(I posted this on lemmygrad but I want to get some discussion from here too.)
I’ve been meaning to ask about some stuff regarding parenti that I see come up on different places.
One of them being about parenti’s book blackshirts and reds. So I’ve run into specific people who have claimed and bought up that parenti is lying about : how social democrats in germany gave fascists a path and its actually fault of soviets.
To paraphrase them
Soviets gave kpd direction to be hostile and also it wasn’t just “socdems will ally with nazis”. It was cause soviets gave advice to be hostile to the spd.
To boil it down, they say that parenti is wrong about rise of fascism and he whitewashed soviet mistakes.
The other thing that’s bought up is the bombing of germany and american industrial ties. I see it brought up that parenti is just lying about bombing in cologne of ford factory. And its actually all lies and say the charlie higham “trading with the enemy” reference is bullshit. They go on to say that american industrialist involvement with german industry is not that deep. And that parenti (and other communists) lie about this to make a grand narrative of american involvement. They bring up nazi economy book by tooze and this site as a debunking lies material.
Now my post isn’t so much about parenti, I wanna broadly discuss about the whole notion that soviets or german communists were the reason nazis came to power and that socdems were really not at fault.
And also to discuss that american industrialists involved with germany is some bullshit conspiracy. Which it isn’t, given the lengths across the board they spread collaborating after and before the war. I’ve been reading a lot of stuff on dulles, hw, and nazis spread across into different places for american interests. So I don’t think american involvement is some fake conspiracy.
What are your thoughts? (Sorry if this post is too long)
https://thecritic.co.uk/issues/november-2021/the-american-who-let-the-nazis-rebuild-germany/
No debate on American Industrialists, Brothers by Stephen Kinzer is a good book. John Foster Dulles and Sullivan & Cromwell financially supported IG Farben and their collaboration is what saved the creators of Zyklon B from receiving justice.
Also I am not sure Adam Tooze would agree that Wages of Destruction or The Deluge don’t show American financial support for Nazis, because I’m pretty sure that the financial support of Americans was in the books.
As for the communist/social democrat infighting, I think it’s just a matter of semantics.
If you are a communist, you look at 1919 as the injustice done to severe ties with the social democrats. Between 1919-1923, when the SDP was the leading coalition, hundreds of communists leaders were assassinated without punishments. From 1929-1933, the Weimar Republic could not form a working government. If you were living at the time, what Hitler did seemed incredibly unlike.
If you are not a communist, you just duck your head on the earlier details and focus on the one thing that matters to you, electoratism. In a lib brain not voting is the equivalent of murder….
Oh that kinzer book is neat, I’ve been also reading devil’s chessboard which is decent so far.
Also the person who gave tooze reference also did mention wages of destruction. They only bought it up to say its better than parenti and its not a conspiracy screed like parenti does about the ford plants.
But yeah I would say they did cling to this saying the kpd should formed electoral coalition rather than being hostile cause of soviet advice.
I personally think the lynching of 400+ communists in the Weimar Republic was a bigger reason for people not voting than Joseph Stalin, much like I think the killing of what will be around 50k Palestinians is what will make Biden lose Michigan.
Very true. Its literally what israeli hasabra does with regards how palestinians rejected all their deals.