The Crooked Cross; fascism and appropriation of Celtic Culture

 

Croeso! 

A bit ago, a US politician got in some trouble when he unwittingly disclosed that he had a tattoo of the SS emblem, the Totenkopf (Death's Head). That politician is called Graham Platner, and he's a Maine Democrat. In a related story, another Democrat politician Dylan Blaha disclosed he has six tattoos, five of which seem to be typical military ink (both Dylan and Graham are ex-servicemen) but the sixth raised an eyebrow for me. On his right calf, Dylan has a Celtic cross, which he got in Germany after a trip to Ireland.

Now, I don't know either of these guys, Graham Platner claims he didn't know it was the SS murder skull and says he got it altered when he found out. As for the Celtic cross, it isn't a hate symbol yet, but there is a determined push to make it into one. And I know from experience this is largely overlooked in Anglophone circles.  So, I have no idea if either Democratic politician is a secret Nazi. I think it would be a very stupid thing for secret Nazis to declare themselves that way, but I'll sit back and let better placed individuals look into those stories. What I am going to do is take advantage of the rare window of public attention these revelations have caused to sound the alarm bells about a pernicious tactic on the far right. 

 I don't like talking about myself, but this text will go on to rely on my personal experiences, so I may as well get this out of the way. I am a Celt (it's pronounced Kelt) I grew up in a Celtic family surrounded by other Celts, in Ireland, Wales and Scotland, and the part of England I live in is one with a large Scottish and Irish population. I would not pass an Irish or Welsh language test nor could I write a book on Celtic folklore (not yet anyway) but I did grow up hearing words from both languages. In fact, in a funny twist for today's topic, my blood is so purely Celtic that I have a rare genetic blood disease that targets north European Celtic populations. That's not relevant to this particular discussion, but I think you should keep it in mind for when you encounter gobshites bemoaning the watering down of Europe with all that race mixing.  

Cultural appropriation, now to be clear I'm not using this term the way some do to mean any and all cross-cultural interaction and exchange. I mean it in the sense of taking something from one cultural and deliberately and radically trying to reclaim it as something else for a deliberate political end. I have no objection to other peoples learning about Celtic history and culture and myths, if anything I think its beneficial that cultural awareness is increased as a way to combat the attempts to hijack it for divisive ends. 

Fascists and their fellow travellers have been busy for years trying to replace the old toxic branding, swastikas, fasces etc, with new ones that can serve to rally the racists without tipping off normal society. They've mostly targeted Scandinavian cultural artifacts with knock off runes due to associations with Viking warriors and the convenient overlap with German mythology and some connections to original Nazi occultists.

I'm not knowledgeable enough to comment in detail on the pillaging of the Norse lore, so I'll also leave that to others. They have also appropriated Celtic symbology, including adopting a variation on the Celtic cross that marks very old churches in Ireland and Britain and have a smaller presence in Northern Europe. Celtic cross have many designs, what they usually have in common is a circle behind the head and the arms of the Cross. Fascist groups have latched onto to a simplified version of that characteristic and use variations of it that often look like a target cross-hair or a plus symbol in a circle. I've known for sometime that knowledge of these fash rebrand attempts isn't very high for some time. Even experienced anti-fascist activists who clock that these are fash emblems often don't know what they are. I remember one calling out the use of "fascist plus signs" on a banner when checking out who was marching down the street.

 

The sheer gall, or should I say Gaul, of French far right using Celtic imagery

 

I grew up with tattoos of Celtic crosses, every man from my father's generation who's a Celt has one somewhere, its become a very popular symbol of heritage and pride. Like the Harp for the Irish, Red Dragons for Welsh or Thistles for Scottish only this one can be used by most Celtic peoples. Generally the more the tattoo looks like its based on a real 9th century cross in a graveyard somewhere in Donegal or rural parts of Western Scotland, and the owner is a Celt or someone who has parents/grandparents, or just lives in Wales or Brittany or something, it's probably benign. When someone is using the streamlined version and has no connection to the Celts or a part of Europe where the Irish Catholic Church (which promoted the adoption of that cross style) had no presence, I would ask questions, like "what is that?" and then "why did you choose that?" and their answer is some nonsense about "our heritage" or pride I would be wary of them.

To link back to original premise, if Dylan Blaha had got the tattoo in Ireland, I'd think it's either a touristy thing or an attempt to get in touch with his "roots". Getting it in Germany gave me a moment of pause, the Ancient Celts were around the Rhine and Alpine regions but didn't get into the German interior much. However, designs for "authentic" crosses are popular, and their details are a good way for a skilled tattoo artist to show off their skills. If it turned out he just went to a tattoo parlour in Germany where knowledge of far right symbols is more common especially for tattoo artists who can get into trouble for making them, and got a short and quick plus and circle job I'd be far more suspicious. 

From a friend on Bluesky, a stall for the National Rebirth Party in Leicester, using a Triskelion as their emblem.

It's not just the cross that's been high jacked, other lesser known Celtic symbols are also being used. A variation on the Triskelion also pops up from time to time. Now Triskelion's aren't strictly a purely Celtic symbol, like the swastika its appeared in many cultures, some of which predate the Celts, it was also heavily tied to early civilisations in Sicily as another example. The Celts of ancient times used versions of it in many forms, and I have seen variations used by fash types that are based on the more common Celt designs. So, by talking mostly about the Celt versions I don't wish to imply the other cultures are fair game, just sticking to what I know.

If you don't know what a Triskelion is, the flag of the Isle of Man uses a version, the three legs on it are an example. Yes, the tri in triskelion means three, so it's a triskelion if it uses a pattern of three.  This appropriation is not as well known but goes back further. The ultra racist Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (AWB) took the Nazi flag, cut the swastika out of it and stitched a black triskelion into its place.

I guess subtlety doesn't translate into Afrikaans.

 There was also a SS division that used one as their personal logo.

Again I don't like seeing symbols I grew up with re-purposed for hate politics, growing up the Triskelion was a symbol of protection, a silly good luck charm. Speaking of luck charms, specifically Irish symbols are commonly used by far right groups in the United States of America. I'm thinking of the Ayran Brotherhood who use clovers as their emblem. This one I feel is more well known, I've seen documentaries about it for one, and I'm not familiar with conditions in the United States, so I won't talk further on this other than to note that in the documentaries I've seen on this group they allege that the Brotherhood considers clovers to be their symbol and not an Irish symbol and will attack Irish American inmates who have clover tattoos who aren't a "brother". I can't think of better example of the dangers of cultural appropriation.

Part II, Why?

  Now I've detailed some of the more common examples I feel It's important to look at why these disparate groups are doing this. Well while it may not seem like it in 2026 with the far right gaining popular support in many nations the authentic WWII era Nazi branding is still toxic and weird to even the majority of their voters. Fascism has always relied on euphemism and that reliance has grown since the WWII defeat and the Holocaust and the other brutal occupations from that time. One curious fact about the Graham Platner incident is that he says he got the SS tattoo in Croatia. Croatia like all the former Kingdom of Yugoslavia suffered greatly from German occupation, events marking the partisan movement are still publicly commemorated to this day. That said, Croatia also had an infamous history of collaboration with the Axis powers. I'm going to be careful here and make clear I do not mean all Croatians collaborated, there was however a fascist Croat movement called the Ustasha who were given de facto control of a collaborationist state and this state and its movement enthusiastically carried out genocides against Serbs, Jews and Freemasons and Communists and Gypsies and other undesirables*. I have no idea if Graham Platner is being honest when he claims ignorance, however it is inconceivable that the tattooist who gave him that skull didn't know about it.

