Collins vs De Valera

Snickers Man wrote: »

I'm sorry. That's absolute bollocks!!

For a start, you're throwing the word "Fascist" around with gay abandon without being clear on what you mean by it.

The Blueshirts had nothing to do with German Nazism or Italian Fascism, both of which were radical, anticlerical, modernist movements, bitterly hostile to church intrusion in the affairs of the state, slavishly trusting of modern science and both with deep roots in Marxism and Socialism.

Mussolini in particular was an avowed leftist prior to the first World War, an editor of Avanti, the main Italian socialist newspaper for much of the 20th century. His manifesto called for nationalisation of important industries, heavy taxes on capital, a generous welfare state etc etc How left wing can you get?

Nazism too was a movement that grew out of anti-capitalist ideology and favoured the little guy over the hierarchical land owners and big business moguls. The clue's in the name National SOCIALIST German WORKERS' Party.

The Blueshirts were conservative, catholic, nationalist, land-owning patriarchs bitterly hostile to any sort of "Social interference" in family life by the state. They were much closer to Franco, for whom many of them went to fight, than Hitler or Mussolini. You can call Franco a Fascist if you like but it's a misnomer. He was a conservative, ultrareligious, nationalist, marxism-hating, authoritarian militarist thug but none of that, per se, qualifies somebody as a Fascist.

Franco could have made things very difficult for Britain in WWII had he been of similar mind to the two regimes that were indeed his military paymasters throughout the Spanish Civil War, but he chose not to. What would have happened in North Africa if he had taken Gibraltar in 1940, when Britain was on her knees and before the Soviets or Americans entered the war? How soon would the war in North Africa have been finished? How much earlier could Hitler's campaign against the Soviet Union have started if he didn't get bogged down bailing out his Italian allies in Greece and the Balkans? So why didn't he?

And how many Jews were handed over by Franco's Spain in WWII? Er, none. Ironic perhaps when you consider Spain's hysterical anti-Jewish persecutions of the late middle ages.

Bear in mind that the leader of the newly formed Fine Gael (which included the former Blueshirts) during the war actually wanted Ireland to join in on the side of THE ALLIES!! and your allegation that the Blueshirts were in cahoots with the Nazis crumble into dust.

There WERE people in Ireland who wanted to collaborate with the Nazis in WWII and some who did. Ironically, or perhaps not, these were people who had fought AGAINST Franco (Frank Ryan, Francis Stuart et al) and were still by and large supporters of the IRA. And that organisation was keen to solicit German co-operation for its goals.
Isn't history full of ironies?

History is full of ironies - but you should actually try reading a few history books rather than bullsh*t blogs that bear no relationship to the what actually happened. Your assessment of fascism really is cloud cuckoo-land stuff - all of it because it is refuted by historical FACTS.

Snickers Man wrote: »

My main point is that that the word "Fascist" is so loaded with innuendo that it can mean just about anything you like. Effectively, it's meaningless, if always derogatory.

The term 'fascism' is a catagorisation of the certain political ideology - and ideology with its roots in the late nineteenth century opposition to the growth of trade unions. It is not meaningless - it has its manifestations in global politics today. The fact that some people throw the word 'fascist' around as a term of insult does not mitigate the fact that fascist organisations exist and they root their ideology in the traditional class basis of fascism.

Snickers Man wrote: »

It is not a glorification or even an apologia for the Blueshirts to say that they were not Fascists in the same sense that Mussolini or Hitler were. That is a simple statement of truth that even a cursory knowledge of those various movements would support.

The Blueshirts were a fascist organisation - their objective was the destruction of the left and the establishment of a totalitarian regime based on the ideology of fascism. The roots of fascism in Ireland date back to 1920 when the quasi-fascist 'Farmers Freedom Force' was established to use violence to suppress strikes by farm-labourers during the War of Independence. In his role as head of the police following the foundation of the Free State O'Duffy organised and oversaw the use a fascist corps within the police used to brutally suppress strikes in the early years of the new state.

Snickers Man wrote: »

I am no fan of O'Duffy or the Blueshirts. They were narrow, bigoted, ultracatholic, grasping traditionalists but they were NOT murderous, genocidalists or even, in the scientific form espoused by the Nazis, racists.

