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Left-wing politics

2023-03-17T11:59:16Z

Clover: turned this into a redirect to the left right poli spectrum cus best UwU

<nowiki>#REDIRECT [[Left–right political spectrum]]</nowiki>

Left–right political spectrum

2023-03-17T11:57:52Z

Clover: Changed a bunch, and moved relevant parts from previous pages to this one. Also made the definitions for both left and right wing politics way more concise, Comrade forte is the bestest and most handsome :3 (jk)

The '''left–right political spectrum''' is a diagram intended to categorize political ideologies in 3 distinct categories: [[Left-wing politics|left wing]], [[Right-wing politics|right wing]] and [[Centrism|centrist]]. The model has received criticism for being [[Idealism|idealist]], unscientific, subjective, and for ignoring [[historical materialism]] and [[class struggle]].

There are successors or variations to the left-right spectrum, one of the most famous successors being the [[Political Compass|political compass]]. Variations include the Horseshoe Theory and the Fish hook theory.
==History==
The methodology is derived from the time of the [[French Revolution|French Revolution of 1789]], wherein the newly formed National Constituent Assembly had overtime been divided from left to right. With the persons in opposition to the monarchy sitting to the left, whilst the inverse sitting on the right. This evolved with the establishment and replacement of the National Assembly with the Legislative assembly in 1791. With new members and principles, however, the fundamental seating of ideological motives was maintained with the so-called “innovators” on the left, the “moderates” in the middle, and the “conservatives” on the right.
==Description ==
The model is split into 3 categories (sometimes 2), the left wing, the right wing and the centrists. There can be also prefixes adjoined to the parts of the spectrum as 'far-left' or 'center-right' (not to be confused with centrist), which specify the location within the political spectrum. It is a visible one dimensional line going from left to right.
===Left wing===
The Left Wing broadly describes the progressive of the status quo in a given society, from [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxism-Leninism]] to [[social democracy]] ideologically wise, or the support of specific policies: like the support of [[LGBT+|LGBT]] rights in the USA.
===Right wing===
The Right Wing describes as those who oppose progress and, or, actively support regress. It may refer to several political ideologies, extending from [[Libertarianism]] to [[Fascism]].
===Centrist===
No to be confused with apolitical and moderate, they are typically people who support (and somewhat oppose) both stances, sometimes rejecting one idea of the part over another or choosing neither. Principally, however, in analysis, these persons uphold the status quo, and thereby overlap with the Right wing.
==Variations ==
===Horseshoe Theory ===
The Horseshoe Theory is an adaptation of the Left-Right Spectrum, where the furthest left and the furthest right points are brought closer together in the form of a 'horseshoe' shape, to state that the far-left is similar or identical to the [[Far-right politics|far-right]]. This is despite the fact that historical materialism refutes this, as the far-left are often anti-fascist and fought nations such as [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Nazi Germany]].
===Fish Hook Theory ===
The Fish Hook Theory is an adaptation of the Left-Right Spectrum where the far-right is shaped towards the center, in the shape of a 'hook', to state that old sayings such as 'Scratch a liberal, a fascist bleeds'. This is more accurate, however, this falls apart due to subjectivity and its unscientific nature.
==Criticism ==
===Subjective ===
The Left-Right Spectrum changes depending on which region you live in. In the [[United States of America|United States]], [[Social democracy|Social Democrats]] are considered 'far-left' and Liberals are considered 'Left-Wing' whilst Conservatives are considered 'Center-Right'.

In the case of the [[UK]] for example, Liberals are considered 'Center-Right', and Social Democracies are considered 'center-left' whilst socialists are considered 'far-left'.
===Unscientific ===
The Left-Right Spectrum is criticised for not being scientific, as you cannot draw conclusions due to its subjectivity. There is also no consensus on how to measure the ideologies based on a certain factor, note that the left-right spectrum relies on one value more often than not to be considered scientific.
===Ahistorical===
It is an absolutist model, putting ideologies in a vacuum, as some models include "Monarchism" as a 'far-right' ideology, despite monarchism being obsolete for decades.
[[Category:Pages needing references]]
[[Category:Politics]]

Topic:Xdme067wkwpn2qlf

2023-03-03T09:27:26Z

Clover (talk | contribs) hid a post on "*yawns*" (Not relevant)

Topic:Xdme067wkwpn2qlf

2023-03-03T09:26:02Z

Clover (talk | contribs) commented on "*yawns*" (This is not even to mention the “freedom lover” in your bio, a clear sign of pat soc ideology.)

Topic:Xdme067wkwpn2qlf

2023-03-03T09:25:17Z

Clover (talk | contribs) commented on "*yawns*" (The internal security group of Prolewiki will not hesitate to ban you, you were banned from the server, this may just be a reason for us...)

Topic:Xdme067wkwpn2qlf

2023-03-03T09:23:33Z

Clover (talk | contribs) commented on "*yawns*" (Anti-revisionist = Supporting Gorbachev. You may not be a supporter of the CPC and its method of development through the open up policies...)

Topic:Xbg37qavdci3qper

2023-01-26T23:07:00Z

Clover (talk | contribs) commented on "New principle proposition: anyone claiming to be something they are not is subject to instant ban." (I support this change, it is a simple yet effective measure.)

Gary Webb

2022-12-17T00:13:13Z

Clover:

{{Infobox person|name=Gary Webb|birth_date=August 31, 1955|birth_place=Corona, [[California]], [[United States of America|United States]]|death_date=December 10, 2004|death_place=Carmichael, California, United States|death_cause=Assassination by gunshot|image=Gary Webb.png}}

'''Gary Webb''' (August 31, 1955 – December 10, 2004) was a [[United States of America|Statesian]] journalist who exposed the [[Central Intelligence Agency|CIA]]’s involvement in cocaine trafficking with the [[Republic of Nicaragua|Nicaraguan]] [[Contras]].<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Gary Webb|date=1996-02-06|title=America's 'crack' plague has roots in Nicaragua war|url=http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs/day1main.htm|newspaper=San Jose Mercury News|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/19961220020751/http://www.sjmercury.com/drugs/day1main.htm|archive-date=1996-12-20}}</ref> His later exposed the [[United States Department of Defense|Pentagon]]'s use of video games for military indoctrination.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Jeremy Kuzmarov|newspaper=[[CovertAction Magazine]]|title=Eighteen Years Ago Today, Journalist Gary Webb Was Murdered After Exposing CIA Drug Trafficking|date=2022-12-10|url=https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/12/10/eighteen-years-ago-today-journalist-gary-webb-was-murdered-after-exposing-cia-drug-trafficking/|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221215091458/https://covertactionmagazine.com/2022/12/10/eighteen-years-ago-today-journalist-gary-webb-was-murdered-after-exposing-cia-drug-trafficking/|archive-date=2022-12-15|retrieved=2022-12-16}}</ref> He was assassinated in 2004, but his death was ruled a suicide despite multiple bullet wounds.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Tina Daunt|date=2005-03-16|title=Written in Pain|newspaper=Los Angeles Times|archive-url=https://archive.ph/20150129110448/http://articles.latimes.com/2005/mar/16/entertainment/et-webb16|archive-date=2015-01-29}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Statesian journalists]]

Sun Tzu

2022-12-09T12:50:16Z

Clover: Made a page on this genius

Born in the [[Zhou Dynasty]] without definite date, Sun Tzu is credited with one of the first uses of the dialectical method applied to reality. Their analysis of war constitutes what may be called a primitive [[dialectical materialism]].

Jimmy Carter

2022-12-03T20:05:33Z

Clover: Added a stub, someone may want to expand this, however lets be honest, nobody cares about this mfer

'''Jimmy Carter''' was a [[Liberalism|liberal]] politician who served as the 39th president of the [[United States of America|USA]]. Most notably known for his signing of the [[Strategic Arms Limitation Talks]] (SALT II)

Kingdom of Denmark

2022-11-28T15:37:12Z

Clover: some stufff lol

{{Infobox country|name=Kingdom of Denmark|native_name=Kongeriget Danmark<br>Kongsríki Danmarkar<br>Kunngeqarfik Danmarki|image_flag=Flag of Kingdom of Denmark.svg|image_coat=Royal coat of arms of Denmark.svg|capital=Copenhagen|largest_city=Copenhagen|image_map=Denmark map.svg|map_width=260|official_languages=Danish|recognized_regional_languages=Faroese<br>Greenlandic|area_km2=42,926|area_footnote=(metropolitan Denmark)<br>2,210,408 (entire realm)|population_census=5,930,998|population_census_year=2020}}

The '''Kingdom of Denmark''' is a country in Northern Europe. It consists of metropolitan Denmark and its colonies of [[Greenland]] and the [[Faroe Islands]].

== History ==
Denmark was once a power of significance within Europe, having occupied and claimed most of [[Scandinavia]]<ref>{{Web citation|author=Jon Mathorne|newspaper=Videnskab.dk|title=Så stort har Danmark været|date=06 april 2017|url=https://videnskab.dk/kultur-samfund/saa-stort-har-danmark-vaeret}}</ref>. However, due to wars of imperialism the Danish empire pushed to the brink of collapse, the final blow was that of the Prussian invasion of 1864

== Politics ==
The [[Far-right politics|far-right]] [[Danish People's Party]] has been decreasing in strength since 2014. A new far-right party, [[Hard Line]], advocates for banning [[Islam]] and deporting all Muslims from Denmark.<ref>{{Web citation|date=2019-07-22|title=Dissecting Identity & Democracy: the EU’s new far-right super group|url=https://covertactionmagazine.com/2019/07/22/dissecting-identity-democracy-the-eus-new-far-right-super-group/|newspaper=[[CovertAction Magazine]]|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200921200918/https://covertactionmagazine.com/2019/07/22/dissecting-identity-democracy-the-eus-new-far-right-super-group/|archive-date=2020-09-21|retrieved=2022-11-23|author=Ellen Rivera, Marsha P. Davis}}</ref>

== References ==
[[Category:Countries]]
[[Category:Global north]]
[[Category:Imperialist countries]]

Democracy

2022-11-22T11:58:39Z

Clover: Some stufffvv

'''Democracy''', as of common consensus, as a concept, was formally conceived by the ancient Greeks. The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words being: people (''demos''), and rule (''kratos''). By popular definition, democracy is a method of rule wherein the populace have common power, as in the people have an active role within the steering and guidance of the state. Contrary to common conception, “democracy” is not a system within itself, but a basis upon which political organizations and structures are formed. Democracy became the method of rule within Athens, a part of the [[Base and superstructure|superstructure]], so to speak, however within the bounds of the [[Base and superstructure|material base]]. Thereby referring to [[Slavery|slave society]], the only persons eligible to participate were so-called “free men”, this not including women, children, and slaves. This being the majority of the populace.

{{quote|'''Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.'''|[[Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]]}}

== Interpretations of Democracy ==
Democracy in modernity has been split into many categories and has been countlessly interpreted and, at times, vulgarized by bourgeois thinkers. It may be noted that “democracy”, in all of its forms, are indeed a progressive force comparatively to the political systems proceeding it. Even the simplest liberal democracy serving the interests of the ruling class, is still superior to a direct dictatorship by class interests.

United States embargo against Cuba

2022-11-15T11:51:38Z

Clover: Descriptive content regarding the annual assembly 2022. And referencing the US's response and reasoning, per legal document produced by the US state.

The '''United States embargo against Cuba''' is a trade [[Economic sanctions|embargo]] by the [[United States of America|Statesian]] [[Imperialism|imperialist]] government against [[Republic of Cuba|Cuba]]. It is also commonly known as the '''blockade''' (Spanish: '''''el bloqueo'''''). It is not a single law, but a series of laws, presidential proclamations, and regulations that together enforce the embargo on Cuba internationally by punishing third parties for engaging with Cuba.<ref name=":0">Gloria La Riva. [https://www.liberationschool.org/u-s-agenda-cuba-remains-counter-revolution/ “The U.S. Agenda in Cuba Remains Counter-Revolution”] Liberation School. January 6, 2015.</ref><ref name=":1">[https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2022-02-02/cuba-embargoed-us-trade-sanctions-turn-sixty “Cuba Embargoed: U.S. Trade Sanctions Turn Sixty."] National Security Archive. February 2, 2022. [https://web.archive.org/web/20221029052723/https://nsarchive.gwu.edu/briefing-book/cuba/2022-02-02/cuba-embargoed-us-trade-sanctions-turn-sixty Archived] 2022-10-29.</ref>

In a 1962 speech, [[Fidel Castro]] spoke regarding the [[Anti-communism|anti-communist]] propaganda strategy that accompanies the economic measures taken against Cuba: "The imperialists try to deceive the peoples of [[America]], and try to attribute the consequences of the blockade and economic aggression to the revolutionary measures. And they do not say that they have created problems for us with their attacks and their blockades, but rather that the problems are consequences of the revolutionary laws. And with that deception they try to confuse the peoples."<ref>{{Web citation|author=Fidel Castro|newspaper=Fidelcastro.cu|title=Discurso pronunciado en el acto homenaje a los mártires caídos en Playa Girón y conmemoración de la victoria contra la invasión mercenaria perpetrada hace un año por Playa Girón y Playa Larga, 19 de abril de 1962|date=19/04/1962|url=http://www.fidelcastro.cu/es/discursos/discurso-pronunciado-en-el-primer-aniversario-de-playa-giron|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20221115024240/http://www.fidelcastro.cu/es/discursos/discurso-pronunciado-en-el-primer-aniversario-de-playa-giron|quote=Los imperialistas tratan de engañar a los pueblos de América, y pretenden atribuir a las medidas revolucionarias las consecuencias del bloqueo y de la agresión económica. Y ellos no dicen que nos han creado problemas con sus agresiones y sus bloqueos, sino que los problemas son consecuencias de las leyes revolucionarias. Y con ese engaño tratan de confundir a los pueblos.}}</ref>

== Background ==
Since 1960, the United States has placed various economic embargos on Cuba, Statesian companies are not allowed to trade with Cuba, this includes foreign companies which are partially owned by Statesian ones. The intention of such measures taken against Cuba are made apparent in a 1960 memorandum, in which U.S. officials wrote that creating "disenchantment and disaffection based on economic dissatisfaction and hardship" through denying money and supplies to Cuba would be a method they should pursue in order to "bring about hunger, desperation and overthrow of government" in Cuba.<ref>[https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499 "Memorandum From the Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Mallory) to the Assistant Secretary of State for Inter-American Affairs (Rubottom)."] Foreign Relations of the United States, 1958–1960, Cuba, Volume vi - Office of the Historian. State.gov. U.S. Department of State. [https://web.archive.org/web/20220806052659/https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1958-60v06/d499 Archived] 2022-08-14.</ref>

Among the various restrictions, the embargo includes banning ships that have docked in Cuban harbors from entering U.S. harbors for six months,<ref name=":0" /> allowing U.S. entities to sue anyone who does business with Cuban enterprises that were previously U.S.-owned, and allowing the United States to fine [[Europe|European]] banks for accepting transactions from Cuba, resulting in fines of billions of dollars.<ref>Elliott, Kenya. [https://www.liberationnews.org/the-world-stands-with-cuba-against-u-s-economic-war/ “The World Stands with Cuba against U.S. Economic War.”] Liberation News. June 25, 2021. [https://web.archive.org/web/20211023011638/https://www.liberationnews.org/the-world-stands-with-cuba-against-u-s-economic-war/ Archived] 2021-10-23.</ref> The many restrictions, punishments, and complicated regulations for engaging with Cuba serves to discourage trade, even in cases where some form of engagement may technically be allowed if the complex regulations are followed.

== History ==
When Cuba nationalized U.S. and [[United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland|British]] oil companies for refusing to refine [[Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1922–1991)|Soviet]] oil, U.S. president [[Dwight D. Eisenhower|Eisenhower]] retaliated by cutting off Cuban sugar sales to the United States. Cuba then nationalized most U.S. businesses on the island, and Eisenhower banned all U.S. exports to Cuba except food and medicine. These sanctions were part of a U.S. broader strategy to overthrow Castro, including support for his internal opponents and preparations for an exile invasion.

After the failure of the [[Bay of Pigs invasion]], President [[John F. Kennedy]] used the authority of the Foreign Assistance Act to impose a complete embargo on all trade with Cuba. The following year, under the authority of the Trading with the Enemy Act, he extended the embargo to cover all financial transactions unless licensed by the Secretary of the Treasury. Kennedy’s sanctions, like Eisenhower’s, were part of a broader program aimed at [[regime change]] that included sabotage and paramilitary attacks launched from the United States.

President [[Lyndon Johnson]]’s policy of “economic denial” focused on making the embargo multilateral. The United States bribed and strong-armed members of the [[Organization of American States]] to join the embargo, cutting off diplomatic and economic relations with Cuba. Only [[Mexican United States|Mexico]] refused. Europeans did not openly join the embargo, but quietly cooperated by cutting back trade with Cuba. Johnson also prohibited food sales to Cuba, which Kennedy had exempted from the embargo.

