North Korea calls itself the Democratic Republic of Korea. I guess you think that makes North Korea democratic.

Of course he could prove us wrong and tell us why ‘National Socialist’ is different from ‘socialism’ as understood by marxists, social democrats or unions; and what if any, are the similarities, but I’m guessing not. He’ll just stick with “Ooh look – ‘socialist’, that proves it”.

The rise to power of the Italian fascists and German Nazis was largely funded and supported by aristocratic landlords, wealthy industrialists, army officers, and other groups with strong conservative leanings. The fascists gathered this support by successfully presenting themselves as the last line of defense against liberal democracy, land reform, demilitarization and the collectivization of the means of production.

Got any proof of your assertions Burt or you just running off at the arse as per usual?

You’re right that Hitler was no free market capitalist though. That’s a whole different brand of rule by business. No, fascism as a phenomenon was a response to the rising threat of socialism and organised labour. Business saw Hitler as their bulwark against communism. He protected their interests, made many of them fabulously wealthy, and kept the commos and the unions at bay.

Socialism was dead on the ground as would be capitalism. Of course socialists would like to cast capitalism with totalitarians (and therefore no distinction is made in that cartoon) because myopic partisan people only view the world according to “them and us’. Naturally you want to cast “them’ up to as bad a boogie-man as possible.

You still can’t get around the reality that unions were big supporters if Hitler pre war and socialists are the big supporters of unions unlike capitalists or totalitarians.

I recall recently reading that the ‘socialisation of the means of production’ bit was in the Labour party manifesto for some decades after 1937 – was great ammo for the National party

Dated 5 July 1937, and under a headline “Tories Rapped on Knuckles Christchurch
‘Press’ Hits Out At Nationalists Administers Rebuke to Propagandist” I find this quote from The Press

“The present Government to judge by its public utterances,” the “Press” editorial states, “is uncompromisingly (and impartially) opposed to the political doctrines of Fascism and Communism. It is committed, however, to ‘the socialisation of the means of production, distribution, and exchange;’ and this in itself has given colour to the charge that it is essentially a Communist Government. National Party speakers have, in fact, made this the basis of recent appeals to the people to use their votes to overthrow Communism as represented by the Labour Party.”

So it looks like even the right-aligned Press was saying that Labour was absolutely opposed to fascism (Nazi Germany) and recognised that Labour’s political opponents were trying to blur the lines to attack Labour.

I can type up some more of the article if you want, or put the whole image somewhere.

That’s the first time I’ve heard anyone mention “appeasement”.

I apologise for having failed to collect any photographs of cartoons from The Standard about the Nazis from before the war when I was going through back issues a year ago. I have clearly let the whole Labour movement down

Seriously tho, if you’re in Wellington you could pop in to the National Library and go to the Alexander Turnbull newspapers room and get the back issues of The Standard and check for yourself.

P.S. Could someone change the moderated words list while these threads are live?

L