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The Nature of Fascism Revisited

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The Nature of Fascism Revisited THE NATURE OF FASCISM REVISITED ANTÓNIO COSTA PINTO THE NATURE OF FASCISM REVISITED SOCIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS, BOULDER DISTRIBUTED BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK 2012 © 2012 António Costa Pinto ISBN 978-0-88033-666-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2009939128 Printed in the United States of America For my son Filipe Contents !. List of Figures and Tables vii 2. Preface and acknowledgements ix 1. Fascists: A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe ! 2. The origins of fascist ideology: The Sternhell debate "# 3. New interpretations (I): The constituencies of fascism $% 4. New interpretations (II): Conceptual problems &' 5. Fascism, dictators, and charisma %# 6. Ruling elites, political institutions, and decision- making in fascist-era dictatorships: Comparative perspectives (# 7. Fascism, corporatism, and authoritarian institutions in interwar European dictatorships !!# 8. Index !)! List of Figures and Tables Figures 5.1 *e charismatic triangle 82 Tables 5.1 Forms of political legitimation 85 6.1 Ministers’ occupational background (%) 108 6.2 Political o+ces held by ministers (%) 109 7.1 Dictatorship and corporatism in Europe (1918–45) 125 The origins of 2 fascist ideology: The Sternhell debate With Ni droite ni gauche: L’idéologie du fascisme en France, published in 1983, the Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell completed a stage in his research on fas- cist ideology and its origins, thus -nishing the work begun with Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français, followed in 1978 by La droite révolutionnaire (1885–1914): Les origines françaises du fascisme. Although it is this latter work that de-nes Sternhell’s theoretical and methodological premises, it was Ni droite ni gauche that unleashed a polemic that was both rich and far-reaching.1 *e debate began, naturally, in France, where it went beyond the aca- demic world, became politicized, got into the press, and eventually reached the courts. A certain person who objected to the role given him by the his- torian took the relatively unprecedented step by taking Sternhell to court, with such well-known intellectuals as Raymond Aron becoming involved.2 *e most important contributions to the polemic were published in 1983 and 1984 in publications such as L’Esprit, Le Débat, Annales (Économie, So- ciétés, Civilisations) and Vingtième Siècle,3 and were mainly hyper-critical of 1 Z. Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche: L’idéologie du fascisme en France, Paris, 1983; Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français, Paris, 1972; La droite révolutionnaire (1885–1914): Les origines françaises du fascisme, Paris, 1978. 2 Bertrand de Jouvenel took Sternhell to court. Raymond Aron, one of his main wit- nesses, died soon after returning from one of the court sessions. *e decision of the court was not entirely favourable to Sternhell. Amongst others, Ernst Nolte, François Furet, Maurice Agulhon, René Rémond, Eugen Weber, Stanley Payne, and George Mosse were witnesses on behalf of the Israeli historian. For this trial see P. Assouline, ‘Enquête sur un historien condamné pour difamation’, L’Histoire 68, June 1984, pp. 98- 101. For Aron’s opinion on Sternhell’s work see L’Express, 11 February 1983, pp. 22–4. 3 In this review the following works of Sternhell are considered: La droite révolutionnaire; Ni droite ni gauche, and the following articles participating in the polemic (published up to June 1985), presented in chronological order: M. Winock, ‘Fascisme à la française ou fascisme introuvable?’, Le Débat 25, May 1983, pp. 35–44; S. Sand, ‘L’idéologie fasciste en France’, L’Esprit, August/September 1983, pp. 149–60; J.-M. Domenach, ‘Corre- 30 !e nature of fascism revisited Sternhell’s theses. Although the debate was less heated in the Anglo-Saxon world, something was added to it in Italy. *is should not be considered sur- prising, for it is here that similar interpretations have been developed. Stern- hell responded to this -rst wave of criticism at the end of 1984, specifying his position,4 and the argument shows every sign of continuing. In spite of this it is possible to conduct an initial evaluation of the polemic. *e importance of Sternhell’s work lies both in his exhaustive empirical research on French fascism and, especially (and it is this viewpoint that is of interest to us), in his expressing an overall theory of the nature of fascist ide- ology and of its formative process. *is dimension has dominated a large part of the research on this theme in the last few years, and the Israeli historian raised the old problem of its composite origin from a new standpoint. Some analysts, mainly contemporaries of fascism, deny it has even a minimally structured and coherent ideological dimension: more than a few scholars took as their own the words of Samuel Barnes: Some totalitarian mobilization systems arise