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Fascism, usually understood in Marxist theory as capitalism in decay,[1] is a counter-revolutionary reactionary movement led by finance capital,[2][3] and a form of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which emerged during periods of economic crisis in imperialist countries.[4] The Third International described fascism as the "open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital."[5]
Fascism abolishes bourgeois democracy without abolishing bourgeois rule itself. In contrast, socialism abolishes both in order to create a more substantive form of democracy.[6]
Fascism usually promotes policies that favour the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive anti-communism, a profound aversion towards democracy, the justification and glorification of class society through class collaboration, and chauvinistic tendencies, namely reactionary nationalism, racism, sexism, xenophobia, transphobia and ableism. Fascist ideologues usually promote conspiracy theories, irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.
Analysis
According to Georgi Dimitrov, fascism is, "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital,"[7] taking vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia.[8] Both the development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country.[9]
In foreign policy, fascism incites violent hatred of other nations, acting in the interests of the extreme imperialists, yet it presents itself to the masses in the guise of a champion of an ill-treated nation, and appeals to outraged national sentiments.[10] Within a country or nation, fascists are not the patriots they boast to be, as they engage in historical revisionism of cultures, a form of ethnocide, to promote their fascist ideology. Communists must urgently expose the way fascists in practice do not care about the proletariat's native cultures, and combat this revisionism, outshining fascists with a more genuine nationalism, adapting Marxism-Leninism to their own national conditions, and practice proletarian internationalism. The proletariat of colonized nations will not shy from national sentiments and struggle against the imperialism oppressing their native cultures, and the proletariat of imperialist nations will struggle against their own bourgeoisie's oppressor policies. Communists from oppressor nations must valorize the more noble, anti-imperialist, anti-colonial, non-chauvinist aspects of their cultures.[11][12] The socialist revolution will be the "salvation" of nations, cultures and the people. Both the proletariat's international and diverse national interests will be defended. The cultures will be liberated from monopoly capitalism.[13]
Fascists gain their following from the petty bourgeoisie and certain sections of the proletariat through disingenuous appeals to their needs and demands, inflaming prejudices and playing on their sense of justice and even on their revolutionary traditions, their faith in revolution, their resentments, hatred of corruption, and the urge towards socialism.[14] Fascism promised many things: to fight corruption, "a fair wage," a great future for the youth; for the landless and indebted peasants, an end to debt bondage and rent, expropriation of the landed estates from usurers without compensation.[15][16]
But actually, it brings them an even lower standard of living: destroys their trade unions, deprives them of the right to strike and to have their working-class press, forces the revolutionary movement underground, pressures them into fascist organizations, plunders their social insurance funds and transforms the mills and factories into prisons, where the unbridled arbitrary rule of the capitalist reigns. Fascism causes wholesale dismissals of young workers, labor camps and incessant military drilling for a war of conquest, places the peasants in unprecedented servitude to the usurers, landlords, and the fascist state apparatus. It supresses the democratic liberties of the working people, falsifies, curtails and intensifies the law. It commits unspeakable crimes against humanity in concentration camps and torture chambers, and through police brutality, sterilization and countless murders.[17]
From the point of view of the colonized, fascism is very familiar. Fascism in the colonizing states is the exact violence that these colonialist-imperialist nations (e.g. Europe) unleashed upon the world turned inward.[18][19] Fascism in the settler colonial countries translates to the acceleration of colonialist violence upon indigenous and marginalized groups, perpetrated largely by a collaboration between the settler population, the settler-colonial state, and indigenous compradors. Along with that, all the indignities of accelerated capitalism may be thrust upon not only the native, but also the settler population. With diminishing returns of primary capital accumulation as the colonialist project progresses, the bourgeoisie may enact increased demands and pressure on the settler proletariat. The effects of fascist propaganda results in its followers being inspired to violent terrorist actions against the blamed populations, and these terrorists are quietly or even loudly supported by fascist politicians.[20] The murder of working class Muslims and Latin Americans, and the shooting and bombing of Mosques and Synagogues to fight "globalists" or "replacement" anxieties of the white man are examples of this.[21][22]
In the preliminary stages, bourgeois governments adopt reactionary measures that facilitate the fascist acquisition of power. This is the time when fascism should be fought, or it will be too late. Fascism was able to come to power primarily because the working class succumbed to class collaboration with the bourgeoisie, and was divided and disarmed in face of the onslaught of the bourgeoisie. The Communist Parties failed to form a united anti-fascist proletarian front with the Social-Democratic leaders, to struggle against fascism's poisonous ideology and its historical and cultural revisionism, this failure cleared the path to power for fascism. In order to defeat fascism, there needs to be an agreement to form a united anti-fascist proletarian front with the progressive non-Communists.[23][24] Humanity will inevitably take the next step towards progress. Fascism and the bourgeoisie are doomed to fail, and communism will succeed.[25]
