Was Pol Pot a fascist? - Page 2 - Politics Forum.org | PoFo

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#15248771
Fasces wrote:
egalitarian



The Democrats won't even say 'equality' these days -- instead it's some mealy-mouthed 'equity', which is functionally *meaningless*.


3-Dimensional Axes of Social Reality

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#15248780
ckaihatsu wrote:BS -- you're getting drawn into the pre-modernity *romantic* / cultural depiction, when in fact proletarian revolution is simply a long-overdue 'upgrade' wherein the world's working class controls social production.

You seem to have a ‘stageist’ view of revolution, @ckaihatsu - as though society naturally ‘evolves’ from one stage of development to the next, and transitions to the next stage effortlessly and without significant trauma. History does not suggest that this is the case, to put it mildly. Even the transition to modernity - a transition within the capitalist system, be it noted - produced massive social and political dislocations and massive human and national traumas. It was Germany’s failure to made that transition from an essentially agrarian and rural society to an essentially industrial and urban society which led to two World Wars and the catastrophic rise (and equally catastrophic collapse) of Nazism. Russia’s failure to make that same transition led to revolution, civil war, and the rise of Bolshevism.

Every society, at every stage of development, is pregnant with catastrophe. This is both a curse and a blessing. It is a curse in terms of the human suffering and cultural vandalism it causes, but also a blessing, since it makes radical political and social change possible. No political dispensation can last for long, especially not conservative dispensations. Intelligent conservatives recognise this, of course. As Lampedusa put it, “If we want things to stay the same, then things must change.”

In fewer words, the shit's *there*, it's *been* there, and the workers should be the ones to decide on how it's used since they're *there*, in the workplace.

“Let us seize power, and see what happens.” - V.I. Lenin

You're acting like everyone's been ethically / morally *adrift* and confused since the advent of urbanization.

Are you trying to tell me that’s not the case? :eh:
#15248782
Agent Steel wrote:So, recently I've been getting into some discussions with a gentleman on a different forum about the meaning of fascism. He is a marxist who describes fascism as a uniquely "right-wing phenomenon". I'm not sure if I agree. I could be mistaken, but I think that left wingers can be fascists too. And when it comes to a marxist like Pol Pot, he tried to create a mythological idea that agrarian societies from the past were superior to intellectual societies of today, and his goal was to take his country back to the way things used to be. When you combine his philosophy with his role as a totalitarian dictator, doesn't that make him a fascist?


Reactionary national socialism? Maybe. He was also a Marxist-Leninist.
By Rich
#15248819
Fasces wrote:Sure - female suffrage for regional and local elections but not national elections.

Women did not receive full equal suffrage to men until 1945 in Italy. In any case, it doesn't make fascism egalitarian.

Women didn't get full equal suffrage to men until 1945 in France either, did that make France fascist? In Switzerland it was 1973, does that make Switzerland ultra fascist? Mussolini and his fascists were progressive when it came to women's liberation. They just favoured steady evolutionary change, not revolutionary virtue signalling. They took the approach of a Hilary Clinton or an Obama,their views evolving so as not to get too far ahead of the mass of public opinion.

If anyone doubted the progressive nature of the fascist tradition within Italy on the question of women, it is wonderful to see that Italy has elected its first woman Prime Minister. I have to say this thread has really opened my eyes as to how much the libs and the Marxists have been gas lighting us over the nature of fascism.
#15248822
Are you really arguing that fascist ideology is egalitarian and had the objective of creating an egalitarian society?

Marinetti, Co-Author of the Fascist Manifesto wrote:We want to glorify war - the only cure for the world - militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of the anarchists, the beautiful ideas which kill, and contempt for woman.
#15248832
Potemkin wrote:
You seem to have a ‘stageist’ view of revolution, @ckaihatsu - as though society naturally ‘evolves’ from one stage of development to the next, and transitions to the next stage effortlessly and without significant trauma. History does not suggest that this is the case, to put it mildly. Even the transition to modernity - a transition within the capitalist system, be it noted - produced massive social and political dislocations and massive human and national traumas.



You're letting the culprits off the hook, Potemkin, because you seem to have adopted Jared Diamond's 'stuff just happens' approach to history, unfortunately.

*Who's* stopping the development from one stage to the next -- from a new technical breakthrough, perhaps.



