Socialism is left wing
“I have learned a great deal from marxism as I do not hesitate to admit.”
Adolf Hitler
Naturally, you would’ve assumed this was uttered by some left-leaning activist, owing the debt of his success to the economic theories generated by Karl Marx. The truism is, however, this statement is one attributed to Adolf Hitler, the man everyone thinks was on the forefront of combating Communist ideals.
Though they often claim that the Nazi party was one predicated on far right beliefs and values, there is some level of debate as to whether this is accurate. Some of Hitlers policies, such as his position on guns, free speech, health passports (gesundheitspass), and even a majority of the economically-based policies are comparable to the blueprints enforced by many of todays ‘left wing’ parties, conversely, his stance on immigration, and his surface level belief on Communism are attributed to being right wing. The name “Nazi” meaning “National Socialist” should’ve been a dead give away that he wasn’t just right wing, he was also left wing in his advocation of socialism (which later turned into communism, which we’ll explain in depth later). Considering that Nazism is both a combination of ethnonationalism and Communism. Many claim that Hitler was opposed to socialism, but that’s untrue, as he claimed capitalism had “Jewish origins” and accused it of holding nations ransom to the interests of a “parasitic cosmopolitan rentier class”, which is hilarious when you realise that Marx was the son of two Jewish parents, later converting to Christianity for political reasons. Despite Hitlers alleged hatred of Marx, their work was very similar.
Though it is important to clarify, that while Marx was the son of two Jewish parents, he vehemently stated his dislike of the religion in a letter to Arnold Ruge dated March 1843, “I have just been visited by the chief of the Jewish community here, who has asked me for a petition for the Jews to the Provincial Assembly, and I am willing to do it. However much I dislike the Jewish faith, Bauer’s view seems to me too abstract. The thing is to make as many breaches as possible in the Christian state and to smuggle in as much as we can of what is rational. At least, it must be attempted – and the embitterment grows with every petition that is rejected with protestations.
In the interest of fair reporting, the name (National Socialist German Workers’ Party) is thought to have been given so they could relate with the working class, and garner votes from them – it was considered, a social class hijacking of sorts. While I believe the upper half of the name “national socialist” was true, I do disagree with the sentiment that it was a party in favour of the working class. Not just by name, but with policies as well. All you have to do is take a surface level look at their manifesto and you’ll realise how akin to socialism they were:
National Socialist Party’s Platform (manifesto)
- The abolition of incomes unearned by work
- Since every war imposes on the people fearful sacrifices in blood and treasure, all personal profit rising from the war must be regarded as treason to the people. We therefore demand the total confiscation of all war profits.
- We demand the nationalisation of all trusts.
- We demand profit-sharing in large industries.
- We demand a generous increase in old-age pensions.
- In order to carry out this program we demand; the creation of a strong central authority in the State, the unconditional authority by the political central parliament of the whole State and all its organisations.
Putting manifesto points 11 and 12 to the side, which would abolish welfare and elite-sponsored war for monetary gain, you can see socialist-inspired policies, such as an increased level of nationalisation.
I do find point 12 curious, however, considering they allowed Henry Ford to collaborate and profit off of both sides during the war.
Many Nazis, along with modern-day leftists, unquestioningly accept that the Nazis slogan was “Crusade Against Marxism”, after all Karl Marx was the son of two Jewish parents and Nazism was built on the ideals of removing “Jewish or foreign interference” from Germany, however, his private conversations tell a completely different story, potentially overturning his reputation as anti-Communist. Hermann Rauschning, a Nazi who was the President of the Senate of the Free City of Danzig between 1933 and 1934, who knew Hitler before and after his rise to power, explained in private that Hitler in actual fact acknowledged his intense debt to Marxism and Marxist theory…
“I have learned a great deal from Marxism as I do not hesitate to admit.”
Before I get cancelled for not reading the entire quote, here it is, and I will explain the last part to which I heavily disagree with…
“the difference between them and myself is that I have really put into practice what these peddlers and pen pushers have timidly begun. The whole of National socialism is based on it… National socialism is what marxism might have been if it could have broken its absurd and artificial ties with a democratic order.”
