Our series on the history of the Cold War period continues with a documentary on the Socialism and Social democracy in Europe Consider supporting us on Patreon: / thecoldwar
Socialism in one country does not mean a rejection of international revolution, it just means that socialism can and should be developed in one country first so it can survive as opposed to immediately spreading it by force of arms continuously as Trotsky proposed.
@Darth Revan she seems to be biased. And so you do, because you've spamed her freaking 3 times. It would be funny if you would spam it 4tg one under the same comment lol
Maybe, but the politics are engaged in by people, who are gripped by, and act in accordance with ideologies, which are themselves often adopted in response to pre-existing religous and political structures. Its a bit of a chicken and egg what was first issue..
@@nrconleynrc I agree for most part. However, in many countries, identity (ethnicity and relogion in particular) play even bigger role than ideas/ideology in shaping people's political mindset.
@@rb2964 Identity =/= ideology. A lot of people vote a candidate based on his/her identity (religion and/or ethincity), and not due to his/her programs.
Uh huh. Welcome to it. It in itself is the new ideology but not really. It’s all in how you look at it. Money, business, economy drives it above all. That’s geopolitics. It doesn’t care about ideologies, it cares about the bottom line amongst the whole geopolitical scope so to speak and where it lies individually as itself in each nation.
Not when you give all sides equal power. If you give them all they need, they can fight for their ideology. Who needs to support a capitalist nation whose resources you need when u have all the resources you need. That's in a ideal world. Alas, we don't live on that world. If only we didn't have limited natural resources... all wars would be fought purely for ideals, with none of the pragmatist and hypocritical BS. Especially for the US. They wouldn't need to support military dictatorships or religious extremists. They can evaluate which partners would be the most beneficial for the people they profess to liberate. No hypocrisy, just supporting true democracy. Alas we don't live there.
@@Edmonton-of2ec Well that would be a large factor, yes, but in some cases it might not be enough, assuming the Cold War ends the same as in our timeline. The Cuban Missile Crisis has shown to that.
That's why China allies with ultra conservative muslim countries, hard right Turkish countries like Turkey ally with China, and theocratic countries like Iran ally with China despite China being violenty atheist and genocidal towards turkic and muslim people
This was great due to the more nuanced sides of socialism it brings out, instead of simply putting all the left in the same bag of marxism. Hoping it calms the "us vs them" attitude. However, I also hope there's one about Capitalism too ending the same way as this one did: a positive conclusion after an outlook on its nuances.
the two major schools that were competing were keynsianism and neoliberalism. Keynsianism was the policy in the US and in the early years, what was allowed them to become a superpower, rebuild west Germany and Japan, and ultimately have a functional enough system to win the cold War. however, starting once the soviet block was already in steep decline and really kicking into gear after the fall of the soviet union, neoliberalism began to play a more dominant role in policy, which seems to have not worked as well for the US either domestically or in its vast sphere of influence...
I should confess, I didn't watch your videos for a while, but damn, did your narration improved! I only started a video and already interested what you want to say! Good job.
I'm really looking forward to a more detailed and comprehensive explanation of history as oppossed to the binary narrative that has become orthodox. History is much more complex than a simple black and white story and, although I am a huge fan of the " Kings and Generals" channel, I think that its more military focused content sometimes overshadows the complexities of the events at stake. Really glad you're commited to this idea, keep up the good work!
Nice episode. However, one small mistake was done: Bolsheviks didn't overthrow the Emperor of Russian Empire, it was done by bourgeois revolution in February of 1917
Yeah, I think they were just rushing through, a very common historical mistake for Americans though, so I would say it deserves clarification, as most barely know of, much less understand, Kerensky, the Kornilov Affair, Civil War, Kronstadt, etc.
Wabi Sabi it was called the russian empire. Цар is simply “king” in russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc. And a king can be an emperor. The russian king was an emperor as Russia had conquered other countries.
Plausibly the best video up to this point in the series, it makes essential distinctions that are often unclear to people from AngloAmerica. Thank you, greetings from a citizen of Italy and keep up with the good work!
Good video and very insightful. I believe you should have also referred to the Greek civil war, which was the first of the post-WWII conflicts and where there was also a lot of outside influence.
Please do a follow-up video re: Cold War anarchist movements (which you touched on SOO briefly in this video) and maybe even the post-Trotsky Fourth International.
But not one mention of the 93,000,000 killed by Communists during the 20th Century according to Social Democratic think tanks in Western Europe. Between 130,000,000 and 150,000,000 according to more Conservative sources.
@David Schalit What Conservative sources Robert Conquest?That guy is a hack,a Russian historian used the same statistical bs he did in his book and was able to claim that 30 million people died in the Great Depression using his same methods.Of course he noted this is dishonest and not what happen,but just to show what a dishonest hack he is.
@@kevingonzalez9191 So you have the 93,000,000 figure from Social Democratic think tanks in Western Europe. My mentioning them above you ignore? Why? Or do you deny their figures as well? Were the Gulags the equivalent to nice quaint towns & villages to you? Lubeyanka prison was a sleep-away camp? The latter had a carbon copy in every major Soviet city.
Overall a good breakdown, although it does leave out Anarchists, which were another very alive and present strand of socialism at that time and would play a significant role in the Spanish and Russian Civil Wars as well as Italy.
For your office - wouldn't it be AWESOME to have a mechnical calculator on your desk? A "Rechenmschine" from the 50s or 60s? Nothing big, a small one, with a crank? But that's just me, as a collector... Nevertheless, would be cool wouldn't it? Thank you for all your great vids, love 'em!
Earl Johnson it isn’t socialism. It’s welfare capitalism. Socialism would involve a fundamental shift in the relations between workers, the means of production and the fruits of their labor; social democracy just says “hey, don’t worry about the fact you’re being exploited, because the government does stuff for you.” Social democrats believe in Keynesian economics, not Marxist/mutualist/georgist/collectivist anarchist/participatory economics. The former is “capitalism where the government does stuff.” The others are socialist in character, despite their differences. They all propose a radical remaking of the economic fabric of society for the benefit of working people.
not to mention these "socialists" violently opposed actual socialists and communists, were enthusiastic members of NATO, cracked down communists in their colonies, etc...
As I understand it he believed either Britain or Germany, but saw Britain as the only country in which it could potentially (albeit not very likely) achieve a Worker's Revolution through electoral means.
Marx argued that a world revolution would necessarily have to start in the most advanced capitalist economy at the point in time during which it does start. In the early 20th century, this would be Germany; in the mid-19th, it might have been Britain’s. If we’re talking about the 21st, we’re obviously talking about the United States. The point of Marxism is that it provides an analysis of capitalism. Leninism provides some revolutionary guidelines, and makes Marxism adaptable to the material conditions of the specific place and time in which one tries to apply Marxist principles. Or at least, that’s what a Marxist-Leninist would tell you. My personal affinities lie more with libertarian socialists, like Rosa Luxemburg, or anarchists like Proudhon and Kropotkin.
@@joma5721 I agree mainly with your points but comparing leninism to Marxist leninism (stalinism) is unfair especially as Luxembourgism is only a sport criticism of leninism she acc supported him and said him as an ally
Very informed video, definetly what I, as a Libertarian Socialist and an Anarcho-Syndicalist, would look for in an ideal series on the Cold War, as opposed to the bland straight-line Liberal Capitalist textbook perspective often given on the topic. A perspective which essentially pretends all of the content mentioned here, from the history of early revolutionary attempts like the Paris Commune and the Sparticist Uprising, to their support of Fascists like Franco or Salazar, and even a lack of understanding of the very existence of the term "Social Democrat", which is so often namelessly conflated with "socialism" rather than the liberal reformist capitalism it actually represents. Expecially appreciated the mentions of Anarchism and Yugoslav cooperative Market-Socialism. Bravo 👏👏
@@06hurdwp Hot take, if you end up agreeing with Fascist mass murder, maybe you've had something go a little awry in your logical process along the way. Also read your history, the Anarchist trade unions created the socialist revolution in Spain.
@@marca7542 to be fair... Alot of Anarchists winning the war would do the same, they were already doing it. One of the many reasons Franco won support. Not saying o agree or disagrew with the killings, just stating the facts.
good video. but too little talk about Anarchism, it would be a great idea if you'd consider making a video about anarchist movements during the cold war, they deserve some special attention! its a shame it seems to be a topic a lot of historians avoid, but yet its very interesting and thought-provoking!
Always very interesting to look at the years leading up to ww2 with only the lens of socialism. I'm guessing nationalism is the biggest obstacle to international socialism. Thanks for the video!
