Chris De Ploeg

Language: Dutch

World War II cannot be seen only as a struggle between liberalism and fascism, but also as part of a longer history of imperialism and capitalism. According to De Ploeg's book The Great Colonial War, fascism was not an aberration, but a "colonial boomerang" of violence and racism from the colonies. But fascism was also a reaction to Marxism, the movement that arose from the struggle of workers, women, and colonized peoples against the colonial world order.

A lesson on fascism that you didn't get in your history class and that bridges the gap with our view of fascism today.

Chris Kaspar de Ploeg (1994) is a grassroots organizer, journalist, and author of several books, including The Exterminating Empire (2026) and The Great Colonial War Part 1 (2025) and Part 2 (2026). In 2026, he was the lead candidate for the anti-colonial socialist party De Vonk in the Amsterdam municipal elections.