For the last 250 years, America’s veterans have put their lives on the line to preserve and protect the way of life that we hold so near and dear to our hearts. However, instead of rewarding them for their sacrifices, today veterans are quietly subjected to a policy that does the opposite: these men and women are penalized financially for the very injuries they sustained in service. The Major Richard Star Act would fix this problem.

“The American Legion strongly supports the latest effort to eliminate the unjust offset that penalizes thousands of combat-injured veterans.

This long-overdue reform—backed by The American Legion and more than 60 other military and veteran organizations—would ensure that combat-injured retirees can receive both their Department of Defense retirement pay and the disability compensation earned through their sacrifices. Current law reduces retirement pay by the exact amount of VA disability compensation received, a policy that punishes wounded veterans for their service and injury. We call this what it is: a “wounded veteran tax,” and it must end.”

The history of this problem is complicated. Initially, Congress wanted to ensure that veterans would not receive two forms of federal pay for the same period of service (retirement pay and disability compensation, respectively). This concept makes sense on paper, but severely backfired in reality. Reform is necessary.

“The standalone bill has overwhelming bipartisan support, with 313 cosponsors in the House and 77 in the Senate as of January 2026—more than enough to pass if brought to a floor vote.

The American Legion urges Congress to do right by our nation’s combat-wounded heroes and pass this amendment without delay. These veterans have already paid more than their fair share.”

This common sense legislation would represent an obvious improvement to our nation. However, its delay highlights a more fundamental issue within our legislative politics - intense polarization and fiscal constraints make new laws like this harder and harder to sign into law. The Act would cost several billion dollars over the next decade, which would add even more strain to the nation’s historically large national debt. It also has not been prioritized by congressional leadership: a sad but true reality of DC politics. However, inaction is not worth the cost. The result is that these veterans, unlike many of their non-disabled or non-combat counterparts, are denied the full benefits they have rightfully earned. It is only right that United States veterans should be protected from this tragic legal injustice. Congress should put partisan politics to the side and do the right thing: Pass the Major Richard Star Act.

Left internationalism is an ideology that champions egalitarian and revolutionary rhetoric on an international scale. This essay will evaluate the extent to which left internationalism pervaded within advocacy groups during the 1968 Columbia protests, using one specific document as a microcosm. The document I will analyze comes directly from Columbia University’s historical archives, which I gained access to through my Contemporary World History course. Here is the document, typed out:

“Today Third World students and community people from all over the city are coming to this campus to express solidarity with the brothers and sisters in the Third World Center in Hamilton Hall and with all Columbia people who have been on strike. Some people on this campus have mistakenly viewed the community related demands as somehow divisive and unrelated to the main focus of the strike – the war. Nothing could be further from the truth. U.S. imperialism must be fought on all fronts. We express solidarity with the Third World students when they said yesterday:

We celebrate the struggle of oppressed people throughout the world, particularly the advances of the Indochinese people in their battle against U.S. imperialism. We express our solidarity with all progressive forces against oppression and call once again for those on this campus who are not part of the oppressive machinery to assume a responsible position and return to the strike. We will hold an anti-imperialist rally on Tuesday, May 2, at 1:00 p.m., at the sundial.

Only by uniting with Third World students and community people can an effective force be forged that will smash the war machine. This machinery of profit and death oppresses not only the Indochinese but Third World peoples in America. Our own struggle for liberation is inseparable from that of the Indochinese peoples. Our strength is in unity. We call on all white students to join with their Third World brothers and sisters today.

HAMILTON – KENT COLLECTIVE

MASS MEETING TONIGHT AT 8:00 P.M. Hewitt Lounge Ferris Booth

Flash!
J. Edgar Hoover is dead.

ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE”

The author of this specific Columbia protester channeled left internationalist rhetoric, highlighting a shared struggle of all oppressed third world peoples. An important facet of this type of political thought is that the struggle for equality should not just be fought within one state, but across borders and countries: In the same way that Marx and Engels shout “Working Men of All Countries, Unite,” the author of this document ends his letter with: “Our own struggle for liberation is inseparable from that of the Indochinese peoples. Our strength is in unity” (Box 11, Folder 21). The influence of leftist rhetoric is clear, and informs the worldview of the Columbia protestors.

