Perpetual War: Langston Hughes and the Shifting Masks of Global Fascism.

This article analyzes Langston Hughes's engagement with fascism during the mid-twentieth century, emphasizing his expansive definition of fascism as a global system of imbalanced power rooted in histories of enslavement, colonization, and anti-Blackness. Hughes viewed fascism not only as the European regimes of Mussolini, Hitler, and Franco but as a pervasive threat manifesting in racial oppression and imperial violence worldwide, linking struggles against fascism to broader movements for collective emancipation. His writings on the Spanish Civil War, including his support for the multiracial Lincoln Battalion, illustrate his belief that anti-fascist resistance could forge new solidarities transcending race, nation, and geography. The article also considers Hughes's later reflections on the post-war era's uneasy peace, suggesting that fascism's legacy persisted in systemic inequalities and that ongoing vigilance and diverse forms of resistance remain necessary.