Talk:Fascism/Archive 11

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What this is all about

Andy and others do not fool me for one minute. The Word "Fascism" is a tool of propaganda to beat their oppenents into submission by saying it is of the right. I read the books, Elements of Socialism by Spargo of l925 and I have read the book, One World by John Kiang l993?. Do you wonder why Hitler said, "We are the executors of Marxism stripped of its Jewish Talmudic influences". What does he mean by "stripped of its Jewish Talmudic influences". What did Sorel, Proudhon, and others dislike about Marxism. It's internationalism, and pacifism. These leftists want to use Fascism in order to herd people into their globalization. Spargo talks of the Socialists as building a "World unity that is older than Christianty". John Kiang, who is also leftist, says that internationalism comes from Karl Marx. It is the Jewish influence in all this that makes it international.

Fascism, for them, can not be defined. They don't want it to be because it is a tool of propaganda in order to march all into a World Unity.

Don't pull the wool over my eyes. I know what is going on. You can not fool me. If you want to be internationalists that's fine by me. But what is not fine, is you're trying to manipulate Fascism so that you can use it as a tool of propaganda.

What Andy and others want *"is to re-interpret"* Fascism according to *"modern"* sensibilities and *"mould"* Fascism in their *"likeness"*. This is called Revisionism. Revisionism according to Marxist ideology in order to beat their opponents and scare everyone away from nationalism. They don't want to Fascism as the Fascist see themselves, They want to *"redefine"* it. Andy says this all the time.

They will never admit that Fascism is leftist. It has many parts to it. It is REVOLUTIONARY. They can't admit that because that is "leftist" character. It is a ANTI-MATERIALIST REVISION of Marxism. Can't allow that either. They only thing they point to is the NATIONALIST character of Fascism. But who says nationalism is rightist if it has always occured in human history everywhere? Only Marxists define nationalism as rightist. Like they define anyone who opposes them as "reactionary". Final point, They will not say "Fascism" is "FUTURIST" because that is leftist character too. Proudhon and Sorel are rightists, right? The only rightist influence in Fascism is Mauras and Action Francaise. But he wasn't an orthodox Christian and he was confused thinker like the rest of these jokers, Proudhon and Soret, et al. are WHEELER 14:39, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

WHEELER still doesn't get it. Some time ago I asked him several questions about his apporach (now long archived, I am sure) which he never, ever answered. That must be because he has no answer. It is clear that he is capable of doing the most literal research, but no critical thinking at all. At this point, I see no grounds for even paying attention to him. Slrubenstein

your *"critical"* thinking is revisionism pure and simpleWHEELER 14:50, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Since you all are experts, please define and give me sources that say Nationalism is rightist. Rightist has always meant Monarchy. Now, who defined nationalism as rightist? Can someone answer me? Has some Monarchist stood forward in his writings and said, "Monarchists are nationalists and therefore, nationalists are rightists? Is there any reference to this? Who defined nationalism. I know Barras coined the term National socialist? But who defined nationalism as rightist?WHEELER 15:03, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

And may I point out again, evolution based on Darwin is not Christian at all. Evolution is socialist and it is leftist. Darwin is a favorite of Socialism. It has nothing to do with monarchies, classic republics or Christianity. Darwinism, Evolution are all of the left.WHEELER 15:03, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Wheeler please take this as friendly advice. Your comments can easily be misinterpreted as pointing to a jewish conspiracy (i.e "It is the Jewish influence in all this that makes it international.") this is kind of argument is very offensive. There are many jews on all sides of the political spectrum. Please do not fall into that irrational trap.

That being said, is the word "fascist" over-used in labeling opponents by people who are leftists or left of center where it does not apply-YES. Much in the same way the word "liberal", "socialist", or "communist" used for labeling opponents by rightists or those who are right of center (despite the fact that liberal ideas are often associated with those people). It is a poor way to conduct debate, agreed?

