On 2010-02-18, at 9:59 PM, Dennis Claxton wrote:
> At 06:55 PM 2/18/2010, Matthias Wasser wrote:
>
>
>> On general principle I stop taking a writer seriously whenever she claims a
>> movement not from the 1930s or claiming direct descendance from such is
>> "fascist."
>
>
> But Marv is saying no one did that here. And I think he's right.
=======================
Neither Matthias nor Chris appreciate that the left has historically been divided in it's understanding and usage of the term.
CP'ers and Maoists have loosely described many right-wing movements such as the teabaggers of being "fascist". So do today's anarchist protesters. I've quarreled with CB, with whom I otherwise often agree, about casting the net too widely. Carrol Cox and others have joined with me in criticizing sloppy usage of the term, in which fascism is employed as an epithet rather than viewed as an historically specific social movement with clearly defined characteristics which sets it off from other right-wing movements.
A lot of my early political education was in the Trotskyist movement, which views Fascism in the latter sense, as do most social democrats. Though I'm no longer a Trotskyist, I'm still much impressed by the more rigourous analysis of fascism developed by Trotsky in the 30's. I'd recommend his writings on the subject without reservation ahead of those of Mussolini, some of which are collected in the pamphlet "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it" available here:
http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm