Nikki Haley-What was the cause of the Civil War

[Dill]

(01-16-2024, 10:28 AM)Crazyjdawg Wrote: For what it's worth, Russia was originally on Germany's side in WW2. They only became enemies with Germany when Hitler needlessly invaded them (for Lebensraum, or "living space"), creating a two front war that ultimately ended in Germany's downfall (one of the many reasons that I think Hitler was WAY overrated in terms of his military prowess).
So, you could argue Russia was "right wing" like the other Axes of Power nations, but joined the "left" due to the betrayal by Germany.
With that said, simplifying anything to left vs right is almost always incorrect and that likely holds for WW2 as well.

Actually C-Dawg, I'll have to disagree with you on this one. 

What made a regime "right" or "left" in the years leading to WW II was not whom it sided with, but the principles under which the regime claimed to be, or was, constituted. What made Germany and Italy "right wing" were fascist policies with their principled embrace of inequality and opposition to unions and Marxism.

The US, GB and France would be liberal democracies, and so more "centrist" on the political spectrum of that time. Not "leftist" by any stretch--except maybe to some far right Nazis. 

The Soviet Union established itself as a workers state, in principled opposition to the economic basis of liberal, fascist and traditional (aristocratic) governments of the time. It was radically different from the both Axis and other Allies in this respect. 

So the USSR may have signed a non-aggression pact with Germany, and agreed to divide Poland--for temporary advantage--but it's a stretch to infer from that that it was on the side of Germany and the Axis, and so became "right wing" for that stretch of time, even while it's long-term goal was still worldwide worker's revolution as Germany's long-term goal was the destruction of "Jewish Bolshevism."  

One could argue all regimes at that time were "mixtures" somewhat. E.g., the US was a segregated nation in ways that aligned with Nazi racial politics. But recognizing that does not oversimplify or negate the usefulness of terms like "right," "left" and "center" as they have been traditionally defined and used in political science/theory. 

It's a legacy of US anti-communism that, with the rise of the New Right, the term "leftist" has been broadly applied by the RWM to most all groups and politicians designated enemies by the far right effectively eliminating any "center." A fringe practice was thus mainstreamed, and now I see many younger folks are quite familiar, even comfortable, with that loose labeling. Though when neoliberals like the Clintons and Obama are repeatedly labelled "leftist," the term's descriptive or analytic power is evacuated. That doesn't mean terms like "right," "center," and "left" can't have that power, though, if effectively defined and deployed as something other than propaganda tools.