The Nature of Fascism Revisited
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Introduction Thinking Fascism and Populism in Terms of the Past
Introduction Thinking Fascism and Populism in Terms of the Past Representing a historian’s inquiry into how and why fascism morphed into populism in history, this book describes the dicta- torial genealogies of modern populism. It also stresses the sig- nifi cant diff erences between populism as a form of democracy and fascism as a form of dictatorship. It rethinks the conceptual and historical experiences of fascism and populism by assessing their elective ideological affi nities and substantial political dif- ferences in history and theory. A historical approach means not subordinating lived experiences to models or ideal types but rather stressing how the actors saw themselves in contexts that were both national and transnational. It means stressing varied contingencies and manifold sources. History combines evidence with interpretation. Ideal types ignore chronology and the cen- trality of historical processes. Historical knowledge requires accounting for how the past is experienced and explained through narratives of continuities and change over time. Against an idea of populism as an exclusively European or American phenomenon, I propose a global reading of its historical 1 2 / Introduction itineraries. Disputing generic theoretical defi nitions that reduce populism to a single sentence, I stress the need to return populism to history. Distinctive, and even opposed, forms of left- and right- wing populism crisscross the world, and I agree with historians like Eric Hobsbawm that left and right forms of populism cannot be confl ated simply because they are often antithetical.1 While populists on the left present those who are opposed to their politi- cal views as enemies of the people, populists on the right connect this populist intolerance of alternative political views with a con- ception of the people formed on the basis of ethnicity and country of origin. -
Italian Fascism Between Ideology and Spectacle
Fast Capitalism ISSN 1930-014X Volume 1 • Issue 2 • 2005 doi:10.32855/fcapital.200502.014 Italian Fascism between Ideology and Spectacle Federico Caprotti In April 1945, a disturbing scene was played out at a petrol station in Piazzale Loreto, in central Milan. Mussolini’s body was displayed for all to see, hanging upside down, together with those of other fascists and of Claretta Petacci, his mistress. Directly, the scene showed the triumph of the partisans, whose efforts against the Nazis had greatly accelerated the liberation of the North of Italy. The Piazzale Loreto scene was both a victory sign and a reprisal. Nazis and fascists had executed various partisans and displayed their bodies in the same place earlier in the war. Indirectly, the scene was a symbolic reversal of what had until then been branded as historical certainty. Piazzale Loreto was a public urban spectacle aimed at showing the Italian people that fascism had ended. The Duce was now displayed as a gruesome symbol of defeat in the city where fascism had first developed. More than two decades of fascism were symbolically overcome through a barbaric catharsis. The concept of spectacle has been applied to Italian fascism (Falasca-Zamponi 2000) in an attempt to conceptualize and understand the relationship between fascist ideology and its external manifestations in the public, symbolic, aesthetic, and urban spheres. This paper aims to further develop the concept of fascism as a society of spectacle by elaborating a geographical understanding of Italian fascism as a material phenomenon within modernity. Fascism is understood as an ideological construct (on which the political movement was based) which was expressed in the symbolic and aesthetic realm; its symbolism and art however are seen as having been rooted in material, historical specificity. -
The Three Phases of Arendt's Theory of Totalitarianism*
The Three Phases of Arendt's Theory of Totalitarianism* X~1ANNAH Arendt's The Origins of Totalitarianism, first published in 1951, is a bewilderingly wide-ranging work, a book about much more than just totalitarianism and its immediate origins.' In fact, it is not really about those immediate origins at all. The book's peculiar organization creates a certain ambiguity regarding its intended subject-matter and scope.