What was worse? Communist or Fascist Regimes?

[El_Tigre]

Everything was spent on war, yes i agree. But Germany didn't gained and boosted it's economy by this. What did Germany earn from one tank for example ?

Uh, full employment maybe?! The heavy metal industry was the fly wheel of the German economy, causing a huge boom in other sectors. All those newly employed workers increased consumption, too. An all this was based on... yep, tanks! Unfortunately, the only way a tank will earn you proft is to pillage like the Mongols.

Nothing. The tank was left for their army. If all this production was sold and traded ? What would had happened with the economy ?

Again, what's your point?! I'm arguing that Nazi Germany had a terrible economy, and you reply that if Germany wouldn't have been a fascist state, the economy would have been better?? By all means, agreed!!

I can only guess you want to imply that militarization and rearmament are optional elements of fascism. If that's the case, I'm at a loss of words.

@Reno. Say from who the Nazis had taken loans ??! Thy had only innerloans, taken from big German corporations as Krup.

US, GB, Switzerland, Sweden, ... Do you really think that all foreign investments stopped on January 30th, 1933? Even the French wanted their fair share of the profits made in the (superficially) booming Germany. Hitler was clever enough to take out lots of long-term foreign loans before the international situation deteriorated. You know, he had some kind of insider knowledge about the future of European "business" relations...

Edit: And you don't even need inter-state loans, all you need are international investments in German corporations, and turn them into private state bonds.

 

[frekk]

Which were worse?
Left-Winged authoritarian regimes like the URSS,China, Cuba, etc., i.e., Communism.
or
Fascist, Right-Winged Dictatorships (note Fascism is not right winged), Nazi, Authoritarian Conservative Regimes?

I think Communist regimes were worse because, they killed more people
Hitler killed 6 million Jews, Stalin killed 10 million people. And Mao, around 40 or 30 million people.

Well, first, Hitler killed more than just Jews, in case you've forgot.

Second, the figures for Stalin and Mao are not quite the same thing as murdering camp inmates (though this occurred in large numbers there also). Many of these deaths are the result of poor policy decisions in very poor and war-ravaged countries, which led to widespread starvation and disease, which account for the majority of the figures listed for Stalin and Mao. In contrast, the deaths in the German concentration camps occurred in a very modern, technologically sophisticated nation which had once been considered, prior to its descent into Nazism, to be an enlightened and progressive Western democracy.

By contrast, Russia had gone from a feudalistic Czarist state based on peasant agriculture to a totalitarian communist state, and had not yet completely broken away from the agrarian economy. The story is not much different - even worse, actually - with China. Widespread starvation and outbreaks of disease had never stopped in these countries, and were particularly common during war, no matter how intelligent or foolish the policies enacted. Neither had ever known a stable democratic system.

As far as it goes, it was not easy to keep populations alive in any of the areas that were ravaged by the war .... the US, with supplies that were incomprehensibly vast, was not able to prevent widespread starvation and death in the immediate postwar years in its occupation zones in Europe either, not even in the POW camps. How could one expect impoverished China to do so? With so many more people, such poor infrastructure, and such a ravaging as its densely populated coastal regions took from the Japanese? After a civil war, on top of that?

Another thing is the time frame. During WW2, deaths in Soviet gulags stand at 621 000. Deaths in Nazi camps stand at around 10 000 000 for the same period. Hitler's work was cut short; who's to say what the figure would have been had he had the time Stalin did?

 

[frekk]

Uh, full employment maybe?! The heavy metal industry was the fly wheel of the German economy, causing a huge boom in other sectors. All those newly employed workers increased consumption, too. An all this was based on... yep, tanks! Unfortunately, the only way a tank will earn you proft is to pillage like the Mongols.


Again, what's your point?! I'm arguing that Nazi Germany had a terrible economy, and you reply that if Germany wouldn't have been a fascist state, the economy would have been better?? By all means, agreed!!

This is not quite accurate.