Interestingly, the language used in this document also reflects Marxist rhetoric. Key to Marxist political thought is the hierarchical division of human groups into classes, with an underlying power dynamic controlling the hierarchy. The author of this document applies a Marxist framework to his current life experience: Instead of referring to a proletariat class as Marx would, the author mentions the Third World as the class of oppressed peoples. He juxtaposes the Third World students with “the war machine” instead of “the bourgeoisie.” He does so by explaining that the machine “oppresses not only the Indochinese but Third World peoples in America” (Box 11, Folder 21). He continues by advocating for the smashing of said war machine, in the same way that the Luddites, as an example, smashed machinery during the industrial revolution. Given that the war machine is a general metaphor for the Western establishment, the call to smash it is clearly a revolutionary call. Marxism, by definition, also champions a revolution against the oppressive establishment. In addition, central to a Marxist framework is also anti-capitalism, which the author includes: he expands on his war machine analogy by calling it a “machine of profit and death” (Box 11, Folder 21). The author sees a link between war and profit, suggesting that there is a financial incentive for the waging of war in Vietnam. This perceived conflict of interest adds to the general anger directed towards the U.S. military and its adjacent institutions, such as the ROTC and IDA. The language used in this document is not unique. For instance, in another letter, Columbia student Mr. Jomo Raskin similarly refers to the University’s military-oriented institutions as a “racist and imperialist scheme” (Box 11, Folder 21). Mr. Raskin also, in several places, calls for revolution. Both of these statements align with the egalitarian and revolutionary rhetoric consistent with extreme left internationalism. In order to understand the point of view of the more radical protesters, we must understand the lens through which they view the world.

One limitation of this document is that it presents one of the more extreme viewpoints held by Columbia students. In addition to using leftist language throughout the letter, the author ends by writing “ALL POWER TO THE PEOPLE” (Box 11, Folder 21) instead of signing his name. The rhetoric is clearly anti-establishment, as it implies that power must be removed from one party and transferred to another. More conservative or establishment students would be disillusioned with the radical change that the author calls for. Therefore, this document appealed to only a small, specific group of students at Columbia. In reality, there was a wide variety of viewpoints expressed by Columbia students, many of which were against the protests all together. For example, the very name of the “Majority Coalition,” which wrote strong letters against the anarchic tactics of the SDS, suggests that they felt most students were in fact against the violent protests. Additionally, the beliefs of the country as a whole were clearly opposed to the point of view expressed in the document: President Richard Nixon eventually won his 1968 campaign bid on a promise for “law and order,” which was a direct response to the violence and chaos of the 1960s.

After the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, there was hope for a “New World Order,” where liberal democracy would reign supreme across the globe. Since then, the world has become less and less democratic. 72% of the population now lives under autocratic rule, and authoritarian regimes and rhetoric continue to appeal to voters. The strength of these movements feed off of economic uncertainty, cultural erosion, and a general fear of the modern way of life. Hitler’s rise to power can be explained by many of those same factors. As engaged citizens of the world, it is important to understand why these ideologies become so popular. The essay will tackle the question: how and why did Nazism arise in 20th-century Germany? Relatedly, why did Nazism win compared to other radical alternatives? To do this, I will compare J.S. Conway’s Due Process of History with Bessel’s Life in the Third Reich. Conway’s paper is structured not as one argument, but rather an examination of various explanations. The argument I will make is that Nazism, aided by a lack of faith in liberal democracy and a political system favorable to the success of fringe parties, arose because it was seen as the only appealing alternative to other radical options.

An Introduction to Conway’s Evidence

According to Conway, many Nazi sympathizers and conservative historians pushed the view that the rise of Nazism can be explained by the lack of viable alternatives. While this perspective is sometimes rooted in the desire to alleviate responsibility from the German public, it has significant evidence and deserves evaluation. Following the Treaty of Versailles after World War I, Germany fell into a massive economic collapse: on top of suffering huge strategic losses, such as demilitarizing the Rhineland, Germany entered a period of hyperinflation. The German currency crumbled in value, and everyday citizens walked the streets with wheelbarrows of money just for a standard trip to the store. Entering the 1930s, the German populace wanted swift and dramatic change. Conway cites Erich Eyek, a German historian, to explain why a more moderate alternative to Nazism was unrealistic: “According to Erich Eyck, the world economic crisis and the earlier German inflation … had the effect of undermining the German middle-classes’ confidence in the effectiveness of the moderate political parties, and induced them to rely increasingly on a party which offered decisive action to remedy their economic distress.” The Nazi Party offered decisive action in a way that other alternatives did not. He continues: “It was these economic causes rather than the inapplicability of their ideas which liberals believed was the basic cause of the seduction of Germans away from democracy.” Later in the paper, Conway cites the idea that “the big concerns which supported Hitler’s rise to power consisted mainly of [the] groups which had been hardest hit by the depression and thus hoped for the coming of a saviour.” Just like today, everyday Germans lost confidence in the political system’s ability to solve their problems, and thus placed their hope in an anti-democratic, yet charismatic, leader.

Amongst the various radical alternatives to liberal democracy, why did Nazism arise as opposed to a Leftist ideology?

The German people were done with liberal democracy: just like today, the failures of large bureaucracy, slow governance, and dwindling economic confidence had left politics increasingly radical, polarized, and authoritarian. If this were true, and there were going to be a radical alternative to liberal democracy, there is a natural follow-up question: Why did Nazism win over Communism to begin with?

