classes corresponding to the factors of production makes
sense only in the Marxist framework and does not have any value outside his theory
(Mises [1951] 1962, 342-369).
Marxism entered a period of crisis that was characterized by numerous efforts by
the Left to improve Marx’s teachings. The significant revision of Marxism took place
within its narrow circle of leading intellectuals, such as members of the Fabian society
and German socialist Eduard Bernstein. Bernstein was a personal friend and companion
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of Friedrich Engels. He considered himself a disciple of Marx and Engels and thought
that it was his duty not to “everlastingly repeat the words of their masters;” instead, he
insisted that “the further development and elaboration of the Marxist doctrine must
begin with a criticism of it” (Bernstein 1907).
Bernstein pointed out that the modern capitalist society was continually
improving the population’s wellbeing, and as a result, the class struggle would assume
diminished importance. He criticized Marx’s argument regarding concentration and
centralization of production and wealth, stating that small and medium-sized
businesses are not disappearing but rather flourishing along with large industries. He
argued that the quantitative and qualitative characteristics of the proletariat changed
and did not correspond to the picture which Marx observed in the middle of the 19th
century in Europe. Given the growing prosperity and diminishing class antagonism of
the modern capitalist economy, Bernstein inferred that elements of the social
superstructure (state, culture, ethics, art) were significant forces that influence an
economic basis and together would work out a resulting vector of the historical process.
Bernstein envisioned that evolution in societal ethics would develop conditions in
which it would be morally inappropriate for entrepreneurs to continue the unjust
exploitation of the proletariat. Socialism would be brought about by the humanity of the
majority of people who adopt socially oriented laws.
Bernstein’s “reformism” was not well-accepted by his colleagues and
companions within the German Social Democratic Party and socialists abroad.
Contradictions with orthodox Marxism were vivid and irreconcilable, which resulted in
the prolonged intellectual Bernstein-Kautsky debates that took place from after Engels’
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death in 1895 until 1905 and were observed with undying interest by a vast audience of
European socialists.
Kautsky countered Bernstein's propositions from the strictly orthodox Marxist
position. He insisted on the continuing trend of centralization and concentration of
capital, worsening of capitalist crises, and impossibility of political rapprochement
between labor and capital. Formally, Bernstein lost a battle because the leaders of the
German Social-Democratic party—Bebel and Liebknecht—had chosen Kautsky’s
position. Bernstein miraculously escaped expulsion from the party despite many calls
for it.
However, in reality, he was a winner in a broader sense after all, as most Western
European socialist parties had accepted Bernstein’s doctrine of conformist “reformism”
in their practices. They accepted the scenario in which capitalism would run for a long
time and that the best thing to do would be to cooperate and peacefully debate issues in
the democratic parliament and find every opportunity to inject a dose of socialism into
the body of capitalism.
Meanwhile, the Marxist flag was raised by the revolutionaries in the Russian
Empire. Right away, Lenin had declared that the Marxist movement was undergoing
“revisionism from the right,” and thus explicitly pushed reformists to the right-wing of
the Left. He accused them of the most awful wickedness—betrayal of the proletariats’
primary interests by seeking cooperation with the bourgeoisie within the walls of
parliaments. Lenin notably linked reformists as proponents of the petty bourgeoisie
(Lenin, 1973a, 29-39).
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Simultaneously, France and Italy’s far-Left developed a revolutionary
syndicalism movement that despised liberalism and social democracy. The proponents
of revolutionary syndicalism revised Marx beyond recognition; there remained only
one rational process: the class struggle. Georges Sorel ([1908] 2014) and his disciples
rejected Marx’s economy, historical materialism, and philosophy. Instead, they adopted
a theory of myths that would forge the will to revolution. The original myth that they
worked on was that of the general strike. It was considered to be a united and
organizing motive force of the revolution, and violence became its instrument. Contrary
to social-democracy, revolutionary syndicalists belong to a non-conformist movement
dreaming of a revolution that will dismantle a democratic state by the force of
proletarian violence, contrary to evolutionary changes favored by social-democracy.
They preached the “new school” of socialism, which was anti-Marxist, anti-materialist,
and anti-positivist.
Some revolutionary syndicalists rejected Marxian internationalism and the
proletariat as a singleton agent of the socialist revolution. They adopted a doctrine of
political nationalism—usually in the form of anti-Semitism—that added a national-
syndicalist flavor to the socialist movement. They saw the patriotic and revolutionary
elements of the whole nation as agents of the future social revolution. National
syndicalism deviated from the internationalist provision of Marxism, which found its
further development during World War I.
By the beginning of World War I, the Left constituted a motley conglomerate of
movements that often held utterly opposite ideas about the development of society.
They argued vigorously with each other about which thoughts were correct in
achieving socialism. The only common ground was an antagonistic attitude toward
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capitalism and the democratic state. The democratic government was an open enemy,
while the conformist evolutionary path to socialism was often seen as a betrayal of
socialist goals. Extreme-left revolutionaries branded those groups as having gone to the
Right.
Nevertheless, the majority of European Left parties adopted social-democratic
“reformism” and “opportunism.” These parties had constituted the mainstream of the
Second International.
The Great War
The Great War caused another decisive split among the socialist currents, which
widened the gap between them. At that time, the main problem was the confrontation
between nationalism and internationalism. In his Communist Manifesto, Marx declared
that the proletariat has no country and must unite against the capitalists (Marx 1969, 98–
137). Since then, Marxism has been associated with internationalism as its central
feature, along with the theory of surplus value and historical materialism. Gindler
(2019) gave vivid examples of the fact that the founders of Marxism were not
internationalists but rather racists and xenophobes by modern standards. Marxism’s
internationalist feature was a forced measure because Marxist theory advocated for
simultaneous socialist changes throughout the civilized world. Marx and Engels
explained the universal character of the socialist revolution as being primarily due to
the universal, i.e., international nature of capitalism. Engels (1969, 81–97) elucidated:
By creating the world market, big industry has already brought all the peoples of the
Earth, and especially the civilized peoples, into such close relation with one another that
none is independent of what happens to the others.
