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Fascism
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bookshelves: history-fascism, econ-violence, 1-how-the-world-works, econ-marxism, econ-state-law, theory-psych, theory-culture-religion, critique-violence, critique-liberalism, critique-nationalism, critique-postmodernism, theory-socialism-marxism
Apr 07, 2025
bookshelves: history-fascism, econ-violence, 1-how-the-world-works, econ-marxism, econ-state-law, theory-psych, theory-culture-religion, critique-violence, critique-liberalism, critique-nationalism, critique-postmodernism, theory-socialism-marxism
Fascism 101: Tools for Diagnosis…
Preamble:
--Continuing to check off books bumped up for 2025:
i) The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
ii) Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
--Local historian professor Martin Kitchen somehow managed to pack a textbook’s scope of analysis into just 120 pages (published in 1976), providing an academic overview of the range of theories diagnosing fascism in order to build a critical definition of fascism.
--As this book covers theory, I’ll have to read Kitchen’s historical accounts of Nazi Germany to build a further synthesis…
Highlights:
--I’ll list the theories in the following format:
i) label: their general perspective (where they are coming from)
ii) how they diagnose fascism
iii) Kitchen’s critiques of their diagnosis
…I’ve ordered these theories from least to most useful (with increasing detail):
1) Nationalist: either high point (pro-fascist) or low point (conservative nostalgia) in national history.
2) Christian: blames secularization (Kitchen: but is the antidote theocracy?).
3) Conservative: socioeconomic change disrupts traditional values leading to mass revolt (Kitchen: pessimistic nostalgia; idealism).
4) Psychological: (Durkheim critiques this as stuck in a vacuum lacking sociology).
a) Individual psychology: narrow focus on fascist leadership’s characteristics.
b) Social/mass psychology: irrational masses; Wilhelm Reich on authoritarian family/sexual inhibition; Adorno on personality.
c) Neo-Marxist psychology: tries to integrate sociology, i.e. how economic structure reflected in ideological superstructure leading to false consciousness; Fromm on alienation (Kitchen: but how was fascism set in motion?)
5) Liberal: “Totalitarianism”:
--Became prominent during 1950s-60s in the West’s Cold War framing of “democracy” vs. “totalitarianism” (where communism was equated with fascism).
--Declined by 1960s given USSR’s post-Stalin changes. Kitchen’s main critique is that grouping fascism with communism (even Stalinism) misses foundational differences in socioeconomic/political aims/historical context.
--ex. C.J. Friedrich (operational): Kitchen: too much focus on mass party’s power given its contradictions/purges.
--ex. Hannah Arendt (essentialist): permanent terror/anti-humanist rigid ideology; Kitchen: but fascist majority less affected/more detached; fascist political aim was not communism’s radical change. Later, Arendt updated that “totalitarian” no longer applied to USSR (“one party state”).
--ex. Herbert Marcuse/Frankfurt School (Left critique): roots of fascism in liberalism (full use of private property but monopoly capitalism crisis amidst labour movement threat); Kitchen: but lack specifics of why Germany/Italy in particular. After fall of fascism, Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (1964) focused on the modern welfare state’s conformist, consumerist society as a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. Kitchen cautions against some of the absolute/unhistorical claims.
--ex. Franz Neumann’s 1942 Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944 focused particularly on the connection between fascist leadership and capitalism (esp. big industrialists) as well as fascist leadership’s conflicts with the liberal status quo resulting in divide-and-rule to prevent organized opposition to the new “totalitarian monopoly capitalism”; Kitchen notes this starts to depart from the original totalitarian theory equating communism with fascism.
-ex. Ernst Nolte’s 1963 Three Faces of Fascism: Action Francaise, Italian Fascism, National Socialism shifts away from totalitarian theory but keeps liberalism’s anti-communism. Bolshevism destroyed the preconditions of fascism: feudalism/bourgeoisie/freedom of press/patriotism/antisemitism. However, Nolte still frames communism and fascism as social revolutionary movements, whereas Kitchen stresses that fascism is reactionary against revolution including purging radicals from its own parties (see later). Thus, Kitchen critiques Nolte’s idealism (focus on ideology/psychology) lacking historical materialism.