One answer that Conway points to is an inherent bias against Communism that existed within the German population: “Only the smallest fraction of the public had enough power of political imagination to be able to foresee the kind of consequences that would follow an elimination of constitutional guarantees and the disbanding of the democratic system.... Wide circles of the public unblinkingly accepted actions of national-minded men that, had the same actions being undertaken by Communists, would have been considered alarming violations of justice and order.” Though Communism, like Fascism, offered dramatic change to a country in strife, there was simply too much anti-Communist sentiment in Germany at the time. Conway also poses the argument that the wealthy industrialists of Germany played a large role in Hitler’s rise to power, as Nazism, while imperfect, was understandably far more appealing in their eyes compared to Communism: “The big industrial concerns, while welcoming Hitler as an ally against Labor, would have preferred to see him being used as a mere tool in the hands of a Cabinet controlled by industry. When this proved not to be feasible, however, they supported Hitler as the lesser of two evils, eager to make the best of his coming to power both politically and economically.” The influence of these industrialists can be seen within the particularities of the German political system. In order to keep the ever more popular Communists out of power, Hitler had to maintain a very large party within the Reichstag, and had to make deals with political power brokers in doing so: “In October I93I the industrialists brought direct pressure on Hindenburg to have the Cabinet reshuffled still more in accordance with their wishes. As the number of Communist sympathizers continued to rise during 1932, there was ever greater need to purchase the support of a mass party to offset the Bolshevist menace.” It was clear that the failures of the German state had eroded the people’s faith in liberal democracy and stable institutions, and a big shift was coming. However, Conway correctly addresses other factors that made Leftist solutions impossible, thereby paving the way for Nazism to come to fruition.

Bessel’s Argument

Bessel instead focuses on the fundamental nature of left wing politics that left it vulnerable to the rise of Fascism: he suggests that Nazism was inevitable. He asserts that “the idea that a united Left would have survived the onslaught of the Nazis and their conservative allies… was at best a pipe dream.” Later, Bessel claims that “if the history of the Nazi seizure reflects anything about left-wing politics, it is that there is little the Left can do to stop a powerful right-wing movement which has mass support, allies in powerful places, and control of the repressive apparatus of the State.” There are some similarities in Conway and Bessel’s arguments respectively, as they both acknowledge the powerlessness of the Left in relation to a movement like the Nazi Party, albeit for slightly different reasons.

Interestingly, while Bessel and Conway both make compelling arguments about the Nazi rise to power, they perhaps focus too little on the role of the German political system itself. German elections featured a multi-party system that allowed for more fringe parties like the Nazi Party to have an outsized chance to take control of the government. When the Nazis eventually came to power in the early 1930s, they only took 37% of the vote. However, due to the fragmented politics of Germany, this was enough to hold a plurality in the Reichstag. At the time, the Nazi opposition on the Left was divided between the Communists and the Social Democrats, and made up about 35% of the total vote: slightly less than what the Nazi Party was able to receive. However, when incorporating the 12% of the population that voted for the “Centre” Party, the Nazis could have been stopped from taking power. The Centre Party was historically quite Catholic and had at times formed coalitions with the Social Democrats. A united coalition of the Centre, the Social Democrats, and the Communists could’ve actually kept the Nazis from holding a majority 1932, thus casting some doubt on Bessel’s earlier claim that a united left could not have withstood the Nazi onslaught. If the political spectrum from the far-left through the center-right could have properly organized, the data shows that a Nazi defeat was not in fact a “pipe dream.”

The conditions that allowed the Nazis to come to power are not identical to those that exist today, but certain things remain constant. In the Bible, Ecclesiastes wisely points out that “there is nothing new under the sun,” and thus understanding the Nazi rise to power is and always will be a valuable research question for decades to come.

Bibliography:

Bessel, Richard. Life in the Third Reich. Oxford, Oxford University Press, 2001.

Conway, J. S. “‘Machtergreifung’ or ‘Due Process of History’: The Historiography of Hitler’s Rise to Power.” The Historical Journal 8, no. 3 (1965): 399–413. http://www.jstor.org/stable/3020433.

This article first appeared in the Nottingham Economic Review and is available, along with other excellent articles, in NER’s November Report.

Throughout U.S. history, major fiscal crises have not only shaped economic policy, but also altered political ideologies on all sides of the spectrum.

In the 19th century, the U.S. saw a slew of successive crashes due to the absence of central banking, unregulated credit, and gold-backed currency. The stock market featured crashes in 1837, 1873, and 1893, just to name a few. These crises forged America’s first political divide over monetary policy, in which two main ideologies were created: first, there was the “Gold Standard” group, often Republicans, who believed that the U.S dollar should be tied to a stable asset like gold to prevent inflation and general instability. However, the second ideology was called the “Free Silver Movement,” and was backed by many Democrats, and even a new party called the Populists. In response to the 1893 financial crisis, they advocated for unlimited coinage of silver so that the “common man” could pay off his debts with inflated currency. They believed that a Gold standard only benefited the wealthy.

