4 ms·

> Whereas communism was just a big, ongoing failure If Fascism kept on going, it would not be just "failure". Catastrophe would be an understatement. If you ar

• roenxi 2y ago
  But it didn't keep on going, and that was hardly an accident. It is similar to HIV vs SARS-CoV-2. If COVID lasted as long as AIDS, it'd be a much worse disease. But it doesn't, and HIV is actually the more serious of the two [0]. Similarly, communists taking hold are the bigger threat between fascists and communists - the communists will bring the host country a lot closer to death. If we're talking counterfactuals, there is a decent chance that the Nazis and Communists would be similar to each other over the long term. Both ideologies do a lot of damage early on and then slowly collapse over a generation or two. The Nazis were more externally aggressive - but from an internal-to-Germany perspective (particularly at the time when nationalism was stronger) that would probably further reinforce the point that political alliances with the Communists are suicidal and defeating the Communists appropriately took priority over any other political issue. [0] Although, thankfully, these days the treatment has apparently gotten so good that the analogy doesn't work so well. But think HIV in the 80s before they figured out how to deal with it.
  • nsonha 2y ago
    > ...hardly an accident It was accident that the dude also wanted to conquer the world, and doing so at the heart of the western civilization. So of course people had to get rid of him. There are regimes similar to the Nazi today that kept going on because it didn't bother the powerful guys that much.
    • roenxi 2y ago
      The "conquer the world" part was the majority of the problem. If the Nazi's had stuck to conquering one or maybe even 2 countries they'd just be another unpleasant crowd in the unpleasant soup of history. Ethnic cleansing programs aren't that unusual. There are a couple of high profile ones going on today. I'm no history buff but it is a stretch to say Germany stands a head above the other mass killings in history. Even at the time the European colonisers were not gentle men. The Germans obviously made the especially egregious mistake targeting wealthy Europeans who are supposed to be above that sort of thing and also heavily involved in the media which means they get much worse publicity than say, the Ottomans. They weren't a threat on the same scale as getting Communists in the government. The Communists had a habit of escalating from run-of-the-mill ethnic cleansing to a sort of combined mass-death/economic collapse/generational poverty/social implosion disaster. They were literally the last people anyone should want to be politically empowering. The right option really was a no-compromise dedication to freedom, capitalism and liberalism .
      • nsonha 2y ago
        > the communists had a habit of escalating from run-of-the-mill ethnic cleansing to a sort of combined mass-death/economic collapse I don't agree with this assessment. Regardless of the fact that ethnic cleansing can happen under communism, at the end of the day, their ideology isn't about that. It's about "common ownership of the means of production". On the other hand, social hierarchy, master race and so on, are major parts of Fascism (and "conquering the world" is not necessarily in it) And even if you want to argue that their ethnic cleansing isn't that bad, what really bad is the dictatorship with no real coherent ideology other than some guy saying so, and the persecution of dissidents/intellectuals. I have no doubt that had they not lost in WWII, they would run the economy into collapse/slow death similar to the USSR anyway.
        • me_me_me 2y ago
          ... who cares about ideology when stalin decides to starve your nation to death in manufactured famine? Yes we are going to be starved to death but its for the common good of a working man! Nazi economy was going to collapse, it was based on expansion and looting. Many historians make case that hitler started war too soon, but they forget that germany was running out of time and needed war to prevent collapse of their economy. Arguing about which regime was worse is silly. Counting victims and who kill who and why is meaningless. Both were bloody and run by paranoid morons who left their nations in way worse state
        • lazide 2y ago
          Maoism/lysenkoism? Hello? The idealogy is fundamentally about delusion and feel goodism over what works, which is why it is prone to authoritarianism and economic collapse (and famines, etc).
          • nsonha 2y ago
            > The idealogy is fundamentally about delusion and feel goodism over what works what's your point? Reminder that some people is arguing this is somehow worst than some ideology that has an explicit goal to kill people en-masse.