Including myself in some of my past attempts to talk about Fascism.
Being a Leftist who doesn't like how loosely my fellow Leftists use the word Fascism is an awkward situation to be in. The problem is we've gotten so used to Fascism as a Synonym for evil that people assume the only reason to argue someone or some ideology isn't Fascist is to defend them as not evil.
What I'm going to argue Fascism means is something I do not like, but the various things most people seem to mean when they say Fascism are things I dislike even more, Authoritarianism, Militarism, Imperialism, Totalitarianism, Nationalism, Xenophobia, Racism, Antisemitism, Bigoty, Eugenics ect, and so I kind of wish they would just use those words which already have negative connotations, saying "Fascism" when you mean one of those just muddies the waters. The most well known Fascist regimes tend to also involve some or all of those, but what those words mean are still different.
If something I like is being called Fascist by a Leftist then the accuser probably isn't even applying their own definition properly, but if you're accusing someone associated with the American Republican Party or any form of Conservatism then rest assured they're not someone I have any desire to defend as the right path. If I'm disagreeing with you about how "Fascist" a certain Movie or Anime or Comic Book is, I probably also disagree about how "Conservative" it is.
But it's not just people using it as a derogatory, even some of the people who've called themselves Fascists have in my view not actually understood what the term meant. Of the three Fascist parties that existed in 1920s-30s Brittan I'd argue only Mosley actually had any idea what he was talking about. All three were jerks who I'm glad never actually took power, but only one was using the word properly.
Umberto Eco is who I singled out in the title because a lot of Breadtubers treat his Ur Fascism as the Infallible Word of God for how to define Fascism. The problem is he is one of many who's goal in defining Fascism was not intellectual honestly but a desire to define both Mussolini's Fascism and German Nazism based on what they appeared to have in common rather then how either of those parties defined themselves so that he could back up the mainstream liberal narrative of WW2 as a war against an evil ideology rather then a War fought for the same reasons the first one was.
Yes you got that right, I'm questioning the term's applicability even to the Nazi Party and Adolf Hitler, the elaboration on that will come later, my point right now is that's the ideology where the "Palingenetic Ultra Nationalism" was the core of what they were about, for Mussolini the appeals to nationalism were merely a means to an end.
Mussolini invented Fascism as an ideology, he made it clear what he meant Fascism to be was simply his form of the Socio-Economic system called Corporatism which in turn he defined as a "third way" between Capitalism and Socialism.
I say "his form" because I would not even call all forms of Corporatism inherently Fascist, in fact at it's broadest definition Corporatism can be compatible with Leftism. An American in 2020 may look at that term and think it refers to "corporations" as in big business, however the Cooperatives in mind here are actually more like Unions or medieval Trade Guilds, or collectively owned Co-Ops. The Corporatism traditionally advocated by the Catholic Church and Syndicalism is a bottom up Corporatism while Mussolini's was a top down Corporatism. But more importantly then that it was a State run Corporatism.
The chief motto of Mussolini's Fascist party was "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato" ("everything for the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state"). Of all the traits we commonly associate with Fascism, Statism is actually the most important. And that's why it annoys me when certain American political movements get called (or even call themselves) Fascist that are actually strongly anti-State ideologies, from Anarcho-Capitalism to Posse Comitatus who's ideology is literally Mob Rule. Again both are ideologies I consider wrong, one is more evil then the other with it's blatant white supremacy but both are bad ideas.
Mussolini and Hitler actually hated each other, they almost went to war over Austria in 1934. Mussolini did not believe in Biological Racism (he was Nationalist but anyone in Italy was Italian even if you moved there just before WW1 broke out) or Antisemitism. In 1938 racial laws were passed in Italy because at the time they had become dependent on Nazi Germany, but they were never fully enforced. I'm not pointing this out to paint Mussolini as some Saint unfairly demonized by his forced association with Hitler, he was a Statist and Imperialist.
I'm simply pointing out that Nazism was not simply Mussolini's ideology applied to Germany. None of the Far Right Parties of Weimar Germany called themselves Fascist (it seems only former Roman provinces actually used the term which makes sense) but there were a couple of Hitler's rivals on the German Far-Right I would say were much closer to being what German Mussolini might've looked like. Ernst Niekisch actually had a relationship with Mussolini along with whom we could add the other National Bolsheviks (Heinrich Laufenberg, Karl Otto Paetel) or figures like Waldemar Pabst, Friedrich Minoux, Walter Caspari, Ernst Junger and Herman Ehrhardt. I'm hesitant to mention Alfred Hugenberg or Oswald Spengler, they were influenced by Mussolini's Corporatism but still more Capitalist then he was.
