> During World War II, the Americans who took part in the Spanish war were called "premature anti-fascists" – meaning that fighting against Hitler in the Forties was a moral duty for every good American, but fighting against Franco too early, in the Thirties, smelled sour because it was mainly done by Communists and other leftists. . .
Just to troll a bit-- if you fought too early on the side of the lower-case "other leftists" in, say, Barcelona you may have gotten in a gunfight with a group of communists[1]. Turns out the world is a complex place.
Speaking of which (and continuing to troll)-- anyone know why the lower-case "other leftists" in Barcelona boxed up the photographic evidence of their existence and sent it to the UK instead of the USSR for safekeeping[2]? I mean if the forces against fascism were "Communists, Etcetera" why not send them there?
It seems evident, to me at least, that Asimov views "arms-length extremism" as a core part of the identity of upper case Leftism, at least in the West (and predominantly America). The way Asimov approaches 1984 appears to be the bog-standard "Well, if you're not a Nazi then you can't possibly be as evil as the Nazis". It betrays a view of looking at politics from a standpoint of a slope, rather than a hill that descends into immorality on both sides, and I'm sure Asimov derives that view (as does much of the modern world) from the reasons behind and outcomes of WWII. IMO, we still haven't gotten past this - even entertaining such a discussion can't be had without acknowledging the 'progressive Sword of Damocles' hanging overhead, and almost always descends into whatabout-whataboutism.
I really do hope that we eventually grow out of this phase and acknowledge that even the 'good guys' can be evil, we shouldn't need to wait and see a Communist Reich to know that the Leftist version of brownshirts are a bad thing, or wait until actual genocide is happening (or accept/ignore it as a possibility, even) or wait until it has a 1-to-1 mapping with Nazi atrocity to hold those kinds of behavior accountable just because they're not Nazis and they're not actually killing people.
> I really do hope that we eventually grow out of this phase and acknowledge that even the 'good guys' can be evil, we shouldn't need to wait and see a Communist Reich to know that the Leftist version of brownshirts are a bad thing, or wait until actual genocide is happening (or accept/ignore it as a possibility, even) or wait until it has a 1-to-1 mapping with Nazi atrocity to hold those kinds of behavior accountable just because they're not Nazis and they're not actually killing people.
Having looked at 2020, the threat of the United States going in this direction is not coming from some unholy trinity of the ghosts of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Trotsky. As a political idea in the public zeitgheist, it's dead as a parrot. It has no legs.
It's coming from the mainstream right. But since our friendly neighbourhood MAGA rallies aren't actually sieging and heiling, we're all in the 'wait and see how bad it can get the next time they take power' stage.
I agree, I vividly remember how bad some conversations used to get, to the point of ignoring or justifying certain atrocities, and I have seen that the acts of groups such as the-one-that-shall-not-be-named confined largely to certain counties in certain states. I don't know how much of the fervor dying down is attributable to 2020 having come and gone, but I'm at least a little glad that most discussions have remained firmly centrist and any leftover fires are the dying gasps of populist mainstream media wars.
I don't really like this critique, mostly because, in my opinion, it fails to understand that 1984 is a fictional book. There are some parallelisms with Stalinism and other tyrannical societies, yes, however they are only there as part of history in that world. I would say it failed to recognize that 1984 is more of an essay about human nature, more specifically into the desire for power above everything else. I really don't think Orwell had planned to make a "reflecting" story, something like "Woah! This was about Stalinist Russia all along!".
> There is no ability to make minor changes, even.
Good grief, how to totally miss the entire point. He’s trying to critique a political deconstruction as though it was entertainment fiction. Didn’t he realise the close parallels are kind of the point, because Orwell was writing a commentary on and illustration of those events and personalities? Introducing random variations would have completely obscured the things he was trying to say. Things Asimov didn’t even notice.
It sounds like you might be ignorant of the anarchist vs. state socialist divide which has existed since 1872. [1] At every opportunity, state socialists have suppressed or outright killed anarchists, especially in the USSR. [2]
> Speaking of which (and continuing to troll)-- anyone know why the lower-case "other leftists" in Barcelona boxed up the photographic evidence of their existence and sent it to the UK instead of the USSR for safekeeping[2]? I mean if the forces against fascism were "Communists, Etcetera" why not send them there?
You are confusing Communism in Western Europe with the communist state of the USSR and its Stalinist doctrine of socialism in one country [3].
The Belgian Marxist economist Ernest Mandel argues in "From Stalinism to Eurocommunism: The Bitter Fruits of 'Socialism in One Country'" that when Soviet Union in 1924 abandoned the goal of overthrowing capitalism around the world lead to development of what later was called Eurocommunism [4], with their democratic way to social reforms.
> You are confusing Communism in Western Europe with the communist state of the USSR and its Stalinist doctrine of socialism in one country
They really aren't. The Communists fighting in the Spanish Civil War -- the ones who put their boot down on Orwell's beloved POUM and other Trotskyists -- were honest-to-god Soviets.
But yes, more democratic "Communist" parties did exist in Western Europe later, and there is a large space of "third way" Socialisms and Communisms that are not Stalinist hell.
I don't have my copy of Homage to hand, but I seem to remember Orwell being in the POUM militia was more or less an accident of how he arrived in Spain and nothing to do with it being 'beloved'.
As an aside, I once met a Spanish Civil War veteran from South Wales. I got the impression that he went to fight the fascists because it was the right thing to do ('If you tolerate this then your children will be next' was a famous slogan that made it into a song), not because of ideological indoctrination. He was a socialist in the British sense, but that should not suggest the slightest parallel with Stalinism
Stalin's doctrine wasn't only to establish communism in Russia. He just realized it was impractical to export communism immediately. His intentional long-term play was to stoke war across the world between capitalist countries so that that war would create the desperate conditions for revolution within those countries similar to the role that WW1 played in creating the conditions for revolution within Russia. That's why he blocked reform to the Versailles Treaty, among other actions.
I don't believe I misunderstood. You said the USSR abandoned the goal of overthrowing capitalism around the world in 1924. They (Stalin, in the 1930s, at least) didn't do that exactly. They just temporarily abandoned it as a direct goal based on their own direct intervention, knowing it wouldn't work. They wanted to achieve it firstly indirectly by creating the conditions for revolution in capitalist countries. They also knew that Russia needed to transform into an industrial power before it was possible to expand communism.
> "A third feature of Stalinism was the idea of “socialism in one country”—i.e., building up the industrial base and military might of the Soviet Union before exporting revolution abroad. To this end, Stalin rescinded the NEP, began the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, and embarked on a national program of rapid, forced industrialization.
> In foreign policy, socialism in one country meant putting the interests of the Soviet Union ahead of the interests of the international communist movement. After World War II, as Winston Churchill famously remarked, an Iron Curtain descended across Europe as Stalin installed communist regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, and Soviet-occupied East Germany as a buffer zone against an invasion from western Europe.
> Beyond Europe, the Soviet Union supported anticolonial “wars of national liberation” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and gave economic and military support to communist regimes in North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba."
"even though I am much concerned about the various Nazi-like movements that have arisen here and there in Europe, including Russia, I do not think that Nazism, in its original form, is about to reappear as a nationwide movement."
"Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."
"The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently
sends other people to death."
To complement this I recommend Five Stages of Fascism by Robert Paxton. He takes a temporal view of fascism rather than ideological, reasoning that unlike most other -isms, fascism does not have a body of works that define the ideology. On the contrary, fascist movements despise coherent philosophies.
So his focus is on development of fascist movements in time.
Fascism strikes me as the politics of the brain stem. To the extent that it has an ideology at all it tends to be explicitly anti-rational and obsessed with power, hierarchy, and mystical destiny.
I wonder if it's kind of a postmodern version of the old school militant theocratic monarchy. Like a theocracy without god, or without a coherent religious doctrine.
I know that postmodernist thought post-dated fascism but the fascist aesthetic strikes me as very postmodern. Ideas are tools for power. Nothing is true, only power.
I liken far left extremism to descending from obsessive generalization, and far right extremism descending from obsessive categorization - from the latter of which emerges hierarchies, divisions based on things like race or genetics, and pissing contests based on labels.
Rather than leaving it up to mystic interpretation, can you point out what is wrong with the sentiment "Intersectionality requires obsessive categorization"? I assume this is what you're talking about given the parent comment is strictly about far left extremism
Intersectionality is just about how people can be oppressed along different lines simultaneously, and how rather than having separate feminist, black rights, trans rights movements they should be working together across those lines. Intersectionality or leftists or whatever didn't invent the categories, it's about identifying the way society mistreats people based on categories.
I'm also not sure what you mean about leftism being defined by "obsessive generalising". Being somewhat familiar with left wing theory (Marxism, anarchism and postmodernism) I just don't see it - left theories have nothing to do with generalising people and everything to do with understanding socioeconomic systems.
Edit: also intersectional theory is about how different social categories play off each other, ie how being black and trans is different from being white and trans.
On intersectionality: I'm not insinuating that intersectionalists are creating the categories, only that they need, and heavily leverage those categories in order to achieve the goals of intersectionality. I don't think you're disagreeing with me on this.
On obsessive generalization: You are approaching it from a purely economic perspective. I think it's disingenous to ignore the social goals of leftist theory, which are firmly rooted in removing the class concept entirely - obsessive generalization.
The goals of intersectionality, as well as all leftism, is to reduce oppression. In the case of intersectionality, the ideal case would be that people are no longer oppressed due to being in these categories. That's not leveraging categories to achieve a goal, it's describing how society keeps people down for often fairly arbitrary reasons.
How is the idea of getting rid of class distinction "obsessive generalisation"? Also, the idea of getting rid of class is an explicitly economic issue.
I believe this is a very rose-tinted slant on what the intent is, especially that worldview has shown itself quite willing and ready to generate oppression along some categories in order to purportedly alleviate oppression along other categories, so long as the tables are being turned.
Do you mean the USSR and China? Because yeah, many leftists opposed those revolutions, including at the time (anarchists opposed the bolsheviks and were murdered, support for Mao fell off after the West learned about the Cultural Revolution). The mainstream form of the left nowadays is either reformist (social democrats like Bernie or AOC) or libertarian socialists/anarchists opposed to the state (David Graeber (RIP), Noam Chomsky).
Are you familiar with non-leftist thought? I've found when interacting with a lot of leftists that they became leftists first through their/others observations/feelings and then began to read leftist thought afterword, but aren't aware of how leftist thoughts fit into the general framework of political ideas. It makes it tough to discuss political thought with a lot of leftists because their only exposure to political critiques is through Marxist lenses, even though Marx himself was very well read in both philosophy and history.
Leftism and intersectionality is all about labelling folks into groups. Each person falls into an intersection of multiple groups (e.g. "African-American" and "presents female") and we can use this to have an understanding of their experience and the oppression that they face. Taken to absurdity, this reduces a person into a bundle of specific labels and doesn't make any distinction between the individual and their labels: well I'm a person of X race assigned Y gender born at Z time with immigrant parents who experienced A, B, and C event and therefore I feel Aleph oppression. The original critique was that, the "obsessive generalization" necessary to equalize the experiences of humanity paradoxically requires an obsessive amount of categorization.
> How is the idea of getting rid of class distinction "obsessive generalisation"?
There are many political philosophies that believe that some amount of class distinction is inherent to humanity. One can create a reductive 1D projection of political preferences by placing "classless, fully equal" society on the left as many leftist theories do and "hierarchical, predetermined classes for each individual" on the right as many fascist theories do. If you think that a "classless, fully equal" society is not extreme at all, then you're probably the one on the very left end of the spectrum.
Yes I'm familiar with non leftist thought - I only really started to identify with leftism about a year ago, having been something of an amorphous socially progressive conservative beforehand (having liberal social views but also believing in personal responsibility as the primary way to fix any and all social problems). I didn't even come into leftism through a normal way - I started learning about cybernetics and systems theory, then encountered Deleuze and through him fell into critical theory and then rediscovered Marx's critique of political economy, which tbf I did already have some reasonable knowledge of.
Intersectionality is not saying that those categories are all a person is - it's saying that those factors are predictive of certain oppressive tendencies society may have towards the individual. A common misconception I hear about leftism is that it is against treating people as individuals; this is not true, but at the same time denying that black people are oppressed in the US because they have individual identity is a non sequitur at best. The leftist ideal is actually that all people are free to pursue their passions and creativity, which is not something an innately collectivist ideology (like fascism for example) would promote.
I do think that a classless society is extreme compared to our current system, I wasn't denying that - but that doesn't mean that leftists area engaging in "extreme overgeneralising"; I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean. Honestly I see a lot of people critiquing left wing ideas using these really vague descriptors and I don't get why. If somebody has an issue to raise they should raise it explicitly so we can discuss it! Political discussion helps us all to learn.
>Honestly I see a lot of people critiquing left wing ideas using these really vague descriptors and I don't get why. If somebody has an issue to raise they should raise it explicitly so we can discuss it! Political discussion helps us all to learn.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this: I did explain further the context of obsessive generalization, but I'm not sure how, given you yourself say you're well read on leftist literature, you can't correlate how extreme egalitarianism requires doing away with individual characterization.
>The leftist ideal is actually that all people are free to pursue their passions and creativity
Wouldn't that imply that leftism cannot exist without allowing fascism to also exist? I don't see how you can juggle this with the view that leftism's goal is to reduce oppression, given that the definition you've provided here necessitates that opression must be possible for leftism to achieve its goals. In my mind, assuming I'm reading into this correctly, is that you've created your own "chicken vs the egg" paradox
> but I'm not sure how, given you yourself say you're well read on leftist literature, you can't correlate how extreme egalitarianism requires doing away with individual characterization.
Because it doesn't? Leftism is about doing away with socioeconomic oppression, not erasing all character difference. Leftists aren't the borg, the whole point is to create an equal playing field so that people can be their best selves.
> Wouldn't that imply that leftism cannot exist without allowing fascism to also exist?