The German economy was far from being a total war economy. More of its economy was devoted to the civilian sector than the allies, up until the tide of the war began to change on the Eastern Front. The switch to a war economy had nothing to do with the type of government they had, but rather had to do with the fact that once the Soviets started to roll them back it was a war of survival for the Germans.

he German War Economy

Study of German war production data as well as interrogation of those who were in charge of rearmament at the time, leaves no doubt that until the defeat at Moscow German industry was incompletely mobilized and that in fact Germany did not foresee the need for full economic mobilization. German arms production during 1940 and 1941 was generally below that of Britain. When the full meaning of the reverses at Moscow became apparent the German leaders called for all-out production. The conquests of the previous years had greatly strengthened Germany's economy; with the exception of oil and rubber, supplies of virtually all the previously scarce imported materials were or had become accessible. Great reserves of foreign labor only awaited voluntary or forced recruitment. The industrial plant of France, the Low Countries, Poland and Czechoslovakia had been added to that of Germany. After the defeat at Moscow early in 1942, armament production increased rapidly. However, such increase was more the result of improvements in industrial efficiency than of general economic mobilization. Studies of German manpower utilization show that throughout the war a great deal of German industry was on a single shift basis, relatively few German women (less than in the first war) were drawn into industry and the average work week was below British standards.

Germany's early commitment to the doctrine of the short war was a continuing handicap; neither plans nor state of mind were adjusted to the idea of a long war. Nearly all German sources agree that the hope for a quick victory lasted long after the short war became a long one. Germany's armament minister Albert Speer, who assumed office in early 1942, rationalized German war production and eliminated the worst inefficiencies in the previous controls. A threefold increase in armament production occurred under his direction but the increase cannot be considered a testament to the efficiency of dictatorship. Rather it suggests the degree of industrial undermobilization in the earlier years. An excellent case can be made that throughout the war top government management in Germany was not efficient.

Because the German economy through most of the war was substantially undermobilized, it was resilient under air attack. Civilian consumption was high during the early years of the war and inventories both in trade channels and consumers' possession were also high. These helped cushion the people of the German cities from the effects of bombing. Plant and machinery were plentiful and incompletely used. Thus it was comparatively easy to substitute unused or partly used machinery for that which was destroyed. While there was constant pressure throughout for German manpower for the Wehrmacht, the industrial labor supply, as augmented by foreign labor, was sufficient to permit the diversion of large numbers to the repair of bomb damage or the clearance of debris with relatively small sacrifice of essential production.

From the United States Strategic Bombing Survey.

http://www.anesi.com/ussbs02.htm#tgwe

Nothing. The tank was left for their army. If all this production was sold and traded ? What would had happened with the economy ?

Ok, here we have a poor understanding of how economies work. Economic activity is always good, whether it produces exports etc or not. Plus one has to understand that one of the ways Hitler rejuvenated the German economy was by refuting the existing system of international trade and moving to a barter system for all imports/exports. So the economy was more or less self-sustaining as long as it could produce enough exports to trade for raw materials, which industrialized Germany was capable of doing handily.

Take a look at the American economy. It runs a trade deficit, so does not profit much from what is sold and traded (in fact it takes a net loss). Much of what it produces does not go on to produce more wealth - a stack of movie DVD's or video games is no more useful than a tank. In fact, a tank at least goes on to produce employment, while a stack of DVDs never produces anything. The point is that both are produced and generate employment and activity that way. The key to modern economies is generating activity, since industrial economies can easily produce many goods efficiently. The trick is getting people employed and generating activity. The US system does this very well, as did the German economy of the late 30s. Note that the acquisition of large external debts and the protection of the currency from foreign depreciation and speculation are inherent to both models, and highly succesful as economic policies.

 

[Heretic_Cata]

Communism is a LOT worse than fascism and i know cause i was born in a communist country and i know their attrocities...
The reason is quite simple : Fascist regimes kill people (in various attrocious ways) in WAR-TIME.
Instead Comunist regims hold the records of "murders" during peace time (murder is a kind word for what they did): i don't have to remind you Mao's cultural revolution, Stalin's party purges, and let's not forget that year (damnit i can't remember which) when there was this GREAT drought and Stalin , to show off in front of the Americans, exported a LOT more wheat than the year before - millions of people died in Ukraine (most died there- but the whole Eastern europe suffered) of starvation because the communist didn't leave ANY grain for the farmers; who btw were killed if they were found stealing a pack o flower during that period. And since the state provided the food supply the farmers didn't have what to eat because the government exported everything so that the world would know that not even a whole year drought can shake the "mighty" soviet empire ...

And the nazis actions during wartime can be easily explained - "THIS IS WAR we can do anything we want, let's kill smth - i heard the party hated jews ...Let's kill them ... OK". The nazis didn't kill jews sistematicaly during peace.
But the communist's slaughters were PLANNED - and they couldn't have said "it's war - we can do anything we want because we will win and no f****** international agreement concerning the prisoners of war (or smth else)will apply to us because we will control the world"

P.S. : I'm sorry for any spelling errors

 

[El_Tigre]

This is not quite accurate.

