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Juan Perón and Social-Fascism in Argentina

5 Mar

President Perón at his 1946 inaugural parade.

History of the Terms “Social-Democracy” and “Social-Fascism”

The term “social-democracy” has been used by the left since the time of Marx and Engels. The term is a pejorative one today, since it has become almost synonymous with liberal reformism. About a century ago, “social-democrat” was a word to describe other appendages of the socialist movement. Everyone who was an adherent to either the First or Second Internationals before 1914-1919 would be called a “social-democrat,” regardless if they were supporters of the revolutionary Marxism of V.I. Lenin in Russia or the reformist Socialist Party of America.

The Second International under Karl Kautsky failed to rally the working class when it encouraged supporting “one’s own” governments during the inter-imperialist First World War. It encouraged this viewpoint among the international socialist movement, many of whom began supporting the war. This amounted to betrayal of the working class and conciliation towards the capitalist system. This caused a split in the social-democratic movement, eventually leading to the formation of the Third International, also called the Communist International or Comintern, in 1919. The Third International was primarily led by the revolutionary wing of Russian social-democracy, the Bolsheviks under V.I. Lenin, who had seized power and led the first successful socialist revolution in the world in October of 1917. They opposed the World War as an imperialist war between capitalist powers and called for “turning imperialist war into civil war,” meaning into revolution.

After the foundation of the Third International, revolutionary social-democrats the world over abandoned the term “social-democrat” and called themselves “communists.” The term “social-democracy” became the viewpoint of surviving adherents of the Second International, including many socialist parties who had adopted reformist lines. “Social-democracy,” then, changed from being a term meaning the ideology of the entire socialist movement to mean bourgeois reformism that was in opposition to the working class and the revolutionary science of Marxism-Leninism.

The term “social-fascism” came from a theory supported by the Comintern of the 1930′s that social-democracy was the “left-wing of fascism.” This perception became commonplace after the German Revolution of 1918–1919 and the crushing of the Spartacist Uprising, which resulted in the murder of the German socialists Rosa Luxemburg and Karl Liebknecht among many other revolutionaries by a social-democratic German government, assisted by right-wing paramilitaries called the Freikorps. While some historic applications of this theory were incorrect, there is a trend in modern social-democracy that gave support to fascism and tends toward fascism even while using left-wing or populist rhetoric.

While modern social-democrats have appealed to centrists and center-leftists, there are a few that make full-on attempts to sway the revolutionary left by appealing to social programs, economism and trade unionism as a way of disorganizing the left’s revolutionary determination. While raising wages and improving the populace’s immediate standing of living, the class nature of the state remains the same: in the hands of the bourgeoisie. Labor is still treated as a commodity and surplus value is still extracted from the workers for the sake of “incentive” and private profit. It’s common practice for bourgeois politicians to appeal to those who demand change and progress, only to surrender to the status quo and multinational corporations upon seizing power. Modern capitalist politicians are very skilled at making public appeals to the progressive sections of the populations, only to turn their backs on the same people who voted them into office.

Argentina’s government under Juan Perón is frequently portrayed by the bourgeois media by many misguided “leftists” as a socialist government where the working class had power. Others have described it as a social-democracy, as some alternative form of fascism less offensive than the Hitlerite variety, or even as some kind of “compromise between capitalism and communism.” Argentina’s Perónist period is perhaps the most fitting example of social-fascism in practice.

Juan Perón’s Early Life and Rise to Power

Born in Buenos Aires on October 8, 1895, Juan Domingo Perón had a staunch Catholic upbringing. In 1911, at the age of 16, he was sent to the Argentine National Military College. In 1938, he was sent overseas as a military advisor to the Axis powers and their allies, collaborators and colonies including Italy, France, Spain, Germany, Hungary, Albania and Yugoslavia. It was there that he first came into contact with the fascist government of Benito Mussolini, whom Perón vigorously endorsed.

According to Robert J. Alexander in his book Juan Domingo Perón: A History, Perón’s advisory role to Italy “gave him a chance to study in some detail and at first hand the way in which the fascist regime of Benito Mussolini had reorganized, or tried to reorganize, Italian society” [1].

Even more damning are Perón’s own words:

“Italian Fascism led popular organizations to an effective participation in national life, which had always been denied to the people. Before Mussolini’s rise to power, the nation was on one hand and the worker on the other, and the latter had no involvement in the former. [...] In Germany happened exactly the same phenomenon, meaning, an organized state for a perfectly ordered community, for a perfectly ordered population as well: a community where the state was the tool of the nation, whose representation was, under my view, effective. I thought that this should be the future political form, meaning, the true people’s democracy, the true social democracy.”[3]

Perón returned to Argentina in 1941 and became a colonel of Ramon Castillo’s Military. It was then that the “Group of United Officers” or “GUO” was formed in order to prevent the succession of Castillo’s rampantly corrupt regime. The GUO staged a coup prior to the year’s presidential election. This brought an end to Castillo’s conservative traditionalist regime and brought about the military government of Argentina.

Upon first coming to notoriety in 1943, Perón’s policies were embraced by a variety of tendencies all across the political spectrum, although the corporatist character of Perónism drew attacks from socialists who accused his administration of preserving capitalist exploitation and class division. This viewpoint shared by the leftists turned out to be prophetic, as capitalist production relations remained intact despite the raising of wages and the generally elevated status of the Department of Labor, including the department obtaining secretariat status under Perón’s leadership.

The main opposition to Perón came from the Socialist International-affiliated Radical Civic Union, the Socialist Party of Argentina and the Comintern-affiliated Communist Party of Argentina, although the conservative National Autonomist Party also showed opposition to Perón by relying on support of the financial sector of the economy, as well as the Argentine Chamber of Commerce.

Populist Tactics of Juan Perón: With the Workers and the Capitalists

The colonel served under three different military government administrations: those of Arturo Rawson, Pedro Pablo Ramirez, and Edelmiro Farrell. All throughout his political career, Perón maintained the reputation of a pro-labor military man, constantly bolstering up the labor unions, engaging in pushing through social programs such as greater unemployment and health care benefits, and urging the “leading role” that labor played in the economy of Argentina.

