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Originally Posted by esspoker
Socialism strikes me as one of those words which has been used to seduce the masses throughout history for great evils (still is in venezuela).
It has, but then the word 'democratic' has been similarly used and abused by general no-goods and hazards-to-traffic.
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Look at our last thread about fascism. I don't think anyone, still, understands what fascism is, yet most people are still convinced Hitler was a fascist.
That's because he was one. German National Socialism was an authoritarian nationalist movement with a 'strongman' leader, patterned after Mussolini's success in Italy.
Shorter OED, Vol.I, p.919:- 'Fascist... (A) n. A member of a body of Italian nationalists, which was organised in 1919 to oppose Communism in Italy and controlled the country from 1922 to 1943; a member of any similar nationalist and authoritarian organization in another country; (loosely) any person with right-wing authoritarian political views. E20.'
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All most people know is "fascism bad." But historically fascism and socialism are close cousins.
Fascism could be regarded as a parasite on socialism, exploiting the obvious defect of doctrinaire socialism that it requires seizure of absolute state power. But Clem Attlee had nothing at all do with fascism (or Communism), and nor did George Orwell.
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The Spanish war and other events in 1936-7 turned the scale and thereafter I knew where I stood. Every line of serious work that I have written since 1936 has been written, directly or indirectly, *against* totalitarianism and *for* democratic socialism, as I understand it.
(Orwell, 'Why I Write', 1947)
Since that time, the term 'democratic socialism' has been appropriated and manipulated by Communists who don't want to call themselves Communists. So Orwell, like Attlee, would probably now count as a 'social democrat' rather than a 'democratic socialist'.