New fascism was the natural continuation of early fascism, because capitalism still existed and crisis were its contemporaries; so fascism, even if the October Revolution wasn’t in front of him, and the active, anti-capitalist working class didn’t exist as it does today, was still a temporary solution of capitalism in the face of crisis; economic crisis and political crisis in parties that are naturally dead, who only act for the bourgeoisie’s interests and because of unstable conditions of the global economy, have taken neoliberalism in their support, of course, this does not mean that other parties, which ostentatiously carry democracy, especially in their foreign policy, have necessarily challenged fascism.
Neo-fascism is not an exact copy of the original fascism because times have changed, and along with that, the strategies for combating and confronting it have also changed, yet here and there, similarities can still sometimes be striking. Neo-fascism began with the remnants of old fascism after World War II. However, it could be said that neo-fascism is much more dangerous than old fascism because while old fascism was mostly limited to Italy, Germany and in its own way Japan neo-fascism is expanding globally. General Francisco Franco, the dictator of Spain might be considered one of its forerunners. The resurgence of fascism in Europe after Franco began with the 2000 elections in Austria and the rise of the Austrian Freedom Party (FPÖ), an extreme-right wing populist party and after that like domino pieces across Europe, it brought latent far-right forces to the foreground. Prominent examples include Germany’s Alternative for Germany party (AFD), France’s National Front under Marine Le Pen, Italy’s Brothers of Italy under Giorgia Meloni, Greece’s New Democracy party, Portugal’s Chega party, Spain’s People’s Party, Britain’s Reform Party, and at the top, the American Republican Party under Trump’s policies…
Other regions of the world were not spared from neo-fascist developments, with notable examples emerging in the Islamic Republic, Israel, Argentina, and so on.
Features of Neo-Fascism:
In most cases, it is similar to old fascism: economic crisis plays a leading role in both types of fascism. The Great Depression of the 1930s, accompanied by an unprecedented recession at the time, and the great neoliberal crisis in the first decade of the 21st century (2007-2008), accompanied by a massive global recession from which major capitalist countries have still not recovered, hostility and opposition to communism, populism, xenophobia, overt racism, national or ethnic nationalism, fanaticism, intense hostility to liberating values and suppression of social movements leading the working class astray and suppressing anti-capitalist struggle. Deep ties and close cooperation with religion and its clergy to influence and fool the masses, the role of major financial centers, banks, and the bourgeoisie, especially large landowners.
Cases that are unlike old fascism: not using terms associated with socialism, not aiming to expand the government and its economic role, employing neoliberal thinking to reduce the state’s share in favor of private capital, not using paramilitary or quasi-military forces in many cases and using them only when necessary as reserve forces, hostile racism towards immigrants whose main cause for migration is either global capitalism or wars instigated by capitalism, violating the regulations of the global system they themselves created, the United States is a leader in this regard.
Fascism in the Islamic Republic in Iran
The Islamic Republic, with the help and cooperation of the West and the support of commercial and market bourgeoisie in Iran, rode on the shoulders of protesting people. In this, it used its traditional religious centers, namely mosques, tekkies(local small religious places) and Bazars, as well as special religious ceremonies such as Muharram and fasting month Ramadan to organize and spread illusions among the masses. The characteristics of the Islamic Republic and its leaders resemble old fascism, but they also share traits with neo-fascism.
Khomeini was a prominent figure in this movement. He even used fascist figures, symbols, and organizations. The image of Khomeini brought forward with his right hand was a repetition of Hitler’s actions in the community. The cry of the Supreme Leader Khomeini is comparable to the cry of Heil Hitler, the delusional people of Germany and Nazi sympathizers. Now Khamenei is following Khomeini’s path.
Populism was a major feature of the Islamic Republic that it was able to exploit for a long time, but now this mass illusion has collapsed. While in other fascist regimes populism used national or ethnic nationalism for agitation, the Islamic Republic replaced it with Islamic ummah nationalism in order to have a pretext for its interventions in other parts of the world, especially in the region. In this way, it acted in Lebanon with Hezbollah, in Iraq with the Jash Alshaabi Forces, in Syria with the Assad regime, in Yemen with the Houthis, in Palestine with Hezbollah and Hamas, and globally with the Al-Mustafa Community.
The Islamic Republic revealed its perspective on gender and women at the earliest possible opportunity, just three weeks after its establishment. Just like fascism, relying on patriarchy, viewed women as household workers, providers of services to men, tools for producing labour and soldiers and only accepting their role as nurses in war zones, the Islamic Republic also saw the primary duty of women as managing the kitchen and reproduction to supply the workforce for the Party of God and the Islamic army, offering various rewards for this. However, women’s role in society had become so entrenched, and women fought so hard for their rights, that it was unsuccessful in completely eliminating them from society and failed.
After a short time, the Islamic Republic showed its hostility towards the working class and replaced the workers’ councils of the uprising with Islamic alternatives by banning the councils of the uprising, organizing them under the name of the Islamic Council of Workers, dissolving active workers’ centers, and establishing the House of Workers in their place. Exploiting the illusion of the working masses towards Islam and nationalism, it sent a large number of workers to the front and got them killed.
The Islamic Republic demonstrated its Fascist Anti-Communism by suppressing leftist groups, arresting, imprisoning, torturing and executing prisoners. In the 1980s, Iran’s prisons were full of young men and women, with an average age of 23 years old, and up to 250 people were shot daily in Evin Prison (executions were carried out in the hills behind our cells at night, and at night they shot up to 250 bullets, quoting a female prisoner).
