That’s stupid, that’s not what I implied. I said that they’re sister ideologies that desire the same things just with different approaches, and that’s objectively true.
Fascism was started by Mussolini, who was an infamous Marxist for most of his early life. He used to write for Marxist papers, be an avid Marxist activist, attend Marxist meetings, and even got arrested for rioting for Marxist causes. He, like many other socialists at the time, was against war. However, over time he came to the conclusion that war might not be a bad thing. If wars happened more frequently, it could bring about the social climate necessary for revolutions to happen that would end European monarchies and replace them with socialist systems. However, his ideas were rejected by the other socialists and he was shunned by them.
Mussolini started shifting away from other socialists over what unites men. Socialists believe it’s class, but Mussolini started shifting towards the nation. He and his supporters starting gravitating towards revolutionary nationalism… Professor Anthony Gregor from UC Berkely described Mussolini’s nationalism as the following:
Mussolini’s revolutionary nationalism, while it distinguished itself from the traditional patriotism and nationalism of the bourgeoisie, displayed many of those features we today identify with the nationalism of underdeveloped peoples. It was an anticonservative nationalism that anticipated vast social changes; it was directed against both foreign and domestic oppressors; it conjured up an image of a renewed and regenerated nation that would perform a historical mission; it invoked a moral ideal of selfless sacrifice and commitment in the service of collective goals; and it recalled ancient glories and anticipated a shared and greater glory
Mussolini’s Fascism was very clearly heavily influenced by Marxism. He used a lot of the same ideals, a lot of the same terminology, similar rhetoric, and similar types of analytical lenses. In fact professor Gregor notes that Mussolini’s viewed Fascism as a type of socialism, or rather as the successor of socialism:
“Fascism was the only form of ‘socialism’ appropriate to the proletarian nations of the twentieth century”
Even though Mussolini eventually parted ways with Marxism all together. His opposition to them wasn’t because they were socialists but because they were anti-nationalist. Despite declaring Marxism a failure and socialists as opposition, he still thought and constantly talked about how Fascism was about poor nations rising up against the plutocrats.
When I say they’re sister ideologies, they literally are.
It’s almost like someone who was a Marxist made a new ideology that was not Marxism, had separate goals to Marxism, aligned itself against Marxists, didn’t adopt the social or economic policies of Marxism, but clothed itself in the language of Marxism.
Did you know that Marx was once just a random journalist? Does that mean Marxism is a sister ideology to newspaper businesses? Marxists do write stuff afterall!
It’s almost like someone who was a Marxist made a new ideology that was not Marxism, had separate goals to Marxism, aligned itself against Marxists, didn’t adopt the social or economic policies of Marxism, but clothed itself in the language of Marxism.
Yeah no shit, they’re different ideologies. I’m just pointing out that they’re similar, I’m not saying they’re exactly the same.
Did you know that Marx was once just a random journalist? Does that mean Marxism is a sister ideology to newspaper businesses? Marxists do write stuff afterall!
They’re not at all similar… Like… wtf. All you can say is one violent thug followed Marxism and then stopped follow Marxism, did something completely different, while saying stuff that sounded like Marxism because he knew it sounded good.
Just dot point me, pick idk 5 core areas and just write what fascists proposed vs what Marxists proposed.
I legit cannot thing of anything with overlap except
violence is sometimes good (literally even pacifists believe this)
and
people united in purpose can wield power (again not at all at unique hypothesis)
Authoritarianism is not only acceptable but is encouraged. In fascism this comes in the form of a totalitarian dictatorship and in Marxism it comes in the form of an tyrannical transitional government that rules with an iron fist to establish socialism and bring about the social climate necessary to realize communism (dictatorship of the proletariat).
Ideology revolves around common enemies - In fascism this comes in the form certain ethnicities or nationalities while in Marxism it comes in the form of classes.
Bitterly oppose materialism - Fascism opposes materialism because it is deemed to lack acknowledgement of the role of the spirit, while Marxism opposes materialism because it is deem to be a key engine in class warfare.
