America's Homegrown Fascism

Yet again, Facebook proves an ample supply of various yahoos with their bizarre delusions.  I’d like to address many of these issues.

TRUMP = HITLER?  I addressed this before and will do so briefly here.  We managed to avoid descending into a fascist dictatorship under Trump.  Partly this was because Trump himself is far too lazy to be an effective dictator; the man has never worked a day in his life and doesn’t plan on doing so anytime soon.  Partly this is because, fortunately, most Americans don’t want a dictatorship.

LEFT-WING SUPPORT for DICTATORSHIP.   Somewhere along the line, the American Right Wing (ARW) decided that the Democrats and their fellow travelers were determined to give America a communist dictatorship.  Nowhere close to the truth and of course no evidence to support this.   What most Democrats would like is universal health care and a social safety net, and they don’t care how high the taxes would have to be to pay for it: they expect Mr. Amazon and Mr. Facebook to pay for it.  I can’t say I support that agenda, but it falls well short of Castro’s Cuba or Mao’s China. 

I can imagine a very tiny percentage of the far left wing who would be happy under a communist dictatorship provided they were the ones running it.  As a rank and file worker or peasant – or a prisoner in a gulag – they would be much less satisfied. 

RIGHT-WING SUPPORT FOR DICTATORSHIP.   Provided the dictatorship was nationalist and gave us all the trappings of traditional American patriotism, much of the ARW would be perfectly happy with a fascist dictatorship.   Presumably this dictatorship would enslave or eliminate Jews, blacks, Hispanics, gays, Asians, etc. any undesirable non-white people.  And these people would be content being rank and file workers and peasants under such a regime – so long as the regime got rid of all those aforementioned undesirables.   These people are far too stupid to recognize the irony of an “American dictatorship”.  The Founding Fathers worked their butts off in 1787 to make sure we didn’t wind up with another despot, which is what the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are all about.  “Right to be white” seems to be the only one these people recognize. 

BIDEN STOLE THE ELECTION.   Please.  Hillary Clinton was much more divisive and less popular than Joe Biden, so there was no reason for a Hillary voter to switch to Trump.  That being the case, Biden could expect to get at least as many votes and states as Hillary did.  Moreover, all the “battleground” states in 2020 were states that Trump won in 2016, so he’d have to win ALL of them to win his 270 electoral votes, and of course he didn’t.  And high profile Republicans endorsing Biden – and no Democrats endorsing Trump – likewise didn’t hint that Trump would win this time around.  Also, if the Democrats could steal the White House, they would also have arranged to flip close races in the Senate and take control of Congress.  But idiotic conspiracy theories are the basic bread & butter of the ARW.    

TDS.   Trump encouraged his Yahoo Army to storm the Capitol on January 6 to prevent Congress from certifying Biden as the next President.  He refused to concede the election to Biden and made various idiotic noises about the election being stolen – and 50+ frivolous lawsuits alleging theft with no support behind them.  Even his own attorney general, Bill Barr, told him these claims had no merit and he had lost the election. 

To the extent Trump has committed federal or state crimes he needs to face prosecution.   Bringing him to justice thereon is no more “Trump Derangement Syndrome” than the Nuremburg Trials were “Hitler Derangement Syndrome”. 

TRUMP & PUTIN.  I’m hearing some Trump supporters complain that Biden isn’t taken seriously by Putin and other leaders whereas Trump could deal with them as equals.  More idiocy.  Trump didn’t “deal” with Putin – in between blasting our own allies, proposing ending NATO, and other foreign policy missteps, Trump essentially gave Putin whatever the Russian leader might possibly hope to be a US foreign policy ideally calculated to favor Russian interests.   We should count ourselves lucky he didn’t turn over the “football” and CIA control to Putin. 

Trump epitomizes every vice and character flaw which Americans could possibly have and hold the office of President.  He embarrassed us in Europe and overseas to the point where foreigners actually felt sorry for us.  Trump was the Ugliest American.  You’ll notice that to the extent foreigners did love Trump, these were foreigners also loved Boris Johnson (UK), Jair Bolsonaro (Brazil), and other similar foreign leaders at the far right of the spectrum.  We think of the Ku Klux Klan as being a Southern institution in former Confederate states, but the Klan exists in former Union states as well, and even in Canada.  That being the case, I wasn’t surprised to learn that some Canadians love Trump too.  Whenever you have people willing to support quasi-fascists due to a misplaced concern about a nonexistent communist conspiracy, you’ll find enthusiastic supporters of Donald Trump.  The smarter ones know and understand the difference between the North Korea which the dumber ones claim the Democrats want and the Sweden and Denmark the smarter ones know is the Democrats’ ideal for America, but still see fit to cynically support Trump anyway. 

There were cynics in the 1930s convinced that Stalin was bad enough to justify supporting Hitler.  In the US it was Charles Lindbergh, who pissed away the goodwill he earned as an aviator by jumping in bed with Hitler; and no one took him seriously after WWII, rightfully so.  How morally corrupt to do you have to be in 2021 – long after the Holocaust is common knowledge – to support a fascist agenda?  After US troops liberated Buchenwald in 1945, Eisenhower made it a point to bring local German civilians to the camps to see for themselves what was going on – and what these people disingenuously claimed they had no idea was happening.  Where did all the Jews go?  Hmm?  Looks like we found what’s left of them.  And even today you have people either denying this happened or even more provocatively, bark and bray that “six million wasn’t enough.”  These are your Trump supporters.  

CANCEL CULTURE.  Various private entities, like the Seuss estate and Disney, determined that some of their earlier work had some less palatable elements, and voluntarily withdrew these materials from public sale and domain.  This wasn’t the US government or state governments banning the items in question, but voluntary acts by private parties.  Naturally, the same yahoos who can’t recognize the inherent incompatibility of American patriotism with Confederate and Nazi flags, also don’t understand that “censorship” and the First Amendment only applies to government actions, not private parties or boycotts. 

MAINSTREAM MEDIA.  ABC, CBS and NBC are obviously slanted in the liberal direction, but there’s a limit to which they can portray the news to fit their agenda.  Moreover, we’ve had FOX for some time – and the Washington Times, here in the DC area – balancing out with a more conservative slant.  But even FOX isn’t inclined to abdicate wholesale to a President who summarily dismisses anything remotely unfavorable as “fake news”.  Once it became apparent that Trump expected everyone to make him look good, even news agencies such as FOX which might have been sympathetic to him found there was a limit to what they could tolerate.  That doesn’t mean FOX is lying to us if it reports anything unfavorable to Trump.  Dismissing the “mainstream media” as outright lies and fiction to be completely ignored altogether is yet another example of the consistent idiocy of the ARW.    