The idea at here at wikipedia, from my standpoint at least, is to dig deeper than political labels and try to filter out the knowledge that will encourage responsible use of terminology. This is a difficult goal (and I often do not live up to my own standards), but it is a noble goal and one worth pursuing.

You seem to be engaging in the lumping sort of behavior you are accusing others of. By blaming "the left" you are over-simplifying are very complex debate. Be specific at all costs and use as much factual evidence as you can. That makes everything seem less personal. You have brought some evidence to the table (which is better than what most people do) I am currently reviewing it. Now is the time to also review what others have said and decide whether they are legitimate points. Civility beats incivility. thanks. GrazingshipIV 16:44, May 7, 2004 (UTC)

HUH? Evolution has nothing to do with politics at all. It's a biological theory. Just thought I'd mention that. Kim Bruning 16:18, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Evolution had every thing to do the racism of Nazi germany and the way they acted.

What I see is that Fascism is being used as a term of scorn which it is but being used as label to desribe something else competely diferent and that is nationalism.

As a Christian, The Elements of Socialism, say that "world unity" is older than christianity. What are they pointing to? The tower of Babel. God destroyed the Tower of Babel as evil and created nations. It is He who seperated the nations and He wants them to keep seperate. What Marxism attempts to do is mimic Scriptures and undue what God has done. This is my perspective in nationalism and that is why I am a big supporter of nationalism but I take the golden mean. Not of deficiency and not of excess but of the middle road. John C. Kiang, points to Karl Marx as wanting to do away with nations and their borders. Free trade is the tool for this. Karl Marx in his manifesto calls on Free Trade and he says, "All the workers of the world unite". When one reads Prof Schapiro, this jumps out that many of the protagonists like Proudhon, reject internationalism and promote nationalism. this one aspect carried into Nazism and Fascism. Marxism is using the label Fascist to break down the barriers of nationalism in order to form its world unity.

Fascism, Nazism, communism socialism are all products of the French revolution. Herbert Hoover in l934 say all this and saw the common connections between all four here.

I can not ignore, everywhere I read, Proudhon, Sorel, Thomas Carlyle and Hitler's Mein Kampf, etc, again and again their complaints of the Jewish influence in those countries and how they responded to it. I am not saying it is a fact maybe they all copied from one guy who started a rumor like the blood libel, and they kept it going. But the nationalism of Fascism and Nazism is in response to what they see as decadent influences by the jewish influence in their respective countries and the promotion of internationalism. Proudhon points to this. Where he gets this from I don't know. WHEELER 17:22, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Prof Schapiro writes: "Nazi writers in Germany have evaluatd the historic importance of Napoleon as a habinger of Fascism, despite the marked differences between the Secon Empire and the Third Reich. A book, Masse oder Volk, written by Konstantin Frantz in 1952, was republished in l933 with a significant preface by the Nazi Franz Kemper. ""The rise to power of Louis napoleon," wrote Kemper, "is the only historical parallel to the National Socialist revolution of our day.""

"Nazi writer, Michael Freund, Napoleon wa sthe only real revolutionist in 1848. "'Ater the solemn republican respectablity of 1848 it seemed that only the Napolieonic experiment id a great revolutionary elan appear on the stage of history.'"

"The social ideals of the disciples of Saint Simon were given by Napolieon, for the first time, a military and authoritarian aspect.."

"Nazi, K. H. Bremer, diagnosed the case of the Second Republic...that Napoleon realized that the social question was the most important one....Napoleon solved the problem., he according to Bremer created a type of state form of authoritarian plebiscitarian leadership. All quotes on pg 328-329WHEELER 17:37, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

IMO fascism of Mussolini was fairly eclectic programme around an idea of the primate of the state. A willing eye may trace the roots up to Ancient Rome. Unless the connections are widely recognized or strikingly evident, there is no much sense to go into detail. Also, comparing rhetorics and writings could be only superficial, because political phraseology and propaganda tends to converge even for diametral positions. SO IMO any possible connections of fascism with earlier history are better be presened as points of view of particular historians, under corresponding sections, rather than ultimate truth, which probably unattainable in this article. Mikkalai 22:19, 7 May 2004 (UTC)

Repeated quote

The following text is repeated twice on the page:

Mussolini wrote in his 1932 treatise, The Doctrine of Fascism: "Outside the State there can be neither individuals nor groups (political parties, associations, syndicates, classes). Therefore Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State."

