Twenty years after the wall

[Fragony]

EDIT: I'm still bemused/amused by this... Could you care to explain what your ideas of a right-wing Social policy are?

No social policy, naturally.

[CountArach]

No social policy, naturally.

Wait... Anarchism?

[Rhyfelwyr]

Vuk I often agree with you in the Backroom but this is insane. Nationalism (hence National Socialists) is a classic feature of any right-wing state. The Nazi's believed in a particularly brutal form of ethnic nationalism, and that is why they attempted to exterminate all the 'inferior' races. The left wing, from Leninists to modern liberal lefties, is international in its nature, and believes in a global revolution, because people from all races are not divided by nationality, but by class. Of course, this class divide led to some brutal treatment in certain communist states. I am not defending that, I'm just showing the difference between left and right wing ideologies.

You can be right-wing and violent by exterminating inferior races/cultures. You can be right-wing and peaceful by believing in independence for all nationalities (this sort of utopian nationalism was seen a lot around 1848). You can be left-wing and violent by exterminating the bourgeoisie. You can be left-wing and peaceful by attempting to reform through gradual social change.

Both sides need to stop trying to make the other seem to be monstrous murderers.

[Fragony]

Wait... Anarchism?

Nope, state minimalisation. Anarchism sounds great really see you when I get there.

[CountArach]

Nope, state minimalisation. Anarchism sounds great really see you when I get there.

Alright I think I get what you mean. Here we have something of a labelling difference because I see the state staying out of people's lives as being a left-wing ideal when it comes to social policy (and I think that, intellectually speaking, that is where it stems from in the modern political discourse). I'm interested in what Vuk thinks.

[Fragony]

Alright I think I get what you mean. Here we have something of a labelling difference because I see the state staying out of people's lives as being a left-wing ideal when it comes to social policy (and I think that, intellectually speaking, that is where it stems from in the modern political discourse). I'm interested in what Vuk thinks.

Things are fine, lefties are perfectionists desperate for a cause.

C'est bon.

[Vuk]

Allow me to channel Tribsey for a moment...

You DON'T consider those right-wing...?

I am afraid there clearly isn't any point in arguing with you...

EDIT: I'm still bemused/amused by this... Could you care to explain what your ideas of a right-wing Social policy are?

You consider mass murder a right wing policy? Boy, that education system must be sooo unbiased!
These things are part and parcel of state control, something the right tries to minimize. The right thinks that government should stay out of people's affairs and be as small and safe as possible. It is the left that ops for huge government control over people's lives that can eventually lead to things like the holocaust or Stalins purges. I would not be arrogant enough to claim that Stalin's purges were left wing policies (as you have labelled the holocaust as a right wing policy), it is the work of an ambitious and ruthless person. It IS however made POSSIBLE in BOTH cases by leftwing social and economic (esp where the two are intertwined) policies. If it were not for the government control that Hitler and Stalin had, neither would have been able to do what they did. Socialist economic policies that made people powerless, and gun control (something very left wing) to make sure they could not resist. Sure, purges and holocausts are not part of the left's agenda, but stupid leftist policies make them possible.
The holocaust is NOT rightwing nor is it leftwing, it is the work of an evil person. What is important though is that that evil person was able to accomplish what he did because of LEFTIST policies. I mean come on! Did you really think that the HOLOCAUST is something conservatives support?! Conservatives support rightwing policies, the Holocaust is not a rightwing policy.

[Vuk]

Vuk I often agree with you in the Backroom but this is insane. Nationalism (hence National Socialists) is a classic feature of any right-wing state. The Nazi's believed in a particularly brutal form of ethnic nationalism, and that is why they attempted to exterminate all the 'inferior' races. The left wing, from Leninists to modern liberal lefties, is international in its nature, and believes in a global revolution, because people from all races are not divided by nationality, but by class. Of course, this class divide led to some brutal treatment in certain communist states. I am not defending that, I'm just showing the difference between left and right wing ideologies.

You can be right-wing and violent by exterminating inferior races/cultures. You can be right-wing and peaceful by believing in independence for all nationalities (this sort of utopian nationalism was seen a lot around 1848). You can be left-wing and violent by exterminating the bourgeoisie. You can be left-wing and peaceful by attempting to reform through gradual social change.

