Nazism and socialism
The neutrality of this article is disputed.Nazism and socialism have long been controversial topics in their own right, and so has been their relationship. Many historians have inquired as to the relationship between these two ideologies and have attempted to compare and contrast them.
Additionally, a number of contemporary political commentators raise certain arguments in their writings which prompt questions such as:
- Can the National Socialist German Workers' Party be considered socialist by the fact that the Nazis claimed, at times, to be socialist?
- Did Nazism have roots in socialism?
- Did the Nazis implement any socialist policies after they took power?
- What was the relationship between Nazism and the Communist movement?
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2 Debate concerning the term "Nazi" 3 Contrasts between Nazism and Socialism 4 See also 5 External Links |
Ideological competition
Nazism and communism rose to become the two serious contenders for power in Germany after the First World War particularly as the Weimar Republic became more and more unstable.
What became the Nazi movement arose out of right wing resistance to the Bolshevik-inspired insurgencies that occurred in Germany in the aftermath of the First World War. The Russian Revolution of 1917 caused many socialists to radicalise and move further and further left towards a Leninist conception of Marxism. The 1918-1919 Munich Soviet and the 1919 Spartacist uprising in Berlin were both manifestations of this. The Freikorps, a loosely organised paramilitary group (essentially a militia of former World War I soldiers) were used to crush both these uprising and many leaders of the Freikorps, including Ernst RÃÂöhm later became leaders in the Nazi party.
Capitalists and conservatives in Germany feared that a takeover by the German Communist Party was inevitable and did not trust the democratic parties of the Weimar Republic to be able to resist a communist revolution. Increasing numbers of capitalists began looking to the nationalist movements as a bulwark against Bolshevism. After Mussolini's fascists took power in Italy in 1922, fascism presented itself as a realistic option for resisting the left.
Hitler and the Nazis were one of numerous nationalist and increasingly fascistic groups that existed in Germany and contended for leadership of the right and of the German state.
Many historians such as Ian Kershaw and Joachim Fest assert that fascism, and its German variant National Socialism became the successful challengers to Communism because they were able to both appeal to the establishment as a bulwark against Bolshevism and appeal to the working class base, particularly the growing underclass of unemployed and unemployable and growingly impoverished middle class elements who were becoming declasseed (the lumpenproletariat) by appropriating some socialist language in order to appeal to disaffection with capitalism while presenting a political and economic model that divested "socialism" of any elements which were dangerous to capitalism such as the concept of class struggle or worker control of the means of production.
The word "socialist" was included in the name of the National Socialist German Workers' Party. This was abbreviated to Nazi. Many would agree that the mere existence of an adjective like socialist or democratic into the name of a party or state is no guarantee that the quality described by the adjective will be part of the entity so labeled.
Examples of misnomers are the Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK) which is among the world's most severe dictatatorships, and few would assert that Vladimir Zhirinovsky's far right Liberal Democratic Party of Russia is either liberal or democratic.
There is widespread agreement that Nazism differs from standard forms of socialism in some important aspects:
Nazi leaders made statements describing their views as socialist, while at the same time were opposed to the idea of class conflict espoused by the Social Democrats (SPD) and Communists (KPD). The established socialist movements in Germany did not view the Nazis as socialists, however, and argued that the Nazis were thinly disguised reactionaries. Many historians such as Ian Kershaw also note the links between the Nazis and the German political and economic establishement and the significance of the Night of the Long Knives in which Hitler purged what were at the time seen as "leftist" elements in the Nazi Party and how this was done at the urging of the military and conservatives.
Many of the traditional center and right political parties of the Weimar Republic, while admiring the national enthusiasm and electoral success of the Nazis, also frequently accused the Nazis of being socialists, using certain planks in the Nazis' party program which called for nationalization of trusts and other socialist measures. At the same time, the German National People's Party (DNVP), the most important party on what was at the time seen as the mainstream right, usually treated the Nazis as a respected potential member of coalition cabinet, and the Nazis' ultimate coming to power was dependent on an alliance with traditional conservative forces. Franz von Papen, a very conservative former German Chancellor and former member of the Catholic Centre Party supported Hitler for the position of Chancellor and later became an important Nazi official. Also, the Enabling Act which gave the Nazis dictatorial powers passed only because of the support of Conservative and Centrist deputies in the Reichstag, opposed by Social Democrats and Communists.
When the Nazis were still an opposition party some leaders, particularly Gregor Strasser, espoused anti-big business stances and advocated the idea of the Nazis as a workers' party. In spite of this, most members of the working class continued to vote for the SPD or the KPD even as late as the March 1933 elections held shortly after Hitler's appointment as chancellor.
What was central to Nazi ideology and propaganda was not the rights of workers or the need for socialism but opposition to Marxism and Bolshevism which the Nazis called Judeo-Bolshevism. According to the Nazi world view Marxism was part of a Jewish conspiracy. Rather than being afraid of the Nazis' "socialism" many prominent conservatives and capitalists supported and funded the Nazis because they saw them as a bulwark against Bolshevism.
