(written by Terry MacNeil, on August 26-27, 2025)

The cover of my copy of the Starship Troopers novel proclaims it is “The Controversial Classic of Military Adventure”. What exactly is controversial about it? On that point, the novel does not explain itself – you (the reader) are left to figure that out on your own. If you’re not politically savvy, you can be forgiven for not realizing that the “controversy” – is that the novel is pro-fascist.

There are various fascists that appear throughout the novel, who go on (and on) about how great it is to live in a fascist society (as opposed to the weak, crime-ridden, and disordered “liberal-democracies” that collapsed in the 20th century). First, we encounter a frustrated fascist schoolteacher (who knows most of his fascist students aren’t absorbing what he’s preaching). Later, we meet various fascist military instructors and fascist officers in the military (who LOVE to preach about the blessings of fascism, as if the men they’re training/commanding either never learned a thing about fascism, or are too dumb to understand anything to do with “politics”). But of course, this is simply Heinlein’s way to preach to YOU – the reader. And he assumes the reader of his novel knows NOTHING about fascism, but hopes YOU will embrace fascism by the time you finish reading his novel.

So Heinlein was clearly a fascist – but was he a Nazi? Well, the fascist society he promoted in the novel was less racist (and less sexist) than Nazi Germany had been. However, there ARE a few quotes from the protagonist that sound like Nazi talking points (with regard to his views on “inferior” humans that are “less evolved” than other humans).

As for the insane cheesiness later in the novel – I was dumbfounded. Only a fascist could be moved by what the protagonist’s father does after the death of his wife – which absurdly (and unintentionally hilariously) brings fascist father and fascist son closer together than ever before.

Another main aim of Heinlein’s novel – was to turn the reader into an anti-Marxist (more specifically, an “anti-Big-C Communist”). So the fascist schoolteacher rants about the evils of Communism. He also makes hilariously uninformed criticism of Karl Marx’s analysis of capitalism in Das Kapital – which reveals Heinlein never read Marx’s book. So Heinlein’s novel refers to human Marxists of the past – and the main enemy of the human fascists of the future are extraterrestrial Arachnids. While most Arachnids are harmless Labourers, the Warrior Arachnids are super lethal. So OF COURSE, the Arachnids represent the Communist “hordes” of China – Heinlein seemed less fearful of white Communists during the Cold War.

I am reminded of a Youtuber from many years ago – I forget who it was, but many of his videos were about science-fiction. One video went on about how in the original Star Wars trilogy, “The Empire” was the “woke” and “Marxist” USSR (aka “The Evil Empire” as the scumbag Ronald Reagan put it). The Youtuber also claimed “The Rebel Alliance” was the “anti-woke” and “capitalist” USA. The Youtuber went on to brag (paraphrased) “I’ve read A LOT of books…” and I thought to myself “Yeah, and I bet every single one of those books had Star Wars or Star Trek in their titles”. Then a few years ago, I caught a video clip of George Lucas being interviewed. And in that clip, he explained that in Star Wars, much of it was inspired by the Vietnam War – and it was THE USA that represented “The Empire”, and the “Marxists” in THE VIETCONG and THE NORTH VIETNAMESE ARMY that represented “The Rebel Alliance”. Oh well. The truth hurts, if you’re a sci-fi buff AND a right-winger. Ⓐ