BLUE LIVES MATTER.  As I write this, the trial of Officer Derek Chauvin, accused of holding down George Floyd to the point where he died, is going on in Minnesota.  Chauvin has his defenders, remarkably enough.  Yes, there are people in the US who believe that no matter how egregious the police misconduct, the cops are always right.  Not more often than not or most of the time, but literally always.  Most of us remember in 1992 when a jury in Simi Valley, California, presented with videotape evidence of four LAPD officers beating Rodney King as he was on the ground and not resisting, acquitted them.  Mind you, both California and Minnesota were Union states during the Civil War, so former CSA states hold no monopoly on racism or this misguided worship of the police as infallible and completely unaccountable.  If you believe the police are right 100% of the time, bravo: you're a fascist.  

Fortunately for America, actual support for a fascist dictatorship is at the margin and not widespread.  Our latest candidate for dictator -  himself a fan of Russia’s dictator and contemptuous and rude to any foreign leader with any decency - was a lazy moron who couldn’t be bothered to leave the golf course long enough to be an effective despot.  We’ll see what criminal and civil actions emerge to bring him to account for his 4+ years of crimes, corruption and incompetence.  Stay tuned.  

Trump Is NOT Hitler

Thank GOD.   Now we’ve had about one year of our new President, and Alec Baldwin remains a free man.   As do I, and I’ve made my own share of jokes at Trump’s expense – publicly, on Facebook - though obviously with a considerably smaller audience than Baldwin.

As Bill Maher complained, the problem with incessantly comparing anyone you dislike to Hitler is that when someone rolls by who IS Austrian, has a small mustache, and is bent on world domination and hatred of Jews, no one takes you seriously.  It’s the Fraudulent Lupine Outcry by Pre-Adult Male.  

The Dolfmeister realized in November 1923 that his potential subjects were sticklers for law and order, so a Putsch wouldn’t do.  He bided his time, and in January 1933, despite having lost the prior year election to the Blimp, succeeded at getting appointed Chancellor by a cabal of clowns who should have known better.

This didn’t give him full control, however.  It took the Reichtag Fire of March 1933 to result in emergency powers, which then wound up with socialists, communists, and everyone else who didn’t like Hitler round up and put in the fresh, new camp known as Dachau. 

So where’s our Reichtag Fire?   It’s been a year and we’re still waiting.  Is the NSA that lazy?

The closest we’ve seen to this was 9/11 >> Patriot Act >> Gitmo.  But on January 20, 2009, Bush Jr. voluntarily relinquished power, without the Red Army above his bunker.  Come on – Gitmo couldn’t hold all the people who badmouthed Bush. 

Trump is definitely self-centered, egomaniac, narcissistic, etc.  The world revolves around him.  He’s definitely full of himself – I would argue, even MORE than Hitler.  But he’s also lazy.   I don’t think he wants to be Fuhrer.  That’s TOO MUCH WORK.  When’s the last time you saw a picture of Hitler playing golf?  

Then there’s the Night of the Long Knives (June 1934), in which Hitler purged the SA and Party of any and all party rivals, notably Ernst Roehm and Gregor Strasser, anyone who might pose a threat from within.  What we’ve seen with Trump is a piecemeal purge, ad hoc, including his erstwhile Goebbels, Steve Bannon – not a swift, comprehensive purge of his administration.  It smacks more of incompetence than consolidation of power.   

If I were Hitler, I’d be offended by the comparison.  Hitler worked his butt off to be Fuhrer.  He took it seriously.  He wrote a book, raised a movement, etc etc. and didn’t play golf.  He didn’t inherit millions from his father – or anyone else.  Nor was he a nepotist.   In fact, he gave his nephew such a hard time – no handouts and a threat to involuntarily join the Wehrmacht – that the boy went to America, joined the US Navy, and settled on Long Island. 

Whenever I see complaints that the President is playing golf, instead of invading Poland or nuking North Korea, I say, “Thank GOD.”   The less he’s in the White House, the less we have to worry.

Finally, I’ve discovered the closest analogy to Trump, aside from Trump himself:  He’s CARTMAN.

The War That Came Early

Recently I finished yet another of Harry Turtledove’s alternate history series, this one he calls The War That Came Early, the books being Hitler’s War, West And East, The Big Switch, Coup D’Etat, Two Fronts, and Last Orders.

Premise.  In real life, the 1938 talks at Munich between Adolf Hitler (Nazi Germany), Eduard Daladier (France), and Neville Chamberlain (UK), resulted in an agreement essentially allowing Germany to swallow up Czechoslovakia, which the Germans did by March 1939.   The Czechs were not part of this negotiation and the benefit (to the extent we can ascertain any benefit at all) was that the European powers avoided a war – only temporarily.  The UK and France thought Hitler would stop here, but of course he was simply getting what he could without war but would invade if he had to, e.g. Poland just a year later.  Who knows how much firmer Chamberlain might have been had he known this – which is where this story picks up.

In this timeline, German-Czech troublemaker Konrad Heinlein is assassinated by a Czech troublemaker.  Although the Germans had nothing to do with it, Chamberlain and Daladier believe it’s too convenient and probably a set-up intended as an excuse to allow the Germans to invade Czechoslovakia.  Angered by what they perceive as immense bad faith by the Germans, they break off the talks.  Hitler, frustrated by this turn of events, decides to invade anyway, and the war which was postponed until September 1939 in real life, with the German invasion of Poland, arrives in 1938 with a German invasion of Czechoslovakia.  That goes fairly well for the Germans, and a French incursion into Germany stalls not far over the border. 

Spain.  In real life, Marshal Sanjurjo was the intended leader of the Fascist revolt, which began in July 1936.   Taking off with a small plane from Portugal overloaded with his heavy crate of uniforms, the plane crashed and he was killed, leaving Franco to lead the Fascists…to victory in March 1939.  Here, the pilot persuades Sarjurjo to leave his uniforms behind and he lands safely, surviving to lead the Fascists.  To victory?  We’ll see.  Since the real Spanish Civil War ended in March 1939 with the real WWII beginning in September 1939, versus, in these books, war breaking out in Europe BEFORE the Spanish Civil War ends, this cuts off the supplies to the parties involved so this war continues far longer, while WWII is still going on. 

Far East.  The Japanese succeed at defeating the Soviets up in Manchuria…for the time being.  Having his hands full fighting the Germans and Poles + the British and French, Stalin cuts a deal with the Japs just so he can focus on things further west.   They also romp over the Far East, but the Pearl Harbor attack never happens.  The Japanese use germ warfare against their opponents.

Eastern Front.   Poland and Germany are allies against Soviet Russia.   They make some modest progress into Russia, later losing that ground after the alliance with Britain and France breaks down and the two front war re-erupts.

Western Front.  The UK and France initially fight against Germany, briefly ally with Germany and help invade Russia, then switch back to being against Germany, returning to a two front war.  The UK itself has some internal struggles which cause it to switch sides twice, and the French simply followed their lead each time.

Holocaust & Internal Affairs.  Jews are mistreated in Germany, but the Final Solution never gets running.  Moreover, when the war turns into a stalemate, many of Hitler’s generals start causing problems.  The biggest problem is that the “blitzkrieg” which happened in the real war never quite gets full steam here, so most of the war is a series of stalemates on various fronts. Hitler has no decisive victory against any opponent to make him popular with his people or apparently infallible to his generals.  

