# Ideological Drivers of Geopolitical Conflicts

- Link: https://italiajoe.com/ideological-drivers-of-geopolitical-conflicts/
- Published: 2025-01-28T23:56:31+00:00
- Author: Joseph Simonetti

The prevailing circumstances post-WWI included the rise of Communism, Fascism and
National Socialism. These remain the cornerstone ideologies that continue to impact
Western Politics, particularly the relationship between the three adversaries and
democracies. Joshua Philipp, an award-winning investigative reporter, provides an
excellent personal dissertation in an essay. In that essay he points out that Nazism,
Fascism, and Socialism are all rooted in Communism.

I have purposely sought opinions reflecting my views of the communist ideology and
other wide-ranging political propositions. Furthermore, I have intentionally taken
positions where these contradict my beliefs. In the main, these oppose many left-
leaning movements prevalent in the early 21st century. They have become prevalent
in the early decades of the 21st Century. This trend shapes my critique.

The following is an abridged version of Joshua’s essay:
 _The concept of a ‘far 
left’ that is opposed to a ‘far right’ is false. The systems placed on the two ends
of that spectrum, including socialism, fascism, and Nazism, are all rooted in communism.
All of these movements share core communist beliefs, including state collectivism,
planned economies, and class struggle. They were simply different interpretations
of Marxism and played major roles in politics after World War I. Marx’s ideas failed
to materialise, and communists regroup._

_….Socialism was described in Marx’s theory of the five stages of civilisation. 
After he helped frame the concept of “capitalism” as a society in which people are
able to trade freely, he proposed that after capitalism would come the stage of “
socialism,” followed by “communism.”  Socialism was the stage that Vladimir Lenin
described as the “state-capitalist monopoly,” in which a dictatorship has seized
control of all means of production.  The idea was that a communist regime would 
use the absolute power of the socialist “dictatorship of the proletariat” to destroy
all values, all religion, all institutions, and all traditions—which would theoretically
lead to the communist “utopia.”  **In other words, socialism is the political system,
and communism is the ideological goal.** **This is why followers of communism argue
that “true communism” has never been achieved**. The system has thus far failed 
to utterly destroy human morals and beliefs, although it has taken the lives of 
more than 100 million people over the last 100 years._

**_“Before the Russian Revolution of 1917, ‘socialism’ and ‘communism’ were synonyms,”_**
Bryan Caplan_, associate professor of economics at George Mason University, states
in the chapter on communism in “_The Concise Encyclopedia of Economics.”

_“Both referred to economic systems in which the government owns the means of production,”_

Caplan_ states: “The two terms diverged in meaning largely as a result of the political
theory and practice of Vladimir Lenin.”_

_Of course, **the failings of Marx’s predictions are also what gave rise to the 
many interpretations of communism that emerged following World War I.**** These 
included Leninism, fascism, and Nazism.**_

_As the world boiled in the turmoil that led to World War I between 1914 and 1918,
many communists looked to the words of Marx, who in the 1848 “Communist Manifesto”
said, “Workers of the world, unite.” **Yet, the workers of the world did not unite**—
at least not how Marx envisioned. Instead of rallying behind communism, they largely
rallied behind their respective kings and countries. In addition, **the livelihood
of workers became better under capitalism, **as opposed to Marx’s predictions that
it would become worse. **Then, when the communist revolution did happen, it did 
not happen in the “late-stage capitalist” societies, which at the time were Britain
and Germany, but instead in Russia. And instead of the Bolshevik Revolution being
the “proletariat” against the “bourgeoisie,” as Marx predicted, it was the military
and intelligentsia against the feudal Russian tsarist system.**_

_…**After Lenin, the next communist revisionist to take the world stage was Benito
Mussolini, who took from World War I the lesson that nationalism was more uniting
than the idea of a worker’s revolution.** **He thus revised Marxism into his new
system of fascism,** using the collectivist principle of “fasci,” which refers to
a bundle of sticks reinforcing the handle of an axe. _Mussolini_ explained his concept
in his _1928 autobiography_, in which he states, _

_“The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the
anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity.”_

_According to _“Russia Under the Bolshevik Regime”_ by _Richard Pipes_: “No prominent
European socialist before World War I resembled Lenin more closely than Benito Mussolini.
__ Like Lenin, he headed the antirevisionist wing of the country’s Socialist Party;
like him, he believed **that the worker was not by nature a revolutionary and had
to be prodded to radical action by an intellectual elite.”**_

_Then, soon after, **Adolph Hitler emerged with his re-branded socialist system 
under the banner of “national socialism.”** Taking advantage of the fact that the
German people had been divided by new national borders established by the armistice,**
Hitler used identity politics to rally his followers.** __The policies of the Nazi
Party followed the communist model, _Dinesh D’Souza_ in his book ‘_The Big Lie: 
Exposing the Nazi Roots of the American Left.’_ Notes:_

_…. the 25-point program included universal free health care and education, nationalisation
of large corporations and trusts, government control of banking and credit, the 
splitting of large landholdings into smaller units, and similar policies. __In addition_,
D’Souza states_ Mussolini and Hitler both identified socialism as the core of the
fascist and Nazi Weltanschauung [way of life].__ Mussolini was the leading figure
of Italian revolutionary socialism and never relinquished his allegiance to it. 
Hitler’s party defined itself as championing ‘national socialism.’_

_Like all other communist ideologues, Hitler was also viciously opposed to the traditional
capitalist system. Just as Lenin blamed wealthy farmers, and Mao Zedong blamed landlords,
Hitler transferred blame to a single group of people—the Jews. As D’Souza states,“
Nazi anti-Semitism grew out of Hitler’s hatred for capitalism. **Hitler draws a 
crucial distinction between productive capitalism, which he can abide, and finance
capitalism, which he associates with the Jews.”**_

_The conflict that later took place between the various systems during World War
II was not a battle of opposite ideologies but, instead, a fight over which interpretation
of communism would prevail. According to _“The Road to Serfdom” by F.A. Hayek_, “
The conflict between the fascist or national-socialist and the older socialist parties
must indeed very largely be regarded as the kind of **conflict which is bound to
arise between rival socialist factions.”**_

_We can thank historical revisionism and plenty of mental gymnastics for the current
narrative that socialism is somehow separate from Nazism and fascism and, even more
so, the belief that these concepts are somehow divorced from their communist origins.
_D’Souza _attributes this narrative shift to what _Sigmund Freud_ called “transference,”
based on his idea that **people who commit terrible acts often transfer blame onto
others, accusing others, including their victims, of being what they, themselves,
are.**_

The Nazis initiated propaganda to extricate National Socialism from previous binding
agendas with Soviet Russia and were now carelessly dismissive of communism as a 
credible opponent. Hitler underestimated Stalin’s resolve, which was to be underwritten
by a murderous sacrificial intent of his people.