Take note however that this does not mean Communists and progressives must or will have complete political unity. In order to more formally unite under one big party, without ceasing to be revolutionary, these 5 conditions must be met:
- Complete independence from the bourgeoisie and dissolution of the alliance between progressives and the bourgeoisie;
- Preliminary unity of action;
- Recognition of the revolutionary overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat;
- Refusal to support one's own bourgeoisie in an imperialist war;
- Building up the Party on the basis of democratic centralism.[26]
Ideological origins
Rather than being a unified, cohesive ideology, Fascism has always been very eclectic and based in philosophical idealism. In fact, it is a core characteristic that fascists opportunistically recycle, adapt and twist narratives to fit their goals. However, the goals are always equally brutal. Therefore, it is necessary to outline fascism's ideological evolution by observing its noteworthy material impacts upon the world, not by discerning its myriad of overlapping, incoherent and obscure ideological tendencies and thinkers. The only uniting force behind fascism, in practice, is its defense of the bourgeoisie, the aristocracy, settler-colonialism and imperialist chauvinism. A disproportionate amount of influence, in fact, originated from European aristocrat ideologues.
The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement can be traced back to the French far-right French Action,[a] which was an openly anti-Marxist political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through class collaboration.[27]
The term "fascism" comes from the Italian National Fascist Party,[b] a party founded by Benito Mussolini in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this reactionary movement as a whole. Mussolini's fascism was constructed out of an admiration and romanticization of Roman civilisation, which originated in modern-day Italy. Thus, the name fascism was based on the fasces, an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (lictors) in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.
Shifting blame away from capital is as old as fascism's birth. The oldest and most common example for such a distraction shared by fascists worldwide is antisemitism. The most widely circulated and influential myth since the late 19th century is a conspiracy theory that blames Jewish people for the world's problems, The Protocols of the Elders of Zion.[28][29] This rag remains the most widely circulated book by fascists on the internet today.
Blavatsky, Cultural Appropriation and New Age Myths
The violent and shameless appropriation of the world's cultures has been wildly popular among Europeans since European colonialism began, and by the 19th century, their orientalist gaze fixated upon Asia, or "the Orient".[30] These appropriations became extremely instrumental to fascist myth making. New Age occultism such as the bizarre "Theosophy" (not to be confused with the term used by Neoplatonists) was invented by 19th century German aristocrat, Helena Blavatsky[31], a lifelong traveler and settler in Russia, the United States of America and India. Theosophy used a patchwork of orientalist myths and interpretations of various indigenous cultures, such as Tibetan Buddhism and Hinduism. Blavatsky was the inventor of the Atlantis myth, Lemurians, etc. Among the bizarre myths, Theosophy claimed that the mixing of races caused degeneration.[32] Theosophy was influential in the 20th century German fascist regime's construction of the "Aryan" national myth through Guido von List's German adaptation of it into the spiritual and cultural framework of Nazism.[33] That is why the Nazis appropriated the swastika from Buddhism.[34] It is important to emphasize that the fascists did not truly understand the cultures they were appropriating.
The way that early orientalists treated the BIPOC, often Asian, cultures they culturally appropriated is not much different from New Age followers today, in fact the fundamental idea of a New Age movement was coined and developed in 1970 by the theosophist David Spangler and maintains its orientalist and settler-colonial core and remains popular into the 21st century.[35] The term "New Age" is probably a reference to the magazine The New Age (1907-1922) which included Nietzschean and Theosophist writings. [36]
Nietzsche
Historian and Marxist-Leninist philosopher Domenico Losurdo in his work Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel, pointed out that Nietzsche, who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the Paris commune in 1871.[37] Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-liberal, anti-socialist, anti-democratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.[38]
Sorel
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of National Syndicalism in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centred around the idea of myth, which he highlights as "forming the centre of man’s cosmology and world view in all ages".[39] In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article praising the far-right group French Action in Divenire Sociale—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by French Action; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910, he joined the group. During this time, he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.[40] Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".[41]
By country
Italian fascism
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.[42]
German fascism
See main article: Nazism
The most extreme form of fascism was German fascism, which called itself National Socialism despite being supported by finance capitalists.[43] Bourgeois magazine The Economist introduced the euphemism privatization in 1936, to describe Nazi Germany's economic policies,[44] which from a Marxist perspective is the selling out of state infrastructure to the highest bidder.
