Fascism doesn’t rely on how how centralized or decentralized a system is.
It’s an ideology, that like all ideologies, adapts to fit the situation and society it’s implemented in.
The imperium practices “small” fascism in the sense that that each world/official/governor is allowed to practice their own preferred/individual view of fascism, as long as it broadly aligns with the official/imperial form of fascism.
But, it’s all fascism from top to down.
(Plus, the systems of racism, eugenics, sterilization, genocide, chattel slavery, hyper-fetishization of the military and authority figures, the obsession of a “pure” race, and the glorification of the state and figures in power, that permeates throughout every layer of imperial society)
Cause Commissars totally weren't just lifted from the Soviet Union who had the exact same job position that served almost exactly the same function. And the Inquisition definitely doesn't function exactly like the NKVD. Here's what people get wrong about the IoM it's supposed to represent all authoritarian ideologies not simply just fascism it takes pieces from all forms mixes it together to make the cruelest regime in human history. It's not just supposed to be one ideology and restricted to 21st century concepts of political structure and ideology. The one you see it most ressembles is the one you think about the most. I see it as a Kafkaesque being oppression via a mindless bueacratic state that adheres to standard procedure in the coldest manner possible.
At least in 40k. 30k is basically a Greek tragedy an about how we got to 40k.
It's really frustrating to see people try and tie it to their one ideological boogeyman and miss the forest for the trees that "all authoritarianism, no matter what form it takes is bad"
Like that's literally the message, authoritarianism is bad no matter who is implementing it.
You would think the fact that they had the IoM start as an atheistic science merit based authortarian state that transformed into a theocratic fuedalistic bueacratic nightmare betraying everything it set out to do would make it fairly clear what the criticism is. It's more about human nature then trying to talk about one specific ideology.
exactly, and that ceding power to ANY authoritarian government is a bad idea because eventually you're gonna end up with humans being used as furniture
I mean the whole reason you want human rights written in your constitution regardless of all other political beliefs and concerns, is shit always goes bad when the government views people as commodities it needs to manage instead of people it needs to serve. That's exactly what Big E's mistake was his ideology reduced everyone to tools. Like communism is a great example it was well intentioned. The problem was when actually implemented Lenin factored in human rights and the government basically saw everyone as tools to be used to produce the various goods society needed to function. Again the intention was to eliminate poverty and starvation. But they were so focused on doing that they reduced people to basically equipment and numbers. So it really shouldn't come as a surprise Joseph Stalin a secretary in this administration was so callous. When you view people as numbers it doesn't feel so bad when one million die during a drought. Nor is it hard to prder one million to just charge at machine guns knowing you can just replace them with another million. Like the Axis and Communist powers all had that problem look at their combat casualties in WW2 compared to the western allies. It's not actually because the fighting was different all fronts used similar enough weapons. Their treatment of people and attitude towards death was fundementally different. Hitler lost one million men at the start durring Barbarossa and just kinda shrugged. The Soviets lost millions durring Barbarossa and also just kinda shrugged. They then kept throwing millions of guys at each other until one finally ran out of men to throw and broke. And then we factor in the mass atrocities both sides committed with cold unsettlinh bueacratic ease. Genocide was procedural for both regimes a single partisan shoots at you just kill everyone in the village problem solved, Germany tries to use ethnic German who live in your territory, deport every single Ethnic German regardless of their actual beliefs to a labor camp Siberia where they'll all die in forced labor for the glorius regime! That's literally what 40k is trying to show case, the utter lunacy of authoritarian logic and how you get there.
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u/Various-Big8526 8h ago
With how decentralized they are, they just can't be a fascist state. They're just highly authoritarian