Why isn't Socialism/Communism as frowned upon as Fascism?

[Escocaria]

Nazi Germany didn't try to take over the world, it tried to re-take the territories of the German Empire and take over Slavic Europe in order to secure the future of the German people and destroy the Slavs and the Jews, a people they considered to be inferior to the German people.

Hitler was merely an idiot who got over-confident while being ambitious as fuck.

I think you need to catch up on your history. Most of the land occupied by Nazi Germany was never even close to being a part of the German Empire

Perhaps you missed the part where I said 'and' which typically means there is an addition. The part where I said 'Take over Slavic Europe in order to secure the future of the German people' can be shortened down to 'Lebenschraum' if you want.

[Bombadil]

Wait.. is this a 'my teacher's are unfair' thread?

[Novowarsawianka]

Well you see, it's mainly because leftists nowadays have a very (in my opinion) unnatural control over universities as well as media, that and the very visible of dumbing down of people nowadays. Nobody believes Socialism/Communism is a threat because we(meaning the school systems of the west) don't emphasize the dangers of the ideology as most of whom I'd suppose would be teaching it would be in agreement with the ideologies of Socialism/Communism. If we were to sack teachers of whom were exposed or believed to be socialists then we do put in actual neutral centrist teachers (ironic I say this even though I myself am a fascist) and encourage the teachings of all the historic man made disasters as well as mass murders of people under Communism. I'd think if we were to put focus on the problems as well as the results of Communist take overs of countries. Such as when the Soviets took over Russia, murder of people in power as well as the Tsar and his family, then let's not forget the murder of Ukrainians via starvation during the Ukraine "famine", oh and my favourite, the ever so denied katyn massacre. The absurdity of the argument of whether Fascism is worse than Communism/Socialism should not be an argument. It's obvious that Communism/Socialism is indeed worse than Fascism.

How in the world is socialism worse than fascism? Please explain.
And please don't mix Stalinist communism with democratic socialism.

Fascism we know is a threat to society, many branches of Fascism do not try to hide it, and are generally frowned upon. The lack of education on the ills of Socialism though leads to it being seen as "not so bad". If you want, we can try to evade the USSR as an example, we can use Pot, Chavez, Castro, Kim, and so many others as examples of failure and bringers of ill in the name of Socialism.

"Democratic socialism"? I don't remember a single country where socialism was placed because of a democratic vote. And it is an oxymoron, at least it should be. Who openly votes for their economic rights to be taken away?

[Risottia]

The death caused by such regimes can be estimated to be ten times the ammount of the already mentioned Fascist ones.

Yeah sure.

[Osnil Returns]

How in the world is socialism worse than fascism? Please explain.
And please don't mix Stalinist communism with democratic socialism.

Fascism we know is a threat to society, many branches of Fascism do not try to hide it, and are generally frowned upon. The lack of education on the ills of Socialism though leads to it being seen as "not so bad". If you want, we can try to evade the USSR as an example, we can use Pot, Chavez, Castro, Kim, and so many others as examples of failure and bringers of ill in the name of Socialism.

"Democratic socialism"? I don't remember a single country where socialism was placed because of a democratic vote. And it is an oxymoron, at least it should be. Who openly votes for their economic rights to be taken away?

The guys who wanted Bernie Sanders as President?

[Forsher]

I would say that there are four principle reasons.

Firstly, communism, as much as anything else, is a book. When you look at Fascism it's difficult to really associate with a book unless said book is Mein Kampf... which is associated with (a) a variant form and (b) has literally been read as containing the core ideas of Shoah. There is an air of academic respectability and removal from such mean concerns as politicians with communism that an ideology quite literally based on action and strong men just can't have. This is a right and proper separation. It's not arbitrarily done.

Secondly, communism is perceived as an economic system. To suggest the political crimes and activities carried out in order to implement (visions of) this system would make it extremely difficult to exclude political crimes and activities used to implement other kinds of economic systems. People, for instance, like to argue about whether the Holodomor was a genocide (er, somewhat contrary to the OP's thesis I guess, but let's press on)... if you want to take a hard lined stance communism-as-politics you have to engage with capitalism-as-politics. Fascism is, conveniently, a political system with economic ideas. That's a much narrower area of thought. (Note that the Eastern bloc tended to stretch continuity between imperialism and Fascism, which demonstrates that they were thinking about things a little differently so they don't propose a contra-example to this dissonance idea.)

