I was asked recently to add a definition of fascism to the glossary and in light of the current debate felt it useful to do so.
Having accepted the challenge, I have also referred extensively to others' definitions, whilst also accepting the difficulty of defining something so amorphic.
The resulting entry is as follows:
Defining fascism is challenging for three reasons.
The first is that unlike, for example, communists, fascists have been very reluctant to use the term to describe themselves. That means that even agreeing on which groups are fascist is open to controversy.
Second, those groups which have been described as fascist are not all consistent in their attitudes or behaviour. This inconsistency has to be dealt with as a consequence.
The third reason is that the term is usually actively resisted by those to whom it is applied. Rather as one of the surest signs that a place is a tax haven is its vehement denial that it is a tax haven, so is it the case that a group that appears fascist in inclination is absolutely vehement in its denial of the fact. It is, in fact, commonplace for those accused of being fascist to use DARVO (deny, attack, and reverse victim and offender) gaslighting techniques on those accusing them of being so.
In this situation definitions of fascism have either to be broadly based or describe the common characteristics of the groups that are suggested to be fascist in orientation.
One broadly based definition is that fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism where palingenetic refers to the revival or rebirth of a national spirt, culture and religion in society. The essence is clear: the idea of national superiority to the exclusion of others is promoted by populist means.
The Cambridge Dictionary defines fascism as ‘a political system based on a very powerful leader, state control, and being extremely proud of country and race, and in which political opposition is not allowed'.
McGill University, in its Wikispeedia, has defined fascism as ‘a radical political ideology that combines elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism, anti-liberalism and anti-communism'. Doing so, it moves from being broadly based towards listing characteristics.
The most commonly quoted of these lists of characteristics was developed by Umberto Eco in an article entitled Ur-Fascism for the New York Review of Books in 1995. This list has been summarised in various ways, this being one of them:
- The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
- The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
- The cult of action for action's sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
- Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
- Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
- Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
- The obsession with a plot. “Thus at the root of the Ur-Fascist psychology there is the obsession with a plot, possibly an international one. The followers must feel besieged.”
- The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”
- Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.”
- Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
- Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
- Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
- Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
- Ur-Fascism speaks Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”
This list is not the same as that published later by Laurence Britt in 2003:
- Powerful and Continuing Nationalism
Fascist regimes tend to make constant use of patriotic mottos, slogans, symbols, songs, and other paraphernalia. Flags are seen everywhere, as are flag symbols on clothing and in public displays. - Disdain for the Recognition of Human Rights
Because of fear of enemies and the need for security, the people in fascist regimes are persuaded that human rights can be ignored in certain cases because of "need." The people tend to look the other way or even approve of torture, summary executions, assassinations, long incarcerations of prisoners, etc. - Identification of Enemies/Scapegoats as a Unifying Cause
The people are rallied into a unifying patriotic frenzy over the need to eliminate a perceived common threat or foe: racial , ethnic or religious minorities; liberals; communists; socialists, terrorists, etc. - Supremacy of the Military
Even when there are widespread domestic problems, the military is given a disproportionate amount of government funding, and the domestic agenda is neglected. Soldiers and military service are glamorized. - Rampant Sexism
The governments of fascist nations tend to be almost exclusively male-dominated. Under fascist regimes, traditional gender roles are made more rigid. Opposition to abortion is high, as is homophobia and anti-gay legislation and national policy. - Controlled Mass Media
Sometimes to media is directly controlled by the government, but in other cases, the media is indirectly controlled by government regulation, or sympathetic media spokespeople and executives. Censorship, especially in war time, is very common. - Obsession with National Security
Fear is used as a motivational tool by the government over the masses. - Religion and Government are Intertwined
Governments in fascist nations tend to use the most common religion in the nation as a tool to manipulate public opinion. Religious rhetoric and terminology is common from government leaders, even when the major tenets of the religion are diametrically opposed to the government's policies or actions. - Corporate Power is Protected
The industrial and business aristocracy of a fascist nation often are the ones who put the government leaders into power, creating a mutually beneficial business/government relationship and power elite. - Labor Power is Suppressed
Because the organizing power of labor is the only real threat to a fascist government, labor unions are either eliminated entirely, or are severely suppressed . - Disdain for Intellectuals and the Arts
Fascist nations tend to promote and tolerate open hostility to higher education, and academia. It is not uncommon for professors and other academics to be censored or even arrested. Free expression in the arts is openly attacked, and governments often refuse to fund the arts. - Obsession with Crime and Punishment
Under fascist regimes, the police are given almost limitless power to enforce laws. The people are often willing to overlook police abuses and even forego civil liberties in the name of patriotism. There is often a national police force with virtually unlimited power in fascist nations. - Rampant Cronyism and Corruption
Fascist regimes almost always are governed by groups of friends and associates who appoint each other to government positions and use governmental power and authority to protect their friends from accountability. It is not uncommon in fascist regimes for national resources and even treasures to be appropriated or even outright stolen by government leaders. - Fraudulent Elections
Sometimes elections in fascist nations are a complete sham. Other times elections are manipulated by smear campaigns against or even assassination of opposition candidates, use of legislation to control voting numbers or political district boundaries, and manipulation of the media. Fascist nations also typically use their judiciaries to manipulate or control elections.
