Russian Fascism

Traditions, Tendencies and Movements

Stephen Shenfield

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2016
• Print ISBN:
  9780765606341
• eBook ISBN:
  9781315500034
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Asian History
• Index: Politics & International Relations

First Published in 2001. This study presents a thorough analysis of facism, its manifestations in Russian political and cultural history, and facist tendencies and movements in contemporary Russian society.

1 Defining “Fascism”

DOI: 10.4324/9781315500058-1

The multiplicity of meanings and connotations with which the word “fascism” is used remains a fertile source of confusion and misunderstanding. The clearest and least controversial usage is as a referent to what we may call “classical fascism”—that is, the movement in interwar Italy led by Benito Mussolini, who was the first to coin the term “fascism,” and by extension the movements in other countries that closely modeled themselves on the Italian prototype. By the standards of customary political discourse, however, this usage is an extremely narrow one, not even encompassing German national-socialism, which never referred to itself as fascist.¹ It is, in any case, patently inadequate to an investigation of a society so far removed in space and time from interwar Italy as post-Soviet Russia. We therefore need a more broadly applicable definition of generic fascism.

My main purpose in this chapter is to explain how I shall be using the word “fascism,” and to make clear why I have chosen to use the word in one way rather than another. To set my interpretation in the context of the continuing scholarly debate over the essence of fascism, I approach this task by means of a critical survey of the views of other writers on fascism. In the course of the survey, I shall point out not only the crucial distinctions that mark fascism off from other more or less closely related ideologies and movements, but also important divisions existing within fascism itself. As the primary focus of most analyses of fascism is the experience of non-Soviet Europe in the period 1918 to 1945, I shall pay special attention to the specific problems that arise in applying the concept to Russia in general and to post-Soviet Russia in particular.

In general political discourse, the meaning attributed to “fascism” is heavily dependent on the ideological commitments of the speaker. There is a tendency to attach the fascist label not only to movements with a genuinely strong resemblance to classical interwar fascism, but to all authoritarian regimes of the right (if the speaker belongs to the left) or to all authoritarian regimes of the left (if the speaker belongs to the right). “Fascism” easily comes to signify the reign of unconstrained violence and oppression, whoever may perpetrate it and for whatever purpose. Although scholars can hardly be satisfied by such a vague usage, this is roughly what most people mean by “fascism.” The memory of World War II and the Nazi atrocities, kept alive with the help of magazines and movies, loosely associates the word in the popular imagination with the thirst for power and foreign conquest, racial hatred and genocide, cruelty, sadism, and human evil in general.

In the academic literature, two main approaches to the definition of “fascism” are found. One large group of authors construct descriptive definitions, primarily on the basis of a study of European (especially Italian and German) interwar experience, that in their view capture the most important and significant aspects of the phenomenon under study. The resulting definitions, although illuminating, are usually long and unwieldy, often inconsistent with one another, and sometimes even internally inconsistent. In reaction to these deficiencies, some influential scholars, most notably Ernst Nolte and Roger Griffin, have proposed “fascist minima”—that is, succinct and coherent definitions, to be understood as Weberian “ideal types,” that highlight one or a few core features considered essential to fascism. All other characteristics that have been used to define “fascism” are regarded as either derivative from the fascist minimum or inessential.

Criteria for a Definition

Before proceeding further with issues of substance, it is worth pausing to consider a crucial methodological question that is rarely explicitly addressed. In formulating a definition of a political concept like fascism, our choice is inevitably guided by one or more criteria. Different criteria will yield different definitions. What criteria should we use?

What matters for the authors of descriptive definitions is evidently an accurate correspondence between the way “fascism” is defined and the reality of European fascism in the era that began in 1918 and ended in 1945. This is a criterion to which exception can hardly be taken, but exclusive reliance on it tends to generate inflexible definitions that have no wide application outside the context of Europe between those years. A definition should allow scope for fascism to develop over time and adapt itself to the conditions of different countries, provided that the changes occur without radical discontinuity. Thus, it seems reasonable to regard those thinkers of the West European “New Right” (such as the French writer Alain de Benoist), who have consciously striven to revise the ideology of pre-1945 fascism to take account of new realities while preserving core values, as fascist revisionists (Griffin 2000), in the same way that the “Eurocommunists” who have pursued an analogous project within a different tradition are regarded as communist revisionists. The underlying continuity between interwar fascism and the postwar New Right is all the more worthy of recognition in light of the role played by key figures who span the two epochs—for instance, the Italian philosopher Julius Evola.

At the same time, the common tendency to extend the usage of “fascism” into areas already covered by other well-established semantic fields, such as communism or conservative authoritarianism, must be resisted if we are to keep the specific character of fascism in clear focus. This does not preclude the existence of borderline cases—such as Franco’s Spain in the wake of the civil war, the last years of Stalin’s rule in the USSR, or Ceausescu’s Romania—in which a basically non-fascist communist or conservative regime exhibits definite tendencies pointing in the direction of fascism.

Having set inner and outer bounds for our definition, let us now turn to the problem of deciding between the descriptive and the “minimal” approaches. “Minimal” definitions, the most influential of which are those of Ernst Nolte and Roger Griffin, are justified on the grounds that they are “heuristically useful” as ideal types (Griffin 1998, p. 13)—that is, they generate productive and fruitful research programs. It may be added that minimal definitions are precise and elegant; they are free of ambiguities and superfluities. For all of these reasons, they have a natural appeal to the social scientist.