The German economy was far from being a total war economy. More of its economy was devoted to the civilian sector than the allies, up until the tide of the war began to change on the Eastern Front. The switch to a war economy had nothing to do with the type of government they had, but rather had to do with the fact that once the Soviets started to roll them back it was a war of survival for the Germans.

I never said that Germany's economy was fully mobilized before 1943. You must have missed my post above where I said:

The loot acquired in the Czech Republic, Poland, Benelux and France kept the economy going until he was able to establish a full-blown military economy under Speer.

All I said was that rearmament and the military industry acted as the flywheel of the German economy. I'm not arguing about the degree of mobilization, but about the instability of the whole German economy - civil and military.

Communism is a LOT worse than fascism and i know cause i was born in a communist country and i know their attrocities...
The reason is quite simple : Fascist regimes kill people (in various attrocious ways) in WAR-TIME.

Pinochet? Argentinia? And why does it make a difference wether a dictator kills people during war-time or in times of peace?

The nazis didn't kill jews sistematicaly during peace.

Systematic oppression and persecution of jews started well before 1939. During the Reichskristallnacht (Night of Broken Glass) the jewish leadership and intelligentsia was arrested and deported - most of them didn't survive. Concentration camps like Dachau, Buchenwald and Mauthausen existed since the mid-thirties, and a large part of their inmates - and fatalities - were jews.

But the communist's slaughters were PLANNED - and they couldn't have said "it's war - we can do anything we want because we will win and no f****** international agreement concerning the prisoners of war (or smth else)will apply to us because we will control the world"

The Holocaust was also planned, and I don't see why it should be less evil because it happened during WW2.

 

[CaptainF]

I don't know about living in a fascist regime being good or bad, thats a bit foggy.

But living in a country that shares a border with a fascist regime...

That would suck.:thumbdown

 

[frekk]

I never said that Germany's economy was fully mobilized before 1943. You must have missed my post above where I said:

All I said was that rearmament and the military industry acted as the flywheel of the German economy. I'm not arguing about the degree of mobilization, but about the instability of the whole German economy - civil and military.

Why would it be unstable simply had a military component?

The most powerful economies in the world today, are also the ones with the largest military-industrial complexes. If anything, out of the advanced economies it is the ones with little focus on military production which are unstable, eg Japan. Name the arms builders, and with a few exceptions, you've named the world's most stable economies - USA, China, Britain, France, Sweden, Israel, etc.

There's nothing inherently unstable about an economy which has a signifigant military component. Tanks certainly don't produce wealth, but most economic activity does not revolve around the production of capital anyway. Cheap electronics used for entertainment don't produce any wealth either, they are simply consumed - just like tanks. They can be exported, certainly, and Germany *did* export arms - within and beyond its autarkic economic sphere, even as far abroad as Mexico and Brazil.

The economic rejuvenation of Germany was not, in any case, catalyzed simply by borrowing money and increasing military output. Industrial economies at this stage of their development prospered well under Keynesian policies and particularly those aimed at creating infrastructure. In the States, during the same period, the economy was recovered and a new era of prosperity engendered by much the same policies as in Germany. In the States, known as the "New Deal", there was the Civilian Conservation Corps and many other federally funded schemes that hired millions to dig irrigation, plant forests, build highways and dams, etc etc. Exactly the same process happened in Germany a few years later, under the National Labour Service, with very similar results. This was a period of land reclamation projects, irrigation, the construction of the autobahns, etc. The next stage of industrial development made it mandatory for any nation to upgrade its infrastructure quickly and reap a new era of production, or stall and fall behind.

Though Keynesian theories only held true for a particular stage of development in the industrialized economies, it is quite likely that like other industrial economies, Germany would have changed policies and moved beyond it when the time came. As far as its autarky, in effect this was really not unlike the formation of a trading bloc such as the EU or NAFTA, considering that there were exports reaching far beyond the sphere itself.

 

[El_Tigre]

You must have misunderstood me (or I don't get your point): I never argued that Germany's economy was unstabel because of the military component, but that the whole economy was unstable.

Edit: Is the term "flywheel" the cause of confusion here? In German, "Schwungrad" is a metaphor for a catalyst, for something that accelerates a development and keeps it going. The dictionary came up with "flywheel" as translation.

