[erimir]

Originally Posted by fragment

I don't want to get into the argument at hand, but I find the history being discussed interesting. So:

The KDP had been violently suppressed and had leaders murdered by an SDP-led Government just 15 years before. While the Nazis were clearly dangerous for the KDP, I'm not sure it would have been apparent at the time that the SDP wasn't.

I wasn't aware of this event, although it still doesn't seem like there'd be much reason to conclude that Hitler was less dangerous other than by not taking his rhetoric seriously (which I do think is a fair comparison to the many people who thought Trump's racism was just a strategy to pander for votes, rather than indicative of how he'd govern - I think you should take those campaigning on racist/xenophobic/etc. bigotry at their word). In the context of the Russian Revolution a couple years prior, KDP folks advocating revolution and seizing buildings also would not seem to be simply benign political activity, although obviously I wouldn't like to support either those allied with the USSR nor those wanting to use violence against striking workers.

Nonetheless, Trotsky in 1932 seems to have been more prescient than Ernst Thälmann: "Should fascism come to power, it will ride over your skulls and spines like a terrific tank... And only a fighting unity with the Social Democratic workers can bring victory"

I can see how, of course, at the time they didn't have the same historical examples we have now to consider. Such examples don't help very much, however, if they're seen as essentially singular, unique events, to which comparisons are automatically dismissed as histrionics regardless of the content of the comparison. Perhaps by referencing Godwin's Law without understanding it, as just a random example.

Internationally communism came out of WWII much stronger than it had been before 1933. Not that I'm in favour of Stalinist communism or following any kind of strategy that lets fascists have power, even temporarily, nor was the result a foregone conclusion. But it's an interesting outcome given the point you're making.

I suppose, but the SPD came out of WWII in a stronger position than those in the KPD did (even if we talk about the ideology as opposed to the actual members, a large number of whom were murdered by Hitler). And while I'd grant the existence of East Germany for a few decades, more moderate factions within Germany as represented by Merkel, seem to have been ultimately more successful than the Communists. Certainly a far-left utopia is not the final result. I don't think many 1930s and 40s Communists would be pleased with the developments in China and other places either, even if it is still Communist in name.

And anyway, like you, I don't find the USSR to have been much of a positive force anyway. Although I can see some arguments for it having some positive effects in the world. It's arguable, for example, that the political pressure created by the USSR on the US is partially responsible for the advances of the Civil Rights Movement during the Cold War. Jim Crow was a potent propaganda tool for the USSR (for good reason), which provided some motivation to US presidents to undermine it.

Not to mention that the USSR came out of those events as they did because of international warfare that killed tens of millions, including millions of their own citizens. I don't think Watser is suggesting that Trump is preferable because he'll go to war with Iran, which expands into a regional war, and out of the wreckage of millions of deaths, a more democratic Middle East with greater human rights and economic equality will arise.

If I were as charitable as Watser, of course, I would suggest that was exactly his hope - that Trump would nuke Iran and the millions of deaths would lead to a free Palestine or something stupid like that. Since you know, he's worse than Putin or whatever.

Regardless, the outcome doesn't much recommend heightening the contradictions as a strategy. Relying on the excesses of the right-wing to lead to good outcomes is rather risky and even if it did empower the Communists, it still imposed a heavy, heavy cost in exchange.

The 1933 election was too late. Hitler was already Chancellor. The KDP was de facto banned already following the Reichstag fire decree and the Nazis were able to form a majority with the DNVP. The KPD and SPD only got 30% of votes between them, and the proportional system meant that the vote splitting didn't matter. The time to unite against Nazis was before then.

I suppose you're right.

Push the date back to 1932 and my critique doesn't change substantially though, I don't think.

Point being that being vigilant against the threat of Hitler in the early stages would've required responding to far less than genocide, suppression of opposition parties, and passage of oppressive anti-Semitic laws, etc.

And I wouldn't want to wait for him to have roving violent mobs attacking political opponents either before I recognized him as a serious threat.

And the even larger point is not that Trump is like Hitler (even if he were merely like Putin, that would still be a very bad thing), but that heighten the contradictions as a strategy (and that is the reason that Watser prefers Trump) can backfire rather spectacularly, and that false equivalences between the center-left and right-wing demagogues are dumb.

And of course, this all started because Watser came into this thread to compare me or Democrats or something to Nazi collaborators, on the basis that this thread was named based on the common term used in the media for the protests and energized left-wing/Democratic opposition to Trump and is, as The Man pointed out, a very common trope in Western media, despite there being no discussion of Nazis in the thread, and therefore I invited a comparison to Nazis wherein I'm the Nazi collaborator or something.

And then he called me worse than Putin and Assad.

Yet he and his But buddy are outraged that I would compare him and his "heighten the contradictions" "both sides are the same" bullshit to the KPD. Okay

And I mean, it should be obvious that I wasn't totally precise in that comparison given that I was responding to that "you're worse than Putin" tantrum. I do stand by the point that expecting that empowering the right-wing over the center-left will redound to the far-left's benefit is idiotic and not supported by history. And I don't need to be saying that Trump is Hitler for the example of the KPD to be relevant to that point. Empowering the right-wing is most likely to benefit the right-wing, I know it seems too obvious an answer, but sometimes the counterintuitive idea is wrong.