Despite Kremlin’s Insistence, Fascism and Nazism Not One and the Same Thing, Inozemtsev Says

Paul Goble

            Staunton, June 22 – The Putin regime has conflated two related but different concepts – Hitler’s Nazism and Mussolini’s fascism – by suggesting that the Soviet Union fought fascism when it defeated Hitler and that it is doing the same thing now by invading Ukraine which Moscow claims is fascist as well, Vladislav Inozemtsev says.

            But insisting that Nazism is fascism, the Russian economist and commentator says, Moscow is not only ignoring the historical record and the international community’s judgment but also deflecting charges it is fascist given how different the Putin regime is from Hitler’s (kasparov.ru/material.php?id=6857E0580780F).

            In fact, as Inozemtsev has long argued, the Putin regime has increasingly come to resemble the basic features of Mussolini’s ideology and practice and thus deserves to be identified as fascist and opposed as such. (For an example of his argument on this point, see rbc.ru/opinions/politics/22/06/2015/5582da729a794713ec1a6b91.)