What is ‘Fascism’, and how prevalent is the ideology in the world today?
Written By: Tom Published: 07/05/2022
According to the American ‘Merriam Webster’ dictionary, the definition of Fascism is as follows:
Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and the economy that rose to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.
According to Vladimir Lenin: Fascism is capitalism in decay.
What does this mean, and what constitutes a fascist state or a fascist movement? Liberals will call Russia ‘fascist’ with their full chests whilst downplaying the leading role of Nazi-Fascism in the post-2004 ‘Orange Revolution’ & ‘Euro Maidan’ state of Ukraine.
So: a fascist state can easily be identified from its political makeup. Is the state ran and controlled by the Bourgeoisie (directly or indirectly, through puppet leaders) and partially through the origins of its creation.
Origin One: Settler-Colony 🇦🇺🇺🇸🇮🇱
Settler-Colony states have a high tendency toward fascism, as they were all founded as a result of capitalist expansion (ergo, control by the bourgeoisie is a given), they are usually built upon the bones of the indigenous inhabitants, and they usually revise the history of their foundation as much as possible so as to fabricate a less genocidal origin story. In the case of the so-called state of ‘Israel’ (Occupied Palestine), the genocide is ongoing.
Origin Two: Decaying / Fallen Empire 🇬🇧🇫🇷🇪🇸🇮🇹🇩🇪🇹🇷
When Lenin stated that fascism is capitalism in Decay, a good series of examples are the Western European empires which collapsed after WW1. Although France, Spain, and the U.K. are heavily degenerate empires, they do still maintain colonial outposts. These empires largely came about as a form of capital expansion, and as such, are still firmly controlled by the bourgeoisie; usually through liberal or conservative (right-liberal) puppet leaders. These states tend to hearken back to ‘the good ol’ days’ when justifying imperial misadventures abroad.
Origin Three: The Anti-communist Outposts 🇰🇷🇯🇵🇺🇦🇩🇪🇵🇱🇱🇹🇮🇳🇹🇼
During the Cold War, when America superseded the other capitalist empires to become the grandest and most powerful capitalist empire in its struggle with the USSR, certain “outpost” or “buffer”/“puppet states” were founded to contain the rising Red Threat.
Within Asia, the so-called ‘Republic of Vietnam’, and ‘Republic of Korea’ were created as buffers against communism and to maintain a military presence in the geographical area. Japan was restructured and the majority of its fascist wartime government was re-employed to prevent the rise of a Japanese socialist state. Taiwan island was allowed to be completely openly fascist as it contained the Chinese mainland quite comfortably. When the USSR fell, the Russian state was still seen as an enormous threat by the capitalist western states, so fascist buffer states, poisoned with Anticommunist and Antirussian propaganda, were founded to contain the nascent Russian federation. Poland, Lithuania, and Ukraine are some of the most virulent examples of this. India is an interesting situation; as an imperial colony of Britain, the Indian socialist movements were neutered and destroyed in the cradle, and India was set up as a ‘western’ buffer to Chinese and Russian communism. Britain played a large and direct role in the Fascisisation of India; backing the caste system and extreme right parties. Despite the enormous domestic success of communist movements in India today, fascism is the governing ideology of the BJP party.
And this is just the fascist states. How about fascist movements?
Fascist movements tend to be a lot more ‘overtly fascist’ than the above-mentioned states; for the states generally have to maintain an air of ‘liberalism’ and ‘democracy’ in order to continue their bourgeois rule and give legitimacy to their states in the eyes of their populaces.
Fascist movements today tend to fall into one of two groupings: religious fascism and identity fascism.
Grouping One: Religious Fascism
Religious fascism is not unique to any one religion and in fact, almost every religion on earth has Neo-fascist sects.
Within Christianity ✝️: Many White Nationalist organisations will use Christianity as their justification for fascist action; from militant racist organisations like the Ku Klux Klan, to pretty much Every white American fascist movement’s justifications for their actions. Britain used the ‘spreading of Protestantism’ and Spain used the ‘spreading of Catholicism’ for the religious justifications behind their Empire’s crimes.
Within Judaism ✡️: Zionism is the most prevalent Fascist movement within Judaism, with the ideology pertaining to a mystified history and an obsession with the (re-)conquest of what they see as the Jewish holy land, even at the cost of total genocide of the people currently living there.
Within Islam ☪️: ISIS, Al-Nusra, Al-Qaeda, ETIM, the BLA, et al. These movements tend to focus their energy on the formation of zealous caliphates that punish non-Muslims, or in some cases, non-Sunni/non-Shia Muslims with death or expulsion for refusing to follow the rigid rules of the Caliph.
Within Hinduism🕉: Hindutva, the ideology of the Indian BJP and its supporters, wishes to use Hindu supremacy to ‘cleanse’ India of non-Hindu minority groups, and to expand their borders throughout the entire south East Asian subcontinent.
Within Buddhism ☸️: Tibetan separatists used Buddhism as their justification for violent terrorist action within China, and the continued existence of the “Free Tibet” movement is a branch of religious fascism.
Asian Religions (Shinto / Daoism): Falun Gong and other ‘grassroots’ Chinese religious movements have long been used as vehicles for fascist extremism, and are forbidden within China as ‘Cults’. Shinto is often used by Japanese fascists to justify their imperial crimes against humanity and to uphold their emperor (a war criminal) as a religious icon.
Grouping two: Identity Fascism
Identity fascism can manifest in many forms but is easy to distinguish from religious fascism as it doesn’t use mysticism or longing for an exaggerated past to justify its crimes.
Identity fascism can come in the form of the “White man’s burden” or ‘civilising the barbarians’ which is often the justification provided by the USA when it delivers ‘freedom’ to an unsuspecting country.
Identity fascism can also rear its head for purely genocidal reasons; like vehement Russophobia leading to the attempted genocide in Donbas by Ukrainian fascists, or Hitler’s abject and nonsensical hatred of ‘Untermensch’ (Jews and Slavs) which lead to the Holocaust.
What differentiates fascist movements, and fascist states is largely the success of the movement. The prevalence of modern fascist movements, as stated above, is largely the result of the fascist empire (the USA) funding them as a bulwark against communism. As the USA rightly predicted, the ‘Domino Effect’ is real, and when one country becomes socialist, others will inevitably follow. The USA also acknowledged that the only force prepared to stop this trend is fascism. Hence why (almost) every fascist movement in the world today can trace at least some percentage of its funding to the Land of the Free 🦅 🇺🇸.
Although this list is not extensive – there are 100s of 1000s of these groups around the world and many sub-variations but a basic understanding of these group is important in assessing geopolitics. Not being able to identify fascist movements, and their relationship with empire, is a typical mistake of the liberal lense/method, which leads to inadvertently supporting various groups from ISIS to AZOV.
Mango Press
