Fascism

Fascism is a reactionary ideology based on class collaboration, ultra-nationalism and anti-communism. The fascists promoted policies that caused even more exploitation of the working class, allowing the “free market” to take over every aspect of society. So much so that The Economist magazine introduced the term privatization, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe Nazi Germany's economic policies.

Throughout history, the most important traits of fascism, besides the religious defense of unrestrained free market, is the fervent anti-communism, the denying and repression of class struggle, and ultra-nationalism. Fascism, generally, advocates for the supremacy of a particular group of people – usually calling themselves a race – over all other groups, and employs the use of violent suppression and terror against anyone they deem "undesirable". These extremely reactionary ideas directly contradict the principles of communism and Marxism, and as a result, communism is a favorite boogeyman for fascists, used as a scapegoat for all of one's problems to turn against.

Mechanics of fascism

Fascism is the result of the contradictions of capitalism heightening to their highest point, ultimately being born out of economic crises.

In such a state, where the failures of capitalism become plain to see and the proletariat must endure them, fascism becomes the armed wing of capitalism so as to restore capitalism, or perish.

Fascism is a bourgeois ideology, and it turns to class collaboration to restore order: in such a system, every individual is expected to have their place and be content in it. Business owners sign huge deals with the government, while workers are expected to work more for less.

Indeed, while fascists promise the restoration of all that made the country great and glorious, and it delivers instead huge hardships on the workers, preferring to enrich its bourgeoisie as well as its political class (who are often one and the same).

A minority group is designated as the enemy so as to appeal to bourgeois ideals of race and tradition, while allowing for slave (or near-slave) labour from the affected group.

As fascism requires very lavish results (or the illusions of results) to keep its legitimacy among the people, it must reach very high economic growth in a short time. This is usually done with unsound economic policies (for example the MEFO bills in Nazi Germany) that work in the short-term but will heavily backfire in the long-term. As such, fascism will eventually turn to war and conquest so as to pillage and enslave, and thus restore somewhat stable economic growth.

Because of this, and because of the always-present contradictions of capitalism, fascism is sometimes considered a death cult, that is, an ideology that will eventually lead its adherents to their death.

In the materialist analysis, it is understood that people turn towards fascism as they feel unfit in society and are scared of the future (no doubt helped by propaganda efforts). Scientific socialism, specifically Marxism-Leninism, is the “cure” to preventing people from being sucked in by fascism, because it provides a clear understanding of the contradictions of the capitalist society.

In effect, fascism will exist as long as capitalism does, because capitalism is full of contradictions that it cannot fix (like the class struggle, since capitalism requires class society). The only way to destroy fascism as an ideology is to move past capitalism.

Social fascism

Stalin first described social fascism in Concerning the International Situation. According to him, social democrats objectively form the moderate wing of fascism, as they prevent people from moving further left towards communism while advocating for capitalism. Since fascism will exist as long as capitalism does, social democrats are in effect enabling fascists (and indeed historically, often siding with them over actual socialists).

Fascist countries

Past

Nazi Germany

Nazi Germany, officially the Third Reich (Third Empire), was beaten into dissolution by the Soviet Union after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.

Present

2019 coup in Bolivia

President Evo Morales of Bolivia was reelected to this office in October 2019 with 47,08% of total votes. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the Organisation of American States (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.

Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.

The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).

Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.

Online fascism

Fascists in the 21st century have taken to propagandize over the Internet, usually looking for marginalized teens who don't fit in with their peers. It is known that they have organised groups working towards that goal on several websites and even video games.

The “alt-right” is a political movement that is also synonymous with online fascism. The alt-right as a whole typically advocates for the establishment of a white fascist state, where people of color (along usually with LGBT+ people) are either second class citizens or are flat out exterminated, depending on how “extreme” of an alt-rightist one is.

The alt-right as a movement has grown considerably since its origins in the early 2010s to an almost mainstream level, due in part to the movement's employment of dog whistles and other covert tactics by its members to disguise their true beliefs.

More fringe examples of online fascism include those associated with the (now defunct) Iron March website, a self-proclaimed fascist and neo-Nazi forum that helped found the terrorist group Atomwaffen Division, which aims to overthrow the US government and establish a white fascist state in its place. However these types of people — those that only subscribe to hardcore Nazi rhetoric — are certainly not the only type of fascists out there. Fascism comes in many different forms - almost always much more covertly - and Nazism is only one of them.