@@FUnzzies1 Mass murder isn't technically a requisite for a socialist revolution,but yes it did play out that way in many places. Huge changes that displace a lot of people,causes enough friction to almost guarantee a bloodbath. The dictators that popped up later on afterwards with a murderous tendancies inside these socialist states only added to the tally. Of course these things are not limited to socialism, capitalist state have had their fair share of bloodthirsty tyrants.
I don't know how I missed this channel for months (I blame the algorithm!!), but this video was interesting, nuanced and balanced between seriousness and some more lighthearted comments. Even the looks live up to the standard that the Great War set all these years ago. The set, the graphics and the footage looks great. Your doing a great job, but I have a question out of curiosity. Are you financed by a company in any way or is this a project living from ad revenue and donations? The production value seems to be quite high and I never saw that without any media company financing something like this.
Wonder when The Cold War channel will talk about the Malayan Emergency? It is sort of involving a Communist insurgency against British colonial authorities, and later, the Malayan government. Hope it will be discussed at a later episode
I deeply love channels like this, true to all parts ideals and achivements, even having positions that are not in line with them. I have democratic-socialist inclinations and sometimes get tired of many not knowing what socialism really is, just poniting totalitarians mesures as if that included all branches of socialism and mentioning all the horrors that many leftist have done. I enjoy your content and the detail of it and will follow your channel always to learn and have a good time. Wish you the best!
Sorry but your position is logically inconsistent. Because to enforce your "inclinations" as you put it, it is inevitable that totalitarian measures are to be put in place. It has happened again and again. It is immutable. And therefore your "inclinations" at best seem nice on paper, but in both reality and at their worst, is double-speak, and immoral.
@Victor Donavon I have some ocational alingments with socialist ideals or policies, some of which are universal healthcare and education, and the "more extreme" of which are taxes to the rich. I don't know why would you say you need tirany for that, because public health and education works in many places to various degrees. I'm happy enough with what I have of those where I live (argentina) where socialist have not even been the main force behind it. Still those are common themes between socialist parties and that's why I say I suport them in general. Orwel too was a socialist and had stronger opinions against dictatorship than you and I,which made him go join the fight against fascists in spain under the trotskist flags, to avoid suporting stalinists. Not all socialists want dictatorship, just some equal bases for everyone. Some do want it no matter the price and will go on to destroy democracy for it, and some will go on and try to win the elections. Now if people want socialists to not be such radical bastards as stalin, is better to respect those which respected democracy, as Salvador Allende in Chile, but if people go on disrespecting and killing them for having those ideals, well, then the reaction will not be good. First democracy, then any ideal
@@lautaromoyano5692 Just because one wants something, does not mean that either A) one will get it or B) that there are not immutables that make it anything more than at best a pipe dream. True what you mention about Orwell is true. And you forget that democracy is little more than tyranny of the masses as surmised by Thomas Jefferson and also as demonstrated first in Athens of Classical Greece and then again and again by any political structure that does not have checks-and-balances in places that is respected to keep that form of tyranny in place. Given the points mentioned, again that does not defeat the given that logically speaking to institute any socialist policies and uphold them, ultimately totalitarian measures have to to be in place and enforced.
@@victordonavon292 I'm trying to see your point against some socialist ideas but the part of democracy confused me. You considered socialist countries to need authoritarian systems, ruled by an elite, to work and therefore those those systems are bad. I didn't argue that those systems were bad, but that some of their messures could make some sence if voted democracticaly, as was the case in many countries. Then you said that if the majority won on elections it isn't either a good reason for the system to work like that because it would be "a dictatorship of the majority". That is not a argument against public health nor education directly but by which means those could be achived, expanded or improved in many countries (remember, I'm just defending those socialist-like ideas, not any other). I don't disagree with most of what you said but at no point you established why would public health or education be atacking the checks and balances of the system. If it was doing it then that would be an effective refutation of what I said but you are not speaking about what I said
Now that doesn't mean that full on socialist reality (without private means of production) would be stable without force enforcement, but I have not spoken on favor of it at any time. I would agree with you with the fact that ussr, china, yugoslavia and many others kept socialist parties on power due to the violent nature of the regime. For me that's out of the question because it was obviously the case. What I'm pointing out is that you don't need a dictatorship to get new institutions that can work properly anywhere. Now if you are going to consider democraticaly getting those institutions, with legal-non violent means, authortiarian, then why do we have representative systems on the first place? And if we argue against those, so strongly to say "majority is mostly wrong", why should anyone despice the dictatorships of any place on earth? Because those have no restrictions? Well in those systems there was so much a single person could do because of how extensive was the burocracy, which was put on place to try to have said checks and balances. I'm not trying to argue on any way that it was better on the ussr, but to try to say they didn't have checks and balances would be missleading to say the least. Main problem wasn't lacking those checks and balances, but that they tried to consider unbyiased a one party system
My turn to be grateful. You will get less views, but this program is necessary at least for me. I like you are unbiased, its appropriate for now. Keep this going, i will just be thankful every now and then. Cant contribute.
I expect you to cover it later in the relevant video, but I did miss at least a mention of how the 1956 Hungarian revolution shattered the support of the big communist parties of Western Europe.
Trotsky's assassination might have been gruesome, but it was worthy of a James Bond film. Russian assassin using a hang-glider to reach Trotsky's apartment and then stabbing him with an ice pick? Damn!
More like a climbing tool to make a foot hold on a glacier, it looks more like a double headed claw hammer , a brutal looking weapon and not anything like a screwdriver
@@wojciechwilkanowski4472 Thanks for the clarification, but regardless of his nationality, he did the job for the Kremlin...so he's still a "Russian Assassin" to me.
@Some One - The assassin didn't drop in via hang glider when he attacked Trotsky. He was known to Trotsky, who regarded him as a well-meaning person, maybe even a friend. The tool he used was an ice axe, not an ice pick.
Please talk about the bush wars and Rhodesia. Rhodesia was involved with the Soviets and others. The wars in Africa between South Africa and Angola too. Please
@@matte6352 yeah sometimes it may be convenient not to be careful with your words if you don't want to admit inherent contradictions... in this case it sounded like an honest attempt at definition-ish-ness
I was watching a video about fascism from PragerU. They stated that fascism is socialism. Giovanni Gentile, the founder of fascism, was a socialist. Gentile believe that the people and businesses belong to the government. Fascism is socialism with an iron fist.
Fascists referred to themselves as "the third way", in reference to free market liberal democracy (classical liberalism) vs. socialism, revolutionary or otherwise. Mussolini famously described fascism as "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State." To many classical liberals there seems to be little difference between an iron-fisted totalitarian planned-economy single-party state ruling through corporations and unions or an iron-fisted totalitarian planned-economy single-party state ruling through state institutions and bureaus. To many socialists there seems little difference between the oligarchic rule by private unelected unaccountable shareholders influencing and cutting deals with the state for profit, or fascism. However the stated goal of fascism and fascist movements/states is similar to that of socialism and socialist movements/states, that being an ethical government that puts the welfare of its population above (selfish, bourgeois) individual rights, liberties or private ownership. Thus both fascism and socialism are collectivist ideologies, where free market liberalism is an individualist ideology, and fascism and socialism therefore tend to recruit from similar groups of people (through similar rhetoric, ideological appeal, professed goals, methods deemed acceptable, etc.) likely causing much of their fierce antipathy.
@@shawngilliland243 no not rly he mentions Trotsky but he doesn't mention that Trotskyites still contested Stalinists far leftist dominance (if you can even call Stalinists of the left) in developed western nations like Britain and Australia and how unlike the Stalinist movements they acc attempted escalation and acc grew in numbers while the backwards homophobic Stalinists slowly regressed
From your accent I presume you are from North America. Do you have any insights into the rabid fear and hatred of anything even remotely socialist in the US? I can (almost) understand it amongst the corporations but from outside the US it seems to have filtered down to the man in the street. I have long been perplexed by this state of affairs. cheers
Of course Western Europe could experiment with socialism. They didn’t have to worry about defense spending because America was footing that bill. Plus they didn’t have to worry about footing the bill for reconstruction because, again, America footed that bill through the Marshall Plan allowing the western governments to pay back some loans over time while the US forgave some loans. The governments could focus their finances toward social programs.
@@tylerscherer57 my point exactly. They were flirting with it but never adopted it because they had empires. After WWII, European empires no longer existed so they had nothing to lose.
Pretty sure France also had the largest communist party besides Italy. The democratic socialist/social democratic SFIO/PS wouldn’t be larger than the PCF until the late 70s to early 80s.
