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Bolshevism and fascism
Trotsky was one of the first to put forward the line that Bolshevism and fascism were twins. This thesis was quite popular, during the thirties, in the reactionary Catholic parties. The Communist Party was their sworn enemy, the fascist party their most important bourgeois opponent. Once again, here is Trotsky:
`Fascism is winning victory after victory and its best ally, the one that is clearing its path throughout the world, is Stalinism.'
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Trotsky, Caïn Dugachvili va jusqu'au bout (April 1938). L'appareil, p. 238.
`In fact, nothing distinguishes Stalin's political methods from Hitler's. But the difference in results on the international scale is remarkable.'
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Trotsky, La capitulation de Staline, p. 216.
`An important part, which becomes more and more important, of the Soviet apparatus is formed of fascists who have yet to recognize themselves as such. To equate the Soviet régime with fascism is a gross historic error .... But the symmetry of the political superstructures and the similarity of totalitarian methods and of psychological profiles are striking ....
`(T)he agony of Stalinism is the most horrible and most odious spectacle on Earth.'
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Trotsky, Nouvelles défections (17 March 1938). La lutte, pp. 161--162.
Trotsky here presented one of the first versions of the essential theme of CIA and fascist propaganda during the fifties, that of `red fascism'. By using the word `fascism', Trotsky tried to redirect the hatred that the masses felt towards the terrorist dictatorship of big capital, against socialism. After 1944--1945, all the German, Hungarian, Croatian and Ukrainian fascist leaders that fled to the West put on their `democratic' mask; they praised U.S. `democracy', the new hegemonic force and the main source of support for retrograde and fascist forces in the world. These `old' fascists, faithful to their criminal past, all developed the same theme: `Bolshevism is fascism, but even worse'.
Note further that at the time that European fascism had already started its war (wars in Ethiopia and Spain, annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia), Trotsky was affirming that the `most horrible and most odious spectable' on Earth was the `agony of socialism'!
Next: Defeatism and capitulation Up: Trotsky's rôle on Previous: The enemy is
Fri Aug 25 09:03:42 PDT 1995