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Therefore, Engels acknowledged the truism that capital does not have borders
and encourages an international division of labor and cooperation. So it was capitalism
and the capitalists that were naturally international. The proletariat just followed their
example in creating international institutions that represented labor, which was mostly
local in Marx’s time. Therefore, internationalism was not assured by proletarians’
exceptional moral quality that opposed nationalism and bigotry and exhibited
unconditional love for all people on earth. It was a necessary condition for the Marxist
theory to be logically consistent. Nevertheless, Marxists incorporated the theme of
internationalism into their ideology, which it continues to be part of to this day.
In reference to World War I, the question of internationalism was formulated as
follows: Should the Left support their own country or not? The answer to this question
shook the entire Left movement, as numerous members of the European Socialist
parties supported a defense of the national states. That was another deviation from
Marxist teachings. The grievances of orthodox Marxists finally reached a boiling point.
Lenin (1974b, 35–41) summarized those objections as follows:
Advocacy of class collaboration; abandonment of the idea of a socialist revolution and
revolutionary methods of struggle; adaptation to bourgeois nationalism; losing sight of
the fact that the borderlines of nationality and country are historically transient; making a
fetish of bourgeois legality; renunciation of the class viewpoint and the class struggle, for
fear of repelling the broad masses of the population(meaning the petty bourgeoisie)
such, doubtlessly, are the ideological foundations of opportunism.
This question had redefined a political spectrum within the Left cluster. Lenin
noted that “during the two odd years of the war, the international socialist and
working-class movement in every country has evolved three trends” (Lenin 1974c, 93–
106): the social-chauvinists, the “Centre,” and true internationalists.
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Lenin designated social-chauvinist socialists as “our class enemy.” He claimed
they had “gone over to the bourgeoisie.” This group included members of social-
democratic parties as well as revolutionary syndicalists that had already formed a
national-syndicalist movement. At the same time, Lenin acknowledged that they made
up most of the official leaders of the Social-Democratic parties in all countries. The
Centre favored pacifism against the split, for the unity in the workers’ movement,
including social chauvinists. The Centre was not good enough for the hard-core
Marxists, either:
The crux of the matter is that the Centreis not convinced of the necessity for a
revolution against one's own government; it does not preach revolution; it does not carry
on a wholehearted revolutionary struggle; and in order to evade such a struggle it resorts
to the tritest ultra-‘Marxist’-sounding excuses (Lenin 1974c, 93106).
The third faction was characterized by its complete break with both social-
chauvinists and the Centre. It adhered to the revolutionary struggle against its own
imperialist government and its own imperialist bourgeoisie. This faction tried to
convert imperialistic war into a civil war against its own government. Marx did not
consider or underestimated that national interests were much more vital than class
interests, especially during a war. It was naïve, if not imprudent, to expect the citizens
of one country that was faced with a military intervention to reach a peer class in
another antagonist country and unite with it. However, the Bolsheviks of Russia and
the Spartacus League in Germany demanded precisely such an attitude from other
workers’ movements.
14
The difference between Marxism, Social Democracy, and social chauvinism
became wider and more irresoluble. Such profound disagreements resulted in the
dismantling of the Second International in 1916.
Therefore, the Great War differentiated the Left cluster of the political spectrum
into three parts: the minority of orthodox Marxists on the extreme Left, the pacifist
center, and social-chauvinists on the right. It is worth emphasizing that this division
had occurred only within the Left’s cluster of the entire political spectrum. These
factions constituted the leftist movement, regardless of the orthodox Marxists’
negativity toward the center and the right-leaning currents.
It is clear that the revolutionary minority of the extreme left had brushed off the
rest of the more numerous socialist currents as opportunists and treacherous entities,
thus alien to the interests of the working class. As such, they were labeled agents of the
petty bourgeoisie.
Bolshevik Revolution
On October 25, 1917, the Bolsheviks scored a crucial moral victory against other
currents of the socialist movement by organizing and leading the “Great October
Socialistic Revolution” in Russia. It was the first country in the world where the Left
overturned capitalism. Marxism-Leninism became the first Left philosophy that was
institutionalized. They managed not only to take power but also to defend it in the
ensuing bloody civil war. That victory pushed Bolsheviks to the forefront of the socialist
movement.
The Bolsheviks portrayed themselves not only as leading theorists but also as
skillful practitioners of Marx’s teachings. Therefore, all their critiques of other factions
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of the socialist movements became not merely validated but also indisputable. In their
own view, only the Bolsheviks and their followers in Europe were dedicated
representatives and defenders of proletarian interests, and the rest were collaborators
with the bourgeoisie.
The rift between the social chauvinists and Bolsheviks became even more
extensive and the attitude toward them even harsher during a Russian Civil War and
Entente intervention (October 1917– October 1922). As many social chauvinists were
part of Entente troops, they were forced to fight against the Red Army of the
Bolsheviks. In the “Invitation to the First World Congress,” Trotsky (2003a) specifically
outlined his attitude to the social chauvinists:
Towards the social chauvinists, who everywhere at critical moments come out in arms
against the proletarian revolution, no other attitude but a ceaseless struggle is possible.
As to the Centre,” the tactics of splitting away the revolutionary elements and ruthlessly
criticizing and exposing the leaders.
Thus, the Bolsheviks actively strengthened the far-Left flank of socialists and led
an offensive against more numerous socialist factions. The Bolsheviks’ propaganda
firmly established Marxism-Leninism as a valid and indisputable continuation of
Marx’s theory. They proudly occupied the far-Left wing of the political spectrum,
shifting all others to the Right. As for anarchists, they looked down on them as a
movement without a coherent historical development theory. The Bolsheviks intended
to rule alone and did not hesitate to eliminate all other parties and factions that did not
share their perspective. Thus, the representatives of other leftist parties and party
groups—Mensheviks, Constitutional Democrats (Cadets), Social Revolutionaries (SR),
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Anarchists—were repressed, exiled, or executed in the course of the Bolsheviks’ power
grab.
The Bolsheviks physically eliminated ideological opposition in their country and
sought to impose their perspective on the world labor movement. In 1919, the
Bolsheviks created the Communist International, or Comintern, to teach other leftists
how to prepare socialist revolutions and spread communism throughout the world. The
Comintern posed the problem of internationalism versus nationalism as a marker used
to denote which political philosophy was genuinely socialist and which was fraudulent
from the point of view of communism.