Under a socialist or communist system, people could still hold fascist beliefs for sure (though the material drivers of fascist beliefs would be gone so I doubt it would be common) - but what matters is the systems we live under (capitalism, patriarchy etc etc) not what everybody thinks about each other.
I think you're viewing leftism too much through a proponent's lens. To understand this critique, zoom out a bit and place these tendencies and philosophies on a spectrum. Don't pick a side.
> A common misconception I hear about leftism is that it is against treating people as individuals; this is not true, but at the same time denying that black people are oppressed in the US because they have individual identity is a non sequitur at best
I'm not sure where you got the "denying" bit from. Again I think you're viewing this as a fight _against_ leftism when that's not what I'm going for. There are plenty of philosophies that decidedly accept the issue of historical discrimination _without_ buying into intersectionality. A good example of this is affirmative action or the Indian concept of Scheduled Classes. Both of these measures came from understanding historic discrimination without thinking about intersectionality at all. Leftism doesn't have a monopoly on the ideas of anti-discrimination.
> The leftist ideal is actually that all people are free to pursue their passions and creativity, which is not something an innately collectivist ideology (like fascism for example) would promote.
Do you have a source for this? This ideal is older than Marx, Rousseau's Social Contract first posits this idea I think.
> I do think that a classless society is extreme compared to our current system, I wasn't denying that - but that doesn't mean that leftists area engaging in "extreme overgeneralising"; I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean.
Again I think you're too wrapped up in defending leftism. If you're having a hard time seeing your views as extreme then, I like to point to a thought exercise. An extreme position is one where there's very little more ideologically extreme than it. So in your case, what's _more_ Left than the classless society you're positing? If there's nothing more extreme than your position, then you're probably at the extreme edge of it.
> Leftism doesn't have a monopoly on the ideas of anti-discrimination.
I know, I'm not disputing that (and appreciate that you point out that affirmative action is a liberal rather than leftist idea, many don't make the distinction).
> Do you have a source for this? This ideal is older than Marx, Rousseau's Social Contract first posits this idea I think.
Yes, the leftist ideal is that of the humanist/liberal (liberty, equality, fraternity): this goes back before Marx to the utopian socialists who established the ideals, where Marx was more interested in historical determinism and developing a science of political economy.
> If you're having a hard time seeing your views as extreme
The left’s key project in contemporary American life is to critique meritocracy. One of the most effective critiques of meritocratic ranking engines is disparate impact. Disparate impact analysis calls for an identity-group-aggregate perspective over a many-individuals perspective. Example:
Proponents of standardized tests emphasize that the grading of each booklet is fair. The multiple choice portion is unambiguous and graded by
machine. The essay portion is graded blind and by several readers with high inter-rather reliability. We are fairly confident that no specific child is writing down the right answers and then getting a bad score because of her race.
Opponents argue that the test score distributions reproduce classic racial hierarchies. Lower scores lead directly to fewer students from marginalized backgrounds attending college, and from there to lower lifetime earnings. Therefore standardized tests are an obvious target for reducing the racial wealth gap.
I think the idea that the tests are racist is stupid and full of liberalism, just like affirmative action: intent on treating the symptoms so they don't have to treat the disease. The root cause of the problem is that black people are still deeply affected by the historical racism that was applied to them (and the racism that still continues, but that's comparatively small compared to slavery, Jim crow redlining etc). Withdrawing hundreds of years of intentional discrimination doesn't balance the scales - you would have to push in the opposite direction to rectify the damage.
I'd be curious to understand what you mean by that. From what I've seen/understood the far left is very intent on categorizing, separating, and forcing "equality" upon.
I mean, you just answered your own question. The far left, and I don't mean just the "American-brand" of it, is very much focused on removing the categorization of individual identity - dismantling the concepts of race, sex, background, belief, nationality, etc. By removing those categories, the aim is to resolve the discrimination inherent in systems that inevitably have some bias towards individuals based on those characteristics, and ultimately make it infeasible to establish a hierarchy of any kind. Paradoxically, in order to do so, the far left must lean heavily into categorization to "remedy" the remnants of injustice that have been levied on groups of people and level the playing field.
There's nothing paradoxical going on here. When people are oppressed via categorization, it's only natural to embrace that categorization to reduce the stigma and turn it into a source of social and/or political power.
It seems to me that the left, idealistically speaking, is intent on removing forced categorization by others. You would be hard pressed find anyone who is trying to remove all individual distinctions, and if you did, that person would be an outlier.
On the contrary, the left, again idealistically, seems to embrace differences, just not those that are imposed and used as a rationale for discrimination.
In my experience, those who go on about "freedom" are usually the most intolerant of individual differences. How about that for irony?
Thats like saying fire departments are obsessed with categorizing houses into 'burning vs not burning' because fire departments require burning houses.
I thought they were against fires? Why are they always asking me if my house is on fire or contains flammable material? If they just stopped bringing it up then the fires would put themselves out.
>Fascism strikes me as the politics of the brain stem.
not surprisingly that German's back then and the today's Russian fascism (which is closer to German Nazism than to Italian fascism) each appeared after a decade of economic and political disorder and were precipitated by a terroristic acts after which tired and scared people happily clang to the promise of order and stability by a "strong hand".
Germany - military defeat and crash of empire, the decade of disorder, the burn of Reichstag leads to Hitler taking total power, a decade of tightening of all political screws and huge nationalistic "master race" propaganda, directly appealing to the brain stem and thus supported by population, culminate in genocidal (wrt. Jews and Slavic) war.
Russia - military defeat (Cold War and Afghanistan) and crash of empire, the decade of disorder, the multiple apartment building by FSB in September of 1999 leads to Putin taking total power, 2 decades of tightening of all political screws and huge nationalistic "master nation" ("Great Russia chauvinism") propaganda, the same way directly appealing to the brain stem and thus supported by population, culminate in the genocidal war against Ukrainians (UN genocide definition https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml). If history is any guide there is no other end here except like in WWII - the coalition should take over Russia and completely denazify and demilitarize it like it was done to Germany. Such profound war loss and failure of society and the following rework of country and society is what gets to the population's brain stem. Just beating the military like in WWI isn't enough as it only excites that basic instinct of tribal nationalism.
In some ways Russia already overshot the Nazi Germany, think about it if Germans in WWII would bomb german speaking austrian cities; this is what we are seeing from Russian military today.
Putin want's Kyiv because it's like Jerusalem for him and his crusaders
>> Patriarch Kirill of Moscow declared concerning the religious relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and Ukraine: "Ukraine is not on the periphery of our church. We call Kiev 'the mother of all Russian cities.' For us Kiev is what Jerusalem is for many. Russian Orthodoxy began there, so under no circumstances can we abandon this historical and spiritual relationship.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_world#Politicization
Unfortunately we'll be seeing Put'in not wanting to put'out of Ukraine for a long time
Ideas are the shackles of the neuro-facists (superior intelligence should get away with all things) for the stupid. To not accept any concept or idea, but that of power, could be interpreted as resistance to a eternally explained away opening scissor of redistributed wealth in a society.
Take also the tendency of intelligence to produce ever less scientific break-troughs producing surplus for all and ever more parasitism (Encapsulating companies predating on established industries), a not "hackable" aka anti-intellectual resistance might be all that remains.
Parasitism is also a large "topic" in fascism, be it redistributing parasitism (left bureaucracy), lawful parasitism ( citizens exploited by law-constellations) or
plain anti-semitism, which todays miracolously onaires escaped - for now.
Cough* social engineering cough for the rescue.
Another large topic is "walling off" against the "stranger". As the unlearned are in a much harsher competition against the other unlearned, a walled of society to reduce that competition is preferred.
Also a recurring topic, is past injustice, which justifies current and future injustices, perpetrated. It really is just a falling apart of any semblance of intellectual problem solving, into a tribal mindset, taken for a ride by a miserable counter-elite.
I think it was extremely modernist, personally. The narrative, grandeur and mystical destiny make it more modernist than post-modernist. Like a lot of the late 19th/early 20th century ideologies, civilization was inevitably and imminently heading towards the eschaton. Society had to be reformed and restructured to bring about this glorious material utopia.
It’s definitely about feelings and aesthetics, rather than economic or rational concerns though. You saw similar constructions in fringe communist regimes (Romania, North Korea)
IMO Nietzsche was proto-Pomo and Heidegger was definitely even closer, the latter being coterminous with classical fascism (and an initially enthusiastic card carrying member of that German party) in addition to being somewhat rehabilitated by Satre after the war.
What a ridiculous rewriting of history. Fascism has a huge body of work starting most famously with Giovanni Gentile, the father of fascism, and then going back through many italian philosophers like Mazzini, Rosmini, Gioberti, Spaventa and ultimately leading back to Hegel and Karl Marx.
I've found that whenever someone says "no one understands why this happened", it is usually because everyone understands why it happened and they just don't like the answer for ideological reasons.
I’d recommend Anatomy of Fascism, also by Robert Paxton. Paxton’s work is fastinating and a little scary.
He treats Fascism as a historical movement, not an set of ideas.
It’s scary because it shows that rigorous study of historical Fascism hasn’t really happened. It’s been too colored by the WWII propaganda.
For example, fascism was implemented very differently in different countries.
Pre-Anschluss’s Austrian fascism was very very different from German Nazism.
Mussolini didn’t implement any anti-Semitic legislation until after making an alliance with Hitler (12 years of Fascist rule with no anti-semitism).
Fasicists in Portugal (Salozaro) became increasingly moderate. They split strongly from international Fascism (Mussolini), condemned the name “fascism” while claiming to be a “nationalist third way between capitalism and and socialism.” No real elections. Was a very pro-Allied neutral in WWII. Became a founding member of NATO and stayed in power until the 1960s.
He doesn’t feel obligated to follow the safe “Hitler is bad, Hitler was bad, Hitler was a Fascist, therefore Fascists are bad” syllogism that we find so safe.
He asks hard questions like “how much do Mussolini in 1921, Hitler in 1939, and Hungarian Fascism from 1935 really have in common?”
He really pissed people off when he pointed out that the Vichy Regime in France was an independent, preoccupation movement, and not merely “German occupation.”
> He really pissed people off when he pointed out that the Vichy Regime in France was an independent, preoccupation movement, and not merely “German occupation.”
> Not what the French want to hear.
The pre-war French far-right, which could be associated to the broader fascist trend, had very little to do with what the Vichy governement ended up being a few years down the line. You could argue the Vichy regime was a genuine artifact of French politics in 1940, but not in 1942.
> On the contrary, fascist movements despise coherent philosophies.
Because it isn't a philosophy but rather a defensive reaction against the liberal democratic empire on one side and the communist/marxist empire on the other side. It's pretty much nationalism that rose up in europe to prevent smaller nations from being gobbled up by either the american or soviet empires. It's just easier to malign it as fascism rather than nationalism because most people are nationalists. It's also why we hate fascists in america and the soviets hated fascists. Because nationalists/fascists were against both.
Fascism wasn't defined by what it is. Fascism was defined by what it didn't want to become. What it didn't want to be slave to.
Fascism does have a body of works. The inventors, Giovanni Gentile and Benito Mussolini, were quite proud of themselves and their creation. They wrote and spoke a great deal about it.
The idea that there is no explanation for Fascism and that it's some inexplicable mystery is gaslighting from Socialists who don't want anyone to understand that such an obvious evil is, actually, the true face of their ideology.
>"The puppet master of them was the classic capitalism that deeply fear a thing: socialism. Those regimes ware created just to stop socialism, for the sake of big capitals"
I think this is a sorely misguided view, and if we had the ability to pull a Nazi, Hitler included, directly from the 30s/40s, they would disagree with this
Just try reading IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation by Edwin Black or if you can read french "Libres d'obéir: Le management, du nazisme à aujourd'hui" by Johann Chapoutot to start.
Just to pick the first I've read recently. The history not cherry-picked say a thing: when nazism and fascism born their idea was common in all western countries from their élites to some not-so-small cohort of their populations. Just like today's populism.
BTW, yes Stalin (one who took money from UK Crown, with the excuse of reliefs for Ukraine famine, via some formal "NGOs" ante-litteram) have signed an agreement with the nazi, but only after he understand that the western countries will never be partners. And future development have proved he have had good points, just read about "Operation Unthinkable" and "Operation Dropshot"...
> Just try reading IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance Between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporati
That's a well know fact.
It is also a well know fact that USA went to the Moon thanks to a nazi high ranking member, Wernher Von Braun.
Of course the west was aligned with the "WASP" west and not with the "commie" Russia, just like today: we side with Ukraine and not with Putin's Russia mainly because we wanna keep the western propaganda on "democracy and freedom and the best lifestyle ever" alive and kicking, not because we really believe that we share the same values in the end.
And because if we don't, the World will say that we're helping Putin.
Same thing happened in 1939, but reversed.
Everyone was afraid of being infected by the "communist revolution", not only the politicians, but the public opinion too!
It was a people's choice too, that lasted 70 years and still nowadays you can hear people saying that "x is bad because it's chinese and chinese are communists, so they must be bad!".
It's the tragedy of tribalism: us and them, good vs evil, that kind of propaganda that we still endure today!
> have signed an agreement with the nazi, but only after he understand that the western countries will never be partners.
I love Stalin's mustache like everybody else, but history is history: Stalin actually helped the nazis, they didn't simply sign an agreement, with that pact they encouraged Hitler to invade Poland, since there was no more opposition on the east: Germany took the most of it, Stalin invaded the eastern part.
Also they gave ton of raw materials to Germany, for example they contributed a lot to "Operation Barbarossa".
> history is history: Stalin actually helped the nazis
Yes, history is history: stalin was a dictator, probably the murderer of Lenin (witch was a dictator too, but at least with far less blood in his hands) BUT stalin help the nazi only to protect Soviet Union, because he know he can't sustain a war having just emerged from a nth turn of civil wars AND he understand the the rest of the west will not help him. He first propose to stop hitler but UK say "no, just wait, he only invade a bit of nearby countries for good reasons", they keep waiting, they send diplomats without any decision power to Russia etc. hitler on contrary have sent a plenipotentiary and sign a clear agreement. That's is.