Upon ascending to the status of President of Argentina on June 4, 1946, his outspoken goals were comprised of very leftist and pro-labor sentiments, including the need for a five-year plan, increase in salaries, giving priority to pensions, economic independence and diversification and investment in public transportation.[2]

Perón even encouraged striking amongst laborers who employers did not grant labor benefits. With the abundant amount of vocal support from the General Conference of Labor, or “CGT,” they followed his word. Strike activity led to a loss of 500,000 work days in 1945, which leapt to 2 million days in 1946 following his election, and to over 3 million lost days in 1947. This stress put on the advancement of Labor’s status in the Argentine economy consequently led to a boom in the amount of members among the CGT. The ranks grew to 2 million active dues-paying members by 1950 [3]. It seemed at this point that Perón was truly a man of his word. However, we shall delve further into his career to show that he was not, by any means, a friend of international socialism or the working people.

Juan Perón as a Friend of Fascism

While urging “neutrality” in the face of the Second World War, Perón’s foreign and domestic policies were much closer to the fascist and military governments of Europe than anything resembling full-hearted socialism. Perón not only traveled to, but admired Hitler’s Germany and Mussolini’s Italy. He seems to have no objections to their invasion and colonization of countries such as Austria, Hungary, Ethiopia, Yugoslavia and Albania.

If this was not alarming enough, it was and still is common knowledge that escaped Nazi war criminals sought refuge and lived fairly comfortable lives in Argentina, turning the country into a sort of haven for Nazis perpetrators and collaborators. Among those whom Perón openly welcomed:

  • Emile Dewointine (who manufactured Luftwaffe aircraft, later seeking refuge under Franco before arriving in Argentina) [4]
  • Josef Mengele (the infamous Nazi doctor who performed notoriously sick-minded medical experiments on concentration camp inmates)
  • Adolph Eichmann (one of the chief bureaucrats of the Holocaust)
  • Franz Stangl (Austrian representative of Spitzy in Spain)
  • Charles Lescat (editor of Je Suis Partout in Vichy France)
  • SS functionary Ludwig Lienhart
  • German industrialist Ludwig Freude

Aside from Nazi war criminals, members of the genocidal Croatian Ustaša, a pro-Nazi puppet government responsible for the extermination of hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Roma in Croatia and Bosnia, took refuge in Argentina, including their notorious leader, Ante Pavelić, and Milan Stojadinović. The latter was allowed to spend the rest of his life as presidential advisor on economic and and financial affairs to governments in Argentina, and was the founder of the financial newspaper, El Economista [5].

In “The Politically Incorrect Guide to Latin America,” authors Leandro Narloch and Duda Teixeira wrote:

“It is still suspected that among her [Eva Perón's] possessions, there were pieces of Nazi treasure that came from rich Jewish families killed in concentration camps”.

They add that,

“Perón himself even spoke of goods of ‘German and Japanese origin’ that the Argentine government had appropriated”.

In 1947, the first lady of Argentina, Eva Perón, traveled across Europe in an attempt to boost her husband’s regime abroad. It was here that she is believed to have opened a Swiss bank account to deposit funds and other valuables she received from Nazi war criminals in exchange for Argentine passports to the aforementioned [6].

Juan Peron Makes Overtures to the Left

On June 15, 1955, Pope Pius XII excommunicated Perón after the fifty-nine year old military President described himself as “not superstitious”. The following day, Perón called for a rally of support on the Plaza de Mayo, a time-honored custom among Argentine presidents during a challenge. However, as he spoke before a crowd of thousands, Navy fighter jets flew overhead and dropped bombs into the crowded square below before seeking refuge in Uruguay. This effectively ended Juan Perón’s second term in office. First seeking refuge in Venezuela, and later Panama, he eventually settled in Francoist Spain. Desperate to reclaim his position in government, Perón began making appeals to the revolutionary left.

In his book, “La Hora de los Pueblos,” he made his appeal to internationalists:

“Mao is at the head of Asia, Nasser of Africa, De Gaulle of the old Europe and Castro of Latin America [7].”

Throughout the late 60s and early 70s, Perón started aligning himself with more militant unions and maintained close links with Montoneros, a “leftist” Perónist Catholic grouping who later kidnapped and assassinated anti-Perónist President Pedro Aramburu in retaliation for the June 1956 mass execution of a Perónist uprising against the ruling military junta.

However, while attempting to play both sides of the coin, Perón hailed the far-right as well. He supported the conservative leader of the UCR, as well as members of the Tacuara Nationalist Movement. Political tendencies did not play a role in the man’s mind when it came to power grabs and smooth talk.

Following Perón’s example, the Movimiento Nacionalista Tacuara, or the Tacuara Nationalist Movement, was a right-wing extremist guerilla group in Argentina formed in the 1960s. Although initially opposed to Perónism, it later adopted Juan Perón’s idea of “Special Formations (gathering right-wing radicals in the TNM as well as the Argentine Iron Guard),” and the movement was directly inspired by the anti-Semitic Catholic Julio Meinvielle’s writings (Meinvielle not only blamed Martin Luther, but also both the French and October revolutions for the decline of Catholicism).

As such, the TNM defended nationalist, Catholic, anti-communist, anti-democratic and anti-Semitic ideologues, such as Primo de Rivera (the founder of the fascist Falange in Spain). The guerilla group’s routes can be traced back to the “Nationalist Students Union Side” (UNESCO) as well as the “Alliance of Nationalist Youth,” both centrally based in the capital of Buenos Aires [8].

The group opposed the secularization of schools that occurred under Perón and admired both Hitler and Mussolini [9]. Entrenched in anti-Semitic hatred, the group gained notoriety for kidnapping and injuring a number of Jewish students including 15 year old Edgardo Trilnik, and 19 year old Graciela Sirota, who was subject to torture and was eventually scarred with Swastika insignias [10].

In 1963, a TNM commando group robbed the Polyclinic Bank, killing two employees, wounding fourteen and taking for themselves fourteen million pesos, the equivalent of one-hundred thousand U.S. dollars. The TNM’s objectives were to afford a boat to travel to the Falkland Islands so that they may establish a guerrilla base in Formosa. All were arrested after seven months after one of the perpetrators spend a portion of the spoils at a brothel in France. While the group was formally outlawed in 1963, most of those imprisoned for the robbery were released in May 1973 when the Perónists returned to power and President Hector Campora decreed a broad amnesty for political prisoners [11]. Most of the former group’s leaders dead, imprisoned, disillusioned with the right-wing, or seeking other professions (one of the TNM’s strongest supporters of anti-Semitism, Alberto Ezcurra Uriburu, became a Catholic priest in 1964 and later joined the “Argentine Anticommunist Alliance” death squad).

The Class Nature of Perónism

Perónism is an opportunist and Third-Positionist ideology geared at dismembering and demobilizing the revolutionary workers through attempts of reformism, economism and pacifism. A military government, no matter how “worker friendly” it may initially appear to be, only opens the way for further exploitation of the working class, more coup attempts and power grabs. While championing himself to be an ally of the working masses of Argentina, Juan Perón simultaneously aided in the protection of some of the most notorious war criminals of World War II.