Neither list is perfect. It is also not true that all characteristics need be found for fascism to be identified. Precisely because fascism is amorphic the lists should be seen as indicative. They are, nonetheless, considered helpful in association with the more broadly based definitions.
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Your glossary appears to be a collection of short, long and very very long essays. Is that what is intended?
Yes
It is meant to be useful background material that I can write once and then not need to repeat again
Is that OK?
Thank you.
Useful, timely and measured.
Fascism: Do as I say, not as I do.
You’re correct to point out that not all features need to apply at the same time. And nor do all of them have to apply fully as in all cases there’s often a steady ‘drift’ (or ‘turn’ to use the more accurate term) toward the fully developed state of each feature.
Using Britt’s list I’d say that in the UK (or perhaps more accurately, England more than Wales or Scotland) 2, 3, 9, 10, 11, 12 and 13 apply almost fully. While 1, 6 and 7 apply to some degree. 14 is an interesting one because we don’t really need to have fraudulent elections in the strictest sense of ‘fraud’. Instead, we have a mainstream media most of which can be relied on to support and promote right wing messages and agendas (and thus support the Tories), and a system of funding of political parties which favours the party of wealth (the Tory party). Add into that the new legislation that requires voters to produce certain types of ID before they can vote – which will suppress voting by certain sections of the electorate (which is the intention) and perhaps the best description of our elections are that they are strongly biased to a particular outcome (a Tory victory).
The best understanding of fascism is to read its most dangerously penetrating interpetor, Carl Schmitt, ‘The Concept of the Political (Geroge Schwab’s 1996 translation)’; a short but important book that cannot be ignored. Schmitt’s concept of the political, on which his idea of the state rests, has this essential foundation: “The specific political distinction to which political actions and motives can be reduced is that between friend and enemy” (p.26).
Schmitt drill into the more elemental in the the political than your description as it stands Richard. The political, for Schmitt begins by being personal. Democracy appeals to rationality, but Schmitt is interested only in the formation of power, and how it works. It begins with the personal; friend or enemy.
While your definition will evoke a positive, persuasive response, it is a long list (14 numbered) and many of the issues, while they apply to facsim readily enough, some at least may apply not only to fascism. The problem is twofold. The list does not distinguish that which is unique to facsim; and second, it is so wide it carries the risk of applying facsim either to matters with other causes, or may allow the term ‘fascist’ to be applied to almost anything: a problem, I hazard that in part at least may have led you to contemplate your careful, thorough definition.
I am reminded of the precedent of Hayek, who was driven out of Vienna and had to flee with nothing from Facsim; but when he wrote about it in the ‘Road to Serfdom’, he converted the whole problem of Facsim into the problem of Communism, by assertion. Facsim effectively disappears altogether. This is overlooked by critics, and is I suspect part of the underlying problem you are wrestling with.
I discussed the whole issue with my elder son tonight who wrote his undergraduate dissertation on fascism.
He suggested my definition might be too long. You can’t try to over-complicate fascism, he suggested. It is nationalism promoted by populism with hatred driving the political narrative.
It is the political decision to divide people within a polity into ‘friends or enemies’ that is the starting point. Without that sharp distinction (what side are you on, with implicit consequences hanging in the air); you can’t build your 14 points. It is then easily extended to the rest of the world, with all kinds of pretexts. That distinction is not all of it, but it is a ‘sine qua non’; a necessary, but not sufficient condition for facsim. It is easier if people are already angry about something; because the power of propoganda (even more with modern digitital social media) to direct the anger where required; looking for enemies to blame.
The EU is an enemy.
Immigrants are enemies.
Judges are enemies.
Truss was asked if Macron was ‘friend or foe’; she said the ‘jury’s out’. We are now handing Macron £500m to patrol our borders, because we can’t; or won’t.
Incidentally, I think your son is right.
So do I.
I even tell him when I do.
He did exceptionally well with his dissertation.
I wanted to publish it but he is a perfectionist.
