-Caveat Lector-
from "THE BATTLE FOR AMERICA'S SOUL" by Balint Vazsonyi
THE UNLIKELY TWINS
For a long time, notwithstanding the Hitler-Stalin pact of
1939, I accepted the conventional wisdom that Communism and
Nazism were opposites -- one on the extreme left, the other on
the extreme right. Proof could be found in the relentless
persecution of each in the realm of the other. Attention under
both regimes was successfully focused on the differences, a
requirement of conditioning the population for war -- hot, cold
or permanent. The world at large became involved in their
hostilities during the Spanish Civil War of 1936. Since
recruitment in America was carried out solely by the Communist
Party (CPUSA) under the direction of COMINTERN, Americans found
themselves invariably on the side opposite Franco and,
consequently, the "Abraham Lincoln Battalion" merged with the
Communists of the International Brigades.
This was the time when Americans succumbed to the myth that
Communists and Fascists ("Nazi" and "Fascist" will be discussed
below) are each other's enemies to the end, and the roster of
distinguished personalities who made up the "North American
Committee to Aid Spanish Democracy" --unaware of being skillfully
manipulated-- left no doubt that Communists were 'on the side of
righteousness'.
Rather than enemies, Nazism and Communism were the ultimate
COMPETITORS.
Each wanted to conquer and rule -- both over the physical
world, as did the Roman Empire, AND over the minds of people, as
did the Church of Rome or Islam.
The reason: In the 20th century, conquest of the physical
world proved no longer feasible using conventional armed forces.
Total war required participation by the entire citizenry, while
the potential ability of civilians to resist government required
their neutralization.
Thus, methods were developed and implemented for the control
of behavior. These took many forms, not all of them obvious or
even unpleasant, when dispensed in small doses. Yet they struck
at the heart of human relations; they also severed the link
between cause and effect, so essential in developing an
individual's viability. Analysis of these methods as observed
under Nazism and Communism leads one to the recognition of
similarities which, as indicated, prove far more significant than
differences.
We need to remind ourselves of key words which have, in
common usage, taken on different connotations: Fascism, Nazism,
Communism. Webster defines FASCISM and NAZISM in almost identical
terms: "a centralized autocratic severely national regime";
"regimentation of industry, commerce and finance"; "rigid
censorship, forcible suppression of opposition". The definition
of COMMUNISM begins with "common ownership of assets". The
subheading BOLSHEVISM, however, resembles the wording applied to
Fascism and Nazism.
Webster comes remarkably close, but no fully-satisfactory
definitions exist. We call German terrorists and bureaucrats
under Hitler "Nazis" because a cartoon made fun of the National
Socialist German Workers' Party and the joke stuck. These days,
the label "Fascist" is applied to persons disagreeing with any
aspect of the so-called Liberal agenda, yet the term originally
identified members of the Italian political organization, so
designated by Mussolini in order to establish a link with the
Roman Empire. Although the word "communism" made many appearances
before the advent of revolutionary Marxism, for our purposes
Marx and Lenin defined it as the final outcome of a three-stage
process: "Dictatorship of the Proletariat," leading to
"Socialism" (in which distribution of the national product is
based on individual performance), leading to "Communism" (in
which distribution of the national product is based on individual
need). Of course, anyone who lived through it knows that, of all
this pseudo-scholarly nonsense, the word "dictatorship"
represented the only, grim, reality.
Initially I tried to distinguish between "National
Socialism" (the German and Italian varieties) and "International
Socialism" (the Russian model), accepting the difference in
agendas as stated by the parties themselves. Reality again gives
rhetoric the lie. Albeit without the Nuremberg Laws or prescribed
physical characteristics, "The Soviet Man" was made the object of
enforced worship just the same as was the Aryan hero -- nothing
international about that. Not even in the approach to the
fundamental Marxian issue of ownership can we observe a
substantial difference: The "Program of the National Socialist
German Workers' Party" demands "the nationalization of all
business enterprises that have been organized into corporations".
