When presented with the choice, Britons are far more likely to choose communism over fascism
If you HAD to choose between communism and fascism, which would you choose? This is a question first posed by the British Institute of Public Opinion in a January 1939 poll. At this point in history, communism would have been the form of government in the USSR for more than two decades, with Italy likewise ruled by a fascist regime for more than 16 years, and the Nazis having seized power in Germany six years prior to the survey.
The British public overwhelmingly came down on the side of communism in 1939, by 74% to 26% for fascism.
Now a new YouGov survey 85 years later shows that the British public strongly prefer communism to fascism. Given the choice, 39% choose the left-wing ideology compared to 10% for the right wing one – the remaining 51% answered don’t know, an option not available in the 1939 survey.
If we remove the ‘don’t know’s from the new survey, we find results not too dissimilar from 1939 – 80% opting for communism and 20% for fascism.
Those who voted Green at the 2024 general election are most likely to favour communism, with 65% choosing this system over fascism. A majority of Labour (58%) and Lib Dem (55%) voters also choose communism – only 3-6% within these three parties opt for fascism.
On the flip side, just a quarter of Conservative voters (25%) and a fifth (21%) of those who voted Reform UK pick communism. While for Conservative voters this is still represents a greater number than picked fascism (17%), for Reform UK 26% opted for the far-right ideology – although given the sample size this means that Reform voters are statistically tied between the two choices.
One of the main political trends in recent years has been the ideological age divide, with the youngest Britons the most likely to vote for left wing parties and the oldest Britons most likely to vote for right wing parties.
This trend only half plays out on the communism vs fascism question. Though likelihood to pick communism decreases with age – 46% of 18-24 year olds choose the hammer and sickle, compared to only 29% of the over-65s – the likelihood of choosing fascism stays about level (7-12% across all age brackets).
One in five Green voters think communism is a good system
While we may have asked people to choose one system over the other, the overwhelming majority felt simply that they were choosing what they saw as the lesser of two evils, rather than a system they actually endorse. Fully 92% of those who chose fascism, and 83% of those who chose communism, answered “both systems are bad, but one is noticeably worse than the other” when asked to give the reason for their choice.
This is reflected when broken down by party, with 92% of Conservatives who chose either communism or fascism answering that both systems are bad, alongside 83% of Labour voters who chose communism, 89% of Lib Dem voters who chose communism, 85% of Reform UK voters who chose communism, and 91% of Reform UK voters who chose fascism.
Green voters who would choose communism are the most likely to actually support the system they chose, with 29% saying they chose what they think is a “good system” versus 71% who think both systems are bad.
This translates to almost one in five Green voters in total (19%) believing that communism is a good system. Among Labour voters one in ten (10%) also believe communism is a good way to run a society, dropping to 6% of Lib Dem voters, 3% of Reform voters and 2% of Conservative voters. Likewise, only 1-2% of Conservative and Reform UK voters actually think fascism is a good system of government.
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Photo: Getty