In addition to misdirection the choosing of Celtic bits and pieces also slots in nicely with pre-existing fascist pseudo-history. The Celts in the accounts of Ancient Greek and Roman sources are violent and war like, which fits in with the machismo men of action cult. The Celts are also quite pale and European, so those are two ticks on the check sheet right there. Of course, most of this breaks down once you take even a cursory look at history, but I'm getting ahead of myself. Theirs also a religious component, the Celtic cross is also a cross, and its origins lie with the Irish Catholic Church. While fascism is quite diverse on questions of spirituality, hostility to Jews and Muslims means some form of militant Christianity will appeal to some of them. I don't think every fash with the fascist plus symbol is a militant christian, but I have seen its use in places like Italy and France where the Celtic connection just doesn't make sense, but the "a normal Italian/Frenchman is a Christian/Catholic" does make some kind of ideological sense.

And of course we can't overlook the follow the leader phenomena. I have a suspicion that if you were to conduct a poll of the international far right population where the Celtic cross is used many respondents wouldn't know what it really is and just copied what another fascist group did. This isn't the first time this has happened. When Mussolini came to power in Italy their was a global trend in copycat ___ Shirt movements. The Brown Shirts in Germany, Blue Shirts of Ireland, Silver Shirts in the USA, in Britain Mosely couldn't be bothered to pick a different colour they just ripped off Benito entirely.  And when Hitler rose to power in Berlin their was another wave of copy cats aping him. The fascists in Hungary where called the Arrow Cross party because their knock off Swastika was a cross made of Arrows. 

They're also fairly easy to draw and have the added bonus where should a fascist group find itself out of step and under hostile scrutiny they can play the "Nu-uh" card. They can use to attract sympathisers in the know while playing coy to everyone else. Of course this is subject to the rule of diminishing returns, the more they use it the less cover it provides. The more times an "immigration sceptic" is caught at a stop the boats protest with a triskelion t-shirt is found to have been at a national front rally in the 80s with a Nazi armband the less credulous the general public will become.

 Part III, Why the Celts make terrible stormtroopers

I was debating whether or not to include this part, I don't think this is the place for a full history of Celts whether ancient or modern. However as I said when I spoke about cultural appropriation, I think knowledge of real Celtic culture and its symbols will help to expose the operation, its also really interesting, with dragons, vengeful gods, curses and so on. Though I believe most Euro fash are unaware and do not care about the Celts even as a tool to use. As an example I've seen the symbols stolen by groups operating in countries where the Celts left no impact if they ever got their and Italian and French fascists are using it. If you wonder why I keep bringing them up, Italian fascsits love the Romans, who committed multiple genocides against many Celtic tribes and are in fact the nemesis of the ancient Celts. Meanwhile the French republic in 2026 is currently actively carrying out policies to destroy the culture and language of the Bretons, its Celtic minority. That's the nasty side of appropriation and fetishisation, it doesn't actually care about its targets, it just exploits them for its own gain.

 So here's a few inconvenient facts that get in away of a more serious fash interpretation of the Celtic legacy. 

1. Ancient Celts were quite diverse. The old Celts of the times of Asterix and Obelisk got around, they spread out so far and for so long that there is still debate over where the Celts originated, one theory says Central Europe, another says they came from Iberia and Western Europe. With an open question about where did their ancestors come from.
2. Celtic culture originates in language, the Ic in Celtic means speaker of a Celt language. Attachment to the Celtic peoples of antiquity were on the basis of tongue not race. Some nationalists may push back on this with an appeal to shared Europeanness. But that doesn't hold either, while the Celts were concentrated in North and Western Europe we know that Celts were present in areas further afield, the Galatians from the bible were a Celtic people and they lived in the middle of what is now Turkey. Celtic tribes also had access to the Mediterranean and traded extensively, where there was differences on parentage or relationship was along tribal lines within the Celts. They were never a unified "Volk" there were variations in culture, custom and language throughout. 
3. If the Celts had a "nemesis" they wouldn't be Jews or Africans or any other foreign bogeyman picked on by the far right. There enemies were other Europeans, Vikings, Germanic tribes, Romans, Greeks etc. If there were stop the boats protests in Britain in the 6th Century the targets would be the Saxons, Jutes and Angles who created the proto-English culture**. That Celts even still exist is a testament to resistance to these attempts to destroy and subjugate them. The French Republic is still trying to force the Bretons to become French by doing all it can to make Brezhoneg a dead language. The people who have been oppressing us, destroying our cultures and forcing us to behave as they see fit are fellow Europeans, often motivated by nationalism.
4. The Celts expose the arbitrariness of nations, races and culture itself. The terms Celt and Celtic dissappear until the 1700s when very early studies in what would become anthropolgy and linguistics realised the langauges and cultures of the people living in Wales, Ireland, Brittany etc shared many common characteristics and that some them seem to connect these modern peoples to those of the civilisations from ancient times. They could've easily not adopted the common "family name" and kept us all separate afterall while the Celtic languages are related they're not mutual intelligible, at least not at without a good deal of exposure. And since language was the main decider rather than religion or physical characteristics (I would say stereotypes) we can easily redefine the Celtic population drastically downward excluding many including myself but include a small number of other people including a student from Hong Kong who speaks far better Cymraeg then I can. If langauge is the deciding factor that it de facto means that ethnicity and sense of belonging are largely arbitrary and open to change. Which it already has, many English and French share the same ancestors as Bretons and Welsh, and yet we think of them as different peoples because when the labels were reintroduced the majority of them didn't speak a Celtic language as their first and main language.  

That's the annoying thing about history for propagandists its too messy and doesn't fit neat sides of a box. If militant Celtic nationalism where to take off as a movement it'd be more likely to divide the Euro fash camp even more. Let's look at one Welsh national hero, Owain Glyndŵr (Owen Glendower in English). There's a man who in the popular retelling rallied the Cymry in a heroic struggle for freedom from the violent alien oppressor the English... Mainstream Celtic nationalism is already speratist.

 Appendix: Real Celtic Fascism

I wasn't sure whether to add this or not, but on re-reading I felt there was a theme of alien corruption of noble culture. While I beleive much of this appropriation is from non-Celtic sources there are examples of homegrown Celtic fascist and other reactionary tendencies. And while I'm busy pre-empting criticism I'll reiterate my personal view that these fash types being "foreign" is not the issue, I genuinely like it when others show interest in culture and language, nor do I have an issue with benign use or borrowing for new things.  Its very much the exploiting a frankly damaged and misunderstood culture for xenophobic purposes that I can't stand, regardless of whose doing it.

 So, with that in mind I will briefly document a few examples of Celtic fascism from history. 

