Fascism, Right and Left

Twenty years after the destruction of the Third Reich, the essence of fascism is still elusive. There are at least two governments in existence today, in Spain and Portugal, which can plausibly be described as fascist. The first owed its victory in large measure to the support of Mussolini and Hitler, and in both countries official spokesmen were at one time proud to identify themselves with fascism. Apart from this, communists freely use 'fascist' as a smearword, designed not so much to identify anything specifically fascist as to discredit persons or groups which appear, for whatever reason, to be hindering communist purposes. The word is also often used as a term of abuse by woolly-minded persons of 'leftwing' views, many of whom are too young personally to have suffered, or to have faced serious danger, as a result of fascism. Polemical and inexact use of the word has inevitably discouraged scholars. Some may be tempted to argue that it can only usefully be applied to one party and regime which have a limited but important place in the history of one country, Italy. Yet there remains a complex political and social phenomenon of the first half of the twentieth century which historians have the duty to examine. There remains a family relationship between a number of movements which had a part to play in the I930s and I940s. One could perhaps describe them by some neutral jargon phrase like 'nonMarxist totalitarianism'. But it seems to me preferable to use the word 'fascism' in full awareness of its subjective and emotional elements. Scientific precision is not at present attainable, and one may doubt whether it ever will be. One can pursue a more modest aim, to throw some light, by the comparative method, on a trend and a period in history of which imprecision, irrationality, and passion are inescapable features. Let us begin not with a definition but with an attempt to narrow the field of discussion. All fascist movements combine, I suggest, in

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• Labor ideology and economic development in the peronist epoch

  Open Access•Bertram Silverman•Studies in Comparative…•1968

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• Extremist ideologies and movements in democratic societies

  Paul Wilkinson•Policy Studies•1986

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• The new social psychology and ‘fascism’

  Open Access•Michael Billig, Miriam Billig•European Journal of Social…•1977

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