In the 1970s, U.S. President [[Jimmy Carter]] claimed an interest in normalizing relations with Cuba, and as a first step he lifted the ban on travel and authorized Cuban Americans to send remittances to family on the island. He also considered lifting the embargo on food and medicine, but decided against it because it would allow Cuba to resume sugar sales, giving a major boost to its economy. Later, when Cuba asked to buy several dozen medicines available only from U.S. suppliers, National Security Adviser [[Zbigniew Brzeziński|Zbigniew Brzezinski]] convinced Carter to refuse because of Cuba’s military support for [[Republic of Angola|Angola]] and [[Federal Democratic Republic of Ethiopia|Ethiopia]].

In the 1980s, President [[Ronald Reagan]] imposed new sanctions to punish Cuba for its support of revolutionary movements in [[Central America]]. He re-imposed the ban on travel for most U.S. residents, banned most Cubans from traveling to the United States, prohibited the import from third countries of any product containing Cuban nickel, and named Cuba to the State Department’s list of State Sponsors of International Terrorism, where it remained until 2015.

In the early 1990s, the United States pressured the Soviet Union to cut off economic aid to Cuba, worth some $3 billion annually, as a condition of U.S. aid to the Soviet Union. [[Mikhail Gorbachev]] refused, but the first president of the [[Russian Federation]], [[Boris Yeltsin]], agreed to the U.S. demand, sending Cuba into a decade-long depression known as the [[Special Period]] (Spanish: ''Período especial''). After this, the U.S. Congress passed the Cuban Democracy Act (CDA), which was designed to tighten the embargo to finally bring about regime change. Presidential candidate [[Bill Clinton]] endorsed the CDA, and President [[George H. W. Bush]] signed it into law. The CDA cut off some $700 million in trade, mostly in food and medicine, and gave the president the authority to cut foreign aid to any country aiding Cuba.<ref name=":1" />

=== Cuban thaw ===

== United Nations ==
The embargo has been condemned every year with a [[United Nations]] resolution, it is usually voted against by the United States and [[State of Israel|Israel]].<ref>{{Web citation|newspaper=UN News|title=UN General Assembly calls for US to end Cuba embargo for 29th consecutive year|date=2021-06-23|url=https://news.un.org/en/story/2021/06/1094612}}</ref>

=== UN vote of 2022 ===
The annual vote upon the determination of embargo of Cuba resulted in no qualitative change, quantitatively two countries have now refrained from participation, being Brazil and Ukraine.<ref>{{Web citation|author=Ben Norton|newspaper=MROnline|title=Entire world votes 185 to 2 against blockade of Cuba–U.S. and Israel are rogue states at UN|date=Nov 05, 2022|url=https://mronline.org/2022/11/05/entire-world-votes-185-to-2-against-blockade-of-cuba-u-s-and-israel-are-rogue-states-at-un/}}</ref>

The US has given a report giving supposed reasoning for their unwavering enforcement of the embargo, this reasoning essentially boils down to an inconsistent protection of civil rights they stated that “their support for the Cuban people is unwavering”<ref>https://usun.usmission.gov/explanation-of-vote-after-the-vote-on-a-un-general-assembly-resolution-on-the-cuba-embargo/</ref>. This may easily be dismantled as an inconsistent excuse for the violence they subject the Cuban peoples to.

== References ==

Right-wing politics

2022-11-11T22:45:46Z

Clover: Added a base for the page itself, will continue later

'''Right-wing politics''' refers to several political ideologies extending from [[Libertarianism]] to [[Fascism]], the methodology of categorization is derived from the [[Left-Right Political Spectrum|Left-Right political spectrum]]

Anti-revisionism

2022-11-09T20:02:59Z

Clover: few grammer edits

'''Anti-revisionism''' is a position in the [[Communist|communist]] movement which is opposed to perceived [[Revisionism|revisionist]] tendencies, usually in the form of opposition to the [[Socialist market economy]].

Anti-revisionism could be initially seen with the works of Marxist theorists such as [[Vladimir Lenin]], but would later have a complete change in meaning following the rise of [[Nikita Khrushchev]] and his successors to leadership in the [[Soviet Union]], which drew resistance from [[People's Republic of Albania|Albanian]] leader [[Enver Hoxha]] and [[People's Republic of China|Chinese]] leader [[Mao Zedong]] respectively,<ref>{{Citation|author=[[Enver Hoxha]]|year=1969|title=The Demagogy of the Soviet Revisionists Cannot Conceal their Traitorous Countenance|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/hoxha/works/1969/01/10.htm}}</ref> though this later developed into sectarian tendencies which isolated both countries internationally.

Modern anti-revisionists are commonly in rejection of the [[History of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (1953-1991)|post-Stalin Soviet Union]], as many Marxist-Leninists are as well, but anti-revisionists characterize in their [[Dogmatism|dogmatic]] rejection of modern socialists countries such as [[Laos]], [[Vietnam]], and particularly [[China]] for their economic and political reforms, which they view as a [[capitalist]] deviation from [[socialist]] principles, and an indication of the adoption of [[social-imperialism]]. Most modern anti-revisionists are adherents of [[Hoxhaism]] or [[Marxism-Leninism-Maoism]].

As described by the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism On-Line:<ref>{{Citation|author=Paul C.|year=2009|title=Anti-Revisionism and
the Anti-Revisionist Movement|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/history/erol/what.htm}}</ref> <blockquote>"Historically, in the Communist lexicon, the term “anti-revisionism” has been used to describe opposition to attempts to revise, modify or abandon the fundamentals of revolutionary theory and practice in a manner that was perceived to represent concessions to Communism’s adversaries.

In recent times, however, the term has taken on a more specific meaning. It describes a trend that developed in the pro-Soviet (as opposed to the Trotskyist) Communist movement after World War II. The growth of this anti-revisionist trend was particularly noticeable at several critical moments in the history of the Communist movement – the shift from WW II-era collaboration between the Soviet Union and the Western Powers to the Cold War, and the crisis inaugurated by the 20th Congress of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union in 1956.

Initially, the anti-revisionists presented a critique of the official Communist Parties “from the left” for having abandoned orthodox Marxism-Leninism (becoming “revisionist,”), and for being insufficiently revolutionary. Once the official Communist Parties joined in Khrushchev’s denunciation of Stalin, the defense of Stalin and his legacy became a hallmark of “anti-revisionism.” Later on, the anti-revisionist movement expanded and diversified to encompass those communists who rejected a pro-Soviet orientation for one aligned either with Chinese or Albanian positions.

Anti-revisionism enjoyed its moment of greatest size and influence with numerous “Marxist-Leninist” and “Maoist” parties, groups and publications springing up around the world in the period which began with the Sino-Soviet split of the early 1960s. Its growth was greatly accelerated by international enthusiasm for the Great Proletarian Cultural Revolution in China, but it began to decline in response to controversial Chinese foreign policy decisions in the last years of Mao’s life, his death and the subsequent defeat of the Gang of Four. While some anti-revisionists soldiered on, adapting to these changes, these later events spurred other elements to argue for a non-Trotskyist “left-wing” communism, independent of allegiance to foreign authorities or models.

The goal of the Encyclopedia of Anti-Revisionism is to document this trend."</blockquote>

==References==
<references />
[[Category:Marxist terminology]]
[[Category:Marxist theory]]

File:Democracy, urns. Athens.jpg

2022-11-09T12:51:18Z

Clover:

picture, democracy ig

Democracy

2022-11-03T20:50:43Z

Clover: punctuation

'''Democracy''', as of common consensus, as a concept was formally conceived by the ancient Greeks. The word “democracy” comes from two Greek words being: people (''demos''), and rule (''kratos''). By popular definition, democracy is a method of rule wherein the populace have common power, as in the people have an active role within the steering and guidance of the state. Contrary to common conception, “democracy” is not a system within itself, but a basis upon which political organizations and structures are formed. Democracy became the method of rule within Athens, a part of the [[Base and superstructure|superstructure]], so to speak, however within the bounds of the [[Base and superstructure|material base]]. Thereby referring to [[Slavery|slave society]], the only persons eligible to participate were so-called “free men”, this not including women, children, and slaves. This being the majority of the populace.

{{quote|'''Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.'''|[[Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]]}}

Democracy

2022-11-03T13:58:50Z

Clover: Added stuffffff

'''Democracy''', as of common consensus, as a concept was formally conceived by the ancient Greeks The term “democracy” comes from two Greek words being: people (''demos''), and rule (''kratos''). By popular definition, democracy is a method of rule wherein the populace have common power, as in the people have an active role within the steering and guidance of the state. Contrary to common conception, “democracy” is not a system within itself, but a basis upon which political organizations and structures are formed. Democracy became the method of rule within Athens, a part of the [[Base and superstructure|superstructure]], so to speak, however within the bounds of the [[Base and superstructure|material base]]. Thereby referring to [[Slavery|slave society]], the only persons eligible to participate were so-called “free men”, this not including women, children, and slaves. This being the majority of the populace.

Quote: “'''Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.'''” —[[Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]]

Democracy

2022-11-01T12:37:23Z

Clover: I have largely added an introduction to this page

'''Democracy''', as of common consensus, as a concept was formally conceived by the ancient Greeks The term “democracy” comes from two Greek words being: people (''demos''), and rule (''kratos''). Democracy became the method of rule within Athens, a part of the [[Base and superstructure|superstructure]], so to speak, however within the bounds of the [[Base and superstructure|material base]]. Thereby referring to [[Slavery|slave society]], the only persons eligible to participate were so-called “free men”, this not including women, children, and slaves.

Quote: “'''Freedom in capitalist society always remains about the same as it was in ancient Greek republics: Freedom for slave owners.'''” —[[Vladimir Lenin|Vladimir Ilyich Lenin]]

Reform

2022-10-26T20:53:33Z

Clover: /* Examples of Reform */

{{Distinguish|[[Reformism]] or [[Elections]].}}

Reform is the process of slower but gradual change instead of [[Revolution|changing things rapidly]]. Although reforms can have some use<ref>
{{Citation
| author = V.I. Lenin
| year = 1921
| title = The Importance Of Gold Now And After The Complete Victory Of Socialism
| title-url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/lenin/works/1921/nov/05.htm
| quote = [W]e must, as soberly as we can, estimate which problems can be solved by revolutionary methods at any given time and which cannot. From the point of view of our practical experience the Brest peace was an example of action that was not revolutionary at all; it was reformist, and even worse, because it was a retreat, whereas, as a general rule, reformist action advances slowly, cautiously, gradually, and does not move backward. The proof that our tactics in concluding the Brest peace were correct is now so complete, so obvious to all and generally admitted, that there is no need to say any more about it.
}}
</ref>, Marxists always prefer a revolution as the bourgeoisie are not willing to hand over the means of production.<ref>
{{Citation
| author = Rosa Luxemburg
| year = 1900
| title = Reform or Revolution?
| title-url = https://www.marxists.org/archive/luxemburg/1900/reform-revolution/
| quote = According to scientific socialism, the historic necessity of the socialist revolution manifests itself above all in the growing anarchy of capitalism, which drives the system into an impasse.
}}
</ref> True reform (as in only reforms with no revolution whatsoever) has consistently failed. Every time it was attempted, it was either couped by the CIA, didn't bring enough changes fast enough, or the bourgeoisie were too powerful to let a socialist party gain dominance.

The ideologies which adopt the true reform method are [[Democratic socialism|Democratic Socialists]] and [[Social democracy|Social Democrats]].

== Examples of Reform ==
=== Chile ===
''Main Article: [[Republic of Chile|Chile]]''

Salvador Allende, a socialist, won power in office. He decreased the unemployment rate in Chile and increased Industrial Output. However, due to the bourgeois influence in government, he has resorted to a mixed economy, and inflation under Allende (although not at fault of his own) skyrocketed as a result. He was later couped by the CIA and replaced by the dictator Augusto Pinochet.

=== Venezuela ===
''Main Article: [[Bolivarian Republic of Venezuela|Venezuela]]

Venezuela is one of the more successful reforms brought about, however it took 2 decades for the party in Venezuela lead by Hugo Chavez to gain any significant power. Venezuela had very high living standards before the economic sanctions, and the people had benefitted from the welfare brought about from the oil industry. The country today is still lead by a Dictatorship of the Bourgeoisie, and 70% of its economy is control by the private sector. The country is also under economic sanctions by the United States, and the nation significantly has high inflation rates because of its overreliance on oil exports.

===Bolivia===
''Main Article: [[Plurinational State of Bolivia|Bolivia]]

Bolivia under Evo Morales brought about a decrease in extreme poverty and total poverty, increased life expectancy and removed illiteracy altogether. However, the party was again couped and replaced with a dictator who ruled over the nation until 2020.
== References ==

Fascism

2022-10-24T12:46:11Z

Clover: /* The Dialectical Analysis of Fascism */

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-052-06A, Albert Speer spricht in Munitionsfabrik.jpg|thumb|The Roman Salute is commonly associated with Nazis and other Fascists.]]
'''Fascism''', usually understood in [[Marxist]] theory as ''[[capitalism]] in decay'',<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG8Bczss228 What "Fascism is capitalism in decay" means]</ref> is a [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionary]] [[reactionary]] movement led by finance capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Georgi Dimitrov|year=1935|title=The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism|chapter=The class character of fascism|page=|quote=No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over 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.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|title=Encyclopedia of Marxism|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/a.htm#fascism}}</ref> and form of [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] which emerged during periods of economic crisis in [[Imperialism|imperialist]] countries.<ref>{{Citation|author=William I. Robinson|year=2019|title=Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype|quote=Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.|publisher=Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183|doi=10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155}}</ref> The [[Communist International (1919–1943)|Third International]] described fascism as the "open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most [[Chauvinism|chauvinistic]], and most imperialist elements of finance capital."<ref>{{Citation|author=[[George Dimitrov]]|year=1935|title=The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism|chapter=Fascism and the Working Class|quote=Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm}}</ref>

Fascism usually promotes policies that favour the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive [[anti-communism]], a profound aversion towards [[democracy]], the justification and glorification of [[class society]] through [[class collaboration]], and chauvinistic tendencies, namely ultra-[[nationalism]], [[racism]] and [[sexism]]. Fascist ideologues usually promote [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.

Throughout history, the fascists promoted policies that caused even more [[exploitation]] of the [[Proletariat|working class]] than capitalism was ever able to, allowing monopolies to take over every aspect of society. So much so that ''The Economist'' magazine introduced the term ''privatization'' in 1936, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe [[German fascism|Nazi Germany]]'s economic policies.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2006|title=Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194|isbn=|doi=10.1257/jep.20.3.187|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=|quote=}}</ref> The most well-known historical examples of fascism are [[Greater German Reich|Nazi Germany]] and [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Fascist Italy]], but there have been various historical examples of fascism, such as [[Empire of Japan (1931-1947)|Shōwa Japan]], [[Spanish State (1939-1975)|Francoist Spain]] and [[Salzarist Portugal|Salazarist Portugal]].

==History==

===Origins===
The term "fascism" comes from the [[Italian Republic|Italian]] National Fascist Party,<ref group="lower-alpha">Italian: ''Partito Nazionale Fascista''</ref> a party founded by [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this [[reactionary]] movement as a whole. Mussolini inspired his fascism on the cult of [[Roman civilisation]] who, although they had no concept of fascism and did not care to predict the future two thousand years after their height, provided him with a perfect excuse to call back to the Roman Empire, which stretched far and wide and started in modern-day Italy. Thus the name fascism was based on the ''fasces'', an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (''lictors'') in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.

