Nazi analogies

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

A protestor opposing gay marriage in Boston in 2007 makes a comparison between "today" and Nazi Germany.

Nazi analogies or Nazi comparisons are any comparisons or parallels which are related to Nazism or Nazi Germany, which often reference Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, the SS, or the Holocaust. Despite criticism, such comparisons have been employed for a wide variety of reasons since Hitler's rise to power. Some Nazi comparisons are logical fallacies, such as reductio ad Hitlerum. Godwin's law asserts that a Nazi analogy is increasingly likely the longer an internet discussion continues; Mike Godwin also stated that not all Nazi comparisons are invalid.

Origins

During the Nazi era, Adolf Hitler was frequently compared to previous leaders including Napoleon, Philip of Macedon, and Nebuchadnezzar. The comparers wanted to make Hitler understandable to their audiences by comparing him to known leaders, but according to historian Gavriel Rosenfeld the comparisons obscured Hitler's radical evil. When Hitler became Chancellor of Germany on 30 January 1933, Hitler was compared to Napoleon by The Brooklyn Eagle and Middletown Times. The Night of Long Knives was compared at the time to such events as the St. Bartholomew’s Day Massacre, a 1572 massacre of French Huguenots by Catholics. The comparison between Hitler and Philip of Macedon was used by some American journalists who advocated the United States's entry into World War II. Others felt that this did not go far enough and used other metaphors such as Nebuchadnezzar and Tamerlane: Harold Denny of The New York Times visited Buchenwald and later stated that "Tamerlane built his mountain of skulls ... Hitler’s horrors … dwarf all previous crimes". In a public radio broadcast of 24 August 1941, Winston Churchill compared Nazi war crimes in the Soviet Union to the Mongol invasion of Europe, saying "There has never [since] been methodical, merciless butchery on such a scale, or approaching such a scale."

Nazism has come to be a metaphor for evil, according to academic Brian Johnson, leading to Nazi comparisons. The Anti-Defamation League suggested that the Nazi era had become the "most available historical event illustrating right versus wrong." Rosenfeld noted that Hitler "gained immortality as a historical analogy" and that he became:

... a hegemonic historical analogy. He did not so much join the ranks of earlier historical symbols of evil as render them unusable. Indeed, perhaps because Western observers became convinced that wartime analogies had underestimated the Nazi dictator’s radicalism, they began to employ Hitler as the baseline for evaluating all new threats.

Legal issues

According to the ACLU, calling someone a Nazi is protected free speech under the First Amendment to the United States Constitution. In 2008, British radio presenter Jon Gaunt called a guest a Nazi, for which he was fired. An Ofcom complaint against TalkSport, his employer, was upheld by the United Kingdom High Court of Justice in 2010. In 2019, the Ukrainian S14 group won a defamation suit against Hromadske, a newspaper which had labeled them neo-Nazi, despite such a characterization having been used by Reuters and The Washington Post. In Israel, a law was proposed in 2014 that would make it illegal to call someone a Nazi or use symbols associated with the Holocaust (such as striped clothing or yellow stars), in order to respect Holocaust survivors.

Fallacies

Reductio ad Hitlerum, first coined in 1951 by Leo Strauss, is a logical fallacy which discounts an idea because it was promoted by Hitler or Nazis. Godwin's law, coined in 1990 by Mike Godwin, asserts that "as an online discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches 1". A related convention is "Whoever mentions Hitler first, loses the argument." However, Godwin has said that not all Nazi comparisons are invalid.

List

Animals

Several individuals and groups have drawn direct comparisons between animal cruelty and the Holocaust. The analogies began soon after the end of World War II, when literary figures, many of them Holocaust survivors, Jewish or both, began to draw parallels between the treatment of animals by humans and the treatments of prisoners in Nazi death camps. The Letter Writer, a 1968 short story by Isaac Bashevis Singer, is a literary work often cited as the seminal use of the analogy. The comparison has been criticized by organizations that campaign against antisemitism, including the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, particularly since 2006, when PETA began to make heavy use of the analogy as part of campaigns for improved animal welfare.

Anti-smoking

See also: Tobacco industry playbook

Public health measures adopted since World War II in order to reduce smoking have been compared with anti-tobacco movement in Nazi Germany, which is considered by proponents of anti-smoking measures to be a fallacious reductio ad Hitlerum which often exaggerates how much the Nazis actually opposed smoking. Historian of science Robert N. Proctor speculates that Nazi associations "forestall[ed] the development of effective anti-tobacco measures by several decades".

Bioethics

According to an editorial by Arthur Caplan in Science, bioethics questions including "stem cell research, end-of-life care, the conduct of clinical trials in poor nations, abortion, embryo research, animal experimentation, genetic testing, or human experimentation involving vulnerable populations" are often compared to Nazi eugenics and Nazi human experimentation. According to Caplan, the Nazi analogy has the potential to shut down debate and its capricious use is unethical. Similar arguments were made by Nat Hentoff in 1988, writing for The Hastings Center Report.

Chinese Communist Party

Analogies between China and Nazi Germany have also been drawn by Australian politician Andrew Hastie. However, China–Nazi comparisons are considered by Edward Luce to be a form of anti-Chinese sentiment and potentially a self-fulfilling prophecy. In July 2020, British Jewish leader Marie van der Zyl said that there were "similarities" between the treatment of the Uyghurs in China and the crimes committed by Nazi Germany.

