Written by Brian Kalman exclusively for SouthFront
As the streets of American cities are terrorized by black clad, masked thugs, wielding steel pipes and wooden cudgels, and flying communist flags, the main stream media tries to tell us that these people are reasonable activists protesting against the racism and fascism that is rooted in the fabric of American society. Are we to believe that a violent and radical leftist movement labeling anyone that disagrees with them and their views as Nazis and physically attacking them at every opportunity are a legitimate force for positive change in the American social and political systems? The western mainstream media has sought to legitimize the crimes of Antifa, because they share the same radical left agenda, the same agenda that is sought by the establishment that owns that media.
Antifa “protesters” burn an American flag. Antifa is largely comprised of Communists and Anarchists who desire the overthrow of the social and economic systems that are the foundation of the United States.
In order to understand the current Antifa phenomenon in the U.S., it is important to investigate the political philosophy of the groups that comprise this movement, and their relation to their espoused enemies; fascism and Nazism. What is fascism, how does it relate to Nazism, and how do both relate to socialism and communism? A brief look at the history of the development of the various forms of fascism, Nazism and communism, reveals that all of these political philosophies found their genesis in the socialist left. These political movements were revolutionary and not reactionary, as they all aimed to overthrow and not conserve the status quo. They railed against the evils of capitalism, the need for social welfare, and the destruction of the social classes. All used identity politics to identify and vilify their political rivals and all motivated and manipulated the masses to overthrow established society to gain power.
The Birth of Fascism
Fascism was not born in Germany, nor by the Nazis. It is arguable whether Nazism was a fascist movement at all. Fascism was firstly an Italian political development, with its greatest political philosopher being Giovanni Gentile and its greatest practitioner was Benito Mussolini.
Benito Amilcare Andrea Mussolini was named after a number of revolutionary and socialist-anarchist heroes; the Mexican president Benito Juarez, Amilcare Cipiriani and Andrea Costa. This is understandable, as his father was an ardent socialist, and a member of the First International (just as Marx and Engels) and even served on his town’s socialist council. Benito inherited many of his father’s political beliefs. Upon graduating from high school, he became a substitute teacher and a leading member of a socialist organization. Soon after, he began a career as a leftist journalist. He was particularly opposed to the Catholic Church. As a leader within the Italian Socialist Party he even introduced a resolution (at the Italian Socialist congress in Forli in 1919) stating that religion was incompatible with socialism and any members of the party that tolerated religion, especially Catholicism, should be expelled from the party. [Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, New York, 2009, pg. 31-32.]
By 1902, Benito Mussolini moved to Switzerland, and engaged in political meetings with a number of socialist, anarchist and even Bolshevik exiles. He produced a number of socialist writings over the next two years, before being deported by the Swiss government as an “enemy of society”. After returning to Italy and the Italian Socialist Party, he continued to write and agitate the poor working class in his home country. His eloquent support of socialism and defamation of the Italian state earned him arrest and trial for sedition. Upon his release after a year in prison, he first gained the moniker “Il Duce” (the leader) by Italian socialists. He was “The Leader” of Italian Socialism, before he was the leader of Italian Fascism. When compared to the conceptualized Right-wing conservative (one who desires to conserve the traditional status quo), it is easy to see that the father of Fascism was anything but. He was a leftist, a socialist, a radical and a revolutionary, not a conservative that desired the conservation of the traditional pillars of society; the monarchy and the church.
Benito Mussolini addressing supporters. His socialist political philosophy was widely popular, as the size of the crowd in this photo exhibits.
The great political philosopher of Fascism was unarguably Giovanni Gentile, who is acknowledged as the author of Mussolini’s La Dottrina del Fascismo (The Doctrine of Fascism). He served as a member of the Fascist Grand Council, the Minister of Education, and as a senator in the Italian Parliament. Gentile’s political philosophy in many ways mirrors that of the modern neo-progressives in America.
Giovani Gentile was the main political philosopher of the Italian Fascist movement.
He believed that human beings were first and foremost, social animals, and that their existence only gained meaning when they were engaged in achieving the greater social desires and aims of the community or the state. Gentile believed that fascism was in fact a true democracy, where the people subordinated themselves to the great social order of the state, and that such a system was diametrically opposed to a liberal democracy. Liberal democracy stresses the importance and sanctity of the individual, while providing political mechanisms by which individuals can work together toward consensus to create a unified community or society that protects the interests of all individuals in the group.