United States.   The US enters the Pacific War against Japan, fighting over Wake Island and Midway, but stays out of the war in Europe.  There doesn’t seem to be much cooperation and coordination between Germany and Japan - or I should say, even less than there was in real life. 

War details.  The biggest nugget I got from this (Dana Carvey-as-Johnny Carson “I did NOT know that!”) was discussion of the German Panzer II tank.  I knew it had a 20mm cannon, but I didn’t know the cannon fired on full auto from a 10 round magazine.  I also didn’t know the radio man sat towards the back, near the engine, rather than up front next to the driver; there was no bow machine gun.  Plus there's some discussion of the Red Air Force, the dynamics between the various nationalities in the Soviet Union, and some some fun about "mat", which is the highly colloquial and heavily colorful slang which Russians use, particularly peasants and underworld denizens.  

Writing.   By now I’ve read the reviews on Amazon of Turtledove’s work and I agree with the consensus.  As a storyteller in terms of plot and what actually happens, Turtledove is fine.  No one really complains all that much about where his stories go. 

            It’s his writing that we beef about:  grotesquely repetitious.  What is a six volume series should really be a three volume series.  Every time a character is dealt with, HT has to repeat – even later in the same book – the same opinions, idiosyncrasies, and problems the character has.  Issues about ersatz coffee, cigarettes, etc. are repeated OVER and OVER again.  It becomes a deliberate pattern of conspicuous padding, and severely compromises the quality of his work and our ability to enjoy it.  This seems to be the most consistent complaint readers articulate against Turtledove for most of his books.

            Another problem I have with his writing, and which I haven’t seen complained of (yet), is the tone.  HT tells the story in a way that overexplains things to the point where you wonder who his target audience is.  Alternate history is a subset of science fiction which would only find an audience among people who know the real history and derive some entertainment from an alternative narrative.  I’m 46.  HT writes like he’s writing to his 12 year old nephew.  Are young teenage boys the target market?  Are the girls reading Harry Potter while the boys read Turtledove?  Is this Young Adult Fiction in disguise?  It’s just a step above Harry Potter in narrative sophistication, and J.K. Rowling seems fairly open about HP’s market, even if plenty of adults such as myself have actually read the books.  Just a thought…    

The Most Important Man of WWII

Hitler?  Stalin?  Churchill? Roosevelt?  Patton? Rommel?  Perhaps none of the above.   Perhaps it was…Richard Sorge.

December 1941.  The Nazi hordes were knocking on the doors of Moscow.   German General Heinz Guderian advised Hitler that if Moscow fell, it would be game over for the USSR.   The Germans assaulted the Soviet capital from the south and west, and almost took it.  Almost.

Stalin was uncertain about bringing troops from the east back west to face the Germans, because he was concerned about Japanese plans in Manchuria (northeast China), which had traditionally been an area of mutual interest and conflict between Russia and Japan, going back to the Russo-Japanese War in 1905. 

A German reporter in Tokyo, Richard Sorge, was ostensibly a German spy working for the Nazis.  Unbeknownst to the Germans, he was actually a double agent reporting back to Moscow.  And what he reported was that the Japanese actually had their hands full to the south and had no immediate plans in Manchuria.   This left Stalin free to transfer 15 infantry divisions, 3 cavalry divisions, 1700 tanks, and 1500 planes – including some very hardcore Siberian troops who were virtually immune to bitterly cold weather – westward to defend Moscow. 

Arriving in the fierce snowstorms of December 1941, these troops slammed into the Germans, smashing them away from Moscow.  The following spring, ignoring Guderian’s advice to resume the attack on Moscow, Hitler sent his forces southeast, towards the Caucasus and a city named Stalingrad.   That battle ended in February 1943 with the surrender of the Sixth Army, and by April 1945 the Red Army was in Berlin.

What might have happened, had Sorge not informed Stalin of Tokyo’s military intentions?  Very possibly, the Germans might have taken Moscow in December 1941.  From there, they could have consolidated their hold on the Russian capital and won the war on the Eastern Front. 

Having done so, Hitler could also transfer troops west to handle any possible Allied invasion of France.   The D-Day invasion might have been called off altogether, or attempted and failed.  It’s difficult to imagine a scenario in which the Germans win the Eastern Front war but still lose against the Allies (although that’s exactly what happened in World War I).   Most alternative history stories featuring a victorious Germany – In the Presence of Mine Enemies (Harry Turtledove) and The Man in the High Castle (Philip K. Dick) – assume that Germany defeated the Russians. 

This being the case, that makes Richard Sorge one of the most important men of World War II.  However, he did not live to see the VE Day in May 1945.  The Kempetai (Japanese secret police) became suspicious of him, arrested him, and tortured him.  Naturally he confessed.  Stalin refused to trade for him (note that Stalin also refused to trade with the Germans when his own son was captured by them), and the Japanese hanged Sorge in November 1944.  In the Japanese movie “Spy Sorge”, he’s played by Iain Glen, best known as Ser Jorah Mormont on HBO’s Game of Thrones.  

Admiral & Generation War

While I’m on the topic of war movies, I might as well follow up with these two, which are Russian and German, and well worth the viewing.  Both are fairly recent.

Admiral (DVD).  In Russian with English subtitles.  A historical romance about Admiral Kolchak, the White Russian leader during the Russian Civil War (RCW).  After the Bolsheviks murdered the Romanovs in Sverdlovsk in July 1918, the Whites were left without an obvious leader.  Several generals and this admiral popped up to try to assert that role, desperately courting Allied favor and support.  The British and French latched on to this guy, operating in the East, to somehow make something happen.  As we can guess, it didn’t quite work out. 

            Never mind that he was a Navy officer – apparently one of Russia’s few naval heroes from WWI, a war in which the Russians were usually on the losing end of most battles – active well inland without a single ship or fleet under his command.  The chaos of the war left him with scarcely any armies to command either.  Once the Bolsheviks had taken care of the White armies back west, they turned their attention east, made a deal with the Czechs, and outmaneuvered the White forces in this part of Russia, including Kolchak.

            But there’s some juicy romance here as well.  It turns out he had the hots for one of his fellow Russian naval officer’s wives, Anna Timireva, and the two had an affair during the RCW.  When the second Revolution broke out in October 1917, his wife and son managed to escape off to Paris, which left him free to pursue Anna.   She decided to stay with him as much as she could, so their relationship blossomed in the middle of a crazy, chaotic war. 

            The movie starts with his WWI heroics, some scenes with the February and October Revolutions (1917) (he meets Kerensky, but Lenin & Co. are off-camera) and then his role in the RCW, gradually going east by train across Siberia, his forces melting away around him.  He is captured by the Czech Legion and turned over to the Bolsheviks and shot. 

            It’s a decent film, not too long, with good production values: and it turns out that Anna survived all the way to the 1970s (though she was sporadically imprisoned several times over that period).  The Bolsheviks play little role in the film, too minor to even count as villains.  Kolchak comes off as a tragic hero defeated by a mostly offscreen nemesis – fortunately enjoying an on-screen mistress, though the romance is more implied than explicitly intimate. 

