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From John Ray’s Hitler Was A Socialist:

Hitler was not however original in being both a socialist and a nationalist. The first police State that was both Leftist and intensely nationalist was of course the French regime of Napoleon Bonaparte. (Even the personality cult surrounding Napoleon prefigured similar cults in the later Leftist tyrannies of Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Mao, Kim Il Sung etc.)

That is one of the reasons why, to me, the French have such an enormous problem; American history during the same period couldn’t be more different.

Bonaparte’s regime was as short-lived (1802-1814 vs. 1933 - 1945) and as salutary a warning as Hitler’s however, and it was not until the 20th century that such a concept again came prominently to the fore in the hands of the Italian dictator Mussolini. Mussolini came to power much before Hitler but was in fact even more Leftist than Hitler.

So how people can actually call us fascists is beyond me. They might have been slightly different in that Mussolini didn’t support Hitler’s going after the Jews, but Mussolini was still a murdering socialist dictator.

Although generally regarded as the founder of Fascism, in his early years Mussolini was one of Italy’s leading Marxist theoreticians.

I don’t wonder that the Marxists of Code Pink, and the Communists of International ANSWER continue to ignore the warnings we see from the results of their ideology in other countries. The historical record is clear.

He was even an intimate of Lenin. He first received his well-known appellation of Il Duce (”the leader”) while he was still a member of Italy’s “Socialist” (Marxist) party and, although he had long been involved in democratic politics, he gained power by essentially revolutionary means (the march on Rome). Even after he had gained power, railing against “plutocrats” remained one of his favourite rhetorical ploys. He was, however, an instinctive Italian patriot and very early on added a nationalistic appeal to his message, thus being the first major far-Left figure to deliberately add the attraction of nationalism to the attraction of socialism. He was the first 20th century far-Leftist to learn the lesson that Hitler and Stalin after him used to such “good” effect.

It is true that, like Hitler, Mussolini allowed a continuation of capitalism in his country (though the addition of strict party controls over it in both Italy and Germany should be noted) but Mussolini justified this on Marxist grounds! He was, in fact, it could be argued, more of an orthodox Marxist than was Lenin. As with the Russian Mensheviks, it seemed clear to Mussolini that, on Marxist theory, a society had to go through a capitalist stage before the higher forms of socialism and communism could be aspired to. He believed that capitalism was needed to develop a country industrially and, as Italy was very underdeveloped in that regard, capitalism had to be tolerated. What some see as Rightism, therefore, was in fact to Mussolini orthodox Marxism.

I don’t see any corrolation whatsoever between a Mussolini and a George Bush. George Bush is not a socialist to the extent that a John Kerry is. And George Bush doesn’t have a historical background of colluding with America’s enemies, meeting with communists, or claiming to have run guns for the Khmer Rouge.

Mussolini held this view from the early years of this century and he therefore greeted with some glee the economic catastrophe that befell Russia when the Bolsheviks took over. He regarded the economic failure of Bolshevism as evidence for the correctness of orthodox Marxism.

Think about that for a while. No similarities exist between conservative republicans who are capitalists and believe in small government as opposed to someone who is a socialist who cheers what he believes to be the ‘correctness’ of orthodox Marxism.

Interesting how so many socialist dictators, like Saddam Hussein, meet a similar end.

From DiggerHistory.info

As World War II approached, Mussolini announced his intention of annexing Malta, Corsica, and Tunis. In April 1939, after a brief war, he occupied Albania. Failing to realize that he had more to gain by trying to hold the balance of power in Europe, he preferred to rely on a policy of bluff and bluster to induce the Western democracies to give way to his increasing territorial demands. Although he had preached for 15 years about the virtues of war and the military readiness of Italy to fight, his armed forces were completely unprepared when Hitler’s invasion of Poland led to World War II. He decided to remain “nonbelligerent until he was quite certain which side would win. Only after the fall of France did he declare war in June 1940, hoping that the war had only a few weeks more to run. His attack on Greece in October revealed to everyone that he had done nothing to prepare an effective military machine. He had no option but to follow Hitler in declaring war on Russia in June 1941 and on the United States in December 1941.

Following Italian defeats on all fronts and the Anglo-American landing in Sicily in 1943, most of Mussolini’s colleagues turned against him at a meeting of the Fascist Grand Council on July 25, 1943. This enabled the king to dismiss and arrest him.

Rescued by the Germans several months later, Mussolini set up a Republican Fascist state in northern Italy. But he was little more than a puppet under the protection of the German Army. In this “Republic of Salo”, Mussolini returned to his earlier ideas of socialism and collectivization. He also executed some of the Fascist leaders who had abandoned him, including his son-in-law, Galeazzo Ciano.

Not unlike Saddam, who also executed his son-in-law.

Increasingly he tried to shift the blame for defeat onto the Italian people, who had not been great enough to appreciate his imperial dream. In April 1945, just before the Allied armies reached Milan, Mussolini, along with his mistress Clara Petacci, was caught by Italian partisans as he tried to take refuge in Switzerland.

They was summarily executed. The bodies were hung, upside down, in a public place.

Just goes go show how successful socialists are in matters of war, and one of the reasons why a John Kerry should never be trusted in a position where he’s ‘commander in chief’. Socialists are historically successful in destroying capitalism, with the deluded dream of replacing it with a socialist/communist utopia. Capitalism is something they abhor, which conservatives support.

They’re pretty good ‘peaceniks’, but most of them, I’m certain, don’t realize the ramifications of their actions. You have only to look to the historical record to see what is in store for us if they continue to succeed in the further destruction of our individual freedoms in favor of collectivism, and our forefathers’ work in our founding documents, paid for through blood and sacrifice by generations of people who feel that freedom is worth dying for, for over one hundred years.