The fact that the Blueshirts were not 'murderous' does not mean that they weren't fascists. Mussolini's Blackshirts and the Nazis weren't 'murderous' in the formative years either. To the best of my knowledge Moseley's Blackshirts never killed anyone.

It is correct to say that O'Duffy's Blueshirts were not a carbon copy of the Nazis (although they did model a lot of of their approach on Mussolini's Blackshirts) - they would be more of a representation of Franco's fascist regime or that of Salazar (both of which were most definitely 'murderous').

The Blueshirts engaged in widespread acts of violence against the left in Ireland. My uncle who was a member of the Blueshirts was still boasting in the 1980s about cracking the heads of communists in the 1930s. There are many examples of Blueshirts using widespread violence against striking workers - e.g. during a strike by ITGWU members in Kilrush in 1932 the Blueshirts petrolled bombed the homes of striking workers, iron bars and slash-hooks were used to attack picket lines, the Blueshirts attempted to bomb the union offices during the strike and Blueshirts opened fire on a mass meeting of workers wounding two people (including Frank Ryan who was addressing the meeting).

The reason why this never extended to the murder of workers and union activists was because the Blueshirts never built a mass base which would have allowed them to extend the scale of the violence (because DeV and FF stole the populist thunder) and because elements of the left were armed (having split from the IRA) and would have fought back.

Snickers Man wrote: »

They were of their time and place which was early 20th century Ireland. They were conditioned by the situation here which was a post revolutionary, post-independence society struggling to come to grips with its own legacy of internecine bitterness while trying to establish itself in a world which was even crazier, owing to the aftermath of the Great War and the subsequent financial meltdown at the end of the 1920s.

No - the Blueshirts emerged in the early 1930s in response to an upsurge of strikes by workers which began with the nationwide strike by bus workers in the Omnibus Company of Ireland - a violent strike which culminated in elements of the left within the IRA bombing a bus depot in Mayo and burning all the buses (in response to the use of scabs in an attempt to break the strike) - coupled with the emergence of a radical leftward movement which split form Sinn Fein and the IRA which culminated in the establishment of the Republican Congress in 1934. The objective of the Blueshirts was to smash the left and the resurgent trade union movement.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Sure, they imbibed some of the rhetoric that was wafting round the world at the time masquerading as the answer to immediate problems. And they dressed up in the military uniforms, gave the straight arm salutes and probably reckoned, as many deluded people here often do, that their solutions mirrored those highly recommended by right thinking people around the world.

The Blueshirts were racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic. To minimise the intent of the Blueshirts is the same as minimising the intent of the new 'remodeled' fascist parties that have emerged around Europe that that are using anti-Islamic and xenophobic rhetoric to whip up racism and violence in a number of European countries.

Snickers Man wrote: »

In that, they were similar to the extreme left wing of the IRA, which split away at the time of the Republican Congress. Except Frank Ryan, the Gilmours, Peader O'Donnell etc put their faith in international socialism.

And this is the type of bullsh*t that you got from your 'alt-right' cyber-space keyboard warriors - a refrain that is epitomised by the claim that because the Nazis had the word 'socialist' in their name then they were 'socialist' and the same as the left. Fascism is the indiscriminate brutal hammer of corporate capitalism, funded by the capitalist elites and intent on protecting the rule of capitalism - and all the anti-establishment rhetoric is just that, rhetoric to whip-up support among the reactionary layers in society.

Snickers Man wrote: »

And who were the ones who ended up collaborating with the Nazis in World War II?

More bullsh*t - none of them ever 'collaborated' with the Nazis - in fact the only one who had any contact with the Nazis was Frank Ryan who was captured in Spain and suffered a mental breakdown as a result of the torture he received at the hands of the Spanish fascists - his remaining few years until his death in 1944 were characterised by serious mental health and medical problems. Even then he was not a collaborator with the Nazis - in fact he played a role as DeV's unofficial liaison with the Nazis until his death.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Believe me, I am of an age that I knew the answer to that question long before the phenomenon of the blog, bull**** or otherwise, came into existence.

Believe me - you are completely taken in by the bullsh*t rhetoric of the alt-right elements that frequent the ether of the internet in the modern world - a rhetoric that has zero basis in historical FACT.