Chinazi flag

"Chinazi" flag

The "Chinazi" (赤納粹) flag – a portmanteau of "China" and "Nazi" — was created by combining the flag of the People's Republic of China and that of the Nazi Party to draw comparisons between the Chinese and the 1933–1945 German Nazi governments. Variations include golden stars forming a Nazi swastika on a red background and Nazi swastikas replacing the golden stars on the Chinese flag. American journalist and political commentator Nicholas Kristof mentioned graffiti in Hong Kong using the 'Chinazi' label to denounce the influence of the Chinese government, he reported in The New York Times.

Donald Trump

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

While qualified comparisons between Hitler's rise to power and the victory of Donald Trump in the 2016 United States presidential election have been made by some historians, NeverTrump Republicans, and Democrats, the comparison is opposed by other scholars and commentators who cite reasons such as Trump lacking a coherent ideology, not supporting a dictatorship or political violence, and his rejection of interventionist foreign policy. According to Rosenfeld's research, the frequency of comparisons between Trump and Hitler in the media peaked in 2017 and the number of internet searches for "Trump and Hitler" has also decreased from a high point between mid-2015 and mid-2017.

European Union

See also: Fourth Reich

Some Eurosceptic politicians, including UKIP's Gerard Batten and Finns Party MP Ville Tavio, have compared the European Union to Nazi Germany. Ukrainian politician Viktor Medvedchuk of the pro-Russia party Ukrainian Choice argues that "objectively" the European Union is the heir of Nazi Germany. In many Greek newspapers during the Greek government-debt crisis, caricatures appeared depicting the European troika and Angela Merkel as Nazis preparing to reenact the Axis occupation of Greece. Merkel was also depicted as Hitler during demonstrations against her 2016 visit to the Czech Republic; the demonstrators objected to her approach to the European migrant crisis. Opponents argue that the Nazi empire was formed by conquest and that joining the EU is voluntary, among other differences.

Indian Wars

The Nazi war of annihilation on the Eastern Front has been compared to the United States Army's conduct in the Indian Wars. However, Native American demographic collapse was mostly caused by introduced disease, rather than warfare, and historians disagree as to whether the Indian Wars, or parts thereof, can be considered a form of genocide.

Islamism and Islamic fundamentalism

See also: Islamofascism

Some historians, including Matthias Küntzel, Wolfgang G. Schwanitz and Barry Rubin, argue that there is a high degree of similarity between the ideologies of Nazism and Islamism, especially in their radical antisemitism and xenophobia.

Israel

Further information: Comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany and Criticism of the Israeli government § Comparisons with Nazi Germany

 

Pro-Palestine protest in Cali, Colombia.

Whether comparisons between Israel and Nazi Germany are intrinsically antisemitic is disputed. The Anti-Defamation League considers the comparison to be inaccurate and antisemitic, and is part of the Working Definition of Antisemitism. However, there have been Holocaust survivors who have made the comparison themselves, mirroring their experiences to those of Palestinians.

LGBT issues

The AIDS–Holocaust metaphor can be controversial. While Susan Sontag said that "It's wrong to compare a situation in which there was real culpability to one in which there is none", it is also the case that homophobic views resulted in dismissal of the suggestion of research and treatment being supported, severely exacerbating the epidemic.

In 2017, Patriarch Kirill, the highest authority in the Russian Orthodox Church, compared same-sex marriage to Nazism because in his opinion both were a threat to traditional family. In 2019, Pope Francis criticized politicians who lash out at homosexuals, Romani people, and Jews, saying that it reminded him of Adolf Hitler's speeches in the 1930s.

Some advocates of trans-exclusionary radical feminism have compared transgender medical care to Nazi human experimentation or transsexuality to Nazism.

"Second Holocaust"

Main article: Second Holocaust

The term "second Holocaust" is used for perceived threats to the State of Israel, Jews, and Jewish life. In 2018, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said "Iran wants a second Holocaust" and to "destroy another six million plus Jews", after his Iranian counterpart described Israel as a "malignant cancerous tumor". In 2019, Israeli education minister Rafi Peretz compared Jewish intermarriage to a "second Holocaust".

Stalinism

At a demonstration in Prague in April 1990, a swastika is drawn on an anti-KSČ (Communist Party of Czechoslovakia) election banner

 

Some authors have carried out comparisons of Nazism and Stalinism. They have considered the similarities and differences between the two ideologies and political systems, the relationship between the two regimes, and why both came to prominence simultaneously. During the 20th century, the comparison of Nazism and Stalinism was made on totalitarianism, ideology, and personality cult. Both regimes were seen in contrast to the liberal democratic Western world, emphasizing the similarities between the two.

Wealth

In 2014, venture capitalist and billionaire Thomas Perkins wrote to The Wall Street Journal to compare what he called "the progressive war on the American one percent" to what Jews faced during Kristallnacht. According to Jordan Weissmann, writing in The Atlantic, this is "the worst historical analogy you will read for a long, long time". Perkins was also criticized on Twitter, with The New York Times journalist Steven Greenhouse writing, "As someone who lost numerous relatives to the Nazi gas chambers, I find statements like this revolting & inexplicable". Perkins later apologized for the comparison.

Criticism

According to a press release of the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum, "Careless Holocaust analogies may demonize, demean, and intimidate their targets." Jonathan Greenblatt, director of the Anti-Defamation League, said that "misplaced comparisons trivialise this unique tragedy in human history... particularly when public figures invoke the Holocaust in an effort to score political points."

In 2017, the German journalist Pieke Biermann [de] argued that Nazi comparisons were undergoing a process akin to inflation due to their increased and inappropriate use.

Amanda Moorghen, a researcher for the English Speaking Union, said that Nazi comparisons were not often persuasive: "Wielding accusations of fascism as an insult doesn't help to get your audience on side - instead, you raise the stakes of the debate, forcing a polarisation between 'good' and 'evil' into a discussion that may have reasonable positions on both sides." Instead, she recommended criticizing the opponent's argument directly.