^ The first part, "Anti- semitism," tells the story of tbe rise of modern, secular anti-Semi- tism (as distinct from what the author calls "religious Jew-hatred") up to the turn of the twentieth century, and ends with the Drey- fus affair in Erance—a "dress rehearsal," in Arendt's words, for things still worse to come (10). The second part, "Imperialism," surveys an assortment of pathologies in the world politics of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, leading to (but not direcdy involving) the Eirst World War. This part of the book examines the European powers' rapacious expansionist policies in Africa and Asia—in which overseas investment became the pre- text for raw, openly racist exploitation—and the concomitant emergence in Central and Eastern Europe of "tribalist" ethnic movements whose (failed) ambition was the replication of those *Earlier versions of this essay were presented at the University of Virginia and at the conference commemorating the fiftieth anniversary of The Origins of Toudilarianism hosted by the Hannah Arendt-Zentrum at Carl Ossietzky University in Oldenburg, Ger- many. I am grateful to Joshua Dienstag and Antonia Gnmenberg. respectively, for arrang- ing these (wo occasions, and also to the inembers of the audience at each—especially Lawrie Balfour, Wolfgang Heuer, George KJosko, Allan Megili, Alfons Sollner, and Zoltan Szankay—for their helpful commeiiLs and criticisms. -
Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights, II Author(S): Karl Loewenstein Source: the American Political Science Review, Vol
Militant Democracy and Fundamental Rights, II Author(s): Karl Loewenstein Source: The American Political Science Review, Vol. 31, No. 4 (Aug., 1937), pp. 638-658 Published by: American Political Science Association Stable URL: https://www.jstor.org/stable/1948103 Accessed: 07-08-2018 08:47 UTC JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at https://about.jstor.org/terms American Political Science Association is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to The American Political Science Review This content downloaded from 35.176.47.6 on Tue, 07 Aug 2018 08:47:36 UTC All use subject to https://about.jstor.org/terms MILITANT DEMOCRACY AND FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS, II* KARL LOEWENSTEIN Amherst College II Some Illustrations of Militant Democracy. Before a more system- atic -account of anti-fascist legislation in Europe is undertaken, recent developments in several countries may be reviewed as illus- trating what militant democracy can achieve against subversive extremism when the will to survive is coupled with appropriate measures for combatting fascist techniques. 1. Finland: From the start, the Finnish Republic was particu- larly exposed to radicalism both from left and right. The newly established state was wholly devoid of previous experience in self- government, shaken by violent nationalism, bordered by bolshevik Russia, yet within the orbit of German imperialism; no other country seemed more predestined to go fascist. -
INTRODUCTION 1. Charles Esdaile, the Wars of Napoleon (New York, 1995), Ix; Philip Dwyer, “Preface,” Napoleon and Europe, E
Notes INTRODUCTION 1. Charles Esdaile, The Wars of Napoleon (New York, 1995), ix; Philip Dwyer, “Preface,” Napoleon and Europe, ed. Philip Dwyer (London, 2001), ix. 2. Michael Broers, Europe under Napoleon, 1799–1815 (London, 1996), 3. 3. An exception to the Franco-centric bibliography in English prior to the last decade is Owen Connelly, Napoleon’s Satellite Kingdoms (New York, 1965). Connelly discusses the developments in five satellite kingdoms: Italy, Naples, Holland, Westphalia, and Spain. Two other important works that appeared before 1990, which explore the internal developments in two countries during the Napoleonic period, are Gabriel Lovett, Napoleon and the Birth of Modern Spain (New York, 1965) and Simon Schama, Patriots and Liberators: Revolution in the Netherlands, 1780–1813 (London, 1977). 4. Stuart Woolf, Napoleon’s Integration of Europe (London and New York, 1991), 8–13. 5. Geoffrey Ellis, “The Nature of Napoleonic Imperialism,” Napoleon and Europe, ed. Philip Dwyer (London, 2001), 102–5; Broers, Europe under Napoleon, passim. 1 THE FORMATION OF THE NAPOLEONIC EMPIRE 1. Geoffrey Ellis, “The Nature of Napoleonic Imperialism,” Napoleon and Europe, ed. Philip Dwyer (London, 2001), 105. 2. Martyn Lyons, Napoleon Bonaparte and the Legacy of the French Revolution (New York, 1994), 43. 3. Ellis, “The Nature,” 104–5. 4. On the Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars and international relations, see Tim Blanning, The French Revolutionary Wars, 1787–1802 (London, 1996); David Chandler, The Campaigns of Napoleon: the Mind and Method of History’s Greatest Soldier (London, 1966); Owen Connelly, Blundering to Glory: Napoleon’s Military 212 Notes 213 Campaigns (Wilmington, DE, 1987); J. -