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

The term 'fascism' is a catagorisation of the certain political ideology - and ideology with its roots in the late nineteenth century opposition to the growth of trade unions. It is not meaningless - ......
the Blueshirts emerged in the early 1930s in response to an upsurge of strikes by workers which began with the nationwide strike by bus workers in the Omnibus Company of Ireland .....The objective of the Blueshirts was to smash the left and the resurgent trade union movement.


The Blueshirts were a fascist organisation - their objective was the destruction of the left and the establishment of a totalitarian regime based on the ideology of fascism.

OK these two sets of statements basically say "Fascists are people who don't like trade unions very much" and the second says "The Blueshirts were fascists because they wanted to build a regime based on, er, fascism."

Equating a fascist to somebody who doesn't like trade unions is one sure fire way to broaden their appeal, especially in today's highly educated gig economy where the traditional strength of trade unions, based on unity and conformity, is hugely undermined. You might argue that there is a crying need for some form of representative body for the little guy in such a scenario but the increasingly meaningless slogans of yesteryear are not the answer. Or at least not a good answer.

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

It is correct to say that O'Duffy's Blueshirts were not a carbon copy of the Nazis (although they did model a lot of of their approach on Mussolini's Blackshirts) - they would be more of a representation of Franco's fascist regime or that of Salazar (both of which were most definitely 'murderous').

I would totally agree with all that. As I already said, Franco was very much the closest continental counterpart to the "ideology", if that is not too grand a word, of the Blueshirts. But Franco did not have much in common with his German and Italian counterparts. It's no secret he and Hitler hated the sight of each other. And he had nothing to do with Hitler's war. Just as well for the British because he could have made things extremely difficult for them with minimal effort.
Aside: Here's a plot for an alternative history novel. In late 1940, Franco signs a co-operation pact with Hitler. He immediately captures Gibraltar with his large army still in place from the Civil War which only ended a year before.
Britain, without allies at that point, is powerless to prevent him. The British supply route to Egypt is cut off. Only Commonwealth forces can reinforce the embattled British Army in Egypt. The war in the desert ends a year or two earlier than it did with an Axis victory.
German involvement in North Africa is kept to a minimum (it was always an Italian campaign anyway) and the invasion of the Soviet Union can take place in the spring of 1941 rather than high summer as it did, giving the Germans ample time to take Moscow in advance of the Russian Winter.
But of course, that didn't happen.

Say thank you to Franco. Go on! Say it now!

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

The Blueshirts were racist, anti-Semitic and xenophobic.

What relevance did "racism" have in the first half of the 20th century in Ireland? How many people of different races were even here at the time? Racism was not a vital part of their creed, or their appeal.

As for antisemitism, by which at the risk of disappearing down a rabbit hole that is far too mazy for this discussion I am going to assume you mean Anti-Jewish: yes. They may have spouted some anti-Jewish rhetoric, partly because of the zeitgeist of the time which made such rhetoric fashionable (note I am not saying justifiable) and partly because of an ingrained Christian/Catholic suspicion of Jews on religious grounds. (which is not actually the same thing as being anti-semitic, but that's for another post)

If you want to find ugly anti-Jewish rhetoric in Ireland, now and in the past, you will find it. I dispute that it is widespread however. And, for reasons mentioned earlier, Ireland's tiny if prodigious Jewish community is generally well regarded and not subjected to persecution, aberrations like the Limerick "Pogrom" notwithstanding.

Certainly, the most visible example of flagrant anti-Jewish rhetoric is that found in the Dail record of 1943 in which Oliver J Flanagan made his infamous comments about "routing the Jews out of the country" and described them as people who "crucified our Lord 2,000 years ago and are crucifying us every day of the week".

But again, OJ was never a Blueshirt and at the time he made that speech he wasn't even a member of Fine Gael. He was in a much smaller party called Monetary Reform.

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

To minimise the intent of the Blueshirts is the same as minimising the intent of the new 'remodeled' fascist parties that have emerged around Europe that that are using anti-Islamic and xenophobic rhetoric to whip up racism and violence in a number of European countries.

I don't seek to "minimise" the actions of the Blueshirts; I seek to hold them to account for the things they WERE guilty of but see no reason to distort the record by pinning on them things they were NOT guilty of. And they were NOT guilty of being Fascists (note capital F) in the same sense as Mussolini or Nazis like Hitler. But that is the intention of people who throw around that slur without thinking. It's wrong. It's ahistorical. It doesn't help anyone.

