Because Fascism did what it said on the tin, it did not share the others’ reliance on the Big Lie. Stalin’s heavily fortified “Frontier of Peace”—known to us as the Iron Curtain—echoes the historical Islamic distinction between the House of Peace (Muslim lands) and the House of War (everyone else). The “Anti-Imperialist” expansionism of contemporary Islamist terror is also reminiscent of the USSR’s “Anti-Imperialist Empire.” Both further employ peaceful forms of address —brother, sister —within militarized societies. The Nazis got straight to the point with “Hail victory.”
Second: Because of their claim to intellectual totality, Islamism and Communism suppress the power of the individual rather than harnessing it. Private inquiry and commerce—the lifeblood of development—are extinguished. As a result, their economies become extractive rather than innovative. The free-extracting Ottoman Empire could only survive while expanding; thereafter, it declined into poverty. The USSR was famed for having its “windows open in winter,” consuming but not creating. It is ironic—daresay hopeful—that both Communist and Islamist governments will always deny themselves the stability they crave for this reason.
