--- Message Received --- From: "Tahir Wood" <twood at uwc.ac.za> To: lbo-talk at lists.panix.com Date: 20 Feb 2002 10:22:23 +0200 Subject: Fascism
Tahir: I've been following the fascism debate here with interest - it's something that's always interested me, not least because there always seems to be this problem in pinning down exactly what it is. Often what you get is a kind of checklist definition, i.e. if x, y and z are present it's fascism and if one of them is absent then it's not really fascism, but just some form of conservatism or something.
Greg: Checklisting has its place, especially when trying to distinguish one thing from the other. It is a first step but totally inadeqaute for grasping the real movement of anything. Hence, the poroblem with any such structuralist approach is that very little can fulfil all its requirements, along the way compromises have to be made just to maintain the structure, look closely and even the model used for the check-list will not fit it (rather various parts fit at various times, but not all parts fit all the time, or the list becomes so general quite different things should be included that really don't belong).
Fascism like any historically real phenomenon is a slippery character.
Tahir: But I wonder if we can't find a more minimalist definition that changes the assessment to a quantitative one rather than a qualitative one. Let me try this: fascism is simply ultra-nationalism. As such it manipulates the available cognitive and emotive resources, such as 'national symbols', race, ethnicity, religion, culture, etc. So the question then is not whether each of these manipulations is present as a criterion, but simply how nationalist is this thing, in other words what degree of fascism is there.
Greg: Tahir if you stick with the listing concept, then only too paths are open. Either you end up with such a detailed tangled list it is no more than a history of events. Or you go the other way and make it just a general category - the reductionist path.
Why nationalism? why not just violence, or thuggery, barbariansim or a festish for uniforms? These would equally be measures of degree.
Tahir: By ultra-nationalism I simply mean the subordination of the interests of the individual to the interests of the nation. 'Nation' here is understood as inherently capitalist. Taking these two points together, one will therefore also find an opposition to transnational 'finance' capital, at least in the early stages of the movement. I can imagine a non-racial, non-religious, etc., fascism but not a non-nationalist one. The nationalist element then explains why things like imperialism and colonialism are closely associated with fascism although not inherent to it. They simply arise when a fascist state is able to pursue its national interest beyond its borders, but you don't have to be expansionist to be fascist and you don't have to be fascist to be expansionist.
Greg: Again we are seeing Russian dolls, each fitting within each other, each distinguishable, each just an abstraction. For instance does nationalism of any sought always play this part, could not communal loyalities and identity within a nation also act as a cover? Of course we can reclass these as a form of nationalism as well, but now the Russian dools all merge into one, we may as well use the word "bad"or "evil" and leave it at that.
Tahir: The advantages of looking at it this way is that several of the problems that we have been grappling with cease to appear as difficulties. Firslty the checklist of criteria disappears. Always a good thing. The the problem of classifying a regime as fascist disappears. So the question of whether Franco, Peron, Thatcher, Chamberlain, apartheid South Africa, Bush, Iran, Iraq, etc. were/are fascist disappears and the question simply becomes to what degree were/are they fascist. In other words to what degree did they suppress and cramp the subjectivities of their subjects into ultra-national allegiances. Another advantage is that it enables us to see how the movement changes from a popular mass movement to a ruling class one. So we don't get into silly debates as to whether fascism really is a strategy of international finance capital or something.
Greg: Again why not use degrees of "badness" for it would amount to the same thing. What you consider silly debates on whether what is happening now is a "strategy of international finance capital or something", are actually about what brings about this state of affairs, what is the peculiar historical character, the direction of development and hence also the means of opposition to this development.
]Charles Brown, as a reference point calls, it New Nazism, I am not pleased with this, but it is a jumping off point as good as any. In otherwords he is trying to differentiat what is in front of us as against the past and also connect it with those things in the past which it most resembles. New Nazism will do, at least for the time being.
That is the important aspect, as a jumping-off point not as a conclusion which somehow provides an answer (Charles will correct me if I misrepresent him on this). What you see as an advantage becomes a severe disadvantage and provides oinly another form of listing (ie who is the worst offender). Consider the regime in Iraq, is it better or worse, more fascistic or less then the US?
Depending on what is stressed or not stressed one could answer the question either way - but to what purpose.
Now cast the same two countries into a brewing conflict. I would shed no tears for Saddam meeting his end, but what does US intervention mean aside from this rather minor elimination? Can the question even be posed as if it is just about such a conflict? Or put more coincisely: What in the hell is actually going on?
You see this question does not ask for a judement, but an explaination of historical movement, opinions are cheap and so are judgements but true explainations are rare and precious. The former allows you to know what you like and dislike the latter allows you to do something about it.
It is a big difference and in this debate it begins with trying to fathom the connections between an emerging repressiveness within advanced capitalism, the movement of cpaital, the class interests involved and from where this repressive impulse stems (ie what is its nature, its strengthens and weaknesses).
