Stalinism versus Hitlerism: the basic intentions and results

Purpose – The purpose of this paper is to examine the soundness of equating Stalinism and Nazism (Hitlerism), expressed in a resolution adopted by the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe on July 1, 2009. Design/methodology/approach – The paper compares the two movements from three different angles: first, in their basic intentions; second, in their basic accomplishments; third, in the correlation between their basic intentions and their basic results. Findings – The paper finds that: in their proclaimed short- and long-term goals, Stalinism and Hitlerism have nothing in common; in their actual short-term (there was no long-term) results, they were similar in content but different in form; it was their very nature that doomed their efforts to translate their basic intentions into basic results. Originality/value – The paper shows that a similarity or dissimilarity of the two movements can be ascertained not in their total but in their parts such as, for instance, the goals they achieved and the methods they employed.