One of the differences among socialisms is how they treat the national issue. Marxists are doctrine internationalists, and they used to maintain that the only distinguishing characteristic among people that really counts is economic class. That position seems to have been abandoned during WW I, because the proletariat turned out to be nationalists.

Fascism and Naziism valorate the nation (or more narrowly the race for Nazis) in place of the proletariat. That position got Mussolini kicked out of the Italian Socialist Party, which was, and still is, doctrinaire Marxist.

Every European country, except the USSR, had a strong national/socialist or fascist party during the 1930’s and 1940’s. These parties facilitated the German occupation of western and middle Europe, and they provide both willing occupation governments and armies to the German. There were European divisions fighting alongside the Wehrmacht during Operation Barbarossa, and there was even a French divisions defending Berlin at the end.

These facts are just too embarrassing to modern Europeans, and so they deny their grandparents were nazis or fascists. But they were.

The current EU is socialist, and it is a reminder that all forms of socialism are inherently top-down authoritarian (and physically violent), and some are totalitarian.