Book Reviews / Canadian – American Slavic Studies 47 (2013) 61–121 71

Book Reviews / Canadian – American Slavic Studies 47 (2013) 61–121 71 A. James Gregor. Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009. xii, 402 pp. $24.95 (paper). A. James Gregor, Emeritus Professor of Political Science at the University of California, Berkeley, is a prolific scholar specializing in Marxism and fascism. He was the first scholar to view Italian fascism as an ideologically coherent movement and has consistently argued that the Italian regime was the prototype of twentieth-century, mass-mobilizing, developmental dictatorships. Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism is very much a culmination of his previous work. Gregor seeks to understand the origins of the main revolutionary ideologies of the twentieth century – the communism of Vladimir Lenin and the fascism of Benito Mussolini in particular – by reconstructing their theoretical evolution from orthodox Marxism to the “rationale for totalitarianism that they were to become” (p. xi). The author examines a series of influential thinkers that he believes shaped this revision of Marxism and provided much of the justificatory rationale for twentieth- century revolution. Gregor argues that the totalitarianism of Lenin’s communism and Mussolini’s fascism stems from the revisions of Marxism that followed Friedrich Engels’s death in 1895. Marx and Engels left behind theoretical problems based on the morality and ethics of revolutionary commitment, particularly the omitted justification for violence. They did not adequately explain how material conditions, the “economic base” of society, determine consciousness and society’s “corresponding ideological superstructure.” If the course of history is determined, how does one explain moral behavior and how can individuals have free will? Other issues left unresolved included “the question of how ethics and morality related to public law and what the relationship might be between law and the revolutionary political state” (p. 295). Gregor surveys Marxists who questioned, qualified or rejected the determinism of Marxism and turned to Darwinism, philosophical idealism, and non-class associations. Rejecting the conven- tional distinction between “left” and “right,” Gregor contends that the totalitarian sys- tems of Lenin and Mussolini that grew out of these discussions shared more similarities than differences: a developmental state, which represented the general will of a “com- munity of destiny” and regulated production and disciplined the population through an exclusive party and Marxist-based ideology. Much of the book’s first half is an instructive examination of influential pre-World War I intellectuals who diverged from Marxist orthodoxy in several ways while attempt- ing to resolve the dilemmas of Marxism. Gregor illustrates the influence of Darwinist concepts on Josef Dietzgen, Karl Kautsky and Edward Bernstein. In the successive chapters, the author examines Marxists, such as Ludwig Woltmann and Georges Sorel, who qualified or rejected determinism in favor of idealism or a “return to Kant.” He demonstrates how these revisions contradicted Marxism by implying that individual thought could be separate from material reality and that non-class associations could shape history. Sorel, for instance, adopted Bergsonian idealism to explain individual free will and ethical behavior. Sorel also endorsed the need for elites and inspirational “myths” to mobilize the masses, and he praised the “virtue” of collective conflict. Gregor convincingly shows that, although they failed to resolve the problems of Marxism, © Koninklijke Brill NV, Leiden, 2013 DOI 10.1163/221023912X642781 72 Book Reviews / Canadian – American Slavic Studies 47 (2013) 61–121 these revisionists established an intellectual climate that would influence the thought of Lenin and Mussolini. In the second half of the book, Gregor connects the ideas of revisionist Marxists to Lenin and Mussolini. The author persuasively explains that the Bolshevik state was foretold as early as 1902 in Lenin’s What is to be Done? Lenin subverted core Marxist tenets, stating that Marx could not foresee that industrially advanced nations would forestall revolution by exploiting the underdeveloped world. Only the proletariat of underdeveloped nations like Russia could, therefore, lead a successful revolution. To discipline workers, regulate economic development, and combat class enemies, Lenin envisioned a single-party state led by an ideologically committed, bourgeois elite. However, the reader may find Gregor’s contention that the Soviet regime was “jerry- built in response to totally unanticipated events” less credible, given the coherent Marxist-Leninist rationale of Bolshevik policies (p. 303). Gregor, as in his previous works, skilfully illustrates the immediate intellectual influ- ences on Mussolini during the transition to fascism from the early 1900s to 1919. The author reveals that Marxists never solved the problem of nationality, which led social- ists like Otto Bauer to incorporate nationalism as a revolutionary tool. Influenced by Sorel, Italian syndicalists, such as Roberto Michels, Sergio Pannunzio, and Filippo Corridoni, similarly fashioned a “national syndicalism” and “proletariat nationalism.” Before Lenin reached the same conclusion, these syndicalists argued that the world order seriously restricts underdeveloped countries. Unlike Lenin, however, they sought a cross-class corporatist state to industrialize the nation before spawning a revolution, and saw war as a means to acquire colonies and to generate moral renewal. Led by Giovanni Papini and Giuseppe Prezzolini, the Italian “return to Kant” arrived with the Voce group, which fused idealism, syndicalism, nationalism, and developmental economics. Meanwhile, Giovanni Gentile’s “actualism” provided the philosophic blueprint for totalitarian rule and the “ethical state” of fascism. Although Gregor’s now familiar examination of Mussolini’s evolution from social- ism to fascism is convincing, his treatment of the fascist movement after 1919 lacks suf- ficient historical context. Gregor shows that Mussolini focused on the nature of ethics and morality and their relationship with nationalism and the state in the context of a modern revolution. Mussolini’s increasing embrace of nationalism, developmental economics, and statism is also well documented. But Gregor’s assertion that fascism maintained a consistent, Marxist-based ideology is less plausible. The fascist movement incorporated several competing cultural and ideological variants, including national syndicalism, futurism, integral nationalism and paramilitary squadrismo. Mussolini made significant accommodations with the Italian establishment as well. Indeed, fascism only became a mass movement by shifting rightwards, mobilizing the middle classes, and violently defending northern landowners. The book also minimizes the significance of pre-fascist incarnations of integral nationalism, particularly the rightwing Italian Nationalist Association, which would also provide Mussolini with key ministers and doctrinal tenets. In addition, Gregor mentions only scholars like David Renton, who see fascism as an anti-Marxist by-product of capitalism, and Zeev Sternhell, who views fascism as a variant of Marxism. Between these two poles are important specialists of fascism and revolutionary syndicalism, such as Roger Griffin, Stanley Payne, and David D. Roberts. These authors recognize the intellectual influence .

Load more