Great video as usual. Only one correction, Salazar's government was authoritarian and conservative but not fascist (he outlawed the fascist party). Even Franco, despite strong sympathies towards the Axis, was not a Fascist per se. He took part in a grouping of far-right movements to fight the Spanish Republic, including ultra-monarchists, Catholic corporotists and Fascists (the National-Syndicalists), but after taking power placed all of those groups under his grip. In Italy and Germany the fascists took power and control of the state and used the army for their goals, in Spain the army took control of the state and used the fascists for their goals.
7:41 Soviets also conquered and brutally opressed half of Europe, not just Germany. They even counquered and opressed Poland, country which had been the Cassus Belli for the second world war. Still the Soviet victory remains one of the greatest victories in history with a huge sacrifice of the soviet people.
On a different note. As an Indian I want to put my 2 cents here. Around 1950 most of Asian nations including India and China, had gained their freedom. Post liberation most Asian countries went the socialist or communist way. The exception being India. India had been an amalgamation of democracy and socialism. In the later years it got more inclined to capitalism though. Now after more than 70 years it looks like India had chosen the right path. Almost in all Asian countries socialism had failed. On the other hand India has done quite well. You can say that China is still way ahead of India. But who told you China is a communist country? It's pure capitalism under the hood of Communism.
3:47 I've never heard such a good explanation of those 3 currents. I'm a Social Democrat, and really can't stand a lot of the PC/SJW Democratic Socialists and their disregard of the Bill of Rights etc. But everyone thinks we're all just Bolsheviks who want to bring back the gulags, when as a Fabian Communist I'm more like "What they do in Star Trek, man." Well done, as always.
@Tiefkühlen I'm just a Marxist. I think Lenin ignored too much of Marx (who specifically warned against trying to revolutionize backwards and pre-industrial societies like Russia and China!), and that's why his Communism didn't fly and ended up as Stalinism and that tyranny in only a few short years I think the Social Democrats of Weimar Germany had it right (and they're FAR from the PC SJW pukes of the Democratic Socialists). Case in point, the Weimar government never restricted personal firearms ownership by The People (or free speech!). The Libtards these days, on the other hand, are almost universally anti-gun (and support a slew of "hate speech" laws that basically make it a crime to question or contradict The Party). "Under no circumstances should arms and ammunition be surrendered. Any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." -Karl Marx Marx was the only one of these people (Adam Smith...) to be both an economist and a historian. Which is why he got it right! While Adam Smith's economic theory assumes everyone is a selfish greedy calculating Machiavellian sociopath - like Trump. Since that premise is CLEARLY not the case (as even a cursory study of history will readily demonstrate about human nature!) - all conclusions from that false premise are also false. Economics is cool, but Adam Smith was full of shit, and his overlapping curve graphs are basically the science of exploiting people like the Wolf of Wall Street Of all the Communist revolutionaries, I think Ho Chi Minh was the truest to Marxist ethics and principles. He's basically Ghandi with guns instead of a Pacifist attitude. The UK will pull out of India when sufficiently confronted and left no choice but to be Fascist oppressors on TV for the world to see. The US will change the laws in the face of the Civil Rights Movement and actions of people like Martin Luther King Jr. The French in Vietnam were far more like real Nazis. Ghandi would have died in a political jail and never persuaded anyone, or met a firing squad early on, had he tried it against French Colonialist (just ask the Algerians if you don't believe me...). The Vietnamese tried every peaceful and non-war way (over many generations, going back to the late 19th century!) to reform their society and break free of Imperialism. Every time, Fascist repression of horrific proportions was what the French mercilessly meted out. Black slaves in the American South were treated WELL compared to how the French treated the Vietnamese. Once again, proving the Pacifism is immoral and only works on good people with a conscience, and is utterly useless in the face of evil or those willing to use force - and not stop. Oh, and those evil Communists, giving the Vietnamese (and people of Africa and Latin America) free crates of Kalashnikovs to fight for their own national self-determination. As opposed to Capitalists, getting rich by selling the bombs to kill those people with! The worst atrocities and most Totalitarian developments in Vietnam happened after Ho died, and after generations of war (civil and again foreign oppressors) had barbarized Vietnamese society. War doesn't spare the kind or the merciful, and generations of war left only the cruel and cunning alive plus in power. It should be no surprise that North Vietnam acted as it did. Honestly, the puppet regime of South Vietnam that the "free, Democratic" and Capitalist nations like the US created and propped up was even more brutal and tyrannical than the North ever was...
You are incorrect about the role of socialists in the French Resistance. They did end up joining, but it was pretty late into the war, being strong advocates for peace with Germany before the war. And once most of the fighting was done they settled internal disputes by organising purges to have a united political front.
He's not wrong in that French communists did play a major role in the resistance, but yeah, they only joined in 1941 and simply because the USSR was threatened. Their role in the war was certainly not heroic.
I invented a joke about the ever declining British and I'm not sure it is funny; but there is some truth in it: The workers voted for Socialism and got Liberalism; the middle class voted for Liberalism and got Socialism.
The history of Socialism (as a general political way of thinking) is very complex and can hardly be covered in a 13 minute video, but it is a good overview. However, a few things are noteworthy too: - For most of the early part of socialst history, Anarchism (Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon, Malatesta, etc.) was the more important group among the international socialists. It was especially popular in Spain, Latin America and in the USA (!) - the 1st of May was christened as the international day of the workers because of a strike in Chicago that was surpressed by police. Most Anarchists didn't like the ideas of Marx and later were opposed and often supressed by marxist revolutionaries (Soviet Communists), marxist and non-marxist Reformists (Social Democrats/Democratic Socialists) as well as conservatives/reactionaries. Even Karl Marx himself detested them and threw them out of the 1st Internationale because they didn't agree on his vision of using the state as a tool to achieve Communism - they wanted to abolish rulership and state governance completely and replace it with self-government and collective forms of organisation rather than to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Bakunin and other anarchists were worried that a Marxist state would become a even worse tyranny than the conservative capitalist state - If you look at the USSR, you have to admit that they were right about that. The conflict between Anarchism and Marxism would find its bloody end during the Spanish Civil War, where the soviet influenced spanish communists tried to wipe out the anarchist CNT although both groups were fighting against Franco. Stalin is supposed to have said that he rather would let Spain fall into the hands of Franco than to allow a successfull anarchist revolution...
I would kinda say history is repeating itself. Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism are on the rise, and I’m taking part in the growing movement. Worker of the world UNITE!!!
First things first, They didn't over throw the Emperor and it's Provisional Government. They overthrew by force of arms the Provisional Government that had already taken Power from the Tsar and had shared it with the Petrograd Soviet. I thought you above all others would have actually remembered the February Revolution was the one that stripped power from the Tsar. Good God is there no one left in the world who doesn't spread around the false information that the Communists seized power from the Tsar?
Well, they pulled out of ww1 and killed the tsar, so it isnt that weird to make the confusion. Also the provisional goverment did mostly nothing, so it isnt weird it is overlooked in resumes likes this.
The Provisional Government kicked the Tsar out of power, but they didn't kill him and they probably weren't going to get rid of him. It's definitely possible that the Tsar could've remained as a Constitutional Monarch like his cousin in Britain. The Bolsheviks however killed him and his family so that wasn't happening, so I think it's fair to say.
@@TheDirtysouthfan It is wrong to say that the Communists took power from the Tsar. It is utterly false its not like Oliver Cromwell whose forces defeated that of King Charles the First. Bolsheviks used deception to seize power from the fledgling government that didn't have the time to properly do anything. Yes they did kill him, but that is was straight up murder, not a power struggle they killed him an his family when that family had no power had already seceded power and were supposed to be going to England. It spreads the false narrative that many believe that they overthrew Monarchy. When in fact they over through democracy and well then they turned into a Authoritarian dictatorship
Yeah... I remember that discussion with an American friend of mine, that sparked, when we talked a bit politics. I (from Germany) told him, I am a social democrat and call myself central left. Was pretty speechless that he outright called me a communist and later on even said that Nazist are also communist. The discussion never came to a full conclusion, so we agreed to just not talk politics anymore...lol.
More like "decades of Americas main contact with socialism being the Soviets who refer to themselves as socialist coupled with American politicans calling all socialists communist and all communists socialist means many Americans thinking that socialism is just a fancy term for communism". Doesnt help that the US has a weird left-right divide so americans think that anyone left of the true global political center is communist so that "right" has a really narrow definition in the US so "left" occupies TONS of different parties and ideologies. Americas main exposure to the true left being soviet progonada and NOT democratic socialist makes matters worse. They dont even teach what socialism is, even in relatively liberal and left leaning states and cities that advocate socialism so many american "socialists" barely even know what socialism is.