Just like today China: Russian was no friends of Germans like we are no friends of China but we need a reliable partner, at that time the nazi was ones, these days China is one.
Oh, BTW the propaganda stating Russian bear rape a democratic country can't be swallowed by anyone who just read news: we all know that Ukrainian gov was as "democratic" as Xi or Putin and is a puppet regime planted by the west, the west who actually have financed, formed and armed local nazis to keep up the eastward expansion of NATO keeping the EU away from a partnership with Russia. At that point for us EU Citizens our own government are responsible for high treason just because they made choices for USA and UK interests against our own interests and they have financed and armed as well nazis, witch is a crime in most EU after WWII...
There is no tribalism, it's just a game of interest, BUT one thing is the interest of their own country another is the interest of a foreign one.
> BUT stalin help the nazi only to protect Soviet Union
At least he fought them and won.
What excuses have French for Vichy "Republic"?
> the west who actually have financed, formed and armed local nazis to keep up the eastward expansion of NATO
I've never been in favor of the expansion to the east of EU, imagine what I think of NATO expansion...
And not because I don't like people from east Europe, but because we all know too well what happens when you finance "freedom fighters" against your enemy: they become the Saddam Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the contras and the Talibans.
No "excuse", Philippe Pétain have simply understood that war for France was lost and he choose the Germans because they were less oppressive than the Brits the France gov. choose. Actually at first he was right. He imagin Germans from WWI not nazis, of course, but history tell a thing: German nazis was no more "nazi" than neoliberals who win them. Oh and I say that from a socialist point of view, read that last sentence three time.
A thing I learn from the history is that some regimes start with good ideas, but they end very badly, some other prefer "less good" ideas and sometimes they land less badly. What I still miss is how Democracy can born. And that's a big issue for me...
> we all know that Ukrainian gov was as "democratic" as Xi or Putin and is a puppet regime planted by the west
What? Putin assassinates and jails many of his critics and journalists, holds fraudulent elections, maintains strict control of the press in peacetime, places barriers to protest that in effect make it difficult to impossible, and has no respect for term limits. He's an autocrat turning into a despot. How in any way does that compare to Ukraine? Ukraine's leader wasn't that popular until the invasion but he still won an election in a landslide.
Actual Ukrainian gov. since at least 2014 coup commit a slow genocide on it's own Russian-speaking part of population, around 30% or so. Just now they decide to ban all other parties and force all broadcasts to spread just government propaganda.
At least putin have killed single individuals who are against him, nothing new under the Sun, but so far he do not commit any genocide against it's own people. So fat he finance some nazis, and mercenaries of similar kind (Wagner), but fur less than NATO-armed, trained and financed Azov, Pravy Sektor, C14 et al. and for the mercenaries nothing different than Blackwater and co.
In purely political criminality terms putin is a criminal like Biden, Trump or Jonson, with a difference: so far he have killed FAR less then them around the world. Try to be honest, looking at raw news behind propaganda.
The 2014 revolution (not coup in the classic sense) followed by the recent non-rigged (unlike in Russia) democratic election in which the current leader was elected in a landslide of popular support.
> commit a slow genocide on it's own Russian-speaking part of population, around 30% or so
Source? I am aware of one warcrime most likely committed by Ukraine-aligned troops (potentially Azov) in the Donbas that were pointed out by Human Rights Watch. They killed like 15 civilians in criminal shelling. Haven't seen evidence that would amount towards the claim of genocide, which is a high bar.
> Just now they decide to ban all other parties
That's false. They didn't ban all other parties. They banned 11 minority parties that constituted about 10% of the seats which had ties to the country that is currently invading them. Some far-right ones (which get like 2% of the vote) and mostly far-left ones. If Russia hadn't invaded, guess what, this wouldn't have happened.
> force all broadcasts to spread just government propaganda.
You mean forced to spread government information? That's correct. They are being invaded by Russia and so they invoked these kind of martial law measures which would be concerning in any other context. The root cause of martial law in Ukraine is the Russian invasion. If you have a problem with martial law in Ukraine, then blame the country that is invading Ukraine.
> At least putin have killed single individuals who are against him, nothing new under the Sun
Actually, it's not normal to kill domestic political opponents and journalists.
> So fat he finance some nazis, and mercenaries of similar kind (Wagner), but fur less than NATO-armed, trained and financed Azov, Pravy Sektor, C14 et al. and for the mercenaries nothing different than Blackwater and co.
The head of Wagner is an actual Nazi, with SS tattoos on his neck. Putin sent this literal Nazi's henchmen into Ukraine under the guise of 'denazification'.
I will admit that the Nazis in Azov are a huge problem, but if you were a small country that had to defend against Russian aggression, you can't afford to pick and choose who's going to help defend your country. Empirical proof: Azov is proving hugely useful in delaying the Russian invasion in Mariupol. If they have kicked Azov out, Mariupol may have already fallen. Again - the root problem here is Russian aggression. If Russia wasn't a threat, they wouldn't have to resort to desperate measures like this. If you don't like Azov, then blame Russia, because without Russia, Ukraine wouldn't have any need of Azov.
> In purely political criminality terms putin is a criminal like Biden, Trump or Jonson
No. Biden et al are not ultranationalist despots who murder their political opponents, rig elections, ban free speech, and invade democracies.
> The 2014 revolution (not coup) followed by the recent non-rigged (unlike in Russia) democratic election
I'm sorry, but I know few Ukrainians, certainly not enough to compute statistics but enough to have some local insights, 2014 "revolution" was a coup, pushed by NATO and you can find few infos in our press btw [1], interesting the SOLE "democratic" in the sense that NO ONE in the world, USA included, state otherwise was the original referendum to separate DPR and LPR from Ukraine witch al the west say "the vote is invalid because Ukraine constitution do not support secession" but NO ONE say was rigged and 90+% votes for being a new Republic.
> Source? I am aware of one warcrime most likely committed by Ukraine-aligned troops (potentially Azov) in the Donbas that were pointed out by Human Rights Watch.
Just read about the aforementioned coup: did you think some Russians decide a day in 2014 to indict a referendum just to do something in the afternoon?
Of course western resources are scarce, but something is easy to find
> That's false. They didn't ban all other parties. They banned 11 minority parties
So "minor" that they represent around the totality of non-nazi parties... Curiously mostly on the left (you might not know but putin in Russia is considered from the right, the left oppose it, far more than some local nazis depicted as heroes in the west like Navalny...
> You mean forced to spread government information?
Surely government call that information, others call that narrative... Do remember that ALL dictators do not say they are dictators...
> The head of Wagner is an actual Nazi, with SS tattoos on his neck.
No doubt, and I'm pretty sure it's colleagues from Blackwater have similar tattoos...
> No. Biden et al are not ultranationalist despots who murder their political opponents, rig elections, ban free speech, and invade democracies.
Surely not, they are just criminals against humanity who push for various war crimes (do you remember Biden position about Belgrade bombing? About Iraq war, based on officially recognized lies?) and others crimes... Actually they have indirectly murdered probably far more people than putin. On banning free speech... Did you see our media? With some PRIVATE COMPANIES that ban peoples who say "non aligned" statements including for instance a facebook ban to the British Medical Journal "for covid misinformation"? The direct ban to Russian's media "they are source of fake news" etc? That's have a name: censorship. In free countries even media who push fake news have the right to do so. In the west apparently the actual censorship is not much differen...
You've provided no evidence for this. Either provide some evidence, or stop calling it a coup. Your [1] is about the US providing support to Ukraine against a Russian invasion after the revolution.
EDIT: I just saw you posted more than one link, sorry about that. I was already aware of Nuland's leaked call where they're talking about who they want to replace Yanukovych. So? Of course they're going to have such a discussion in the middle of a revolution where someone is about to be ousted and they have relationships with existing people. Regarding the comments of the Estonian FM. Not close to evidence of a coup, or even suggestive. What would Estonia know of a covert CIA plot? This was just that person's opinion. Nobody knew about the Iranian coup outside of the US and Britain, for example. These things are kept under wraps. If Germany's FM was found to have said "it's not a coup", would this journalist have written about it? No.
> original referendum to separate DPR and LPR from Ukraine witch al the west say "the vote is invalid because Ukraine constitution do not support secession" but NO ONE say was rigged and 90+% votes for being a new Republic.
Actually there are allegations that it was rigged, not to mention the unconstitutional part.
> Of course western resources are scarce, but something is easy to find
Thank you for these resources. These are very concerning and disgusting people/actions. But it isn't genocide (that's a fairly high bar) and it isn't evidence of neo-nazism in Ukrainian leadership. As I said, Russia has a much bigger neo-fascism problem than Ukraine does. Both in general society (according to polls) and the fact that Putin himself is a literal fascist.
> So "minor" that they represent around the totality of non-nazi parties
This is yet another false statement on this topic. You're implying here that 90% of the seats are held by neo-Nazis, which is ridiculous. You also ignore the fact that some far-right parties were banned. And you ignore the fact that the root cause is Putin's invasion.
> No doubt, and I'm pretty sure it's colleagues from Blackwater have similar tattoos...
So you admit that Putin is sending in neo-Nazis to 'denazify' Ukraine.
> Surely not, they are just criminals against humanity who push for various war crimes (do you remember Biden position about Belgrade bombing? About Iraq war, based on officially recognized lies?)
You discredit yourself by thinking that Iraq is equivalent to Ukraine. Iraq was heinous, but invading in order to depose a totalitarian and cruel and widely hated dictator is not the same thing as invading to destroy a democracy, impose dictatorship, and intentionally shell civilians in near-genocidal fashion. You won't find a defender of Iraq in me, but it's a deeply misguided comparison and part of Russia's propaganda. Anyway; the history of US imperialism is fairly irrelevant. This is about Ukraine and Russia and what's happening now.
> With some PRIVATE COMPANIES that ban peoples who say "non aligned" statements
Why are you trying to compare a despot who jails or kills people for saying the wrong thing with private companies censoring stuff. In Russia, people go to jail. In the US, people go to rumble.com. Big difference. Anyway, it's irrelevant.
> Any country have a bloody story, that's nothing new
Am I defending bloody empires from 100 years ago? No. It's irrelevant. Don't bring it up. We are talking about Ukraine and Russia. Russia is an expansionist fascist dictatorship in the year 2022. I am not talking about Nazi Germany in 1940 or the British Empire before that.
> You've provided no evidence for this. Either provide some evidence, or stop calling it a coup.
So you fail to provide evidence of the inverse, failing to ask why at a certain point in time Euromaidan protests arise, why they arrive at the famous referendum, who have created before the so called orange (2.0) revolution of the now-forgotten Yulia Tymoshenko and her curious links to similar movement in Georgia, South Ossetia etc curiously following the same "social (networks) pattern (and networks)" of the so called "Arab springs", those results where new dictatorship replacing others, others originally placed by NATO but then grow strong enough to start looking for independencies and third party alliance... Oh but sure Iraq war was not due to the Saddam choice of selling petrol in euros instead of dollars, Libya was not done by France because Gaddafi drawn a path to substitute the CFA (French controlled money mostly used for commerce in large part of Africa) with a local fiat money etc etc etc
Actually colonialism is never ended and we are not born today "in a totally different and completely unconnected from the past manner", history is history so you find various kind of evidence, what's up till now is less easy because there are many interests to avoid publishing of evidences, especially in clear terms for the masses.
> Actually there are allegations that it was rigged, not to mention the unconstitutional part.
Do you have evidence? BTW the "unconstitutional part" it's a classic joke because no Constitution provides for secession, obviously BUT international chat of human right provide the self-determination right and you probably know the history of Ukraine, of the eastern part in particular passed from Russian oblast (subdivision) to Ukrainian oblast as an administrative act all inside the Soviet Union as a mere reorganization. So you might know that actually east Ukrainian are Russians, changed to Soviet citizenship with the II October revolution and than changed to Ukrainian after the URSS collapse, without having changed their language (still Russian, not Ukrainian) nor their alphabet (both language use a Cyrillic alphabet but with a small set of different letters, not much far from the difference between Greek's Cyrillic and Russian's one).
Now you should know the NATO eastward expansion violating post-WWII Yalta agreements from day zero and the obvious series of semi and practical coup NATO orchestrate in eastern Europe to grab a strong power in the region. That's "past" of course, a past still present.
> Thank you for these resources. These are very concerning and disgusting people/actions. But it isn't genocide
Nazi's does not born with mass extermination camps, it took time to build such machines, Ukrainian nazi's are "young" and far less resourceful than original German's one. They have already done the same Turkey have done on Armenians, it's only a matter of time and that's why I call it a Genocide: it's a clear path to it, ongoing.
> This is yet another false statement on this topic. You're implying here that 90% of the seats are held by neo-Nazis
You know well that in modern formal, not substantial, "democracies" few steer the masses, with various legislative and propaganda artifice a small minority rule on the rest. Actually the neo-nazis are a minority, of course, but they rule. Not much differently than Italian or French government that represent probably less than 20% of their Citizens but rule on them all.
> So you admit that Putin is sending in neo-Nazis to 'denazify' Ukraine.
That's nothing to admit: putin is a dictator, but that fact does not imply it's enemy is something different, the the blackbird is black like the crow, that's is.
> You discredit yourself by thinking that Iraq is equivalent to Ukraine. Iraq was heinous, but invading in order to depose a totalitarian ...
It's a coup by definition. According to the Oxford dictionary:
> coup: a sudden, illegal, and often violent change of government
Maybe it wasn't sudden (if we consider the protests lasted several months), but it was definitely violent and illegal. I don't think I have to provide evidence of the violence. As for the "illegal" part: the government was democratically elected (so it was "legal"), and the vote in the parliament to depose Yanukovich was uncostitutional, as it required a 3/4 majority (338 votes) and only 328 people voted in favor.
Ukrainian forces have been shelling civilian areas in Donetsk and Lugansk for the past eight years killing over 14,000 men, women, and children. This isn’t even disputed in the Western press, it’s just not talked about so people like you stay confused and ignorant.
