Fascism was neither right-wing nor left-wing. It was simply extreme. He rejected traditional categorization.
All democrats are anti-fascists, but not all anti-fascists are democrats. In fact! We democrats reject Italian fascism, whose center was the self-serving state; German National Socialism, which was based on superiority and race theory; we also reject Hungarianism, for which it is difficult to show what its spiritual ammunition would have been besides the acquisition of power. Fascism was neither right-wing nor left-wing. It was simply extreme. He rejected traditional categorization. The Spanish Primo de Rivera put it this way:
"Basically, the right wants to preserve the existing structures, even though they are unjust, and the left wants to overturn this system, even if it causes a lot of damage."
At the same time, we also reject the other extremely anti-human ideology, Marxist-Leninist communism, which has caused at least as much damage to humanity as the extremism called - incorrectly, but very deliberately - fascism. The problem is that the communist movement tried to appropriate the anti-fascist position after the fall of fascism. At one time, we did not assess the danger of this, but today we also know this. We are at an equal distance from all extremes: communists and fascists.
This is apparently not the case in the West, where they do not know what a communist dictatorship is like. There is still some nostalgia. I wonder if it was really just Stalin who messed it up. Bullshit!
However, the sensible Western citizen stays away from both extremes. The roots of this go back to the fact that in the first half of the twentieth century, mainly in Germany, fascists and communists fought each other in street fights and then in Spain in an armed civil war. There have been "no go zones" in Berlin for a hundred years. A National Socialist and a Communist could not set foot in one without seriously endangering their physical integrity. A sane consolidated citizen does not fit into either. That was also the goal. Gaining power through hybrid methods. With constant street violence and threats, but also during parliamentary elections. By inciting fear. Familiar? The stronger ones then were the National Socialists, and they came to power. After all, the communist Soviet Union already existed. We know the rest.
The war broke out. It is also true that all democrats are anti-fascists, but not all anti-fascists are democrats. Anti-fascism united the democratic Great Britain, the United States of America and the most inhuman dictatorship, the Soviet Union, into one camp. They won the war, but an entire era of irreconcilable antagonisms resulted from the unprincipled alliance. The democratic thinkers were finally justified by the fact that after National Socialism, the powerful communist empire was forced to its knees. True, only forty-six years after the victory (1991).
Forty of these forty-six years, Hungary and Central Europe - including East Germany - languished in the barracks of the communist dictatorship.
The Soviet Empire has fallen, but paradoxically, the idea rears its head again in the very place where it never won. It appears in several guises, such as stigmatization, breach of contract, mockery of the law, and ideological overwriting of scientific foundations. Fascists and communists also used these: blackmail, threats, violence. The closest connection with the past is the violent promotion of the anti-fascist position. Antifa. We know this from after 1945.
The anti-fascists of that time could only be Moscow communists, since anyone who had previously lived here in Hungary, and although he hated the National Socialists, but at the same time was happy for the return of Hungarian-inhabited areas, or simply did not actively oppose the Arrow system, could no longer be a regular anti-fascist. The anti-fascist-communists also labeled the historical era marked by the name of Miklós Horthy as "fascist", so anyone who was, say, a member of parliament or a bank official in the 1930s, or who simply had national sentiments, could be a fascist.
The label "fascist" has expanded nicely over time. "Fascist" is also revisionist, nationalist, chauvinist, repressive, clerical, anti-Semitic, later racist, even later sexist, homophobic. Some are already white, heterosexual.
Soon, however, these details didn't matter either: the stamp could be placed on anyone's forehead, even those who actively participated in the anti-fascist resistance but were not communists. This is how Zoltán Pfeiffer, who participated in the resistance marked by the name of Endre Bajcsy-Zsilinszky, or Dezső Sulyok, against whom the Arrowmen issued an extermination order in 1944, became the "fascist chief shaman" in the increasingly populous camp of anti-fascists and communists.
All this did not mean any internal conflict for the anti-fascists, since previously, on Stalin's instructions, for example, the social democrats were classified as more harmful than the Nazis, and they were mentally called "social fascists". Attila József, a communist poet at the time, was branded a "fascist" from Moscow. Then came the message: an anti-fascist popular front, social democrats, even Christian democrats, liberals and legitimists can be anti-fascists. For a while. As long as it takes. For a while, they progressed together with the Social Democrats, until parliamentarism was abolished (1947), and then they were liquidated (1948). They became social fascists and class traitors again. But anti-fascism is a great force.
Some of the former social democrats who were released from prison and even from the gallows forgot everything and after 1956 sided with the communists again. For a little power and position. György Marosán, Jenő Fock, or Rezső Nyers were like that. Because we had to fight against the fascists! Against the revolutionaries, in a Russian cover, a puffa jacket, a judge's robe, with a pen and a gun.
What a fight it was. Come on! Abcúg Mansfeld, even Abcúg Imre Nagy! Anti-fascists forward! Into the Labor Guard! For training!
We all know that. We also understand if they are afraid of fascism in Western Europe. After all, he was born there. Fascism as well, and its much more dangerous relative National Socialism and Falangism. Tisoism in Slovakia drew inspiration from them (Fascist Party operated in the Czech Republic until 1939); legionaryism in Romania or the Ustasa movement in Croatia. And of course Hungarianism in Hungary. However, it would be a terrible tragedy if society were to respond to perceived or real signs with extreme anti-fascist clichés again. With stigmatization, violence, communist - or even anarchist - actions.
It is in the primary interest of all democrats to prevent this. It cannot be tolerated in any way that illegal groups in the guise of Antifa rioting on the streets of Europe under the whirlwind of anti-fascism. Violence can never, anywhere, bring freedom to anyone.
It is quite primitive, but there is something frightening in its primitiveness, the way such a partisan commando ran amok on the streets of Budapest last February. It is the basic duty of the state and the judiciary to protect its citizens from such attacks. This should have been done after 1945 after the mass murder in Gymrő, when similar brigands murdered more than twenty innocent people in the village in the most bestial way.
This should have been done after 1956, after János Brenner was beaten to death. What was the end? A rescue, if not exactly a disguise of the assignment. A distraction. Institutionalized terror, Hungarian GULAG, internment, gallows, prison, tears and rage.
Anti-fascists should of course gather and remember their victims. Warn if they see danger. But stay away from groups that want to take advantage of their selfish political goals, and especially from the aggressive, sneaky terrorists who beat up people selected based on their clothing or facial expression in Budapest in 2023, and apparently show no signs of remorse. In fact! They smile and accuse, lie and gather camp. Sin requires penance, people of good intentions should be careful not to become false witnesses in the name of anti-fascism, in front of their own righteous people.
Featured image: MTI/Márton Mónus
