Which Russia was better?

[KaiserDave]

TheReckoning being historically illiterate and minimizing Nazi evil? What a surprise. I wonder when mods will act? I have nothing else to say, it was precisely a year ago I had the delightful task of explaining to him that Lincoln would never have supported a genocide of the south. He is impossible.

[KaiserDave]

I just hope that everyone knows that TheReckoning has no idea what he is talking about and is disconnected from reality. I am not interested in debating him again, I have done it countless times and it always ends the same way. He shifts the goalposts, he responds to specific evidenced claims with vague nonsense, and he engages in intense sophistry in whatever his current crusade it, mostly minimizing Nazi crimes. I have done this on World War One, on the US Civil War, on the Spanish Civil War, on World War Two. It is a pointless endeavor, I might post an explainer on his foolishness for the benefit of others in this specific case because it is an interesting topic, but I have no interest in debating and going back and forth with him anymore. He is entirely deliberately dishonest.

https://talkelections.org/FORUM/index.php?topic=472385.msg8363311#msg8363311

I encourage people to read through this exchange to see what I mean.

[KaiserDave]

Let's get started with the following. I am going to try and answer the question of whether the Nazis had "global ambitions." I am not going to respond to idiocy, I will try and keep a narrow scope.

Firstly, what's this garbage about "half of Europe" it really does sound like a semi-intelligent Nazi propagandist minimizing things. The Nazis had invaded or attempted to invade every European nation that was not their ally/partner or Sweden/Switzerland by 1942.

I think I should talk about the USSR because comparisons were made between the two. The Soviet Union was run by Marxist-Leninists who aspired to a global proletarian revolution that would sweep the world and bring about a world socialist republic. Very often, they attempted to export their style of government to other countries. But once Stalin took power, they were also fairly conservative. "Socialism in one country" held that socialism had to be developed and strengthened in Soviet Russia for an extended period of time before any world revolution could occur. It is also worth noting, as before, that Stalin and his successors often supported non-communist nationalists to Marxist or anti-American aims. This was a stark contrast to Trotsky's theory of world revolution, which included an immediate war on all capitalist nations coinciding with a global workers uprising, a theory that while popular in the heavy days of 1917, 1918 and 1919, did not last. Stalin's absorption of Eastern Europe into his sphere was actually an exercise of Socialism in One Country, the eastern bloc provided a defensive buffer for Soviet Russia to enhance its own development. The theory held that the most imminent task for communists everywhere was defending the USSR from foreign sabotage, invasion, and infiltration, therefore Socialism in One Country does not preclude the possibility of forcefully bringing in other nations into the socialist camp. This is very different however, than the global inferno envisioned by Trotskyite world revolution. Of course I am strongly opposed to the USSR, an evil state, one of the worst (I could go on). But it was not hell-bent on war and backing Marxist-Leninist revolutions wherever possible. It actually opposed many self-declared Marxist governments at many points. It envisioned a global communist system, but this was, especially after Stalin, largely seen at some distant far flung point in the future.

Now, what did Hitler and the Nazis want? We can know this very easily, because they said it in public and it is all very well transcribed in their private correspondences and plans. The Nazis wanted to destroy the imagined "global Jewish conspiracy." This is very important, for the Nazis the "Allied Powers" as we understand them did not exist. The United States, the government of the UK, and especially "Judeo Bolshevik" Soviet Russia were a front, shell organizations, for "International Judaism." The notion that these were truly separate entities with truly separate policies was a deception by Jewish conspirators in their mission to destroy culture and civilization. There was no such government as the United States or the Soviet Union, there was only International Judaism, whose agents and operatives chose to act through their various shell governments in advancing their agenda. Therefore it was necessary expand the war to all countries and all places because sparing certain areas was to leave the conspiracy free to act elsewhere. This deranged, insane, evil notion was an important mover behind Nazi foreign policy, which we can actually see when it declared war on the United States and the USSR. This as well as Lebensraum (which of course is tied to racial ideology), and strategic needs such as natural resources and American transatlantic shipping to Britain. With the war concluded the Nazis planned build a New Order, or Neuordnung for Europe and establish Germany as a global hegemon. Goebbels said "The Führer gave expression to his unshakable conviction that the Reich will be the master of all Europe. We shall yet have to engage in many fights, but these will undoubtedly lead to most wonderful victories. From there on the way to world domination is practically certain. Whoever dominates Europe will thereby assume the leadership of the world." For the Nazis,  dominion or great influence over the world was the natural next step from European control.

