In the study of fascism various rival definitions and methods of analysis have been proposed by various scholars and theorists. We will look at two major theories pioneered by bourgeois academics Roger Griffin and Robert Paxton, which stand, more or less, at opposite ends in their respective approaches, as well as Marxist and Marxian theorists of fascism to produce what we regard to be an accurate definition of fascism. In this, we largely follow Matthew Lyon's approach, who takes the theory of Thalheimer and develops this, what he calls, “skeletal analysis of fascism” (2011), and develops it further drawing from the theories of a number of independent Marxists.
IDEOLOGICAL FORMS AND CONTENT, sharing in the illusion? (methodological empathy) << needs to be integrated and addressed
Paxton correctly argues that “great difficulties arise as soon as one sets out to define fascism” noting that it may or may not encompass various strongman autocrats with widely diverging backgrounds and ideological positions (1998, p. 1), whom yet may appear bound by a common thread. Even Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany had pronounced differences. Yet, as Paxton notes, it's clear that “a real phenomenon exists” (1998, p. 9), one which warrants analysis. The crux of the matter is that fascism developed unique forms of political rule distinct from previous authoritarian styles of governance.
One approach to fascism advanced by Paxton is to view fascism in motion (certainly appealing to adherents of dialectics) by analysing the successive stages it goes through. He argues that analysing fascism as doctrine is an inadequate approach in that fascist movements that have successfully rooted, as he calls it, have abandoned, but more importantly, ignored (as opposed to adapt, annul, and justify change of) their early programs (Paxton, 1998, p. 6). This results from the primacy given to action over intellectualism and doctrine in fascism. Thus, it appears to makes sense to observe fascism's development rather than its doctrine. More or less cynical or opportunistic adaptation, “undermine any effort to portray historical fascism as the consistent expression of one coherent ideology.” (Paxton, 1998, p. 16) Instead, Paxton argues, “it is in their functions that [fascisms] resemble each other.” (1998, p. 5). This apparent opportunistic manoeuvring of fascism may, however, have a slightly different cause as will be revealed by looking at Thalheimer's approach to fascism.
Marxist theorist August Thalheimer emphasised that fascism functionally represented a right-wing Bonapartism. To Marx, Bonapartism is a phenomenon where the capitalist class abdicates its control over the state to ultimately preserve its economic position and social power. This was, he argued, in the words of Paxton, the result of “a deadlock between between two evenly balanced classes”, which gives rise to a strongman able to rule automatised from class interests (2004, p. 265). Observing that the fascist movement in Italy entered power after “an unsuccessful proletarian onslaught”, this being the Biennio Rosso, which “ended with the demoralization of the working class” and therefore the bourgeoisie, being “exhausted, distraught and dispirited, cast around for a saviour to protect its social power” (Thalheimer, 1930). Marxists, among others, had proposed that fascism “came to the aid of capitalism in trouble” (Paxton, 2004, p. 10). The Communist International's Third Period theory of fascism, believing in capitalism's imminent demise at the hands of a new surge of revolutionary consciousness in the proletariat, had posited that fascism was a generic “counterrevolutionary trend within all bourgeois parties” (Lyons, 2011, 'From Bonapartism to Right-Wing Revolution', para. 2). Social-democrats, from this perspective, were “social fascists”. The Comintern altered this position when the Nazis came to power, and articulated the quite well known definition of fascism as “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.” (cited in Lyons, 2011, 'From Bonapartism to Right-Wing Revolution', para. 2). Empirically, the notion of fascism as Bonapartist, arising, not at the height of class struggle, but out of a period of demoralisation and exhaustion, stands on stronger foundations (Lyons, 2011, 'From Bonapartism to Right-Wing Revolution', para. 2). Sociologist Talcott Parsons similarly argued that fascism “emerged out of uprooting and tensions produced by uneven economic and social development” and that “class tensions were particularly acute” as a result of late industrialisation also leading to compromise being “blocked by surviving pre-industrial elites” (Paxton, 2004, p. 209).
