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Date:         Thu, 21 Jan 1993 15:37:28 MET
From:         Grzegorz Albinowski <caius@II.UJ.EDU.PL>
Organization: Institute of Computer Science, Jagellonian University Cracow
Subject:      Re: A renewal of my argument about "rightism" ...
Comments: To: POLITICS@ucf1vm.cc.ucf.edu
              SMITH" at Jan 18, 93 10:31 am

VALENTINE M. SMITH pisze:

++ "Right" means "conservative" or "reactionary."

++ "conservative." "Tending to oppose change; favoring
++ traditional views and values."  (Same source.)

Caius:
>> >Thank you. I basically agree with these definitions. I see now they
>> >have similar meaning all over the world.

Valentine:

>> I basically agree with the above, but NOT the sentence that follows.

Caius:
>> >Nazism (national-socialist) is not conservative, and not reactionary.
>> >So it cannot be rightist. Can't you see it?

Valentine:
>> Nazism wanted very much to "favor
>> tradional views and values" - a strong central state ala the Second
>> Reich of Bismark, protection and alliance with the established
>> classes of property (the army, the Junkers, businesses like Krupp and
>> IG Farben), and restablishment of the might of Germany as a "great
>> power" as it had been prior to the "stab in the back" of 1918 by the
>> Socialists and Communists, as represented by Ebert.

Well, it's not true. The first National-Socialist Party was established in
Bohemia in 1908. The program was typical socialist: "democratic" control
on banks and haeavy industries, anti-aristocratic, anti-military, anti-church,
and anti-semitic.

It was at the time The Bismarck Empire was in its 'golden years.'

Later the movement was expanded to Austria. They printed national-socialist
literature with a hakenkreuz on it, long before Hitler was released from the
army. The Parties were not very popular, but there are always some lunatics
who believe in better world.

It was much similar to the International Socialism. Instead of dictatorship of
"working class" of the whole world it offered dictatorship of the "working
class" with some special racial characteristic.

The ideology didn't changed significantly when implemented in Germany, after
1933.


First the army.
The traditional military staff was considered unreliable and constantly
replaced by experienced party officials, usually when the generals refused to
support Hitlers's rowdy plans.

Hitler planned to abandon the old, traditionally organized army and replace it
by the special Party military units. The formation of them was very slow,
despite of astronomical funds invested. The results were not satisfactory: all
NSDAP military inits in Polish-German war in September 1939 were destroyed
or took heavy casualties.

Second the big business.
So called "owners" were in fact only administrators of the enterprises
producing for the prosperity of the State and the armament.
They have to run the business according to the central plan, or be replaced.

It's interesting to note that total production of ammunition in the period
1933-45 never exceded that of 1918, when the factories were really private.


>> My day-to-day
>> dictionary says reactionary = "opposing progress or liberalism."
>> (American Heritage Dictionary, 2nd College edition) I contend that
>> that Nazism fiercely opposed "liberalism."

Do you suggest that Nazis opposed progress? I think they were implementing
their own design of the new world order (symtomatic progressist behaviour)

Liberalism has several meanings: classical(laissez-faire) and contemporary
(socialist). Does your dictionary explain which one the reactionaries
oppose?

>> The Nazis suppressed the
>> Communists, they suppressed and destroyed the Social Democrats,
>> destroyed "free unions,"

The Bolsheviks(social-democrats) supressed miensheviks(social-democrats),
Stalin supressed Trotsky supporters, Communists in Spain 1937 supressed POUM
(socialists). National-socialists supressed international-socialists,
Communists Factions supressed another factions in Poland in 1956, 1968, 1970,
1980,  etc., etc. ...

I accept that leftist parties are not solid. Numerous factions try to get
all power, and supress their opponents even if they have similar ideology.

>> rebuilt the army to twice what it had been in the Kaiser's era,

Do you suggest that conscription is reactionary or conservative?.
Do you suggest that raising taxes and full employment at the price of
freedom is reactionary or conservative?
Do you suggest that collecting gold teeth of the murdered prisoners is
reactinary or conservative?

Twice? I think you exaggerate, I'll check it.

>> created a police state closer to the monarchial
>> control process than ANY Socialist manifestations,

I don't think many socialists are also monarchists, so your "closer" argument
is missing. Besided, there are various monarchies in the world. The monarchy/
republic is irrevelant here.

Second the socialists in Russia had created "better" police control than
anyone else in the world. Do you suggest that police control is conservative
or reactinary?

>> and generally behaved considerably more to the right side of the spectrum
>> than the left.

My impressions are exactly the opposite.



>> I disagree. I suggest that you are bucking the definitions agreed
>> upon by a significant majority of both political scientists and
>> historians in your insistance that Nazism was not "rightist."

Fists:  I prefer evidence than majority.
Second: Those who shout louder are not necessarily right
Third:  I think your point of view is somewhat biased
Fourth: I suggest that your "majority" is flase nad/or misinformed


>> ||fascism: Political system in which individual rights are systematically
>> ||         denied in favor of the powers of the government.  Property
>> ||         under facism is officially "owned" by individuals, but it can
>> ||         be taken at any time, and will be, in order to meet State goals.
>>
>> But, I suggest that what occurred in Germany was an alliance of
>> private property and government, NOT suppression of individual
>> PROPERTY rights, but individual POLITICAL rights.

Do you suggest that pivate property was safe in Nazi Germany? Do you suggest
that Jewish shop-owners were safely running their businesses, were excercizing
individual property rights, and it was their plot to supress political rights
of the Nazi gangs(for example political right to kick your muzzle)?

>> Krupp, one of the
>> largest property owners in Germany, was abetted by the state to
>> greater profits by increased weapons orders and supply of slave
>> labor, for which Alfried Krupp received a 10 year sentence and
>> confiscation of all property in the early Fifties.

Again the "owners" were only administrators of the cetrally controlled
factories. I would like to remind you that private property is not only
that of the big business, but also private time of the workers and property
rights for your earnings. If you know about slave labour, how could you
talk about "NOT supressing individual PROPERTY rights".

I think both POLITICAL and ECONOMIC rights were suppressed by the Nazis.
If someone has unfair profits from the business, no wonder it was confiscated.

>>
>> >Why? What is false? What is missing? You certainly know it. Why DON'T
>> >you want to tell us?
>>
>> What is "false" is ypur insistance that you are right, and that most
>> of the political analysis of the past fifty years is wrong.

Well, I observe the world around, the present and the past, and assume
I am right, unless someone proves I am not. In that case I change my views and
opinions and am right again. It's obvious.


The only analysis you have submitted, so far, is "Nazi is Rightist, Nazi is
Rightist, ..." Such arguments are nor convincing.



>> I suggest that "enough" is not reachable until we can agree on this
>> critical area of definitions. Your analysis, I think, operates in the
>> theoretical realm, but ignores the political/historical reality that
>> Nazism is regarded as a "rightist" behavior. VMS

Well, I have similar opinion about your "theories", but maybe thats not all
you know about the subject.
I am awaiting a lesson by an expert.

Caius
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