6) Liberal: “Middle Classes”:
--Another theory convenient for liberals is to frame fascism as an independent (“autonomic”) mass movement of the middle class, in contrast to the “heteronomic” view of fascism being controlled by monopoly capitalism (see Marxist theories later).
--ex. Talcott Parsons (conservative): refers to Durkheim’s “anomie” (imperfect integration) and Weber’s rationalization (of science/techno) triggering reactionary romanticism.
--ex. Seymour Martin Lipset: middle class threatened by big capital from above and the labour movement from below; Kitchen: but fascism was supported by big capital/landowners.
--Empirical studies do reveal most Nazi Party/Italian Fascist Party membership were middle class and previously voted as centrists, thus fascism was unique amongst Right-wing movements as being a petite bourgeois pseudo-democratic mass party.
…Rhetorically, there was a weaponization of a “socialism of the petite bourgeoisie” ideology (rejection of the pressures of liberalism/modernity), composed of unemployed university grads/low-paid white collar/small business/small farmers. This was in contrast to the working class, who voted for social democrat/communist parties.
--However, Kitchen stresses the contradictions between:
a) Mass base:
--Left-populist rhetoric in Italy (anarcho-syndicalist/fascist unions) and Germany (Strasser/Nazi union NSBO) were a contradictory mess (radical petite bourgeois). Beyond their immediate class interests seeking protection, what was their future vision? Class divisions are kept, with idealist fantasies of pre-monopoly capitalism/Middle Age guilds/estates.
b) Leadership:
--Hitler/Mussolini collaborated with the capitalist functional elite (big capital/Right bourgeois parties) and used state power to destroy socialism/labour movements.
--Hitler manipulated Left populism’s anti-capitalism into antisemitism; thus, this scapegoating was functional and not merely irrational (ex. purging highly-skilled Jewish armaments workers). Once in power (required mass base given failures in 1930-33), the elite collaboration betrayed its populist party program (which critiqued monopolies/chain stores; supported populist land reform and SA paramilitary replacing army/bureaucracy) and purged populist radicals (1934 Röhm Putsch/Night of the Long Knives).
--In Italy, syndicalist ideas were suppressed in 1925 and fascist unions disbanded in 1928.
…see comments below for rest of the review (Marxist theories, Kitchen’s concluding definition)…
Preamble:
--Continuing to check off books bumped up for 2025:
i) The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism
ii) Everyone Who Is Gone Is Here: The United States, Central America, and the Making of a Crisis
--Local historian professor Martin Kitchen somehow managed to pack a textbook’s scope of analysis into just 120 pages (published in 1976), providing an academic overview of the range of theories diagnosing fascism in order to build a critical definition of fascism.
--As this book covers theory, I’ll have to read Kitchen’s historical accounts of Nazi Germany to build a further synthesis…
Highlights:
--I’ll list the theories in the following format:
i) label: their general perspective (where they are coming from)
ii) how they diagnose fascism
iii) Kitchen’s critiques of their diagnosis
…I’ve ordered these theories from least to most useful (with increasing detail):
1) Nationalist: either high point (pro-fascist) or low point (conservative nostalgia) in national history.
2) Christian: blames secularization (Kitchen: but is the antidote theocracy?).
3) Conservative: socioeconomic change disrupts traditional values leading to mass revolt (Kitchen: pessimistic nostalgia; idealism).
4) Psychological: (Durkheim critiques this as stuck in a vacuum lacking sociology).
a) Individual psychology: narrow focus on fascist leadership’s characteristics.
b) Social/mass psychology: irrational masses; Wilhelm Reich on authoritarian family/sexual inhibition; Adorno on personality.
c) Neo-Marxist psychology: tries to integrate sociology, i.e. how economic structure reflected in ideological superstructure leading to false consciousness; Fromm on alienation (Kitchen: but how was fascism set in motion?)