            The most obvious comparison would be with “Dr. Zhivago”.  That film gives us more of the Red side of the equation, but even with competing romances, the older film drags on.  It feels like we could walk across Russia’s vast empty expanses by foot in the time it takes the damn film to finish up.  Prefer something short and sweet?  Non-Red?  In Russian?  “Admiral” is your movie.

           

Generation War (Blu-Ray).  In German with English subtitles.  This came by the local artsy theater but I didn’t find out until the run had ended.  Then it turned out the DVD became available, so I bought it.  This is a very recent film about Germany during WWII from the perspective of 5 young people:

1.         Older brother Wilhelm Winter, a Wehrmacht 2LT.  As with most of these war movies, he’s the smart, sympathetic, idealistic, honorable Army officer leading his men as best he can.  After Stalingrad he’s convinced the war cannot be won, and eventually winds up in a penal battalion after deserting – lucky not to be simply shot.

2.         Younger brother Friedhelm Winter, a Wehrmacht private.  Nominally a coward, ultimately he turns into a very good soldier (10x better than Samwell Tarly), but he’s about as cynical as Wilhelm.  Instead of vocalizing his dissatisfaction he just goes with the flow and tries to survive.  He really doesn’t say much. 

3.         Viktor Goldstein, a Jew.  He’s a young, handsome guy and the BF of Greta, the singer.  Like many German Jews, he can pass for Aryan but arouse suspicions depending on his behavior.  He’s sent to Auschwitz but manages to escape the transport train and join Polish partisans who are just as anti-semitic as the Nazis, so he has to keep his identity hidden.  Mostly he keeps his mouth shut.

4.         Charlotte (Charly), a cute, peppy, German girl, Wilhelm’s fiancé.  She volunteers as a nurse on the Eastern Front and sees some nasty stuff.  As you can imagine, her youthful idealism and good cheer soon dry up.  Charly befriends a Jewish nurse and a Russian girl, and even winds up in bed with the unit’s doctor, an older father figure, but only because Friedhelm told her that Wilhelm had died.  When she does meet Wilhelm again, among the living, she’s torn between joy at his survival and grief at cheating on him.  Like Friedhelm she accepts and understands German guilt for the war but unlike Wilhelm, who acts out and verbalizes his anger and bitterness, Charly absorbs it more like blows on her soul, which she absorbs on behalf of her guilty country and conscience. 

5.         Greta del Torres, Viktor’s GF, a popular singer.  She also sees unpleasant things.  She has an affair with the local Gestapo officer which ends poorly – with her in prison.  Although easily the most glamorous character, she’s also the least interesting.  She tried to save Viktor, but that effort backfired into Viktor’s deportation and her own arrest.  The glamorous singer wilts and decays in prison, kept alive only by her hatred for the regime. 

            The movie is very violent, and shows a small amount of Einsatzgruppen action (though none of the main characters are directly involved).  It covers the period 1941-45, but all the combat is Eastern Front and all enemy soldiers are Soviet, who also come off as very brutal, e.g. they capture a hospital and simply shoot all the German soldiers who are patients left behind.   In fact, there’s lots of combat.  Plus the tanks are authentic: Tigers and T34s, so us WWII buffs can really sink our teeth into it.  Warning, though, it is long: 3 90 minute parts, or 4.5 hours total.  It was a miniseries in Germany.

            The basic theme is that World War II took and destroyed an entire generation of Germany, stuffing it through the meat grinder of war, atrocity and depravity - the women too, and not just the men.  However, it’s not too much on the “let’s feel sorry for ourselves because of all the horrible things that happened to us during the war.”  Wilhelm is the most vocal in not merely articulating defeatism, but also acknowledging Germany’s fault in starting the war.  When an SS officer brutally murders a Jewish child at point blank, the viewer knows the movie is not apologizing for Nazi Germany.  Soviet brutality is not merely expected: it’s well deserved. 

            “Final Victory has been cancelled,” is the sentence Greta utters to a squad of horny German soldiers, deflating their egos, and landing her in prison.  “Final Victory” is the phrase uttered by the uber-Nazi nurse Hildegard – because anything else is unthinkable.  Even Wilhelm isn’t overly troubled that Germany started the war – invading Czechoslovakia (March 1939), Poland, Denmark, Norway, Belgium, Holland, etc. countries without the means nor the inclination to threaten or oppose Germany – until after Stalingrad.  Are we the bad guys because we’re losing the war, or are we losing the war because we’re the bad guys?  Could the generals and leaders stupid enough to waste the goodwill of the Eastern Europeans by mistreating them, be also stupid enough not to manage a war against Stalin & the West at the same time?  The same arrogance which leads us Germans to brutalize the Russians and Ukrainians who welcomed us as liberators, could be the same arrogance persuading us that we can somehow defeat three major powers simultaneously? 

            With the Russians pushing us back on all sectors of the Eastern Front, with the Allies in Italy and France, with the people at home pulverized by bombing raids – can the war possibly be won?  Of course not.  Will our enemies meekly stop at the German borders and allow us to continue as we were? Of course not.  Will the Russians be gentle and kind when they rampage through the ruined streets of Berlin?  Of course not.  What we sowed, so shall we reap.  But if the Fuhrer, who must know something we don’t, promises “Final Victory”, despite all the evidence to the contrary, which would we rather believe?  “Final Victory” is what we cling to, desperately.  This is the only hope of Generation War.

The Freikorps

More history, and yes, yet again it comes from one of my favorite sources, the Osprey books I invariably put on my Amazon.com wishlist for Christmas and thus receive as gifts.   But they’re all fascinating.  At least to me: in this case, The German Freikorps 1918-23, by Carlos Caballero Jurado, and well-illustrated yet again by Mr. Ramiro Bujeiro.

Anyhow.  After World War I (formerly known as The Great War before World War II came around) Germany wound up Kaiser-less and in danger of Bolshevik minions establishing a Red dictatorship.   With a surplus of demobilized soldiers with a surplus of free time and deficit of useful outlets therefor, naturally this pool of excess military capacity rapidly congealed into volunteer units called the Freikorps.  Interestingly, the German republic was socialist, but moderate socialists (the SPD) who weren’t keen on following Russia into a totalitarian dictatorship – mind you, this was in 1918-20, before the Russian Civil War was even resolved in Lenin’s favor.   I’m not a big fan of socialism, but the absence of gulags in Sweden and Denmark – and all other European countries which have had socialist governments over the past 60 years – indicates that some discernment should be made between North Korea and these countries.  ANYHOW.

The first unit was the Eiserne Brigade (Iron Brigade) in Kiel, a response to the Volksmarine, the Red militia composed of sailors and soldiers.  General Maercker formed the Freiwilliege Landesjägerkorps, which established the standard format for Freikorps units.  Most were named after the particular officer or general who raised them: the troops were loyal to particular leaders they had served under during the war.  Even Von Lettow-Vorbeck, of East Africa fame, had a Freikorps unit.   Because of the ad hoc nature of these units, they were very often mixed-arms (infantry-cavalry-artillery) so as to be self-sufficient and flexible.  They were volunteer units, so not all members were actually military – some civilians filled the ranks.  And although called up from certain areas, they may actually fight in another part of the country (e.g. Bavaria or Upper Silesia). 