March on Rome
The Bolsheviks’ magnificence did not last for a long time from a historical
perspective. In just five years, Fascists took power in Italy by utilizing completely
different means. Their revolutionary path was not Marxist at all. There was no bloody
coup d'état either; numerous violent acts and protests culminated in the grotesque
March on Rome, after which Mussolini was appointed prime minister. He had not even
formulated a coherent Fascist doctrine at that time but took as a basis the revolutionary
ideas of syndicalists and national-syndicalists. The core of his movement were social-
chauvinists by Lenin’s definition — veterans of the Great War. However, Mussolini
managed to form a vast coalition around the Fascist movement. There were all three
factions of the Italian Left: social-chauvinists, centrists, and some extreme leftists; he
won the support of the middle class and received funding from Entente and some
capitalists.
17
The non-Marxist overturn of capitalism undermined the Bolsheviks’ authority on
understanding and leading historical processes. Marxist-Leninists started to erect
philosophical defensive barriers. Their general provisions toward the Fascist movement
in the early 20th century were as follows. If Fascism were an authentic proletarian
revolution, then the working class would completely expropriate means of production
and establish a dictatorship of the proletariat. If this did not happen, then the
proletariats would continue to be exploited. As such, Fascism had not ousted
capitalism.
On the contrary, smart capitalists employed a vanguard of petty bourgeoisie —
Fascists — and successfully defended their power. Fascists were not self-sustained
players but rather fooled “reformists” and “national-syndicalists” that betrayed the
proletariat. They were leftists, but picaresque leftists, those on the right side of the Left
clusters: various followers of social-chauvinists and some centrists attached to them. As
the petty bourgeoisie was not a distinct class, it could not keep power for a long time
and was destined to give it up to either the proletariat or the bourgeoisie.
In 1922, Trotsky weighed the possibility that the Mussolini regime could be
overthrown “by the régime of the proletarian dictatorship.” He advised Italian
Communists “to begin to disintegrate the plebeian and especially the working-class
sector of Fascist support and to fuse ever broader proletarian masses under the partial
and general slogans of defense and offense” (Trotsky, 2003b).
Trotsky’s desperate exhortation was in vain. Italian Communists were defeated
in the fierce and bloody internecine struggle of the Left. There remained no other
proletarian masses for the communists to appeal to. The majority of the working class
had joined the Fascist movement. Ultimately, the Fascists unified the Italian Left, either
18
voluntarily or by eliminating the resistance. Fascists purged their opposition and
created a one-party, one-trade-union system, as the Bolsheviks did in Russia. Both non-
Marxist and Marxist currents of socialism achieved dictatorial regimes. The only
difference was that the Fascist regime stood in the position of nationalism, while
communists continued to claim their internationalist stance. As far as property rights
were concerned, Fascists allowed private property de jure, and the Bolsheviks partially
restored market relations in the course of the New Economic Policy from 1922 to 1928.
Nevertheless, communists insisted that they were genuinely Left and that Fascists were
the depraved flavor of socialism, manipulated by the bourgeoisie.
The Policy of Social-Fascism
Throughout the late 1920s, Marxist-Leninists continued to blame both Social
Democracy and Fascists for being the primary support of capitalism in the working
class. They stubbornly insisted that Social Democracy and Fascism were the two
incarnations of bourgeoisie exploitation; the former was masked, and the latter was
naked. Thus, European Social Democracy was even more devilish than open Fascism as
Social Democrats tried to camouflage the movement's real objectives. In an article titled
“Concerning the International Situation,” published on September 20, 1924, Stalin
wrote: “Social Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism ... They are not
antipodes; they are twins” (Stalin 1954e, 293–314).
Comintern began a political campaign of depicting all Social Democrats as social
Fascists. This rivalry was a continuation of a class war advocated by Lenin against
“reformists” and “opportunists.” Instead of cooperation with other working-class
currents, communists chose a path of confrontation. Stalin accused Western Social
Democracy of “imbuing the workers with skepticism, with distrust in their own
19
strength, with disbelief in the possibility of achieving victory over the bourgeoisie by
force” (Stalin, 1954a).
The main issue with Social Democrats was that they had a majority of working-
class support; two important countries—Great Britain and Germany—already had
Social Democrats in the government, and Mussolini ruled Italy. All of them were
outgrowths of the non-Marxist theory of “reformism” and “revisionism.” Communism
was not only becoming a minority; their “scientific” method did not hold water very
well.1 Besides, the communist revolutions in Germany (1918–1919), Hungary (1918–
1920), and China (1925–1927) had failed. Marxists figured out that if the trend
continued, Marxism would be marginalized even further; the influence of communism
on the working-class movement would be reduced to zero.
It was a struggle for survival and relevance for the Marxist-Leninists of the
Soviet Union and Comintern. Furthermore, Stalin accepted the role of a leading Marxist
theoretician after purging most of the independent-thinking “old” Bolsheviks. Quite
unexpectedly, in 1927, he announced at the Fifteenth Congress of the Communist Party
of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks) that the period of "capitalist stabilization" had ended,
and the next, the so-called "third period" had begun. Stalin (1954b) asserted:
Whereas a couple of years ago it was possible and necessary to speak of the ebb of the
revolutionary tide in Europe, today we have every ground for asserting that Europe is
entering a period of new revolutionary upsurge; to say nothing of the colonies and
dependent countries, where the position of the imperialists is becoming more and more
catastrophic.
1 The Russian Revolution itself was a sort of falsification of Marxism as a science, because it occurred
before the formation of a proletarian class of industrialized workersas opposed to after. This
contradicts Marx’s own system of “scientific socialism.”
20
That period was described as a time of intense turmoil in capitalist countries and
their colonies that would result in a new imperialistic war. As a devoted Leninist, he
envisioned that a new war would produce yet another revolutionary situation.
Communists could seize an opportunity to organize a revolt and take power as the
Bolsheviks had in Russia. The next step would be a dictatorship of the proletariat, and
Marxists did not intend to share power with anyone, including Social-Democratic
parties. Their mode of operation was to rule alone (identical to Fascism).