5) Liberal: “Totalitarianism”:
--Became prominent during 1950s-60s in the West’s Cold War framing of “democracy” vs. “totalitarianism” (where communism was equated with fascism).
--Declined by 1960s given USSR’s post-Stalin changes. Kitchen’s main critique is that grouping fascism with communism (even Stalinism) misses foundational differences in socioeconomic/political aims/historical context.
--ex. C.J. Friedrich (operational): Kitchen: too much focus on mass party’s power given its contradictions/purges.
--ex. Hannah Arendt (essentialist): permanent terror/anti-humanist rigid ideology; Kitchen: but fascist majority less affected/more detached; fascist political aim was not communism’s radical change. Later, Arendt updated that “totalitarian” no longer applied to USSR (“one party state”).
--ex. Herbert Marcuse/Frankfurt School (Left critique): roots of fascism in liberalism (full use of private property but monopoly capitalism crisis amidst labour movement threat); Kitchen: but lack specifics of why Germany/Italy in particular. After fall of fascism, Marcuse’s One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society (1964) focused on the modern welfare state’s conformist, consumerist society as a hybrid of capitalism and socialism. Kitchen cautions against some of the absolute/unhistorical claims.
--ex. Franz Neumann’s 1942 Behemoth: The Structure and Practice of National Socialism, 1933-1944 focused particularly on the connection between fascist leadership and capitalism (esp. big industrialists) as well as fascist leadership’s conflicts with the liberal status quo resulting in divide-and-rule to prevent organized opposition to the new “totalitarian monopoly capitalism”; Kitchen notes this starts to depart from the original totalitarian theory equating communism with fascism.
-ex. Ernst Nolte’s 1963 Three Faces of Fascism: Action Francaise, Italian Fascism, National Socialism shifts away from totalitarian theory but keeps liberalism’s anti-communism. Bolshevism destroyed the preconditions of fascism: feudalism/bourgeoisie/freedom of press/patriotism/antisemitism. However, Nolte still frames communism and fascism as social revolutionary movements, whereas Kitchen stresses that fascism is reactionary against revolution including purging radicals from its own parties (see later). Thus, Kitchen critiques Nolte’s idealism (focus on ideology/psychology) lacking historical materialism.
6) Liberal: “Middle Classes”:
--Another theory convenient for liberals is to frame fascism as an independent (“autonomic”) mass movement of the middle class, in contrast to the “heteronomic” view of fascism being controlled by monopoly capitalism (see Marxist theories later).
--ex. Talcott Parsons (conservative): refers to Durkheim’s “anomie” (imperfect integration) and Weber’s rationalization (of science/techno) triggering reactionary romanticism.
--ex. Seymour Martin Lipset: middle class threatened by big capital from above and the labour movement from below; Kitchen: but fascism was supported by big capital/landowners.
--Empirical studies do reveal most Nazi Party/Italian Fascist Party membership were middle class and previously voted as centrists, thus fascism was unique amongst Right-wing movements as being a petite bourgeois pseudo-democratic mass party.
…Rhetorically, there was a weaponization of a “socialism of the petite bourgeoisie” ideology (rejection of the pressures of liberalism/modernity), composed of unemployed university grads/low-paid white collar/small business/small farmers. This was in contrast to the working class, who voted for social democrat/communist parties.
--However, Kitchen stresses the contradictions between:
a) Mass base:
--Left-populist rhetoric in Italy (anarcho-syndicalist/fascist unions) and Germany (Strasser/Nazi union NSBO) were a contradictory mess (radical petite bourgeois). Beyond their immediate class interests seeking protection, what was their future vision? Class divisions are kept, with idealist fantasies of pre-monopoly capitalism/Middle Age guilds/estates.
b) Leadership:
--Hitler/Mussolini collaborated with the capitalist functional elite (big capital/Right bourgeois parties) and used state power to destroy socialism/labour movements.