Perhaps enough time has passed to permit examination in
realistic terms of these approaches to social organization,
concentrating on essential characteristics and demonstrated
aspirations as opposed to cliches. Decades of observation, as
well as ceaseless consideration given to the core issues, compel
me to look upon these seemingly opposite systems as mirror
images, aspiring to a similar OUTCOME, applying identical
METHODS, achieving comparable SUBJUGATION OF PEOPLE under their
control, spreading the same HOPELESSNESS in their paths. While
such conclusions have certainly been reached by others, it may be
less obvious that Fascism (Nazism) and Communism (Bolshevism) all
share their PHILOSOPHICAL FOUNDATIONS as well.
Outcome
The agenda underlying all operations calls for unlimited
discretionary powers to be concentrated in the hands of a small,
self-perpetuating group in which membership is by invitation
only. Members of the group typically fall into two categories:
One of these purports to know what is best for all people; the
other simply wants unchecked power. The synergy is perfect:
Ideologues need terrorists to retain physical control; terrorists
need ideologues to supply intermittent explanations for the rule
they maintain. It is only natural that the objectives include an
effort to expand the number of those over whom power is exerted.
Given the ultimate objective of concentrating all power in
the hands of a single group, competing formations calling
themselves "Fascist", "Nazi", "Communist", "Bolshevik", or
"Maoist" must fight it out until only one of them remains
operative, hence the insistence on being 'different'.
Methods
As well as control of the military and the police,
successful exercise of power requires control of key institutions
which replace or supplement brute force. The checklist includes
news sources --especially of the visual variety--, education, the
judiciary, labor organizations, arts and entertainment, as well
as a parental relationship between government and the governed.
Required, also, is the attribution of divine properties to a
Hitler, a Lenin, or a Stalin. This has more to do with the need
for infallibility at the top than with a particular person. The
leader replaces the object of religious worship, just as holiday
celebrations of a political nature replace religious ones. While
on the subject of replacement, one might recall the renaming of
streets, towns, institutions. The double purpose: to do away with
reminders of the past --thus discontinuing history-- and to
provide constant reminders of the present.
The practice of discontinuing history is indispensable. In
the first place, successive generations must be prevented from
drawing possible parallels between past and present. It also
rationalizes revision of the entire academic curriculum, so that
no subject would 'accidentally' provide accurate information
about history. This leads to the reorientation of the entire
educational system. While adults need the threat of punishment in
order to 'forget' what they had learned, information can simply
be withheld from young people and/or manipulated before it
reaches them. Sciences are exact and only useful as such, but the
humanities proved to be a propaganda minister's/commissar's dream
of a tool. Literature, the arts, sociology and, above all,
history provide unlimited opportunities for the omission of
selected facts, for the inclusion of trivial or fictitious names
and events, for attaching politically motivated interpretations,
and to change any of the aforementioned at will.
The framework was provided by creating youth organizations,
identical in nature, in which membership was compulsory -- except
when exclusion was chosen as an instrument of humiliation. These
organizations (Hitler Youth, Komsomol, Pioneers) put people in
uniform at a young age, ensured their early allegiance to the
leader, and placed them under the command of a party appointee
whose prerogative superseded that of both the parental home and
the school. Finally, traditional faculties were subordinated to
operatives of the party organization whose 'higher education'
often consisted of six weeks at a party school.
The corruption of education was matched by the corruption of
the legal system. In the first instance, this required judges who
would subordinate both their natural and learned sense of justice
to what happened to be "the higher interest of the community" on
a given day. Their marching orders were obtained from Hans
Frank, President of the Academy of German Law and of the National
Bar Association in the Third Reich: "The basis for interpreting
all legal sources is the National Socialist Philosophy,
especially as expressed in the party program..."
Thus was born the activist judge who wore the robe as no
less a uniform than the black shirt or the red shirt. For sure,
some of them could point to recent laws which they were merely
implementing. Precisely for this reason, one cannot overestimate
the key role of laws enacted so as to elicit politically, rather
than morally and ethically, desirable behavior.