No. Stalin signed an agreement with Hitler because he wanted different capitalist countries to go to war in order to create the conditions for revolution. That was his doctrine.
You are conflating the alignment based on a subset of shared goals with shared origins. Capitalists supported "some" of the things early Nazi Germany was doing, that doesn't mean the Nazi purpose was to combat socialism (although, if combatting socialism furthered their other goals, then they wasted no time in doing that)
2) This has nothing to do with capitalism. The reason Britain didn't form a coalition with the USSR was because they were petrified of getting Stalin's troops out of central Europe after a war. And for good reason given who Stalin was. So they wrongly chose appeasement in the hope that Hitler wouldn't do more. A big mistake, but one you can sympathize with to at least some small extent, and it'd be disingenuous to try to link it to capitalism somehow.
You might be Italian, yet you fail to mention any notable Italian family name, but I am Italian for real and this sentence
> Italy loose it's status of II grade European power, now reduced to a corruptocracy mostly controlled by anglophone neoliberals and local criminals
doesn't make any sense at all.
Historically, for starters.
Your "essay" read mostly like some truth (capitalism in Italy sided with fascism because, at laest at the beginning, their interests were aligned - for example they both hated worker unions and both feared the Bolshevik Revolution), but coated in zeitgeit-ism (sorry for the bad neologism)
Also the XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party that took place in 1921 in Livorno ended up with the split between socialists and communists in Italy, something that did not really help the socialist cause in Italy.
You produced what we call "populism" nowadays, even if yours seems like coming from the left, it's still populism.
If you are really Italian, you probably voted for the five star movement, which means you are (big) part of the problem, not of the solution.
> You might be Italian, yet you fail to mention any notable Italian family name
The first name is Agnelli, the ones who say being fascist in Rome and socialist in Turin, Pirelli, FIMM (Magneti Marelli), Piaggio just to name few that still exists today.
> If you are really Italian, you probably voted for the five star movement
I'm Italian, and no I do not voted M5S because coming from a Partisans family I was trained to recognize fascism. The original PNF and it's successors (I might know "Partito dell'Uomo Qualunque" for instance) have started as the 5S, apparently a left-ish, young and innovating party, but in reality a PR engine to elicit consent. If you know Italian history a bit you might know that Giorgio Bocca (one of the famous Partisans commander) when young was one who took PNF card with just two digit number, he learn after. The same have happened in Germany, original nazism appear as a kind of "moderated socialism".
Actually in Italy there is exactly ZERO party I can vote, and exactly no left parties. The most left-ish read that three time are Fratelli d'Italia (YES, I'm not joking) and Lega, of course not because their are really left-ish, they are actually fascist, but they present themselves to the masses with left-wing ideas speech and that's why they grab consensus from "poor" working classes replacing historical PC-derived parties like PD witch it's correct name should be Partito Democristiano not Partito Democratico.
I suggest a relatively modern song from what it left from the real political left: https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?lang=it&id=61641 perhaps together with https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?lang=it&id=219 and a small history of how songs from Resistenza have been pushed into oblivion substituting them with Bella Ciao almost no one have chanted except perhaps some small white militia in Tuscany or why in France famous song like "Le déserteur" changing the last part from
Prévenez vos gendarmes
Que j'emporte des armes
Et que je sais tirer
to
Que je n'aurai pas d'armes
Et qu'ils pourront tirer
just to give few examples of the slow push toward a new dictatorial society.
When you reach a certain amount of power your horizon grow accordingly. Neoliberals do not sell "anything" anymore, those were the classic liberals, those who create two world war and 30+ years wars in '800. Their successors have evolved. They change schools, to form puppets instead of citizens, they change the society at a slow peace to lay the foundation of a new dictatorship, they'll became "the platform" of the society, the sole who detain knowledge, the sole who have factories etc.
Voting these days is just a show, starting from the Condorcet paradox we are now at a point that thanks to media alignment and propaganda all visible candidates are equally puppet formally different but effectively maneuvered by the same master.
For a certain amount of time people was kept quiet with high growth, so people see improvements, is entertained and so "happy". When scarcity arrive such system break, a war is needed, catastrophes are needed, something big enough to justify the new messy state of things. But pushing to war and action an aging population grown to be just spectators from the sofa is difficult. So there is a need of "new citizens", young and obedient, that's the purpose of social score, of smart cities.
> The first name is Agnelli, the ones who say being fascist in Rome and socialist in Turin, Pirelli, FIMM (Magneti Marelli), Piaggio just to name few that still exists today.
Do you mean Elkann? :D :D :D
Agnelli (I guess you mean Giovanni Agnelli, or "L'avvocato") also financed this
Agnelli is simply the most popular scapegoat among Italian zeitgeist-ers, but only the older ones, who actually grew up with their parents telling them that he was the source of anyone problems, so I guess you're in your 50s and agree with Wu Ming because you think they are "real leftists"...
> Actually in Italy there is exactly ZERO party I can vote, and exactly no left parties
CVD: the man criticizing "l'uomo qualunque" (the average Joe) is the one expressing an average Joe's opinion.
I am from a partisan family as well, all my family was communist and fought for the freedom of Italy from nazi-fascism, but the problem today on "our" side is exactly the nostalgic leftist, that person that between Ukraine and Russia shouts "take Italy out of NATO"
> The same have happened in Germany, original nazism appear as a kind of "moderated socialism"
It always start with this giant lie with people like you...
I know where you come from, don't even try, it doesn't work with me.
> The most left-ish read that three time are Fratelli d'Italia
And here it is the "I was trained to recognize fascism" that goes out of the window!
I'm not even curious to hear why, because I know very well why.
Unfortunately...
> be Partito Democristiano not Partito Democratico
as I've said: you're part of the problem, not of the solution.
You might as well voted for five stars, as the saying goes "if it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck"
> Prévenez vos gendarmes
Sorry, I am born and raised Roman, I don't take lessons from those that tried too many times to destroy my city (and Italian lives with it), I side with the busts of Gianicolo, not with the heirs of napoleon, who let his troops stable their horses in the refectory were the Leonardo's "Last Supper" is, ruining it forever that then colonized Africa and lately put Libya in jeopardy just to put their hands on Italian ENI gas infrastructure over there...
You know what's really funny?
That the Umberto Eco's essay on the UR-fascism (that should be the topic of this post) is about exactly people like you.
And about the reasons why fascism and nazism went to power, which is not to fight socialism.
If you read it before jumping to the comment section, you'd know it.
> 13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say.
In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a
political impact only from a quantitative point of view – one follows the decisions of the
majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the
People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since
no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be
their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only
called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To
have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in
Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in
which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and
accepted as the Voice of the People.
Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary
governments. One of the ...
The time I was talking about Elkann was not born... And original Agnelli was not really "a scapegoat" but a classic neoliberals ante-litteram, a person who follow only it's own interest (normal) going against other interests (not exactly normal, in moral terms) without a direct confrontation, one who prefer people's "transitive suicide" with some brick attached under a London bridge than a direct confrontation. BTW in the archives there is a historical recipe of a generous donation to the young PNF.
> CVD: the man criticizing "l'uomo qualunque" (the average Joe) is the one expressing an average Joe's opinion.
I think I was misunderstood the "Partito dell'Uomo Qualunque" (average Joe party) was a real political party from '44 to '48, a kind of 5S ante-litteram presented itself as a "neutral" party, not from left not from right, while actually follow a fascist agenda in disguise. Their members have mostly merged in DC (Democrazia Cristiana), they are the kind like those of Padre Bianco hymn https://www.cattoliciromani.com/threads/18409-Inno-cattolico... just to tell you who they are.
> And here it is the "I was trained to recognize fascism" that goes out of the window!
Again or my English is too bad or you misunderstood: if you wipe out any knowledge of who they are and just listen to current narrative from meloni, salvini you might think they are from the left. While if you hear draghi, conte etc you (rightly) think they are from the right. Of course I know they are fascist, but many do not know that. That's why they hyper-climb in polls "the average Joe", the real one, just listening to today's headlines feel them as "left".
> I don't take lessons from those that tried too many times to destroy my city
And that's a classic "average Joe" misunderstanding: you have to decouple French people from French élite. They are far away. Actual French élite is the same of draghi's élite. You do not see your enemy as too many others, thinking the enemy is who march in your direction from the opposite side, while the real enemy march at the head of both armies and to set the war aside we need anyone to eliminate their own heads.
> in Italy everybody is corrupt, only a few anglophones and criminal family matters
Did you remember Portella della Ginestra, Piazza Fontana, Moro, ... ?
> ... And original Agnelli was not really "a scapegoat" but a classic neoliberals ante-litteram
You know nothing John Snow
He was a member of what we call "borghesia"
It has nothing to do with neo-liberism (which is neo liberalism in English), mainly because neo-liberalism is simply a repetition of 19th century free market theories. Just like neoclassicism is not new, is the old being new again.
> BTW in the archives there is a historical recipe of a generous donation to the young PNF.
This is soooooo boring that it's not even funny anymore.
Imagine that right now in our parliament there is a populist party that took 35% of the votes in free elections and another 30% was given to literally a neo-fascist anti-government no-taxation party: Lega per Salvini.
Does it mean that 65% of the Italians are populist fascists?
Or that that kind of propaganda always works because people are like you: they are so attached to the past that always dream of the best, which is in the past.
But the best is enemy of the good.
> Again or my English is too bad or you misunderstood
You said what you said.
Own it.
> (average Joe party) was a real political party from '44 to '48,
No kidding!
Thanks for the primary school history lesson.
The point is you are the average Joe's partisan today.
How does it feel to be one and not even recognize it?
> you have to decouple French people from French élite
You have to decouple Italians from their elites then.
But Italians never had a Vichy, they were fascists or they fought fascists.
They were never in the middle.
> is the same of draghi's élite
I knew it.
Draghi is a professional, one with skills, like it or not he deserve his place.
The question you should ask yourself is: why in 2022 you are mad at an old man, while you haven't achieved anything in your life?
> Did you remember Portella della Ginestra, Piazza Fontana, Moro, ... ?
terrorists being terrorists, fascists being fascists, doesn't mean they won.
Well, you actually state that, for instance George Soros is a member of the modern bourgeoisie... While to a certain extent, in fuzzy-logic can be true it's actually false, bourgeoisie is "middle class", the Agnelli's were and still are between the topmost rich of the country.
> It has nothing to do with neo-liberism (which is neo liberalism in English), mainly because neo-liberalism is simply a repetition of 19th century free market theories.
Again that's almost entirely false neoliberals choose not to have fixed positions, they consider money and power the sole thing that govern the world etc, Agnelli was one of them. Like most of fascism financiers and as most of them they keep a careful position to not appear much attached to it.
> Imagine that right now in our parliament there is a populist party that took 35%
If you know actual electoral law you know that the Parliament no longer represent votes, due to absurdly majority prize and the fact that actual government by-pass the Parliament all days. Actually Italy is governed by a McKinsey puppet regime, not by a democratically elected parliament. PNRR was an act of economic war the local puppet in charge (Draghi) choose exactly to ensure the debt grip on the country and that have only a name: high treason. Italian formal government is actually a coup government against Italian Republic and Constitution. Not differently, actually, then the first PNF government.
> Does it mean that 65% of the Italians are populist fascists?
Thanks to propaganda in many time of the history yes. Even more than 65%, because as Le Bon and Bernays describe well most people blindly follow leaders without reasoning.
> You said what you said.
And I've actually tried to tell you politely that you do not understand, I do not know if that's due to my poor English or to a deliberate cherry picking to sustain a political position but that's is...
> The point is you are the average Joe's partisan today.
It's curious because I never have had nor I have such ideas.
> But Italians never had a Vichy
Oh, so the infamous Republic of Salò was what? At least Vichy regime have had some good points when it born: at that time France government have committed treason proposing to give France to UK in exchange of help and Philippe Pétain who have seen and confront both UK army and German army rightly choose that in absence of option Germans would be less oppressive for France than UK. He know from WWI that Germans were far more "democratic" than Brits, their officers eat with their troops, they tend to be far more humans each others. Of course since Kaiser things have changed "a bit", but that's is. Salò on contrary have absolutely no justification. Mussolini was paid by UK Crown to switch from being a pacifist and socialist to a interventionist pushing toward war and dictatorship. Also we know that it's highly likely he was killed following UK intelligence orders to avoid he can talk once in Swiss.
> You have to decouple Italians from their elites then.
And I do. I know well that WWII partisans was a little minority and even counting last-minutes GAP and SAP they were almost just few people mostly concentrated in the north-west of the country. I know many act of treason inside Resistenza starting from the exclusion of CLN Alta Italia proposal to keep arms and positions telling "allies" they can choose to respect Italian sovereignty or face a double-enemy front they clearly can't sustain at macro level to episodes at micro-levels like the killing of Aldo Gastaldi (Bisagno) formally "an accident", another one.
> Draghi is a professional, one with skills, like it or not he deserve his place.
Professional of what? Thief? Can you try to depict what Draghi government do for Italy? Actually I only have a LONG list of crimes. here you have some examples zozbot234↗
"Stop socialism"? Crony capitalism is just socialism that happens to benefit a corrupt elite. (Most real-world socialism, historically, was not very different. Even "socialism with Scandinavian characteristics" - quite popular among some in the present-day U.S. - owes much of its success to the way it enables a smoothly functioning market to provide consistently good outcomes.)
While I think Eco is generally a muddled thinker with moments of profound lucidity, I really don't think we're ever going to separate fascism from being a euphemism for evil, and Eco's essay elevated it from the woo of theology to something secular critics can tilt at. There's not much to defend about it, it's that the quality of interpretation and criticism of it is never more than an arbitrary litany of its sins. (though he gave it a more than fair treatment before deconstructing it)
He's accurate that Mussolini's fascism was something different from Nazi'ism (which just adopted and co-opted the italian aestheitcs, directly), but it was more of a kind of secular anti-clerical republicanism but with all the awe of divinely appointed monarchs.