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Cultural Experimentation as Regulatory Mechanism in Response to Events of War and Revolution in Russia (1914-1940) Anita Tárnai Submitted in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy in the Graduate School of Arts and Sciences COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY 2014 © 2014 Anita Tárnai All rights reserved ABSTRACT Cultural Experimentation as Regulatory Mechanism in Response to Events of War and Revolution in Russia (1914-1940) Anita Tárnai From 1914 to 1940 Russia lived through a series of traumatic events: World War I, the Bolshevik revolution, the Civil War, famine, and the Bolshevik and subsequently Stalinist terror. These events precipitated and facilitated a complete breakdown of the status quo associated with the tsarist regime and led to the emergence and eventual pervasive presence of a culture of violence propagated by the Bolshevik regime. This dissertation explores how the ongoing exposure to trauma impaired ordinary perception and everyday language use, which, in turn, informed literary language use in the writings of Viktor Shklovsky, the prominent Formalist theoretician, and of the avant-garde writer, Daniil Kharms. While trauma studies usually focus on the reconstructive and redeeming features of trauma narratives, I invite readers to explore the structural features of literary language and how these features parallel mechanisms of cognitive processing, established by medical research, that take place in the mind affected by traumatic encounters. Central to my analysis are Shklovsky’s memoir A Sentimental Journey and his early articles on the theory of prose “Art as Device” and “The Relationship between Devices of Plot Construction and General Devices of Style” and Daniil Karms’s theoretical writings on the concepts of “nothingness,” “circle,” and “zero,” and his prose work written in the 1930s. -
ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN INTERVENTIONS in DEMOCRATIC THEORY by BRIAN CARL BERNHARDT B.A., James Madison University, 2005 M.A., University of Colorado at Boulder, 2010
BEYOND THE DEMOCRATIC STATE: ANTI-AUTHORITARIAN INTERVENTIONS IN DEMOCRATIC THEORY by BRIAN CARL BERNHARDT B.A., James Madison University, 2005 M.A., University of Colorado at Boulder, 2010 A thesis submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School of the University of Colorado in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of Doctor of Philosophy Department of Political Science 2014 This thesis entitled: Beyond the Democratic State: Anti-Authoritarian Interventions in Democratic Theory written by Brian Carl Bernhardt has been approved for the Department of Political Science Steven Vanderheiden, Chair Michaele Ferguson David Mapel James Martel Alison Jaggar Date The final copy of this thesis has been examined by the signatories, and we Find that both the content and the form meet acceptable presentation standards Of scholarly work in the above mentioned discipline. Bernhardt, Brian Carl (Ph.D., Political Science) Beyond the Democratic State: Anti-Authoritarian Interventions in Democratic Theory Thesis directed by Associate Professor Steven Vanderheiden Though democracy has achieved widespread global popularity, its meaning has become increasingly vacuous and citizen confidence in democratic governments continues to erode. I respond to this tension by articulating a vision of democracy inspired by anti-authoritarian theory and social movement practice. By anti-authoritarian, I mean a commitment to individual liberty, a skepticism toward centralized power, and a belief in the capacity of self-organization. This dissertation fosters a conversation between an anti-authoritarian perspective and democratic theory: What would an account of democracy that begins from these three commitments look like? In the first two chapters, I develop an anti-authoritarian account of freedom and power. -
Fascist Italy's Illiberal Cultural Networks Culture, Corporatism And
Genealogie e geografie dell’anti-democrazia nella crisi europea degli anni Trenta Fascismi, corporativismi, laburismi a cura di Laura Cerasi Fascist Italy’s Illiberal Cultural Networks Culture, Corporatism and International Relations Benjamin G. Martin Uppsala University, Sweden Abstract Italian fascists presented corporatism, a system of sector-wide unions bring- ing together workers and employers under firm state control, as a new way to resolve tensions between labour and capital, and to reincorporate the working classes in na- tional life. ‘Cultural corporatism’ – the fascist labour model applied to the realm of the arts – was likewise presented as a historic resolution of the problem of the artist’s role in modern society. Focusing on two art conferences in Venice in 1932 and 1934, this article explores how Italian leaders promoted cultural corporatism internationally, creating illiberal international networks designed to help promote fascist ideology and Italian soft power. Keywords Fascism. Corporatism. State control. Labour. Capital. Summary 1 Introduction. – 2 Broadcasting Cultural Corporatism. – 3 Venice 1932: Better Art Through Organisation. – 4 Italy’s International Cultural Outreach: Strategies and Themes. – 5 Venice 1934: Art and the State, Italy and the League. – 6 Conclusion. 