this is Richard Wolff from democracy at
work responding to another ask Prof wolf
question from our patreon community
and this question comes from Carl
and Carl refers us to a recent
appearance on a right-wing show a talk
show on television or a podcast in which
a supporter of Donald Trump's Maga
movement make America great again refers
to something called Maga communism and
even identifies himself in the
conversation as a matter of factly oh
yes I am a communist and what Carl wants
to know is there some redefinition some
change going on in communism that might
make it somehow a partner of right-wing
fascistic or other right side of the
aisle movements so let me respond and
I'm going to do it historically so you
can see the point I'm trying to make in
that way
throughout history every time that
Socialism or communism have come back
into the political Arena and I should
mention to you all that they have been
pronounced dead and gone and over with
over and over again I'm often reminded
of the famous letter Mark Twain sent to
the Hartford current newspaper in
Connecticut where he lived after reading
his own obituary in that day's paper he
wrote to the editor reports of my death
have been greatly exaggerated the
reports of the death of socialism and
communism have been exaggerated by
people who wished they had disappeared
wished they were gone from the
historical agenda but it has never been
the case and it isn't that now either so
what's going on answer is if you're a
political movement and you want to get
supporters at a time when socialism is
attracting more and more interest well
you might be tempted to grab hold at
least of the name and I'm going to give
you some examples of how that has
happened
probably the most important example is
the one of Adolf Hitler in Germany
Hitler tried to build a movement in the
1920s in Germany but the problem for
Hitler was during the 1920s
what happened to Germany was a major
reaction to having Lost World War one
which traumatized the German people
likewise traumatizing them was the worst
inflation any modern capitalist economy
has ever seen up until that point
1923 the value of the German Deutsche
Mark uh collapsed basically to next to
nothing
and the 50 years of scrupulously
accumulated savings by the German
Working Class A very frugal savings
oriented working class
all of that was reduced to nothing all
that money they had squirreled away in
an account couldn't buy you a quarter
pound of butter and these two events
traumatized them and then came the Great
Depression of 1929 and it took him over
the hill but through the whole 20s what
was alive and creative in Germany was
socialism it was what replaced the
defeated discredited German aristocracy
Kaiser Wilhelm the Emperor of Germany
until the defeat of that country in
World War one so the Socialists were
everywhere music art culture politics to
go socialism socialism and Mr Hitler
made the decision that to build up his
movement even though it was the opposite
of socialism
Hitler hated the Soviet Union which is
where socialism had won the governmental
power in 1917. he hated the left he
hated socialism had fought against it
had been involved in violent efforts
against it but he knew that to build a
movement he had to somehow tap into it
so he chose as the name for his
political party the National
Socialist German Workers Party that was
the full name of his party because the
first word nationalist in German is
nazional and the first four letters are
n a z i that's why it's called the Nazi
party but the fact that Mr Hitler took
the name socialist fooled very few
people in Germany it didn't make much
difference
and the Very people he began working
with who were interested in socialism
were ejected from the Nazi party often
with violence in the years later on in
the 1920s so don't be fooled by Maga
communism yes it's a clever putting
together of things that don't fit it
will get you some attention for a while
but there's nothing in Mr Trump or the
Maga movement that is anything other
than fundamentally hostile to almost
everything that socialism has meant or
could mean
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