A few decades later, the divide over fiscal policy between Democrats and Republicans once again became exacerbated by a major financial crisis: The Great Depression. Decline in consumer spending, overspeculation, and a huge stock market crash all contributed to the crisis. Interestingly, according to Brittanica, the aforementioned “gold standard, which linked nearly all the countries of the world in a network of fixed currency exchange rates, played a key role in transmitting the American downturn to other countries.” The response by President Franklin D. Roosevelt would change American politics forever. He introduced “the New Deal,” which represented a series of policies and federal programs aimed at establishing a welfare state within the United States. He created safety nets such as Social Security. Critics feared overdependence on government. Advocates lauded the economic resurgence. Yet again, the United States experienced a political divide, this time over the efficacy of a large federal government.

If the New Deal established the framework of modern fiscal politics, later crises exposed its limits. The 1970s brought stagflation: high inflation paired with high unemployment, which to a large extent discredited Keynesian confidence in perpetual spending. In its place arose a conservative economic movement, featuring monetarism and the supply-side revolution. Under Ronald Reagan, tax cuts and deregulation were sold not just as economic policy but as moral restoration. They represented a return to self-reliance after decades of perceived dependency on the state.

The financial crisis in 2008 revived large-scale federal intervention, from bank bailouts to the Obama stimulus. Once again, Americans argued not only about economics but about the meaning of government itself. The Tea Party framed debt as a symbol of moral decay and elite corruption, while progressives saw public spending as the only bulwark against collapse. The COVID-19 pandemic replayed the same script on a grander scale: multi-trillion-dollar relief packages sparking renewed fears of inflation and insolvency.

In the present day, America’s debt problem has never been worse. The underlying problem is clear. There is not enough money for too many problems. The U.S.’s debt now reaches the mark of $38 trillion, and interest payments now make up a larger portion of spending than defense. The country is in a debt spiral, and not one administration since Bill Clinton’s has balanced the federal budget. Today in the United States, the Democrats and Republicans each react in increasingly extreme ways to America’s debt problem: on the right, we see anti-immigration nativism, and on the left, we see politicians like Zohran Mamdani unequivocally support socialist policies.

The Populist Right offers a simple and yet appealing argument. They believe that globalization and immigration have hurt the American economy, taking jobs from native-born Americans and shipping those jobs off to countries like Mexico and China. Therefore, when President Trump came along and promised protective tariffs to reshore domestic industry, many in the country enthusiastically joined him in his mission.

On the other hand, we now see a new movement on the other side of the political spectrum: the Populist Left. The far left has adopted a similarly simple and appealing argument: In reaction to a rising cost of living and limited wage growth, the government must tax billionaires and large corporations, which, unlike the rest of the country, have experienced huge growth over the last decades.

The fact is that the majority of Americans don’t support either extreme: at least unequivocally. However, the two-party system in the U.S. forces the people’s hand. For the time being, American politics will be ever more dominated by these two reductive ideologies.

Looking back at history, it is clear that each fiscal crisis has forced Americans to reconsider their politics. The 19th century asked whether government should control money at all. The 1930s demanded that it rescue the economy. The 21st century questions whether it can still do so in a fractured democracy. The pattern is clear. Economic panics drive ideological change and reinvention. When the market fails, citizens turn to the state; when the state overreaches, they return to the market. Our modern world is no different. While everyday Americans may be keen to hit the panic button on the extreme change in our country, we must remember the words of Ecclesiastes, who in the Bible wisely pointed out that “there is nothing new under the sun.”

Introduction

At first glance, aspects of Nietzsche’s argument seem quite compatible with Marxist theory, particularly the idea that conflict between opposing groups drives historical change. For example, Nietzsche, when describing his view of human history, wrote that “the two opposed forces, good and bad… have fought a terrible millennia-long battle” (30). Similarly, when Marx gave his view of history, he explained that “society as a whole is more and more splitting up into two great hostile camps, into two great classes directly facing each other — Bourgeoisie and Proletariat.” Both thinkers followed the 19th-century intellectual trend of describing humanity as two broad groups in constant conflict.

However, their arguments diverged in key ways that this essay will illustrate: First, Marx viewed history as the struggle between socioeconomic classes, while Nietzsche saw it as a conflict over morality and values, and as an assault on nobility. Second, while Marx viewed a proletariat revolution as an act of justice and progress, Nietzsche would question whether a revolution of this sort would actually be good for society. Finally, Nietzsche’s focus on moral values and on the superiority of aristocracy affected his judgment of the Revolution he did know –– the French Revolution.