Then there Der Stahlhelm, Bund der Frontsoldaten the Paramilitary Veterans organization of the DVNP that received political backing from Mussolini during the 20s and called themselves 'German Fascists" in the 1932 Election specifically to distinguish themselves from the Nazis.
Meanwhile if you want to know what Italian Nazism would look like I'd say look no further then Julius Evola.
The fact is Nazism (and what gets called French Fascism) was much more homegrown then this lazy "Hitler copied Mussolini" narrative implies. The philosophical core of Nazism was laid out by Houston Stewart Chamberlain in his Foundations of the Nineteenth Century in 1899 and there were Antisemitic German Nationalist movements even before then, Hitler's style was very influenced by Gerog Ritter von Schonerer, there were groups like the Pan German League and the Fatherland Party, but even before them the Berlin Movement of the 1870s-80s. Meanwhile Ernst Haeckel and Alfred Ploetz laid the groundwork for Nazi Eugenics.
Sometimes people seek to define Fascism based on it's methods of obtaining power rather then actual ideology. In this case however Hitler actually failed when he tried to copy the March on Rome, meanwhile the Kapp Putsch and various Freikorps came before the March on Rome. Mussolini's Black Shirts were also predated by the Camelots du Roi founded in France in 1908 and the Red Shirts of the American south in the late nineteenth century who's height of political influence were the elections of 1900 (they actually did much of what Birth of A Nation and the books it's based on attributes to the KKK).
What's interesting about the French far right people we call Fascists of the 20s and 30s is that many became Collaborators with the Nazis and the Vichy Regime during the War like Charles Maurras, Marcel Bucard, Marcel Deat, Jacques Doriot, Eugene Deloncle, Joseph Darnand, Pierre Sidos, Robert Brasillach, Louis-Ferdinand Celine, Peirre Plantard and if you count Belgium Henri de Man. But some became part of The Resistance like Georges Valois, Georges Loustaunau-Lacau, Marie-Madeleine Fourcade, Jacques Arthuys, Henri Giraud, Colonel Passy, and some would argue Charles de Gaulle himself had Fascist leanings. Others played both sides like Perrie Taittinger, Francois de le Rocque and Jean-Louis Tixier-Vignancour. Those who were unambiguous collaborators certainly can't be said to have actually cared about Nationalism, they were clearly more about opposing Democracy, though Maurras probably cared about Antisemitism more then anything else.
While Mussolini's Corporatism defined itself as neither Capitalist or Socialist, it's not the only way to be neither of those things. The Nazi Party was originally partly founded on that too, particularly co-founders Drexler and Feder were explicitly opposed to both Capitalism and Bolshevism and that legacy was carried on by the Strasser brothers. However under Hitler's Leadership the Nazi Party betrayed it's anti-Capitalist roots in 1932 when while in debt they made a deal with IG Farben and Krupp, Hitler's alliance with Emil Kirdorf in 1927 also helped lay the ground work for this change. Friedrich Flick was another key business partner of the Nazis, along with the Thyssen corporation, and François Genoud was their Banker.
A fact that people today forget is that in the early modern era Capitalism was still new and was itself still seen aa Progressive in that context, even Marx viewed it as an improvement over Feudalism. Throughout the seventeenth through nineteenth centuries you were only socio-economically conservative if you wanted to maintain or return to Feudalism.
Reactionary anti-Capitalists included the Confederate States of America with the whole "Southern Gentlemen" stereotype being based on their Neo-Feudalism, the Royalists of Nineteenth and early 20th Century France, Houston Stewart Chamberlain mentioned above along with Theodor Fritsch and Guido von List in Germany and the British Empire Union founded in 1916. All Reactionary Anticapitalists also opposed Socialism, Communism, Anarchism and Marxism, which is what's left out when Procapitalists talk about the anitcapiitalism of the Fascists, Nazis and Confederates.
