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Orwell omitted a few details: Hitler never had a majority in the Reichstag/german parliament - he benefited from the enmity between the Social democrats and the

Orwell omitted a few details: Hitler never had a majority in the Reichstag/german parliament - he benefited from the enmity between the Social democrats and the Communist. I mean a popular front, like in France of 1936 would have stopped them. The German soial dems and communist were mortal enemies, because the social dems shot a lot of communists in the aftermath of the Kapp putsch. Also Hitler had the massive support of German industrialists, they bailed him out in 1932, and both Thyssen and Schlacht urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler. They all thought that they would control Hitler, von Papen certainly thought so. Also the social dems were very passive (to say the least). Von Papen dissolved the Prussian state, where they social dems were the government - that was the state with the largest police force in the country. What did the social dems do? They went to court, when they should have called a general strike (they did exactly that during the Kapp putsch, some thirteen years earlier) Hitler wasn't acting alone, I wonder why Orwell didn't mention that. I think Orwell didn't like the idea of a popular front, because of his negative experience with the communists during the Spanish civil war.

watwut 4y ago
That is true, but also that tend to be true in multi-party voting system in general. Having over 50% is not routine at all. Generally, the leading party must make coalition of some sort. I think that if you want to attack legitimacy of that election, going through the street violence and voter intimidation Nazi party produced is closer to mark. Also communists were actual communists alien with Russian communist party. And news of purges going on Russia previously were available in Germany. Socialist party was the pro-democracy party on Germany. That is not compatible with party that takes their instructions from Stalin as communists were.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  By the time of the KPD-SPD split, Stalin was not in power. In fact, the KPD split from the SPD in 1918, when the USSR was still being born. And far from taking orders from the Bolsheviks, they actually had a fair amount of influence on them. The idea that they split because the meek SPD was afraid of the Stalinists is revisionist history, and the SPD itself at various points in its history was far from above purges and political violence The reason the KPD split from the SPD is that the SPD supported WW1 and the KPD were against the war. The reason they became mortal enemies was because in 1920 the SPD and the Freikorps killed many KPD members, from then on there was no hope at reconciliation.
  - watwut 4y ago
    Stalin took leadership of the country in 1924 and lost it when he died much much later. By the time of elections of 1933, Russia was full totalitarian and that is what communist party wanted for Germany.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      Yes, and the SPD banned anti-war socialists and communists in 1918, and then ordered to have leaders of the KPD shot in 1920. As you surely know, 1920 is before 1924. The point being, the KPD and the SPD were irrevocably alienated from each other past the point of no return before Stalin took power.
  - masswerk 4y ago
    What is often forgotten, by the early 1930s, the split between SPD and KPD (which dates back to Marx and Engels and the condemnation of the "Bernsteinian revisionism" on the one hand and the SPD not being a revolutionary party after 1903) had become an abyss: to the KPD the SPD was a "social-fascist movement" and the SPD had adopted the three-arrows symbol, which symbolized an equidistance to fascism, communism and monarchism. There was probably not much room for a scenario of united forces.
    - sudosysgen 4y ago