Thus, they preventatively laid a groundwork of extricating working-class masses
from Social Democracy in anticipation of a future struggle. Comintern demanded that
its national sections carry out attacks on other groups in workers’ movements. Those
attacks were not limited to pure polemics. Comintern suggested physical intimidation
of non-communists and urged the initiation of armed uprisings.
Comintern held that Social Democracy was the direct support of capitalism in the
working class and the chief enemy of communism. All other trends in the working class
(anarchism, anarcho-syndicalism, guild socialism, etc.) were, in essence, varieties of
Social Democracy (Stalin, 1954c). In 1930, Stalin proclaimed from the highest tribune
during the Sixteenth Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (Bolsheviks)
that Social-Democrats were social-Fascists (Stalin, 1955a). As Draper (1969) pointed out,
“The theory of social-fascism was a rationalization of Communist dictatorship in the
guise of rationalizing everyone else into a variety of fascism.”
In the fierce internecine war inside the Left cluster, Communists attempted to
fight everyone and everywhere. This fight consequently widened a gap between the left
and the right flanks of the Left conglomerate.
21
Rising of National Socialism
After World War I, another trend of non-Marxist socialism arose in Germany,
namely National Socialism. Whereas Italian Fascism inherited the vast theoretical
provisions of the syndicalists and further developed them by introducing corporatism
and totalitarianism, the National Socialists of Germany introduced a social democracy
program on steroids, with the inclusion of aggressively nationalistic, anti-Semitic, and
racist positions.
Hitler’s nationalism and racism significantly differed from the nationalism that
the world was accustomed to at that time. Traditional nationalism found its expression
in a keen sense of patriotism, loyalty to the country, shared language, culture, and
history, and desire for the country’s own well-being. German National Socialism was
based on biological determinism. Hitler endorsed a militant, offensive, and genocidal
nationalist theory of the Aryan race’s superiority over others.
In the beginning, the Nazi theory was not taken seriously by Hitler's
contemporaries. In 1934, at the Seventeenth Party Congress, Stalin (1955b) jokingly said:
It is well known that ancient Rome looked upon the ancestors of the present-day
Germans and French in the same way as the representatives of the superior racenow
look upon the Slav races. It is well known that ancient Rome treated them as an inferior
race,as barbarians,destined to live in eternal subordination to the superior race,to
great Rome,” and, between ourselves be it said, ancient Rome had some grounds for
this, which cannot be said of the representatives of the superior raceof today.
(Thunderous applause.)
At the same congress, Stalin officially labeled Fascism as a “bourgeois-nationalist
trend." Stalin did not distinguish between Italian Fascism and German National
22
Socialism in front of congress delegates. He called German National Socialism
"fascism," using the same ideological and propaganda clichés that the Bolsheviks used
earlier to refer to any non-communist parties and movements, to some degree because
of the similarities of emerging totalitarian states and parallels concerning Mussolini and
Hitler’s vicious tactics toward the opposition.1 Of course, Stalin thought that the
Bolsheviks’ atrocities toward opponents were well justified.
As for the “bourgeois” substance of the economy, Stalin applied Marxist
reasoning, pointing out that private property in Fascist and Nazi states was not
socialized according to Marx’s recipe. During an interview with Roy Howard, Stalin
(1954d) explained:
The foundation of the [socialist] society is public property: state, i.e., national and co-
operative, collective farm property. Neither Italian fascism nor German National
Socialismhas anything in common with such a society. Primarily, this is because the
private ownership of the factories and works, of the land, the banks, transport, etc., has
remained intact, and, therefore, capitalism remains in full force in Germany and Italy.
In fact, Italian Fascists and German National Socialists found even more hideous
ways to socialize private property than Marxist’s straightforward expropriation. De jure,
private property was allowed but de facto businesspeople were deprived of the free
commodity market, labor market, and international money market; dissident thoughts
and actions were corrected by Gestapo and similar state agencies. Ludwig von Mises
(1962) very persuasively pointed out that private property is a mere name in the
totalitarian planned economy:
1 Recall, that according to Bolsheviks, all non-communist trends of socialism were a variety of Social-
Democracy, and the latter was a moderate wing of Fascism.
23
If the State takes the power of disposal from the owner piecemeal, by extending its
influence over production; if its power to determine what direction production shall be is
increased, then the owner is left at last with nothing except the empty name of ownership, and
the property has passed into the hands of the State.
Gindler (2020) generalized that non-Marxian flavors of socialism, such as Italian
Fascists and German National Socialists, utilized collectivization of consciousness and
wealth redistribution as the main paths to socialism. They intended to socialize
individuals before collectivizing the economy.
Stalin refused to acknowledge that the National Socialist German Workers’ Party
(N.S.D.A.P.) was indeed a party of socialist crusaders. He disingenuously stated that
German Fascism was “wrongly called national-socialism — wrongly because the most
searching examination will fail to reveal even an atom of socialism in it” (Stalin, 1955b).
Entirely on the contrary, Hitler’s 25-point program and his future activities had all the
“socialist” atoms and one alien bit called Nazism (The Program of N.S.D.A.P., 1920). It
was not a far-Left program of Marxism, but it was a social-chauvinist program of the
Left “reformism.” Indeed, Hitler did not explicitly call for an outright expropriation of
the means of production, but neither did Social-Democrats. The “National Socialist
German Workers’ Party” was not a right-wing party, neither imagined nor real. It
conducted a large-scale socialistic reform according to its leftist platform and identical
to the programs of the most European Left parties with just a subtle caveat: Nazis were
building socialism exclusively for the super-race of Aryans.
By 1935, communists abandoned their policy of Social-Fascism as their war on
Social-Democracy had backfired in a major way. Within just three months after
acquiring power, Nazis officially outlawed Communist and Social-Democratic Parties
24
and crushed trade unions. Like Mussolini before him, and Bolsheviks before Mussolini,
Hitler eliminated opposition and organized a dictatorship of his party. Communists
stopped calling German Social-Democrats Social-Fascists, for an obvious reason: there
was no more Social-Democracy in Germany. The only “Fascists,” the only legal party
remaining, was the non-Marxian “National Socialist German Workers’ Party"
(N.S.D.A.P.).