Understanding Nietzsche and Marx’s Respective Views on History

Both Nietzsche and Marx responded to the creation, following the Industrial Revolution and the growth of liberal democracy, of a dominant bourgeois class, and both analyzed the way in which society had changed in the process. The consensus among the 19th-century liberals in Western and Central Europe was that these changes represented progress in humanity: both democratization and capitalism created human flourishing, and society was moving closer to egalitarianism. However, both Nietzsche and Marx dissented from this view, believing that their environment was fundamentally flawed and that society had deteriorated. The two men attributed this deterioration to different causes, though: Marx, to the oppression of the proletariat by the opposing force of the bourgeoisie, and Nietzsche, to the decline of aristocratic values and the rise of an opposing “slave morality.”

Nietzsche pointed to what he felt was the greatest example of a slave revolt, the revolt of the Jews, explaining that “the Jews… were able to obtain satisfaction from their enemies and conquerors through a radical revolution of their values… through an act of spiritual revenge” (16). Nietzsche explained that the Jews opposed the aristocratic “value equation” in favor of its opposite: the elevation of the lowly. This was strikingly different from Marx, who called for a revolt of an oppressed class fueled by the desire for socioeconomic justice, not moral justice. In the Communist Manifesto, Marx wrote that “the history of all… existing society is the history of class struggles. Freeman and slave, patrician and plebeian, lord and serf, guild-master and journeyman, in a word, oppressor and oppressed, stood in constant opposition to one another.” Both thinkers emphasized the binaries that drive history, describing humanity in a reductive fashion. However, Nietzsche focused on opposed value systems, while Marx explicitly referenced class struggle. Another way to describe the contrast between the two thinkers is that Nietzsche and Marx had a very similar theory of history, with very different politics behind it. This raises the question: which thinker is right? Is it socioeconomics or morality that drives societal change?

Answering the Question: What Really Does Drive Social Upheaval?

The French Revolution is an interesting case study of Marx and Nietzsche’s diverging views. Nietzsche described the French Revolution as a revolt of morality in which Judeo-Christian values replaced the ruling aristocratic values in France. He metaphorically claimed that “Judea” has “once again achieved victory over the classical ideal with the French Revolution” (32). His decision to describe the French lower classes as Judea, which represents his concept of “slave morality,” shows that Nietzsche viewed the French Revolution as a moral revolution. But one of Nietzsche’s shortcomings may have been to misunderstand certain economic motivations as moral ones. Marx described the French Revolution quite differently in the Communist Manifesto: “The French Revolution… abolished feudal property in favour of bourgeois property.” For Marx, the French Revolution was really a revolt about socioeconomic class divisions, and a change in morality was simply its byproduct. And Marx had a point. According to HISTORY.com, the French Revolution was primarily driven by

“several years of poor harvests, drought, cattle disease, and skyrocketing bread prices that had kindled unrest among peasants and the urban poor. Many expressed their desperation and resentment toward a regime that imposed heavy taxes—yet failed to provide any relief—by rioting, looting and striking.”

Even if moral changes did follow the French Revolution, the primary motivation for the revolt of the French lower classes was socioeconomic disparity.

Explaining Nietzsche’s Fallibility

Why does Nietzsche focus only on moral change? And relatedly, why does he not mention the economic basis of these moral changes? For example, Marx would likely say that the nobility were only advancing their ideas about bravery and honor in order to reinforce their own power, ultimately rooted in their control of land. Interestingly, Nietzsche does not mention land or labor at all. One reason for this might be that Nietzsche respected the aristocracy and did not believe that there was anything immoral about the landowning class (or about the act of landowning itself). On the contrary, he felt that such ownership should be revered: “human history would be much too stupid an affair without the spirit of the nobility,” he wrote (16). For Nietzsche, the nobility, which to him embodied strength and dominance, represented a more natural way of life. Thus, he would not critique their social status and would instead celebrate it.

Nietzsche’s obsession with the nobility may have prevented him from clear historical analysis. While Marx viewed an event such as the French Revolution as societal justice, Nietzsche questioned whether the revolution was actual progress, calling it the end of “political nobleness” in Europe (32). Nietzsche was inherently anti-egalitarian and consistently rejected the notion that societal progress towards a more egalitarian ideal actually made life better. He believed that the modern system of morality, which derives from the Judeo-Christian revolution, encourages weakness: “the poor, the powerless, the lowly… are good. The suffering, deprived, sick, ugly are also the only pious” (16). Nietzsche believed that this reversed hierarchy was backwards and “doom-laden.”

In one respect, Nietzsche’s critique of the French Revolution was undoubtedly correct. The French Revolution was an extremely destructive event that led to the death of thousands of innocent people. But the Revolution did usher in social changes and human progress, and it is these elements that Nietzsche does not discuss. This is odd for a thinker who spent so much time rooting his beliefs in historical phenomena. But Nietzsche may have been blinded by his own oppositional thinking: love of aristocratic values, and contempt for the weakness and ressentiment of the commoner.

