Andrea Widburg: Russia, Ukraine, & Nazis

 

At American Thinker, Andrea Widburg brings some historical clarity to the word “Nazi” as it is being bandied about in the reporting on Russia and Ukraine:

The word “Nazi” is suddenly everywhere. This isn’t the modern habit of calling everyone we don’t like a “Nazi.” Instead, because of events in Ukraine, the word is showing up in the news, where it has real-world ramifications. . . .

. . . Communism and fascism are the two bastard children of the socialist ideology. Communism calls for the destruction of private property, with the government owning and controlling the means of production, ostensibly for the people’s benefit. Fascism allows private property to exist, provided that the property owners understand that they have no rights separate from the state. Both are totalitarian systems that call themselves “democracies” because people are required to vote for pre-approved chosen candidates. These governments are inevitably repressive.

Most of the world’s governments today are fascist. All power rests in the government, which allows private property to exist but subordinates that property to government control. In China, the control is militaristic and obvious. In Europe, through the EU, it’s bureaucratic and someone more subtle. The current American system—a dominant political party disdainful of the Constitution working hand-in-glove with massive corporate, technocratic interests—is increasingly fascist.

Not all fascists, though, are Nazis. The National Socialist Party in Germany added a few twists to baseline fascist totalitarianism: A quest for world domination and racial obsessions. These two factors led Nazis to believe it was their right to enslave all inferior races except for the Jews, whom they intended to exterminate entirely.

. . .

In the fight for control in Ukraine, both governments are European-style right wing (i.e., totalitarian) governments and both are nationalists. Putin is showing an unnerving yen for regional domination. However, neither the governments nor their troops are Nazis, although each has the potential to be.

Full column is here (includes her chart of forms of government measured by individual freedoms). 

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