Communism vs. Fascism

Communism Versus Fascism

When one thinks of Communism, the first thing that comes to mind is the regime of the USSR or modern China. However, that is only one form of Communism. The philosophy can be divided into many denominations, but the most prevalent are Marxism, Leninism-Marxism, Stalinism, Trotskyism, and Maoism.

The original, purest form is known as Marxism, put forth by Karl Marx and Friederich Engels in The Communist Manifesto (1848). The three main principles in Marxism are the interpretation of history as a war between the classes, critique of capitalism, and the advocacy of a proletariate revolution. In response to the manifesto, Belgium expelled both men and forced them to settle in Cologne. When they established a radical newspaper in Cologne, the Prussian government also vilified them, leading them to settle in London. Prussia pressured London to extradite them, but the English government refused.

Marxism-Leninism is the ideology that effectively shaped the Soviet Union. It concentrated on rapid industrialization and government control over public life in order to affect collectivization. Two of the main principles were development of a socialist state, and democratic centralism as an organizational principle. Lenin ruled the USSR until his retirement in 1922, when Stalin and Trotsky fought for the control of the party. Stalin eventually gained control and continued using the political philosophy of Marxism-Leninism, making Stalinism more of a governing style than a philosophy. Stalin expedited the move towards socialism with the Five-Year Plans, laid the groundwork for the Soviet policy towards nationalities, his thesis Socialism in One Country, which stated that Russia should focus on strengthening the state as a reaction to the failure of communist revolutions in other countries, and the theory of “aggravation of class struggle along with the development of socialism,” which justified oppression of political opponents. Leon Trotsky, on the other hand, believed that the Socialism in One Country theory defied proletarian internationalism, and claimed that he was the true advocate of the “dictatorship of the proletariate.” Both Stalin and Trotsky deny that the other ideology truly follows in Lenin and Marx’s footsteps. After Stalin gained control of the USSR, Trotsky was expelled from the state. His ideas were never fully embraced by the communist community. Maoism is the version of communism practiced by Mao Zedong and the People’s Republic of China. The basic tenets of Maoism include revolutionary struggle of the vast majority of people against the exploiting classes and their state structures, termed a People’s War; it also focuses on the countryside instead of cities and industrial centers, a practice know as Agrarian socialism. Maoism asserts that there is class struggle even after the triumph of the worker over the bourgeoisie, and that there are capitalist sympathetic elements even within the party. The PRC split with the USSR during the reign of Khrushchev, due to the USSR’s continuing policy of state capitalism. After Lenin, the USSR continued to assimilate all businesses into the state, and extending their control into people’s home lives. True Marxist Communists separate themselves from the USSR, saying that the government had broken from Communism by not giving the control back to the people once it was all collected under government control.

Communists and fascists of Hitler’s era were sworn enemies. Marxists/Bolsheviks are anti-democratic, like fascism, but instead of having one absolute ruler, they desire the masses to rule. Fascism is violently opposed to this, as the masses are tainted and uneducated, so cannot adequately rule at the desired level for a perfect society. To fascists, people need to be told what to do. This has more in common with Stalinism and Maoism, which both stopped progression towards true Communism when the government had acquired full control over the public sector. Communism practiced in the USSR and China stresses conformity and oppresses opposing political parties, much like in Germany under the Third Reich. However, Hitler associated Marxism and Bolshevism with the Jews, and carried out a crusade on the German Communist Party. While similarities can be found within the two philosophies, they are at opposite ends of the political spectrum.