--Hitler manipulated Left populism’s anti-capitalism into antisemitism; thus, this scapegoating was functional and not merely irrational (ex. purging highly-skilled Jewish armaments workers). Once in power (required mass base given failures in 1930-33), the elite collaboration betrayed its populist party program (which critiqued monopolies/chain stores; supported populist land reform and SA paramilitary replacing army/bureaucracy) and purged populist radicals (1934 Röhm Putsch/Night of the Long Knives).
--In Italy, syndicalist ideas were suppressed in 1925 and fascist unions disbanded in 1928.
…see comments below for rest of the review (Marxist theories, Kitchen’s concluding definition)…
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The Conspiracy is Capitalism
(last edited Apr 07, 2025 10:13PM)
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rated it 4 stars
--OK, we can now build Kitchen’s (1976) definition of fascism, which I’ve grouped under “Marxist” despite his many critiques (with the gift of hindsight) since he has more foundational critiques for the prior theories. 1) Developed industrial capitalism:
--Class conflict: powerful capitalists, threat of organized working class, and large petite bourgeoisie in the middle.
--However, social context is important, where fascism is not an inevitable stage of late capitalism.
--Thus, Kitchen is reluctant to apply “fascism” to Global South dictatorships (ex. Chomksy/Herman’s The Washington Connection & Third World Fascism) given their underdeveloped capitalism/feudal political economy. Kitchen does acknowledge the degree of capitalist development/contradictions dictate the severity of the rest of this list.
…This gets messy because the “big capital” in these cases is not domestic (underdeveloped) but foreign (esp. US’s Wall Street), which is clearly highly-developed capitalism. Kitchen contends these dictatorships lack fascism’s imperialist ambition given their imperial dependency, but isn’t the US outsourcing their imperialist ambition, and outsourcing fascist tactics?
-The Jakarta Method: Washington's Anticommunist Crusade and the Mass Murder Program that Shaped Our World
--Kitchen also argues these Global South dictatorships lack the mass support of fascist parties. Given the diversity of cases, I think this claim needs to be carefully unpacked, example:
-The Killing Season: A History of the Indonesian Massacres, 1965-66
-Buried Histories: The Anticommunist Massacres of 1965–1966 in Indonesia
--This brings me to my biggest critique of Kitchen’s methodology: he relies solely on:
i) Eurocentric theories:
--The Cold War binary of Western liberals/conservatives vs. Soviet Marxists misses a key process of the 20th century: Global South decolonization: The Darker Nations: A People's History of the Third World
…In particular, Aimé Césaire’s 1950 Discourse on Colonialism framed fascism as colonial practices returning home to Europe. We can also synthesize this with analysis of settler colonialism’s influence on Hitler (“Lebensraum”, Jim Crow segregation, etc.): Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law.
…Now, I assume Kitchen would counter that we still need to explain why fascism won in Germany/Italy rather than Britain/France/US (although there were attempts, like the US’s “Business Plot”). I would start with Britain/France/US’s head start on colonialism/settler colonialism, leading to WWI (Imperialism: The Highest Stage of Capitalism) and the defeat of the Central Powers.
ii) Eurocentric case studies:
--Kitchen’s fascism is solely focused on Germany and Italy. There is zero mention of Japan’s Kokkashugi/Emperor-system fascism.
2) Socioeconomic crisis:
--Lose confidence in bourgeois democracy
3) Response to large, organized working-class:
--Key here is Kitchen’s focus on fascism taking advantage of working-class defeats, thus being an offensive rather than defensive capitalist reaction.
--I guess we can synthesize this with The Capital Order: How Economists Invented Austerity and Paved the Way to Fascism, where:
i) liberal austerity was used to inflict economic recession to weaken communist/labour movement’s bargaining power
ii) afterwards, fascism can destroy labour free from liberal fetters and labour opposition.
