22 quotes
Bolshevism and Fascism were heresies of socialism.
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994)
Lenin wanted power. This may sound self-evident; after all, every politician is assumed to lust for power. But deep down, Lenin’s rivals did not want it.
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
Moscow’s insistence that ‘fascism’ was the polar opposite of ‘communism’ found wide acceptance in socialist and liberal circles in the West.
Property and Freedom (1999)
Nothing contributed more to the emergence of private property in the West and the rights associated with ownership than the appearance in the late Middle Ages of urban communities.
Property and Freedom (1999)
Fascism issued from the 'Bolshevik' wing of Italian socialism, not from any conservative ideology or movement.
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1995)
We cannot determine whether or not he had met Lenin during their common exile in Switzerland; Mussolini once cryptically remarked: ‘Lenin knew me better than I knew him.’
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
Even as the Fascist leader, Mussolini never concealed his sympathy and admiration for Communism: he thought highly of Lenin’s ‘brutal energy,’ and saw nothing objectionable in Bolshevik massacres of hostages. He proudly claimed Italian Communism as his child.
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994)
The purpose of totalitarian parties, for which Bolshevism provided the model, was not to become the government, but to manipulate the government from behind the scenes.
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
We need to keep a very keen eye on our own government. It's getting too rich and redistributing wealth is a sure way of robbing us of our private property rights and other rights along with them.
Both Hitler and Mussolini regarded themselves as revolutionaries, and rightly so. Rauschning claimed that National Socialism was actually more revolutionary in its goals than either Communism or anarchism.
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994)
Stoicism’s contribution to the shaping of the Western intellectual tradition is probably second only to that of Jewish monotheism. If monotheism advanced the revolutionary concept of an all-powerful and all-pervasive but non-material God ruling the universe, the theory of Natural Law posited that God’s universe was rational and capable of being grasped by human intelligence.
Property and Freedom (1999)
In 1925, Mussolini adopted the term [totalitarian] and assigned it a positive meaning. He defined Fascism as ‘totalitarian’ in the sense that it politicized everything ‘human’ as well as ‘spiritual’: ‘Everything within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.’
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994)
Communism, Fascism and National Socialism exacerbated and exploited popular resentments—class, racial and ethnic—to win mass support and to reinforce the claim that they, not the democratically elected governments, expressed the true will of the people. All three appealed to the emotion of hate.
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994)
On the eve of its coming to power, industrial workers composed nearly one-third of the Nazi Party membership and constituted its largest occupational groups. The party adopted the Red Flag, declared May 1 a paid national holiday, and required its members to address one another as Genossen or ‘comrades.’
Property and Freedom (1999)
In Western Europe since Roman times, private property was considered sacrosanct. The principle enunciated by the Roman Stoic philosopher Seneca that kings rule by the will of the people became fundamental to Western civilization, together with private property, which was the main source of productive wealth.
Given the opportunity, Mussolini would have been glad as late as 1920-21 to take under his wing the Italian Communists, for whom he felt great affinities: greater, certainly, than for democratic socialists, liberals and conservatives. Genetically, Fascism issued from the 'Bolshevik' wing of Italian socialism, not from any conservative ideology or movement.
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994)
Aristotle argues, possessions enable men to rise to a higher ethical level by giving them the opportunity to be generous: ‘liberality consists in the use which is made of property’—an argument which would greatly appeal to Christian theologians of the Middle Ages. Aristotle’s preferred regime was one founded on a middle class, with an equitable distribution of assets.
Property and Freedom (1999)
Another advantage of Lenin’s derived from the fact that he did not care about Russia. He cared about Germany and England in the sense that, for him, as a revolutionary, they were the key countries. Russian he viewed as nothing more than a stepping-stone to global upheaval;…
Three “Whys” of the Russian Revolution (1995)
No prominent European socialist before World War I resembled Lenin more closely than Benito Mussolini. Like Lenin, he headed the antirevisionist wing of the country’s Socialist Party; like him, he believed that the worker was not by nature a revolutionary and had to be prodded to radical action by an intellectual elite.
Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime (1994)
Aristotle based his opposition to common ownership not only on logical but also, and principally, on utilitarian grounds. It is impractical because no one takes proper care of objects that are not his: ‘How immeasurable greater is the pleasure, when a man feels a thing to be his own, for surely the love of self is a feeling implanted by nature…
Property and Freedom (1999)