Fascist (insult)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Fascist has been used as a pejorative epithet against a wide range of people, political movements, governments, and institutions since the emergence of fascism in Europe in the 1920s. Political commentators on both the Left and the Right accused their opponents of being fascists, starting in the years before World War II. In 1928, the Communist International labeled their social democratic opponents as social fascists, while the social democrats themselves as well as some parties on the political right accused the Communists of having become fascist under Joseph Stalin's leadership. In light of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, The New York Times declared on 18 September 1939 that "Hitlerism is brown communism, Stalinism is red fascism." In 1944, the anti-fascist and socialist writer George Orwell commented on Tribune that fascism had been rendered almost meaningless by its common use as an insult against various people, and posited that in England fascist had become a synonym for bully.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was categorized by its former World War II allies as totalitarian alongside fascist Nazi Germany to convert pre-World War II anti-fascism into post-war anti-communism, and debates around the comparison of Nazism and Stalinism intensified. Both sides in the Cold War also used the epithets fascist and fascism against the other. In the Soviet Union, they were used to describe anti-Soviet activism, and East Germany officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Wall." Across the Eastern Bloc, the term anti-fascist became synonymous with the Communist state–party line and denoted the struggle against dissenters and the broader Western world. In the United States, early supporters of an aggressive foreign policy and domestic anti-communist measures in the 1940s and 1950s labeled the Soviet Union as fascist, and stated that it posed the same threat as the Axis Powers had posed during World War II. Accusations that the enemy was fascist were used to justify opposition to negotiations and compromise, with the argument that the enemy would always act in a manner similar to Adolf Hitler or Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

After the end of the Cold War, use of fascist as an insult continued across the political spectrum in many countries. Those labeled as fascist by their opponents in the 21st century have included the participants of the Euromaidan in Ukraine, the Ukrainian nationalists, the government of Croatia, former United States president Donald Trump, the current government of Russia ("Rashism") and supporters of Sebastián Piñera in Chile.

Political use

Eastern European

See also: Media portrayal of the Ukrainian crisis

Further information: Holocaust trivialization § Invasion of Ukraine, and Denazification § Russian justification of invasion of Ukraine

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

After the German invasion of the Soviet Union in 1941, fascist was used in the USSR to describe virtually any anti-Soviet activity or opinion. In line with the Third Period, fascism was considered the "final phase of crisis of bourgeoisie", which "in fascism sought refuge" from "inherent contradictions of capitalism", and almost every Western capitalist country was fascist, with the Third Reich being just the "most reactionary" one. The international investigation on Katyn massacre was described as "fascist libel" and the Warsaw Uprising as "illegal and organised by fascists." Polish Communist Służba Bezpieczeństwa described Trotskyism, Titoism, and imperialism as "variants of fascism."

This use continued into the Cold War era and the dissolution of the Soviet Union. The official Soviet version of the Hungarian Revolution of 1956 was described as "Fascist, Hitlerite, reactionary and counter-revolutionary hooligans financed by the imperialist West [which] took advantage of the unrest to stage a counter-revolution." Some rank-and-file Soviet soldiers reportedly believed they were being sent to East Berlin to fight German fascists. The Soviet-backed German Democratic Republic's official name for the Berlin Wall was the Anti-Fascist Protection Rampart (German: Antifaschistischer Schutzwall). After the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia in 1968, Chinese Premier Zhou Enlai denounced the Soviet Union for "fascist politics, great power chauvinism, national egoism and social imperialism", comparing the invasion to the Vietnam War and the German occupation of Czechoslovakia. During the Barricades in January 1991, which followed the May 1990 "On the Restoration of Independence of the Republic of Latvia" independence declaration of the Republic of Latvia from the Soviet Union, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union declared that "fascism was reborn in Latvia."

During the Euromaidan demonstrations in January 2014, 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. 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 state media used the term. They frequently described the Ukrainian government after Euromaidan as fascist or Nazi, at the same time using antisemitic canards, such as accusing them of "Jewish influence", and stating that they were spreading "gay propaganda", a trope of anti-LGBT activism.

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

Russian invasion of Ukraine

Main article: 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine

In his 21 February speech, which started the events leading to the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine, Russian President Vladimir Putin falsely accused Ukraine of being governed by Neo-Nazis who persecute the ethnic Russian minority and Russian-speaking Ukrainians. Putin's claims about "de-Nazification" have been widely described as absurd. While Ukraine has a far-right fringe, including the neo-Nazi-linked Azov Battalion and Right Sector, experts have described Putin's rhetoric as greatly exaggerating the influence of far-right groups within Ukraine; there is no widespread support for the ideology in the government, military, or electorate. Russian far-right organizations also exist, such as the Russian Imperial Movement, long active in Donbas. Ukrainian president Zelenskyy, who is Jewish, rebuked Putin's allegations, stating that his grandfather had served in the Soviet army fighting against the Nazis. The United States Holocaust Memorial Museum and Yad Vashem condemned the abuse of Holocaust history and the use of comparisons with Nazi ideology for propaganda.

Several Ukrainian politicians, military leader and members of the Ukrainian civil society have also accused the Russian Federation of being a fascist country.