Nietzsche’s focus––to the point of tunnel vision––on the morality of superiority, love of the aristocracy, and anti-egalitarian sensibilities clouded his vision of history, as he failed to recognize significant societal progress. He criticized modern society for suppressing the natural instincts of man, believing that our newfound morality had not actually produced a net benefit. However, societal advancements, such as the acceptance of capitalism and democracy, have drastically improved our quality of life, increased our life spans, reduced world poverty -- and brought us closer to human flourishing.

Applying This Comparison to Modern Political Ideologies

Similar to Nietzsche and Marx, both the contemporary far left and right have a reductive view of the world. At the root of this problem is a lack of cross-cultural understanding, which leads to broad and often inaccurate generalizations from both sides. We’ve seen this culminate in political violence, social unrest, and flat-out rioting: the insurrection on January 6th and the assassination of Charlie Kirk act as two contemporary examples. Broadly, and albeit reductively speaking, today’s extreme left often glorifies oppressed groups and peoples, and advocates for societal reconstruction to advance humanity closer to what it believes is a more egalitarian world. In contrast, on the global right, we see a very visceral rejection of progressive values, the sense that our culture has lost “toughness,” and the subsequent desire to go back to and recreate a simpler, more “natural” state of humanity. There are striking parallels to Nietzsche and Marx here: Nietzsche too believes that modern morality has suppressed man’s most fundamental instincts, referring to that morality as a “regression, a poison, a temptation, and a narcotic.” “I am an opponent of the modern softening of feelings,” he says (5). Similarly, the aforementioned leftist paradigm echoes Marx’s desire for a proletariat revolution. In fact, much of modern leftist thought is derived from Marx. However, when discussing the extreme right and left, we must discuss the Horseshoe Theory: the idea that both political extremes eventually end up being more similar to each other than they are to the rest of the political spectrum. For example, both the left and right question the validity of the social contract, and view it as obsolete. Similarly, both Nietzsche and Marx share these concerns. For example, Nietzsche says that “the state” is really just “a race of conquerors and lords which organized in a warlike manner” and “made its appearance as a terrible tyranny… a crushing and ruthless machinery.” He asserts that “the contract” (a reference to the social contract) has been abandoned (58). Likewise, Marx believed that political structures, which in theory should protect the natural rights (like property) of the people, in reality just protect the property and power of the bourgeoisie -- also suggesting the failure of the social contract. The subtle similarities between these two 19th-century thinkers perhaps suggest something deep about our human political psyche as a whole. Perhaps our modern political zeitgeist is not such an aberration.

Works Cited:

HISTORY.com Editors. “French Revolution: Timeline, Causes & Dates | HISTORY.” HISTORY, 9 Nov. 2009, www.history.com/articles/french-revolution.

Marx, Karl, and Friedrich Engels. “Manifesto of the Communist Party.” Marxists.org, Feb. 1848, www.marxists.org/archive/marx/works/1848/communist-manifesto/.

It takes bravery to survive as a prisoner of war, but it takes unparalleled courage to disfigure your own face to avoid being filmed for enemy propaganda. This is the story of the honorable Stoic and warrior, Vice Admiral James Stockdale.

In September 1965, Vice Admiral Stockdale was shot down over North Vietnam. As he parachuted down to a Vietnamese village, facing capture, he had an unusual thought: “I’m leaving the world of technology and entering the world of Epictetus.”

What did Stockdale mean by this?

Only a few years earlier, he’d studied Stoicism at Stanford University: especially the works of Epictetus, who was born a slave and experienced all the harshness the world had to offer. Stockdale learned from Epictetus to focus only on things one could control; two thousand years later, Stockdale embodied these lessons.

Stockdale was immediately arrested and taken into captivity, facing torture and possibly death. He knew that the Vietnamese would use him for filmed propaganda, and was determined to avoid this fate. Remembering the Stoic idea of inner strength, he did everything he could to prevent himself from becoming a propaganda tool. He found a mirror and struck himself in the face until he could no longer recognize himself. Hearing about an upcoming torture session, Stockdale slit his wrists in an act of defiance, showing his captors that he’d rather die than give in. When he broke his leg badly, he remembered that Epictetus had said that “lameness is an impediment to the leg, but not to the will.”

As the most senior POW in Hanoi for over seven years, Vice Admiral Stockdale also employed Epictetus’ Stoic mentality to inspire his fellow POWs. He developed a covert communication method to keep their spirits high despite their inhumane circumstances. He developed a tapping code that signaled hope to the other men. Hearing the tapping gave his fellow POWs the ounce of resolve they needed to keep going. It’s not important what other people think of you, Stockdale showed them. “It’s what you think of yourself that is important.”

During seven years of torture, excruciating pain, and solitary confinement, Vice Admiral Stockdale showed the world what a true Stoic philosopher can do. He gave his men, and himself, the strength to survive and prevail. Later on, he described his role in the Navy, saying “I am my brothers’ keeper:” a man with integrity.

