THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF FASCISM Author(s): G. A. BORGESE Source: Social Research, Vol. 1, No. 4 (NOVEMBER, 1934), pp. 458-485 Published by: The New School Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/40981399 . Accessed: 31/01/2015 16:56 Your use of the JSTOR archive indicates your acceptance of the Terms & Conditions of Use, available at . http://www.jstor.org/page/info/about/policies/terms.jsp . JSTOR is a not-for-profit service that helps scholars, researchers, and students discover, use, and build upon a wide range of content in a trusted digital archive. We use information technology and tools to increase productivity and facilitate new forms of scholarship. For more information about JSTOR, please contact [email protected]. The New School is collaborating with JSTOR to digitize, preserve and extend access to Social Research. http://www.jstor.org This content downloaded from 149.31.21.88 on Sat, 31 Jan 2015 16:56:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions THE INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF FASCISM BY G. A. BORGESE 1 he firstand second rules of reasoning,as formulatedby New- ton and repeatedby popular physicistsdown to the present,read as follows:"We are to admitno morecauses of naturalthings than such as are both true and sufficientto explain their appearance. Therefore to the same natural effectswe must, as far as possible,assign the same causes. As to respirationin a man and in a beast; the descentof stonesin Europe and America; the light of our culinaryfire and of thesun; thereflection of lightin the earth, and in the planets."Such rules are valid forhuman as well as for natural history,and thereforethe reasons that explain Italian fascismmust be good, at least in theirmain outlines,for German fascismtoo, and vice versa,or theyare not reasonsat all. Attemptshave been made,both fromthe politicaland fromthe economic approach, to establish the fundamentalcharacter of thisnew typeof political organization.It has been said that Ger- man fascismis a revoltagainst the injusticesand humiliationsof the Treatyof Versailles,a revulsionof defeat.But thisinterpreta- tion does not account for the birth of fascismin its countryof origin,Italy, a countrywhich had won the war more smashingly thanany other of the combatants,utterly destroying her hereditary enemy,the Austro-Hungarianmonarchy, and acquiringa frontier of a perfection,geographical, ethnical and military,unparalleled in continentalEurope. To be sure she failed in gettinghold of that zone of the Dalmatian mainland,opposite to her coast and inhabitedalmost wholly by Slavs, which the Allies had formally grantedher; but she won Fiume, whichshe herselfhad promised to Croatia, and she took definitepossession of Rhodes and some otherGreek islandsoff Asia Minor, of which her occupancyhad hithertobeen consideredmore or less temporary.It is also true This content downloaded from 149.31.21.88 on Sat, 31 Jan 2015 16:56:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF FASCISM 459 thatshe did not share,as largelyas her sacrificesentitled her, the tough and bony Africanand Asiatic prey, improperlyalthough magnificentlycalled the "colonial booty." In this she suffereda disillusionmentpartly due to the selfishnessof her partnersand partlyto her own lack of colonial purpose.Also she feltthat Eng- land and Francewere blindly stubborn in contestingwith her even some raggedreadjustments of bordersaround her sandyor rocky Africanterritories. But such minor failures,even supposingthat they injured real interestsmore than feelingsof pride, cannot make a defeatout of a victory.Neither can theyjustify the na- tionalisticslogan, "Italy won the war and lost the peace." Among someItalians a feelingof defeatarose and graduallyincreased dur- ing the years1919 and 1920; but it was a matterof feeling,not of fact,and it was a consequence,not a cause, of the fascistand pre- fascistmentality which later swept the country. For theiremotional purposesthese Italians wanted a feelingof distress,and theygot it. Happy warriors,totalitarian victors, exist only in the jealous imaginationof competitorsor, less frequently,in the case of na- tions as well as in that of individuals,in the self-sufficiencyof a delicatelybalanced and moderatemind. If the imperfectionor, as it was said, the mutilationof the Italian victoryexplains fascism, whyhad notfascism risen earlier and elsewhere,after other partially unsuccessfulvictories? Why did it not rise immediatelyafter 1918 in France,who had lostboth the main issuesof her victoryas con- ceived not only by inflamednationalists, but even by cautious patriots,and was unable to get eitherthe Rhine frontieror the Anglo-Americanguaranty of her safety?Why did it not rise in England,who saw, as an indirectbut promptconsequence