Originally posted by TheComte
Spain wasn't fighting the Nazi's. Spain was fighting a civil war and Germany was supporting the fascist Franco.

Franco and the military participated in a coup d'état against the Popular Front government. The coup failed and devolved into the Spanish Civil War during which Franco emerged as the leader of the Nationalists against the Popular Front government. After winning the civil war with military aid from Italy and Germany—while the Soviet Union and various Internationalists aided the Republicans,he dissolved the Spanish Parliament. He then established a right-wing authoritarian regime that lasted until 1978, when a new constitution was drafted.

Francisco Franco

Adolf Hitler did not agree with Neurath and after consulting with Herman Goering, Wilhelm Canaris and Werner von Blomberg, he told General Francisco Franco on 26th July 1936 that Germany would support his rebellion.

Hitler justified his decision by arguing that he was attempting to save Europe from "communist barbarism".

Originally posted by The Sword
reply to post by Mythfury

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Just wondering because you don't seem to have a good grasp of the differences between National Socialism and plain 'ol Socialism.

As someone else has already noted, there are differences between national socialism and socialism, but I think the key question you have to ask is whether these are ultimately significant ideological divides of thought, or are merely very close political philosophies jockeying for position against liberalism and republican governance. Some here have attempted to attribute the Hitler's following (I mean chiefly the intellectuals and academics who supported him worldwide throughout the 1920s-1930s,) to mere trickery, as though Hitler simply attracted socialists and converted them into nationalists along the way.

But something is missing. Namely, why was it so easy for international socialists to switch to national socialism and visa versa? That's something to think about. In East Germany following World War II, a strong portion of the Stasi comprised former Nazi Party officials, and, Gestopo. Prior to World War II, Hitler found common ground with numerous nationalists and international socialists, and was able to bring them (at least in Germany) together under one flag and one party which a goal for shared socialism, albeit socialism for the good of Germany and Aryans as opposed socialism for the good of the international laborer.

It seems evident that the notion that nationalism is somehow inherently incompatible with socialism, or even its antithesis, is what remains of some of the vestiges of some Communist rhetoric. Few will dispute the dearly held belief among many socialists of the 1920s that the "worker's revolution must be international," but has history not done a death blow to this claim? Whether something is rightwing or leftwing, or something wholly intermingled, the theme of state supremacy and hatred of liberalism runs throughout socialism, and I think that such is the chief component of socialism (be it left, right, or center,) that must be observed.

The Nazis hated socialists and communists.

No denial that the Nazis hated communists and other socialists, but it was not for the same ideological reason why they hated liberals. I don't think that saying the Browns and the Reds hated each other is proof that Nazism wasn't a different branch of socialism, though it was certainly a non Marxist version. Indeed, the Brownshirts were trying to purge the Marxist influence, and if they hated socialists, it was because those socialists were internationalists, as opposed to being national socialists.

The only thing that Nazis and Communists have in common is that their leaders (Hitler, Stalin in this case) murdered millions of their own people.

The Nazis and the communists (communists in Germany) had much more in common than this: Hitler gained popular support in Germany precisely because he was able to give the Germans what democratic socialism, Marxist socialism, couldn't really provide. He was able to bring Germany out of the Great Depression much more quickly than even the US with his welfare programs for Germans. Throughout the early 30s before Hitler gained power, the Nazi Party wasn't even a majority, and it had to contend with communists, social democrats, and even nationalist (but not Nazi) parties with the Weimar Republic. But Hitler came out on top in the end. This wasn't because he was brutal and the communists in Germany were pacifists. Hardly.

Both were very violent, but Hitler ultimately had the people on his side. He captured the hearts of the working class, and the non-Jewish capitalists, based on an emphasis on radical German exceptionalism, and of shifting the focus onto the Jews as the reason for Germany's ills. Where most forms of socialism had advanced their programs via pitting the working class against the capitalists, Hitler attempted to unite them all as Germans, while still seeking to promote the state management of firms and the transition out of capitalism. But exceptional though Nazism was in many respects, it was in another way very similar to the movements surrounding it in Europe at the time. Namely, it was socialistic. Let's not the lose the forest for the trees.

Originally posted by namehere
reply to post by NowanKenubi

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Thats the thing for us who support real capitalism(not corporatism)

its about free choice, self determination and ambition.

Because all forms of collectivism will lead to corruption, abuse and stagnation at some point in time despite good intentions.

Collective & individual aspects of ownership

Socialist ownership of the means of production is ownership by all workers. Capitalists cease to exist and workers cease to be their employees.

Ownership by workers of necessity has to be collective ownership by society as a whole. Modern means of production cannot be divided up among workers like the hand tools of old. They have to be owned and used in common. They could of course be parcelled out to groups of workers (eg, workers' cooperatives). However, if they were, the level of ownership of each worker would be considerably constrained. (This is discussed in more detail below.)

Originally posted by korathin
reply to post by MisterReptilianoid

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Marx was a fool and any those who follow him are bigger fools. Karl Marx never really worked an honest day's job in his life. He lived off of rich friends and his stock options.

Marxism is about stealing from the workers to enrich the new nobility of lazy psychopaths.