Both sides need to stop trying to make the other seem to be monstrous murderers.

Ok, right...so it is not about freedom, it is about racism? You really believe that racism is part of rightwing policy? You have been talking to CA for too long I believe. Look at rightwing revolutions: The American Revolution, The Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49, etc. They are revolutions against oppressor states, not races or cultures. In both cases, the revolutionaries were of mixed race and culture, and were battling an oppressive government, NOT a people. By your own line of reasoning I could say that religious persecution is a leftist policy. Heck, Stalin did it, as did many of the 'communist' countries in the bloc, and minimization of religion is a large part of leftist doctrine in Western states today. You know what? I could make a MUCH better case for that then you could for racism being part of rightwing ideology.

EDIT: And nationalism is a thing of the right, correct? Ok...right. Tell that to all the bloc countries and the USSR. Sure, there was ideology there just as there was in rightwing places, but Nationalism played a BIG part.

[Kralizec]

@ Adrian:

I recall from my history lessons that Kruschev exposed several of Stalin's crimes in the early 50'ties, but it's my impression that it took decades before he was universally recognised for what he was in the Netherlands. If I'm right, why was that?

Somewhat related, a lot of people seem to have despised NATO because it included military regimes like Greece and Portugal. Now I know I have the benefit of hindsight but it seems to me that the events in Hungary and Chzechoslovakia in '56 and '68 should have made it fairly clear that while NATO might have had a few rotten apples the opposing side was terrible across the board...

[Ironside]

Vuk, you're mixing up classical liberalism (the classic center) with the right wing. That messes up the scale quite a bit.

As an example, that would split up the socialistic movement into two branches, one radical leftwing (old school communists) and one radical rightwing (anarchists).

[Louis VI the Fat]

BTW when do you think the new political century started, judged by the historians of 2150 (added some margins there)? 1989 or later, like 2001?

It is not possible to say where future historians will place historical fault lines. Not that this will deter me...

Hobsbawm is a famous British historian. (He's a Marxist!!1!! And thus responsible for Treblinka!!1!) He wrote two books: 'Europe's long nineteenth century: 1789 - 1914'. And the book whose title I tucked into an earlier post here: 'Europe's short twentieth century: 1914 - 1989'.

The latter century is the wretched century. Europe's most bitter.

Not really Hobsbawm, but my own thoughts, say that in the long century, progressive modernism fought reactionarism. And won. Liberal democracy triumphed, destroying the old.
In the second, short, century, liberal democracy in turn was under siege. Somewhat irrelevantly, still from reactionary anti-modernism (for example Franco). More dangerously, from revolutionary conservatism (f.e. Mussolini, Hitler), and from the peoples that missed out on modernism in the nineteenth century (f.e. Lenin, Stalin, petty East European dictators). These currents each sought to destroy the old too. Fortunately, liberal democracy triumphed again.

The other title I tucked in the post was of course Fukuyama's 'The end of History'.
He saw the final triumph of liberal democracy in 1989. Quod non. As witness, for example, below under Brenus. Or as witness 2001. Next to two skyscapers, Osama blew up Fukuyama on 9-11. The West had overlooked other anti-liberal currents. With the benefit of hindsight, Islamofascism was a storm that had been brewing for decades. The Cold War made us blind to it. From 1945-1989, the Cold War monopolised Western thought. Third World developments were only regarded in light of the ideological struggle between the First and the Second World. It made sense back then, it looks like breathtaking arrogance now. In the Third World, there was economic development, truly astounding demographic changes, and simmering strife that was fully autonomous of the West-East division. All this came to the fore with globalisation - which, contrary to what the anti-globalists of the nineties thought, was not the imposition of the West upon the rest of the world, but rather the reverse.

In this sense, I would say 1989-2001 was either a short, jubilant spring* of liberal democracy. Or the 'Indian Summer' of liberal democracy. A brief coda that disguided the end of summer.
The choice will all depent on the future fortune of liberal democracy throughout the world.

*To which Brenus has violently objected already, which I shall adress below.


