1. A bourgeois democratic government is characterized by a number of institutions not directly controlled by the state - an independent press, independent trade unions, independent judiciary, independent political parties, etc. These institutions may be vigorous or docile, but they do not directly take their orders from officials of the ruling party.
2. A repressive regime lacks all of the above. There are no unions, no media, no judges, no political parties which are independent of the state. In this sense, the PRC is still a repressive regime, but one which is loosening its controls, or "liberalizing". It illustrates that there can be differences in the degree of control as between repressive states and over the life of each state, often depending on how beleaguered by internal or external forces the regime feels itself to be. Right-wing regimes often arise out of military coups backed by the bourgeoisie against an insurgent mass movement from below. Repressive left-wing regimes were the product of social revolutions which expropriated the bourgeoisie.
3. Fascism is a particular kind of right-wing repressive state. It's defining characteristics seem to me to be a very fervent race-based nationalism which makes it susceptible to genocidal impulses; an expansionist foreign policy; a readiness equal to the left to organize and mobilize the masses in support of its objectives; and a more tightly controlled bourgeoisie than in the case of (2) above..
Obviously, there are hybrid states which combine elements of the above. Israel has characteristics common to (3), but so long as it has institutions which operate independently of the state, it can't be called ""fascist", if the term is to mean anything more more than an epithet. Iran is another complex state, which defies easy characterization.
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----- Original Message ----- From: "Chris Doss" <lookoverhere1 at yahoo.com> To: <lbo-talk at lbo-talk.org> Sent: Saturday, February 18, 2006 7:44 AM Subject: Re: [lbo-talk] What is you know what ?
>
>
> --- Carrol Cox <cbcox at ilstu.edu> wrote:
>
> There
>> have been many
>> non-fascist states that were a lot worse live in
>> than Mussolini's Italy.
>
> Yep. On the Evil Dictatorships scale, Mussolini's
> Italy was actually on the low end. Maybe comparable to
> contemporary Egypt. Much less repressive than, say,
> modern China. (I am not anti-China, just to make that clear.)
>
> Nu, zayats, pogodi!
>
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