Anti-Nolte: Did Bolshevism really cause National Socialism and Fascism?

10 posts

President Camacho
Well, in your original statement you claimed that Nolte "pins every single fault of NS" on Marxism, and I'm not sure that was the crux of his argument. Fascism had its own visions and goals that were peculiar to the countries where it flourished. That being said, anti-Marxism was certainly a central element of fascist programs beginning with the Action Francaise.

The larger and more important point though is that fascism and Marxism were both hostile reactions to liberal democracy. Yes Hitler made peace with the industrialists and used their capacities to re-arm Germany, but it was a purely practical alliance that wasn't rooted in any kind of ideological affinity between National Socialism and industrial capitalism. That would be like claiming that the USSR was pro-capitalism because it was forced to utilize Western technocrats and took cash from financiers like Jacob Schiff during the first couple decades of mass industrialization.

That is part of what made the Bolshevik Revolution such a devastating upheaval. As Martin van Creveld pointed out,
The only truly "Russian" form of government was Czarism; liberal democracy, fascism, marxism, socialism, etc, are all particularly Western modes of politics.

I strongly disagree with this; liberal democracy first conquered politics through money, and fascism represented the counter-strike of politics against economics. Yes industrial magnates were integrated into the German Reich but gradually sapped of control over what and how much to produce. On the other hand business elements hostile to the NS State were purged; it was not "good for the bourgeoisie" from an economic perspective to purge Jews from science and banking and academia, but it was done anyway because they were considered a political threat.

The "grand bourgeosie" did not lead the charge against Marxism; the actual fascists and National Socialists did. The most significant marker of the interwar period was the subservience of the bourgeoisie to the managerial apparatus everywhere throughout the West, and its utter annihilation as a class in the USSR.
Randall McMurphy


Perhaps, but the other side: it was politically popular to implement an Affirmative Action program that aided the middle class supporters. Hitlerism was most bourgeoise.
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Germany had been rearming anyway, with or without Hitler. Hitler promised to keep status quo and did not pay off the national defense contractors to any greater extent then the natural momentum offered. Speer had to beg him in '43 to go total war, when the USA economy went total war by 41-42.
Theo
No, fascism was hostile reaction to Marxism, not democracy, liberal or otherwise. Read Nolte, at least a general overview of his work, then make conclusions.

None of this in any way disapproves the point made by both, Trotsky and Nolte. NS was a guard, not a servant. As a sort of Medieval prince, akin to Rurik, it was called to protect from invaders, but it was autonomous in his decisions and who actually encroached the freedom of decision for those, who chose him.

The actual fascists and NS were sponsored by grand bourgeoise to lead the charge, and that they did. As for bourgeoisie 'serving' managerial apparatus, you mix the reason and the consequences - the managerial apparatus appeared to serve the needs of the bourgeoisie, and in essence, they were and still are actually on top of it.
President Camacho

Theo, first you say that "NS was a guard, not a servant", then you state in the next paragraph that the National Socialists were servants of the "grand bougeousie".

There are not many similarities between Nolte's and Trotsky's take on fascism. Nolte emphasized fascism's revolutionary rejection of both capitalism/democratic conservatism as well as Marxism, whereas Trotsky argued (as you do) that the Nazis were just stooges and hired muscle to carry out the dirty work of the business magnates. That isn't Nolte's thesis at all, and it's bizarre that you keep trying to conflate him with Trotsky.

President Camacho
Read "The Managerial Revolution" by James Burnham. He describes in detail the turn of events occuring almost simultaneously in the USSR, NS Germany, and New Deal America which subordinated the true capitalists to the managers. (or, in Russia, which completely liquidated the capitalists)

The cognitive dissonance between us in this discussion I think is that you adhere to Marxist orthodoxy which states that anyone who doesn't work for subsistence wages is first and foremost a "capitalist" in identity. Burnham, an ex-Trotskyite, rejected the narrow horizon of Marxism-Trotskyism.

After WWI genuine "capitalists" in the West were gradually shoved into the background by the legions of accountants, consultants, analysts, executives, etc... in other words, the bourgiousie was supplanted by the managers. Henry Ford was one of the last true capitalists in America who retained actual operational control over his enterprise; the rest reverted to indolence, sloth and irrelevance.

The modern CEO is not a "capitalist", he is a networking machine, PR man, damage control expert, and System liasion.... in other words, he is a manager, and his function is the same whether in a private or government enterprise (ie, Obama).
Theo
I never said, that they were servants. I said they were sponsored by Bourgeoise, and in fact were the frontmen for it. But their role was not that of mere servants, who could be sent away, whenever the master so wills (here my comparison with Medieval Princes, like Rurik, who offered 'guardsmen services', but later conquered total power is quite correct).

As for the rest of your thesis, I'll just give you a cue. Read the last chapter ("Bolshevism and National Socialism in European Civil War during Fascist Epoch") in 'EUropean civil War'. Here Nolte supports not the thesis, that NS are stooges, you misunderstand me yet again, seems like you don't read attentively enough. Nolte here supports my previous thesis, that the main reason for nazism and the war are economical, same as before.

He supports the thesis, that while Marxism was bent on destroying bourgeoise, NS was more about defending it. And especially goes at length to describe the special role of middle class, played in the war ("petite bourgeoise" in marxian terminology), for reasons I already explained above.
President Camacho

The only work by Nolte that I've read is Three Faces of Fascism, and unfortunately I don't have it on hand to reference or cite.

