Three Faces of Fascism Sheri Berman

B•• KS Sheri Berman is a visiting associate professor of political science at Barnard College, Columbia University, and the author of The Primacy of Politics: Social Democracy and the Ideological Dynamics of the Twentieth Century, Cambridge University Press, forthcoming. Three Faces of Fascism Sheri Berman Fascists Michael Mann New York: Cambridge University Press, 2004 The Anatomy of Fascism Robert O. Paxton New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 2004 The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism Richard Wolin Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 2004 In recent decades, the term “fascism” has terpretations of fascism’s nature and histori- basically been stripped of all substantive cal significance, and their impressive books content. People on the left often apply the should interest academics and general read- “fascist” tag to describe any right-wing thug ers alike. Together they provide an excellent they don’t like, and their opposite numbers opportunity to assess what is and is not have reciprocated with coinages such as known about fascism, as well as the rele- “feminazi” and “econazi.” Academics have vance of the topic for contemporary political been less glib, but even they have fought life. In particular, we will see that while passionately over how to characterize and old-style fascism is defunct in its original even analyze the phenomenon. Almost 85 home—Europe—its spirit lives on in years since fascism’s appearance and almost another part of the world in the guise of 60 years since its demise, reams of books radical Islam. about it still appear regularly, their authors Robert Paxton’s The Anatomy of Fascism often disagreeing sharply with one another is the most comprehensive of the three. over fundamental issues of definition, scope, With a long and distinguished career as a and causality. historian of European politics and particu- This year has seen a particularly bounti- larly French fascism behind him, Paxton ful crop, with three major new studies by, writes that this book represents the “culmi- respectively, the political historian Robert nation of a lifetime of study,” and it shows, Paxton, the sociologist Michael Mann, and embodying the best of what historical schol- the intellectual historian Richard Wolin. arship has to offer. He concentrates on the All three authors draw extensively on pre- particular political contexts within which vious scholarship while offering original in- individual fascist movements arose and took Three Faces of Fascism 95 power, while still being careful to point out poorly. Moderate socialists’ unwillingness how “long-term shifts in fundamental polit- to break decisively with their communist ical, social and economic structures” inter- brethren and fully embrace a truly social acted with the choices and actions of indi- democratic strategy, even though they had vidual political actors to explain fascism’s long ago given up any real hope or even de- development and fate. The most important sire for revolution, rendered them politically of these structural factors, his analysis sug- impotent. Just as important was the failure gests, were the rise of mass politics, the fail- of liberalism. Having never fully adjusted to ure of fascism’s political competitors, and the rough and tumble of democratic poli- the power of nationalism. tics, liberal parties generally withered dur- Europe’s democratic age really began ing the interwar years, leaving their natural only in the late nineteenth and early twenti- middle-class constituency ripe for the pick- eth centuries, and although political partici- ing. But liberalism’s inadequacies went pation increased across the continent many deeper than the missteps of the parties that of the habits, norms, and institutions that bore its name, as the ideology itself proved we now view as necessary to support a well- to have little to offer mass publics suffering functioning democratic polity lagged be- from economic crisis, social dislocation, and hind. For example, political parties, particu- cultural destabilization. larly of the liberal and conservative varieties, The backlash against the spread of capi- remained weak, leaving their natural mid- talism, and modernity more generally, that dle-class, peasant, and rural constituencies had been brewing across Europe around the feeling that they lacked a voice in the new turn of the century led intellectuals and ac- democratic regimes. As a result, the emer- tivists to grope for ways of reintegrating gent democracies were often weak, ineffi- their societies and restoring a sense of mean- cient, and corrupt, doing little to inspire ing to the amoral and “disenchanted” bour- popular confidence or loyalty. Because mass geois world. The nationalist movements participation in politics was there to stay, that resulted tended to grow increasingly however, traditional conservatism of the radical over time, and eventually fed on the elitist, antidemocratic variety and other disappointment and frustrated idealism of forms of authoritarianism were not workable veterans