German fascism was most known for its genocidal, expansionist, imperialist and colonialist rule under the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviets.[45] While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, the term "socialist" being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent exploitation of the working people and concentration of capital,[46] they adopted a settler-colonial model coupled with exploitation, colonialism, and mass terror applied to the European continent.[47] The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as Lebensraum,[c] and was directly influenced by Statesian genocide of native peoples through Manifest Destiny.[48]
The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the Soviet Union after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
Japanese fascism
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of imperialist and ultranationalist political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in Asia.
Portuguese fascism
From 1933 to 1974, Portugal was ruled by the Estado Novo ("New State"), headed by António de Oliveira Salazar. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese working class was subjugated to reactionary Christian doctrine, as well as a corporatist economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly imperialist, repressing calls for independence and self-determination in Angola and Mozambique. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970s, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.[49]
Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Spanish fascism
Following the victory of the United Front in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco broke out, whose ambitions were assisted by invading Germany and Italy, and silently backed by the rest of the allies. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades, and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931). To this day, Spain remains a monarchy.
British Fascism
See main article: Oswald Mosley
The United States of North America
After World War II, the settler-colonial United States of North America began to be the new pioneer of orientalism,[50] and, unsurprisingly, many Fascist currents are initially developed there before being replicated internationally.[51] Contemporary fascists such as the White House cabinet member and close advisor to Donald Trump, Steve Bannon, have publicly quoted Julius Evola.[52][53] Evola was an Italian fascist ideologue, spiritualist, and orientalist, influenced by theosophy and Nietszche, who (like Mussolini) called for a restoration of the ancient Roman empire, but fully rejected modern Western society and predicted its accelerationist collapse and the return of pre-"rational", "feudal", "mystic" society in his own Esoteric Fascist theory.[54] Fascist New Agers have been found storming the capitol building of the United States of North America.[55][56]
The term "alt-right" refers to a loose grouping of far-right extremists, largely based on the internet. Alt-righters are often "white nationalists" (white supremacists), neo-nazis, highly misogynistic, and otherwise chauvinist. Many alt-righters claim to be promoting a form of identity politics, that is, for the support of white people or white males, against perceived repression from ethnic minorities and females. Many other alt-righters are openly white-supremacist, and otherwise seek to create a white ethno-state, often motivated by bloated and fear-mongering reports of "illegal aliens" (non-white people) that come from the Statesian capitalist news.[57]
A cult of personality developed around multi-billionaire president Donald Trump, whose rise to infamy was cheered on by a wave of reactionary nationalism, xenophobia, and populism. Such trends were marked by increased membership in neo-fascist paramilitary groups such as the Proud Boys, Three Percenters, and Oathkeepers.
Trump’s rule ended in an attempted putsch of the American government, mainly done by the Far-right paramilitary groups mentioned above. The putsch (often referred to in the capitalist media as the “Jan. 6 insurrection" or riot), was motivated by false conspiracy theories about the 2020 election being rigged in favor of the Democrats, as well as Trump’s personal agitation.
Latin American fascism
See main article: Pinochet
See main article: Alberto Fujimori
See main article: 2019 Bolivia Coup Attempt
Post-World War II
After World War II, fascism was in retreat. It has since taken on a more international character, borrowing from many sources. Similar to the fascists of the 20th century, neo-fascism is born as a reaction to changing social climates, as well as growing economic hardships among the petit-bourgeoisie. The term "neofascist" is often vauguely defined, and besides its usage as a mere pejorative, "neo-fascism" better refers to an entire grouping of far-right trends that appeared after classical fascism largely died as a power-holding ideology after World War 2.[58]
With the rise of neoliberalism, and the increasing concentration of capital into fewer-and-fewer hands, neo-fascism has gained new popularity among many nations, particularly because of climate change and economic problems (the results of capitalism).[59][60]
Neo-Nazism
See main article: Neo-Nazism
Neo-nazism, by its most general meaning, refers to the post-World War Two adherence to nazism. Neo-nazis are highly racist, often of the white supremacist and anti-semitic type, conspiratorial, and reactionary. Neo-nazism is heavily linked with the "alt-right", and can be viewed as a particular form of neo-fascism. Neo-nazis goals range from preforming terrorist actions against perceived racial enemies to starting a race war and creating a Fourth Reich.