The crux of fascism was the unity of corporate and state power together - where Eco takes it in a few other directions, which I think its disingenuous to de-emphasize this core property of it, because I think he's also an elitist who would be glad to have the reins of a unified corporate state. He's freighted an obsolete political system with the countercases to his own ideology and branded it evil. I was going to suggest Eco should have stuck to fiction, but in this case he has.
It was a peculiar reactionary artifact of the nation state, which itself is a modern(ist) post-enlightenment phenomenon as monarchies gave way to republics. It's different from totalitarianism (as Eco notes) in that Mussolini, Franco, and Salazar lacked the imperialist and colonial urges that would define totalitarian movements of Hitler and Stalin (even though the latter two inherited colonial territories). Post war, the word fascism became just a secular version of evil as defined by largely marxist/socialist thinkers, and fascist has become a kind of a catch-all slur against those who assert people should be accountable to principles.
It didn't really matter before, as there was nothing to defend about its vague and myriad definitions, and the people who spat the word fascist at others didn't have enough control of institutions for anyone to care what they meant by it. Today, that it is a euphemism for Evil matters because the people wielding it now are still only as sophisticated as a mob of superstitious villagers, but its nebulous definition has come to envelop some things I think regular people actually value, and instead of Evil being presented as witchcraft, it's wrapped in layers of critical theory, but the mob mentality is just the same. Fascism doesn't have much going for it today as it was a moment of 19th century nation states adopting 20th century technology, but I'd say the people indexed on it now are just as much of a mob as they ever were, and whatever they dress it up in, they're the same people, still just hunting witches.
OP is a great article but I regret upvoting it, because the discussion is full of stale political tropes and the blaming of The Other Side. If I have time later, I’ll go through and downvote every comment, including my own.
Umberto Eco was one of the writers/thinkers whose 'profound truths' later surprisingly turned into quite revolting revelations. One of those whom I cannot trust at all.
Indeed, and you're right, it deflates the "italian fascists were nationalists and not totalitarians," argument to a great extent. The rationale I think for separating them was the pretext of dubious historical claims to Albania via the "Roman" empire, vs. the global dominion aims of hitler and stalin - but even then, that argument is mainly in service of reinforcing the overarching idea of totalitarianism being a new, coherent, and unique 20th cen ideology and phenomenon, and maybe not as a complete read of the history.
There is an argument to be made that totalitarianism itself wasn't new or notable or is even a coherent thing that can't be shown to have manifested in pretty much every other imperial effort. I've got ideas about some of its other sufficient conditions that still preserve it as a unique effect and form, and as far as an intellectual renaming of Evil goes, tot'ism is pretty close to what critics of fascism come up with as well. Some of these things only exist at a certain level of abstraction and then dissolve under further scrutiny.
In case it isn't clear, this article is not someone who was there talking about the history of fascism. There are plenty of history books for that. The whole point of this article is to give a different perspective on fascism and to rewrite history in a new and original way that just so happens to be more convenient to them.
This whole thing can be summarized simply as "Everything I dislike is fascism, even things that have absolutely nothing to do with fascism, and everything that actually is fascism and has a lot in common with my ideology, wasn't really fascism, and certainly wasn't socialism, even though they all called themselves Marxists"
or to quote the article specifically:
>The article on fascism signed by Mussolini in the Treccani Encyclopedia was written or basically inspired by Giovanni Gentile, but it reflected a late-Hegelian notion of the Absolute and Ethical State which was never fully realized by Mussolini
in other words, sure it was developed by Marxists (Giovanni Gentile, and everyone else behind fascism were all Marxists philosopher), but it "wasn't real socialism". It is exactly the same "not real socialism" that all defenders of socialism always use when their ideology goes down the drain.
Payne has written several books on the history of fascism and Francoist Spain. I find his approach to analyzing fascism more systematic and thorough than Paxton's.
> There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.
I can't help but feel too old for this piece post-Trump. Eco succeeds in helping us identify fascism, but this is not the problem.
The story of Eco's friendship with African American soldiers is odd to me. Eco sees them as cultured human beings who brought freedom to Italy. And yet he neglects to bring up the racial unfreedom they faced at home, including their future exclusion from the GI Bill. Is this irrelevant because the US is not strictly fascist?
I mean to say we should not ignore the real psychological and economic forces that fascism is composed of. Eco touches on these forces. But it's not enough to stop at classifying whether a state is fascist or not. The forces that compose fascism are always present in liberal democracy, even if they don't crystallize into a mass movement.
What's most disturbing is that the German and Italian masses were not tricked: they desired fascism (even if it was against their material interests). Infantilizing the masses gets us nowhere in our understanding. [1]
I may be critical, but this is still a great piece from Eco. It's full of insights about fascism, and it succeeds at what it says on the tin.
For further reading I highly recommend Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism
[1] Ripped this paragraph almost word-for-word from Anti-Oedipus
This basically dumps together many non-Whig, non-progressivism ideas as "proto-fascism, including along with some key signs of fasism things that have nothing to do with what made historical fascism bad (which was: leadership cult, corporatism, uber race, antisemitism, german expansionism, etc).
It's also white-washing Stalinism and western colonialism, to which as many (or more) casulaties can be attributed to (and equally nefarious ideologies, the "white man's burden", slavery, gulags for dissidents, etc weren't invented by Hitler), but which were not "conservative" in nature, so they get a pass.
I'd rather we stop using the silly catch-all phrase "fascism" for things that don't have the attributes of historical fascism (which was a specific, time limited, historical movement), and even more so expand it loosely to mean anything and everything that's not pure liberalism.
103 comments
[ 24.4 ms ] story [ 2676 ms ] threadJust to troll a bit-- if you fought too early on the side of the lower-case "other leftists" in, say, Barcelona you may have gotten in a gunfight with a group of communists[1]. Turns out the world is a complex place.
Speaking of which (and continuing to troll)-- anyone know why the lower-case "other leftists" in Barcelona boxed up the photographic evidence of their existence and sent it to the UK instead of the USSR for safekeeping[2]? I mean if the forces against fascism were "Communists, Etcetera" why not send them there?
1: https://medium.com/@umawrnkl/the-anarcho-communist-dream-of-...
2: https://autonomies.org/2019/12/the-lost-images-of-anarchist-...
BTW the photos in your second link are fantastic!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Orwell#Spanish_Civil_Wa...
I really do hope that we eventually grow out of this phase and acknowledge that even the 'good guys' can be evil, we shouldn't need to wait and see a Communist Reich to know that the Leftist version of brownshirts are a bad thing, or wait until actual genocide is happening (or accept/ignore it as a possibility, even) or wait until it has a 1-to-1 mapping with Nazi atrocity to hold those kinds of behavior accountable just because they're not Nazis and they're not actually killing people.
Having looked at 2020, the threat of the United States going in this direction is not coming from some unholy trinity of the ghosts of Stalin, Pol Pot, and Trotsky. As a political idea in the public zeitgheist, it's dead as a parrot. It has no legs.
It's coming from the mainstream right. But since our friendly neighbourhood MAGA rallies aren't actually sieging and heiling, we're all in the 'wait and see how bad it can get the next time they take power' stage.
The critique failed to understand that, I think.
Good grief, how to totally miss the entire point. He’s trying to critique a political deconstruction as though it was entertainment fiction. Didn’t he realise the close parallels are kind of the point, because Orwell was writing a commentary on and illustration of those events and personalities? Introducing random variations would have completely obscured the things he was trying to say. Things Asimov didn’t even notice.
1. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Workingmen%27s_A...
2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anarchism_in_Russia#In_the_Sov...
You are confusing Communism in Western Europe with the communist state of the USSR and its Stalinist doctrine of socialism in one country [3].
The Belgian Marxist economist Ernest Mandel argues in "From Stalinism to Eurocommunism: The Bitter Fruits of 'Socialism in One Country'" that when Soviet Union in 1924 abandoned the goal of overthrowing capitalism around the world lead to development of what later was called Eurocommunism [4], with their democratic way to social reforms.
[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Socialism_in_one_country
[4] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocommunism
They really aren't. The Communists fighting in the Spanish Civil War -- the ones who put their boot down on Orwell's beloved POUM and other Trotskyists -- were honest-to-god Soviets.
But yes, more democratic "Communist" parties did exist in Western Europe later, and there is a large space of "third way" Socialisms and Communisms that are not Stalinist hell.
As an aside, I once met a Spanish Civil War veteran from South Wales. I got the impression that he went to fight the fascists because it was the right thing to do ('If you tolerate this then your children will be next' was a famous slogan that made it into a song), not because of ideological indoctrination. He was a socialist in the British sense, but that should not suggest the slightest parallel with Stalinism
https://www.britannica.com/topic/communism/Stalinism#ref5391...
> "A third feature of Stalinism was the idea of “socialism in one country”—i.e., building up the industrial base and military might of the Soviet Union before exporting revolution abroad. To this end, Stalin rescinded the NEP, began the collectivization of Soviet agriculture, and embarked on a national program of rapid, forced industrialization.
> In foreign policy, socialism in one country meant putting the interests of the Soviet Union ahead of the interests of the international communist movement. After World War II, as Winston Churchill famously remarked, an Iron Curtain descended across Europe as Stalin installed communist regimes in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Albania, and Soviet-occupied East Germany as a buffer zone against an invasion from western Europe.
> Beyond Europe, the Soviet Union supported anticolonial “wars of national liberation” in Asia, Africa, and Latin America and gave economic and military support to communist regimes in North Korea, North Vietnam, and Cuba."
"Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."
"The Ur-Fascist hero is impatient to die. In his impatience, he more frequently sends other people to death."
Sounds like a perfect match for atomics...
So his focus is on development of fascist movements in time.
I wonder if it's kind of a postmodern version of the old school militant theocratic monarchy. Like a theocracy without god, or without a coherent religious doctrine.
I know that postmodernist thought post-dated fascism but the fascist aesthetic strikes me as very postmodern. Ideas are tools for power. Nothing is true, only power.
I'm getting a lot of that from both sides.
I'm also not sure what you mean about leftism being defined by "obsessive generalising". Being somewhat familiar with left wing theory (Marxism, anarchism and postmodernism) I just don't see it - left theories have nothing to do with generalising people and everything to do with understanding socioeconomic systems.
Edit: also intersectional theory is about how different social categories play off each other, ie how being black and trans is different from being white and trans.
On obsessive generalization: You are approaching it from a purely economic perspective. I think it's disingenous to ignore the social goals of leftist theory, which are firmly rooted in removing the class concept entirely - obsessive generalization.
How is the idea of getting rid of class distinction "obsessive generalisation"? Also, the idea of getting rid of class is an explicitly economic issue.
Leftism and intersectionality is all about labelling folks into groups. Each person falls into an intersection of multiple groups (e.g. "African-American" and "presents female") and we can use this to have an understanding of their experience and the oppression that they face. Taken to absurdity, this reduces a person into a bundle of specific labels and doesn't make any distinction between the individual and their labels: well I'm a person of X race assigned Y gender born at Z time with immigrant parents who experienced A, B, and C event and therefore I feel Aleph oppression. The original critique was that, the "obsessive generalization" necessary to equalize the experiences of humanity paradoxically requires an obsessive amount of categorization.
> How is the idea of getting rid of class distinction "obsessive generalisation"?
There are many political philosophies that believe that some amount of class distinction is inherent to humanity. One can create a reductive 1D projection of political preferences by placing "classless, fully equal" society on the left as many leftist theories do and "hierarchical, predetermined classes for each individual" on the right as many fascist theories do. If you think that a "classless, fully equal" society is not extreme at all, then you're probably the one on the very left end of the spectrum.
Intersectionality is not saying that those categories are all a person is - it's saying that those factors are predictive of certain oppressive tendencies society may have towards the individual. A common misconception I hear about leftism is that it is against treating people as individuals; this is not true, but at the same time denying that black people are oppressed in the US because they have individual identity is a non sequitur at best. The leftist ideal is actually that all people are free to pursue their passions and creativity, which is not something an innately collectivist ideology (like fascism for example) would promote.
I do think that a classless society is extreme compared to our current system, I wasn't denying that - but that doesn't mean that leftists area engaging in "extreme overgeneralising"; I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean. Honestly I see a lot of people critiquing left wing ideas using these really vague descriptors and I don't get why. If somebody has an issue to raise they should raise it explicitly so we can discuss it! Political discussion helps us all to learn.
I'm not sure what I'm supposed to take away from this: I did explain further the context of obsessive generalization, but I'm not sure how, given you yourself say you're well read on leftist literature, you can't correlate how extreme egalitarianism requires doing away with individual characterization.
>The leftist ideal is actually that all people are free to pursue their passions and creativity
Wouldn't that imply that leftism cannot exist without allowing fascism to also exist? I don't see how you can juggle this with the view that leftism's goal is to reduce oppression, given that the definition you've provided here necessitates that opression must be possible for leftism to achieve its goals. In my mind, assuming I'm reading into this correctly, is that you've created your own "chicken vs the egg" paradox
Because it doesn't? Leftism is about doing away with socioeconomic oppression, not erasing all character difference. Leftists aren't the borg, the whole point is to create an equal playing field so that people can be their best selves.
> Wouldn't that imply that leftism cannot exist without allowing fascism to also exist?
Under a socialist or communist system, people could still hold fascist beliefs for sure (though the material drivers of fascist beliefs would be gone so I doubt it would be common) - but what matters is the systems we live under (capitalism, patriarchy etc etc) not what everybody thinks about each other.
> A common misconception I hear about leftism is that it is against treating people as individuals; this is not true, but at the same time denying that black people are oppressed in the US because they have individual identity is a non sequitur at best
I'm not sure where you got the "denying" bit from. Again I think you're viewing this as a fight _against_ leftism when that's not what I'm going for. There are plenty of philosophies that decidedly accept the issue of historical discrimination _without_ buying into intersectionality. A good example of this is affirmative action or the Indian concept of Scheduled Classes. Both of these measures came from understanding historic discrimination without thinking about intersectionality at all. Leftism doesn't have a monopoly on the ideas of anti-discrimination.