While Juan Perón’s government did not completely match up with those of Hitler, Mussolini, or Franco, what they all have in common is militarism, nationalism, appeals to emotionalism and class collaborationism. A state based on these principles simply cannot offer working people anything other than defeat. The experience in Argentina is a shining example “social-fascism,” of the fusion between social-democracy and fascism, of failed reformism and corporatism.

Though the Argentine President boasted about giving the leading role in government to the working class of Argentina, put a strong emphasis on “social justice” and even nationalized key industries, this does not earn Perón’s government the title of socialist. The protection of the far-right, along with the numerous left groups that exposed Perón’s fascist leanings (including both the Argentine Socialist and the Communist parties) offers material and historical evidence as to why social-democracy and/or Third-Positionism can and most likely will lead to a fascist state.

Perón’s coming to power did not consist of a revolution, let alone the organization of the proletariat as the leading class in society to whom the means of production are to belong. Rather, a military coup was what brought this fascist-sympathizing military colonel to political standing. The “peaceful path” of social-democracy was not only a political slogan, but also a method of demobilization that is directed at the workers movement. Its aim is to deny the inevitability of armed struggle when the class struggle reaches a higher stage and the question of power comes to the forefront. It has historically been used as an anesthetic; a vice that claims to solve the contradictions of the rule of capital.

However, history is on the side of the revolutionary workers in this day and age. Millions of people all across the world have witnessed these instances of class collaboration over struggle, economism over theory, and idle reformism over revolutionary change. The next tide of revolution will not succumb to these illnesses.

Sources

[1] http://biography.jrank.org/pages/3418/Per-n-Juan-1895-1974-Former-Argentine-President-Began-Military-Training.html

[2] Rock, David. Argentina, 1516–1982. University of California Press, 1987

[3] Los mitos de la historia argentina 4. Buenos Aires: Editorial Planeta. Pg. 28

[4] American Jewish Yearbook, 2006. Pg. 266

[5] Mark Falcoff, Perón’s Nazi Ties, Time, November 9, 1998, vol 152

[6] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2033084/First-lady-Eva-Peron-allowed-Nazis-hide-Argentina-exchange-treasures-looted-rich-Jewish-families.html

[7] http://nuevomundo.revues.org/35983

[8] http://www.fabio.com.ar/verpost.php?id_noticia=1548

[9] Daniel Gutman, Tacuara. Historia de la primera guerrilla urbana argentina (Ediciones B Argentina, 2003, p.58)

[10] http://www.pagina12.com.ar/diario/elpais/1-51068-2005-05-15.html

[11] http://edant.clarin.com/diario/2004/04/12/g-04001.htm

Acta protests break out as EU states sign up to treaty

27 Jan

MEPs of 21 EU states, including the UK, have signed off on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement

The UK and 21 other European Union member states on Thursday signed an international copyright agreement treaty called Acta (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement), sparking more demonstrations by internet users who have protested for days both virtually and physically over fear it will lead to online censorship.

Following the signing, protesters rallied in the Polish cities of Poznan and Lublin to express their anger over the treaty. Lawmakers for the left-wing Palikot’s Movement wore masks in parliament to show their dissatisfaction, while the largest opposition party the right-wing Law and Justice party called for a referendum on the matter.

The signing has yet to be ratified by the European Union parliament, and is scheduled to be debated in June. MEPs are already coming under intense pressure from activists on both sides over the forthcoming vote.

Poland’s ambassador to Japan, Jadwiga Rodowicz-Czechowska, signed the agreement in Tokyo. Speaking on Polish television, she said that Poland was one of several EU countries to sign Acta on Thursday, including Finland, France, Ireland, Italy, Portugal, Romania and Greece.

Several other industrialised countries – including the US, Canada and South Korea – signed the agreement last year.

Poland’s support for Acta has sparked attacks on Polish government websites by the hacking collective Anonymous that left several of them unreachable off and on for days. Street protests of hundreds, and in some cases thousands of people, have broken out across Poland for the past three days.

Germany, the Netherlands, Estonia, Cyprus and Slovakia did not sign on Thursday, and one French MEP quit the scrutinising process for Acta complaining that the European Parliament was participating in a “charade”.

Acta has been significantly changed from earlier versions, removing an earlier demand that internet users found of repeatedly infringing copyright should be cut off from the web – a suggestion the EU rejected.

Although the EU maintains Acta will not require any legislative changes in member countries – and instead will bring other countries up to European standards – controversy has been deepening in Poland over the proposals.

While many other industrialised countries have signed it, popular outrage appears to be greater in Poland than anywhere else.

Acta is a far-reaching agreement that aims to harmonise international standards on protecting the rights of those who produce music, movies, pharmaceuticals, fashion, and a range of other products that often fall victim to intellectual property theft.

Acta also takes aim at the online piracy of movies and music; those opposed to it fear that it will also lead authorities to block content on the internet.

A prominent Polish rock act, Zbigniew Holdys, has come out in support of Acta, accusing the internet activists – mostly young people – of profiting from pirated material online and trying to hold onto that practice.

Acta shares some similarities with the hotly debated Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) in the US, which was shelved by lawmakers last week after Wikipedia and Google blacked out or partially obscured their websites for a day in protest.

In reaction to the widespread opposition, Polish leaders have been struggling to allay fears over it.

Poland’s Foreign Minister Radek Sikorski defended his government’s position in a TV interview on Wednesday evening, arguing that Acta is not as threatening as young people fear.

But he said the internet should not be allowed to become a space of “legal anarchy”.

“We believe that theft on a massive scale of intellectual property is not a good thing,” Sikorski said.

In the Czech Republic, a local group aligning itself with Anonymous attacked the website of a group that supports Acta. The group collects money for music production and distributes it to artists.

• The UK’s Intellectual Property Office has a guide to the aims of Acta

Source

SOPA’s big brother signed by EU nations amid widespread protests

26 Jan

Polish citizens take to the streets in protest at ACTA

By Jennifer Baker

IDG News Service – The European Union signed up to the controversial Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on Thursday despite widespread opposition, particularly in Poland, where people took to the streets in protest.

The agreement was officially signed in Tokyo by 22 European member states. Cyprus, Estonia, Slovakia, Germany and the Netherlands did not sign, but committed to do so in the near future, according to the European Parliament’s Green party.

