A short video from PragurU explaining that while it is wrong to characterize Hitler as right-wing (he was a socialist, after all, and hated capitalism), he wasn't entirely left-wing either because he divided the world by race rather than class, as was the case with the Marxists of the time (although the video notes that Leftists--at least in the West--have turned to using race to categorize the world over the past couple of decades).
I disagree that Hitler could not be wholly leftist because of his racial theories. Other thinkers of the day that are considered leftist--e.g., the Frankfurt School and Antonio Gramsci--had moved away from the standard Marxist class struggle to adopt other theories of struggle or oppression (e.g., critical theory and cultural hegemony, respectively); and the Italian fascists and German national socialists should be seen as part of this same exploration of different theories of struggle outside of the traditional Marxist paradigm of inter-class conflict. The fact that the modern Left has embraced racism against whites and, more recently, Jews, in their quest to produce a utopia merely underscores the fact that racism is not incompatible with Leftist thinking. Hitler may not have been a communist, but he clearly was otherwise a socialist and in favor of big government interjecting itself into every nook and cranny of a person's life--i.e., the very definition of far-left.
VIDEO: "Was Hitler far-right or far-left?"
PragerU Shorts (2 min.)
Yes, he was a nationalist, and yes he was a socialist.
ReplyDeleteEven Stalin went nationalist--there is a reason WWII is called the Great Patriotic War in Russia.
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