Fascism, usually understood in Marxist theory as capitalism in decay,[1] is a counter-revolutionary reactionary movement led by finance capital,[2][3] and a form of dictatorship of the bourgeoisie which emerged during periods of economic crisis in imperialist countries.[4] The Third International described fascism as the "open, terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, and most imperialist elements of finance capital."[5]
Fascism usually promotes policies that favour the ever-expanding domination of capital. Its political aspect is marked by pervasive anti-communism, a profound aversion towards democracy, the justification and glorification of class society through class collaboration, and chauvinistic tendencies, namely ultra-nationalism, racism, sexism, and ableism. Fascist ideologues usually promote conspiracy theories, irrational myths and manipulative distortions of truth to gather support of their popular base.
Throughout history, the fascists promoted policies that caused even more exploitation of the working class than capitalism was ever able to, allowing monopolies to take over every aspect of society. So much so that The Economist magazine introduced the term privatization in 1936, unseen in political discourse at the time, to describe Nazi Germany's economic policies.[6] The most well-known historical examples of fascism are Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, but there have been various historical examples of fascism, such as Shōwa Japan, Francoist Spain and Salazarist Portugal.
History
Origins
The term "fascism" comes from the Italian National Fascist Party,[a] a party founded by Benito Mussolini in 1921; whose practices and ideology would later define this reactionary movement as a whole. Mussolini's fascism was inspired by the cult of Roman civilisation who, although they having no concept of fascism and did not care to predict the future two thousand years after their height, provided him with a perfect excuse to call back to the Roman Empire, which stretched far and wide and started in modern-day Italy. Thus, the name fascism was based on the fasces, an axe that is surrounded and bound to a bundle of sticks and was carried by officials (lictors) in political and military demonstrations. This was a symbol of power and authority that Mussolini repurposed for fascism.
The origins of fascism as a counter-revolutionary movement, however, can be traced as far as the French far-right French Action,[b] which was an openly anti-Marxist political organization established in 1899 proposing an "integral nation" for French society through class collaboration.[7]
In Discourse on colonialism, Aimé Césaire exposed the old colonialist mindsets that would later influence fascism and survive after it. This prompted him to write in that same essay that fascism is colonialism applied to the coloniser.[8] A similar observation was made by Frantz Fanon, who wrote: "what is fascism if not colonialism when rooted in a traditionally colonialist country?"[9]
Nietzsche
Historian and Marxist-Leninist philosopher Domenico Losurdo pointed in his work Nietzsche, the Aristocratic Rebel that Nietzsche, who was an aristocrat, can be associated with a reactionary trend against the rise of the Paris commune in 1871.[10] Nietzsche's views were consistently anti-liberal, anti-socialist, anti-democratic and even promoted racial hygiene, a tendency which would later inspire fascist movements.[11]
Sorel
Georges Sorel (1847–1922) was a French syndicalist that contributed and inspired the rise of National Syndicalism in Italy and Spain. His most famous works centred around the idea of myth; which he highlights as "forming the centre of man’s cosmology and world view in all ages".[12] In 1909, Sorel began to adopt the idea of Integral Nationalism, publishing an article praising the far-right group French Action in Divenire Sociale—the leading journal for Italian Syndicalists at the time. It received immense praise by French Action; being reprinted under the name "Antiparliamentary Socialists”, and in 1910 he joined the group. During this time, he developed further reactionary ideals, leading him to support Catholic Patriotism and further embedding himself in fascist ideology.[13] Mussolini looked up highly to Sorel and claimed he was his "foremost teacher".[14]
Italian fascism
The Italian fascist government of 1922 was the first known historical example of large-scale privatizations of state-owned enterprises.[15]
German fascism
See main article: Nazism
The most extreme form of fascism was German fascism, which called itself National Socialism despite being supported by finance capitalists.[16]
German fascism was most known for its genocidal, expansionist, imperialist and colonialist rule under the Nazi Party from 1933 to 1945, culminating in the deaths of at least 30 million people, including 26.6 million Soviets.[17] While the word "Nazi" is short for "National socialist", they were capitalists, the term "socialist" being nothing more than a ploy to gain working-class support. Not only did the German fascists allow the virulent exploitation of the working people and concentration of capital,[18] they adopted a settler-colonial model coupled with exploitation, colonialism, and mass terror applied to the European continent.[19] The ideological justification for colonization of European peoples by Nazis was promoted as Lebensraum,[c] and was directly influenced by Statesian genocide of Native peoples through Manifest Destiny.[20]
The Nazi Party was beaten into dissolution by the Soviet Union after the Battle of Berlin in May 1945.
