Quotes – Killing History Archive

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Killing History: The False Left-Right Political Spectrum

L.K. Samuels, Freeland Press, 2019

After the bourgeoisie, middle class, and merchants instigated the French Revolution and sat on the left side of the aisle in opposition to the authoritarians, their legacy was ignored. The Socialist and nationalist intelligentsia sought to consciously bury the memory of original left-wing middle-class history and sitting arrangements. They mercilessly co-opted the left-wing label from the bourgeoisie revolutionary ‘Free Left,’ and denounced anyone who opposed their social revolution as reactionary or right-wing. These usurpers not only stole the left-wing designation from the bourgeoisie insurgents, but also absconded with their revolutionary ancestry. English historian William Doyle acknowledged this historical thievery, writing that after the French Revolution, the socialists were able to ‘appropriate the left-wing label and… lay exclusive claim to the revolutionary heritage.’ — p. viii

To affix the poisonous label of ‘fascism’ to Communism, depicting them under the same collective brotherhood, would have irrevocably damaged the status of socialism… To acknowledge a strong ideological and political link to Mussolini and Hitler would forever expose socialists and Marxists to their historical collaboration with fascist atrocities, racism, and genocide. Not only would socialists be seen as accomplices to some of the most horrific crimes in history, but also communists would also face similar scrutiny over their own atrocities, that racked up over 148 million citizens murdered in the 20th century. — p. xiv-xv

International socialists found it advantageous to hide both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s socialist, labor unionist, Marxist, and atheist pasts. One reason was that Hitler and Mussolini were independent of Moscow’s direct control, and they had the audacity to oppose the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War. To pay for their insolence, the Soviets and their minions felt compelled to whitewash the collectivist-socialist ideology and history behind nationalistic socialism, determined to bury Hitler and Mussolini under a falsely inscribed tombstone. — p. xix

After his arrest and internment in Munich, Hitler turned away from communism and ‘espoused the cause of Social Democracy against that of the Communists.’ He had to disown communism. If he hadn’t he would have likely been executed, imprisoned or banished from Germany. — p. xvii

International socialists found it advantageous to hide both Mussolini’s and Hitler’s socialist, labor unionist, Marxist, and atheist pasts. One reason was that Hitler and Mussolini were independent of Moscow’s direct control, and they had the audacity to oppose the Soviet Union in the Spanish Civil War. To pay for their insolence, the Soviets and their minions felt compelled to whitewash the collectivist-socialist ideology and history behind nationalistic socialism, determined to bury Hitler and Mussolini under a falsely inscribed tombstone. That is, they threw both comrades Mussolini and Hitler under the socialist bus in a campaign to relabel their Marxist-leaning collaborators as reactionary, monarchy-loving, and religious extremists who were claimed to be duty-bound to the capitalist and land-owning class. Never was there a more beautifully executed con job designed to erase and alter history in the Soviets’ favor. But then again, Stalin accused the Social Democrats, who originally arose out of Marxist ranks, as ‘social fascists,’ comparing Hitler’s Nazis as ‘twin’ brothers to the Social Democrats. — p. xvii

To accomplish this herculean feat, governmental bodies captured the legal power to intrude on human affairs in the hope of fixing man’s flawed nature, as though mankind were destined to live on a sterilized Planet Clorox, a land where everything could be made not only perfectly clean but free of risks. Governmental power was bulked up to launch a toxic blend of utopian and draconian measures to outlaw poverty, inequality, and injustice—supposedly. This socioeconomic jihad against liberty emerged after adherents of state-enhanced liberalism revised their ideological arsenal to include ‘positive rights.’ — p. 4

Positive rights require physical force or intimidation in order to enforce these alleged ‘rights.’ In essence, they are faux rights that violate other people’s rights. Positive rights actually don’t exist; they are fictitious, a fraudulent tactic which subverts choice. Rights are not obligations. To physically force someone to give financial benefits to another makes a mockery of the principles of freedom of action, freedom of choice, and the right to be free from aggression. Rather, the license to institute compulsory practices leads to legalized and institutionalized aggression and robbery. Enabling political structures to plunder one in the name of others perverts the meaning of individual human rights. — p. 4

Rather, the license to institute compulsory practices leads to legalized and institutionalized aggression and robbery. Enabling political structures to plunder one in the name of others perverts the meaning of individual human rights. Positive rights grant governmental agencies the invasive authority to force citizens to surrender their earnings and property so that others may indulge in free or subsidized food, education, housing, medical care and so forth. Positive rights imposed obligations, a duty that must be fulfilled, or the violator would be arrested and jailed, thus nullifying the role of individual autonomy that was the inspiration for the American Revolution. In other words, positive rights make society sovereign, rather than the individual. — p. 4