Gentile agreed with Marx that there was a revolutionary socialist struggle, but not between economic classes. For Gentile, the struggle was not between the bourgeoisie and the workers, but between the individualist and the socialist. He saw the State as the will of the people personified and put into action.
“The authority of the State is not subject to negotiation. It is entirely unconditioned. It could not depend on the people, in fact, the people depend on the State. Morality and religion… must be subordinated to the laws of the State.” [Dinesh D’Souza, The Big Lie, Washington D.C., 2017, pg.53.]
As Minister of Education, he did everything in his power to indoctrinate the children of fascist Italy in the political philosophy of the dictatorial state. He stated, “Our work as teachers is considered to be at an end when our students speak our language.”[Ibid. pg. 54.] He did not mean the Italian language, but the political language of the fascist dictatorship. Gentile’s belief in this respect has been widely accepted by the academia in America today, which is dominated by the neo-progressive left.
It is obvious from this brief look at the political beliefs of the originators of fascism, that fascism found its genesis in left wing political philosophy. Fascism is diametrically opposed to the classical liberal ideas of the right, the desire to conserve the traditional stabilizing roles of the established governmental order, a capitalist economy and Christian morality. Quite simply put, fascism is a nationalistic brand of socialism.
Nazism and Fascism
It has always amazed me that the left has been able to get away with the myth that fascism was a right wing political movement. Even more amazing, is the myth that the German National Socialist Workers Party (NSDAP), abbreviated NAZI Party, was a right wing movement. It was clearly a nationalistic socialist movement. Like the communists, Nazis desired a radical, socialist revolution that would overturn the long established pillars of social order: the monarchy, capitalism and the church. Adolf Hitler and his contemporaries were all socialists.
It is important to point out that Italian fascism and German Nazism were very different movements, and diverged in many respects in their political philosophy and their practical application. The Spanish fascism (in actuality a Nationalist Dictatorship) of Francisco Franco, was unlike that of Mussolini, and even more unlike the Nazism of Hitler; however, the modern left has been able to successfully lump them all together as the same manifestation of radical right wing politics. This is a total fallacy.
Franco’s dictatorship was a reactionary rebellion to an increasingly radical socialist movement in Spain. It strove to conserve the importance of the church and the established social classes, it was not racist (Franco’s Foreign Legion was made up of majority non-Caucasian troops) and was not rabidly anti-Semitic. Franco needed the military assistance of Italy and Germany to successfully fight the Spanish Civil War; however, his movement to reconquer Spain and return it to it traditional system of society had very little to do at all with either Mussolini or Hitler’s political philosophies.
The Spanish Civil war was an extremely brutal conflict, claiming the lives of over 500,000 people. Upon cementing his dictatorial hold on Spain, Franco largely turned his back on his necessary allies of the civil war days, and did little to help them during the Second World War. If Spain had joined the Axis at the outset of the war, Great Britain would have both been shut out of the Mediterranean all together, spelling a major strategic advantage for the Axis powers. Franco decided to remain neutral.
General Francisco Franco commanded the Spanish Foreign Legion’s Army of Africa. Without the participation of his North African soldiers, many of Moroccan nationality, the Spanish Nationalist forces could never have won the war.
Mussolini and Hitler, although modern myth shows them as the best of friends, had little pleasant to say about one another before Hitler solidified his power in Germany. Italian fascists attempted to distance themselves from the racism and anti-Semitism of the Nazis, and this only really changed after Italy was occupied by the Germans in 1943. In fact, Hitler voiced more respect and admiration for Joseph Stalin than he did for Il Duce early on. Joseph Goebbels, the infamous Nazi propagandist stated in his diaries that,
“Il Duce is not a revolutionary like the Fuhrer or Stalin. He is bound so to his own Italian people, that he lacks the broad qualities of a worldwide revolutionary and insurrectionist.” [Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York, 1966, pg. 309.]
Perhaps the most powerful man in the Third Reich after Adolf Hitler himself, Heinrich Himmler, head of the SS, stated in a speech in 1943 that,
“Fascism and National Socialism are two fundamentally different things,… there is absolutely no comparison between Fascism and National Socialism as spiritual, ideological movements.”[Ibid. pg. 309.]