This is the first episode where I had actually even noticed that it was coming from an inherently Canadian perspective. I’m thankful for this because I honestly don’t believe an American could ever make a fair assessment of the history of democratic socialism without being accused of being left wing sympathizers. I was very impressed with how carefully this was handled. Good job, guys!
@@Robbi_ but it will never be as big as it used to be, as a spanish i really apreciate the work they did, they colaborated closely with the spanish communist party, which was really influential in the fall of franco.
It's quite intellectually dishonest to lump someone like Franco with someone like Hitler. They were both authoritarian figures opposed to international socialism/communism but that's basically where their ideological similarities end. Franco was basically an authoritarian conservative seeking to keep the powers that be while Hitler was at the head of a radical, revolutionary ideology that completely rejected humanist notions at the heart of both liberal and socialist philosophies and wanted to basically restructure society from the ground up. The whole concept of the political right is pretty disingenuous as it's basically "everybody who's not an international socialist".
@migkillerphantom Franco made the Falangist(Spanish Fascist)the sole legal party of Spain and heavily promoted the Roman salute and anti Semitic and racist policies,he was a fascisten.wikipedia.org/wiki/FET_y_de_las_JONS
with biden as us president now me a conservative wants free heathcare and better education i seen us healthcare 1st hand we had to pay 580,000 dollars to get moms cancer surgery :(
I used to think as you do in terms of socialism becoming more popular after the American Civil War, in the era of the European Unification revolutions and unification movements. I have kind of moved away from that, or at the very minimum, nuanced it. I think Socialism is the far left, but many politicians were not socialist, they were adherents to Realpolitik ideologues in the Bismark camp. I look at realpolitik as a more insidious thing than overt socialism. I consider realpolitik to be a government granting social services reforms in exchange for passivity of the people. In other words, Bismark gave access to a retirement income and health care, in return the people stayed somewhat happy and the government was stable. I don't think Democrats and/or Republicans believe in socialism, they believe in pacification of the people. Social programs had more of a pacifying effect than actual hand up. And honestly I think that is what happened in most of Europe. Look how the EU bureaucrats behave toward the people. It is the same here in the US. I think our conversation needs to be more nuanced.
I have enjoyed much of his content and would agree the majority of his reinterations of history has been most accurate. With saying that I do disagree with his use of fascism being a right wing extremists aspect. For instance Germany might have been Fascists or a subsect of the group but they were self proclaimed socialists. Nazi is short for (National Socialist German Workers). They had more in common with communists then they had with liberals of the day which were conservative. Socialism is the honey that helps the communism go down. Both are despicable and immoral to life and individual freedom. Note to the content creator I would encourage the reading "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He Explains an interesting view of the state of matter at the time you have talked about I do think you would be astonished by his accounts. Good look keep making good content.
So many wrongs here - Fascists are and always will be a right wing movement. So are the Nazis. Only thing they have similar is authoritarian attitude - Communists and Socialists were seen as enemies by both Nazis and Fascists and murdered massively during existence of these regimes - National *Socialist* was a nice propaganda move to use the disdain of the German left against SPD to gain their votes but nice try
@@thegloriouspyrocheems2277 fascism can be both left or right. Iran is right wing fascism, while North Korea is left wing fascism. In North Korea you can’t own any businesses, but you can still be in charge of something like a movie theater, but it will be heavily regulated by the government. In Iran, you can own a business, but it’s very limited. Like you can’t open up a Yoga business because it goes against the laws. In America, you can own both a movie theater and yoga business and you have the freedom to run those businesses on how you want. This is the differences
“In the Soviet Union .... well, they conquered Germany” What? That is a load. The Allies conquered Germany. It was a group effort. The Allies did it together.
The Soviets did a lot of heavy lifting and conquroring of former German terrority as compared to the West who took back France pushed them out of North Africa and took a slice of Germany. The Soviets took a whole lot more from Germany.
Its shorthand, most German casualties and war efforts were against the soviets. And the soviets took Berlin so technically yes the soviets conquered them.
Thats Nodildo Look at a map, the US, France and Britain took much more German territory. The US supplied the USSR with over half a million truck and over 90% of their locomotives and rail cars. We also fed the Res Army and Clothed it. If we did not do that, they would have had to allocate precious resources to that. Nope, they did not conquer it, It was a combined effort.
I Saw A Bear See my reply to the other post. The USSR might have won one their own, but it is easily debatable. If we did not bomb German industry, and the USSR had no ability to do that, things would have went very different. Sorry, but it was a team effort
Some things are controversial, others are not. :-)
@Sıla Cemre Erener why do you need flashy animations to keep your attention what are you a child
@only good communist are buried in forgotten graves That's sounds indeed like an interesting story
@Sıla Cemre Erener sorry to hear that you need pictures to stay engaged.
Socialism in one country does not mean a rejection of international revolution, it just means that socialism can and should be developed in one country first so it can survive as opposed to immediately spreading it by force of arms continuously as Trotsky proposed.
@Darth Revan she seems to be biased. And so you do, because you've spamed her freaking 3 times. It would be funny if you would spam it 4tg one under the same comment lol
Hmmm it's like geopolitcs play a bigger role in conflicts than ideologies.
Maybe, but the politics are engaged in by people, who are gripped by, and act in accordance with ideologies, which are themselves often adopted in response to pre-existing religous and political structures. Its a bit of a chicken and egg what was first issue..
@@nrconleynrc I agree for most part. However, in many countries, identity (ethnicity and relogion in particular) play even bigger role than ideas/ideology in shaping people's political mindset.
@@rb2964 Identity =/= ideology. A lot of people vote a candidate based on his/her identity (religion and/or ethincity), and not due to his/her programs.
Ideologier shape geopolitics
Uh huh. Welcome to it. It in itself is the new ideology but not really. It’s all in how you look at it. Money, business, economy drives it above all. That’s geopolitics. It doesn’t care about ideologies, it cares about the bottom line amongst the whole geopolitical scope so to speak and where it lies individually as itself in each nation.
Ideology plays second fiddle to pragmatism....
Thumos Aeterna Yeah, because the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact totally wasn’t an act of pragmatism
Not when you give all sides equal power. If you give them all they need, they can fight for their ideology. Who needs to support a capitalist nation whose resources you need when u have all the resources you need. That's in a ideal world. Alas, we don't live on that world. If only we didn't have limited natural resources... all wars would be fought purely for ideals, with none of the pragmatist and hypocritical BS. Especially for the US. They wouldn't need to support military dictatorships or religious extremists. They can evaluate which partners would be the most beneficial for the people they profess to liberate. No hypocrisy, just supporting true democracy. Alas we don't live there.
Giojacy Cadalzo Well there would still need to be some pragmatism because of the greatest scale tipper of all, nuclear bombs
@@Edmonton-of2ec Well that would be a large factor, yes, but in some cases it might not be enough, assuming the Cold War ends the same as in our timeline. The Cuban Missile Crisis has shown to that.
That's why China allies with ultra conservative muslim countries, hard right Turkish countries like Turkey ally with China, and theocratic countries like Iran ally with China despite China being violenty atheist and genocidal towards turkic and muslim people
I can confirm that the evil Nurlan removed a Whomst from the script. Shame.
This was great due to the more nuanced sides of socialism it brings out, instead of simply putting all the left in the same bag of marxism. Hoping it calms the "us vs them" attitude. However, I also hope there's one about Capitalism too ending the same way as this one did: a positive conclusion after an outlook on its nuances.
the two major schools that were competing were keynsianism and neoliberalism. Keynsianism was the policy in the US and in the early years, what was allowed them to become a superpower, rebuild west Germany and Japan, and ultimately have a functional enough system to win the cold War. however, starting once the soviet block was already in steep decline and really kicking into gear after the fall of the soviet union, neoliberalism began to play a more dominant role in policy, which seems to have not worked as well for the US either domestically or in its vast sphere of influence...
I should confess, I didn't watch your videos for a while, but damn, did your narration improved! I only started a video and already interested what you want to say! Good job.
This guy is a baby with a beard. He should get a job.
@@vladivf and you are some troll behind a keyboard with license plate for a name.
@@vladivf , he gets paid, you neckbeard
@@hidof9598 have you considered no longer existing?
I'm really looking forward to a more detailed and comprehensive explanation of history as oppossed to the binary narrative that has become orthodox. History is much more complex than a simple black and white story and, although I am a huge fan of the " Kings and Generals" channel, I think that its more military focused content sometimes overshadows the complexities of the events at stake. Really glad you're commited to this idea, keep up the good work!