1 Introduction The great ideological conflict of the interwar decades was a clash of world- views and visions of society, but it also had a quite practical component: which ideology could best respond to the concrete problems of the age? Problems like economic breakdown, mass unemployment, and labour unrest were not only practical, of course: they seemed linked to a broader breakdown of so- Studi di storia 8 e-ISSN 2610-9107 | ISSN 2610-9883 ISBN [ebook] 978-88-6969-317-5 | ISBN [print] 978-88-6969-318-2 Open access 137 Published 2019-05-31 © 2019 | cb Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International Public License DOI 10.30687/978-88-6969-317-5/007 Martin Fascist Italy’s Illiberal Cultural Networks. -
Rise of Totalitarianism Ch
RISE OF TOTALITARIANISM CH. 14.1-Revolutions in Russia Objective Review 1. What led to the Russian Revolution? 2. What was the March Revolution? 3. What were Lenin’s reforms? Bolshevik Revolution • Lenin returns: Lenin in disguise, Petrograd, April 1917 w/o beard – Germany knows Lenin would stir unrest • Hurt Russian war effort • Returns in armored RR car, under German protection –* “Peace, Land, and Bread” Bolsheviks in Power • Red Guard – Armed Bolshevik enforcers • Arrest Provisional govt. officials, later disappear… • Royal family Murdered • * Russians support Bolsheviks -Call for Immediate peace with the Germans in WWI – Peasants receive farmland – Workers control factories – March 1918 sign Treaty of Brest-Litovsk Civil War Rages in Russia 1918-1920 • Red Army 1920 Lenin cleanses the earth – Bolsheviks • Vladimir Lenin is leader – Leon Trotsky military genius – Joseph Stalin political genius • White Army – Any one who was not a Bolshevik – Western nations, U.S. (sent aid) • Bolsheviks victorious • 14 million die (Due to Revolution) Lenin Restores Order • Lenin needs to restore industry • 1921 New Economic Policy (NEP) – Major industries, banks, ran by the state – Some small businesses, foreign investment encouraged – 1928 econ. back to pre- WWI levels Political Reforms • Nationalism seen as a threat Karl Marx 1818-1883 – Russia organized into small, self ran republics Known as: Union of Soviet Socialist Republics AKA: USSR, or Soviet Union • Bolshevik party becomes the Communist Party – Idea from Karl Marx – Est. dictatorship of the Communist Party not of the proletariat like Marx said Stalin Becomes dictator • 1922 Lenin suffers Leon Trotsky stroke – Who will take power? • Trotsky or Stalin • 1922-1929 struggle Joseph Stalin ensues – 1929 Stalin (political genius) forces Trotsky into exile – Stalin becomes leader (dictator) ET FINISH ALL NOTES 55…#13…BUT WAIT FOR MORE INSTRUCTIONS! Totalitarianism Chapter 14, Section 2 What is Totalitarianism? • A government that takes total control over every aspect of public and private life. -
The Rise of Totalitarianism, the Start of World War II and the US Response
The Rise of Totalitarianism, the Start of World War II and the US Response Overview Students will gain an understanding of the conditions that allowed totalitarian regimes to come to power throughout the world following World War I. Through a study of four nations (Russia, Italy, Germany, and Japan) students will gain insight into how the regimes came to power and how they maintained that power. Students will then be responsible for conveying what they have learned about their assigned regime by participating in a jigsaw activity. The lesson culminates with a debate between “isolationists” and “interventionists” analyzing the United States’ responses to the rise of Totalitarian regimes. Grade 11 NC Essential Standards for American History II • AH2.H.2.2: Evaluate key turning points since the end of Reconstruction in terms of their lasting impact • AH2.H.6.2: Explain the reasons for United States involvement in global wars and the influence each involvement had on international affairs • AH2.H.7.1: Explain the impact of wars on American politics since Reconstruction Materials • Election Ballots (attached) • “Rise of Totalitarianism Jigsaw” handout (attached) • “Rise of Totalitarianism in Russia, Italy, Germany, and Japan” handouts (attached) • “Rise of Totalitarianism” Viewing Guide (attached) • “Totalitarian Aggression and the Start of World War II” Power Point, available in PDF format at the Consortium’s Database of K-12 Resources o To view this PDF as a projectable presentation, save the file, click “View” in the top menu bar of the file, and select “Full Screen Mode” o To request an editable PPT version of this presentation, send a request to [email protected] • “Totalitarian Aggression and the Start of World War II” Guided Notes (attached) • Isolationists v. -
Was Hitler a Darwinian?
