Was Nazism a Left-Wing Ideology?

Nazism was a left-wing phenomenon. To be clear though, I am not saying that left-wing politics is bad and right-wing politics is good. It's more complicated than just "one side good, the other side bad." I previously argued that left-wing politics seeks a large amount of government or communal control over the economy, for some perceived greater good. This applies to the Nazis. In the Nazis case, this greater good was a strong German People's State, as Hitler called it.

Some people will already have reasons in their head why they think the Nazis weren't left-wing. Before I make my case why they were, let me debunk some of these reasons in advance.

First of all, some people would argue that nationalism, imperialism, genocidal policies and being opposed to a specific ethnic group are all right-wing. As I discussed last week: I disagree, because Stalin was a nationalistic, genocidal imperialist who specifically murdered Ukrainians. And Stalin was a communist and therefore undeniably left-wing. So yes, the left can be nationalistic, imperialistic, genocidal and interested in killing specific ethnic groups.

Others would argue that Hitler allowed private ownership of the means of production, therefore he is right-wing. Now, yes, Hitler did allow private ownership of the means of production. But if that makes someone right-wing, then Bernie Sanders and Joe Biden and modern-day China are all right-wing too. All this argument proves is that Hitler wasn't far-left and wasn't a communist -- and indeed, he wasn't. But you can be on the left without being a communist.

Others would argue that Hitler privatized some companies. Well, first, he nationalized companies too. And second, this again only proves that Hitler wasn't a communist. Hitler's left-wing ideology wasn't that he sought to own the means of production, it was that he sought to control the means of production.

That is still left-wing, even if it's not communist.

To control the means of production, the Nazis used central planning boards and price controls and a four-year plan that everyone had to follow.

The Nazi view was that it was fine for individuals to own companies, so long as they were working for the benefit of the state, and if they weren't then the state nationalized those companies. Professor Peter Temin of MIT argues there that "national socialists were socialist in practice as well as name." Furthermore he states that Soviet and Nazi economic planning was "essentially similar."

Professor Temin writes: "In order to tie farmers to the land, the Nazis prohibited the sale of agricultural land. In order to maintain stable prices and still control production, marketing boards were given monopoly rights to agricultural output. There were quotas for delivery of specific products to the marketing boards at fixed prices. The boards served to keep prices up at the depth of the Depression when lack of demand (and a good harvest in 1933) threatened farm incomes. The boards then kept farm prices down during the industrial expansion of the middle 1930s. While farm ownership remained nominally private, the ability to make decisions and to claim the residual income was taken away."

Additionally, Professor Temin writes: "The standardized [resource] allocation form described above included penalties for noncompliance. It declared that, "Acquiring materials except for Four-Year Plan purposes will be regarded as economic sabotage." Under Nazi rules, this language threatened death or a concentration camp for any manager who pursued his own ends."

Does this sound more like a planned socialist economy, or more like free-market capitalism to you?

It has been said that Nazism is a form of fascism - discussing that is beyond the scope of this message. And it has been said that fascism is corporatism. Well, if fascism is corporatism, who controlled German corporations? The Nazi state did. Which effectively makes it more like a planned economy than like free-market capitalism.

Youtuber TIKhistory has also gone into great detail about the topic of Nazi Germany being socialist, and he has provided a great deal of sources for this topic too, debunking specifically the "Hitler privatized some companies" argument, he says the following:

"There are multiple sources showing that heavy social regulations were imposed on every industry. The Reichskommissar for prices, Josef Wagner, was trying to set all the prices in the economy throughout the Reich. In addition to the price controls, goods were centrally distributed. That's right, materials could only be bought with certificates which were obtained from one of the central planning boards, which distributed those materials."

If you don't trust a youtuber, then fair enough - but the source is provided at the bottom of the screen. And if that still isn't convincing to you, then I refer you back to professor Temin from earlier.

I think that sufficiently debunks the "Hitler privatized some companies, therefore he isn't left-wing" argument.

Another argument is that Hitler must be right-wing because he opposed Marxism and communism. Well, Hitler opposed capitalism too, which he saw being Jewish in origin. If opposing communism makes you right-wing, then opposing capitalism makes you left-wing.

So it doesn't really work to say that Hitler is right-wing because he opposed communism. This is yet another variant of the "Hitler wasn't a communist, therefore he was right-wing" fallacy. After all, you can be on the left without being a Marxist or a communist.

Nazi stands for the German words for National Socialist. And it's important to understand that national socialism was, indeed, national socialism. As in: Nazism is a nationalistic form of socialism.

Nazism isn't Marxism, which is a more international form of socialism, and something that Hitler saw as being Jewish. Instead, Nazism is nationalistic socialism. And indeed, Nazism opposed Marxism and communism -- and also capitalism.