The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement, however, can be traced as far as the [[French Republic|French]] far-right [[French Action]],<ref group="lower-alpha">French: ''Action Française''</ref> which was an openly anti-[[Marxism|Marxist]] political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through [[class collaboration]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Ernst Nolte|year=1966|title=Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=New York|publisher=New American Library|isbn=9780451008619|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=082DBA3CA0FEE611DCDB8D2CC1DF350C|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus|trans-lang=German}}</ref>

In ''Discourse on colonialism'', [[Aimé Césaire]] exposed the old colonialist mindsets that would later influence fascism and survive after it. This prompted him to write in that same essay that fascism is colonialism applied to the coloniser.<ref>{{Citation|author=Aimé Césaire|year=1950|title=Discourse on colonialism|chapter=|page=36|quote=People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind – it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.|pdf=https://libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf|city=France|publisher=Réclame|isbn=1583670254|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Discours sur le colonialisme|trans-lang=|section=}}</ref> A similar observation was made by [[Frantz Fanon]], who wrote: "what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"<ref>{{Citation|author=Frantz Fanon|year=1961|title=Wretched of the earth|chapter=|section=|page=90|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=9780802150837|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D2A7D155578D59565375286BA995A79D|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

==== Nietzsche ====
Historian and [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] philosopher [[Domenico Losurdo]] pointed in his work ''Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel'' that [[Nietzsche]], who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the [[Paris commune]] in 1871.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|year=2002|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|chapter=|section=|page=26|quote=[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=9789004270954|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-[[Liberalism|liberal]], anti-[[Socialism|socialist]], antidemocratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|doi=|quote=Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’|trans-lang=|trans-title=|pdf=|mia=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|publisher=|year=2002|city=|isbn=9789004270954|chapter-url=|title-url=|chapter=|page=731|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|section=}}</ref>

==== Sorel ====
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of [[National Syndicalism]] in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centred around the idea of [[myth]]; which he highlights as "forming the centre of man’s cosmology and world view in all ages".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Rodrigo Sobota|date=2020-10-15|title=Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth|url=https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/georges-sorel-and-triumphant-return-myth}}</ref> In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article praising the far-right group [[French Action]] in ''Divenire sociale''—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by [[French Action]]; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910 he joined the group. During this time, he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.<ref>{{Citation|author=Zeev Sternhell|year=1994|title=THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY|chapter=1–3|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceavi2ziwuqzadtp7fjcw24uvkoix4wzybsibskpjmfbksjcxwblyg?filename=Zeev%20Sternhell%2C%20Mario%20Sznajder%2C%20Maia%20Asheri%20-%20The%20Birth%20of%20Fascist%20Ideology_%20From%20Cultural%20Rebellion%20to%20Political%20Revolution-Princeton%20University%20Press%20%281994%29.pdf|isbn=0-691-03289-0|lg=http://library.lol/main/10886BD4A08A7180CDA3D8B3BED5ADD1}}</ref> Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=James H. Meisel|date=1950-03-01|title=A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591295000300102?journalCode=prqa&}}</ref>

===Italian fascism===
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2011|title=The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925)|chapter=|page=|quote=Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=10.1093/cje/beq051|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

===German fascism===
[[German fascism]] was most known for its [[Genocide|genocidal]], [[Expansionism|expansionist]], [[Imperialism|imperialist]] and [[Colonialism|colonialist]] rule under the [[National-socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi Party]] from 1933 to 1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviet lives.<ref>{{Citation|author=Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko|year=|title=On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War|chapter=|page=|quote=Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/history/more.htm?id=11359251@cmsArticle|chapter-url=|trans-title=К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел|trans-lang=Russian}}</ref> While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, their name being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent [[exploitation]] of the working people and concentration of capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Sidney Merlin|year=1943|title=Trends in German economic control since 1933|chapter=|page=207|quote=The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.|pdf=|city=|publisher=The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57|isbn=|doi=10.2307/1882751|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> they adopted a [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] model coupled with [[exploitation colonialism]] and mass terror applied to the [[Europe|European continent]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Thomas Kühne|year=2013|title=Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities|chapter=German colonialism and German peculiarities|page=343|quote=Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15|isbn=|doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.821229|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as ''[[Lebensraum]]'',<ref group="lower-alpha">English: ''Living space''</ref> and was directly influenced by [[United States of America|Statesian]] genocide of Native peoples through ''[[Manifest Destiny]]''.<ref>{{Citation|author=Robert J. Miller|year=2020|title=Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians|chapter=|page=14|quote=Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=|lg=http://librarian.libgen.gs/ads.php?md5=77a60b95047d1913f026368bbf9a3225&downloadname=10.2139/ssrn.3541009|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the [[Soviet Union]] after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
===Japanese fascism===
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of [[imperialist]] and [[Ultranationalism|ultranationalist]] political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in [[Asia]].

=== Portuguese fascism ===
From 1933 to 1974, [[Portugal]] was ruled by the ''Estado Novo'' ("New State"), headed by [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese [[working class]] was subjugated to [[reactionary]] [[Christianity|christian]] doctrine, as well as a "[[Third Positionism|Corporatist]]" economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly [[imperialist]], repressing calls for independence and self-determination in [[Republic of Angola|Angola]] and [[Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]]. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970s, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.<ref>{{Citation|author=Howard J. Wiarda|year=1977|title=Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHFaAAAAIAAJ|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press|isbn=9780870232213|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]].

===Spanish fascism ===
Following the victory of the [[United Front]] in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco and assisted by invading Germany and Italy, tacitly backed by the rest of the allies, broke out. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades, and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931), and to this day Spain remains a monarchy.

=== Neo-fascist movements ===
''See main article: [[Neo-fascism]]''

====2019 coup in Bolivia ====
President [[Evo Morales]] of Bolivia was reelected to this office in October 2019 with 47,08% of total votes. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the [[Organisation of American States]] (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.

Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.

The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).

Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.

==The Marxian Analysis of Fascism==

=== The Left Theory of Fascism ===
The left wing analysis of fascism largely evolved from the known work of [[Jack London]], ''The Iron Heel.'' Tough this was a book written before the world was introduced to fascism proper, it outlines much the perceived likeness of fascism. The analysis sees fascism as a tool and a trick by the bourgeoisie. Proponents of this analysis would see fascism as an intrinsic part of bourgeois society and thereby capitalist hegemony.

This analysis is archaic in modern Marxist perceptions of fascism, as it is not critical and cannot meaningfully differentiate between reactionary liberal capitalism and fascism. Examples may include the [[Amadeo Bordiga|Amadeo Bordiga's]] statement at the fifth congress of the communist international in 1924, in which he said:<blockquote>Fascism, fundamentally, merely repeats the old game of the bourgeoise left parties, i.e. it appeals to the proletariat for civil peace. It attempts to achieve this aim by forming trade unions of industrial and agricultural workers, which it then leads into practical collaboration with the employers' organisations.<ref>{{Citation|author=Duncan Hallas|year=1985|title=The Comintern|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1985/comintern/}}</ref></blockquote>

=== The Right Theory of Fascism ===
Whilst the left theory of fascism sees it as an elite movement, a hammer with which the bourgeois retaliates upon the organised working class. The right theory instead proposes fascism as a mass movement, and not indeed a force propagated or controlled by the ruling class. It sees fascism as separate from capitalist institutions, and as a revolutionary movement hostile to them.

However this, aswell, undermines and misunderstands the nature of fascism. How come the capitalist class intergrated and accepted fascism? Why did they not fight fascism with tooth and nail if it was indeed hostile towards their surpremacy?
=== The Dialectical Analysis of Fascism ===
The dialectical, and most appealing theory combines the two. Concocted by one [[Leon Trotsky]], combines both as to explain the phenomenon, according to the dialectical theory, fascism is both apart of capitalist society, a tool to the ruling class. But also a mass movement.

As capitalism declines and falls into crisis reactionary movements find ground at the same time as the workers organise through desperation as revolutionary conditions set place.

The class of which was most contributing to the membership of fascist parties was the petit-bourgeoisie, a class which suffered hardship as well during economic crisis, however did not accurately place their anger systemically but was characterized by its rabid racism, and anti-working class. It was indeed a mass movement, a movement of the petit-bourgeoise. But it was not anti capitalist. How can this be? The analysis goes that fascism inherently is contradictory, it is yet a mass movement cultivated by capitalisms decline, but it is not anti capitalist. For the petit bourgeoise do not want to destroy the ruling class, they want to become the ruling class. It is a reactionary movement, of which inevitably only benefits the current ruling class, made from a movement of non bourgeois people. This means that there is a contradiction between fascism as an ideology and the movement which supports it. To stave off this contradiction fascism must always divert and distract itself from its own contradictions. Then using minorities, ethnicities, racism, anything really. To fill the gaps of its own ideological void. However it cannot continue, as it is an antagonistic contradiction, it will always break itself apart. Which is what we have seen historically.

== See also ==

* [[Neoliberalism]]
* [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Greater German Reich]]
* [[Far-right politics]]
* [[Genocide]]

==References==
<references />

===Notes===
<references group="lower-alpha" />
[[Category:Political ideology]]
[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Extremism]]
[[Category:Right-wing ideologies]]
[[Category:Anti-communism]]

Fascism

2022-10-24T12:43:30Z

Clover: /* The Right Theory of Fascism */

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-052-06A, Albert Speer spricht in Munitionsfabrik.jpg|thumb|The Roman Salute is commonly associated with Nazis and other Fascists.]]
'''Fascism''', usually understood in [[Marxist]] theory as ''[[capitalism]] in decay'',<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG8Bczss228 What "Fascism is capitalism in decay" means]</ref> is a [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionary]] [[reactionary]] movement led by finance capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Georgi Dimitrov|year=1935|title=The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism|chapter=The class character of fascism|page=|quote=No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over 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.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|title=Encyclopedia of Marxism|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/a.htm#fascism}}</ref> and form of [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] which emerged during periods of economic crisis in [[Imperialism|imperialist]] countries.<ref>{{Citation|author=William I. Robinson|year=2019|title=Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype|quote=Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.|publisher=Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183|doi=10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155}}</ref> The [[Communist International (1919–1943)|Third International]] described fascism as the "open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most [[Chauvinism|chauvinistic]], and most imperialist elements of finance capital."<ref>{{Citation|author=[[George Dimitrov]]|year=1935|title=The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism|chapter=Fascism and the Working Class|quote=Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm}}</ref>

Fascism usually promotes policies that favour the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive [[anti-communism]], a profound aversion towards [[democracy]], the justification and glorification of [[class society]] through [[class collaboration]], and chauvinistic tendencies, namely ultra-[[nationalism]], [[racism]] and [[sexism]]. Fascist ideologues usually promote [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.

Throughout history, the fascists promoted policies that caused even more [[exploitation]] of the [[Proletariat|working class]] than capitalism was ever able to, allowing monopolies to take over every aspect of society. So much so that ''The Economist'' magazine introduced the term ''privatization'' in 1936, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe [[German fascism|Nazi Germany]]'s economic policies.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2006|title=Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194|isbn=|doi=10.1257/jep.20.3.187|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=|quote=}}</ref> The most well-known historical examples of fascism are [[Greater German Reich|Nazi Germany]] and [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Fascist Italy]], but there have been various historical examples of fascism, such as [[Empire of Japan (1931-1947)|Shōwa Japan]], [[Spanish State (1939-1975)|Francoist Spain]] and [[Salzarist Portugal|Salazarist Portugal]].

==History==

===Origins===
The term "fascism" comes from the [[Italian Republic|Italian]] National Fascist Party,<ref group="lower-alpha">Italian: ''Partito Nazionale Fascista''</ref> a party founded by [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this [[reactionary]] movement as a whole. Mussolini inspired his fascism on the cult of [[Roman civilisation]] who, although they had no concept of fascism and did not care to predict the future two thousand years after their height, provided him with a perfect excuse to call back to the Roman Empire, which stretched far and wide and started in modern-day Italy. Thus the name fascism was based on the ''fasces'', an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (''lictors'') in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.

The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement, however, can be traced as far as the [[French Republic|French]] far-right [[French Action]],<ref group="lower-alpha">French: ''Action Française''</ref> which was an openly anti-[[Marxism|Marxist]] political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through [[class collaboration]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Ernst Nolte|year=1966|title=Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=New York|publisher=New American Library|isbn=9780451008619|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=082DBA3CA0FEE611DCDB8D2CC1DF350C|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus|trans-lang=German}}</ref>

In ''Discourse on colonialism'', [[Aimé Césaire]] exposed the old colonialist mindsets that would later influence fascism and survive after it. This prompted him to write in that same essay that fascism is colonialism applied to the coloniser.<ref>{{Citation|author=Aimé Césaire|year=1950|title=Discourse on colonialism|chapter=|page=36|quote=People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind – it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.|pdf=https://libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf|city=France|publisher=Réclame|isbn=1583670254|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Discours sur le colonialisme|trans-lang=|section=}}</ref> A similar observation was made by [[Frantz Fanon]], who wrote: "what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"<ref>{{Citation|author=Frantz Fanon|year=1961|title=Wretched of the earth|chapter=|section=|page=90|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=9780802150837|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D2A7D155578D59565375286BA995A79D|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

==== Nietzsche ====
Historian and [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] philosopher [[Domenico Losurdo]] pointed in his work ''Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel'' that [[Nietzsche]], who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the [[Paris commune]] in 1871.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|year=2002|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|chapter=|section=|page=26|quote=[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=9789004270954|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-[[Liberalism|liberal]], anti-[[Socialism|socialist]], antidemocratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|doi=|quote=Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’|trans-lang=|trans-title=|pdf=|mia=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|publisher=|year=2002|city=|isbn=9789004270954|chapter-url=|title-url=|chapter=|page=731|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|section=}}</ref>

==== Sorel ====
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of [[National Syndicalism]] in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centred around the idea of [[myth]]; which he highlights as "forming the centre of man’s cosmology and world view in all ages".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Rodrigo Sobota|date=2020-10-15|title=Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth|url=https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/georges-sorel-and-triumphant-return-myth}}</ref> In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article praising the far-right group [[French Action]] in ''Divenire sociale''—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by [[French Action]]; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910 he joined the group. During this time, he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.<ref>{{Citation|author=Zeev Sternhell|year=1994|title=THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY|chapter=1–3|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceavi2ziwuqzadtp7fjcw24uvkoix4wzybsibskpjmfbksjcxwblyg?filename=Zeev%20Sternhell%2C%20Mario%20Sznajder%2C%20Maia%20Asheri%20-%20The%20Birth%20of%20Fascist%20Ideology_%20From%20Cultural%20Rebellion%20to%20Political%20Revolution-Princeton%20University%20Press%20%281994%29.pdf|isbn=0-691-03289-0|lg=http://library.lol/main/10886BD4A08A7180CDA3D8B3BED5ADD1}}</ref> Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=James H. Meisel|date=1950-03-01|title=A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591295000300102?journalCode=prqa&}}</ref>

===Italian fascism===
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2011|title=The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925)|chapter=|page=|quote=Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=10.1093/cje/beq051|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

===German fascism===
[[German fascism]] was most known for its [[Genocide|genocidal]], [[Expansionism|expansionist]], [[Imperialism|imperialist]] and [[Colonialism|colonialist]] rule under the [[National-socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi Party]] from 1933 to 1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviet lives.<ref>{{Citation|author=Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko|year=|title=On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War|chapter=|page=|quote=Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/history/more.htm?id=11359251@cmsArticle|chapter-url=|trans-title=К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел|trans-lang=Russian}}</ref> While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, their name being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent [[exploitation]] of the working people and concentration of capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Sidney Merlin|year=1943|title=Trends in German economic control since 1933|chapter=|page=207|quote=The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.|pdf=|city=|publisher=The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57|isbn=|doi=10.2307/1882751|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> they adopted a [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] model coupled with [[exploitation colonialism]] and mass terror applied to the [[Europe|European continent]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Thomas Kühne|year=2013|title=Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities|chapter=German colonialism and German peculiarities|page=343|quote=Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15|isbn=|doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.821229|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as ''[[Lebensraum]]'',<ref group="lower-alpha">English: ''Living space''</ref> and was directly influenced by [[United States of America|Statesian]] genocide of Native peoples through ''[[Manifest Destiny]]''.<ref>{{Citation|author=Robert J. Miller|year=2020|title=Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians|chapter=|page=14|quote=Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=|lg=http://librarian.libgen.gs/ads.php?md5=77a60b95047d1913f026368bbf9a3225&downloadname=10.2139/ssrn.3541009|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the [[Soviet Union]] after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
===Japanese fascism===
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of [[imperialist]] and [[Ultranationalism|ultranationalist]] political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in [[Asia]].

=== Portuguese fascism ===
From 1933 to 1974, [[Portugal]] was ruled by the ''Estado Novo'' ("New State"), headed by [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese [[working class]] was subjugated to [[reactionary]] [[Christianity|christian]] doctrine, as well as a "[[Third Positionism|Corporatist]]" economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly [[imperialist]], repressing calls for independence and self-determination in [[Republic of Angola|Angola]] and [[Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]]. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970s, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.<ref>{{Citation|author=Howard J. Wiarda|year=1977|title=Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHFaAAAAIAAJ|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press|isbn=9780870232213|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]].

===Spanish fascism ===
Following the victory of the [[United Front]] in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco and assisted by invading Germany and Italy, tacitly backed by the rest of the allies, broke out. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades, and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931), and to this day Spain remains a monarchy.

=== Neo-fascist movements ===
''See main article: [[Neo-fascism]]''

====2019 coup in Bolivia ====
President [[Evo Morales]] of Bolivia was reelected to this office in October 2019 with 47,08% of total votes. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the [[Organisation of American States]] (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.

Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.

The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).

Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.

==The Marxian Analysis of Fascism==

=== The Left Theory of Fascism ===
The left wing analysis of fascism largely evolved from the known work of [[Jack London]], ''The Iron Heel.'' Tough this was a book written before the world was introduced to fascism proper, it outlines much the perceived likeness of fascism. The analysis sees fascism as a tool and a trick by the bourgeoisie. Proponents of this analysis would see fascism as an intrinsic part of bourgeois society and thereby capitalist hegemony.

This analysis is archaic in modern Marxist perceptions of fascism, as it is not critical and cannot meaningfully differentiate between reactionary liberal capitalism and fascism. Examples may include the [[Amadeo Bordiga|Amadeo Bordiga's]] statement at the fifth congress of the communist international in 1924, in which he said:<blockquote>Fascism, fundamentally, merely repeats the old game of the bourgeoise left parties, i.e. it appeals to the proletariat for civil peace. It attempts to achieve this aim by forming trade unions of industrial and agricultural workers, which it then leads into practical collaboration with the employers' organisations.<ref>{{Citation|author=Duncan Hallas|year=1985|title=The Comintern|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1985/comintern/}}</ref></blockquote>

=== The Right Theory of Fascism ===
Whilst the left theory of fascism sees it as an elite movement, a hammer with which the bourgeois retaliates upon the organised working class. The right theory instead proposes fascism as a mass movement, and not indeed a force propagated or controlled by the ruling class. It sees fascism as separate from capitalist institutions, and as a revolutionary movement hostile to them.

