What exactly is Fascism?

[The Cheshire Cat]

In my mind, there is little difference between an authoritarian capitalist country and a fascist country, and I think this is because I do not know enough about fascism. I know it supports the leader-principle; I know it glorifies violence; I know it is highly racist, but that is about where my knowledge of it ends. There are ofcourse some good examples of fascist countries in the recent history, but they all seem to differ in certain things. Like Nazi-Germany was extremely anti-semetic, while the party and bands of Mussolini had above average support from jews, if I am correct. At least, before Mussolini and Hitler became allies. After that, jews were stripped of citizenship and exported etc.

So I don't think you can learn much about fascism from the historical examples themselves. Not just because they differ (we can see all fascist countries where highly racist to some minorities/races/groups of people, only those groups of people differed) but also because many things happened in those countries that were not necissarily part of the idea of fascism itself. For example, there was lots of torturing in fascist countries and also public beatings of people with certain idea's, like our idea's, but I doubt someone wrote it in the 'Fascist Manifesto', if there is such a thing (Is there?), that there should be lots of torturing and beating. But for some reason, torturing still happened in all fascist countries. Is this because all the fascist leaders are sadistic monsters or something?

So what exactly is fascism and why is it so different when it is put to practice? I think this is because it is so populist and opportunistic, adapting their idea's the situation in a country. For example, when Buddhists would be a small minority and the people felt for whatever reason some anger agaisnt Buddhism, the fascists will claim all the problems in the country are because of the Buddhists. And the communists and capitalists ofcourse, because they are their political enemy. But I am not sure of this.

And in what way does fascism differ from an authoritarian (if this is the right term) capitalist country? With an authoritarian capitalist country I mean a capitalist country that expresses her authority with a lot of violence and torturing.

I hope I was clear enough. Thank you in advance!

[Ocean Seal]

Fascism is created by a populist petit-bourgeois movement in response to the failure of the revolutionary proletariat. It may be governed much in the same way of an authoritarian right wing capitalist state. If it is not constantly at war a fascist state will not survive and will turn out poorer than your average right wing dictatorship.

[The Cheshire Cat]

Thank you, but what does it want? What are the 'rules'? And why does it have to be constantly at war? The Spanish and Portuguese fascist countries were not end they were able to maintain themselves for quite a while. But I guess they got some foreign help with this.

[Nox]

Nationalist Corporatism would be a good term to describe it.

[PC LOAD LETTER]

It's kind of complicated. Here's an excellent book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/The-Anatomy-Fascism-Robert-Paxton/dp/1400033918

[The Cheshire Cat]

It's kind of complicated. Here's an excellent book on the subject: http://www.amazon.com/The-Anatomy-Fascism-Robert-Paxton/dp/1400033918

Thank you I will order it.

[Peoples' War]

Trotsky's "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm) will answer your questions fairly well, like him or not.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Fascism is a system that involves a very authoritarian state the maintains corporativism as its economic philosophy. Fascists beleive that state needs to be strong in order for the country to become strong and order to be restored.

And they say I don't know what fascism is!



Trotsky's "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm) will answer your questions fairly well.


Fight state with state?

[Peoples' War]

Fight state with state?
Yes...that's the only 4 words in the entire pamphlet.

Keep your factually incorrect views out of it, and answer his question without taking cheap sectarian jabs.

[TheRedAnarchist23]

Yes...that's the only 4 words in the entire pamphlet.

Keep your factually incorrect views out of it, and answer his question without taking cheap sectarian jabs.

I guess I can manage that.
I will read the thing you sugested and then tell you what I thought of it, so you can't accuse me of not wanting to learn.

[The Cheshire Cat]

Trotsky's "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it" (http://www.marxists.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm) will answer your questions fairly well, like him or not.

Thank you, I will try to find a copy of it as I find books easier to study. If not, I will study the link you sent me.

[Peoples' War]

Thank you, I will try to find a copy of it as I find books easier to study. If not, I will study the link you sent me.
I prefer books as well. Good luck, I'm sure you'll learn much!

[The Cheshire Cat]

I prefer books as well. Good luck, I'm sure you'll learn much!

Again, thank you!

[Robespierres Neck]

Petit-bourgeois mentality with guns. It's a corporatist state ideology that relies on nationalistic domination and class collaboration.

"Fascism is big business armed with bayonets."