Nice episode. However, one small mistake was done: Bolsheviks didn't overthrow the Emperor of Russian Empire, it was done by bourgeois revolution in February of 1917
Yeah, I think they were just rushing through, a very common historical mistake for Americans though, so I would say it deserves clarification, as most barely know of, much less understand, Kerensky, the Kornilov Affair, Civil War, Kronstadt, etc.
@@derekmarlowe522 europeans often know more about european history
@@DisconnectedRoamer This American at least knows that Russia did not have an emperor. He was a CZAR.
@@Mondo762 oh snap😅
Wabi Sabi it was called the russian empire. Цар is simply “king” in russian, Bulgarian, Serbian, etc. And a king can be an emperor. The russian king was an emperor as Russia had conquered other countries.
Did not know there was a difference between social democrat and democratic socialist . Good job on clearing that for me :)
Maximus Circus great user name by the way :D
@@luisdergroe8944 Thank you, sir 👍
Go search for liberal socialism and social liberalism
There isn’t. It’s mental gymnastics
Matt E Have you seen the policies of a Social Democrat and a Socialists
Congratulations on your great efforts. One question: when will you talk about the Greek civil war?
They did that
th-cam.com/video/MExBH25xf5o/w-d-xo.html
The Daily Mail being dishonest, how dare you sir.
Daily Heil
🤣
Plausibly the best video up to this point in the series, it makes essential distinctions that are often unclear to people from AngloAmerica. Thank you, greetings from a citizen of Italy and keep up with the good work!
Next video should be about anarchists during the cold war
Good video and very insightful. I believe you should have also referred to the Greek civil war, which was the first of the post-WWII conflicts and where there was also a lot of outside influence.
Please do a follow-up video re: Cold War anarchist movements (which you touched on SOO briefly in this video) and maybe even the post-Trotsky Fourth International.
Well done video presentation; nuanced, interesting, professional. Kudos
Amen, finally some one said it socialism existed before the Soviet Union and the socialism ideas was popular idea in Europe.
But not one mention of the 93,000,000 killed by Communists during the 20th Century according to Social Democratic think tanks in Western Europe. Between 130,000,000 and 150,000,000 according to more Conservative sources.
@@davidschalit907 enth thallaado
@David Schalit Complete bs
@David Schalit What Conservative sources Robert Conquest?That guy is a hack,a Russian historian used the same statistical bs he did in his book and was able to claim that 30 million people died in the Great Depression using his same methods.Of course he noted this is dishonest and not what happen,but just to show what a dishonest hack he is.
@@kevingonzalez9191
So you have the 93,000,000 figure from Social Democratic think tanks in Western Europe. My mentioning them above you ignore? Why?
Or do you deny their figures as well?
Were the Gulags the equivalent to nice quaint towns & villages to you?
Lubeyanka prison was a sleep-away camp?
The latter had a carbon copy in every major Soviet city.
Overall a good breakdown, although it does leave out Anarchists, which were another very alive and present strand of socialism at that time and would play a significant role in the Spanish and Russian Civil Wars as well as Italy.
Fantastic video! I always look forward to new releases
"So the Second World War happened..."
Wait, what?! When did this happen? God, I hope we won...
*Spoilers Ahead*
Very brilliant video, great job!
Getting a Very "Time ghost history' vibe from these.
Spencer Lamph definitely inspired, definitely can’t complain
Please talk about Peronism and Peron!
That would be cool. Also fuck Perón.
Interesting person, Peronism isn’t really left or right wing, I consider it more of a cultural thing
@@mickmickymick6927 fuck brittain
@@abandonedchannel281 it's just populism
Left Peronism is pretty great
For your office - wouldn't it be AWESOME to have a mechnical calculator on your desk? A "Rechenmschine" from the 50s or 60s? Nothing big, a small one, with a crank? But that's just me, as a collector... Nevertheless, would be cool wouldn't it? Thank you for all your great vids, love 'em!
Not a bad idea! Will consider! Thanks!
If only social democracy wasnt lumped in with socialism.
Austin Hornbeck it is socialism 🤡
Earl Johnson it isn’t socialism. It’s welfare capitalism. Socialism would involve a fundamental shift in the relations between workers, the means of production and the fruits of their labor; social democracy just says “hey, don’t worry about the fact you’re being exploited, because the government does stuff for you.” Social democrats believe in Keynesian economics, not Marxist/mutualist/georgist/collectivist anarchist/participatory economics. The former is “capitalism where the government does stuff.” The others are socialist in character, despite their differences. They all propose a radical remaking of the economic fabric of society for the benefit of working people.
true, socialists voted against WW1, social democrats voted for WW1...proud to stay in the better tradition of opposing war
@@joma5721 Social Democracy honestly isn't too bad.
not to mention these "socialists" violently opposed actual socialists and communists, were enthusiastic members of NATO, cracked down communists in their colonies, etc...
Marx thought the revolution would occur first in Britain, not Germany. Am I wrong?
Alican Aksoy You are correct.
As I understand it he believed either Britain or Germany, but saw Britain as the only country in which it could potentially (albeit not very likely) achieve a Worker's Revolution through electoral means.
He used Britain and Germany as examples of modern industrial nations at that point France and USA would also have been included in that bracket
Marx argued that a world revolution would necessarily have to start in the most advanced capitalist economy at the point in time during which it does start. In the early 20th century, this would be Germany; in the mid-19th, it might have been Britain’s. If we’re talking about the 21st, we’re obviously talking about the United States. The point of Marxism is that it provides an analysis of capitalism. Leninism provides some revolutionary guidelines, and makes Marxism adaptable to the material conditions of the specific place and time in which one tries to apply Marxist principles.
Or at least, that’s what a Marxist-Leninist would tell you. My personal affinities lie more with libertarian socialists, like Rosa Luxemburg, or anarchists like Proudhon and Kropotkin.
@@joma5721 I agree mainly with your points but comparing leninism to Marxist leninism (stalinism) is unfair especially as Luxembourgism is only a sport criticism of leninism she acc supported him and said him as an ally
It's worth mentioning that western european democratic socialists were vehemently anti-communist
@History of Today
What exactly do you think "European" means?
@@RileyRivalle2 he believes in "Judeobolshevism"
Hi @@RileyRivalle2, you mean the democrats were anti-authorian?
@Jeebus
I'm sorry, what? Actually full-on what?
You cannot be socialist, and be “vehemently anti-communist”. Socialism is but one step of communism.
Really great video!
Very informed video, definetly what I, as a Libertarian Socialist and an Anarcho-Syndicalist, would look for in an ideal series on the Cold War, as opposed to the bland straight-line Liberal Capitalist textbook perspective often given on the topic. A perspective which essentially pretends all of the content mentioned here, from the history of early revolutionary attempts like the Paris Commune and the Sparticist Uprising, to their support of Fascists like Franco or Salazar, and even a lack of understanding of the very existence of the term "Social Democrat", which is so often namelessly conflated with "socialism" rather than the liberal reformist capitalism it actually represents. Expecially appreciated the mentions of Anarchism and Yugoslav cooperative Market-Socialism.
Bravo 👏👏
Anarchists betrayed the socialist cause in Spain and they deserved to be massacred
@@06hurdwp Hot take, if you end up agreeing with Fascist mass murder, maybe you've had something go a little awry in your logical process along the way. Also read your history, the Anarchist trade unions created the socialist revolution in Spain.
PIDE w o u l d l i k e t o k n o w y o u r l o c a t i o n
06hurdwp uhm, you just approved the mass killing of people... not sure you understand what you just wrote there
@@marca7542 to be fair... Alot of Anarchists winning the war would do the same, they were already doing it. One of the many reasons Franco won support. Not saying o agree or disagrew with the killings, just stating the facts.
good video. but too little talk about Anarchism, it would be a great idea if you'd consider making a video about anarchist movements during the cold war, they deserve some special attention! its a shame it seems to be a topic a lot of historians avoid, but yet its very interesting and thought-provoking!
Ooh, the comments are going to be great on this video...
cue everyone being normal for once
Since you've covered this topic, might you consider in the future doing a video about the Kibbutz system?
Always very interesting to look at the years leading up to ww2 with only the lens of socialism. I'm guessing nationalism is the biggest obstacle to international socialism. Thanks for the video!
The mass murder is a pretty big one
@@FUnzzies1 Mass murder isn't technically a requisite for a socialist revolution,but yes it did play out that way in many places. Huge changes that displace a lot of people,causes enough friction to almost guarantee a bloodbath.
The dictators that popped up later on afterwards with a murderous tendancies inside these socialist states only added to the tally. Of course these things are not limited to socialism, capitalist state have had their fair share of bloodthirsty tyrants.