Was Hitler a Darwinian? Robert J. Richards The University of Chicago The Darwinian underpinnings of Nazi racial ideology are patently obvious. Hitler's chapter on "Nation and Race" in Mein Kampf discusses the racial struggle for existence in clear Darwinian terms. Richard Weikart, Historian, Cal. State, Stanislaus1 Hamlet: Do you see yonder cloud that's almost in shape of a camel? Shakespeare, Hamlet, III, 2. 1. Introduction . 1 2. The Issues regarding a Supposed Conceptually Causal Connection . 4 3. Darwinian Theory and Racial Hierarchy . 10 4. The Racial Ideology of Gobineau and Chamberlain . 16 5. Chamberlain and Hitler . 27 6. Mein Kampf . 29 7. Struggle for Existence . 37 8. The Political Sources of Hitler’s Anti-Semitism . 41 9. Ethics and Social Darwinism . 44 10. Was the Biological Community under Hitler Darwinian? . 46 11. Conclusion . 52 1. Introduction Several scholars and many religiously conservative thinkers have recently charged that Hitler’s ideas about race and racial struggle derived from the theories of Charles Darwin (1809-1882), either directly or through intermediate sources. So, for example, the historian Richard Weikart, in his book From Darwin to Hitler (2004), maintains: “No matter how crooked the road was from Darwin to Hitler, clearly Darwinism and eugenics smoothed the path for Nazi ideology, especially for the Nazi 1 Richard Weikart, “Was It Immoral for "Expelled" to Connect Darwinism and Nazi Racism?” (http://www.discovery.org/a/5069.) 1 stress on expansion, war, racial struggle, and racial extermination.”2 In a subsequent book, Hitler’s Ethic: The Nazi Pursuit of Evolutionary Progress (2009), Weikart argues that Darwin’s “evolutionary ethics drove him [Hitler] to engage in behavior that the rest of us consider abominable.”3 Other critics have also attempted to forge a strong link between Darwin’s theory and Hitler’s biological notions. -
Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present Hugo Garcia, Mercedes Yusta, Xavier Tabet, Cristina Climaco
Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present Hugo Garcia, Mercedes Yusta, Xavier Tabet, Cristina Climaco To cite this version: Hugo Garcia, Mercedes Yusta, Xavier Tabet, Cristina Climaco. Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present. Hugo Garcia, Mercedes Yusta Xavier Tabet, Cristina Climaco. France. 2016, Rethinking Antifascism: History, Memory and Politics, 1922 to the Present, 978-1-78533-138-1. hal-01493484 HAL Id: hal-01493484 https://hal-univ-paris8.archives-ouvertes.fr/hal-01493484 Submitted on 21 Mar 2017 HAL is a multi-disciplinary open access L’archive ouverte pluridisciplinaire HAL, est archive for the deposit and dissemination of sci- destinée au dépôt et à la diffusion de documents entific research documents, whether they are pub- scientifiques de niveau recherche, publiés ou non, lished or not. The documents may come from émanant des établissements d’enseignement et de teaching and research institutions in France or recherche français ou étrangers, des laboratoires abroad, or from public or private research centers. publics ou privés. • Introduction BEYOND REVISIONISM Rethinking Antifascism in the Twenty-First Century Hugo García, Mercedes Yusta, Xavier Tabet and Cristina Clímaco This book is the outcome of a collective effort by eighteen historians of seven different nationalities, and arose from historiographical question- ings with evident political implications. It has its origins in the realisa- tion, which stems from our research into three Mediterranean countries where antifascism played a leading role in the interwar period (Spain, Italy and Portugal), that the history of this movement, transnational while at the same time located within specific national contexts, has to a great extent yet to be written.