Post#429 » by younggunsmn » Mon Jan 24, 2011 5:48 pm
They were NOT on opposite sides politically, the Soviets just embraced pure socialism (Marxism) while the Nazi's went halfway (state-run capitalism with socialist programs. essentially a government-run economy). The Communist Party in Germany's slogan during Hitler's rise was "First Brown, Then Red", and they largely supported his rise to power. He turned on them once he had consolidated power, because they were a threat to that power. The big difference was that Hitler's was essentially a nationalist (NAZI, National Socialist German Workers Party) movement, while the Soviets objective was spreading Marxism globally (which they quite succeeded at after the war).
Corporatism.
German businesses did what the govenment wanted, and the government let them exist and helped prop up their monopolies as long as they supported the party and the war effort. (The US is practicing the same Corporatist policy right now with GM, Chrysler, Health Insurance, AIG, Fannie & Freddie, and the Bank Bailouts. The Federal Reserve is an original example of a corporatist institution).
You provide the cars, insurance policies, bank loans that the government approves of, the government runs your smaller competition out of business through excessive regulations and mandates, refuses to enforce anti-trust laws, and even floats you a loan if you need one (with phantom money from the FED stolen silently from the people through inflation). That's corporatism in a nutshell. And central banking is key to it all.
To be truly opposite politically they would have had a very weak and decentralized government along the lines of the US under the Articles of Confederation.
Every time I hear someone infer Hitler was right wing it makes me cringe.
There is Total Government (Tyranny) at the end of the left wing of the political spectrum,
and Total Absence of Govenment (anarchy) at the end of the right wing of the political spectrum.
If 0 is anarchy, and 10 Tyranny, Hitler was an 8 and Stalin a 10, in regards to how they ran their own countries.
Had Stalin not been willing to starve his people to fund the war effort, the Germans might have succeeded in Russia. They definitely should have taken Britain before attacking Russia. It would have been much, much harder for the US to retake Europe without Britain as a base to operate from. It was really the ability of the British to hold out (and their air bombing campaign of germany) that allowed the Allies to hold out long enough for the US to mobilize. Had Britain fallen, Stalin may have conquered all of Europe had Germany invaded Russia or not.