I want to clarify my position. I am not, in any shape or form, saying Marxism and National socialism are exactly the same thing. In contrast, some believe they are two different political ideologies at completely different ends of the spectrum. But as the Horseshoe theory claims…
“The ‘Horseshoe Theory’ postulates that opposite sides of the linear political spectrum begin to closely resemble one another, similar to the way that opposite ends of a horseshoe come together. This theory is exemplified by synergy points between the far right and far left, namely antisemitism.”
The last part refers to the widely known truism that both individuals from the far left and far right share the same opinions when it comes to anti-Semitism. Both political affiliations also share the same hatred of police. The real far right hate Jews because of the belief they control the world, and the far left hate Jews because of their despisement of Israel and love of Palestine (which ironically, persecutes gays and women). Whether you take Mark Collett and Laura Towler from the far right or Jeremy Corbyn and Dianne Abbott from the far left, they all have the same thing in common; their hatred of Judaism/Zionism.
This Horseshoe Theory could explain why we find so many aspects of Nazism that have been taken directly from Marxism. It’s not because they’re the same, but because the far left and far right are very ideologically aligned, so much more than they realise.
Throughout history, many different types of Marxism have come about, which has primarily spiralled from the fact that Marx purely provided an economic foundation, which many later Marxists used to add cultural and social dimensions on top of. Hitler was one of those people, he just thought, like Mao, Stalin, and Lenin, that his form of socialism was better, mixing an extreme level of ethnonationalism into the mix.
Let’s not forget that what Mao did during the Chinese Cultural Revolution, was very similar to what Hitler did in Nazi Germany – they just went about it different ways, for different reasons, and targeted different people.
Though, whether I agree with the commonplace belief that Nazis were ‘far right’ is up for question, especially when you take into account Hitlers fake disdain for Marxism. He only claimed to dislike it because of its “democratic order”, but how does Marx’s anticipation of a “dictatorship of the proletariat” (where the working class would temporarily seize state power to suppress the capitalist class) equal a “democratic order”, it would mean riots and a party assumes control that is a dictatorship and authoritarian by nature? That is the complete opposite of a “democratic order”. If it was truly “democratic”, it wouldn’t be taken by force but would be accomplished via the voting system, so the people can truly have a say in what they want, especially when the working class outnumbers the bourgeois. But Marx did not care what the working class wanted, he was only in it for himself. He only wanted what most people seek – power.
There are many quotes which undeniably prove Hitlers ideological alignment with that of Socialism. Instead of implementing public ownership as the means of production, like done in many other Socialist countries, or purging the capitalists in a fashion similar to that of Stalinism, he instead confiscated capital from the German population, finding he could control the economy by simply exterminating the capitalist class of their means of production, and instead guiding their productive capacity through the state… like many Communist economies.
Hitler even stated his desire to, “convert the German volk (people) to socialism without simply killing off the old individualists.” But for some strange reason, many are still of the false belief that Hitler despised Socialism.
Furthermore, the Nazis’ use of propaganda helped them seize control of Germany in the 1940s, and their application of censorship helped silence voices and opinions they saw as threatening. In fact, the Nazi Party specifically had their own ministerial department which dealt with censorship and propaganda, the Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and Propaganda, led by Joseph Goebbels, just like how the KGB had a propaganda agency used during the Bolshevik Revolution. This ministry tightly controlled information available to German citizens, and banned all Modernist art (impressionism and expressionism), which the Nazi regime branded as being “degenerate art”. These artists were suppressed, along with most other authors, during the Nazi book burnings.
The Nazi book burnings not only affected the citizens of Germany, who weren’t being told the truth about what was going on, but it also affected the authors and artists. This was part of what they called “the Nazification of Germany”, also referred to as “Gleichschaltung” which, just like cultural Marxism, is where the Nazis aimed to completely eradicate Germany’s culture and “Nazify” it by removing any “Jewish” or “Bolshevik” influences. In September 1933, the Nazi party passed the Reich Chamber of Culture Law which dictated what films, art, and books German citizens were allowed to enjoy.
The reason this law was passed, was because the Nazi leaders, who came into power January of that same year, wanted to change the cultural landscape, and promote “traditionalism” (“German” and “Nordic” values), instead removing Jewish, “foreign” and “degenerate” influences. For someone who apparently hated Marx (at least according to the left), he sure did copy Marx’s work to the letter. Hitler also signed a peace agreement with the Soviet Union in 1939 entitled the “Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact”, though he betrayed this later on when he attempted to invade them in 1941. Ironically, it was a Soviet spy who attended a Marxist think tank known as the Frankfurt School, who informed Stalin of Hitlers plans.