Serbian

During the 1990s, in the midst of the Yugoslav wars, Serbian media often disseminated inflammatory statements in order to stigmatize and dehumanize adversaries, with Croats being denigrated as "Ustasha" (Croatian fascists). In modern Serbia, Dragan J. Vučićević, editor-in-chief of Serbian Progressive Party's propaganda flagship Informer, holds the belief that the "vast majority of Croatian nation are Ustaše" and thus ''fascists''. The same notion is sometimes drawn through his tabloid's writings. After he was barred from entering to Croatia due to failure of giving prior state notice to visit a WWII Jasenovac memorial site, Aleksandar Vulin, then Serbian defense minister, commented on the blocked visit by saying that modern Croatia is a "follower of Ante Pavelić's fascist ideology." In 2016, Serbian singer Jelena Karleuša tweeted: "If we Serbs were always aligned with occupiers and fascists like Croatia was, we would be in European Union a long time ago." In June 2022, Aleksandar Vučić was prevented from entering Croatia to visit the Jasenovac Memorial Site by Croatian authorities due to him not announcing his visit through official diplomatic channels which is a common practice. As a response to that certain Serbian ministers labeled Andrej Plenković's government as "ustasha government" with some tabloids calling Croatia fascist. Historian Alexander Korb compared these labels with Putin's labels of Ukraine being fascist as a pretext for his invasion of Ukraine. After the EU banned Serbia from importing Russian oil through Croatian Adriatic Pipeline in October 2022, Serbian news station B92 wrote that the sanctions came after: "insisting of ustasha regime from Zagreb and its ustasha prime minister Andrej Plenković". Vulin described the EU as "the club of countries which had their divisions under Stalingrad".

English

In 1944, the English writer, democratic socialist, and anti-fascist George Orwell wrote about the term's overuse as an epithet, arguing:

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. ... [T]he 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.

American

In the United States, fascist is used by both the left-wing and right-wing, and its use in American political discourse is contentious. Several U.S. presidencies have been described as fascistic. In 2004, Samantha Power, a 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."

In the American right-wing, fascist is used as an insult to imply that Nazism, and by extension fascism, was a socialist and left-wing ideology, which is contrary to the consensus among scholars of fascism. According to the History News Network, this belief that fascism is left-wing "has become widely accepted conventional wisdom among American conservatives, and has played a significant role in the national discourse." An example of this is conservative columnist Jonah Goldberg's book Liberal Fascism, where modern liberalism and progressivism in the United States are described as the child of fascism. Writing for The Washington Post, historian Ronald J. Granieri stated that this "has become a silver bullet for voices on the right like Dinesh D'Souza and Candace Owens: Not only is the reviled left, embodied in 2020 by figures like [Bernie] Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez and Elizabeth Warren, a dangerous descendant of the Nazis, but anyone who opposes it can't possibly have ties to the Nazis' odious ideas. There is only one problem: This argument is untrue." Another example are Republican Representative Marjorie Taylor Greene's numerous statements, such as comparing mask mandates during the COVID-19 pandemic to Nazi Germany and the Holocaust. According to cultural critic Noah Berlatsky writing for NBC News, in an effort to erase leftist victims of Nazi violence, "they've actually inverted the truth, implying that Nazis themselves were leftists", and "are part of a history of far-right disavowal, projection and escalation intended to provide a rationale for retaliation."

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

In response to multiple authors claiming that the then-presidential candidate Donald Trump was a fascist,^{[63][64][65][66]} 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. A growing number of scholars have posited that the political style of Trump resembles that of fascist leaders, beginning with his election campaign in 2016, continuing over the course of his presidency as he appeared to court far-right extremists, including his failed efforts to overturn the 2020 United States presidential election results after losing to Joe Biden, and culminating in the 2021 United States Capitol attack. As these events have unfolded, some commentators who had initially resisted applying the label to Trump came out in favor of it, including conservative legal scholar Steven G. Calabresi and conservative commentator Michael Gerson. After the attack on the Capitol, the historian of fascism Robert O. Paxton went so far as to state that Trump is a fascist, despite his earlier objection to using the term in this way. Other historians of fascism such as Richard J. Evans, Griffin, and Stanley Payne continue to disagree that fascism is an appropriate term to describe Trump's politics.

Chilean

In Chile, the insult facho pobre ("poor fascist" or "low-class fascist") is used against people of perceived working class status with right-leaning views, is the equivalent to class traitor or lumpenproletariat, and it has been the subject of significant analysis, including by figures such as the sociologist Alberto Mayol and political commentator Carlos Peña González. The origin of the insult can possibly be traced back to the massive use in Chile of social networks and their use in political discussions, but was popularized in the aftermath of the 2017 Chilean general election, where right-wing Sebastián Piñera won the presidency with a strong working class voter base. Peña González calls the essence of the insult "the worst of the paternalisms: the belief that ordinary people ... do not know what they want and betray their true interest at the time of choice", while writer Oscar Contardo states that the insult is a sort of "left-wing classism" (Spanish: roteo de izquierda) and implies that "certain ideas can only be defended by the priviledged class."

In 2019, left-wing deputy and future President Gabriel Boric publicly criticized the phrase facho pobre as belonging to an "elitist left", and warned that its use may lead to political isolation.

Korean

See also: Anti-imperialism

In Korea, the term "fascist" is used in a slightly different sense from other regions, such as Europe and the Americas. In South Korea, the case of showing an ultra-nationalistic view based on Koreans is not referred to as a "fascist", but rather, "Chinilpa" or "Tochak Waegu" tend to be referred to as a "fascist". Therefore, the term "fascist" in Korea has a similar meaning to "colonialist" or "traitor". South Korean liberals and progressives argue that Chinilpa is still a vested interest in the South Korea, criticizing Chinilpa for tarnishing South Korean society with corruption, authoritarianism and defeatism. South Korean liberals refer to "Tochak Waegu" or "fascist" when blaming conservatives.