However this, aswell, undermines and misunderstands the nature of fascism. How come the capitalist class intergrated and accepted fascism? Why did they not fight fascism with tooth and nail if it was indeed hostile towards their surpremacy?
=== The Dialectical Analysis of Fascism ===
The dialectical, and most appealing theory combines the two. Concocted by one [[Leon Trotsky]], combines both as to explain the phenomenon, occording to the dialectical theory, fascism is both apart of capitalist society, a tool to the ruling class. But also a mass movement.

As capitalism declines and falls into crisis reactionary movements find ground at the same time as the workers orginise through desperation as revolutionary conditions set place.

The class of which was most contributing to the membership of fascist parties was the petit-buorgoisie, a class which suffered hardship aswell during economic crisis, however did not acuratly place their anger systemically but was characterized by its rabid rascism, and anti-working class. It was indeed a mass movement, a movement of the petit-buorgoise. But it was not anti capitalist. How can this be? The analysis goes that fascism inherently is contradictory, it is yet a mass movement cultivated by capitalisms decline, but it is not anti capitalist. For the petit buorgoise do not want to destroy the ruling class, they want to become the ruling class. It is a reactionary movement, of which inevitably only benefits the current ruling class, made from a movement of non buorgoise people. This means that there is a contradiction between fascism as an ideology and the movement which supports it. To stave off this contradiction fascism must always divert and distract itself from its own contradictions. Then using minorities, ethnicities, rascism, anything really. To fill the gaps of its own ideological void. However it cannot continue, as it is an antagonistic contradiction, it will always break itself apart. Which is what we have seen historically.

== See also ==

* [[Neoliberalism]]
* [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Greater German Reich]]
* [[Far-right politics]]
* [[Genocide]]

==References==
<references />

===Notes===
<references group="lower-alpha" />
[[Category:Political ideology]]
[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Extremism]]
[[Category:Right-wing ideologies]]
[[Category:Anti-communism]]

Fascism

2022-10-23T21:06:34Z

Clover: Even more grammar checking

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-052-06A, Albert Speer spricht in Munitionsfabrik.jpg|thumb|The Roman Salute is commonly associated with Nazis and other Fascists.]]
'''Fascism''', usually understood in [[Marxist]] theory as ''[[capitalism]] in decay'',<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG8Bczss228 What "Fascism is capitalism in decay" means]</ref> is a [[Counterrevolution|counter-revolutionary]] [[reactionary]] movement led by finance capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Georgi Dimitrov|year=1935|title=The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism|chapter=The class character of fascism|page=|quote=No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over 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.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|title=Encyclopedia of Marxism|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/a.htm#fascism}}</ref> and form of [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] which emerged during periods of economic crisis in [[Imperialism|imperialist]] countries.<ref>{{Citation|author=William I. Robinson|year=2019|title=Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype|quote=Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.|publisher=Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183|doi=10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155}}</ref> The [[Communist International (1919–1943)|Third International]] described fascism as the "open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most [[Chauvinism|chauvinistic]], and most imperialist elements of finance capital."<ref>{{Citation|author=[[George Dimitrov]]|year=1935|title=The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism|chapter=Fascism and the Working Class|quote=Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm}}</ref>

Fascism usually promotes policies that favour the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive [[anti-communism]], a profound aversion towards [[democracy]], the justification and glorification of [[class society]] through [[class collaboration]], and chauvinistic tendencies, namely ultra-[[nationalism]], [[racism]] and [[sexism]]. Fascist ideologues usually promote [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.

Throughout history, the fascists promoted policies that caused even more [[exploitation]] of the [[Proletariat|working class]] than capitalism was ever able to, allowing monopolies to take over every aspect of society. So much so that ''The Economist'' magazine introduced the term ''privatization'' in 1936, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe [[German fascism|Nazi Germany]]'s economic policies.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2006|title=Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194|isbn=|doi=10.1257/jep.20.3.187|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=|quote=}}</ref> The most well-known historical examples of fascism are [[Greater German Reich|Nazi Germany]] and [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Fascist Italy]], but there have been various historical examples of fascism, such as [[Empire of Japan (1931-1947)|Shōwa Japan]], [[Spanish State (1939-1975)|Francoist Spain]] and [[Salzarist Portugal|Salazarist Portugal]].

==History==

===Origins===
The term "fascism" comes from the [[Italian Republic|Italian]] National Fascist Party,<ref group="lower-alpha">Italian: ''Partito Nazionale Fascista''</ref> a party founded by [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this [[reactionary]] movement as a whole. Mussolini inspired his fascism on the cult of [[Roman civilisation]] who, although they had no concept of fascism and did not care to predict the future two thousand years after their height, provided him with a perfect excuse to call back to the Roman Empire, which stretched far and wide and started in modern-day Italy. Thus the name fascism was based on the ''fasces'', an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (''lictors'') in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.

The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement, however, can be traced as far as the [[French Republic|French]] far-right [[French Action]],<ref group="lower-alpha">French: ''Action Française''</ref> which was an openly anti-[[Marxism|Marxist]] political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through [[class collaboration]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Ernst Nolte|year=1966|title=Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=New York|publisher=New American Library|isbn=9780451008619|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=082DBA3CA0FEE611DCDB8D2CC1DF350C|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus|trans-lang=German}}</ref>

In ''Discourse on colonialism'', [[Aimé Césaire]] exposed the old colonialist mindsets that would later influence fascism and survive after it. This prompted him to write in that same essay that fascism is colonialism applied to the coloniser.<ref>{{Citation|author=Aimé Césaire|year=1950|title=Discourse on colonialism|chapter=|page=36|quote=People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind – it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.|pdf=https://libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf|city=France|publisher=Réclame|isbn=1583670254|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Discours sur le colonialisme|trans-lang=|section=}}</ref> A similar observation was made by [[Frantz Fanon]], who wrote: "what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"<ref>{{Citation|author=Frantz Fanon|year=1961|title=Wretched of the earth|chapter=|section=|page=90|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=9780802150837|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D2A7D155578D59565375286BA995A79D|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

==== Nietzsche ====
Historian and [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] philosopher [[Domenico Losurdo]] pointed in his work ''Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel'' that [[Nietzsche]], who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the [[Paris commune]] in 1871.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|year=2002|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|chapter=|section=|page=26|quote=[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=9789004270954|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-[[Liberalism|liberal]], anti-[[Socialism|socialist]], antidemocratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|doi=|quote=Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’|trans-lang=|trans-title=|pdf=|mia=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|publisher=|year=2002|city=|isbn=9789004270954|chapter-url=|title-url=|chapter=|page=731|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|section=}}</ref>

==== Sorel ====
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of [[National Syndicalism]] in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centred around the idea of [[myth]]; which he highlights as "forming the centre of man’s cosmology and world view in all ages".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Rodrigo Sobota|date=2020-10-15|title=Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth|url=https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/georges-sorel-and-triumphant-return-myth}}</ref> In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article praising the far-right group [[French Action]] in ''Divenire sociale''—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by [[French Action]]; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910 he joined the group. During this time, he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.<ref>{{Citation|author=Zeev Sternhell|year=1994|title=THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY|chapter=1–3|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceavi2ziwuqzadtp7fjcw24uvkoix4wzybsibskpjmfbksjcxwblyg?filename=Zeev%20Sternhell%2C%20Mario%20Sznajder%2C%20Maia%20Asheri%20-%20The%20Birth%20of%20Fascist%20Ideology_%20From%20Cultural%20Rebellion%20to%20Political%20Revolution-Princeton%20University%20Press%20%281994%29.pdf|isbn=0-691-03289-0|lg=http://library.lol/main/10886BD4A08A7180CDA3D8B3BED5ADD1}}</ref> Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=James H. Meisel|date=1950-03-01|title=A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591295000300102?journalCode=prqa&}}</ref>

===Italian fascism===
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2011|title=The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925)|chapter=|page=|quote=Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=10.1093/cje/beq051|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

===German fascism===
[[German fascism]] was most known for its [[Genocide|genocidal]], [[Expansionism|expansionist]], [[Imperialism|imperialist]] and [[Colonialism|colonialist]] rule under the [[National-socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi Party]] from 1933 to 1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviet lives.<ref>{{Citation|author=Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko|year=|title=On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War|chapter=|page=|quote=Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/history/more.htm?id=11359251@cmsArticle|chapter-url=|trans-title=К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел|trans-lang=Russian}}</ref> While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, their name being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent [[exploitation]] of the working people and concentration of capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Sidney Merlin|year=1943|title=Trends in German economic control since 1933|chapter=|page=207|quote=The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.|pdf=|city=|publisher=The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57|isbn=|doi=10.2307/1882751|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> they adopted a [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] model coupled with [[exploitation colonialism]] and mass terror applied to the [[Europe|European continent]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Thomas Kühne|year=2013|title=Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities|chapter=German colonialism and German peculiarities|page=343|quote=Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15|isbn=|doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.821229|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as ''[[Lebensraum]]'',<ref group="lower-alpha">English: ''Living space''</ref> and was directly influenced by [[United States of America|Statesian]] genocide of Native peoples through ''[[Manifest Destiny]]''.<ref>{{Citation|author=Robert J. Miller|year=2020|title=Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians|chapter=|page=14|quote=Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=|lg=http://librarian.libgen.gs/ads.php?md5=77a60b95047d1913f026368bbf9a3225&downloadname=10.2139/ssrn.3541009|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the [[Soviet Union]] after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
===Japanese fascism===
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of [[imperialist]] and [[Ultranationalism|ultranationalist]] political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in [[Asia]].

=== Portuguese fascism ===
From 1933 to 1974, [[Portugal]] was ruled by the ''Estado Novo'' ("New State"), headed by [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese [[working class]] was subjugated to [[reactionary]] [[Christianity|christian]] doctrine, as well as a "[[Third Positionism|Corporatist]]" economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly [[imperialist]], repressing calls for independence and self-determination in [[Republic of Angola|Angola]] and [[Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]]. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970s, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.<ref>{{Citation|author=Howard J. Wiarda|year=1977|title=Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHFaAAAAIAAJ|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press|isbn=9780870232213|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]].

===Spanish fascism ===
Following the victory of the [[United Front]] in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco and assisted by invading Germany and Italy, tacitly backed by the rest of the allies, broke out. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades, and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931), and to this day Spain remains a monarchy.

=== Neo-fascist movements ===
''See main article: [[Neo-fascism]]''

====2019 coup in Bolivia ====
President [[Evo Morales]] of Bolivia was reelected to this office in October 2019 with 47,08% of total votes. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the [[Organisation of American States]] (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.

Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.

The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).

Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.

==The Marxian Analysis of Fascism==

=== The Left Theory of Fascism ===
The left wing analysis of fascism largely evolved from the known work of [[Jack London]], ''The Iron Heel.'' Tough this was a book written before the world was introduced to fascism proper, it outlines much the perceived likeness of fascism. The analysis sees fascism as a tool and a trick by the bourgeoisie. Proponents of this analysis would see fascism as an intrinsic part of bourgeois society and thereby capitalist hegemony.

This analysis is archaic in modern Marxist perceptions of fascism, as it is not critical and cannot meaningfully differentiate between reactionary liberal capitalism and fascism. Examples may include the [[Amadeo Bordiga|Amadeo Bordiga's]] statement at the fifth congress of the communist international in 1924, in which he said:<blockquote>Fascism, fundamentally, merely repeats the old game of the bourgeoise left parties, i.e. it appeals to the proletariat for civil peace. It attempts to achieve this aim by forming trade unions of industrial and agricultural workers, which it then leads into practical collaboration with the employers' organisations.<ref>{{Citation|author=Duncan Hallas|year=1985|title=The Comintern|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1985/comintern/}}</ref></blockquote>

=== The Right Theory of Fascism ===
Whilst the left theory of fascism sees it as an elite movement, a hammer with which the bourgeois retaliates upon the organised working class. The right theory instead proposes fascism as a mass movement, and not indeed a force propagated or controlled by the ruling class.

=== The Dialectical Analysis of Fascism ===

== See also ==

* [[Neoliberalism]]
* [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Greater German Reich]]
* [[Far-right politics]]
* [[Genocide]]

==References==
<references />

===Notes===
<references group="lower-alpha" />
[[Category:Political ideology]]
[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Extremism]]
[[Category:Right-wing ideologies]]
[[Category:Anti-communism]]

Fascism

2022-10-23T20:57:47Z

Clover: Spelling mistakes,

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-052-06A, Albert Speer spricht in Munitionsfabrik.jpg|thumb|The Roman Salute is commonly associated with Nazis and other Fascists.]]
'''Fascism''', usually understood in [[Marxist]] theory as ''[[capitalism]] in decay'',<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG8Bczss228 What "Fascism is capitalism in decay" means]</ref> is a [[Counterrevolution|counterrevolutionary]] [[reactionary]] movement led by finance capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Georgi Dimitrov|year=1935|title=The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism|chapter=The class character of fascism|page=|quote=No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over 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.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|title=Encyclopedia of Marxism|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/a.htm#fascism}}</ref> and form of [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] which emerged during periods of economic crisis in [[Imperialism|imperialist]] countries.<ref>{{Citation|author=William I. Robinson|year=2019|title=Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype|quote=Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.|publisher=Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183|doi=10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155}}</ref> The [[Communist International (1919–1943)|Third International]] described fascism as the "open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most [[Chauvinism|chauvinistic]], and most imperialist elements of finance capital."<ref>{{Citation|author=[[George Dimitrov]]|year=1935|title=The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism|chapter=Fascism and the Working Class|quote=Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm}}</ref>

Fascism usually promotes policies that favor the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive [[anti-communism]], a profound aversion towards [[democracy]], the justification and glorification of [[class society]] through [[class collaboration]], and chauvinistic tendencies, namely ultra-[[nationalism]], [[racism]] and [[sexism]]. Fascist ideologues usually promote [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.

Throughout history, the fascists promoted policies that caused even more [[exploitation]] of the [[Proletariat|working class]] than capitalism was ever able to, allowing monopolies to take over every aspect of society. So much so that ''The Economist'' magazine introduced the term ''privatization'' in 1936, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe [[German fascism|Nazi Germany]]'s economic policies.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2006|title=Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194|isbn=|doi=10.1257/jep.20.3.187|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=|quote=}}</ref> The most well-known historical examples of fascism are [[Greater German Reich|Nazi Germany]] and [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Fascist Italy]], but there has been various historical examples of fascism, such as [[Empire of Japan (1931-1947)|Shōwa Japan]], [[Spanish State (1939-1975)|Francoist Spain]] and [[Salzarist Portugal|Salazarist Portugal]].

==History==

===Origins===
The term "fascism" comes from the [[Italian Republic|Italian]] National Fascist Party,<ref group="lower-alpha">Italian: ''Partito Nazionale Fascista''</ref> a party founded by [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this [[reactionary]] movement as a whole. Mussolini inspired his fascism on the cult of [[Roman civilisation]] who, although they had no concept of fascism and did not care to predict the future two thousand years after their height, provided him with a perfect excuse to call back to the Roman empire, which stretched far and wide and started in modern-day Italy. Thus the name fascism was based on the ''fasces'', an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (''lictors'') in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.