--Thus, this seems to conflict with Norman G. Finkelstein's opinion that the US does not need fascism because the US labour movement has been on the retreat.
...Kitchen's analysis of "Neo-fascism" in this 1976 book is obviously dated, as he mentioned the power of global Socialism (USSR/China) as well as Global South decolonization/OPEC. Kitchen also marvels at the Keynesian welfare state's new controls at a time when Neoliberalism's reaction was starting to emerge.
...Kitchen does recognize the continued threat of mass party/charismatic leader/distinct ideology, and assumes reactionary forces unleashed by new crises would appear more respectable, and focus on anti-immigration and anti-communism.
-Too Many People?: Population, Immigration, and the Environmental Crisis
4) Mass following from petite bourgeoisie:
--Artisans/small business/farmers (vs. monopolies)/white-collar workers/lower civil servants/university grads/sometimes aristocracy of labour (unions)
5) Partnership between fascist leaders and status quo:
--After the fascist party wins power (funded by big capital), if populist fascists seek a 2nd revolution then they will be purged.
6) Stabilize/strengthen capitalist property rights:
--Autarky protecting private profits via capitalist cartels (nationalize losses) rather than state capitalism (nationalize profits).
7) Terror regime destroy opposition, but functionally status quo:
--Unlike communism’s radical changes.
8) Irrational ideology as diversion/scapegoating:
--Authority/obedience/honour/duty/fatherland/race.
--Hierarchical community/private property vs. enemies.
9) Aggressive, expansionist foreign policy
--War economy stimulates economy rather than social spending.
...For an updated perspective, I'll once again conclude with Chomsky’s April 19, 2010(!) interview:
The United States is extremely lucky that no honest, charismatic figure has arisen. Every charismatic figure is such an obvious crook that he destroys himself, like McCarthy or Nixon or the evangelist preachers. If somebody comes along who is charismatic and honest this country is in real trouble because of the frustration, disillusionment, the justified anger and the absence of any coherent response [note: by “honest”, I would apply to Trump in the sense of speaking his mind to his audience without filters, unlike career politicians]. What are people supposed to think if someone says ‘I have got an answer, we have an enemy’? There it was the Jews. Here it will be the illegal immigrants and the blacks. We will be told that white males are a persecuted minority. We will be told we have to defend ourselves and the honor of the nation. Military force will be exalted. People will be beaten up. This could become an overwhelming force. And if it happens it will be more dangerous than Germany. The United States is the world power. Germany was powerful but had more powerful antagonists. I don’t think all this is very far away. If the polls are accurate it is not the Republicans but the right-wing Republicans, the crazed Republicans, who will sweep the next election. […]
I have never seen anything like this in my lifetime. I am old enough to remember the 1930s [The Great Depression]. My whole family was unemployed. There were far more desperate conditions than today. But it was hopeful. People had hope. The [Congress of Industrial Organizations, CIO, i.e. unions] was organizing. No one wants to say it anymore but the Communist Party was the spearhead for labor and civil rights organizing. Even things like giving my unemployed seamstress aunt a week in the country. It was a life. There is nothing like that now. The mood of the country is frightening. The level of anger, frustration and hatred of institutions is not organized in a constructive way. It is going off into self-destructive fantasies.
Time for Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction"
message 4:
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The Conspiracy is Capitalism
(last edited Apr 11, 2025 08:24PM)
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rated it 4 stars
John wrote: "Time for Adam Tooze's "Wages of Destruction""-Kitchen’s The Third Reich: Charisma and Community (2008; 423 pages): I was planning to dive into this next.
-Tooze’s The Wages of Destruction: The Making and Breaking of the Nazi Economy (2007; 802 pages): however, I usually do prefer to build foundations in geopolitical economy.
-Poulantzas’ Fascism and Dictatorship: The Third International and the Problem of Fascism (1974; 369 pages): my geopolitical economy prof references Gramsci and Poulantzas a lot; this looks quite in-line with Kitchen’s 1976 analysis.