What this means is that liberalism had been poisoned by a false definition of liberty, one characterized by an unethical authoritarian demeanor, cast in rigid conformity to authority, obedience to rules, and slave-like submission to the collective, making individual subservient to the group. Instead of questioning authority or challenging state power, the apostles of illiberal positive rights idealize the State as a social panacea. To them, the state is everything, and almost nothing should be outside the state’s jurisdiction. This variant of creeping fascization infected Germany, Italy, and Russia in the first half of the 20th century. — p. 5

Collectivists of all faiths—including fascists and communists—fail to understand that theft enacted by the state turns citizens into slaves. In truth, the modern left finds slavery acceptable, as long as the populace belongs to a particular class or race deemed entitled to free-but-equal services and goodies, which just so happens to make them dependent, controllable, and obedient. As Charles T. Sprading noted, ‘Mere equality does not imply equal liberty, however, for slaves are equal in their slavery.’ — p. 6

There were two French Revolutions—the first stage instigated by free-Left elements imbued with toleration, anti-authoritarianism, secularism, individualism, liberty and the revolutionary individualism of Thomas Jefferson and Thomas Paine. The second stage of the French Revolution devolved into a bloody, terroristic dictatorship, an all-powerful state amidst a cult of personality, such as the so-called incorruptible Maximilien Robespierre, in a counter-revolution that was anti-liberal and antithetical to the Lumières movement, which became the Age of Enlightenment. — p. 33

If socialist regimes work together, trade together, fight together, collaborate, and have fundamentally equivalent ideologies and tactics, they are genealogically related (a sort of Communist-Nazi brotherhood), which could be regarded as a Fascist-Marxist mindset. Of course, these socialist ideologues also fight each like rival siblings. — p. 37

The statist Left’s first move was to alter the meaning of liberalism so as to keep the free Left and the public in a constant state of confusion. They diluted the original principles of liberalism while firing cheap polemical shots, arguing that John Locke’s liberalism had nothing to offer, that it contradicted itself. After all, if the statist Left could not win a fair fight on the philosophical battlefield, it had to resort to chicanery to gain an advantage. One way to accomplish this was to adulterate or falsify the liberal message to render it meaningless while advancing a new, redefined liberalism to replace the old. The deception was successful. The free-Left liberals and their allies had lost the semantic ammunition to defend liberty, and therefore became neutered, defanged, almost defenseless, deprived of the cognitive capability to defend the autonomy of the individual. As for the statist Left, they had to work diligently to ‘defascistize’ historical Fascism, because to do otherwise would force them to face an ugly image in the mirror. — pp. 37-38

Yet it was the majority-led Girondins who had spearheaded the revolution and challenged the establishment. They accomplished far more than did the Montagnards. After toppling the king, the Girondins rushed into an abolitionist spree fueled by liberty, dissolving the last vestiges of aristocratic privilege, the system of church tithes, dues owed to local landlords, and personal servitude. The radical liberals also released the peasants from the seigneurial (lord) dues, which helped tenant farmers buy their own private farmland. Next, they turned their abolitionist gun-sights on the guild system that blocked entry to markets, as well as ‘tax farming,’ where private individuals would be licensed to collect taxes for the state while taking a large share for themselves. — p. 38

The Girondin bloc also ratified laws ensuring equality in taxation, freedom of worship, and legal equality of punishment, and abolishing serfdom outright, including a 1791 law to emancipate Jewish citizens from unequal treatment. The Girondin-led assembly also granted free people of color full French citizenship and enacted universal voting rights for all adult males, regardless of race, religion, income, property or any other qualification. They even included a pro-gun rights provision in the French Declaration of Rights, which declared that ‘every citizen has the right to keep arms at home and to use them, either for the common defense or for his own defense, against any unlawful attack which may endanger the life, limb, or freedom of one or more citizens.’ Despite the effort, this draft did not make it into the final document. — p. 39

The Girondins’ most lasting legacy was the ratification of ‘The Declaration of the Rights of Man and of the Citizen’ (August 1789), which was directly influenced by Thomas Jefferson. As a US diplomat at the time, Jefferson had worked with General Lafayette to write a French bill of rights, which Lafayette introduced to the National Constituent Assembly. — p. 39

If people don’t have free agency, they become mere chattel to the herdsman who wields the biggest horsewhip. — p. 45

Proclaiming to be a ‘Left Libertarian,’ [Jeff] Riggenbach pored over the original meaning behind the seating arrangement of the 1791 French Legislative Assembly and noticed that those who favored authoritarian and dictatorial rule sat together on the right side of the aisle. So, under this interpretation, all authoritarians must be recognized as right-wingers, meaning that Communists, Nazis, and Fascists must occupy the same rows of pews even if they carry on like contentious, misbehaving siblings. — p. 51

