Violence and Fascism

Fascism, violence and storm troopers: in the popular mind the three are inseparable. The same could be said, on a mc.:e sophisticated plane, of the scholarly discourse on fascism. In an area in which so little consensus reigns, this seems to be one of the few points of near-universal agreement. Most catalogues of 'fascist minima' have, for example, included paramilitary formations; and fascism has been seen to have a predilection for violence both on the level of ideology and that of tactics.1 Despite occasional offhand suggestions by a limited number of scholars that fascists might not always have enjoyed a monopoly of violent talk or behaviour, or even of paramilitary organization,2 the general assumption that fascist movements were always the most violent actors in their political environment has remained. At the same time, rather than systematically investigating the precise circumstances and functions of fascist violence, scholars have generally preferred to explain the causes of such violent behaviour, be they, for example, authoritarian personality or generational rebellion.3 An examination of the conditions and circumstances of violence involving France's first fascist movement, the Faisceau, will show that though these French radical rightists were occasionally caught up in violence, they were rarely directly responsible for it. To gain a more balanced view of Faisceau violence, therefore, we must begin by asking whether these fascists were always the aggressors, as one might suspect, or whether they were more often the victims of violent acts. Similarly, we must examine the conditions under which this violence appeared. What circumstances provoked it? What purposes (or whose) did it serve? This discussion of violence and the Faisceau will also allow us to assess not only the role of

Authoritarianism · Criminology · Democracy · Ideology · Monopoly · Political science · Political violence · Politics · Sociology · Suspect · History · Italian Fascism and Post-war Society · Law

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