Thirdly, Nazism overshadows literally everything. Already, there's been a couple of glib remarks about how the victors write history in this thread. I'm sorry, but that's just absurd. Did you, you know, miss the Cold War? The Red Scare? Communists are held up in the English speaking world as dangerous foreigners and losers. Popular historians, journalists and politicians are the people who really write history (and these people tend not to have been communists). And to the popular consciousness and wallet history is some great Manichean play of light and dark... history with winners and losers, if you will. This is why the laity love said glib line: it fits in with the idea of history promulgated in popular (c.f. academic discourse). There are no better bad guys than the Nazis. Even academics find them a real stumbling block... there's (was?) a tendency to read everything as leading up to the Nazis or to find all the evidence to show the Nazis as an aberration. Who, now, remembers Goethe when you can remember Hitler? Why remember Stalin when you could remember Hitler? It's actually the same question. (Also, why bother remembering the differences between Franco, Mussolini and Hitler when you only actually remember Hitler?)

Fourthly, a certain degree of over-correction. Let's think about the loserness of communism a bit more. In some ways the Cold War ended up as a damp squib, right? The promised nuclear war never emerged and the demise of the Eastern bloc was one part quick (here today and gone tomorrow) and another part a series of conflicts English speakers essentially never talk about. Against the pathetic figure of the ex-Soviet the hysteria that the Reds had once stimulated was ripe for re-appraisal. In fact, because I don't know the chronologies, this could even have started earlier. The Nazis didn't just make good bad guys... they were so unequivocally evil and irrational that tricky questions like the morality of, say, Dresden is suppressed. The patheticness of the Soviets (in hindsight) and their rationality (in pere-whatsit and gash-something or other) merely serve to highlight the problematic Western engagement with communism. We can probably link a lot of this stuff to the Vietnam War... that was allegedly against communists, Americans (and, indeed, America) make the best bad guys in it and it turned out that the whole central premise was wrong (the dominoes did not start to fall).

As to the question of whether or not communism ought to be held up as being, in some sense, "just as bad"? Well, certainly, we can call Stalin evil but he's a more historically nuanced character than Hitler, more Oliver Cromwell than BTK. But that's definitely something we can do (although, it's not all that useful in the case of "actual" historical figures, i.e. everyone I've mentioned here other than BTK). The problem with extending our views on the likes of Stalin to communism as a whole is that the first point really does matter. In many respects, we're talking about two different things, here. The first is Fascism/Nazism which is akin to "the greenhouse effect"... terms we use to describe a thing that happens and define based on what it does/did. The second is communism which is akin to aestheticism.... terms we use that describe a concept that people from time to time try to articulate or execute, and no two episodes of that endeavour ever really work in quite the same way.

tl;dr -- makes sense really, also everyone else is wrong, this is the only true answer to the OP's question

[MERIZoC]

Not to forget that many countries which had suffered from Hitler's invasion fell pray to Stalin quickly after, experiencing five decades of torture and tyranny.

They fell victim to the brutal Soviet tactic of stopping genocides and stomping out Nazis!

[Escocaria]

"Democratic socialism"? I don't remember a single country where socialism was placed because of a democratic vote. And it is an oxymoron, at least it should be. Who openly votes for their economic rights to be taken away?

You'd be surprised what stupid things some people will do when you word it correctly.

Not to forget that many countries which had suffered from Hitler's invasion fell pray to Stalin quickly after, experiencing five decades of torture and tyranny.

They fell victim to the brutal Soviet tactic of stopping genocides and stomping out Nazis!

By being unjustly annexed, subjected to a form of government they never asked for and barred from leaving the Iron Curtain.

Yes, this seems totally okay.

[Novowarsawianka]

Fascism we know is a threat to society, many branches of Fascism do not try to hide it, and are generally frowned upon. The lack of education on the ills of Socialism though leads to it being seen as "not so bad". If you want, we can try to evade the USSR as an example, we can use Pot, Chavez, Castro, Kim, and so many others as examples of failure and bringers of ill in the name of Socialism.