The best way to differentiate between the two left-wing antagonists is to designate the volitional contingent the ‘free Left,’ and its authoritarian horde as the statist or Fascist Left. The free Left, like the Free French during World War II, comprises anti-authoritarians who felt as though their long-established realm had become occupied by foreign invaders. A logical progression would be to simply remain faithful to the original left-right classification and lump the entire menagerie of authoritarians (Nazis, Fascists, and Communists) into the reactionary ranks of the statist Right. — pp. 52-53

In the case of libertarianism, because it opposes fraud and the initiation of force, when pursuing its hereditary linkage to original liberalism it should be classified as standing on the left side of the political divide. Some might respond that legions of capitalists have taken leading roles in authoritarian productions. True, but these so-called capitalists mostly hobnob with politicians and statists, promote rent-seeking, endogenous policies to obtain state-sanctioned monopolies. As the cronies of statists, they are barely a cut above socialism, and have little interest in letting capital and goods move freely and unrestricted between buyer and seller, for whom, in turn, they have little sympathy. They are fastened to government coffers and machinations, and they downplay the value of the dynamics of competition. — p. 59

Although most religions promise paradise after death, most collectivists, especially Marxists, preach paradise on earth, but through means rarely considered heavenly. — p. 62

If society is confined by the chains of groupthink and top-to-bottom command structures, frustration and anger have few outlets—leading mostly to hopeless confrontation with the status quo. When confronted by a wall of complex, emotional, and politically charged rifts, a powder keg of resentment can burst into a vicious civil war of backstabbing, mistrust, and disloyalty, especially when taking political control is the only means by which to terminate domination by a particular ruling elite. — p. 72

In 1934 Engelbert Dollfuss, the ‘Austro-fascist’ chancellor of Austria and strong admirer of Mussolini, feared Hitler’s rise to power in Germany. He established a one-party dictatorship, banning both the Austrian National Socialist Party and the Communist Party. His concentration camps were packed with Nazis, Communists, and Social-Democrats. Imagine, communists and Nazis jailed together by a so-called fascist regime. This makes a complete mockery of the argument that fascism and communism were polar opposites. — p. 75

A number of die-hard Marxists have confirmed the mirroring of social totalitarian ideologies. Otto Rühle, a German Left communist and one of the founders of Second International, asserted that Bolshevism is a model for Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. In his 1939 article ‘The Struggle against Fascism Begins with the Struggle against Bolshevism,’ Rühle wrote that ‘Fascism is merely a copy of bolshevism,’ and that it was a ‘political and administrative terror system.’ — p. 77

The belief that one cannot be fascist in any shape or form liberates the individual to behave as fascist as possible, granting him or her the illusion of anti-fascist sainthood—as has been witnessed with the wildly violent, Fascist-Marxist organizations like the ‘Antifa’ movement. These hateful gangs of revolutionary socialist and anarcho-statist militants are convinced that they are incapable of ever toting the baggage of fascism and therefore can freely be more violently fascist than the average fascist. Thinking they are free of fascist-socialist contamination, they can easily become what they oppose. — p. 98

On the antithetical side, the fascist Left, along with its German and Italian comrades, detested economic liberalism (capitalism), religion, usury and financial capital (often due to their ‘Jewishness’), the gold standard, free trade, limited government, low taxation, night-watchman government, rule of law, decentralization, state rights, gun rights, self-ownership, free individual choice and individualism. In essence, what this means for American politics is that in socioeconomic and philosophical terms, the leaders of the Democratic Party (United States) are far more predisposed to historical fascism than the Republican Party (United States) and American conservatism. — pp. 100-101

This situation has gotten to the point where it appears that the leadership of the Democratic Party is rushing headfirst towards historical fascism, embracing not only socialist interventionist ideology and collectivistic metaphysics, but encouraging uncivility that has incited mob-like violence that harkens back to Nazi street firebrands. –p. 116

By 2018, it became clear to political observers that the top tier of the Democratic Party no longer had a connection to western liberal capitalism, civility and the party of President John F. Kennedy. — p. 117

But there is more than a moral-superiority complex within the Democratic Party leadership. They have increasingly rebutted almost every important amendment of the US Bill of Rights, implying that civil liberties and free speech are reserved only for themselves. Many moderate Democrats have either been kicked out of their own party or have abandoned it. — p. 117

[S]tate-granted privileges and institutional barriers only incentivize the state to behave like madcap cabdrivers, who take unwary passengers on scary rides. And why not? Those trying to impose lofty goals always search for easy solutions while ignoring bad consequences. When a reckless state becomes ‘fascisized,’ it can begin to operate behind a facade of respectability and altruism, while treating the populace as cargo to be hauled around, boxed, categorized, and stacked in rows. — p. 121