Bitterly oppose individualism - Both ideologies revolve around the concepts communality and unity, and so they see individualism as a threat to their core ideological views.
Explicit support of political violence - You’re trying to water it down, but both support widescale poltical violence. Marxism calls for a violent revolution that overthrows capitalism by burning down the capitalist system and institutions (literally and metaphorically) as well as killing the entirety of the bourgeoisie (democide). Fascism calls for political violence as legitimate way to gain power and achieve aims, which includes getting rid of undesirable national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups (genocide).
Authoritarianism is not only acceptable but is encouraged. In fascism this comes in the form of a totalitarian dictatorship and in Marxism it comes in the form of an tyrannical transitional government that rules with an iron fist to establish socialism and bring about the social climate necessary to realize communism (dictatorship of the proletariat).
Marx proposed a temporary state wherein proles, collectively, use the apparatus of the state in an authoritarian manner to manage a transition to a non authoritarian non state. The vanguard party stuff is all Lenin. If you want to compare ML to fascism that’s a separate discussion, iirc Marx is actually pretty vague on what precisely the DotP would actually look like. Fascism proposes an indefinite centralisation of power with the goal of ultimate preservation of the state.
The significant debate and purging around the formation of, for instance, the USSR should be a hint that endorsement of authoritarianism is not really something everyone takes away from a reading of Marx. Incidentally, have you? read marx?
Everything except the most radical anarchist ideologies makes some use of authority in certain circumstances, I think it’s somewhat farcical to draw parallels between crisis and the proposed status quo.
Ideology revolves around common enemies - In fascism this comes in the form certain ethnicities or nationalities while in Marxism it comes in the form of classes.
Wat? This is so ludicrously broad as to apply to everything. Westminster democracy aligns itself against a common enemy of absolute monarchy, republics unite themselves against a nobility, tribes unite themselves against non kin outsiders… Is there an ideology that doesn’t declare itself against some enemy which is protects against?
Bitterly oppose materialism - Fascism opposes materialism because it is deemed to lack acknowledgement of the role of the spirit, while Marxism opposes materialism because it is deem to be a key engine in class warfare.
Sure I guess. Again this is hardly unique to the two. I mean Buddhism does this along with monastic Christianity and new age smoothie cults /shrug
Bitterly oppose individualism - Both ideologies revolve around the concepts communality and unity, and so they see individualism as a threat to their core ideological views.
Ah, you have not read Marx! I can see how you might get this stance but no. This is just false. Marx imagined a utopia where people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, could pursue individual fulfilment. If I may pretentiously quote:
“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
Seems pretty clearly individualistic to me!
Explicit support of political violence - You’re trying to water it down, but both support widescale poltical violence. Marxism calls for a violent revolution that overthrows capitalism by burning down the capitalist system and institutions (literally and metaphorically) as well as killing the entirety of the bourgeoisie (democide). Fascism calls for political violence as legitimate way to gain power and achieve aims, which includes getting rid of undesirable national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups (genocide).
Actually Marx said it was magically scientifically inevitable that capitalism would collapse in violence. Not that people should set out to do it. Also Marx didn’t want to “burn down the capitalist system and institutions” actually in a straight reading of Marx capitalism is a necessary step to communism. Marx didn’t think it was good, he thought the bourgeoisie would never willingingly surrender power because of their material interest and thus the only way for proles to avoid mass death was instead to unify and take power through violence.
This sounds a lot like “Both involve violence therefore the same” but that’s extraordinarily reductive. I mean literally all governments make themselves governments through control of violence.
So in summary I think you have as similarities:
Don’t like materialism, authority features, has an enemy, and violence features. Which ok, if that makes stuff sister ideologies then it’s a broad tent with literally everything from Liberation Theology Christianity, to westminster democracy, to Peelan Policing sharing sisterhood with Marxism and Fascism.
I think someone with a violent streak a mile long even as a child who became fascinated with populist revolutionary ideologies creating a new populist revolutionary ideology does not really make it inherently twinsies with previous populist revolutionary ideologies other than that they are both exactly that. I think it’s pretty clear in hindsight that what Mussolini was really interested in was gaining power in a populist revolution, no matter the cost or method.
