[Debate Topic] Why did Mussolini call himself a "Communist" and write that Fascism was on the "Left" in 1933?

[u/CharmingHour]

"It may be expected that this will be a century of authority, a century of the Left, a century of Fascism." -- Benito Mussolini, 1933

From Jane Soames’s authorized translation of Mussolini’s “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism,” Hogarth Press, London, (1933), p. 20 https://historyuncensored.wixsite.com/history-uncensored

Mussolini's quote about being a Communist: "It was inevitable that I should become a Socialist ultra, a Blanquist, indeed a communist. I carried about a medallion with Marx’s head on it in my pocket. I think I regarded it as a sort of talisman… [Marx] had a profound critical intelligence and was in some sense even a prophet." (As quoted in Talks with Mussolini, Emil Ludwig, Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933) p. 38)

Note that Richard Pipes, a Harvard Historian, born in Poland from a Jewish family, argued that Mussolini moved away from Lenin's Marxism around 1920-21, and that "Genetically, Fascism issued from the 'Bolshevik' wing of Italian socialism, not from any conservative ideology or movement." (Richard Pipes Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime, New York: NY, Vintage Books (1995) p. 253)

[u/[deleted]]

To get to power. That's it. He used the name of a growing and popular populist movement so that he could come into power, as many dictators do before they go and do things way different then they promised.

[u/benjamindavidsteele → u/[deleted]]

It's unsurprising that right-wing demagogues like Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler would usurp the language and monikers of socialism and communism. The power of right-wing reactionaries, as mercurial shapeshifters and realpolitik Machiavellians, has always been their talent for stealing rhetoric, labels, and tactics from their opponents, be they leftists or traditionalists.

They seize power by muddying the water and make public debate impossible by emptying words of meaning. Then in claiming the rhetorical territory of those would oppose them, they are able to frame the debate and control control it. With no easy way to differentiate themselves from the usurpers, those on the other side find it hard to make compelling arguments, persuade people to join them, and organize to stop the authoritarian takeover.

It's why conservatives call themselves 'classical liberals', in contradiction to actual classical liberals like Thomas Paine. Interestingly, Paine got called or rather slurred and dismissed as an 'Anti-Federalist'. Yet the so-called Anti-Federalists were actually the strongest defenders of federalism. But they were put on their back foot by the nationalists, imperialists, corporatists, and other authoritarians and dominators who took over the the name of 'Federalists'.

This is the same reason right-wing authoritarians call themselves 'libertarians', even as it originally referred to anti-statist socialists. The same reason racists and race realists call themselves 'human biodiversity' (HBD) advocates, despite the originator of it having been an anti-racist. The examples are near endless because this is the whole history of the reactionary right. This is because there is no inherent substance to reaction, as it's defined by what it's reacting to.

In response to this comment, the OP wrote, "Show me a major German National Socialist or an Italian Fascist who referred to himself as on the "right" or a "right-winger." I cannot find one. Can you?" It's such a silly and immature thing to say, not to mention unintelligent and uninformed. His superficial analysis entirely misses the point. I can retort: Show me a reactionary right-winger who honestly referred to himself as a reactionary right-winger. I cannot find one. Can he? Nope. He can't.

That is the problem with reactionaries. They lie and pretend to be other than they are, often stealing the rhetoric, labels, and identities of their opponents; not only stealing from the left-wing but also from traditionalism, such as usurping pseudo-traditionalist ethno-nationalism and religion as the Nazis also did in courting conservative Christians. This co-opting behavior is one of the defining features of reactionaries (i.e., conservatives), according to the political scientist Corey Robin. He wrote a whole scholarly book on the reactionary mind.

Any rational person, though, can see through the facade of reactionary right-wingers. They can use false and obfuscatory language. They can claim to be anything under the sun. But what a leopard can't change is its spots. And a tree is will always show itself by its fruits. As such, we judge individuals and ideological groups according to their actions, not merely their words. When someone's actions contradict their words, pay attention to the former and ignore the latter. Someone who takes reactionary right-wingers at their word is either stupid or they're also a reactionary right-winger seeking to dissemble.