I don't know how I missed this channel for months (I blame the algorithm!!), but this video was interesting, nuanced and balanced between seriousness and some more lighthearted comments. Even the looks live up to the standard that the Great War set all these years ago. The set, the graphics and the footage looks great.
Your doing a great job, but I have a question out of curiosity. Are you financed by a company in any way or is this a project living from ad revenue and donations? The production value seems to be quite high and I never saw that without any media company financing something like this.
Thanks for watching. This channel is being financed by the income we are getting on the Kings and Generals channel.
Wonder when The Cold War channel will talk about the Malayan Emergency? It is sort of involving a Communist insurgency against British colonial authorities, and later, the Malayan government. Hope it will be discussed at a later episode
I deeply love channels like this, true to all parts ideals and achivements, even having positions that are not in line with them. I have democratic-socialist inclinations and sometimes get tired of many not knowing what socialism really is, just poniting totalitarians mesures as if that included all branches of socialism and mentioning all the horrors that many leftist have done. I enjoy your content and the detail of it and will follow your channel always to learn and have a good time. Wish you the best!
Sorry but your position is logically inconsistent. Because to enforce your "inclinations" as you put it, it is inevitable that totalitarian measures are to be put in place. It has happened again and again. It is immutable. And therefore your "inclinations" at best seem nice on paper, but in both reality and at their worst, is double-speak, and immoral.
@Victor Donavon I have some ocational alingments with socialist ideals or policies, some of which are universal healthcare and education, and the "more extreme" of which are taxes to the rich. I don't know why would you say you need tirany for that, because public health and education works in many places to various degrees. I'm happy enough with what I have of those where I live (argentina) where socialist have not even been the main force behind it. Still those are common themes between socialist parties and that's why I say I suport them in general. Orwel too was a socialist and had stronger opinions against dictatorship than you and I,which made him go join the fight against fascists in spain under the trotskist flags, to avoid suporting stalinists. Not all socialists want dictatorship, just some equal bases for everyone. Some do want it no matter the price and will go on to destroy democracy for it, and some will go on and try to win the elections. Now if people want socialists to not be such radical bastards as stalin, is better to respect those which respected democracy, as Salvador Allende in Chile, but if people go on disrespecting and killing them for having those ideals, well, then the reaction will not be good. First democracy, then any ideal
@@lautaromoyano5692 Just because one wants something, does not mean that either A) one will get it or B) that there are not immutables that make it anything more than at best a pipe dream. True what you mention about Orwell is true. And you forget that democracy is little more than tyranny of the masses as surmised by Thomas Jefferson and also as demonstrated first in Athens of Classical Greece and then again and again by any political structure that does not have checks-and-balances in places that is respected to keep that form of tyranny in place. Given the points mentioned, again that does not defeat the given that logically speaking to institute any socialist policies and uphold them, ultimately totalitarian measures have to to be in place and enforced.
@@victordonavon292 I'm trying to see your point against some socialist ideas but the part of democracy confused me. You considered socialist countries to need authoritarian systems, ruled by an elite, to work and therefore those those systems are bad. I didn't argue that those systems were bad, but that some of their messures could make some sence if voted democracticaly, as was the case in many countries. Then you said that if the majority won on elections it isn't either a good reason for the system to work like that because it would be "a dictatorship of the majority". That is not a argument against public health nor education directly but by which means those could be achived, expanded or improved in many countries (remember, I'm just defending those socialist-like ideas, not any other). I don't disagree with most of what you said but at no point you established why would public health or education be atacking the checks and balances of the system. If it was doing it then that would be an effective refutation of what I said but you are not speaking about what I said
Now that doesn't mean that full on socialist reality (without private means of production) would be stable without force enforcement, but I have not spoken on favor of it at any time. I would agree with you with the fact that ussr, china, yugoslavia and many others kept socialist parties on power due to the violent nature of the regime. For me that's out of the question because it was obviously the case. What I'm pointing out is that you don't need a dictatorship to get new institutions that can work properly anywhere. Now if you are going to consider democraticaly getting those institutions, with legal-non violent means, authortiarian, then why do we have representative systems on the first place? And if we argue against those, so strongly to say "majority is mostly wrong", why should anyone despice the dictatorships of any place on earth? Because those have no restrictions? Well in those systems there was so much a single person could do because of how extensive was the burocracy, which was put on place to try to have said checks and balances. I'm not trying to argue on any way that it was better on the ussr, but to try to say they didn't have checks and balances would be missleading to say the least. Main problem wasn't lacking those checks and balances, but that they tried to consider unbyiased a one party system
Some things do not change. The Daily Mail remains one of the most influential newspapers in the UK today.
Tl;dr: It's complicated. Really good video
You guys should also do one for captialisim. With all the diffrent kind of liberal and conservative goverments in western Europe and world wide.
My turn to be grateful. You will get less views, but this program is necessary at least for me. I like you are unbiased, its appropriate for now. Keep this going, i will just be thankful every now and then. Cant contribute.
I expect you to cover it later in the relevant video, but I did miss at least a mention of how the 1956 Hungarian revolution shattered the support of the big communist parties of Western Europe.
Nice cup on the desk
Good one 👍
Trotsky's assassination might have been gruesome, but it was worthy of a James Bond film.
Russian assassin using a hang-glider to reach Trotsky's apartment and then stabbing him with an ice pick?
Damn!
More like a climbing tool to make a foot hold on a glacier, it looks more like a double headed claw hammer , a brutal looking weapon and not anything like a screwdriver
The assassin was Spanish
@@wojciechwilkanowski4472 Thanks for the clarification, but regardless of his nationality, he did the job for the Kremlin...so he's still a "Russian Assassin" to me.
@Some One - The assassin didn't drop in via hang glider when he attacked Trotsky. He was known to Trotsky, who regarded him as a well-meaning person, maybe even a friend.
The tool he used was an ice axe, not an ice pick.
A wise man once said "I'm not European,I don't plan on being European, so who cares if they are socialists"
Please talk about the bush wars and Rhodesia. Rhodesia was involved with the Soviets and others. The wars in Africa between South Africa and Angola too. Please
~4:00, as presented here it's not clear to me if the definition of Democratic Socialist, and Social Democrat are one or two separate definitions.
Jeebus because they are the same thing. They’re attempting to play word games.
@@matte6352 yeah sometimes it may be convenient not to be careful with your words if you don't want to admit inherent contradictions... in this case it sounded like an honest attempt at definition-ish-ness
They are two different things, and they like to fight each other.
Hi @@joluoto, i wasn't asking for your opinion but rather the intention of the speaker.
@@matte6352
If they are the same thing they would not have different parties in Europe and fight all the time between each other
I have a friend who is a member of Portuguese Communist Party :D
@RoastWorthy What’s wrong with that
@@brandonk.4864 communist=scum
I was watching a video about fascism from PragerU. They stated that fascism is socialism. Giovanni Gentile, the founder of fascism, was a socialist. Gentile believe that the people and businesses belong to the government. Fascism is socialism with an iron fist.
Fascists referred to themselves as "the third way", in reference to free market liberal democracy (classical liberalism) vs. socialism, revolutionary or otherwise. Mussolini famously described fascism as "Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State."
To many classical liberals there seems to be little difference between an iron-fisted totalitarian planned-economy single-party state ruling through corporations and unions or an iron-fisted totalitarian planned-economy single-party state ruling through state institutions and bureaus.
To many socialists there seems little difference between the oligarchic rule by private unelected unaccountable shareholders influencing and cutting deals with the state for profit, or fascism.
However the stated goal of fascism and fascist movements/states is similar to that of socialism and socialist movements/states, that being an ethical government that puts the welfare of its population above (selfish, bourgeois) individual rights, liberties or private ownership. Thus both fascism and socialism are collectivist ideologies, where free market liberalism is an individualist ideology, and fascism and socialism therefore tend to recruit from similar groups of people (through similar rhetoric, ideological appeal, professed goals, methods deemed acceptable, etc.) likely causing much of their fierce antipathy.
Good balanced analysis. Well done
You should have mentioned troskyism as well
@reaperz - I believe that he did so, beginning at about 5:12 in the video.
@@shawngilliland243 no not rly he mentions Trotsky but he doesn't mention that Trotskyites still contested Stalinists far leftist dominance (if you can even call Stalinists of the left) in developed western nations like Britain and Australia and how unlike the Stalinist movements they acc attempted escalation and acc grew in numbers while the backwards homophobic Stalinists slowly regressed
From your accent I presume you are from North America. Do you have any insights into the rabid fear and hatred of anything even remotely socialist in the US? I can (almost) understand it amongst the corporations but from outside the US it seems to have filtered down to the man in the street. I have long been perplexed by this state of affairs. cheers
Legacy of McCarthyism
“You can’t eat Liberty” is a great line. I am totally stealing it.