During the Korea under Japanese rule, conservative elites in Korea cooperated with the Japanese Empire and were even involved in war crimes in the Japanese Empire, including Pacific War. Thus, South Korean liberals, progressives, leftist-nationalists and socialists (including the Juche faction) came to equate "Chinilpa" with "fascist". Even now, some conservative movements in South Korea are related to Chinilpa. Paradoxically, this resulted in anti-Chinilpa-based Korean race ultra-nationalistic supremacy not being criticized as "fascist" in North Korea. (North Korea system is considered similar to Japanese fascism by some scholars, but North Korea is considered to have done better than South Korea in removing Chinilpa.)

Bolsheviks

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Bolsheviks

1920 Bolshevik Party meeting: sitting (from left to right) are Yenukidze, Kalinin, Bukharin, Tomsky, Lashevich, Kamenev, Preobrazhensky, Serebryakov, Lenin and Rykov in front
Successor	Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks)
Formation	1903; 120 years ago
Founders	Vladimir Lenin
Dissolved	1952; 71 years ago
Headquarters	Varied
Products	Pravda (newspaper)
Leader	Vladimir Lenin
Parent organization	Russian Social Democratic Labour Party
Formerly called	"hards"

The Bolsheviks (Russian: Большевики́, IPA: [bəlʲʂɨvʲɪˈkʲi], from большинство́ bol'shinstvó, 'majority'), also known in English as the Bolshevists, were a far-left, revolutionary Marxist faction founded by Vladimir Lenin that split with the Mensheviks from the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP), a revolutionary socialist political party formed in 1898, at its Second Party Congress in 1903.

After forming their own party in 1912, the Bolsheviks took power during the October Revolution in the Russian Republic in November 1917, overthrowing the Provisional Government of Alexander Kerensky, and became the only ruling party in the subsequent Soviet Russia and later the Soviet Union. They considered themselves the leaders of the revolutionary proletariat of Russia. Their beliefs and practices were often referred to as Bolshevism.

History of the split

Vladimir Lenin's ideology in What Is to Be Done?

Bolshevik, Boris Kustodiev, 1920

Lenin's political pamphlet What Is to Be Done?, written in 1901, helped to precipitate the Bolsheviks' split from the Mensheviks. In Germany, the book was published in 1902, but in Russia, strict censorship outlawed its publication and distribution. One of the main points of Lenin's writing was that a revolution can only be achieved by a strong, professional leadership with deep dedication to Marxist theoretical principles and an organization that spanned through the whole of Russia, abandoning what Lenin called "artisanal work" towards a more organized revolutionary work. After the proposed revolution had successfully overthrown the Russian autocracy, this strong leadership would relinquish power and allow a Socialist party to fully develop within the principles of democratic centralism. Lenin said that if professional revolutionaries did not maintain influence over the fight of the workers, then that fight would steer away from the party's objective and carry on under the influence of opposing beliefs or even away from revolution entirely.

The pamphlet also showed that Lenin's view of a socialist intelligentsia was in line with Marxist theory. For example, Lenin agreed with the Marxist ideal of social classes ceasing to be and for the eventual "withering away of the state". Most party members considered unequal treatment of workers immoral and were loyal to the idea of a completely classless society. This pamphlet also showed that Lenin opposed another group of reformers, known as "Economists", who were for economic reform while leaving the government relatively unchanged and who, in Lenin's view, failed to recognize the importance of uniting the working population behind the party's cause.

Second Party Congress

At the 2nd Congress of the RSDLP, which was held in Brussels and then London during August 1903, Lenin and Julius Martov disagreed over the party membership rules. Lenin, who was supported by Georgy Plekhanov, wanted to limit membership to those who supported the party full-time and worked in complete obedience to the elected party leadership. Martov wanted to extend membership to anyone "who recognises the Party Programme and supports it by material means and by regular personal assistance under the direction of one of the party’s organisations." Lenin believed his plan would develop a core group of professional revolutionaries who would devote their full time and energy towards developing the party into an organization capable of leading a successful proletarian revolution against the Tsarist autocracy.

The base of active and experienced members would be the recruiting ground for this professional core. Sympathizers would be left outside and the party would be organised based on the concept of democratic centralism. Martov, until then a close friend of Lenin, agreed with him that the core of the party should consist of professional revolutionaries, but he argued that party membership should be open to sympathizers, revolutionary workers, and other fellow travellers. The two had disagreed on the issue as early as March–May 1903, but it was not until the Congress that their differences became irreconcilable and split the party. At first, the disagreement appeared to be minor and inspired by personal conflicts. For example, Lenin's insistence on dropping less active editorial board members from Iskra or Martov's support for the Organizing Committee of the Congress which Lenin opposed. The differences grew and the split became irreparable.

Internal unrest also arose over the political structure that was best suited for Soviet power. As discussed in What Is To Be Done?, Lenin firmly believed that a rigid political structure was needed to effectively initiate a formal revolution. This idea was met with opposition from once close allies, including Martov, Plekhanov, Vera Zasulich, Leon Trotsky, and Pavel Axelrod. Plekhanov and Lenin's major dispute arose addressing the topic of nationalizing land or leaving it for private use. Lenin wanted to nationalize to aid in collectivization, whereas Plekhanov thought worker motivation would remain higher if individuals were able to maintain their own property. Those who opposed Lenin and wanted to continue on the socialist mode of production path towards complete socialism and disagreed with his strict party membership guidelines became known as "softs" while Lenin supporters became known as "hards."

