Fascism and socialism

Daniel Pipes has reviewed "Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left from Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning", by Jonah Goldberg. I touched on this book in an earlier post. Pipes calls Goldberg's book "brilliant, profound, and original."

His words, indeed, fit a much larger pattern of fusing socialism with fascism: Mussolini was a leading socialist figure who, during World War I, turned away from internationalism in favor of Italian nationalism and called the blend Fascism. Likewise, Hitler headed the National Socialist German Workers Party.

Most people think Hitler founded the NSDAP, or National Socialist German Worker's Party (also called the Nazi Party), but this may not be true. Here is what the Jewish Virtual Library has on the NSDAP:

In 1919, Anton Drexler, Gottfried Feder and Dietrich Eckart formed the German Worker's Party (GPW) in Munich. The German Army was worried that it was a left-wing revolutionary group and sent Adolf Hitler, one of its education officers, to spy on the organization. Hitler discovered that the party's political ideas were similar to his own. He approved of Drexler's German nationalism and anti-Semitism but was unimpressed with the way the party was organized. Although there as a spy, Hitler could not restrain himself when a member made a point he disagreed with, and he stood up and made a passionate speech on the subject.

[...]

In April, 1920, Hitler advocated that the party should change its name to the National Socialist German Workers Party (NSDAP). Hitler had always been hostile to socialist ideas, especially those that involved racial or sexual equality. However, socialism was a popular political philosophy in Germany after the First World War. This was reflected in the growth in the German Social Democrat Party (SDP), the largest political party in Germany.

Hitler, therefore redefined socialism by placing the word 'National' before it. He claimed he was only in favour of equality for those who had "German blood." Jews and other "aliens" would lose their rights of citizenship, and immigration of non-Germans should be brought to an end.

If Pipes is right, then Hitler may have had socialist leanings and, via Goldberg's book, we could connect dots all the way to modern American liberalism. If the Jewish Virtual Library is right, Hitler fastened the word "Socialist" to the German Worker's Party to curry popular support in 1920s Germany.

1934 Nazi party rally (Reichsparteitag) at Nuremburg

The "25 points" of Nazism were made clear by Hitler in a speech he gave in Munich on Feb. 24, 1920. The following are the points I would consider to be socialist:

13. We demand the nationalization of all (previous) associated industries (trusts).

14. We demand a division of profits of all heavy industries.

15. We demand an expansion on a large scale of old age welfare.

20. The state is to be responsible for a fundamental reconstruction of our whole national education program, to enable every capable and industrious German to obtain higher education and subsequently introduction into leading positions. The plans of instruction of all educational institutions are to conform with the experiences of practical life. The comprehension of the concept of the State must be striven for by the school [Staatsbuergerkunde] as early as the beginning of understanding. We demand the education at the expense of the State of outstanding intellectually gifted children of poor parents without consideration of position or profession.

21. The State is to care for the elevating national health by protecting the mother and child, by outlawing child-labor, by the encouragement of physical fitness, by means of the legal establishment of a gymnastic and sport obligation, by the utmost support of all organizations concerned with the physical instruction of the young.

24. [concludes with] ... common utility precedes individual utility.

Many of the other points are nationalist or extremely so. Be careful if you search the Web for these points: most are summaries, which are subject to bias. The list at Yale Law School's Avalon Project, from the Nuremburg trials (document 1708-PS), seem to be the most authentic.

Yad Vashem's page on the Nazi party includes the following. Note, the site is oddly constructed, to say the least -- you may have to search for "nazi party" after following the link.

The evolution of organized National Socialism began with the formation of the German Workers’ Party in Munich on January 5, 1919, out of a small right-wing group headed by Anton Drexler that was noted for fanatic antisemitism. On February 24, 1920, it was reconstituted as the National-Socialist Democratic Workers’ Party -the NSDAP-or the Nazi Party for short. Nazi ideology was predicated from the outset on antisemitism, populism, racism, and pan-Germanism. The master-race idea, a virulent anti-Bolshevism and the vision of German conquest of Lebensraum ("living space") in the East were dominant from the very beginning. Adolf Hitler joined the party on September 12, 1919, and, after a brief career as the party propagandist, became its leader in 1921. The 1920 party platform, elaborated by Hitler and Drexler, included clauses concerning the army, the nation, society, the economy, and antisemitism.