The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement, however, can be traced as far as the [[French Republic|French]] far-right [[French Action]],<ref group="lower-alpha">French: ''Action Française''</ref> which was an openly anti-[[Marxism|Marxist]] political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through [[class collaboration]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Ernst Nolte|year=1966|title=Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=New York|publisher=New American Library|isbn=9780451008619|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=082DBA3CA0FEE611DCDB8D2CC1DF350C|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus|trans-lang=German}}</ref>

In ''Discourse on colonialism'', [[Aimé Césaire]] exposed the old colonialist mindsets that would later influence fascism and survive after it. This prompted him to write in that same essay that fascism is colonialism applied to the coloniser.<ref>{{Citation|author=Aimé Césaire|year=1950|title=Discourse on colonialism|chapter=|page=36|quote=People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind – it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.|pdf=https://libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf|city=France|publisher=Réclame|isbn=1583670254|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Discours sur le colonialisme|trans-lang=|section=}}</ref> A similar observation was made by [[Frantz Fanon]], who wrote: "what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"<ref>{{Citation|author=Frantz Fanon|year=1961|title=Wretched of the earth|chapter=|section=|page=90|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=9780802150837|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D2A7D155578D59565375286BA995A79D|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

==== Nietzsche ====
Historian and [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] philosopher [[Domenico Losurdo]] pointed in his work ''Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel'' that [[Nietzsche]], who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the [[Paris commune]] in 1871.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|year=2002|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|chapter=|section=|page=26|quote=[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=9789004270954|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-[[Liberalism|liberal]], anti-[[Socialism|socialist]], antidemocratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|doi=|quote=Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’|trans-lang=|trans-title=|pdf=|mia=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|publisher=|year=2002|city=|isbn=9789004270954|chapter-url=|title-url=|chapter=|page=731|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|section=}}</ref>

==== Sorel ====
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of [[National Syndicalism]] in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centered around the idea of [[myth]]; which he highlights as "forming the center of man’s cosmology and worldview in all ages".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Rodrigo Sobota|date=2020-10-15|title=Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth|url=https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/georges-sorel-and-triumphant-return-myth}}</ref> In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article prasing the far-right group [[French Action]] in ''Divenire sociale''—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by [[French Action]]; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910 he joined the group. During this time he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.<ref>{{Citation|author=Zeev Sternhell|year=1994|title=THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY|chapter=1–3|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceavi2ziwuqzadtp7fjcw24uvkoix4wzybsibskpjmfbksjcxwblyg?filename=Zeev%20Sternhell%2C%20Mario%20Sznajder%2C%20Maia%20Asheri%20-%20The%20Birth%20of%20Fascist%20Ideology_%20From%20Cultural%20Rebellion%20to%20Political%20Revolution-Princeton%20University%20Press%20%281994%29.pdf|isbn=0-691-03289-0|lg=http://library.lol/main/10886BD4A08A7180CDA3D8B3BED5ADD1}}</ref> Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=James H. Meisel|date=1950-03-01|title=A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591295000300102?journalCode=prqa&}}</ref>

===Italian fascism===
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2011|title=The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925)|chapter=|page=|quote=Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=10.1093/cje/beq051|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

===German fascism===
[[German fascism]] was most known for its [[Genocide|genocidal]], [[Expansionism|expansionist]], [[Imperialism|imperialist]] and [[Colonialism|colonialist]] rule under the [[National-socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi Party]] from 1933–1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviet lives.<ref>{{Citation|author=Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko|year=|title=On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War|chapter=|page=|quote=Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/history/more.htm?id=11359251@cmsArticle|chapter-url=|trans-title=К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел|trans-lang=Russian}}</ref> While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, their name being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent [[exploitation]] of the working people and concentration of capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Sidney Merlin|year=1943|title=Trends in German economic control since 1933|chapter=|page=207|quote=The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.|pdf=|city=|publisher=The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57|isbn=|doi=10.2307/1882751|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> they adopted a [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] model coupled with [[exploitation colonialism]] and mass terror applied to the [[Europe|European continent]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Thomas Kühne|year=2013|title=Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities|chapter=German colonialism and German peculiarities|page=343|quote=Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15|isbn=|doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.821229|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as ''[[Lebensraum]]'',<ref group="lower-alpha">English: ''Living space''</ref> and was directly influenced by [[United States of America|Statesian]] genocide of Native peoples through ''[[Manifest Destiny]]''.<ref>{{Citation|author=Robert J. Miller|year=2020|title=Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians|chapter=|page=14|quote=Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=|lg=http://librarian.libgen.gs/ads.php?md5=77a60b95047d1913f026368bbf9a3225&downloadname=10.2139/ssrn.3541009|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the [[Soviet Union]] after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
===Japanese fascism===
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of [[imperialist]] and [[Ultranationalism|ultranationalist]] political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in [[Asia]].

=== Portuguese fascism ===
From 1933 to 1974, [[Portugal]] was ruled by the ''Estado Novo'' ("New State"), headed by [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese [[working class]] was subjugated to [[reactionary]] [[Christianity|christian]] doctrine, as well as a "[[Third Positionism|Corporatist]]" economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly [[imperialist]], repressing calls for independence and self-determination in [[Republic of Angola|Angola]] and [[Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]]. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970's, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.<ref>{{Citation|author=Howard J. Wiarda|year=1977|title=Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHFaAAAAIAAJ|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press|isbn=9780870232213|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]].

===Spanish fascism ===
Following the victory of the [[United Front]] in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco and assisted by invading Germany and Italy, tacitly backed by the rest of the allies, broke out. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931), and to this day Spain remains a monarchy.

=== Neo-fascist movements ===
''See main article: [[Neo-fascism]]''

====2019 coup in Bolivia ====
President [[Evo Morales]] of Bolivia was reelected to this office in October 2019 with 47,08% of total votes. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the [[Organisation of American States]] (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.

Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.

The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).

Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.

==The Marxian Analysis of Fascism==

=== The Left Theory of Fascism ===
The left wing analysis of fascism largely evolved from the known work of [[Jack London]], ''The Iron Heel.'' Tough this was a book written before the world was introduced to fascism proper, it outlines much the perceived likeness of fascism. The analysis sees fascism as a tool and a trick by the bourgeoisie. Proponents of this analysis would see fascism as an intrinsic part of bourgeois society and thereby capitalist hegemony.

This analysis is archaic in modern Marxist perceptions of fascism as it is not critical and cannot meaningfully differentiate between reactionary liberal capitalism and fascism. Examples may include the [[Amadeo Bordiga|Amadeo Bordiga's]] statement at the fifth congress of the communist international in 1924, in which he said:<blockquote>Fascism, fundamentally, merely repeats the old game of the bourgeoise left parties, i.e. it appeals to the proletariat for civil peace. It attempts to achieve this aim by forming trade unions of industrial and agricultural workers, which it then leads into practical collaboration with the employers' organisations.<ref>{{Citation|author=Duncan Hallas|year=1985|title=The Comintern|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1985/comintern/}}</ref></blockquote>

=== The Right Theory of Fascism ===
Whilst the left theory of fascism sees it as an elite movement, a hammer with which the bourgeois retaliates upon the organised working class. The right theory instead proposes fascism as a mass movement, and not indeed a force propagated or controlled by the ruling class.

=== The Dialectical Analysis of Fascism ===

== See also ==

* [[Neoliberalism]]
* [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Greater German Reich]]
* [[Far-right politics]]
* [[Genocide]]

==References==
<references />

===Notes===
<references group="lower-alpha" />
[[Category:Political ideology]]
[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Extremism]]
[[Category:Right-wing ideologies]]
[[Category:Anti-communism]]

Fascism

2022-10-23T19:18:33Z

Clover: /* Ideology and practice */

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-052-06A, Albert Speer spricht in Munitionsfabrik.jpg|thumb|The Roman Salute is commonly associated with Nazis and other Fascists.]]
'''Fascism''', usually understood in [[Marxist]] theory as ''[[capitalism]] in decay'',<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG8Bczss228 What "Fascism is capitalism in decay" means]</ref> is a [[Counterrevolution|counterrevolutionary]] [[reactionary]] movement led by finance capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Georgi Dimitrov|year=1935|title=The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism|chapter=The class character of fascism|page=|quote=No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over 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.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|title=Encyclopedia of Marxism|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/a.htm#fascism}}</ref> and form of [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] which emerged during periods of economic crisis in [[Imperialism|imperialist]] countries.<ref>{{Citation|author=William I. Robinson|year=2019|title=Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype|quote=Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.|publisher=Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183|doi=10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155}}</ref> The [[Communist International (1919–1943)|Third International]] described fascism as the "open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most [[Chauvinism|chauvinistic]], and most imperialist elements of finance capital."<ref>{{Citation|author=[[George Dimitrov]]|year=1935|title=The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism|chapter=Fascism and the Working Class|quote=Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm}}</ref>

Fascism usually promotes policies that favor the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive [[anti-communism]], a profound aversion towards [[democracy]], the justification and glorification of [[class society]] through [[class collaboration]], and chauvinistic tendencies, namely ultra-[[nationalism]], [[racism]] and [[sexism]]. Fascist ideologues usually promote [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.

Throughout history, the fascists promoted policies that caused even more [[exploitation]] of the [[Proletariat|working class]] than capitalism was ever able to, allowing monopolies to take over every aspect of society. So much so that ''The Economist'' magazine introduced the term ''privatization'' in 1936, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe [[German fascism|Nazi Germany]]'s economic policies.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2006|title=Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194|isbn=|doi=10.1257/jep.20.3.187|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=|quote=}}</ref> The most well-known historical examples of fascism are [[Greater German Reich|Nazi Germany]] and [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Fascist Italy]], but there has been various historical examples of fascism, such as [[Empire of Japan (1931-1947)|Shōwa Japan]], [[Spanish State (1939-1975)|Francoist Spain]] and [[Salzarist Portugal|Salazarist Portugal]].

==History==

===Origins===
The term "fascism" comes from the [[Italian Republic|Italian]] National Fascist Party,<ref group="lower-alpha">Italian: ''Partito Nazionale Fascista''</ref> a party founded by [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this [[reactionary]] movement as a whole. Mussolini inspired his fascism on the cult of [[Roman civilisation]] who, although they had no concept of fascism and did not care to predict the future two thousand years after their height, provided him with a perfect excuse to call back to the Roman empire, which stretched far and wide and started in modern-day Italy. Thus the name fascism was based on the ''fasces'', an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (''lictors'') in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.

The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement, however, can be traced as far as the [[French Republic|French]] far-right [[French Action]],<ref group="lower-alpha">French: ''Action Française''</ref> which was an openly anti-[[Marxism|Marxist]] political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through [[class collaboration]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Ernst Nolte|year=1966|title=Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=New York|publisher=New American Library|isbn=9780451008619|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=082DBA3CA0FEE611DCDB8D2CC1DF350C|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus|trans-lang=German}}</ref>

In ''Discourse on colonialism'', [[Aimé Césaire]] exposed the old colonialist mindsets that would later influence fascism and survive after it. This prompted him to write in that same essay that fascism is colonialism applied to the coloniser.<ref>{{Citation|author=Aimé Césaire|year=1950|title=Discourse on colonialism|chapter=|page=36|quote=People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind – it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.|pdf=https://libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf|city=France|publisher=Réclame|isbn=1583670254|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Discours sur le colonialisme|trans-lang=|section=}}</ref> A similar observation was made by [[Frantz Fanon]], who wrote: "what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"<ref>{{Citation|author=Frantz Fanon|year=1961|title=Wretched of the earth|chapter=|section=|page=90|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=9780802150837|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D2A7D155578D59565375286BA995A79D|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

==== Nietzsche ====
Historian and [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] philosopher [[Domenico Losurdo]] pointed in his work ''Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel'' that [[Nietzsche]], who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the [[Paris commune]] in 1871.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|year=2002|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|chapter=|section=|page=26|quote=[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=9789004270954|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-[[Liberalism|liberal]], anti-[[Socialism|socialist]], antidemocratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|doi=|quote=Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’|trans-lang=|trans-title=|pdf=|mia=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|publisher=|year=2002|city=|isbn=9789004270954|chapter-url=|title-url=|chapter=|page=731|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|section=}}</ref>

==== Sorel ====
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of [[National Syndicalism]] in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centered around the idea of [[myth]]; which he highlights as "forming the center of man’s cosmology and worldview in all ages".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Rodrigo Sobota|date=2020-10-15|title=Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth|url=https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/georges-sorel-and-triumphant-return-myth}}</ref> In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article prasing the far-right group [[French Action]] in ''Divenire sociale''—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by [[French Action]]; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910 he joined the group. During this time he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.<ref>{{Citation|author=Zeev Sternhell|year=1994|title=THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY|chapter=1–3|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceavi2ziwuqzadtp7fjcw24uvkoix4wzybsibskpjmfbksjcxwblyg?filename=Zeev%20Sternhell%2C%20Mario%20Sznajder%2C%20Maia%20Asheri%20-%20The%20Birth%20of%20Fascist%20Ideology_%20From%20Cultural%20Rebellion%20to%20Political%20Revolution-Princeton%20University%20Press%20%281994%29.pdf|isbn=0-691-03289-0|lg=http://library.lol/main/10886BD4A08A7180CDA3D8B3BED5ADD1}}</ref> Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=James H. Meisel|date=1950-03-01|title=A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591295000300102?journalCode=prqa&}}</ref>

===Italian fascism===
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2011|title=The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925)|chapter=|page=|quote=Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=10.1093/cje/beq051|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

===German fascism===
[[German fascism]] was most known for its [[Genocide|genocidal]], [[Expansionism|expansionist]], [[Imperialism|imperialist]] and [[Colonialism|colonialist]] rule under the [[National-socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi Party]] from 1933–1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviet lives.<ref>{{Citation|author=Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko|year=|title=On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War|chapter=|page=|quote=Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/history/more.htm?id=11359251@cmsArticle|chapter-url=|trans-title=К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел|trans-lang=Russian}}</ref> While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, their name being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent [[exploitation]] of the working people and concentration of capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Sidney Merlin|year=1943|title=Trends in German economic control since 1933|chapter=|page=207|quote=The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.|pdf=|city=|publisher=The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57|isbn=|doi=10.2307/1882751|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> they adopted a [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] model coupled with [[exploitation colonialism]] and mass terror applied to the [[Europe|European continent]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Thomas Kühne|year=2013|title=Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities|chapter=German colonialism and German peculiarities|page=343|quote=Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15|isbn=|doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.821229|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as ''[[Lebensraum]]'',<ref group="lower-alpha">English: ''Living space''</ref> and was directly influenced by [[United States of America|Statesian]] genocide of Native peoples through ''[[Manifest Destiny]]''.<ref>{{Citation|author=Robert J. Miller|year=2020|title=Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians|chapter=|page=14|quote=Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=|lg=http://librarian.libgen.gs/ads.php?md5=77a60b95047d1913f026368bbf9a3225&downloadname=10.2139/ssrn.3541009|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the [[Soviet Union]] after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
===Japanese fascism===
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of [[imperialist]] and [[Ultranationalism|ultranationalist]] political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in [[Asia]].

=== Portuguese fascism ===
From 1933 to 1974, [[Portugal]] was ruled by the ''Estado Novo'' ("New State"), headed by [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese [[working class]] was subjugated to [[reactionary]] [[Christianity|christian]] doctrine, as well as a "[[Third Positionism|Corporatist]]" economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly [[imperialist]], repressing calls for independence and self-determination in [[Republic of Angola|Angola]] and [[Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]]. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970's, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.<ref>{{Citation|author=Howard J. Wiarda|year=1977|title=Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHFaAAAAIAAJ|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press|isbn=9780870232213|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]].

===Spanish fascism ===
Following the victory of the [[United Front]] in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco and assisted by invading Germany and Italy, tacitly backed by the rest of the allies, broke out. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931), and to this day Spain remains a monarchy.

=== Neo-fascist movements ===
''See main article: [[Neo-fascism]]''

====2019 coup in Bolivia ====
President [[Evo Morales]] of Bolivia was reelected to this office in October 2019 with 47,08% of total votes. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the [[Organisation of American States]] (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.

Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.

The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).

Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.

==The Marxian Analysis of Fascism==

=== The Left Theory of Fascism ===
The left wing analysis of fascism largely evolved from the known work of [[Jack London]], ''The Iron Heel.'' Tough this was a book written before the world was introduced to fascism proper, it outlines much the perceived likeness of fascism. The analysis sees fascism as a tool and a trick by the bourgeoise. Proponents of this analysis would see fascism as an intrinsic part of bourgeoise society and thereby capitalist hegemony.

This analysis is archaic in modern marxist perceptions of fascism as it is not critical and cannot meaningfully differenciate between reactionary liberal capitalism and fascism. Examples may include the [[Amadeo Bordiga|Amadeo Bordiga's]] statement at the fifth congress of the communist international in 1924, in which he said:

Fascism, fundamentally, merely repeats the old game of the bourgeoise left parties, i.e. it appeals to the proletariat for civil peace. It attempts to achieve this aim by forming trade unions of industrial and agricultural workers, which it then leads into practical collaboration with the employers' organisations.<ref>{{Citation|author=Duncan Hallas|year=1985|title=The Comintern|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1985/comintern/}}</ref>

=== The Right Theory of Fascism ===
Whilst the left theory of fascism sees it as an elite movement, a hammer with which the bourgoise retaliates upon the orginised working class. The right theory instead proposes fascism as a mass movement, and not indeed a force propigated or contrlled by the ruling class.

=== The Dialectical Analysis of Fascism ===

== See also ==

* [[Neoliberalism]]
* [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Greater German Reich]]
* [[Far-right politics]]
* [[Genocide]]

==References==
<references />

===Notes===
<references group="lower-alpha" />
[[Category:Political ideology]]
[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Extremism]]
[[Category:Right-wing ideologies]]
[[Category:Anti-communism]]

Fascism

2022-10-23T19:17:39Z

Clover: I have added a segment explaining the Marxian analysis of fascism in different aspects

[[File:Bundesarchiv Bild 146-1981-052-06A, Albert Speer spricht in Munitionsfabrik.jpg|thumb|The Roman Salute is commonly associated with Nazis and other Fascists.]]
'''Fascism''', usually understood in [[Marxist]] theory as ''[[capitalism]] in decay'',<ref>[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IG8Bczss228 What "Fascism is capitalism in decay" means]</ref> is a [[Counterrevolution|counterrevolutionary]] [[reactionary]] movement led by finance capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Georgi Dimitrov|year=1935|title=The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism|chapter=The class character of fascism|page=|quote=No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over 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.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref><ref>{{News citation|title=Encyclopedia of Marxism|url=https://www.marxists.org/glossary/terms/f/a.htm#fascism}}</ref> and form of [[dictatorship of the bourgeoisie]] which emerged during periods of economic crisis in [[Imperialism|imperialist]] countries.<ref>{{Citation|author=William I. Robinson|year=2019|title=Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype|quote=Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.|publisher=Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183|doi=10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155}}</ref> The [[Communist International (1919–1943)|Third International]] described fascism as the "open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most [[Chauvinism|chauvinistic]], and most imperialist elements of finance capital."<ref>{{Citation|author=[[George Dimitrov]]|year=1935|title=The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism|chapter=Fascism and the Working Class|quote=Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.|mia=https://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm}}</ref>

Fascism usually promotes policies that favor the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive [[anti-communism]], a profound aversion towards [[democracy]], the justification and glorification of [[class society]] through [[class collaboration]], and chauvinistic tendencies, namely ultra-[[nationalism]], [[racism]] and [[sexism]]. Fascist ideologues usually promote [[Conspiracy theory|conspiracy theories]], irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.