 The Blue Shirts,

 

Fascist politician Eoin O'Duffy inspects his troops,

The Blue Shirts were one of the copy cats of Mussolini, their leade O'Duffy also set up a Corpratist Political party further copying his mentor. At their peak in 1934 the Blue Shirts numbered 48,000 though they quickly lost most of those members. The Blue Shirts were formed as a paramilitary and security unit for one of the groups that merged into Fine Gael (Family of the Irish) the same Fine Gael that currently is the ruling coalition of the Republic of Ireland. The Blues infamously raised a brigade of Irish volunteers for Franco's army rebels in the Spanish Civil War. Some Irish historians try to avoid the Fascist label for the Blue Shirts but curiously not its leader O'Duffy, by arguing they were motivated by extreme authoritiarian catholicism. I won't deny there Catholic zealotry but that's not a disqualifier for fascist politics. They also officially supported democracy in Ireland, however they materially supported a fascist dictatorship in Spain and their idea of a model democracy was the Irish Free State, a state that was not free and had came into existence through an extreme and ruthless victory in a civil war. The Blue Shirts were founded largely due to the release of prisoners from the losing side in that war. The Free State of the 30s was not the tourist friendly Temple Bar of modern Dublin, it was suspicious and actively controlling of the population.

The Breton National Party

The Breton National Party, founded in 1931 was a nationalist party that sought independence from France. It rivaled a Breton federalist movement***. During the second world war it collaborated with the Nazi Occupation forces. Brittany had its own little Vichy. 

Members of the BNP in 1942, its hard to make out, but those armbands they're wearing sport a Triskelion

 The BNP was disbanded forcibly in 1944 during the liberation of France. Meanwhile the rival federalist movement which sported a Hevoud symbol which is also sometimes called a Celtic swastika was driven out of eixstence sometime after 1938. Though sucessor organisations of sorts for both them came into existence in the 2000s, the Adsav being the far right bastard child of the BNP, still keeping the triskelion emblem, while the Federalists revived the Federalist League name. 

Defence Leagues

The English Defence League or EDL was the most popular and in your face strain of far right politics in the UK in the 2010s. Of course there was both a knock off Scottish Defence League and a Welsh Defence League but the EDL had the numbers and caused the biggest impact and damage to communities all over Britain. 

I don't know much about the Scottish Defence League but I'm more familiar with the WDL, though not by much as it collapsed into infighting and feuding after investigations into their members and their links to Neo-Nazis were exposed**** soon after launching. The same fate eventually befell the EDL with many splinter groups and rivals often trying to beat the rump EDL of the streets in some regions.  

The Welsh off shoot collapse so quickly that the EDL tried to pick up the slack by marching in Wales demanding "their country back", which didn't go down well. 

 

 

 

 

  

 

 *I should also mention that there were Croats who resisted occupation and that the other groups and peoples in Yugoslavia had collaborators too, it's not a clear-cut distinction. 

 ** A fun fact, in all the Celt languages still spoken, the word for an Englishman literally translates as Saxon. Whereas Welsh and Wales come from Saxon words meaning foreigner and outsider. 

***  "..the pressing duty to gather those of our compatriots who do not want to confuse Brittany with the Church; Brittany with reaction; Brittany with puerile anti-French bias; Brittany with capitalism; and even less, Brittany with racism." From the manifesto of the Breton Federalist League 

**** Unmasked: Welsh Defence League, by the BBC 

"War is the Health of the State" (1918) by Randolph Bourne

 

 

"War is the Health of the State"
(1918)

by Randolph Bourne

War is the health of the State.

It automatically sets in motion throughout society those irresistible forces for uniformity, for passionate co-operation with the Government in coercing into obedience the minority groups and individuals which lack the larger herd sense. The machinery of government sets and enforces the drastic penalties, the minorities are either intimidated into silence or brought slowly around by a subtle process of persuasion which may seem to them to really converting them. Of course the ideal of perfect loyalty, perfect uniformity is never attained. The classes upon whom the amateur work of coercion falls are unwearied in their zeal but often their agitation instead of converting, merely serves to stiffen their resistance. Minorities are rendered sullen, and some intellectual opinion, bitter and satirical. But in general, the nation in war-time attains a uniformity of feeling, a hierarchy of values, culminated at the undisputed apex of the State ideal, which could not possibly be produced trough any other agency than war. Other values such artistic creation, knowledge, reason, beauty, the enhancement of life, are instantly and almost unanimously sacrificed and the significant classes who have constituted themselves the amateur agents of the State are engaged not only in sacrificing these values for themselves but in coercing all other persons into sacrificing them.

War - or at least modern war waged by a democratic republic against a powerful enemy - seems to achieve for a nation almost all that the most inflamed political idealist could desire. Citizens are no longer indifferent to their Government but each cell of the body politic is brimming with life and activity. We are at last on the way to full realization of that collective community in which each individual somehow contains the virtue of the whole. In a nation at war, every citizen identifies himself with the whole, and feels immensely strengthened in that identification. The purpose and desire of the collective community live in each person who throws himself whole-heartedly into the cause of war. The impeding distinction between society and the individual is almost blotted out. At war, the individual becomes almost identical with his society. He achieves a superb self-assurance, an intuition of the rightness of all his ideas and emotions, so that in the suppression of opponents or heretics he is invincibly strong; he feels behind him all the power of the collective community. The individual as social being in war seems to have achieved almost his apotheosis. Not for any religious impulse could the American nation have been expected to show such devotion en masse, such sacrifice and labour. Certainly not for any secular good, such as universal education or the subjugation of nature would it have poured forth its treasure and its life, or would it have permitted such stern coercive measures to be taken against it, such as conscripting its money and its men. But for the sake of a war of offensive self-defence, undertaken to support a difficult cause to the slogan of "democracy", it would reach the highest level ever known of collective effort.

For these secular goods, connected with the enhancement of life, the education of man and the use of the intelligence to realize reason and beauty in the nation's communal living, are alien to our traditional ideal of the State. The State is intimately connected with war, for it is the organization of the collective community when it acts in a political manner, and to act in a political manner towards a rival group has meant, throughout all history - war.

There is nothing invidious in the use of the term "herd", in connection with the State. It is merely an attempt to reduce closer to first principles the nature of this institution in the shadow of which we all live, move and have our being. Ethnologists are generally agreed that human society made its first appearance as the human pack and not as a collection of individuals or of couples. The herd is in fact the original unit, and only as it was differentiated did personal individuality develop. All the most primitive surviving types of men are shown to live in a very complex but very rigid social organization where opportunity for individuation is scarcely given. These tribes remain strictly organized herds; and the difference between them and the modern State is one of degree of sophistication and variety of organization, and not of kind.

Psychologists recognize the gregarious impulse as one of the strongest primitive pulls which keeps together the herds of the different species of higher animals. Mankind is no exception. Our pugnacious evolutionary history has prevented the impulse from ever dying out. This gregarious impulse is the tendency to imitate, to conform, to coalesce together, and is most powerful when the herd believes itself threatened with attack. Animals crowd together for protection, and men become most conscious of their collectivity at the threat of war. Consciousness of collectivity brings confidence and a feeling of massed strength, which in turn arouses pugnacity and the battle is on. In civilized man, the gregarious impulse acts not only to produce concerted action for defence, but also to produce identity of opinion. Since thought is a form of behaviour, the gregarious impulse floods up into its realm and demands that sense of uniform thought which wartime produces so successfully. And it is in this flooding of the conscious life of society that gregariousness works its havoc.