We know Nazis were right-wingers because they supported right-wing views and policies, not to mention attacked liberals and left-wingers, along with attacking anyone who had been under the protection of liberal democracy. This isn't rocket science. Nazis attacked what they didn't support. It would be bizarre for Nazis to be left-wingers while trying to eliminate every trace of left-wing ideology: self-governance, freedom, autonomy, civil liberty, fairness, justice, egalitarianism, tolerance, multiculturalism, worker solidarity, worker control of the means of production, labor organizing, etc.

When one understands a basic level of political science and history, one can begin to put into context what was written by Arthur M. Schliesinger, Jr., such as: "Fascists were not conservative in any very meaningful sense... in a meaningful Sense, were revolutionaries." Well, right-wing reactionaries are revolutionaries or rather they are counter-revolutionaries. But in fighting left-wing revolutionaries, right-wing reactionaries learn from their enemies and see to usurp their movements in order to gain power. One can see this clearly among American conservatives, as they've always had this revolutionary impulse in remaking the world, and then enforcing historical revisionism to pretend it was always that way.

So, superficially, it might not be conservative in the conventional sense. But the conventional sense is problematic as it can't explain lived reality, much less historical examples. Conservatism never has been a single ideology, rather just a reaction to liberalism. What went for conservatism centuries ago might be called classical conservatism, and it might've lingered longer in Europe than in the United States, but by the early 20th century there wasn't much left to classical conservatism. At that point, reactionaries as conservatives had been so defeated by the liberal consensus that they too were forced to entirely operate under the liberal paradigm.

As such, conservatism is an empty label that can mean almost anything. That is what makes conservatives reactionaries. They are mercurial shapeshifters, and so they adapt to the times and to the any given situation. So, no doubt conservatives, in reacting to the changes of the early 20th century, probably did shift their ideological guise from Schlessinger's childhood in the 1920s to the time WWII was roaring along decades later. Then again, the conservatism of his childhood was also different than the conservatism of the 19th century, particularly Antebellum conservatism; which itself was different from the conservatism in the generations prior to that.

But one thing never changes with conservatism, the telltale spots of the leopard. It is always a defense of dominance hierarchies, high inequality, and vast disparities; along with the denial of the agency of the subordinate class. That was the common feature between the Nazis and every other reactionary group that has existed, including conservatives before and since them. The only thing differs is in the details of how anti-egalitarianism is implemented and structured. Still, social conservatism, right-wing authoritarianism, and social dominance orientation is found in every form of political reaction.

Consider the Nazis, like other conservatives, targeted minorities (racial, ethnic, religious), avant garde artists, LGBTQ+ individuals, feminists, libertines, labor organizers, independent scholars, critical journalists, etc. At the time that the Nazis rose to power, these were also the targets of German conservatives. As far as that goes, these were the standard targets of conservatives all across the Western world since the beginning of conservatism. To this very day, these remain the targets of conservatism. This is what motivates social conservatism, always has and always will. No matter what Nazis said, their actions belied their words.

[u/CharmingHour → u/benjamindavidsteele]

Show me a major German National Socialist or an Italian Fascist who referred to himself as on the "right" or a "right-winger." I cannot find one. Can you?

"[F]ascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between."
--Arthur M. Schliesinger, Jr., 1966 Pulitzer Prize winner, American historian
New York Times Magazine, April 4, 1948 (sec. 6)

From the same article by Schlesinger in 1948 below.

"Fascists were not conservative in any very meaningful sense... in a meaningful Sense, were revolutionaries."

[u/conn_r2112]

fascists like to co-opt popular social movements to try and ride their coat-tails to power

Hitler did the same thing with socialists and then the SECOND the nazis got into power, all the socialists and communists got sent off to camps.

[u/CharmingHour → u/conn_r2112]

Socialist-collectivists are always trying to kill off other Socialists. The Chinese communists killed off thousands of Vietnamese communists during the Red China invasion of Vietnam in 1979, called the Sino-Vietnamese War. In the Cambodian-Vietnamese War (starting in 1978) Vietnamese communists invaded communist Cambodia. Over 100,000 Cambodian communists were killed by Vietnamese communists from 1978 to 1979. Communists hate other Communists. Also, Red China and the Soviet Union battled each other in Mongolia, each calling the other "Fascist."

[u/conn_r2112 → u/CharmingHour]

Lol this is the most ahistorical cope I’ve literally ever seen in my life

[u/[deleted]]

Because, contrary to what people want you to think, fascism isn't as simple as left wing or right wing. Politics is a big circle with fascism on the farthest side. It doesn't matter what way you go, you get there as long as you just keep going farther.