Today I feel like Reactionary objections to Capitalism still exist on the American Right, especially among Evangelical Christians, they just don't want to admit they're being anti-Capitalist. When you're complaining that "degenerate" Art is popular because it sells, when you want Drugs, Gambling, Prostitution and Pornography to be illegal, you are not taking the "Free Market" position. Also the general attitude that Rural Life is morally better then Urban life is founded upon objections to the influence of industrial capitalism. Also the Protectionism favored by Trump and Paleo-Conservatives is not a Free Market position, literally the only actual policy position Adam Smith was arguing for was Free Trade in opposition to Protectionism.
And because the Left has forgotten that you can be to the Right of Capitalism, on the modern internet a lot of reactionary objections to Capitalism get mingled in with the progressive ones and unwittingly supported by Leftists. Cyber Punk is a popular genre of fiction among Communists who feel technological innovation is inherently bad, this also gets tied in with supposedly Leftist objections to the Basic Income, instead of preparing for the inevitability of workers being replaced by machines they would rather stubbornly fight it. I also feel like anytime you just generically say Consumerism is bad you are being unwittingly Conservative.
I've kind of gone a bit off topic. The gist of what separates Fascist Corporatism from other "Third Positions" is that it's specifically Top-Down and run by the State. Putin's Russia actually defines itself as Corporatist, so see I'm still allowing you to call one of the modern Left's contemporary boogeymen a Fascist.
In The Doctrine of Fascism written by Mussolini and Giovani Gentile there are sections about opposition to Marxim and Individualism but also a section called "evolution from Socialism". In the section "the Totalitarian Fascist vision of The Future" Mussolini defines Fascism as being from his own POV at least Progressive not Reactionary, stating it's not about returning to before 1789 and saying that he's drawing on Marx the same way Marx drew on the "Utopian Socialists" who came before him. In this Manifesto the word "Capitalism" isn't used instead it's referred to as "Economic Liberalism" which is what Capitalists called themselves back then. Mussolini did use the word Capitalism elsewhere like when he coined the terms Heroic Capitalism and Supercapitalism where it's clear he views Capitalism as inherently bad.
My pointing out that Mussolini saw himself as Progressive doesn't mean I'm agreeing, one only has to look at Plato's Laws and Sparta to see how the core of Fascism is really quite Ancient. I also think Mussolini has more in common with Robespierre then he was willing to admit in this text.
The same points about Corporatist AntiCapitalism apply to the French Fascism of Georges Valois however he combined it with the Orelanist Royalist French Nationalism of Mauraas. And again the same is true of Oswald Mosley.
My most important point in bringing up TDoF however is that there isn't a hint of Palingenetic Ultranationalism in it, in fact because of points I just made it's outright incompatible with the Palingenetic part. There is a section on "tradition" but it's the shortest section and really vague in what it's saying. But he outright rejects the idea of a PreLabsarian Utopia. "But what about his obsession with Rome? The word Fascism itself comes from a Roman symbol!" you may object. Borrowing terminology and symbols from Ancient Greco-Romans politics was also done by Liberals and Socialists throughout the post 1789 period, that was simply the norm across the Political Spectrum, and it's hard to avoid in a nation that's speaking a descendent of Rome's language. In fact that same Roman Symbol was already associated with Unions and Syndicalism in Italy by 1889. That symbol is a Collectivist symbol meaning "stronger together" which does show the absurdity of when people try to paint Fascism as Individualist.
TDoF also says "It is not the nation which generates the State; that is an antiquated naturalistic concept which afforded a basis for XIXth century publicity in favor of national governments. Rather is it the State which creates the nation, conferring volition and therefore real life on a people made aware of their moral unity." That is absolutely the opposite of what a Nazi or "Palingenetic Ultra Nationalist" would say. It also later say "Race: it is a feeling and not a reality", meaning no room for Race realism.
The reason that Fascissm, Strasserism and National Bolshevism aren't Marxist theories in-spite of how much they borrow from Marx is that they reject the Class Struggle narrative in-favor of Class Collaboration. This aspect of Fascism is one of the traits it inherited from Giuseppe Mazzini.
Peter Coffin said in one video, I don't recall which one, that "Communism that's only for White People isn't Communism", I'm sure people defining Communism from the outside won't always agree with that, but my point here is that Communism for Whites Only is exactly what Strasserite Nazism is.