      The rift dates to WW1, not the 1930s, and considering the three arrows to be a better marking of the rift than the SPD literally giving the order to murder KPD is nonsensical. There was no split in 1903 - the SPD simply had both a revolutionary and electoral faction. And Bernsteinian revisionism wasn't about taking power through elections or through revolution (which is what the SPD took position on in 1903), it was about the idea that capitalism wasn't going to implode on its own and that accelerationism was a bad policy (on which he was objectively right), but he still allied with revolutionary Marxists such as Liebknecht in the USPD. Why the USPD? Because he was essentially excluded from the SPD for not supporting WW1. Hence the doctrine of social fascism - the SPD supported war (and to some degree imperialism), so the KPD and the USPD exaggerated this and called them fascists. That was a result of the core reason of the split, which is differing views on war. The split itself was already an abyss in 1920, it did not in any way get worse - indeed there is little that is worse than armed confrontation. There was absolutely room for united forces is the SPD didn't kick out the KPD and USPD (including Bernstein) over WW1, and then progressively gotten more and more centrist as predictably the pro-war position was beneficial to centrists. Without that central event there would have been so split. The USPD is an example that shows that both revolutionary communists and social democrats (by the definition of the time, you would call them communists nowadays) were able to work together as they all agreed that electoralism and harm reduction were inherently necessary, that capitalism had to be abolished, and that this abolition had to be done fairly gradually.
helge9210 4y ago
> he benefited from the enmity between the Social democrats and the Communist To support Hitler Stalin ordered German Communists to not join forces with Social Democrats.
- sudosysgen 4y ago
  When? In 1918 when the KPD split from the SPD? Or in 1920 when the SPD and the Freikorps shot all of their leaders dead? Perhaps when the death of those leaders and the ensuing infighting allowed the Comintern to take influence? No, because Stalin wasn't in power when the SPD and KPD became literally mortal enemies. You don't join forces with people that gave the order to kill your friends. Pretending Stalin was the reason they were alienated is ridiculous - the alienation predated him taking power.
- pessimizer 4y ago
  More like the center-left SPD failed to respond to the depression well (i.e. govern properly) and made alliances of convenience with the right and the Nazis to marginalize and ban Communists along with anyone else on the left. That's how it's going to happen in the US, too: The governing center/center-left party expends all of its effort attacking the left, and becomes completely ineffective at governance through incompetence, corruption and self-dealing, losing the support of the voters. The far-right (rising in popularity) eats into the center-right through direct targeting of individuals and the rewards of conversion to a movement currently rising in popularity. Eventually a charismatic far-right speaker starts giving popular speeches indicting the corruption and incompetence of the governing center, probably during a deep economic crisis, and insisting that this corruption and incompetence is disarming the country in the face of the real existential threat that everyone from the far-right to the center-left agrees upon, which is the left. And the left is actually covertly foreign-based, funded by powerful Jews and enemy governments, so their opinions are actually a form of invasion. So we need to cleanse this country of the traitors, then take the fight to the countries that supported them.
- MichaelMoser123 4y ago
  that's true. On the other hand: when the nazis came to power the communists were advocating for a generals strike, whereas the SPD leaders were staunchly against it. in German: https://www.gewerkschaftsgeschichte.de/1933-konflikt-ueber-den-generalstreik.html https://www.gewerkschaftsgeschichte.de/1933-konflikt-ueber-d... now both parties took part in a general strike in 1920 against the Kapp putsch, and that was the end of the coup attempt. It all could have been averted, I think people exaggerate the strength of the NSDAP in march 1933. They were already on a downturn, when they took power - in terms of the popular vote. It is possible that they would not have mattered, half a year later.
dalbasal 4y ago