Nobody is denying that the Nazis played off of middle class fears of Communism to triumph at the ballot box, or that Hitler's economic programs secured his support base. They voted for the Nazis because the Weimar Republic was impotent and the NSDAP was willing to take to the streets and wipe out the Communists with force. But it's a different matter to suggest that the NSDAP's raison d'etre was to defend the bourgiousie. I think you're mixing cause and effect here.

Nolte is quite clear that Marraus, the first major Euro leader who could be construed as "fascist", was most heavily influenced by the ideas of Joseph de Maistre, who was one of the fiercest critics of the Enlightenment and all its trappings. As for Germany, Stresemann and his clique were the most interested in "defending the bourgeoise"; they thought that economic growth and stability in the Anglo sense was all Weimar Germany needed. The Nazis had nothing but contempt for him, because they desired a political transformation and not merely a series of economic reforms.

Democracy and capitalism go hand in hand, and both of them lasted for scarcely a century before being tamed and subdued by managerial regimes.

Theo
Why Burnham lumps USSR with everyone else is beyond me - does he think, that that was another manifestation of managers vs. capitalists conflict? Was, say, Beria a 'manager'? Was Nikolai II a 'capitalist'? Equating Soviet Politbureau with a Board of some transnational company is ridiculously silly. In Russia - now THAT's where the conflict was truly political, otherwise Lenin's April theses are simply unexplainable. Neither is the strife between Menshevism and Bolshevism.

As for the rest, I'd say, the dissonance is due to the fact, that you freely interchange words with very different meanings: 'capitalism', an economic system, with 'democracy', a system of government, with 'liberalism', a strain of political philosophy. Ditto with 'bourgeoisie', which in marxism subdivides into gran bourgeoisie, middle bourgeoisie and petite bourgeoisie. But you understand it strictly as a 'capitalist', i.e. representative of grand bourgeoise, owner of large business with huge personal income, and de facto employer of huge swarm of workers, thus you see a conflict there where none exists.

That grand bourgeoise of capitalists was overtaken by middle bourgeoisie of managers and CEOs may intrigue some, but it didn't change either the political, or the economical climate dramatically. Why would it? Capitalists simply died out, due to change of economical climate, like brontosaurus.

I don't subscribe to Trotskyite or Marxist view of history, but it put things into an interesting prospective and explains a bit more of the events that have happened/ are happening in past and present.
Cadavre Exquis
A great point, but I somewhat disagree.

Modern America is still 'capitalist', but in a very distinct way. As you mention, it wasn't atypical a century or two ago that a man could build and control his own enterprise from early inception to its maturity as a dominant market player. Now, it would be a miraculous story. The trajectory from start-up to venture capital to IPO is the norm, and the legal, regulatory and market structures hamper the pure capitalism of an earlier time. Everyone within these structures gets their own piece of the action, of course. One of the two hallmarks of this new capitalism is the complete separation of ownership in and management of the means of production.

The other distinguishing feature is the aim of molding the drones and functionaries of the managerial system, at every level, into capitalists in their own right. "Work hard, invest smart, and you could be living off your little nest-egg when you're too old and decrepit for you family to take care of you." You're a sucker if you're not trying to get ahead, putting your capital into this new stock or that new fund. Spruiking pieces of paper like these to the common man would've been unthinkable 100 years ago. No longer will you 'eat the labour of thine hands' (Psalm 128:2). Government, for example here in Australia, decrees that you must invest in a retirement fund.

So the system manages to bubble along nicely, even though the game is rigged from the start for these little capitalists (I was reminded of that fact again in this great piece on the Galleon scandal.) Mass politics have come and gone, and everyone is now a financier.
President Camacho
Yeah, Burnham makes that same point re: separation of ownership and management. I think the only industry today where you still see genuine capitalists striking it big is in the tech industry-- guys like Jobs and Gates. Bureaucracies can regulate, extort, and put up barriers to established industries but it lies outside of their nature to anticipate and restrict innovation in knowledge fields.
Good points, but I think it's clear that managerial societies have different guiding ideas and myths... it has been pointed out for example that NS Germany and the USSR were producer-driven societies, whereas the United States and countries molded in its image are consumer-oriented. But Germany, Japan, and China are still producer-oriented societies to this day, despite creeping Anglo-American consumerist agitprop. BTW, here is an tangentially related thread: http://saloforum.com/index.php?threads/brit-homofag-makes-interesting-macroeconomic-connection.1216/

Another distinguishing feature of capitalism vs managerial society is that the latter requires businesses to tithe a base amount of political capital to the regime.

For example, it is simply not possible for a entreprenuer to maintain success today by discriminating on "restricted" bases against employees. A commitment to the regime's "diversity" program is nessecary or else one risks being targeted and prosecuted by the Federal government. Hence the simultaneous rollouts of "Diversity Commitments" by every corporation over the past two decades, despite the immense costs and inefficiencies they impose on business. A successful business owner today must essentially relinquish his position as a pure capitalist (or profit-seeker) and integrate into the managerial apparatus.

Formerly capitalists controlled the political process through cold cash and considered politicking a lower order nessecity that was beneath them; now the designated roles and pecking order has become blurred and hence the mounting entry of multimillionaires into politics.
The financiers have indeed wrested political influence from the producers (industrialists) at least in America, but the majority of people belong to neither of these categories. Their occupation is consumer . As you say, propaganda exhorting consumers to increase their financial prowess is widespread, but the esoteric understanding between the managers is that the masses are bovine.