Talk:Fascism/Archive 1

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I removed the section indicating that the German and Italian Fascists were actually socialists in disguise. The Nazis called themselves "National Socialists" a) to capitalize on the popularity of the word "socialism" - the Social Democrats had recently become very popular in Germany at the time; and b) to annoy their Communist opponents. The Nazis had little sympathy for Marx. And Mussolini did a complete 180 on his opinions of Marxism (despite his former status as the editor of a socialist newspaper), as the quoted text I added from his 1932 "What Is Fascism?" paper indicates.. -kwertii

This is a MUCH more complex issue than you imply, and your claims here are fringing on the absurd. (a) socialism was not defined strictly by Marx (b) common social-democrat type policies were very much part of Hitler's program, e.g. building the autobahns, instituting various types of workfare programs, which aren't that easy to distinguish from the ones Roosevelt introduced (c) Hitler overtly stated that 'the economy is based on principles of human nature that we cannot change' in rejecting Marxism early after his ascent to power, but that rejection of communism and radical socialism didn't prevent him from instituting (b).
Beyond that, it's very clear that Mussolini emulated Lenin in many respects, and that Hitler and Stalin and Franco emulated Mussolini in others. Saddam Hussein also emulated Stalin conciously. IT's foolish to therefore imply that this questionable "left-right" axis really matters in comparing these dictators. "socialism" was no more than a tactic to any of them. But it *was* a tactic, and it was effective at buying support from the lower middle class in Hitler's case. Despising Social Democrats as people and as a party is not the same as emulating their policies and instituting programs that at the time were certainly part of 'socialism'.
An important point to note here is the weird change in the meaning of the word socialism -- see User:Sam Francis/Socialism. -- Sam

The governement of Horthy was not fascist! Fascism was installed by Szálasi government for a short period of time! http://historicaltextarchive.com/horthy/