Those anti-minority language laws in 2018 and those bans on important parts of minority culture in 2021 spring to mind in a place just off to the east of the EU.
Well done. It is almost impossible to get a concise definition which can be widely applied.
Umberto Eco was Italian and his list, IMO, reflects the ‘philosophy’ of the original model.
The second list is much more useful. Because nationalism is so central, each country will develop its own version. Actually many of these factors can be found in other states and political movements. What becomes important is the degree of say sexism, suppression of labour or deals with one form of religion. Mussolini signed a deal with the Vatican. Putin uses religious arguments to justify his opposition to the EU.
And like some psychological or physical diagnoses, there needs to be a number of factors strongly apparent.
So there need to be a number of relevant factors to sufficient degree. This makes precise definition virtually impossible.
Robert O Paxton is an American scholar who made several points, though he mainly writes about the 1940s.
Often the Fascists do not come to power. I would cite the AfD in Germany or National Rally in France.
2) he distinguishes traditional, conservative, authoritarian regimes and cites Spain under Franco . Power was with the Army, church , landowners and the commercial interests. It would seem to have overlapped. I think he has a point.
3) He thinks it a right wing working class movement which is non-socialist . They tend to define themselves as in opposition to the traditional elite who have ‘BETRAYED’ the ‘PEOPLE’. There is a sense of grievance to be righted. The Ku Klux Klan is a Fascist organisation which in the 1920s ran a similar program targeting Jews and Catholics who were slyly undermining a traditional Anglo-Saxon purity.
4) He thinks the movement will do deals with the industrial and financial elites to maintain power. They are happy to see trade unions suppressed. The German Steel manufacturer Thyssen wrote a book ‘I paid Hitler’.
Possibly the former lower middle class leaders (in the 20th century more likely to read books which peddle theories) liked to acquire the trappings of power-like the pigs in Animal Farm !
I would add I think some of the former elite, rich, military , industrialists saw a way of using grievance among the masses to advance their cause. Ludendorff was involved in the Munich putsch of 1923. The judges gave Hitler just over a year in prison. They weren’t Fascists but their values helped facilitate their rise and they later found they could work with them. Recently Trump could enlist the Heritage Foundation who claimed to have written two-thirds of his legislative manifesto.
Trump and the Republicans talk the language of an elite betraying the ‘hard working people.’ We saw it with Brexit. (And billionaires like Robert Mercer, I am told, supported Cambridge Analytica which tried to swing the referendum. Their tactics were taken up by Steve Bannon who ran the Trump campaign and is very close to being a Fascist ) What is noticeable is that they do very little to help the mass of the people but try to keep their allegiance by inciting concern about threats- both domestic and foreign -such minorities and ideas such as ‘woke’, China or Communism, keeping up the constant emotional pressure to maintain support. Traditional Conservatives were more content to keep things the same.
The Republicans and British Conservatives are not the parties they were. But they both adopted ideology instead of pragmatic adaption.
Somewhat implicit in the list, but worth emphasizing:
Fascism happens when corporate power strikes a special deal with the government in which corporations support government’s nationalistic ideology and, in return, the government comes down hard on unions and workers’ rights.
In the US there is a lot of debate about democratic decline, fascism, etc and I find the above economic point of view useful. If corporate power turns its back to democracy, fascism will be difficult to prevent. How likely that is, I dont know, but we have seen the political landscape change a lot in the last few years …
Good point
I was always told in econometrics to keep models parsimonious, and I think that should apply to definitions of fascism too. The latter definition does a better job of explaining.
Be nice to see how these definitions stack up against the neo-fascism of Trump, Orban and Duterte.
I have always considered fascism is the expression of capitalism in panic mode. When capitalism is in crisis, luxuries like liberal democracy are dispensed with. Fascism is the expression of corporate power with the gloves off.
I am not quite convinced, although some corporations do definitely gain from it
I have added this summary to the glossary entry this morning:
Summary
Fascism is nationalism promoted by populism with hatred driving the political narrative.
Amorphous as it is, fascism is easy, hence its appeal. Simple slogans devoid of much meaning promote ideas based on division within society, whether real or imagined, and power for those leading the chant results.
It is democracy that is hard, and it must be ever-vigilant about the threat fascism poses.
“You can’t try to over-complicate fascism, he suggested. It is nationalism promoted by populism with hatred driving the political narrative”.
Just what I was thinking as I read through the lists. You brought up your son as an independent thinker. The core is hatred driving the political narrative. Although Stalin’s Russia and Mao’s China were described as communist, I would say they were fascist. I think that may be the real problem with communism – it morphs into fascism almost immediately.
