I mean Fascism isn't really something with a "good" version, its inherently Ultranationalist.
"Our Struggle": What If Hitler Had Been a Communist?
- Thread starter The Red
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I think what he means is that they intially go from the High Murder and Lets Purge All Our Class Enemies/Traitors to the Race! to normal authoritarianism after the first iterations or two, with the Soviet Union mostly calming down into "Just" a Authoritarian State with lots of Secret Police instead of routienly killing millions, Same goes for Francoist Spain after the 50s. Not that it makes them any better and I contest the notion that they just calm down and go to do other stuff or inherently lose the capablity for mass and Intense violence after that period.
See the line when I say "you can be a liberal nationalist"
I'm going for "soviet communism is a 1920s totalitarian version of communism, as fascism is a 1920s totalitarian version of nationalism"
There is a lot more to Fascism then just nationalism though, which is the main point I was trying to make.
Yeah, but my point is not about fascism or communism per se
I just wanted to say that there was a wave of radicalism at the time, thus it was expected for the right and the left to go so out of control at that time, and that they are not that radical usually
I also mentioned the PM of Norway to say that you could still follow a ideology like that at the time and not be a radical
I highly doubt it, I'm guessing the author is just making sure to produce top-quality work instead of rushing out half finnished chapters
I was thinking the same thing. I've really enjoyed this thread and would love to see it continued.
You're spot on here mate. Ur-fascism is relatively easy to define but trying to find a "ur-communism" that everyone could sign off on would be a very difficult task, maybe impossible. Hitler ITTL necessarily had to have a rather different development to the same person IOTL and in much the same way the DAR isn't going to be particularly comparable to the Third Reich, composed and formed as it is by mostly different people with their own interpretations of Communism.
This is also a great idea. Apologies for the lull recently but I've been using my spare time to get the sequel ready for publication alongside some cursory work on the third installment which will allow me to start updating again, hopefully soon.
The Volkswagen scam is a good metaphor for the broader Nazi use of consumerism in propaganda. The consumerist drive was very much "l’art pour l’art, advertising for its own sake'" as Adorno and Horkheimer put it; a promise of a bounty of affordable modern products covering up a society where wages declined and prices rose, with unions disappearing and in conjunction longer working hours, more workplace injury but less holiday and sick leave. For many women no means of economic independence at all, and that's just for the aryans. It wasn't so much fascists bribing people as fascists pretending to bribe but you're right that ITTL nothing similar will be undertaken.
The 'promise' of the DAR is based around the collective strength of the working class that the Nazis sought to destroy; a promised bounty of their own making with the means of production and the full of produce of their labour in the hands of the working class. Factories and land run by those who work it, deciding their own hours and leave and the culmination of women's liberation that was warped under Weimar. These are sunlit uplands at the moment however, for first the revolution must be defended and to this all efforts must be directed towards guns rather than butter.
Ya know I was watching through some of the better Anti Nazi propaganda like Education for Death and Don’t be A Sucker, and I got to wondering what’s anti Commie propaganda going to be like ITTL. I guess we can look to the late 40s- 50s cartoons for what we can get and their is some good material there (the entire Ism cartoon works better than OTL due to the Commies coming into power democratically ITTL) but I don’t nessicarrily think it be the same as the 50s due to a different environment as Communism is more attractive to people in a depression than people thriving on being the only major industrial power not blown to smithereens. Definitely be very interesting to see!
Also: what’s happening to poor ole Adenauer? Probably nothing pleasent with the Commies in town but I hope it’s not a fools hope to think he’s not just shot out of hand...
Also: what’s happening to poor ole Adenauer? Probably nothing pleasent with the Commies in town but I hope it’s not a fools hope to think he’s not just shot out of hand...
With fascist Italy on the allied side and nazi germany not being a thing, communism will instead be perceived as the most authoritarian, evil government and as antithetical to democracy, atleast in the west.
I think it has something to do with what position a nation or a people were in before losing it all.
For countries and people with nothing to their name and subjugated by empires to export wealth, people, and resources, a system that promises equality and independence from imperialists (even if the promise is a lie) like Communism is an attractive proposition.
For countries and people that had historical significance, riches, prestige, an empire, and glory, losing it would have people fall to revanchist ideas, blaming everything from minorities to any new like liberalism and democracy.
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Many people have commented on how communism rose in poor countries while fascism rose in mostly already wealthy and industrialized countries.
And then there is Argentina, which is an outlier in every single way: a first world country with third world forms of governance.
Is the promise a lie though. Countries who did make their own revolutions did get their own independence from imperialism. Vietnam is a good example.
Not from lack of trying by the Chinese to bring their boots down. Vietname after independence started growing closer to the Soviet Union rather than China due to CCP's aggressive stance to keep them in their sphere of influence.
Okay, it is unfair to say that every promise under Communism is a lie. Nations that suffered from a lack of development, extreme wealth inequality, and harsh working conditions did show a great deal of improvement than under the old regimes.
I was mostly talking about the Soviet or Chinese brand of Communism promising that Communism (their version of Communism) would lead to freedom from oppression and freedom from imperialists powers while implementing their own oppressive regimes and imperialist demands, both domestically like with Honecher and Ceaușescu and internationally with Soviets cracking down on Czechoslovakia and Hungary.