in reaction to the mobilization structures of others. *ey are in fact largely negative rather than ideological, and though they often have a formal pseudo-ideology, it is not a guide to action and is taken seriously primarily by the young, the ignorant, and the academic.5 Sternhell is directly opposed to this position. His fascism, along with liberalism or communism, possesses a perfectly structured conceptual frame- work. Although one recognizes the inherent di+culties in de-ning the con- cept, they are no di.erent from those posed by other ideological systems from the same period – the -rst half of the 20th century. ‘Like liberalism, socialism, and communism’, claims Sternhell, ‘fascism constitutes a universal spondance’, L’Esprit, August/September 1983, pp. 176–9; S. Berstein, ‘La France des années trente allergique au fascism: A propos d’un livre de Zeev Sternhell’, Vingtième Siècle: Revue d’Histoire 2, April 1984, pp. 84–94; J. Julliard, ‘Sur un fascisme imagi- naire: À propos d’un livre de Zeev Sternhell’, Annales: ESC, July/August 1984, pp. 849–61; L. Rapone, ‘Fascismo né destra né sinistra?’, Studi Storici 3, July/September 1984, pp. 799–820; P. Burrin, ‘La France dans le champs magnetique des fascismes’, Le Débat 32, November 1984, pp. 52–72; Z. Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascisme et sa variante française’, Le Débat 32, November 1984, pp. 28–51; S. Romano, ‘Sternhell lu d’Italie’, Vingtième Siècle: Revue d’Histoire 6, April/June 1985, pp. 75–81; D. Cofrancesco, ‘Re- censioni’, Storia Contemporanea 2, April 1985, pp. 353–71. 4 *is -rst reply from Sternhell refers only to Winock ‘Fascisme à la française’. 5 M. V. Cabral, ‘Portuguese fascism in comparative perspective’, paper presented at the 12th International Political Science Association World Congress, Rio de Janeiro, August 1982, p. 1. !e Sternhell debate 31 category with its own variants’.6 Up to this point he is not alone in the histo- riographical work on this subject.7 Since the 1960s, one of the central debates has developed around the de-nition of a fascist minimum, which would characterize a generic fascism and typify its national variants. Of the three levels on which it is presented historically (that is, ideology, movement, and regime) it is only the -rst that is of interest to Sternhell, and his choice of the French case is not without forethought. *e fact that in France fascism has never been a uni-ed and signi-cant party or political regime is advantageous in that ‘the nature of an ideology is always clearer in its aspirations than in its application,’8 and here it has never had to compromise, remaining closer to the ideal type.9 *e interest in the ideological level is also of more value as ‘the era of fascism is, -rstly, that of an ideology and of the movements that are associated to it rather than an era of a certain type of regimes’.10 At this point he still has a signi-cant, but somewhat smaller group of co-thinkers. After the -rst wave of work on regimes within this group, the most novel ideas produced on the subject are in the -eld of the study of fascism as an ideology and a movement. However, on breaking away from those who un- derestimated the ideological factor in fascism, Sternhell represents perhaps the most extreme position. We shall discuss this later, but it is worth noting at this point that one of his well-publicized central hypotheses is that the study of the ideological dimension allows us to observe how fascism deeply impregnated European political culture between the two world wars in a much vaster movement, which in the French case went beyond the world of the small parties that arose from it.11 6 Z. Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascisme’, p. 30. 7 For a bibliographic view of this theme see an article by the author of the theses under debate, Zeev Sternhell, ‘Fascist ideology,’ in Walter Laqueur, ed., Fascism: A reader’s guide – analyses, interpretations, bibliography, Harmondsworth, 1979, pp. 325–406. *e most recent bibliography is found in a work considered by Sternhell himself as the best synthesis, S. G. Payne, Fascism: Comparison and definition, Madison, WI, 1980. Several authors discussed in the works cited above have already debated the theme of a generic fascist ideology, as in the case of Juan Linz, George L. Mosse, and Renzo di Felice. See Mosse’s position in M. A. Leeden, ed., Intervista sul nazismo, Rome and Bari, 1977. Renzo di Felice does not hold the same position, see M. A. Leeden, ed., Intervista sul fascismo, Rome and Bari, 1975. 8 Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche, p. 15. 9 Ibid., p. 293. 10 Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascisme’, p. 30. 11 Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche, p. 21 32 !e nature of fascism revisited *e subject of the ideological origins of fascism has mobilized a consider- able number of historians. After some pioneer research, a substantial number of works on the subject from both a national and a comparative perspec- tive have been published in the last few years.
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