December 26th: End of the Soviet Union

Mosquito: while fascists copied some ideas from Bolshevik Russia, even adopting the tag "socialist" on occasion, they can't be considered socialist. Socialism is by definition internationalist (in this sense, Stalin was a worst socialist than Lenin or Trotsky). Also Socialism is anti-Capitalist (wether moderately or radically) while no fascist regime was ever such thing.

Fascisms were tolerated and even encouraged in the Interbellum period precisely because they were fiercely anti-Socialist and particularly anti-Communist. There was a true Red Scare then, both after the spread of Soviet revolution to Central Europe in WWI aftermath and, later, after the Great Crisis, that matched too well the Marxist predictions for the end of Capitalism, threatened to extend socialism to beyond the borders of the USSR.

Furthermore, not just extremist fascists adopted some socialist strategies, much more moderate and even democratic regimes did. In fact in the 30s there was not a single government that could not be labelled "socialist" in some "sui generis" way in all Europe and even the USA. But that's not real socialism, just a "light", adulterated sucedaneous.

well, Nationalsocialism IS socialism, if you like it or not, just the rightwing interpretation of it, it's just today that socialism is connected to a leftist movement but it ins't by pure definition, in fact socialism doesn't imply a political direction.

and Mosquito is very right in pointing out the crimes of the Bolshewiks in Russia, but really, it isn't much because they called themselves socialists but because they were opressive dictators like they could equally have styled themselves fascists or national socialists and no one would have noticed the difference. the Soviet Union was not how Socialism/Communism was meant to be.

I would say Cuba is the best embodiment of socialism.

The term �socialism� wasn�t the exclusive property of that movement that referred itself to Marxist theory and practice. At the end of the 19th century and during the 20th century, numerous organizations, that didn�t have the slightest ideological and organisational connection to the Marxist First or Second International, called themselves �Socialist�. To establish any ideological or historical link between the Marxist or Communist movement on one side, and Fascist and Nazist on the other, is pure nonsense.
That the NSDAP adopted the �Socialist� tag , is not the result of any affiliation with the traditional Socialist movements but the absorption and misusage of a popular sentiment amongst the German people that looked for alternatives after a war that had been caused by the rivalries between the capitalist and imperialist nations.
Although the Nazis� early political programs contained indeed the careful demands for a partial nationalization of heavy industry, it was nothing else than that, a �nationalization� that would subordinate industrial production under the demands of the nation state, and not that of the working class, as Socialism would demand. However, this �Socialist� element never played an important role in the political intentions of the NSDAP, and was quickly dropped when the German industrialists identified Nazism as their solution to prevent a possible Communist revolution in Germany, and began to support Hitler�s party financially and ideologically.
The last few remaining �left� elements in the NSDAP finally got eliminated in 1934, when in the �Nacht der langen Messer�, Hitler had Roehm, Strasser etc. murdered.

I must add that Socialism implies a social orientation of political doctrine and praxis, opposing the Liberal individualism (notice that outside the USA Liberal=Capitalist) and emphasizing values such as solidarity, equality and cooperation.

Also: Socialism or the Socialist Movement has a long tradition starting before but being consolidated in the 1st International (IWA). This International gathered virtually all currents of Socialism, though the most important ones were Marxism (aka Authoritarian Socialism, aka Social-Democracy) and Anarchism (aka Libertarian Communism, aka Bakuninism). Eventually one branch of the Marxist current, later organized in the 2nd International (aka Socialist International), broke apart around the events of the Russian and European revolutions of the early 20th century and they started to call themselves Communists (by traditional definition, in which both Marxists and Anarchists agree, Communism is not the USSR but a utopic ultimate product of Class War in which both private property and the state have been abolished).

While we can admit that some other "non-alligned" currents, particularly the British Labour Movement or some Christian Socialist currents, can be understood to fit inside the frame of socialism, even if they don't share this tradition rooting into the 1st International, because they do converge ideologically with any of the main branches of the Socialist Movement (Social-Democracy, Bolshevism or Anarchism), we can't fall into the absurd of accepting that anti-Socialist and pro-Capitalist organizations that have no genetic connection with any branch of the Socialist Movement can be called Socialist, at least seriously.

socialism is a workers movement that was needed after the adaption of industrialization in the 19th century. saying that socialism is a leftist movement would be like saying every worker is a communist. don't forget the full name of NSDAP (national socialist german workers party).

this is a NSDAP poster from 1932, there are several of this kind but all of them clearly aplly to the working class.

but remember the myth of phoenix that was reborn out of his ash...the protagonists of the capitalism have only go on with the  current activitis they do...and soon ,sooner as many of you all think..
 

Originally posted by Temujin saying that socialism is a leftist movement would be like saying every worker is a communist.

Socialism is at the left, that's clear. Many workers aren't Socialists but that's only because they don't realize their objective interests.

Fascism was such as an Anti-Capitalist reaction as Communism. But while the Bolsheviks wanted to stop the class struggle with a so-called socialist revolution, Fascists wanted to stop that with a so-called corporation, social collaboration. The main similarity beetwen the two systems was the reigne of terror, but while Eastern Europeans saw both them, Westerners suffered only from the Fascism and because of the Communist parties fought against the Fascist agressors and USSR defeated the Nazies, Communism was presented as a good thing. And foreigners saw only the surface of the USSR: the industrialization, the victories of the Red Army, the succes of the Soviet athletes, the discovery of the space by Russia, but the opression, hunger, poverty and massacres were invisible for them. The Communist propaganda was effectuel, but the Soviet Union was a state-capitalim, not socialism. And millions believed in the state of the workers, but most of the victims of Communism were peasons and workers. However the acts of the Nacism were unmasked, nowadays revisionist are exist. Contrary the belower the acts of Communist in the USSR were not uncovered as well during the Stalinism, and the Soviet Union wasn't so much a reign of terror when destroyed. I think this is the main reason.