Obviously, with the power of hindsight, we can see that Mussolini didn’t end up being the socialist that he was in his early days. However, it’s still interesting to the influences of Marxism on Fascism as an ideology. They do share a lot of characteristics despite their many differences. This is why the claim that these two ideologies are polar opposites isn’t true. They’re different? Sure. Polar opposites? Not exactly.
That’s stupid, that’s not what I implied. I said that they’re sister ideologies that desire the same things just with different approaches, and that’s objectively true.
Fascism was started by Mussolini, who was an infamous Marxist for most of his early life. He used to write for Marxist papers, be an avid Marxist activist, attend Marxist meetings, and even got arrested for rioting for Marxist causes. He, like many other socialists at the time, was against war. However, over time he came to the conclusion that war might not be a bad thing. If wars happened more frequently, it could bring about the social climate necessary for revolutions to happen that would end European monarchies and replace them with socialist systems. However, his ideas were rejected by the other socialists and he was shunned by them.
Mussolini started shifting away from other socialists over what unites men. Socialists believe it’s class, but Mussolini started shifting towards the nation. He and his supporters starting gravitating towards revolutionary nationalism… Professor Anthony Gregor from UC Berkely described Mussolini’s nationalism as the following:
Mussolini’s Fascism was very clearly heavily influenced by Marxism. He used a lot of the same ideals, a lot of the same terminology, similar rhetoric, and similar types of analytical lenses. In fact professor Gregor notes that Mussolini’s viewed Fascism as a type of socialism, or rather as the successor of socialism:
Even though Mussolini eventually parted ways with Marxism all together. His opposition to them wasn’t because they were socialists but because they were anti-nationalist. Despite declaring Marxism a failure and socialists as opposition, he still thought and constantly talked about how Fascism was about poor nations rising up against the plutocrats.
When I say they’re sister ideologies, they literally are.
Sources: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_fascism https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benito_Mussolini https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Revolutionary_nationalism
It’s almost like someone who was a Marxist made a new ideology that was not Marxism, had separate goals to Marxism, aligned itself against Marxists, didn’t adopt the social or economic policies of Marxism, but clothed itself in the language of Marxism.
Did you know that Marx was once just a random journalist? Does that mean Marxism is a sister ideology to newspaper businesses? Marxists do write stuff afterall!
Yeah no shit, they’re different ideologies. I’m just pointing out that they’re similar, I’m not saying they’re exactly the same.
This isn’t even logically coherent.
They’re not at all similar… Like… wtf. All you can say is one violent thug followed Marxism and then stopped follow Marxism, did something completely different, while saying stuff that sounded like Marxism because he knew it sounded good.
Just dot point me, pick idk 5 core areas and just write what fascists proposed vs what Marxists proposed.
I legit cannot thing of anything with overlap except
and
What have you got?
Okay here you go:
Authoritarianism is not only acceptable but is encouraged. In fascism this comes in the form of a totalitarian dictatorship and in Marxism it comes in the form of an tyrannical transitional government that rules with an iron fist to establish socialism and bring about the social climate necessary to realize communism (dictatorship of the proletariat).
Ideology revolves around common enemies - In fascism this comes in the form certain ethnicities or nationalities while in Marxism it comes in the form of classes.
Bitterly oppose materialism - Fascism opposes materialism because it is deemed to lack acknowledgement of the role of the spirit, while Marxism opposes materialism because it is deem to be a key engine in class warfare.
Bitterly oppose individualism - Both ideologies revolve around the concepts communality and unity, and so they see individualism as a threat to their core ideological views.
Explicit support of political violence - You’re trying to water it down, but both support widescale poltical violence. Marxism calls for a violent revolution that overthrows capitalism by burning down the capitalist system and institutions (literally and metaphorically) as well as killing the entirety of the bourgeoisie (democide). Fascism calls for political violence as legitimate way to gain power and achieve aims, which includes getting rid of undesirable national, ethnic, racial, or religious groups (genocide).
There’s more, but you asked for 5.