Uniform.   The basic uniform of Freikorps units was the field grey German WWI uniform with puttees.  A few Freikorps units dressed in civilian clothes, and Freikorps Bayreuth wore French Adrian helmets painted field grey.   The units then indulged in specific insignia for each of them, but essentially look like late WWI German soldiers.   Some units painted swastikas on the front of the helmets, although they weren’t actually NSDAP units.  Skull and crossbones (not SS) and arrow were also painted on helmets.

January 1919.  Spartakist Rebellion in Berlin.   Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg (Flora Hamburger/Blackford) killed in the process.   Freikorps win.

Early 1919.  Red rebellions in Kiel, Bremerhaven, Hamburg, Wilhelmshaven. As these were port cities, the most of the Reds were sailors: the Volksmarine.   Freikorps units put out these fires and restored control.  (“And there was much rejoicing.”)

Red Army of the Ruhr.   Initial red rebellions erupted in the highly industrialized Ruhr area in 1919, and were put down by the Freikorps at that time.  In 1920 they erupted again, with a so-called Red Army of the Ruhr, large and well-organized, at the front.   This was also put down by the Freikorps in 1920, until the French marched in to restore order.  Incidentally, the Allies occupied the Ruhr not just in 1923 – the most well-known operation – but also earlier in May 1920 (as noted here), and March 1921.

Kapp Putsch.  Actually led by General von Luttwitz of the Ehrhardt Brigade, and centered on Berlin.  This failed: the SPD called a general strike, and von Luttwitz failed to coordinate with any other units.  While many of the leaders and rank and file of the Freikorps could be described as reactionary, and somewhat contemptuous of the Weimar Republic which they defended, this sentiment failed to reach a critical mass prompting these units to actually overthrow the socialist government.  This right-wing revolt, and the Nazi Putsch in 1923, had nowhere close to mass support, even within the Freikorps movement.

Bavarian Uprising.  In April 1919 the Communists took over Munich and proclaimed a red republic.  The Freikorps responded, surrounded the city, and put down the revolt by early May. 

Plebiscites in Poland.   With Poland becoming a new, independent country after the war, its borders were not quite established; in particular, Upper Silesia.  Although the May 1920 plebiscite resulted in a victory for the Germans, the Poles rebelled, took over the entire area, and hoped that doing so would effectively nullify the plebiscite results.   The German government refused to do more than whine to the Allies about obeying the results.  Without official backing, on their own, the Freikorps units banded together, arrived from all parts of Germany, and fought back - and succeeded at defeating the Polish irregulars.  Eventually the Allies intervened and allowed the territory to remain German.

Baltics & Russian Civil War.   Many Freikorps units went up to the Baltics.   On one hand, the Reds were streaming west from Petrograd and attempting to spread the revolution, or least military control, as far west as they could.  The Germans sympathized with the White Russians, and even allied with one Russian leader, Prince Avalov-Bermondt.  On the other hand, the Germans also hoped to make the Baltic countries eastern sectors of Germany, while the Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians preferred their freedom.  After some initial cooperation at fighting the Reds, the Freikorps fell out with the Baltic armies, and the latter eventually expelled the Germans.  Note: the Latvians were actually hardcore Reds and formed the elite backbone of the nascent Red Army.

November 1923 Munich Putsch.   Not necessarily a Freikorps action per se, although there was some overlapping between the Nazi party forces and local Freikorps elements.  Of course the Putsch failed and Hitler went to prison, writing Mein Kampf there with Rudolf Hess’ cooperation.   The failure of the Putsch convinced Hitler that power would have to be taken by convential means, i.e. appointed Chancellor on January 30, 1933.

End of the Freikorps.   By 1923 the socialist government was sufficiently stable and established that it no longer felt the need for the Freikorps.  The Army was solidly behind the government – which it would remain.  Many Freikorps members joined the Nazis.   Most notable was Ernst Roehm, head of the S.A., who never abandoned his quest for a mass popular army – until Hitler put an end to his ambitions on June 30, 1934.  But the units had served their purpose and the Army and Police were sufficient to keep order from then on.

Spain's Blue Division

More war!  Oh boy!  And yes, Nazis are involved…in a way.

 When Hitler invaded Russia in 1941, he needed some help, as the Russians had far more men than the Germans.  Using his political muscle, he convinced the Finns, Czechs, Hungarians, Romanians, Italians, and Spanish to contribute forces to the mix, not counting the volunteers who flocked to the Waffen SS, or turncoat Russians, Ukrainians, Estonians, Latvians, Lithuanians, Georgians, Armenians, and other locals who weren’t too thrilled with Stalin and were willing to fight against him alongside the Germans.

 Unlike the Hungarians and Romanians, however, the Spanish unit was completely volunteers.  In fact, Franco was not keen on sending forces.  Without a doubt, there is no way Franco could have won in Spain without Hitler’s help.  German Ju-52s airlifted Franco’s army from Morocco to Spain, and the Condor Legion helped give Franco air superiority; German weapons and advisors were also extremely critical in securing the Fascist victory.  Yet when it came to reciprocate for Hitler, Franco was extremely reluctant.  Basically he walked out of the German restaurant without paying for his high quality schnitzel, schnapps, and a nice little BJ under the table from Helga. 

 But these men were eager to serve.  Why?  These were Falangists who were (A) grateful to Hitler for helping the Generalissimo eradicate the plague of communism from Spain, and (B) hated communism enough to go to the frozen swamps of North Russia to fight the Red Army.  Just as the Waffen SS veterans serving in the French Foreign Legion in North Vietnam saw that conflict as an extension of their own battles on the Eastern Front in WWII, so did these Spaniards view the battle against the Red Army as an extension of the prior battle against communists in Spain in their own civil war, which had ended just two years before.  In other words, what Franco was unwilling to do, these men were. 

 Sidetrack on anti-communism.  These days it seems “communist” and “socialist” are terms bandied about recklessly by Republicans, used to describe not only true socialists like Michael Moore, Ralph Nader or Paul Wellstone, but also moderate liberal Democrats, including our own beloved Chocolate Jesus.  And with the debacle of the Vietnam War, and Joe McCarthy’s defeat in the 1950s, the liberal establishment has quite effectively discredited anti-communism as a viable political agenda in the US.  Legitimate refugees from communist dictatorships, such as Cubans escaping from Castro’s regime or the boat people from Vietnam, are pretty much ignored or written off as cranks.  The Nazis remain perpetual bad guys, but when it comes to Stalin, Mao, or Pol Pot, the general attitude is, “what’s the big deal?”  Yet there is a thick volume, the Black Book of Communism, which chronicles the heavy body count of communist atrocities from the Russian Civil War (1917-22) all the way to the present day, with a natural focus on the USSR and Red China.   I don’t recall Spain being included, mainly because the communists failed to win the Civil War.  That doesn’t mean the PSUC didn’t have blood on its hands, not merely Falangists and Carlists, but innocent civilians, priests, nuns, monks, and even their fellow travelers of moderate socialists and anarchists (e.g. crackdown on POUM in Barcelona in May 1937).  While the Falangists had their own crimes to answer for, Stalin’s minions in Spain were competitive in brutality and ruthlessness.   To the Falangists of the Blue Division, communism was a very real threat, a very tangible octopus of evil, with its center in Moscow.  Having cut off a tentacle in Spain, the obvious next step was to slay it at home, in Russia.  

