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Many people can misunderstand the differences between Fascism vs Communism because of their similarities.
In fact, there are some major things to be considered when it comes to differentiating between ideologies.
Contents
What is Fascism?
Fascism is a form of an ideology about ultranationalism, which has the characteristics of the dictatorial political, economic, and social system, which has its glory during the early 20th-century in Europe.
Initially, the first movement was popularized in Italy during the first World War before traveling to other countries.
What is Communism?
Communism is an ideology of social, political, and economics where the goal is to redistribute an equal amount of wealth for all people by controlling and owning all properties and business activities.
Usually, Communism rejects any social distinctions and classes, so all people have to be treated equally.
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Differences Between Fascism vs Communism?
Most people will find it’s hard to differentiate between fascism vs communism. Both ideologies are similar in some aspects, but actually, they have some major differences from their political and economic systems to their ideas about religion.
1. Communism is an ideology about controlling all property in a state, meanwhile, fascism is an extremely nationalistic ideology
You might haven’t really noticed one of the big differences between fascism vs communism, which is derived from their real definitions.
From their definitions, communism itself is an ideology in a social organization, including a country, which believes that a country is the only one that has the authority to hold all properties in that state.
On the other hand, that ideology becomes different if it’s compared with fascism.
Fascism is an ideology that believes in the concept of extreme nationalism. The countries with this ideology usually have one person as the head of a party and they have big control over all the media press.
2. The key element of both ideologies is centralized government, but communism has more equality in gender roles
Communism has its key elements, such as centralized government, big authority for state properties, a dictatorship, a planned economy, and an idea about gender equality.
Communism is usually also formed as an anti-democratic state with the political system of one political party.
On the other hand, fascism is all about extreme nationalism, social Darwinism, centralized government, actual idealism, exaggerated gender roles, militarism, and racism or Nazism.
Similar to Communism, Fascism upholds a one-party system for its political system.
3. Both ideologies have anti-democracy principles, but fascism tends to eliminate political parties while communism centralizes the power to one political party
This aspect is commonly misunderstood by many people because of the similarity of both ideologies.
Even though both Fascism and Communism hate democracy, there is a big difference between them in terms of their political systems.
In Fascism, parliamentary democracy is a big mistake, even though some Fascist leaders had participated in some electoral politics before gaining their solo power. After that, they usually would eliminate political parties and become rulers for life.
On the other hand, Communism more focuses on centralizing its power to one political party.
3. Communism comes from the idea of treating all people with the same treatment, meanwhile, fascism has the idea of private ownership between the businesses and the State
If you are confused with the original idea between the two ideologies, then this section hopefully would be clear for you.
Communism has no classes in its social system, so all people would be treated equally. The government should be the one who owns and controls the properties of the State and the output will be equally redistributed to all people.
On the other hand, communism has an agreement when it comes to businesses within that country. The State will tell the details of the things that the businesses should do.
4. Communism proponents can vary from Karl Max to Ho Chi Minh while Fascism proponents are Hitler to Mussolini
During the glory of Communism ideology, the main proponents of Communism were varied, such as Karl Max, Josip Broz Tito, Vladimir Lenin, Che Guevara, Leon Trotsky, Ho Chi Minh, and many more.
And for Fascism, of course, it’s not just Hitler who became the icon.
The other icons of Fascism were Mussolini, Wang Jingwei, Ikki Kita, Fransisco Franco, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, Oswald Mosley, and many more.
5. Communism eliminates all classes discriminations, meanwhile, Fascism was inspired by extreme specific roles for specific classes
For the State which holds Communism ideology, there are no class distinctions. In the State, everyone is the owner and also the employee.
This ideology was inspired by The Communist Manifesto in terms of eliminating class hierarchies and the capitalist class controlling private properties.
On the other hand, Fascism has a strict class structure because it believes that class structure can prevent any catastrophe.
They also believe that every society member has their own specific role, such as distinguishment between women’s roles and men’s roles.
6. Communism is all about wealth distribution while fascism focuses on glorifying the country
As already said before, communism upholds wealth equality for all of its citizens. The government controls the production and properties in the country.
Thus, all people can receive equal distributions of wealth from any source, such as food, money, labor opportunities, and many more.
Fascism is a bit different from Communism in terms of its economic system.
Even though this ideology allows any business owners to run their enterprise, the output entirely focuses on growing the wealth of the country, so the country does not need to rely on international trading.
7. Fascism upholds a civic religion, but Communism rejects all religious practices
Unfortunately, Communism eliminates all religious practices, including any other metaphysic beliefs.
There is also a belief that religion has to be combated because it can influence people like a drug, so they prefer atheism.
Meanwhile, Fascism is an extreme nationalistic ideology, where citizens have to worship nationalism at all costs.
Nevertheless, Fascism still supports some religious organizations, such as Romanian Orthodox, which was supported by Romania’s Iron Guard.
8. Communism uses force and propaganda to control the public’s voice while Fascism rejects individuals voice
There are some political movements that are used in a State with Communism ideology, such as Marxist Communism, Dengism, Left-Communism, Marxism-Leninism, and many more.
When it comes to free choice, the individuals usually were controlled by the rulers to speak up.
On the other hand, Fascism which has political movements such as Nazism, Falangism, and neo-Fascism, doesn’t think that the individual has to have their own voice in the nation.
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Conclusion
Even though Fascism vs Communism is a bit hard to differentiate, both ideologies have their own ideas and perspectives. They can differ in their social structure, political movements, and even economic systems.