The difference between National Socialism and Fascism

There is a painting, by the French Revolutionary Jacques-Louis David, that effectively sums up the difference between Fascism and National Socialism. It was painted in 1789 and is titled “The Lictors Bring to Brutus the Bodies of His Sons”.

After having led the battle against the monarchy, Lucius Brutus condemned his sons to death for fighting on King Tarquin’s side. This was the beginning of the Ancient Roman Republic. Brutus showed that his loyalty was to the Roman Republic (the State), whose symbol was the fasces, rather than to his own family. Contrastingly, Germanics have traditionally always put race, blood and kinship first. A Germanic would rather have gone into exile, renouncing his political power, with his sons than to kill them for the sake of the State. Germanics were renowned for holding liberty, blood, race and kinship sacred.

Fasces refers to a bundle of rods wrapped together with an axe. It is the symbol adopted by fascism, and implies that the people are tied to the State, with the axe representing force. The idea is that, by being thus bound, the State is made much stronger.

The political ideology of fascism was formulated by Benito Mussolini in Italy post WWI. He was greatly influenced by the Roman Empire and Republic. Mussolini founded the fascist movement 1919, calling it “Fasci Di Combattimento” which means “fighting sheaf’s”. The idea of the sheaf was popular already with socialists, who liked the idea of the “unbreakable union“. Mussolini himself had originally been a Leftist socialist in his ideology, and was anti Nationalist - but his ideas were to undergo a dramatic change by the time he had founded the fascist movement. He became very anti-communist and a nationalist.

In the Roman Republic, and the Empire, Law took precedence over kinship, and that has always been a characteristic of fascism. The very term “King” comes from the idea of kinship. In National Socialism, as with traditional Kingship, tribal cohesion is paramount. In democracy, the individual is supposed to be paramount, and, when the state comes first, you have fascism.

It is a characteristic of fascism to allow foreigners who show an allegiance to the State to become citizens. In ancient Rome, despite several wars being fought to prevent this from happening, eventually foreigners were allowed to become Romans. Similarly, the Falangist-fascist States in Spain (under Franco) and in Italy were not founded on blood, race and tribal cohesion. Franco used Muslim Moroccan troops to rape Spanish women in white towns which he had identified as being sympathetic to communism.

Ever since foreigners were allowed to become Roman citizens, there has been weak racial tribalism in Italy. Patriotic feeling, and dynastic loyalty there has surely been, but the concept of race has suffered in Italy, and only truly exists as nostalgia for the earliest period of Rome. The patriotic loyalty is to the State. Thus fascism is ideally suited to the Italian, and Southern European nations, for whom race tends to, prove somewhat divisive. After a period of eugenics this situation would change.

The national socialist program was worked out by Hitler in 1919, before he had heard of Mussolini, yet he still regarded events in Italy to have been an important influence. Mussolini’s march on Rome in 1922 was Hitler’s inspiration. It showed what it was possible to achieve. Hitler, in turn came to greatly influence Mussolini, pressurising him and causing him to introduce racial loyalty into Italian fascism towards the end even though there where many Italian Jews in the party. While the two leaders had initially been hostile towards each other, with Mussolini initiating this animosity with his public speeches denouncing Hitler as a “barbarian” and even as a “pederast”, they eventually became friends. Hitler even organised a rescue mission when Mussolini ended up in prison, after the Fascist Council had decided they no longer wished him to be leader.

From Walther Hadding’s introduction to Mein Kampf:

Hegelianism and neohegelianism justified the state as an end in itself. National-Socialism did not regard the state as an end in itself, but because the examples of Prussia and Fascist Italy loomed large at the time, it was tempting for people not thoroughly familiar with national-socialism to see it in this light (and even today it is not unusual for careless sources to mislabel national-socialism as “fascism”).

Mussolini’s Doctrine on Fascism:

“Therefore, for the Fascist, everything is in the State, and nothing human or spiritual exists, much less has value,-outside the State. In this sense Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State, the synthesis and unity of all values, interprets, develops and gives strength to the whole life of the people.” From paragraph 7.