Their initial leader was General Agustin Munoz Grandes, who was well loved by his own troops and respected by the Germans.  The unit operated in Army Group North, in the Leningrad sector, and was heavily mauled in the battle of Krasny Bor in 1943.  The units were never large, and had no strategic impact, but they fought hard, fought well, and impressed both the Germans and the Russians with their skill and determination.  This was even more impressive due to the horrendous cold and snow, and nasty summer swampy weather (with mosquitos and malaria), a climate completely alien to Spaniards and unknown in Spain or its colonies. 

Deutschland Uber Alles

A few eons ago I posted a blog about various alternate history stories in which the South won the US Civil War, or at least in which the Civil War took a dramatically different course than it actually did.  Of these, Turtledove’s timeline was the most ambitious: not only did the South win the Civil War, North and South clashed again three more times, ending in a vast WWII conflagration in which the South’s blacks perished in concentration camps, a Southern Hitler, Jake Featherston, ran a CSA dictatorship with his Freedom Party, and the Kaiser nuked Petrograd.  Now it’s time to review a similar slew of books in which Nazi Germany won World War II.

 In The Presence of Mine Enemies, by Harry Turtledove.  This takes place in Berlin, Germany around 2009.  The US had stayed out of WWII, allowing Hitler to defeat the USSR and England.  A few decades later, an atomic-equipped Germany managed to defeat and overrun the USA as well.  Having won, the Nazis make no secrets about the Holocaust.  In fact, they’re starting to bump ugly with the Japanese, though it’s still just a rivalry between the two remaining superpowers.   Hitler, Himmler, and Waldheim, a succession of Fuhrers, have come and gone; now a new Fuhrer, Buckliger, with new ideas has come to power.  And the few Jews still alive, hiding out in German roles, finally see some hope for salvation.  The Gauleiter of Berlin is an obnoxious, womanizing liberal (analogous to Boris Yeltsin) and Buckliger is very much the Gorbachev of this story; as Turtledove so often does, he simply transposes a “plot” of history to another context but otherwise keeps the story faithful to the original (“historical plagiarism” is my term). 

 The Man In the High Castle, by Philip K. Dick.  Nazi Germany has won WWII and taken over most of the Eastern US.  The Japanese control the West Coast.  Between them is a lawless, neutral middle zone where fugitives from the coasts tend to reside, including the so-called “Man in the High Castle”, a recluse who has written an alternate history book in which the Nazis lost WWII.  Among other notable achievements in this timeline, the Nazis managed to plant their flag on Mars.  I don’t recall much in the way of a plot; most of the characters consult the I Ching for guidance.  Despite the vague non-plot, I did find it very entertaining and enjoyable. 

 Fatherland.  It’s 1964, and Adolf Hitler is turning 75.  After a Cold War with the US, a rapprochement, a détente is imminent; the US president is Joseph, not John F., Kennedy.  But in Berlin, some top Nazi Party and SS men are mysteriously turning up dead.  An SS police detective starts snooping around, and finds that the victims share knowledge of a hideous secret: what really happened to all those Jews who were supposedly “resettled” in the East.  Of all the books listed, here, this is the only one made into a movie: Rutger Hauer plays the main character, March.  Incidentally, March has SS rank and membership because he’s a police detective (the Kriminalpolizei, KriPo, as opposed to Geheime Staats Polizei, Gestapo, come under SS jurisdiction), not because he’s an SS butcher. 

 SS-GB.  Len Deighton takes the Nazis to London, in November 1941.  The US is unconquered at this time, and the USSR has yet to be invaded.   A British physicist working on the Nazis’ atom bomb project is murdered and the protagonist has to solve the murder, which leads him to the Underground, the imprisoned King, and a linkup with the US.   I remember being only modestly entertained by this story and never compelled to re-read it later.

Panzer Leader

I suppose this is a good sequel to my Rommel blog entry, as the premier German tank general of World War II, Heinz Guderian, also wrote a book.  Two books in fact, but I didn’t bother to read his pre-war book Achtung! Panzer!, instead opting for his post-war memoirs, Panzer Leader instead.  Actually, the idea for Guderian to write memoirs came from the Americans, who were extremely impressed with him after interrogating him after the war (“dude, you kicked major ass.  You should write a book!”).

 Rommel came into the tank picture fairly late in the game, only being given command of an armored unit in spring 1940 just before the attack on France.  He was never involved on the Eastern Front, which is where all the most important tank battles were fought, although his operations officer, Bayerlein (who in fact wrote several entries in The Rommel Papers) was Guderian’s in Russia before being transferred to Africa.  Guderian was involved with Germany’s tank program from the very beginning, starting with secret developments of tanks in the Reichwehr in the inter-war years. 

 I’ll spare all the details and cover the main areas.  His book starts with a brief chapter on his inter-war years (1919-1939) and he explains how they developed the panzer divisions.  Although Guderian had served in WWI and Germany did have a few A7V’s in that war, Guderian had been an infantry (signals) officer in the war. Germany had been on the receiving end of the Allies’ tank warfare, so he was determined to learn from his enemies.  He gives Liddell-Hart a good deal of credit; ironically, Liddell-Hart was pretty much ignored in his home country, England, nor did the French pay any attention to him either.  The victors, having won, decided the way they did things in WWI was good enough for the next time around.  Guderian figured the Germans needed to innovate and change things if they wanted to have a shot at beating the Allies the second time.  Part of this was concentrating tanks into panzer divisions instead of spreading them out among infantry divisions as support weapons.

 As Guderian describes it, typically terrain can be divided into three types: (1) terrain completely unfavorable to tanks, (2), terrain which is neutral, and (3), terrain which is extremely favorable to tank warfare.  The enemy has chosen to spread his tanks across all infantry units, including many in areas (1) and (2).  Guderian thought it was smarter to concentrate his tank forces in type 3, where they would have not only a terrain advantage, but also a tactical, numerical advantage despite the fact that, overall, Germany had less tanks than its opponents.  He also felt that tanks themselves should be the vanguard of the attack, not merely supporting the infantry. 

 His first taste of battle was in Poland, where his forces were involved in the northern sector, near Danzig and the Polish Corridor.  He was even able to visit Kulm, in East Prussia, where he was born.  Then, of course, he was also involved in the invasion of France.  The crossing of the Meuse, while a dangerous affair early in the campaign, nevertheless had its light moments.  Lt-Col. Balck, throwing Guderian’s own words at him (from an earlier exercise), warned his superior that “joy-riding in canoes on the Meuse is forbidden!!” 