The agreement seeks to enforce intellectual property rights and combat online piracy and illegal software. But opponents of ACTA claim it goes far beyond the U.S.’ doomed SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) legislation and encourages ISPs to police the internet without any legal safeguards. SOPA is being revised after receiving broad criticism.

The ACTA agreement, meanwhile, has been mired in controversy from the beginning due to secrecy imposed by the U.S. and worries that it may not uphold E.U. rules on data privacy. The most controversial paragraph in the final text leaves the door open for countries to introduce the so-called three-strikes rule, which would require Internet users to be cut off if they continue to download copyright material after receiving two warnings, as national authorities would be able to order ISPs to disclose personal information about customers.

Although the agreement has been signed, it still has to go through a ratification procedure in the E.U. But now, shortly after SOPA sponsors succumbed to pressure to revise the bill, digital rights groups and so-called hactivists are pushing hard for the European Parliament to reject ACTA.

More than 10,000 people have taken to Poland’s streets to protest the signing of the international treaty while the Polish branch of hacker collective Anonymous has attacked Polish government websites, including the prime minister’s office, leaving several sites paralyzed.

“In the last few days, we have seen encouraging protest by Polish and other E.U. citizens, who are rightly concerned with the effect of ACTA on freedom of expression,” said JA(c)rA(c)mie Zimmermann, spokesperson for citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net. “This important movement will further build up. Our governments are bypassing democratic processes to impose draconian repressive measures.”

There has also been widespread criticism of ACTA within the Parliament. Pirate Party parliamentarian Christian Engstrom accused Polish Minister of Digitisation Michal Boni of lying to the Polish people in order to get ACTA signed. “Unfortunately, it appears that the Polish minister does not shy away from telling his citizens blatant lies, in order to get the controversial ACTA agreement signed,” he said on Wednesday.

According to news site Global Voices, Boni said it was too late to back out of the agreement because all the other European countries had signed — but at the time this was not the case. “It is apparent that the game of telling EU citizens whatever lies may be necessary to get the ACTA agreement signed has begun,” Engstrom warned.

Green Member of the European Parliament, Ska Keller was also critical of the deal: “ACTA is wrong and should be rejected. The last word has not yet been spoken however: the European Parliament and national parliaments will now have their say as part of the ratification process.”

Parliament’s legal affairs, development, civil liberties and industry committees will give their opinions on the treaty in the coming weeks. These will be considered by the Parliament’s International Trade Committee when it makes its final report to Parliament on whether to accept or reject ACTA. Finally the deal will go before a vote by all of Parliament.

Outside the E.U., the agreement has so far been signed by the U.S., Australia, Canada, Japan, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore and South Korea.

Source

Review of “The Shock Doctrine: The Rise of Disaster Capitalism”

1 Nov

The Theory of “Shock Therapy”

Every once in a while, a book comes along that sets the liberals on fire. The Shock Doctrine: the Rise of Disaster Capitalism by Naomi Klein is one such book. This volume has been hawked by such national liberal pundits as Ed Schultz, Keith Olbermann and Rachel Maddow. There has been such a buzz over this book in the past two years that it behooves us to write a review of it. Overall, the writing style is quite friendly to those of us who are not political scientists. It is, so to speak, an easy read. The historical research that went into the book is respectable (for the most part). Naomi Klein’s title refers to the “shocking” ways in which unregulated free markets have been applied to many countries throughout the world, and how “disaster capitalism,” or capitalism that is a disaster for working people, has been put in power.

From the coup in Chile to the invasions of Iraq and Afghanistan and the “shock therapies” used in Poland, the former Soviet Union and Eastern Europe and even the US and UK, this book lays out quite completely the pattern used by the Friedmanite capitalists of the Chicago School from their rise in the 1970s to their mastery over the IMF and World Bank in the 1990s and their control of WTO and GATT today. Overall, the pattern is the same between these different occurences in different countries at different times. It is a form of imperialism, which as we know is the necessary expansion of capitalism to capture more resources and more markets. Unless capitalism constantly expands it is subject to collapse. Klein is correct about this. That said, there are severe flaws with the ideology expressed in the book.

The “Shock Doctrine” of “Disaster Capitalism” Applied

The Friedmanite model of capitalism requires three things: social spending cuts (or even better the absence of a social support system), deregulation and extensive tax cuts for business ventures and the wealthy. In the instance of Chile and the Latin American countries (Chile, Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia) the start was a coup of the more independent-minded capitalist governments that pursued the European social-democratic style. The first to be subjected was Chile, which had elected Allende, and it was deemed prudent by the Nixon Administration to support a coup by Pinochet and to radically alter the Chilean state. According to Klein, the only way to successfully pull this off was through extreme psychological and cultural shocks to knock down the resistance of the Chilean people to these so-called reforms.

Klein mentions many of the “shocks” of the Chilean coup, such as tanks seizing government buildings, military police arrests, disappearances, murders and torture—all of which was developed by the CIA under the MKULTRA program and resulted in the creation of the “KUBARK” manual.* Pinochet, being a general who had no schooling in economics, needed economic experts. These were provided by Chicago School of Economics graduates, both Americans and Chileans. Even before the coup, they devised an economic plan called “the Brick” which called for the destruction of the Chilean social programs, massive tax cuts, deregulation and the removal of protective tariffs. The results of these political shocks, economic shocks and later shocks to individuals through torture as Klein’s “shock” metaphor goes, were economic disasters for the Chilean workers and massive profits for the capitalists in America and the Chilean bourgeoisie.

The “Shock Doctrine” at Home

Next in line were Argentina, Brazil and Bolivia. Over the course of time, these methods were refined and redefined for use in so-called democratic countries like the US and UK. According to Klein, “Thatcher-ism,” as it was called in the UK, was pulled off by starting a war with Argentina over an archipelago in the South Atlantic called the Falkland Islands. Thatcher was able to use the war to whip up patriotic sentiment to enable her to bust unions and radically revise the social structure of the UK in the name of an “Ownership Society.” People thought that was a phrase coined by George W. Bush—the former President isn’t that smart, quite frankly.

In the United States, high rates of interest imposed by the Federal Reserve (also known as the Fed) were putting economic pressure on America. It was during this time that Ronald Reagan began his campaign of union-busting, starting with the air traffic controllers.

International Implications

During the 1980s expansion of the Freidmanite “shock treatments” in the developing world were imposed by the IMF and the World Bank. They demanded privatization, social austerity and deregulation as conditions to give loans, which were usually take out to pay debt incurred from previous loans for economic development. The end result of course, was a disaster for the working people of Africa and Asia.

