Commie Nazis

A mix of Communism and Fascism is frequently used as "the government we don't like" in fiction. The trope is in action when the heroes enter a Communist country and find that it's Putting on the Reich—or when soldiers in Fascist army call people Tovarisch (save in a few specific brands of Alternate History).

This is common in American Comic Books in the late 1940s, for obvious reasons. It is not common in any country with any direct experience with Communism, Fascism, or both, for equally obvious reasons. Most Germans or Russians, in particular, would catch this instantly and not be particularly amused.

The main difference between Communism and Nazism is that Communism sought collective ownership of the means of production, a classless society, and distribution of wealth according to one's need. Nazism, on the other hand, made no pretenses of abolishing class or private property. The Nazis believed that society should have a meritocratic hierarchy and privatized several public services, though also increasing state regulation to ensure that businesses were beneficial to Germany. In short, communism is government-enforced equality while Nazism is government-enforced inequality. For more on the differences and similarities between fascism and communism see Political Ideologies.

There's also another position that all totalitarian regimes are sufficiently similar to each other that the ideals they claim to follow are irrelevant. Proponents of this "horseshoe theory" may cite the National Bolshevism movement of 1920s Germany and Russia and the Communazi Pact between Nazi Germany and the USSR from August 1939 through June 1941 as evidence.

See also Nazi Nobleman, in which Nazis are combined with nobles.

Examples of Commie Nazis include:

Comic Books

• Captain America: The Red Skull started out as a Nazi villain, but in the 1950s suddenly became a communist. This was later retconned so that the "Communist Skull" turned out to be an imposter who wasn't so much a communist as simply being anti-American, with the original Red Skull returning to his fascist roots.
• One Hellboy story has Neo-Nazis involved in a project called "Red November".
  • Justified, since the Nazis did use the color red in much of their regalia (as they were trying to win over ex-Communists).
• The Norts in Rogue Trooper appear to be based upon both Nazis and Soviets.
• The Hammer Empire in Danger Girl spoof this trope, taking the most outrageous aspects of both (although mostly Nazism).
• The country of Borduria in the Tintin album The Calculus Affair (1956). Borduria is depicted as a stereotypical half-Eastern Bloc and half-fascist country complete with its own secret police (ZEP) (led by Colonel Sponsz) and a fascist military dictator called Kûrvi-Tasch who promotes a Taschist ideology. A statue of Kûrvi-Tasch appears in front of a government building, in which he wears a moustache similar to Joseph Stalin's and gives a Nazi-like salute.
• During World War II, comic books used propaganda to sell war bonds to "Beat the Japanazis." Observe. ^[1]

Film

• The East Germans in Top Secret were all supposed to be communist, but wore Nazi uniforms. Of course, this was Top Secret, so it was deliberate.
  • And partially justified in that the Soviets actually did have their East German allies/puppets strutting around a lot of the time in surplus Nazi uniforms, sometimes ones that were barely modified.
  • Not just the Russians, see The Third Man.
• The Christian dystopia movie If Footmen Tire You, What Will Horses Do?, predicts the persecution of Christians in an America that has been taken over by Commie Nazis.
• The B-Movie Laser Mission, starring a pre-Crow Brandon Lee, can be summed up as "Cuban Secret Nazi Communists in Africa plan to start World War III by using a diamond laser to create a nuclear weapon and only Bruce Lee's son can stop them."

Literature

• The Party in Nineteen Eighty-Four intentionally combined aspects of communism and fascism, as well as their symbolism. This was because, while he was a democratic socialist, Orwell felt that certain "socialist" movements, particularly the Soviet Union, had betrayed the ideals of socialism and might as well have been fascist.
• In the Len Deighton novel SS-GB, Nazi Germany conquers England. By November 1941, with England under their thumb, the Nazis are still "good friends" with the USSR (In Real Life, Germany invaded the USSR on June 22, 1941). One character states that, "Nazi bastards and Communist bastards are all alike".
• Moonraker by Ian Fleming has the Soviet Union lending a nuclear warhead to a group of Nazi rocket scientists planning to blow up London, which is unlikely, to say the least. What's to stop them firing it eastward instead?
  • Mainly the fact that the Big Bad served on the Western Front and hated the British far more than he did the Soviets. Still not a particularly safe move on the part of the Kremlin, but a fairly real one in plenty of actual intelligence gambles.
• In Christopher Anvil's Pandora's Planet, the plot thickens when Communist-settled planets and Fascist-settled planets resort to an alliance to dispose of the Classic American-settled planet. However, they don't REALLY trust each other, and are prepared to stab each other in the back as soon as those pesky Columbians are eliminated—a fact the Centran supreme commander is gleefully ready to take advantage of.