And you are quite right to draw comparisons between the denigration and persecution of Jews in the 1930s and 1940s and the Islamophobia and anti-immigrant rhetoric emerging today. I think much of it is rooted in the same intellectual and emotional soil.

But here's the thing: many of the Alt Right types who come out with this sort of Islamophobic anti-immigrant stuff today (I'm thinking of people like UKIP, Douglas Murray, Ben Shapiro, MArk Steyn, Milo Iannopoulos, Steve Bannon etc) would not see themselves at all as being in the same camp as 1930s Nazis. In fact many of them would see "right wing" as being traditional liberalism, based on freedom of the individual, freedom of capital, laissez faire, small government etc.

You might call that alt-right, but it ain't fascism. Or Fascism.

"Left wing" in their eyes is any significant state involvement in the operation of the economy, welfare provision by the state, curtailment of activities like smoking and drinking on health grounds, over regulation of the economy and especially the stock market.

You can call that socialism or even social democracy if you like. But the fascists did all that too.

Jolly Red Giant wrote: »

And this is the type of bullsh*t that you got from your 'alt-right' cyber-space keyboard warriors - a refrain that is epitomised by the claim that because the Nazis had the word 'socialist' in their name then they were 'socialist' and the same as the left.

Believe me - you are completely taken in by the bullsh*t rhetoric of the alt-right elements that frequent the ether of the internet in the modern world - a rhetoric that has zero basis in historical FACT.

We clearly interpret the facts of history differently. That's fine. But I won't have you saying I ignore or twist the facts. I don't. Comment is free but facts are sacred. And I have not knowingly made any false statements.
You disagree that the IRA, including its ultraleft former members like Frank Ryan collaborated with the Nazis in WWII.
They did!
Ryan was on a submarine on his way to Ireland with Sean Russell, head of the IRA, when the latter died en route. That's a fact. However you choose to interpret it, be my guest, is up to you. But the IRA were actively seeking German assistance and didn't care too much about the nature of the regime they were dealing with. England's difficulty and all that....

cameramonkey wrote: »

I think lots of people in Fine Gael are very embarrassed by their roots in a fascism.

I'm not sure they are, actually.

Nor, if we're honest, do they need to be. One of the most positive, if underrated, things Fine Gael has done for Ireland was to "capture" what had all the appearances of a nascent Fascist movement, sideline it and consign it to irrelevance in remarkably short order.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Well there's a whopper right there! The 19th century? "Fascism" did not exist as a name until Mussolini coined it during the First World War. In the second decade of the 20th century.
Mussolini the avowed socialist, remember.
Do you need a reference to support that FACT?
Do you need a reference to support the FACT that Mussolini was a leading member of the Italian Socialist Party before the First World War?
Do you need a reference to support the FACT that he was editor of Avanti, the leading Socialist newspaper?
Do you need a reference to support the FACT that he was named by his socialist father after three socialists and revolutionaries whom he, the father admired, including Mexican revolutionary Benito Juarez? Benito being the Spanish, not Italian-Benedetto-version of Benedict?

What you are doing, and I suspect what many academics before you have done, is group together some points of similarity between Mussolini and other authoritarian, tyrannical, unpleasant regimes and/or ideologies and retrospectively and arbitrarily label them with the pejorative "fascist".

That's fair enough up to a point. It's useful to draw comparisons between unpleasant regimes or ideologies and identify what traits make them so.

But the same exercise, if you are honest, must also draw comparisons between fascism and other revolutionary ideologies. Such as the radical socialists who were prominent throughout Europe, especially in the first half of the 20th century.

What were the points of similarity? A worship of centralised state power; a detestation of "unproductive" capital i.e. the prevailing financial system; the relegation of individual rights as inferior to the group to which loyalty was demanded, the group being the Aryan "race" in the case of Nazism, the Italian nation in the case of Fascism and the "proletariat" in the case of socialism; a radical and experimental approach to solving perceived political problems, not necessarily harmful in itself but when allied to the diminution of individual rights and the freedom to dissent, this tended, and tends, to result in tyranny.