"Democratic socialism"? I don't remember a single country where socialism was placed because of a democratic vote. And it is an oxymoron, at least it should be. Who openly votes for their economic rights to be taken away?

The guys who wanted Bernie Sanders as President?

Bernie Sanders, even with all his incompetence, is not a democratic socialist, but a social-democrat.

But, I've seen that argument many times, and so many seem to support the idea of "democratic socialism", which is one of the reasons this thread exists. It is as much valid and logically sound as "democratic fascism".

[Escocaria]

Bernie Sanders, even with all his incompetence, is not a democratic socialist, but a social-democrat.

But, I've seen that argument many times, and so many seem to support the idea of "democratic socialism", which is one of the reasons this thread exists. It is as much valid and logically sound as "democratic fascism".

Fascism has shown that it's fully capable of being elected into power, just look at Hitler.

[Ifreann]

Well Nazi Germany tried to take over the world and murder everyone Hitler had designated as inferior. Slightly worse than trying to spread a different economic system.

Communism being just about a "different economic system" is a statement detached from reality. Communism still had the goal to, forcefully, conquer the world under the pretext of "revolution". Communism has the goal of a moneyless society without the existence of privately owned capital, so guess what would happen if you would not comply with them robbing you? Or if you had any objection?

I imagine you'd be killed. Or sent to the gulag. Which I suppose is pretty much the same thing.

What happened to the people who got in the way of the British Empire conquering India? Or the people who got in the way of the US manfesting its destiny? The list of countries that didn't kill or abuse people in their way is not very long. Stalin doing the same shit as a thousand leaders before him isn't going to breed any particular hatred of communism.

In the end, if you ask the a victim of the SS or the NKVD what they think about those ideologies, you'll hear only silence.

How poetic.

[Ifreann]

Wait.. is this a 'my teacher's are unfair' thread?

"My teachers are part of a liberal communist conspiracy"

---

Bernie Sanders, even with all his incompetence, is not a democratic socialist, but a social-democrat.

But, I've seen that argument many times, and so many seem to support the idea of "democratic socialism", which is one of the reasons this thread exists. It is as much valid and logically sound as "democratic fascism".

Fascism has shown that it's fully capable of being elected into power, just look at Hitler.

Hitler wasn't elected into power.

[Uxupox]

Not to forget that many countries which had suffered from Hitler's invasion fell pray to Stalin quickly after, experiencing five decades of torture and tyranny.

They fell victim to the brutal Soviet tactic of stopping genocides and stomping out Nazis!

you weren't even safe even if you were a bolshevik.

[Novowarsawianka]

Not to forget that many countries which had suffered from Hitler's invasion fell pray to Stalin quickly after, experiencing five decades of torture and tyranny.

They fell victim to the brutal Soviet tactic of stopping genocides and stomping out Nazis!

Funny how those Soviets sent resources to the Nazis to fuel their war in the West, and ended up invading Poland together with them, marching together even on a joint parade. Nazi dignitaries were also called to attend Stalin's military parade in Moscow. So much for their anti-Nazism.

Not to forget, do you know what happened to pro-western anti-fascists in their newly occupied puppets? They got sent to prison or shot. Stating any contrary opinion was social sucide for anyone there.

And stopping genocides? By leaving millions of Ukrainians to starve? By deporting millions of minorities?

Bernie Sanders, even with all his incompetence, is not a democratic socialist, but a social-democrat.

But, I've seen that argument many times, and so many seem to support the idea of "democratic socialism", which is one of the reasons this thread exists. It is as much valid and logically sound as "democratic fascism".

Fascism has shown that it's fully capable of being elected into power, just look at Hitler.

And how the Germans regretted doing that in the end.