For just as in modern societies the sex-instinct is enormously over-supplied for the requirements of human propagation, so the gregarious impulse is enormously over-supplied for the work of protection which it is called upon to perform. It would be quite enough if we were gregarious enough to enjoy the companionship of others, to be able to co-operate with them, and to feel a slight malaise at solitude. Unfortunately however, this impulse is not content with these reasonable and healthful demands; but insists that like-mindedness shall prevail everywhere, in all departments of life. So that all human progress, all novelty, and non-conformity, must be carried against the resistance of this tyrannical herd-instinct which drives the individual into obedience and conformity with the majority. Even in the most modern and enlightened societies this impulse shows little sign of abating. As it is driven by inexorable economic demand out of the sphere of utility, it seems to fasten itself even more fiercely in the realm of feeling and opinion, so that conformity comes to be a thing aggressively desired and demanded.

The gregarious impulse keeps its hold all the more virulently because when the group is in motion or is taking any positive action, this feeling of being with and supported by the collective herd very greatly feeds that will to power, the nourishment of which the individual organism so constantly demands. You feel powerful by conforming, and you feel forlorn and helpless if you are out of the crowd. While even if you do not get any access of power by thinking and feeling just as everybody else in your group does, you get at least the warm feeling of obedience, the soothing irresponsibility of protection. Joining as it does to these very vigorous tendencies of the individual - the pleasure in power and the pleasure in obedience - this gregarious impulse becomes irresistible in society. War stimulates it to the highest possible degree, sending the influences of its mysterious herd-current with its inflations of power and obedience to the farthest reaches of the society, to every individual and little group that can possibly be affected. An it is these impulses which the State - the organization of the entire herd, the entire collectivity - is founded on and makes use of.

There is, of course, in the feeling toward the State a large element of pure filial mysticism. This sense of insecurity, the desire for protection, sends one's desire back to the father and mother, with whom is associated the earliest feeling of protection. It is not for nothing that one's State is still thought of as Fatherland or Motherland, that one's relation towards it is conceived in terms of family affection. The war has shown that nowhere under the shock of danger have these primitive childlike attitudes failed to assert themselves again, as much in this country as anywhere. If we have not the intense Father-sense of the German who worships his Vaterland, at least in Uncle Sam we have a symbol of protecting, kindly authority, and in the many Mother-posts of the Red Cross, we see how easily in the more tender functions of war services, the ruling organization is conceived in family terms. A people at war have become in the most literal sense obedient, respectful, trustful children again, full of that naive faith in the all-wisdom and all-power of the adult who takes care of them, imposes his mild but necessary rule upon them and in whom they lose their responsibility and anxieties. In this recrudescence of the child, there is great comfort, and a certain influx of power. On most people the strain of being an independent adult weighs heavily, and upon none more than those members of the significant classes who have had bequeathed to them or have assumed the responsibilities of governing. The State provides the most convenient of symbols under which these classes can retain all the actual pragmatic satisfaction of governing, but can rid themselves of the psychic burden of adulthood. They continue to direct industry and government and all the institutions of society pretty much as before, but in their own conscious eyes and in the eyes of the general public, they are turned from their selfish and predatory ways, and have become loyal servants of society, or something greater than they - the State. The man who moves from the direction of a large business in New York to a post in the war management industrial services in Washington does not apparently alter very much his power or his administrative technique. But psychically, what a transformation has occurred! His is now not only the power but the glory! And his sense of satisfaction is directly proportional not to the genuine amount of personal sacrifice that may be involved in the change but to the extent to which he retains his industrial prerogative and sense of command.

From members of this class a certain insuperable indignation arises if the change from private enterprise to State service involves any real loss of power and personal privilege. If there is to be pragmatic sacrifice, let it be, they feel, on the field of honour, in the traditional acclaimed deaths by battle, in that detour of suicide, as Nietzsche calls war. The State in wartime supplies satisfaction for this very craving, but its chief value is the opportunity it gives for this regression to infantile attitudes. In your reaction to an imagined attack in your country or an insult to its government, you draw closer to the herd for protection, you conform in word and deed, and you insist vehemently that everybody else shall think, speak and act together. And you fix your adoring gaze upon the State, with a truly filial look, as upon the Father of the flock, the quasi-personal symbol of your definite action and ideas.

War and Hell or Peace and Starvation

 

 

 

I came across this short article by Eugene V. Debs. It was written in 1915 but much of it, including the peace in the USA and war in Europe, is still very timely. I sometimes feel tired of saying that when going through historical records, especially since it only seems to apply to bad things, disease, poverty, war, corruption, bigotry etc. 

Debs was at the time the leader of the Socialist Party and was its pick for Presidential candidate, his opposition to American entry in the First World War and refusal to buckle to pressure led to his arrest, and he ran his last Presidential campaign from behind bars.

 

 Published in St. Louis Labor, whole no. 578 (Aug. 14, 1915),

 

 Because the workers have everything to lose, including their lives,
and absolutely nothing to gain in war, it does not follow under the
benevolent rule of capitalism that they have everything to gain and
nothing to lose in peace. In Europe just now the workers have war
and hell while in this country they are enjoying peace and starvation.
That there may be no mistake about the latter condition I quote from
the highest capitalistic authority, the Associated Press, which carries
the following dispatch:

COLUMBUS, Ohio, July 26th, 1915.— Reports received here
today from militia officers who have charge of the distribution of
food supplies among destitute families in the Southern Ohio coal
mining districts, prompted state officials to send out additional
appeals for contributions to aid in the relief work.

The reports showed that a large number of these 10,000
families in the Hocking and Sunday Creek Valleys are dependent
on outside aid for food. In describing conditions the word “piti-
able” appeared frequently in the reports. There is no strike in
these districts, but most of the miners are out of work owing to
the shutting down of the mines.

There is much more to the dispatch, but this is enough. There is
no war in this country and there is no strike in Ohio. Instead of war
and hell such as they have in Europe they have peace and starvation
in Ohio. The soldiers who are asphyxiated in the trenches have one
advantage in war over their fellow-workers who are starving in the
mining camps in peace — their agony is reduced to hours, perhaps
minutes, instead of being prolonged into a lifetime. Blessed are they
who are speedily reduced to wormfood, for they shall not see their
offspring starve in the midst of plenty.

 • • • • •
It is not the misfortune of the miners that condemns them to see
their wives and children starving before their eyes in a state bursting
with riches they themselves produced; it is their folly and crime in
common with the folly and crime of the people among whom they
live.

The men who shut down the mines and locked out the miners
and are now starving them and their families are not among those
crying for relief. They own the mines and control the jobs and can
shut out and starve the miners at will — by grace of the miners them-
selves, an overwhelming majority of whom belong to the same capi-
talist party their masters do and cast their votes with scrupulous fidel-
ity to perpetuate the boss ownership of the mine in which they work
and their own exclusion and starvation at their master’s will.