The Reich Chamber of Culture Law can be compared to Mao’s Cultural Revolution, where Zedong forced artists to adopt a style dubbed “revolutionary romanticism”, and anyone who disobeyed this ruling was beaten up, imprisoned, and tortured for being a “counter-revolutionary”. During this Marxist regime, they attacked what they considered to be the “old” in the aim of completely wiping the slate clean, and starting with a completely blank state in regards to culture reconstruction.
Nazism is just another example of cultural Marxism, who’s use of suppression (in terms of free speech) victimised the Jewish community (barring Khazerianism) as well as German artists, film makers, authors, and basically anyone else who expressed a creative outlet associated with the “old, anti-Nordic, and anti-German ways”. The shut down of free speech within Germany in the 1940s also marginalised those who spoke out against the system. An example of this was Sophie Scholl, one of the co-founders of a group called “The White Rose”, alongside her older brother Hans Scholl.
I can already hear the response from lefties everywhere, claiming that Nazism isn’t comparable to cultural Marxism in the sense that the Nazis weren’t destroying one culture to start anew, but were trying to restore Germany to how it was “pre-Jewish/foreign influences”, and this may be true. However, the tools used were extremely similar.
Nazism also utilised ideological subversions, which was a favoured tool amongst Marx-Lenninist personas, like Fidel Castro and KGB Propaganda Agents. Yuri Bezmenov, one of those KGB propaganda agents turned defector, explains…
“the highest art of warfare is not to fight at all, but to subvert anything of value in the country of your enemy until such time that the perception of reality of your enemy is screwed up to such an extent that he does not perceive you as an enemy… you can take your enemy without a single shot being fired.”
Ideological subversions have four core components/stages; demoralisation, destabilisation, crisis, and normalisation. Demoralisation refers to the process of influencing and altering the beliefs, values, morals, and mindset of individuals or a society, typically through propaganda, disinformation, indoctrination, or the manipulation of information. Ideological subversion works hand-in-hand with another technique called “problem, reaction, solution”, where they devise the problem, which forces people to negatively react, so they then come up with the solution they wanted all along. Modern day examples of this would include the constant fear porn on the TV of climate change, which as a result have altered the belief system of entire countries on how C02 is used within the atmosphere – people have gone from knowing that C02 is absorbed by trees and is needed for life on earth to flourish, to now thinking it’s going to kill all life on earth as we know it. And then the reaction, which is people calling for airports to be shut down, 20mph speed limits, 15 minute cities, etc which are all things they wanted in the first place.
The psychological warfare Bezmenov is referring to is the use of psychological tactics to manipulate and influence people’s emotions, beliefs, and behaviours in order to achieve a specific goal, which once again, utilises propaganda, disinformation, fear tactics, and many other methods.
One of the goals of ideological subversions and psychological warfare isn’t only to scare you into compliance, it’s also to alter your perception of reality, which means people find it increasingly difficult to reach sensible conclusions that typically align with their best interests or the interests of their community/country, despite having access to a wealth of information. This is why the citizens of China and Russia wholeheartedly believed they lived in a ‘socialist paradise’ despite living in a socialist hellhole. This is why many women believe in trans women entering their sporting competitions, despite being given all the info that biologically, they are still men. This is why Antifa will never believe they are on the wrong side of history. They have been brainwashed through propaganda, disinformation, indoctrination, lies and deceit.
How is this relevant? Bear with me. In regards to the process of demoralisation, Bezmenov explains…
“it takes from 15 to 20 years to demoralise a nation. Why that many years? Because this is the minimum number of years it requires to educate one generation of students in the country of your enemy.”
The Nazis did exactly the same thing… they skipped a generation in terms of re-educating them. Young people are far more naïve, gullible, and easily influenced. Marxists typically target them, because they are easy to manipulate.
Not only were they similar in terms of authoritarianism and their suppression of dissent, propaganda and thought control, their rejection of traditional values, but they both heavily controlled education to indoctrinate youth with their ideologies. As pointed out previously, Bezmenov explained why it took 15 to 20 years to control demoralise a nation was because that’s how long it took to re-educate a generation of students, but he also stated…
“Marxist-Lennonist ideologies are being pumped into the softheads of at least three generations of American students without being challenged or counterbalanced by the basic values of Americanism.”