[Verlzonia]

Well you see, it's mainly because leftists nowadays have a very (in my opinion) unnatural control over universities as well as media, that and the very visible of dumbing down of people nowadays. Nobody believes Socialism/Communism is a threat because we(meaning the school systems of the west) don't emphasize the dangers of the ideology as most of whom I'd suppose would be teaching it would be in agreement with the ideologies of Socialism/Communism. If we were to sack teachers of whom were exposed or believed to be socialists then we do put in actual neutral centrist teachers (ironic I say this even though I myself am a fascist) and encourage the teachings of all the historic man made disasters as well as mass murders of people under Communism. I'd think if we were to put focus on the problems as well as the results of Communist take overs of countries. Such as when the Soviets took over Russia, murder of people in power as well as the Tsar and his family, then let's not forget the murder of Ukrainians via starvation during the Ukraine "famine", oh and my favourite, the ever so denied katyn massacre. The absurdity of the argument of whether Fascism is worse than Communism/Socialism should not be an argument. It's obvious that Communism/Socialism is indeed worse than Fascism.

How in the world is socialism worse than fascism? Please explain.
And please don't mix Stalinist communism with democratic socialism.

Here we go...
B-b-but [insert socialist form here] isn't REAL socialism you see!

[Escocaria]

Communism being just about a "different economic system" is a statement detached from reality. Communism still had the goal to, forcefully, conquer the world under the pretext of "revolution". Communism has the goal of a moneyless society without the existence of privately owned capital, so guess what would happen if you would not comply with them robbing you? Or if you had any objection?

I imagine you'd be killed. Or sent to the gulag. Which I suppose is pretty much the same thing.

What happened to the people who got in the way of the British Empire conquering India? Or the people who got in the way of the US manfesting its destiny? The list of countries that didn't kill or abuse people in their way is not very long. Stalin doing the same shit as a thousand leaders before him isn't going to breed any particular hatred of communism.

Soldiers killing soldiers and the Holodomor are two completely different things.

[MERIZoC]

How in the world is socialism worse than fascism? Please explain.
And please don't mix Stalinist communism with democratic socialism.

Here we go...
B-b-but [insert socialist form here] isn't REAL socialism you see!

you're literally a nazi lol

[Verlzonia]

Here we go...
B-b-but [insert socialist form here] isn't REAL socialism you see!

you're literally a nazi lol

you're literally a socialist lol

[Escocaria]

Wait.. is this a 'my teacher's are unfair' thread?

"My teachers are part of a liberal communist conspiracy"

---

Fascism has shown that it's fully capable of being elected into power, just look at Hitler.

Hitler wasn't elected into power.

Well, not necessarily elected but he got into power through democratic means.

Hindenburg, who owed his election to the support of the Social Democrats, took office with little enthusiasm. On May 29 he dismissed his intercessor Chancellor Brüning and appointed Franz von Papen, a declared anti-democrat, his successor. Although Hitler lost the presidential election of 1932, he achieved his goals when he was appointed chancellor on 30 January 1933. On February 27, Hindenburg paved the way to dictatorship and war by issuing the Reichstag Fire Decree which nullified civil liberties. Hitler succeeded Hindenburg as head of state upon his death in 1934, whereafter he abolished the office entirely, and replaced it with the new position of Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Reich Chancellor"), cementing his rule.

Fascism has shown that it's fully capable of being elected into power, just look at Hitler.

And how the Germans regretted doing that in the end.

I was just sayin'.

[Forsher]

Idk, I`ve seen many people making fun of communism in memes about how it doesn`t work.

That's exactly the point... people conceptualise communism as something quite radically different to the way they think about Fascism (if they think about, c.f. Nazism).

Snip.

Well you see, it's mainly because leftists nowadays have a very (in my opinion) unnatural control over universities as well as media, that and the very visible of dumbing down of people nowadays.

Lecturers at universities may or may not tend to be "leftwing" but universities in the English speaking world are run on neo-liberal lines and impose in the way they interact with students and society a strong neo-liberal ethos.

The social concerns of the left you're probably imagining, to my mind, have little in common or sympathy with an ideology which proposes class as the solution to all ills. Which is dumb, because it is only a subset of cases where addressing the concerns of the economically deprived do not largely address the concerns of other, as you'd likely say, "interest groups".

And the left certainly doesn't control the media... see: Australia, where the media managed to get a bunch of different prime ministers sacked.

Well Nazi Germany tried to take over the world and murder everyone Hitler had designated as inferior. Slightly worse than trying to spread a different economic system.

Nazi Germany didn't try to take over the world, it tried to re-take the territories of the German Empire and take over Slavic Europe in order to secure the future of the German people and destroy the Slavs and the Jews, a people they considered to be inferior to the German people.