It seemed to fit in both locations, so I wasn't sure which should be removed. Any ideas?

jaredwf 07:26, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Fresh thoughts

I may be fairly new to Wikipedia, but I don't think someone should be calling down God seventeen times in one passage during a discussion about an unbiased treatment of fascism. Besides the fact that I don't think God would be terribly thrilled with the idea of fascism, WHEELER (especially the God of which I read in the Gospels), it has no relevance at all. Marxism is explicitly atheistic, indeed, but besides that I don't know how you're arguing it is offensive to some sort of divine plan and therefore fascism arose to protect us from evil godless commies. Wally 01:38, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

You answer your own question, by pointing out the atheism of Communism. Thats the only thing that seperates it from facism, IMO. Anyways, this is an argument that is not going to be solved here, because the words Left, Right, and Socialist mean different things to the different people involved. They are poorly defined words in the best of situations, and we'd prob. be MUCH better off w/o them, both here and in general. In anycase the wiki is ment to provide opposing POV's, not take a particular POV as its own. NPOV is to be found in the diversity of thought, not the singularity. Oh, and BTW, this entire discussion can be solved with one word: Totalitarianism. Sam Spade 02:35, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

So much for NPOVAndyL 02:38, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Saying that communism and fascism are only seperated by religion or lack thereof is like saying the only difference between Geraldo Rivera and Rush Limbaugh is weight and hairstyle. For one, there's theoretical communism and fascism and actual communism and fascism. In theory, communism is intended to be neither oppressive, nor concentrated, nor run, nor initiated in an agrarian society. In theory, too, for fascism the object of total devotion to the state is invariably betterment of the people through total devotion to the state (and the strong government it provides). One must look at politics as having four spectrums, not two, a la the Political Compass. Communism is, in theory, both socially and economically liberal - in practice, Russian Communism (big difference) is economically liberal but socially ultraconservative; also, while fascism is intended to be socially ultraconservative and economically so as well, in reality oftentimes it ends up being broadly Keynesian. So it is, perhaps, true that as you move farther towards any extreme it narrows towards the same end destination, but the reasons for arriving there can't be summed up by Jesus or no-Jesus.

Also, why bother comparing socialism/communism to fascism in this article anyway? Why not just link the two and note they're ideologically repellent? We'd save a crapload of space (and this article is wordy in the extreme), as well as a big sore spot, namely having to sort out the morass that occurs when the two clash.

Where the words are concerned, frankly, I don't think it's that big an issue. Any educated person knows the true definition of a word, knows the ideas, thoughts and history - bad and good - behind it and then makes an informed decision and takes sides based upon their own ideology, not that that someone else gives them. I'm proud to be both a liberal and a socialist (if a democratic one - revolution isn't my cup of tea), despite the negative connotations the press tells me I should feel towards them; likewise, I'd hope a fascist would just come right out and declare themselves such, because fascism is not (to my mind) inherent racist, or necessarily make one a maniacal Jew-killer (much in the same way my being a socialist doesn't of necessity mean I kill rich people). If a person cares to, they can know what's really behind the words they use - only the uneducated attach solely negative connotation to others and solely positive connotation to their own.

