Global Fascism: Imperialism’s Genocidal Response to Liberation

Abstract

This article challenges the analytical confusion surrounding fascism in contemporary academic discourse by returning to historical materialism. Against mainstream scholarship that either indiscriminately labels progressive governments as “fascist” or refuses to recognize actual fascist formations serving imperialist interests, the article defines fascism as the systematic use of genocidal and terrorist methods to maintain capital accumulation under crisis conditions. Building on Dimitrov’s foundational analysis while updating it for the contemporary historical conjuncture, the article traces three movements. First, colonial genocide provided the methods and frameworks later deployed in the metropole, thus establishing fascism as intrinsic to imperialism rather than a 20th century aberration. Second, the post-1945 “Fascist International” — that is, a coordinated network of counter-revolutionary forces—consolidated the liberal order, demonstrating that liberalism and fascism function as complementary modalities of bourgeois rule, with liberal governance producing the very crisis from which fascism periodically resurges. Third, as the crisis of imperialism intensifies, Palestine crystallizes the contemporary conjuncture: Zionism incarnates the most advanced fascist formation operating globally. Hence, the attitude of every political force toward the genocide in Gaza constitutes what Dimitrov termed the watershed, revealing whether it stands with liberation or with imperialism’s reproduction.