> The leftist ideal is actually that all people are free to pursue their passions and creativity, which is not something an innately collectivist ideology (like fascism for example) would promote.
Do you have a source for this? This ideal is older than Marx, Rousseau's Social Contract first posits this idea I think.
> I do think that a classless society is extreme compared to our current system, I wasn't denying that - but that doesn't mean that leftists area engaging in "extreme overgeneralising"; I still have no idea what that was supposed to mean.
Again I think you're too wrapped up in defending leftism. If you're having a hard time seeing your views as extreme then, I like to point to a thought exercise. An extreme position is one where there's very little more ideologically extreme than it. So in your case, what's _more_ Left than the classless society you're positing? If there's nothing more extreme than your position, then you're probably at the extreme edge of it.
I know, I'm not disputing that (and appreciate that you point out that affirmative action is a liberal rather than leftist idea, many don't make the distinction).
> Do you have a source for this? This ideal is older than Marx, Rousseau's Social Contract first posits this idea I think.
Yes, the leftist ideal is that of the humanist/liberal (liberty, equality, fraternity): this goes back before Marx to the utopian socialists who established the ideals, where Marx was more interested in historical determinism and developing a science of political economy.
> If you're having a hard time seeing your views as extreme
I'm not, that's what I said.
Proponents of standardized tests emphasize that the grading of each booklet is fair. The multiple choice portion is unambiguous and graded by machine. The essay portion is graded blind and by several readers with high inter-rather reliability. We are fairly confident that no specific child is writing down the right answers and then getting a bad score because of her race.
Opponents argue that the test score distributions reproduce classic racial hierarchies. Lower scores lead directly to fewer students from marginalized backgrounds attending college, and from there to lower lifetime earnings. Therefore standardized tests are an obvious target for reducing the racial wealth gap.
It seems to me that the left, idealistically speaking, is intent on removing forced categorization by others. You would be hard pressed find anyone who is trying to remove all individual distinctions, and if you did, that person would be an outlier.
On the contrary, the left, again idealistically, seems to embrace differences, just not those that are imposed and used as a rationale for discrimination.
In my experience, those who go on about "freedom" are usually the most intolerant of individual differences. How about that for irony?
Thats like saying fire departments are obsessed with categorizing houses into 'burning vs not burning' because fire departments require burning houses.
I thought they were against fires? Why are they always asking me if my house is on fire or contains flammable material? If they just stopped bringing it up then the fires would put themselves out.
not surprisingly that German's back then and the today's Russian fascism (which is closer to German Nazism than to Italian fascism) each appeared after a decade of economic and political disorder and were precipitated by a terroristic acts after which tired and scared people happily clang to the promise of order and stability by a "strong hand".
Germany - military defeat and crash of empire, the decade of disorder, the burn of Reichstag leads to Hitler taking total power, a decade of tightening of all political screws and huge nationalistic "master race" propaganda, directly appealing to the brain stem and thus supported by population, culminate in genocidal (wrt. Jews and Slavic) war.
Russia - military defeat (Cold War and Afghanistan) and crash of empire, the decade of disorder, the multiple apartment building by FSB in September of 1999 leads to Putin taking total power, 2 decades of tightening of all political screws and huge nationalistic "master nation" ("Great Russia chauvinism") propaganda, the same way directly appealing to the brain stem and thus supported by population, culminate in the genocidal war against Ukrainians (UN genocide definition https://www.un.org/en/genocideprevention/genocide.shtml). If history is any guide there is no other end here except like in WWII - the coalition should take over Russia and completely denazify and demilitarize it like it was done to Germany. Such profound war loss and failure of society and the following rework of country and society is what gets to the population's brain stem. Just beating the military like in WWI isn't enough as it only excites that basic instinct of tribal nationalism.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_fascism_(ideology)
In some ways Russia already overshot the Nazi Germany, think about it if Germans in WWII would bomb german speaking austrian cities; this is what we are seeing from Russian military today.
Putin want's Kyiv because it's like Jerusalem for him and his crusaders
>> Patriarch Kirill of Moscow declared concerning the religious relationship between the Russian Orthodox Church and Ukraine: "Ukraine is not on the periphery of our church. We call Kiev 'the mother of all Russian cities.' For us Kiev is what Jerusalem is for many. Russian Orthodoxy began there, so under no circumstances can we abandon this historical and spiritual relationship. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russian_world#Politicization
Unfortunately we'll be seeing Put'in not wanting to put'out of Ukraine for a long time
Take also the tendency of intelligence to produce ever less scientific break-troughs producing surplus for all and ever more parasitism (Encapsulating companies predating on established industries), a not "hackable" aka anti-intellectual resistance might be all that remains.
Parasitism is also a large "topic" in fascism, be it redistributing parasitism (left bureaucracy), lawful parasitism ( citizens exploited by law-constellations) or plain anti-semitism, which todays miracolously onaires escaped - for now. Cough* social engineering cough for the rescue.
Another large topic is "walling off" against the "stranger". As the unlearned are in a much harsher competition against the other unlearned, a walled of society to reduce that competition is preferred.
Also a recurring topic, is past injustice, which justifies current and future injustices, perpetrated. It really is just a falling apart of any semblance of intellectual problem solving, into a tribal mindset, taken for a ride by a miserable counter-elite.
It’s definitely about feelings and aesthetics, rather than economic or rational concerns though. You saw similar constructions in fringe communist regimes (Romania, North Korea)
I've found that whenever someone says "no one understands why this happened", it is usually because everyone understands why it happened and they just don't like the answer for ideological reasons.
He treats Fascism as a historical movement, not an set of ideas.
It’s scary because it shows that rigorous study of historical Fascism hasn’t really happened. It’s been too colored by the WWII propaganda.
For example, fascism was implemented very differently in different countries.
Pre-Anschluss’s Austrian fascism was very very different from German Nazism.
Mussolini didn’t implement any anti-Semitic legislation until after making an alliance with Hitler (12 years of Fascist rule with no anti-semitism).
Fasicists in Portugal (Salozaro) became increasingly moderate. They split strongly from international Fascism (Mussolini), condemned the name “fascism” while claiming to be a “nationalist third way between capitalism and and socialism.” No real elections. Was a very pro-Allied neutral in WWII. Became a founding member of NATO and stayed in power until the 1960s.
He doesn’t feel obligated to follow the safe “Hitler is bad, Hitler was bad, Hitler was a Fascist, therefore Fascists are bad” syllogism that we find so safe.
He asks hard questions like “how much do Mussolini in 1921, Hitler in 1939, and Hungarian Fascism from 1935 really have in common?”
He really pissed people off when he pointed out that the Vichy Regime in France was an independent, preoccupation movement, and not merely “German occupation.”
Not what the French want to hear.
> Not what the French want to hear.
The pre-war French far-right, which could be associated to the broader fascist trend, had very little to do with what the Vichy governement ended up being a few years down the line. You could argue the Vichy regime was a genuine artifact of French politics in 1940, but not in 1942.
Because it isn't a philosophy but rather a defensive reaction against the liberal democratic empire on one side and the communist/marxist empire on the other side. It's pretty much nationalism that rose up in europe to prevent smaller nations from being gobbled up by either the american or soviet empires. It's just easier to malign it as fascism rather than nationalism because most people are nationalists. It's also why we hate fascists in america and the soviets hated fascists. Because nationalists/fascists were against both.
Fascism wasn't defined by what it is. Fascism was defined by what it didn't want to become. What it didn't want to be slave to.
The idea that there is no explanation for Fascism and that it's some inexplicable mystery is gaslighting from Socialists who don't want anyone to understand that such an obvious evil is, actually, the true face of their ideology.
I think this is a sorely misguided view, and if we had the ability to pull a Nazi, Hitler included, directly from the 30s/40s, they would disagree with this
1) big capitalists within Germany and abroad funded and supported Hitler
2) capitalist countries rejected repeated requests from the USSR to form an anti-fascist alliance before WWII
of course, big capitals funded the leader of Germany that by creating a giant war machine, was filling their pockets with bags of money.
> 2) capitalist countries rejected repeated requests from the USSR to form an anti-fascist alliance before WWII
But also Stalin provided substantial support to the nazis, until 1941...
I'm not saying you are wrong, but cherry picking facts doesn't magically become history.
From recent web resources I suggest:
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/nov/17/nazis-based-th...
- https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/jan/23/uks-propaganda...
- https://www.theguardian.com/books/2021/mar/31/louis-de-berni...
- https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2022/jan/11/trump-...
Just to pick the first I've read recently. The history not cherry-picked say a thing: when nazism and fascism born their idea was common in all western countries from their élites to some not-so-small cohort of their populations. Just like today's populism.
BTW, yes Stalin (one who took money from UK Crown, with the excuse of reliefs for Ukraine famine, via some formal "NGOs" ante-litteram) have signed an agreement with the nazi, but only after he understand that the western countries will never be partners. And future development have proved he have had good points, just read about "Operation Unthinkable" and "Operation Dropshot"...
That's a well know fact.
It is also a well know fact that USA went to the Moon thanks to a nazi high ranking member, Wernher Von Braun.
Of course the west was aligned with the "WASP" west and not with the "commie" Russia, just like today: we side with Ukraine and not with Putin's Russia mainly because we wanna keep the western propaganda on "democracy and freedom and the best lifestyle ever" alive and kicking, not because we really believe that we share the same values in the end.
And because if we don't, the World will say that we're helping Putin.
Same thing happened in 1939, but reversed.
Everyone was afraid of being infected by the "communist revolution", not only the politicians, but the public opinion too!
It was a people's choice too, that lasted 70 years and still nowadays you can hear people saying that "x is bad because it's chinese and chinese are communists, so they must be bad!".
It's the tragedy of tribalism: us and them, good vs evil, that kind of propaganda that we still endure today!
> have signed an agreement with the nazi, but only after he understand that the western countries will never be partners.
I love Stalin's mustache like everybody else, but history is history: Stalin actually helped the nazis, they didn't simply sign an agreement, with that pact they encouraged Hitler to invade Poland, since there was no more opposition on the east: Germany took the most of it, Stalin invaded the eastern part.
Also they gave ton of raw materials to Germany, for example they contributed a lot to "Operation Barbarossa".
Yes, history is history: stalin was a dictator, probably the murderer of Lenin (witch was a dictator too, but at least with far less blood in his hands) BUT stalin help the nazi only to protect Soviet Union, because he know he can't sustain a war having just emerged from a nth turn of civil wars AND he understand the the rest of the west will not help him. He first propose to stop hitler but UK say "no, just wait, he only invade a bit of nearby countries for good reasons", they keep waiting, they send diplomats without any decision power to Russia etc. hitler on contrary have sent a plenipotentiary and sign a clear agreement. That's is.
Just like today China: Russian was no friends of Germans like we are no friends of China but we need a reliable partner, at that time the nazi was ones, these days China is one.
Oh, BTW the propaganda stating Russian bear rape a democratic country can't be swallowed by anyone who just read news: we all know that Ukrainian gov was as "democratic" as Xi or Putin and is a puppet regime planted by the west, the west who actually have financed, formed and armed local nazis to keep up the eastward expansion of NATO keeping the EU away from a partnership with Russia. At that point for us EU Citizens our own government are responsible for high treason just because they made choices for USA and UK interests against our own interests and they have financed and armed as well nazis, witch is a crime in most EU after WWII...
There is no tribalism, it's just a game of interest, BUT one thing is the interest of their own country another is the interest of a foreign one.
At least he fought them and won.
What excuses have French for Vichy "Republic"?
> the west who actually have financed, formed and armed local nazis to keep up the eastward expansion of NATO
I've never been in favor of the expansion to the east of EU, imagine what I think of NATO expansion...
And not because I don't like people from east Europe, but because we all know too well what happens when you finance "freedom fighters" against your enemy: they become the Saddam Husseins, the Bin Ladens, the contras and the Talibans.
We should stop it.
No "excuse", Philippe Pétain have simply understood that war for France was lost and he choose the Germans because they were less oppressive than the Brits the France gov. choose. Actually at first he was right. He imagin Germans from WWI not nazis, of course, but history tell a thing: German nazis was no more "nazi" than neoliberals who win them. Oh and I say that from a socialist point of view, read that last sentence three time.
A thing I learn from the history is that some regimes start with good ideas, but they end very badly, some other prefer "less good" ideas and sometimes they land less badly. What I still miss is how Democracy can born. And that's a big issue for me...
What? Putin assassinates and jails many of his critics and journalists, holds fraudulent elections, maintains strict control of the press in peacetime, places barriers to protest that in effect make it difficult to impossible, and has no respect for term limits. He's an autocrat turning into a despot. How in any way does that compare to Ukraine? Ukraine's leader wasn't that popular until the invasion but he still won an election in a landslide.
At least putin have killed single individuals who are against him, nothing new under the Sun, but so far he do not commit any genocide against it's own people. So fat he finance some nazis, and mercenaries of similar kind (Wagner), but fur less than NATO-armed, trained and financed Azov, Pravy Sektor, C14 et al. and for the mercenaries nothing different than Blackwater and co.
In purely political criminality terms putin is a criminal like Biden, Trump or Jonson, with a difference: so far he have killed FAR less then them around the world. Try to be honest, looking at raw news behind propaganda.
The 2014 revolution (not coup in the classic sense) followed by the recent non-rigged (unlike in Russia) democratic election in which the current leader was elected in a landslide of popular support.
> commit a slow genocide on it's own Russian-speaking part of population, around 30% or so
Source? I am aware of one warcrime most likely committed by Ukraine-aligned troops (potentially Azov) in the Donbas that were pointed out by Human Rights Watch. They killed like 15 civilians in criminal shelling. Haven't seen evidence that would amount towards the claim of genocide, which is a high bar.