Besides, in whatever case we can't really avoid discussing the left and the right in an article like this, can we? Wally 03:31, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Of course we must, but I would suggest as little, and as fairly, as possible. Sam Spade 03:38, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Gah, Wally, be careful with the word "liberal". Any place other than the US, it would make no sense to say that socialism or communism is "ultra-liberal" economically. john 07:13, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Is the word "left" any better? I find it pathetic how much time we waste debating w/o bothering to clarify terms. Semantics is the root of most arguments, not difference of opinion. Sam Spade 07:16, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

The word left is far better. Whatever it's imprecision, it clearly includes socialism. Liberalism can be, and often is, used as an opposite to socialism. john 07:43, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Jmabel's two cents

It looks like there has been a lot of discussion here over the past few days. I'm not sure I can address everything that has been said, but I'm going to do my best to address as much as I can.

1. The claim that "...fascism and socialism are the same thing..." seems to me disingenuous. There is, indeed, a perfectly good (albeit controversial) word -- totalitarianism -- that refers (correctly in my view) to certain fascist states and to certain states that claim to be socialist. Yes, the Soviet Union and its satellites (especially in the Stalinist era) had much in common with Hitler's Germany and the puppet regimes it established elsewhere. However, this is a large part of why so many socialists today (and many even at the time) reject (or highly qualify, as when the Trotskyists referred to the Soviet union as a "deformed worker's state") the description of these states as "socialist." (The other large part being the creation of a privileged coordinator class.) Are you seriously suggesting that Hitler's Germany "wasn't really fascist?"^* Similarly, does anyone seriously claim that Sweden even in its most socialistic era was totalitarian? I suppose a few might claim the latter, but they tend to be the same people who called Eisenhower a communist, so I have a hard time taking them seriously. The resemblances seem to me to belong in the article on totalitarianism. I would expect a certain amount of discussion of totalitarianism in an article on fascism or on state communism, and about a one-sentence mention in an article on socialism. I would expect that the issue of totalitarianism being a point of resemblance between fascism and state communism would deserve a section in the article on fascism and the article on state communism, but I would not expect it to permeate either article.
   
   

   * I suppose the case could be made that the term "fascism" should only be applied to a narrow band of ideology closer to that of Mussolini, but there is no question at all that in common usage in every language of Western Europe, "fascism" includes "Nazism." I think the article as it stands does a good job of treating with both meanings.
   
   

2. On the other hand, the degree to which early fascism, especially in Italy, had some roots in the left is probably worth explorationin this article, with solid facts and documentation. Much as we have a section "Nazism and socialism" in the article on "Nazism" (which, by the way, could certainly use expansion in its discussion of Gregor Strasser, Otto Strasser, and Ernst Röhm), this article deserves a solid section on the involvement of former socialists (including Mussolini himself) and anarchists/anarcho-syndicalists in the formation of fascism. In particular, there is clearly a direct link from the anarchist doctrine of Direct Action into the tactics of the Italian fascists. The Futurists certainly fit into this context as well. However, again, I think it is important to see that these people were (maybe not instantly, but over time) leaving socialism behind as they became fascists and as the doctrines of fascism solidified. Saying that they remained socialists is like saying that Irving Kristol remained a Trotskyist. It's worth quoting some third party to that effect, and it's worth looking at the influence of a person's early ideological orientation on his or her later thinking, but it is -- I find myself using the same word again -- disingenuous to pretend that there was no political conversion involved.
3. It is reasonable to quote a particular scholar to the effect that the origins of fascism can be traced to the French Revolution, just as it would be reasonable to quote another scholar who traces them back to Plato. However, it would be absolutely inappropriate to state this controversial thesis as non-controversial fact, stated in the narrative voice of the article.
4. Is anyone actually objecting to the substance of the paragraph in the article that currently begins, "The Doctrine of Fascism was written by Giovanni Gentile..."? I would consider that rock-solid and well-researched. I would hope we could all agree than any further discussion of the origin of fascism would be supplemental to that, rather than replacing it.
5. I find myself pretty much in agreement with Diderot's various remarks. He seems to have more detailed knowledge on some points than I would, but on everything I know about, his remarks seem to conform to what I know. Nothing more to add on that front.
6. I'm having trouble understanding some of what Wheeler is trying to say. Wheeler, are you claiming that Proudhon and the anarcho-syndicalists should be considered fascists, rather than merely people some of whose ideas and tactics influenced fascism? Or if that's not what you are trying to say, could you give me a paraphrase in a few sentences of what you see the relation being? Present-day anarchists also consider Proudhon an important (if problematic) intellectual ancestor. Surely you are not saying that all anarchists are secretly fascists. Or maybe you are. I really can't tell. (And, by the way, while there are many topics where I think Marx's opinions are to be taken seriously, his assessment of his anarchist rivals is certainly not one of them.)
7. As I read through this page, I find it harder and harder to take Wheeler seriously. Fascism as "leftist"? The Tower of Babel?
8. BTW, I don't think more than a passing reference to "left" and "right" is needed in this article. I'd let the facts speak for themselves.
9. By the way, despite my ethnic background, if there is a vast international Jewish conspiracy, they've never asked me to join.

