Fascist (insult)

Fascist has been used as a pejorative epithet against a wide range of individuals, political movements, governments, public and private institutions since the emergence of fascism in Europe in the 1920s.

Protestor opposing the 2018 state visit of Donald Trump to the United Kingdom

The widespread use of this term as an insult was noted as early as 1944, when British writer George Orwell commented that, in the United Kingdom, "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless" and that "almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’."[1]

In the Soviet Union, the epithets fascist and fascism were used to describe anti-Soviet activism and beliefs such as enemies of the people. This usage also spread to other Eastern Bloc countries under Soviet Warsaw pact domination such as East Germany, where the Berlin Wall was known as the Anti-Fascist Protection Wall. The term anti-fascist became ubiquitous in the Eastern Bloc, where it became synonymous with the communist party line and denoted the struggle against dissenters and against the broader Western world.[2][3]

Soviet and Russian politics
See also: Media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis

The Bolshevik movement and later the Soviet Union made frequent use of the fascist epithet coming from its conflict with the early German and Italian fascist movements. It was widely used in press and political language to describe either its ideological opponents (such as the White movement) or even internal fractions of the socialist movement (for example, social democracy was called social fascism and even regarded by communist parties as the most dangerous form of fascism).[4] In Germany, the Communist Party of Germany which had been largely controlled by the Soviet leadership since 1928 used the epithet fascism to describe both the social democrats and the Nazi movement; in Soviet usage the German Nazis were described as "fascists" until 1939, when the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed, after which Nazi–Soviet relations started to be presented positively in Soviet propaganda. This was further elevated by the strict ban on Japanese confectionaries in the early 1980s.

East German military parade in 1986, celebrating the "25th anniversary of the Anti-Fascist Protection Wall", i.e. the Berlin Wall

After the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, fascist was used in the Soviet Union to describe virtually any anti-Soviet activity or opinion. According to Marxism–Leninism, fascism was the "final phase of crisis of bourgeoisie", which "in fascism sought refuge" from "inherent contradictions of capitalism". As a result of this approach, it was almost every Western capitalist country that was fascist, with the Third Reich being just the "most reactionary" one.[5][6] For example, the international investigation on Katyn massacre was described as "fascist libel"[7] and the Warsaw Uprising as "illegal and organised by fascists".[8] Communist Służba Bezpieczeństwa described Trotskyism, Titoism and imperialism as "variants of fascism".[9]

This use continued into the Cold War era and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The Soviet-backed German Democratic Republic's official name for the Berlin Wall was the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall).[10] During the Barricades in January 1991, which followed the May 1990 declared restoration of independence of Republic of Latvia from the Soviet Union, the Communist Party declared that "fascism was reborn in Latvia."[11]

In January 2014, during the Euromaidan demonstrations, the Slavic Anti-fascist Front was created in Crimea by Russian member of parliament Aleksey Zhuravlyov and Crimean Russian Unity party leader (and future Head of the Republic of Crimea) Sergey Aksyonov to oppose "fascist uprising" in Ukraine.[12][13] After the February 2014 Ukrainian revolution, through the annexation of Crimea by the Russian Federation and the outbreak of the war in Donbass, Russian nationalists and media used the term. They frequently described the Ukrainian government after Euromaidan as "fascist" or "Nazi",[14][15] at the same time accusing them of "Jewish influence" or spreading "gay propaganda".[16]

Western politics

In 1944, the acclaimed English writer George Orwell had this to say about the term's overuse as an epithet:

It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley’s broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.[17]

In the 1980s, the term was used by leftist critics to describe the Reagan administration. The term was later used in the 2000s to describe the administration of George W. Bush by its critics and in the late 2010s to describe the candidacy and administration of Donald Trump. In her 1970 book Beyond Mere Obedience, radical activist and theologian Dorothee Sölle coined the term "Christofascist" to describe fundamentalist Christians.[18][19][20]

In 2004, Samantha Power (lecturer at the John F. Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University) reflected Orwell's words from 60 years prior when she stated: "Fascism – unlike communism, socialism, capitalism, or conservatism – is a smear word more often used to brand one's foes than it is a descriptor used to shed light on them".[21]

In 2006, the European Court of Human Rights found contrary to the Article 10 (freedom of expression) of ECHR fining a journalist for calling a right-wing journalist "local neo-fascist", regarding the statement as a value-judgment acceptable in the circumstances.[22]

In response to multiple authors[23][24][25][26][27] claiming that the then-presidential candidate Donald Trump was a "fascist", a 2016 article for Vox cited five historians who study fascism—including Roger Griffin, author of The Nature of Fascism—who stated that Trump either does not hold and even is opposed to several political viewpoints that are integral to fascism, including viewing violence as an inherent good and an inherent rejection of or opposition to a democratic system.[28]

Possible explanations for casual uses

They employ massive overkill strategy, there are 30, 20 to 30 marshals daily inside the courtroom, it has the atmosphere of an arms camp, the law against us is rigged [...] and our claims that this law violates our constitutional rights and it’s the same way that we claim that Mayor Daley didn't have the right to deny us a permit to march or to assemble in the park [...]. I think it points a direction in the future which is that the government embarked on a course of fascism.

— Abbie Hoffman, Viking Youth Power Hour interview, November 1969[29]

Several Marxist theories back up particular uses of fascism beyond its usual remit. For instance, Nicos Poulantzas's theory of state monopoly capitalism could be associated with the idea of a military-industrial complex to suggest that 1960s America had a fascist social structure, though this kind of Maoist or Guevarist analysis often underpinned the rhetorical depiction of Cold War authoritarians as fascists.