Looked at from that perspective, it is no surprise that socialists and fascists largely appealed to the same constituency, the disgruntled working class, and offered solutions that were in many cases very similar. The leap from socialism to Fascism (Italian version) was not very large in many cases.

To support that last statement I offer the FACT that at least two of the people murdered by Communist partisans and strung up by their heels in a square in Milan in 1945 were themselves former socialists or Communists: Mussolini himself and Nicola Bombacci. (And you don't have to go to an "alt-right" blog to verify that FACT either)

The gap between their own ideologies and any version of socialism would have been much larger for some other so-called fascists including Messrs O'Duffy and Franco. Is it fair, or even historically useful, to lump them all together in one common ideology?


Not disputed, but common interest does not imply common ideology. The Americans provided the Soviets with a lot of material support during WWII. Was Roosevelt a Stalinist? L'ennemi de mon ennemi est mon ami



I would have thought (and this is just me speculating ) that a swift takeover of Gibraltar from the British would have been a potentially unifying stunt for a fractured Spain licking its Civil War wounds in 1940. Who in Spain would not have liked that? It could have done for Franco what the Falklands did for Maggie Thatcher 40 years later.



Didn't Hitler make some comment after Hendaye about preferring to have his teeth removed without anaesthetic than ever have to talk to Franco again? And I believe the feeling was mutual.

Look. Facts are facts. Yes. Franco encouraged his Spanish supporters to join an expeditionary force to fight the Soviets during Operation Barbarossa but he was punctilious about avoiding conflict with the Western Allies. And do you think the British and Americans were all that upset that there was so much hostility towards the Soviets?

And again, Franco's regime was perhaps surprisingly hospitable to Jews. Far more than, say, the French or even our own little catholic state. We would only take in Jews who had converted to Christianity (not that such a change of heart would have saved them from the gas chambers); the so-called fascist Spaniards provided a haven to thousands.


Good thing too. That's not a fact; that's straight opinion.


You can, and must, interpret your own version of the truth with reference to available facts. And it's perfectly fair for others to counter your interpretation with their own perspectives.
Wouldn't you agree?

If the Nazi party had only lasted 18 months and Herr Hitler had died an obscure alcoholic there would probably be someone on a German forum now, twisting themselves in knots arguing why they should not be defined as fascist.

SafeSurfer wrote: »

If the Nazi party had only lasted 18 months and Herr Hitler had died an obscure alcoholic there would probably be someone on a German forum now, twisting themselves in knots arguing why they should not be defined as fascist.

If the Nazi party had only lasted 18 months and Herr Hitler had died an obscure alcoholic, I don't think anyone on a forum anywhere in the world right now would give a hoot about some long-dead German/Austrian nutcase who had never amounted to much.

Would you?

Snickers Man wrote: »

It's important to know who the Blueshirts were, what they stood for, what and whom they stood against and what were the factors that brought them into being and sustained them.

None of which you have addressed with supporting evidence - all you have done is claim that the Blueshirts weren't fascists.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Perhaps he's referring to this account of the situation in the book War and an Irish Town, written in 1973 by the Trotskyist Eamon McCann.
"Peasants in some areas, assuming that since the revolution happened they might properly make some revolutionary changes in their own lives, had taken over large estates. Mr Cosgrave explained to them that this was a misinterpretation of the situation and sent the army to clear them off the land.
Workers who took over creameries and created "soviets" were similarly disillusioned"

No I am not - I am basing my comments on my own research -

The Irish Farmers Union advocated the establishment of a body, the Farmers Freedom Force (FFF), intended to provide a ‘permanent organised body in each branch…capable of meeting force by force…in the interests of the country and of the farmer’. In response to agricultural labour strikes the ‘F.F.F. should take action as may be required’. The farmers’ organisations made clear their priority in political terms, ‘the F.F.F. is required as a national bulwark against Labour, Socialism and Bolshevism, irrespective of whatever political developments may take place in the country’.

Quoted in the Watchword of Labour 5 June 1920.

The number one objective of the Farmers Union was the destruction of the left and the ITGWU - irrespective of whether it meant the abandonment of the independence struggle

Snickers Man wrote: »

So people who, in a volatile and almost anarchic situation took steps to protect their property when some others thought it was justified to dispossess them and throw them off their land were "fascists"?
Or just "Blueshirts"?

