Dissenter in the context of "Fascist (insult)"

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⭐ Core Definition: Dissenter

A dissenter (from the Latin dissentire, 'to disagree') is one who dissents (disagrees) in matters of opinion, belief, etc. Dissent may include political opposition to decrees, ideas or doctrines and it may include opposition to those things or the fiat of a government, political party or religion.

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👉 Dissenter in the context of Fascist (insult)

The word fascist has been used as a pejorative or insult against a wide range of people, political movements, governments, and institutions since the emergence of fascism in Europe in the 1920s. Political commentators on both the left and the right accused their opponents of being fascists, starting in the years before World War II. In 1928, the Communist International labeled their social democratic opponents as social fascists, while the social democrats themselves as well as some parties on the political right accused the Communists of having become fascist under Joseph Stalin's leadership. In light of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact, The New York Times declared on 18 September 1939 that, "Hitlerism is brown communism, Stalinism is red fascism." Later, in 1944, the anti-fascist and socialist writer George Orwell commented on Tribune that fascism had been rendered almost meaningless by its common use as an insult against various people, and argued that in England the word fascist had become a synonym for bully.

During the Cold War, the Soviet Union was categorized by its former World War II allies as totalitarian alongside fascist Nazi Germany to convert pre-World War II anti-fascism into post-war anti-communism, and debates around the comparison of Nazism and Stalinism intensified. Both sides in the Cold War also used the insults fascist and fascism against the other. In the Soviet Union, they were used to describe anti-Soviet activism, and East Germany officially referred to the Berlin Wall as the "Anti-Fascist Protection Wall". Across the Eastern Bloc, the term anti-fascist became synonymous with the Communist stateparty line and denoted the struggle against dissenters and the broader Western world. In the United States, early supporters of an aggressive foreign policy and domestic anti-communist measures in the 1940s and 1950s labeled the Soviet Union as fascist, and stated that it posed the same threat as the Axis powers had posed during World War II. Accusations that the enemy was fascist were used to justify opposition to negotiations and compromise, with the argument that the enemy would always act in a manner similar to Adolf Hitler or Nazi Germany in the 1930s.

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Dissenter in the context of Great Purge

The Great Purge or Great Terror (Russian: Большой террор, romanizedBol'shoy terror), also known as the Year of '37 (37-й год, Tridtsat' sed'moy god) and the Yezhovshchina (ежовщина [(j)ɪˈʐofɕːɪnə], lit.'period of Yezhov'), was a political purge in the Soviet Union from 1936 to 1938. After the assassination of Sergei Kirov by Leonid Nikolaev in 1934, Joseph Stalin launched a series of show trials known as the Moscow trials to remove suspected dissenters from the Communist Party of the Soviet Union (especially those aligned with the Bolshevik party). The term "great purge" was popularized by historian Robert Conquest in his 1968 book, The Great Terror, whose title alluded to the French Revolution's Reign of Terror.

The purges were largely conducted by the NKVD (People's Commissariat for Internal Affairs), which functioned as the interior ministry and secret police of the USSR. In 1936, the NKVD under Genrikh Yagoda began the removal of the central party leadership, Old Bolsheviks, government officials, and regional party bosses. Soviet politicians who opposed or criticized Stalin were removed from office and imprisoned, or executed, by the NKVD. The purges were eventually expanded to the Red Army high command, which had a disastrous effect on the military. The campaigns also affected many other segments of society: the intelligentsia, wealthy peasants—especially those lending money or other wealth (kulaks)—and professionals. As the scope of the purge widened, the omnipresent suspicion of saboteurs and counter-revolutionaries (known collectively as wreckers) began affecting civilian life.

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Dissenter in the context of Whiggism

Whiggism or Whiggery is a political philosophy that grew out of the Parliamentarian faction in the Wars of the Three Kingdoms (1639–1653) and was concretely formulated by Lord Shaftesbury during the Stuart Restoration. The Whigs advocated the supremacy of Parliament (as opposed to that of the king), government centralisation, and coercive Anglicisation through the educational system. They also staunchly opposed granting freedom of religion, civil rights, or voting rights to anyone who worshipped outside of the Established Churches of the realm. Eventually, the Whigs grudgingly conceded strictly limited religious toleration for Protestant dissenters, while continuing the religious persecution and disenfranchisement of Roman Catholics and Scottish Episcopalians. They were particularly determined to prevent the ascension of a Catholic heir presumptive to the British throne, especially of James II or his legitimate male descendants and instead granted the throne to the Protestant House of Hanover in 1714. Whig ideology is associated with early conservative liberalism.

Beginning with the Titus Oates plot and Exclusion Crisis of 1679–1681, and the Glorious Revolution of 1688–1689, Whiggism dominated English and British politics until about 1760, after which the Whigs splintered into different political factions. In the same year, King George III was crowned and allowed the Tories back into the Government. Even so, some modern historians now call the period between 1714 and 1783 the, "age of the Whig oligarchy".

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Dissenter in the context of Welsh Methodist revival

The Welsh Methodist revival was an evangelical revival that revitalised Christianity in Wales during the 18th century. Methodist preachers such as Daniel Rowland, William Williams and Howell Harris were heavily influential in the movement. The revival led eventually to the establishment of the Welsh Calvinistic Methodists as a denomination (now more commonly known as the Presbyterian Church of Wales) and it also revitalised older dissenting churches.

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