The Faces of Janus Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century

The Faces of Janus Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century A. James Gregor Yale University Press New Haven and London I \ :'1' ( cJ 'i This book is dedicated to little Gabriel- as small compensation for his unqualified love Copyright © 2000 by Yale University. Library OfC'o!lgrt'JoJ Catalof(ing-in-Publication Data All rIghts reserved. Cregor, A. James (J\nthony ):ulles), H)29 This hook may not be reproduced, in whole or in The faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the part, including illustrations, in any form (heyond thar rwcntieth century / J\. James Gregor. copying permitted hy Sections 107 and 108 of the U.S. p. cm. Copyright Law and except hy reviewers for the Includes hibliographical references (p. ) and index. public press), without written permission from the ISBN o-3oo-07Ih7-7 (alk. paper) publishers. I. Revolurions-Hiswry"- .loth century. 2. Fascism De~igncJ hy James J. Johnson and set in Granjol1 HistorY-20th century. 3. Communism-Ilistory Roman types by Keystone Typesetting, Inc. 2()[h century. I. Title. II. Tide: 1viarxism and Fascism in rhe twentieth century. Printed in the United States of America by Sheridan )C4Yl.d'74 '999 Books, Chelsea, Michigan. _po.53' 09' 04-riC2 I 99-287" The paper in this hook meets the guidelines for A catalogue record for this hook is available from the permanence anu durability of the Committee on British Library. Production Guidelines for Book Longevity of tbe Council on Library Resources. lO9876S432' I <II Contents IX Acknowledgments XI 1. On Theory and Revol ution in Our Time 2. The First Marxist Theories of Fascism 19 3. The Marxist Theory of Fascism after the Second World War 45 4. Fascism and Marxism-Leninism in Power 68 5. Fascism and the Devolution of Marxism in the Soviet Union 89 6. Fascism and Post-Soviet Russia 107 7. Fascism and Bolshevism 128 B. Fascism, Marxism, and Race 149 9. "FaSClsms . " 166 Appendix: Chronology, 1919-1995 I8S Notes 193 Index 233 Preface The turn of the century is as convenient an occasion as any to take stock of our time. It has been a time of trouble. Two world wars grew out of the "belle epoque"-and by the end of the century, more human beings would be killed by their own governments than would die in those wars. In attempting to under stand something of that doleful reality, many have had recourse to the existence, in our century, of"fascism." "Fascism," we are told, was "one ofthe most glaring examples of political evil in modern history."! Fascism, we have been told, was uniquely inhumane. We have been told that "anyone with any concern f()r human dignity can sec the destructive effects ofthe fascist denigration of human life."2 The implication of judgments of these kinds is that/ilScism, however that term is understood, is responsible for much of the devastation of the twentieth century. More than that, an effort has been made recently to identify "fascism" with "right-wing extremism," and thereby credit the Right with vir all the infamies of our time.' Somehow or other, only the Right figures in the catalog of horrors that make up contemporary history. Yet almost everyone now acknowledges that the regimes of Stalin, Mao, and Pol Pot were stained with the blood of millions of innocent victims-more than those of the extreme right. We are left perplexed. Even the most generous estimate would make the Left at least partially responsible for the mayhem that distinguishes our century. The political Right and the political Left seem to share something of a common malevolence. All that notwithstanding, some Western scholars continue to treat the political uni verse as though it were divided between the evil Right and the benign Left.4 The thesis of the present work is that much of the literature of the twentieth century devoted to the analysis of violent revolution has failed to appreciate the central issues around which the insurrectionary violence of our time has turned. IX .1 x PREFACE IiiI The failure of that literature is manifest in its treatment of the revolutions that followed the First World War-and which continue to the present-as being either of the Right or of the Left. Fascism is ofthe Right and Marxist-Leninist Acknowledgments ill regimes are of the Left. I,ll I will argue that the major systemic revolutions of our time have been of neither the Right nor the Left. Our error has been to attempt to force each revolutionary instance into a procrustean bed of preconceptions. To this some in the West remain convinced that while the revolutions of the Right have been unqualifiedly "pathological" and "homicidal," those of the Left have been compassionate and benevolent-and that only extraneous circumstances pro duced the horrors of the Great Purge, the Great Proletarian Revolution, and