Live-Action Television

• The evil organization Kaos in Get Smart, as "generic bad guys" were clearly a mixture both communists and Nazis, with everyone having either a German accent or a Russian accent. This was always done with a wink and a nod, since Get Smart was a parody of spy shows and movies.
  • In The Most Dangerous Game "homage" episode, "Island of the Damned", the villain is alleged to have successively belonged to the Nazis, the Communists, the Mafia, and KAOS, at which Smart exclaims, "If there's anything I hate, it's a joiner!"
• The Peacekeepers in Farscape: they're totalitarian, but their official ideology is rarely discussed (they're officially anti-species-mixing, but at least one and quite possibly two Half Human Hybrids have reached high positions), and their design aesthetic is an equal mix of Nazism and the Soviet Union in its short-lived early Modernist phase.
• Although the Daleks of Doctor Who are blatant Nazis by another name, their first story uses them to reflect Cold War fears of nuclear warfare.

Stand-Up Comedy

• In George Carlin's routine "Beard", he discusses how, at the time, people with thick, bushy beards were sometimes considered "Commie Nazi Fag Junkies". He then goes on to note on how many levels that doesn't work.

Tabletop Games

• The Imperium of Man in Warhammer 40,000 is neither Fascist nor Communist, but has distinct elements of both—including "Commissars" named for the Soviet ideological officers and dressed like Nazi agents. This is probably a case of Future Imperfect.
  • The entire setting is something of a melting pot of historical influences, spiked with generous helpings of grim dark. The Death Corps of Krieg in particular are the most straight examples, being patterned after WWI-era German trench infantry while being lead by Commissars patterned after WWII-era Soviet political officers.
  • The Kriegs are actually an amalgam of WWI references: their colour scheme is unmistakably German feldgaru, but the coats and helmet are French and the gas masks are Russian.
• The Illuminati card game includes the "South American Nazis" and one of their alignments is commmunist.

Video Games

• The Helghast of the Killzone series are mostly your typical Nazis By Any Other Name, but some of their iconography and ideals show a lot of Stalinist influence. Heck, even one of their commanders physically looks like Stalin.
• Call of Duty Black Ops features the Ascension group, Nazi scientists working on the Soviet space program in an early level, and later we're introduced to Dr. Friedrich Steiner, a scientist employed by the Waffen-SS during the war to produce the 'Nova 6' toxin gas who later defects to join the USSR. Justified by history - the Soviets actually had a recruitment program for former Nazi scientists to avoid wasting their expertise.
• The East Europan Empire Alliance of Valkyria Chronicles play with this trope in spite of being an autocratic absolute monarchy, effectively making them Commie Nazi Bismarckean Habsburg Tsarists.

Web Originals

• This image originated from Something Awful. Once there was a "make German translations of image macros" thread and the second picture in the thread was a translation of that picture.
  • This is also a wonderful example of the generalized form of Poe's Law.
• The Rather Good Flash video Fear the Kitties could be considered an example of this. The song is in German, and mocks Germany's fascist tendencies. The kitties, however, are wearing Russian uniforms.
• An alliance between Nazi Germany and Soviet Russia was narrowly averted according to Cracked.com's "5 Insane 'What If' Scenarios That Almost Changed Everything".

Western Animation

• From The Simpsons, the Trope Namer:

"McBain to base! Under attack by Commu-Nazis!"
"They won't stop me from delivering these UNICEF pennies!"
"Go pennies! Help the puny children who need you!"

• Rocky and Bullwinkle: In the evil country of Potsylvania everyone is either a communist or a Nazi or both. However, since it's primarily a kids' show this is mostly played for laughs.

1. ↑ The Japanese were not actually Nazis, even though they were one of the Axis Powers.