from the First World War, the hu- alternatives to democracy in many cases. miliation of the defeated belligerents, and Enter fascism, which offered a withering the resentment of certain countries, like critique of democracy that was designed to Italy, over not having gotten their “just appeal to a broad constituency. Fascism’s desserts” at the end of that war. goal of not merely capturing power but All these trends provided fertile ground transforming society completely was per- for fascism’s rise. Structural factors, however, fectly suited to the times, since it sought can take you only so far. As Paxton puts it: not to exclude people from politics but “Having assembled a catalogue...of longer- rather to involve them in a mass revolu- term structural preconditions we might be tionary project. tempted to believe we can foresee exactly Fascism was able to maneuver so suc- where fascism is likely to appear, grow, and cessfully on the political stage, meanwhile, take power. But that would mean falling in- partly because other actors kept tripping up to a determinist trap. There remains the ele- and flubbing their lines. The radical rheto- ment of human choice. It was by no means ric of European communists in the years be- guaranteed that a nation fitted with all the tween the two world wars sent people flee- preconditions would become fascist.” So, af- ing into the fascists’ arms, for example, and ter describing the broader historical context, mainstream socialists performed almost as he moves on to discuss how the machina- 96 WORLD POLICY JOURNAL • FALL 2004 tions and miscalculations of elites in various of uncovering who the fascists actually were countries provided the final, necessary factor and what drove them. enabling certain fascist movements to gain power. “Resacralizing” Modern Society Like much of his earlier analysis, this Mann’s first crucial finding is that fascists material too is familiar, but Paxton does were chiefly young males with certain com- a good job of summarizing the sorry tale. mon characteristics. Many had participated Conservatives in countries such as Germany in the First World War, emerging radical- and Italy, he explains, were so obsessed with ized, trained to fight, and inured to vio- thwarting the Left while maintaining their lence. They often returned home to societies own prerogatives that they fooled them- uninterested in their needs and incapable of selves into believing they could use fascists providing them with gainful employment, for their own purposes, and provided them and thus became dry tinder waiting to be with political resources, openings, and legit- ignited. Many were also idealists desperate imacy. Once in power, the fascists repaid for a cause to believe in. Fascism promised a the debt by eliminating their erstwhile pa- revolutionary transformation of society, a trons along with the rest of the old order. cleansing of the body politic, and a return And of course, one must not forget the role to national grandeur, and so supplied a secu- played by political geniuses like Mussolini lar religion ideal for latching onto. As Mann and Hitler. Acutely attuned to the needs, puts it, fascists “claimed a higher moral fears, and passions of the people, fascism’s purpose, transcendent of class conflict, capa- leaders played a key role in attracting the ble of ‘resacralizing’ a modern society grown masses to the cause and in building and materialistic and decadent. They identified a consolidating powerful political movements. ‘civilizational crisis’ encompassing govern- Yet as critical as such individuals were, it ment, morality, science, social science, the is important not to overestimate their role arts, and ‘style.’” or take it out of context, as many previous Beyond their youth, gender, and mind- historical analyses have done. Both Musso- set, however, Mann notes that fascists were lini and Hitler, for example, peddled their socially heterogeneous. This distinctive fea- wares in relative obscurity for years before ture of the movement has not always been they managed to actually take power. This fully appreciated by other scholars, with seems to indicate that without the “right” Marxists, for example, viewing fascism as conditions both men might very well have dominated by elites or the bourgeoisie while remained the historical footnotes many modernization and mass society theorists of their contemporaries expected them generally see it as a product of the middle or to be. rural classes. We now know, however, that Paxton is thus correct in seeing fascism fascism drew support from almost all social primarily as a political phenomenon, the na- sectors, and that farmers, businessmen, pro- ture and fate of which can best be explained fessionals and managers, craftsmen, and even by carefully reconstructing the structural workers were all well represented among its and contingent factors that helped bring a adherents. Since almost all other contempo- group of related political movements to rary political parties remained unable to prominence and, in some places, to power.

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