Controlling the behavior of the adult population required
the most sophisticated approach, if outright terror was to be
relaxed to any extent. Although Lenin and Stalin pointed the way
and Mao Tse-Tung achieved the ultimate by making one billion
people wear the same clothes, it was the Germans --ever the
theorists-- who supplied the terminology for the first
ingredient. They called it "Gleichschaltung", which verbatim
means "switching to being the same". The device called for total
alignment with the goals of Nazi policies and placed everyone
on the same level, made everyone a cog in the giant wheel of the
State.
"Gleichschaltung" operated at once on structural and
cultural levels. Structurally, the first victim was federalism:
within days of Hitler's accession, the states had to cede
authority to the central government. Next, the leadership and
membership of every kind of organization had to become
politically and racially correct. With the task of implementing
structural changes assigned to a variety of agencies, as early as
March 1933, a separate Cabinet Department was created for Josef
Goebbels to oversee every aspect of the cultural scene, making
certain that IT was politically correct. Specific terms aside,
the reality of all these regimes is the great flattening which is
in full progress from day one. Since it is not possible to
raise anyone's natural level by FIAT, the alternative is to force
everyone down.
It is astonishing and frightening how little time it took
both in Russia and in Germany to accomplish this task. Indeed, it
should be noted that demolishing what centuries had built does
not require even a single generation.
The next ingredient had to do with groups. While it may
appear contradictory to identify groups in a society having just
experienced "Gleichschaltung," contradictions do not represent
obstacles in a totalitarian structure. The identity of groups was
as necessary as the levelling had been in order to maintain
positive and negative imaging.
"This constant dichotomy of egalitarianism and group hatred
provided a manipulative tool as simple as it was ingenious.
Hitler used race and nationality, Lenin and Stalin mostly class
-- the outcome was the same."
Resistance based on conscience was neutralized by choosing
the loftiest of slogans from the past as cover for government
(party) policies, thereby making anyone who would oppose them the
object of ridicule. Surely no one but a moron would reject the
notion of "Liberty", "Equality", "Social Justice", or "Peace", or
attempt to argue against "National Unity", or "International
Brotherhood". When necessary, people were publicly shamed into
agreement by having their positions twisted until they appeared
to fly in the face of 'Social Justice'. The practice of
self-criticism was enforced to increase the subjects'
'sensitivity' and awareness of their shortcomings, resulting in
'improved attitudes'. Once humiliated and cleansed, membership
in "the master race" (if they were German), or being "the model
for all humanity" (if they were Russian) awaited them.
On the subject of words, it is essential to comprehend the
position of importance language occupies in the totalitarian
state. Words, of course, reflect upon and determine attitudes in
every society. (It is no coincidence, for example, that the
English word "fair" has no equivalent in any other language.
Fairness is an English concept and, in order to refer to it, the
original English word is borrowed by every other language.)
Totalitarian states depend on demagoguery which requires that
formerly innocent words be given a tendentious political charge.
Nazism and Bolshevism actually created their own glossaries of
terms, many of them coincidental, prescribing with menacing
precision which words were and were not be used, until people
learned that the safest avenue was to remain silent. It was thus
unnecessary to outlaw freedom of speech; the VOCABULARY was
controlled.
Subjugation
It is commonly known that the Gestapo was a state within the
State, as was the Cheka/GPU/NKVD/KGB establishment. Their
responsibility was not merely control but the maintenance of a
permanent state of fear. Yet internal security organs, however
large, could not by themselves see to that. Therefore, in one
sense or another everyone was recruited to be an agent of fear.
In Nazi Germany, as in Soviet Russia, children were encouraged to
inform on their parents, neighbors on each other. Very soon it
became a matter of reporting someone before someone reported
you. It was possible to be reported for virtually anything, so
that people grew fearful of doing or saying everyday, ordinary
things. One could never be sure about somebody "putting a spin"
on the most innocent act or remark.
