Below is a section from Dave Renton's study of Marxist theories of Fascism in which he summarizes the leading Marxist theories of fascism and develops his own analytical framework, which is excellent. Take time to read the whole article on the web. I am, in fact, influenced by Renton as well as Griffin. I like a little of both. Add dashes of Eatwell and Lacquer. A spoonfl of Fritzsche and Eco.
For a terrific debate on fascism sponsored by Searchlight in the UK, see:
http://www.searchlightmagazine.com/stories/understandFascism.htm
For those incapable of making the great leap forward to modern sociological language "middle class" is pretty close to the group bounded by "petite bourgeoisie" and "plebian." We even talk about the "middle class" in the Marxist section of the American Sociological Association, and nobody has yet dropped dead of a stroke (although I have only been a member for five years, so I don't know if it happened earlier).
I would argue that my posting was not pedantic anti-Marxist swill, as Hakki so generously suggested, but is in no major way contradictory to what Renton writes below. In fact my posting is a variation of a Marxist analysis, it just doesn't kiss the big red Marxist arse of using antiquated language to show fealty to the stone tablets. It also draws from other sources. Note that the concept of clerical fascism is hardly "my pet theory."
Regarding the Grey Wolves, I certainly do not claim they read the Bible, thanks so much for putting words in my keyboard. I argue that the earliest forms of fascism were influenced by apocalyptic paradigms spread throughout European culture by the Bible. Apocalypticism is hardly limited to Christian religious traditions. It is clearly an aspect of fascism.
And Hakki, if you want to imply that I am some sort of disruptive secret agent, have the courage to just say so rather than posting "It's all pointless, pedantic, clueless mystification. At least I hope it's pointless. Sometimes I have my doubts."
Incidently, for those who enjoy irony, I am writing on fascism as an apocalyptic movement for an edited volume of Marxist and Critical Studies analysis of Alienation.
:-)
-Chip Berlet
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Towards A Marxist Theory Of Fascism
Dave Renton, 1997
http://www.dkrenton.co.uk/old3.html
<<SNIP>>
First, fascism is a reactionary ideology. 'Reactionary' here is not used here to mean that fascism sought to turn back the clock of history. In one sense fascism did, but only in one specific sense. Fascism is reactionary in the sense that it has a defining ambition to crush the organised working class, and to eradicate the reforms won by decades of peaceful struggle. Fascism was not about restoring a mythical rural idyll: it was about 'solving' the problem of working class hostility to capitalism. So, for Otto Bauer, fascism was 'the dictatorship of armed gangs'. Gramsci argued that 'the crowning glory of all propaganda and all the political and economic work of fascism is its tendency towards imperialism'. For Max Horkheimer, 'the totalitarian order differs from its bourgeois predecessors only in that it has lost all inhibitions'. As August Thalheimer argued, the fascist goal was 'the complete elimination...of the democratic rights of the workers'.
Second: fascism built itself as an independent force, capable of making the most revolutionary promises. On the one hand, fascism articulated the mood of a distinct layer. It put forward ideas and arguments that seemed to fit the real experiences of some layers, but not others. As Trotsky put it: fascism expressed 'the sharp grievances of small proprietors, never far from bankruptcy, of their university sons without posts and clients, of their daughters without dowries and suitors, demanded order and an iron hand'. On the other hand, fascism was shaped by the inability of this layer to form itself into a new ruling class. Fascism expressed the ideas of certain layers, and as these layers came into the fascist movements, so they shaped the fascist parties in their own image.
Third, if fascism is a movement shaped at one and the same time by mass support and by reactionary goals; then there is an antagonism at the heart of the movement. This contradiction explains the 'Bonapartist' aspect of fascism. In so far as fascism is a mass movement, it promises to rule against the interests of capitalism. In so far as fascism is a reactionary movement, it does rule against the interests of the class that provided the bulk of the fascist party's members.
Indeed, if there is one insight which is crucial to the Marxist theory of fascism, and which needs to be considered by non-Marxist scholars as well, it is this idea that the link between the reactionary goals of fascism and the plebeian fascist mass movement implies a constant tension. There is an antagonism inside fascism between the goals of the ideology and the interests of the mass movement. This three-point definition is tentative. The test of any theoretical explanation of any political movement lies in its ability to relate a general model to the actual history of the movement: to ascend, as Marx suggested, from the 'abstract' to the 'concrete'. This point explains the quality in Leon Trotsky's theory of fascism. Trotsky's always stressed the specific and historical nature of fascism: 'the most important law of the dialectic [is that] the truth is always concrete'. Part of the future of the Marxist theory of fascism lies in the relating of definitional terms to specific movements.
<<SNIP>>
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Original screed from Hakki:
Chip, your pedantic taxonomy of theories of fascism is interestingly lacking in marxists, aside from being essentially apolitical. Amazingly, you never mention classes or anticommunism (aside from tame pomo Fritzsche) . You bring up your pet theory of clerical fascism again and again as if it were a big deal but fail to mention that it's only an epiphenomenon where the church jumps on the fascist bandwagon. As always, you prefer to sidestep anything remotely resembling a political and class analysis and go for your millennialist routine, pretending that fascism is rooted in the bible. Why don't you come over here and tell the grey wolves that? You mentioned Dave Renton, where's his marxist theory of fascism in your sanitized taxonomy? It's all pointless, pedantic, clueless mystification. At least I hope it's pointless. Sometimes I have my doubts.
Hakki