Yes, in this case I am.

Because this represents a historical double standard. Hitler called himself a National Socialist, and his party bore that name, yet he is almost universally regarded as a fascist. Meanwhile, Stalin called himself a communist, implemented many of the same methods of repression, mass murder, political terror, and totalitarian control, yet he is not considered a fascist simply because he identified as a communist.

Some of the worst people in history seem to be allowed to define themselves by whatever label they chose, rather than by what they actually did.

That doesn’t make sense to me, linguistically, historically, or otherwise. Stalin, , and others exhibited many characteristics commonly associated with fascist regimes. The fact that they called themselves communists or attempted to build socialist states does not, in my view, automatically negate those fascistic characteristics.

It’s perfectly reasonable to disagree with an established historical consensus. We’re not talking about hard sciences like biology or chemistry. We’re talking about history, where conclusions are based on the interpretation of evidence rather than controlled experimentation. Whether history should even be considered a science is a separate debate.

For that reason, I don’t think a historical consensus should be treated as infallible simply because it is widely accepted.