Japanese fascism
Japanese fascism, also known as Shōwa Statism, was based on a number of imperialist and ultranationalist political ideas from various Japanese thinkers. Japanese fascism manifested itself in extreme militarism, monarchism, and expansionism in Asia.
Portuguese fascism
From 1933 to 1974, Portugal was ruled by the Estado Novo ("New State"), headed by António de Oliveira Salazar. Under Salazar's dictatorship, the Portuguese working class was subjugated to reactionary Christian doctrine, as well as a corporatist economy. The Salazarist regime was also militantly imperialist, repressing calls for independence and self-determination in Angola and Mozambique. The Estado Novo would finally fall in 1974, after a military coup. By the end of the 1970s, Portugal had returned to being a bourgeois democracy.[21]
Portugal, at the time a Fascist dictatorship, was one of the founding members of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization.
Spanish fascism
Following the victory of the United Front a coalition of ideological leftist groups that ranged from communists to social democrats and numerous others in 1936, a fascist revolt led by General Franco and assisted by invading Germany and Italy, tacitly backed by the rest of the allies, broke out. A civil war lasting three years followed, culminating in the crushing of Republican forces. The regime went on to last three more decades, and it is said that the current "reformed" Spanish state is a continuation of the same regime. Notably, Franco reintroduced the king of Spain in 1956 (whose parent was deposed in 1931), and to this day Spain remains a monarchy.
Neo-fascist movements
See main article: Neo-fascism
2019 coup in Bolivia
President Evo Morales of Bolivia was re-elected to office in October 2019 with 47.08% of the total vote. Soon after, opposing fascists called the results into question, helped by fraudulent reports from the Organisation of American States (OAS), which led to their paramilitary wing causing violence in the streets. After three weeks, Morales agreed to step down and left the country.
Later, accusations of electoral fraud were completely debunked by the same journals that initially reported on them, trusting the OAS.
The new government, led by Jeanine Añez, established a military junta in the country so as to dismantle popular support for MAS (Morales' party). They pushed elections back three times, eventually having them take place in November 2020, a full year after the coup. Their efforts failed, as MAS won the presidential election in 2020 with 55% of all votes (under candidate Luis Arce).
Since his election, Arce's government has announced that they would effectively purge the military's leadership, as their treason was pivotal in letting the coup succeed.
Marxist analysis
Left theory
The left wing analysis of fascism largely evolved from the known work of Jack London, The Iron Heel. Though this book was written before the world was introduced to fascism proper, it outlines much of the perceived likeness of fascism. The analysis sees fascism as a tool and a trick by the bourgeoisie. Proponents of this analysis would see fascism as an intrinsic part of bourgeois society and thereby capitalist hegemony.
This analysis is archaic in modern Marxist perceptions of fascism, as it is not critical and cannot meaningfully differentiate between reactionary liberal capitalism and fascism. Examples may include the Amadeo Bordiga's statement at the fifth congress of the communist international in 1924, in which he said:
Fascism, fundamentally, merely repeats the old game of the bourgeoise left parties, i.e. it appeals to the proletariat for civil peace. It attempts to achieve this aim by forming trade unions of industrial and agricultural workers, which it then leads into practical collaboration with the employers' organisations.[22]
Right theory
Whilst the left theory of fascism sees it as an elite movement, a hammer with which the bourgeois retaliates upon the organised working class, the right theory instead proposes fascism as a mass movement, not a force propagated or controlled by the ruling class. It sees fascism as separate from capitalist institutions, and as a revolutionary movement hostile to them. Some theorists, such as the British socialist Henry Brailsford, incorrectly defined fascism as a petty-bourgeois revolution against large-scale capitalists.[16]
However, this theory also undermines and misunderstands the nature of fascism as it does not explain why the capitalist class would integrate and accept fascism, nor does it explain why they would not fight fascism with tooth and nail if it was indeed a threat to their supremacy.