There were ideological shades of opinion within the Nazi Party, particularly prior to their seizure of power in 1933, but a central tenet of the party was always the leadership principle or FÃÂührerprinzip. The Nazi Party did not have party congresses in which policy was deliberated upon and concessions made to different factions. What mattered most was what the leader, Adolf Hitler thought and what he decreed. Those who held opinions which were at variance with Hitler's either learned to keep quiet or were purged. This was particularly the case after 1933. Although this is in some respects comparable to the behavior of certain Socialist dictatorships in power, such as that of Stalin in the Soviet Union or Mao Zedong in China, it also presents a strong contrast to the collective leadership exercised in other Communist parties, and even more to the more democratic organization of most European socialist parties.
Once in power, the Nazis jettisoned practically all of the more socialistic aspects of their program, and in general showed themselves quite prepared to work with big business, frequently at the expense of both small business and the working classes. Gregor Strasser was murdered, as was Ernst RÃÂöhm while Otto Strasser was purged from the party. Industries and trusts were not nationalised, indeed, military production and even film production remained in the hands of private industries and many private companies flourished during the Nazi period while independent trade unions were outlawed as were strikes. Private rail lines which were nationalised in the late 1930s to meet military contingencies. Aside from this, the only need private holdings that were expropriated were those belonging to Jews and these were not retained by the state but sold to private capitalists.
The Nazis never interfered with the profits made by such large German firms as Krupp, Siemens AG, and IG Farben. At the same time, however, efforts were made to coordinate business's actions with the needs of the state, particularly with regard to rearmament. This, however, can be seen not as the implementation of socialist measures but a mark of the move to a war economy and similar measures occurred in the western democracies once war began.
Conversely, the Nazis did establish some state owned concerns such as Volkswagen to produce a cheap automobile for public use. They also engaged in an extensive public works program including the construction of the Autobahn system. As with the expropriation of rail lines, however, it can be argued that the Autobahn system was created with the purpose of facilitating military transport.
The Nazis took symbolic steps to co-opt the working classes' former support for the old socialist parties by such moves as the introduction of May Day as a national holiday in 1933. This was generally seen by socialists as a superficial move designed to win the allegiance of workers rather than grant them any material concessions at the expense of capital.
Since the fall of the Nazi regime, many theorists have argued that there are similarities between the government of Nazi Germany and that of Stalin's Soviet Union. In most cases, this has not taken the form of arguing that the Nazis were socialist, but arguing that both Nazism and Stalinism are forms of totalitarianism. This view was advanced most famously by Hannah Arendt in The Origins of Totalitarianism. However, many socialists dispute that Stalin's system was truly socialist.
While the concept of totalitarianism itself is a highly controversial theory, and is entirely rejected by many on the left, and accepted only with reservations by most other historians of both Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, some (usually neo-conservative) scholars have gone further, arguing that Nazism was, in fact, not similar to Stalinist communism only in its methods of rule, as suggested by Arendt and other theorists of totalitarianism, but was also similar in that both were socialist states. Those who hold this view point to the occasional statements of Nazi leaders that they were indeed socialists, as well as the more anti-capitalist planks of the Nazi party program. Furthermore, the background of Benito Mussolini, founder of the Italian Fascist movement, as a socialist before the First World War, was used to indicate the roots of fascism, of which Nazism was supposed to be a special form, in socialist thought. They also note the collectivist, statist nature of parts of the Nazi enterprise, which they see as essentially socialist.
Conversely, historians such as Kershaw, Hans Mommsen, and Joachim Fest show that the origins of the Nazi Party lie in the far-right nationalist and racist movements the existed in Germany in the post World War I period as well as older movements such as the Thule Society. Hitler, Goebbels and the Nazi ideologues were consistent in rejecting any and all of the traditions of nineteenth and early twentieth century German socialism as articulated by Karl Marx, Ferdinand Lassalle, Karl Kautsky, August Bebel and others. Rather, historians agree that the intellectuals to whom the Nazis looked from the beginning were consistently of the right whether Nietzsche or Houston Stewart Chamberlain meaning the intellectual orgins of Nazism are in right wing nationalist and racist thought, not in the socialist tradition.
Further, the cultural and political traditions the Nazis celebrated were not those of the socialist tradition. Hitler and the Nazis revered the nationalist operas of Wagner, particularly The Ring, and found heroes in history such as Frederick the Great or the Teutonic Knights. Conversely, the Nazis rejected and even reviled socialist cultural and historical traditions such as the celebration of the French Revolution and the 1848 Revolutions or the lore of workers struggles in momentous strikes and protests. The Nazis condemned and rejected the eighteenth and nineteenth century revolutionary movements and blamed these events for destroying traditional values and social relations. They also saw these revolutions as part of a Jewish conspiracy since one of the products of those revolutions was the emancipation of the Jews.
The hierarchical nature of the anti-modern corporatism espoused by Nazism and other forms of fascism is directly in contrast to the egalitarianism espoused by most forms of socialism. Kershaw argues that, in practice, the Nazis were anti-egalitarian and had an elitist view of society and asserted that in competition with each other the superior individual would emerge on top. Much of this debate ultimately revolves around the question of the meaning of the term socialism, making argument on the subject frequently as much about semantics as about actual substantive differences.
Debate concerning the term "Nazi"
Contrasts between Nazism and Socialism
For those who consider class conflict and the abolition of capitalism as essential components of socialist progress, these factors alone are sufficient to categorize "National Socialism" as non-socialist. Of course their detractors will point out that modern social democracy, which no longer advocates class struggle is the most popular form of socialism today though others would argue that modern social democracy of the Third Way variety is no longer socialist but has more in common with liberalism.See also
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