Showing both feet into you mouth again - making a false assumption from where i get my evidence - then making a false claim based on the false assumption and then demonstrating that you have zero idea what you are talking about.

The FFF was established to break a wave of strikes by farm labourers that erupted throughout the southern half of the country during the summer of 1920 - the cattle drives and occupation of landed estates were a small part of this - and were of little concern to the Farmers Union (they were a significantly bigger concern to the leadership of SF/IRA because they were pulling the nationalist movement asunder along class lines - and that is SF of the period talking, not me).

Snickers Man wrote: »

I invite you to say so if that's what you believe. The record of "estates" or even factories and creameries commandeered by revolutionaries is not great!

Once again - jumping in with both feet - the record of the large number of workplace soviets during the revolutionary period is well documented.

Snickers Man wrote: »

There was a messianic and murderous militia in Ireland in the early 20th century. The Irish Citizen Army, described by Mr McCann in the above book as "the first Red Army in Europe" which during the 1916 Rising engaged in the most ruthless and murderous activity, frequently gunning down in cold blood unarmed members of the Dublin Metropolitan Police as Countess Markievicz did in St Stephen's Green and the ICA also did at Dublin Castle in one of the first acts of the rising.

And now we see you going off the deep end - displaying all the inherent political bias you have - with ZERO reference to the historical realities or EVIDENCE

Snickers Man wrote: »

Hardly surprising. Like any communist militia anywhere in Europe they felt they were entirely justified in liquidating "agents of the imperialist capitalist bourgeoisie," whether they were armed or not. (They wouldn't have called them fascists in 1916; wouldn't have known the word)

Far from "taking on the might of the British Empire" these actions were brutal, ruthless revolutionary acts against Irish civilians that would cause outrage were they tried today.

But history has been kind to the Irish Citizen Army. Their former members have football stadiums and bridges named after them.

Any chance there will be a new bridge over the Liffey named after a Blueshirt? Seriously.

At this stage -

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

It is far easier to see it as Collins the vibrant young energetic progressive v fuddy duddy strange Dev who ignited a Civil War.

vibrant, young, energetic - yes - 'progressive' is pushing it a bit.

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Progressive for the time that was in it, I should have said?

There is no evidence that Collins was 'progressive' even for the period - he was a down-the-line right-wing Catholic.

gormdubhgorm wrote: »

Edit: In fairness to De Valera he did prove in was progressive for period in the production of the Irish consitition later on so I suppose they cancel each other out on that one.

Even for 1937 DeV's constitution was far from progressive - there was a major campaign by women against the constitution when it was put to referendum. Over 525,000 people voted against it (mainly women) - 685,000 in favour.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Whew, you do like to misquote me, don't you.

I said that the Blueshirts weren't Fascists in the same sense that Mussolini and Hitler were. I readily conceded they were cut from very much the same cloth as the conservative, authoritarian, traditionalist Franco.

And I have never expressed any admiration for them. I don't have any.

The only difference between the fascism of the Nazis and that of O'Duffy and the Blueshirts is that the Nazis got into power and were able to implement their fascist programme and the Blueshirts didn't.

Snickers Man wrote: »

As for "interpreting facts", with which you seem to have such difficulty: what I said was that "you and I interpret the facts of history differently" by which I mean we look at the same historical events, can agree that they actually happened but differ in our interpretations of how they came to happen, what the motivating factors were and which were causes and which effects. You prefer the term "evidence"; I call it "facts". I think we're splitting hairs, here.

Historical discourse is about interpreting evidence to formulate a thesis. That interpretation can be challenged by conflicting evidence.

I conduct historical research every day of the week - I have been for years (and may I add I am not an academic historian) - I interpret that evidence and outlined that interpretation. I constantly adjust and alter my interpretation because of new evidence that comes to light from the research I conduct or from evidence provided by other historians.

We (you and me) do not "interpret the facts of history differently" - we interpret evidence differently - you cannot interpret who did what, when and where - because these are facts. You can find evidence as to how and why someone or some group did something and interpret that evidence to formulate a thesis based on the evidence of the how and the why and the facts of the who, what, when and where.

I have interpreted evidence on this thread and outlined my thesis, backed up by references - you have not provided a single shred of evidence for any claim that you have made.