Jmabel 04:11, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

I agree with that overall. I esp. like the acceptance of differing views, the embrace of the term "Totalitarianism", and the shunning of the Left/Right dicotomy. Sam Spade 04:19, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

I am in general concurrence as well. I still wonder about the idea of not having socialism or communism vs. fascism sections in the relevant articles - perhaps that could be its own page? Or maybe it doesn't need to be treated at all - just link them, and let people draw what other conclusions they will. Wally 04:23, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Spin Off's

There used to be a Socialism and Nazism article, but AndyL turned it into a redirect. The future of such pages seems mixed, and they tend to be focal points for debate and edit wars rather than high quality articles in their own right. Sam Spade 04:27, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Even so, if those pages are being made into debate and edit war pages, than the serious ones on the political systems themselves are largely freed of such conflict, yes? Wally 04:32, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

That is definitely a way of looking at it. Another reason they are made is to prevent excessively large article pages, difficult to read and impossible for some browsers to edit. Sam Spade 04:38, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

So, ergo, a good idea. By the way, part of this page needs to be archived; it's far too long.

It's long, but it's all from the last 72 hours, so it's a little early to archive. -- Jmabel 05:19, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Moving stupid discussions to spinoff articles isn't a good way of dealing with things. In any case "X vs Y" articles are not encyclopedic. If we go ahead with Fascism vs Socialism articles we'll end up with Fascism vs Christianity, Utilitarianism vs Surrealism, Feudalism vs Postmodernism and an endless procession of articles saying "x is like Y in these ways, x is unlike Y in these other ways". Great if you want to be a repository of sophmore essays but useless for an encyclopedia. I'm fine with taking "Fascism vs Socialsm" out entirely and not spinning it off. AndyL

I don't find the "taxonomic" aspects very interesting, but the issue of historical influences is. As I remarked above, the fact that some of the same currents of thought influenced both socialism and fascism (or anarchism and fascism) is a little uncomfortable for some of us, but should not be evaded for that reason. Conversely, that doesn't mean that we have to pander to those who find these facts delectable and would like to exaggerate their importance and try to use them to discredit anyone to the left of John McCain as a thinkly disguised combination of Stalin and Hitler. -- Jmabel 05:48, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

Good, because I was a little worried that, following certain persons' proffered advice, I'd have to hates Jews, Nazis and Communists to keep being a liberal, and you know there's just so many hours in the day. :\

Like I said, I move to delete the whole whatever vs. whatever stuff wholesale. AndyL made a good point about not having them as articles (and he's right - I figured I might as well bring it up nonetheless to be devil's advocate), but if we wouldn't make something like that its own article, why on Earth would we put it into an article? The two sides can fight without our helping them, methinks. Move to excise.

And if somebody doesn't archive the top part of this page, I'm going to call the police. ;D Wally 05:56, 8 May 2004 (UTC)

I find the above tremendously poor reasoning for eliminating examination of socialist aspects of fascism within the article. Sam Spade 07:05, 8 May 2004 (UTC)