Compare And Contrast Communism And Fascism

Madison Van Hofwegen

2. Fascism and communism are two forms of ideology that people mostly do not agree upon. Fascism, in itself, is the belief in four main ideas. Absolute power of the state, Survival of the fittest, Strict social order, and Authoritarian leadership. Fascist believe that the state in more in important than any individual. It’s the idea that all individuals are apart of the state but the state is greater than the sum of all of its parts. It’s the belief that all individuals should set apart their own needs to help the needs of the state. Fascist also believe in Survival of the fittest, which is pretty self explanatory. In Fascist minds, peace is seen as weakness. Aggression is seen as strength. It is known that strength
is the ultimate good which ensures the survival of the state. Strict social order is also a main building block for fascist belief. They believe that social order should be contained strictly in order to control any hint of chaos. Lastly, fascists believe to maintain power within the state they need a single leader with absolute authority. Now with this, people tend to use fascist to describe any authoritarian government. But what they don’t realize is that communism, under Stalin, was also known as an authoritarian political philosophy. When actually, fascism is directly opposed to communism. Unlike fascism, communism had three central beliefs or what Karl Marx liked to call “phases”. Marx, the creator of Marxism believed that a revolution needed to take place in order to overthrow the existing government. He emphasized that of total destruction in order to move onto the second phase. Which was that an elite leader and or dictator needed to take power over the proletariat. While doing this, the government takes control of all of societies personal life decisions including, religion, education, marriage, ect. Which leads to Marx’s third phase, which is “Achievement of utopia” which is a phase that has never been attained because it consists of destroying all non-communists so that the communist party can achieve some sort of supreme equality. In my opinion communism and fascism are very different, it should be easy to name off pages of differences. Therefore I’ve decided that I will start off with the hard part. Naming the similarities. Don’t be surprised when this is a very short, possibly incomplete paragraph. While searching through my notes and the book looking at what both systems of government believed in, I did notice a few subtle things. Both methods denied individual rights, and both systems had dictators who believed in their own form of ruling. But mainly I feel people find that these two things are more common then not because they both seem to have totalitarian views. Jerome Kohn (Director, Hannah Arendt Center, New School University) compares it to 'The Origins of Totalitarianism’ He points out a specific part in his essay, 'Totalitarianism: The Inversion of Politics', “…Thus a largely rural and feudal Russian Empire, under the absolutist rule of czars stretching back to the fifteenth century, was transformed first by Lenin after the October Revolution of 1917 and then by Stalin into an industrialized Union of Soviet Socialist Republics; a Germany broken after its defeat in World War I was mobilized and became the conqueror of most of Europe in the early 1940s less than a decade after Hitler's assumption of power; and in China the People's Republic, by taking the Great Leap Forward in 1958 followed by the Cultural Revolution beginning in 1966 and ending with Mao Zedong's death in 1976, expunged much of what remained of a culture that had survived for more than three thousand years. Such achievements require total one-party governmental control and tremendous human sacrifice; the elimination of free choice and individuality; the politicization of the private sphere, including that of the family; and the denial of any notion of the universality of human rights. In diverse areas of the world where political freedom and open societies have been virtually unknown or untried, totalitarian methods have been seen to exert an ongoing attraction for local elites, warlords, and rebels. Such well-known phenomena as "brain washing," "killing fields," "ethnic cleansing," "mass graves," and "genocide," accounting for millions of victims and arising from a variety of tribal, nationalist, ethnic, religious, and economic conditions, have been deemed totalitarian in nature." Throughout this essay that he had written he points out multiple different things that both Germany and Russia had done that makes them comparable to totalitarianism within itself but his argument points out few things that in my mind make them the same. Now, the easy part. There are many reasons why Communism and Fascism are different. A few that really stood out in my mind were the political systems, the idea of social classes, or the idea of who has more power and the social structure. Now people argue that both political systems are totalitarian. Communism may be, but fascism is not. The fact that one charismatic leader had absolute authority and was also often the symbol of the state itself and the advisors were normally picked by merit instead of election making it makes this more of a dictatorship. Secondly, they had different ideas of social class. Communism for one, believes that everyone was created equal so there should be no need for social class. Fascism on the other hand had a union between business and the state with the state telling the business exactly what to do, with private ownership. They had national socialism in Germany, they had central planning of the economy and we cant forget the redistribution of wealth with the Nazis. Theres so many reasons I could list off about why these two ideas are different but Im going to stick with one last one, the social structure. With communism, every class distinction had been eliminated. But with Fascism they had very strict class structure and believed in some sort of superior race. They believed that if class structure was non exsistant, all hell would break loose.

3. Difference between civic and cultural nationalism.

Civic nationalism is one that involves all those who are involved in that type of political situation.
It can be exemplified by the creation of the British nation sate in the late 18th century. Civic nationalism doesn’t bother worrying about ethnicity, race, color, gender or what language you speak. Many people consider a civic nation more so a community. It involves that of equal rights, they are all united in some sort of patriotic attachment and they all share the same set of political practices and values. Examples of this could be the 1960s civil rights movement in the United states. A civic nation state claims self-governing rights and right for its citizens making it “democratic” in a sense. They are mainly united by a civic rather than an ethnic definition of belonging and are attached to civic institutions like the Parliament and the rule of
law.
Cultural Nationalism is almost opposite. They believe that nationhood is defined by language, religion, customs and traditions. According to some cultural nationalists it is not the state that creates the nation but the nation that creates the state. They believe that what holds people together is their ethnic characteristics, where they came from, and where their family came from. This all can be exemplified by Germanys reaction to Napoleons invasion.
A few main differences between the two is that Civic Nationalist emphasize mainly, law, choice, unity by consent, and that the individual creates the nation where as Cultural Nationalists mainly emphasizes, common root inheritance and emotional attachment, fraternity, ethnic majority rules and that the nation creates the individual.
I believe that Civic nationalism is more of a realistic way of living because although, common ethnicity helps with uniting people, civic nationalism provides a frame work for law, political participation ect. I think civic nationalism is more seen to be compatible with liberal democracy because of the fact that it focuses on individual freedoms and focuses on lawmaking and making sure that everyone gets along. Civic nationalists believe that without common unity by the law people wont physically know what is right and wrong and in my mind all hell will break loose. Civic nationalism represents “the will of the people” and with that becomes more liberal democratic than cultural
nationalism. Canada is an example of civic nationalism. Canada is a very diverse state which has three main cultures involving protestant English, Catholic French and First Nations. Its very hard to bring all of these groups together under one main name because of the difference in culture. So what they did, instead of basing their laws off of what an ethnic nation would they decided to base it off of mainly citizenship and ideals of the shared rights everyone was entiteled to. A good example of Culture Nationalism would be France with the majority of its population being mainly French they have very little that are in the minority. Therefore the country was found based off of the French identity and their laws reflect upon that.

However, French nationalism can be first commonly seen as civic. But has strong cultural elements. Frances state was instrumental in forging a unified concept of a French nation. The state expanded outward from Paris incorporating neighboring regions that spoke multiple languages into a single culture. The concept of nationalism however did not enter the French political ways until the revolution. Which was long after the state was already full established. The revolution allowed a civic and territorial nation to emerge but they were mainly cultural from the start. The French really struggled with becoming civic nationalist. Throughout the nineteenth century France struggled with the political right trying to create a strongly cultural form of nationalism that was more based off of what France started with or what they call “pure” France. Which excluded immigrants. This made France make the switch to a citizenship based on blood rather than residence, a demand that reflects a primordial understanding of the nation itself.