IDK if I'd call that an "omission." There was a political system, and Hitler came to power within it. France still has a political norm of banding together to defeat populist far right parties, and an electoral system that lends to it. The fact remains that Fascism, Hitler, and Nazism was popular and that was key to achieving power . This is essay is about that. Why, despite promising burdens and hardship, was Fascism popular. It just isn't about electoral tactics, negative politics or such. I'm sure he would have conceded the point that any given elections could have been determined by such tactics. I agree with Orwell. The tactical-electoral subject isn't really that interesting, even if it is/was consequential. The point about promising voters burdens, hardship, & "military virtues" is interesting. For example, I think this gives us clues about Russian communism's decline (also in the West, ideologically) after Stalin. ^Also I doubt Orwell was against "popular front politics." (a) I've read a lot of Orwell and can't recall any statement that suggests this and (b) Orwell himself volunteered in a communist militia against fascism. He himself was a socialist. If you're willing to join a communist militia to fight fascism, surely you'd be OK with joined ticket.
- B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
  > For example, I think this gives us clues about Russian communism's decline (also in the West, ideologically) after Stalin. The decline only started well after that, even after the 1968 Prague Spring debacle. Only a few of the faithful in the west were put off by it. I'd put it at late 1970s, maybe really sinking in with Poland's Solidarnosc turmoil around 1980.
  - Ralfp 4y ago
    In Poland we say that popular support for communism ended together with food supply. This is somehow relflecyed in Solidarity’s initial mission of fighting for „socialism with human face”.
moritzwarhier 4y ago
I think I agree with you. I don't think that the integrity of elections and democracy are the main point of this essay. Orwell wrote a lot about authoritarianism, and as you say, "communism" was the prime example at the time. What he hints at here is not only the fragility of democracy. It's about the fragility of civilization. It's about the "will to power" as defined by Nietzsche, and the power of belief systems, as well as the primal underpinnings of our society. This essay makes me think about the authoritarian side of capitalism, "freedom" (to take what you can), slavery and many more topics. My takeaway is that our contemporary masquerade of "capitalism=freedom=human rights" is nothing but an illusion of a select few. But that's what makes Orwell great, everybody reads him differently. I'm well aware that Orwell is favored for "anti-socialist"/"pro-freedom" stances and I have read 1984 and Animal farm.
- dalbasal 4y ago
  I must disagree. Orwell is not the bible, or an if-by-whiskey politician. Everybody reads him differently because they're combining hearsay, random quotes and attributions. If you read Orwell's essays or articles directly, he's extremely clear and unambiguous. The fact that people think Orwell agrees with them despite having polar opposite views is a testament to people's laziness, not Orwell's interpretability. On capitalism as a belief system, Orwell was a critic. Not because of freedom, or lack thereof... but because he thought capitalist politics didn't offer enough hope. I can't find the quote but somewhere he goes into Socialist, Communist & even Fascist promises of a better future. Capitalism offered a very modest amount of hope on a very long timeline. Conservatism offered none, which is why (according to Orwell) Fascism succeeded it.
  - aqsalose 4y ago
    True, Orwell has a worldview (though it evolves over time) and it connects his thoughts if you pick up a collection of his essays and study them systematically. But one does not need to agree with everything to find agreement with some particular elements and thoughts.
  - moritzwarhier 4y ago
gumby 4y ago
> Also Hitler had the massive support of German industrialists, they bailed him out in 1932, and both Thyssen and Schlacht urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler. From the essay: “It is easy to say that at one stage of his career he was financed by the heavy industrialists, who saw in him the man who would smash the Socialists and Communists. They would not have backed him, however, if he had not talked a great movement into existence already. ”
deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

watwut 4y ago

That is true, but also that tend to be true in multi-party voting system in general. Having over 50% is not routine at all. Generally, the leading party must make coalition of some sort. I think that if you want to attack legitimacy of that election, going through the street violence and voter intimidation Nazi party produced is closer to mark. Also communists were actual communists alien with Russian communist party. And news of purges going on Russia previously were available in Germany. Socialist party was the pro-democracy party on Germany. That is not compatible with party that takes their instructions from Stalin as communists were.

sudosysgen 4y ago
By the time of the KPD-SPD split, Stalin was not in power. In fact, the KPD split from the SPD in 1918, when the USSR was still being born. And far from taking orders from the Bolsheviks, they actually had a fair amount of influence on them. The idea that they split because the meek SPD was afraid of the Stalinists is revisionist history, and the SPD itself at various points in its history was far from above purges and political violence The reason the KPD split from the SPD is that the SPD supported WW1 and the KPD were against the war. The reason they became mortal enemies was because in 1920 the SPD and the Freikorps killed many KPD members, from then on there was no hope at reconciliation.
- watwut 4y ago
  Stalin took leadership of the country in 1924 and lost it when he died much much later. By the time of elections of 1933, Russia was full totalitarian and that is what communist party wanted for Germany.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    Yes, and the SPD banned anti-war socialists and communists in 1918, and then ordered to have leaders of the KPD shot in 1920. As you surely know, 1920 is before 1924. The point being, the KPD and the SPD were irrevocably alienated from each other past the point of no return before Stalin took power.
- masswerk 4y ago
  What is often forgotten, by the early 1930s, the split between SPD and KPD (which dates back to Marx and Engels and the condemnation of the "Bernsteinian revisionism" on the one hand and the SPD not being a revolutionary party after 1903) had become an abyss: to the KPD the SPD was a "social-fascist movement" and the SPD had adopted the three-arrows symbol, which symbolized an equidistance to fascism, communism and monarchism. There was probably not much room for a scenario of united forces.
  - sudosysgen 4y ago
    The rift dates to WW1, not the 1930s, and considering the three arrows to be a better marking of the rift than the SPD literally giving the order to murder KPD is nonsensical. There was no split in 1903 - the SPD simply had both a revolutionary and electoral faction. And Bernsteinian revisionism wasn't about taking power through elections or through revolution (which is what the SPD took position on in 1903), it was about the idea that capitalism wasn't going to implode on its own and that accelerationism was a bad policy (on which he was objectively right), but he still allied with revolutionary Marxists such as Liebknecht in the USPD. Why the USPD? Because he was essentially excluded from the SPD for not supporting WW1. Hence the doctrine of social fascism - the SPD supported war (and to some degree imperialism), so the KPD and the USPD exaggerated this and called them fascists. That was a result of the core reason of the split, which is differing views on war. The split itself was already an abyss in 1920, it did not in any way get worse - indeed there is little that is worse than armed confrontation. There was absolutely room for united forces is the SPD didn't kick out the KPD and USPD (including Bernstein) over WW1, and then progressively gotten more and more centrist as predictably the pro-war position was beneficial to centrists. Without that central event there would have been so split. The USPD is an example that shows that both revolutionary communists and social democrats (by the definition of the time, you would call them communists nowadays) were able to work together as they all agreed that electoralism and harm reduction were inherently necessary, that capitalism had to be abolished, and that this abolition had to be done fairly gradually.

helge9210 4y ago

> he benefited from the enmity between the Social democrats and the Communist To support Hitler Stalin ordered German Communists to not join forces with Social Democrats.

sudosysgen 4y ago
When? In 1918 when the KPD split from the SPD? Or in 1920 when the SPD and the Freikorps shot all of their leaders dead? Perhaps when the death of those leaders and the ensuing infighting allowed the Comintern to take influence? No, because Stalin wasn't in power when the SPD and KPD became literally mortal enemies. You don't join forces with people that gave the order to kill your friends. Pretending Stalin was the reason they were alienated is ridiculous - the alienation predated him taking power.
pessimizer 4y ago
More like the center-left SPD failed to respond to the depression well (i.e. govern properly) and made alliances of convenience with the right and the Nazis to marginalize and ban Communists along with anyone else on the left. That's how it's going to happen in the US, too: The governing center/center-left party expends all of its effort attacking the left, and becomes completely ineffective at governance through incompetence, corruption and self-dealing, losing the support of the voters. The far-right (rising in popularity) eats into the center-right through direct targeting of individuals and the rewards of conversion to a movement currently rising in popularity. Eventually a charismatic far-right speaker starts giving popular speeches indicting the corruption and incompetence of the governing center, probably during a deep economic crisis, and insisting that this corruption and incompetence is disarming the country in the face of the real existential threat that everyone from the far-right to the center-left agrees upon, which is the left. And the left is actually covertly foreign-based, funded by powerful Jews and enemy governments, so their opinions are actually a form of invasion. So we need to cleanse this country of the traitors, then take the fight to the countries that supported them.
MichaelMoser123 4y ago
that's true. On the other hand: when the nazis came to power the communists were advocating for a generals strike, whereas the SPD leaders were staunchly against it. in German: https://www.gewerkschaftsgeschichte.de/1933-konflikt-ueber-den-generalstreik.html https://www.gewerkschaftsgeschichte.de/1933-konflikt-ueber-d... now both parties took part in a general strike in 1920 against the Kapp putsch, and that was the end of the coup attempt. It all could have been averted, I think people exaggerate the strength of the NSDAP in march 1933. They were already on a downturn, when they took power - in terms of the popular vote. It is possible that they would not have mattered, half a year later.