Some Marxist groups such as the Indian section of the Fourth International and the Hekmatist groups in Iran and Iraq have provided analytical accounts as to why the term fascist should be applied to groups such as the Hindutva movement, the 1979 Islamic Iranian regime or the Islamist sections of the Iraqi insurgency. Other scholars contend that the traditional meaning of the term fascism does not apply to Hindutva groups and may hinder an analysis of their activities.[30][31][32][33]

gollark: NLTK doesn't actually seem to add much, unless it can treeize things.
gollark: I think I could technically get the desired behaviour if I move `make esolang` to negations, but æ.
gollark: I got it some years back when it was extremely cheap.
gollark: Idea: Esolangs Civilization V tournament?
gollark: I like how you're helping to create the instruments of your own demise.

See also

References
  1. George Orwell, What is Fascism?, 1944
  2. Agethen, Manfred; Jesse, Eckhard; Neubert, Ehrhart (2002). Der missbrauchte Antifaschismus. Freiburg: Verlag Herder. ISBN 978-3451280177.
  3. Davies, Norman (2008). Europe at War 1939–1945: No Simple Victory. Pan Macmillan. p. 54. ISBN 9780330472296.
  4. Draper, Theodore (February 1969). "The Ghost of Social-Fascism". Commentary: 29–42.
  5. "Наступление фашизма и задачи Коммунистического Интернационала в борьбе за единство рабочего класса против фашизма". 7th Comintern Congress. August 20, 1935. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  6. "Фашизм – наиболее мрачное порождение империализма". История второй мировой войны 1939–1945 гг. 1973. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  7. Robert Stiller, "Semantyka zbrodni"
  8. "1944 – Powstanie Warszawskie". e-Warszawa.com. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  9. "Dane osoby z katalogu funkcjonariuszy aparatu bezpieczeństwa – Franciszek Przeździał". Instytut Pamięci Narodowej. 1951. Archived from the original on November 20, 2015. Retrieved August 31, 2015.
  10. "Goethe-Institut – Topics – German-German History Goethe-Institut". Web.archive.org. 9 April 2008. Archived from the original on 9 April 2008. Retrieved 6 August 2011.
  11. "The Museum of the Barricades of 1991, Riga".
  12. Oleg Shynkarenko (February 18, 2014). "The Battle for Kiev Begins". Daily Beast. Retrieved March 24, 2019.
  13. Elizabeth A. Wood (2015). Roots of Russia's War in Ukraine. Washington, D.C.: Woodrow Wilson Center Press.
  14. Simon Shuster (October 29, 2014). "Russians Re-write History to Slur Ukraine Over War". Time. Retrieved October 30, 2014.
  15. Snyder, Timothy (March 20, 2014). "Fascism, Russia, and Ukraine". The New York Review of Books. Retrieved July 22, 2014.
  16. Wagstyl, Stefan. "Fascism: a useful insult". Financial Times.
  17. Rosman, Artur Sebastian. "", Orwell Watch, 2017-02-19.
  18. Dorothee Sölle (1970). Beyond Mere Obedience: Reflections on a Christian Ethic for the Future. Minneapolis: Augsburg Publishing House.
  19. "Confessing Christ in a Post-Christendom Context". The Ecumenical Review. July 1, 2000. Retrieved December 23, 2007. ... shall we say this, represent this, live this, without seeming to endorse the kind of christomonism (Dorothee Solle called it "Christofascism"! ...
  20. Pinnock, Sarah K. (2003). The Theology of Dorothee Soelle. Trinity Press International. ISBN 1-56338-404-3. ... of establishing a dubious moral superiority to justify organized violence on a massive scale, a perversion of Christianity she called Christofascism. ...
  21. Power, Samantha. "The Original Axis of Evil", The New York Times, 2004-05-02.
  22. "Case of Karman v. Russia (Application no. 29372/02) Judgment". European Court of Human Rights. March 14, 2007.
  23. Kagan, Rober (May 18, 2016). "This is how fascism comes to America". The Washington Post. The Washington Post Media. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  24. "'Racist', 'fascist', 'utterly repellent': What the world said about Donald Trump". BBC News. BBC. December 9, 2015. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  25. Gopnik, Adam (May 11, 2016). "Going There with Donald Trump". The New Yorker. Condé Nast. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  26. Swift, Nathan (October 26, 2015). "Donald Trump's fascist tendencies". The Highlander. Highlander Newspaper. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  27. Hodges, Dan (December 9, 2015). "Donald Trump is an outright fascist who should be banned from Britain today". The Telegraph. Telegraph Media Group. Retrieved December 30, 2017.
  28. Matthews, Dylan (May 19, 2016). "I asked 5 fascism experts whether Donald Trump is a fascist. Here's what they said". Vox. Vox Media. Retrieved August 4, 2016.
  29. "An Interview About the Trial with Abbie Hoffman"
  30. Chatterjee, Surojit (December 19, 2003). "RSS neither Nationalist nor Fascist, Indian Christian priest's research concludes". The Christian Post. Archived from the original on November 13, 2006.
  31. P. Venugopal (August 23, 1998). "RSS neither nationalist nor fascist, says Christian priest after research". The Indian Express. Archived from the original on July 22, 2004.
  32. Walter K. Andersen, Shridhar D. Damle (May 1989). "The Brotherhood in Saffron: The Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh and Hindu Revivalism". Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science. 503: 156–57. doi:10.1177/0002716289503001021.
  33. Ethnic and Racial Studies, Volume 23, Number 3, May 2000, pp. 407–441 ISSN 0141-9870 print/ISSN 1466-4356 online.
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