[Andropov]

Fascism essentially is a socio-economic creation bred from certain material contexts.
These material contexts largely stem from an economic environment where Capitalism is under threat from progressive forces.
As such Fascism is the watch dog of Capitalism.
While there is financial stability within the country many nations will make token appeasement to certain liberal sensibilities and ideals such as freedom of speech and what not.
These are all entertained as they will not upset the status quo and as such the material interests of the bourgeois are protected.
When threatened we see the rise of Fascism. Often they may differ slightly with certain characteristics such as what reactionary ideology they will follow and what symbolism they use and around what mysticism they attempt to unite a country around. But the core principles remain the same where big business is protected and progressive forces are crushed.
"Fascism should rightly be called Corporatism, as it is the merger of corporate and government power" - Benito Mussolini

[ed miliband]

this thread, though it starts out as a silly discussion about ron paul, actually turns into a pretty interesting discussion of fascism, particularly on page two:

http://libcom.org/forums/north-america/ron-paul-24022012

i think many on revleft will disagree, but i think revol68 makes two very pertinent points when he says:



I might be missing something (like the poster has form for defending fascism or something?) but simply pointing out that fascism has an economic policy that includes wide ranging public services and programs is hardly acting as an apologist for fascism. Any decent analysis of fascism should start from understanding it's roots as a bastardised form of socialism that rejected internationalism for a pact with it's native ruling classes.


It's certainly well worth highlighting these differences because as the crisis of capitalism deepens, there will be a rise in calls for national solutions, "for putting our own first", for attacking various scapegoats and even the possibility of states retreating back from international treaties into various blocs, ready to plunge into war. To overlook the carrot aspect of fascism that did win so many working class people over to it's barbarism is of little use to anyone, not least when it was the crippling "austerity" measures imposed on Germany at Versailles that did so much to produce a fertile breeding ground for fascism.


and...





that's the thing though there is on a deep level a commonality between social democracy, the new deal, fascism and stalinism in terms of the structuring of global capital.


... clr james' lot made a pretty similar argument re: state capitalism taking different forms (fascism, the welfare state, stalinism) in its period of dominance. or something. been ages since i read that.

[LordAcheron]

Fascism is a liberal economy with government deeply in bed with corporate powers, sometimes to the degree that they are indecipherable. It is highly authoritarian, nationalistic, and imperialistic, whether in the traditional sense or the modern neo-colonial sense, etc.

[m1omfg]

Thank you, but what does it want? What are the 'rules'? And why does it have to be constantly at war? The Spanish and Portuguese fascist countries were not end they were able to maintain themselves for quite a while. But I guess they got some foreign help with this.

They had mostly poor rural societies with a lot of illiteracy.

[Thirsty Crow]

Thank you, but what does it want? What are the 'rules'? And why does it have to be constantly at war? The Spanish and Portuguese fascist countries were not end they were able to maintain themselves for quite a while. But I guess they got some foreign help with this.
What does it want? (it's funny how it sounds as if we were talking about a monster :lol:).

Most of all, the Fascist program (and in its historical variants, though Spanish fascism was a curious beast, mostly connected to the landed gentry) upholds capital and the continued and expanded accumulation of capital, though it does so differntly from liberalism for instance.

The role of the state is heavily emphasized in Fascism, and the Fascist state differs from the liberal-democratic state in that it has historically tended to single-party rule (thus effectively fusing the party and the state) and comprehensive domination over both public and private life (enforcing ideology aimed at women and their position - both in the workplace and at home, for instance). Alongisde this, and probably more important, is the corporatist nature of the fascist state which entails the loss of independence of the workers' movement and its organs (actually, this loss has historically occured rather bloodily - by attacks and direct violence of armed fascist gangs against workers; it then proceeded politically though always in connection with that kind of repression; here you can see that fascists were actually useful for liberals and capitalists as they represented the vanguard of reaction and counter-revolution, so to say).
Labour relations are mediated by the activities of the state and geared towards the fulfillment of the interests of the capitalist class.

The war drive behind fascism is somewhat historically determined. You'd have to look into the havoc caused by the Depression and consider the fact that the competition fostered by the world market will not be always structured by peaceful means. As the need for raw materials, and especially for cheap or slave labour, intensifies with the projected (or commenced) industrialization, war, imperialism and outright colonialism are possible ways of getting forward. This might be the crux of the issue - that capitalism, the world market, actually foster these social and political conditions by the very fact that competition cannot be eliminated from the way social relations are organized. This is especially pertinent for Italy and Germany as they were, in the 19th ct., relatively new nation-states (I think the unification occured in both cases in 1870s) with pressing needs for industrialization. But the problem was that the colonial spoils have been pretty much taken by the end of the century (as I said, colonies and the relationship between the so called core and periphery is very important the dynamics of capital accumulation; both as markets and as pillage grounds).