What exactly are the origins of the National Socialist Workers Party that came to dominate German politics, which eventually turned the nation into a totalitarian nightmare? As their name implies, the Nazis genesis lies in the political philosophy of socialism. The man who will forever personify Nazism, Adolf Hitler was anything but a conservative or a political supporter of the status quo. Hitler, like Lenin, despised the bourgeoisie and the capitalists. He saw both as part of a Jewish conspiracy that hindered the German people from achieving their true potential. Hitler even declared, when speaking about the Nazi struggle against communists for the political dominance of Germany:
“We did not defend Germany against Bolshevism back then because we were not intending to do anything like conserve a bourgeois world or go so far as freshen it up. Had communism really intended nothing more than a certain purification by eliminating isolated rotten elements from among the ranks of our so-called ‘upper ten thousand’ or our equally worthless Philistines, one could have sat back quietly and looked on for a while.”[Jonah Goldberg, Liberal Fascism, New York, 2009, pg. 60.]
Hitler did not fundamentally disagree with most communist philosophy, in fact he shared many of the same views. He believed in the elimination of social and economic class, the elimination of capitalism, state guaranteed welfare for the worker, the nationalization of key industries, land reform, and even national health care for all citizens. Hitler’s political beliefs were undoubtedly influenced by his experience as a soldier in the First World War, and his existence as a social outcast during much of his early adult life. Established society had largely rejected him. This would all change in 1919, when while working undercover for the Weimar government in Munich, he attended a meeting of the German Workers’ Party. Hitler would soon rise to leadership in the party, and transform it into the Nazi Party.
Hitler was, like so many Germans at the time, a devout anti-Semite, and he worked tirelessly to make the socialist philosophy of the Nazi Party mirror his own views on the Jews and his racist views in general. The National Socialists’ anti-Semitic views had broad appeal in the Germany of the 1920s and 1930s; however, it was their socialist platform that most attracted support among voters. Jonah Goldberg very succinctly explains this fact in his book Liberal Fascism:
“This is the monumental fact that of the Nazi rise to power that has been slowly airbrushed from our collective memories; the Nazis campaigned as socialists. Yes, they were also nationalists, which in the context of the 1930s was considered a rightist position, but this was a time when the “internationalism” of the Soviet Union defined all nationalisms as right-wing.” [Ibid. pg. 70.]
The famous Nazi political ideologue, Gregor Strasser also made it very clear where the Party stood on its socialist beliefs:
“We are socialists. We are enemies, deadly enemies, of today’s capitalist economic system with its exploitation of the economically weak, its unfair wage system, its immoral way of judging the worth of human beings in terms of wealth and their money, instead of their responsibility and their performance, and we are determined to destroy this system whatever happens!” [Ibid. pg. 71.]
Since the end of the Second World War, the political left in the United States has been largely successful in disassociating itself with the socialist origins of both Nazism and Fascism, in a similar fashion that the U.S. Democratic Party has been able to market itself as the party of inclusion and tolerance despite its long history of supporting slavery and segregation in America. Yes, as the Italian Fascists used the Black Shirts and the Nazis used the Brown Shirts to terrorize their opposition in the streets and at the voting booth, the Democratic Party used the Ku Klux Klan as a force of domestic terrorism in the United States. While the SA was burning down Jewish businesses in German cities, the KKK were lynching blacks in America.
Antifa’s Origins in the Street Battles of the Weimar Republic.
Both Italian Fascism and National Socialism (NAZI) are based on socialist political philosophy. So, why does the Communist Antifa movement (if it is really a political movement at all) desire the destruction of other socialist movements? Firstly, Antifa is only anti-fascist in that it has arbitrarily identified all enemies of the neo-progressive left as fascists. If you do not support the political philosophy of the American radical left, you are labeled a Nazi or a fascist regardless of facts or a logical explanation for such a label. To understand this phenomenon, a brief explanation of the origins of Antifa are required.
The Antifa flag as originally on display during a German Communist Party (KPD) Rally.
