spectrum of ideologies

A political scientist who studied the ideological spectrum in the Germany of
the 1920s ("Weimar Republic"), Kurt Sontheimer, found something very
interesting -- namely, the left-right spectrum of political ideologies is
not a straight line but has the shape of a horseshoe or even a circle. He
found that when you move from centrist positions to the left and then to the
far-left and when you move from a centrist position to the right and then to
the far-right you reach virtually the same point, just like moving along a
horseshoe or along a circle either left or right will eventually get you to
approximately the same ideological location. In 1920's Germany the far right
were the national socialists (=Nazis), the far left were the national
bolsheviks (similar to Pol Pot in Cambodia or one contemporary wsn member).
The ideological positions of the far right and the far left were both in
favour of high degrees of violence and dictatorship. Another common feature
they had was that they were in favour of killing their own party supporters
if they were deemed "soft" in one way or another. (A little known historical
fact is that Hitler, long before he launched the war and the holocaust, had
about 1000 fellow Nazis murdered in the so-called "night of the long knives"
1934. This is parallel to the Stalinist practice of killing fellow leftists,
like Trotsky and thousands of others.) I conclude from this that violence is
the mistake of 20th century socialism. Stalinists and some Leninists are the
Nazis of socialism and give socialism a bad name. A red-green world party
must unequivocally reject that kind of bloody violence.


Gert Kohler
Oakville, Canada