Or, perhaps non-Western narratives might become dominant.
And so perhaps the entire period of 1600-1950 will be deemed a brief interlude during which a few petty states managed to seize upon Chinese internal strife to briefly surpass China for a brief interlude of China's five thousand years old dominance.
Or perhaps 1926 will be deemed the turning point. The Turks, gone and the West not paying attention, it was the year in which Wahabism took over Saudi Arabia. The year which started their quest for world dominance. Through a massive breeding program, through Arab human and cultural colonialism into Africa, Asia and Europe.

[Louis VI the Fat]

Freedom was flooding the world in 1989.

Then the Right Wing Nationalists started Ethnic cleansing in Europe.

Very well to point out that 1989 was not the end of history. I do, as always, disagree with your take on Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was always the most liberal, economically most developed part of European communism. Their system wasn't a card house that could fall down one moment from the next. However, 1989 did show the Yugo communists that their time was up. Simmerring subcurrents in Yugoslavia re-surfaced, and took over. Nationalism, regionalism, ancient strife. The narrative changed. 1989 marked the six hundred anniversary of Serbian struggle against the 'Turks'. This led to 'Bosnia'.
For all the faults you can point out in other countries, Serbian aggressive nationalism had a clear autonomous cause.

~~-~~-~~<oi0io>~~-~~-~~

Socialism is nazism is communism.

This shows a lack of precision of historical and political terminology.

It is also not very relevant.

~~-~~-~~<oi0io>~~-~~-~~

Because the greens are cryptofascists, and have been all along. Anti-liberal, anti-progress, anti-rational, anti-human. Fortuyn's murderer was only the first full-blown killer that this cabal has produced.

I'm sorry, but I couldn't disagree with you more, Adrian.

The killer thought it was 1933 and that he had to stop Hitler. See, for example, the 'Irish theocracy' thread, where Brenus argues that nazis must be prevented from gaining power, and I myself went so far as to say that there must a standing order to shoot nazis at sight. This is the mindset of the killer. Prevent nazism by force.

The second ingredient is the left's sabre-rattling and demonisation of Fortuyn, This caused many people to see Fortuyn as a nazi. Thus the obligation the killer felt to murder Fortuyn.

Fragony understands Dutch society better than you. ( ) Fortuyn was murdered by the left.

The killer just happened to be an animal rights activist. An ecoterrorist indeed, but environmental concerns were not an issue to Fortuyn. Nor to the killer's decision to shoot Fortuyn.
To say otherwise is nothing but cluelessness by a left that refuses to see its responsibility, a left that simply can not conceive of itself as sometimes anti-liberal, anti-progress, anti-rational, anti-human.

When a Nascar-loving American shoots a doctor at an abortion clinic, is he better described as a Nascar-terrorist or is it the result of Christian extremist agitation? When an animal loving Dutchman shoots a rightwing politician, is he better described as an ecoterrorist or as the result of leftist extremist agitation?

[Vuk]

Vuk, you're mixing up classical liberalism (the classic center) with the right wing. That messes up the scale quite a bit.

As an example, that would split up the socialistic movement into two branches, one radical leftwing (old school communists) and one radical rightwing (anarchists).

Not at all, I talking about rightwing as in American rightwing. Anarchism is NOT a far right policy, it is a utopian fantasy of the leftwing. Both anarchy and communism are supposedly the ends to which the means of total government ownership and control will lead to. Some of you have more money and power than others, give me all your money and power (or I will kill you and take it anyway) and once everyone has nothing, and I am controlling everything that was yours, then I will spread it equally to you all and cease to exist...sure...
Anarchy and communism are the stupid dreams of the left. We on the right believe that a government is absolutely necassary to protect the basic rights of the citizens, but it has to be a government of the people, for the people. It has to be a government that is lean and trim and can accomplish its purpose exactly, but not do more than it is meant to do. Defense of the country is part of protecting basic rights. If you want to make up another definition for rightwing, feel free to do so, but if so, then stop calling the American right rightwing, because that is what they believe in.

