Long Real Life Section: Commie Nazis

This is an inherently fictional trope. While there may be some similarities between Communists and Nazis, and some groups have been similar to both, there have never actually been Commie Nazis. None of the examples from the real life section are actual combinations of Communist+Nazi.

So then, how the hell is the Real Life section half the total example length?

edited 26th Apr '11 6:50:58 AM by Scardoll

Vote cut.

Some of it does seem to be one massive Justifying Edit. Cut.

Clean up, but keep: some of the "examples" are really just about rants of how similar the two ideologies are to each other, and accusing random countries of actually being Commie Nazis, but some others are clerly invocations of the trope, even if they are outsidee of fiction, and that is the point of Real Life entries.

edited 26th Apr '11 7:35:08 AM by EternalSeptember

These seem to be the only examples worth keeping.

• As a response to the signing of the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Time Magazine called the participants "Communazi", thus providing the Ur Example for this trope. '''(Yep. Deliberate invocation)
• In 1990's Russia, kommunofashisty (Commie-Fascists) or krasno-korichnevye (The Red-Brown, based on colours associated with each ideology) was a very popular slur, used by liberals against their opponents who dared to speak about the country's Soviet and Imperial past with even a modicum of respect. Some extremist groups, like the aforementioned National Bolsheviks, were actually based on some sort of Fascist-Communist mish-mash, but in general, it was a convenient label to disparage politicians one didn't like. The slur comes up in political discussions up to this day. (Deliberate invocation of trope)
• Since Poland got invaded by both Nazis and Soviets, neither gets good press here. Hence, one of the most popular tricks in the less formal political debates is comparing the opponent to either Nazis or Soviets. Probably because of this trend, a lot of activists started arguing that nazism was a leftist trend (justification: it's in their freaking name!) or that Soviet communism was rightist (justification: the entire body of "Mother Russia" propaganda), blending them into a vaguely centrist national-socialist blob. In popular mind, meanwhile, both "communist" and "fascist" simply mean "evil" and most people don't really have much of an idea about actualities of each ideology. (Needs cleaning to be less whiny, but it seems to be an example of this trope being invoked. I'd probably delete it anyway, since this is probably not a Polish-only phenomenon)
• The emblem◊ of Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party is an embodiment of this trope. (Seems to be a deliberate attempt to invoke the imagery)

All the other examples are either comparing governments to Nazis and/or Communists instead of them being Nazis/Communists, trying to connect Nazism and Communism, or saying a guy is a Communist and a Nazi because two of his favorite books were written by famous proponents of those governments.

• As a response to the signing of the non-aggression pact between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union, Time Magazine called the participants "Communazi", thus providing the Ur Example for this trope. '''(Yep. Deliberate invocation)
  • Put this one under "Magazine", or up at the very top as "Ur-Example"

• In 1990's Russia, kommunofashisty (Commie-Fascists) or krasno-korichnevye (The Red-Brown, based on colours associated with each ideology) was a very popular slur, used by liberals against their opponents who dared to speak about the country's Soviet and Imperial past with even a modicum of respect. Some extremist groups, like the aforementioned National Bolsheviks, were actually based on some sort of Fascist-Communist mish-mash, but in general, it was a convenient label to disparage politicians one didn't like. The slur comes up in political discussions up to this day. (Deliberate invocation of trope)
  • Agree that this one is a valid example of invoking the trope deliberately, in Real Life.

• Since Poland got invaded by both Nazis and Soviets, neither gets good press here. Hence, one of the most popular tricks in the less formal political debates is comparing the opponent to either Nazis or Soviets. Probably because of this trend, a lot of activists started arguing that nazism was a leftist trend (justification: it's in their freaking name!) or that Soviet communism was rightist (justification: the entire body of "Mother Russia" propaganda), blending them into a vaguely centrist national-socialist blob. In popular mind, meanwhile, both "communist" and "fascist" simply mean "evil" and most people don't really have much of an idea about actualities of each ideology. (Needs cleaning to be less whiny, but it seems to be an example of this trope being invoked. I'd probably delete it anyway, since this is probably not a Polish-only phenomenon)
  • Delete. It at least needs to be trimmed way back, and that bit about activists arguing is a bit confusing — as it's written now, it sounds like they are putting forard the argument that Nazis are Leftist, and Commies are Rightist, but I think what is meant is that they are arguing against those positions. It's a quirk of English that "I would argue that X" means "I support X" while "I would dispute that Y" means "I disagree with the statement Y" even though "argue" and "dispute" are otherwise synonyms.

• The emblem◊ of Eduard Limonov's National Bolshevik Party is an embodiment of this trope. (Seems to be a deliberate attempt to invoke the imagery)
  • agreed on this one as well — deliberate invocation of the trope.

Time should be in Magazine, not Real Life. It's a media publication saying something. That makes it media.

Maybe we should write a predefined message about what is the difference between a Real Life example of a trope, and an editor's random crap that they wanted to tell us about the trope.

Call it "Not A Real Life Example", or something.

If you're going to delete the first ones to appear in thie page, then they need to be integrated into the article itself. The main article asserts that there are no similarities, despite plenty of evidence to the contrary. If we are to remove the clarification examples, then they need integration into the article itself.

Edit: If we don't, we'll just have an edit war on the article instead of the Real Life examples anyway.

edited 26th Apr '11 8:06:47 PM by DingaMiniganger

You're reading things into the article that aren't there.

No assertion of no similarities at all. Pretty much just explains the trope.

Duh.

Only section that might assert differences. Even then, it seems to have more to do with the emotional reaction than with a comparison. These people dealt with the effects of their governments, good or bad, personally. An American would not feel happy about someone confusing type of government with Great Britain's, because, well, it makes it look as if the foreigner just didn't care.

