ABSTRACT
The political revolutions of modern times are more famous and familiar than the nonpolitical ones. Both socialism and nationalism had long been present in Europe. A bit of socialism and a lot of nationalism had modified — to left or right — the liberalism of the various uprisings of 1848. The pre-Bismarck nationalists — like Herder in Germany and Mazzini in Italy — are known as "liberal" nationalists. The "blood and iron" nationalism that followed 1870 culminated eventually in Nazi Germany and fascist Italy. Nationalized ethics has crushed internationalism on the one hand and individualism on the other. Hitler reduced blood-and-iron nationalism and racism to its ultimate, logical absurdity, just as Lenin was the ultimate extreme of the blood-andiron socialism of the 1870's. The earlier German and Italian nationalism had been a cultural feeling that became political only in order to protest against the existing state.
