cross-posted from: https://lemmy.world/post/15820908
A Patron of Democracy at Work asks: “I listen to a lot of podcasts such as yourself to get a broader perspective. I love the clarity you bring to pretty much any subject you discuss. I would like your take on something I’ve heard recently, that communism is actually conservative fascism. It was in the context of the MAGA Communism narrative that has been discussed and in some cases pushed by creators such as Jackson Hinkle. Is someone trying to rewrite the meaning of communism? Or, did I miss something along the way?”
This is Professor Richard Wolff’s video response.
Informative comment:
@walthaus
The German word for “national” is definitely not spelled with the letter Z , it’s spelled the same as in English, the reason it’s called Nazi party is because in Germany socialists ( Sozialisten) are commonly referred to as “Sozis”, so the combination is “Nationalist” and “Sozi” or “Sozialist”= Nazi.
And Adolf Hitler didn’t propose that name anyway, The party was initially called German Worker’s Party ( DAP =deutsche Arbeiterparty) and the executive committee , following Rudolf Jung’s recommendation, changed the name to NSDAP, adding the words National and Socialist , both over Hitler’s objections. Hitler wanted the name to be “Social Revolutionary Party”. However, RudolfJung, having written a book on “National Socialism” a book he hoped was going to be as important to Nazi ideology as “Das Kapital” was to Marxism/ Socialism, was able to convince Hitler to go along with the new party name. The word “Socialism” was indeed added to attract left-wing workers, but it was, of course a 'bait’n’switch" since Nazis were definitely anti socialist, ant-communist and anti-marxist.