I suppose that those who conflate nazism and socialist allude to the totalitarian nature of both regimes. In that they were alike. On questions of economy, Stalin stood to the left of Hitler, as we understand the notions of "left" and "right" today.
Actually there are alot of people running around parroting the "nazi's were really socialist as communists" thesis that Jonah Goldberg pushed in Liberal Fascism. Though the thoery is hardly coherent it's main point seems to be that both regimes were totalirtarian but their totalitarian nature arouse out of their "socialist" nature.
But this critique tends to be very out of touch with modern scholarship on Fascism (or Soviet communism) and draws upon and understanding of Nazism that for all intense purposes has been gleaned not from original source material but Hogan's Heros.
The toltalitarism model of the understanding of the authoritarian regimes was real popular in the '50s and 60's but has fallen out of favor with recognition that totalitarian regimes act to a great degree in reaction to pragmatic realities and not ideology, that there historically never been a monolithic Fascist model that all totalitarians can by judged by, to a great extent they were molded by the countries they came to be in. Furthermore that Nazism was a movement supported mainly by rightist, on an ideological level it wasn't quite right or left, it was a real mish-mash of modernism mixed with traditional 19th century national that transcended what we think of the left to right spectrum that was very specific to the crisis in modernity and rejection of 19th century liberalism and marxism that occurred in many post WWI countries.
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Date: 2010-04-01 04:08 am (UTC)I suppose that those who conflate nazism and socialist allude to the totalitarian nature of both regimes. In that they were alike. On questions of economy, Stalin stood to the left of Hitler, as we understand the notions of "left" and "right" today.
Actually there are alot of people running around parroting the "nazi's were really socialist as communists" thesis that Jonah Goldberg pushed in Liberal Fascism. Though the thoery is hardly coherent it's main point seems to be that both regimes were totalirtarian but their totalitarian nature arouse out of their "socialist" nature.
But this critique tends to be very out of touch with modern scholarship on Fascism (or Soviet communism) and draws upon and understanding of Nazism that for all intense purposes has been gleaned not from original source material but Hogan's Heros.
The toltalitarism model of the understanding of the authoritarian regimes was real popular in the '50s and 60's but has fallen out of favor with recognition that totalitarian regimes act to a great degree in reaction to pragmatic realities and not ideology, that there historically never been a monolithic Fascist model that all totalitarians can by judged by, to a great extent they were molded by the countries they came to be in. Furthermore that Nazism was a movement supported mainly by rightist, on an ideological level it wasn't quite right or left, it was a real mish-mash of modernism mixed with traditional 19th century national that transcended what we think of the left to right spectrum that was very specific to the crisis in modernity and rejection of 19th century liberalism and marxism that occurred in many post WWI countries.