Dialectical analysis
The dialectical theory of fascism, concocted by Leon Trotsky, combines both of these theories so as to explain the phenomenon. According to the dialectical theory, fascism is both a part of capitalist society as a tool to the ruling class, but equally a mass movement with popular support. As capitalism declines and falls into crisis, reactionary movements find ground while workers organise through desperation to have revolutionary conditions be set in place.
The class which has contributed the most in terms of memberships in fascist parties is the petit-bourgeoisie, a class which, although having also suffered hardship during economic crisis, did not direct their anger towards the capitalist system but was instead characterised by its racist, anti-working class, and undialectical reactionary ideology.
This analysis states that fascism inherently is contradictory; while it is a mass movement cultivated by the decline of capitalism, is not anti-capitalist, as the petit-bourgeoisie do not want to destroy the ruling class but instead become part of the ruling class. It is a reactionary movement which inevitably only benefits the current ruling class, made from a movement of non-bourgeoisie. Therefore, there is a contradiction between fascism as an ideology and the movement which supports it. To stave off this contradiction, fascism must always divert and distract itself from its own contradictions by using shifting blame on racial, indigenous, and religious minorities, LGBTQ+ people, people with disabilities, communists, or whoever happens to be a convenient scapegoat. However it cannot sustain itself for very long; since it is an antagonistic contradiction, it will always break itself apart, as has been seen historically.
See also
References
- ↑ What "Fascism is capitalism in decay" means
- ↑ “No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia.”
Georgi Dimitrov (1935). The fascist offensive and the tasks of the Communist International in the struggle of the working class against fascism: 'The class character of fascism'. Main Report delivered at the 7th World Congress of the Communist International. [MIA] - ↑ "Encyclopedia of Marxism".
- ↑ “Fascism, whether in its classical 20th-century form or possible variants of 21st-century neo-fascism, is a particular response to capitalist crisis, such as that of the 1930s and the one that began with the financial meltdown of 2008. Global capitalism is facing an organic crisis involving an intractable structural dimension, that of overaccumulation, and a political dimension, that of legitimacy or hegemony that is approaching a general crisis of capitalist rule.”
William I. Robinson (2019). Global capitalist crisis and twenty-first century fascism: beyond the Trump hype. Science & Society, 83(2), 155–183. doi: 10.1521/siso.2019.83.2.155 [HUB] - ↑ “Comrades, fascism in power was correctly described by the Thirteenth Plenum of the Executive Committee of the Communist International as the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”
Georgi Dimitrov (1935). The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism: 'Fascism and the Working Class'. [MIA] - ↑ Germà Bel (2006). Retrospectives: the coining of “privatization” and Germany's National Socialist Party. Journal of Economic Perspectives, 20(3), 187–194. doi: 10.1257/jep.20.3.187 [HUB]
- ↑ Ernst Nolte (1966). Three faces of fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism (German: Der Faschismus in seiner Epoche: Die Action française, Der italienische Faschismus, Der Nationalsozialismus). New York: New American Library. ISBN 9780451008619 [LG]
- ↑ “People are surprised, they become indignant. They say: "How strange! But never mind – it's Nazism, it will pass!" And they wait, and they hope; and they hide the truth from themselves, that it is barbarism, the supreme barbarism, the crowning barbarism that sums up all the daily barbarisms; that it is Nazism, yes, but that before they were its victims, they were its accomplices; that they tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, that they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples; that they have cultivated that Nazism, that they are responsible for it, and that before engulfing the whole edifice of Western, Christian civilization in its reddened waters, it oozes, seeps, and trickles from every crack.”
Aimé Césaire (1950). Discourse on colonialism (Discours sur le colonialisme) (p. 36). [PDF] France: Réclame. ISBN 1583670254 - ↑ Frantz Fanon (1961). Wretched of the earth (p. 90). Grove Press. ISBN 9780802150837 [LG]
- ↑ “[In The Birth of Tragedy,] Nietzsche’s preoccupation, or rather his anguish, about a danger not remote or hypothetical, but real and impending, is plainly evident. The reference to the Paris Commune is transparent, an event that a great part of the culture of that time experienced as the threatening announcement of a possible imminent end of culture.”