Throughout history, the fascists promoted policies that caused even more [[exploitation]] of the [[Proletariat|working class]] than capitalism was ever able to, allowing monopolies to take over every aspect of society. So much so that ''The Economist'' magazine introduced the term ''privatization'' in 1936, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe [[German fascism|Nazi Germany]]'s economic policies.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2006|title=Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194|isbn=|doi=10.1257/jep.20.3.187|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=|quote=}}</ref> The most well-known historical examples of fascism are [[Greater German Reich|Nazi Germany]] and [[Kingdom of Italy (1922-1943)|Fascist Italy]], but there has been various historical examples of fascism, such as [[Empire of Japan (1931-1947)|Shōwa Japan]], [[Spanish State (1939-1975)|Francoist Spain]] and [[Salzarist Portugal|Salazarist Portugal]].

==History==

===Origins===
The term "fascism" comes from the [[Italian Republic|Italian]] National Fascist Party,<ref group="lower-alpha">Italian: ''Partito Nazionale Fascista''</ref> a party founded by [[Benito Mussolini]] in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this [[reactionary]] movement as a whole. Mussolini inspired his fascism on the cult of [[Roman civilisation]] who, although they had no concept of fascism and did not care to predict the future two thousand years after their height, provided him with a perfect excuse to call back to the Roman empire, which stretched far and wide and started in modern-day Italy. Thus the name fascism was based on the ''fasces'', an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (''lictors'') in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.

The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement, however, can be traced as far as the [[French Republic|French]] far-right [[French Action]],<ref group="lower-alpha">French: ''Action Française''</ref> which was an openly anti-[[Marxism|Marxist]] political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through [[class collaboration]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Ernst Nolte|year=1966|title=Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism|chapter=|page=|pdf=|city=New York|publisher=New American Library|isbn=9780451008619|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=082DBA3CA0FEE611DCDB8D2CC1DF350C|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus|trans-lang=German}}</ref>

In ''Discourse on colonialism'', [[Aimé Césaire]] exposed the old colonialist mindsets that would later influence fascism and survive after it. This prompted him to write in that same essay that fascism is colonialism applied to the coloniser.<ref>{{Citation|author=Aimé Césaire|year=1950|title=Discourse on colonialism|chapter=|page=36|quote=People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind – it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.|pdf=https://libcom.org/files/zz_aime_cesaire_robin_d.g._kelley_discourse_on_colbook4me.org_.pdf|city=France|publisher=Réclame|isbn=1583670254|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=Discours sur le colonialisme|trans-lang=|section=}}</ref> A similar observation was made by [[Frantz Fanon]], who wrote: "what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"<ref>{{Citation|author=Frantz Fanon|year=1961|title=Wretched of the earth|chapter=|section=|page=90|quote=|pdf=|city=|publisher=Grove Press|isbn=9780802150837|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=D2A7D155578D59565375286BA995A79D|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

==== Nietzsche ====
Historian and [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] philosopher [[Domenico Losurdo]] pointed in his work ''Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel'' that [[Nietzsche]], who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the [[Paris commune]] in 1871.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|year=2002|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|chapter=|section=|page=26|quote=[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=9789004270954|doi=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-[[Liberalism|liberal]], anti-[[Socialism|socialist]], antidemocratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.<ref>{{Citation|author=Domenico Losurdo|doi=|quote=Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’|trans-lang=|trans-title=|pdf=|mia=|lg=http://libgen.rs/book/index.php?md5=1BA09395E9E0D69AB9797AC5DEB89851|publisher=|year=2002|city=|isbn=9789004270954|chapter-url=|title-url=|chapter=|page=731|title=Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel|section=}}</ref>

==== Sorel ====
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of [[National Syndicalism]] in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centered around the idea of [[myth]]; which he highlights as "forming the center of man’s cosmology and worldview in all ages".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Rodrigo Sobota|date=2020-10-15|title=Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth|url=https://www.geopolitica.ru/en/article/georges-sorel-and-triumphant-return-myth}}</ref> In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article prasing the far-right group [[French Action]] in ''Divenire sociale''—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by [[French Action]]; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910 he joined the group. During this time he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.<ref>{{Citation|author=Zeev Sternhell|year=1994|title=THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY|chapter=1–3|pdf=https://cloudflare-ipfs.com/ipfs/bafykbzaceavi2ziwuqzadtp7fjcw24uvkoix4wzybsibskpjmfbksjcxwblyg?filename=Zeev%20Sternhell%2C%20Mario%20Sznajder%2C%20Maia%20Asheri%20-%20The%20Birth%20of%20Fascist%20Ideology_%20From%20Cultural%20Rebellion%20to%20Political%20Revolution-Princeton%20University%20Press%20%281994%29.pdf|isbn=0-691-03289-0|lg=http://library.lol/main/10886BD4A08A7180CDA3D8B3BED5ADD1}}</ref> Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".<ref>{{News citation|journalist=James H. Meisel|date=1950-03-01|title=A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini|url=https://journals.sagepub.com/doi/abs/10.1177/106591295000300102?journalCode=prqa&}}</ref>

===Italian fascism===
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.<ref>{{Citation|author=Germà Bel|year=2011|title=The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925)|chapter=|page=|quote=Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=10.1093/cje/beq051|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

===German fascism===
[[German fascism]] was most known for its [[Genocide|genocidal]], [[Expansionism|expansionist]], [[Imperialism|imperialist]] and [[Colonialism|colonialist]] rule under the [[National-socialist German Workers' Party|Nazi Party]] from 1933–1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviet lives.<ref>{{Citation|author=Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko|year=|title=On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War|chapter=|page=|quote=Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation|isbn=|doi=|lg=|mia=|title-url=https://encyclopedia.mil.ru/encyclopedia/history/more.htm?id=11359251@cmsArticle|chapter-url=|trans-title=К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел|trans-lang=Russian}}</ref> While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, their name being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent [[exploitation]] of the working people and concentration of capital,<ref>{{Citation|author=Sidney Merlin|year=1943|title=Trends in German economic control since 1933|chapter=|page=207|quote=The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.|pdf=|city=|publisher=The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57|isbn=|doi=10.2307/1882751|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> they adopted a [[Settler colonialism|settler-colonial]] model coupled with [[exploitation colonialism]] and mass terror applied to the [[Europe|European continent]].<ref>{{Citation|author=Thomas Kühne|year=2013|title=Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities|chapter=German colonialism and German peculiarities|page=343|quote=Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.|pdf=|city=|publisher=Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15|isbn=|doi=10.1080/14623528.2013.821229|lg=|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref> The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as ''[[Lebensraum]]'',<ref group="lower-alpha">English: ''Living space''</ref> and was directly influenced by [[United States of America|Statesian]] genocide of Native peoples through ''[[Manifest Destiny]]''.<ref>{{Citation|author=Robert J. Miller|year=2020|title=Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians|chapter=|page=14|quote=Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.|pdf=|city=|publisher=|isbn=|doi=|lg=http://librarian.libgen.gs/ads.php?md5=77a60b95047d1913f026368bbf9a3225&downloadname=10.2139/ssrn.3541009|mia=|title-url=|chapter-url=|trans-title=|trans-lang=}}</ref>

The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the [[Soviet Union]] after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
===Japanese fascism===
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of [[imperialist]] and [[Ultranationalism|ultranationalist]] political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in [[Asia]].

=== Portuguese fascism ===
From 1933 to 1974, [[Portugal]] was ruled by the ''Estado Novo'' ("New State"), headed by [[António de Oliveira Salazar]]. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese [[working class]] was subjugated to [[reactionary]] [[Christianity|christian]] doctrine, as well as a "[[Third Positionism|Corporatist]]" economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly [[imperialist]], repressing calls for independence and self-determination in [[Republic of Angola|Angola]] and [[Republic of Mozambique|Mozambique]]. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970's, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.<ref>{{Citation|author=Howard J. Wiarda|year=1977|title=Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience|title-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=dHFaAAAAIAAJ|publisher=University of Massachusetts Press|isbn=9780870232213|trans-lang=English}}</ref>

Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the [[North Atlantic Treaty Organization]].

===Spanish fascism ===
Following the victory of the [[United Front]] in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco and assisted by invading Germany and Italy, tacitly backed by the rest of the allies, broke out. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931), and to this day Spain remains a monarchy.

=== Neo-fascist movements ===
''See main article: [[Neo-fascism]]''

====2019 coup in Bolivia ====
President [[Evo Morales]] of Bolivia was reelected to this office in October 2019 with 47,08% of total votes. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the [[Organisation of American States]] (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.

Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.

The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).

Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.

==Ideology and practice==

=== The Left Theory of Fascism ===
The left wing analysis of fascism largely evolved from the known work of [[Jack London]], ''The Iron Heel.'' Tough this was a book written before the world was introduced to fascism proper, it outlines much the perceived likeness of fascism. The analysis sees fascism as a tool and a trick by the bourgeoise. Proponents of this analysis would see fascism as an intrinsic part of bourgeoise society and thereby capitalist hegemony.

This analysis is archaic in modern marxist perceptions of fascism as it is not critical and cannot meaningfully differenciate between reactionary liberal capitalism and fascism. Examples may include the [[Amadeo Bordiga|Amadeo Bordiga's]] statement at the fifth congress of the communist international in 1924, in which he said:

Fascism, fundamentally, merely repeats the old game of the bourgeoise left parties, i.e. it appeals to the proletariat for civil peace. It attempts to achieve this aim by forming trade unions of industrial and agricultural workers, which it then leads into practical collaboration with the employers' organisations.<ref>{{Citation|author=Duncan Hallas|year=1985|title=The Comintern|title-url=https://www.marxists.org/archive/hallas/works/1985/comintern/}}</ref>

=== The Right Theory of Fascism ===
Whilst the left theory of fascism sees it as an elite movement, a hammer with which the bourgoise retaliates upon the orginised working class. The right theory instead proposes fascism as a mass movement, and not indeed a force propigated or contrlled by the ruling class.

=== The Dialectical Analysis of Fascism ===

== See also ==

* [[Neoliberalism]]
* [[German Reich (1933–1945)|Greater German Reich]]
* [[Far-right politics]]
* [[Genocide]]

==References==
<references />

===Notes===
<references group="lower-alpha" />
[[Category:Political ideology]]
[[Category:Fascism]]
[[Category:Extremism]]
[[Category:Right-wing ideologies]]
[[Category:Anti-communism]]

LGBT+

2022-10-20T23:52:01Z

Clover: Added to "refuting myths about transgender people" with a point underlying the metaphysical materialist misconception of trans existence.

[[File:Communist LGBTQ+ symbol.png|thumb|Proposed communist LGBT+ symbol representing cisgender and transgender in the classical hammer and sickle.]]
[[File:Proposed alternative to the communist LGBTQ+ symbol.png|thumb|Proposed alternative, in red background, to the communist LGBT+ symbol.]]
'''LGBT+''', also known by a varying number of letters (see below), is an initialism used to denote the various different types of people that belong to the queer community; that is, people who either do not identify as heterosexual, cisgender, or neither. This community encompasses a wide range of different sexualities, genders and identities, and many people in the community either take on multiple identities or have their identities change over time. The "LGBT" term originally only referred to those who were either gay, bisexual or transgender, but today the term is much broader, hence the "+" added to it. LGBT+ people tend to be stigmatized, discriminated, and [[Materialism|materially]] oppressed due to their sexual and gender identity and expressions, as a result of centuries-old - usually Western - conceptions of such people being predatory, deviant, unnatural, parasitic, mentally ill, "sinful", etc., despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that none of these things are inherent to them, and that LGBT+ behaviour is perfectly normal and does not otherwise alter anyone's normal personality. As such, LGBT+ people are often revolutionary and stand in opposition to the status quo. The main symbol that identify this community is the rainbow flag<ref name=":0">https://www.ecured.cu/LGBTI</ref>, although there are many different flags used to represent the different types of people within it. Inside some [[Communism|communist]] circles some other symbols can be used to represent the community, like the proposed symbol representing cisgender and transgender in the classical [[hammer and sickle]].

However, even though LGBT+ people suffer bigoted oppression by the bourgeoisie just as any minority group does, there is still a tendency to discriminate against/exclude them even amongst some communists. Some communists - particularly those in more socially conservative countries - may view LGBT+ identities in the traditionally bigoted ways, as well as the idea that LGBT+ behaviour is "bourgeois degeneracy" imposed on the proletariat. This idea comes from the misguided belief that LGBT+ people are somehow put at an advantage above cisgender-heterosexual people, and that therefore they are part of the privileged class. In reality, most bourgeoisie attempts to "normalise" the LGBT+ community boil down to pinkwashing, and are not genuine efforts to make society at large more accepting of these people.

== Acronym ==
Each term in the acronym refers to a specific group and the surrounding community. The acronym was originally created in the mid-1980s as simply "LGB", though by 1988 the term had evolved to "LGBT". Nowadays, the acronym is technically much longer, so much so that "alphabet soup" has become a tongue-in-cheek nickname for it. However, most people simply say it as "LGBT", "LGBTQ", or "LGBTQ+", for the sake of brevity.

The unofficial full acronym is '''2S/LGBTQQIAAP+'''

* '''Two-spirit:''' refers to LGBT+ indigenous people; usually those who are transgender.
* '''Lesbian:''' refers to women with a homosexual sexual orientation, i.e., exclusive to other women.
*'''Gay:''' generally refers to homosexual men, although "gay" is also often used to denote both homosexual men and women.
*'''Bisexual:''' refers to people who are attracted to both men and women.
*'''Transgender:''' refers to those who, although their body is female or male, their ideas, feelings and desires do not correspond to their biological sex.
* '''Queer:''' catch-all term for anyone does not identify as heterosexual and/or cisgender.
* '''Questioning:''' someone currently in the process of questioning their sexuality or gender identity.
* '''Intersex:''' someone born with both male and female reproductive organs; a condition that is extremely rare but generally has no adverse health affects.
* '''Allies:''' heterosexual-cisgender people who support the community.
* '''Asexual:''' someone who does not experience sexual attraction to anyone. They may however still experience romantic attraction; if they don't, they are referred to as '''aromantic.'''
* '''Pansexual:''' someone who is attracted to anyone, regardless of their sexuality or gender identity. Different from bisexuality, because while bisexual people tend to have certain genders they prefer over others, pansexuals do not have such preferences.
*'''et al. (+):''' encompasses all other identities in the LGBT+ community, mostly alternative gender identities such as '''non-binary, agender, genderqueer,''' etc.

How one identifies themselves in the LGBT+ community can change drastically over time, and many identifies often intersect with each other. For example, non-gender-conforming people usually also identify as transgender, or even gay/bi depending on their identity. Simply put, gender and sexuality are incredibly fluid, and hardly the rigid concepts that society generally makes them out to be.

== Refuting Myths About Homosexuality ==

=== "It's not natural" ===
This is an inherently weak and uncogent objection. This argument is a blatant rendition of the appeal to nature, as it assumes that what is natural is acceptable or better and what is unnatural is not, and it does not define what "natural" even is. What this would entail logically is that adultery, infanticide, cannibalism, and nakedness must be acceptable as they are "natural", while playing checkers, sleeping on a bed, wearing clothes and indeed cooking meat are not "natural" and thus unacceptable. Most homophobic persons typically do not advocate creating laws outlawing things such as sleeping on beds, not to mention that using computers isn't natural either — yet homophobes clearly use computers, if only to try to defend themselves on various wiki sites.

Moreover, even if it did logically follow that what is "natural" is good, it turns out that homosexuality occurs in nature; biologists have extensively documented same-sex behavior in over 500 species of animals and observed it in a total of 1,500 species of animals. Bonobos, for example, are known for indulging in almost any "perversion" humanity has thought of — and perhaps some we've missed out on. Mammals are far from the only kind of animal that do this.

=== "It's a perversion" ===
This is simply a variation, with added bigotry, of the "It's not natural" argument. It implies that being gay is a mental disorder or disability even though there is no evidence to support such a claim. Defining homosexuality as a disability is a classic argument from definition fallacy. But the definition of disability does not include sexuality or gender. Being LGBTQ+ in no way impairs your ability to function as a human being in and of itself. In addition, drawing a parallel with sexuality and disability is a very troubling false equivocation, especially because it assumes that disabled people also do not deserve respect and empathy.

=== "It's against God's law" ===
Before we try to address this issue: Why do the infidels have to pay attention to ''your'' God? Then comes the presuppositional argument that everything is contingent on the God of your religion, or double standard of saying that freedom of religion does not apply to those people, or that separation of church and state does not ''really'' exist.