In the 1990s, the “shock doctrine” was expanded to Eastern Europe in the wake of the collapse of the Warsaw Pact states. The prime examples—Poland and Russia—were exposed to so-called shock therapy almost immediately. In 1990, the Solidarity group were used by the West to call for privatization, deregulation and asset sales from the Polish state-operated infrastructure. Naomi Klein does her best to whitewash Solidarity, using frivolously high numbers for their membership and neglecting to mention their ties to the West, instead portraying them as victims. Russia followed much the same pattern as Poland, although at an accelerated rate. This netted huge profits for Western capitalists and worsening conditions for the Russian and Polish workers.

Friedman-ism also worked its way into the People’s Republic of China, which was already undergoing the construction of a capitalist society under Deng Xiaoping. Deng’s policies of course had the result of growing inequity in China, and also an increase in unemployment, as capitalism, in order to maximize profit, requires the presence of surplus labor to drive down wages. There were also severe cuts to the social programs in the PRC at the time.

This leads us to Klein’s next subject – the use of pressures for deregulation by the West to cause capital flight in the so-called “Asian Tigers,” namely South Korea, Taiwan, Thailand and Malaysia. These societies had extremely high tariffs, huge public infrastructure in state-capitalist companies as well as in social goods like education. By pushing for the deregulation of their capital controls, the Asia Crises was engineered by the WTO and the IMF.

Modern-Day “Shock Doctrine”

All of this leads to the final frontier for capitalist penetration, namely, the economies of the Middle East and the People’s Democratic Republic of Korea. In the Middle East these states, usually with large oil reserves, did not have loans to pay off and were mistrustful of foreign influence. To the superpowers, the only solution was invasion and occupation by an outside force. What better outside force than America, which spends more on its military than anyone else? There was only one problem—the American people did not want to start a war. In short, a “shock” to the system in the United States was necessary and the bourgeoisie was more than willing to allow the plans of Osama Bin Laden to go through, since it would open up opportunities for the military-industrial complex and the creation of a new market – “Homeland Security Solutions.” Needless to say, Bin Laden was more than willing to oblige, and the outsourcing of everything from cooking and military construction to companies like Halliburton went through unabated.

As we mentioned, there are deep flaws to this book. Naomi Klein seems to believe that a form of capitalism can be devised which is not a “disaster” for working people when capitalism by its very nature is contradictory to the interests of all those who lack capital. Throughout the book, the author repeatedly hammers home her view that Keynesian capitalist economics is some how better for working people. Such a view is patently untrue. Regulated capitalism, which is the basis of Keynesian economics, as we know, only places rules and regulations on a system imposed by and supported by the very people who have the means to destroy, subvert and work against those very regulations. Keynesian economics is at best a temporary solution to a crisis in capitalism which will be replaced eventually by the most abusive forms of capitalism precisely when the capitalists think they can get away with it.

Indeed, despite the bourgeois liberal-leaning of Naomi Klein, and despite her whitewashing of social democracy and Keynesian economics, she has managed to show that that the current War on Terror is nothing more than the latest manifestation of imperialism, which must ultimately culminate in one of two outcomes: capitalist dictatorship or socialism.

*Remember this folks, because it will become apparent by the time of War on Terror that the torture methods and rendition methods used in Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib were not just some soldiers making errors but rather methods developed at the highest levels of the intelligence services of the United States.

Guide For Moral Perspective in a Capitalist Society

2 Jun

The New Red Scare

Lately, one cannot help but notice that despite the “end of history” and the total discrediting, debunking, destruction, looting, pillaging and castration of Marxism, anti-communist propaganda is actually on the rise both in the United States and especially Europe, to a level rivaling the era of McCarthyism. The European establishment, through the passage of bans on certain symbols and public declarations, seems resolute in their endeavor to equate communism with Nazism to a point where Nazism, or at least Nazi Germany, seems to enjoy slightly better treatment than the ultimate evil that is Marxism. A specter is haunting Europe indeed.

If Marxism is so truly discredited, one wonders why increase the propaganda flow now, twenty years after the great “victory” of capitalism? If we look at the results of various polls reported by Reuters, AFP and the Pew Centre, the answer isn’t hard to imagine. What these polls show is that an increasing, and in some countries rapidly increasing, portion of residents in the former Eastern Bloc are beginning to say that they had a better life under communism. There is also a sizable portion which, while not necessarily holding favorable views toward socialism, is skeptical about capitalism’s viability and benefits. This is not only happening in countries like Russia or Belarus but also in Poland, Hungary, Ukraine and other centers of nationalistic anti-communism. Add to this a major world crisis and a series of recent imperialistic wars on the part of the US, NATO and Russia, and it isn’t difficult at all to imagine why the European establishment, embodied by the organs of the EU and the OSCE, wish, in fact must, attempt to terrify the workers with a distorted view of non-existent states.


The Irony of Capitalists Chastising Socialism

What does this technique boil down to exactly? Why, as our capitalist masters proclaim, should workers reject communism and suffer every humiliation, every false promise and every bloody war, all in hopes that one day the men in suits will suddenly find their fortunes on the rise again, and if we are lucky we might be able to catch a few crumbs from their table? Why should Marxism, communism and socialism be totally off the table, unacceptable, unthinkable and locked away in the dustbin alongside an ideology that proclaimed the virtue of one race of people exterminating others without mercy?

If we are to take the propaganda at face value, their reasoning for this, the reason why we cannot even consider communism as a legitimate ideology, is because the handful of socialist states since 1917, most of which no longer exist today, jailed and executed people. In other words, Marxism and communism are totally off limits because those states inspired by the theory engaged in more or less the same activities that capitalist states have engaged in on a much greater scale for centuries and in fact are still engaging in today.

Yes, it is a double standard, but apparently we workers are supposed to accept it. If you can’t understand this concept, here is a helpful guide, constructed from useful tidbits of information gathered over the years from numerous anti-communist sources. This will certainly help you eke out an existence as you search for jobs and wait for our “natural betters” to sort out this crisis so we can all go back to buying shit we can’t afford.


Moral Guide for Capitalists
Capitalism: capitalism and capitalist countries cannot really be blamed for any atrocities they commit, because unlike socialist countries they did not use the term “capitalist” in their official political titles. They also did not, to the best of my knowledge, acknowledge “capitalism” as a system in their constitutions and/or relevant legal documents. It’s no use pointing out all the atrocities committed in the name of anti-communism. Things like the Vietnam War, coups throughout Latin America, Europe and Asia and imperialist invasions and military campaigns cannot be used to indict capitalism because there were people in those countries who disagreed with such policies, and many people feel bad about them today.