Hitler was merely an idiot who got over-confident while being ambitious as fuck.

"merely" You reduce a lot through that word. As Voldemort teaches us, words have power. (Also, notice how the Nazis are so great as bad guys Harry Potter gives us not one but two different dark wizard allegories of Hitler.)

It is unclear what exactly the Nazis wanted to do. They may well have been happy, at one point, with the pre-1914 borders, that plus some more Eastern European Lebensraum, that plus all "the Jews" in Madagascar (anywhere but not Germany), that except all the Jews were dead, that plus all of Europe and so on. For all intents and purposes, however, taking over the world was the way the Nazi state operated whilst at war... once it declared war on the US it probably didn't have a choice strategically for anything else and after it hadn't tried to diplomatically capitalise on its early gains following the Fall of France we can probably assume its ambitions were on this wavelength.

[Ifreann]

I imagine you'd be killed. Or sent to the gulag. Which I suppose is pretty much the same thing.

What happened to the people who got in the way of the British Empire conquering India? Or the people who got in the way of the US manfesting its destiny? The list of countries that didn't kill or abuse people in their way is not very long. Stalin doing the same shit as a thousand leaders before him isn't going to breed any particular hatred of communism.

Soldiers killing soldiers and the Holodomor are two completely different things.

Because all the other powers of the world, greater and lesser, only ever sent their soldiers to kill soldiers.

True history fact.

[Novowarsawianka]

Here we go...
B-b-but [insert socialist form here] isn't REAL socialism you see!

you're literally a nazi lol

you're literally a nazi lol

you're literally a socialist lol

So the two of you planning to invade a country together anytime soon?

[Verlzonia]

you're literally a nazi lol

you're literally a socialist lol

So the two of you planning to invade a country together anytime soon?

Well i have some rebels in my nation at the moment so no.

[Ifreann]

"My teachers are part of a liberal communist conspiracy"

---

Hitler wasn't elected into power.

Well, not necessarily elected but he got into power through democratic means.

Hindenburg, who owed his election to the support of the Social Democrats, took office with little enthusiasm. On May 29 he dismissed his intercessor Chancellor Brüning and appointed Franz von Papen, a declared anti-democrat, his successor. Although Hitler lost the presidential election of 1932, he achieved his goals when he was appointed chancellor on 30 January 1933. On February 27, Hindenburg paved the way to dictatorship and war by issuing the Reichstag Fire Decree which nullified civil liberties. Hitler succeeded Hindenburg as head of state upon his death in 1934, whereafter he abolished the office entirely, and replaced it with the new position of Führer und Reichskanzler ("Leader and Reich Chancellor"), cementing his rule.

What part of that sounds like "democratic means" to you?

[The Transhuman Union]

How in the world is socialism worse than fascism? Please explain.
And please don't mix Stalinist communism with democratic socialism.

Fascism we know is a threat to society, many branches of Fascism do not try to hide it, and are generally frowned upon. The lack of education on the ills of Socialism though leads to it being seen as "not so bad". If you want, we can try to evade the USSR as an example, we can use Pot, Chavez, Castro, Kim, and so many others as examples of failure and bringers of ill in the name of Socialism.

"Democratic socialism"? I don't remember a single country where socialism was placed because of a democratic vote. And it is an oxymoron, at least it should be. Who openly votes for their economic rights to be taken away?

Ummmm... no? Except probably Chavez, all of those leaders you mentioned followed the ideas of communism, not socialism (and even Chavez is disputable). Since when Mao and Kim were democratically elected? And they ruthlessly pursued their 'utopia'. And Chavez's rule was pretty successful in the first years. And you think of socialism as authoritarian, not libertarian as Marx intended it to be. You are mixing communism, which is 99% cases authoritarian (because it has to in order to work), with socialism, which doesn't have to be.

Communism is worse than fascism, but socialism definitely isn't.
If socialism didn't exist, half of the countries in the East would be backwards and poor.
'I don't remember a single country where socialism was placed because of a democratic vote.'
Socialism placed? Socialism was never 'placed', unless you're talking about laissez-faire countries. There were no socialism being 'placed' in a France when a socialist presidents were elected. I don't get your point.