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Authoritarian Parallels: A Literary Analysis of the Double Standard Between Fascism and Communism
Polish West SlaviaPolish West SlaviaGOVT 210: Political Ideologies and Historical Movements
4 May 2025
Authoritarian Parallels: A Literary Analysis of the Double Standard Between Fascism and Communism Throughout the modern era, fascism and communism have been treated as diametrically opposed ideologies, each vilified or glorified based on the speaker's political sympathies. However, when these systems are critically analyzed as governing doctrines in real-world applications, their theoretical distinctions collapse under the weight of shared authoritarian outcomes. The selective condemnation of either ideology while excusing the other reveals a philosophical inconsistency that undermines efforts to build truly free and humane societies. By examining their real-world consequences, it becomes clear that a morally and intellectually sound political philosophy must reject both fascism and communism on the same grounds: their shared reliance on repression, state supremacy, and the destruction of individual liberty. Fascism, often associated with the regimes of Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini, is built on the glorification of state power, national unity, and militarized identity. In Hitler’s Germany, fascism reached its apex in policies of racial purity, censorship, mass surveillance, and genocide, resulting in the deaths of over 17 million civilians, including six million Jews in the Holocaust (United States Holocaust Memorial Museum). Mussolini’s Italy mirrored these features with corporatist economics, suppression of political opposition, and imperial aggression in Africa. These regimes are rightfully condemned for their brutality, but modern analysis tends to isolate fascism as a unique evil, disconnected from comparable atrocities committed under communist regimes. Communist ideologies, despite their egalitarian rhetoric, have similarly relied on totalitarian mechanisms to enforce compliance. Stalin’s Soviet Union was responsible for mass famine, forced collectivization, and political purges that killed millions, including the Holodomor in Ukraine and the Great Terror (Applebaum 83; Conquest 306). Mao Zedong’s China followed suit with the Great Leap Forward and the Cultural Revolution, leading to the deaths of tens of millions (Dikötter 4). In Cambodia, the Khmer Rouge under Pol Pot orchestrated one of the most genocidal experiments of the 20th century, seeking to "purify" society through mass executions, forced labor, and the abolition of personal property and family structures (Kiernan 11). Despite the ideological claim of representing the proletariat, these regimes became indistinguishable from fascist states in their disregard for human rights. Defenders of communism often attempt to separate theory from practice, suggesting that the atrocities committed under Marxist regimes do not reflect "true communism." However, this rhetorical strategy is rarely granted to fascism—no one seriously argues that Nazism simply "wasn't real fascism." In fact, many pro-communists will freely cite the shortcomings of capitalism—such as inequality, corporate greed, or poverty—as definitive proof of capitalism’s failure, while refusing to apply the same logic to the failures of communist regimes. This selective standard, judging fascism and capitalism by their results but communism by its intent, represents a clear inconsistency in the application of historical analysis. As philosopher Hannah Arendt observed, totalitarianism is not tied to a particular ideology but to a mode of governance that annihilates the distinction between law and will (Arendt 244). In this framework, both fascist and communist regimes qualify equally, and any fair critique must be willing to evaluate all ideologies by both their theories and their consequences. The similarity in their outcomes is not coincidental. Both ideologies prioritize collective abstraction, the nation or the class, over the autonomy of the individual. Both call for revolutionary transformation and the concentration of power to achieve it. Both suppress dissent as treason or counter-revolution. In essence, they are different roads to the same destination: the domination of society by an all-powerful state. In moral terms, to excuse one while condemning the other is to accept tyranny so long as it wears the right uniform. A consistent political ethic must reject authoritarianism wholesale, regardless of whether it marches under a swastika or a red star. The political center of gravity must be realigned toward civil liberty, limited government, and the sanctity of the human person. Opposing both fascism and communism is not a form of moderation in the pejorative sense, it is a principled refusal to sacrifice freedom for the illusions of order or equality. The historical evidence is clear: whether driven by ultranationalism or class struggle, authoritarian ideologies inevitably bring suffering. The refusal to acknowledge this parity enables cycles of violence and ideological extremism to persist. If history is to be a teacher rather than a tool of manipulation, then consistency is imperative. The only defensible position is one that opposes both fascism and communism on equal and non-negotiable grounds. |
Works Cited
Applebaum, Anne. Red Famine: Stalin's War on Ukraine. Doubleday, 2017.
Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism. Harcourt, 1951.
Conquest, Robert. The Great Terror: A Reassessment. Oxford University Press, 2007.
Dikötter, Frank. Mao's Great Famine: The History of China's Most Devastating Catastrophe, 1958–1962. Walker & Company, 2010.
Kiernan, Ben. The Pol Pot Regime: Race, Power, and Genocide in Cambodia under the Khmer Rouge, 1975–79. Yale University Press, 2002.
United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. "Documenting Numbers of Victims of the Holocaust and Nazi Persecution." Holocaust Encyclopedia, https://encyclopedia.ushmm.org.
