[lbo-talk] Fascism, right-wing populism, and contemporary research

[Chris Doss]

I have a totally unsupported hunch that "antiauthoritarianism" in its various senses is so deeply ingrained in our worldview (so that calling Chavez or whoever an "authoritarian" is an insult for some reason) that it is hard for us to accept that many many people in Europe in the first half of the 20th century perceived a totally authoritarian state as a good thing. Therefore, the notion is dropping out of our understanding of the period and its movements (including our understanding of Stalinism, in which people tend to forget, or not know in the first place, that it was supported by the majority of the Soviet population), sort of like how many people treat the ancient belief in polytheism as a mere epiphenomenon.

----- Original Message ----
From: Doug Henwood <dhenwood at panix.com>

I know that ideology exists in a non-simple relationship with material interest and political outcomes, but the TPers are fiendishly anti-statist, esp central-statist. That's the opposite of fascism, if that word retains any meaning.