Assessment of Marxist Theories of Fascism - Essay Example

? The concept of fascism is a tricky one, for it is a form of government that not many scholars have been able to adequately define (Umland, 2005, p.34). Moreover, scholars have debated as to what regimes belong under the fascist rubric. Some scholars converge upon a generic definition of fascism, while others reject that there can be such a thing as a generic model of fascism. Some scholars believe that Nazi Germany and Mussolini’s Italy are the only true fascist models, while others believe that Nazi Germany should be entirely excluded from the definition of fascism (Umland, 2005, p. 35). There are a number of reasons why fascism is so hard to define, according to Paxton (1998). One of these reasons is timing, in that it took several generations for the Left to realize that fascism was a not a clever manipulation of the populace by the reactionary Right, but was, rather, authentically popular to the masses. Another reason is because many states, during fascism’s heyday, tried to mimic the fascist governments, even though these states were not functionally fascist, essentially trying to identify themselves as fascists by their plumage or clothing. A third reason why fascism is difficult to define is because there is such a wide disparity between regimes due to space and time, as each fascist country derived their own fascist elements from their own community identity. For instance, religion would play a greater role in any kind of United States incarnation of fascism than it would in Europe, where the fascists were pagan. A fourth difficulty in defining fascism is that there is a tenuous relationship between its ideology and fascism as put into action (Paxton, 1998, pp. 1-4). While fascism is a concept that has eluded definition, there is some comfort in knowing that Marxist definitions and critiques generally differ from non-Marxist ones, in a number of different ways. In this way, fascism has a better theoretical ground when studied in light of fascist theories of the ideology, and these Marxist theories are the focus of this paper. That said, there are a number of fundamental differences between Marxist theories of fascism and non-Marxist theories. Marxist theories of fascism differed from the non-Marxist theories of fascism, in that non-Marxist theories do not study the class and social policies of Germany and Italy under fascism, doing little to explain how these regimes dealt with taxes, social services, business and labor conditions, as well as not asking for who benefited from fascism and for whom fascism was a detriment, while these questions are at the core of the Marxist critique of fascism (Pizzo, 1998, p. 97). This is because the Marxist ideology sees class as central to government in general, whereas non-Marxists see state governments as being above class structures (Pizzo, 1998, p. 97). In other words, to Marxists, “fascism was a mass movement that acted independent of capitalist support” (Renton, 1997, p. 2). Another major difference between Marxist critiques of fascism from non-Marxist critiques is that the latter is concerned with fascism as a mature form of governing, focusing on the essence of fascism; non-Marxists concentrate on fascism as a movement. Thus, the non-Marxist critiques of fascism concentrate ideological themes and organizational principles of fascism than do Marxist critiques (Vanaik, 1994, p. 1730). Another major difference between Marxist theories and non-Marxist theories is that Marxist theories tend to view fascism strictly in economic terms, while non-Marxist theories see fascism in psychological and personality terms (Thomas, 1991, p. 1). According to these non-Marxist theories, fascism is a product of a diseased society in crisis, or the consequence of moral failure and these theories revolve around the concept of a sick society and a world gone mad (Davies & Lynch, 2002, p. 4). These theories try to get into the psyche of leaders who embrace the fascist ideology, such as Hitler and Mussolini, as well as the psyches of those who were ardent followers of the movement. According to these theories, there are certain personality types that are drawn to fascist ideas, such as somebody who lusts for power or hates weakness, or have a need for a strong leader and authority (Davies & Lynch, 2002, p. 5). Meanwhile, other thinkers, such as Adorno, are not so kind in their analysis, stating that fascism is a symptom of neurosis and delinquency, and appeals to the prejudiced personality (Davies & Lynch, 2002, p. 6). While the non-Marxist concentrate on non-economic factors to explain the appeal of fascism, Marxist ideology and thinkers do just the opposite and try to stick to strictly economic analyses. The relationship between Marxism and fascism was that fascism was a conservative and revolutionary response to Marxism, socialism and capitalism by societies after World War I, started by the