Some of the factionalism could be attributed to Lenin's steadfast belief in his own opinion and what was described by Plekhanov as Lenin's inability to "bear opinions which were contrary to his own" and loyalty to his own self-envisioned utopia. Lenin was seen even by fellow party members as being so narrow-minded and unable to accept criticism that he believed that anyone who did not follow him was his enemy. Trotsky, one of Lenin's fellow revolutionaries, compared Lenin in 1904 to the French revolutionary Maximilien Robespierre.

Etymology of Bolshevik and Menshevik

The two factions of the Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (RSDLP) were originally known as hard (Lenin supporters) and soft (Martov supporters). In the 2nd Congress vote, Lenin's faction won votes on the majority of important issues, and soon came to be known as Bolsheviks, from the Russian bolshinstvo, 'majority'. Likewise, Martov's group came to be known as Mensheviks, from menshinstvo, 'minority'. However, Martov's supporters won the vote concerning the question of party membership, and neither Lenin nor Martov had a firm majority throughout the Congress as delegates left or switched sides. In the end, the Congress was evenly split between the two factions.

From 1907 onward, English-language articles sometimes used the term Maximalist for "Bolshevik" and Minimalist for "Menshevik," which proved to be confusing as there was also a "Maximalist" faction within the Russian Socialist Revolutionary Party in 1904–1906 (which, after 1906, formed a separate Union of Socialists-Revolutionaries Maximalists) and then again after 1917.

The Bolsheviks ultimately became the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. The Bolsheviks, or Reds, came to power in Russia during the October Revolution phase of the 1917 Russian Revolution, and founded the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic (RSFSR). With the Reds defeating the Whites and others during the Russian Civil War of 1917–1922, the RSFSR became the chief constituent of the Soviet Union (USSR) in December 1922.

Demographics of the two factions

The average party member was very young: in 1907, 22% of Bolsheviks were under 20 years of age; 37% were 20–24 years of age; and 16% were 25–29 years of age. By 1905, 62% of the members were industrial workers (3% of the population in 1897). Twenty-two percent of Bolsheviks were gentry (1.7% of the total population) and 38% were uprooted peasants; compared with 19% and 26% for the Mensheviks. In 1907, 78.3% of the Bolsheviks were Russian and 10% were Jewish; compared to 34% and 20% for the Mensheviks. Total Bolshevik membership was 8,400 in 1905, 13,000 in 1906, and 46,100 by 1907; compared to 8,400, 18,000 and 38,200 for the Mensheviks. By 1910, both factions together had fewer than 100,000 members.

Beginning of the 1905 Revolution (1903–05)

Between 1903 and 1904, the two factions were in a state of flux, with many members changing sides. Plekhanov, the founder of Russian Marxism, who at first allied himself with Lenin and the Bolsheviks, had parted ways with them by 1904. Trotsky at first supported the Mensheviks, but left them in September 1904 over their insistence on an alliance with Russian liberals and their opposition to a reconciliation with Lenin and the Bolsheviks. He remained a self-described "non-factional social democrat" until August 1917, when he joined Lenin and the Bolsheviks, as their positions resembled his and he came to believe that Lenin was correct on the issue of the party.

All but one member of the RSDLP Central Committee were arrested in Moscow in early 1905. The remaining member, with the power of appointing a new committee, was won over by the Bolsheviks. The lines between the Bolsheviks and the Mensheviks hardened in April 1905 when the Bolsheviks held a Bolsheviks-only meeting in London, which they called the 3rd Party Congress. The Mensheviks organised a rival conference and the split was thus finalized.

The Bolsheviks played a relatively minor role in the 1905 Revolution and were a minority in the Saint Petersburg Soviet of Workers' Deputies led by Trotsky. However, the less significant Moscow Soviet was dominated by the Bolsheviks. These Soviets became the model for those formed in 1917.

Mensheviks (1906–07)

As the Russian Revolution of 1905 progressed, Bolsheviks, Mensheviks, and smaller non-Russian social democratic parties operating within the Russian Empire attempted to reunify at the 4th Congress of the RSDLP held in April 1906 at Folkets hus, Norra Bantorget, in Stockholm. When the Mensheviks made an alliance with the Jewish Bund, the Bolsheviks found themselves in a minority.

However, all factions retained their respective factional structure and the Bolsheviks formed the Bolshevik Centre, the de facto governing body of the Bolshevik faction within the RSDLP. At the 5th Congress held in London in May 1907, the Bolsheviks were in the majority, but the two factions continued functioning mostly independently of each other.

Split between Lenin and Bogdanov (1908–10)

Tensions had existed between Lenin and Alexander Bogdanov from as early as 1904. Lenin had fallen out with Nikolai Valentinov after Valentinov had introduced him to Ernst Mach's Empiriocriticism, a viewpoint that Bogdanov had been exploring and developing as Empiriomonism. Having worked as co-editor with Plekhanov, on Zarya, Lenin had come to agree with the Valentinov's rejection of Bogdanov's Empiriomonism.

With the defeat of the revolution in mid-1907 and the adoption of a new, highly restrictive election law, the Bolsheviks began debating whether to boycott the new parliament known as the Third Duma. Lenin, Grigory Zinoviev, Lev Kamenev, and others argued for participating in the Duma while Bogdanov, Anatoly Lunacharsky, Mikhail Pokrovsky, and others argued that the social democratic faction in the Duma should be recalled. The latter became known as "recallists" (Russian: otzovists). A smaller group within the Bolshevik faction demanded that the RSDLP Central Committee should give its sometimes unruly Duma faction an ultimatum, demanding complete subordination to all party decisions. This group became known as "ultimatists" and was generally allied with the recallists.