Marxists added, crystallized, and inflated — precisely and consistently — one
critical dimension to the Fascism definition — nationalism and racism. Ultimately, they
proclaimed Fascism as a proponent of capital and equated Fascism with Nazism. It was
a logical continuation of Lenin’s provisions toward social chauvinists of being a)
proponents of “revisionism,” thus, bourgeoisie elements in the workers' movement and
b) nationalists, deniers of the prevalence of international interests above national ones.
The implication of this labeling was tremendous. Henceforth, the main
characteristic of Fascism became its severe bigotry and connection to the bourgeoisie.
Consequently, laypersons did not look carefully at the similarities of the socio-economic
totalitarianism of Fascist, Nazi, and communist states. The only thing people saw in
Fascist and Nazi states was nationalistic chauvinism. The only thing observers saw in
the Soviet Union was the proclaimed friendship of peoples. Subsequently, capitalism,
the Right, was associated with nationalism because Fascism was linked to capitalism in
Marxist propaganda. It was unscientific circular reasoning that had nothing to do with
reality. Comintern propaganda broadcasted across the entire civilized world that
Fascism was the most vicious enemy of all working people; Fascism was the power of
finance capital itself; Fascism was unbridled chauvinism and an initiator of predatory
war (Dimitrov, 1935).
25
This bigotry dimension served as a pretext to shift Fascist and Nazi ideology
more to the Right in Stalinist political science. Instead of being on the right side within
the Left cluster, these doctrines were forcefully and purposely pushed outside the Left
group after 1933. Of course, this shift was imaginary and emotional in nature. It was a
protest of the orthodox Marxists and Social-Democrats disgusted with living and
associating with pure evil. It was a dissent of losers who were defeated in the Left’s
internecine struggle. Also, the far-Left and center-Left refused to lose their trademark as
internationalists. They had to push Fascists and Nazis far from their legitimate position
in the political spectrum.
Marxists won in Russia, but non-Marxian currents of socialism took the upper
hand in Italy and Germany. Evolutionary socialists were numerous in Great Britain and
France; they did not rule singlehandedly but shared seats in the parliaments with other
factions and had their members in the executive branch of the government. All three
dictatorial regimes—Communist Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany—
eradicated opposite socialist currents in their respective countries and transferred their
fight to the world arena. As a result, Social-Democracy was weakened because the most
prominent party, the key repository of the European socialist thoughts - the German
Social Democratic Party - was crushed. Their colleagues elsewhere in Europe seemed to
be irresolute and restricted in their struggle by parliamentary rules. Communists
formally expelled Fascists and National Socialists from the socialist camp. Therefore, the
Bolsheviks naturally took on the role of real socialists, internationalists, who defended
the working people of the entire world, using the Comintern as a stronghold of
influence.
26
Spanish Civil War
The interwar period is characterized by a vigorous reshuffling of alliances
between different countries and political movements. Such dynamics were rooted in the
Versailles treaty that was not fair to some winners nor to the loser of WWI. Germany
was punished with colossal and humiliating sanctions that undermined it economically,
financially, and militarily, to an extent that no civilized nation would endure for a long
time. France simply wanted to guarantee its economic and military dominance in
Europe by weakening Germany to an unprecedented level. The minor allies of
Entente—Italy and Japan—were deceived by the Western powers, as they did not gain
the promised treasure of the war. At the same time, neither England nor France gave up
their colonial possessions but prevented their junior partners from acquiring promised
territory. The deep resentment harbored against France and England made itself felt in
the foreign affairs of Italy, Germany, and Japan in the interwar period.
In 1934, relations between Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were turbulent.
Mussolini was afraid of a potential German-Austrian union bordering Italy that could
threaten Italy’s minor territorial gains after WWI. Italy’s political and military actions
on the frontier with Austria forced Germany to cancel plans for the immediate
Anschluss of Austria. In 1935, Italy joined Britain and France in the Stresa Front, which
was created as a watchdog entity that was supposed to prevent Germany from violating
the post-WWI Versailles treaty and ensure Austrian independence.
In the same year, Italy began its conquest of Abyssinia with the tacit consent of
France and England. Germany secretly supported Abyssinia, hoping that Italy would be
embroiled in this war for a long time. The Soviet Union, proclaimed internationalists,
supplied Italy with oil and petroleum, thus literally and figuratively fueling the
27
invasion. To Mussolini’s surprise, the League of Nations imposed economic sanctions
on Italy that estranged Italy from the Western powers. Simultaneously, Great Britain
undermined the Stresa Front by signing a separate naval agreement with Germany
without consulting Italy or France. Therefore, the short-sighted and double-standard
policy of Western governments toward Italy and the expansionist policy of the latter
resulted in Italy’s drift to a closer relationship with Germany and other European
countries that lost in WWI.
In 1935, the Soviet Union sought collaboration with Social Democracy. At the 7th
World Congress of Communist International, it was suggested to fight Fascists and
Nazis with the united force; thus, Comintern adopted a policy of the Popular Front. It
was logically understandable since a one-on-one fight between Communists and Nazis
resulted in the devastating defeat of the former. Ideologically, Marxist internationalism
was overwhelmed by non-Marxist National Socialism and Fascism. In Germany and
Italy, forced national inter-class cooperation had prevailed in the notion of the class
struggle. Communists decided to alter course—dialectically—as they tried to explain
any developmental changes.
Comintern designated Nazi Germany and Imperial Japan as primary enemies of
communists and chief instigators of the war. (Interestingly, Italy was not described in
very harsh terms, probably because of mutually beneficial economic relations between
Italy and the Soviet Union at that time.) In turn, in November 1936, Germany and Japan
signed the anti-Comintern pact, which was directed against the Soviet Union’s interests.
Additionally, in 1936, Italy and German signed the Axis protocol that designated the
Mediterranean as Italy’s sphere of influence. Therefore, in just two years, Italy was
converted from an enemy to an ally of Nazi Germany.
28
Meanwhile, the policy of the Popular Front brought forth its first fruits.
Socialistic governments backed by the Popular Front were elected in France and Spain
in 1936. For Spain, however, the victory was short-lived. Spain had been suffering
through a time of severe calamities, culminating in a civil war in 1936. The Spanish Civil
War was another significant period that disturbed the political spectrum even more.