middle rural class, young unemployed workers and the “new middle strata,” composed of “free professions – small and middle white collar workers and officials, doctors, lawyers and academic youth” (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 145). Left out of the fascist movements were the working class, especially the ones represented by labor unions and socialist movements (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 145). The similarity in this description to the current prevailing description surrounding capitalism is no accident, as, during this period of time, the Marxist line on capitalism is that it leads, and potentially always will lead – to fascism (Wipperman, 1976, p. 191). This is because the prevailing Marxist view was the fascism was the result of the foundations of capitalism giving way, and fascism was considered to be the “exhibition of capitalism’s ruthless survival instinct” (Griffin, 2002, p. 22). Thus, fascism is “capitalism with the mask off,” and springs up when capitalism feels mortally threatened, therefore can no longer rule through a democracy (Steele, 2002, p. 3). In other words, according to Marxist philosophies, fascism is “a last ditch attempt to save the capitalist system through authoritarianism” (Thomas, 1991, p. 1). In this way, Marxism saw the Nazi regime as a logical consequence of capitalism, it being the “most extreme case of the general evils of modern capitalist society” (Callinicos, 2001, p. 386). According to one Marxist thinker, Ernest Mandel, “the destruction of the Jews of Europe is rationally explicable as the product of imperialist capitalism, and as such it is manifestly comparable to the other barbarisms which this socio-economic formation” (Callinicos, 2001, p. 386). During this period, Marxist writers were coming to terms with fascism and critically analyzing the fascist movement. The prevailing wisdom among these thinkers was that fascism “was either directly generated by bourgeois elements or cynically manipulated by them to defend the capitalist state, often with the direct collaboration of residual feudal forces such as the Church and the aristocracy” (Griffin, 2000, p. 2). One such thinker who aligned with this theory was Julius Braunthal, an Austrian Social Democrat and Marxist. According to Braunthal, fascism was dominated by the upper , property-owning class, and it had, at its core, the desire by this property-owning class to crush the working class and democracy by playing the bourgeoisie against the proletariat, which had gained political power in the post-war revolutions (Botz, 1976, p. 130). In this way, the economic lordship was able to fend off the challenges against it (Botz, 1976, p. 132). Braunthal’s analysis was in line with the Marxist way of analyzing fascism, in that the Marxist critique of fascism lies in studying the economic function of fascism and how the fragility of class structure make fascisms attractive (Vansik, 1994, p. 1730). Braunthal’s analysis is also in line with the basic notion that is held by Marxists that fascists are considered to be big business lackeys, while trying to make the proletariat believe that fascism will improve their lives (Davies & Lynch, 2002, p. 12) In critiquing Braunthal’s theory, Botz (1976) states that the theory does not consider the fascist ideology and methods, the political and social origins of its supporters and the mass character of fascism (Botz, 1976, p. 131). However, what Braunthal did manage to do was to mediate between two prevailing Marxist theories of fascism – that, on one hand, fascism was the equivalent to capitalism, and, on the other hand, fascism and capitalism did not have anything to do with one another (Botz, 1976, p. 131). For instance, the Federal Republic of Germany saw fascism as the same as communism, while the German Democratic Republic saw fascism as the equivalent to capitalism (Wipperman, 1976, p. 194). Another contribution of Braunthal’s theory was that his theory did not restrict fascist analysis to one particular country, Italy, but, rather, placed fascism within a general perspective (Botz, 1976, p. 131). However, Turner (1972) argues that the only “true” fascists governments were Italy, with Italian Fascism and Germany with the German National Socialism, stating that, despite the notion that fascism was a generic phenomenon, these two states, Germany and Italy, “remain its only universally accepted paradigmatic manifestations” (Turner, 1972, p. 549). Pizzo (1998) rejects this argument, stating that such a restrictive interpretation of fascism fails to “overcome the culturally laden connotations of fascism” (Pizzo, 1998, p. 97), while also acknowledging that these fascist movements in the 1920s and 1930s must be viewed separately from fascist regimes in the modern era, as the spatial, structural and conceptual aspects of these fascist regimes are particular to their time and place (Pizzo, 2000, pp. 122-123). Kaiwar (2000) argues that fascism is not repeatable now because the post-modern era, and the new unfolding of capitalism that has accompanied it, makes fascism obsolete (Kaiwar, 2000, p. 126). Leon Trotsky was another prominent Marxist who conducted a critique of fascism, and is considered by many to be “the single most important reference point in the classical Marxist tradition for an understanding of fascism” (Vanaik, 2000, p. 118). According to Trotsky, fascism represented a unity of six elements: 1) fascism is a response to a severe crisis of capitalism, in that capitalism is no longer able to supply real wages, productivity, markets, access to raw materials, etc.; 2) the equilibrium of bourgeois democracy is disrupted, which results in centralization of power; 3) before the fascists seize power, the would-be leaders must systematically terrorize and physically assault the working class, which results in the demoralization of same, then, after taking power, completes the job of demoralizing this class; 4) the bourgeoisie must be so despairing that it is willing to engage in warfare against the organized working class by physically attacking them; 5) this fight between the fascist movement and working class movement must also begin before the seizure of power and 6) the fascist seizure of power both initiates the state into a Bonapartist dictatorship and completes the fascist project, which assimilates the fascist ideology into the bureaucracy of the state while abandoning demagoguery (Vanaik, 1994, p. 1734). In the 1970s, the Marxist discussion of fascism took a different turn. For one, it began to see fascism as not simply reactionary, but also progressive and revolutionary (Davies & Lynch, 2002, p. 14). Another change is that the definition of fascism effectively expanded its scope to inquire about how “an analytic definition of fascism could be formulated that applied, not only National Socialism, but other fascisms as well ” (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 144). In order to ascertain this, the Marxists first had to distinguish between fascism and other types of authoritarian state forms, as well as differentiating between historic specific manifestations of fascism from the social function of fascism, and Marxist writer Richard Kuhnl work was extremely important in this analysis. Kuhnl work extended to a study of Left Wing Socialism, Nazism, the Weimar and Bonn Republics, and bourgeois liberalism. For bourgeois liberalism, Kuhnl described how it dissolves into organized capitalism, and the emergence of fascism and neo-liberalism in the contemporary era (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 144). Kuhnl’s work was the first Marxist critique of fascism that differentiated between the movement of fascism and fascism in power (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 144). In doing so, Kuhnl’s work made the mass character of fascist movements of centralized importance, even though this aspect was marginalized in orthodox and unorthodox Marxist treatements in the 1930s and 1940s (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 145). Kuhnl’s theory was that the fascist movement needed to be distinguished from the circumstances that brought it to power (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 145). It ultimately did not benefit its followers, so much as the elite that brought it to power, which was the social and economic upper classes. According to Kuhnl, fascism as a movement had power that was independent, with its own organization and mass support, yet also had an alliance with the economic ruling class, with its promises of abolition of workers’ organizations and the dissolving of bourgeois democracy (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 145). The alliance’s foundation, according to Kuhnl, was “the promise of a strong state, the potential to overcome the economic crisis through rearmament and a militarism-expansionist foreign policy” (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 146). Kuhnl also stated that the alliance was built on a somewhat illusory foundation as far as the ruling class goes, as the ruling class assumed, falsely, that it could exercise control. However, since fascism existed independent of the state and the ruling class, it could not really be challenged, and this caused dissension in the ranks, as executive power could not really control but, rather, could only mediate between the different groups in power, such as industrial groups, the party and the state. This caused, according to Kuhnl, the power struggles that were contained by “terror, the propaganda monopoly, the channeling of aggression and above all the organizations which institutionalized legitimation and ensured the hegemony of the fascist party within the alliance” (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 146). The core of Kuhnl’s theory was that capitalism could not hold the base through