Considerations of this kind are not to be dismissed out of hand, but neither should they be granted a monopoly, at the expense of all other criteria. We should define our terms with a view to effective communication, not only within a narrow circle of scholars, but also with a broader public who are interested in politics but unfamiliar with the specialized debates of political scientists. Communicability requires that we take some account even of the popular associations of words like “fascism.” Moreover, the assumption that everything really important about fascism as a real-life phenomenon can be captured by, or derived from, a single core concept is open to dispute. “It is doubtful,” as Stanley Payne has argued, “that there is any unique hidden meaning in, cryptic explanation of, or special ‘key’ to fascism” (Griffin 1998, p. 227). Complexity in a definition need not be taken as evidence of analytical failure, but may be accepted as a reflection of the varied and multifaceted reality of fascism. Nor need we be unduly perturbed or surprised at our inability to eliminate completely internal inconsistencies from an ideology that eschews rationality in principle. Exclusive reliance on one core concept can in fact lead to rather arbitrary judgments. Thus, Griffin is forced to exclude from his definition of fascism, which focuses on a core fascist myth of national rebirth (palingenesis), the regimes of the Croatian Ustasha and of Father Tiso in Slovakia, despite all that they had in common with fascist regimes elsewhere in Nazi-occupied Europe, because they were engaged in forging new nations rather than rejuvenating old ones and therefore lacked palingenetic myths (Griffin 1995, p. 10).

I conclude that choice of a definition of “fascism” should ideally be guided by a number of criteria: a sharp focus, the necessary degree of flexibility, descriptive accuracy, heuristic usefulness, and broad communicability. In practice, the requirements of different criteria are bound to contradict one another, and all one can hope to do is to work out what seems a reasonable compromise. It may also be helpful to supplement a general definition of fascism with specialized definitions that more consistently meet one or another criterion—for example, definitions of “fascism in the classical sense,” “fascism in the palingenetic sense,” or “fascism in the popular sense.” Let us return to this point after discussing the substantive issues and formulating a general definition of fascism.

Working Out a Definition

I started work on a general definition of fascism by examining the way in which twenty-eight different authors about politics explicitly or implicitly define “fascism.”² I identified the five problems that are most often discussed at length by the writers; these I took to be the main problems involved in understanding fascism. I then compared and critically assessed the different approaches taken by the authors to each of these problems. This helped me to clarify my views and to formulate the components of my own definition.

As regards my choice of writers to survey, I do not claim to have selected a fully representative sample, and I attached no special significance to the exact number of investigators who took one or another view. The authors surveyed do, however, represent a fairly wide range of theoretical approaches and political orientations.³ Most of them focus solely on fascism; a few discuss fascism in the context of a broader analysis of nationalism. Although most of the writers are Western scholars, a few of the more interesting Russian scholars have been included, as have a few nonacademic authors, such as the English political novelist George Orwell.

As it would be repetitive and confusing to present and assess the frequently overlapping definitions of all the writers, I restrict myself to a survey of their views concerning each of the five main problems. Appendix 1 to this chapter presents the definitions of fascism offered by ten of the writers; Appendix 2 lists all the authors surveyed, together with the sources used.

The main problems that recur in the writers’ discussions of fascism are the following:

1. What is the historico-philosophical outlook of fascism on the past, present, and future of humanity? How, in particular, does fascism relate to the process of modernization?
2. What general philosophy of life, including epistemology, aesthetics, and morality, is characteristic of fascism?
3. What position does fascism occupy in the contest between capitalism and socialism?
4. What kinds of human community serve as foci for fascists’ loyalty and identity? Is fascism a special kind of nationalism?
5. What are the crucial structural characteristics of fascism as a movement seeking to win and keep power?

Let us consider these problems in turn.

The Fascist Outlook on History and Modernization

What role does fascism play in the historical development of human society? Are the goals it pursues progressive, conservative, or reactionary? Does it look forward into the future or backward into the past—or both at once? Is it partially or wholly hostile to the process of modernization, or does it advocate its own model of modernization? The orientation of fascism in the stream of human and national history is crucial to its identity as an ideology and movement. Many of the writers surveyed consider the problem at length; it is the focus of the “fascist minima” of Nolte and Griffin; and it lies at the center of concern of fascist ideologists themselves.

Unfortunately there is no generally accepted definition of “modernity” or of “modernization.” Disagreements concerning what exactly these words mean are a fertile source of confusion and misunderstanding. For many people, the modernity of a society depends simply on how advanced are the te...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• Acknowledgments
• Introduction
• List of Abbreviations
• 1. Defining “Fascism”
• 2. Does Russia Have a Fascism Tradition?
• 3. Nationalists, Communists, Orthodox Christians, and Neo-Pagans
• 4. Cossacks, Skinheads, and Soccer Fans
• 5. Zhirinovsky and the Liberal-Democratic Party of Russia
• 6. Barkashov and the Russian National Unity
• 7. Dugin, Limonov, and the National-Bolshevik Party
• 8. Other Fascist Organizations
• 9. Comparative Overview of Fascist Organizations
• Conclusion: Weimar Russia?
• Afterword
• Notes
• Bibliographical Note
• Bibliography
• Index