Chapter 4

Revolt in the colonial world

At the beginning of the 20th century a handful of ruling classes dominated the world. The broad current of human history flowed through a narrow channel shaped by a few European countries. The war itself was the supreme expression of this—a world war resulting, essentially, from the imperial ambitions of the rulers of Britain, Germany and France.

But by the end of the war waves of revolt were sweeping through the colonial world and threatening these rulers’ dominance: an armed rising in Dublin in 1916 was followed in 1918-21 by guerrilla war throughout Ireland; there was an upsurge of demonstrations and strikes against British rule in India; a near revolution against the British occupation of Egypt; and nationalist agitation in China which began with student protests in 1919 and culminated in civil war in 1926-27. Resistance to Western domination predated the war. The colonisation of Africa had only been possible through a succession of bitterly fought wars; British rule in India had been shaken by the great revolt of 1857; and a wave of attacks on Western interests and practices, known in the West as the ‘Boxer Rebellion’, had swept China at the turn of the century.

However, such resistance characteristically involved attempts to reinstitute the sort of societies which had succumbed to foreign conquest in the first place.


Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 449



---


Potemkin wrote:
It was Germany’s failure to made that transition from an essentially agrarian and rural society to an essentially industrial and urban society which led to two World Wars



Bullshit:



Germany began to undergo its own industrial revolution. Industry grew at a rate of around 4.8 percent a year; the railways by 14 percent. Investment in the 30 years after 1850 was four times the level of the 30 years before. Coal production rose fourfold in Prussia in 25 years, raw iron output multiplied 14-fold, steel output rose 54-fold. The number of steam powered machines rose by about 1,800 percent. Alfred Krupp had employed a mere 60 workers in 1836; by 1873 he employed 16,000. Although Germany’s industrialisation took off 60 years after Britain’s, it was soon catching up.100 The Ruhr’s collieries were larger and more intensive than those of south Wales; the German chemical industry developed synthetic dyes long before Britain’s.



Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 342



The process of urbanisation accelerated. In the 1880s more than a third of London’s population were newcomers to the city.1 By 1900 three quarters of Britain’s population lived in towns or cities and only about one in ten worked on the land.2 Britain was the extreme example. In Germany a third of the population still worked on the land, and many industrial workers lived in small towns or industrial villages rather than cities at the beginning of the century.



Harman, _People's History of the World_, p. 380



---


Potemkin wrote:
and the catastrophic rise (and equally catastrophic collapse) of Nazism. Russia’s failure to make that same transition led to revolution, civil war, and the rise of Bolshevism.



You're sounding more like the right-wingers in that you're *blaming the victim*.

The Bolsheviks didn't 'fail' -- there were *international invasions*:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Allied_in ... _Civil_War


Potemkin wrote:
Every society, at every stage of development, is pregnant with catastrophe. This is both a curse and a blessing. It is a curse in terms of the human suffering and cultural vandalism it causes, but also a blessing, since it makes radical political and social change possible. No political dispensation can last for long, especially not conservative dispensations. Intelligent conservatives recognise this, of course. As Lampedusa put it, “If we want things to stay the same, then things must change.”


“Let us seize power, and see what happens.” - V.I. Lenin



---


ckaihatsu wrote:
You're acting like everyone's been ethically / morally *adrift* and confused since the advent of urbanization.



Potemkin wrote:
Are you trying to tell me that’s not the case? :eh:



No, I don't think the regular person-in-the-street is stark-raving-mad -- *civil society* is the domain here.
#15248838
Rich wrote:No explanation is needed. Being left wing or right wing is not about some unchanging set of policies, its just where you are on the left right polarity spectrum. This spectrum constantly reproduces itself in different times and countries, but it is clearly recognisable. We get the same whining from both the left and the right.


See, this claim right at the start is where the main issue with the post is, to me. We are supposed to believe in a cold hard analytic reality where there are these immutable social categories of 'left' and 'right'. Indeed, we must believe in such a reality, for without these categories, how would we be able to pretend that Anglo-American liberal democratic hegemony has transcended politics? To posture as the Westerner which has reached a state of supreme enlightenment, in which these apparently transhistorical states of being have suddenly been rendered primitive?