Tahir: The case of Franco is a good paradigm. The qualitative analysis would have it that Franco's nationalist alliance was only one third fascist (the falange) - the other elements, monarchism and clericalism, prevented that regime from being 'purely' fascist. But I am suggesting that the clericalism and monarchism notwithstanding, the true measure of Franco's fascism is simply the extent to which it was a movement of national salvation, aimed against the various kinds of internationalists: cosmopolitan liberals, anarchists, communists. Looking at it in this way the answer would be, not that Franco was 'purely' fascist or some such thing, but that he was pretty damn fascist.
Greg: Fascism is not a disease, or a concoction composed of igrediants, old style fascism had many forms, in common was the overturning of a previous bourgeois democracy, law as normally understood, thuggery as political practice, not as underside developments, nor the results of choatic breakdown but as an actively pursued objective which attracted whole social stratums to its cause.
What we have today does not resemble this movement at all, though the results appear more and more the same. The US was in a comfortable position to begin with, it had some real social stability (despite the contradictions within it), fields for expansion and development, no great crisis or challenge (external or internal) yet for some reason has collectively dispensed with international law, declaring war at the drop of the hat, disposing of hard won civil liberities with precious real opposition, silenced the normal areas of criticism, and seems dedicated to assuming not just world power (which it had anyhow) but world totalitarian power (at least this seems to be the trajectory).
And why? What could be so powerful to suddenly knock over all the norms of social existence? It is inconcievable that this is old style imperialism on a grand scale, it already has the world as a market, it already commanded world policy, at least in general and where it counted. Why the gamble? Why inflame resistence? Why at this time and to such an extent? Why are the powers behind Bush not reigning the idiot in, but instead egg him forward?
It is easy enough to come up with contigent theories (based on series of events) quasi-conspiritorial explanations, familiar motives (they want oil but why then put North Korea and China in the cross hairs?), or pretend it is no worse then before (worse or better is not the point when it is so patently different).
Just today I learnt that the US had unilaterally decided to occupy my country (Australia), just the week before Bush refused to talk to our Prime Minister on a visit - we are not an enemy nation, but the staunchest of allies - is it not peculiar that a US intention to use Australia as a base is announced in Tokyo as North Korea and China are added to the target list?
If anyone could explain this to me I would be grateful, but to lable it is simply a more fascist period or presidency helps me not at all. There is something out-of-kilter and we have not even begun to understand what it is (which is the position the left was in during the rise of old style fascism).
Sorry Tahir but the depths of the current situation have to be plumbed, that is the gound of analysis not an abstract measure of anything. Call it fascism, barabarism, whatever, but what we are in is bad and it is getting badder.
Tahir: Now one of the more interesting consequences of this way of looking at the matter is that one overcomes the rather spurious dichotomising of populist movements into fascism and communism. We can legitimately and without fear of embarrassment ask also: how fascist is/was Castro's Cuba, North Korea, Mao's China, Pol Pot, Mariam's Ethiopia, Mugabe's Zimbabwe, etc, etc.? Why not? If national salvation is the key then this question takes on an interesting aspect. It enables us to cut through the ideology, the discourse and the rhetoric and get to the real stuff. Bordiga said: Capitalism is the revolution in agriculature. OK so in various, mostly backward or stagnant countries, an iron surgeon is necessary to carry out the capitalist revolution from above and to establish an industrial base, to discipline the workers and to turn the peasants into proletarians, etc., why do we need to distinguish between the red and brown varieties in such rigid ways?
Greg: Full circle indeed and getting nowhere, we don't have to elevate Castro, let all the worst accusations about Cuba be true, but it does not change the effect of the Cuban revolution in historical terms and in this there is no equating it to North korea, China or anywhere else. Do the same thing with each of the other examples and still no equartion makes them equal or really even very similar (despite appearances to the contrary). Put them all togther and they do share a commonality, a struggle against colonialism, a form of national liberation perhaps turning itself into plain old nationalism - but sharing a relationship with developed capital which makes some sense of each individual event.
Odd things relationships, when seemingly similar things on close inspection, do not really resemble each other until contrasted to a completely different thing (imperialism) which suddenly shows they do have profound commonalities even complete out-casts like pol-pot (we don't have to like the results to see a common cause).
Now look at Saddam, just another fascist? Not quite, as unpleasant as his regime is, unlike fascism which was always home grown, always sprung from within the society, we find his dictatorship was imposed on Iraq by the US. Knowing nothing else Saddam looks just as much a brown shirt as any, but knowing the historical context of his power, he is no brown shirt - just a quisling with attitude.
Now look at the US. Its "fascism" "new Nazism" springs from within, Saddam has opposition and a very brave if thoroughly repressed opposition at that, but does Bush have any real opposition, certianly none to cause him to resort to domestic political repression as Saddam has constantly in action. Saddam will trip and go, but if Bush trips and leaves the stage would not the same forces find another Bush Junior to warm his seat - it would seem likely just because this has festered within, no outsider made this happen.
Things are thus very complex and not really just a matter of words or definitions.
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Greg Schofield Perth Australia g_schofield at dingoblue.net.au _______________________________________________ _______________________________________________
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