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Question

What does left wing mean?

Answer

Since the French Revolution, the political use of the terms "left" and "right" has evolved across linguistic, societal, and national boundaries, sometimes taking on meanings in one time and place that contrast sharply with those in another. For example, as of 2004 the government of the People's Republic of China claims to remain on the "left," despite an evolution that has brought it quite close to what is elsewhere characterized as "right," supporting national cultural traditions, the interests of wealth, and privately owned industry. Conversely, the late dictator of Spain, Francisco Franco, who was firmly allied internationally with the right and who brutally suppressed the Spanish left, nonetheless pursued numerous development policies quite similar to those of the Soviet Union and other communist states, which are almost universally considered to be on the "left." Similarly, while "right" originally referred to those who supported the interests of aristocracy, in many countries today (notably the United States) the left-right distinction is not strongly correlated with wealth or ancestry.

— Source: Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org)