The Fascist Persuasion in Radical Politics

...In consequence supposedly leftist dictatorships now resemble right-wing Italian fascism far more closely than they do the workers' state which Marx and Engels projected...

...They had carefully elaborated a more or less scientific economic theory but had not shown just how economic conditions give rise to ideological consciousness...

...and subsequent writings, argued for the creation of an elite party of declassed intellectuals who, in a voluntarist fashion, would guide agitation and direct the consciousness of the working class as circumstances might demand...

...Like Mussolini, such regimes draw heavily on Marxist rhetoric (though rarely on Marxist philosophy) to win popular acceptance for programs of great economic austerity, and to legitimate policies which are really sustained programs of national assertion...

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...This crisis in Marxism called forth major reappraisals by thoughtful and ambitious socialists...

...These contentions will irritate those who discriminate between dictatorships of the Right and the Left...

...Gregor explains the appearance of this situation by referring to the crisis which overtook classical Marxism between the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895 and the outbreak of war in Europe in 1914...

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...He does not believe, however, that classical Marxism has exercised any appreciable effect in radical politics since World War I. Radical regimes have continued to draw heavily on the Marxist legacy in order to legitimate their actions and policies, but at the same time they have attained and exercised power in ways and under circumstances quite unforeseen by Marx and Engels...

...Italian fascism was, in Gregor's analysis, a model of how to mobilize the masses for national development, and declassed and ambitious intellectuals followed Mussolini's example elsewhere, either by choice or by necessity...

...Socialists continued to predict the eventual necessity of revolution and to proclaim the international solidarity of the working class, but their constituents sought The Fascist Persuasion in Radical Politics by A. James Gregor Princeton 815.00 gradualist reform and showed a continuing patriotism which culminated in socialist votes for war credits in the summer of 1914...

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...Something had gone wrong, and Gregor locates the problem in the theories of Marx and Engels...

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...This restriction in nomenclature would make European fascisms a subset of the larger set of "developmental dictatorships" with which Gregor deals...

...He attempts a comparative survey of the "suggestive similarities" among Mussolini's Italy, Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, Castro's Cuba, and, for good measure, the "non-regime fascisms" of black nationalism and the student Left...

...He establishes major parallels among all the cases studied and concludes that in the twentieth century "viable radicalisms" necessarily display the pattern of behaviors he terms "the fascist persuasion...

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...During those two decades, two major difficulties troubled thoughtful Marxists: the visibly unrevolutionary character of the proletariat in precisely the most advanced nations and the survival of nationalist affinities even in socialist cadres...

...In the interests of clarity, however, might it not be well to label "fascist" only those European movements in the interwar period which found a common inspiration in the energetic rejection of the humane, liberal values which preceded their distinctive voluntarism and nihilism...

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...This imputation of a "fascist persuasion" to supposedly radical regimes and (continued on page 38) The Alternative: An American Spectator June/ July 1976 37 SOUTHARD (continued from page 37) movements will disturb many of their admirers, and so it is worth looking at Gregor's argument in some detail...

...From the orthodox Marxist perspective, of course, these phenomena were incongruous: the workers in such highly industrialized states as Germany, France, and the United Kingdom should have been the most revolutionary and should have shown the least regard for bourgeois national interests...

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...More important, in Gregor's view, Benito Mussolini, who at the time was a left-wing Socialist, considered carefully the implications for agitational strategy of the theories of Le Bon, Sorel, and Pareto even while he inspected admiringly the fierce nationalism of Corradini's followers and the destructive enthusiasm of Marinetti's youthful Futurists...

...During the First World War, Mussolini added key elements from these sources to important aspects of his original socialism, and created the fascism which he led to power in the troubled years after the peace...

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...Book Review/Robert Southard Marxist Rhetoric, Fascist Behavior • Berkeley political scientist A. James Gregor has written an important and compelling book which should interest both generalist and specialist...

...His argument extends the application of the term "fascist" beyond the confines of restricted usage, and some unbiased critics may object that where there is no...

...By implication, fascism ceases to appear as a distinctive ideology and becomes instead a pattern of political behavior...

...This line of argument should delight readers who enjoy irony...

...Gregor shows that Russia, China, Cuba, and other "Communist" nations share with Mussolini's Italy the monopolization of power by a single and avowedly radical party which, under the leadership of a charismatic chief, proceeds dictatorially to press heavy industrialization in the service of national armament...

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...It now appears that he warmly esteems the aspirations couched in the works of Marx and Engels...

...In the process, according to Gregor, Mussolini established a "developmental dictatorship" which became "paradigmatic" for such subsequent regimes as Stalin's Russia, Mao's China, and Castro's Cuba, as well as such radical forces as black nationalism and the Yippie movement...

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...As a consequence, they left their apostles unprepared to face the strange new world in which they operated after about 1895...

...Italian fascism is "paradigmatic" for later...

...But Gregor'sconclusions may also be unsettling to those who share none of the elective affinities of modern radicalism...

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...That fact gives fascist Italy pride of place and awards the word "fascist" the dubious honor of characterizing subsequent radical regimes...

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...It would also leave intact argumentatively, though perhaps not rhetorically, the moral which one may draw from this study of modern radical behaviors: The distinction between torahtarianisms of the Left and the Right has blurred beyond recognition, and those adherents of liberal democracy who deplore the excesses of the older, right-wing European fascism have no cause to take comfort in the latter-day advance of self-professed dictatorships of the Left...

...The severest critics of Gregor's earlier work, The Ideology of Fascism, complained at his "objective reconstruction" of fascism and charged that he ignored the humanist merits of the Marxist alternative...