Hayek said exactly the opposite in the ‘Road to Serfdom’; he argued Fascim was just a form of Communism.
I think we find the word “fascist” so terrifying we forget that while its real power feeds off populist propaganda or hatred, the fact is that it draws in people we would not expect to be seduced. We are in danger of explaining it away rather than explaining it. I raised the issue of the 1930s Conservative Party, because the majority of the Party, and even the Government was far closer to Fascim than the word “appeasement” adequately explains; almost as if appeasement was a careless oversight. Fascism thrives only where there is fear (often of the unknown) and anger, but only affects other people (we do not understand); but it doesn’t work that way; it is a seduction – of all, except for the enemies.
A commenter referred to Martin Niemöller. His text has been turned into poetic form”:
“First they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a socialist.
Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out—
Because I was not a Jew.
Then they came for me—and there was no one left to speak for me.”
Hayek was wrong
And deliberately so
Never ignore the agenda of people like him and Peter Hitchens, of Petronella Wyatt come to that
Growing up my uncle Eric’s best friend was a Jewish boy called Michael, they were closer than real brothers. Michael’s family had family in Germany and Austria – among the first people the Fascists came for were the homosexuals and lesbians. My uncle had real time info long before Joe Public did.
Fast forward and at the outbreak of war he was a CSM in the Grenadiers. As soon as the war in Europe ended he volunteeered as a Nazi Seeker – he was very successful, he used ‘unconventional’ methods.
I wasn’t actually suggesting he was right. Hayek’s view of the world was distorted and damaged by his personal experience; it was understandable of course, given the circumstances of fleeing his home in Vienna for his life when the Facsist jackboots (not the Communists) arrived; but it should act as a warning to those seduced by his subsequent neurotic political rhetoric, and particularly those weak enough to wish to sit at his feet. It is astonishing to me that Thatcher fell for a book as bad as the ‘Road to Serfdom’.
I agree with the general thrust of the thought that definitions of fascism can become over-complicated and over-specific, but it can also over-general. At one extreme, some might assert that only Italians can be Fascisti, and the other labels any political opponent further to the right as a fascist.
As to Stalin and Mao, they were certainly authoritarian, but I’m not convinced they were fascists. Not so much nationalism or populism or hatred driving their agenda as absolute control (for the benefit of the People and the Party they would say, of course).
Such an assertion comes rather close to the canard that the National Socialists were actually socialists and so authoritarians of the left.
I agree with this
Dictatorial socialism is unwelcome but is not fascism
Josef Goebbels was the father of modern marketing, he was superb. He understood totally the reality of life in Germany in the 1920s’. He knew how to ‘present’ the fascist movement. The name National Socialist was carefully chosen, as were the sexy uniforms, the reverse swaztika and the primary colours of black,red and white.
There was one man who really was a national socialist, who wasn’t in awe of the Hitler persona – Ernst Rohm, leader of the Brownshirts/SA and more popular than Hitler with 3 million to call on.
Had Ernst Rohm been clever he would have acted before Hitler.Had he done so he would never have marched eastward, only to the west and I would have been writing this in German.
I don’t know whether my observation about Hayek began this discussion of Fascism as Communism or not; but if it did my reference to Hayek has been misunderstood, or was badly framed. I was trying to underscore how distorted and confused this territory had become, and how wary of definitions in this area we need to be; especially long definitions. Hayek was wrong, but was on a mission to define another enemy for neoliberalism to attack – communism; and in that context Fascism was more problematic to deal with.
Fascism is difficult because it is deliberately populist and propaganda was its most critically successful political tool. Goebbels was an innovator who left a permanent mark on the culture of the modern world (a series of usable techniques)*; the propaganda method was so powerful it becomes part of the philosophy or mythology of the ideology, and then it all becomes impenetrable.
* I read somewhere that Goebbels inspiration was the British Ministry of Information in WWI.
I think it wise to see fascism as a political technique or science as they like to call it these days to gain power.
That’s all it is. Some politicians take it further of course and want the Hugo boss uniforms and full military honours.
You can list as many things as you like that it does or how it presents itself but the crux of the issues is what it is being used for, which is simple. And as others allude you don’t have to be a dyed in the wool fascist – Tim Snyder seems quite clear that the communists used fascist techniques as well. In modern politics I’m afraid – especially after Thatcher – we in the West use fascist methodology all of the time quite unconsciously. Like falling off a log.