[Vuk]

Very well to point out that 1989 was not the end of history. I do, as always, disagree with your take on Yugoslavia. Yugoslavia was always the most liberal, economically most developed part of European communism. Their system wasn't a card house that could fall down one moment from the next. However, 1989 did show the Yugo communists that their time was up. Simmerring subcurrents in Yugoslavia re-surfaced, and took over. Nationalism, regionalism, ancient strife. The narrative changed. 1989 marked the six hundred anniversary of Serbian struggle against the 'Turks'. This led to 'Bosnia'.
For all the faults you can point out in other countries, Serbian aggressive nationalism had a clear autonomous cause.

Quite wrong, Yugoslavian socialism did not work. They survived because of loans from the west (as many communist countries including Hungary and even the USSR did). There is only so long that something like that can last though. Yugoslavia is actually a pretty bad example for you to pick as a succes story for a controlled economy. They were plagued by old technology, and the socialism system prevented new techonology from developing rapidly enough. They were having regions with rich natural resources manufacture tank optics for which there was no market at all. It did not make sense and it did not work. Main reason for the Cold War coming to an end IMHO? They were just so deep in debt and nothing they could do would make them get out of debt. They were spending enormous amounts of money on espionage and the arms race, fighting disasterous wars in the middle east, had troops stationed in most of the Bloc countries. Socialism truely did fail.

It is not possible to say where future historians will place historical fault lines. Not that this will deter me...

Hobsbawm is a famous British historian. (He's a Marxist!!1!! And thus responsible for Treblinka!!1!) He wrote two books: 'Europe's long nineteenth century: 1789 - 1914'. And the book whose title I tucked into an earlier post here: 'Europe's short twentieth century: 1914 - 1989'.

The latter century is the wretched century. Europe's most bitter.

Not really Hobsbawm, but my own thoughts, say that in the long century, progressive modernism fought reactionarism. And won. Liberal democracy triumphed, destroying the old.
In the second, short, century, liberal democracy in turn was under siege. Somewhat irrelevantly, still from reactionary anti-modernism (for example Franco). More dangerously, from revolutionary conservatism (f.e. Mussolini, Hitler), and from the peoples that missed out on modernism in the nineteenth century (f.e. Lenin, Stalin, petty East European dictators). These currents each sought to destroy the old too. Fortunately, liberal democracy triumphed again.

Think of it, that is an oxymoron. :P Hitler was the farthest possible thing from conservative.

[Rhyfelwyr]

Ok, right...so it is not about freedom, it is about racism? You really believe that racism is part of rightwing policy? You have been talking to CA for too long I believe. Look at rightwing revolutions: The American Revolution, The Hungarian Revolution of 1848-49, etc. They are revolutions against oppressor states, not races or cultures. In both cases, the revolutionaries were of mixed race and culture, and were battling an oppressive government, NOT a people.

You ignored a big part of my post... look how I said that both the right and left wing ideologies can be violent/peaceful. Hungarian Revolution of 1848-9... isn't that the year I gave of my example of a peaceful form of nationalism? The different nationalities worked together in order to estbalish independece for their own states. You see this still today in places, like with the Scottish National Party and its support for Welsh independence. Heck even fascists like Oswald Mosley had elements of this utopian nationalism... he was a British nationalist who supported Irish independence.

By your own line of reasoning I could say that religious persecution is a leftist policy. Heck, Stalin did it, as did many of the 'communist' countries in the bloc, and minimization of religion is a large part of leftist doctrine in Western states today. You know what? I could make a MUCH better case for that then you could for racism being part of rightwing ideology.

EDIT: And nationalism is a thing of the right, correct? Ok...right. Tell that to all the bloc countries and the USSR. Sure, there was ideology there just as there was in rightwing places, but Nationalism played a BIG part.

Religious persecuation is a policy of the authoritarian Marxist, I have never argued the left is perfect. Stalin turned communism into an abomination (I'm not saying communism is great but he made his form extra nasty), the nationalism etc is nothing to do with Mr. Marx. "Socialism in one country" seems socially right-wing to me.

