I'll respond to the above post tomorrow, but.. yeah, off the mark totally I'm afraid
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Tenants of Fascism
Nationalism: Nationalism is the main foundation of fascism. The fascist view of a nation is of a single organic entity which binds people together by their ancestry and is a natural unifying force of people. Fascism seeks to solve economic, political, and social problems by achieving a millenarian national rebirth, exalting the nation or race above all else, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.
USSR: The Soviet Union was a "socialist" state, and thus it was a nation. But the Soviet style of unity in it's early days was based on proletarian internationalism (in it's early days) while Fascism promotes bourgeoisie nationalism. Thus communism and fascism are two sides of the same coin or polar opposites. However after awhile came the Soviet propaganda ditched the internationalist pro-diversity tone, and instead focused on Pan-Slavism (which was used to justify Soviet rule over countries like Poland).
Fascism supports a state-controlled economy that accepts a mix of private and public ownership over the means of production. Economic planning is applied to both the public and private sector in a fascist economy, and the prosperity of private enterprise depended on its acceptance of synchronizing itself with the fascist state's economic goals. It supports the profit motive.
USSR: Communism does not advocate for a mixed economy, nothing is privatized because everything is publicly owned by the community, and there is no nationalization since there is no government. The economy of the Soviet Union was based on a system of state ownership of the means of production, collective farming, industrial manufacturing and centralized administrative planning.
Action: Fascism emphasizes direct action, including supporting the legitimacy of political violence, as a core part of its politics. Fascism views violent action as a necessity in politics that fascism identifies as being an "endless struggle".
USSR: Communism views violent action as a necessity in politics that communism identifies as being a "class struggle", which in itself is kind of endless.
Lenin and the Bolsheviks did promote Left-wing chauvinism especially during the Russian Civil War, but they use words like "Soviet, Revolutionary, Red, Proletariat". Presumably since they're main enemy (The White Army) was mostly made up of and ran by Russian Nationalists.
The Soviets did promote Russian Nationalism (Reactionaries and Tsarist/White Army sympathizers were long purged by then) during World War 2, but that's because WW2 (started off) as a war of defense and national liberation from the fascist powers, and the Soviet government itself was very reluctant to introduce nationalism anyway.
Palingenesis and modernism: Fascism emphasizes both palingenesis and modernism. In particular, fascism's nationalism has been identified as having a palingenetic character. Fascism promotes the regeneration of the nation and purging it of decadence.
USSR: I'm sleepy now, but do some research for yourself. For Italy, there palingenesis was being reborn in Fascism, for Russia it was being reborn in socialism. Modernism? The Bolsheviks might have been blood-thirsty, but the Tsar regime wasn't full of angels either. Lenin and Stalin were indeed pro-rapid industrialization, and the literacy rate in Russia increased under them substantially.
Was the Soviet Union fascist? Nope, but as much as I hate to admit it, Communism and Fascism are two sides of the same coin. However, this does not make me fan of fascism, not one bit.
I'll respond to the above post tomorrow, but.. yeah, off the mark totally I'm afraid
It does actually.A bourgeois state isnt a fascist state just because a fascist state is a bourgeois state.
I hope for nothing,I fear nothing,I am free-Nikos Kazantzakis
oh hai bolsheviksickle, back so soon? its like you didnt even gave us time to miss you. anyway, i know you're trolling and all that but fascism and communism arnt two sides of the same coin, since communism is something completly different then a bourgois ideology, you've been long enough on here to know that though.
but a fan of how diciplined, well organized and principled fascist groups like nazbols, edl, and what not are. i've seen your adoration threads about those groups.
as for the topic i just post to the work of james "Russia - A Fascist State", i havnt read it but it might be more usuable to the discussion.
http://www.marxists.org/archive/jame...ia-fascist.htm
All i want is a Marxist Hunk.
It is true that labor produces for the rich wonderful things – but for the worker it produces privation. It produces palaces – but for the worker, hovels. It produces beauty – but for the worker, deformity. It replaces labor by machines, but it throws one section of the workers back into barbarous types of labor and it turns the other section into a machine. It produces intelligence – but for the worker, stupidity, cretinism.
Wer hat uns verraten? Sozialdemokraten!
