True Left

One of the major tasks of the True Left is demonstrating that National Socialism (specifically, historic Hitlerism) genuinely was leftist and Socialist.

I think to convincingly accomplish this once and for all, we must first concisely provide a proper relation between Socialism and Marxism/Communism.

Marxist-sympathetic political ideologists portray Marxism/Communism as the pinnacle of leftism. It is the furthest possible ideology to the left, and all left-wing ideologies ultimately have their views on societal matters tinted through a Marxist lens, to some degree. (Except, perhaps certain types of liberalism which trace their ideology back purely to pre-Marxist Enlightenment ideas, or the rare form of anarchism which completely rejects "anarcho-communist" principles.)

In the colloquial understanding, "Socialism" is merely a watered down form of Communism.


The True Left must reframe the relationship to accurately contextualize Marxist Socialism as merely one type of Socialism among many(?) possibilities.

In other words, instead of Marxism being the umbrella term under which varieties of Socialism fall, Socialism is the umbrella term under which many different types of leftism fall. As categories falling under this umbrella of Socialism, we would have Marxist Socialism aka Communism (or "International Socialism" as Hitler seems to have called it in some early speeches) and National Socialism.

There may be other possibilities. For example, scholar of Fascism A. James Gregor seems to have considered (authentic) Fascism to be a form of Socialism (or at least derived from it). Socialism with Chinese Characteristics is on track to become another--if it manages to fully rid itself of Communist ideas. There are other forms of Socialism which are minor or were historic dead ends, but I think it would be too much of a tangent to get into them here.

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Now that we have provided this logical framework, let's look at how historic National Socialists viewed their own ideology.

I stumbled across a collection of many of Hitler's speeches, and in some of his earliest speeches, he references the "social idea" of the state using its power to look after the welfare of all sectors of society as more-or-less the inspiration for his view on Socialism. The "social idea" is, of course, the abstract idea from which all, more-detailed, ideological interpretations of Socialism derive.

Communists categorically reject that National Socialism is Socialist, because it doesn't live up to the Communist-created definition of Socialism. This is circular reasoning. The Communist definition is merely one specific interpretation of the social idea.

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Before I quote large sections from the speeches I would like to start by outlining two things.


* First, Hitler viewed National Socialism as a direct competitor to Marxism/Communism over who really fulfilled the "social idea" of Socialism. More strongly, Hitler denied Marxism/Communism could even be called Socialism at all (but I think that is an untenable position for us to try to defend today). It would make no sense for Hitler to view National Socialism to be in competition for heart of Socialism if National Socialism was far-right.

This edited interview of Adolf Hitler by George Sylvester Viereck took place in 1923. It was republished in Liberty magazine in July 1932
[...]
"Why," I asked Hitler, "do you call yourself a National Socialist, since your party programme is the very antithesis of that commonly accredited to socialism?"

"Socialism," he retorted, putting down his cup of tea, pugnaciously, "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."

https://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/17/greatinterviews1


* Second, Hitler considered National Socialism to be a radically anti-traditionalist ideology which would topple the current social order of Western Civilization and replace it with a new one. This would make no sense if National Socialism was a right-wing traditionalist ideology which wished to preserve Western Civilization. Consider also how Communists wanted to topple the current social order and replace it with a new one (although their "progression" would not be a fundamental threat to Western Civilization, despite their claims).

[From a private conversation with Hermann Rauschning, 1934.]

“All of us are suffering from the ailment of mixed, corrupted blood. How can we purify ourselves and make atonement? ...”
[...]
“...Only a new nobility can introduce the new civilisation for us. ...we learn from it that selection and renewal are possible only amid the continuous tension of a lasting struggle. A world-wide process of segregation is going on before our eyes. Those who see in struggle the meaning of life, gradually mount the steps of a new nobility. Those who are in search of peace and order through dependence, sink, whatever their origin, to the inert masses. The masses, however, are doomed to decay and self-destruction. In our world-revolutionary turning-point the masses are the sum total of the sinking civilisation and of its dying representatives. We must allow them to die with their kings, like Amfortas.”