[Vuk]

You ignored a big part of my post... look how I said that both the right and left wing ideologies can be violent/peaceful. Hungarian Revolution of 1848-9... isn't that the year I gave of my example of a peaceful form of nationalism? The different nationalities worked together in order to estbalish independece for their own states. You see this still today in places, like with the Scottish National Party and its support for Welsh independence. Heck even fascists like Oswald Mosley had elements of this utopian nationalism... he was a British nationalist who supported Irish independence.



Religious persecuation is a policy of the authoritarian Marxist, I have never argued the left is perfect. Stalin turned communism into an abomination (I'm not saying communism is great but he made his form extra nasty), the nationalism etc is nothing to do with Mr. Marx. "Socialism in one country" seems socially right-wing to me.

No, I did not. Rightwing revolutions (such as the Hungarian and American revolutions) were revolutions against governments, NOT people. You are trying to say that Hitler's attack against Jews, Slavs, etc was characteristic of the rightwing...it was not. Leftwing ideology, both today and in the recent past is inherently anti-religious, so what Stalin did you could say IS characteristic of the left, simply a more extreme form of it. There is nothing about rightwing ideology that is anti-race/culture/etc. Nationalism is NOT the same as racism or culturalism (two things that the Nazis were). And Nationalism is something that exists in the left and the right. It is more a thing of people than of a political affiliation.

EDIT: I will debate with you kiddies when I get back home. This is taking too much time out of my packing. :P

[Rhyfelwyr]

No, I did not. Rightwing revolutions (such as the Hungarian and American revolutions) were revolutions against governments, NOT people. You are trying to say that Hitler's attack against Jews, Slavs, etc was characteristic of the rightwing...it was not. Leftwing ideology, both today and in the recent past is inherently anti-religious, so what Stalin did you could say IS characteristic of the left, simply a more extreme form of it. There is nothing about rightwing ideology that is anti-race/culture/etc. Nationalism is NOT the same as racism or culturalism (two things that the Nazis were). And Nationalism is something that exists in the left and the right. It is more a thing of people than of a political affiliation.

If you are left-wing then you view nationalism as one of those "opium of the people", something that distracts people from the real issue of class struggle. The right does not have this international focus, but instead believes that nation states should be sovereign and independent, as people are united by cultural, ethnic, whatever ties.

The lefts flings with nationalism are due to the fact that the left never came about the way Marx expected. It's no coincidence that Marxism went down well with the nations that had suffered under colonialism, to them it explained the west's dominance over them. They were never ready for the international version of Marxism, they never even had a real bourgeoisie. And so communism was conflated with several other issues, and racial divides obviously got sucked into the mix.

Often, right-wing social outlooks lead to left-wing economic policies. If you are a Nazi that believes Aryans are the master race, then obviously you want to ensure every Aryan has a job, a good house, and decent standard of living etc.. and there you go you have a welfare state. That's why there is a point at which the more right-wing a government's social outlook becomes, the more left-wing its economy becomes.

[Fragony]

To say otherwise is nothing but cluelessness by a left that refuses to see its responsibility, a left that simply can not conceive of itself as sometimes anti-liberal, anti-progress, anti-rational, anti-human.

wow, Louis for president

[Louis VI the Fat]

EDIT: I will debate with you kiddies when I get back home. This is taking too much time out of my packing. :P

Might I suggest you pack, for example, Darius Gawin? Below in italic an excerpt from 'Totalitarianism and Modernity'.

revolutionary conservatism (f.e. Mussolini, Hitler),

Think of it, that is an oxymoron. :P Hitler was the farthest possible thing from conservative.

'Revolutionary conservatism' is an aptly chosen term, because of the seeming contradiction. It perfectly captures the tension in German conservatism of sixty years ago. Fascism wasn't anti-modern, like most reactionary political ideologies. Fascism had a different attitude altogether.

Gawin:

'the attitude of the radical right, that gave rise to fascism, towards modernity was much more complex. They criticised modernity for the sake of the upcoming future - the best illustrative example of such an attitude were the so-called German revolutionary conservatives. What they felt was not a melancholy for elapsing time but a great enthusiasm, with which they welcomed a new age of history approaching from the future'.