Strasserism
Strasserism is a third positionist ideology based on Nazism. Strasserism is based on the works of Gregor and Otto Strasser, who were both associated with the National Socialist German Workers' Party. The main difference between Strasserism and their Nazi counterparts is that Strasserism calls for a more worker-based and socialistic form of regular Nazism. Much like Nazism, Strasserism is greatly anti-semitic, but in the case of Strasserism, its racist conspiracy theories are built on economic anti-semitism, a form of anti-semitism in which the reason why Jewish people are used as a scapegoat for economic ills is because they are supposedly of a higher economic status than the racially-pure worker.[61]
Ecofascism
Cooptation of the aesthetics of existing popular movements through entryism remains a common strategy for fascist self-promotion, solely to capture popularity. Thus, as the climate crisis unfolds in the 21st century, ecofascism has strongly emerged as a right-wing deviation of environmentalism, shifting blame from fossil fuel capital to immigrants and nations of the global south -- in practice, promoting fascist policies through greenwashing. One prominent politician of ecofascist policies is Marine Le Pen.[62] Population control, anti-immigrant policies, and ethnocide become the alternatives pushed instead of facing capital's responsibility for ecological destruction.
Ecofascism, outside its derogatory usage by reactionaries to insult anybody who accepts the existence of man-made climate change, refers to the ideological trends that combine hard-line environmentalism with reactionary nationalism and xenophobia. Ecofascists view Earth as a Malthusian battleground between racial and ethnic groups, and think that ecological harmony is tied with ethnic or racial monodominance. To combat climate change, ecofascists believe not only in things such as eugenics, but also in the purging of ethnic minorites, by means of forced relocation or otherwise.[63]
Ecofascism is greatly inspired by nazism, particularly the "blood and soil" idea, which states that a race is attached with the land it inhabits. Many ecofascists are New Age neo-pagans, mostly worshiping the norse pantheon, largely because they are perceived by ecofascists as being "racially" pure "heroes" of "white people". In online ecofascist groups, the algiz rune "ᛉ" is often used. The algiz rune symbolizes life, that is, in the case of ecofascists, life for nature and white people. The algiz rune was also a symbol for lebensraum; the nazi plan for the enslavement and extermination of the Slavic inhabitants of Eastern Europe, and colonization by ethnic Germans.[64]
New Age and Esoteric Fascism
Esoteric fascism refers to any form of fascism that integrates racialism into a mystical or theological system. The most infamous Esoteric Nazis often view the "aryan" race as having come from some otherworldly place, often the legendary land of hyperborea. Esoteric Nazis also are often neo-pagans, commonly nordic or greco-roman pagans. Esoteric Nazis also subscribe to other pseudoscientific or pseudohistorical theories, often entailing UFOs Nazi bunkers in Antarctica, among similar things.[65][66]
See also
References
- ↑ @Viki1999, "What 'Fascism is capitalism in decay' means," YouTube video, December 1, 2019.
- ↑ “No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia.”
Georgi Dimitrov (1935). The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism: 'The class character of fascism'. Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International. [MIA] - ↑ "Encyclopedia of Marxism".
- ↑ “Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.”
William I. Robinson (2019). Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype. Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183. doi: 10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155 [HUB] - ↑ “Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”
Georgi Dimitrov (1935). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism: 'Fascism and the Working Class'. [MIA] - ↑ John Bellamy Foster (2017-06-01). "This Is Not Populism" Monthly Review. Archived from the original on 2023-07-18.
- ↑ “"Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “"Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes -- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “"The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country. In certain countries, principally those in which fascism has no broad mass basis and in which the struggle of the various groups within the camp of the fascist bourgeoisie itself is rather acute, fascism does not immediately venture to abolish parliament, but allows the other bourgeois parties, as well as the Social-Democratic Parties, to retain a modicum of legality. In other countries, where the ruling bourgeoisie fears an early outbreak of revolution, fascism establishes its unrestricted political monopoly, either immediately or by intensifying its reign of terror against and persecution of all rival parties and groups. This does not prevent fascism, when its position becomes particularly acute, from trying to extend its basis and, without altering its class nature, trying to combine open terrorist dictatorship with a crude sham of parliamentarism."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “"In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “Are we class-conscious Great-Russian proletarians impervious to the feeling of national pride? Certainly not. We love our language and our motherland; we, more than any other group, are working to raise its laboring masses (i.e., nine-tenths of its population) to the level of intelligent democrats and socialists. We, more than anybody are grieved to see and feel to what violence, oppression and mockery our beautiful motherland is being subjected by the tsarist hangmen, the nobles and the capitalists. We are proud of the fact that those acts of violence met with resistance in our midst, in the midst of the Great Russians; that this midst brought forth Radischev, the Decembrists, the intellectual revolutionaries of the seventies; that in 1905 the Great-Russian working class created a powerful revolutionary party of the masses.
