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this post was submitted on 05 Sep 2023
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MeanwhileOnGrad
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The Soviet Union was fascist--or authoritarian, if you prefer semantics.
Fascist is more than just authoritarian, there's a lot of other components (fetishization of the military, an obsession with returning to the "good old days", portraying scapegoats as simultaneously unbeatably strong and pathetically weak, etc)
The USSR was authoritarian, but not fascist.
EDIT: To clarify, I'm no fan of the USSR and their actions to put it mildly, but we shouldn't dilute the word fascist by making it a synonym for authoritarianism.
The Soviet Union's propaganda and culture tick all of those, though.
But fair, I typically use authoritarian anyway.
I do not think so. There was no “return to the good old days” in USSR at all. The ideology, while was stressing the importance to defend itself, did not fetishized the military. Nationalism was also missing. And instead there was class fight, common means of production, etc. It was quite different. The only common part was the authoritarian government and the principle that the state is greater than individual.
USSR didn't fetishize the military? Are you high? Can I have some?
I lived there. No, military was not fetishized. Most of the people would not want to go and serve. The draft was something to avoid if you can.
You lived there? How old are you?
50+. Do not want to give personal information on internet more than needed.
So you didn't actually experience life under the soviet gulags.
I did not claimed I am. But Soviet ideology and fascist ideology are quite different. It is not like there must be just single ideology that can do bad things.
Authoritarianism?
Yes. There are common elements too. Yet there were quite different. There are common elements between fascism and democracy (both allow private property, for example, both have idea of state), so what? The world is not binary.
There was the idea of bringing the revolution to others. While mostly after Stalin, the USSR heavily engaged in combat to exert its influence. The Korean and Vietnamese Civil Wars were proxy wars in which both the US and the USSR were engaged in. Then there was the soviet invasion of Afghanistan, too.
Their propaganda has a lot of hints of glorifying the military, sacrifice and fanaticism.
Isn't doing things for the sake of the state nationalism?
You do not do that for the sake of state. You do that for the collective. State is just bureaucratic representation of that. In fascist Germany you would do that for the Germany and German nation specifically. In USSR you do not do that for USSR or USSR nation (there was no such thing).
Generally that's regarded as civic nationalism ("People are bound together by a common government"), whereas most people think of ethnic nationalism ("People are bound together by common descent or culture") when they speak of nationalism. Though there is a strong argument to be made for the SovUnion being an extension of Russian domination over other ethnicities, just like the Russian Empire which preceded it.
China, with it s having a system of private capital solidly co-opted and kept under the thumb of the government, far more aligns with the definition of fascism than the Soviet Union did
I think the only thing the USSR didn't do when it comes to that fascism checklist is "returning to the good old days". Other than that, Soviets fetishized the military and used scapegoats, too.
For the scapegoats it was most often the capitalists. The propaganda they used is very similar to Nazi and Imperial Japanese propaganda.
The USSR's political structure was more fascist and totalitarian than authoritarian.
For when a distinction is needed, I've seen the term pseudo-fascist being used. It's quite fitting and works in modern contexts as well
You've perfectly described Russia since WW2.