For the revolutionary conservatives a key term was "modernity" - understood as a system of capitalistic, industrial society. Although the left declared against capitalism, yet - according to the revolutionary conservatives - it was still in the centre of modernity. Thus a leftist revolution was basically "reactionary". Only revolutionary conservatism - that is fascism - offered truly radical criticism of modernity and proposed a real vision of overcoming it. So, revolutionary conservatism wanted to be - to use modern terminology - "post-modern", while communism wanted to solidify and radicalise "modernity" in a revolutionary way.

Does it mean that we can put fascism and Nazism on the one plane with communism, explaining at the same time - as Ernst Nolte - that it was a wrong answer to the right question? It seems, however, that in this dispute right was rather Francois Furet who in classification of evil awarded primacy to Nazism. Communism and Nazism could be put on the one plane because they had the common roots in the crisis of liberal world of the 19th century. Thus, Nazism was not a mere "reaction" to the emergence of Communism (as Nolte claims) but there was rather a symbiotic interdependence between them. It is true that in chronological order Lenin rose to power before Mussolini, as Stalin was ahead of Hitler. In order of ideas, however, both trends derived from one another - and already from the end of the 19th century, from the moment of anti-Positivistic breakthrough in European culture when both the radical left and radical right were born.

Dear Gawin even manages to return the discussion about the nature of the two totalitarianisms to the subject of 1989:

Today, after the year of 1989, it is evident that it is America that turned out to be the victor who defeated both totalitarianisms; moreover, it was America that was the winner at every turning point in the history of the 20th century, both in 1918, in 1945 and in 1989. And it was the Atlantic Enlightenment that originated a new post-modernism, although very different to the one of which the revolutionary conservatives wanted to be the self-proclaimed prophets.

[Vuk]

If you are left-wing then you view nationalism as one of those "opium of the people", something that distracts people from the real issue of class struggle. The right does not have this international focus, but instead believes that nation states should be sovereign and independent, as people are united by cultural, ethnic, whatever ties.

The lefts flings with nationalism are due to the fact that the left never came about the way Marx expected. It's no coincidence that Marxism went down well with the nations that had suffered under colonialism, to them it explained the west's dominance over them. They were never ready for the international version of Marxism, they never even had a real bourgeoisie. And so communism was conflated with several other issues, and racial divides obviously got sucked into the mix.

Often, right-wing social outlooks lead to left-wing economic policies. If you are a Nazi that believes Aryans are the master race, then obviously you want to ensure every Aryan has a job, a good house, and decent standard of living etc.. and there you go you have a welfare state. That's why there is a point at which the more right-wing a government's social outlook becomes, the more left-wing its economy becomes.

lol, you are wrong again. Nationalism is something that plagues both sides. The right cares about individual freedoms, and a nation that protects them is necassary. The left cares about social welfare, and a nation that will take and distribute wealth is necassary. Nationalism is not a thing of the right, and is not a thing of the left. It is simply a thing of humans.

As far as your argument about rightwing social policies leading to leftwing economic policies, it makes me laugh. It looks to me like you are trying to place the blame of a leftwing government on 'rightwing social policies' (in fact, you are). Here is news for you, rightwing social policies drive rightwing governments, and leftwing social policies drive leftwing governments. Great for you to brand Nazi ideology of a superrace as rightwing. As I said before, it is neither right nor left, it is simply madness. What IS leftwing though is the government and society that these nuts believed in (which is nut to say that it reflects on other leftists, simply that they chose the leftwing policies because it gave them control). Nazis are not proof that the left hates Jews, but it is proof that leftist policies can lead to dangerous government control. When you concentrate power like that, you are at the mercy of whoever is at the wheel. (Bad luck for Germany and Russia, they got Hitler and Stalin)

[Vuk]

Might I suggest you pack, for example, Darius Gawin? Below in italic an excerpt from 'Totalitarianism and Modernity'.

'Revolutionary conservatism' is an aptly chosen term, because of the seeming contradiction. It perfectly captures the tension in German conservatism of sixty years ago. Fascism wasn't anti-modern, like most reactionary political ideologies. Fascism had a different attitude altogether.