We are filled with national pride because of the knowledge that the Great-Russian nation, too, has created a revolutionary class, that it, too, has proved capable of giving humanity great examples of struggle for freedom and for socialism; that its contribution is not confined solely to great pogroms, numerous scaffolds, torture chambers, severe famines and abject servility before the priests, the tsars, the landowners and the capitalists.
We are filled with national pride, and therefore we particularly hate our slavish past... and our slavish present, in which the same landowners, aided by the capitalists, lead us into war to stifle Poland and the Ukraine, to throttle the democratic movement in Persia and in China, to strengthen the gang of Romanovs, Bobrinskis, Puriskeviches that cover with shame our Great-Russian national dignity.”
Vladimir Lenin (1914). ON THE NATIONAL PRIDE OF THE GREAT RUSSIANS (Russian: Sotsial-Demokrat No. 35). Moscow: Progress Publishers. - ↑ “"The fascists are rummaging through the entire history of every nation so as to be able to pose as the heirs and continuators of all that was exalted and heroic in its past, while all that was degrading or offensive to the national sentiments of the people they make use of as weapons against the enemies of fascism. Hundreds of books are being published in Germany with only one aim -- to falsify the history of the German people and give it a fascist complexion."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “"Communists who suppose that all this has nothing to do with the cause of the working class, who do nothing to enlighten the masses on the past of their people in a historically correct fashion, in a genuinely Marxist-Leninist spirit, who do nothing to link up the present struggle with the people's revolutionary traditions and past -- voluntarily hand over to the fascist falsifiers all that is valuable in the historical past of the nation, so that the fascists may fool the masses. No, Comrades, we are concerned with every important question, not only of the present and the future, but also of the past of our own peoples. ...to sneer at all the national sentiments of the broad masses of working people is far from being a genuine Bolshevik, and has understood nothing of the teaching of Lenin on the national question.
Comrades, proletarian internationalism must, so to speak, "acclimatize itself" in each country in order to strike deep roots in its native land. National forms of the proletarian class struggle and of the labor movement in the individual countries are in no contradiction to proletarian internationalism; on the contrary, it is precisely in these forms that the international interests of the proletariat can be successfully defended.
...the socialist revolution will signify the salvation of the nation and will open up to it the road to loftier heights. By the very fact of building at the present time its class organizations and consolidating its positions, by the very fact of defending democratic rights and liberties against fascism, by the very fact of fighting for the overthrow of capitalism, the working class is fighting for the future of the nation. The revolutionary proletariat is fighting to save the culture of the people, to liberate it from the shackles of decaying monopoly capitalism, from barbarous fascism, which is laying violent hands on it. Only the proletarian revolution can avert the destruction of culture and raise it to its highest flowering as a truly national culture -- national in form and socialist in content
Only by struggling hand in hand with the proletariat of the imperialist countries can the colonial peoples and oppressed national minorities achieve their freedom. The sole road to victory for the proletarian revolution in the imperialist countries lies through the revolutionary alliance of the working class of the imperialist countries with the national-liberation movement in the colonies and dependent countries, because, as Marx taught us, "no nation can be free if it oppresses other nations."