It is true that the Nazis did not have an exportable universalist ideology meant to lead a future world government like the USSR did. But they did have global plans. As a start, they Hitler wanted undisputed control over all of Europe. Whether through direct rule from Berlin, colonial Reichskommissariats, or puppet regimes. It's worth mentioning that the type of people running these puppet regimes were usually some of history's greatest monsters. It's not the same as exporting a universalist ideology, but when all the regimes you set up are extraordinarily evil, it's worth mentioning especially if they succeeded in becoming a hegemon (hegemon's set up regimes!). Examples include Ante Pavelić's Ustaše in Croatia, Ferenc Szálasi's Arrow Cross in Hungary, Jozef Tiso's clerico-fascist regime in Slovakia, and several others.

As for the rest of the world, Hitler's designs go far beyond ideological screeds on conspiracies like I mentioned above. There were real, actually written down plans for global domination. Japanese Ambassador to Germany Hiroshi Ōshima submitted a plan to the German government to divide the entire continent Asia along the Yenisei River in Siberia, a legal document which Hitler signed and accepted on January 18th 1942. And this was not a mere hypothetical! The Treaty was taken seriously by both sides to the point where it hindered cooperation, as both sides were reluctant to undertake any operation within the sphere of the other side, and the German diplomats strenuously objected to any intrusions into their sphere. Japan actually had to discontinue successful air raids in the Indian Ocean due to worries over violating this treaty.

In Africa, the Kriegsmarine had very real, very detailed plans to revive the old idea of Mittelafrika,, essentially German colonial control of all of sub-Saharan Africa (with the north being allotted to Italy, and South Africa was envisioned as a Pro-Nazi Afrikaner state). Such plans for Africa would essentially be to brutally extract its rich natural resources for the benefit of the Reich, and to construct naval and air bases along the west coast of Africa as a threat against the Western Hemisphere. Such plans were of course absurdly unrealistic and fanciful, but what matters is that the Nazis treated them seriously.

Hitler had designs on the Middle East as well, not only to expand the Holocaust to the region, but to establish partners in the region, especially Turkey, and we can imagine what a Nazi-compliant regime would have looked like in Turkey (refer to my previous points on what the rulers of Nazi allied states looked like). He treated seriously the prospect of allying with Iran and Saudi Arabia, for natural resources, naval bases, and strategic position.

In the Western Hemisphere, I have said before how Hitler despised the United States. While a German invasion of the American continent is so impossible to the point of it not being worth discussing, I will merely say Hitler very much believed that America would be subjugated at some point in the future by Germany, perhaps by an Anglo-German Navy (deranged, obviously). More significantly, is important to note that if the Nazis successfully achieved dominance of Europe, or of Eurasia, that the US dominated Western Hemisphere would be its natural enemy, and Hitler thought of ways to project power in that region, especially in South America. The Germans actually did pursue a policy of economic hegemony in that region in the 1930s, to undermine American influence in that continent. They further hoped for significant political influence, with these hopes being pinned on Integralists in Brazil, fascists in Argentina, and the large continent of Germans on the continent. It is also worth noting that tried to keep records of the Jewish population in Argentina and Australia. Again, global plans.

Now, so much of this is obviously very evil, it is also often very stupid, and absurd! We are all lucky that the Nazis were so deranged and stupid. But what matters in this post is whether or not the Nazis had global plans, a global ideology, designs for global domination beyond their corner of the world. Designs that they treated seriously. The answer is unequivocally yes. I would further claim that this worldview was as serious about global dominion as the USSR's view of Marxism, if not more so.

[KaiserDave]

I accept your graceless humiliation

[KaiserDave]

Both were/are terrible, but it depends on the era. I'd still pick Putin's Russia over Stalin's tyranny or Lenin's red terror in a heartbeat. But the Khrushchev and Brezhnev eras, for example, weren't as repressive and totalitarian.

The USSR under Khrushchev and Brezhnev were far less brutal than the Stalin and Lenin years, but they were still more repressive than Putin's Russia. By a lot.