Against the facts and the history itself, Bolsonaro and Ernesto Araújo, his incompetent Foreign Minister, insist on affirming that Nazism is of the left. It is well known by all those who know the history of Nazism as a far right political movement that it is synonymous with dictatorship, barbarism, genocide, war, among other crimes against humanity practiced by him. Nazism and fascism as the far right political movement are, historically, the antithesis of socialism and communism as a far-left movement as will be demonstrated in this article.

1. 1
WHY BOLSONARO CONSIDERS NAZISM AS LEFT IDEOLOGY?
Fernando Alcoforado*
Against the facts and the history itself, Bolsonaro and Ernesto Araújo, his incompetent
Foreign Minister, insist on affirming that Nazism is of the left. The real explanation for
this position of Bolsonaro and his foreign minister is that they, as right-wing extremists
who have always been associated with Nazism and fascism, deliberately seek to avoid
being classified as Nazis or fascists whose trajectory throughout history has not been the
most exemplary. It is well known by all those who know the history of Nazism as a far
right political movement that it is synonymous with dictatorship, barbarism, genocide,
war, among other crimes against humanity practiced by him. Nazism and fascism as the
far right political movement are historically the antithesis of socialism and communism
as a far-left movement as will be demonstrated in the following paragraphs.
It should be noted that the Left and the Right are a common way of classifying political,
ideological, or political parties. These terms arose with the advent of the French
Revolution. In France, during the reign of Louis XVI, members of the Third Estate who
were not part of the clergy (First State) or the nobility (Second State) sat at the king's
left while the clergy and nobility sat on the right. The most radical ones that were
normally against the king's decisions became known as the left wing while the decision-
makers were the right wing. A fundamental difference between left wing and right wing
is that the former is an uncompromising advocate of equality and the right wing is not.
The left wing believes that most inequalities are social and, as such, can be eliminated,
and the right wing believes that most of them are natural and therefore not eliminable.
The confrontation between the right wing and the left wing reached the culminations
around the world with the advent of the Russian Revolution in 1917, the constitution of
the bloc of socialist countries in Eastern Europe, and the struggle for national liberation
that led to decolonization in several peripheral countries capitalist after World War II,
the Chinese Revolution in 1949, the Cuban Revolution in 1959 and the Vietnam War. In
the Soviet Union, Eastern European countries, China, Cuba and Vietnam, socialist
systems were established with the nationalization of the means of production and the
exercise of political power by the Communist Party alone, initiating the dictatorship of
the proletariat with totalitarian characteristics of power.
The main aim of the left-wing movements was to replace capitalism with socialism
either through reforms or social revolutions aimed at ending the exploitation of man by
the man who characterizes capitalist society. Some leftist movements fought for the
construction of democratic socialism or social democracy and others with the
implementation of single-party dictatorships. Unlike the left-wing, anti-capitalist
movements, Nazism and fascism implanted respectively in Germany and Italy, they
maintained the capitalist system and relied on the support of the ruling classes in the
advance of the barbarism that characterized the devastating World War II.
The advance of communism, that is, left-wing political movement in the late nineteenth
and early twentieth centuries, led to the birth of fascism, an extreme right-wing
movement in Italy to fight it. Fascism represented a reaction of the conservative forces
of Europe against the rise of the workers to the power in several countries after the
victory of the socialism in the Soviet Union in 1917 and was based on strongly
nationalist conceptions and the totalitarian exercise of the power, therefore against the

