How shall we define Fascism?

Great Debates
1

I know there have been similar threads in the past, but in light of the current pit thread about not needing conservative voices, with counter-complaints about accusations of fascism being too freely handed out, I thought it might be useful to revive this topic.

Fascism has already been godwinized on the internet, that seems clear. Yet it also appears that there is now a substantial movement in the US which is hard to describe in any other way.

The word Conservative has lost all previous meanings as well. I no longer call anything conservative, which I previously associated with a desire to preserve the status quo, nostalgia for the 1950’s when the US was at a cultural high point of conformity and emphasis on respectability, and even, a belief in conserving things of value which seemed in danger.

So what kind of behavior and ideas constitute fascism? When can we accurately name someone an espouser of fascism? I like to be accurate …

2

The problem’s a little older than that, I fear;

3

Wikipedia says:

Fascism (/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form of far-right, authoritarian ultranationalism[1][2] characterized by dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy,[3] which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe.

That’s fairly specific. Most people seem to use the term for things with only one or a few of these characteristics.

Also from Wikipedia:

One common definition of the term, frequently cited by reliable sources as a standard definition, is that of historian Stanley G. Payne.[28] He focuses on three concepts:

  1. the “fascist negations”: anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism;
  2. “fascist goals”: the creation of a nationalist dictatorship to regulate economic structure and to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture, and the expansion of the nation into an empire; and
  3. “fascist style”: a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership.[31][32][33][34]

Meeting all of these requirements is a pretty strict test and few of the things commonly called fascist would meet the definition. Seems common for people to say ‘fascist’ when they really mean ‘authoritarian’.

4

The above definitions are useful – seems like what is happening to the far right in the US and elsewhere is significantly different from those definitions in (at least) two obvious ways – the desire to regulate economic structures, and empire-building.

The far-right, authoritarian nationalism is all there. But the desire seems to be for chaos and lawlessness. The utter planlessness, the obstruction of any kind of order, the love of violent destruction with nothing whatsoever in mind to build or create in the aftermath – that isn’t fascism at all.

Fuck all if I know what it is.

5

Can we distinguish between how fascists define themselves and how they are defined by others?

“Everything for the State, Nothing outside the State, Nothing against the State” was, well, stated Fascist policy in Italy. If we’re not specifically talking about Fascist Italy, we can substitute “the in-group” for “state.” And even outsiders can agree on it’s manifold flaws and corruptions whether their outsider status is by conviction or alienation to the insiders.

And, historically, the reason the word “Fascism” is used instead of Nazism or authoritarianism is because the authoritarian USSR was fighting a proxy was with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy in Spain, as well as a corresponding propaganda war worldwide, while trying to maintain diplomatic relations with Germany. Holding that wolf by the ears, it was decided safer to bad-mouth the Italian ideology. We use “Fascism” as a legacy of a long-dead political expedient, and may as well hate authoritarianism itself. Or simply hate bullies.

6

If you did take into consideration that fascists in the past liked to be unpleasant, obstructive and to love violent destruction, the seemingly “nothing” to build in the aftermath was really not there. The nasty opportunistic plans of the future dictators were already in the minds of the authoritarians on the way to power, the actual future dictator’s plans were/are not really analyzed properly by many followers of the future dictators.

7

Well there we have the corruption. Recall that Kristallnacht was the brainchild of an opportunistic Goebbels, which the anal-retentive SS deplored out of inter-organizational rivalry and pure style.

8

The word fascism seems to be currently applied to what used to be called totalitarianism, which properly includes both right-wing and left-wing versions.

9

ISTM looking at the various trends ascendant not just in the US but in other countries, I would call them “nationalist populism” as their core, and then they seem to grab whatever elements of right v. left, authoritarian v. anarchic, progressive v. reactionary policies may be more advantageous to gaining and keeping power.

10

I ran across this just a few years ago, when reading AJP Taylor’s Origins of the Second World War (yeah, a little late, but I’m trying to catch up on my lack of education). And I’ve kept it handy ever since.

Fascism never possessed the ruthless drive, let alone the material strength, of National Socialism. Morally it was just as corrupting — or perhaps more so from its very dishonesty. Everything about Fascism was a fraud. The social peril from which it saved Italy was a fraud; the revolution by which it seized power was a fraud; the ability and policy of Mussolini were fraudulent. Fascist rule was corrupt, incompetent, empty; Mussolini himself a vain, blundering boaster without either ideas or aims.

I get that it’s not a definition, exactly. But it’s a negative definition. And it seems to me (as historically illiterate as I am) that everything about fascism is negative. It’s a political system based on lies and untruth.

As bad as Communism got, there was a truth at the bottom – that workers and peasant farmers were being ruthlessly exploited by a self-appointed class (be that class nobility or capitalists).

Fascism is just fraud.