Antifa can trace its origins to the Kommunistische Partei Deutschlands (KPD) or German Communist Party. The Antifa flag was created by the KPD in the 1920s.The KPD represented the largest political competition that the Nazis faced in winning power over the German state in the years of economic and social upheaval of the 1920’s and 1930’s. Both parties were vying for the same constituency, the poor workers or proletariat that were apt to embrace socialist political promises. The more centrist or right wing political parties of the time, including the Democratic Party (DDP), Catholic Center Party (Zentrum) and Peoples Party (DVP), could not hope to oppose the socialists.
Both the Nazis and the KPD perfected identity politics, demonizing their real and perceived political rivals, and neither party was averse to using violence to intimidate rival parties and German voters in general. The Nazis took identity politics one step farther by identifying all Jews as enemies of the German state, and the designers of a worldwide conspiracy that was responsible for enslaving the superior Aryan race and keeping them from inheriting their true birthright. This reprehensible anti-Semitism was widely embraced, not only in Germany, but in most of Western and Eastern Europe. Many citizens in the United States were openly anti-Semitic at the time, and even famous personalities and people in circles of power praised the good work of the Nazis and Hitler himself in rooting out this evil.
No, these are not Nazi Party members or SA Brown Shirts, but KPD street thugs marching through a German city during the turbulent upheaval of the Weimar Republic.
Although the usual straw man of the communists was the bourgeois elites, realizing the influence that the Nazis wielded by identifying a widely despised segment of German society and using it to galvanize the masses, even the communists resorted to anti-Semitic rhetoric to try and syphon off some of the political energy of this widely held hatred. Both socialist movements were very adept at using scapegoats to focus the energies of the masses. Although scapegoats could change at any time, a scapegoat of some form was always required.
We can see the use of identity politics in play by the left in the United States quite successfully, not only during the era of reconstruction and segregation, when blacks were routinely terrorized and their rights denied them by the Democratic Party and the Klan, but even more widely today. Anyone that disagrees with the neo-progressives and radical left are labeled as white supremacists, racists, homophobes, misogynists, and yes, even Nazis. The neo-progressives, who for all intents and purposes, represent the establishment in U.S. politics, have enlisted Antifa and their affiliated allies to take this new form of identity politics out onto the street. They have been given the green light to make the streets run red with blood. Why are so many young men and women of leftist political beliefs, regardless of ethnicity and of varying economic means drawn to such a violent, morally and politically bankrupt group? A study of the totalitarian regimes of Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union under Stalin offer some important insight.
Antifa. Prelude to totalitarianism in America?
Although Antifa’s violent service to the American left on the streets of Berkeley, Charlottesville, Seattle and Austin is not a sign that America is walking along the precipice of totalitarianism; it does send up a red flag (no pun intended) denoting that something has gone horribly wrong with the normal political discourse of American society. While the neo-progressive and radical left, which largely control the mechanisms of government, academia and the media at present, lose patience with the identity politics of race, and the wide support for the current president by a very large segment of the country, it has decided to actively motivate the masses to acts of violence. Any constructive, non-violent form of political discourse with the enemies of the left have been halted. There is nothing to be gained by talking to Nazis and racists right? All they understand is a fist to the face and a boot in the stomach. Like the Negro, the Jew, the gypsy, or the mentally deficient, they have been labeled less than human. The left have shown the first small success at motivating the masses needed to fuel a totalitarian state.
So what distinguishes the masses from the mob? The seminal work on the subject, The Origins of Totalitarianism, by Hannah Arendt, gives an accurate and insightful definition of the masses.
“Totalitarian movements are possible wherever there are masses who for one reason or another have acquired the appetite for political organization. Masses are not held together by a consciousness of common interest and they lack that specific class articulateness which is expressed in determined, limited and obtainable goals. The term masses applies only where we deal with people who either because of sheer numbers, or indifference, or a combination of both, cannot be integrated into any organization based on common interest… Potentially, they exist in every country and form the majority of those large numbers of neutral, politically indifferent people who never join a party and hardly ever go to polls.