As for Spain and Portugal, as I said, Spanish fasicsm was a very curious thingy, and I even think that "real" fascists were overshadowed by conservative monarchists, sporting ties with, most importantly, the rural proprietors of land (big landed gentry) and the clergy, while the social basis of, for instance, nazism was to be found in the industrial capitalist class (and the petite bourgeoisie).


i think many on revleft will disagree, but i think revol68 makes two very pertinent points when he says:

Well, with regard to the first quote, I think it's somewhat of a semantics argument. When the person you quote says "roots", s/he's thinking of historical origin, especially in relation to Mussolini and his own personal trajectory. I don't think this can be validly said about Nazism. What I find most important about an analysis of fasicsm is its social basis and class poltiics.

As for "bastardized socialism", I don't think Italian Fascism can be shown to share significant similarities with even 2nd International social democracy, let alone revolutionary communism at the margins of the Third International. So does this amount to saying that one man "bastardized socialism"? How is that relevant when it is clear that the "end product" has very, very little in common with the starting point?

[Lokomotive293]

Georgi Dimitrov once described fascism in power as the "open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of finance capital."

You should read his report on fascism:

http://www.marxists.org/reference/archive/dimitrov/works/1935/08_02.htm

[The Idler]

A ideology that the far left play up to shut down debate and indulge hotheads.

[the Left™]

Fascism is a cultural and societal ideology that promotes nationalist mythology and lore to incite mass reactionary sentiment

[Luisrah]

Thank you, but what does it want? What are the 'rules'? And why does it have to be constantly at war? The Spanish and Portuguese fascist countries were not end they were able to maintain themselves for quite a while. But I guess they got some foreign help with this.

Actually Portugal engaged in warfare to protect it's colonies in Africa. It was actually one of the things that lead to the revolution.

[The Cheshire Cat]

Thanks everyone for answering, i am now on vacation and do not have a pc, only my ipod which types shit. I will reapond at the end of the week when i have my pc again. Just so you know I am not ignoring your help!

[Workers-Control-Over-Prod]

I just read the first fifty pages of "Fascism and Big Business" by Daniel Guerin and "Blackshirts and Reds" by Michael Parenti. Guerin's book is the most complete analysis of Fascism in my opinion.

[Камо́ Зэд]