What about Syndicalism?
LOL Daily Mail hasnt changed a bit!! Worst exemple of journalism!!
Why is everyone talking about daily mail ?
Do you have plans for a thirty years war channel where billegerents are not really always pro-catholic and pro-protestant?
"Daily Mail in a fit of dishonest journalism" giggle that's out DM
Of course Western Europe could experiment with socialism. They didn’t have to worry about defense spending because America was footing that bill. Plus they didn’t have to worry about footing the bill for reconstruction because, again, America footed that bill through the Marshall Plan allowing the western governments to pay back some loans over time while the US forgave some loans. The governments could focus their finances toward social programs.
They were *flirting* with socialism by the year 1848.
@@tylerscherer57 my point exactly. They were flirting with it but never adopted it because they had empires. After WWII, European empires no longer existed so they had nothing to lose.
6:34 That is just the Daily Heil being the Daily Heil.
Should talk about British Socialism post war. Britain became extremely socialist until the 70s
September 2019. Western European Socialism regarding the Cold War finally addressed and discussed factually.
Pretty sure France also had the largest communist party besides Italy. The democratic socialist/social democratic SFIO/PS wouldn’t be larger than the PCF until the late 70s to early 80s.
The Daily Mail? Dishonest? Never!
Great video as usual. Only one correction, Salazar's government was authoritarian and conservative but not fascist (he outlawed the fascist party). Even Franco, despite strong sympathies towards the Axis, was not a Fascist per se. He took part in a grouping of far-right movements to fight the Spanish Republic, including ultra-monarchists, Catholic corporotists and Fascists (the National-Syndicalists), but after taking power placed all of those groups under his grip. In Italy and Germany the fascists took power and control of the state and used the army for their goals, in Spain the army took control of the state and used the fascists for their goals.
all of these terms are synonyms of fascism
7:41 Soviets also conquered and brutally opressed half of Europe, not just Germany. They even counquered and opressed Poland, country which had been the Cassus Belli for the second world war.
Still the Soviet victory remains one of the greatest victories in history with a huge sacrifice of the soviet people.
Make a video on the impact of the Cold War on Pakistan.
Video was about everything broadly and nothing specifically
On a different note.
As an Indian I want to put my 2 cents here.
Around 1950 most of Asian nations including India and China, had gained their freedom.
Post liberation most Asian countries went the socialist or communist way. The exception being India.
India had been an amalgamation of democracy and socialism.
In the later years it got more inclined to capitalism though.
Now after more than 70 years it looks like India had chosen the right path.
Almost in all Asian countries socialism had failed.
On the other hand India has done quite well.
You can say that China is still way ahead of India.
But who told you China is a communist country?
It's pure capitalism under the hood of Communism.
3:47 I've never heard such a good explanation of those 3 currents. I'm a Social Democrat, and really can't stand a lot of the PC/SJW Democratic Socialists and their disregard of the Bill of Rights etc. But everyone thinks we're all just Bolsheviks who want to bring back the gulags, when as a Fabian Communist I'm more like "What they do in Star Trek, man." Well done, as always.
@Tiefkühlen What kind?
@Tiefkühlen I'm just a Marxist. I think Lenin ignored too much of Marx (who specifically warned against trying to revolutionize backwards and pre-industrial societies like Russia and China!), and that's why his Communism didn't fly and ended up as Stalinism and that tyranny in only a few short years
I think the Social Democrats of Weimar Germany had it right (and they're FAR from the PC SJW pukes of the Democratic Socialists). Case in point, the Weimar government never restricted personal firearms ownership by The People (or free speech!). The Libtards these days, on the other hand, are almost universally anti-gun (and support a slew of "hate speech" laws that basically make it a crime to question or contradict The Party). "Under no circumstances should arms and ammunition be surrendered. Any attempt to disarm the workers must be frustrated, by force if necessary." -Karl Marx
Marx was the only one of these people (Adam Smith...) to be both an economist and a historian. Which is why he got it right! While Adam Smith's economic theory assumes everyone is a selfish greedy calculating Machiavellian sociopath - like Trump. Since that premise is CLEARLY not the case (as even a cursory study of history will readily demonstrate about human nature!) - all conclusions from that false premise are also false. Economics is cool, but Adam Smith was full of shit, and his overlapping curve graphs are basically the science of exploiting people like the Wolf of Wall Street
Of all the Communist revolutionaries, I think Ho Chi Minh was the truest to Marxist ethics and principles. He's basically Ghandi with guns instead of a Pacifist attitude. The UK will pull out of India when sufficiently confronted and left no choice but to be Fascist oppressors on TV for the world to see. The US will change the laws in the face of the Civil Rights Movement and actions of people like Martin Luther King Jr. The French in Vietnam were far more like real Nazis. Ghandi would have died in a political jail and never persuaded anyone, or met a firing squad early on, had he tried it against French Colonialist (just ask the Algerians if you don't believe me...). The Vietnamese tried every peaceful and non-war way (over many generations, going back to the late 19th century!) to reform their society and break free of Imperialism. Every time, Fascist repression of horrific proportions was what the French mercilessly meted out. Black slaves in the American South were treated WELL compared to how the French treated the Vietnamese. Once again, proving the Pacifism is immoral and only works on good people with a conscience, and is utterly useless in the face of evil or those willing to use force - and not stop. Oh, and those evil Communists, giving the Vietnamese (and people of Africa and Latin America) free crates of Kalashnikovs to fight for their own national self-determination. As opposed to Capitalists, getting rich by selling the bombs to kill those people with!
The worst atrocities and most Totalitarian developments in Vietnam happened after Ho died, and after generations of war (civil and again foreign oppressors) had barbarized Vietnamese society. War doesn't spare the kind or the merciful, and generations of war left only the cruel and cunning alive plus in power. It should be no surprise that North Vietnam acted as it did. Honestly, the puppet regime of South Vietnam that the "free, Democratic" and Capitalist nations like the US created and propped up was even more brutal and tyrannical than the North ever was...
Hello
You are incorrect about the role of socialists in the French Resistance. They did end up joining, but it was pretty late into the war, being strong advocates for peace with Germany before the war. And once most of the fighting was done they settled internal disputes by organising purges to have a united political front.
He's not wrong in that French communists did play a major role in the resistance, but yeah, they only joined in 1941 and simply because the USSR was threatened. Their role in the war was certainly not heroic.
The spanish socialist and anarchists (who freed paris btw, google la novena) fight for france since they lose the civil war in 1939
I invented a joke about the ever declining British and I'm not sure it is funny; but there is some truth in it: The workers voted for Socialism and got Liberalism; the middle class voted for Liberalism and got Socialism.
The history of Socialism (as a general political way of thinking) is very complex and can hardly be covered in a 13 minute video, but it is a good overview. However, a few things are noteworthy too:
- For most of the early part of socialst history, Anarchism (Kropotkin, Bakunin, Proudhon, Malatesta, etc.) was the more important group among the international socialists. It was especially popular in Spain, Latin America and in the USA (!) - the 1st of May was christened as the international day of the workers because of a strike in Chicago that was surpressed by police. Most Anarchists didn't like the ideas of Marx and later were opposed and often supressed by marxist revolutionaries (Soviet Communists), marxist and non-marxist Reformists (Social Democrats/Democratic Socialists) as well as conservatives/reactionaries. Even Karl Marx himself detested them and threw them out of the 1st Internationale because they didn't agree on his vision of using the state as a tool to achieve Communism - they wanted to abolish rulership and state governance completely and replace it with self-government and collective forms of organisation rather than to establish a "dictatorship of the proletariat". Bakunin and other anarchists were worried that a Marxist state would become a even worse tyranny than the conservative capitalist state - If you look at the USSR, you have to admit that they were right about that. The conflict between Anarchism and Marxism would find its bloody end during the Spanish Civil War, where the soviet influenced spanish communists tried to wipe out the anarchist CNT although both groups were fighting against Franco. Stalin is supposed to have said that he rather would let Spain fall into the hands of Franco than to allow a successfull anarchist revolution...
Please can you speak about Latin American Socialism and Comunism?
Similar to Europe, except the right is a lot more radically against any redistribution.
YUGOSLAVIA!
I would kinda say history is repeating itself. Socialism, Communism, and Anarchism are on the rise, and I’m taking part in the growing movement.
Worker of the world UNITE!!!
American trying to explain the European left to other Americans. It would have helped if you had actually talked to a European leftist about this...