The difference between Fascism and Nazism is that in Fascism the State is more important then the Nation however much it may appeal to Patriotism, in Nazism the State is powerful only to serve the Nation and Citizenship in said nations is usually limited to specific ingroups, often biological "race". Eco came up with a good thesis for identifying the underlying soul of Nazism ("Nazi" was originally just a derogatory diminutive form of the German word for Nationalist), but it isn't universally applicable to Fascism. In Brittan Arnold Leese was really a Nazi in-spite of what he called his Party.
Of all the fictional Empires that have been called "Space Nazis", the only one that really fits the proper philosophy of Fascism is maybe the Cardassians of Star Trek Deep Space Nine. And I'm yet to see one I'm willing to properly call Nazism. The Empire in Star Wars is more inspired by Bonepartism. [Update: now that I think about it maybe Britannia in Code Geass is sufficiently Nazi.]
American "small government" Conservatives are wrong when they try to define Fascism and Socialism as being the same thing. But the problem with how Liberals try to prove them wrong is that it is Socialism these Conservatives are defining incorrectly, their definition of Fascism is mostly correct, or at least more correct then how most people define it. Socialism is not Statism but Fascism is. And unfortunately too many modern YouTube and Twitter Socialists are still dealing with that problem the same way Liberals do.
Calling Nazism a form of Fascism isn't that far off all things considered, "Reich" by that time basically meant "State". The real problem with trying to paint the entire Axis with the Fascist brush is Japan, but that's mostly off topic.
And at the same time there were Fascists and Nazis who fought on the Allies side, the French ones I already alluded to, but also Wilhelm Canaris, Otto Strasser's Black Front and the NazBols in Germany as well as some remnants of the Austrofascists and the Metaxas regime in Greece. Meanwhile in The U.S. MacArthur, Patton and George Lincoln Rockwell.
Update 2022: Peter Coffin recently told me on Facebook that "defining things base don ideology is an expression of Liberalism" which is typical Marxist "we need to make our definitions for everything" nonsense. Like or not Fascism was a word coined to define an ideology. If you want to create a theory on what the Fascists, Nazis and other similar reactionary movements of the 1920s and 30s have in common that's fine but Fascism isn't the word to use for that.
However defining what these groups had in common isn't that complicated, they were Anti-Communists, they were reactions to the Bolshevik Revolution, it really is that simple. Now you may respond "not all Anti-Communists joins these kinds of groups" and in this context I will distinguish between being a non Communist from being a militant Anti-Communist. Robert Taft had less ideologically in common with Communism then the Fascists, but he also believed in the right of people who disagreed with him to exist.
Slightly Off Topic Post Script
Imperial Japan's Governmental and Socio-Economic system at that time was the same as it was during WWI when it was an Ally. And that in turn was just copying the European Colonial powers chiefly Brittan, that's why they had a Parliament and Prime Minister, and why to this day Japanese School Uniforms look like British Military uniforms. And every War Crime or Atrocity they did is more parallel to what Brittan and America already had a long history of doing then to any of why the Nazis are considered uniquely Evil. So there is literally no way to define Fascism broadly enough to include Japan without also including most of the Allies, you can't have it both ways.
I included that little break down because of something that occasionally bugs me in the Western Anime community. Most Anime is overall ideologically to the Left of Japan's Center, often significantly so, many have a message that is explicitly about looking to the future and not clinging onto the past. Exceptions exist, but very rarely would anyone even think about using Anime to send a message that Imperial Japan was a benevolent Empire which should have won.
But when WWII comes up either explicitly or allegorically or in the unique way only Anime deals with history, the Pacific Theater at least is not looked on quite as simplistically as the West looks at it. There is a certain amount of casual romanticization of the Empire or at least willingness to have "heroes on both sides". And every time that happens certain people want to CANEL it because "they were allied with the Nazis therefore they are Nazis". There is an endless supply of Western media that casually romanticizes Colonialism and Feudalism and Rome even though it's understood that usually they're not actually advocating for a return to that. But Japan can't do the same with their less then a century of Empire without everyone losing their minds.
I barely concede that the Allies have moral superiority over the Fascists and Nazis, the Third Reich was just the one White Supremist Empire that threw out all pretense and got to the frakin point. Japan's greatest sin was being the first non White nation of the modern era to make an Empire.
No comments:
Post a Comment