Definitions of fascism
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What constitutes fascism and fascist governments is a highly disputed subject that has proved complicated and contentious. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets.
Most scholars agree that a "fascist regime" is foremost an authoritarian form of government, although not all authoritarian regimes are fascist. Authoritarianism is thus a defining characteristic, but most scholars will say that more distinguishing traits are needed to make an authoritarian regime fascist. It is common practice to define a fascist government as a "right-wing dictatorship", but this merely replaces one vague term with another, since there is no universal definition of "right-wing".
Similarly, fascism as an ideology is also hard to define. Originally, "fascism" referred to a political movement that existed in a single country (Italy) for less than 30 years and ruled the country from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Clearly, if the definition is restricted to the original Italian Fascism, then "fascism" has little significance outside of Italian politics. Most scholars prefer to use the word "fascism" in a more general sense, to refer to an ideology (or group of ideologies) that was influential in many countries at many different times. For this purpose, they have sought to identify a "fascist minimum" - that is, the minimum conditions that a certain political group must meet in order to be considered fascist.
The present article strives to bring together various definitions of fascism.
Contents |
[edit] Benito Mussolini
Benito Mussolini, Il Duce, dictator of Italy before and during the Second World War, signed an entry for the Enciclopedia Italiana in 1932, entitled The Doctrine of Fascism. [1] This text is often cited as the "original", or most accurate, definition of Italian Fascism (which, in turn, was the "original" fascism). However, the value of Mussolini's own claims about his political movement is disputed. Some authors have pointed out that Italian Fascist ideology constituted an incoherent and unintelligible justification for any actions that Benito Mussolini chose to undertake.
Some relevant excerpts from The Doctrine of Fascism are:
Granted that the XIXth century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.
The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people.
Fascism is a religious conception in which man is seen in his immanent relationship with a superior law and with an objective Will that transcends the particular individual and raises him to conscious membership of a spiritual society. Whoever has seen in the religious politics of the Fascist regime nothing but mere opportunism has not understood that Fascism besides being a system of government is also, and above all, a system of thought.
A more comprehensive discussion of the entire document can be found in the article Doctrine of Fascism. It is also possible to read the full text of The Doctrine of Fascism online, here.
[edit] Kevin Passmore/Ernesto Laclau/Roger Eatwell
Kevin Passmore, a lecturer in History at Cardiff University, gives a definition of fascism in his book Fascism: A Very Short Introduction. The definition he gives is directly decended from the view put forth by Ernesto Laclau and is essentially identical with the definition given by Roger Eatwell[2].
The definition he gives is as follows:
Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. Fascist hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing class or gender rather than nation. This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right. Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because the defeat of socialism and feminism and the creation of the mobilized nation are held to depend upon the advent to power of a new elite acting in the name of the people, headed by a charismatic leader, and embodied in a mass, militarized party. Fascists are pushed towards conservatism by common hatred of socialism and feminism, but are prepared to override conservative interests - family, property, religious, the universities, the civil service - where the interests of the nation are considered to require it. Fascist radicalism also derives from a desire to assuage discontent by accepting specific demands of the labour and women's movements, so long as these demands accord with the national priority. Fascists seek to ensure the harmonization of workers' and women's interests with those of the nation by mobilizing them within special sections of the party and/or within a corporate system. Access to these organizations and to the benefits they confer upon members depends on the individual's national, political, and/or racial characteristics. All aspects of fascist policy are suffused with ultranationalism.
[edit] Robert Paxton
Robert O. Paxton, a professor emeritus at Columbia University, defines fascism in his book The Anatomy of Fascism as:
A form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.[3]
[edit] Umberto Eco
In a 1995 essay "Eternal Fascism" [4], the Italian writer and academic Umberto Eco attempts to list general properties of fascist ideology. He claims that it is not possible to organise these into a coherent system, but that "it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it". He uses the term "Ur-fascism" as a generic description of different historical forms of fascism.
The features of fascism he lists are as follows:
- "The Cult of Tradition", combining cultural syncretism with a rejection of modernism (often disguised as a rejection of capitalism).