Communists belonging to an oppressed, dependent nation cannot combat chauvinism successfully among the people of their own nation if they do not at the same time show in practice, in the mass movement, that they actually struggle for the liberation of their nation from the alien yoke. And again, on the other hand, the Communists of an oppressing nation cannot do what is necessary to educate the working masses of their nation in the spirit of internationalism without waging a resolute struggle against the oppressor policy of their "own" bourgeoisie, for the right of complete self-determination for the nations kept in bondage by it. If they do not do this, they likewise do not make it easier for the working people of the oppressed nation to overcome their nationalist prejudices.”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “What is the source of the influence of fascism over the masses? Fascism is able to attract the masses because it demagogically appeals to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays on the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions.”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “This, the true character of fascism, must be particularly stressed because in a number of countries, under cover of social demagogy, fascism has managed to gain the following of the mass of the petty bourgeoisie that has been dislocated by the crisis, and even of certain sections of the most backward strata of the proletariat.”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “"WHAT DOES FASCIST VICTORY BRING TO THE MASSES? Fascism promised the workers "a fair wage," but actually it has brought them an even lower, a pauper, standard of living. It promised work for the unemployed, but actually it has brought them even more painful torments of starvation and forced servile labor. In practice it converts the workers and unemployed into pariahs of capitalist society stripped of rights; destroys their trade unions; deprives them of the right to strike and to have their working-class press, forces them into fascist organizations, plunders their social insurance funds and transforms the mills and factories into barracks where the unbridled arbitrary rule of the capitalist reigns. Fascism promised the working youth a broad highway to a brilliant future. But actually it has brought wholesale dismissals of young workers, labor camps and incessant military drilling for a war of conquest. Fascism promised to guarantee office workers, petty officials and intellectuals security of existence, to destroy the omnipotence of the trusts and wipe out profiteering by bank capital. But actually it has brought them an ever greater degree of despair and uncertainty as to the morrow; it is subjecting them to a new bureaucracy made up of the most submissive of its followers, it is setting up an intolerable dictatorship of the trusts and spreading corruption and degeneration to an unprecedented extent. Fascism promised the ruined and impoverished peasants to put an end to debt bondage, to abolish rent and even to expropriate the landed estates without compensation, in the interests of the landless and ruined peasants. But actually it is placing the laboring peasants in a state of unprecedented servitude to the trusts and the fascist state apparatus, and pushes to the utmost limit the exploitation of the great mass of the peasantry by the big landowners, the banks and the usurers."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “"I have before me a statistical summary drawn up by the International Red Aid [international organization of that time for aid to revolutionary fighters] regarding the number of killed, wounded, arrested, maimed and tortured to death in Germany, Poland, Italy, Austria, Bulgaria and Yugoslavia. In Germany alone, since the National-Socialists came to power, over 4,200 anti-fascist workers, peasants, employees, intellectuals -- Communists, Social Democrats and members of opposition Christian organizations -- have been murdered, 317,800 arrested, 218,600 injured and subjected to torture. In Austria, since the battles of February last year the "Christian" fascist government has murdered 1,900 revolutionary workers, maimed and injured 10,000 and arrested 40,000. And this summary, comrades is far from complete."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “[W]e must show that each time a head is cut off or an eye put out in Vietnam and in France they accept the fact…each time a Madagascan is tortured and in France and they accept the fact, civilization acquires another dead weight, a universal regression takes place, a gangrene sets in, a center of infection begins to spread; and that at the end of all these treaties that have been violated, all these lies that have been propagated, all these punitive expeditions that have been tolerated, all these prisoners who have been tied up and “interrogated, all these patriots who have been tortured, at the end of all the racial pride that has been encouraged, all the boastfulness that has been displayed, a poison has been instilled into the veins of Europe and, slowly but surely, the continent proceeds toward savagery (13).
People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: “How strange! But never mind-it’s Nazism, it will, pass!” And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, but the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack (14).”
Aimé Césaire (1950). Discourse on colonialism (Discours sur le colonialisme) (p. 36). [PDF] France: Réclame. ISBN 1583670254 - ↑ “"what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"”
Frantz Fanon (1961). Wretched of the earth (p. 90). Grove Press. ISBN 9780802150837 [LG] - ↑ Mnar Adley (2023). Manifestos of Hate: What White Terrorists Have in Common. Mint Press News.
- ↑ Weiyi Cai, Simone Landon (2019). Attacks by White Extremists Are Growing. So Are Their Connections.. The New York Times.https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2019/04/03/world/white-extremist-terrorism-christchurch.html
- ↑ Natasha Lennard (2019). The El Paso Shooter Embraced Eco-Fascism. We Can’t Let the Far Right Co-Opt the Environmental Struggle.. The Intercept.
- ↑ “"All this, however, does not make less important the fact that, before the establishment of a fascist dictatorship, bourgeois governments usually pass through a number of preliminary stages and adopt a number of reactionary measures which directly facilitate the accession to power of fascism. Whoever does not fight the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie and the growth of fascism at these preparatory stages is not in a position to prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitates that victory."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ “"If we establish a united front with the Communists, the petty bourgeoisie will take fright at the 'Red danger' and will desert to the fascists," we hear it said quite frequently. But does the united front represent a threat to the peasants, small traders, artisans, working intellectuals? No, the united front is a threat to the big bourgeoisie, the financial magnates, the junkers and other exploiters, whose regime brings complete ruin to all these strata.”
