Zeev Sternhell, with Mario Sznajder, Maia Asheri. The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1994. ix + 338 pp. $65.00, cloth, ISBN 978-0-691-03289-4.
Reviewed by William D. Irvine
Published on H-France (August, 1996)
Zeev Sternhell, a prolifc and provocative stu‐ had run out of steam, its essential claims belied by dent of French fascism, has returned to his sub‐ the social, economic, and political developments ject using a somewhat broader canvas. The ques‐ of the late nineteenth century. There were three tion Sternhell asks is: where does fascist ideology possible responses to this fact. One, beginning come from? And his answer is blunt: Marxism. Or, with the original "revisionists" like Eduard Bern‐ to be more precise, from "a very specifc revision stein, was to reject the revolutionary possibilities of Marxism" (p. 5). This is not quite the same as in Marxism and opt for an evolutionary social declaring fascism to be a "variety of Marxism," as democratic approach. This position soon pre‐ did A. James Gregor (although for many this dis‐ vailed in most of western Europe. In eastern Eu‐ tinction may appear to be exceedingly fne). rope, by contrast, Marxists like V. I. Lenin and Rather more importantly, Sternhell fatly denies Rosa Luxembourg modifed Marx without reject‐ the possibility that fascism could be a response to ing the classic revolutionary model. Finally, ac‐ or a consequence of Marxism. Fascism did not be‐ cording to Sternhell, there were a number of gin as a conservative attempt to parry the threat French and Italian Marxists who clung to their of revolutionary or even reformist socialism. To revolutionary zeal, but abandoned the "material‐ the contrary, it grew out of that very revolution‐ ist" baggage of classical Marxism. "Materialism" in ary Socialist movement. Sternhell has made this this context means "the rationalistic, individualis‐ point before, most notably in Neither Right nor tic and utilitarian heritage of the seventeenth and Left: Fascist Ideology in France (1986). But it is eighteenth centuries" (p. 7), as well as the practice made with special force in this volume and he of liberal democracy. The great exponent of this now draws upon the Italian experience to rein‐ anti-materialist revolt was above all Georges force his analysis. Sorel. Much of the book is a study of Sorel, and his What is the nature of this "revision of Marx‐ French and Italian disciples, most notably Hubert ism"? By the turn of the century, classic Marxism Lagardelle, Edouard Berth, Alceste de Ambris, Sergio Panunzio, Angelo Olivetti, and Philippo H-Net Reviews
Corridono. Together they articulated a revolution‐ ary Syndicalism (1979)--a work unaccountably ary ideology that substituted myth for reason, the missing from Sternhell's bibliography. There is nation for class, and the producer for the prole‐ not very much on the Italian proto-fascist revolu‐ tarian. tionary syndicalism that cannot be found in the Sternhell also argues, in passing, that fascism writings of A. James Gregor, whose general analy‐ represents an amalgam of socialism and national‐ sis (if not, in fairness, his politics) Sternhell and ism, a historic conjuncture that, in France at least, his collaborators share. Moreover, Sorel, the sub‐ goes back to 1889. This is a more traditional argu‐ ject of a host of studies, is hardly an unknown fg‐ ment, one Sternhell has made more forcefully ure. To be sure, Sternhell's principal audience is elsewhere. But if true, there is some tension be‐ French historians of fascism who Sternhell be‐ tween that claim and his belief that fascism owes lieves, not entirely without reason, to be ignorant its origins primarily to a crisis in classical Marx‐ of much of the literature on the subject. Stern‐ ism. The evolution of European nationalism in the hell's impatience with his French colleagues is, of years after 1870 is surely as important a question course, now legendary. However, it should be not‐ and one that cannot be subsumed under the cate‐ ed that some of his more acid jibes, a prominent gory of Marxist revisionism. Maurice Barres was feature of the original French version of this a Socialist, but no Marxist; indeed, he drifted from book, have been excised from the English transla‐ socialism to nationalism just as the French Social‐ tion. ist movement began to embrace classical Marx‐ The book's title is somewhat misleading, since ism. Enrico Corradini certainly appropriated cer‐ Sternhell is really talking about the birth of Fran‐ tain Socialist themes in his neo-nationalist doc‐ co-Italian fascism rather than fascism in general. trine, notably the idea of the "proletarian nation." He has little to say about German fascism, arguing But he was intensely and explicitly hostile to that, unlike its Mediterranean counterparts, it was Marxism and his nationalism was, pace Sternhell, founded on biological racism. Perhaps, but one explicitly directed against the claims of the work‐ suspects another reason for ignoring Germany. It ing classes. It is almost as if Sternhell would like would be uncommonly difcult to document the to have it both ways. Sternhell the enfant terrible, revolutionary syndicalist roots of Nazism, be‐ forever cocking his snout at his ideologically cause dissident Marxists, so prevalent in Italian blinkered, left-wing bien pensant colleagues, and French fascism, are more or less absent from wants to stress the left-wing origins of fascism. the intellectual precursors of German fascism. However, Sternhell the careful scholar, aware The central problem with Sternhell's argu‐ that his more outlandish claims tend to run up ment is the huge gulf