I am skeptical of efforts to produce a
"definition" of fascism. As a dynamic historical current, fascism has
taken many different forms, and has evolved dramatically in some ways. To
understand what fascism has encompassed as a movement and a system of rule, we
have to look at its historical context and development--as a form of
counter-revolutionary politics that first arose in early twentieth-century Europe in response to rapid social upheaval, the
devastation of World War I, and the Bolshevik Revolution. The following
paragraphs are intented as an initial, open-ended sketch.
Fascism is a form of extreme right-wing ideology that
celebrates the nation or the race as an organic community transcending all
other loyalties. It emphasizes a myth of national or racial rebirth after a
period of decline or destruction. To this end, fascism calls for a
"spiritual revolution" against signs of moral decay such as
individualism and materialism, and seeks to purge "alien" forces and
groups that threaten the organic community. Fascism tends to celebrate
masculinity, youth, mystical unity, and the regenerative power of violence.
Often, but not always, it promotes racial superiority doctrines, ethnic
persecution, imperialist expansion, and genocide. At the same time, fascists
may embrace a form of internationalism based on either racial or ideological
solidarity across national boundaries. Usually fascism espouses open male
supremacy, though sometimes it may also promote female solidarity and new
opportunities for women of the privileged nation or race.
Fascism's approach to politics is both populist--in that it
seeks to activate "the people" as a whole against perceived
oppressors or enemies--and elitist--in that it treats the people's will as
embodied in a select group, or often one supreme leader, from whom authority
proceeds downward. Fascism seeks to organize a cadre-led mass movement in a
drive to seize state power. It seeks to forcibly subordinate all spheres of
society to its ideological vision of organic community, usually through a
totalitarian state. Both as a movement and a regime, fascism uses mass
organizations as a system of integration and control, and uses organized
violence to suppress opposition, although the scale of violence varies widely.
Fascism is hostile to Marxism, liberalism, and conservatism,
yet it borrows concepts and practices from all three. Fascism rejects the
principles of class struggle and workers' internationalism as threats to
national or racial unity, yet it often exploits real grievances against
capitalists and landowners through ethnic scapegoating or radical-sounding
conspiracy theories. Fascism rejects the liberal doctrines of individual
autonomy and rights, political pluralism, and representative government, yet it
advocates broad popular participation in politics and may use parliamentary
channels in its drive to power. Its vision of a "new order" clashes
with the conservative attachment to tradition-based institutions and
hierarchies, yet fascism often romanticizes the past as inspiration for
national rebirth.
Fascism has a complex relationship with established elites
and the non-fascist right. It is never a mere puppet of the ruling class, but
an autonomous movement with its own social base. In practice, fascism defends
capitalism against instability and the left, but also pursues an agenda that
sometimes clashes with capitalist interests in significant ways. There has been
much cooperation, competition, and interaction between fascism and other
sections of the right, producing various hybrid movements and regimes.
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