It was characteristic of the rise of the Nazi movement in Germany and of the Communist movements in Europe after 1930 that they recruited their members from this mass of apparently indifferent people whom all other parties had given up on as too apathetic or too stupid for their attention. The result was that the majority of their membership consisted of people who never before had appeared on the political scene. This permitted the introduction of entirely new methods into political propaganda, and indifference to the arguments of political opponents; these movements not only placed themselves outside and against the party system as a whole, they found a membership that had never been reached, never been “spoiled” by the party system. Therefore they did not need to refute opposing arguments and consistently preferred methods which ended in death rather than persuasion, which spelled terror rather than conviction. They presented disagreements as invariably originated in deep natural, social, or psychological sources beyond the control of the individual and therefore beyond the power of reason. This would have been a shortcoming only if they had sincerely entered into competition with other parties; it was not if they were sure of dealing with people who had reason to be equally hostile to all parties.” [Hannah Arendt, The Origins of Totalitarianism, New York, 1966, pg. 311-312.]
It is readily apparent that the ranks of Antifa are largely composed of disaffected youth who feel no loyalty to a sense of the United States on a nationalistic level, nor a sense of belonging to an overarching American culture. They are largely students indoctrinated in leftist dominated universities and colleges, or who have graduated from these same institutions over the past decade with a worthless degree, massive student loan debt, and little hope of earning a job that allows them to pay off this debt in their lifetime, let alone prosper. They have been taught that the classical liberal ideas of individual liberty, natural or God given universal rights, and the importance of a society based on adherence to laws based on Judeo Christian morals and ethics are somehow an archaic holdover from the past. The left professes that we have to progress beyond these foundational principles that have somehow run their course.
But what does the American left offer these masses? Someone to blame. Even though the neo-progressive of neo-liberals of the American left have controlled much of the establishment over the past thirty years, they have labeled anyone but them as the cause of all of the ills of these disaffected masses. They have not shied away from rewriting the past, whitewashing their own guilt as the party of slavery, and segregation, while at the same time labeling Republicans, conservatives, libertarians, and classical liberals all as racists. They have projected their own responsibility for the political origins of fascism and Nazism, and the perpetuation of slavery and segregation in America, on their political opponents. The main stream media has been all too happy to parrot this obviously false narrative in the propaganda effort to turn logic on its head.
Does the modern Antifa movement in the United States have any real political goals beyond the desire to burn the nation to the ground?
Only because social media and smart phones (equipping everyone with a video camera that fits in their pocket) have rendered the main stream media unable to control the narrative as they could in the past, has the truth so quickly been provided to counter main stream media propaganda. Antifa are not dedicated and righteous opponents of fascism. They have been revealed to be either communist or anarchist-leaning thugs, or disaffected youth with little prospects of a better future who are taking out their frustrations on an artificially created and vilified enemy. They should never be, as the media first insisted, equated to the brave men who stormed the beaches of Normandy. Their political philosophy is simple; provide them with a villain to hate and allow them to commit acts of vandalism and violence. That’s as deep as it goes.
A Return to Political Discourse
The United States must return to being a nation of laws. Laws that apply equally to all citizens, not one set of laws for the government, the wealthy and well connected, and a different set of laws for the rest of us. We must continue to embrace our nation’s past, both the good and the evil, as good and evil lies in all of us, regardless of our origins, race, sexuality or political beliefs. Only by recognizing the faults and the evils, can we truly find the direction in which to strive for the better. We must also realize that human beings are flawed, especially those that have done much to shape history. All great men and women in history have a side that we would like to forget, but we must not. The history of nations, on the most base level, is the history of millions and millions of flawed human beings.
Americans must deny this demand of the neo-progressives to re-write history, to tear down and remove monuments, and to view history through a 21st century looking glass. This is illogical folly. Our collective human experience is not black and white. If the neo-progressives and the establishment media want us to label things in such an absolutist fashion, why are they so ready to label Antifa heroes, American Nazis as deplorable, and yet the Nazis of the Ukraine are freedom fighters? Seriously? The illogical arguments and short memory of the western main stream media is astounding.
The left dominated main stream media labels American Nazis (Left) as despicable white-supremacists. At the same time, they label Ukrainian Nazis (Right) usurping the political process through violence as nationalist freedom fighters, forging a new era of democracy and tolerance. Hypocrisy anyone?
