>>510709140 (OP)Suppose a political party is founded that calls itself socialist and states in its program that the state has the duty to ensure that all citizens can provide for themselves or are supported by the state.
In other program points the party promises expansion of social services; good health care and education that are accessible to everyone; expropriation of land to prevent private individuals from speculating with it; nationalization of companies that have a monopoly and profit sharing in large companies.
Thirteen years later the party comes to power. It has not shed its ideological feathers; the program has remained unchanged all that time and is being implemented vigorously. A real left-wing party, you would say. But because it happens to be the Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei (NSDAP), almost everyone considers that party and its leader, Adolf Hitler, to be very right-wing.
There are several possible explanations for the right-wing image that Hitler has. Stalin was his great rival in the contest of dictators. Stalin was left-wing, so someone who is unfamiliar with Hitler's ideological background and politics quickly believes that Hitler must have been right-wing. Both decent social democrats and neo-Stalinists have an interest in portraying Hitler as right-wing. For the social democrats, their socio-economic policies are embarrassingly similar to Hitler's.
Unlike Stalin, Hitler did not want an all-powerful state that owns all the means of production, but a meddling state that takes care of the people and determines what is good for them.
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