The Left united anarchists, communists, and socialists in the Popular Front. They scored
a very narrow victory (2%) in the elections. The rest was a broad conglomerate of
parties, including monarchists, CEDA (Confederation of Autonomous right-wing
Groups), and Falangists, which called itself the Nationalist Front. Republicans
contemplated that the struggle was democracy versus Fascism and freedom versus
tyranny; rebels thought they were destined to save “Christian civilization” against “red
hordes” of anarchists and communists (Beevor, 2006).
Tens of thousands of extreme leftists from all over the world gathered in Spain to
fight Nationalists. The former had created several International Brigades, which were
backed by Comintern and the Soviet Union. Trotskyist volunteers did not join the
International Brigades; they created their own paramilitary force, based on P.O.U.M.
(The Workers’ Party of Marxist Unification).
The Spanish Civil War was a battleground not only among Spaniards but also
between the political ambitions of leading European governments. Fascist Italy and
Nazi Germany supported Nationalists. European democracies, as well as the League of
Nations, refrained from involvement in the conflict, utilizing useless pacification
rhetoric.
Mussolini had a grandiose ambition to re-establish the Roman Empire in the
Mediterranean. When Franco asked for help, Mussolini immediately seized the
29
opportunity to be involved in the conflict, which was in the territory of his would-be
empire. Mussolini sought to forestall a communist takeover in Spain and to weaken the
Popular Front government of France. He tried to prevent the potential union of the
Popular Front governments of Spain and France, as they could stand together against
Italy’s ambitions in the Mediterranean. Also, Mussolini hoped that the Nationalists'
victory would result in an eventual eviction of Great Britain from Gibraltar. Germany
tried to solidify its ties with Italy and weaken the relationship between Italy, France,
and Great Britain by drawing Italy into the Spanish Civil War (Knight, 2003).
Neither Italian Fascists nor Nazi Germany could have allied with Republicans
after they purged the far and center Left in their corresponding countries. The
unpleasantness between the far Left and social chauvinists was deep and mutual. Thus,
both found that it was more natural to collude with Falange, which had some Fascist
and nationalist implications in its program and deeds (Rivera, 1934). Another reason for
Fascist and Nazi involvement in the foreign civil war was the necessity to assess new
equipment, techniques, and tactics in preparation for the future World War II. They
used Spain as a military testing ground.
The Soviet Union tried to accomplish several goals as well. These objectives were
preparation for World War II, revenge against Fascists and Nazis, and elimination of
anti-Stalinist Trotskyist groups. The latter purpose was very peculiar. In essence, Stalin
unleashed another war within the Spanish Civil War. Moreover, this was done on top of
the socialist revolution that anarcho-syndicalists managed to superimpose in Spain.
Trotsky intensively criticized the Soviet regime from the left and suggested that
the Soviet Union’s working class would eventually rise, oust Soviet bureaucracy, and
organize the actual proletarian state. For this cause, Trotsky had created the Fourth
30
International in 1938, where he preached a genuine Marxism and methods of helping
the Soviet proletariat smash the Stalinist regime. Trotsky thought that a small example
somewhere else in the East or the West would shake up the scared, demoralized, and
ensnared Soviet working class (Trotsky, 1937). He had high hopes for a revolution in
Spain and his P.O.U.M. loyalists. To counter Trotsky’s actions, Stalin sent the N.K.V.D.
(Soviet secret police) killers to hunt down P.O.U.M. fighters. The N.K.V.D. eliminated
numerous prominent Trotskyists, including the head of the P.O.U.M., Andreas Nin,
thus undermining in part a Popular Front.
Let us recall that just several years earlier, communists undercut European Social
Democracy, paving the way for the Nazis to rise to power. In Spain, communists, yet
again, did not cooperate with the rest of the Left. They shockingly weakened the Left
while they were holding their positions in the trenches against Nationalists. While not
the primary cause, this nevertheless played a subtle role in the Republicans’ loss.
Regardless of Stalin's true intentions, the Popular Front, aided by the Soviets and the
Comintern, was defeated by the Nationalists.
Preparation for World War II revealed the backwardness of Soviet military
tactics, firearms, and technology compared to the Nazis. Soviets could not reach a
collective-security agreement with Great Britain and France, who were engaged in
appeasement policy. Stalin decided to seek peace with Germany just a couple of weeks
after the Spanish Civil War had ended. The result of the negotiations between Nazi
Germany and the Communist Soviet Union was the Nonaggression Pact and secret
protocols, dated August 23, 1939. Both sides became allies, thus postponing their
inevitable and final clash.
31
Immediately, Soviet propaganda no longer conveyed a hostile attitude toward
the National-Socialist state. Nazi Germany became a friendly regime, and the labels
"Nazi" and "Fascist" disappeared from the pages of Pravda. Germany signed lucrative
contracts with the Soviet Union. Hundreds of thousands of railroad cars with strategic
raw materials arrived in Germany from the Soviet Union until the German invasion in
1941.
Why is the Spanish Civil War relevant to our subject on the political spectrum?
First, the entire world saw that Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany did not support
Republicans—the international Left; they openly aided rebels. Even though history
knows many unions form by convenience, in the case of Fascists and Nazis, their policy
was interpreted quite unequivocally by observers. The only conclusion one could derive
from those facts is that Fascists were right-wingers. Second, the extra dimension—
nationalism and racism—prevailed in qualifying who was on the right or the left of the
political spectrum. This dimension outlasted all other criteria; the rest became
irrelevant.
The brown banner of extreme genocidal bigotry was expressly, emotionally, and
artificially hung in front of the world's eyes to cloak very leftist, socialist economic
transformations in Italy and Germany. This banner was critical to blurring undisputable
similarities between the communist Soviet Union, Fascist Italy, and Nazi Germany.
Thus, Fascism and Nazism were driven to the right side of the political spectrum. The
Right did not have time to respond adequately, as World War II had started just five
months after the Spanish Civil War had ended.