You can thank years of liberal theory and institutional education for the notion that 'totalitarianism' is an actual term to recognize things by. With that, anything but liberalism is bad.
This is honestly shocking to read. For starters' there was no such thing as the 'Soviet nation.'
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
Dat Pan-Slavism
Not to mention that Stalin was not even Slavic.
yeah, the fSU was chauvanistic, but no, it was not some proponent of Pan-Slavism.
Never in the existence of the fSU was there a total socialization of ownership. You can't just wave the revolution wand and expect things to immediately fall into place.
And what is so bad about industrial manufacturing or planning shit out so things get where they need to be, and to make sure what is needed is made?
What?
I mean yeah, the most developed economic regions of the fSU were in the Russian SFR, Byelorussian SFR, and Ukranian SFR, but you can blame history for why that was developed to such an extent already BEFORE the revolution.
I'm 99.87% sure Stalin, Lenin, and Trotsky, and tens of millions of other people were not all about 'revitalizing the Russian nation.' especially when Pan-Slavism is also pretty anti-Semitic.
Why are you coming off as if you are advocating fascism by being so defensive about making a critique of your own (as poor as it may be) declaring the fSU pretty much fascist?
This whole Fascism and Communism are not the same thing.
"But, Fascists and Communists (Marxist-Leninists) preside over the existence of a State and had virtually a single party! They are the same thing!" - Says the victim of modern bourgeois ideology.
FKA Vacant
"snook up behind him and took his koran, he said sumthin about burnin the koran. i was like DUDE YOU HAVE NO KORAN and ran off." - Jacob Isom, Amarillo Resident.
Posting for later review.
I travel to Russia a few times a year, and the perception of the Soviet state, by anecdotal accounts of those that were there, is smeared out over a spectrum. Some perceived it as fascist, whether it academically fit that definition or not.
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Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski (Western bourgeois scholars) claimed Stalinist fSU and Nazi Germany were both "totalitarian" and were much more similar than different. They claimed that Nazi Germany was no longer a capitalist economy because, according to them, fear replaced confidence.
The totalitarian concept is idiotic in more ways than one, with the main reason, in my opinion, being that neither state was totalitarian; there were groups, businesses, etc. that retained some autonomy. Neither leader had complete control over everything.
Also, on a slightly different subject, a core tenant of fascism is having "internal enemies". Stalin had "class enemies" while Hitler had "race enemies".
I'm no fan of Stalin, but I fail to see how being authoritarian immediately makes the leader or nation "fascist".
There are some posts in here that I feel understate that amount of appealing to nationalism that happened in the USSR, but...
WTF? Communism and fascism are diametrically opposed ideologies. Maybe this thread should have been in the learning forum...
I know, and that's what makes fascists and communists similar. In science, we have what are known as "black holes", and some theorist believe that if there is black holes which absorb matter, then there must be white holes which release matter. They're not the same, but they are polar opposites.
Fascism is opposed to communism. Fascism opposes communism's intention for international class revolution. Fascists attack communists for supporting "decadent" values, including internationalism, egalitarianism, and materialism. Fascists have commonly campaigned with anti-communist agendas.
Fascism and communism, however, have common positions in their opposition to liberalism, individualism, and parliamentarism. Fascists and communists also agree on the need for violent revolution to forge a new era. While fascism is opposed to Bolshevism, both Bolshevism and fascism promote the single-party state and the use of political party militias.
In spite of ideological differences, Fascist Italy was the first western country to recognize the Soviet Union, in 1933 Fascist Italy had signed a friendship and nonaggression treaty with the Soviet Union, and in the late 1930s both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany supported rapproachment with the Soviet Union.
Again, there is a few similarities between fascism and communism, especially opposition to liberal capitalism. Alas, egalitarianism and internationalism are the main things that separate capitalism and fascism.
Are you one of those who believe in that crazy neo liberal "two extremes" theory?
I hope for nothing,I fear nothing,I am free-Nikos Kazantzakis
Apparently there are still people who believe Doriot's "brotherly enemies" nonsense.
In case it needs to be spelled out:
(1) Fascism opposes liberalism from the right, communism from the left;
(2) Fascists support coups and royal appointments, not the revolution;
(3) Communism has nothing to do with being a very straight, violently macho man of the dominant nationality marching under the national flag with an additional red stripe.