> Just now they decide to ban all other parties
That's false. They didn't ban all other parties. They banned 11 minority parties that constituted about 10% of the seats which had ties to the country that is currently invading them. Some far-right ones (which get like 2% of the vote) and mostly far-left ones. If Russia hadn't invaded, guess what, this wouldn't have happened.
> force all broadcasts to spread just government propaganda.
You mean forced to spread government information? That's correct. They are being invaded by Russia and so they invoked these kind of martial law measures which would be concerning in any other context. The root cause of martial law in Ukraine is the Russian invasion. If you have a problem with martial law in Ukraine, then blame the country that is invading Ukraine.
> At least putin have killed single individuals who are against him, nothing new under the Sun
Actually, it's not normal to kill domestic political opponents and journalists.
> So fat he finance some nazis, and mercenaries of similar kind (Wagner), but fur less than NATO-armed, trained and financed Azov, Pravy Sektor, C14 et al. and for the mercenaries nothing different than Blackwater and co.
The head of Wagner is an actual Nazi, with SS tattoos on his neck. Putin sent this literal Nazi's henchmen into Ukraine under the guise of 'denazification'.
I will admit that the Nazis in Azov are a huge problem, but if you were a small country that had to defend against Russian aggression, you can't afford to pick and choose who's going to help defend your country. Empirical proof: Azov is proving hugely useful in delaying the Russian invasion in Mariupol. If they have kicked Azov out, Mariupol may have already fallen. Again - the root problem here is Russian aggression. If Russia wasn't a threat, they wouldn't have to resort to desperate measures like this. If you don't like Azov, then blame Russia, because without Russia, Ukraine wouldn't have any need of Azov.
> In purely political criminality terms putin is a criminal like Biden, Trump or Jonson
No. Biden et al are not ultranationalist despots who murder their political opponents, rig elections, ban free speech, and invade democracies.
I'm sorry, but I know few Ukrainians, certainly not enough to compute statistics but enough to have some local insights, 2014 "revolution" was a coup, pushed by NATO and you can find few infos in our press btw [1], interesting the SOLE "democratic" in the sense that NO ONE in the world, USA included, state otherwise was the original referendum to separate DPR and LPR from Ukraine witch al the west say "the vote is invalid because Ukraine constitution do not support secession" but NO ONE say was rigged and 90+% votes for being a new Republic.
> Source? I am aware of one warcrime most likely committed by Ukraine-aligned troops (potentially Azov) in the Donbas that were pointed out by Human Rights Watch.
Just read about the aforementioned coup: did you think some Russians decide a day in 2014 to indict a referendum just to do something in the afternoon?
Of course western resources are scarce, but something is easy to find
https://www.europarl.europa.eu/doceo/document/E-9-2019-00369...
https://khpg.org/en/1540419843
https://www.ofpra.gouv.fr/sites/default/files/atoms/files/18...
https://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-27173857
https://www.news18.com/news/world/azov-battalion-accused-of-...
https://www.dw.com/en/the-azov-battalion-extremists-defendin...
> That's false. They didn't ban all other parties. They banned 11 minority parties
So "minor" that they represent around the totality of non-nazi parties... Curiously mostly on the left (you might not know but putin in Russia is considered from the right, the left oppose it, far more than some local nazis depicted as heroes in the west like Navalny...
> You mean forced to spread government information?
Surely government call that information, others call that narrative... Do remember that ALL dictators do not say they are dictators...
> The head of Wagner is an actual Nazi, with SS tattoos on his neck.
No doubt, and I'm pretty sure it's colleagues from Blackwater have similar tattoos...
> No. Biden et al are not ultranationalist despots who murder their political opponents, rig elections, ban free speech, and invade democracies.
Surely not, they are just criminals against humanity who push for various war crimes (do you remember Biden position about Belgrade bombing? About Iraq war, based on officially recognized lies?) and others crimes... Actually they have indirectly murdered probably far more people than putin. On banning free speech... Did you see our media? With some PRIVATE COMPANIES that ban peoples who say "non aligned" statements including for instance a facebook ban to the British Medical Journal "for covid misinformation"? The direct ban to Russian's media "they are source of fake news" etc? That's have a name: censorship. In free countries even media who push fake news have the right to do so. In the west apparently the actual censorship is not much differen...
You've provided no evidence for this. Either provide some evidence, or stop calling it a coup. Your [1] is about the US providing support to Ukraine against a Russian invasion after the revolution.
EDIT: I just saw you posted more than one link, sorry about that. I was already aware of Nuland's leaked call where they're talking about who they want to replace Yanukovych. So? Of course they're going to have such a discussion in the middle of a revolution where someone is about to be ousted and they have relationships with existing people. Regarding the comments of the Estonian FM. Not close to evidence of a coup, or even suggestive. What would Estonia know of a covert CIA plot? This was just that person's opinion. Nobody knew about the Iranian coup outside of the US and Britain, for example. These things are kept under wraps. If Germany's FM was found to have said "it's not a coup", would this journalist have written about it? No.
> original referendum to separate DPR and LPR from Ukraine witch al the west say "the vote is invalid because Ukraine constitution do not support secession" but NO ONE say was rigged and 90+% votes for being a new Republic.
Actually there are allegations that it was rigged, not to mention the unconstitutional part.
> Of course western resources are scarce, but something is easy to find
Thank you for these resources. These are very concerning and disgusting people/actions. But it isn't genocide (that's a fairly high bar) and it isn't evidence of neo-nazism in Ukrainian leadership. As I said, Russia has a much bigger neo-fascism problem than Ukraine does. Both in general society (according to polls) and the fact that Putin himself is a literal fascist.
> So "minor" that they represent around the totality of non-nazi parties
This is yet another false statement on this topic. You're implying here that 90% of the seats are held by neo-Nazis, which is ridiculous. You also ignore the fact that some far-right parties were banned. And you ignore the fact that the root cause is Putin's invasion.
> No doubt, and I'm pretty sure it's colleagues from Blackwater have similar tattoos...
So you admit that Putin is sending in neo-Nazis to 'denazify' Ukraine.
> Surely not, they are just criminals against humanity who push for various war crimes (do you remember Biden position about Belgrade bombing? About Iraq war, based on officially recognized lies?)
You discredit yourself by thinking that Iraq is equivalent to Ukraine. Iraq was heinous, but invading in order to depose a totalitarian and cruel and widely hated dictator is not the same thing as invading to destroy a democracy, impose dictatorship, and intentionally shell civilians in near-genocidal fashion. You won't find a defender of Iraq in me, but it's a deeply misguided comparison and part of Russia's propaganda. Anyway; the history of US imperialism is fairly irrelevant. This is about Ukraine and Russia and what's happening now.
> With some PRIVATE COMPANIES that ban peoples who say "non aligned" statements
Why are you trying to compare a despot who jails or kills people for saying the wrong thing with private companies censoring stuff. In Russia, people go to jail. In the US, people go to rumble.com. Big difference. Anyway, it's irrelevant.
> Any country have a bloody story, that's nothing new
Am I defending bloody empires from 100 years ago? No. It's irrelevant. Don't bring it up. We are talking about Ukraine and Russia. Russia is an expansionist fascist dictatorship in the year 2022. I am not talking about Nazi Germany in 1940 or the British Empire before that.
So you fail to provide evidence of the inverse, failing to ask why at a certain point in time Euromaidan protests arise, why they arrive at the famous referendum, who have created before the so called orange (2.0) revolution of the now-forgotten Yulia Tymoshenko and her curious links to similar movement in Georgia, South Ossetia etc curiously following the same "social (networks) pattern (and networks)" of the so called "Arab springs", those results where new dictatorship replacing others, others originally placed by NATO but then grow strong enough to start looking for independencies and third party alliance... Oh but sure Iraq war was not due to the Saddam choice of selling petrol in euros instead of dollars, Libya was not done by France because Gaddafi drawn a path to substitute the CFA (French controlled money mostly used for commerce in large part of Africa) with a local fiat money etc etc etc
Actually colonialism is never ended and we are not born today "in a totally different and completely unconnected from the past manner", history is history so you find various kind of evidence, what's up till now is less easy because there are many interests to avoid publishing of evidences, especially in clear terms for the masses.
> Actually there are allegations that it was rigged, not to mention the unconstitutional part.
Do you have evidence? BTW the "unconstitutional part" it's a classic joke because no Constitution provides for secession, obviously BUT international chat of human right provide the self-determination right and you probably know the history of Ukraine, of the eastern part in particular passed from Russian oblast (subdivision) to Ukrainian oblast as an administrative act all inside the Soviet Union as a mere reorganization. So you might know that actually east Ukrainian are Russians, changed to Soviet citizenship with the II October revolution and than changed to Ukrainian after the URSS collapse, without having changed their language (still Russian, not Ukrainian) nor their alphabet (both language use a Cyrillic alphabet but with a small set of different letters, not much far from the difference between Greek's Cyrillic and Russian's one).
Now you should know the NATO eastward expansion violating post-WWII Yalta agreements from day zero and the obvious series of semi and practical coup NATO orchestrate in eastern Europe to grab a strong power in the region. That's "past" of course, a past still present.
> Thank you for these resources. These are very concerning and disgusting people/actions. But it isn't genocide
Nazi's does not born with mass extermination camps, it took time to build such machines, Ukrainian nazi's are "young" and far less resourceful than original German's one. They have already done the same Turkey have done on Armenians, it's only a matter of time and that's why I call it a Genocide: it's a clear path to it, ongoing.
> This is yet another false statement on this topic. You're implying here that 90% of the seats are held by neo-Nazis
You know well that in modern formal, not substantial, "democracies" few steer the masses, with various legislative and propaganda artifice a small minority rule on the rest. Actually the neo-nazis are a minority, of course, but they rule. Not much differently than Italian or French government that represent probably less than 20% of their Citizens but rule on them all.
> So you admit that Putin is sending in neo-Nazis to 'denazify' Ukraine.
That's nothing to admit: putin is a dictator, but that fact does not imply it's enemy is something different, the the blackbird is black like the crow, that's is.
> You discredit yourself by thinking that Iraq is equivalent to Ukraine. Iraq was heinous, but invading in order to depose a totalitarian ...
It's a coup by definition. According to the Oxford dictionary:
> coup: a sudden, illegal, and often violent change of government
Maybe it wasn't sudden (if we consider the protests lasted several months), but it was definitely violent and illegal. I don't think I have to provide evidence of the violence. As for the "illegal" part: the government was democratically elected (so it was "legal"), and the vote in the parliament to depose Yanukovich was uncostitutional, as it required a 3/4 majority (338 votes) and only 328 people voted in favor.
You might be Italian, yet you fail to mention any notable Italian family name, but I am Italian for real and this sentence
> Italy loose it's status of II grade European power, now reduced to a corruptocracy mostly controlled by anglophone neoliberals and local criminals
doesn't make any sense at all.
Historically, for starters.
Your "essay" read mostly like some truth (capitalism in Italy sided with fascism because, at laest at the beginning, their interests were aligned - for example they both hated worker unions and both feared the Bolshevik Revolution), but coated in zeitgeit-ism (sorry for the bad neologism)
Also the XVII Congress of the Italian Socialist Party that took place in 1921 in Livorno ended up with the split between socialists and communists in Italy, something that did not really help the socialist cause in Italy.
You produced what we call "populism" nowadays, even if yours seems like coming from the left, it's still populism.
If you are really Italian, you probably voted for the five star movement, which means you are (big) part of the problem, not of the solution.
The first name is Agnelli, the ones who say being fascist in Rome and socialist in Turin, Pirelli, FIMM (Magneti Marelli), Piaggio just to name few that still exists today.
> If you are really Italian, you probably voted for the five star movement
I'm Italian, and no I do not voted M5S because coming from a Partisans family I was trained to recognize fascism. The original PNF and it's successors (I might know "Partito dell'Uomo Qualunque" for instance) have started as the 5S, apparently a left-ish, young and innovating party, but in reality a PR engine to elicit consent. If you know Italian history a bit you might know that Giorgio Bocca (one of the famous Partisans commander) when young was one who took PNF card with just two digit number, he learn after. The same have happened in Germany, original nazism appear as a kind of "moderated socialism".
Actually in Italy there is exactly ZERO party I can vote, and exactly no left parties. The most left-ish read that three time are Fratelli d'Italia (YES, I'm not joking) and Lega, of course not because their are really left-ish, they are actually fascist, but they present themselves to the masses with left-wing ideas speech and that's why they grab consensus from "poor" working classes replacing historical PC-derived parties like PD witch it's correct name should be Partito Democristiano not Partito Democratico.
I suggest a relatively modern song from what it left from the real political left: https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?lang=it&id=61641 perhaps together with https://www.antiwarsongs.org/canzone.php?lang=it&id=219 and a small history of how songs from Resistenza have been pushed into oblivion substituting them with Bella Ciao almost no one have chanted except perhaps some small white militia in Tuscany or why in France famous song like "Le déserteur" changing the last part from
to just to give few examples of the slow push toward a new dictatorial society.Why would 'they' do that, when they've become so adept at selling anything to the public?
With universal voting rights, you can tell the customers you're just serving their wishes and there is no ground for complaint.
Playing a whole level up from "Pour la canaille la mitraille", that's just incompetence nowadays.
Voting these days is just a show, starting from the Condorcet paradox we are now at a point that thanks to media alignment and propaganda all visible candidates are equally puppet formally different but effectively maneuvered by the same master.
For a certain amount of time people was kept quiet with high growth, so people see improvements, is entertained and so "happy". When scarcity arrive such system break, a war is needed, catastrophes are needed, something big enough to justify the new messy state of things. But pushing to war and action an aging population grown to be just spectators from the sofa is difficult. So there is a need of "new citizens", young and obedient, that's the purpose of social score, of smart cities.
Do you mean Elkann? :D :D :D
Agnelli (I guess you mean Giovanni Agnelli, or "L'avvocato") also financed this
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tolyatti
Which still exists
Agnelli is simply the most popular scapegoat among Italian zeitgeist-ers, but only the older ones, who actually grew up with their parents telling them that he was the source of anyone problems, so I guess you're in your 50s and agree with Wu Ming because you think they are "real leftists"...