of the triumph,Ireland driftingaway and the ties of the Empire loosen- ing?Or evenin America,which did not acquire anyterritory worth mentioningand, ratherstunned, lost her money?This is indeed no worldof justice,no Kingdomof God; and the destinyallotted to the Italian nation,jammed as it is in a poor and narrowterri- tory,is inferiorto the claimsshe maybase not only on her historic grandeurbut on the actual ambition of her living children to This content downloaded from 149.31.21.88 on Sat, 31 Jan 2015 16:56:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions 460 SOCIAL RESEARCH collaboratein the workof human civilizationand to pluck, also, some deservedfruits of human happinessfor themselves. But even admittingthat this feeling of inferioritywas bound to growmore insistentafter the passion and sacrificeof war, and in spite of its positiveresults, why did it findits expressionin fascismand not in a subspeciesof communismor, as reason seemed to suggest,in a politicalplan whichwould somehowhave made Italythe leading power in Geneva? Italy was, as she is, the strongestamong the feeble and the feeblestamong the strong.Her universalbackground and ambi- tion mighthave gained forher the positionof leader of the minor and proletariannations of Europe, to balance with theirhelp the "Mightyof the Earth/'opposing the greatpowers when necessary and pushing them toward a sincere submissionof their shrewd policyto theirlofty principles. Italy mighthave made it her mis- sion to revivethe inspireddemocracy of Mazzini, adapting it to changed circumstances;to translateinto European concreteness the idealismof Wilson; to quicken the pace of historytoward the next goals: a federation,political and economic,in Europe, and a consortiumin the colonies,with the "open door" and equalityof rights.Certainly such a role would have been much less appealing to particularisticvanities, but proportionallymore satisfactoryif the aim were real justice and - why not?- real business.This plan mighthave been conceived,and it was indeed conceivedby some Italians of those days; it was, or seemed to be, at the same time wise and great. Perhaps it mighthave won the support of America,but it did not please the Italian mind and heartof those days. Not only did it appear Utopian to the mind; much more important,it was distastefulto the heart.And fascismcame. What Walter Lippmann wrote about Russia and America is equally true for Italy and Germany,and for any countryat any time."It is certainthat men musteat; it does not followthat they can eat onlywhat the cook choosesto provide. /. It was certain thatafter the breakdownof Czarismthere would have to be a new regimein Russia. Yet it was not certainthat it had to be the This content downloaded from 149.31.21.88 on Sat, 31 Jan 2015 16:56:59 PM All use subject to JSTOR Terms and Conditions INTELLECTUAL ORIGINS OF FASCISM 461 regimeof theFive Year Plan. That wasthe dinner the cooks hap- penedto providefor hungry men. After the collapse of 1932-1933 a New Deal ofsome sort was imperative.But not everythingthat has been dealtout was imperative.That has dependedupon the temperament,the prejudices, the quick judgments of the dealers."1 Therewas no Italiandefeat, and thereis no reasonto believethat defeat,either imaginary or actual,either Italian or German,had to be followedby fascism.Turkey and Russiawere severely and unmistakablydefeated, but theyresorted to Kemalismand com- munism,which were indeed dictatorships, but ofquite a different brandfrom fascist dictatorships. Whatmatters, in each of these cases, is the mental and sentimental backgroundof "cooks and dealers." It is eveneasier to disposeof thepurely economic explanations thatare customarilygiven of thephenomenon of fascism. Marxism,at leastas a prophecy,collapsed long ago; so everyone asserts.But Marxianconcepts and formulaestill hang, each on itspeg, in thewardrobe of popular mental apparel. They are com- fortableand readyto wear.Hence the interpretationof fascism as theangry self-defense ofcapitalism against the communistic and socialisticmenace. But whythen did it not appearin Poland or Rumaniaor the otherstates bordering on Bolshevism;why did it notappear in Franceor in anyother country where capitalism is reallystrong and socialismis moreor lessmilitant? It is not a simplematter to explain,on purelyeconomic grounds, why the chosenland of fascism,its Meccaor Bethlehem,had to be Italy, wherecapitalism was comparativelyweak, and wherein 1922an agonizingsocialism, which had neverbeen verymuch alive, ex- pressedwhat strength it had onlyin rhetoricalstrikes, compared towhich the recent events in San Franciscoand Minneapolisor in the Americantextile strike could be consideredas full fledged revolutions. The answerusually given is thatbecause capitalism was weak, »Lippmann,Walter,