Compliance with an authority is ingrained in the human condition. Statists of all stripes use this psychological technique to garner support for political conquests, domestic and foreign. These conquests mimic the historical policies of Italian Fascism, German National Socialism, and Russian Sovietism, which few scholars want to expose, especially when their own ideology stands in sharp accord with Fascist-Marxist mindset. Yet many political scientists go out of their way to misidentify or ignore the roots of Mussolini’s syndicalist, socialist, and Marxist ideology, perhaps because of their own closely held political beliefs. Whatever the reason, scholars have gone to great lengths to obscure Mussolini’s true Marxian intentions. — p. 121

He may be among the most notorious fascists, but Mussolini was not the first to introduce economic and political fascism to the world. After Lenin’s ‘War Communism’ produced massive famine, street riots, and economic collapse, Marxist leaders searched for an alternative ‘Third Way’ between socialism and capitalism. In response, Lenin rolled out his New Economic Policy (NEP) in 1921, which introduced a form of ‘market socialism’ or what he approvingly dubbed, ‘state capitalism.’ In fact, Lenin described this change as the ‘development of capitalism under the control and regulation of the proletarian state (in other words, ‘state’ capitalism of this peculiar kind) is advantageous and necessary…’ which was adopted by the Third Congress of the Communist International. This means that fascism was not the ‘last stage of capitalism’ as Marxist historians have maintained, but the first stage of a pullback from the economic and political failures of Marxism–Leninism. Lenin’s reactionary policies to mitigate the defects of absolute nationalization and communism not only spawned the NEP but also ushered in the world’s first modern fascist regime. — p. 122

The Nazis used pro-labor rhetoric, demanding limitations on profits and the abolition of rents. They actively limited competition and private ownership, under the guise of promoting the general welfare. Hitler expanded credit, subsidized farmers, suspended the gold standard, instituted government jobs programs, mandated unemployment insurance, decreed rent control, imposed high tariffs to protect German industry from foreign competition, nationalized education, enacted strict wage and price controls, borrowed heavily and eventually ran huge deficits almost to the point of financial collapse. Eventually, both Germany and Italy turned into vast welfare-warfare nations. — p. 132

Under National Socialism, the state plundered and killed other national groups and races and use their resources to provide Germans with an unsparing welfare-warfare society. Under the alleged international socialism of Marxism, the state plundered and killed other classes to provide comrades with a welfare-warfare society. Both systems, the German’s and the Soviet’s, believed in equality and socialism, but for different collective groups. Although Nazism preached inequality between the races, it placed great significance on equality among true-blooded Germans ̈(‘Völkisch equality) and the spirit of fraternity. — p. 133

Venezuela has been especially hard hit by a Fascist-Marxist pogrom during the presidency of Hugo Chávez (1999–2013), who befriended the Marxist-Leninist government of Fidel Castro and later Raúl Castro. Chávez worked diligently to uphold the fascist tradition of combining socialism with anti-Semitism, alongside a bastion of nationalist chauvinism. Throughout the presidency of Venezuelan Hugo Chávez, who fancied himself a Marxist-influenced Trotskyite, the Jewish population was under attack. — p. 139

Chávez’s Marxist legacy continued under his successor, Nicolás Maduro, who watched Venezuela free fall into an economic abyss. The socialization of Venezuela resulted in a crisis where hospitals had no drugs or basic supplies, where the poverty rate went from 30 percent in 1999 to 87 percent in 2016, chronic food shortages erupted, and children and the sick began dying from malnutrition. — p. 140

Others, like Israeli historian and political scientist Zeev Sternhell, viewed fascism in its early years as ‘an anti-Marxist form of socialism,’ and compared fascism’s origins to revolutionary far-left French movements, creating a branch that he referred to as the ‘revolutionary right.’ Considered one of the world’s leading experts on Fascism, Sternhell contended that the essence of fascism represented ‘a synthesis of organic nationalism with the antimaterialist revision of Marxism.’ — p. 190

By the late 20th century, the general consensus among most historians attributed the origins of fascism to one of the numerous branches of heretical Marxism that had developed into dictatorship, nationalization, welfarism, and militarism. Later, Sternhell, in The Birth of Fascist Ideology, he took the position that the ‘origins’ of Franco-Italian fascism ideology was ‘Marxism,’ or to be more precise, from ‘a very specific revision of Marxism.’ — p. 191

Most historians agree that historical Italian Fascism was a mixed bag of rightwing and left-wing socioeconomic policies. Nevertheless, recent evidence has shed new light on the underpinnings of Italian Fascism, discovering that this totalitarian state had embodied a far more collectivistic, socialist, and progressive ideology, placing it squarely on the left side of the political dichotomy, that is, only if Marxism is also considered to be on the Left. — pp. 194-195