Snickers Man wrote: »

As for Mussolini: I'm not going to ask you to quote volume, page and line number your evidence that he "butchered the left" in Italy after he came to power. I accept that he was an authoritarian thug with little time for such niceties as individual human rights or tolerance of dissent. My main point regarding him is that his jump from what he termed socialism into what he called (and he did coin the term) Fascism, was not that broad. They had great similarities. As well as some differences, of course.

The fact that Mussolini jumped from socialism to fascism is not in dispute (it is a fact) - how and why he did that is what is open to interpretation and is assessed by evidence.

However, what you are doing is making a bald statement - one that bears not relationship to historiography - and one that is absolutely lacking any evidence (because you have not produced any).

Snickers Man wrote: »

I believe that lumping all those together (Hitler, Franco, Mussolini, O'Duffy, Salazar and any others you care to mention) and holding up as their polar opposites the likes of Lenin, Stalin, and even James Connolly, Frank Ryan and Rosie bloody Hackett (You had probably heard of her before they decided to name a bridge after her, it will not surprise you that I had not ) is an ov over simplification and a distortion.

Hitler, Mussolini, Salazar, Franco were fascist dictators who implemented a fascist programme while in power. The fact that their dictatorships unfolded in different ways and with different results does not negate the fact that they were fascists dictators implementing a fascist programme, the nature and pace of which was dictated by the individual circumstances of their respective countries and regimes.

Exactly the same applies to the others you mention.

Snickers Man wrote: »

You exhortation to "read more history books" is transparently an invitation to "Read more history books that come to the conclusions that I, Jolly Red Bloke, prefer".
The power of money as the only fundamental mover in people's lives.

Actually I don't care what books you read - just read something. You claim that you have read a variety of books - yet you demonstrate zero evidence that this is the case - and throughout this thread you have failed to reference any evidence for any claim that you made.

Snickers Man wrote: »

I have read various historical accounts of various events by many left wing authors and, have formed the conclusion that as good dialectical materialists, they are miserably one-dimensional. They look at everything in terms of material well being.
Class politics.

And this demonstrates the case in point - a bald claim with zero evidence to substantiate it.

Snickers Man wrote: »

That's all very well as far as it goes but their simplistic analysis falls down when factors that they didn't consider become enmeshed in the story. Even your definition of fascism which I infer to be anything that is hostile to the working class in general and to trade union activity in particular follows this line. It's not true. There are many other motivating forces concerning issues of identity, and strategic manoeuvring by outside interested forces that are separate from the mere pursuit of the dollar and which have to be considered when analysing any conflict situation.

And here we go again - making a bald statement without any reference to evidence.

I never claimed that fascism wasn't influenced by a wide variety of political, social and economic circumstances - I stated that, at its core, the objective of fascism is the destruction of the organisations of the working class and the evidence for this is that every fascist dictator that came to power in the 1930s set that out as the number one objective of their regime.

Snickers Man wrote: »

Calling any and all of your thuggish enemies fascists just dilutes any meaning of the term.

As I stated at the beginning of this exchange several days ago - fascism is a designation of a particular political ideology. I do not make any charge of fascism without considerable evidence to back it up - you on the other hand, once again, make a bald claim about me with, once again, zero evidence backing it up.

And here we are again TODAY. Somebody in Sinn Fein calling Fine Gael a Nazi party rebrand.

Oh the irony!

Has anyone else noticed Dev is the only personality from that period of our history with nothing named after him. Not a road a street a park not even a park bench. If anyone is aware of anything named for him I'd be interested in knowing of it. I just think it's fascinating in our culture we love to honour significant people in such a way and Dev is conspicuously missing.

judestynes wrote: »

Has anyone else noticed Dev is the only personality from that period of our history with nothing named after him. Not a road a street a park not even a park bench. If anyone is aware of anything named for him I'd be interested in knowing of it. I just think it's fascinating in our culture we love to honour significant people in such a way and Dev is conspicuously missing.

Just search for De Valera in google maps. There are loads of places named after him. Number of roads or buildings named after you hardly reflects ones lifetime achievements. There aren’t many Winston Churchill Avenues in the UK

tabbey wrote: »

But there was a Churchill tank.

And an insurance company!