To many theorists, Marxists and non-Marxists alike, including mainstream academic Andrew Heywood, fascism was primarily a petty bourgeois phenomenon. Fascist movements drew its membership “drew their membership and support largely from such lower middle class elements” (Heywood, p. 173). Crushed between organised labour and the growing power of concentrated capital or big business the petty bourgeoisie sought a return to previous social stages. Fascism constituted “a revolt of the lower middle classes, a fact that helps to explain the hostility of fascism to both capitalism and communism.” (Heywood, 2012, p. 173). According to Paxton the reason for the over-representation of the petty bourgeoisie in interbellum fascist movements is not “due to some proletarian immunity to appeals of nationalism and ethnic cleansing” (2004, p. 50) but because the working class was “already deeply engaged, from generation to generation, in the rich subculture of socialism, with its clubs, newspapers, unions, and rallies,” they “were simply not available for another loyalty.” (2004, p. 50). Writing on socialism, Heywood argues that “[c]apitalism itself had matured and by the late nineteenth century the urban working class had lost its revolutionary character and been integrated into society” because the working class had “begun to develop a range of institutions – working men's clubs, trade unions, political parties and so on – which both protected their interests and nurtured a sense of security and belonging within industrial society.” (2012, p. 97). Thus, the rooted elements of the working class was far less inclined toward fascism. The socially uprooted elements, in contrast, were attracted to fascism, as Paxton (2004, p. 50) notes: “[w]orkers were more available for fascism if they stood outside the community of socialists” and the “unemployed were more likely to join the communists than the fascists, however, unless they were first-time voters or from the middle class”. Paxton (2004, p. 50) further notes that protestants were more likely to join the Nazis than were Catholics given the latter's numerous institutions that paralleled the socialist's.
It would seem that Thalheimers position of fascism as drawing support from the “socially uprooted elements from every class” including “from the aristocracy, the bourgeoisie, the urban petty bourgeoisie, the peasantry, the workers” with the petty bourgeoisie being disproportionally more socially uprooted is a more accurate assessment than chalking fascism up to merely being propelled by a petty bourgeois reaction. Griffin (2003) similarly posits that the scholarly consensus is that fascism is “trans-class” paralleling Thalheimer's thesis of fascism as Bonapartist.
To return to the apparent opportunistic manoeuvring of the fascists, Paxton notes that at certain points the fascists maintained anticapitalistic positions (although selectively), lamenting finance capital and big landlords, (2004, p. 10) while once in power the fascist leadership also courted industrialists (2004, p. 104). When fascism exercises power, according to Paxton (1998, p. 18)., it does so through its leader and by balancing between the wants and interests of the various elites and institutions within its borders, such as the industrial, party, military, police, and religious elites. Thalheimer argued instead that this particular manoeuvring that he predicted would be common to all fascisms (as he articulated his theories on fascism before the rise of the Nazis to power) was due to the fascist parties being mass movements of various socially uprooted elements from various social classes and declassed elements forcing conflict “between the social interests of this mass following and the interests of the dominant classes which it has to serve.” (Lyons, 2011, 'From Bonapartism to Right-Wing Revolution', para. 2). From this perspective, fascism is inherently unstable and a fascist regime is being “pulled simultaneously in opposite directions” (Lyons, 2011, 'From Bonapartism to Right-Wing Revolution', para. 2). According to Thalheimer fascism, “like Bonapartism, seeks to be the benefactor of all classes; hence it continually plays one class off against another, and engages in contradictory maneuvers internally.” (cited in Lyons, 2011, 'From Bonapartism to Right-Wing Revolution', para. 2).
Thus, manoeuvring between the particular type of petty bourgeois reaction ('radicalism' in mainstream scholarship), the appeasement and courting of the industrialists, or 'haute bourgeoisie', and in the case of Nazi-Germany specifically, threatening industrialists with nationalisation and economic coercion under certain conditions (Temin, 1990) and the repressing of the 'petty bourgeois socialist'1 worker- and unemployment-based Sturmabteiling (SA) would seem to be explained most appropriately by analysing fascism as right-wing Bonapartist movement.
It is dubious, however, to argue that right-wing Bonapartism represents the essence of fascism because it historically performed this function. Lyons argues that it's therefore more appropriate to define fascism as a type of right-wing revolutionary movement, but “not revolutionary in the socialist or anarchist sense” instead, citing Maoist theorist J. Sakai, “Fascism is revolutionary in a simpler use of the word. It intends to seize State power for itself … in order to violently reorder society in a new class rule” (Lyons, 2011, 'From Bonapartism to Right-Wing Revolution', para. 2). Lyons (2011, 'Combining Two Approaches', para. 4) concludes by proposing a draft definition: “Fascism is a revolutionary form of right-wing populism, inspired by a totalitarian vision of collective rebirth, that challenges capitalist political and cultural power while promoting economic and social hierarchy”.
The “collective rebirth” aspect of fascism identified by Lyons (2011, 'The Myth of National Rebirth', para. 3) is based on Griffin's theory of palingenetic ultranationalism. To historian and political theorist Roger Griffin (2004) fascism is based on what he calls 'palingenetic ultra-nationalism', defined as the aspiration to stage a national rebirth on the basis of a romanticised golden age period from the national history. Griffin, as opposed to Paxton, proposes to look into the actual beliefs held by fascists to understand the essence of fascism – an approach he calls 'methodological empathy' after George Mosse's concept (Griffin, 2008, p. xiv).