Fascism, like Marxism-Leninism, doesn't exist in an ideological vacuum. That is to say, one cannot merely have a collection of traits that of their own accord come together and form what may be called fascism. That being said, where Marxism-Leninism is a self-consistent theoretical framework resulting from the accumulated historical and scientific knowledge of humankind, fascism is more of a vague collection of reactionary attitudes that developed, for the most part, out of Sorelianism. Sorel had been a Marxist, but came to "revise" Marx's conception of human history with his own mystical and idealistic notions, eventually coming to the conclusion that a revolution or some violent conflict featuring the proletariat and bourgeoisie would indeed occur, but that this revolution would "regenerate" or "purify" these classes on a moral level, ridding them of corruption and laziness or some such nonsense. Fascism would be developed out of this notion of moral rejuvenation through violence and the notion of the two major classes working together to achieve this end. Class collaboration is at the core of fascism, alongside anti-Marxist and anti-materialist attitudes. Fascist theoreticians, if they can be called that, historically claimed to be eliminating capitalism or otherwise improving upon it with a new, nationalistic system. In this way fascism gave rise to the notion of a "national socialism," the moral rejuvenation of private enterprise geared towards the good of the national tribe. Mussolini himself identified as a socialist at one point, but abandoned the label when he came to embrace fascistic attitudes. While not all fascism heavily emphasized race, the ideology of Hitler and the N.S.D.A.P. would make the issue of racial identity and the national tribe a central issue, essentially moving the spotlight away from class altogether. Instead of class rejuvenation, something that would still likely have the national bourgeoisie of these countries on edge, Hitler and others like him would emphasize a racial rejuvenation, a purification of blood, and the ascendancy of a master race that could use "lesser" races as slave labor all over the globe. The early N.S.D.A.P. was still very much interested in a petty-bourgeois pseudo-socialist revolution, but as Hitler gained corporate sponsorship and cleaned up his image that he might be taken seriously as a more traditional politician, the more "socialistic" views of the party were played down and eventually eliminated altogether (along with the individuals who held onto these views). Despite the role that leader-worship played in fascistic ideologies, the "leaders" were still very much slaves to the whims of their national bourgeoisie. Mussolini's Italy was in fact controlled by Ras, bosses not dissimilar to mafiosi. Hitler seems to have had more power in his own country, as I couldn't really imagine industrialized genocide as being more conducive to profit than, say, brutal slave labor. Plans to take on the Soviet Union had been in the works since Hitler's days in prison, and, again, I can't really speak to why the German bourgeoisie felt staging such a brazen attack was a savvy business maneuver, although the purely ideological motivation is quite apparent. In any case, fascism can be more easily identified as a series of views owing their existence to a very specific history. Modern-day fascists and neo-Nazis typically trace their ideological lineage to Mussolini and Hitler. The various Klans that exist in the United States right now, while not being entirely distinct from these ideologies, are not typically considered to be "fascist" per se, instead tracing their ideological lineage to domestic racial supremacist attitudes. You don't typically see a Klansman speaking of any kind of class rejuvenation, but the fetishism of violence and an admiration for the racial policies of the N.S.D.A.P. are still there. One might notice, though, that the Cold War has had a very unique effect in making anti-socialist attitudes in this country so strong that the Far Right, including Nazi admirers, will typically reject the notion of holding private enterprise accountable for the good of the national tribe, instead focusing much of their intellectual energy (and there isn't much of it) on fantasies of genocide and other acts of "racial purification," including violence towards homosexuals, interracial couples, non-Christians and, in some cases, the disabled. The Nazis actually had what may be called progressive environmental policies relative to the time, and the same can be said for their attitudes regarding the humane treatment of animals. Since these involves state interference with the market, naturally, much of the Usonian Far Right would rather forget these policies and instead focus on the "national" in "national socialism" to embrace fascistic attitudes. While not all fascism heavily emphasized race, the ideology of Hitler and the N.S.D.A.P. would make the issue of racial identity and the national tribe a central issue, essentially moving the spotlight away from class altogether. Instead of class rejuvenation, something that would still likely have the national bourgeoisie of these countries on edge, Hitler and others like him would emphasize a racial rejuvenation, a purification of blood, and the ascendancy of a master race that could use "lesser&" races as slave labor all over the globe. The early N.S.D.A.P. was still very much interested in a petty-bourgeois pseudo-socialist revolution, but as Hitler gained corporate sponsorship and cleaned up his image that he might be taken seriously as a more traditional politician, the more "socialistic" views of the party were played down and eventually eliminated altogether (along with the individuals who held onto these views). Despite the role that leader-worship played in fascistic ideologies, the "leaders" were still very much slaves to the whims of their national bourgeoisie. Mussolini's Italy was in fact controlled by Ras, bosses not dissimilar to mafiosi. Hitler seems to have had more power in his own country, as I couldn't really imagine industrialized genocide as being more conducive to profit than, say, brutal slave labor. Plans to take on the Soviet Union had been in the works since Hitler's days in prison, and, again, I can't really speak to why the German bourgeoisie felt staging such a brazen attack was a savvy business maneuver, although the purely ideological motivation is quite apparent.

In any case, fascism can be more easily identified as a series of views owing their existence to a very specific history. Modern-day fascists and neo-Nazis typically trace their ideological lineage to Mussolini and Hitler. The various Klans that exist in the United States right now, while not being entirely distinct from these ideologies, is not typically considered to be "fascist" per se, instead tracing their ideological lineage to domestic racial supremacist attitudes. You don't typically see a Klansman speaking of any kind of class rejuvenation, but the fetishism of violence and an admiration for the racial policies of the N.S.D.A.P. are still there. One might notice, though, that the Cold War has had a very unique effect in making anti-socialist attitudes in this country so strong that the Far Right, including Nazi admirers, will typically reject the notion of holding private enterprise accountable for the good of the national tribe, instead focusing much of their intellectual energy (and there isn't much of it) on fantasies of genocide and other acts of "racial purification," including violence towards homosexuals, interracial couples, non-Christians and, in some cases, the disabled. The Nazis actually had what may be called progressive environmental policies relative to the time, and the same can be said for their attitudes regarding the humane treatment of animals. Since these involve state interference with the market, naturally, much of the Usonian Far Right would rather forget these policies and instead focus on the "national" in "national socialism."

[Cosmonaut]

Thank you for explaining that

[The Garbage Disposal Unit]

If anyone hasn't checked this out, I reckon it's worth a read. (http://www.kersplebedeb.com/mystuff/books/fascism.html) It's a serious, relatively current (2000s) attempt to understand fascism and its role in the world right now.