Blessed be the private ownership of the mines, for without it the
miners and their wives would lose their individuality, their homes
would be broken up, their morality destroyed, their religion wiped
out, and they would be denied forever the comfort and solace of pov-
erty and starvation!

When the miners themselves control the mines, once they have
learned how to control themselves, they will not lock themselves out
and starve themselves and their loved ones to death. The bosses are
very kindly doing this for them, but only because the miners them-
selves, by their votes and otherwise, have willed it.
The bosses lose their power and along with it their jobs when the
workers find theirs.

• • • • •

But I only meant to show that in peace as in war the workers are
the losers; if they are not killed in war they are starved in peace; if
they escape the trenches they are reserved for the slave pits.
The bosses are always the beneficiaries; the workers always the
victims. The Rockefellers never lose and the [John R.] Lawsons never
win. Such is capitalism and the workers who side with the bosses and
support capitalism politically and otherwise, and are therefore respon-
sible for capitalism, are also responsible for the hell they get in war
and the starvation they suffer in peace.

 

News from Zengakuren

 

 

ZENGAKUREN, the All-Japan Federation of Autonomous Student Bodies is a mass revolutionary organisation, with a militant tradition of struggle against American Imperialism and the Japanese ruling class. In 1960, it organised strikes and continuous demonstrations, in which many were wounded, outside the Tokyo Diet, against the Ratification of the Japanese – US Security Treaty. These reached such an intensity that the US Government thought it advisable to cancel a proposed Eisenhower visit to Japan.

The Zengakuren have recently called for the establishment of an anti-war International. They are supported in this by the Committee of 100, the Student Peace Union in the US, the Socialist Students Organization of West Germany and many other organizations opposed to both American and Russian tests. On August 17, 1962, representatives of the Zengakuren, including Nemoto, their President, attended the Leningrad Conference of the International Union of Students. On their way, they had demonstrated in Red Square against all nuclear tests. They had been arrested, then released and `closely watched during the remainder of their stay`.

We publish below an extract from Zengakuren Information Bulletin No.3, describing their discussions with representatives of the Soviet Student Council (SSC):

Soviet Student Council (SSC): Are you fighting against the nuclear testing of any nation other than the USSR? Do you realize that the Soviet Union is not the first country to engage in nuclear tests?

Zengakuren: We are engaged in a militant mass struggle against American nuclear tests. Our slogan in this struggle is, `Against tests of USA and USSR`. We oppose any nuclear activity by any country, be it England, France or China. Of course, we are fighting against the nuclear armament of Japan. You who sponsor the I.U.S. Congress should have known such a well-known fact.

SSC: Granted, but what country began the first nuclear tests and how many times were such tests carried out before the Soviet Union began?

Zengakuren: That is of no consequence. We accuse all countries engaged in testing of promoting the arms race and of suppressing the working class and people.

SSC: We are glad to hear that you oppose the American nuclear tests and can appreciate your stand against these tests. We lost millions of lives in World War II. This tragedy was due to the fact that our military forces were weaker than those of the Fascists. We do not want to be the second Hiroshima. If during the war Japan had had nuclear weapons at their disposal, the tragedy of Hiroshima would not have occurred.

Zengakuren: We oppose your dangerous view. According to your logic, you encourage the Japanese Imperialists to arm themselves with nuclear weapons. Do you really think that this is an effective way to stop the nuclear race and to prevent nuclear war?

SSC: The best way to prevent war is obviously total disarmament, but the next best procedure is to continue Soviet nuclear tests.

Zengakuren: Your policy, based on such a philosophy, wields an immeasurably harmful influence on the anti-war struggle of the working class. Do you know the slogan that is being used in Tokyo, New York and London to fight N-tests? `Against tests by the US and USSR`. These students and workers attempt to obtain peace not with nuclear weapons but by their own struggles.

SSC: You believe that if the Soviet Union stopped its tests, the working class movement would increase in strength and the imperialists’ tests would stop. We cannot be sure of such an outcome.

Zengakuren: Are you suggesting that the workers of the world stop their struggles and support Soviet testing? By holding such a view, you cause dissension among the workers of the world and make them oppose each other. The workers must unite. Soviet nuclear testing does not support peace. It provides America with an excuse to continue their tests and intensify the arms race. Any nuclear testing suppresses the workers of the world and subjects them to the domination of the ruling class. Aren’t you yourselves the slaves of nuclear weapons?

SSC: We can appreciate your point of view, but we are of totally different opinions.

Zengakuren: The justice of our views will be borne out by the continuation of the world-wide struggle against N-tests.

SSC: Your opinion sounds quite sincere; continue your work as you like, but don’t forget that you are in the USSR now.

AGAINST ALL BOMBS by Ken Weller

 

Text of a leaflet distributed in Moscow by supporters of the Committee of 100

AGAINST ALL BOMBS

The campaign in Britain against nuclear weapons is beginning to turn towards the working class. As it does so, it will create an increasing challenge to the capitalist state.

This marks a development both in the activities and in the consciousness of the Campaign. It is a genuine turn to the masses of ordinary workers, not the bureaucracies of the Labour and Trade Union movements. Already, as a result of this emphasis, we have seen the beginnings of industrial action against the bomb. Workers directly involved have refused to handle nuclear cargoes. Others have held token strikes.

THE BOMB IN CLASS SOCIETY

More and more people in the campaign are seeing the deeper implications of working class action against the bomb. The class which dominates production controls society. It decides policy and, despite the democratic facade, enforces it through its state apparatus. Until the ordinary people are free in production, they cannot have any effective say in the decisions of war and peace, life and death. Only a society with inhuman relations in production could produce these monstrous weapons.

But the USSR has the same monstrous weapons. Should this not be different if your society is fundamentally different from ours? We know the means of production are nationalised. But Marx himself insisted that it is the `relations of production` (the relations between men and men at work) which determine the class nature of society¹. The property relations might reflect these relations of production or might serve to mask them.

THE RUSSIAN REVOLUTION

What has happened to your Revolution that your leaders should threaten the workers of other lands with these weapons? What has happened to the internationalist ideals of October?

The Revolution made sweeping changes in the property relations. But it did not solve the central contradiction of class society, that between rulers and ruled in production.

It was never the policy of the Bolsheviks to allow the workers to take over power in production itself. In 1921 Lenin wrote: `It is absolutely essential that all authority in the factories should be concentrated in the hands of management. Under these circumstances, any direct intervention by trade unions in the management of enterprises should be regarded as positively harmful and impermissible`. This typifies the whole ideology and practice of the Party in this period. Here were the roots of Stalinism.

From this viewpoint, the USSR has essentially the same relations of production as Britain or America. The Russian worker has to get up in the morning when the alarm clock rings. The time is not of his choosing. Someone else has decided what he shall produce, how much, and at what cost to himself. Has he chosen to have Sputniks rather than butter?

Both and East and West management makes all the plans, and seeks to reduce the worker to a standard unit in them. It consciously removes variety and decision making from his job, and subjects him to the ruthless tempo of machines. In Marxist terms, he is alienated. And any opposition to this system brings him up against the forces of the State, which, again, are beyond his control.