11

I think that’s because you see trying to destroy everything as the ultimate goal. That’s not what they are doing, because such is ultimately incompatible with authoritarianism. What you describe would be a form of anarchism*. What they’re actually doing is trying to destroy that which gets in their way.

They are trying to build up some things. They try to build up law enforcement to be above reproach. They continue to lionize the hell out of the military. They add laws that limit protest. They want to force certain things to be taught in schools (but not others).

There’s still an aspect of adding order. It’s just that it can get lost in the desire to sow chaos in what they don’t like.

Heck, with the Portland protests, we saw the full plan in action. We saw the deliberate choice to escalate tensions with violence, creating chaos. Then we had the Feds come in and restrict freedoms—to create order.

*That’s not to say that anarchism can’t work. But it can’t be the chaotic kind. It’s more the “self-governing” kind.

12

That’s interesting. I’d be interested in reading a cite about this. IMHO the term seems like it applies just as well to Stalin as it did to Mussolini and Hitler. The present Chinese Communist Party also seems to fit under the definition.

13

Communism in the USSR was explicitly internationalist, and far left rather than far right. It shared dictatorial power, forcible suppression of opposition, and strong regimentation of society and of the economy with fascism.

14

I believe on the simplest level, Fascism expresses an idolization of a particular leader who will save the people with complete political power. I believe that describes Trumpism very well.

15

Could equally well apply to Hugo Chávez, who was a socialist. It’s a common pattern, I can’t remember if there’s a particular term to describe it.

16

Beau of the Fifth Column lays it out pretty well.

The list he references:

https://ratical.org/ratville/CAH/fasci14chars.html

17

I’m pretty sure that was in Bloodlands, Timothy D Snyder

18

I’m halfway through that Beau of the Fifth a column video.

Let me guess, it ends with (as the final bad thing) him explaining that the dozen or so “good things” and the couple bad things are the tenets of fascism outline by Umberto Eco?

Which, by the way, is my go-to when asked “what is a fascist?” Umberto Eco laid it out pretty well, having lived under Mussolini for a time, and committed his thoughts to writing in a time of relative stability for the US (so he wasn’t writing with a particular American President in mind at least).

19

How many times do I have to teach you this lesson, old man?

Fascism is a made up word. It literally did not exist until it was invented specifically to describe a very particular set of political beliefs. Any other definition is just some blowhard co-opting a word because using accurate terminology is too hard for the majority of people with kneejerk based opinions.

This is the definition of Fascism.

This is what the creator of the word - Benito freakin Mussolini - created it to represent, and this is the ideology that fueled the ur-example of a Fascist state. Nazism evolved out of Fascism and falls within the category in the same way that Maoism evolved out of Stalinism, but lets not confuse unique attributes of Maoism with it’s ideological antecedent Stalinsm or Marxism and likewise not confuse unique aspects of Nazism, Neo-Fascism, or any other ideological descendent of Fascism like the direction of contemporary American psuedo-conservatives with Fascism itself.

Likewise, let’s be firm in smacking anyone who says this…

REJECTION OF MARXISM
Such a conception of life makes Fascism the resolute negation of the doctrine underlying so-called scientific and Marxian socialism, the doctrine of historic materialism which would explain the history of mankind in terms of the class struggle and by changes in the processes and instruments of production, to the exclusion of all else.

That the vicissitudes of economic life - discoveries of raw materials, new technical processes, and scientific inventions - have their importance, no one denies; but that they suffice to explain human history to the exclusion of other factors is absurd. Fascism believes now and always in sanctity and heroism, that is to say in acts in which no economic motive - remote or immediate - is at work. Having denied historic materialism, which sees in men mere puppets on the surface of history, appearing and disappearing on the crest of the waves while in the depths the real directing forces move and work, Fascism also denies the immutable and irreparable character of the class struggle which is the natural outcome of this economic conception of history; above all it denies that the class struggle is the preponderating agent in social transformations. Having thus struck a blow at socialism in the two main points of its doctrine, all that remains of it is the sentimental aspiration, old as humanity itself-toward social relations in which the sufferings and sorrows of the humbler folk will be alleviated. But here again Fascism rejects the economic interpretation of felicity as something to be secured socialistically, almost automatically, at a given stage of economic evolution when all will be assured a maximum of material comfort. Fascism denies the materialistic conception of happiness as a possibility, and abandons it to the economists of the mid-eighteenth century. This means that Fascism denies the equation: well-being = happiness, which sees in men mere animals, content when they can feed and fatten, thus reducing them to a vegetative existence pure and simple.

…could possibly include the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics.

20

Fascism.
Naziism.
Authoritarianism.
Totalitarianism.
Ultra-Nationalism.

These are not the same but they share many characteristics and in many contexts may be used interchangibly with no loss of meaning.