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]

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.^[2][3]

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.^[4] 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.^[5] He sees elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, complete existence of large-scale capitalism as the common aim of all fascist movements.^[6]

After a long shift towards Neo-Francoism,^[7] in 2014 he ended up publishing the hagiography Franco. A Personal and Political Biography with Jesús Palacios, a former member of the now-banned Neo-Nazi group CEDADE.^[8] Since then, he has been considered an iconic figure in Francoist revisionism,^[9][10][11] a stance exacerbated by several more books whitewashing Francoism and the Spanish Empire, as well as his continued support for the far-right^[12][13][14] party Vox.^[15]

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.