It's all well and good to complain about 'leftists' and 'rightists', @Rich, but are you really the only kind of person who shouldn't be boxed into these categories? What are they? Were there leftist Sumerians and rightist Sumerians? If so, it seems strange to me that all of your historical examples are from the 20th Century.

Rich wrote:The Khmer Rouge the nick name given to the Communist Party of Kampuchea were part of the international Communist movement and were supported by the Soviet Union, the Chinese Communist Party and the Vietnamese Communist Party prior to them all falling out. The Communist Party of Kampuchea, prior to the civil war operated amongst the wider left and workers movement, the same as any Communist Party.


Yes, though the Khmer Rouge does seem like something of a cherry-picked instance of 'communist fascism' or whatever, given that you've already acknowledged that all the classical fascist movements were not on the side of socialism or communism. For the sake of argument, let us assume that each of the states of the 20th Century which were ran by communist parties were indeed communist. While the Khmer Rouge identified as communist, we must take into account that the Soviet, Chinese and Vietnamese governments also identified as such.

Four years after Democratic Kampuchea was established, Soviet-backed Vietnam literally invaded and occupied it. The United States (which had also orchestrated the bombings that allowed the Khmer Rouge to take power) opposed this occupation. Now, what can we take away from these events? If the Khmer Rouge was communist, then I suppose we might say that the US was upholding true communist thought and the Soviet Union were capitalist sellouts. Or, perhaps, if we were being a little more honest with ourselves, we might conclude that geopolitical actions of a state do not neatly correspond to the ideological positions expounded by its government.

Rich wrote:To understand why Fascism is not a proper narrowly defined social phenomena, we first need to understand Marxism. And what you need to understand about Marxism is that its all about dictatorship. All the endless theory, all the endless fantasising about workers control, workers power and a future stateless society is all directed towards one end and one end only, the creation of a totalitarian dictatorship.

And once you board the dictatorship train you have no idea where its going to end up, particularly a totalitarian dictatorship where huge power is concentrated in one man. So the Russian Communist Dictatorship led to the gray colourless bureaucracy of the late Soviet Union, but a dictatorship whose doctrinal ideals were not that far from the original Bolsheviks. China's led to National Socialism with freer markets than under Hitler. North Korea led to a sort of modern priest-king Pharaoh state and the Khmer Rouge led to an Agrarian slave state and the path of total national destruction.

When you board the dictatorship train, the colour of the flag they're flying, red, black, green, whatever is no guarantee of your destination. Right can become left and left can become right. Because in the ideal absolute dictatorship, which can never be completely actualised, there would no longer be any internal left and right, and left and right could only be measured in relation to external societies.


Yes, but entirely unlike those confounded conformist authoritarians, you have the one correct ideological position which is not on the dictatorship train. I suppose.
#15248891
Germany began to undergo its own industrial revolution. Industry grew at a rate of around 4.8 percent a year; the railways by 14 percent. Investment in the 30 years after 1850 was four times the level of the 30 years before. Coal production rose fourfold in Prussia in 25 years, raw iron output multiplied 14-fold, steel output rose 54-fold. The number of steam powered machines rose by about 1,800 percent. Alfred Krupp had employed a mere 60 workers in 1836; by 1873 he employed 16,000. Although Germany’s industrialisation took off 60 years after Britain’s, it was soon catching up.100 The Ruhr’s collieries were larger and more intensive than those of south Wales; the German chemical industry developed synthetic dyes long before Britain’s.

You can build all the factories you want, you can build as many steel mills as you want, but that does not, in and of itself, make you part of Modernity. The Nazis - for all their pro-industrial and pro-urban choices in deed - were the most bitter opponents of Modernity and urbanisation in word. Their anti-semitism was based on this - the Jew represented the urban, 'foreign' element in German society, not rooted in the soil of the nation, rootless cosmopolitans. The fact that the Nazis felt the need to be deeply anti-semitic, and the fact that the German people responded well to this anti-semitism, strongly suggests that German society had not successfully made the transition to Modernity. Nazism was the symptom of that failure.
#15248895
Potemkin wrote:
You can build all the factories you want, you can build as many steel mills as you want, but that does not, in and of itself, make you part of Modernity. The Nazis - for all their pro-industrial and pro-urban choices in deed - were the most bitter opponents of Modernity and urbanisation in word. Their anti-semitism was based on this - the Jew represented the urban, 'foreign' element in German society, not rooted in the soil of the nation, rootless cosmopolitans. The fact that the Nazis felt the need to be deeply anti-semitic, and the fact that the German people responded well to this anti-semitism, strongly suggests that German society had not successfully made the transition to Modernity. Nazism was the symptom of that failure.