Is this a State that is `beginning to whither away from the moment of Revolution`? Or is it a kernel of the Socialist programme that has withered away?

INTERNATIONAL ACTION

In Britain our protests bring us up against our State forces too. When a mass demonstration tried to immobilise a NATO base at Wethersfield last December, six of our members were gaoled for long periods. Many others have been arrested on similar demonstrations.

We have also protested against the Russian H-tests, which threaten workers all over the world with `socialist` leukaemia. Our bourgeois police have protected your Embassy against us, and arrested hundreds of demonstrators.

Our struggle is the struggle for new relationships in production and in society. Both East and West, privileged protected by their State machines manage production and parcel out the social product. They try to protect these privileges against their greedy neighbours.

That is what the H-bomb defends. But workers gain nothing by assisting in protecting their own rulers against others. We must have faith only in ourselves, in our ability to transform society. We extend our hands in solidarity with the working people of Russia, over the heads of our rulers and yours. We have already taken up this struggle: it is yours too. Together we must ACT – OR WE SHALL PERISH TOGETHER.

WORKERS OF THE WORLD UNITE!

The Committee of 100 exists to organise mass civil disobedience and resistance against the production, testing and threatened use of nuclear weapons. Its basis is in rank-and-file action, not in politicians’ manoeuvres.

Its Industrial Sub-Committee seeks to develop these ideas among ordinary workers. Its first leaflet stated: `Workers make the weapons of mass destruction, transport them, handle them, install them. They supply and equip those who use them. When they no longer accept to do so, the politicians will have to fight their own wars`.

The Sub-Committee is composed of workers in the Docks, in road and rail transport, and in the Engineering, Building and Printing industries.

Published on behalf of the Industrial Sub-Committee of the London Committee of 100, by Ken Weller (Engineering Shop Steward), 37, Queens Mansions, North Road, London N.7

THAT LEAFLET

`Solidarity` feels the full text of the leaflet distributed (in Russian) at the recent World Disarmament Congress in Moscow, should go on record, in view of the widespread repercussions (and deliberate lies) it has evoked.

The following notes are based on a report by Dave Picton, one of the members of the London Committee of 100, who took the leaflets to Moscow.

On July 10, two of us gave out the first batch of leaflets in Gorky Street. They were taken eagerly and folded away in inside pockets…. Because of the litter laws. After we had distributed quite a number we were stopped by three `volunteer auxiliary militia`, who only became friendly after a passer-by that we were Congress delegates. The first (administrative) reflex had been to arrest us. The second (equally administrative) reflex had been to be friendly to an official foreign delegation. Obviously a dialectical contradiction. Neither reflex was related to the content of what we were distributing. That kind of response only took place later, at a higher level.

We also distributed the leaflet at a factory gate. It was an engineering works, in the suburbs. We distributed as the workers were returning from dinner break. The leaflets were again all taken and pocketed.

We also distributed the leaflet through letter boxes in a nearby block of workers’ flats. A second `block of flats` we entered turned out to be a police station. We decided not to stay.

Certain members of the British delegation became quite hostile after reading the leaflet. Late one night, one of the delegates found a woman in his room. His opinion of the Conference Arrangements Committee soared… till he found she was English – and that she was tearing up his leaflets. `Any method is justified against you people!`, she claimed. Unfortunately for her she had found the wrong leaflet.

The Chairman of the Soviet Peace Committee (Mr. Korneichuk) at one point asked for an assurance that the leaflets would no longer be distributed, despite an earlier agreement that we could put our case by any means we chose.

`The Guardian` gave the best coverage. A front-page article titled `Heresy in Moscow` by Victor Zorza (12.7.62) quoted nearly all of the text which it called `the most direct challenge to official Soviet policies and ideas to have been presented to the Soviet man in the street since freedom of speech died under Stalin`. The article referred with glee to the `blasphemy of blaming Lenin, the best refuge of the reformed Khruschevites, for ideas Stalin put into practice`.

In general the Press reports on the leafleting and on the demonstration in Red Square were remarkably sympathetic. Only Peter Simple, in the `Daily Telegraph` (13.7.62) objected to a `direct incitement to revolution in the Communist world`. He believed that `a campaign of illegal opposition to one government, on one issue, was being exploited by those who want to organise illegal opposition to all governments, on all issues. The anarchist face of the CND is beginning to show`.

This enthusiasm for the Committee’s activities in Moscow was only matched by the same newspapers’ hostility to the Committee’s activities in England. This discrepency was quickly pointed out by `The Daily Worker` (16.7.62), by Arnold Kettle in a letter to `The Guardian`(20.7.62), etc.,etc. There was however another side to this particular coin. Committee of 100 demonstrations in this country have been praised to the skies by the Soviet Press and Radio. The `The Daily Worker` had also offered encouragements, from a safe distance. But now `Pravda` (18.7.62) screamed at the `people who act like thieves`, the `smart Alecks` who discussed `offensive subjects` and `thrust provocative, slanderous, leaflets` at passers-by. And the `Daily Worker` had hysterics about the `insulting, anti-socialist diatribe` and `the distribution of such outrageous lies` by an `irresponsible group`. Readers of both papers had to contain their curiosity about the nature of the lies so violently denounced. Not a line, not a single word of the leaflet was quoted.

During the Congress the text of the leaflet was beamed into Russia in twelve different Soviet languages. Many journals of the socialist and peace movement quoted it extensively. The full text has been republished and circulated by various organisations, including an (intendedly!) private employers’ information service. It has been translated and distributed in France and circulated in Japanese by members of the Zengakuren². Copies have gone to Australia, Belgium, Bolivia, Canada, Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy and other countries. At least 3 batches have been used in different parts of Yugoslavia. In Helsinki, at the `World Youth Congress`, there was a punch-up on the distributors of the leaflets by members of the Rumanian delegation. Zengakuren representatives, including their President, Itoshi Nemoto, later demonstrated in Red Square, on August 6. Their bulletin No.3 (September ‘62) states this was `inspired by the activities of the Committee 100` and was `our first attempt to appeal to and unite with the workers and people of the USSR`. They attempted to distribute leaflets and were `beaten and dragged behind the Lenin mausoleum, and detained there for an hour`.

1`The sum total of the relations of production constitutes the economic structure of society, the real foundation on which arise legal and political superstructures`. K. Marx and F. Engels, Collected Works, vol.13, p. 6-7, Moscow 1959.

2All-Japan Federation of Autonomous Student Bodies.

Looking at an Old Lie

 

The Company Sign, by Jacobus Belsen

 

One annoying thing about historical research on Hitler and the Nazi party is, the never ending game of hot potato. This week, one Elon Musk hosted a discussion with the leader of the political party Alternative for Germany (AfD). It provided a platform for the AfD's controversial views and rhetoric, which puts the party firmly in the far right of the Bundestag. In addition to lamentations over immigrants, Musk and the leader of the AfD declared that that Hitler bloke was a Commie.

On Thursday, Elon Musk agreed with the leader of a far-right German political party that Adolf Hitler was a communist and that left-wing groups who support Palestinian causes have more in common with Nazis than with her own party.