Vice Admiral Stockdale went on to become one of the most decorated officers in Naval history. He became the President of the Naval War College, and also won the Medal of Honor. In 1992, he was featured on Ross Perot’s Presidential ticket as an independent candidate.

The Russian Revolution - though it took place over a century ago - is an indirect cause of the atrocities and violence we’ve seen in the Russo/Ukrainian War. When the czarist White Army tried to take back power from the newly established communist Bolshevik regime, it led to a bloody and violent three years of war, and a death toll of about 12 million. The historian Adam Hochschild, in the Atlantic magazine, describes “the Whites stringing up Red bodies on telegraph poles,”  and “both sides brazenly displaying the corpses of their enemies” (Hochschild, 92). Both the Whites and Reds pillaged villages, raping women and mutilating and murdering anyone they could. This type of violence became normalized in Russian military culture - with brutal and tragic implications a century later.

This is exactly the kind of violence we're now seeing in Ukraine. As Hochschild observes: "When Putin’s right-hand man (and the former Russian president) Dmitry Medvedev called his critics in Ukraine and abroad “bastards and scum,” we can hear an echo of Lenin repeatedly speaking of the White forces as “lice,” “fleas,” “vermin,” and “parasites'' deserving of extermination” (Hochschild, 92). People across the world have watched in horror as Russian forces commit war crimes, such as Ukranain women and children left dead on the streets, with no visible military goal, scores tortured, women raped in front of their husbands. What many people don't realize is that the Russian soldiers are behaving in Ukraine the way the Whites and Reds did a century ago in the Revolution.

But what directly caused the Russians to suddenly attack Ukraine? One answer dates back over 40 years ago, when Russia was part of the USSR. Again, history is our guide to the present. Vladimir Putin, the all-powerful leader of Russia, was a high-ranking man in the KGB. He was a  huge nationalist, and the fall of the Soviet Union was a gut-punch to him.  “Mr. Putin has described the Soviet disintegration as one of the greatest catastrophes of the 20th century that robbed Russia of its rightful place among the world’s great powers” (Bilefsky, Perez-Pena, Nagourney, 2). Ever since, Putin has believed that it’s his God-given right to take back what belonged to his motherland – including Ukraine. 

When the Soviet Union fell in 1991, NATO continued to expand towards the East, with countries such as Romania, Poland, Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia joining. Putin considers this a great threat to his authoritarian rule in Russia, and Ukraine joining NATO would be even worse for him. “The Russian president calls NATO’s expansion menacing, and the prospect of Ukraine joining it a major threat” (Bilefsky, Perez-Pena, Nagourney, 3). In the past few years, Putin has seen Ukraine gravitate more and more towards Western ideologies and this terrifies him. Putin wanted to put on a show of force against NATO’s expansion east, and Ukraine’s shifting ideology was his excuse. As we will see below, Putin’s misplaced historical impulse backfired completely. 

But Putin had a good historical reason to think he would get away with his invasion of Ukraine. Only eight years earlier, in 2014, he’d invaded Crimea - and the West did nothing about it. Russia invaded Crimea to, in Putin’s words, “ensure proper conditions for the people of Crimea to be able to freely express their will” (Washington Post, Transcript: Putin April 17). Putin claims to have invaded Crimea because of the large Russian-speaking population, and he felt it was his obligation to “liberate” them. 

But that’s just propaganda. Ukraine, including Crimea, declared independence after the fall of the Soviet Union in 1991, and made it official with a referendum in which 92% of the population voted in favor of independence.  Under international law, after independence and the referendum, Ukraine has the right to this land - it’s internationally recognized as Ukrainian territory. Putin sent his forces to annex a free state because, in his nationalistic understanding of history, it was Soviet territory, and therefore now Russia’s. The West could’ve chosen to intervene to stop this violation of Ukraine’s recognized sovereignty, but did not. 

This, sadly, is similar to what happened in WW2-era Europe. The Western powers didn't intervene when Hitler invaded Czechoslovakia, following Britain’s appeasement policy. This mistake encouraged Hitler to blitzkrieg huge portions of Europe, and no one was ready for it. Like Hitler, Putin didn’t expect any Western pushback, and so in 2022, he decided to come back for more. On February 24, 2022, Russia began to build forces surrounding the Ukrainian border. Soon after, the world witnessed a full-scale invasion of the peaceful country. "Peace on our continent has been shattered," NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said, the morning after the invasion began. "We now have war in Europe on a scale and of a type we thought belonged to history" (Reals, Sundby, 2). 