that separates the ideas of against inconvenient facts, is quick, when it suits those he singles out as the intellectual and cultur‐ him, to adopt such safe formulae as: "fascism ... al precursors of Italian fascism and the praxis of was the product of a number of diferent but con‐ the Fascist regime. Having lovingly detailed the vergent elements" (p. 230). revolutionary credentials of the Fascist intellectu‐ Although Sternhell writes clearly and force‐ als, Sternhell is forced to admit that by 1920, at fully, it must be acknowledged that much of this the latest, Mussolini had quietly abandoned al‐ has been said before, notably by Sternhell him‐ most all of this socially radical revolutionary bag‐ self. The periodic firtations between some French gage and begun to seek accommodations with the revolutionary syndicalists and the Action fran‐ conservative political elite, the army, the agrari‐ caise were documented in great detail long ago by ans, the monarchy, the church, and the business Paul Mazgaj, The Action francaise and Revolution‐ community. Moreover, that this should have been
2 H-Net Reviews the case was the indispensable pre-condition of most historians in France, he has always insisted the Fascists ever attaining power. And, of course, that movements like the Croix de feu simply can‐ there was little in the social program of Fascist not be Fascist because they represent social con‐ Italy that bore much resemblance to the ideas of servatism. It is axiomatic for him that true fas‐ the Italian revolutionary syndicalists. cism can have nothing whatsoever in common Sternhell is untroubled by any of this because with conservatism of any stripe, the apparent here, as in his previous writings, he contends that counter-examples of Italy and Germany notwith‐ what counts in an analysis of fascism is what its standing. But this is an assertion rather than a proponents say while in opposition rather than demonstration. what they do once in power. This is not a self-evi‐ Moreover, by clinging to a narrow and arbi‐ dent proposition, at least not for those historians trary defnition of fascism, he restricts his discus‐ who do not take Fascist rhetoric at face value and sion of fascism in France to small numbers of po‐ who suspect that the proof of the pudding is in the litically marginal non-conformist intellectuals. To tasting. Sternhell counters that all political move‐ be sure, by so doing he makes the task of extract‐ ments, even radical ones, have to make "compro‐ ing a coherent body of doctrine much easier. But mises" (p. 231) once in power. This is true enough, he ends up analyzing a cast of characters who, for although in the case of Mussolini "wholesale the most part, did not count for very much in abandonment" might be a better term than "com‐ French politics and who did not frighten many promise." Still, Sternhell persists, Soviet Russia de‐ people either. The same could not be said for Mus‐ parted dramatically from the program of prewar solini, Hitler or--comes to that-- Colonel Francois Marxist-Leninists, but historians still persist in de La Rocque. taking the doctrine of Lenin, L. D. Trotskii, and G. There is much in Sternhell with which one V. Plekhanov seriously. Perhaps, but there are can agree. He is quite right to stress that the intel‐ "compromises" and "compromises." The Bolshe‐ lectual and cultural roots of European fascism are viks did not attain power through a cabinet shuf‐ well established before World War I and equally fe with the overt complicity of Russian conserva‐ right to identify a pan-European malaise with the tive forces; they did not accommodate themselves modern world as the crucible from which the new to the demands of the landowners, industrialists, doctrine emerges. Nor could anyone dispute that and the church; they did not retain the Tsar. Had fascism represents a radical rejection of the val‐ they done so, historians would be looking else‐ ues of the eighteenth-century Enlightenment. Fi‐ where for the intellectual roots of Soviet commu‐ nally, it is important to record that at least some nism. of the time and in some places this anti-Enlighten‐ France poses no such problems because no ment sentiment was articulated by individuals Fascist movement ever took power there. This who were, nominally at least, within the Marxist suits Sternhell's purposes, since he likes his Fas‐ tradition. But the problem is that Sternhell wants cists pure and unsullied by the potentially cor‐ to stop the story there. But surely the evolution of rupting contact with actual politics. True, in the a handful of (more or less) Marxist intellectuals is 1930s, very large political formations like the not the whole story on the intellectual origins of Croix de feu did emerge. Contemporaries thought fascism or the most important story. Dissident them to be Fascist; so too do some modern histori‐ Marxists were hardly unique in their radical re‐ ans (Robert Soucy, Fascism in France: The Second jection of the Enlightenment. They were joined by Wave [1994], is the best case in point). Sternhell is large numbers of European conservatives, who having none of this; in accord (for once!) with not only helped defne fascism, but also mobilized
3 H-Net Reviews their big battalions in support of it. And that made all the diference.
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Citation: William D. Irvine. Review of Sternhell, Zeev; Sznajder, with Mario; Asheri, Maia. The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. H-France, H-Net Reviews. August, 1996.
URL: https://www.h-net.org/reviews/showrev.php?id=540
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