Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by lm28469 | Hacker News Reader

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None of these are "communism"... people who don't know better use it as a "china bad" gotcha because it's about as far as their political education allows them to think but it really is way more complex than that.

> Authoritarian. Totalitarian.

Yes these apply, but they're not synonyms of communism. The Iranian government is authoritarian, totalitarian and absolutely not communist

> Red fascism is an OLD term.

But surely you see how dumb this sounds? Fascism is by definition a far right moment, communism is by definition far left moment. By definition fascism is opposed to communism... Of course if we start using literal American propagandists buzzwords ("red fascism") as a basis for modern political discussions we're not going to get anywhere...

I'm not sure left vs right is that useful a distinction. Both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany called themselves socialist, and both claimed to be doing what was best for their people.

>Both the Soviet Union and Nazi Germany called themselves socialist, and both claimed to be doing what was best for their people.

The Nazis weren't socialist. They appropriated the term as a propaganda tactic, a means of appealing to the masses. North Korea calls itself a democratic republic, but is obviously neither. One can't simply assume political labels to be correct. In terms of their actual policies and beliefs, the Nazis were vehemently anti-socialist.

https://www.britannica.com/story/were-the-nazis-socialists

One could argue fascism is a subset of populism.

Germany and Italy practiced Corporatism in that era.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporatism

This was their economic "Holy Bible"...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Labour_Charter_of_1927

If you really want a rabbit hole, compare the Labor Charter of 1927 to Project 2025 while assuming the free market rhetoric in the later is deliberate misdirection.

The addition of "socialist" to the Nazi party's name was done in the early 1920s to appeal to socialist-leaning people. Hitler was against the change but was overruled by the rest of the party's leadership.

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