The deeply weird and disinformation-filled conversation between Musk and Alice Weidel, the leader of Alternative for Germany (AfD), took place on X. It came after weeks of Musk’s efforts to boost the far-right party, which has deep links to neo-Nazism and has been surveilled for suspected extremism by Germany’s own intelligence services.

“The biggest success after that terrible era in our history was to label Adolf Hitler as right[-wing] and conservative, he was exactly the opposite,” Weidel said. “He wasn't a conservative, he wasn't a libertarian, he was a communist, socialist guy, and we are the opposite.”

“Right,” Musk responded.

These quotes come from Wired, who have done an excellent job of debunking this absurdity. 

This is not an isolated incident there is a vocal minority out there who hate Hitler and the Nazis, not out of disgust for his views and policies but because Hitler and the World War II Fascists have given them the mother of all PR disasters. They know they're lying and to an absurd degree, they also know many people will be appalled at such flagrant disregard for historical fact, including Hitler's own words, but this is aimed at their own base of support and the members of the public who aren't engaged and forgotten what they were taught in schools.

If you're an AfD member or voter, you know have an authority figure to appeal to when you repeat such nonsense. If enough people repeat this nonsense, eventually it will have an impact on some other people and serve to shift blame from groups like the AfD to the opposition. Is this a key plank of their propaganda? No, but it's part of it and if it's left unchecked it will take root in some soil like a weed.

Casting Hitler as a socialist is already popular amongst the US far right and Republican fringe, so it can gain traction elsewhere. 

The Wired article dissects this specific example better than I could, so check that out if you're curious. https://www.wired.com/story/elon-musk-far-right-german-leader-weidel-hitler-communist/

What I will do instead is comment on the general thrust of this tactic historically. It's a terrible argument to bury, since there really isn't anything to it beside the name. The name of course is National Socialist German Workers Party NSDAP or Nazi for short. Now aside from the name containing the word Socialist, there's nothing more to pin the label on. 

 Argument 1, It's on the Tin!

The usual rebuttal to this is to sarcastically ask if North Korea is a Democracy, since its official title in English is The Democratic People's Republic of Korea (DPRK). But we don't need to go outside Germany to find a similar corner example. At the same time the Nazis were knocking about you had the KPD which stood for Communist Party of Germany, and you also had the KAPD the Communist Worker's Party of Germany. Does that mean that the KAPD was the party for workers who were Communists and the membership of the KPD solely made up of non-working Communists? Sticking with this for a bit longer, the A in KAPD and NSDAP was the same, it stood for Arbeiter which is German for worker. If the S means they were Socialists, then the A must mean the Nazis were workers, so how do we explain the factory owners who members like the famous Oskar Schindler? 

And to take yet just one more example of the name game being deficient, we have the SPD. The SPD was the largest of the German Socialist parties, and yet the name didn't include Socialism it used Social, Socialist for the Nazis comes from Sozialistiche, but the SPD used and still uses Sozial for Sozialdemokratische Partei Deustchlands. So I guess the SPD the party which included Kautsky, Liebknecht, Luxemburg, Bebel, Engels and Marx amongst its membership wasn't socialist at all, they were the Socials. 

Let's move on in time to modern Germany, we currently have two curiously named parties in the Bundestag, the CDU and the Greens. The CDU are the Christian Democratic Union, a conservative party, based on their name we could expect them to discriminate and only allow Christians to join them but this is not the case. The name comes from when they were founded by socially Conservative groups attached to Germany's Protestant Christianity. The Greens are widely understood to be a party representing people concerned about the environment, but they aren't called the Ecology/Environment party they're called the Greens. Which should mean that they should militant colourists campaigning to pass legislation at the state and federal level to promote Green and ban other colours.

The past three paragraphs are confused nonsense because they're addressing a confused argument on its own merits and applying to other examples. The point is to demonstrate that the name or title aren't enough to prove anything.

Argument 2, they said they were for workers X speech and Y pamphlet

"German socialism is not an economic doctrine but a profound Weltanschauung [worldview] that is adhered to almost religiously, a spiritual movement which also catches hold of our thoughts and feelings and renews us, and will make better men."  Carl Riedahl 1921, published in the Völkischer Beobachter

Yeah, that's the point of political propaganda, to appeal to an audience. One important caveat though, they never actually appealed to workers for support, they always appealed exclusively to German workers, and by German workers I do not mean workers living and working in the borders of Germany, I mean the specific narrow and racially defined group of workers. Jewish, Polish, Czech minorities within Germany were not appealed to, they were often targetted within the same appeals to the "Pure" German workers. They never once abandoned their nationalist views, even rhetorically. This predates Hitler joining the party, the founder of NSDAP, back when it was just called DAP its founder Anton Drexler declared that his party was the true champion of the workers in Germany because he believed the SPD was controlled by Jewish and other foreign interests. So, from the start, the appeals to workers were rooted in a nationalist world view. Here's what Hitler thought of Drexler's work

"In his (Feder's) little book he described how his mind had thrown off the shackles of the Marxist and trades-union phraseology, and that he had come back to the nationalist ideals."

 As Jacobus Belsen pointed out at the time, Nazi propaganda was crafted for specific audiences, so it isn't strange to see Nazi party spokesman and news-sheets aimed at working class districts to play up ideas and policies that appeal more to that demographic. If you're curious, the cartoon says "for the proletarians" in the top and "for the affluent circles" with the name of the party emphasised differently for each audience. That's what you do when you want to win support. The UK's Labour Party has been doing something very similar, it talks to the Trade Unions about plans to end zero hours contracts, improve workers rights and make it easier for Trade Unions to operate, it then goes to the heads of British Trade and Industry groups and talks about its plans to stimulate growth of the economy and how it won't be increasing taxes on the rich. It's a common tactic, political parties can't build a path to power in a nation solely by appealing to one or two parts of society, they have to draw from many, often competing groups. 

So, if we can't trust what they say, how then can we know what they actually stand for? Well, by looking at what they did and do. Hitler allowed industrialists to be party members, and build alliances with them and conservative institutions and parties, e.g. the Catholic Church and the DNVP (German National People's Party). Did he do the same with the workers associations and political parties? No, in May 1933 Trade Unions were outlawed by his government, the KPD and SPD weren't banned yet but their leading members were being arrested, the bans came in July. The bans applied to all parties that weren't the Nazi party including his friends in the DNVP, but their leaders were allowed to join the Nazis and its paramilitary wing, members of the left wing parties were not allowed to join and were often arrested. 

So, we have a political party that talks to both sides while touting for votes and members, but then once in power firmly leans to the big business and conservative right once in power, and even sweeping policies that affect all of Germany make exemptions for these groups so long as they're willing to collaborate.

Experience of sharing this image has taught me I need to translate this banner, it reads "Death to Marxism" and its carriers are members of the Nazi Party SA paramilitary

Argument 3, okay he wasn't a Marxist, but he was still a lefty!