Trust our ruling class, they have evolved past the old tactics of assassinations and foreign interventions, and in the future they will do better. They just need to wrap up things in Afghanistan and Iraq first…and prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons…and oversee Cuba’s transition to liberal democracy…and secure Colombia…and…uh…er…Change! Hope!

Communism: communists are directly responsible for all early deaths which occurred in the countries they controlled. Any attempt at communist revolution will inevitably lead to more excesses, et cetera. Communists do not seek to improve anyone’s lives—all they are concerned with is power.

Capitalism: if someone points out how communists and suspected communists as well as leftists were persecuted, arrested, jailed, shot and lynched in the United States, always be sure to point out that this was far less than the number of people sent to the Gulag system in the USSR, ignoring for example, that the percentage of the adult population behind bars in America today is much actually higher than that of the USSR under Stalin. Numbers only make a difference if a specific death toll in a non-communist nation was less than that of a socialist one. If the opposite is true, then numbers don’t matter; it’s democide either way.

Communism: if someone tries to point out that “Stalinist” Albania had far lower amount of deaths attributed to the regime even by its enemies, this is unacceptable. Numbers don’t matter – 20 million, 10 million, 5 million, 1 million, a few thousand…it makes no difference and the liberal democratic establishment is terribly outraged by the idea that anyone would try to make comparisons. One death is too many. Unless, if you are a conservative, that individual is an anti-American Muslim, a communist, or just some jackass who isn’t thrilled about the United States or European Union running his or her nation. If you are a liberal democrat, the aforementioned state-sponsored killing is just as acceptable so long as it is not done unilaterally, but rather with the help of powerful European allies and sanctioned by the United Nations.

Capitalism: yes, Munich was a major mistake, and since you had to go and bring it up, so was the non-intervention in the Spanish Civil War but…oh right, yes, the active support for the fascist nationalists from US corporations and the tacit approval of the Royal Navy who watched German ships shell Spanish cities…yes that was a mistake too but…oh okay yes, there was that naval treaty England signed with Nazi Germany to allow it to re-arm…however you must consider…okay yes, there was all the stonewalling against the USSR to prevent any sort of collective security agreement…but if you would kindly stop bringing up those damned historical facts for a second, you would understand that the European countries were just tired! They were tired of war, and because they didn’t want war they decided it would be much better to let a previously weak and poorly armed country transform itself into a heavily armed nation under the aegis of a party whose leaders glorified war with every breath. Everyone knows this is the best way to prevent a war!


Communism: Stalin started WWII! Remember the Molotov-Ribbentrop pact! Remember it and nothing else, particularly anything that occurred before 1939! The Molotov-Ribbentrop pact started WWII, because it was the last major diplomatic action that occurred prior to the war’s beginning. As we all know, the last thing to happen in a sequence of events is automatically the cause of the event which happens after it.

Capitalism: people need to learn to get over things like slavery, imperialism, colonialism, racism, media consolidation, two-party oligarchies, bailouts, aggressive wars, corporate welfare and so on. Why dwell on the past? The Democratic Party is working on a solution; the only thing holding them back is that damned Lieberman! He’s like a one-man army. Just get over with it, and start buying stuff on credit again real soon. Get a mortgage too.

Communism: Katyn!

Communism: A one-party state! Oh, the horror!

Capitalism: behold, a two-party state! That is so much better than a one-party state! Why it’s twice as good as a one-party state! Two parties is democracy!

So as you can see my fellow workers, adjusting and accepting the capitalist narrative isn’t really that hard. You just need to toss out something called logic, and then be willing to accept the moral pronouncements of liberal and conservative commentators and intellectuals at face value, whatever they may be. I can’t wait till they fix this crisis and I can get a mortgage!

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Review: Glenn Beck’s “Revolutionary Holocaust: Live Free or Die”

30 Jan

Part II of VI: Whitewashing Genocide: How “Leftist” Nazi Germany Gets a Pass

Glenn Beck, continuing the introduction to his program, claims that “progressives” are seeking to distort the history of Stalin, Mao, Che, etc. in their efforts to incite some unclear revolution against the people of America. Che and Mao (the latter to a lesser extent) are liberal icons; they are basically figures who one can put on a shirt or selectively quote from in order to make whatever point one wishes in some unrelated speech. Anita Dunn being a particularly obvious example that Beck makes use of, though she did not praise communism or Mao’s internal policies during her speech, but simply his “motivation” to win the civil war against the Guomindang.

“Tonight,” he says, “we set the record straight.”
 To say that Stalin is undergoing a “rehabilitation” of sorts or was supported by “progressives” is an odd thing to say. By far and large, “progressives,” meaning liberals, do not like Stalin. The very word “Stalinism” is a testament to this, and the fact that if one were to talk to any “progressive,” there is a 99% possibility that their answers on Stalin will either be “he was an inhuman tyrant, I prefer Trotsky if I really had to choose” or “communism can never work and results in totalitarianism.”

Nazi Germany & Adolf Hitler’s Crimes Are Not Discussed
 In any case, Beck quickly moves from “progressives want to make Stalin appear like a great human being” to the very tired thesis of “Nazism = communism.” This is where our actual refutation begins. We shall focus on the alleged similarities between communism and Nazism, since these are especially important in light of the overall attempts by the bourgeoisie of the past and present to make communism seem morally reprehensible through its “affiliation” with Nazism.

From Glenn Beck’s site comes this little gem:

“We all know about the horrors of the holocaust where the pure evil Hitler inspired claimed the lives of millions of innocent people. But most do not know about the millions upon millions of lives lost in a different genocide of the Ukrainian people under the Stalin regime” (1).

Glenn Beck has decided to approach the question of communism in such a way that he began with identifying Adolf Hitler as the most vilified of the “tyrants” on his list, but demands more attention be paid to communism. Beck himself decided to include Hitler in his list of “tyrants” to discuss, more out of necessity than real recognition of the horrors of fascism or a complete political rejection of it. As we shall soon see, his coverage of Hitler focuses exclusively on the question of whether he was a leftist or not, not on cataloging Germany’s imperialism and genocide.

What becomes obvious is that Beck did not want to discuss Hitler, but rather make him look like a leftist. If Beck wanted to avoid talking about Hitler’s genocide, why did he choose to bring it up? It is most disturbing that Beck refuses to put the era in its context by not mentioning the full extent of World War II—something that despite what he says, is not taught in our history books at all. World War II was fought and won thanks to the heroic efforts of the Soviet Union and its people. It was the largest military conflict in all of human history. Over 60 million were killed by the conflict, many of them Soviet civilians and soldiers.