The Islamic Republic demonstrated its enmity with the Iranian ethnic groups by suppression of the Soviet movement and autonomy by campaigning and massacres in Turkmen-Sahara and Kurdistan at the earliest possible opportunity after the occupation of political power. This enmity also included religions and religious beliefs, in a way that led to the imprisonment and execution of a large number of followers of the Baha’i faith, dervishes, and even Sunni Muslims. Recently in Sistan and Baluchistan province the people’s cries of widespread poverty, unemployment, lack of water, lack of birth certificates, the lack of schools and health centers in many areas were answered with bullets and arrests under the pretext of the existence of a secret opposition group.
The Islamic Republic drew on the experience of the Nazi Youth organization and later neo-fascists, by establishing Islamic associations in schools, trade unions, the bazaar, and universities, turned them into agents for identifying opposition forces, including in universities. In schools children were compelled to spy on their family at home, with the Islamic teachers’ association and educational mentors taking the lead in this effort, scrutinizing not only students but also their colleagues. Islamic trade and bazaar associations, in addition to their espionage roles and financial services as a contribution to the Imam, were concerned with their own interests in this proximity and, in return for their services to the regime, received benefits such as access to subsidized currency, tax exemptions, and university admissions favors for their children.
The Islamic Republic organized an official paramilitary force called the Basij, which, along with Islamic associations, was widespread everywhere—from schools and universities to offices and markets. These paramilitary forces were extensively sent to the front lines during the Iran-Iraq War, especially from schools, serving as cannon fodder and many were killed. This force was also used to suppress public protests during the 2019 uprising, and they became known as the ‘Sundis-eaters.’ (Sundis is a drink given to pro regime group together with food to take part in demonstration against the opposition), In fact the regime exploited the poverty of the masses and turned them into a repressive force. During the Mahsa Jina Amini uprising they were also armed. In addition to the Basij, claimed to number 20 million, the Islamic Republic organized another group following the model of old fascists as ‘self-directed’ forces in plain clothes, who are active not only in protests but also in street attacks on women deemed to be improperly veiled or scantily veiled (Hijab).
The Islamic Republic organized its own special military force due to a lack of trust in the army, which initially operated under the name of the Revolutionary Guards in parallel with the army in the form of air, land, and naval forces, and later on even the army commanders were replaced by Revolutionary Guard forces it continued its operations. Trusted personnel were placed in all areas. Governors, district governors, mayors and their deputies, heads of departments, banks, as well as schools and their deputies, were filled with loyal personnel, often due to personal interests and the potential for financial corruption.
The Islamic Republic, like the other fascist and neo-fascist groups, created its own special party and turned it into the sole party of society (God party). Like the Francoists in Spain it divided society into two, the victors and the defeated (insiders and outsiders). In this process, even political rivals of its allies were brought to trial and sentenced to execution, isolation, or forced into exile as political criminals. These are a few of them (Shariatmadari, Ghotb zadeh, Montazeri, Bani Sadr, Rafsanjani).
The Islamic Republic openly exposed the link between religion and capital, which had a long history in Iran. While other examples of fascist and neo-fascist governments were forced to grant concessions to the Catholic Church to gain its cooperation, here the Islamic government demanded concessions from capitalists in order to give them concessions in return. While in Franco’s neo-fascist Spain, 500,000 people were forced to flee the country, the number of refugees from Iran exceeded 4 million, and today those fleeing poverty, hunger, and unemployment are added to that.
The Islamic Republic, like all fascist and neo-fascist governments, empowered its security forces and special forces (the IRGC, the Basij, and the fire forces at will) , kept them armed, ready to serve against the working masses, workers, students, women, social and environmental activists, or any attempt to unite. For example, in the current popular uprising in January 2026, while the masses tired of unemployment, hunger, lack of medicine, uncontrolled price rises, hyper inflation, massive currency fluctuation (prices of goods based on Dollar), homelessness, and lack of a future, have taken to the streets to get rid of this situation and this poverty-creating system, Khamenei has ordered the construction of building complexes for these forces. This means a reward for killing, a reward for keeping a dictator at the top that citizens have no respect for.
Xenophobia and hostility towards immigrants are characteristics of fascism, which we can clearly witness in the Islamic Republic. The forced return of Afghan migrants to a country ruled by the Taliban is particularly a sentence of imprisonment and social death for women and girls. The cultural duality is problematic for someone born and raised in Iran who is unfamiliar with Afghan culture and will be treated as a foreigner there as well. Although the Islamic Republic also regards non-conforming Iranians as foreigners, it has shown its hostility in the popular uprisings of the past 20 years, the massacre of political prisoners in the 1980s, the chain murders (“Chain murder” most famously refers to the Chain Murders of Iran (1988-98), a series of politically motivated killings of Iranian intellectuals by government operatives,), and so on.
There are other similarities as well, which I refrain from mentioning given the proverb ‘a handful is representative of the heap’. No fascist or neo-fascist regime has lasted forever. It was either overthrown by popular uprisings, or it transformed and became conservative capitalist regimes. The Islamic Republic is no exception to this and sooner or later will fall from power; however, what alternative takes its place depends on whether the revolutionary movement of the masses is armed with revolutionary consciousness and presents its own alternative for seizing political power, so it is not seized by reactionary forces backed and supported by foreign countries. Farideh Sabeti
January 2026/ Day 1404