32
World War II
World War II was initiated by the two aggressive leftist regimes of Nazi
Germany and the communist Soviet Union on August 1, 1939. For the first two years of
World War II, they were allies. They partitioned Eastern Europe as a sphere of
influence, quickly annexed corresponding territories, and established totalitarian
regimes. Each time, the aggressors congratulated each other on the last victory and even
commemorated their success with a joint military parade in Brest. However, their
friendship was not sincere but forced by the circumstances. Neither regime gave up
their ideas: Nazis intended to expand the Aryan homeland at the expense of Eastern
European territories, and Bolsheviks dreamed of a permanent worldwide communist
revolution, despite Stalin’s thesis about the possibility of building socialism in a single
country. Their clash was inevitable, when the two regimes acquired a common border
after conquering neighboring countries.
On June 22, 1941, Hitler outstripped Stalin and reluctantly (the war on two
fronts), but out of necessity, attacked him first. The Soviet Union assumed the role of an
innocent victim of Nazi aggression. It began to carry out a series of measures to veil its
involvement in inciting World War II. Thus, the Soviets invented a Great Patriotic War
that started on the day of the German invasion, camouflaging the first two years of
mutually beneficial military and economic cooperation with the Nazis.
Retrospectively, the part of Europe annexed by the Soviet Union was explained
as preventive measures to protect those nations from the evil of Nazism. Soviets denied
the existence of the secret protocols of the Ribbentrop-Molotov pact, which outlined the
partitioning of occupied Europe by Germans and Soviets, respectively, until
33
Gorbachev’s time. Communist rulers negated the genocide of Polish officers by Soviet
punitive troops and shifted blame to the Germans’ shoulders.
To everyone’s delight, the Nazis and their allies lost World War II. The Soviet
Union and its Western allies crushed German Nazis, Italian Fascism, and Imperial Japan
in 1945. The whole world was stunned by the number of hideous, inhumane crimes
committed by Nazis. Mass murder and torture were performed on a scale unseen
before. The Holocaust, as well as the genocide of other ethnicities, was
incomprehensible.
As a result, neither the Left nor the Right wanted to have anything in common
with Fascists and Nazis. In people’s minds Fascists and Nazis already occupied the
Right political spectrum after the Spanish Civil War. As such, those regimes were
pushed even more to the Right and began to occupy the artificial ultra-Right spot on the
political spectrum. Perception had become reality.
Communists eventually exacted their revenge: Fascism and Nazism were
destroyed, and Social Democracy disappeared in all countries that were drawn into the
Soviet orbit. The great Churchill could not do much against the progressivist Roosevelt
and the communist Stalin. As a result of the Yalta post-war world partition, millions of
Europeans fell under communist oppression.
It is said that the victors write history. Communists methodically imposed their
political views with the ample help of various leftist intellectuals and sympathizers in
the West. People of Europe appreciated the fact that Soviet troops had captured Berlin
and destroyed the evil in its lair. They readily forgot the U.S.S.R.’s role in inciting the
war and silently agreed upon fixing Fascism on the Right. Soviets and their adherents in
34
the West did their best to camouflage Stalin’s repression and mass murder of his own
people. Existential Nazi evil was placed on the far-Right. No less brutal communist evil,
which covered up its atrocities with the empty words "about world peace," continued to
take a leftist position.
Cold War and Present Day
After the Fascists and Nazis were defeated, the world found itself in another
confrontation. This time, it was a cold war between the free world led by the U.S. and
the communist camp led by the Soviet Union. This conflict had its “hot” outbreaks in
different corners of the world in the form of proxy wars.
During the Cold War, communists used an association between Fascism and the
right wing in their propaganda on a full scale. It is characteristic that the brainwashing
met almost no resistance from the Right. Teachers at high schools and liberal professors
in colleges told pupils and students worldwide that Fascism is an ultra-Right ideology
characterized by extreme nationalism and racism. This was, in essence, Stalin’s political
science. This continues today. Moreover, single voices who disagreed were ridiculed in
predominantly liberal academic circles, mass media, and social networks.
However, after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the Warsaw bloc, many
communists’ dirty secrets were revealed. Thoughtful people realized that communism
has as many dangers as Fascism, if not more. All countries that have practiced
communism have caused more death than Fascist and Nazi states (Courtois et al., 1999).
The oppression of human dignity, torture, and depriving people of elementary human
rights continues in several remaining communist countries. As for nationalism and
racism, communists have skeletons in their closets as well. Faithful Leninists carried out
35
a policy of coerced russification. They closed national schools, newspapers, magazines,
and houses of worship; they repressed Don Cossacks, deported Poles, Ukrainians,
Moldovans, and people from the Baltic states; extradited Volga Germans, Crimean
Tatars, Chechens, and Ingush; starved to death four million Ukrainians during
Holodomor; they were outright anti-Semitic as well. Only Stalin’s death saved Soviet
Jewry from a genocide that would match that of the Nazis. Subsequent communist
leaders continued anti-Semitic policies on a state level, not to mention inciting domestic
anti-Semitism. The free capitalist world fought against the bigoted policy of the Soviets.
Eventually, Jews were allowed to leave the Soviet Union for good.
The crimes of communism are as inhuman as the crimes of Fascism and Nazism.
All three regimes have built totalitarian states, subordinating the individual will to the
collective one. They infringed on private property rights in one way or another. As well
established within the libertarian stripe of political philosophy,
The essential mark of socialism is that one will alone acts. It is immaterial whose will it is.
The director may be an anointed king or a dictator, ruling by virtue of his charisma, he may be a
Führer or a board of Führers appointed by the vote of the people. The main thing is that the
employment of all factors of production is directed by one agency only. One will alone chooses,
decides, directs, acts, gives orders (Mises [1949] 2008, 691-92).
Nevertheless, in modern political science, Fascists and National Socialists are
considered the ultra-Right. The Left is working hard to keep this myth alive. Exposing
this should lead Western Left intellectuals into a state of acute cognitive dissonance. It
will be found that leftist ideology continuously breeds existential evil, which is not alien
to the large-scale genocide of the dissident population. Thus, they prefer to completely
deny the fact that Fascism and Nazism were left-wing phenomena.
36
After the defeat of National Socialism and Fascism, Social-Democracy blossomed
in Western countries, ironically adopting the former regimes’ socio-political decisions.