 Then it was on to war with Russia.  In August 1941, Guderian had hoped and fought that the German forces would advance on Moscow as soon as possible, but Hitler had other plans.  The Fuhrer wanted to sweep back and take the Ukraine and Sevastopol (Russia’s “aircraft carrier to attack the oil fields in Romania”), Guderian was vetoed.

 On page 208, he describes something I have to laugh at.  “[On August 31, 1941] the 10^th (Motorized) Infantry Division succeeded in crossing the Desna, to the north of Korop, but was thrown back again to the west bank by heavy Russian counter-attacks, besides being attacked on its right flank by strong enemy forces.  By sending in the very last men of the division, the Field Bakery Company, a catastrophe to the right flank was just avoided.”  Not THE Field Bakery Company??  Forget the Grossdeutschland Division, or the SS, it’s the Field Bakery Company which struck fear into the hearts of the Red Army.  Surely an elite unit.  Did they have a special counter in Squad Leader?  Red player: “Your assault engineers don’t frighten my Guards.” German player: “Oh yeah, well here’s the Field Bakery Company.  Prepare to die!”  Red player: “No!!!!”

 On a darker note, Guderian notes the German High Command (OKH) and Hitler were completely oblivious to conditions on the front: the persistent mud, the bitter cold, the petrol shortages, and the overall hardships which the average German soldier was forced to endure.  Coddled in their warm, comfy headquarters hundreds of miles behind the lines, these staff officers, and the Beloved Fuhrer, couldn’t possibly imagine the hell which the troops were going through.  Remarkably, these boneheads would neither accept the word of the generals such as Guderian who had been to the front, much less even consider going to the front themselves to see what was going on. 

 In December 1941, the offensive ground to a halt to the west, south and north of Moscow in the bitter cold, the troops too frozen to fight any more – especially since, by that point, the Russians had poured in large reinforcements, including Siberian units well-equipped for cold weather combat, whereas the German troops still did not have any cold weather uniforms – they were stuck in Warsaw.  Guderian advised Hitler that the troops should be permitted to retreat to river lines with previously prepared defenses to wait out the winter; Hitler disagreed.  Based on this disagreement, Guderian was relieved of command, and remained inactive until March 1, 1943.

 At that time he took over as Inspector-General of Armored Troops.  His two strongest recommendations:

1.  Don’t create any new units, simply refurbish the old ones to full strength.

2.  Don’t put any new tanks into combat until you have enough of them to make a full unit, and the men know how to use them.  Feeding them into combat piecemeal simply lets the enemy learn how to fight it (almost like the tank version of a vaccine). 

 Rommel.  In spring 1944, Guderian went to see the Atlantic Wall preparations, and ran into his old buddy Rommel (who I’ve described at length earlier).  Guderian was very impressed with Rommel’s track record, had very nice things to say about him, and believed Rommel deserved his reputation.  But they differed on the best way to deal with the oncoming invasion.  It’s funny – Rommel claims that Hitler agreed with the generals who believed that the German forces should be held away from the beaches, and Guderian here admits that he is one of them.  But Guderian claims that Hitler agreed with Rommel!   Go figure.

 Waffen SS.  He generally tends to be favorably impressed by the fighting ability and morale of the Waffen SS.  The Second SS Panzer Division, Das Reich, was under command of his army group in 1941, and he got along well with, and liked, its commander Paul Hausser.  He did not like Himmler, who he thought was completely incompetent as a military commander.  He was also good friends with “Sepp” Dietrich, the commander of the First SS Panzer Division Leibstandarte Adolf Hitler – when Guderian was sacked in late ’41, Dietrich came to visit him as a show of support.  Unlike Skorzeny, he actually recognized the Holocaust, condemning it but claiming extremely limited knowledge of the major details.  He also condemned as criminally stupid the ill-treatment of the Russian and Ukrainian local populations – here they had vast numbers of people who hated Stalin, and were willing to fight, even die, for the Germans against the Red Army, yet somehow the Nazis managed to screw that up, alienating these people and turning them into partisans cooperating with the Red Army in throwing the Germans out of Russia. 

 Later war role.  On July 21, 1944 – immediately after the bomb plot (see “Valkyrie”) Hitler appointed Guderian Chief of the Army General Staff.  Guderian knew something of the plot, but had kept his mouth shut and unlike Rommel had not been fingered by anyone.  He had refused to join the plot, reasoning that by that point the Allies were insisting on unconditional surrender, so anyone taking over from Hitler would be equally f**ked.  He thought the plot was half-assed and extremely poorly conceived.  Despite this, he still argued with Hitler, as one of the few generals who would talk straight to Hitler and not kiss his ass.

 Bewilderingly, with Russian troops in East Prussia, threatening Berlin, Hitler insisted on sending what few surplus units they had down to Budapest.  It turns out that Germany’s last sources of oil were in that neighborhood, now that Romania was gone and the synthetic oil plants were destroyed by Allied air raids. 

  Also, Hitler refused to allow the generals to establish fortified defense lines, especially on the German border, which might have assisted them in defending Germany from the Soviet onslaught.  His reasoning was: if we build these lines, the cowardly generals will simply retreat behind them immediately.  We don't want to give them any more incentive to retreat than they already have. 

 Finally in March 1945, Hitler couldn’t take any more, and advised him to go on vacation.  “Hitler said to me, ‘Please do your best to get your health back.  In six weeks the situation will be very critical.  Then I shall need you urgently.  Where do you think you will go?’ Keitel advised me to visit Bad Liebenstein.  It was very beautiful there.  I replied that it was already occupied by the Americans. ‘Well then, what about Bad Sachsa in the Harz?’ asked the solicitous Field-Marshal.  I thanked him for his kindly interest and remarked that I intended to choose my place of residence for myself and that I planned to pick a locality which would not be overrun by the enemy within the next forty-eight hours.”  He ended up in the Tyrol, where he was on May 10 when the Germans surrendered. 

 The remainder of his book consists of fairly candid character analyses of Hitler, Goering, Goebbels, Himmler, and other major players (except Rommel, who he had praised earlier).  I found this just as fascinating as the rest.  I can see why the Americans were so impressed with him – I certainly was. 

Communism vs. National Socialism vs. Capitalism

This is NOT a rehash of my GULAG v. HOLOCAUST blog, nor is it an attempt to apologize for or glorify National Socialism, but more of an overall discussion on a wider topic, authoritarianism vs. totalitarianism vs. capitalism.

Authoritarian regimes are typically the right-wing dictatorships and juntas, such as Brazil’s military from 1964-85, Marcos, Pinochet, Salazar, Batista, the various South Vietnamese governments from 1955-75, etc.  Really you just have a thug or general who wants power for its own sake, little excuse beyond that, and all he cares about it making sure he gets his “piece of the action” and enough pussy (or whatever his particular vice happens to be).  He has no grand vision, no big plans, no grandiose scheme or desire to micromanage the entire country down to the last molecule – and no pretensions thereof.