 Well I agree he wasn't a Marxist, aside from a tiny circle of fundamentalist Christians in the United States I don't think anyone would claim Hitler was a Marxist. It's easy to find passages in Mein Kampf disparaging Marx and Marxism, and also Communism and even Socialism. So, where do we go from here? If we accept the argument that the Nazis were socialists (and to be clear I do not accept that) then that would mean that the Germany of the 1920s-30s was the most socialist nation on the earth. In addition to the Nazis we also have the KPD, KAPD, SPD and other smaller groups not previously discussed, but just sticking with the KPD, SPD and NSDAP that gives us a combined population in the tens of millions all clambering for the same thing.

Well, this argument acknowledges that there are degrees of socialism, but that just raises the spectre of what actually is socialism? What is the germ or seed of socialism? Depending on the dictionary you bought, you may get a definition along the lines of state involvement in the economy, but that definition makes every political leader of a nation a socialist to a degree as they all direct some form of state/gvoernment entity, and would in the case of the Nazis make them less socialist than the Weimar Republican governments as they privatised large parts of the economy. 

A better definition involves the phrase workplaces/industry/economy operated by the workers themselves with an added descriptor of self-organisation. Some argue that this alone is not enough to make a socialist society and I agree but without something close to this as a foundation there's nothing to build from. A loose version of this definition includes the German Council movement, the early Soviets in the Russian Empire, the Wobblies strategy of "Building the new society from within the shell of the old" the collectives in Spain during the revolution and civil war etc. 

There isn't an equivalent to point to for Nazi Germany. In addition to selling stocks and stakes in previously government owned companies to wealthy individuals they also banned independent workers associations. The only legal representation a worker in Germany had (reminder, these are the "pure" German workers) was the Germand Workers Front DAF. The DAF was a Nazi party organisation whose loyalty was the the Nazi party and not the workers. A lot is made of the DAFs luxuries and gifts to German workers, package holidays, medals for productivity, credit schemes, radios etc. All these good things were run by the Nazi party and came with other changes, the restoration of piece rate work where pay was based on how much work you did per day, observation and monitoring, and the radios were set to recieve only authorised channels with unauthorised usage punished severly. 

I'm not seeing any socialism here, I certainly see nationalism, and I see paternalism, a system where the workers of Germany are brought under the benevolent tutelage of their rulers. Its certainly different to the laissez-faire style of capitalism popular in our current climate where the worker is free on their time off but also completly unsupported, but is socialism really holidays, radios and medals for achieving targets?

Of course not, we're only supposed to think of the "good" things the Nazis did once the political atmosphere has changed enough that comparisions to the goose-steppers is no longer taboo. For now we must think the Nazis are scarier because they are allegedly an example of the  Red Terrorists. So, labour camps and secret police.

Well, forced labour and powerful police forces were certainly a feature of the Nazi society. Just like they are for many societies some of which are led by declared socialists and most are not. No, this isn't whattaboutery I acknowledge and oppose the repressions of working people in all countries regardless of the colour of the flag or party name and logo. My point is that if like the "government doing stuff" repression is the defining standard of socialism than we must conclude that all nations on the planet are socialist to one degree or another, they all have institutions for coercion and control, they all used coerced labour. No, I'm not equating my employment to prevent homelessness to building the White Sea Canal or an Autobahn towards the Polish border, but that's the underlying social relationships, the workers do not have control of their own economic or social lives.

Its why the only definition of socialism that makes sense is the one I stick to above.

TL:DR

Hitler and the Nazis are socialists when the word has lost all meaning.

WOMEN ANARCHISTS HAVE BECOME THE TERROR OF WORLD'S POLICE

 

1908 New York newspaper clipping, text reads:

WOMEN ANARCHISTS HAVE BECOME THE TERROR OF WORLD'S POLICE

Their Daring Crimes Are Said to Have Outstripped the Deeds of Brothers of the Red

Search for the Woman is Becoming a Safe Rule in Crimes Proceeding From Anarchistic Violence - The Guardians of the World Nearly Always Find a Woman Implicated When a Ruler is Stricken Down - Emotional Women Lose Sense of Fear.

Letter to President Carter on Aid to Military in El Salvador, February 17, 1980

 Here is the text of the letter written by Archbishop Oscar Romero to then US President Jimmy Carter urging him to cease supporting military and police death squads in El Salvador and to reaffirm his stated commitments to human rights. A month after writing this letter, Oscar Romero was gunned down by agents of the Junta on the 24th of March 1980.

In the last few days, news has appeared in the national press that worries me greatly. According to the reports your government is studying the possibility of economic and military support and assistance to the present junta government.

Because you are a Christian and because you have shown that you want to defend human rights, I venture to set forth for you my pastoral point of view concerning this news and to make a request.

I am very worried by the news that the government of the United States is studying a form of abetting the arming of EI Salvador by sending military teams and advisors to "train three Salvadoran batallions in logistics, communications and intelligence." If this information from the newspapers is correct, the contribution of your government, instead of promoting greater justice and peace in EI Salvador, will without doubt sharpen the injustice and repression against the organizations of the people who repeatedly have been struggling to gain respect for their most fundamental human rights.

The present junta government and above all the armed forces and security forces unfortunately have not demonstrated their capacity to resolve, in political and structural practice, the grave national problems. In general they have only reverted to repressive violence, producing a total of deaths and injuries much greater than in the recent military regimes whose systematic violation of human rights was denounced by the Inter-American Committee on Human Rights.

The brutal form in which the security forces recently attacked and assassinated the occupiers of the headquarters of the Christian Democratic party in spite of what appears to be the lack of authorization for this operation from the junta government and the party is an indication that the junta and the party do not govern the country, but that political power is in the hands of the unscrupulous military who only know how to repress the people and promote the interests of the Salvadoran oligarchy.

"As archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador I have an obligation to see that faith and justice reign in my country, (so) I ask you, if you truly want to defend human rights, to prohibit the giving of this military aid to the Salvadoran government."

If it is true that last November "a group of six Americans were in EI Salvador...providing$200,000 in gasmasks and flak jackets and instructing about their use against demonstrators," you yourself should be informed that it is evident since then that the security forces, with better personal protection and efficiency, have repressed the people even more violently using lethal weapons.

For this reason, given that as a Salvadoran and as archbishop of the Archdiocese of San Salvador I have an obligation to see that faith and justice reign in my country, I ask you, if you truly want to defend human rights, to prohibit the giving of this military aid to the Salvadoran government Guarantee that your government will not intervene directly or indirectly with military, economic, diplomatic or other pressures to determine the destiny of the Salvadoran people.

In these moments we are living through a grave economic and political crisis in our country, but it is certain that it is increasingly the people who are awakening and organizing and have begun to prepare themselves to manage and be responsible for the future of EI Salvador. Only they are capable of overcoming the crisis.

It would be unjust and deplorable if the intrusion of foreign powers were to frustrate the Salvadoran people, were to repress them and block their autonomous decisions about the economic and political path that our country ought to follow. It would violate a right which we Latin American bishops meeting in Puebla publicly recognized when we said: "The legitimate self-determination of our people that permits them to organize according to their own genius and the march of their history and to cooperate in a new international order." I hope that your religious sentiments and your feelings for the defense of human rights will move you to accept my petition, avoiding by this action worse bloodshed in this suffering country.