With most Bolshevik leaders either supporting Bogdanov or undecided by mid-1908 when the differences became irreconcilable, Lenin concentrated on undermining Bogdanov's reputation as a philosopher. In 1909, he published a scathing book of criticism entitled Materialism and Empirio-criticism (1909), assaulting Bogdanov's position and accusing him of philosophical idealism. In June 1909, Bogdanov proposed the formation of Party Schools as Proletarian Universities at a Bolshevik mini-conference in Paris organised by the editorial board of the Bolshevik magazine Proletary. However, this proposal was not adopted and Lenin tried to expel Bogdanov from the Bolshevik faction. Bogdanov was then involved with setting up Vpered, which ran the Capri Party School from August to December 1909.

Final attempt at party unity (1910)

With both Bolsheviks and Mensheviks weakened by splits within their ranks and by Tsarist repression, the two factions were tempted to try to reunite the party. In January 1910, Leninists, recallists, and various Menshevik factions held a meeting of the party's Central Committee in Paris. Kamenev and Zinoviev were dubious about the idea; but under pressure from conciliatory Bolsheviks like Victor Nogin, they were willing to give it a try.

One of the underlying reasons that prevented any reunification of the party was the Russian police. The police were able to infiltrate both parties' inner circles by sending in spies who then reported on the opposing party's intentions and hostilities. This allowed the tensions to remain high between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks and helped prevent their uniting.

Lenin was firmly opposed to any reunification but was outvoted within the Bolshevik leadership. The meeting reached a tentative agreement, and one of its provisions was to make Trotsky's Vienna-based Pravda, a party-financed central organ. Kamenev, Trotsky's brother-in-law who was with the Bolsheviks, was added to the editorial board; but the unification attempts failed in August 1910 when Kamenev resigned from the board amid mutual recriminations.

Forming a separate party (1912)

Leon Trotsky, Vladimir Lenin and Lev Kamenev

The factions permanently broke relations in January 1912 after the Bolsheviks organised a Bolsheviks-only Prague Party Conference and formally expelled Mensheviks and recallists from the party. As a result, they ceased to be a faction in the RSDLP and instead declared themselves an independent party, called Russian Social Democratic Labour Party (Bolsheviks) – or RSDLP(b). Unofficially, the party has been referred to as the Bolshevik Party. Throughout the 20th century, the party adopted a number of different names. In 1918, RSDLP(b) became All-Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and remained so until 1925. From 1925 to 1952, the name was All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) and from 1952 to 1991, the Communist Party of the Soviet Union.

As the party split became permanent, further divisions became evident. One of the most notable differences was how each faction decided to fund its revolution. The Mensheviks decided to fund their revolution through membership dues while Lenin often resorted to more drastic measures since he required a higher budget. One of the common methods the Bolsheviks used was committing bank robberies, one of which, in 1907, resulted in the party getting over 250,000 roubles, which is the equivalent of about $125,000. Bolsheviks were in constant need of money because Lenin practised his beliefs, expressed in his writings, that revolutions must be led by individuals who devote their entire lives to the cause. As compensation, he rewarded them with salaries for their sacrifice and dedication. This measure was taken to help ensure that the revolutionaries stayed focused on their duties and motivated them to perform their jobs. Lenin also used the party money to print and copy pamphlets which were distributed in cities and at political rallies in an attempt to expand their operations. Both factions received funds through donations from wealthy supporters.

The elections to the Russian Constituent Assembly took place in November 1917 in which the Bolsheviks came second with 23.9% of the vote and dissolved the Assembly in January 1918

Further differences in party agendas became evident as the beginning of World War I loomed near. Joseph Stalin was especially eager for the start of the war, hoping that it would turn into a war between classes or essentially a Russian Civil War. This desire for war was fuelled by Lenin's vision that the workers and peasants would resist joining the war effort and therefore be more compelled to join the socialist movement. Through the increase in support, Russia would then be forced to withdraw from the Allied powers in order to resolve her internal conflict. Unfortunately for the Bolsheviks, Lenin's assumptions were incorrect. Despite his and the party's attempts to push for a civil war through involvement in two conferences in 1915 and 1916 in Switzerland, the Bolsheviks were in the minority in calling for a ceasefire by the Imperial Russian Army in World War I.

Although the Bolshevik leadership had decided to form a separate party, convincing pro-Bolshevik workers within Russia to follow suit proved difficult. When the first meeting of the Fourth Duma was convened in late 1912, only one out of six Bolshevik deputies, Matvei Muranov (another one, Roman Malinovsky, was later exposed as an Okhrana agent), voted on 15 December 1912 to break from the Menshevik faction within the Duma. The Bolshevik leadership eventually prevailed, and the Bolsheviks formed their own Duma faction in September 1913.

One final difference between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks was how ferocious and tenacious the Bolshevik party was in order to achieve its goals, although Lenin was open minded to retreating from political ideals if he saw the guarantee of long-term gains benefiting the party. This practice was seen in the party's trying to recruit peasants and uneducated workers by promising them how glorious life would be after the revolution and granting them temporary concessions.

In 1918, the party renamed itself the Russian Communist Party (Bolsheviks) at Lenin's suggestion. In 1925, this was changed to All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks). At the 19th Party Congress in 1952 the Party was renamed the Communist Party of the Soviet Union at Stalin's suggestion.