Totalitarian regimes are what we think of like 1984, where the state encompasses the entire society and attempts to control literally everything.  With the exception of Nazi Germany, they are invariably communist regimes: Soviet Russia, Red China, Vietnam, Eastern Europe, Cuba, North Korea.  From cradle to grave, the regime seeks to modify not merely our behavior but our very thoughts.  Unlike authoritarian regimes, which rarely bother to justify their existences, power, or authority, totalitarian regimes cloak their actions in the veneer of ideology and moral superiority.  “We represent the PEOPLE – if you oppose us, you oppose the people, and must be struck down.”

Class.  According to Marxist doctrine, there are three classes: the aristocracy (kings, queens, nobles), the bourgeois (merchants and capitalists), and the proletariat (workers and peasants).  Under feudalism, the aristocracy rules, with a small but growing bourgeois class.  Eventually the bourgeois overthrows the aristocracy and institutes capitalism, then sets about exploiting the proletariat until it too is eventually overthrown in a proletarian revolution - and we get socialism.  Eventually the state withers away to a point of anarchy called communism, and we all live happily ever after.  “Communist” regimes are actually socialist, as true communism has never been achieved in any country – nor is it ever likely.

Under a socialist dictatorship, the state is supposedly the legal representative of the proletariat.  The bourgeois are dispossessed and thrown into re-education camps to be rehabilitated into socialist society.  Without any class besides proletariat, such a society is, theoretically, classless.  By comparison, under the fascist/National Socialist dictatorship, all three classes are subjugated to the state, which represents the people.  Worker, farmer, businessman, industrialist, all are enslaved to the state.  For this reason, fascists and communists ostensibly hate each other and oppose each other vigorously, yet the reality is that they have far more in common than the theoretical ideological deviations would suggest.

In many countries in Western Europe, the socialist party has taken power, yet without installing the dreaded dictatorship of the proletariat.  Instead, they maintain the market system, individual rights, and otherwise a capitalist democracy, though with 90% taxes, free health care, free education, 40 hour work week, pensions, etc.  These are essentially capitalist countries with substantial doses of socialism added.

Stalin v. Trotsky.  Neither had much of any ideological differences with the other: Trotsky was merely the loser of the power struggle.

Cult of personality.  Lenin, Stalin, Mao, Castro, Tito, Ho Chi Minh, Ceaucescu.  Despite being about “the people”, communist regimes oddly focused on strong single personalities, individual leaders.  The reality was, none of these leaders cared about the people: they simply cared about power for its own sake, and were predictably brutal and ruthless about suppressing revolt even from within the proletariat.  Lenin dismissed reports of cannibalism among Ukrainian peasants by laughing that this meant they were too weak to oppose him.  The rare examples of sincere patriots inevitably became the first victims of the purges, in which the revolution weeds out the idealists in favor of the pragmatists - who are the only ones devious and ruthless enough to survive or prosper under such regimes.

1984 & Animal Farm.  George Orwell’s pair of books, each explaining these concepts in a different way.  1984 examines the nature of the state itself, which ultimately exists for its own sake, against its own people.  Ayn Rand once defined “dictatorship” as a war between the government and its own, legally disarmed, people.  And this is explained in even more detail in the book Winston reads, provided to him by O’Brien, who is pretending to be part of the resistance but is in fact an officer of the secret police.  Odd, though:  O'Brien turns out to be more of a source of information to Winston than the other way around, and the torture Winston endures is not to extract information - he knows far less than O'Brien does, and little of value - but to corrupt him, force him to betray his lover, and destroy him as a person and an individual.  Indeed, the movie "The Lives of Others", concerning a Stasi agent in East Berlin in the mid 80s, shows that the quality of life of the secret police really wasn't that much better than that of the poets, playwrights, actors, etc. who were the victims of the police state.  It was all one big  dark, depressing prison for everyone concerned.

            Animal Farm works on several different levels.  The animals sincerely want liberation from their human master, and were reasonable in following the pigs’ revolution.  But you can also see how the worker – Boxer, the horse – is ultimately exploited by the same revolution, and how the pigs eventually took over the same role as the human farmer.  Even the vicious, snarling, dogs act as the enforcers for the pigs.

Nazi Germany.  The notable exception, the only totalitarian regime which was not communist.  The Nazis had an ideology, a Final Solution, the SS, the Gestapo, and the will to carry it out.  Hitler had a master plan, as described (vaguely) in Mein Kampf, for anyone patient enough to read it.  Cloaked in German nationalism and anti-semitism, the Nazis terrorized not only the Jews and subject occupied nations, but their own people, as willing victims, co-conspirators in mass insanity as they may have been.  But while the world is fairly unanimous in challenging and condemning this form of totalitarianism, equally oppressive and evil forms – especially Soviet Russia – found no shortage of “useful idiots” apologizing for, or even supporting, their ideologies.  Tom Morello, I’m talking to you...

Statism vs. capitalism.  For all its faults, capitalism remains the ideal form of economic system.  Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes (Nazi and socialist) can be collectively referred to as statist or collectivist.  They boil down to the priority: individual vs. collective, the needs of the many vs. the needs of the few.  The cruel irony of collectivist regimes is that in their rampant and fanatic devotion to “the people”, “society”, “the collective”, etc. they completely negate the individual, yet society is, ultimately, nothing more than an aggregate of individuals.  The ultimate minority is, of course, the individual, who is the ultimate victim, the sacrificial offering to the sacred collective.  By destroying the individual as a person with any rights or importance per se, the collectivists ultimately destroy themselves.  Without freedom for the individual, there is no freedom for anyone.

The response to this, from most socialists, is that left to its own devices, capitalism produces various market failures: poverty, hunger, economic injustice, inequality of wealth and income.  Politics and economics, the distribution of scarce, limited and finite resources, is too important to be left up to the whims, caprices, and apparently random vicissitudes of at best an impersonal market and at worst an aggregate of sometimes monopolistic and oligopolistic markets.  Why leave this to chance, when there are highly intelligent planners who can redistribute wealth and income, and micromanage the entire country, far better?  If we need to do this by a brutal dictatorship, well, so be it – better than being run by Big Business, right?  Raise the spectre of a country run by GM, IBM, Ford, or Bill Gates to scare us into the arms of Big Brother.  (Comrade Moore & Comrade Nader will be happy to oblige).

Who are these geniuses?  They’re the socialists themselves.  Have we ever met an avowed socialist who was not highly intelligent AND fully confident in his or her intelligence and wisdom (e.g. Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, or Christopher Hitchens).  The one problem with their “brain the size of a planet” issue is that no two socialists can ever agree on anything (see “Life of Brian” for this symptom of continually splitting socialist factions).  Fortunately for us, that is.  But there were no shortage of highly intelligent opponents to collectivism, including, but not limited to, Ayn Rand, Friedrich Hayek, Milton Friedman, and Ludwig von Mises.  Bottom line is that for all its faults, capitalism keeps us free – which is far more than can be said for its alternatives.