Students in Mao’s China were also subjected to propaganda, and there are many instances throughout history of Marxist regimes ideologically manipulating students through the education system. The Nazi regime was no different.
The Nazis infiltrated every single aspect of day-to-day life within Germany; reforming the education system was an extremely crucial step for them, if they were to successfully take over the nation of Germany. The Nazi party aimed to de-intellectualise education. Their aim was to dumb down students to the point they could no longer critically think, or question anything they were told. The Nazis believed this approach would instil unwavering obedience and a fixed belief in Nazi propaganda without asking questions. They changed the core curriculum to emphasise history, racial science, and sport, whilst removing subjects such as “religion”, which were deemed unimportant. This point is an important one, as Marxism hates religion and aimed to see it abolished.
Marx stated..
“religion is… a protest against real suffering. Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature, the heart of a heartless world and the soul of soulless conditions. It is the opium of the people.”
Many argue that Marxists are in favour of religious freedom, but also state that people will decide for “themselves” to abandon religion in a socialist society… However, once that society turns communist, you as well as I know, that religious freedom no longer exists, especially during a cultural type of Marxist revolution.
Any textbooks used by the education system had to be approved by the party. The Nazis also introduced the Restoration of the Professional Civil Service Act in 1933 which saw all Jewish teachers, and teachers with undesirable political beliefs (such as communists – which as I said, I’m not stating are the exact same as Nazis, I’m merely reflecting on the ideological similarities between the two affiliations), also making membership to the Nazi party compulsory for all teachers.
“If we are socialists, then we must definitely be anti-Semites – and the opposite in that case is Materialism and Mammonism, which we seek to oppose… how, as a socialist, can you not be an anti-Semite.”
Hitler addressed the National Socialist party with this statement in a speech in Munich in August 1920. It is a widely-accepted truism that socialists, around that time, were very much into eugenics and social Darwinism, such as Margaret Sanger, the founder of Planned Parenthood, a member of the woman’s branch of the KKK, and director in the Negro Project, participated in women’s labour protests in the early 20th century, and became a member of the Women’s Committee of the New York chapter of the Socialist Party. Margaret Sanger was one of the most famous eugenics advocates. Here are some more examples; H.G. Wells, George Bernard Shaw, Sidney and Beatrice Webb, John Maynard Keynes, Julian Huxley, Gunnar Myrdal, Francis Galton, and there were many more eugenics advocates who were also socialists, especially around the 20th century.
Previously I entertained the idea of Hitler being a Socialist who held the opinion that his form of socialism was the best, which would indeed make sense as to why he fought against Stalin. Well, his idea of national unity was to take socialism directly to the people, and instead of nationalising all private property and businesses, he would nationalise the people themselves. This is again, backed up by a quote which states…
“why do we need trouble to socialise banks and factories? We socialise human beings.”
In examining the historical and ideological aspects presented in this discussion, it becomes apparent that the Nazi regime under Adolf Hitler implemented a multifaceted approach to shape and control German society. Despite ideological differences, the Nazis utilised methods comparable to ideological subversion, propaganda, suppression of dissenting voices, and attacking 1940’s German culture —tactics often associated with Marxist regimes. Further looking at the National Socialist Party’s platform, we can also see economic beliefs are the same, with miniscule differences, to those held by socialism.
The Horseshoe Theory is invoked to shed light on the convergence of extreme ideologies, revealing shared characteristics such as anti-Semitism and disdain for certain cultural shifts. Moreover, understanding the mechanisms of ideological subversion and psychological warfare offers insights into how societal beliefs and values can be manipulated to serve a specific agenda. The parallels drawn between the Nazi regime’s methods and those of others of Marxist intent emphasise the power of propaganda and indoctrination in influencing perceptions and shaping historical narratives.
Conclusively, my examination of the two ideologies showcases the similarities between Nazism and Cultural Marxism tactics being very much akin to one another. After conducting an excessive amount of research, I am confident in my opinion that Hitler was indeed a socialist, he just thought his form of socialism was better and thus waged war on those who enacted the “wrong” form of socialism.