Historically, Italian Fascism was founded as a Marxist-leaning party, which some have classified as a form of Fascist-Marxist ideology. From 1914 to at least 1921, Mussolini simultaneously proclaimed himself a Fascist while still adhering to Marxist doctrines and Marxist leaders such as Lenin. In 1914, Mussolini created the Marxist-sounding organization—the Fasci of Revolutionary Action (Fasci d’Azione Rivoluzionaria, FAR). Mussolini’s first Fascist party—the Fascist Revolutionary Party (Partito Fascista Rivoluzionario, PFR)—was founded in 1915. Two years later, Mussolini still considered himself within the Marxist camp, praising the Bolshevik’s 1917 October Revolution, boasting of his camaraderie with Lenin and violent revolution. In the Italian elections of 1919, he publicly compared himself to Lenin, bragging that he was the ‘Lenin of Italy.’ — p. 195

Richard Pipes summed up fascism’s affinity with socialism by arguing that both ‘Bolshevism and Fascism were heresies of socialism.’ Sense of community and socialization were important aspects of many 20th century movements and regimes, including the theory of ‘social fascism,’ which was initiated by the Soviet government and the Comintern to stigmatize social democracy as a variant of fascism. — p. 198

By June 1919, Mussolini was criticizing Lenin’s handling of the communist revolution in Russia, concerned that he was straying from the tenets of Marxism. Distressed that Lenin was not Marxist enough, Mussolini wrote that his old comrade was ‘the very negation of socialism’ because he had not created a dictatorship of the proletariat or of the socialist party, but only of a few intellectuals who had found the secret of winning power. — p. 217

Since most of Italy’s industry was state-owned, Italian Fascism could be described as a watered-down version of Marxism, a throwback to Bernstein revisionism––in essence, a sort of Marxist-lite knockoff. — p. 237

Despite the fact that three-fourths of Italy’s economic sector was owned by the government by the mid-1930s, most scholars routinely ignored Italian Fascism’s slide into pure Soviet-style socialism, a concentration of state ownership so large that it was only eclipsed by Stalin’s Soviet Union. The conventional definition of socialism is described as a social and economic system characterized by ‘public ownership’ of the ‘means of production.’ On the other hand, fascism is often explained as a social and economic system characterized by ‘public control’ over the ‘agents of production.’ But Mussolini’s regime eventually morphed into Fascist socialism as its means of production was placed under public ownership. — p. 237

Hitler in 1919 took a position in the Communist run Bavarian Soviet Republic, wearing in public a red armband, according to a number of historians including Thomas Weber. And a little later after the Bavarian Soviet Republic was defeated, Hitler claimed to be a ‘social democrat.’ — p. 285

After the invasion of Poland in 1939, Goebbels framed the war between capitalist England and socialist Germany with this observation: ‘England is a capitalist democracy. Germany is a socialist people’s state.’ — p. 295

Although Karl Marx… confided that he derived many of his philosophical ideas from the French utopian socialist movement, he also knew that he was adopting an ideological movement rife with xenophobia. Anti-Semitism was so profuse in the French socialist community that historian Zosa Szajkowski concluded in an exhaustive study that he ‘could not find a single word on behalf of Jews in the whole of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920.’ — p. 303

Hitlerian socialism… was a form of socialism that resembled a combination of utopian socialism and the socialist market economy found in communist China. — p. 305

Considering their propensity for using street violence to shut down opponents, Hitler and his SA Stormtroopers might be considered as the ultimate social justice warriors of their era. From the very start, Hitler made it plain that social justice was an important attribute to a healthy state. In one of his 1920 speeches, Hitler proclaimed to thousands of Nazi party followers: ‘[W]e do not believe that there could ever exist a state with lasting inner health if it is not built on internal social justice…’ — p. 306

A number of socialist theorists reframed the concept of nationalism and asserted that it was an inseparable component of socialism in which to forge a national collectivity. Werner Sombart…, the prominent Marxian historian and Marxist social theorist, who was later drawn to Nazism, argued for a type of social nationalism disposed to a sort of collective and homogeneous group identity, embodied within the Volksgeist (national spirit) — p. 307

Hitler had allied with the Communist Party of Germany against the Social Democrats in support of a workers’ wage dispute. In that labor dispute, Hitler’s ‘brownshirts’ and red-flag-waving communists marched side by side through the streets of Berlin and damaged any buses whose drivers had failed to participate in the worker’s strike. Alongside the communists, Nazis ripped up tram lines, stood together, ‘shouted in unison,’ and ‘rattled their collecting tins’ to get donations for their strike funds in support of the Revolutionary Trade Union Opposition (RGO) for the communists and National Socialist Factory Cell Organization (NSBO) for the Nazis. — p. 328

Because of Hitler’s penchant for nationalistic Social Democracy and Marxian revolutionary violence, Nazism could be easily identified as a militant Social Democratic movement. — p. 331

