Wrong use of "Fascism"

[ReindeerThistle]

Hm, maybe instead of Tavern, this should be renamed to Barn. Some of you guys just exist in worlds of straw

More like The Corn Field, because it's full of straw men!

Sent via Tuscaloosa (Mobile was closed at sundown)...

 

[ParkCungHee]

It sounds like you're basically saying that the identifier of Fascism is its symbolism and not its political ideology. People refer to Hitler, Franco, Peron, O'Duffy, and others as Fascists because their political ideology matches, in various amounts, to Mussolini's conception of Fascism as a modernist counter-ideology to Marxist Socialism. They see society as tragically polarized by class conflict, which damages the supremacy of the state, and individuality which endangers the nation in its eternal conflict with other nation-states.

I'll just point out that in the case of O'Duffy this basically amounted to 'liked wearing para-military outfits' and very little else.

 

[Borachio]

Saying that Australians don't understand what 'author' means is one of the weirder things I've heard today...Maybe consider the specifics that said syntagm will more ably capture.

Bonus points for use of the word syntagm.

+1 (at least)

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Bumping this thread to share what old Dimitrovsaid about fascism:

from Georgi Dimitrov
The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism: Main Report delivered at the Seventh World Congress of the Communist International

"Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist Internationalas the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.
The most reactionary variety of fascism is theGerman typeof fascism. It has the effrontery to call itself National Socialism, though it has nothing in common with socialism. German fascism is not only bourgeois nationalism, it is fiendish chauvinism. It is a government system of political gangsterism, a system of provocation and torture practised upon the working class and the revolutionary elements of the peasantry, the petty bourgeoisie and the intelligentsia. It is medieval barbarity and bestiality, it is unbridled aggression in relation to other nations.
German fascism is actingas the spearhead of international counter-revolution, as the chief instigator of imperialist war, as the initiator of a crusade against the Soviet Union, the great fatherland of the working people of the whole world.
Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes -- the proletariat and the bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or thelumpen-proletariatover finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.

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[Traitorfish]

Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy never really developed a coherent theory of fascism. Which, between the rhetoric of "social fascism" on the one hand, and their basically uncritical support for colonial fascistoids under the banner of "national liberation" on the other, is not all that surprising.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Which of course does not negate what I cite above.

Ser Bertram Gross, Friendky Fascism

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[Traitorfish]

It doesn't negate it, but it does undermine its presentation as a bite-size summary of a comprehensive theory of fascism, rather than a fumbling attempt to translate the mercurial realities of Soviet policy into something resembling theory.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Sorry, merely pointing out a definition, not citing a comprehensive theory.

Truth is, after Stalin died, the left and right of the left kept fighting his ghost and lost sight of the class enemy -- which explains China support of Holden Roberto in Angola and the Shah in Iran. It's also how you got the USSR clamoring for "most favoured nation status" with the US instead of supporting the Vietnamese, Filipino, Cambodian struggles for national liberation.

Comintern's "Popular Front Against Fascism and War" stopped neither fascism nor war. "Fascism" is merely a condition,a terminal one, which usually resists all pre- fascist attempts to remove it. To fight fascism is like the "anti-Bush" movement in the US: "It took 8 years, but we got that SOB out of the White House" You are letting your adversary set the syllogism and put the movement on the defensive. As Marx wrote "The defence is the death of many insurrection

The Communist Movement is not perfect. If you want to see a perfect movement, watch videos if Nuryev dancing.

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[Traitorfish]

Sorry, merely pointing out a definition, not citing a comprehensive theory.

Effective definition implies, if not a comprehensive theory, then a theory of some sort. But Marxist-Leninist orthodoxy never had a theory of fascism, just a great collision of pseudo-theory serving to justify the every-changing policy of the Soviet state without admitting that policy's essential cynicism.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Yes, well, you know the old Berliner joke from pre-1939?

"Q: with Japan joining Italy and Germany, who will be the NEXT member of the Anti-COMINTERN Axis?
"A: Joseph Stalin"

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[SS-18 ICBM]

Is fascism Orwellian though?

 

[ReindeerThistle]

Is fascism Orwellian though?

