Some authority Hill. Your father, a communist as you here admit, would've considered anything which didn't fit the tenets of Marx and Lenin to the political right. He was hardly in the position to make a judgment on the matter.
Dr. Robert Pearce, at the University College of St Martin, Lancaster, makes the following observation regards the problem of defining Fascism:
There is no generally accepted definition of fascism, partly because the term has been employed more often by its enemies than supporters. It became a term of abuse used to lump together groups of right-wingers who often felt that they had little in common.Note, he doesn't make the claim that Fascism is right-wing, on the contrary he points out that Fascism can't be adequately defined because it has been used as a pejorative blanketly applied to right-wingers without regard to reality. He also makes the following observation regarding Mussolini's Fascism:
Some believe that the word fascism derives from the Italian Fasces, which were bundles of rods, often attached to an axe, carried in front of the magistrates in Ancient Rome as a symbol of authority. Others insist that it comes from Fascio, a group or club. Fasci of workers in the Sicilian sulphur mines had organised strikes in the 1890s; in 1915 Fasci were formed to campaign for Italy's entry into the war; and after the war Fasci, including Mussolini's Fasci di Combattimento or Combat Group, were set up to oppose the communists. But whatever the derivation of the term, Mussolini's Fascism had no clear-cut meaning. It was not an ideology, he said, but an anti-ideology, a (Zen-like) synthesis of every idea and its opposite: it was aristocratic and democratic, conservative and progressive, reactionary and revolutionary. 'Our doctrine is action,' said Mussolini. On another occasion, he insisted that the essence of Fascism was a 'trenchocracy' - rule not by discredited democrats but by those, like himself, who in the trenches had shed blood for their homeland.
Did you notice that he pointed out that Mussolini himself made the distinction between Fascism and the right-wing Italian politicians of the day, the Democrats? I did notice that you did not make any effort to rebut the fact that the Italian Democrats were the right-wing party of Italy at the time. Instead you simply persist in that academic error of viewing what is right or left wing from the communist perspective, the same error Mussolini, himself raised to believe in the Anarchist version of communist thought, fell for.
Please look at Mussolini's own observations as to the founding principles of Fascism:
The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State, its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a directing force, guiding the play and development, both material and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....
At the time, the right wing in Italy was made up of those who viewed the state in the same light as the American founding fathers, as the servant of the people, whose purpose was to guard individual freedoms. To the far right were the Monarchists those who looked to the rule of kings. Musselini, though, viewed the state as the supreme force and individual freedom, the supreme rights valued by the moderate right, as anachronistic. That is a distinctly extreme left-wing view. That Mussolini was once a communist is confirmed by no less a figure than Leon Trotsky. Please keep in mind as you read the following quote from a letter of his that communists at the time referred to themselves and their fellows as "socialists."
The fascist movement in Italy was a spontaneous movement of large masses, with new leaders from the rank and file. It is a plebian movement in origin, directed and financed by big capitalist powers. It issued forth from the petty bourgeoisie, the slum proletariat, and even to a certain extent from the proletarian masses; Mussolini, a former socialist, is a 'self-made: man arising from this movement.
Thus any analysis of what Musselini wrote on the matter has to keep in mind his own background and beliefs.
Sheldon Richman, of enconlib.org observes the following:
The best example of a fascist economy is the regime of Italian dictator Benito Mussolini. Holding that liberalism (by which he meant freedom and free markets) had "reached the end of its historical function," Mussolini wrote: "To Fascism the world is not this material world, as it appears on the surface, where Man is an individual separated from all others and left to himself.... Fascism affirms the State as the true reality of the individual." This collectivism is captured in the word fascism, which comes from the Latin fasces, meaning a bundle of rods with an axe in it. In economics, fascism was seen as a third way between laissez-faire capitalism and communism. Fascist thought acknowledged the roles of private property and the profit motive as legitimate incentives for productivity—provided that they did not conflict with the interests of the state.
Since Mussolini himself considered Fascism the third rail between communism and Capitalism (the real right-wing in his view), Fascism is clearly a left-wing movement any way you cut it, except from the perspective of the communist.
Well, if you note the ";)" you will see that it was a tongue in cheek remark, and actually it is not an ad hominem, it is a judgement that I make having read your many posts on this Board, and having spent a couple of days with Zappa at his home a few years ago. From what I can tell, he was brighter than you seem to be.
Your fallacies are showing Hill ;)
Forscher