Gawin:

'the attitude of the radical right, that gave rise to fascism, towards modernity was much more complex. They criticised modernity for the sake of the upcoming future - the best illustrative example of such an attitude were the so-called German revolutionary conservatives. What they felt was not a melancholy for elapsing time but a great enthusiasm, with which they welcomed a new age of history approaching from the future'.


For the revolutionary conservatives a key term was "modernity" - understood as a system of capitalistic, industrial society. Although the left declared against capitalism, yet - according to the revolutionary conservatives - it was still in the centre of modernity. Thus a leftist revolution was basically "reactionary". Only revolutionary conservatism - that is fascism - offered truly radical criticism of modernity and proposed a real vision of overcoming it. So, revolutionary conservatism wanted to be - to use modern terminology - "post-modern", while communism wanted to solidify and radicalise "modernity" in a revolutionary way.

Does it mean that we can put fascism and Nazism on the one plane with communism, explaining at the same time - as Ernst Nolte - that it was a wrong answer to the right question? It seems, however, that in this dispute right was rather Francois Furet who in classification of evil awarded primacy to Nazism. Communism and Nazism could be put on the one plane because they had the common roots in the crisis of liberal world of the 19th century. Thus, Nazism was not a mere "reaction" to the emergence of Communism (as Nolte claims) but there was rather a symbiotic interdependence between them. It is true that in chronological order Lenin rose to power before Mussolini, as Stalin was ahead of Hitler. In order of ideas, however, both trends derived from one another - and already from the end of the 19th century, from the moment of anti-Positivistic breakthrough in European culture when both the radical left and radical right were born.

Dear Gawin even manages to return the discussion about the nature of the two totalitarianisms to the subject of 1989:

Today, after the year of 1989, it is evident that it is America that turned out to be the victor who defeated both totalitarianisms; moreover, it was America that was the winner at every turning point in the history of the 20th century, both in 1918, in 1945 and in 1989. And it was the Atlantic Enlightenment that originated a new post-modernism, although very different to the one of which the revolutionary conservatives wanted to be the self-proclaimed prophets.

Communism and Nazism (both socialist ideologies) were simply two lions fighting for dominance. They were both lions however. You know what Hitler ran his popularity campaign on? Change. Nothing conservative about that, he was a future looking progressive who was going to take advantage of the modern ideas of socialism and use them for the good of the master race. All the time battling those who would use them for evil. Both Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia were totalitarian, socialist regimes. They were just competing ones.

[Rhyfelwyr]

I get the feeling we might be suffering from one of those differences in definitions which so often plagues people debating across the Atlantic. This is what I am thinking of when using the terms:

Social left-wing - internationalism, people's of the world unite, class difference over national differences, one-world government etc
Social right-wing - countries should rule themselves, national pride, national differences over class differences, protectionism, country first etc

Economic left-wing - big government, welfare state etc
Economic right-wing - minimal government, free trade, capitalism etc

If you disagree with that, then we can try to come to an understanding. But by those definitions, the Nazi's were no doubt socially right-wing but economically left-wing.

[Adrian II]

I see that whilst I was away working and defending the interests of this constitutional monarchy with my sweat, my brain and my lifeblood, you jobless tourists, hippie scum and virtual trashcan scavengers managed to move this discussion into round 476 of the Hitler/Stalin controversy. Let me tell you what happens in round 477: someone wil mention that Hitler was a vegetarian and someone else will remark that this has nothing to do with Alexander's cavalry break-through at Gaugamela. As if! So I think I'll pass and concentrate on a topic I actually know really well.

The killer thought it was 1933 and that he had to stop Hitler.

Right. If that is so, can you please explain the letter Volkert wrote from prison to his girlfriend? You know, the one that was read in extenso during his trial?

[Louis VI the Fat]

can you please explain the letter Volkert wrote from prison to his girlfriend? You know, the one that was read in extenso during his trial?

Uh...I could if you linked me the letter?

Meanwhile:

The assassin, Volkert van der Graaf, finally made his confession in court this last week. And—what do you know! – he says he killed Fortuyn largely for opposing Muslim immigration.

