25 Jan 2024 7:43 am
(PART I OF...
Cannonpointer: "You just said a lot of stuff that DIDN'T explain away the incredible success of National Socialism."
If that pertains strictly to National "Socialism" pulling Germany from its crisis of accumulation of the 1920s and 1930s, I will agree that it was successful in doing so. However, the methods used to achieve that turnaround, militarism and the slashing of wages and pensions, indicate National "Socialism" not serving the interests of workers.
So, although many German workers were deluded into believing the Nazis served their interests, at least for a time, National "Socialism" proved disastrous for Germany's working class. As the Nazis' utter inhalation by Allied forces, particularly the U.S.S.R., proved, this National "Socialism" was an utter and spectacular failure. Nonetheless, to be accurate, it - Nazism - lives on through its quasi-official promotion by the U.S. government.
Moreover, the phrase "National Socialism" is a contradiction, for nationalism is a rejection of socialism, and socialism is a rejection of nationalism. The Nazis merely adopted that idiotic phraseology toward the usurpation of the word "socialism." They sought to steal the proverbial thunder from Germany's then-burgeoning socialist movement. And, given the level of their brutality, they were mostly successful.
After outlawing genuine socialist parties and falsely imprisoning their memberships (Dachau held socialists and trade unionists exclusively from its opening in March of '33 until January of '34), the Nazis created several fraudulent "socialist" organizations. From "socialist" youth organizations to "socialist" sports leagues and "labor" associations, the Nazis channeled worker's socialist ambitions off to nowhere. In brief, the Nazis' "socialist movement" was noise without action, like an automobile devoid of wheels.
Cannonpointer: "I give all due respect to FDR for using socialist methods to save capitalism. I'm not saying it was good that he did so - just that it reflected what the Romans called "virtu." Even Roosevelt's prodigious results paled compared to Hitler's."
Respectfully, FDR didn't use "socialist methods" to end the then-current depression, appease the working class, and thus save capitalism. As I wrote in this thread's parent post, "The progressive achievements won by Soviet workers pressured the U.S. capitalist state to concede reforms for American workers." Hence, New Deal "reforms" can be likened to an army's defensive fortifications erected in the face of an advancing opponent.
Toward the reinforcement of that latter point, please consider something else I wrote in the said parent post, to wit: "...in a 1917 Washington Post op-ed, New York financier and banker Simon Straus wrote, 'Widespread and successful homeowning activities in the U.S. would do more to alleviate social unrest and build a bulwark against the encroachments of Bolshevism than any other development.'"
In some ways, Simon Straus and many others of his ilk were, effectively, field generals in the battle for hearts and minds that quickly ensued following the Czar's defeat and the Bolshevik's ascendency. The capitalist class had been understandably frightened and responded accordingly.
(END OF PART I)