Conservative Christians claim that God condemns homosexuality, but Jesus actually never brought the subject up, as it was apparently not very high on his list of important things to do or not do (although he did give some forceful condemnations of hypocrisy and those who used their temporal or religious authority to oppress others and enrich themselves). While this argument may be relevant for some religious practitioners, it has no relevance to those people who read Scripture in a more accommodating fashion, or to those simply do not believe in God, those that are are followers of a different religion, or to the law that respects the divide between church and state.

While the strongest religious criticisms of homosexuality (at least in Western countries, especially Poland and Germany) usually come from Christians, but Jesus Christ himself is not recorded as saying anything whatsoever about homosexuality. Biblical condemnations of homosexuality come from the Old Testament, specifically Leviticus (You know, along with not eating shrimp, Leviticus 11:10, and not wearing clothes made of multiple materials, Leviticus 19:19) and later apostles such as St Paul. Back then, many people in Ancient Rome disapproved of gay marriage before Christianity came along. Christians may just have wanted to make themselves look homophobic to look acceptable in the eyes of the average Roman.

The Old Testament is explicitly against homosexuality, because it claims it has perverted many ancient civilisations (homosexuality, that is, not the Old Testament). Evidence of impacts on any civilisations remains to be found.

=== "It's disgusting" ===
This is simply a value judgment which has no weight outside the mind of the person expressing it. Some people might consider mental images of heterosexual sex as equally repulsive, while others might consider the mental image of Donald Trump having sex to be disgusting.

If the standard chauvinist opinion of "disgusting" is being used, we can assume that God is fine with lesbians. That might be why there's no real mention of female homosexuality in the Bible aside from a questionable reference in Romans 1:26. That claim rests on a very shaky foundation, as the full context of the passage seems to be more of a condemnation of shrine prostitutes than of lesbians. It might be the most honest reason, even if it's the most ridiculous.

=== "It allows corruption, or sexual abuse, in single-sex communities" ===
Some communities are sensitive to corruption due to sexual relationships, or sexual abuse. How is that problem solved? Gender separation rules out the opportunities for heterosexual relationships. But to rule out homosexual relationships, the gays must be thrown out, too. The Boy Scouts of America is an example. The Catholic Church also intends to end sexual abuse by throwing out gay people. Except abusive priests. They can stay, provided the Church can shuffle them around to another (unsuspecting) congregation.
The problem is that sexual abuse is very different from consensual sexual relationships. Prison rapists are usually not gay, though they are men who have sex with men. The reason is that rape isn't really about sex, but about dominating and abusing others.

=== "Marriage has a traditional, ancient definition" ===
Homophobes might say that marriage is an ancient institution, clearly defined as a union between man and woman (though they don't specify ''what'' ancient institution they're referring to). They ignore that ancient institutions have included slavery, polygamy, forced marriage and child marriage, and that ancient traditions have banned interracial and inter-religious marriage. Also, conservatives' precious Old Testament disagrees with that definition, since its model for marriage seems to be ''polygamy''.

Many conservatives claim that extra-marital sexual relationships are sinful. So if same-sex marriage is not allowed, all same-sex sexual activities would be sinful, by definition.

Homophobes might say that gay marriage would ruin the sanctity of straight marriage. Typically, the sanctity of marriage is only ruined when one partner ''in the marriage'' has sex outside of the marriage so it is difficult to see how same-sex marriage could impinge on the sanctity of marriage between straight individuals. Some use vague ''non sequitur'' explanations as to why it would devalue their marriage. For example, "If we recognize counterfeit money, it devalues the real thing. Therefore, if we recognize SSM, traditional marriage is devalued."

Besides, straight people have beaten up and devalued marriage on their own with no help from the gays. Straights have allowed divorce, unregistered cohabitation, the de-criminalization of adultery, quickie Vegas wedding chapels where people can get married by Elvis Presley impersonators, dog and cat weddings, and pathetic marriage-themed reality television shows where people can marry strangers they just met before divorcing 48 hours later as soon as they actually had to get to know each other. And many years later, when some gays want to marry, they get the blame for ruining straight marriage?

=== "Homosexuality might encourage other perversions" ===
Homophobes might claim that acceptance of homosexuality might be a gateway to acceptance of pedophilia, zoophilia, incest or other perversions, in the same manner as public acceptance of Earl Grey tea is a gateway to public acceptance of heroin. That is a slippery slope fallacious argument; in other words, bullshit. In the past, pederasty certainly existed in Western culture, especially ancient Greece and Rome (and likely fueled some of the early Christians' animus against it), but today's gay communities overwhelmingly condemn pederasty and other such acts just like the rest of us.

=== "Homosexuals choose to be that way" ===
Homophobes often claim that those living the "gay lifestyle" have simply chosen to be gay.
This could be correct for any given individual making this argument, but only if they are bisexual. Most people are attracted primarily to either men or women, and can exercise very little, if any, choice in the matter. Bisexual people, however, could conceivably choose to act on their attraction to the opposite sex and ignore their similar attraction to the same sex. But this would not make a bisexual person heterosexual.

Also curious and rarely discussed is why this should even be relevant; it's not as though societies routinely ban behaviors just because they appear to be choices rather than innate and inflexible preferences, whatever that distinction can be said to mean in an apparently deterministic universe. Blind to their own irony, the same people who revile the gays with the non-argument that homosexuality is a "choice" and thus wrong (…implying that it'd be okay if it weren't, as most evidence suggests?) are often very pleased to attempt to inflict a distinctly choice-based religious lifestyle on anyone who'll sit still and listen to their crazy, and none of them ever flips on his gay switch to show us just how easy it is to swap boning preferences.

Also, why would people choose to be gay when they have a higher risk of being harassed?

=== Sexually transmitted infections ===
Men who have sex with men are prone to some sexually transmitted infections, most notably HIV. This is mostly because anal sex transmits HIV and other infections and a rate 18 times higher than vaginal sex. Some people have transmitted these infections to heterosexual partners.

STIs are indeed a public health problem. However, most gay people are not infected. And most know how to protect themselves. Just like straight people. It is simply not a problem unique to homosexuality. Also, some STIs may not really be much more common among men who have sex with men, such as genital herpes.

If one is to believe Warren J. Blumenthal, homophobic conservatives might well be shooting themselves in the foot: "Anti-gay bias causes young people to engage in sexual behavior earlier in order to prove that they are straight. Anti-gay bias contributed significantly to the spread of the AIDS epidemic. Anti-gay bias prevents the ability of schools to create effective honest sexual education programs that would save children's lives and prevent STDs."

HIV rarely spreads through lesbian sexual intercourse. Does this mean we ban all marriages except between two women? I mean, stopping AIDS is super important enough to justify criminalizing loving relationships, right? Nope.

=== "Homosexuals are promiscuous" ===
First, even if this were universally true and demonstrable with convincing evidence (which it clearly isn't), it wouldn't mean anything. Promiscuity is not a vice in and of itself, unless you're religious and want to force everyone else to be as miserable as you.
Second, while some gay communities encourage casual sex, some straight communities do too. Meanwhile, many gay people prefer lifelong, monogamous relationships. All people, no matter their sexual orientation, have different tastes.

=== Anal sex ===
Many homophobic jokes and arguments center around anal sex, taking as read that it's a despicable act and implying that The Gays are obsessed with it. Male-on-male anal sex seems to matter more to homophobes than to gay men. There are some health issues with penile-anal penetration, but these also apply to male-on-female anal fun, which is popular among some young Christians and usually not condemned in the same way. Also, some gay men don't do anal sex anyways. Furthermore, due to the invention of that newfangled piece of technology known as the "strap-on", straight female-on-male anal sex is also possible and regularly indulged in.

=== "Homosexuality is not reproductive" ===
Most sexual encounters, including those within marriage, are non-reproductive. These include barrier birth control, biochemical birth control, fertility awareness, non-penetrative sex, sex with sterilized people, sex with less fertile people (due to old age or other reasons), and homosexuality. Oddly enough, when someone makes the claim that it's all about children, they tend to become very unhappy if someone suggests that sterile couples should also be banned from marrying… ''almost as if'' that wasn't their real reason for opposing same-sex marriage.

Same-sex couples also commonly do something that is arguably more humanitarian than creating new people: they adopt children. There is also no requirement to make new people anyway, and a growing childfree movement against the entrenched emphasis on family and reproduction, while the world's population is still increasing. Does the planet desperately need more reproductive sex that badly? Same-sex couples can also procreate using artificial means, such as artificial insemination or surrogate mothers. Some closeted or semi-closeted homosexuals also have children through marriage before coming out.

=== "Homosexuals don't even exist, anyway." ===
Some organizations (and even entire countries) simply deny the existence of homosexuality, seeing it as a rebellious phase, a simpler way to "get some," or simply bisexuality, as opposed to a genuine lack of opposite sex attraction.

Common arguments:

* '''Most homosexual men enjoy women as friends.''' (Answers in Genesis used this argument.) People making this argument may be thinking that opposite sex friends (sometimes thought of as a psychological impossibility) are some sort of repressed desire for the opposite sex. This argument is even more ridiculous when considering the fact that most heterosexual men enjoy men as friends.
* '''All homosexuals have some degree of OS attraction''' (also used by the same AiG "Scientist" on the same article). First of all, there is some confirmation bias in the study. He was a reparative therapist, who deals with people who want to "change". People who are in accepting communities, who are content with the same sex, may not feel the urge to change. Secondly, having past straight relationships does NOT make a person straight, any more than eating soup makes it your favorite food. Third, if homosexuals DO feel heterosexual feelings, they are very weak, in the same way that straight people may have faint homosexual feelings. Does that make everyone bi? Fourth, many homosexuals do not find the opposite sex attractive, describing it as "indifferent". Some may describe forced heterosexual relationships as feeling "unnatural" and like "doing it with my sister." Sorry to leave you with that image.
* '''There are no gay men. They are just too lazy to be with a woman''' (Used by various homophobes) The homophobe's train of thought probably goes like this:
*# Men are naturally promiscuous.
*# Women are naturally choosy, slow, and hard to get.
*# Men have to go through great struggles just to "get some".
*# Since there is no woman in the mix, homosexuality provides men with a simple, lazy, unsophisticated way to "game the system".
* '''I can't even imagine how you would like a ''man'' instead of a beautiful woman with beautiful breasts and luxurious hair!''' (used by various homophobes to deny the orientation). That's because you are straight. Also, how could heterosexual women like a ''man'' instead of a beautiful woman with beautiful breasts and luxurious hair?

== Refuting Myths About Transgender People ==
Transphobia remains disturbingly common, and it is typically "justified" with various lies and slanders about trans people. In order to combat this bigotry, it is necessary to provide solid and easily understandable rebuttals to these common myths. All sources will be listed at the end of the post, if anyone would like to read in more depth.

=== "It is Idealist" ===
This argument, often professed by self described "Marxists" stems from a rugged [[Metaphysical Materialism|metaphysical materialist]] understanding of trans existence. It argues that being transgender is inherently [[Idealism|idealist]] as it is not based in the material understanding of human development. This is false, though may spark affirmation by people new to [[Marxism|Marxist theory]] as it is seemingly a correct observation. However as Marxists we must understand the world not from a metaphysical, but a dialectical perspective. Using the method of dialectical materialism we can effectively analyse the process in which a person commits a change in gender, it spawns first, as in all phenomena, with a [[contradiction]]. The specifics of this contradiction differs from person to person, in which [[gender dysphoria]] can, though is not necessarily apart of the contradiction. An example may be, that there is an antagonistic contradiction between the persons view of themselves psychologically, and their physical body. In this there also spawns a contradiction to societal gender roles. As ideas and thoughts may be transformed into material reality by way of practice, it is philosophically speaking indeed possible to change ones gender. There are many factors contributing to ones role in society, this may include external or quantitive changes such as clothes and or makeup. However also qualitative changes by way of modern medicine, we can change many of our secondary sexual characteristics (fat distribution, hair growth, bone growth and so on) completely and indeed also ones primary sexual characteristics (genitalia, chromosomes). Within these stated examples the contemporary superstructure views our second sexual characteristics as determinant in our social standing and thereby influences and changes our material standing. Therefor, it is only correct to say that a person undergoing a transition of gender eventually becomes their desired gender materially.

=== "Transgender people are dangerous" ===
Perhaps the most common and pernicious myth spread about trans people is that they are somehow dangerous. This was the main line of argument behind the so-called "bathroom bills" in the United States, and it still sits at the root of much transphobic bigotry in countries like the US and UK. Trans women typically bare the brunt of this particular slander, with the claim being that they are supposedly just men lying about their gender identity in order to commit crimes.

The primary source for this claim is typically a study from the Swedish Karolinska Institute, which (supposedly) found that transgender women "retain male-pattern violence." This is (unsurprisingly) nonsense, and the lead author of the study (Dr. Cecilia Djehne) has denounced this interpretation of it. In an interview for ''TransAdvocate'', Djehne stated that those "making claims about trans criminality, specifically rape likelihood, [are] misrepresenting the study's findings... we were certainly not saying that we found that trans women were a rape risk."

So, what exactly ''was'' the study saying? Well, while trans women studied from 1973 to 1988 ''did'' demonstrate a "male pattern of criminality," Djehne states that this pattern was ''not'' present in trans women studied from 1989 to 2003. She makes this quite clear in the interview, where she says "for the 1989 to 2003 group, we did not find a male pattern of criminality." She attributes this change over time to differences in trans healthcare and social stigma:<blockquote>What the data tells us is that things are getting measurably better and the issues we found affecting the 1973 to 1988 cohort group likely reflects a time when trans health and psychological care was less effective and social stigma was far worse.</blockquote>In other words, the study was demonstrating that when trans women are given access to proper gender-affirming treatment and reduced social stigma, they ''don't'' retain a "male pattern of criminality." Transphobes have literally flipped the study's findings upside-down, in an attempt to justify their irrational fear and hatred of transgender people. Keep this study tucked in the back of your mind, by the way; it comes up again later.

Clearly, there is no evidence whatsoever to support the idea that transgender people pose a violent crime risk; if anything, it is far more likely that they will be the ''victims'' of violence. Let's look at public restrooms again; according to a report from the UCLA School of Law, 68% of trans people reported experiencing at least one instance of verbal harassment in gender-segregated public restrooms, while 9% had been physically assaulted at least once in gendered bathrooms. Our priority should be protecting transgender people from bigoted harassment and violence, ''not'' "protecting" bigots from transgender people.

=== "Gender Affirming Treatment Doesn't Work!" ===
Another common claim made by transphobes is that gender-affirming treatment (hormones, surgery and the like) does not work, and may even ''increase'' the risk of suicide among people with dysphoria. The primary source for this claim is - you guessed it - the Karolinska study, which was cited as providing "the most illuminating results yet" by former Johns Hopkins psychiatrist (and religious anti-LGBT activist) Dr. Paul McHugh.

So, what does the Karolinska study ''actually'' say? Well, it ''did'' report that post-transition trans people had a higher suicide rate than the general population; however, it clearly states that "the results should not be interpreted such as sex reassignment per se increases morbidity and mortality. Things might have been even worse without sex reassignment." For further clarification, we can once again turn to lead author Cecilia Djehne's interview with ''TransAdvocate'', where she says the following:<blockquote>Medical transition alone won’t resolve the effects of crushing social oppression: social anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress. What we’ve found is that treatment models which ignore the effect of cultural oppression and outright hate aren’t enough. We need to understand that our treatment models must be responsive to not only gender dysphoria, but the effects of anti-trans hate as well. That’s what improved care means... People who misuse the study always omit the fact that the study clearly states that it is not an evaluation of gender dysphoria treatment.</blockquote>In other words, trans people who receive gender-affirming treatment continue to be a high risk for suicide due to ''external social oppression,'' not because the treatment doesn't work. Later in the interview, Djehne gives her ''actual'' view on gender-affirming treatment:<blockquote>Of course trans medical and psychological care is efficacious... If we look at the literature, we find that several recent studies conclude that WPATH Standards of Care compliant treatment decrease gender dysphoria and improves mental health.</blockquote>The links contained in the above quote are to studies which demonstrate the positive impact of gender-affirming treatment, which we will now assess in more detail. However, before we dive in, it should be noted that some of these studies use the term "gender identity disorder" to refer to dysphoria; this term is generally no longer used, as it is considered stigmatizing. With that said, let's get clinical.

First up, we have a 2014 study in the ''Journal of Sexual Medicine'', which found that "A marked reduction in psychopathology occurs during the process of sex reassignment therapy, especially after the initiation of hormone therapy." That's rather self-explanatory, I think.

Secondly, we've got a 2009 paper in the ''Archives of Sexual Behavior'', which looked at a group of Swedish adults with gender dysphoria "after 5 or more years in the process [of transitioning] or 2 or more years after completed sex reassignment surgery." The researchers found that "almost all patients were satisfied with the sex reassignment; 86% were assessed by clinicians at follow-up as stable or improved in global functioning."

