L. Upton wrote:
> View 1
> The practice of something which *called itself _communism_ but wasn't and
> the selling of fascism create this illusion
Isn't the real illusion the idea that you can keep a pure unsullied *idea*
of socialism, and dismiss all the inconveniently nasty regimes as "something
which *called itself _communism_ but wasn't "? I'd say judge socialism by
socialist regimes, just as one might judge Christianity by Christian
regimes, Islam by Islamic regimes, capitalism by capitalist regimes.
>
> I was going to say that, in their undiluted form, the ideologies of
> communism and fascism exclude each other; but any attempt to purify
fascism
> and it evaporates
I don't understand this.
>
> Someone flipping from communism to fascism demonstrates their idiocy and
> nothing more
Idiocy? Too easy an interpretation. I think of George Bernard Shaw, long a
figurehead of Socialism in Britain, who was fascinated by Fascism in the
30s (without subscribing to the racial views). In his case it was maybe
because his socialism had been partly power-fantasy - if he ruled the world
he'd set it to rights - and fascism fed the same instinct even more
directly.
But this is a poetry list, so think of Auden. *THE* Left poet of the 30s -
but when he re-read The Orators later in life he said it read like the work
of someone who could easily have become a Fascist.
Mussolini's fascism in particular used a dynamic modernising language (not
unlike Tony Blair's). Efficiency, getting rid of red tape (i.e
constitutional safeguards), getting rid of the enemies of progress, etc. It
had a big appeal to idealists, including many socialists.
George
______________________________________________
George Simmers
Snakeskin Poetry Webzine is at
http://www.snakeskin.org.uk
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