Nazi Atrocities Do Not Exist in Beck's World

It is worth noting that Beck’s figures for those killed under communism come from the so-called “objective” bourgeois scholars that place Hitler’s death tolls in Stalin’s camp, and subtract it from Hitler’s. No, the bourgeoisie aren’t pro-fascist at all!

Goldberg’s Facts

Beck begins using his sources with Jonah Goldberg, reactionary author of Liberal Fascism. Goldberg is famous for his book, which claims that F.D.R. was influenced by fascism. While this is to an extent true, the author’s attempts to connect the Democrats or modern-day liberalism with fascism falls flat. Fascism was seen by the American bourgeoisie as a successful effort to eliminate Marxist influence within the country. This does not mean, however, that FDR was a fascist. For a better view see here: http://rationalrevolution.net/articles/rise_of_american_fascism.htm

The Right-Wing Nature of Nazi Germany

Jonah Goldberg asserts that “They say, you know, Hitler was a right-winger because of x, y and z, I say, well, what was Stalin’s position on x, y and z?” He then states that Hitler’s social agenda included “expanding access to universal health care” and for “expanding access to education… [a] big welfare state… attacking big business and high finance.”

1) The “universal health care” comment is clearly meant to be an attack against Obama’s health care policies. In any case, if Hitler’s health care plans were anything like Obama’s (that is, haggling with insurance companies), then we can safely say that this has little or nothing to do with the Soviet Union of that time, which had no insurance companies and in which health care was both a right and free for all peoples.

2) The phrase “expanding access to education” as some sort of indictment makes no sense and does not imply anything “progressive,” but merely something that all societies do.

Nazis Executing Poles: This Image is Nowhere in Beck's Segment on Hitler

3) The Nazis did indeed attack “big business,” but their attacks were nothing like those of the Marxists, and they were far less common once the Nazis came to power. The Nazis occasionally spoke of the “bourgeoisie” and “big finance capital,” which was a popular sentiment in Germany at the time. At their heart however, their ideology was petty-bourgeois, meaning that they regarded small, individual labor as good compared to “parasitic” efforts by “Jews” and “Jewish capital.” The Nazis idolized the concept of the middle class and in Hitler’s 25 Points of the NSDAP (Nazi Party) Program in 1920, he noted that:

“We demand the creation and maintenance of a healthy middle class, the immediate communalizing of big department stores, and their lease at a cheap rate to small traders, and that the utmost consideration shall be shown to all small traders in the placing of State and municiple orders” (2).

Communists view the middle-class (aka the petty-bourgeoisie) as vacillating and too weak to arise in power as a class, and those petty-bourgeois movements that achieve this become bourgeois once in power by necessity. Under socialism, individual commodity production, which is what a petty-bourgeois, self-employed person engages in, is phased out in favor of collective efforts by workers. The Nazis simply employed an old political tactic still used today known as populism. What is more rousing? “Elect me because of my qualifications,” or “elect me because big business exploits the people and we must put a stop to it?”

Nazi vs. Soviet Labor Union Policy

Goldberg then continues, “People say, ‘Well, Hitler abolished labor unions, he was a right-wing then.’ Well, how did labor unions do under Stalin? How are labor unions doing under Fidel Castro? Almost anything you can find on a checklist that allegedly proves Hitler was a right-winger, you can apply to almost any one of the communist dictators of the 20th century and the similarities are almost identical.”

Goldberg’s comparison is at once asinine and simply untrue. Labor unions existed under Stalin and currently exist under Fidel. There never has been a policy of banning labor unions in any socialist nation. Lenin wrote an essay where he extolled the virtues of labor unions, saying that “[...] the trade unions are a link between the vanguard and the masses, and by their daily work bring conviction to the masses, the masses of the class which alone is capable of taking us from capitalism to communism. On the other hand, the trade unions are a “reservoir” of the state power. This is what the trade unions are in the period of transition from capitalism to communism” (3).

Labor unions helped control the means of production in socialist society. Meanwhile, Hitler’s policies banned unions entirely. During his campaign, “Labor was courted, although they did not know that one of Hitler’s first acts would be to take over the Labor Unions, whom he knew to be one of the few groups who could organize active support against the Nazi agenda” (4).

In many fascist societies, such as Pinochet’s Chile, the fascists claimed to be against big business exploiting the working man, but when they realized power they merely created a state-run union for managers and capitalists. Did these capitalist unions exist in the USSR? Absolutely not, as there was no private industry in the USSR. This however, is neither here nor there, as a state’s policy towards labor unions does not determine whether it is right or left-wing. Involvement with labor unions is merely another form of populism and is used is almost all nations.

Right-Wing Class Nature & Economic Policy of the Nazi state

The Nazi Party essentially provided a program for corporations to make the losses public, but their profits were privatized. The Nazis worked for the top bourgeoisie, but their propaganda was aimed at the petty-bourgeoisie and upper strata of workers, not unlike Beck’s program.

In any case, the Nazis did receive support from bourgeois sources, such as Fritz Thyssen. Once in power, the Nazis also engaged in the privatization of several state-owned firms in the mid-1930s. These firms belonged to a wide range of sectors: steel, mining, banking, local public utilities, shipyards,

Hitler Was Supported by the German Bourgeoisie

ship-lines, railways, etc. The delivery of some public services that were produced by government prior to the 1930s, especially social and labor-related services, were transferred to the private sector, mainly to organizations within the party.” (Germà Bel. “Against the Mainstream: Nazi Privatization in 1930′s Germany.” p. 2.)

Under fascism, both nationalized and privatized industries have a bourgeoisie operating them. Privatization is obviously anathema to socialism, especially the genuine Marxist-Leninist kind which seeks to empower the proletariat and to completely abolish private property.

Joseph Goebbel’s Speech
 After he is finished lying about the natures of fascism and communism, Beck quotes from the New York Times in 1925, describing a speech in which future Nazi Propaganda Minister Joseph Goebbels compares Lenin to Hitler in a favorable light. He then goes on listing isolated incidents of cooperation between the communists and the Nazis within Germany. What is not mentioned, of course, is how Hitler exterminated entire communist parties.

1) Goebbels belonged to the “left-wing” of the Nazi Party. Along with Ernst Röhm, the “left-wing” faction within the NSDAP did occasionally have “socialist” rhetoric. Indeed, at times the Sturmabteilung (the proletarian-based militia which Röhm operated) often alluded to a sort of “proletarian dictatorship.” This faction of course, remained anti-Semitic and overall reactionary, and was clearly an attempt to woo communists over to the side of the Nazis, as Beck quickly notes with Goldberg stating that the Redshirts and Brownshirts often interacted with each other and faced defections from both sides.

