Sunday, August 26, 2007

Hitler was a Socialist

A friend and fellow Protest Warrior sent me this interesting article by John J. Ray:




"True, it is a fixed idea with the French that the Rhine is their property, but to this arrogant demand the only reply worthy of the German nation is Arndt's: "Give back Alsace and Lorraine". For I am of the opinion, perhaps in contrast to many whose standpoint I share in other respects, that the reconquest of the German-speaking left bank of the Rhine is a matter of national honour, and that the Germanisation of a disloyal Holland and of Belgium is a political necessity for us. Shall we let the German nationality be completely suppressed in these countries, while the Slavs are rising ever more powerfully in the East?"



Have a look at the headline quote above and say who wrote it. It is a typical Hitler rant, is it not? Give it to 100 people who know Hitler's speeches and 100 would identify it as something said by Adolf. The fierce German nationalism and territorial ambition is unmistakeable. And if there is any doubt, have a look at another quote from the same author:



This is our calling, that we shall become the templars of this Grail, gird the sword round our loins for its sake and stake our lives joyfully in the last, holy war which will be followed by the thousand-year reign of freedom.



That settles it, doesn't it? Who does not know of Hitler's glorification of military sacrifice and his aim to establish a "thousand-year Reich"?

But neither quote is in fact from Hitler. Both quotes were written by Friedrich Engels, Karl Marx's co-author (See here and here). So let that be an introduction to the idea that Hitler not only called himself a socialist but that he WAS in fact a socialist by the standards of his day. Ideas that are now condemned as Rightist were in Hitler's day perfectly normal ideas among Leftists. And if Friedrich Engels was not a Leftist, I do not know who would be.



Obviously, read the whole thing. And if this article is not available at the link I provided, let me know, and I will post it on my site. But what is of particular interest to me is this picture from the article:



So, how do you like this Russian swastika? In case someone thinks this has something to do with some Russian fascists, let me assure you it does not. Let me translate this. On the left side it says:



ORDER


to troops of South-Eastern front


# 213


City of Saratov <date> November 1919


A shoulder patch is approved for Kalmyk units, according to the attached drawing and description.


The right to wear this patch is given to officers and Red Army privates of existing Kalmyk units, as well as the ones being raised, according to order of the Revolutionary Military Council of the Republic, this year, # 11<6>.



Below are the signatures of the front commander, the Member of the Revolutionary Military Council (the commissar) and chief of staff. On the right there is a description and the picture. Of interest are the Cyrillic letters R. S. F. S. R. inside the swastika. This abbreviation stands for "Russian Soviet Federal Socialist Republic", the official name of the part of the Soviet Union that is now Russia. By the way, even now the official name of Russia is Russian Federation. So, basically this is a Red Army shoulder patch with the swastika on it that was used during the Russian Civil War after the Bolshevik Revolution. My late grandpa told me many times that in 1939 after the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact the Soviet newspapers kept praising the friendship between 2 socialist countries. Indeed there were very few differences between the two.


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2 comments:

Anonymous said...

You may be interested to know that the Kalmyk people, unlike any nearby ethnicities, are predominantly Buddhist. If anything, Evil Dictator Trotsky was being soft on religion by allowing them to use a Buddhist symbol in their rank insignia.

Also, Engels wrote that in 1841, before even writing the Manifesto (from which he later diverged greatly). Would it not be disingenuous of me to quote the teenage scribblings of Irving Kristol and thereby claim him for revolutionary Marxism? This is the same Engels who later claimed that "the workingmen have no country." The fact that he, like most philosophers, changed his views is already widely known.

Anonymous said...

P.S. Similarly widespread is the popular understanding on the left that the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact and the dissolution of the Comintern only symbolized the complete about-face from socialism that had occurred under Stalin's clique in the besieged, undeveloped USSR.