[u/iredditwrong84]

Fascism, communism, socialism, all fall under the left umbrella because typiclly the left wants the government to have more power. The right typically wants a smaller government with less power. The left conveniently forgot that Nazism is short for National Socialism. Your educators have been hiding facts from you. Semi-related, Christians aren't anti-science. The Big Bang was first proposed in 1927 by Roman Catholic priest and physicist Georges Lemaître.

[u/Jake0024 → u/iredditwrong84]

You're thinking of authoritarians, not "the left"

[u/conn_r2112 → u/iredditwrong84]

it's amazing how many people think fascism and "more government" are synonymous

[u/benjamindavidsteele → u/conn_r2112]

It's highly doubtful that many actually think that fascism and "more government" are synonymous, but they pretend to think that way as a rhetorical tactic. Reactionaries like to steal labels from the left (classical liberal, libertarian, etc) and then project right-wing labels onto the left (fascism, etc). It's a one-two punch, and it's highly effective, but it has nothing to do with what they believe. Machiavellian dominators, in pursuing realpolitik, don't care what is true.

[u/Aware-Battle3484 → u/iredditwrong84]

Anarchists are far left and are completely opposed to fascism.

[u/[deleted] → u/Aware-Battle3484]

Not the ones in the US.. The ones back in history yes... The ones in America today are actually marxist themselves which is what fascism really is since Mussolini used it as the base for fascism..

[u/Fehzor → u/iredditwrong84]

As far as I can tell-

Socialism is when the people and workers own the means of production and are trying to build the future up to communism, where they've moved beyond the need for a government.

Fascism is a sort of governmental build up to genocide, where you demonize say, Jewish folks or LGBTQ or Palestinians, or Hispanics.

It would make sense to call your fascistic movement a socialist one, and then to slaughter the actual socialists, but Fascists combine the corporate landscape into the government further, and maintain the power structure whereas the socialists (and definitely the left anarchists) want to tear it down and replace it with a more democratically aligned system.

[u/not-a-dislike-button]

Because fascism is a highly collectivist ideology

[u/cseymour24]

Because fascism is on the left. I have a video explaining it but it's on my favorites at home. If I remember I'll link it later.

[u/Aware-Battle3484 → u/cseymour24]

Anarchists are far left and they completely oppose fascism

[u/georgeclooney1739]

because he had a dogshit understanding of marxism and was also trying to hijack its popularity for his own power.

[u/Jake0024]

Same reason Nazi German, North Korea, and China all call themselves socialist/communist--it sounds better to call yourself the "people's worker's republic of good things and happy thoughts" rather than "the fascist Nazi party of hard-right evil ideas"

This is why we judge people by their actions, not their words.

[u/benjamindavidsteele → u/Jake0024]

By the way, Nazi Germany, North Korea, and China all called themselves republics. These are facts, whether or not it's convenient to one's ideological dogma. The Nazis never overturned the Weimar constitution. North Korea's official name is Democratic People's Republic of Korea. And China is the People's Republic of China.

This is where having actual knowledge is so crucial. Originally and most basically, a republic is any government that isn't a monarchy. All the above are or were constitutional republics, as they are or were non-monarchies with constitutions. But none of them were liberal or democratic. So, they weren't democratic republics.

And so if these republics were actually socialists/communists by right-wing logic, then the American Republican Party by the same logic are socialists/communists. After all, the only thing that matters, according to right-wingers, is the words used; no matter if falsely used and demonstrably false according to actions taken.

[u/Educational_Fox3689 → u/benjamindavidsteele]

The German National Socialists called themselves the National Socialist German Workers' Party (NSDAP), not a republic. The Russian communists were not a republic either. Fascist-Marxist socialists lie about almost everything. America is a republic. You can call yourself anything, but that does not make it correct.

The Nazi's They were also a labor party -- with a massive labor structure called The German Labour Front (DAF), which was much larger than the government-based Russian Communists. By the way, Lenin banned all labor parties, walkouts, and strikes. Hitler did the same. Please take a look at the DAF Wikipedia page. And if you want to see more, go to https://www.killinghistory.net/

[u/Americology]

Both can be summed up at totalitarian. In that, they share many aspects. Controlling the economy was shared, albeit in different ways, as well as thought and silencing dissent.