Vladimir Lenin (1952). Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (pp. 81-82). Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. - ↑ “Acting thus, the bourgeoisie acts as all classes doomed by history have acted. Communists should know that the future, at any rate, belongs to them; therefore we can and must combine the most intense passion in the great revolutionary struggle with the coolest and most sober evaluation of the mad ravings of the bourgeoisie.”
Vladimir Lenin (1952). Left-Wing Communism: An Infantile Disorder (pp. 81-82). Moscow: Foreign Languages Publishing House. - ↑ “"First, complete independence from the bourgeoisie and dissolution of the bloc of Social-Democracy with the bourgeoisie;
Second, preliminary unity of action;
Third, recognition of the revolutionary overthrow of the rule of the bourgeoisie and the establishment of the dictatorship of the proletariat in the form of soviets a sine qua non;
Fourth, refusal to support one's own bourgeoisie in an imperialist war;
Fifth, building up the Party on the basis of democratic centralism, which ensures unity of purpose and action, and which has been tested by the experience of the Russian Bolsheviks."”
Georgi Dimitrov (1972). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism. Sofia Press. - ↑ Ernst Nolte (1966). Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism (German: Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus). New York: New American Library. ISBN 9780451008619 [LG]
- ↑ JACQUES E. HALBRONN, LARISSA BLIMAN-HALBRONN, לריסה and ז'אק הלברון בלימן הלברו (1997). THE TERM PROTOCOLS, FROM THE ZIONIST CONGRESSES TO "THE PROTOCOLS OF THE ELDERS OF ZION" AND THE RECEPTION OF THE RUSSIAN "PROTOCOLS" IN CENTRAL EUROPE BEFORE 1917. האיגוד העולמי למדעי היהדות / World Union of Jewish Studies.
- ↑ Marisa Meltzer (2021). QAnon’s Unexpected Roots in New Age Spirituality. Washington Post.
- ↑ “To speak of Orientalism therefore is to speak mainly, although not exclusively, of a British and French cultural enterprise, a project whose dimensions take in such disparate realms as the imagination itself, the whole of India and the Levant, the Biblical texts and the Biblical lands, the spice trade, colonial armies and a long tradition of colonial administrators, a formidable scholarly corpus, innumerable Oriental "experts" and "hands," an Oriental professorate, a complex array of "Oriental" ideas (Oriental despotism, Oriental splendor, cruelty, sensuality), many Eastern sects, philosophies, and wisdoms domesticated for local European use -- the list can be extended more or less indefinitely. My point is that Orientalism derives from a particular closeness experienced between Britain and France and the Orient, which until the early nineteenth century had really meant only India and the Bible lands. From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the end of World War II France and Britain dominated the Orient and Orientalism; since World War II America has dominated the Orient, and approaches it as France and Britain once did.”
Edward Said (1978). Orientalism (p. 4). Vintage Books. - ↑ Jeffrey D. Lavoie (2021). Theosophical Chronology in the Writings of Guido von List (1848–1919): A Link Between H.P. Blavatsky’s Philosophy and the Nazi Movement.
- ↑ Helena Petrovna Blavatsky. [libgen.li/file.php?md5=4722005421409000a2200f8f271a99a1 The Secret Doctrine Vols. I & II]. Theosophy.
- ↑ Jeffrey D. Lavoie (2021). Theosophical Chronology in the Writings of Guido von List (1848–1919): A Link Between H.P. Blavatsky’s Philosophy and the Nazi Movement. Springer.
- ↑ James M. Skidmore (2017). How Nazis twisted the swastika, a symbol of the Buddha, into an emblem of hate. Quartz.
- ↑ J. Gordon Melton (2000-2023). New Age movement. Encyclopaedia Brittanica.
- ↑ Robert Scholes. General Introduction to The New Age 1907-1922. The Modernist Journals Project (searchable database). Brown and Tulsa Universities, ongoing..
- ↑ “[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.”
Domenico Losurdo (2002). Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel (p. 26). ISBN 9789004270954 [LG] - ↑ “Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’”
Domenico Losurdo (2002). Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel (p. 731). ISBN 9789004270954 [LG] - ↑ Rodrigo Sobota (2020-10-15). "Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth"
- ↑ Zeev Sternhell (1994). THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY: '1–3'. [PDF] ISBN 0-691-03289-0 [LG]
- ↑ James H. Meisel (1950-03-01). "A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini"
- ↑ “Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.”
Germà Bel (2011). The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925). doi: 10.1093/cje/beq051 [HUB] - ↑ Georgi Dimitrov (1937). The United Front: 'The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International' (pp. 10–11). San Francisco: Proletarian Publishers.