Having debunked these counter-arguments, I now will make the case that Nazism or National Socialism is left-wing. This is actually surprisingly easy, now that we have all this confusion cleared up.

We have already quoted professor Temin of MIT earlier. I think those quotes are already very convincing. On top of that, I'll just let Hitler explain his ideology:

"Socialism is the science of dealing with the common weal. Communism is not Socialism. Marxism is not Socialism. The Marxians have stolen the term and confused its meaning. I shall take Socialism away from the Socialists. Socialism is an ancient Aryan, Germanic institution. Our German ancestors held certain lands in common. They cultivated the idea of the common weal. Marxism has no right to disguise itself as socialism. Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property. Unlike Marxism, it involves no negation of personality, and unlike Marxism, it is patriotic. We might have called ourselves the Liberal Party. We chose to call ourselves the National Socialists. We are not internationalists. Our socialism is national. We demand the fulfilment of the just claims of the productive classes by the state on the basis of race solidarity. To us state and race are one."

Let's look at one more Hitler quote to drive this point home:

“To put it quite clearly: we have an economic program. Point No. 13 in that program demands the nationalization of all public companies, in other words socialization, or what is known here as socialism. ... the basic principle of my Party's economic program should be made perfectly clear and that is the principle of authority... the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual. But the State should retain control; every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State; it is his duty not to misuse his possessions to the detriment of the State or the interests of his fellow countrymen. That is the overriding point. The Third Reich will always retain the right to control property owners. If you say that the bourgeoisie is tearing its hair over the question of private property, that does not affect me in the least. Does the bourgeoisie expect some consideration from me?... Today's bourgeoisie is rotten to the core; it has no ideals any more; all it wants to do is earn money and so it does me what damage it can. The bourgeois press does me damage too and would like to consign me and my movement to the devil. I will tolerate no opposition. We recognize only subordination – authority downwards and responsibility upwards. You just tell the German bourgeoisie that I shall be finished with them far quicker than I shall with Marxism... When once the conservative forces in Germany realize that only I and my party can win the German proletariat over to the State and that no parliamentary games can be played with Marxist parties, then Germany will be saved for all time, then we can found a German People's State.”

So the Nazis had price controls and central planning boards. Hitler called himself a socialist and talked about the socialization of the economy. He talked about nationalizing all public companies. He says that "the good of the community takes priority over that of the individual." Hitler says that the "state should retain control" and that "every owner should feel himself to be an agent of the State." Hitler talks about "controlling property owners" and fighting the "rotten" bourgeoisie. Hitler talks of winning over the proletariat and founding a German People's State.

Does this sound left-wing or right-wing to you? To me, this is clearly left-wing.

Also, in the conventional narrative, Nazism is fascism which is far-right. In that narrative, it was always somewhat strange that Hitler called his party the national socialists, and Italy's Mussolini started out as a socialist - but then suddenly they both turned far-right. Having two apparent left-wingers suddenly go far-right seems rather odd. Of course, this is much less odd if Nazism and fascism aren't actually far-right in the first place.

Moreover, it is weird that both Italy and Germany allegedly went far-right and most of the population went along with that. It's not very common for entire countries to suddenly become far-right and to have their populations go along with that. Sure, some people argue that Germany went far-right because of the unfairness of the Versailles treaty, but many people don't think that sufficiently explains why the highly educated German population allegedly went far-right. That argument also doesn't explain why Italy allegedly went far-right.

Well, under my explanation, there is no weirdness with fascist Italy and Nazi Germany and their populations suddenly going far-right, because they didn't actually go far-right at all.

So, I have made my case why I think that Nazism is left-wing.

Finally, I think a reason why the left is so resistant to accepting that Nazism is left-wing is that the vast majority of the current left doesn't want to do anything close to Nazism. Which is true, but they also don't want to implement Stalinism, yet Stalinism was still left-wing.

The left is correct that many people on the current right are nationalist. However, as we have argued, that's not inherent to the right. There exists the nationalist right (Trump), the globalist right (the mainstream corporate republicans), the nationalist left (Stalin) and the globalist left (the current left). So it's more accurate to say that nationalism vs globalism is yet another political dimension, rather than saying that the left = globalist and the right = nationalist.

Furthermore, yes Trump was a nationalist and the Nazis were nationalists, but that doesn't mean that Trump was even close to being a Nazi or a fascist. This is the same fallacy that the right commits when they say that the current American left is communist.

I think it's important for people to see their shadows - and in this case, I think it's important for the left to acknowledge that the left can create awful, authoritarian societies. I understand that facing this may be hard for some, however facing your own shadows is an important step towards becoming emotionally safe for other people.

Moreover, hopefully the "Trump is a fascist, and Putin is basically Hitler" narrative can die down a bit once more people realize that Nazism was actually left-wing.

by Talia at https://channelings.substack.com on May 18, 2024