Domenico Losurdo (2002). Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel (p. 26). ISBN 9789004270954 [LG] - ↑ “Even a scholar that moves cautiously on ground alien to him, that of philosophical historiography, and clearly wants to avoid a critical confrontation with the hermeneutics of innocence is forced to acknowledge an essential point regarding Nietzsche interpretations: ‘Much in his work can be interpreted in terms of racial hygiene.’ Other authors are even clearer: with his insistence on the ‘degeneration’ and ‘physiological decline of European humanity’, the philosopher must be placed ‘in the context of the direct preparation of eugenics’. Indeed, in this context, he sadly occupies a privileged position: he represents the ‘turning point’ for the transition from the ‘idea of selection’ to ‘anti-degenerative activism’. The reconstruction of the history behind Hitler’s eugenic and genocidal practices cannot, in this view, ignore Nietzsche, who expressly and peremptorily demanded the ‘suppression of the wretched, the deformed, the degenerate.’”
Domenico Losurdo (2002). Nietzsche, the aristocratic rebel (p. 731). ISBN 9789004270954 [LG] - ↑ Rodrigo Sobota (2020-10-15). "Georges Sorel and the Triumphant Return of the Myth"
- ↑ Zeev Sternhell (1994). THE BIRTH OF FASCIST IDEOLOGY: '1–3'. [PDF] ISBN 0-691-03289-0 [LG]
- ↑ James H. Meisel (1950-03-01). "A Premature Fascist? ― Sorel and Mussolini"
- ↑ “Italy’s first Fascist government applied a large-scale privatization policy between 1922 and 1925. [...] These interventions represent one of the earliest and most decisive privatization episodes in the Western world.”
Germà Bel (2011). The first privatization: Selling SOEs and privatizing public monopolies in Fascist Italy (1922-1925). doi: 10.1093/cje/beq051 [HUB] - ↑ 16.0 16.1 Georgi Dimitrov (1937). The United Front: 'The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International' (pp. 10–11). San Francisco: Proletarian Publishers.
- ↑ “Today we can state with a certain degree of probability that losses of the Soviet Union amounted to 26.6 million people, including losses of the Armed Forces amounted to 8,668,400 servicemen. The total statistical figure includes not only those killed in action and those who died from wounds and illnesses, but also civilians killed during bombing, artillery shelling and punitive actions, prisoners of war and underground fighters shot and tortured in camps, and those sent away for forced labor in Germany.”
Lieutenant Colonel S.B. Eremenko. On the issue of losses of the opposing sides at the Soviet-German front during the Great Patriotic War (Russian: К вопросу о потерях противоборствующих сторон на советско-германском фронте в годы Великой Отечественной войны: правда и вымысел). Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation. - ↑ “The party, moreover, facilitates the accumulation of private fortunes and industrial empires by its foremost members and collaborators through "privatization" and other measures, thereby intensifying centralization of economic affairs and government in an increasingly narrow group that may for all practical purposes be termed the national socialist elite.”
Sidney Merlin (1943). Trends in German economic control since 1933 (p. 207). The Quarterly Journal of Economics, vol. 57. doi: 10.2307/1882751 [HUB] - ↑ “Hitler's writings and speeches, public and private, left no doubt that Lebensraum, or living space, was to be gained on the continent rather than overseas. The German equivalent of British India or French Algeria was not Cameroon, Togo or German Southwest Africa but central and east Europe, as some scholars have reminded the advocates of the salt water colonial paradigm.”
Thomas Kühne (2013). Colonialism and the Holocaust: continuities, causations, and complexities: 'German colonialism and German peculiarities' (p. 343). Journal of Genocide Research, vol. 15. doi: 10.1080/14623528.2013.821229 [HUB] - ↑ “Many of the Lebensraum justifications that Hitler and Nazis used directly echoed the justifications given for American Manifest Destiny. (...) National Socialists took on the mantle of noble colonizers who were fighting against ignoble savages. Not surprisingly, scholars recognize that these Nazi ideas on Lebensraum were largely modeled on late-nineteenth and early-twentieth century understandings of American expansion.”
Robert J. Miller (2020). Nazi Germany's race laws, the United States, and American Indians (p. 14). [LG] - ↑ Howard J. Wiarda (1977). Corporatism and Development: The Portuguese Experience. University of Massachusetts Press. ISBN 9780870232213
- ↑ Duncan Hallas (1985). The Comintern.