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Temperamentally I am opposed to purism and pedantry. So it is not surprise that way back in the 70s I was the subject of some polemics from the then Socialist Workers Party because I insisted on describing the then Premier of Queensland Bjelke-Petersen as a "fascist". I was dismissed as an "ultra-left lunatic" in one internal document, I am proud to say. However I still shudder with horror at the memory of how the Sparts cricled around me when I called Ian Paisely a fascist at a meeting in Sydney. Still Lou has a point and so do Artesian and Mark and Carroll; we should be careful how we use the term 'fascist' and not just for historical reasons either. Fascists and repressive authoritarian ass holes are always with us. And it can seem like knit-picking to try and distinguish between them. But mass fascist movements and even worse fascist governments are something very different and if they existed then the contributors to this list would be very very dead -long ago. The German and Italian fascist movements were thrown up by the great crises of world wars, inter imperialist blood letting and the Great Depression. They came to government because the ruling class decided to gamble on them as a last resort to keep down the threat of Red Revolution. Will we see fascist governments again. Possible, but only if the ruling class fear imminent appropriation. Mandel pointed out somewhere that for their troubles in putting Hitler and Mussolini in power, the ruling class very nearly got destroyed and in his opinion they were unlikely to pull that trigger very quickly again. But who's to tell? No doubt if I were living in Hungary and could the uniformed and armed filth marching around, I would have a very different opinion about the possibilities of a fascist government. comradely Gary ________________________________________________ Send list submissions to: Marxism@lists.econ.utah.edu Set your options at: http://lists.econ.utah.edu/mailman/options/marxism/archive%40mail-archive.com