However soon enough, the Night of the Long Knives in 1934 purged the NSDAP of all “left-wing” sympathies and forced Goebbels himself to fall in line, so to speak. The right-wing under Hitler was more openly supportive of business interests.

2) Beck notes cooperation between communists and Nazis in the Reichstag. This is due to an issue which requires some explanation. First, with the failure of a German communist revolution in 1918, a revolution which the social-democrats condemned, and the betrayals of social-democracy in the period of World War I in supporting imperialist wars, the Comintern (aka the Third International) felt justifiably betrayed by these so-called socialists. In the 1920s, this developed into an analysis of the social-democratic parties known as “Social-Fascism,” which was the belief that the social-democrats were the moderate wing of fascism (the sort introduced in Italy under Mussolini). Therefore absolute struggle was required against both social-democracy and fascism. (See: R. Palme Dutt’s 1934 book Facsism and Social Revolution for more info on Social-Fascism).

As E.H. Carr notes in his 1982 book Twilight of the Comintern, the communists viewed the Nazis as petty-bourgeois socialists. The connection between fascism and Nazism was not at all clear for most people back then as it is today. Fascism claimed to be “neither capitalism nor socialism” (social-democracy also claimed to be “neither capitalism nor Bolshevism”), whereas the Nazis stated that they were socialists, since socialism was extremely popular in Germany at the time. Goldberg is correct in that the communists viewed the Nazis as a temporary phenomenon, and that the communists would easily win over the Nazis. It was not a “stepping stone,” but the Nazis were seen as a progressive force in unison with the communists against what was viewed as a social-fascist government.
 The conclusion here is that while the German communists and the Nazis did collaborate against a “social-fascist” government, this does not equal a “Communism = Nazism” analysis, as the communists viewed Nazism as a petty-bourgeois ideology with a working class basis, and therefore progressive against the anti-communist social-democrats. Obviously the coming to power of the Nazis revealed the flaws of such willingness of the communists to cooperate against “social-fascism.”

France & the Nazis
 Next, Beck quotes the newspaper of the Communist Party of France (L’Humanité), stating in 1940 that: “It is particularly comforting, in these unhappy times, to see so many Parisian workers engage in friendly relations with German soldiers, whether it be in the street or the neighbourhood bar. Good work, comrades. Keep it up, even if that upsets certain members of our bourgeoisie [incorrectly translated as "middle class" in the clip] who are as stupid as they are spiteful.”

It goes on: “Friendly conversations between Parisian workers and German soldiers increase by leaps and bounds. We are delighted. Let us get to know one another. And when we tell the German soldiers that the communist députés have been thrown into prison for their defence of peace … we shall be working for Franco-German friendship.” (David Wingeate Pike. “Between the Junes: The French Communists from the Collapse of France to the Invasion of Russia,” Journal of Contemporary History Vol. 28, No. 3 (Jul., 1993). p. 470.)

Mr. Pike’s article is interesting and informative. As in Germany, the PCF (French initials of the Communist Party of France) condemned social-fascism, but by 1940 Nazism was in power in Germany. It oppressed the German communists and was clearly reactionary. So why the apparent “good will” towards the Nazi invaders? The PCF was in a tough spot. It followed the Comintern in condemning the former French Cabinet that had dissolved itself with the surrendering of the French Government and the establishment of “Vichy France” under Pétain. At this same time, however, it was told to not openly antagonize the Nazis.

The PCF had been banned under the previous French regime, and the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact had caused an abrupt but not obvious turn of foreign policy from the USSR seeking the unity of France and Britain against Nazi Germany to the condemnations of the former two states as “aggressors” against Nazi Germany.

Regardless, as Pike notes, “[Yvan] Avakoumovitch refers to a telegram sent by the Comintern on 20 July 1940 in which it expressed its approval of the political line formulated by the PCF and its efforts to organize the workers’ unrest and to direct it against the Vichy government with the aim of hurting ‘its patrons’. Avakoumovitch explains that the term ‘patrons’ was a code-name for the Germans”
 The line of the PCF was to operate within the limits of both the Comintern and the signing of the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. There were many violations of the PCF’s line by various PCF members who immediately took up resistance against the Nazi occupiers, and the PCF’s line went from a strong rejection of the former French Government as composed of imperialists and colonialists while accompanied by a timid condemnation of Nazi occupation, to an open call for unity among anti-fascist groups and a dedicated struggle against the Nazis in 1941 after the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union.

Regardless of the correctness of the Comintern line at that point, the point stands that it offers no real example of communist “cooperation” with the Nazis. The communists did not collaborate with the Nazis in France, they simply bowed to Comintern dictates and worked within them to strengthen their own position in such troubled times.

Hitler Admires Marx?

Beck then states that “Hitler’s underlying admiration for Marxism was obvious.” Heinz A. Heinz, author of Germany’s Hitler in 1938 states that: “German Socialism—Adolf Hitler’s Socialism—is a totally different thing from what is generally understood by this term, from the Socialism derived from Marxian and Communistic theory.” There was also, as Goldberg noted, obvious differences emanating from the internationalism of Communism and the xenophobic nationalism of Nazism. Let us also note the oddity of Hitler apparently admiring a Jewish man. So basically, this sentence is nonsense.

“Stalin Collaborated With Hitler”
 Beck then talks about the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact. There are two links below which deal with both the Pact and the situation of Poland in good detail:

http://marxism.halkcephesi.net/Bill%20Bland/german%20soviet%20pact.htm

http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.html

The clip notes arms deals between the Nazis and Soviets. E.H. Carr’s book (cited above) notes that trade between pre-Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union was already quite numerous. Furthermore, it would be quite odd for a non-aggression treaty to be signed yet the Soviets refuse to trade with Nazi Germany or vice-versa.
 On the Baltic states, there is the 1992 book entitled Devils in Amber: The Baltics by Phillip Bonosky, that our readers might find very informative.

Finally, for a little taste as to what Glenn Beck won’t show you, or even talk about, go here:

http://dreamzz2020.blogspot.com/2008/12/nazi-atrocities-on-jew.html

Sources :

  1. http://www.glennbeck.com/content/articles/article/198/35425/

  2. http://www.historyplace.com/worldwar2/riseofhitler/25points.htm

  3. http://www.marx2mao.com/Lenin/TUTM20.html

  4. http://www.shoaheducation.com/hitler.html
http://chss.montclair.edu/english/furr/research/mlg09/did_ussr_invade_poland.html

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