In recent years, more and more often one has to hear the statements of politicians and public figures who compare the regime of Stalin's rule with fascism. There is something in common between these phenomena, but there are also significant differences. In assessing the events taking place in the world today, it is necessary to take into account the most essential features of these two ideological and political currents.
Stalin's regime: total control
When people talk about Stalinism, they usually mean the system of power based on totalitarian rule that was established in the Soviet Union in the late 1920s and existed until the death of Joseph Stalin in 1953. Sometimes the term "Stalinism" also means the state ideology that prevailed in the USSR at that time.
The main feature of Stalinism is the domination of authoritarian and bureaucratic methods of managing society, which later became known as the administrative-command system. Power under Stalin was actually concentrated in the hands of one person. The country's leader enjoyed unconditional authority and supported his regime, relying on the party apparatus and an extensive system of punitive organs.
The Stalinist regime is total control over society, penetrating into all spheres of life.
The establishment of the regime of Joseph Stalin became possible with a deviation from the Leninist principles of building the Bolshevik party and the Soviet state. Stalin managed not only to seize power, effectively pushing back the party and Soviet bodies from it, but also to crack down on representatives of the opposition, who sought to restore the principles of governing the country that were laid down during the formation of the power of the Soviets.
At the same time, the Soviet Union continued to be a socialist state, and the communist ideology dominated the country. However, the dictatorship of the proletariat, which is the cornerstone of Marxist theory, actually resulted in the dictatorship of one person, who was a kind of personification of the interests of the working class that won the revolution.
Fascism as an instrument of the reactionary bourgeoisie
As an ideological and political trend, fascism arose in Western Europe under the influence of the crisis of bourgeois society in the first decades of the last century. The emergence of fascist ideology became possible only after capitalism entered the last - imperialist - stage of its development.
Fascism completely denies the liberal and democratic values of which the bourgeoisie is so proud.
The classic definition of fascism was given by one of the leaders of the Communist International, Georgy Dimitrov. He called fascism an open and terror-based dictatorship of the most reactionary circles of finance capital. It is not power over classes. It does not represent the interests of the entire bourgeoisie, but only that part of it that is closely connected with the financial oligarchy.
Unlike Stalinism, which to some extent stood guard over the interests of the proletariat, fascism set itself the goal of dealing with the working class and the most progressive representatives of other strata of society. What both regimes have in common is that both fascism and Stalinism are based on total terror and the merciless suppression of dissent.
If during the Stalinist rule there were partial deviations from the classical Marxist ideology, then fascism in all its forms is an ardent and open enemy of communist ideas. Therefore, it is impossible to equate these phenomena.
