Russian Sanctions Are Now Syriza's Bargaining Chip

[Igel]

5. "Fascist" has one of two meanings.

It can easily have both or even more.

One is "opposed to socialism or communism." Lots of "fascists" out there.

The other is "anti-Russian" or anti-Red Army. In the '40s they were sort-of/kind-of equivalent. Now they're not, but you get a lot of "fascists" that aren't fascist in any regular usage of the term but simply don't like Russian hegemony.

Thing is, if you say "fashist" in Russian, it takes balls to not translate it as "fascist." Even if the "fascist" in question is actually socialist, Jewish, and gay, but is simply anti-Russian, there's this inexorable drive to keep the form of the word even if the meaning is utterly at odds with the meaning in the target language.

We had the same problem with "right" (conservative) and "left" (liberal) in Russian discourse in the '90s. The "right" was communist and conservative, while the left was (classical) liberal and wanted in some cases very pure laissez-faire capitalism and in other cases was social-liberal or neoliberal. That took a while to sort out.


The Greeks also have the whole Orthodox/break-away Orthodox/Uniate "thing" to deal with in the case of Ukraine and Russia. Russia treats the Ukrainian Orthodox church as non-existent and has shut some of them in the Crimea. As for the descendant of the Uniate church, they treat it like it's a rank heresy worthy of crucifixion, as though the Uniate hell-spawn was a daily threat to the anal chastity of every Orthodox priest and laic.