Fascism, Socialism, and Communism

Definition

Fascism is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism characterized by dictatorial power, the forcible suppression of opposition, and the strong regimentation of both society and the economy. It came to prominence in early twentieth-century Europe and has left a trail of violence, genocide, and ruin wherever it has taken hold.

What Fascism Actually Means

Fascism is an ideology whose central focus is the promotion of a monolithic, regimented nation — preferably under an authoritarian ruler. It exalts the nation and, often, race above the individual. It stands for a centralized, autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and the forcible suppression of all opposition. Such governments are also properly described as totalitarian.

Different fascist regimes have embraced distinct approaches to specific issues, which is why their legacies appear varied. But the core is always the same: the state is supreme, the individual exists to serve the state, and dissent is met with violence.

Historical Examples

Fascism's reach in the twentieth century was wide. In Spain, many members of fascist movements were absorbed into the military dictatorship of Francisco Franco, which itself displayed pronounced fascist characteristics. In Poland, the anti-Semitic Falanga, led by Bolesław Piasecki, was influential but failed to overthrow the conservative regime of Józef Piłsudski. In Finland, Vihtori Kosola's Lapua Movement nearly staged a coup in 1932 but was checked by conservatives backed by the army.

In Hungary, the Arrow Cross Party, led by Ferenc Szálasi, was suppressed by the conservative regime of Miklós Horthy until 1944, when Szálasi was installed as a puppet ruler under German occupation. In Romania, the Iron Guard — also known as the Legion of the Archangel Michael and All for the Fatherland — led by Corneliu Codreanu, was dissolved by King Carol II in 1938. Codreanu and several of his legionaries were subsequently arrested and shot. In 1940, remnants of the Iron Guard briefly reemerged to share power before being finally crushed by Romanian conservatives in February 1941.

The Fatal Flaw of Fascism

The greatest disadvantage of fascism is the violence inherent in its very nature. In a democracy, it is not unusual to shout down the opposition. In a fascist state, the opposition is always repressed through violence, murder, and other forms of physical force. Some may view this as an efficiency advantage. It is not. The internal and external conflict necessary to keep a fascist government in power is never sustainable for long. Eventually, every fascist regime falls — always at enormous human cost.

Marx's Vision

Karl Marx argued that following the inevitable fall of capitalism, a communist revolution would take place in which workers — whom he called the proletariat — would seize control of the means of production. After a transitional period, the state itself would wither away, leaving behind a classless society in which production and consumption reached a natural equilibrium: "from each according to his ability, to each according to his need." More extreme interpretations held that even religion and the family — institutions used to subjugate the working class — would eventually dissolve along with the state and private ownership.

The Theory Meets Reality

Marx's revolutionary ideology inspired twentieth-century movements that fought for, and in some cases won, control of governments. In 1917, the Bolshevik Revolution overthrew the Russian czar and, following a brutal civil war, established the Soviet Union — a nominally communist empire that collapsed in 1991. It was only "nominally" communist because, while ruled by the Communist Party, it never achieved the classless, stateless society Marx had envisioned. The population never collectively owned the means of production. The party did.

For the first four decades of the Soviet Union's existence, the party explicitly acknowledged that it had not yet created a communist society. Until 1961, the official position was that the Soviet Union was governed by the "dictatorship of the proletariat" — an intermediate stage on the path toward true communism. In 1961, Premier Nikita Khrushchev declared that the Soviet state had begun "withering away." It persisted for another thirty years. When it finally collapsed in 1991, it was replaced by a nominally democratic, capitalist system.

The Record of Communist States

No twentieth- or twenty-first-century communist state has produced the post-scarcity economy Marx promised in the nineteenth century. The result has more often been acute scarcity. Tens of millions of people died from famine and political violence after the People's Republic of China was established in 1949. Rather than eliminating class, China's and Russia's communist revolutions created small, enormously wealthy party elites that enriched themselves through connections to state-owned enterprises.

Cuba, Laos, North Korea, and Vietnam — the world's only remaining communist states, with the exception of de facto capitalist China — have a combined gross domestic product roughly the size of the state of Tennessee.