- ↑ Germà Bel (2006). Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194. doi: 10.1257/jep.20.3.187 [HUB]
- ↑ “Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.”
Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko. On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War (Russian: К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел). Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. - ↑ “The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.”
Sidney Merlin (1943). Trends in German economic control since 1933 (p. 207). The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57. doi: 10.2307/1882751 [HUB] - ↑ “Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.”
Thomas Kühne (2013). Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities: 'German colonialism and German peculiarities' (p. 343). Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15. doi: 10.1080/14623528.2013.821229 [HUB] - ↑ “Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.”
Robert J. Miller (2020). Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians (p. 14). [LG] - ↑ Howard J. Wiarda (1977). Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 9780870232213
- ↑ “From the beginning of the nineteenth century until the end of World War II France and Britain dominated the Orient and Orientalism; since World War II America has dominated the Orient, and approaches it as France and Britain once did.”
Edward Said (1978). Orientalism (p. 4). Vintage Books. - ↑ Alex Ross (2018). How American Racism Influenced Hitler. The New Yorker.
- ↑ Jason Horowitz (2017). Steve Bannon Cited Italian Thinker Who Inspired Fascists. The New York Times.
- ↑ Morgan Jones (2022). How Julius Evola Became the Internet’s Favorite Fascist. Jacobin.
- ↑ “Conversely, it has rightfully been suggested that the feudal system is that which characterizes the majority of the great traditional eras and the one most suited for the regular development of traditional structures. In this type of regime the principle of plurality and of relative political autonomy of the individual parts is emphasized, as is the proper context of that universal element, that unum quod non est pars that alone can really organize and unify these parts, not by contrasting but by presiding over each one of them through the transcendent, superpolitical, and regulating function that the universal embodies (Dante). In this event royalty works together with the feudal aristocracy and the imperial function does not limit the autonomy of the single principalities or kingdoms, as it assumes the single nationalities without altering them.”
Julius Evola (1934). Revolt Against the Modern World (Italian: Rivolta contro il mondo moderno) (p. 341). Inner Traditions. - ↑ Susannah Crockford (2021). Q Shaman’s New Age-Radical Right Blend Hints at the Blurring of Seemingly Disparate Categories. Religion Dispatch.
- ↑ Angus Greig (2021). QAnon’s Unexpected Roots in New Age Spirituality. The Washington Post.
- ↑ "Ideology: Alt-right". Southern Poverty Law Center.
- ↑ “The term neo-fascism defines primarily those political and ideological groups and parties that operated after 1945, especially in Europe, and which were directly inspired by the experience of the inter-war fascist and Nazi regimes in Germany, Italy, and other European countries. These groups were often made up of remnants of fascist and Nazi activists who were not prepared to give up their political militancy or indeed to renounce their ideologies despite military defeat. Many held radical and uncompromising views, emphasizing the revolutionary nature of fascism rather than its more ‘reassuring’nationalist or statist version. This article analyses neo-fascism after the Second World War; neo-fascism and anti-communism in the United States; neo-fascism during the Cold War; the second-generation neo-fascists after 1968; the extreme right today; and the neo-fascist legacy.”
Anna Cento Bull (2012). The Oxford Handbook of Fascism: 'Neo-fascism' (pp. 586–605). Oxford university press. doi: https://doi.org/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780199594788.013.0032 [HUB] - ↑ Marc-André Argentino, Blyth Crawford, Florence Keen, Hannah Rose (2021). Far From Gone: The Evolution of Extremism in the First 100 Days of the Biden Administration. London: International Centre for the Study of Radicalisation..
- ↑ "Understanding the Rise of the Far Right: The Need for a Historical Approach". EuropeNow. Retrieved 2022-6-20.
- ↑ Christopher T. Husbands (2020). Militant neo-Nazism in the 1990s. ISBN 9780429060076
- ↑ Laurent Hubert and Jean-Noël Geist (2022). Why Marine Le Pen’s environmental agenda is greenwashing. EuroNews.
- ↑ Alistair Walsh (2022-5-19). "Eco-fascism: The greenwashing of the far right" Deutsche Welle. Retrieved 2022-6-21.
- ↑ Sarah Manavis (2018-9-21). "Eco-fascism: The ideology marrying environmentalism and white supremacy thriving online" The Newstatesman.
- ↑ "Former neo-nazi explains ‘Esoteric Nazism’". Southern Poverty Law Center.
- ↑ "Savitri Devi: The mystical fascist being resurrected by the alt-right" (2017-10-29). BBC. Retrieved 2022-6-21.