the massacre of innocents by the Khmer Rouge. There are others for at least two generations, have argued that the universe we have known since the Bolshevik and Fascist revolutions has not been divided, primarily, by conflicts between the Right and Left, but be Preparing an academic manuscript for publication necessarily makes one in tween representative democracies and anti-democratic "ideocracies." The con debted to many persons and institutions. lowe a deep debt of gratitude to the test has been between systems that base legitimacy on electoral results and those University of California, Berkeley, for providing me with an intellectual home whose legitimacy and authority rest on appeal to an ideology considered iner for most of my professional life. I also owe a great deal to the officers and staffof rant, the guidance of a "charismatic leader," and the armed suasion of a hege the Marine Corps University at Quantico, Virginia, for generously allowing me monic party. Among the latter movements and regimes there is no Right or Left. to use their handsome research center for my work. My stay there as There are only anti-democratic systems. Professor (1996-1997) was stimulating and However convenient and inf<mnative the distinction between Right and Left To my wife, Professor Maria Hsia Chang, lowe access to the Chinese may be in local politics, it is largely irrelevant in dealing with the revolutionary literature to which I refer in the text. She provided not only access to the Chinese movements that have shaped the international environment during the last materials, but priceless insights into Chinese political culture. To Mr. Leonid Kil hundred years. There have been many who have recognized as much. lowe access to the Russian language material, which he knows so well. This work is an effort to restate the case for the latter view. It attempts to Professor Zeev Sternhell of Hebrew University continues to be an inspira supplement the argument advanced a quarter ofa century ago that there is more and Professor Alessandro Campi of Perugia introduced a bit of psychic "fascism" in the Left: than most Western scholars have heen prepared to recog energy into a life ofstudy that had become more than a little fatigued. nize.o Recent developments in post-Soviet Russia and post-Maoist China elo out our work together, Mr. John Covell and the staff of the Yale University Press quently make the case. have been more patient and forthcoming than I had any right to expect. I hope I attempt to trace the decay of Marxist theory among left-wing intellectuals. this book is worthy, in some small measure, of the contributions ofso many good Bereft ofmuch ofits mummery, Marxist theory reveals itselfas a variant of generic people and fine institutions. fascism. The contest of the twentieth century, which has cost so much in human A. JAMES GREGOR was not between the Right and the Left. It was hetween representative de Berkeley, California mocracies and their anti-democratic opponents. It has been an arduous struggle. The anti-democratic temptation continues to have appeal to those who feel themselves to be oppressed and humiliated. One of the implications of the dis cussion in what follows is that, at the end of the century, there really is very little convincing evidence that the democracies have won the contest. That does not bode well for the twenty-first century. xi On Theory and Revolution in Our Time By the end of the twentieth century, it had become clear that academicians in the for the most part, had failed to understand the nature of the revolutions that had overwhelmed their time. l Fascism, for frequently invoked as a generic concept, but rarely persuasively characterized, was employed in attempts to comprehend the major social and political dislocations that shaped a substan tial part of the century.2 Now, in the I 990S, interpretation has become still more problematic as a new generation of scholars have sought to employ the conceptfascism in an effort to understand something about present and future politics. Unhappily, the term fascism has been dilated to the point where its cognitive use has become more than suspect. In the most recent efforts, the term fascism has been pressed into service to identify anything that could in any way be described of as "right-wing extrem ism"-from any resistance to permissive immigration policies, expressions of exclusivity, instances of "hate speech," to the "spewing forth" of "con servative" sentiments.; Recently the European Parliament commissioned two major committees of inquiry charged with responsibility for investigating the recruitment and electoral successes of "fascism" on the Continent. The reports that ultimately appeared contained long, doleful recitations of terrorist attacks on foreign

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