The dissolution of the family, already well under way as a
result of the youth organizations and the reliance on children to
monitor their (often less "progressive", even "reactionary")
parents, was further accelerated by encouraging the production of
infants away from the traditional structure. In Germany this was
practiced through the selection of healthy women to be
impregnated by pedigreed Aryan, usually SS, soldiers. In Soviet
territories glory was conferred upon girls giving birth outside
of wedlock. The delineation of duties was best summed up by
Makarenko, the leading Soviet expert on education, writing to
parents about the way they ought to bring up their (own)
children:
"It is not at all a matter of indifference to society what
kind of people they will be. In handing over to you a certain
measure of social authority, the Soviet state demands from you
correct upbringing of future citizens."
Enemies
A particularly important place was occupied by those
considered to be enemies of the regime. Whereas democracies
associate enemies with physical attack or the threat thereof,
Nazism and Communism require the existence of enemies, internal
and external, at all times. The array of internal enemies would
suggest a certain difference between our subjects: Jews under the
Nazis, "Class Enemies" under the Bolsheviks. It is worth noting,
however, that the Russians had anti-Jewish pogroms long before
Hitler and that, later, significant numbers of Jews were exiled
or killed as "exploiters". As for class, the aristocracy was
looked upon just as much an enemy by the Nazis who were, after
all, socialists. When it comes to the Poles, it would be
difficult to ascertain which regime incited more hatred toward
them. (Prussia and Russia had for centuries claimed Poland under
their respective sovereignty.) The Church was regarded as an
enemy by both for the obvious reason that it, too, required
allegiance and obedience — an attitude reserved exclusively for
The Party. "National Socialist and Christian concepts are
irreconcilable", so Martin Bormann begins the Third Reich's
definitive statement on the subject.
While closer inspection thus points to similarities among
internal enemies, it is in the realm of Nazism's and Bolshevism's
external enemies that examination proves the most revealing. In
fact, recognition of this aspect first alerted me to their common
practices, soon leading to the identification of their common
root. At the risk of sounding simplistic, experience confirms
that the primary enemy in the eyes of both Nazis and Communists
is the English-speaking world in all its manifestations.
In my native Hungary, where Soviet occupation followed Nazi
occupation, typically the same henchmen jailed the same persons
for the same offense: listening to an English-language broadcast
— whether in 1944 or in 1952. The reasons are obvious: To all
those who would take over the world, Great Britain and the United
States have been the main impediment. Philip II of Spain and
Napoleon had known that already; Hitler and Stalin had to learn
it anew. Neither German technological genius nor Soviet numerical
advantage was sufficient to carry the day against Anglo-American
resolve, because it was backed by principles, attitudes and
traditions which had brought forth stable, productive,
peacefully-evolving societies. And since language is the carrier
of ideas, English words were perceived to be as menacing as
Spitfires or nuclear submarines. The power of seminally English
phrases like "My home is my castle" or "Innocent until proven
guilty" is awesome.
Hopelessness in the Upside-Down Society
The prohibition of all political activity outside the single
ruling party is only a beginning. Next, the internal enemies are
identified and 'locked' into their classifications. Just as Nazi
ideology held that "a Jew cannot step outside his race", so
Bolsheviks maintained that "a shopkeeper cannot transcend his
class". Such pronouncements serve to eliminate even lateral
mobility for some. Upward mobility for all is then arrested by
what I have come to view as the 'upside-down society'.
Typically, those who capture positions of power --the term
"rise to the top" would be a misnomer-- had failed in their
original careers. Once in control, they surround themselves with
multiple layers of party-loyalist non-achievers, recruited from
the bottom of every profession.
This new ruling class, not unlike a concrete lid, inhibits
everyone else (everyone, that is, who has not fled the country)
from rising. While Nazi Germany did not remain in existence long
enough to slide into irreversible peace-time decline, the history
of the Soviet Union and her satellites provides ample proof of
the atrophy which sets in as a result. With the elimination of
mobility in any direction, first it is incentive, soon it is hope
which disappears altogether. The ultimate irony, of course, is
that the regimes in question deride the absence of incentives in
previous societies and hold out hope eternal for future
gratification. Alas, people sign on to the premise, assisting
diligently in their own demise until it becomes too late to
forestall.
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