This should be obvious. Both groups of people feel touchy on the subject because, you know, oppressive and evil dictatorships are parts of their history that they don't like foreigners to get confused about?

Overall, only one part could possibly be interpreted as interpreting that USSR Communists and Nazis are different, and, despite whatever similarities people find, they ARE. Different countries, different ideologies, whatever. This trope is mainly about the visual elements, not about the ideologies; it's about hammer and sickle wielding SS Officers, not the Nazism being similar to Communism or different.

The reason we should delete the examples comparing Communism and Nazism in real life are simple: They're politicizing natterbait and flamebait.

edited 27th Apr '11 10:50:35 AM by Scardoll

Dude, anything which deals with politics is flamebait, and yes, Communism and nazism are VERY similar. Mein Kompf pretty much defeats any notion of them being vastly different because Hitler himself said he was copying from Marx. Also, the fact that Nazi means "National Socialist", yeah.

Look, other tropes that have justification in reality have this noted in their descriptions, this should as well. Especially since due to years of misconception about Nazism, it falls under Reality Is Unrealistic. If you're worried about offending people with the trope, proper use of Hitler Ate Sugar should remedy the problem. After all, it's common sense that animal rights =/= genocide, despite what actions take, PETA might take, right?

But no, we can NOT delete those examples and just leave it at that, they are there for a reason. Added by many, MANY people. And I DAMN sure don't wanna see this back under Did Not Do The Research despite all the mountains of evidence that Nazism was based on communism (mostly deviated on nationalist and master race policies).

Just to refute that, quote Wikipedia "Nazi ideology stressed the failures of laissez-faire capitalism, communism..." Nazism is a derivative of Fascism, not Communism, and it explicitly opposes communism. (Fascism supports corporatism and is a far-right wing ideology, communism supports collectivism and is a far-left ideology).

That said, the end result of both has tended to be totalitarianism, but that's not the point here, the point is that they are very different.

Now, with that said, the point here is that it's mixing your evil metaphors in ways that don't have a basis in reality, and that was, in very rough form, why an (ideological) mix of Nazism and communism makes no sense in Real Life.

Also, I'm pretty sure that's why this trope isn't about things actually being both commies and nazis, but rather, evoking imagery of both as shorthand for EVIL.

, I agree that it would make sense to note the similar aspects of the two ideologies, like how they result in totalitarianism and the leader's personality cult, mass murder, similar imagery, etc.

The trope is not about mixing up corporatism and collectivism: the fact that the two can be used interchangeably, or even together, can happen because in a certain dimension, they are similar, in everything else than their economical system, so unless you are telling a story about the economy, it doesn't matter if your uniform-wearing, brainwashed, propaganda-parroting villains from an enemy superpower are commies, nazies, or something in-between, because these serve the same purpose as villains.

edited 29th Apr '11 12:37:43 AM by EternalSeptember

Dinga, this trope is not about similar political systems. It's clearly about the visual, superficial aspects of the two regimes, or just combining the actual regimes themselves. TV Tropes is for fictional tropes, not for your musing over real world examples. We have the Useful Notes pages for a reason. Besides, what on Earth is added to the page with the comment "Oh, by the way, Communism and Fascism are very similar political systems?" It's clearly natterbait, it's clearly flamebait, and it is completely unlike the other examples.

There are similarities between the United States political system and Fascism/Communism, but that's not a trope because you will almost never see the two mixed in fiction. You don't see Nazis waving around American flags or M1-Abrams flying the hammer and sickle.

Exactly.

This would actually be more useful, since they're parts of the regimes that got incorporated into the whole EVIL imagery.

However, it should specifically be about USSR Communism; most other Communist regimes (Like China under Mao) do not get used in this trope in fiction, even if they were just as bad as Stalin's empire.

And? It isn't the trope, plain and simple.

Stop trying to convince us that your politics are right, and start trying to convince us that they actually fall under this trope.

edited 29th Apr '11 8:27:49 AM by Scardoll

Bump.

So, have we reached a conclusion, or is there still some conflict?

Definitely some conflict, especially concerning your rigidity in this discussion. This trope is about people who both communists and nazis. This makes the trope somewhat Truth in Television if indeed there are enough similarities.

I notice that Dinga brings up Hitler HIMSELF saying that he based Nazism on Marxist communism, and about how Nazi means "National Socialist". I notice also that this was lost on you and that you rigidly argue that they are vastly different despite this. I don't think anyone is saying that there aren't differences, but to pretend that the differences are as vast as you are attemmpting to pretend even in the face of this sort of evidence, is simply being stubborn.

Vote Keep and the OP Did Not Do The Research.

given how this thread has gone I think it supports cutting the section and a "No Real Life Examples" label slapped on the page.

edited 3rd May '11 6:03:36 PM by CrypticMirror

Putting words in other people's mouths is dishonest.

I don't want the article to be a soapbox for either position. My point isn't that they're different or similar (And it never has been). It's that this trope in fiction is always about literally combining Communists and Nazis, or combining the superficial aspects.

There are similarities in reality; however, they are not the kind of similarities covered in the trope, and they are flame and natter-bait.

Yes, Hitler himself said that Nazism was based on Marxist Socialism (Or at least you say he did, I didn't even check the source), and that's probably some very nice info, but it doesn't belong on that page.

edited 3rd May '11 7:50:16 PM by Scardoll

Real Life section cut. Utterly off mission.

[quote]Yes, Hitler himself said that Nazism was based on Marxist Socialism (Or at least you say he did, I didn't even check the source)[/quote]

He did, check on it. If there are similarites, it is in spirit a "combination" to use your words.

Vote Keep.