> Actually in Italy there is exactly ZERO party I can vote, and exactly no left parties
CVD: the man criticizing "l'uomo qualunque" (the average Joe) is the one expressing an average Joe's opinion.
I am from a partisan family as well, all my family was communist and fought for the freedom of Italy from nazi-fascism, but the problem today on "our" side is exactly the nostalgic leftist, that person that between Ukraine and Russia shouts "take Italy out of NATO"
> The same have happened in Germany, original nazism appear as a kind of "moderated socialism"
It always start with this giant lie with people like you...
I know where you come from, don't even try, it doesn't work with me.
> The most left-ish read that three time are Fratelli d'Italia
And here it is the "I was trained to recognize fascism" that goes out of the window!
I'm not even curious to hear why, because I know very well why.
Unfortunately...
> be Partito Democristiano not Partito Democratico
as I've said: you're part of the problem, not of the solution.
You might as well voted for five stars, as the saying goes "if it looks like a duck, if it walks like a duck, if it quacks like a duck, it is a duck"
> Prévenez vos gendarmes
Sorry, I am born and raised Roman, I don't take lessons from those that tried too many times to destroy my city (and Italian lives with it), I side with the busts of Gianicolo, not with the heirs of napoleon, who let his troops stable their horses in the refectory were the Leonardo's "Last Supper" is, ruining it forever that then colonized Africa and lately put Libya in jeopardy just to put their hands on Italian ENI gas infrastructure over there...
You know what's really funny?
That the Umberto Eco's essay on the UR-fascism (that should be the topic of this post) is about exactly people like you.
And about the reasons why fascism and nazism went to power, which is not to fight socialism.
If you read it before jumping to the comment section, you'd know it.
> 13. Ur-Fascism is based upon a selective populism, a qualitative populism, one might say. In a democracy, the citizens have individual rights, but the citizens in their entirety have a political impact only from a quantitative point of view – one follows the decisions of the majority. For Ur-Fascism, however, individuals as individuals have no rights, and the People is conceived as a quality, a monolithic entity expressing the Common Will. Since no large quantity of human beings can have a common will, the Leader pretends to be their interpreter. Having lost their power of delegation, citizens do not act; they are only called on to play the role of the People. Thus the People is only a theatrical fiction. To have a good instance of qualitative populism we no longer need the Piazza Venezia in Rome or the Nuremberg Stadium. There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People. Because of its qualitative populism Ur-Fascism must be against "rotten" parliamentary governments. One of the ...
The time I was talking about Elkann was not born... And original Agnelli was not really "a scapegoat" but a classic neoliberals ante-litteram, a person who follow only it's own interest (normal) going against other interests (not exactly normal, in moral terms) without a direct confrontation, one who prefer people's "transitive suicide" with some brick attached under a London bridge than a direct confrontation. BTW in the archives there is a historical recipe of a generous donation to the young PNF.
> CVD: the man criticizing "l'uomo qualunque" (the average Joe) is the one expressing an average Joe's opinion.
I think I was misunderstood the "Partito dell'Uomo Qualunque" (average Joe party) was a real political party from '44 to '48, a kind of 5S ante-litteram presented itself as a "neutral" party, not from left not from right, while actually follow a fascist agenda in disguise. Their members have mostly merged in DC (Democrazia Cristiana), they are the kind like those of Padre Bianco hymn https://www.cattoliciromani.com/threads/18409-Inno-cattolico... just to tell you who they are.
> And here it is the "I was trained to recognize fascism" that goes out of the window!
Again or my English is too bad or you misunderstood: if you wipe out any knowledge of who they are and just listen to current narrative from meloni, salvini you might think they are from the left. While if you hear draghi, conte etc you (rightly) think they are from the right. Of course I know they are fascist, but many do not know that. That's why they hyper-climb in polls "the average Joe", the real one, just listening to today's headlines feel them as "left".
> I don't take lessons from those that tried too many times to destroy my city
And that's a classic "average Joe" misunderstanding: you have to decouple French people from French élite. They are far away. Actual French élite is the same of draghi's élite. You do not see your enemy as too many others, thinking the enemy is who march in your direction from the opposite side, while the real enemy march at the head of both armies and to set the war aside we need anyone to eliminate their own heads.
> in Italy everybody is corrupt, only a few anglophones and criminal family matters
Did you remember Portella della Ginestra, Piazza Fontana, Moro, ... ?
You know nothing John Snow
He was a member of what we call "borghesia"
It has nothing to do with neo-liberism (which is neo liberalism in English), mainly because neo-liberalism is simply a repetition of 19th century free market theories. Just like neoclassicism is not new, is the old being new again.
> BTW in the archives there is a historical recipe of a generous donation to the young PNF.
This is soooooo boring that it's not even funny anymore.
Imagine that right now in our parliament there is a populist party that took 35% of the votes in free elections and another 30% was given to literally a neo-fascist anti-government no-taxation party: Lega per Salvini.
Does it mean that 65% of the Italians are populist fascists?
Or that that kind of propaganda always works because people are like you: they are so attached to the past that always dream of the best, which is in the past. But the best is enemy of the good.
> Again or my English is too bad or you misunderstood
You said what you said.
Own it.
> (average Joe party) was a real political party from '44 to '48,
No kidding!
Thanks for the primary school history lesson.
The point is you are the average Joe's partisan today.
How does it feel to be one and not even recognize it?
> you have to decouple French people from French élite
You have to decouple Italians from their elites then.
But Italians never had a Vichy, they were fascists or they fought fascists.
They were never in the middle.
> is the same of draghi's élite
I knew it.
Draghi is a professional, one with skills, like it or not he deserve his place.
The question you should ask yourself is: why in 2022 you are mad at an old man, while you haven't achieved anything in your life?
> Did you remember Portella della Ginestra, Piazza Fontana, Moro, ... ?
terrorists being terrorists, fascists being fascists, doesn't mean they won.
You have given up, maybe it's you that lost.
Well, you actually state that, for instance George Soros is a member of the modern bourgeoisie... While to a certain extent, in fuzzy-logic can be true it's actually false, bourgeoisie is "middle class", the Agnelli's were and still are between the topmost rich of the country.
> It has nothing to do with neo-liberism (which is neo liberalism in English), mainly because neo-liberalism is simply a repetition of 19th century free market theories.
Again that's almost entirely false neoliberals choose not to have fixed positions, they consider money and power the sole thing that govern the world etc, Agnelli was one of them. Like most of fascism financiers and as most of them they keep a careful position to not appear much attached to it.
> Imagine that right now in our parliament there is a populist party that took 35%
If you know actual electoral law you know that the Parliament no longer represent votes, due to absurdly majority prize and the fact that actual government by-pass the Parliament all days. Actually Italy is governed by a McKinsey puppet regime, not by a democratically elected parliament. PNRR was an act of economic war the local puppet in charge (Draghi) choose exactly to ensure the debt grip on the country and that have only a name: high treason. Italian formal government is actually a coup government against Italian Republic and Constitution. Not differently, actually, then the first PNF government.
> Does it mean that 65% of the Italians are populist fascists?
Thanks to propaganda in many time of the history yes. Even more than 65%, because as Le Bon and Bernays describe well most people blindly follow leaders without reasoning.
> You said what you said.
And I've actually tried to tell you politely that you do not understand, I do not know if that's due to my poor English or to a deliberate cherry picking to sustain a political position but that's is...
> The point is you are the average Joe's partisan today.
It's curious because I never have had nor I have such ideas.
> But Italians never had a Vichy
Oh, so the infamous Republic of Salò was what? At least Vichy regime have had some good points when it born: at that time France government have committed treason proposing to give France to UK in exchange of help and Philippe Pétain who have seen and confront both UK army and German army rightly choose that in absence of option Germans would be less oppressive for France than UK. He know from WWI that Germans were far more "democratic" than Brits, their officers eat with their troops, they tend to be far more humans each others. Of course since Kaiser things have changed "a bit", but that's is. Salò on contrary have absolutely no justification. Mussolini was paid by UK Crown to switch from being a pacifist and socialist to a interventionist pushing toward war and dictatorship. Also we know that it's highly likely he was killed following UK intelligence orders to avoid he can talk once in Swiss.
> You have to decouple Italians from their elites then.
And I do. I know well that WWII partisans was a little minority and even counting last-minutes GAP and SAP they were almost just few people mostly concentrated in the north-west of the country. I know many act of treason inside Resistenza starting from the exclusion of CLN Alta Italia proposal to keep arms and positions telling "allies" they can choose to respect Italian sovereignty or face a double-enemy front they clearly can't sustain at macro level to episodes at micro-levels like the killing of Aldo Gastaldi (Bisagno) formally "an accident", another one.
> Draghi is a professional, one with skills, like it or not he deserve his place.
Professional of what? Thief? Can you try to depict what Draghi government do for Italy? Actually I only have a LONG list of crimes. here you have some examples zozbot234 ↗ "Stop socialism"? Crony capitalism is just socialism that happens to benefit a corrupt elite. (Most real-world socialism, historically, was not very different. Even "socialism with Scandinavian characteristics" - quite popular among some in the present-day U.S. - owes much of its success to the way it enables a smoothly functioning market to provide consistently good outcomes.)
He's accurate that Mussolini's fascism was something different from Nazi'ism (which just adopted and co-opted the italian aestheitcs, directly), but it was more of a kind of secular anti-clerical republicanism but with all the awe of divinely appointed monarchs.
The crux of fascism was the unity of corporate and state power together - where Eco takes it in a few other directions, which I think its disingenuous to de-emphasize this core property of it, because I think he's also an elitist who would be glad to have the reins of a unified corporate state. He's freighted an obsolete political system with the countercases to his own ideology and branded it evil. I was going to suggest Eco should have stuck to fiction, but in this case he has.
It was a peculiar reactionary artifact of the nation state, which itself is a modern(ist) post-enlightenment phenomenon as monarchies gave way to republics. It's different from totalitarianism (as Eco notes) in that Mussolini, Franco, and Salazar lacked the imperialist and colonial urges that would define totalitarian movements of Hitler and Stalin (even though the latter two inherited colonial territories). Post war, the word fascism became just a secular version of evil as defined by largely marxist/socialist thinkers, and fascist has become a kind of a catch-all slur against those who assert people should be accountable to principles.
It didn't really matter before, as there was nothing to defend about its vague and myriad definitions, and the people who spat the word fascist at others didn't have enough control of institutions for anyone to care what they meant by it. Today, that it is a euphemism for Evil matters because the people wielding it now are still only as sophisticated as a mob of superstitious villagers, but its nebulous definition has come to envelop some things I think regular people actually value, and instead of Evil being presented as witchcraft, it's wrapped in layers of critical theory, but the mob mentality is just the same. Fascism doesn't have much going for it today as it was a moment of 19th century nation states adopting 20th century technology, but I'd say the people indexed on it now are just as much of a mob as they ever were, and whatever they dress it up in, they're the same people, still just hunting witches.
This comment might as well be Peak Hacker News.
OP is a great article but I regret upvoting it, because the discussion is full of stale political tropes and the blaming of The Other Side. If I have time later, I’ll go through and downvote every comment, including my own.
I'm not sure this is congruent with Italy's actions in Ethiopia, Albania and Greece.
There is an argument to be made that totalitarianism itself wasn't new or notable or is even a coherent thing that can't be shown to have manifested in pretty much every other imperial effort. I've got ideas about some of its other sufficient conditions that still preserve it as a unique effect and form, and as far as an intellectual renaming of Evil goes, tot'ism is pretty close to what critics of fascism come up with as well. Some of these things only exist at a certain level of abstraction and then dissolve under further scrutiny.
This whole thing can be summarized simply as "Everything I dislike is fascism, even things that have absolutely nothing to do with fascism, and everything that actually is fascism and has a lot in common with my ideology, wasn't really fascism, and certainly wasn't socialism, even though they all called themselves Marxists"
or to quote the article specifically:
>The article on fascism signed by Mussolini in the Treccani Encyclopedia was written or basically inspired by Giovanni Gentile, but it reflected a late-Hegelian notion of the Absolute and Ethical State which was never fully realized by Mussolini
in other words, sure it was developed by Marxists (Giovanni Gentile, and everyone else behind fascism were all Marxists philosopher), but it "wasn't real socialism". It is exactly the same "not real socialism" that all defenders of socialism always use when their ideology goes down the drain.
Payne has written several books on the history of fascism and Francoist Spain. I find his approach to analyzing fascism more systematic and thorough than Paxton's.
What he describes is sufficiently general to cover almost any political movement.
The story of Eco's friendship with African American soldiers is odd to me. Eco sees them as cultured human beings who brought freedom to Italy. And yet he neglects to bring up the racial unfreedom they faced at home, including their future exclusion from the GI Bill. Is this irrelevant because the US is not strictly fascist?
I mean to say we should not ignore the real psychological and economic forces that fascism is composed of. Eco touches on these forces. But it's not enough to stop at classifying whether a state is fascist or not. The forces that compose fascism are always present in liberal democracy, even if they don't crystallize into a mass movement.
What's most disturbing is that the German and Italian masses were not tricked: they desired fascism (even if it was against their material interests). Infantilizing the masses gets us nowhere in our understanding. [1]
I may be critical, but this is still a great piece from Eco. It's full of insights about fascism, and it succeeds at what it says on the tin.
For further reading I highly recommend Wilhelm Reich's Mass Psychology of Fascism
[1] Ripped this paragraph almost word-for-word from Anti-Oedipus
It's also white-washing Stalinism and western colonialism, to which as many (or more) casulaties can be attributed to (and equally nefarious ideologies, the "white man's burden", slavery, gulags for dissidents, etc weren't invented by Hitler), but which were not "conservative" in nature, so they get a pass.
I'd rather we stop using the silly catch-all phrase "fascism" for things that don't have the attributes of historical fascism (which was a specific, time limited, historical movement), and even more so expand it loosely to mean anything and everything that's not pure liberalism.