I greatly hope that the overwhelming majority of rational and reasonable citizens of the United States decide that enough is enough, and will categorically reject the false propaganda narrative being peddled to them. If the silent majority decides to remain silent and irrelevant, we are doomed. I happen to believe that the silent majority is slowly finding their voice, and that the media praise of Antifa has touched a nerve. I also believe that the current political establishment is totally corrupt, and incapable of governing. The resultant social and political vacuum created must be filled, and it may be filled by increasingly polarized and radical forces. Is totalitarianism or civil strife coming to America? History teaches us that the odds are quite high.
As long as the NSDAP was in the opposition, it was known politically as a part of the left spectrum. It is easy to prove with newspapers from the time before they came to power.
KPD, SPD and NSDAP all had their “troops” for their political parties. With other words, all of the left wing parties had their bullies at hand.
In conclusion, Antifa is the new SA, that’s it. This too explains why the Neo Nazis of today are always clashing with Antifa, as both intellectually are on the same level, being abused by other behind them.
Exactly right. Leftism is a mental disorder.
Don’t be so picky! America is a mental disorder.
Leave the few sane people alone, it’s already difficult enough for them to watch the events unfolding. =)
God yes. It must be REALLY AWFUL for them.
An interesting side note about the ‘neo-nazi’s’ at Charlottesville. The chief organizer, Jason Kessler, of this ‘neo nazi’ gathering, is an ashkenazic jew. He previously was a supporter of Obama, and also took part in organizing the extreme left-wing Occupy Wall Street movement. He may also have worked for CNN. He seems to be an agent provacateur. Outside of prison gangs, there are no real neo-nazi organizations in the United States.
I know most of the people here are not from the USA so they may not remember or know of this, but when there was an armed standoff between the Federal Government and the Bundy clan over grazing rights there was a group of about 50 people who camped out nearby to show support for the Bundy clan. The MSM in America constantly touted these 50 people as being part of neo-nazi militia movements. After the standoff was ended the Bundys were tried in court and found not guilty. If one paid attention to the court documents, you would see that at least 20 of the 50 ‘neo nazi militiamen’ were actually government informants working with Federal law enforcement. There is simply no neo-nazi movement in the USA that is not composed largely of government informants.
When two argue and fight, the third is pleased too see. Divide et impera at its best.
Left and right is used by the rulers to divide the people and to give them fodder for the mainstream media to howl out loud. People who fight themselves won’t fight against their slavery.
Thank you that was interesting.
please don’t compare… https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/458ee490812b76767d0abeeeb230a3420fff8d597bf3f99963fa325cb0838235.jpg
You understood Michael.
“Only by recognizing the faults and the evils, can we truly find the direction in which to strive for the better”
Here lies the rub in finding the common enemy and keeping it at bay……
The “iron law of oligarchy” states that all forms of organization, regardless of how democratic they may be at the start, will eventually and inevitably develop oligarchic tendencies, thus making true democracy practically and theoretically impossible, especially in large groups and complex organizations. The iron law of oligarchy is a political theory, first developed by the German sociologist Robert Michels in his 1911 book, Political Parties. It claims that rule by an elite, or oligarchy, is inevitable as an “iron law” within any democratic organization as part of the “tactical and technical necessities” of organization.
Michels’ theory states that all complex organizations, regardless of how democratic they are when started, eventually develop into oligarchies. Michels observed that since no sufficiently large and complex organization can function purely as a direct democracy, power within an organization will always get delegated to individuals within that group, elected or otherwise.
Using anecdotes from political parties and trade unions struggling to operate democratically to build his argument in 1911, Michels addressed the application of this law to representative democracy, and stated: “Who says organization, says oligarchy.” He went on to state that “Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy.”
According to Michels all organizations eventually come to be run by a “leadership class”, who often function as paid administrators, executives, spokespersons, political strategists, organizers, etc. for the organization. Far from being “servants of the masses”, Michels argues this “leadership class,” rather than the organization’s membership, will inevitably grow to dominate the organization’s power structures. By controlling who has access to information, those in power can centralize their power successfully, often with little accountability, due to the apathy, indifference and non-participation most rank-and-file members have in relation to their organization’s decision-making processes.
Michels argues that democratic attempts to hold leadership positions accountable are prone to fail, since with power comes the ability to reward loyalty, the ability to control information about the organization, and the ability to control what procedures the organization follows when making decisions. All of these mechanisms can be used to strongly influence the outcome of any decisions made ‘democratically’ by members.
