Marxists and Leftist Liberals in the West Were Convinced that Soviet Theoreticians Had Always Been Correct: Capitalism Was the Seedbed of Fascism

Marxists, for more than half-a-hundred years, had argued that there could only be “two paths . . . open before present society. . . . [The] path of fascism, the path to which the bourgeoisie in all modern countries . . . is increasingly turning . . . or [the] path of communism.” Marxists and leftist liberals in the West had been convinced by the war that Soviet theoreticians had always been correct. Capitalism was the seedbed of fascism, and the only recourse humanity had was to protect, sustain, foster, and enhance Soviet socialism and its variants. Only with Nikita Khrushchev’s public denunciation of Stalin’s crimes at the 20th Party Congress of the Communist Party, did the support of Western leftists for the Soviet Union show any signs of flagging.

--A. James Gregor, introduction to Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 3.