Date: Mon, 6 Oct 1997 12:29:12 -0500 From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood-AT-panix.com> Subject: Re: M-I: Fascism and social fascism Rakesh Bhandari wrote: >"the reform programme of the social democracy, which it could not >inaugurate during the time of its own reign was put into practice by >Hitler, not the social democracy but Hitler fulfilled the long desire of >the socialists, the Anschluss of Austria, not social democracy but fascism >established the wished-for state control of industry and banking; not >social democracy but Hitler declared the first of May a legal holiday. A >careful analysis of what the socialists actually wanted to do and never >did, compared with the actual policies since 1933, will reveal to any >objective observer that Hitler realised no more than the progamme of social >democracy, but without the socialists...*And what is necessary to realise >such a program was not dared by the socialists but undertaken by the >fascists*...The life of Kautsky can teach the workers that in the struggle >against fascistic capitalism is necessarily incorporated the struggle >against bourgeois democracy, the struggle against Kautskyism. The life of >Kautsky can in all truth and without malicious intent, be summed up inte >words: from Marx to Hitler." (emhasis mine) > >Paul Mattick, "Karl Kautsky: From Marx to Hitler", 1939. Reprinted in >Anti-Bolshevik Communism. Armonk, NY: ME Sharpe Press, 1978. Now wait a minute, this is grossly overstated. Social democrats - or at least many of them - also believe in political democracy and independent unions, both of which were eradicated under Hitler. There's a big difference between state control of industry in the interests of big industrialists and stoking the war machine, and state control of industry in the interests of a more rational system of planning and a flatter distribution of income. This style of argument is reminiscent of right-wing slanders against Keynes. Doug -- Doug Henwood Left Business Observer 250 W 85 St New York NY 10024-3217 USA +1-212-874-4020 voice +1-212-874-3137 fax email: <mailto:dhenwood-AT-panix.com> web: <http://www.panix.com/~dhenwood/LBO_home.html> --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---
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