How To Compare Fascism And Communism

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Recommended: Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels chapter 1 essay

Fascism vs. Communism
Communism and fascism are two influential ideologies associated with European totalitarianism in the 20th century. Though communism contributed to the rise of fascism and Soviet Union’s expansion during Cold War, I believe that fascism had more influence at the time: its favor of authoritarianism gave rise to violent dictatorship in fascist nations, its hatred for other races led to the notorious Holocaust, and its ultranationalism stimulated German expansionism which catalyzed the outbreak of WWII; those catastrophes controlled the way people lived, caused great damage to the involved nations and races, and ultimately led to new world order with United States and Soviet Union as sole superpowers. The defining characteristics of the two ideologies were crucial to the nature of the regimes and their influence on the world. Fascism is an authoritarian single-party state based on “mystical nationalism, often with racist elements and especially a charismatic leader who presents himself as a national savior .” Its far-right view turned the fascist regime into a strong but notorious power. For communism, the central idea that Marx and Engels theorized in “The Communist Manifesto” is …show more content…

In fear of the growing influence of the Soviet Union and its communism in the 1920s, fascism grew to emulate the Russian Communists . Also, communism’s sphere of influence expanded into Eastern Europe, East Asia and parts of Africa after WWII. Nonetheless, I think this view overestimates communism’s influence, since communism did not lead to the outbreak of world-changing WWII as fascism did. Even worse, the “communism” Stalin practiced with his regime was actually not the original ideology Marx pursued, but a “perversion,” as Khrushchev denounced in his speech , a brutal totalitarianism which caused millions of political

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