Political reaction

Political reaction is resistance to social progress; a political regime established to maintain and strengthen an outmoded social order.

Reaction usually manifests itself in the struggle against the revolutionary movement, in the suppression of democratic rights and liberties, in the persecution of progressive political, public, and cultural figures, in mass terror and violence, in racial and national discrimination, and in an aggressive foreign policy. Reaction in its extreme form is fascism.

A reactionary is an adherent of political reaction, a retrograde person, an enemy of social, cultural, and scientific progress.

Политическая реакция