dalbasal 4y ago

IDK if I'd call that an "omission." There was a political system, and Hitler came to power within it. France still has a political norm of banding together to defeat populist far right parties, and an electoral system that lends to it. The fact remains that Fascism, Hitler, and Nazism was popular and that was key to achieving power . This is essay is about that. Why, despite promising burdens and hardship, was Fascism popular. It just isn't about electoral tactics, negative politics or such. I'm sure he would have conceded the point that any given elections could have been determined by such tactics. I agree with Orwell. The tactical-electoral subject isn't really that interesting, even if it is/was consequential. The point about promising voters burdens, hardship, & "military virtues" is interesting. For example, I think this gives us clues about Russian communism's decline (also in the West, ideologically) after Stalin. ^Also I doubt Orwell was against "popular front politics." (a) I've read a lot of Orwell and can't recall any statement that suggests this and (b) Orwell himself volunteered in a communist militia against fascism. He himself was a socialist. If you're willing to join a communist militia to fight fascism, surely you'd be OK with joined ticket.

B1FF_PSUVM 4y ago
> For example, I think this gives us clues about Russian communism's decline (also in the West, ideologically) after Stalin. The decline only started well after that, even after the 1968 Prague Spring debacle. Only a few of the faithful in the west were put off by it. I'd put it at late 1970s, maybe really sinking in with Poland's Solidarnosc turmoil around 1980.
- Ralfp 4y ago
  In Poland we say that popular support for communism ended together with food supply. This is somehow relflecyed in Solidarity’s initial mission of fighting for „socialism with human face”.

moritzwarhier 4y ago

I think I agree with you. I don't think that the integrity of elections and democracy are the main point of this essay. Orwell wrote a lot about authoritarianism, and as you say, "communism" was the prime example at the time. What he hints at here is not only the fragility of democracy. It's about the fragility of civilization. It's about the "will to power" as defined by Nietzsche, and the power of belief systems, as well as the primal underpinnings of our society. This essay makes me think about the authoritarian side of capitalism, "freedom" (to take what you can), slavery and many more topics. My takeaway is that our contemporary masquerade of "capitalism=freedom=human rights" is nothing but an illusion of a select few. But that's what makes Orwell great, everybody reads him differently. I'm well aware that Orwell is favored for "anti-socialist"/"pro-freedom" stances and I have read 1984 and Animal farm.

dalbasal 4y ago
I must disagree. Orwell is not the bible, or an if-by-whiskey politician. Everybody reads him differently because they're combining hearsay, random quotes and attributions. If you read Orwell's essays or articles directly, he's extremely clear and unambiguous. The fact that people think Orwell agrees with them despite having polar opposite views is a testament to people's laziness, not Orwell's interpretability. On capitalism as a belief system, Orwell was a critic. Not because of freedom, or lack thereof... but because he thought capitalist politics didn't offer enough hope. I can't find the quote but somewhere he goes into Socialist, Communist & even Fascist promises of a better future. Capitalism offered a very modest amount of hope on a very long timeline. Conservatism offered none, which is why (according to Orwell) Fascism succeeded it.
- aqsalose 4y ago
  True, Orwell has a worldview (though it evolves over time) and it connects his thoughts if you pick up a collection of his essays and study them systematically. But one does not need to agree with everything to find agreement with some particular elements and thoughts.
- moritzwarhier 4y ago

gumby 4y ago

> Also Hitler had the massive support of German industrialists, they bailed him out in 1932, and both Thyssen and Schlacht urged Hindenburg to appoint Hitler. From the essay: “It is easy to say that at one stage of his career he was financed by the heavy industrialists, who saw in him the man who would smash the Socialists and Communists. They would not have backed him, however, if he had not talked a great movement into existence already. ”

deleted 4y ago

[deleted]