-Evans’ The Coming of the Third Reich (2002; 622 pages), The Third Reich in Power (2005; 941 pages), The Third Reich at War (2008; 926 pages)
-Shirer's The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A History of Nazi Germany (1960; 1147 pages)
-Gluckstein’s The Nazis, Capitalism and the Working Class (1999; 300 pages)
-Pauwels’ Big Business and Hitler (2009; 304 pages)
-Eichholtz’s War for Oil: The Nazi Quest for an Oil Empire (2006; 192 pages)
--These theories start from the focus of capitalism’s contradictions, but end with a wide range of conflicting conclusions…
--1922 Communist International’s Fourth Congress: dismissed fascism as:
i) temporary, last-ditch capitalist reaction (defensive)
ii) puppets of monopoly capitalism (“heteronomic”, thus neglecting fascism’s conflicting autonomy)
iii) during capitalism’s collapse from its contradictions, thus a revolutionary circumstance for working-class victory (revolutionary optimism)
…Kitchen critiques this tendency towards vulgar, undialectical economism.
--1928 Sixth Congress: Stalin derided social democrats as “social fascism”, countering calls (by Bucharin, Togliatti, etc.) for collaboration with social democratic parties to focus on resisting the growing fascism. Thus, Hitler was underestimated until 1932 and united anti-fascism was delayed until 1935.
--1935 Seventh Congress: Dimitrov ends “social fascism” theory and flips to a popular front with social democratic parties (mass working-class base). However, revolutionary optimism remained.
…The optimism was challenged by Clara Zetkin, who framed fascism as a powerful offensive attack after working-class defeats. Zetkin also stressed the powerful alliance with the petite bourgeois mass base rather than merely puppets of monopoly capitalism.
--With the theoretical mistakes of the Communist International, German Marxist August Thalheimer turned to Marx’s analysis of Napoleon’s counter-revolution within a bourgeois society (power to the executive, with parliamentary rule challenged by 1848 working-class revolt) for insights, thus theorizing Bonapartism (although not directly equating to fascism).
--This analysis shifted away from extreme heteronomic theory (puppets of monopoly capitalism) to consider more closely the conflicting autonomy within the counter-revolution. In the case of Napoleon:
i) Small-holding peasants:
--Isolated private property; lacked organization against capital-intensive agricultural development, thus submit to savior.
--Kitchen: but these were small bands in contrast to mass fascist parties. Capitalist development/contradictions were less in Napoleon’s France, so mass party was less needed; a modern comparison is Perón’s Argentina.
ii) Lumpenproletariat:
--Ruined bourgeoisie/vagabonds/discharged soldiers etc. who still conform to capitalism like a thief to private property.
--Trotsky considered the Bonapartism lens through his own extreme revolutionary optimism, highlighting the petite bourgeoisie’s lack of independent political action and thus the need for communist parties to somehow win them over (contrary to Marx/Lenin); this still differed from Stalin’s eventual popular front, which Trotsky’s revolutionary optimism saw as too defeatist. Trotsky distinguished fascism’s mass base from Bonapartism, and assumed fascism was temporary due to its mass base contradicting its monopoly capitalist elite (but what about fascist leaders?); once the mass base is lost, fascism is supposed to become a fragile and bureacratic “Bonapartism of fascist origin”.
--Kitchen references Gramsci in arguing fascist policies were autarky protecting domestic capitalists (nationalize losses but not profits) rather than a revolution to “state capitalism”/“corporative state”/nationalization.
--Imperialism weaponizes nationalism to distract from domestic class conflicts. Kitchen adds that there were disagreements between fascist leadership and capitalists on inflationary pressures of war economy and foreign trade balance, but capitalists followed along and profited until defeat was inevitable, when they finally disobeyed Hitler’s orders (ex. to destroy industrial plants so they don’t fall in Allies’ hands). In Italy, capitalism was less developed and fascism less powerful, so capitalists successfully abandoned it for survival.
…continued…