Alfred Rosenberg on the relationship of National-Socialism to Totalitarianism:

"The State is only a means to an end. Its end and its purpose are to preserve and promote a community of human beings who are physically as well as spiritually kindred. “

Alfred Rosenberg:

“On all these grounds it is recommended for all national-socialists to speak no longer of the total state, rather of the completeness (totality) of the national-socialist worldview, of the NSDAP as the body of this worldview, and of the national-socialist state as the tool for the preservation of the soul, spirit, and blood of national-socialism as the powerful phenomenon which made its beginning in the 20th century”

The far Left is especially keen that the term "socialism" should belong to them, and not to the ideas of the Third Reich, so they perpetuate the term "fascism" to describe National Socialism. Stalin started this by calling the Nazis “fascists” while, oddly enough, the democratic West was keen not to confuse the two ideologies, and political analysts kept them conceptually apart. When reading about WWII events, it used to be easy to tell if the speaker or writer was inspired by communism. If he or she talked about Nazis as "fascists", then the argument or point of view had in all probability originated in communist circles.

To confuse fascism and Nazism is perhaps understandable -- both were dictatorial, movements. But there are important differences between them as well.

National Socialism

National Socialism, a subset of fascism, is a political philosophy that is most notorious for having been the party ideology of Adolf Hitler's Nazis. National socialism combined an appeal to workers and the middle classes, radical anti-capitalism (in its movement stage) together with political opportunism, anti-Marxist agitation and violence, and fierce ethnic nationalism, anti-Semitism and racism. Upon achieving state power, the doctrine of National Socialism has proven to be genocidal, totalitarian, and imperialist. National Socialism claims to resolve the contradictions between capital and labour, often through a "third way".

Nazism is a contraction of the German word Nationalsozialismus (derived from the official German name of Hitler's party, Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP). It stands for the totalitarian and Racist pseudo-ideology under which the Adolf Hitler's German Third Reich was ruthlessly governed.

During the 1930's, political analysts in Europe studied both of these creeds, Italian fascism as well as German Nazism. But they took care to keep them conceptually apart.

However, this was not the case in Stalin's Soviet Union, because the full name of the Soviet Union has one word element in common with Nazism (Nationalsozialismus), the word socialism -- USSR is read out as the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. Stalin, who saw himself as communist and socialist (and who in other respects was just as murderous and totalitarian as Hitler), was opposed to the competing ideology of Nazism (= Nationalsocialismus). But he didn't want to use the word in his anti-Nazi propaganda, because it contained a "good" element -- "socialism".

Hitler is a damned Nazi! -- Hell no, Hitler is a damned fascist!

So from the 1930's onwards a curious situation arose: when the West lashed out against fascists, they meant Mussolini's Italians, but when the Soviets expressed anger against the fascists, they meant Hitler's Germans. Communists in other countries followed the Soviet-established political vocabulary, using the word "fascist" when they actually meant "Nazi".

This difference in political terminology remained in place even after the war. The West celebrated its victory over Nazism, while parades were held in Moscow in honour of the glorious Red Army that had vanquished fascism. Both just meant the same thing -- that they were happy to be rid of Hitler.

Both fascism and Nazism are founded on Nationalist ideas, but this does not justify confusing them or treating them as identical.

Mussolini's fascism was based on a true belief that he/it could better the nation and bring equality/justice and unity to Italy. Mussolini´s Fascist political ideology unlike Hitler's Nazism, which was not based on much else than blind racial hatred, efficient militarism, and ruthless application of totalitarian power in the interest of the Master Race.

Corporatism

The Italian fascists regarded both parliamentary democracy and socialist class struggle as elements that were bound to cause divisiveness in a nation. Hence they introduced the idea of corporatism, a kind of modernised version of the medieval guild system. Here representatives of all trades and industries, employers as well as employees, could settle matters based on mutual understanding.

In general, fascism was a strong central government, with the intention of a better life for all its citizens. Fascist Italy never became completely totalitarian, nor did it commit mass murder on the scale of the Nazis or Communist'. The monarchy was intact and the bureaucracy, the military and the church remained as complementary power centres. Originally there was no racism in Italian fascism. Due to Hitler's influence this unfortunately changed toward the end of Mussolini's regime.

An inappropriate euphemism

The ideas of Italian fascism popped up among movements in several European countries during the 20's and 30's, and up to the present day. They were applied during Franco's and Salazar's rule on the Iberian Peninsula, where they managed to survive WWII by three decades. But Hitler's Nazis were far too cocky for ever terming themselves fascist. To the Nazis the Italian fascists were soft and ineffectual.