No he was far left and he utilized policies based on right wing thinkers if your claim is accurate.
There’s no such thing as left wing fascism. Fascism is capitalistic in theory and authoritarian there’s nothing about it that would make it a left wing ideology.
Tbh, I came into this discussion to show how right wing and left wing do not have a useful definition to discuss real world policies. I don’t think that classifying ideologies as left or right wing matters to the people suffering under them.
You might think differently if you spend more time studying political philosophy but I believe most understand the limitations of binaries. Both states are authoritarian but at no point will the USSR have pursued fascism as fascism is inherently anti-Marxist.
The problem with political philosophy is that actual politicians are often very ignorant of it. They just do whatever keeps them in power or increases the amount of power they wield.
USSR gave up on proper Marxism relatively early. They could have made a fascist turn with someone like Beria in charge.
USSR already had a personality cult in Lenin, militarism, control of media, suppression of dissent, economic control and collectivism.
The only thing that USSR lacked to be considered a fascist regime was nationalism (although I would argue that their attempts to create a homo sovieticus should count) and private industry (maybe if a fascist regime lasted for long enough they would nationalise industry too).
Fascism is by definition a far right ideology.
So, Stalin was both far left and far right at the same time?
No he was far left and he utilized policies based on right wing thinkers if your claim is accurate.
There’s no such thing as left wing fascism. Fascism is capitalistic in theory and authoritarian there’s nothing about it that would make it a left wing ideology.
Tbh, I came into this discussion to show how right wing and left wing do not have a useful definition to discuss real world policies. I don’t think that classifying ideologies as left or right wing matters to the people suffering under them.
You might think differently if you spend more time studying political philosophy but I believe most understand the limitations of binaries. Both states are authoritarian but at no point will the USSR have pursued fascism as fascism is inherently anti-Marxist.
The problem with political philosophy is that actual politicians are often very ignorant of it. They just do whatever keeps them in power or increases the amount of power they wield.
USSR gave up on proper Marxism relatively early. They could have made a fascist turn with someone like Beria in charge.
USSR already had a personality cult in Lenin, militarism, control of media, suppression of dissent, economic control and collectivism.
The only thing that USSR lacked to be considered a fascist regime was nationalism (although I would argue that their attempts to create a homo sovieticus should count) and private industry (maybe if a fascist regime lasted for long enough they would nationalise industry too).
Beria’s politics weren’t fascist though and turning fascist would be very hard for a state built in bolshevism as fascism is anti-bolshevik.
We have reached the point of the discussion where it becomes a discussion in semantics: What is fascism?
An ultranationalistic authoritarian conservative government built around a failing capitalist economy.
If you know anything about the history of fascism you should know it arises as a response to Marxism.