It appears that Hitler’s involvement with the communist-run Bavarian Soviet Republic (Bayerische Räterepublik in German) demonstrates some type of commitment to communism. After all, Hitler held an elected position during the red Räterepublik government that was under the complete control of the Communist Party of Germany. He did not flee or resign his position. — p. 333

Furthermore, Hitler’s outward views had to endure a left-wing socialist perspective by the mere fact of the political makeup of the soldiers in Hitler’s unit, which ranged from moderate left to radical left; there were almost no conservative or monarchist elements within Hitler’s barracks. The struggle in the barracks oscillated between the moderate left Social Democrats and the radical left of the diehard Marxist revolutionaries, not between left-wing and right-wing ideology. The figures are stunning: more than 90 percent of these soldiers had voted for moderate or radical leftists in the January 1919 Bavarian elections in Hitler’s unit. — p. 341

Marxism had a lot to offer Hitler. Largely saddled with an unmovable, single-mindedness, hardcore Marxism allowed proponents to see themselves as noble crusaders saving humankind. Here too, Hitler could identify with such closed-mindedness, political messianism, and authoritarian tactics that licensed him to see himself as the savior of the world. A lover of the power of politics, Hitler’s hidebound views pushed him into the unshaded world of white and black antipodes, a battleground where you were either with him or undoubtedly against him, leaving no luxury of neutrality. Such exacting standards of political absolutism likely blinded him to other alternatives, or at least to the possibility of subjective objectivity that would allow the people to freely display their own diversity of opinions. — p. 341-342

Noam Chomsky treated his version of the left-right continuum in a similar light, claiming that even Lenin and his Bolshevik allies were actually right-wing extremists because they did not adhere to classical Marxism. Exposing this insight in a 1989 speech, Chomsky said, ‘Lenin was a right-wing deviation of the socialist movement and he was so regarded…by the mainstream Marxists… Bolshevism was a right-wing deviation.’ In that same speech, Chomsky claimed that Lenin was not socialist at all, and had forged an oppressive and anti-worker totalitarian state that could lead many to visualize Lenin as a right-wing fascist. — p. 342

Marxists have always displayed a doctrinaire and opinionated mindset of moral superiority. To Marxists and Leninists, the unaligned, such as Social Democrats, German Nazis, Italian Fascists, or any other deviant political organization, were branded as adversaries and were repeatedly accused of lining up with other right-wing teammates. According to this logic, if one did not get pre-approved by the monolithic praxis of the Communist Party in Russia, due to a different interpretation of socialism, one had to be subjected to charges of blasphemy, betrayal or counter-revolutionary activities. This lack of Marxist-Leninist certification has driven many faithful socialists into the ranks of heretical or adversarial socialist movements. In this sense, these heretical deviants might be better classified as ‘socialist-lite,’ ‘moderate socialists,’ or as economist Murray Rothbard dubbed fascists and Nazis, ‘right-wing socialists.’ — p. 342

Hitler not only supported Germany’s communist regime during this brief time period, but also bestowed his blessings to a government that had pledged allegiance to Lenin’s Soviet Russia in Moscow. Hitler apparently displayed few qualms over the international (or supposedly Jewish) aspects of Marxism. The significance of Hitler’s elected posts cannot be overstated. By serving under both the socialist, and later communist, governments, Hitler ‘held a position that existed to serve, support and sustain the left-wing revolutionary regime.’ One wonders, given this, why Hitler would be regarded as more of a right-wing socialist or revolutionary conservative than a left-wing socialist. Social Democrats have considered themselves left-wing and favored similar socialist policies that corresponded well to Hitler’s own collectivist visions and socioeconomic ideology. — p. 344

At an early meeting of a political group that eventually turned into the Nazi Party, Hitler told Friedrich Krohn, an early supporter of the party, that he preferred a type of ‘socialism’ he referred to as ‘national Social Democracy’ that was not dissimilar to nations like Scandinavia, England, and prewar Bavaria. — p. 344

*Racial intolerance against Jews plays little part in the question of whether Hitler’s own beliefs were more right-wing or left-wing, since historically the socialist movement from day one has been hostile to the Jews and their capitalist-merchant culture. According to Thomas Weber, ‘The question is not whether Hitler supported the left during the revolution, which he clearly did, but what kind of left-wing ideas and groups he supported or at least accepted.’ — p. 344

Despite his subsequent reputation for anti-Marxist tirades, Hitler did not fight or oppose the communists during this time, as some might presume. He was serving them, although he later shared few details about this period in his life. One thing seems certain: Hitler did not try to escape from the political thicket in Munich, nor did he join the anti-Bolshevik armed forces of General Franz Ritter von Epp. — p. 345

Marx also manifested chauvinistic and racial-nationalist sentiments in his disparagement of Slavic Russians,… According to Christopher Hollis, a British university teacher and politician, Marx had no faith in the equality of nations, and was instead a ‘through and through… pan-German nationalist’ where discourse ‘about the higher and the lower races was language that came most naturally to his pen.’ Instead of standing up for internationalism, in 1848, both Marx and Engels campaigned for the unification of Germany, publishing a short Communist Party of Germany pamphlet demanding that the ‘whole of Germany shall be declared a united, indivisible republic.’ — p. 357

Summarizing his deficiencies, Karl Marx was neither progressive nor enlightened; he was a racist, anti-Semite, a German nationalist, a warmonger, autocratic, anti-freedom proponent, Machiavellian, pro-Black slavery, petty, homophobic, megalomaniac, a bully and slanderer, anti-choice, and a reactionary against liberalism and industrial capitalism. In almost every sense, Marx fit the quintessential image of Hitler like a tight glove, both appearing almost indistinguishable. Like father and son, Marx and Hitler were two social justice warriors, determined to weaponize intolerance, racism, and nationalism for what they call the greater good. In so many ways, considering their almost identical political and social makeup, metaphorically speaking, Hitler could easily be regarded as the son of Marx. — p. 361

The ideology of Nazism included many of the same tenets of the social democrat and socialist democratic gradualists, today and in the past. The Nazis took gradualist positions to bring about socialism, social welfare measures, socioeconomic equality (known as Völkisch equality), classless society, public work projects, mandatory labor union membership, and class cooperation previously found appealing to Marxist heretics and reformers. — p. 369

Prior to World War II, most socialists and socialist parties of Europe held strong anti-Semitic opinions and railed against the capitalistic middle class and wealthy, especially money-lending Jews who engaged in usury. Their schemes called for wealth-confiscation and redistribution to create a truly equal society. — p. 369

As Germany’s new chancellor in 1933, Hitler inherited a welfare state, which he strengthened, fundamentally transforming Germany into a utopian-style welfare-warfare state that imposed price and wage controls, rent controls, progressive income taxes, corporate taxes, redistribution of wealth, onerous regulations, and deficit spending, which led to shortages and rationing under the disincentive effects of ‘high taxes.’ Hitler and the National Socialists were able to ramp up Germany’s welfare system to the point where it became the largest, most massive, all-encompassing social service system of its time, even, according to some, rivaling the Soviet Union’s inadequate socialist safety net. And in an effort to provide more healthcare services, the Nazi regime enhanced what was essentially a universal single-payer healthcare system fully owned and operated by the Third Reich. — p. 370

Joseph Goebbels once applauded the generosity of Hitler’s welfare state, boasting in a 1944 editorial, ‘Our Socialism,’ that ‘We and we alone [the Nazis] have the best social welfare measures. Everything is done for the nation… the Jews are the incarnation of capitalism.’ After all, in addition to old age insurance (social security) and universal socialized single-payer healthcare, the Nazi administration provided a plethora of social safety net benefits: rent supplements, holiday homes for mothers, extra food for larger families, over 8,000 day-nurseries, unemployment and disability benefits, old-age homes, and interest-free loans for married couples, to name just a few. But there was more: under the Third Reich’s redistributive-like policies, the main social welfare organization—the ‘National Socialist People’s Welfare’ (NSV)—was not only in charge of doling out social relief but ‘intended to realize the vision of society by means of social engineering.’ In other words, the Nazi welfare system ushered in a menagerie of welfare programs: aid to poor families and pregnant women, nutrition programs, welfare for children, ad nauseam. The Nazis also put energy into cleansing of their cities of ‘asocials,’ which ushered in a no-welfare-benefits-for-the-unfit program, based on a welfarism that was committed to a sort of social Darwinist collectivism. — pp. 389-390

By almost all measures, the Hitler’s German Labor Front carried out most of their pro-labor promises while Lenin and Stalin ran roughshod over their proletariat subjects. Conditions for workers and peasants alike plunged after Lenin nationalized independent labor unions and the economy. Violent labor strikes paralyzed Russian cities while, in the countryside, over one hundred peasant revolts erupted during early 1921 alone. Unlike Hitler’s Germany, thousands of striking Russian workers were shot, imprisoned, or executed, particularly during the blood-soaked saga of the Kronstadt rebellion in March 1921. — p. 404

The adherents of the German Nazi movement reflected a profoundly left-wing footprint not only as social revolutionaries, secularists of political theodicy, and diehard collectivists, but as brothers posturing and fighting for alpha-male dominance. As Nazism developed, it was heavily influenced by the early Utopian socialists, the neo-socialists, and various movements to reform Marxism, opposing any independent political or religious movement that might eclipse its own authority. Extremely hostile towards the aristocracy, Christianity, and capitalism, Nazis considered themselves revolutionaries—radicals determined to bring about a classless society of superior racial egalitarianism bathed in volk socialism. There was nothing traditionally conservative about their movement. — p. 411