If you think communism is "international, egalitarian" fascism with a red flag, you've lost the thread.
No. It was thoroughly capitalist in every important sense and above all in the generalisation of wage labour and commodity production.
Consumer goods were bought and sold, labour power was bought and sold , and capital goods were bought and sold between state enterprises and subject to legally binding contracts. Those state enterprises were compelled by law to keep profit and loss accounts and to achieve a commercial profit or be severely penalised if they did not even if they were not exactly made bankrupt if they did not - one of the few differences, perhaps, between Soviet style capitalism and Western style capitalism (although even in the West you have subsidies propping up some loss making enterprises).
As with western capitalism, the vast majority under Soviet capitalism - the working class - were alienated from the means of production - which means were collectively owned by a tiny class - the nomenklatura - not as a private individuals but as a collective class via its strangelohold on the state apparatus. In effect this tiny class owned the means of prpduction in de facto terms thruough the ultimate and decisive control it exercised over them.
After all, if you ultimately control something you own it and vice versa and in the Soviet Union it was the Red bourgeoisie , the enormously wealthy and privileged state capitalist class, who excercised ultimate control over, and hence ownership of, the means of prpoduction and in the process, systematically siphoned off part of the surplus value produced by the Russian working class to fund their own lavish lifestyles
For genuine free access communism
http://www.revleft.com/vb/group.php?groupid=792
I'm not of the opinion that it was a fascist state (I personally try to stay away from over-generalisations in history). I am merely saying that stating that it was a bourgeois state (something which I disagree with though it certainly wasn't socialist) does not rule it being a fascist state out.
Is this resistance or a costume party?
Either way I think black with bandanas is a boring theme.
fka Creep
Well robo pretty much explained why it could be considered a bourgeois capitalist state.I get your point though
I hope for nothing,I fear nothing,I am free-Nikos Kazantzakis
And I take a different point of view when characterising the mode of production (and thus state-form) of the USSR. But, unfortunately, I do not have the time to explain that right now.
Is this resistance or a costume party?
Either way I think black with bandanas is a boring theme.
fka Creep
For me, 'fascism' refers to the international offensive conducted against workers through corporatism — i.e. formal incorporation of capital and labor into the state apparatus for the ostensible national interest — in the aftermath of the defeated world revolution, which was inaugurated by the establishment of the Petrograd Soviet in 1917 and truly prorogued by the liquidation of the Shanghai Commune at the hands of Kuomintang butchers ten years and one month later. If we consider the revolutionary degeneration of the Soviet Union, promulgated by Socialism in One Country, to be representative of this tendency, then I think there is certainly some weight to the argument that it developed into an objectively fascist state. In fact, considering the drastic widening of the collaborationist franchise of bourgeois democracy to European workers in the decade after Red October; the pacification of most unions and, through their intricate ties to the various Labor and Social-Democratic parties, their perversion into tools — if not outright allies — of the bourgeois state in its hour of need during World War II; and the subsequent expansion of the use of mediation to sedate the working class and to obscure the class struggle by moving it from the shop floor to before an industrial tribunal, I don't think it is at all outlandish to suggest we live under an effective fascism today.
Last edited by Ember Catching; 8th March 2014 at 12:29.
Fascism had never a complete totalitarism I think, the URSS had it.
But, I think that one of the greatest differences beetwen fascism and the URSS, the mith that is always present in the fascist state. In the Italian case, the idea of a "new roman empire", a new man, and a sort of new religion (yes, the italian fascist state had good relations with the Catholic Church, anyway, with the time, the cult of "Duchismo" and admiration to Mussolini was replacing the Church).
In the National Socialist case, the mith is more present. The idea of a new aryan pure man, replaced the Church as a religion (or at least, it was going to do it).
I think this is not present in the USSR. In the fascist states, power demostrations are more common in form of military marches.
Also, all the fascist states have a "party army", the SA in Germany, and Black Shirts in Italy.
There shall be even more differences that i'm forgetin, sorry about that.
Sorry for my English, it's not my natural language so I always make a few mistakes.
Saludos desde Argentina.