This 'palingenetic ultranationalism' is immediately obvious in the symbolism and rhetoric of fascist movements. Italian Fascism sought to restore the glory and might of the Roman Empire, and the infamous 'Hitler salute' brought back into fashion by Mussolini was of course the customary greeting to Ancient Roman magistrates. Hitler, likewise, spoke a of a Third Reich, in reference to preceding German 'Reichs' (Heywood, 2012, p. 133). The Ku Klux Klan—said to be the first fascist movement in history originating from the 1860s in the former Confederate States by, among others, Paxton (1998, p. 12)—too was preoccupied with national rebirth after suffering the humiliation of defeat in the American Civil War. This is most famously conveyed in the slogan 'The South Shall Rise Again'.
Paxton, like Griffin, identifies fascism with a preoccupation with national decline and humiliation but the specific remedy appears under-emphasised, this remedy being the staging of such a national rebirth, this is summarised by Heywood (2012, p. 181) as “All fascist movements therefore highlight the moral bankruptcy and cultural decadence of modern society, but proclaim the possibility of rejuvenation, offering the image of the nation ‘rising phoenix-like from the ashes’.” Griffin's definition of fascism is very exact, and uses 'para-fascism' to define right-wing corporatist conservative authoritarian regimes. Lyons summarises para-fascism, “A para-fascist regime is imposed from above (often by the military) and represents traditional elites trying to preserve the old order, but surrounds its conservative core with fascist trappings” (2011, 'The Myth of National Rebirth', para. 3). These corporatist conservative authoritarian regimes did not “grew directly out of a seizure of state power by an 'extra-systemic' revolutionary movement”. Instead, “[a]ll of them … came to power as attempts by sections of the ruling elites or their military representatives to restore stability and strong government in a way which did not threaten the basis of the existing class structure or of traditional values”. Fascism, in contrast, restructured, or sought to restructure, political and socio-economic institutions and sought cultural renewal through popular mobilisation (Griffin, 2004, p. 121). Fascism is therefore revolution in the sense that it advocates extreme change in relation to political and socio-economic institutions as well as cultural values, considering the prevailing cultural vales decadent and corrupted by liberalism and socialism (which includes opposition to Enlightenment values), or as Paxton called it advocacy of “radical spiritual-cultural renewal and restored national community” (1998, p. 7).
We propose a definition for this paper similar to the draft definition proposed by Lyons. It differs on some minor details. Lyons' draft definition includes a reference to “collective rebirth” when the emphasis with fascism lies on the national aspect. We define fascism as a revolutionary form of right-wing ultra-nationalist populism seeking to stage a totalitarian national rebirth through a social Darwinian type struggle. From this it follows that it challenges conventional liberal and moderate conservative values because these reject such a power struggle.
The means to staging a totalitarian national rebirth is based on mass action. Fascism gives primacy of action over intellectualism. Action, moreover, in this particular case, stands in relation to struggle, or 'social Darwinian' struggle. Paxton (1998, p. 12) commented on this by saying that fascism considers “the beauty of violence and of will, when they are devoted to the group's success in a Darwinian struggle.” And Heywood (2012, p. 177) similarly argued that the principle of struggle, between nations and within nations against treacherous elements, is crucial to fascism:
In the first place, fascists regarded struggle as the natural and inevitable condition of both social and international life. Only competition and conflict guarantee human progress and ensure that the fittest and strongest will prosper … In contrast to traditional humanist or religious values, such caring, sympathy and compassion, fascists respect a very different set of martial values: loyalty, duty, obedience and self-sacrifice.
Lastly, the ability of success of fascism in the past was dependent on historical contingencies, a short window of opportunity, that allowed it to manifest itself as Bonapartist, drawing from socially uprooted elements from every class, manoeuvring between the interests of different class elements and elites, in a period of protracted crisis, manoeuvring into political power and its subsequent exercising thereof. This crisis including a crisis of liberal democracy allowing for fascists to exploit (in the neutral sense: use to the fullest benefit) this. Moreover, the liberal democracy in question must, according to Griffin, be “mature enough institutionally to preclude the threat of a direct military or monarchical coup,” as “Latin America, Africa, and the Far East provide abundant examples of fragile democracies being snuffed out by military dictatorships” , yet is must be “too immature to be able to rely on a substantial consensus in the general population that liberal political procedures … are the sole valid basis for a healthy society” (Griffin, 2014, p. 211).
Fascism is right-wing in that it promotes social inequality and social hierarchy; revolutionary in that it seeks to seize political power to violently restructure class rule; totalitarian in that it invites controlled mass participation (of conformity to fascist power) in order to stage a national rebirth, and the national rebirth is pivotal because the ultimate aim of violently restructuring class rule is revitalisation and the rebirth of the nation, which it seeks to achieve through a social Darwinian type struggle.
What, exactly, is Fascism?