Michels stated that the official goal of representative democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that representative democracy is a facade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, which he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable.
NOTE! Later Michels migrated to Italy and joined Benito Mussolini’s Fascist Party, as he believed this was the next legitimate step of modern societies. The thesis became popular once more in post-war America with the publication of Union Democracy: The Internal Politics of the International Typographical Union (1956) and during the red scare brought about by McCarthyism.
Hence the failure to date of both of these statements which are destined to fail without constant grass roots involvement from the bottom up.
“Liberal democracy stresses the importance and sanctity of the individual, while providing political mechanisms by which individuals can work together toward consensus to create a unified community or society that protects the interests of all individuals in the group”.
“where the people subordinated themselves to the great social order of the state, and that such a system was diametrically opposed to a liberal democracy”.
That was interesting – thanks
Humanity always proofed itself being very capable to undermine and hollow out every system in the long term.
Indeed, a very interesting read, will have to check Michels again.
Very interesting!
Mussolini was a ZionIntel asset. So is Antifa. It’s that simple.
How was Mussolini Ziointel asset?
What a goddamn shitty artikel and what stupid coments…
Sorry folkes, I could argue a lot about the differences between faschists and anarchists and/or anarcho-communists and or libertary communism, but on this side it seems like “Perlen vor die Säue”; so i save my energy ;-)
Happy conspiracy hunting and thanx for the fish!
Are you implying that your frequent quoting of shitty pop song lyrics is very intelligent commentary? Your pearls look more like anal beads from where I am sitting.
Gladius et Scutum? WTF! Someones “stupid pop songs” are another ones songs of freedom, just deal with it. With your sword or with your mind, that´s up to you… But just especially for you, here´s another “stupid pop song”:
“The Ex + Tom Cora “Fire and Ice”:
How do you compare bad with bad? Do you subtract the dead Salvatorians From dead Iraquis? Do you subtract tortured Chileans Form poisoned Kurds? And with whom do you exchange The exterminated Vietnamese?
He who calculates with a bad memory He who tells lies from lies apart He who wants to compare evil with evil Deserves the war he gets
And the off-writers sharp their pencils Like the military sharp their bayonets On balances of power They weigh corpses by the million They divide fear by honour And deduct radiation from profit
He who’s in the red Finds no mercy in their eyes And he who pays his debts Is considered by them as weak
They measure everything, In valuation and prognoses, except The shortest way from their office To the underground shelter They measure it in mm/sec
They’ve got tongues like split atoms With which they lick Theirs pens of rocket steel Before they balance their books.
They work day and night They work fire and ice They write off Cities against oil-wells Childrens against money-lenders Freedom against power
They work day and night They work fire and ice They write off And end up at Zero”
Have a nice week and thanx for the fish. ;-)
I thought you wanted to save your energy? So shut up german anarcho.
Once Nazis and Fascists took state power, Communists and Social Democrats were put in concentration camps and slaughtered. Why? Because they were anti capitalist while fascists made a deal with the capitalists. Fascism’s “anti capitalism” was rhetoric and campaign slogans, and the capitalists knew it.
No, they just didn’t like the competition. The NSDAP knew that none of the other conservative parties nor the moderate left would try and seize power. The far left would (and had) tried to seize power. This is the same reason why Lenin went after the other extreme leftists in Russia before he went after the capitalists.
Yep.
Communists and Social Democrats were not slaughtered, that’s a zionist hoax to justify the continued dissolution of the German people, the leeching of their state and the erasing of their culture. Please educate yourself on the truth about the second world war before regurgitating propaganda.
The first comment here showing that one is not misled by the winner’ s history.
Gabriel im afraid you need to hit the books.Too much evidence that they were slaughtered .In fact, early communists of Lenin and stalinist ilk also killed socialists as well.thats the problem.when the breakdown of society happens the extremists come to power and kill off the moderates who helped them get there.
In similar vein,whether you support Trump or not it is very strange that within 6 mths of getting in power he has thrown all those that helped him get there under a bus.Who do you think is pulling strings there?
That is too true.Hitler the main example reached an accommodation with the big industrialists like BMW,mercedes,Krupp steel,Basf,Bayer etc and with aristocratic rightist vons as he called them.
As capitalism crumbles, history tells us that capitalists seek fascist protection as occurred in Germany.
