[David Ramsay Steele] The Mystery of Fascism

Libertarian Alliance ^ | Unspecified | David Ramsay Steele

[William McKinley]

I saw a post on NRO's 'The Corner' about the myth of the general strike, and curiousity coupled with google brought me to this piece. Seeing as I always find it to be well and good to add to post articles that reinforce how fascism is leftist in nature...

[countrydummy]

book marked for later read.

[expatpat]

Interesting, tho' I'm still not quite sure what Fascism was. However, several things are clear -- it was socialist, it was nationalist, and it was in no sense conservative.

[William McKinley]

Indeed.

These passages come the closest to giving a substantive definition, although the author never quite brings the picture into complete focus.

Some people have reacted to Fascism by saying that it's just the same as socialism. In part, this arises from the fact that "fascism" is a word used loosely to denote all the non-Communist dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s, and by extension to refer to the most powerful and horrible of these governments, that of German National Socialism.

The Nazis never claimed to be Fascists, but they did continually claim to be socialists, whereas Fascism, after 1921, repudiated socialism by name. Although Fascism had some influence on the National Socialist German Workers' Party, other influences were greater, notably Communism and German nationalism.

A. James Gregor has argued that Fascism is a Marxist heresy, (31) a claim that has to be handled with care. Marxism is a doctrine whose main tenets can be listed precisely: class struggle, historical materialism, surplus-value, nationalization of the means of production, and so forth. Nearly all of those tenets were explicitly repudiated by the founders of Fascism, and these repudiations of Marxism largely define Fascism. Yet however paradoxical it may seem, there is a close ideological relationship between Marxism and Fascism. We may compare this with the relationship between, say, Christianity and Unitarianism. Unitarianism repudiates all the distinctive tenets of Christianity, yet is still clearly an offshoot of Christianity, preserving an affinity with its parental stem.

In power, the actual institutions of Fascism and Communism tended to converge. In practice, the Fascist and National Socialist regimes increasingly tended to conform to what Mises calls "the German pattern of Socialism." (32) Intellectually, Fascists differed from Communists in that they had to a large extent thought out what they would do, and they then proceeded to do it, whereas Communists were like hypnotic subjects, doing one thing and rationalizing it in terms of a completely different and altogether impossible thing.

Fascists preached the accelerated development of a backward country. Communists continued to employ the Marxist rhetoric of world socialist revolution in the most advanced countries, but this was all a ritual incantation to consecrate their attempt to accelerate the development of a backward country. Fascists deliberately turned to nationalism as a potent myth. Communists defended Russian nationalism and imperialism while protesting that their sacred motherland was an internationalist workers' state. Fascists proclaimed the end of democracy. Communists abolished democracy and called their dictatorship democracy. Fascists argued that equality was impossible and hierarchy ineluctable. Communists imposed a new hierarchy, shot anyone who advocated actual equality, but never ceased to babble on about the equalitarian future they were "building". Fascists did with their eyes open what Communists did with their eyes shut. This is the truth concealed in the conventional formula that Communists were well-intentioned and Fascists evil-intentioned.

Erik Von Kuehnelt-Leddihin also noted what the author here did; Marxists and Fascists were competitors, not opposites.

[Cicero]

Very interesting read.

The only point I would differ on is that Ezra Pound was not declared crazy because he supported Mussolini. He was captured by allied troops and put in a cage, and it was the friends and admirers of his accomplishments as a poet and critic who invented the story that he was crazy to preserve his life.

He was locked up in St. Elizabeth's Hospital in Washington for years, where he wrote the later Cantos. The alternative would have been to be tried and executed as a traitor.

The Pisan Cantos describe his experience of being locked up in the cage, out in the hot sun. Unfortunately they don't seem to be on-line--probably they're still under copyright.

[Maelstrom]

Bump

[Mind-numbed Robot]

The definition of Fascism I learned was that government and big business worked together to control the country. I now see that that was probably Communist propaganda resulting from this:

Marxists and Fascists were competitors, not opposites.

[Mind-numbed Robot]

The definition of Fascism I learned was that government and big business worked together to control the country. I now see that that was probably Communist propaganda resulting from this:

Marxists and Fascists were competitors, not opposites.

[Zeroisanumber]

Once again proving that politics and political affiliation never falls into the neat Right/Left categories that we would often like it to.

[DeweyCA]

Fascism is to the right of communism, but just barely. Both are definitely leftist in their degree of control of society. In today's vocabulary, right-wing dictatorships (Aauthoritarian) in third-world countries are those which the Right in the USA favor versus the left-wing dictatorships (communist) which the Left wing in the USA favors. The right-wing dictatorships are generally slightly better in that they generally give more freedom, and are more open to change. Former UN Ambassador Jeanne Kirkpatrick made some great observations concerning this.

[LiteKeeper]

Political-historical SITREP

[William McKinley]

Morning bump.

[William McKinley]

You would never know it from my choices in posts, but in school I abhorred history.

But then, my history and social studies teachers were always very leftist, even though I didn't realize it until years later.

[m1911]

Thanks for the post. Bumped and bookmarked

[William McKinley]

You are welcome.

[jimt]

How can a movement which epitomizes the extreme right be so strongly rooted in the extreme left?

Simple - there's not a dime's worth of difference between them. Under facism you supposedly had "private ownership" of the means of production, but as the owners had no control, the "ownership" was meaningless.

Other than that little fillip, it's the same game - goobermint control of everything.

[Jim Noble]

Great, great article. Thanks.

The vast, silent Euro majority was captured by the evil twins of communism and fascism in the 1920s

They still are, and their Fourth Reich is a big threat to us and to our way of life.

[William McKinley]

You've got that right.

[Sparta]

A fascist is someone who believes in a socialist economic policy, a totalitarian social policy, and an interventionist foriegn policy. Basically, no better than today's Dim party.

[headsonpikes]

Excellent read.