What about the *Allied* side of things -- once we include a basic critique of Western imperialism, plus nascent German imperialism, that about wraps up the bunch, with Japan later.

Here's this again:



Chapter 4

Revolt in the colonial world

At the beginning of the 20th century a handful of ruling classes dominated the world. The broad current of human history flowed through a narrow channel shaped by a few European countries. The war itself was the supreme expression of this—a world war resulting, essentially, from the imperial ambitions of the rulers of Britain, Germany and France.



---


In terms of *ideology* I don't think the U.S. really *disagreed* with German imperialism -- it was more like a good-hearted *rivalry*, from the material I've casually looked at.

And there's this:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Auschwitz_bombing_debate
By Rich
#15248996
Potemkin wrote:The Nazis - for all their pro-industrial and pro-urban choices in deed - were the most bitter opponents of Modernity and urbanisation in word. Their anti-semitism was based on this - the Jew represented the urban, 'foreign' element in German society, not rooted in the soil of the nation, rootless cosmopolitans. The fact that the Nazis felt the need to be deeply anti-semitic, and the fact that the German people responded well to this anti-semitism, strongly suggests that German society had not successfully made the transition to Modernity. Nazism was the symptom of that failure.

Did they? Were the Germans more open to anti Jewish ideology than the French, British, Americans, Poles, etc prior to 1914? I would suggest there is a strong case to be made that it was events that created the extreme anti Jewish hatred in German not a pre existing propensity with in the German people.

In 1917 we had two major events in this regard, the Balfour declaration and the formation of the Bolshevik friendly USPD. Now I'm not saying it was right for people to react this way, but it was inevitable. The Balfour declaration, effectively credited international Jewry with bringing the US into the war. That meant that when Germany lost it had effectively credited international Jewry for winning the war for the allies. Note it doesn't really matter what the actual truth of the matter was. The US may well have entered the war on the allied side regardless of the wishes of American Zionists. What matters is the perception.

There were other profoundly radicalising events that the British, the French and the Americans didn't experience such as the Bavarian Soviet Republic. But of particular note is the hyper inflation. Please note again I'm not saying it was right for people to respond with racist prejudice, but it was inevitable that they would. The association of Jews with Banking and finance was not a particularly German thing. We even see it in Tolstoy for example. We even see it with Marx, C-M-C vs M-C-M. Marx clearly associates the Jews with the latter with the Capatalist. J.A Hobson who invented the Marxist theory of Imperialism (although not a Marxist himself) clearly conflated Imperialism, finance capital and the Jews.

When I look at how far more modern and supposedly far more liberal Americans have responded to far, far less impactful and far less traumatic events, the response of Germans between 1914 and 1945 doesn't seem particularly surprising.

Now this is an open question and I'm not an expert on Hitler's life, but do we even have any hard evidence for Adolph Hitler hating the Jews prior to 1917?
#15249253
Potemkin wrote:
You can build all the factories you want, you can build as many steel mills as you want, but that does not, in and of itself, make you part of Modernity. The Nazis - for all their pro-industrial and pro-urban choices in deed - were the most bitter opponents of Modernity and urbanisation in word. Their anti-semitism was based on this - the Jew represented the urban, 'foreign' element in German society, not rooted in the soil of the nation, rootless cosmopolitans. The fact that the Nazis felt the need to be deeply anti-semitic, and the fact that the German people responded well to this anti-semitism, strongly suggests that German society had not successfully made the transition to Modernity. Nazism was the symptom of that failure.



Again, I think we can chalk this up to 20th century nationalist imperialism -- *geopolitics* -- including genocidal Nazi fascism, rather than this right-populist cultural thesis of yours.