Yet capitalism was ‘crumbling’ in France, England, United States, Czechoslovakia and other industrial countries but the capitalists in none of those countries sought the protection of fascists.
It only didn’t get that far, but the road for them was already laid.
“As the streets of American cities are terrorized by black clad, masked thugs, wielding steel pipes and wooden cudgels, and flying communist flags, the main stream media tries to tell us that these people are reasonable activists protesting against the racism and fascism that is rooted in the fabric of American society.” —————- You mean …. like America did to Ukraine? And how many other nations? It’s just the flag that’s different sometimes. So good – way past time you got back some of what you give so generously.
To lump communism, socialism and anarchism together as one big radical leftist agenda conspiring together is a pretty shallow analysis imo.
Too yrue.and who said established media had radical left agenda?
Wow. I certainly don’t expect to find this sort of vicious ignorance at my favorite Syrian war go-to website, Southfront. Antifa are ‘antifascists’, ergo, without fascists they would cease to exist. There is no structure, organization or attempt to violently impose a different politics on a given population. They step up when the police – who too often are fascists themselves – don’t do their job. They exist as likeminded individuals, to resist the rise of rightwing violence we see across the western world, as our governments slide into undemocratic oligarchy. There is no corresponding rise in leftwing violence. There have been tediously predictable attempts by elements of the right to deflect attention from rightwing extremism – and suggest a laughable equivalence between heavily armed, murderous racists and those defenders of freedom who challenge them. The author, obviously, is some shit-for-brains ideologue and the garbage ‘ideas’ he peddles here are genuinely offensive. I’ve posted a lot of Southfront stuff on the web in the last couple of years but if this brainless pestilence represents Southfront’s actual beliefs and values, I’m done. Seriously. Don’t spread this shit. How fucking stupid do you think we are? What next? Holocaust denial? Anti-vax screeds? Seriously disappointed in this appalling lapse in judgement.
Defending ones indigenous ethnic tribal peoples is never wrong. The colonialist powers of France and USSA and UK-Empire were in the wrong. Over 1,000,000 ethnic Germans were genocided in Poland before the War even began. The Cossack’s of Russia were being genocided by Marxist-bigots before the war even began. The people of India were being genocided by the UK before the war began. The USSR was genociding both ethnic-Russians and ethnic-German Mennonites inside of Russia all before the war began. Someone had to take a stand for civil rights and unite India and Iran and Finland and Spain and Egypt and Jerusalem in a bid to stop these insane colonialist powers of France and UK and USSA. The US has been the bad guy in every single war for over the last 150 years plain and simple. Anyone who does not know this does not know history.
Where is this group?
Here is a comment from a friend of mine! “Forget it, this may be an opinion piece but it’s a badly informed opinion piece that has damaged SouthFront’s reputation in my eyes. If SouthFront is actually claiming that American MSM media have the same ideas as anti-fa groups even after the American MSM supported fascism in Ukraine then they’ve gone off the rails. SouthFront should have seen how insane such an article is and demanded the author go back and write something that makes more sense.” Personally i remember reading the now deleted wikipedia-article about SouthFront, were you would find a story about one of the past people who wrote for SF being exposed for being a neo-nazi, and how he was barred from writing for SF as a result. I now request that SF do not alienate a large portion of their readers by publishing articles like this one!
This article is a fraud – There was nothing particularly Socialist about Nazi Germany.
History proves beyond a doubt that Hitler and the Nazi’s were right wing — before any attempt at eliminating Jews and having a superior Aryan race — Hitler and the Nazi’s rounded up as many lefties as they could including Socialists and the Communists.
Any university professor with leftish leanings was promptly removed from their position. Those were not the actions of a leftist!
History shows, that the actions of Hitler and the Nazi’s were in fact extreme right wing ideologies.
The only individuals who dispute this are themselves extreme right wing people [normally USA citizens aligned with those mad dogs in the Tea Party]
Anyone stating that Hitler’s Nazism and Racism isn’t right wing is just the modern extreme right wing crowd trying to distance themselves from the biggest tyrant in modern history.
Antifa’s purpose is not to “burn down america” but to smash fascists anytime they mobilize and send them back to the dark little holes they inhabit, holes like “south front”.