Read about Ivan Ilyin in Snyder’s 2018 book ‘The Road to Unfreedom’ and how Putin has resurrected his thinking – p.16:
‘The fascism of the 1920’s and 1930’s, Ilyin’s era, had three core features: it celebrated will and violence over reason and law; it proposed a leader with a mystical connection to his people and it characterised globalisation as a conspiracy rather than as a set of problems’.
But to emphasise that fascism is really a tool or technique if anything else:
‘Revived today in conditions of inequality as a politics of eternity , fascism serves oligarchs as a catalyst for transitions away from public discussion and towards political fiction; away from meaningful voting and towards fake democracy; away from the law and towards personalist regimes’.
Snyder is writing about Russia initially but what is so different about what we’ve seen with the Tory party who are dug in like ticks and well funded by rich people? Not much.
But to understand fascism all you have to understand is the intent behind it. What is to be gained? And by who?
My family used to read the Daily Mail. As a tenager I used read it – it had lots to read – I first read about AIDS in its ‘letter from America’ column. But it also had other things going on – slagging off miners who were striking for their livelihoods; a feature called ‘the Churchill Commando’ about citizens who got fed up with stuff like litter dropping and bad public behaviour and went about taking matters into their own hands.
After a time, I realised that something was not right; the Daily Mail was making me angry and unhappy with people I did not know. Because it was manipulating me. It was winding me up. Why shouldn’t those miners strike to protect their jobs? If people drop litter or don’t behave , lets have more awareness work done at school and get more bobbies on the beat or whatever? We stopped reading it but especially me – I don’t why but I’m particularly sensitive about knowing when I’m being manipulated (and I’ve never felt manipulated here – OK?).
Looking back and now, the Daily Mail is basically the perfect National Socialist rag; there’s loads of good stuff about daily life, the body politic (health), your finances, agony aunts, etc., that make it appear the ‘people’s paper’ that has their best interests at heart but what it also does is promote hate and anger through some of the nastiest people I’ve ever seen in print – I don’t need to list them because frankly they are scumbags. The Daily Mail will tell you how to run your life and who to hate as well.
The Daily Mail reveals how cunning a tactic fascism is; make it look legitimate, sympathetic, empathetic useful even and then deliver your poisonous views whilst you put a comforting arm around a shoulder.
And this bit is for Keir Stymied and Laboured: nature might abhor a vacuum, but those who wish to use fascist methodology love to see one and take the opportunity to fill it.
Think about that Keir. Let’s have some new ideas please.
I think what you have described is largely a set of characteristics and behaviours. However, I struggle to understand the ideology and belief system that underpins and informs those traits, if there is one. In short, what do today’s fascists actually want? Do they have a defined end state? What are their objectives beyond petty gratification derived from the brutal imposition of power over weaker groups. Any ‘movement’ that defines itself solely on the basis of what it hates and who it opposes must surely have an extremely limited shelf life.
They want power
They want it for a few
And when they have it they have no desire to give it up
When you get into long rambling definition, they become more observations of some things observed. Fascism boils down to the core of:
State control of the public and private realm
State supression of anything outside the state’s control
The State is all-embracing
All the observations of fascism in action is a result of those core principles. “Othering” opponents results from this. Suppressing opponents results from this. Declaring “bad-think” results from this. Imposing only approved actions results from this. Deifying “good-think” results from this. You don’t need a long list of observations of fascism, just as you don’t need a long list of examples of how addition works, you just need those core principles.
Doing some background reading, this caught my eye:
“If liberalism spells individualism, Fascism spells government.” In ‘The Doctrine of Fascism’, by Benito Mussolini…
I am as likely to error as others Richard, but I am never likely to fall for flabby rhetoricians. I am a born sceptic; and will remain so to the bitter end. I have never found sufficient evidence for anything, to change. I confess I thought that was obvious from my comments!
Can I question the use of Wikispeedia as a source.
I’d never heard of it so I did a quick search and it seems to be a game/academic project aimed at understanding the links between different ideas (represented by Wiki pages).
The page you’ve linked to seems to be a 2007 snapshot of a sanitised version of Wikipedia called “Wikipedia For Schools” which aims to provide child-friendly pages linked to the National Curriculum. This (https://www.wikipediaforschools.org/wp/f/Fascism.htm) is the current Wikipedia For Schools page about Fascism.
My understanding is that Wikispeedia is the game, made by someone at McGill and hence hosted on McGill servers, but that McGill have no input into the contents of the page.
I may be wrong, but I think this is a MCGill site
And it seemed reasonable, so I used it
Judgement is required in all sources
My point was that you are quoting (an old snapshot of) Wikipedia, but saying that it is McGill which is misleading in a way that I thought you would be unhappy with and so worth pointing out.
Thanks