bourgeois democratic means, and fascism provided this mass basis. In return, the upper class “put the state, economic and military apparatus at the disposal of the fascists, with whose help the party dictatorship could be established internally and external expansion could be carried on” (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 146). In this way, according to Kuhnl, fascism was bourgeois domination (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 146). The five major characteristics that Kuhnl identifies with fascism were as follows: “1) its social function is to maintain the capitalist system in a crisis; 2) the use of terrorist methods of domination and the elimination of oppositional forces is basic to the system; 3) it consists of a mass movement which attempt to include major population groupings and acts an instrument of mass integration and manipulation; 4) the masses are subject to the ideology of the Volk community and the unconditional solidarity demanded by both internal and external enemies; 5) the system produces the political and military preprequisites for imperialist expansion and the subordination of neighboring peoples” (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 147). According to this definition, the presupposition is that the more developed the capitalist system, the more developed the fascist system (Rabinbach, 1974, p. 147). Conclusion Although Fascism is a regime that is notoriously hard to define, Marxist critique somewhat simplifies that definition by stating that fascism is essentially capitalism gone mad. This is a logical extension to the basic belief that Marxists hold that capitalism in the form of production controls has a pernicious influence upon culture, politics and society (Carver, 1991, p. 55). It is logical to assume that, if capitalism is built upon shaky ground, due to the fact that it is seen as detrimental to all aspects of a society, it would, sooner or later, morph into fascism when the foundation beneath it deteriorates and leaders are desperate to keep their capitalist society together, even if it means keeping it together by brute force. Of course, this is a scary thought in today’s day and age, as capitalist societies are increasingly becoming divisive because of the poor economic climate, catastrophic national debt and the threat of class warfare. According to traditional Marxist ideologies, these conditions are the precursors to fascist regimes. Hopefully this will not occur in today’s society, although this is definitely a proposition that is worth keeping an eye on. Bibliography Ashby, H. (1972) “Fascism and Modernism,” World Politics 24(4): 547-564. Botz, G. (1976) “Austro-Marxism Interpretation of Fascism,” Journal of Contemporary History 11(4): 128-156. Callinicos, A. (2001) “Plumbing the Depths: Marxism and the Holocaust,” The Yale Journal of Criticism 14(2): 385-414. Carver, T. (1991) The Cambridge Companion to Marx. New York, NY: Cambridge University Press. Griffin, R. (2002) “The Primacy of Culture: The Current Growth (or Manufacture) of Consensus within Fascist Studies,” Journal of Comparative History 37(1): 21-43. Davies, P.J. & Lynch, D. (2002) “The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right,” [Online] Available at: http://eprints.hud.ac.uk/5525/ Griffin, R. (2000) “Revolution from the Right: Fascism,” [Online] Available at: http://ah.brookes.ac.uk/resources/griffin/fasrevolution.pdf Kaiwar, V. (2000) “Comments on Fascism and ‘Functional Substitutes’ for Fascism,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East 20(1&2): 125-127. Paxton, R.O. (1998) “The Five Stages of Fascism,” The Journal of Modern History, 70(1): 1- 23. Pizzo, D. (1998) “The Museumization of Fascism: ‘Functional Substitutes for Fascism’ in the Era of Globalization,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East XVIII(2): 96-107. Rabinbach, A.G. (1974) “Toward a Marxist Theory of Fascism and National Socialism: A Report on Developments in West Germany,” New German Critique 3: 127-153. Renton, D. (1997) “Towards a Marxist Theory of Fascism,” [Online] Available at: http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/old/old3.html Steele, D.R. (2002) “The Mystery of Fascism,” [Online] Available at: http://www.la- articles.org.uk/fascism.htm Thomas, R. (1991) “The Nature of Nazi Ideology,” [Online] Available at: http://www.libertarian.co.uk/lapubs/histn/histn015.pdf Umland, A. (2005) “Concepts of Fascism in Contemporary Russia and the West,” Political Studies Review 3: 34-49. Vanaik, A. (2000) “Functional Substitutes for Fascism in the Era of Globalization,” Comparative Studies of South Asia, Africa and the Middle East XX(1&2): 115-134. Vanaik, A. (1994) “Situating Threat of Hindu Nationalism: Problems with Fascist Paradigm,” Economic and Political Weekly 29(28): 1729-1748. Wipperman, W. (1976) “The Post-War German Left and Fascism,” Journal of Contemporary History 11(4): 185-219. Read More