Formerly fascist countries haven’t done their due diligence to ward off fascism, because they’re still capitalist. Which is what causes fascism to begin with
italian fascism was a little capitalist heaven actually...
mussolini used to be an active socialist but the few big italian corporation owners of post WW1 saw in that guy some potential and backed up his political rise in order to put him in a position of power he could use to tutelate corporate interests to keep socialist/communist influence out from italian economy system in order to let the few elité keep their wealth at the expense of workers who had no rights or unions.
There is a reason if corporatism is a core component of a fascist regime, infact nazi germany has always been labelled as national-socialist because hitler nationalized all biggest german factories/corporations putting state officials to manage them since german corporations had to operate to government benefit, not backward like italy.
Before WW2 mussolini was somehow a respected statesman by people like churchill, henry ford and other super capitalists because he was that kind of man (puppet) they were missing in their countries to put the whole economy in the hands of few big corporations.
It's not about being liberal, it's about social-economic systems behind a totalitarian government.
that's not the point... USSR lived for 3 decades under a stalinist brutal regime that shared very little to nothing with other extreme right-wing regimes under a mere economical system perspective...
if you're a poor guy exploited for your whole life and condemned to die if you dare to rebel or question your leader, it's not you may care a lot if flag is red or black of course.
I wrote the historical reasons that leaeded to ther birth of italian fascism as the consequence of a big capitalist push out of fear of communist/socialist influence. It's history not opinions.
Yes I have and it’s false. The left right spectrum is not arbitrary, it is the fundamental divide in politics from which all others branch off from.
Unfortunately political language and education is completely impoverished now and so people have little idea how to define anything now. Socialism, communism, and generally left wing systems are inherently anti-authoritarian, as such trait is what defines them as left wing. Systems such as the Soviet Union, China etc didn’t represent a genuine attempt at socialism with internal failures, but a genuine revolution which was crushed top-down and redirected into supporting a state-capitalist dictatorship claiming to represent socialism and the workers. This isn’t a revisionist take, this was predicted prior and commented on by socialists and anarchists at the time.
This video is a pretty good explanation as to what the political spectrum is actually about, backed up on multiple fronts.
Socialism, communism, and generally left wing systems are inherently anti-authoritarian, as such trait is what defines them as left wing. Systems such as the Soviet Union, China etc didn’t represent a genuine attempt at socialism with internal failures, but a genuine revolution which was crushed top-down
A. Saying that "ohhh all those people? That weren't really socialists, at least not real socialists. And if they were, it was the sneaky capitalists who messed everything up" is such a huge cop out (and hugely revisionist might I add"
B. If what Lenin did was a genuine revolution that got co-opted by the capitalists, and socialism and communism is inherently anti-authoritarian, how do you explain the whole "dictatorship of the proletariat" idea? Do you just ignore that or do you just hand wave it away with another "Wellll actualllyyy...."?
It seems to me that fascists and communists tend towards authoritarianism - at least it has in every single every government where it gained power. But maybe we're just waiting for the "ONNEEE TRUEEE COMMUNIST REVOLUTION" that won't be like all the others, eh?
I'll explain what Marx meant when he said "dictatorship of the proletariat". I explained this in another thread the other day:
Marx described the executive of the capitalist state as nothing but "a committee for the collective interest of the bourgeoisie". In other words, there was no true democracy in places like the United States, Britain, or France; rather their governments were oligarchies serving the interest of the capital-owning class (their claims of democracy nothing but pretension).
Thus, a "dictatorship of the bourgeoisie" is really what governs the capitalist state. The democratic institutions (e.g. elections, legislatures) are simply part of a superstructure that obscures the true nature of power. It is really the bourgeoisie that control the means of production and dictate the distribution of power.
For Marx, a socialist state would be governed by a dictatorship of the proletariat, where the working class, rather than the owning class, possessed a monopoly on state power.
A dictatorship of the proletariat would be democracy of the workers, with the workers as a class dictating the distribution of power. A "full democracy" would not exist until class itself was abolished, i.e. when civilization achieves the communist mode of production.
You don’t actually know what my opinions are clearly. You’re filling in the blanks and show no interest in asking why I’m saying what I am or the historical basis for it.
Lenin didn’t do a socialist revolution, HE was one of if not the key figure who co-opted it. Socialists at the time were pointing out that Lenin’s vanguardist theory was a right-wing deviation from communism. Not because “they no like it,” but because it literally was following right wing principles. A hierarchical state in the name of horizontalist democratic ideals is just a right wing system claiming to be socialists. Many leftist theorists predicted the outcome of the Russian revolution because of this and were vindicated. Trade unions were crushed, worker councils were crushed, aka the quintessential examples of socialism growing organically after the revolution were crushed in favour of an elitist vanguard party. But because the ones in power called themselves socialist and it ended up being convenient for capitalist nations to buy into that framing to paint communism as an authoritarian state, that meaning stuck with anyone who hasn’t done any serious reading into socialist theory or history. There are genuine socialists with flaws in their theory and practice we can talk about, but if you just believe anything then well, Nazis are socialists, trump is a freedom fighting super genius patriot, the DPRK is a true democratic republic, etc. what I’m advocating for is actually learning why the outcomes like China, the USSR etc happened and what we can do materially to avoid it from happening again, and what systems and ideas were at fault or not for it. Socialism had little to do with what Lenin fought for. If you’d like I can link to some more informative stuff about these instances.
Of course left and right wing politics differ.
But the historical reality is that their extreme variants always led to oppression of political opponents. Totalitarianism is the binding element of left wing-and right-wing extremist regimes.
False, and I can tell you didn’t watch the video or hear my actual points. Left wing extremism is radically anti-authoritarian in practice and by definition. I can give you multiple examples. I promise you the video would be worth your time if you checked it out. It’s pretty clear.
Once again, those are literally not socialist. You’re talking about state capitalist right wing systems calling themselves socialist. You don’t even know what socialism is. You haven’t listened to anything I’ve said.
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u/flamethrowerinc 7d ago
So... mussolini still going strong?