Nazis & Communists: Ideological Bedfellows

Written by Bruce Walker
Friday, 30 October 2009 01:00

Benito Mussolini has an infamous place in modern history, as well he should. Nearly everyone knows Mussolini as the dictator of Fascist Italy and the ally of Nazi Germany in the Second World War. But that is only part of the story.

Mussolini began his political career as an avowed Marxist (defined as the atheist philosophy which holds that capitalism is bad because it enriches a few capitalists to the detriment of masses of laborers and that laborers should take control of all means of production — in order, in theory though not in practice, to be fair to the masses). Mussolini was not just a leading leftist in Italy, he was one of the most important communists in the world (communism is here defined as a system of government in which the state plans and controls the economy, and a single, often authoritarian party, holds power — in order, in theory, to be fair and spread all goods equally amongst the people).

In 1914, Mussolini organized “Red Week,â€