The US Democratic Party increasingly emulates the economic and metaphysical collectivism of Nazism and fascism, while the Republican Party echoes the fascistic militarism and expansionism of the Third Reich. — p. 412

Once this proslavery link to socialism was detected in recent years, scholars began to piece together the modern-statist Left’s nefarious past. As it turns out, historically, the roots of the slavocracy Left are traceable to the forbears of the Democratic Party, who actively supported enslavement, lynching, segregation, racism, welfarism, proto-socialism, paternalism, and white supremacy before and after the American Civil War. In this sense, the beginning of the Democratic Party in the late 1820s represents the start of an anti-Founders movement initiated to invalidate the original intent of the creators of liberal capitalism and self-ownership. — p. 443

Some scholars now refer to the Democratic Party’s long-time support of slavery and supremacy as the epitome of a ‘thievery society,’ where the societal collectives own and control everything, even people. Such a thievery polity would bestow on governing bodies the authority to steal anything with immunity, for whatever noble or ignoble purpose. Perhaps this is why William Lloyd Garrison (1805–1879), the most prominent abolitionist in the United States, denounced slavery as an institution of ‘man-stealing,’ writing: ‘Every slave is a stolen man; every slaveholder is a man-stealer.’ — p. 443-444

After the Confederate States of America lost the Civil War in 1865, it was the Democratic Party which took center stage in opposing any civil rights protections for blacks. They opposed the Civil Rights Act of 1866, which the Republican Congress passed, over President Andrew Johnson’s veto. The law was simple and pertinent; it was ‘designed to provide blacks with the right to own private property, sign contracts, sue and serve as witnesses in a legal proceeding.’ — p. 447

Southerners like Fitzhugh pushed the Democratic Party towards a socialist-slavery plantation society that would impose a dependency on government largesse under the shadow of paternalistic racism. His was a popular voice in justifying slavery, finding support among many southern politicians, slaveholders, and newspapers. — p. 452

In 2017 a movement emerged to demand the removal of all Confederate statues and monuments across the South, which many contend symbolize the evils of slavery, racism and white supremacy. Good enough, but something was forgotten. Ironically, where was the outcry to sweep away the Confederate perpetrators who established, financed and fought to preserve those iron shackles of slavery? Where was the demand to depose the political party that has been synonymous with such racist, antiquated views for so long—the Democratic Party? Why aren’t the Democrats included in this noble campaign to consign race-based subjugation to the dustbin of history? This is the real atrocity: toppling the statues of racists, but not those who built them. — p. 456

The Democratic leaders had to devise another scheme to obtain votes from both white and black citizens while still subjecting them to the plantation bullwhip of paternalism and socialism. To accomplish this, the Democrats had to replace white supremacy with “state supremacy,” which recast the state as the new slave master and societal overlord, regardless of race. This should not be surprising since Democrat Party ideological foundations were originally based on the “man-stealing” premise of domination and submission. — p. 465

According to the American historian Eric Foner, ‘Essentially what Lincoln said is slavery is a form of theft, the theft of labor, one person stealing another person’s labor without that person’s permission.’ This point cannot be overstated. Broken down to its simplest core element, autocratic socialism is based on the ‘sanctity of theft,’ whereby societal elites are licensed to steal anything from anybody and then redistribute the loot to the politically deserving. Nothing is private, nothing can be owned by individuals, nobody owns themselves, and all things are controlled and owned by the politically powerful. Collectivized theft and aggression is the perfection of a slave state. — pp. 483-484

The old parable about trapping wild pigs in the forest is prophetic. To capture and control the wild and free, one needs only to lay out a spread of free food while secretly constructing a sturdy fence around the perimeter. Every day, as the animals munch on freebies, the fence’s length expands until it has surrounded the oblivious victims. Once the trap is sprung, it is the trapper who feasts on the foolish. This anecdote illustrates how coercive socialism works to enslave a populace through perennial promises of ‘free stuff.’ — p. 484

A state of thievocracy is promoted because it permits politically connected taskmasters to redirect wealth to those deemed worthier by the state. In this sense, slavery is the socialization of labor and property, imposed to make the populace subservient to an institutionalized authority that often preaches equalitarianism and altruism but practices a slavery-enriched militarism. To the far statist Left and their slavocracy comrades, individuals have no ownership rights—so humans can be beasts of burden or simply be exterminated in cleansing bouts of genocide. Many leaders of the Democratic Party are still tied to this slavocracy-socialist tradition as a means to steal wages and assets from the citizenry as well as corrode free speech, due process and the presumption of innocence. — p 484