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Except Mussolini defines what he's doing explicitly in opposition to socialism, as a break from the socialist movement he had sort-of been a part of before his

Except Mussolini defines what he's doing explicitly in opposition to socialism, as a break from the socialist movement he had sort-of been a part of before his rise to prominence. Both he and the NAZIs saw themselves as trying to save the country from socialists & communists. Just because the American education system defined "socialism" as "when the government does stuff" doesn't mean that's what it is, in, y'know, the actual real historical world. Revolutionary socialism / communism = a working class movement trying to overthrow the dominance of the capitalist class. So putting the working class above all else. Fascism = a nationalist movement trying to dissolve all class and other distinctions into the nation. So putting the nation above all else. The role of the state may look effectually similar in the practices of both, but the reason and practice for doing so is entirely different.

lenerdenator 2y ago
> Fascism = a nationalist movement trying to dissolve all class and other distinctions into the nation. So putting the nation above all else. The role of the state may look effectually similar in the practices of both, but the reason and practice for doing so is entirely different. At least in Marxism-Leninism, you have a party vanguard implementing a dictatorship of the proletariat that could be somewhat analogous to the bureaucracy of the fascist state, so I'd say that the practices are fairly similar in at least some situations. The major difference would be that Marxism-Leninism advances the idea of that bureaucracy also using some sort of democratic process to operate and make decisions, but as we know, that can be easily undermined with a cult of personality.
zmgsabst 2y ago
There are people who think looking at the structures of power, eg the role of the state, is more useful than looking at propaganda when discussing politics. In the behaviorist sense that what people do is a better revelation of their beliefs than what they say. In that perspective, we can look at progressivism, communism, and fascism as different perspectives on technocratic managerialism — all of whom experienced similar problems, eg, purging/sterilizing undesirables via eugenics programs.
- vidarh 2y ago
  The Bolsheviks literally carried out a coup against socialists, and murdered a long range of socialists and communists who took up weapons against them to try to prevent their dictatorship. In that perspective it's clear that these are not singular ideologies, but sets of ideologies were individual variations often have very little in common.
  - zmgsabst 2y ago
    That same experience of the inner party murdering and subjugating the outer party who enabled them played out across multiple communist regimes.
    - vidarh 2y ago
      I wasn't talking about the internal purges in the Bolshevik party.
  - cmrdporcupine 2y ago
    I mean... actual Marxists should subject so-called Marxist-Leninist states to a Marxian materialist analysis, as Marx would have expected them to, and would have, himself. Discounting what they called themselves and what their motivations were, and looking at the material causes and effects and the actual reality on the ground. Which is why parent-of-you commenter is missing the mark about my comments. I'm not making a "no true Scotsman" argument, and talking about "those weren't really socialist" blah blah. The reality is that material forces in the early 20th century pushed many places into these forms which looked much like each other, and had little to do with the ideologies held in the head of the parties and people involved and more to do with the combined and uneven nature of the economies of Russia, etc. and the structure of imperialism/colonialism at the time. I'd point the finger back at parent-poster -- it's not about the essences of"progressivism" and "socialism" and "fascism" ideologies having some common net effect, or common DNA. That, too, is unscientific and idealist (in the philosophical sense) and frankly false. It's about what productive forces and the state of the world looked like in the 20s and 30s, which also forced entire societies on trajectories regardless of what the leadership of said countries said about themselves. And circling back, the value of "Trotskyism" as an intellectual current (when it's not debased by weird cultism) is not in the personhood of Trotksy himself or the fact that he somehow was some saintly figure (he was not), but in that he offered up a materialist, Marxist, analysis of what the USSR had become and how it had gotten there. Which had little to do with the people or their ideas, but the material forces that had made those people, their ideas, and their actions possible.

lenerdenator 2y ago

> Fascism = a nationalist movement trying to dissolve all class and other distinctions into the nation. So putting the nation above all else. The role of the state may look effectually similar in the practices of both, but the reason and practice for doing so is entirely different. At least in Marxism-Leninism, you have a party vanguard implementing a dictatorship of the proletariat that could be somewhat analogous to the bureaucracy of the fascist state, so I'd say that the practices are fairly similar in at least some situations. The major difference would be that Marxism-Leninism advances the idea of that bureaucracy also using some sort of democratic process to operate and make decisions, but as we know, that can be easily undermined with a cult of personality.

zmgsabst 2y ago

There are people who think looking at the structures of power, eg the role of the state, is more useful than looking at propaganda when discussing politics. In the behaviorist sense that what people do is a better revelation of their beliefs than what they say. In that perspective, we can look at progressivism, communism, and fascism as different perspectives on technocratic managerialism — all of whom experienced similar problems, eg, purging/sterilizing undesirables via eugenics programs.

vidarh 2y ago
The Bolsheviks literally carried out a coup against socialists, and murdered a long range of socialists and communists who took up weapons against them to try to prevent their dictatorship. In that perspective it's clear that these are not singular ideologies, but sets of ideologies were individual variations often have very little in common.
- zmgsabst 2y ago
  That same experience of the inner party murdering and subjugating the outer party who enabled them played out across multiple communist regimes.
  - vidarh 2y ago
    I wasn't talking about the internal purges in the Bolshevik party.
- cmrdporcupine 2y ago
  I mean... actual Marxists should subject so-called Marxist-Leninist states to a Marxian materialist analysis, as Marx would have expected them to, and would have, himself. Discounting what they called themselves and what their motivations were, and looking at the material causes and effects and the actual reality on the ground. Which is why parent-of-you commenter is missing the mark about my comments. I'm not making a "no true Scotsman" argument, and talking about "those weren't really socialist" blah blah. The reality is that material forces in the early 20th century pushed many places into these forms which looked much like each other, and had little to do with the ideologies held in the head of the parties and people involved and more to do with the combined and uneven nature of the economies of Russia, etc. and the structure of imperialism/colonialism at the time. I'd point the finger back at parent-poster -- it's not about the essences of"progressivism" and "socialism" and "fascism" ideologies having some common net effect, or common DNA. That, too, is unscientific and idealist (in the philosophical sense) and frankly false. It's about what productive forces and the state of the world looked like in the 20s and 30s, which also forced entire societies on trajectories regardless of what the leadership of said countries said about themselves. And circling back, the value of "Trotskyism" as an intellectual current (when it's not debased by weird cultism) is not in the personhood of Trotksy himself or the fact that he somehow was some saintly figure (he was not), but in that he offered up a materialist, Marxist, analysis of what the USSR had become and how it had gotten there. Which had little to do with the people or their ideas, but the material forces that had made those people, their ideas, and their actions possible.