Oswald Spengler

Prussianism and Socialism

17:24 min

Philosophy, Politics, History

188 pages, 1919

Socialism has been misunderstood and distorted by Marxist ideology, obscuring its true German roots. Spengler confronts this confusion by examining how German socialism emerges not from Marx's English-influenced materialism but from Prussia's historical ethic of duty, discipline, and service to the collective whole. This short traces Germany's failed revolutionary attempts and reveals why parliamentary liberalism cannot satisfy German political instincts. Spengler demonstrates that genuine transformation requires uniting the Prussian tradition of state authority with the working class, rejecting both individualistic capitalism and Marxist class warfare. Spengler argues that the future hinges on whether power rests with financial interests or with states, calling on Germans to rise above class divisions and unite against the liberal worldview threatening the nation's existence.

Oswald Spengler

Oswald Spengler was a German historian and philosopher whose work fundamentally reshaped 20th-century thought about civilizational development and historical destiny. Writing during the tumultuous period of World War I and the Weimar Republic, he developed a morphological approach to history that analyzed cultures as organic entities with distinct life cycles. His theories on the relationship between political authority, economic systems, and national character influenced conservative political philosophy and established him as a major theorist of authoritarian socialism and cyclical civilization.

Chapters

Socialism must be separated from Marx's influence and understood through German historical traditions, where the Prussian spirit of duty naturally aligns with authentic socialist principles rather than imported ideological frameworks.

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