Quibbles:
Marx proposed a temporary state wherein proles, collectively, use the apparatus of the state in an authoritarian manner to manage a transition to a non authoritarian non state. The vanguard party stuff is all Lenin. If you want to compare ML to fascism that’s a separate discussion, iirc Marx is actually pretty vague on what precisely the DotP would actually look like. Fascism proposes an indefinite centralisation of power with the goal of ultimate preservation of the state.
The significant debate and purging around the formation of, for instance, the USSR should be a hint that endorsement of authoritarianism is not really something everyone takes away from a reading of Marx. Incidentally, have you? read marx?
Everything except the most radical anarchist ideologies makes some use of authority in certain circumstances, I think it’s somewhat farcical to draw parallels between crisis and the proposed status quo.
Wat? This is so ludicrously broad as to apply to everything. Westminster democracy aligns itself against a common enemy of absolute monarchy, republics unite themselves against a nobility, tribes unite themselves against non kin outsiders… Is there an ideology that doesn’t declare itself against some enemy which is protects against?
Sure I guess. Again this is hardly unique to the two. I mean Buddhism does this along with monastic Christianity and new age smoothie cults /shrug
Ah, you have not read Marx! I can see how you might get this stance but no. This is just false. Marx imagined a utopia where people, regardless of the circumstances of their birth, could pursue individual fulfilment. If I may pretentiously quote:
“For as soon as the distribution of labour comes into being, each man has a particular, exclusive sphere of activity, which is forced upon him and from which he cannot escape. He is a hunter, a fisherman, a herdsman, or a critical critic, and must remain so if he does not want to lose his means of livelihood; while in communist society, where nobody has one exclusive sphere of activity but each can become accomplished in any branch he wishes, society regulates the general production and thus makes it possible for me to do one thing today and another tomorrow, to hunt in the morning, fish in the afternoon, rear cattle in the evening, criticise after dinner, just as I have a mind, without ever becoming hunter, fisherman, herdsman or critic.”
Seems pretty clearly individualistic to me!
Actually Marx said it was magically scientifically inevitable that capitalism would collapse in violence. Not that people should set out to do it. Also Marx didn’t want to “burn down the capitalist system and institutions” actually in a straight reading of Marx capitalism is a necessary step to communism. Marx didn’t think it was good, he thought the bourgeoisie would never willingingly surrender power because of their material interest and thus the only way for proles to avoid mass death was instead to unify and take power through violence.
This sounds a lot like “Both involve violence therefore the same” but that’s extraordinarily reductive. I mean literally all governments make themselves governments through control of violence.
So in summary I think you have as similarities:
Don’t like materialism, authority features, has an enemy, and violence features. Which ok, if that makes stuff sister ideologies then it’s a broad tent with literally everything from Liberation Theology Christianity, to westminster democracy, to Peelan Policing sharing sisterhood with Marxism and Fascism.
Dialectical Materialism is literally a product of Marx and Engels. Granted they didn’t call it that, but they very much called it Materialism.
And everyone who took after M&E used D.M. Lenin wrote Materialism and Empirio-criticism. Stalin wrote Dialectical and Historical Materialism. Mao wrote On contradiction. George Pulitzer, a teacher at the Workers’ University (which taught marxism), had a student write up notes from his class into a book: https://en.prolewiki.org/wiki/Library:Elementary_principles_of_philosophy
I think someone with a violent streak a mile long even as a child who became fascinated with populist revolutionary ideologies creating a new populist revolutionary ideology does not really make it inherently twinsies with previous populist revolutionary ideologies other than that they are both exactly that. I think it’s pretty clear in hindsight that what Mussolini was really interested in was gaining power in a populist revolution, no matter the cost or method.
Obviously, with the power of hindsight, we can see that Mussolini didn’t end up being the socialist that he was in his early days. However, it’s still interesting to the influences of Marxism on Fascism as an ideology. They do share a lot of characteristics despite their many differences. This is why the claim that these two ideologies are polar opposites isn’t true. They’re different? Sure. Polar opposites? Not exactly.