He's Canadian.
The Daily Mail being dishonest!/ T'was ever thus...
Marx didn't suggest any world revolution
First things first, They didn't over throw the Emperor and it's Provisional Government. They overthrew by force of arms the Provisional Government that had already taken Power from the Tsar and had shared it with the Petrograd Soviet. I thought you above all others would have actually remembered the February Revolution was the one that stripped power from the Tsar. Good God is there no one left in the world who doesn't spread around the false information that the Communists seized power from the Tsar?
Well, they pulled out of ww1 and killed the tsar, so it isnt that weird to make the confusion. Also the provisional goverment did mostly nothing, so it isnt weird it is overlooked in resumes likes this.
The Provisional Government kicked the Tsar out of power, but they didn't kill him and they probably weren't going to get rid of him. It's definitely possible that the Tsar could've remained as a Constitutional Monarch like his cousin in Britain. The Bolsheviks however killed him and his family so that wasn't happening, so I think it's fair to say.
@@TheDirtysouthfan It is wrong to say that the Communists took power from the Tsar. It is utterly false its not like Oliver Cromwell whose forces defeated that of King Charles the First. Bolsheviks used deception to seize power from the fledgling government that didn't have the time to properly do anything. Yes they did kill him, but that is was straight up murder, not a power struggle they killed him an his family when that family had no power had already seceded power and were supposed to be going to England.
It spreads the false narrative that many believe that they overthrew Monarchy. When in fact they over through democracy and well then they turned into a Authoritarian dictatorship
👍👍👍
I like the videos, but i feel there's too much hands..
Should our host cut one of his hands? I'm not sure is a good idea...
Nah I like the fact that he's moving his hands and not staying still like a stick.
Make videos on Comnunism
Noice
Is this channel so American you have to spend the first half of the video explaining leftists are people too? 😄
This is a very good point. I guess the explanation is needed because most viewers of TH-cam channels in English are US citizens, yes.
Yeah... I remember that discussion with an American friend of mine, that sparked, when we talked a bit politics. I (from Germany) told him, I am a social democrat and call myself central left. Was pretty speechless that he outright called me a communist and later on even said that Nazist are also communist. The discussion never came to a full conclusion, so we agreed to just not talk politics anymore...lol.
More like "decades of Americas main contact with socialism being the Soviets who refer to themselves as socialist coupled with American politicans calling all socialists communist and all communists socialist means many Americans thinking that socialism is just a fancy term for communism". Doesnt help that the US has a weird left-right divide so americans think that anyone left of the true global political center is communist so that "right" has a really narrow definition in the US so "left" occupies TONS of different parties and ideologies. Americas main exposure to the true left being soviet progonada and NOT democratic socialist makes matters worse. They dont even teach what socialism is, even in relatively liberal and left leaning states and cities that advocate socialism so many american "socialists" barely even know what socialism is.
great video, but get prepared for the shitstorm
This is the first episode where I had actually even noticed that it was coming from an inherently Canadian perspective. I’m thankful for this because I honestly don’t believe an American could ever make a fair assessment of the history of democratic socialism without being accused of being left wing sympathizers. I was very impressed with how carefully this was handled. Good job, guys!
Yet we still call facism "ultra conservative" trust be dude the dipshit stick is long enough to poke both sides of isles
Algorithm
Very good.... I am from italy and I can say that socialism is dead in my country, it's all about liberal parties....
And what a shame, the pci is really missed.
@@carlospercevallol I said socialism, not communism... the Pci was actually remade not long ago
@@Robbi_ but it will never be as big as it used to be, as a spanish i really apreciate the work they did, they colaborated closely with the spanish communist party, which was really influential in the fall of franco.
@@Robbi_ they got like 100.000 votes in the 2017 elections. Do you think they will grow or unite with other communist parties?
@@greekcommie621 Grow yes maybe... there aren't really other true communist parties other than them
It's quite intellectually dishonest to lump someone like Franco with someone like Hitler. They were both authoritarian figures opposed to international socialism/communism but that's basically where their ideological similarities end. Franco was basically an authoritarian conservative seeking to keep the powers that be while Hitler was at the head of a radical, revolutionary ideology that completely rejected humanist notions at the heart of both liberal and socialist philosophies and wanted to basically restructure society from the ground up.
The whole concept of the political right is pretty disingenuous as it's basically "everybody who's not an international socialist".
@migkillerphantom Lol radical movement,Hitler got power by allying with the powers at be and merging them to his party as did Franco.
@migkillerphantom Franco made the Falangist(Spanish Fascist)the sole legal party of Spain and heavily promoted the Roman salute and anti Semitic and racist policies,he was a fascisten.wikipedia.org/wiki/FET_y_de_las_JONS
with biden as us president now me a conservative wants free heathcare and better education i seen us healthcare 1st hand we had to pay 580,000 dollars to get moms cancer surgery :(
I used to think as you do in terms of socialism becoming more popular after the American Civil War, in the era of the European Unification revolutions and unification movements. I have kind of moved away from that, or at the very minimum, nuanced it. I think Socialism is the far left, but many politicians were not socialist, they were adherents to Realpolitik ideologues in the Bismark camp. I look at realpolitik as a more insidious thing than overt socialism. I consider realpolitik to be a government granting social services reforms in exchange for passivity of the people. In other words, Bismark gave access to a retirement income and health care, in return the people stayed somewhat happy and the government was stable. I don't think Democrats and/or Republicans believe in socialism, they believe in pacification of the people. Social programs had more of a pacifying effect than actual hand up. And honestly I think that is what happened in most of Europe. Look how the EU bureaucrats behave toward the people. It is the same here in the US. I think our conversation needs to be more nuanced.
Take your meds
@@eruno_ get your head out of your backside
5:00 Nice way of not saying "Poland saved Europe from communist invasion."
Poland didn't do shit. Trotsky invited with 20,000 men. Stalin tried to call it off. Later Trotsky would be exiled and killed by Stalin.
Begin sharpening your ice picks
Why did he leave out national socialism?
This video is a little too anti-Communist for my liking
First
I have enjoyed much of his content and would agree the majority of his reinterations of history has been most accurate. With saying that I do disagree with his use of fascism being a right wing extremists aspect. For instance Germany might have been Fascists or a subsect of the group but they were self proclaimed socialists. Nazi is short for (National Socialist German Workers). They had more in common with communists then they had with liberals of the day which were conservative. Socialism is the honey that helps the communism go down. Both are despicable and immoral to life and individual freedom. Note to the content creator I would encourage the reading "The Gulag Archipelago" by Alexander Solzhenitsyn. He Explains an interesting view of the state of matter at the time you have talked about I do think you would be astonished by his accounts. Good look keep making good content.
So many wrongs here
- Fascists are and always will be a right wing movement. So are the Nazis. Only thing they have similar is authoritarian attitude
- Communists and Socialists were seen as enemies by both Nazis and Fascists and murdered massively during existence of these regimes
- National *Socialist* was a nice propaganda move to use the disdain of the German left against SPD to gain their votes but nice try
@@thegloriouspyrocheems2277 fascism can be both left or right. Iran is right wing fascism, while North Korea is left wing fascism. In North Korea you can’t own any businesses, but you can still be in charge of something like a movie theater, but it will be heavily regulated by the government. In Iran, you can own a business, but it’s very limited. Like you can’t open up a Yoga business because it goes against the laws. In America, you can own both a movie theater and yoga business and you have the freedom to run those businesses on how you want. This is the differences
“In the Soviet Union .... well, they conquered Germany”
What? That is a load. The Allies conquered Germany. It was a group effort. The Allies did it together.
The Soviets did a lot of heavy lifting and conquroring of former German terrority as compared to the West who took back France pushed them out of North Africa and took a slice of Germany. The Soviets took a whole lot more from Germany.
Its shorthand, most German casualties and war efforts were against the soviets. And the soviets took Berlin so technically yes the soviets conquered them.
Thats Nodildo
Look at a map, the US, France and Britain took much more German territory.
The US supplied the USSR with over half a million truck and over 90% of their locomotives and rail cars.
We also fed the Res Army and Clothed it.
If we did not do that, they would have had to allocate precious resources to that.
Nope, they did not conquer it,
It was a combined effort.
I Saw A Bear
See my reply to the other post.
The USSR might have won one their own, but it is easily debatable.
If we did not bomb German industry, and the USSR had no ability to do that, things would have went very different.
Sorry, but it was a team effort
Yeah that was a disengenious statement
What about us ANARCHIST
Anarchists are pussies. Nobody cares
It doesn't work, fall apart immediately, if not, they'd had some governing hierarchical institutions