Arms race

After 1871, the creation of a unified Reich, supported by French indemnity payments and the annexation of Alsace-Lorraine, led to a huge increase in German industrial strength. Backed by Wilhelm II, Admiral Alfred von Tirpitz sought to exploit this to build a Kaiserliche Marine, or Imperial German Navy, able to compete with the British Royal Navy for world naval supremacy.[23] He was greatly influenced by US naval strategist Alfred Thayer Mahan, who argued possession of a blue-water navy was vital for global power projection; Tirpitz had his books translated into German, while Wilhelm made them required reading for his advisors and senior military personnel.[24]

However, it was also an emotional decision, driven by Wilhelm's simultaneous admiration for the Royal Navy and desire to outdo it. Bismarck calculated Britain would not interfere in Europe so long as its maritime supremacy remained secure but his dismissal in 1890 led to a change in policy and an Anglo-German naval arms race.[25] Despite the vast sums spent by Tirpitz, the launch of HMS Dreadnought in 1906 gave the British a technological advantage over their German rival which they never lost.[23] Ultimately, the race diverted huge resources to creating a German navy large enough to antagonise Britain, but not defeat it; in 1911, Chancellor Theobald von Bethmann Hollweg acknowledged defeat, leading to the Rüstungswende or 'armaments turning point', when he switched expenditure from the navy to the army.[26]

This was driven by concern over Russia's recovery from defeat in the 1905 Russo-Japanese War and the subsequent revolution. Economic reforms backed by French funding led to a significant post-1908 expansion of railways and infrastructure, particularly in its western border regions.[27] Germany and Austria-Hungary relied on faster mobilisation to compensate for fewer numbers and it was the potential threat posed by the closing of this gap that led to the end of the naval race, rather than a reduction in tensions. When Germany expanded its standing army by 170,000 troops in 1913, France extended compulsory military service from two to three years; similar measures taken by the Balkan powers and Italy, which led to increased expenditure by the Ottomans and Austria-Hungary. Absolute figures are hard to calculate due to differences in categorising expenditure, since they often omit civilian infrastructure projects with a military use, such as railways. However, from 1908 to 1913, defence spending by the six major European powers increased by over 50% in real terms.[28]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I#Arms_race



---


And:


https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scientific_Revolution
By late
#15249258
ckaihatsu wrote:
You're letting the culprits off the hook, Potemkin, because you seem to have adopted Jared Diamond's 'stuff just happens' approach to history, unfortunately.



I've read the book..

Not what he says...
#15249263
late wrote:
I've read the book..

Not what he says...



'Academic porn' (grin):



Criticism

The anthropologist Jason Antrosio described Guns, Germs, and Steel as a form of "academic porn", writing, "Diamond's account makes all the factors of European domination a product of a distant and accidental history" and "has almost no role for human agency—the ability people have to make decisions and influence outcomes. Europeans become inadvertent, accidental conquerors. Natives succumb passively to their fate." He added, "Jared Diamond has done a huge disservice to the telling of human history. He has tremendously distorted the role of domestication and agriculture in that history. Unfortunately his story-telling abilities are so compelling that he has seduced a generation of college-educated readers."[22]



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Guns,_Ger ... #Criticism
#15249264
ckaihatsu wrote:'Academic porn' (grin):

Maybe, but have you actually read it rather than just read about it?
#15249268
ckaihatsu wrote:More to the point (I'd say) is are you *defending* it -- ?

I wasn't aware that Jared Diamond's book needed defending. I'm sure he's doing very nicely thank you, due to all the royalties he receives. Lol.

So, you clearly haven't read it then. Have you got around to reading Das Kapital yet? And I don't mean the potted version of it in Chris Harman's A People's History of the World.
#15249271
Potemkin wrote:
I wasn't aware that Jared Diamond's book needed defending. I'm sure he's doing very nicely thank you, due to all the royalties he receives. Lol.

So, you clearly haven't read it then. Have you got around to reading Das Kapital yet? And I don't mean the potted version of it in Chris Harman's A People's History of the World.



Hey, PTKN, I *crave* the limelight, so have-at-it.

Instead of pretending to be the dean of students why don't you just deal with 20th century geopolitics -- ?

Then we can all go apple-picking, or whatever.
By late
#15249273
ckaihatsu wrote:
Hey, PTKN, I *crave* the limelight, so have-at-it.

Instead of pretending to be the dean of students why don't you just deal with 20th century geopolitics -- ?

Then we can all go apple-picking, or whatever.



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