Red fascism is a term equating Stalinism and other variants of Marxism–Leninism with fascism.[1][2] Accusations that the leaders of the Soviet Union during the Stalin era acted as "red fascists" have come from left-wing figures who identified as anarchists, left communists, social democrats and other democratic socialists, as well as liberals, and among right-wing circles both closer to and further from the centre. The comparison of Nazism and Stalinism is controversial in academia.
In the early 20th century, the original Italian Fascists initially claimed to be neither left-wing nor right-wing, but in 1921 they began to identify themselves as the "extreme right", and their founder Benito Mussolini explicitly affirmed that fascism is opposed to socialism and other left-wing ideologies.
"Fascism" or "fascist" is widely used as an insult directed towards political opponents, especially those perceived as "extreme".
- ^ Maddux, Tomas R. (1 November 1977). "Red Fascism, Brown Bolshevism: The American Image of Tolatitarianinsm in the 1930s". The Historian. 40 (1). Informa UK Limited: 85–103. doi:10.1111/j.1540-6563.1977.tb01210.x. ISSN 0018-2370. Retrieved 9 January 2020.
- ^ Adler & Paterson 1970, p. 1046.