Next up, there's a 2010 meta-analysis from the Mayo Clinic, published in the journal ''Clinical Endocrinology'', which looked at various studies discussing hormonal therapy and sex reassignment. The results were as follows:<blockquote>Pooling across studies shows that after sex reassignment, 80% of individuals with GID reported significant improvement in gender dysphoria; 78% reported significant improvement in psychological symptoms; 80% reported significant improvement in quality of life; and 72% reported significant improvement in sexual function... sex reassignment that includes hormonal interventions in individuals with GID likely improves gender dysphoria, psychological functioning and comorbidities, sexual function and overall quality of life.</blockquote>Moving on, we've got a 2015 study from the ''Archives of Sexual Behavior''. According to the authors, the aim of this study was "to re-examine individuals with [gender dysphoria] after as long a period of time as possible. To meet the inclusion criterion, the legal recognition of participants’ gender change via a legal name change had to date back at least 10 years." In other words, these were all people who had begun the process of changing their gender at least a decade prior to the study. The results were as follows:<blockquote>[Participants'] overall evaluation of the treatment process for sex reassignment and its effectiveness in reducing gender dysphoria was positive. Regarding the results of the standardized questionnaires, participants showed significantly fewer psychological problems and interpersonal difficulties as well as a strongly increased life satisfaction at follow-up than at the time of the initial consultation.</blockquote>In short, there is an enormous amount of evidence for the efficacy of gender-affirming treatment, and it should be made more widely available to those who need it. Treatment should also take into account the effects of social oppression, and work to resolve them.

=== "Many Trans People Regret Transitioning!" ===
This is another very common claim. Simply googling the phrase "trans regret" will result in an immediate deluge of articles from conservative news sites, claiming to have ''hundreds'' of stories by regretful trans people, who wish they had never transitioned.

In reality, such people are extraordinarily rare. A 2018 study in the ''Journal of Sexual Medicine'' reviewed all the patient files of a gender identity clinic in Amsterdam from the years 1972-2015. They found that "Only 0.6% of transwomen and 0.3% of transmen who underwent gonadectomy were identified as experiencing regret." This is an extremely small percentage, and when taken alongside the earlier cited studies on the efficacy of gender-affirming treatment, it indicates that the vast majority of trans people are satisfied with their transition.

Of course, the Netherlands is a more progressive country than the United States or Britain, and so it could be the case that trans people in the latter two countries would experience a higher rate of regret due to harassment and social stigma. However, this would say nothing whatsoever about the efficacy of gender-affirming treatment; rather, it would be a comment on the damaging effects of transphobia.

=== Conclusion ===
The propaganda spread by transphobes has no basis in reality, and ought to be cast aside as the despicable crock of nonsense that it is. Transgender people are ''not'' dangerous, gender-affirming treatment ''does'' work, and most people do ''not'' regret transitioning. It's time we move past these damaging and bigoted notions, and create a society where all people can live freely.

== LGBT+ by country ==

=== China ===
The [[Taiwan|Taiwan province]] was the first region in [[People's Republic of China|China]], and all of Asia, to legalise the modern form of same-sex marriage. Such unions have been recognized across the continent in various guises for centuries. Southern China, in particular, was known for a widespread acceptance of homosexual relationships. Shen Defu, a Chinese writer during the Ming dynasty, wrote that it was common for men of all [[Social class|social classes]] in Fujian province to take male lovers. These forms of gay “marriage” were prevalent enough in Fujian that there was even a patron deity of homosexuality, the rabbit. In the early modern period, marriages between two people of the same assigned sex but who identified as different genders, were fairly normal in many parts of Southeast Asia, we know this primarily from the records Europeans kept when they landed on Asian shores.

When Europeans first encountered Chinese society, they were shocked and repulsed about one aspect of Chinese society: the “abominable vice of sodomy”. Later the acceptence of gender and sexual diversity began to be eroded through the introduction of world [[Religion|religions]] (particularly Christianity), modernity, and [[colonialism]]. After the Chinese were defeated by [[West|Western]] and Japanese [[Imperialism|imperialists]], many Chinese "progressives" in the early 20th century sought to modernise China, which meant adopting “modern” Western ideas of dress, relationships, science and sexuality. It also meant importing European scientific understandings of homosexuality as an inverted or perverted pathology. These “scientific ideas” were debunked in the 1960s in the West, but lived on in China, frozen in time, and have only recently begun to thaw with the rise of LGBT+ activists in Asia.<ref>https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3011750/china-embraced-gay-marriage-long-taiwans-law-west-perverted</ref>

In recent years, China has become more progressive in the realm of transgender rights.<ref>{{News citation|journalist=Serena Sojic-Borne|date=2022-03-02|title=Transgender rights: China advances while U.S. backslides|url=https://www.fightbacknews.org/2022/3/2/transgender-rights-china-advances-while-us-backslides|newspaper=[[Fight Back News]]}}</ref>

=== Cuba ===
<blockquote>''"We must remember so that it will never happen again."'' – Mariela Castro, Director of the Cuban Center for Sex Education (CENESEX)</blockquote>It would be intellectually dishonest to pretend that [[Republic of Cuba|Cuba]] was always a socially progressive society – in the early days after the Revolution, in a time when many other countries were dealing with typical homophobic and transphobic ideas, and later, poorly thought-out attempts at containing the AIDS crisis (the US government mired in homophobia refused to even acknowledge the existence of the virus until over 10,000 had died; [https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/15/stigma-hiv-nhs-ban-ended-fear while in Britain under Thatcher hostile police raided gay clubs]), the island nation was not an exception to this rule of backwardness in social issues. However, this is also a fact that Cuban people and the Cuban government acknowledge as a fault and something that the [[Communist Party of Cuba]] (PCC) has fought hard to overcome. In the past, [https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11147157 Fidel Castro made a public apology for the poor treatment of LGBT+ people in the country's history]. It is rare to see a leader take full personal responsibility for a wrong committed against its people, and even rarer to hear a promise to do better; but the PCC is fully committed to LGBT+ rights and to improving the situation of some of its most marginalized citizens, and their past wrongs are always present in the contemporary dialogue.

This sort of attitude toward promoting social progress is almost nonexistent among governments and officials in many countries across the globe. Amnesia to history comes up often as a response to the complaints of the oppressed. Those with legitimate political demands are expected to sit down and remain silent, as they lack the ability to hold their governments accountable. However, this is not the case in Cuba, where the push for change is done not because there were too many complaints and too much noise and thus the state wanted to restore order; change comes because not only is it the right thing to do, but because the success of the revolution depends on the support of all people – which includes the most marginalised who live on the frontlines of that revolution every day.

Part of what Cuba does to ensure the success of its revolution is for officials to meet its citizens in their own environment and to see the issues that are important to them so that they can begin to work on solving them, especially for the most marginalised. This can be seen in the many photos of Fidel playing sports with average Cuban people and going out to generally interact with them regularly – not simply for a photo op, but because the only way to effectively lead is to know about the concerns of the people. The same can be said of Mariela Castro, Director of CENESEX and a member of Cuba's Parliament, [https://socialistaction.org/2017/02/01/mariela-castros-lgbt-revolution/ who has spent a great deal of time getting to know members of the LGBT+ community in Cuba and championing their needs] through not only legal channels, but material ones, as well. This has manifested in increased protections for LGBT+ Cuban people in labor laws and the Constitution. Simultaneously, this has also helped to change popular perceptions of LGBT+, and especially trans, Cuban people for the better. Coupled with the push against machismo and gender inequality, along with racism, Cuba attacks bigotry on all fronts. There is even [http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2018-05-14/11th-cuban-day-against-homophobia-and-transphobia a Gala Against Homophobia and Transphobia] that is held yearly on the eponymous day as a recognition for the need to improve material conditions for LGBT+ Cubans. While an event such as this may seem performative, it is part of a larger push to end inequality and marginalisation that can persist both materially and ideologically.

Ultimately, though, what Cuba does for trans people goes beyond legal protections and changing hearts and minds. It attacks the issue of inequality at the root – through material support. This of course can become complicated due to lack of supplies and resources as a result of the suffocating blockade placed on Cuba by the US, which makes trade very limited, even with countries that Cuba should be allowed to trade with happily. But that does not stop Cuba from ensuring all citizens regardless of background have somewhere to live with public, state-subsidised utilities, food and water, access to education up to postgraduate level (nearly 100% of Cubans are literate), and high-quality universal public healthcare with some of the best doctors in the world. To put it in capitalist jargon, Cuba invests in its human capital – it creates conditions favorable to social and political development of its people so that they are educated, skilled, and have their basic needs taken care of.

For trans people in Cuba, however, this means that [https://www.hhrjournal.org/2018/11/transsexuals-right-to-health-a-cuban-case-study/ <nowiki>gender confirmation surgeries (GCS) [more commonly known as sex reassignment surgeries (SRS)] are available for trans Cuban people who desire it, free of charge, as of 2008, making it the first Latin American country to do so</nowiki>]. GCS includes not only what is known as bottom surgeries (vagino- or phalloplasty, among others) but also top surgeries (mastectomy or augmentation mammoplasty, among others) and numerous other surgeries that allow trans people to feel more like themselves. These procedures can be life-saving for many trans people, and Cuba recognizes this as a material way to help this marginalised group of people live more dignified lives. This comes, in turn, not only as a result of the efforts of the Communist Party to ensure its people have the best medical care possible, but also through a fundamental understanding of what is required to make the revolution successful.

=== Soviet Union ===
Homosexual activity was originally decriminalised in the [[Soviet Union|USSR]] in 1917 as part of the repeal of the Tsarist Penal Code.

Critics of the Soviet Union often lambaste Stalin for having recriminalised sodomy in 1933. Although same-sex sexual activity between men was recriminalised throughout the entire Soviet Union in 1933, several [[Soviet Republics]] implemented their own sodomy laws throughout the 1920s, such as [[Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic|Azerbaijan]] and the Central Asian republics. Acceptance of homosexuality throughout the Soviet Republics was rare, especially in regions dominated by the Russian Orthodox Church or influenced by [[Islam]]. Religion played a role in the wording of the law, confusing male homosexuality with pederasty.

[[Georgy Chicherin]] served as the first [[People's Commissar for Foreign Affairs of the Soviet Union]]. Chicherin went to [[Weimar Germany]] to seek treatment for his homosexuality. In spite of this revelation, Stalin was a great admirer of Chicherin, and Chicherin continued to serve in his post until 1930 when he was replaced as he had become too ill, suffering from terminal illness. Chicherin died in 1936, having never been subject to punishment despite being openly gay.

Same-sex sexual activity amongst men remained illegal in the Soviet Union up to its dissolution. In some former republics homosexual activity remains illegal to this day. Although countries of the [[Warsaw Pact]] were under Soviet influence, they had the freedom to decide their laws. The [[German Democratic Republic]], for example, was much more progressive than the Soviet Union (and even the West) in terms of LGBT+ rights.

=== United Kingdom ===
The United Kingdom has historically been hostile to same-sex relationships. Before the formation of the United Kingdom, the ecclesiastical courts of its pre-existing sovereign states such as [[England]] dealt with matters concerning homosexuality. The first law touching on same-sex relations to be promulgated was the Buggery Act 1533 that made the act of buggery (therein defined as unnatural sex that goes against God's will) punishable by death. This act was superseded by the Offences Against the Person Act 1828; however, the death penalty remained in force until the introduction of the Offences Against the Person Act 1861. James Pratt and John Smith were the last people to be executed for the crime of sodomy in England, as well as the entire United Kingdom.

Sodomy remained illegal until the Sexual Offences Act 1967 was introduced, over 100 years after the previous law that rescinded capital punishment for homosexuality. In spite of this, however, the legacy of British colonialism meant that homosexuality remained illegal in many of the [[British Empire's]] territories. Many former territories to this date punish sodomy, and some jurisdictions such as Victoria, [[Australia]] retained the death penalty for sodomy as late as 1949. Some of these territories had never punished homosexuality until colonial interference. Prominent people persecuted under the Sexual Offences Act 1967 include socialist [[Oscar Wilde]] as well as mathematician and logician [[Alan Turing]], whose eventual suicide rekindled the debate on homosexuality legalisation. As the law targeted sodomy primarily, female same-sex sexual activity was technically legal. As a result, many gay men resorted to other forms of communication, such as [[Polari]], in order to evade persecution.

The Sexual Offences Act 1967 legalised same-sex sexual activity in England only. The legalisation of same-sex sexual activity in other constituent countries occurred later, with [[Scotland]] in 1981 and in [[Occupied Ireland]] in 1982, making them among some of the last countries to do so in Europe. The Age of Consent remained unequalised and at 21 (in comparison to 16 for heterosexual same-sex activity) until the Sexual Offences Act 2003. The Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, [[Margaret Thatcher]], castigated homosexuality during her tenure. The topic of homosexuality remained taboo even well into the [[21st Century]].

The United Kingdom legalised civil partnerships in 2005. Same-sex marriage was legalised in England, Wales and Scotland in 2014; however, the far-right [[DUP]] in [[Occupied Ireland]] was vocally resistant and delayed the implementation of equal marriage until 2020 in Occupied Ireland. Although the population of the United Kingdom is mostly accepting of homosexuality, the government has approved of the overseas territory of [[Bermuda]] briefly revoking the same-sex marriage law.

Transphobia remains a major issue in the United Kingdom. [[TERFs]] often harass and attempt to prevent funding to charities that seek to help transgender people. The phenomenon is tragically rampant amongst the British Left just as much as the Right, with the [[Communist Party of Britain (Marxist-Leninist)]], [[Communist Party of Great Britain (Marxist-Leninist)]] and the [[Communist Party of Britain]] adopting party lines that are incompatible with the well-being of transgender comrades.

=== United States ===
In 1953, Executive Order 10450 was passed, leading thousands of LGBT+ people to be fired from their jobs for being supposed communist sympathizers.<ref>{{Citation|author=David K. Johnson|year=2004|title=Interview with David K. Johnson|publisher=University of Chicago|title-url=https://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/404811in.html}}</ref>

== References ==

* https://www.ecured.cu/LGBTI
* https://www.scmp.com/week-asia/politics/article/3011750/china-embraced-gay-marriage-long-taiwans-law-west-perverted
* Trans Advocate | Interview with Dr. Cecilia Djehne
* UCLA School of Law | Gendered Restrooms and Minority Stress
* Journal of Sexual Medicine | Effects of Different Steps in Gender Reassignment Therapy on Psychopathology
* Archives of Sexual Behavior | A Five-Year Follow Up Study of Swedish Adults with Gender Identity Disorder
* Clinical Endocrinology | Hormonal Therapy and Sex Reassignment: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Quality of Life and Psychosocial Outcomes
* Archives of Sexual Behavior | Long-Term Follow-Up of Adults with Gender Identity Disorder
* Journal of Sexual Medicine | The Amsterdam Cohort of Gender Dysphoria Study (1972-2015): Trends in Prevalence, Treatment, and Regrets
* https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/15/stigma-hiv-nhs-ban-ended-fear
* https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-11147157
* https://socialistaction.org/2017/02/01/mariela-castros-lgbt-revolution/
* http://en.granma.cu/cuba/2018-05-14/11th-cuban-day-against-homophobia-and-transphobia
* https://www.hhrjournal.org/2018/11/transsexuals-right-to-health-a-cuban-case-study/

Left-wing politics

2022-10-19T13:59:03Z

Clover: Spelling mistakes.

Left-wing politics refers to several political ideologies, these extend from [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Leninist]] to [[Social democracy|Social Democratic]]. This comparison warrants analysis as comparing these two ideologies presents multiple contradictions. The methodology is derived from the time of the French revolution of 1789, wherein the newly formed National Constituent Assembly had overtime been divided from left to right. With the persons in opposition to the monarchy sitting to the left, whilst the inverse sitting on the right. This evolved with the establishment and replacement of the National Assembly with the Legislative assembly in 1791, with new members and principles however the fundamental seating of ideological motives was maintained with the so called "innovators" on the left, the "moderates" in the middle, and the "conservatives" on the right. In essence, the political distinctions can be summarised in whether something is "progressive", or "regressive" with the supposed centre being the supporters of the status quo.

Left-wing politics

2022-10-19T13:56:35Z

Clover: Created page with "'''Left-wing politics''' refers to several political ideologies, these extend from Marxist-Lenninist to Social Democratic. This comparison warrents analysis as comparing these two ideologies presents multiple contradictions. The methodology is derived from the time of the French revolution of 1789, wherein the newly formed National Constituent Assembly had overtime been divided from left to right. With the persons in opposi..."

'''Left-wing politics''' refers to several political ideologies, these extend from [[Marxism–Leninism|Marxist-Lenninist]] to [[Social democracy|Social Democratic]]. This comparison warrents analysis as comparing these two ideologies presents multiple contradictions. The methodology is derived from the time of the French revolution of 1789, wherein the newly formed [[National Constituent Assembly]] had overtime been divided from left to right. With the persons in opposition to the monarchy sitting to the left, whilst the inverse sitting on the right. This evolvede with the establishment and replacement of the National Assembly with the Legeslative assembly in 1791, with new members and principles however the fundamental seating of ideological motives was maintained with the so called "innovators" on the left, the "moderates" in the middle, and the "conservatives" on the right.
In essence, the political distinctions can be summerised in wether something is "progressive", or "regressive" with the supposed center being the supporters of the status quo.