2. 2
democratic system and liberal, and repressive to social-democratic, socialist and
communist ideas. Fascism is a political movement that emerged in Italy after the First
World War in the 1920s under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. In addition to the
Mussolini regime in Italy, Adolf Hitler's Germany and Francisco Franco's Spain, among
others, were considered fascist, which settled between the 1st and 2nd World War in the
1930s.
Fascism implanted during the twenties and thirties of the twentieth century was based
on a strong, totalitarian state which claimed to embody the spirit of the people in the
exercise of power by a single party whose authority was imposed through violence,
repression and of political propaganda. The fascist leader is a figure who is above
ordinary men. Mussolini was denominated like Il Duce, that derives from the Latin Dux
(General) and Hitler de Fuehrer (Conductor, Guide, Leader, Boss). Both were messianic
and authoritarian leaderships, with a power that was exercised unilaterally without
consultation to anyone. In Germany, fascism was given the name of Nazism. This
movement also had a strong racial component, which promulgated the superiority of the
Aryan race and sought to exterminate Jews, Gypsies, Blacks, Democrats and
Communists.
Fascism was also characterized by aggressive nationalism, militarism and imperialism
in the service of the ruling classes, by the cult of the chief, by anti-communism and by
dictatorship. In order to put into practice its principles, the individual rights of citizens
were ignored, Parliament was transformed into a simple advisory body and the political
police were created, which crushed all opposition to the regime. Fascism served as a
model for several other dictatorships that were implanted in Europe in the period
between the two World Wars, among them Franco's dictatorships in Spain and Salazar's
in Portugal, which is why fascism also became a dictatorial regime totalitarian right-
wing extremist.
In the contemporary era, the economic crisis of the world capitalist system that broke
out in 2008 in the United States led the European Union to economic stagnation with
serious political and social consequences. This crisis has given rise to the strengthening
of far-right political parties in several countries. The rise of far-right parties happens in
much of Europe. With Nazi-fascist or nationalist leanings, most of these parties
advocate the end of the European Union, the end of the Euro, strengthening the unity
and identity of countries, more radical policies against immigrants, criticizing the
financial rescue of countries in crisis, are against homosexuals, abortion, liberalism and
globalization, and fight against what they call Islamization.
In 2017 presidential elections took place for key European Union countries, such as
France, Germany and the Netherlands. In these three countries, far-right parties were
defeated, but they had sharp growth compared to previous years. Marine Le Pen, the
French presidential candidate, came in second. It is part of an anti-European Union
movement. In Germany, the Alternate Party for Germany became the third largest
political force in the German parliament. And in Holland, the Party for Freedom came
second in the lawsuit. In addition to key countries, similar phenomena are also observed
in other European Union countries. Poland, Hungary and Italy, for example, are
countries whose governments are considered ultra-right; and in Greece, the Aurora
Dourada party is rated by experts as neo-Nazi.
Fascism emerges in the United States in search of some sort of nationalist renewal with

3. 3
Donald Trump. Fascism emerged in the United States in the face of an insurmountable
economic crisis such as the current one, the threat of the American way of life and the
loss of its world hegemony to China. This view has been embraced completely by the
Republican Party that now defines itself along these lines. The revival of fascism under
Donald Trump in the United States resulted primarily from its economic decline and the
loss of its hegemony on the world stage in a very short time frame.
In Brazil, Nazi-fascism is explicit in Bolsonaro's discourse, which is based on the cult of
order, state violence, authoritarian government practices, social disregard for vulnerable
and fragile groups, and anti-communism. The Nazi-fascism represented by Bolsonaro
lies in oppression, machismo, homophobia, racism, hatred of the poor. History tells us
that once in power, the Nazi-fascists can destroy the last vestiges of a democratic
government in Brazil with attacks on parliament and the judiciary as it is already
happening. In contemporary Brazil, Jair Bolsonaro adopts neoliberalism differently
from the statism of Mussolini and Hitler, a fact that does not prevent qualifying him as
Nazi-fascist because there is no single formula for Nazi-fascism as some imagine. Not
necessarily Nazi-fascism is nationalist and statist as it was in Italy with Mussolini and in
Germany with Hitler. What characterize all Nazi-fascism in all its variants are,
fundamentally, dictatorship, racism, anti-communism, persecution of minorities, and the
placing of the Nazi-fascist government at the service of economic and financial elites.
Authoritarianism and totalitarianism are components of every Nazi-fascist dictatorship.
* Fernando Alcoforado, 79, awarded the medal of Engineering Merit of the CONFEA / CREA System,
member of the Bahia Academy of Education, engineer and doctor in Territorial Planning and Regional
Development by the University of Barcelona, university professor and consultant in the areas of strategic
planning, business planning, regional planning and planning of energy systems, is the author of 14 books
addressing issues such as Globalization and Development, Brazilian Economy, Global Warming and
Climate Change, The Factors that Condition Economic and Social Development, Energy in the world and
The Great Scientific, Economic, and Social Revolutions that Changed the World.