The London Daily Telegraph reported:

"Facing a raucous court on the first day of his murder trial, he said his goal was to stop Mr. Fortuyn exploiting Muslims as 'scapegoats' and targeting "the weak parts of society to score points" to try to gain political power. He said: 'I confess to the shooting. He was an ever growing danger who would affect many people in society. I saw it as a danger. I hoped that I could solve it myself.'"

And:

"Van der Graaf claimed, according to the Algemeen Dagblad, he was greatly influenced by politicians who compared Fortuyn with Austrian far-right leader Jorg Haider and Italian dictator Benito Mussolini."

[Adrian II]

Uh...I could if you linked me the letter?

The letter where he explains his strategy vis-a-vis the prosecution, public opinion, the press. Don't tell me you haven't seen it. You were in that court room together with me, three days in a row, or weren't you?

EDIT
Ah, how clumsy of me. That wasn't you. You were the guy who accompanied me when I made that off the record interview with the top sleuth on the police team that worked on Volkert's case, mr Doelman. I'm sure you'll remember what he told us that afternoon about Volkert's true motif.

2nd EDIT
Wrong again. That wasn't you either. You were the guy who came along when I interviewed Volkert's closest partner over many years, the one who admitted they used poison and animal traps against mink farmers.

3rd EDIT
I feel such a jerk. Of course that wasn't you. You are the teamleader of the Dutch intelligence service AIVD who made this year's report to parliament, where they write that animal activism is now a major threat and that The Neds is the organisational hub for radical animal rights acitivists throughout Europe. I am so glad I finally pinned you down.

4th EDIT
Or were you the guy who wrote the handbook for eco-activism, where it says that in case of arrest you have to motivate your actions with anything but animal rights activism: keep the authorities guessing and don't give away your antecedents or comrades. Yeah, I'm sure that was you.

5th EDIT
Got it! You're the French Texan who writes admirably about all sorts of historical and political issues and is generally twice as clever as the rest of us, but who is slightly out of his depth when it comes to an intricate Dutch court case and its ties to eco-activism in the town of Ede-Wageningen.

The town of what?

[Fragony]

The letter where he explains his strategy vis-a-vis the prosecution, public opinion, the press.

Is there some sort of explanation we should consider to be something of an explanation? I think we have put up with a lot so far. Haven't learned anything, doing the exact same thing to Wilders, just as dirty.

[KukriKhan]

And so perhaps the entire period of 1600-1950 will be deemed a brief interlude during which a few petty states managed to seize upon Chinese internal strife to briefly surpass China for a brief interlude of China's five thousand years old dominance.

Perhaps the most interesting contextual comment I think I've seen in this seemingly eternal right v. left argument.

Can we say that when a broad swathe of population thinks it is in crisis/survival mode, a strongman emerges, to put things right? And that those strongmen usually outstay their welcome?

[Vladimir]

...

3rd EDIT
I feel such a jerk. Of course that wasn't you. You are the teamleader of the Dutch intelligence service AIVD who made this year's report to parliament, where they write that animal activism is now a major threat and that The Neds is the organisational hub for radical animal rights acitivists throughout Europe. I am so glad I finally pinned you down.

...

Louis outed as a Dutch intelligence officer!

[Adrian II]

Louis outed as a Dutch intelligence officer!

No, Louis was the eco-activist who rang the alarm when Pim Fortuyn announced that, as future prime minister, he would scrap all government subsidies for ecological 'awareness groups', relentlessly prosecute their lunatic fringes AND publicly wear mink to signal that he couldn't care less about their cause. Can you guess who was at the center of that lunatic fringe, boys and girls?

Final EDIT
I'll give you a clue. He wudn't a friend of our ritualistic-animal-slaughtering Muslim compatriots.

[Vladimir]

No, Louis was the eco-activist who rang the alarm when Pim Fortuyn announced that, as future prime minister, he would scrap all government subsidies for ecological 'awareness groups', relentlessly prosecute their lunatic fringes AND publicly wear mink to signal that he couldn't care less about their cause. Can you guess who was at the center of that lunatic fringe, boys and girls?

Final EDIT
I'll give you a clue. He wudn't a friend of our ritualistic-animal-slaughtering Muslim compatriots.

Well, I'm mostly impressed by the way you established your bonafides on this matter.