This Machine Kills Fascists.

Woody Guthrie painted the slogan “This Machine Kills Fascists” on the body of his acoustic guitar in the early 1940s, during the years when he was closely associated with left-wing, anti-fascist cultural circles and writing topical songs about labor, poverty, and war. The phrase functioned less as a literal threat than as a declaration that music—especially songs meant to be sung and shared—could be a weapon in the struggle against fascism and authoritarianism. Guthrie used the guitar as a public emblem of his politics while performing, traveling, and contributing to the era’s broad Popular Front–style anti-fascist activism.

The “machine” is Guthrie’s guitar: a tool of mass communication that can reach ordinary people more effectively than speeches or pamphlets. By claiming it “kills fascists,” Guthrie frames art as direct action—songs can expose propaganda, build solidarity, and stiffen resistance to authoritarian movements. The bluntness is rhetorical: it dramatizes the stakes of the period and asserts that cultural work matters in political struggle. The line also captures Guthrie’s populist faith that simple, portable music can travel anywhere, speak in plain language, and help ordinary listeners recognize and oppose dehumanizing ideologies.

1) “This machine kills fascists.”
2) “This Machine Kills Fascists!”