 

[superisis]

damn it! How could I have missed this discussion (or alternatively, how is it this discussion comes up when I'm busy outside of Civ fanatics).

Focus:

My two cents are (even though I couldn't read the entire thread), that the question is one comparing the worst of all the experienced left-wing and right-wing dictatorships.

A few disclaimers:

don't argue if these dictatorships where right-wing or left-wing of if they truely represented communism/fascism. We are comparing case studies. If we have agreed which dicatorships to compare we can call them environmentalists and anarchists for all we care, it still doesn't change what we are comparing.

Now as I take it, we should compare the worst representatives of the two camps. One can claim aggregate conditions, i.e that of the total terror of both camps, but I find chose not to.

So the worst would fall down to (in my opinion):

Hitlers Nazi Germany

and

Stalins Socialist Russia

(one could argue for others, such as Maoist China, Emperor's Japan or Khmer's Cambodia, etc)

I would claim that Hitlers Regime was worst on two of three ways of measurement:

Firstly a personal view. How would I personally fare in each regime? I believe that my chances of survival would be greater in Nazi Germany than in Stalinist Russia. I am blond, green eyed, and match up to those other stupid ideals held dear by the nazis. However, I am also a liberal minded socialist, so I could be taken in for ideological reasons (if my beliefs where to overcome my fears). In Stalinist Russia my looks would gain me no sanctuary and there would still be the threat of persecution based on my ideology. Hence, for me personally I would favor living in Nazi Germany and the worse regime would be Stalinist Russia.

Secondly a non-personal view... or applying a viel of ignorance of what position one would hold in the society, I would chose Stalinist Russia. Neverminding the war and continuing history [i.e. chosing Germany because of the great chance of living in a western democracy (west germany) instead of the other alternatives] I would chose Russia, because I believe that the average person would fare better in that regime. Though the thought of faring well in a country ruled perpetually by Stalin for all eternity might seem odd, it does make sense when comparing it to the conditions of of a nation ruled perpetually by Hitler. Hitler was, in my opinion, more dogamtic and more elitist that Stalin. Or otherwise: In Hitler's social model, fewer people would fit. Hense the choice of preference would lie with Russia, and the claim of worst regime would fall on Germany.

Lastly, and historical account. Those unfortunate people located between Germany and Russia went through a lot of hardship and their voice should be heard. For those whose territories were occupied in 1939 by Stalin, then 1941 by Hitler then 1944 by Stalin again, their choice was clear. When Hitler's tanks rolled in in 1941, they were met by the praise and cheers that Bush would envy. After just 2 years of Stalinist terror these people would accept even Hitler as their ruler. Ofcourse, little did they know of what he had in mind. Therefore when the Russian troops came in 1944, they were met by the cheers and well wishes of the people who had suffered through both regimes and had clearly made a choice. Nazi germany was by far the worst to live in.

Tally:

Nazis II
Stalinists I

guess I'm voting with the majority in this poll.

 

[Plotinus]

Presumably it's not just the worst excesses that need to be examined. Say that regime A and regime B committed humanitarian crimes of equal magnitude, but regime A also achieved economic success and good environmental management, while regime B caused a recession and polluted all the rivers. Presumably then regime B would be judged worse than regime A.

 

[Tank_Guy#3]

Extreme Leftwing Fascists (kind of contradicts itself). I think communism would be far more bearable than fascism.

 

[El_Tigre]

Here's a good summary about the Nazis and the German economy. The central paragraph:

Did the Nazis produce an economic miracle for Germany?

The Minister of the Economy was Hjalmar Schacht. He introduced his "New Plan". This plan intended to reduce imports, reduce unemployment, channel government spending into a wide range of industries and make trade agreements with other nations. Hermann Goering also wanted Germany to become self-sufficient in all industries so that as a nation she could survive a war. Were these plans successful?

• by 1939, Germany still imported 33% of its required raw materials
• government income had been 10 billion Reichsmarks in 1928. In 1939, it stood at 15 billion. However, government spending had increased from 12 billion Reichsmarks in 1928 to over 30 billion in 1939 - a difference of 15 billion Reichsmarks. From 1933 to 1939, the Nazi government always spent more than it earned so that by 1939, government debt stood at over 40 billion Resichsmarks.
• balance of trade figures had gone into the red by 1939 by 0.1 billion Reichsmarks.
• unemployment had fallen from 6 million in 1933 to 300,000 by 1939 and industrial production in 1939 was above the figure for Weimar Germany before the 1929 Wall Street Crash.
• annual food consumption in 1937 had fallen for wheat bread, meat, bacon, milk, eggs, fish vegetables, sugar, tropical fruit and beer compared to the 1927 figures. The only increase was in rye bread, cheese and potatoes.
• real earnings in 1938 were all but the same as the 1928 figure. Real earnings are wages adjusted to allow for inflation.