Non-Russian/Soviet political groups having used the name "Bolshevik"

• Bangladesh: Maoist Bolshevik Reorganisation Movement of the Purba Banglar Sarbahara Party
• Burkina Faso: Burkinabé Bolshevik Party
• India: Bolshevik Party of India
• India/Sri Lanka: Bolshevik-Leninist Party of India, Ceylon and Burma
• India: Revolutionary Socialist Party (Bolshevik)
• Mexico: Bolshevik Communist Party
• Senegal: Bolshevik Nuclei
• South Africa: Bolsheviks Party of South Africa
• Sri Lanka: Bolshevik Samasamaja Party
• Turkey: Bolshevik Party (North Kurdistan – Turkey)

Derogatory usage of "Bolshevik"

"Down with Bolshevism. Bolshevism brings war and destruction, hunger and death", anti-Bolshevik German propaganda, 1919

Bolo was a derogatory expression for Bolsheviks used by British service personnel in the North Russian Expeditionary Force which intervened against the Red Army during the Russian Civil War. Adolf Hitler, Joseph Goebbels, and other Nazi leaders used it in reference to the worldwide political movement coordinated by the Comintern.

During the Cold War in the United Kingdom, trade union leaders and other leftists were sometimes derisively described as Bolshies. The usage is roughly equivalent to the term "commie," "Red," or "pinko" in the United States during the same period. The term Bolshie later became a slang term for anyone who was rebellious, aggressive, or truculent.

Red fascism

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Red fascism is a term equating Stalinism, Maoism, and other variants of Marxism–Leninism with fascism. Accusations that the leaders of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era acted as "red fascists" were commonly stated by anarchists, left communists, social democrats and other democratic socialists as well as liberals and among right-wing circles.

Use of the term by the anti-Stalinist left, mid-20th century

Use of the term "red fascist" was first recorded in the early 1920s, in the aftermath of both the Russian Revolution and the March on Rome, for instance by Italian anarchist Luigi Fabbri who wrote in 1922 that "“Red fascists” is the name that has recently been given to those Bolshevik communists who are most inclined to espouse fascism’s methods for use against their adversaries."

In the following years, a number of socialists began to hold the view that the Soviet government was becoming a red fascist state. Bruno Rizzi, an Italian Marxist and a founder of the Communist Party of Italy who became an anti-Stalinist, claimed in 1938 that "Stalinism [took on] a regressive course, generating a species of red fascism identical in its superstructural and choreographic features [with its Fascist model]".

While primarily focused on critiquing Nazism, Wilhelm Reich considered Stalin's Soviet Union to have developed into red fascism.

The term is often attributed to Franz Borkenau, a key proponent of the theory of totalitarianism (which posits that there are certain essential similarities between fascism and Stalinism). Borkenau used the term in 1939. Otto Rühle wrote that "the struggle against fascism must begin with the struggle against bolshevism", adding that he believed the Soviets had influence on fascist states by serving as a model. In 1939, Rühle further professed:

Russia was the example for fascism. [...] Whether party 'communists' like it or not, the fact remains that the state order and rule in Russia are indistinguishable from those in Italy and Germany. Essentially they are alike. One may speak of a red, black, or brown 'soviet state', as well as of red, black or brown fascism.

Kurt Schumacher, who was imprisoned in Nazi concentration camps, but survived WWII to become the first post-war SPD opposition leader in West Germany, described pro-Soviet communists as "red-painted fascists" or "red-lacquered Nazis".

Similarly, the exiled Russian anarchist Volin, who saw the Soviet state as totalitarian and as an "example of integral State capitalism", used the term "red fascism" to describe it.

In the US, Norman Thomas (who ran for president numerous times under the Socialist Party of America banner), accused the Soviet Union in the 1940s of decaying into Red fascism by writing: "Such is the logic of totalitarianism", that "communism, whatever it was originally, is today Red fascism". In the same period, the term was used by the New York intellectuals, who were left-wing but sided against the Soviet Union in the developing Cold War.

Use of the term in the political mainstream in the Cold War

The term "red fascism" was also used in America during and leading up to the Cold War as an anti-communist slogan. In a September 18, 1939 editorial, The New York Times reacted to the signing of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact by declaring that "Hitlerism is brown communism, Stalinism is red fascism". The editorial further opined:

The world will now understand that the only real 'ideological' issue is one between democracy, liberty and peace on the one hand and despotism, terror and war on the other.

After the war, in 1946, FBI director J. Edgar Hoover gave a speech in which he said:

Hitler, Tojo, and Mussolini brands of Fascism were met and defeated on the battle fıeld. All those who stand for the American way of life must arise and defeat Red Fascism in America by focusing upon it the spotlight of public opinion and by building up barriers of common decency through which it cannot penetrate.

The speech was reprinted in December 1946 in the Washington News Digest, and Hoover also entitled an article “Red Fascism in the United States Today” in American Magazine in February 1947.

Jack Tenney, an anti-communist politician who chaired the California Senate Factfinding Subcommittee on Un-American Activities published a report entitled Red Fascism in 1947, which drew on the popular anti-fascism of the war years to portray the Soviet Union and domestic Communism as similar to the Nazis. The same year the term was used by politicians Everett Dirksen and Henderson Lovelace Lanham.

More recent uses

French philosopher and journalist Bernard-Henri Lévy has used the term in arguing that some European intellectuals have been infatuated with anti-Enlightenment theories and embraced a new absolutist ideology, one that is anti-liberal, anti-American, anti-imperialist, antisemitic and pro-Islamofascist.

Chinazi is a recent anti-Chinese sentiment which compares China to Nazi Germany, combining the words "China" and "Nazi". First published by Chinese dissident Yu Jie, it became frequently used during Hong Kong protests against the Chinese government, contending that the People's Republic of China is turning itself into fascist state although the then-ruling Kuomintang and the Blue Shirts Society during the Republican era and martial law period on Taiwan that turned the country into a fascist state during these periods.