- "The Cult of Action for Action's Sake", which dicatates that action is of value in itself, and should be taken without intellectual reflection. This, says Eco, is connected with anti-intellectualism and irrationalism, and often manifests in attacks on modern culture and science.
- "Disagreement is Treason" - fascism devalues intellectual discourse and critical reasoning as barriers to action.
- "Fear of Difference", which fascism seeks to exploit and exacerbate, often in the form of racism or an appeal against foreigners and immigrants.
- "Appeal to a Frustrated Middle Class", fearing economic pressure from the demands and aspirations of lower social groups.
- "Obsession With a Plot" and the hyping-up of an enemy threat. This often involves an appeal to xenophobia or the identification of an internal security threat. He cites Pat Robertson's book The New World Order as a prominent example of a plot obsession.
- "Pacifism is Trafficking With the Enemy" because "Life is Permanent Warfare" - there must always be an enemy to fight.
- "Contempt for the Weak" - although a fascist society is elitist, everybody in the society is educated to become a hero.
- "Selective Populism" - the People have a common will, which is not delegated but interpreted by a leader. This may involve doubt being cast upon a democratic institution, because "it no longer represents the Voice of the People".
- "Newspeak" - fascism employs and promotes an impoverished vocabulary in order to limit critical reasoning.
[edit] John Weiss
John Weiss, a professor of history at Wayne State University, sought to give a definition of fascism in his book, "The Fascist Tradition: Radical Right-Wing Extremism in Modern Europe". He arrived at a list of ideas that he believed to be shared by the majority of the people commonly referred to as fascists:[5]
- Organicist conceptions of community;
- Philosophical idealism;
- Idealization of "manly" (usually peasant or village) virtues;
- A resentment of mass democracy;
- Elitist conceptions of political and social leadership;
- Racism (and usually, though not necessarily, anti-Semitism);
- Militarism;
- Imperialism.
[edit] Marxist definition
In 1935, as fascist political movements were making gains across Europe and often took violent action against communist organizations, it became important for Marxists to have an exact definition of "fascism" in order to determine precisely who they were fighting. Thus, the Communist International published the following definition:
Fascism in power is the open, terroristic dictatorship of the most reactionary, the most chauvinistic, the most imperialistic elements of finance capitalism.
The majority of Marxists, even those who were not members of the Communist International, agreed with this definition. Marxists argue that fascism represents the last attempt of a ruling class (specifically, the capitalist bourgeoisie) to preserve its grip on power in the face of an imminent proletarian revolution. Fascist movements are not necessarily created by the ruling class, but they can only gain political power with the help of that class and with funding from big business. And, once in power, fascists serve the interests of their benefactors (not necessarily the interests of capitalism in general, but the interests of those specific capitalists who put them in power). Leon Trotsky elaborated on this view in his collection of essays, "Fascism: What it is and how to fight it":
The historic function of fascism is to smash the working class, destroy its organizations, and stifle political liberties when the capitalists find themselves unable to govern and dominate with the help of democratic machinery.
In 1938 the fascist countries declared the world war on communism in the Anti-Comintern Pact[1] [2].
[edit] Fascism as vague epithet
Some have argued that the term "fascism" has become hopelessly vague in the years following World War II, and that today it is little more than a pejorative epithet used by supporters of various political views to attempt to discredit their opponents. This view dates back to George Orwell, British writer and author of 1984 and Animal Farm, who famously remarked:
...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else ... Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathisers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.[6]
[edit] References
- ^ "The Doctrine of Fascism". Enciclopedia Italiana. (1932). Rome: Istituto Giovanni Treccani.
- ^ Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, pages 25-31. Oxford University Press, 2002
- ^ Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, page 218. Knopf, 2004
- ^ Umberto Eco: Eternal Fascism, The New York Review of Books, June 22, 1995
- ^ John Weiss, "The Fascist Tradition: Radical Right-Wing Extremism in Modern Europe", Harper & Row, 1967.
- ^ George Orwell: ‘What is Fascism?’
