>>2528377>Well sure, there was fear of Bolshevism, but there were other things going on too. I think fascists were afraid of a lot of things. They were also afraid of liberalism. They viewed it as weak and decadent.Yknow there was an old Radio War Nerd episode I remember listening to. They were talking about Ukraine and specifically the dichotomy between the liberal Ukrainian politicians/oligarchs and the Nationalists. Something they mentioned is that now, at least, it seems like the nationalists may be the more “cautious” figures in Ukrainian politics, while the liberals have no problems sociopathically sending thousands of people to die in doomed counteroffensives as long as it maintains western support. Like the nationalists are genuinely concerned they’ll run out of people.
And I think this might help illuminate the true mindset of fascism more than just trying to come up with a list of traits—or maybe “fascist anti-liberalism”. I think that the psychology of it can be defined contra liberalism.
So liberalism, in its purest form, doesn’t truly care for the distinction of “nations”. All those Ukrainians that die in meaningless counteroffensives? They’re nothing more than a row on a spreadsheet containing a tabulation of all their assets and debts. A “Ukrainian” is just whoever has a Ukrainian passport, whoever can be taxed by the Ukrainian state, whoever has assets beneath the umbrella of the Ukrainian bourgeoisie. Meanwhile to the nationalists: it’s their countrymen.
How do you solve the emptying out of the Ukrainian populace? Just import more. Theres always some poor bastard out there you can start taxing. Of course to someone with deep national feeling, a nationalist, this seems
insane. It’d be like learning your family just got brutally murdered then having the detective on the case say: “well looks like you should get a new wife.”
Fascism can be seen as perhaps an irrationalist revolt against liberalism. Perhaps not even socialism in particular, its enmity towards socialism perhaps spring boarding off its hatred of liberalism, and in many ways socialism evolved out of those liberal ideals. The socialist similarly says these “irrational” elements that the nationalist is deeply committed to are just that, irrational. The Saint that dies on the c
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