So a mixed bag, really. Keep in mind however, that without 100t of gold and the foreign currency reserves from the Austrian National Bank the economy would have collapsed in 1938. A good reminder for the inseparable union of economy, politics and military in a fascist state.

 

[frekk]

by 1939, Germany still imported 33% of its required raw materials

Not necessarily an indicator of poor economic performance. Look at Victorian England or the US today. It's actually typical of highly productive industrial economies to import large quantities of raw materials.

government income had been 10 billion Reichsmarks in 1928. In 1939, it stood at 15 billion. However, government spending had increased from 12 billion Reichsmarks in 1928 to over 30 billion in 1939 - a difference of 15 billion Reichsmarks. From 1933 to 1939, the Nazi government always spent more than it earned so that by 1939, government debt stood at over 40 billion Resichsmarks.

Debt is worrying, of course, but again, not necessarily an indicator of poor economic performance. Once again ... the United States. Great economy, massive deficit.

balance of trade figures had gone into the red by 1939 by 0.1 billion Reichsmarks.

Balance of trade, again, not a good indicator. The USA for quite some time now has been running a trade deficit, and still running a powerhouse economy.

annual food consumption in 1937 had fallen for wheat bread, meat, bacon, milk, eggs, fish vegetables, sugar, tropical fruit and beer compared to the 1927 figures. The only increase was in rye bread, cheese and potatoes.

real earnings in 1938 were all but the same as the 1928 figure. Real earnings are wages adjusted to allow for inflation.

This is a little more worrying ... and indicates that it was less a miracle, and more of a simple recovery and a modest one at that.

Imho, the Nazi "miracle" was nothing special ... it was the same post-depression recovery seen in other Western economies, with many of the same features (public works, deficits, trade imbalances, etc).

 

[craig9897]

The 'right' will always be more cruel than the 'left'. Such as the terrorist criminal George W. Busch. I know that as an American and Republican.
Sad, but true.

 

[El_Tigre]

Imho, the Nazi "miracle" was nothing special ... it was the same post-depression recovery seen in other Western economies, with many of the same features (public works, deficits, trade imbalances, etc).

You're omitting the unemployment rate in your post. Full employment in 1936 was certainly not the usual post-depression recovery. In the US for instance, it wasn't the New Deal that significantly reduced unemployment, WW2 did. To be more precise, rearmament proved to be the way out of the depression - as in Germany, only later (after 1939)! Coincidence?

BTW, you rightly point out that the headline "Did the Nazis produce an economic miracle for Germany?" does not match with the content of the article, which talks about the economic aims of the Nazi leadership.

Back on topic:
As long as Hitler's Germany is lumped together with right-winged dictatorships and authoritarian regimes into one category, my vote goes to "Fascist Regimes". Otherwise, I would vote "Communist Regimes".

I really can't put my finger on it, let alone explain it, but for some reason I am deeply convinced that what happend in Nazi concentration camps was the purest manifestation of evil in the history of mankind.

 

[garfio55]

That´s why the question is too broad. We are talking about the definitions of fascism and communism or about nazi germany and communist russia? Let´s get clear if we are talking about the analysis of the governments in theory, or about the practical examples.

 

[superisis]

comparing nazi and commie theory? Come on.

Ehh, equality vs racial supremacy... which is worse?

or communism vs fascism:

an equal society vs survival of the fittest, hmmm which is worse?

 

[Nestorius]

Not all regimes are the same. Hitler's Germany vs. Stalin's USSR would be a different comparison than Khrushchev's USSR vs. Franco's Spain.

 

[plarq]

comparing nazi and commie theory? Come on.

Ehh, equality vs racial supremacy... which is worse?

or communism vs fascism:

an equal society vs survival of the fittest, hmmm which is worse?

Saying that communism is an equal society is a joke. Communism = Bureaucracy + Peasants' Nightmare.

 

[Blanco-PL]

Ofcourse, that communism is worse. In fascist country I'd be at least economic independent.