But it’s not only the scale and type of war that echoes Russian and European history. Putin’s view of the invasion as Russia’s national destiny - and his consequent refusal to withdraw, no matter how valiantly the Ukrainians fight back - has resulted in a bloody stalemate that recalls Hitler’s ideologically driven determination to fight until the end. And, just as Lenin and Hitler spoke of their enemies as vermin, Putin regards Ukrainians as subhuman, making this a war he feels he has to win - even though it’s proving much tougher than he bargained for. Like Hitler, who had assumed that he could conquer Europe before the Americans intervened, Putin miscalculated the timing and effectiveness of the support that the US and NATO have given to Ukraine.

At the beginning of the invasion, everyone expected Russia to easily move through Ukraine. In the same way that Hitler thought he could blitz London and all of Europe into submission, Putin wanted to “take Kiev in 3 days.” But that never happened. This is partly because the Russians were simply unprepared. "The incompetence of the Russians, which has surpassed what I would have expected. They have simply failed to deliver logistics, a decent battle plan, [and] competent troops" (James Starvidis, 5-Star Admiral). Also, Ukraine has fought very bravely, with average citizens leaving their family and risking their lives. They fought on their own soil to defend and save their homeland, while the Russian army showed the world highly unprofessional and unethical war tactics far from home. Under poor command, a lack of discipline, and chaotic logistics, their advance has lasted two years instead of three days, and they are no closer to Kiev today than in February of 2022. As President Biden put it in a major speech about the war on October 20: "Putin thought he would take Kyiv and all of Ukraine in a matter of days. More than a year has passed - Kyiv is still standing.” 

And Russia, like Hitler, has also faced quick, unexpected, and widespread opposition from across the globe. Ever since the war began, millions across the world have shown their support, and other countries (primarily NATO countries) have helped Ukraine militarily more than Putin may have bargained for. Not only has Russia been banned from Olympic events and had its products economically sanctioned, but Ukraine has also received billions in military aid. The United States is a main contributor of this aid, having sent a total of $113 billion worth of military aid since the invasion. Ukraine is also receiving Western support in the form of troops. “A stealthy network of commandos and spies rushing to provide weapons, intelligence and training, according to U.S. and European officials” (Schmitt, Barnes, Cooper, 3). There are special forces units coming from the US, UK, France, and Canada. Some of these reinforcements are covert - yet widely recognized. “While the U.S. government does not acknowledge that the C.I.A. is operating in Ukraine or any other country, the presence of the officers is well understood by Russia and other intelligence services around the world” (Schmitt, Barnes, Cooper, 4). Knowing that Ukraine is receiving so much military aid, Putin is now realizing that he may have made a mistake invading a peaceful country against international law. Putin however, won’t admit it. 

In sum, echoing Hitler’s European invasions, Putin’s war has failed to accomplish its objectives, and in many ways has actually backfired. Just as Hitler invited the wrath of the U.S., Putin's aggressive actions in Ukraine have led to a renewed sense of purpose and unity within NATO. This has prompted NATO members to reinforce their commitment to collective defense, as enshrined in Article 5 of the NATO treaty, which states that an attack against one member is considered an attack against all. NATO is in fact expanding, as the divide between Russia and the rest of Europe only widens. European countries have increased their defense spending in fear of Russian expansion and have imposed painful sanctions. Ukraine has been formally invited into the EU and the Ukrainian army has been armed and trained into a powerful adversary. 

But all of this has not convinced Russia to re-examine its war aims. Just like Hitler, Putin is engaged in a war to the death, against an enemy he feels he cannot tolerate. So Russia continues its deadly daily assaults, with an estimated 300,000 casualties total. The tragedy for both Ukrainians and Russians is that today this has resulted in a bloody stalemate with no hope in sight for a fair or humane resolution. Instead, Ukrainian soldiers and civilians and tens of thousands of Russian conscripts continue to  die bloody deaths. Every day, Ukrainian civilian towns are shelled and attacked by Russian firepower. Russia has bombed hospitals, schools, playgrounds, and housing, all of which are war crimes. “Though Russia said missiles targeted military and energy facilities, some struck civilian areas while people were heading to work and school. One hit a playground in downtown Kyiv and another struck a university” (CBS News, 1). It’s perfectly evident that the Russians are fighting an immoral war, and are in constant violation of international humanitarian law. Putin’s utter disregard for civilians (like Hitler’s before him) is tragic for Ukraine; the longer this war drags on, the more innocent civilians will die. 

And this is where the war is today. Putin’s grim determination to eliminate his vermin-like enemies - and the unexpected resistance of the Ukrainians and their allies - have resulted in the current stalemate: of the little territory Russia has taken, 54% of it has already been taken back by Ukraine, according to the Institute for the Study of War. The Ukrainian Government said it has reclaimed “3,000 miles of territory” (Ellyat, 1). Ukraine’s fate will likely be decided by its ability to outlast the Russians. 

No one can foresee the future of this conflict. But what we do know is that the past is prologue, and the parallels between the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the Russian Revolution, and Hitler’s quest to defeat his subhuman enemies, promise many more deaths to come.