DISQUS

danielmiessler.com | grep understanding: Facism: “I Don’t Think That Word Means What You Think It Means.”

  • Steven G. Harms · 1 year ago

    Well the most basic tool for discerning communism from fascism is to realize that fascism is far right. They both happen to be at such extremes that they're near the point where extremes wrap around onto one another. National socialism is also a bit of a confusing factor here for while they claimed socialism, they were certainly far right, as you note above.


    Communism is the nth degree of socialism and holds at its heart the abrogation of The Church, unsurprisingly it found its authors in Protestant countries.


    It's not coincidental that fascism took root in an extremely conservative, Catholic country. To go from papa to il papa ( pope ) to il duce ( Mussolini, generically it means leader, or general ). A country that lauds the preservation of the sacrosanctity of "the family" may find itself accommodating the seeds of fascist thought.


    I would not stretch the affiliation of Catholicism and fascism, though. Such a conclusion might be tempting based on Catholic-leaning Austria and Southern Germany being the origins of the National Socialist movement, but methinks that's going a bridge too far.


    There's a start :)

  • Derek · 1 year ago

    Quick comments:


    <ul>
    <li>Along with nationalism usually comes intolerance for other "types" of people (ie. racism)</li>
    <li>Theoretical communism strives for equality among all citizens, therefore a democratic communist society (as proposed by Marx) is possible.</li>
    </ul>
  • Daniel Miessler · 1 year ago

    Good stuff, thanks.

  • MD · 1 year ago

    Communism is also a stateless society (ie, anarchism but done through socialism), whereas fascism tends to be centralized.

  • Maxo · 1 year ago

    I think you need to research Hitler a little better and understand his political ideals. He HATED communism. He considered it the cockroach-child of Jews, designed to infest and eventually destroy our world so that the Jews could hold world power. It was through socialism and a strong German state he meant to squash out all Jews and their communistic ideals.

  • Chris · 1 year ago

    Dave Niewert over at Orcinus has has been writing and covering this topic for a number of years.


    Check out "Rush, Newspeak and Fascism: An Exegesis" (down the page, left hand side) for a 'tome' on fascism and the right-wing enablers that are taking us down that path.