Stanley George Payne (born September 9, 1934) is an American historian of modern Spain and European fascism at the University of Wisconsin–Madison. He retired from full-time teaching in 2004 and is currently Professor Emeritus at its Department of History.[1]

Stanley G. Payne
Born
Stanley George Payne

(1934-09-09) September 9, 1934 (age 90)
OccupationHistorian
TitleProfessor Emeritus
Academic background
Education
Websitehttps://history.wisc.edu/people/payne-stanley/

Early life

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Stanley Payne was born on September 9, 1934, in Denton, Texas. His father and mother were living in Colorado before moving to Texas. His father found work as a carpenter after losing his job to the Great Depression, and eventually became the foreman of a planing mill. His mother completed two years of nurse's training at a sanitarium in Chicago, but was forced to drop out due to lack of support from her family. She was a Seventh Day Adventist. The family moved to Sacramento, California, when Stanley was twelve and Stanley's parents divorced soon after.[2]

Work

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Known for his typological description of fascism, Payne is a specialist in the Spanish fascist movement and has also produced comparative analyses of Western European fascism. He asserts that there were some specific ways in which Nazism paralleled Russian communism to a much greater degree than Fascism was capable of doing. Payne does not propound the theory of "red fascism" or the notion that Communism and Nazism are essentially the same. He states that Nazism more nearly paralleled Russian communism than any other noncommunist system has.[3][4]

In the 1960s, his books were published in Spanish by Éditions Ruedo ibérico (ERi), a publishing company set up by Spanish Republican exiles in Paris, France, to publish works forbidden in Spain by the Francoist regime ruling the country at the time. He has been referred to by some historians as a revisionist due to his views.[5] One of his more famous books is Spanish Civil War, The Soviet Union and Communism, which analyzes Joseph Stalin and the Soviet government's intervention in Spain. He also wrote The Franco Regime, The Spanish Civil War and A History of Fascism 1914–1945.

Payne uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism, and anti-conservatism.[6] He sees elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, complete existence of large-scale capitalism as the common aim of all fascist movements.[7]

In 2014 he published Franco. A Personal and Political Biography with Jesús Palacios, who during his youth had been a member of the now-banned group CEDADE.[8] Since then, he has been considered an iconic figure in Francoist revisionism.[9][10][11]

Education

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Payne received his bachelor's degree from Pacific Union College in 1955. He went on to earn a masters from Claremont Graduate School and University Center in 1957 and a doctorate (Ph.D.) from Columbia University in 1960.

Books

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References

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  1. ^ "Payne, Stanley". Department of History. 2017-05-17. Retrieved 2024-07-15.
  2. ^ Payne, Stanley (5 January 2022). "Oral History - Stanley Payne". University of Wisconsin-Madison.
  3. ^ The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right. Routledge. 2002. p. 67
  4. ^ Stanley G. Payne. Fascism: Comparison and Definition. University of Wisconsin Press. 1983. ISBN 978-0299080648. pp. 102–104
  5. ^ Ángel Viñas (ed.), Sin respeto por la historia [extraordinary issue of Hispania Nova] 2015
  6. ^ Payne, Stanley (1980). Fascism: Comparison and Definition. University of Wisconsin Press, p. 7
  7. ^ Payne, Stanley G. (1995). A history of fascism, 1914–1945. University of Wisconsin Press. p. 10. ISBN 978-0299148706. Retrieved 7 February 2022. What fascist movements had in common was the aim of a new functional relationship for the social and economic systems, eliminating the autonomy (or, in some proposals, the existence) of large-scale capitalism and major industry ...
  8. ^ Reig Tapia, Alberto (2015). "La sombra de Franco es alargada". Hispania Nova. Revista de Historia Contemporánea. 1 (Extraordinario). Getafe: Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. ISSN 1138-7319.
  9. ^ "Aguirre y González subvencionaron con 300.000 euros a la fundación de Abascal" (in Spanish). Servimedia. 27 January 2019. Retrieved December 4, 2023.
  10. ^ Gil Pecharromán, Julio (11 November 2014). "Revisionismo amable". Revista de Libros (in Spanish). Archived from the original on 5 May 2016. Retrieved 30 August 2019.
  11. ^ Robledo, Ricardo (2015-01-31). "De leyenda rosa e historia científica: notas sobre el último revisionismo de la Segunda República". Cahiers de civilisation espagnole contemporaine. De 1808 au temps présent (in Spanish) (2/2015). doi:10.4000/ccec.5444. ISSN 1957-7761. Retrieved 2023-12-04.

Bibliography

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