“In a natural order,” he continued, “the classes are peoples superimposed on one another in strata, instead of living as neighbours. To this order we shall return as soon as the sequelae of Liberalism have been removed. The Middle Ages were not yet ended when the liberal dissolution began of the firm bonds which alone guaranteed the rule of a nobility of pure blood — until finally in our glorious day we find all values subverted — the meaner components of the European nations on top, and the valuable ones dependent on them.”

“But this,” I interposed, “means the setting up of a new feudal order.”

“No, no!” said Hitler, and he told me to disregard all these ridiculous comparisons. “Don’t let us waste time on these naive criteria. Such conceptions of an age of which not a vestige is left have no bearing on what we are called to create. Imagination is needed in order to divine the vast scale of the coming order. But,” he continued, “when a situation is created that favours noble blood, the man of the great race always comes to the top, as, for instance, our own movement shows. The creation and maintenance of this situation is the great preparatory political action of the Leader-legislator.”

“Once,” I mentioned, “ I heard you say, I think, that the days of conventional nationalism are over. Did I rightly understand you?”

“The conception of the nation has become meaningless. The conditions of the time compelled me to begin on the basis of that conception. But I realised from the first that it could only have transient validity. The ‘nation’ is a political expedient of democracy and Liberalism. We have to get rid of this false conception and set in its place the conception of race, which has not yet been politically used, up. The new order cannot be conceived in terms of the, national boundaries of the peoples with an historic past, but in terms of race that transcend those boundaries. All the adjustments and corrections of frontiers, and of regions of colonisation, are a ploughing of the sands.”

I tried to object that there were very great difficulties in the way of this for Germany, but Hitler cut me short with a wave of his hand.

“I know perfectly well,” he said, “just as well as all these tremendously clever intellectuals, that in the scientific sense there is no such thing as race. But you, as a farmer and cattle-breeder, cannot get your breeding successfully achieved without the conception of race. And I as a politician need a conception which enables the order which has hitherto existed on historic bases to be abolished and an entirely new and anti-historic order enforced and given an intellectual basis. Understand what I mean,” he said, breaking off. “I have to liberate the world from dependence on its historic past. Nations are the outward and visible forms of our history. So I have to fuse these nations into a higher order if I want to get rid of the chaos of an historic past that has become an absurdity. And for this purpose the conception of race serves me well. It disposes of the old order and makes possible new associations. France carried her great Revolution beyond her borders with the conception of the nation. With the conception of race, National Socialism will carry its revolution abroad and recast the world.”

Hitler concluded, with growing fervour:

“Just as the conception of the nation was a revolutionary change from the purely dynastic feudal states, and just as it introduced a biological conception, that of the people, so our own revolution is a further step, or, rather, the final step, in the rejection of the historic order and the recognition of purely biological values. And I shall bring into operation throughout all Europe and the whole world this process of selection which we have carried out through National Socialism in Germany. The process of dissolution and reordering will run its course in every nation, no matter how old and firmly knit its social system may be.”

Hermann Rauschning. (1939). Hitler Speaks. Page 227-230.
https://archive.org/details/in.ernet.dli.2015.505385/page/n229/mode/2up

[Although Rauschning was a rightist who became anti-NS, his description of Hitler's attitudes here are consistent with Hitler's own speeches, which are quoted further down, and therefore this quote seems credible.]


In contrast to Communists, who thought the culturally-relative idea of "class" and economic conditions were the factor behind social changes and historical trends, Hitler understood that INNATE BIOLOGICAL QUALITIES (i.e. "race") was the real factor behind social change. Instead of world-wide class struggle causing a social revolution, only the anti-historic use of "race" as a construct to unite people across "class" and nationality had any hope of actually achieving a new civilization.

To give a really crude analogy, you can almost imagine Hitler as a car mechanic swapping out an engine labelled as "class" with an engine labelled as "race" to convert Marxist Socialism to National Socialism. The other parts of the car would be the core shell of Socialism that is shared in common with both ideologies.