IDK. The current manifestations of fascism are insidious and hardly noticeable. Even less noticeable for those living under it.

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[Tee Kay]

English native-speakers often have little time or ability to learn the correct etymology of foreign terms, so they replace it with their own

It's called evolution. Deal with it.

Iirc in Australia they even are too bored to keep using some English terms, and break them up to simpler English ones. For example an author is just called "a writer of books" (i guess in juxtaposition to a writer of airplanes)

As a useful synonym, maybe (we English-speaking peoples like to have more than one word for a thing, we like variety)

Oh, and it's as opposed to "writer of songs", for instance.

 

[Traitorfish]

"Author" is a pretty ambiguous term, with a lot of conflict between popular, legal and scholarly uses, none of which are entirely consistent in themselves, so I can see the wisdom of reverting to the clarity of "writer of books".

 

[Tahuti]

IDK. The current manifestations of fascism are insidious and hardly noticeable. Even less noticeable for those living under it.

Sent via mobile.

I would disagree. One of the defining characteristic of Fascism (in the original Mussolini sense) is its visibility. Countries like today's Russia or Pinochet's Chile would fail to classify as Fascist for the simple reason they do not adopt a very open might-is-right rethoric, but pay lipservice to democratic and egalitarian principles, which in turn makes it impossible for these countries to adopt the true authoritarianism that characterises Fascism.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

I would disagree. One of the defining characteristic of Fascism (in the original Mussolini sense) is its visibility. Countries like today's Russia or Pinochet's Chile would fail to classify as Fascist for the simple reason they do not adopt a very open might-is-right rethoric, but pay lipservice to democratic and egalitarian principles, which in turn makes it impossible for these countries to adopt the true authoritarianism that characterises Fascism.

Yes and no. Russia quite qualifies in the same manner as Pinochet's Chile in the assault on workers in the name of "the good of the country" on behalf of finance capital, if you accept my definition above.

I listen to Radio Havana Cuba (surpruse!) on line and they had many 9/11 features on Chile 1973 and used "fascist" to describe Pinochet. That is not a definitive, just an expression of how socialists view it.

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[Tahuti]

Yes and no. Russia quite qualifies in the same manner as Pinochet's Chile in the assault on workers in the name of "the good of the country" on behalf of finance capital, if you accept my definition above.

Fascism, as a political ideology, considers the state and its interests as an end in itself. This makes Fascism fundamentally incompatible with Capitalism as well as Socialism, since Capitalism and Socialism have in common that they consider the state to be a tool, that can be deposed of if it turns out to be harmful. Fascism deifies the state as a means to give meaning to life by creating the nation. This is why Fascism cannot ever be compared to any other ideology favorably, since ideologies like Socialism and Liberalism leave fundamental questions over to individuals. Fascism explicitly rejects this.

 

[ReindeerThistle]

I wil give you that, Kaiserguard, when discussing fascism as a political ideology. It makes perfect sense.

I, with Dimitrov and Bertram Gross, am looking at it as an objective economic and political condition. Yes, there was the ideology, but to me that was the smoke and mirrors -- the vue (what you SEE), if you will allow me to borrow from Althusser, that supports the bevue (what you do not see) -- which is that finance capital makes money hand over fist regardless.

Remember that during the Weimar Republic, German companies made money from cheap German labour and kept that money overseas. Only workers and merchants were suffering from the depression.

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[classical_hero]

That's the root of the problem: mass medias continue to misuse terms, generalize and stereotypize anything.
From religions to forms of government. So people who only inform themselves through medias (the majority, sadly) will have a distorted view on these things.
Meh. Just had to vent this somewhere.

There is a Rants thread where you can vent your spleen to your hearts content.

 

[Camikaze]

I don't think attempting to define fascism is really productive at all (nor for that matter, is saying someone else's definition is wrong, unless you're pointing out that an argument relies on an incorrect definition). From what I've read, historians often seem to get caught up on trying to categorise regimes, rather than making any actual point about them. One person will say fascism is "things I disagree with in similar ways", whilst others will define it as "Mussolini or his clones". Quibbling over which is right when it's just a shorthand used for the purpose of making another point strikes me as a little redundant.