Aly (2008, 21) claimed that Germany’s post-war government continued to carry out
Hitler’s social policy written in Nazi laws. The author specifically pointed out:
Nazi-era policies paved the way for many postwar reforms, everything from European
Union agricultural policy, joint tax returns for couples, and compulsory liability
insurance for drivers to state child-support allowances, graduated income tax, and the
beginning of environmental conservation. Nazi civil servants drafted the outline for a
pension system that anticipated the one adopted in 1957 by the Federal Republic of
Germany.
Removing the nationalism of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany shows that both
governments were the progenitors of modern European nanny states. Social-Democracy
utilized the same paths to socialism as Fascists and Nazis, that is, wealth redistribution
and collectivization of consciousness. The only difference is that Fascists used a
revolutionary approach by violently altering the state’s nature and structure to speed
up the socialization of the individual. In contrast, Social-Democracy uses an
evolutionary method employing democratic procedures. Every time socialists gain
power, they try to impose different measures to increase wealth redistribution, intensify
state regulation, and assault private property rights.
Evolutionary socialism eventually became the prevailing trend among the Left,
as anarchism and communism are relatively marginal forces. The moderate Left often
used them as a paramilitary wing to promote socialist ideas on their behalf using
intimidation, protest, and riot. Thus, Antifa bases its violent actions on the myth that
Fascism and Nazism are right-wing political philosophies closely associated with
capitalism. Black Lives Matter (B.L.M.) uses a narrative of state racism and targeted
37
police brutality against blacks as the moral justification for their frantic protests. An
essential myth developed by the left is the victimization of various segments of the
population, while the issue of nationalism and racism continues to play an important
ideological role. Modern leftist elites encourage a victim mentality in many strata of the
population, convincing them that the only way to improve their lot is to enforce more
redistributive policies. The secret aim of these leftist elites is to perpetuate the Welfare
State as a means of preserving the Left’s political and economic power.
Conclusion
Socialism was represented by different currents that had very complicated
relationships with each other. Each trend insisted that their path to a “socialist”
paradise was righteous, while all other ideas seemed to betray the interests of the
“oppressed” classes. The most radical elements advocated complete and outright
socialization of private property and consciousness and proudly occupied the far-Left
position in the Left movement’s cluster. They have methodically pushed others to the
Right, thus implying their connection with the bourgeoisie.
The internecine struggle intensified after the formation of non-Marxist, non-
conformist currents of socialism in the early 20th century, which challenged Marxism’s
vital provisions. The acute ideological confrontation over the issue of internationalism
and nationalism on the eve of WWI resulted in an insoluble split between the socialists
that led to the dismantling of the Second International. Marxists stigmatized the
socialists who supported their countries in the war, called them social-chauvinists, and
pushed them even further to the right flank.
38
In the interwar period, communists expelled Fascists and Nazis from the ranks of
socialist movements in their propaganda, as they did not expropriate private ownership
of the means of production according to the Marxist recipe and Bolshevik practice. Also,
the issue of nationalism became a bifurcation point in political philosophies promoted
by Comintern. The ideological contradictions of socialist rivals spilled over into the
world arena in the form of the proxy wars. During the Spanish Civil War (1936–1939),
the entire world observed that socialist internationalists defended Republicans, whereas
Fascists and Nazis supported Nationalists, comprised mostly of right-wing parties. At
this point in time, Fascism and Nazism became firmly associated with the Right in
people’s perception.
In the course of World War II, the Allied forces crushed Fascism and Nazism and
revealed hideous crimes committed by nationalists against humanity. Neither the Right
nor the Left wanted to have anything in common with Fascists and Nazis; the latter
doctrines were forcefully shifted to the ultra-Right wing. As a winner in World War II,
the Soviet Union took the opportunity to rewrite history and promoted Marxism-
Leninism as the only genuine kind of socialism.
During the Cold War, Soviet propaganda successfully brainwashed many
Western intellectuals in terms of Stalinist political science. The artificial placement of
Fascism and Nazism on the Right and employment of nationalism as a factor that
governs the political spectrum polarization found their way into school and university
textbooks.
The truth is, Fascism and National Socialism have always been non-Marxian
flavors of socialism and should occupy the right wing of the Left cluster on the political
spectrum. Their placement on the ultra-Right wing is artificial, unwarranted, and was
39
done as a pure propagandistic measure during the acute internecine struggle among
socialist currents. Nationalism is not a determining factor in the polarization of the
political spectrum. Indeed, xenophobic ideas can be inherent in both Left and Right
ideology. However, the dramatic history of the 20th century showed that overt and
covert nationalism is instead inherent in the Left.
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Book
The world is split today into two hostile camps, fighting each other with 13 the utmost vehemence, Communists and anti-Communists. The magniloquent rhetoric to which these factions resort in their feud obscures the fact that they both perfectly agree in the ultimate end of their programme for mankind's social and economic organization. They both aim at the abolition of private enterprise and private ownership of the means of production and at the establishment of socialism. They want to substitute totalitarian government control for the market economy. No longer should individuals by their buying or abstention from buying determine what is to be produced and in what quantity and quality. Henceforth the government's unique plan alone should settle all these matters. 'Patemal' care of the 'Welfare State' will reduce all people to the status of bonded workers bound to comply, without asking questions, with the orders issued by the planning authority.
Hitler's Beneficiaries
  • Götz Aly
Aly, Götz. 2008. Hitler's Beneficiaries. New York: Holt Paperbacks.
Statism and Anarchy. www.marxists.org
  • Mikhail Bakunin
Bakunin, Mikhail. 1873. Statism and Anarchy. www.marxists.org.
The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939
  • Antony Beevor
Beevor, Antony. 2006. The Battle for Spain. The Spanish Civil War 1936-1939. London: Weidenfeld & Nicolson.
The Black Book of Communism
  • Stephane Courtois
Courtois, Stephane, et al. 1999. The Black Book of Communism. Harvard University Press.
The Ghost of Social-Fascism
  • Theodore Draper
Draper, Theodore. 1969. "The Ghost of Social-Fascism." Commentary, https://www.commentarymagazine.com/articles/theodore-draper/the-ghost-of-social-fascism/.