Fascist (insult)

Since the beginning of fascism, the term fascist is frequently used as a political insult against a wide range of individuals, governments, and public institutions. It usually serves as an emotionally loaded substitute for "authoritarian", but is treated so flexibly that it is often used to describe any movement or position the user strongly disagrees with.

Soviet Union

The Bolshevik movement and later the Soviet Union made frequent use of the "fascist" epithet coming from its self-perceived opposition to the early German and Italian fascist movements. It was widely used in press and political language to describe either direct competition (such as the White movement) or even internal fractions of the socialist movement, for example social democracy which was called social fascism. Also the Nazi movement in Germany was described as "fascist" until 1939, when the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact was signed, after which Nazi–Soviet relations started to be presented positively in Soviet propaganda.