Rethinking Fascism and Dictatorship in Europe

Kenneth A. Loparo, A. Kallis, Kenneth A. Loparo, A. Kallis, António Costa Pinto

• Publisher: Palgrave Macmillan
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9781349480883, 9781137384409
• eBook ISBN: 9781137384416
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: European History
• Index: History

Fascism exerted a crucial ideological and political influence across Europe and beyond. Its appeal reached much further than the expanding transnational circle of 'fascists', crossing into the territory of the mainstream, authoritarian, and traditional right. Meanwhile, fascism's seemingly inexorable rise unfolded against the backdrop of a dramatic shift towards dictatorship in large parts of Europe during the 1920s and especially 1930s. These dictatorships shared a growing conviction that 'fascism' was the driving force of a new, post-liberal, fiercely nationalist and anti-communist order. The ten contributions to this volume seek to capture, theoretically and empirically, the complex transnational dynamic between interwar dictatorships. This dynamic, involving diffusion of ideas and practices, cross-fertilisation, and reflexive adaptation, muddied the boundaries between 'fascist' and 'authoritarian' constituencies of the interwar European right.

Part I

Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives

1

The ‘Fascist Effect’: On the Dynamics of Political Hybridization in Inter-War Europe

Aristotle Kallis

Introduction: ‘fascism’ beyond the classificatory paradigms

Since the 1980s the historiography of fascism has produced a series of works that share a determination to ‘take fascism seriously’ – as a distinct ideological, political, and social phenomenon. Whether theoretical, classificatory or comparative, these works may have differed substantially in terms of their understanding of the essence of ‘fascism’ and the optimal methodological framework for its analysis; but together they brought about a significant recalibration of analytical tools, charting new – and mostly fruitful – avenues of interpretation and further research. Moving steadily away from the barely theorized and indiscriminate ‘survey’ paradigms of the 1950s and 1960s, ‘fascism’ started to gradually emerge as a coherent and distinct ‘ism’, rooted in wider intellectual currents of its historical context but underpinned by distinct and novel ideological-political qualities that were now seen as crucial to its formation and conceptual understanding.¹ Gradually recognized as a ‘third-way’ ideology,² sharing specific elements from existing worldviews but propagating a new kind of ‘revolutionary’ synthesis that went beyond existing political templates, ‘fascism’ came to be regarded as the vertex of ideological and political radicalism in inter-war Europe – not only across the full left–right spectrum but also within the political space of the European right. It was considered ‘totalitarian’ as opposed to ‘authoritarian’, radical as opposed to conservative, active and mass-mobilizing (populist) as opposed to passive and top-down, even ‘revolutionary’ as opposed to reactionary. As a result, ‘fascism’ could now be defined both against what it vehemently opposed and rejected (from elite-driven conservatism to liberalism and parliamentary democracy to all forms of socialism and internationalism) and in its own terms – as an ‘ideal type’ possessing a distinct ‘ineliminable [ideological] core’.

However, the refinement of the conceptual core and boundaries of ‘fascism’ restricted, qualified or contested the empirical application of the term in the historical context of inter-war Europe. Previous case-studies that had been almost de facto considered ‘fascist’ in the earlier survey studies now appeared to fall short of new conceptual benchmarks. Even among those who were willing to subscribe to the notion of generic fascism, new disagreements emerged, in relation to how far the concept could be deployed and what it needed to exclude. Every new theoretical or comparative scholarly work on ‘fascism’ featured a different gamut of case-studies and intriguing omissions (both movements/parties and regimes). At some point, one of the major theorists of generic fascism went as far as arguing that National Socialism was not ‘fascist’ but a unique and fundamentally different phenomenon, due to its unparalleled obsession with biological racism.³ But even for the majority of scholars in the fray of ‘fascism studies’, while a range of inter-war movements and parties demonstrated ideological and political characteristics that could mark them as ‘fascist’, when it came to regimes the consensus was that the sample of suitable case studies should be restricted to just the two ‘paradigmatic’ cases of Italy and Germany.

There were two main reasons behind this narrowing of the empirical focus when it came to regimes. First, only in Italy and Germany did ‘fascist’ parties succeed in exercising power autonomously and over a significant period of time. The National Fascist Party (Partito Nazionale Fascista, PNF) and the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei, NSDAP) may not have technically ‘conquered’ power autonomously in 1922 and 1933 respectively but, unlike other ideologically kindred parties that were also co-opted by conservative elites (e.g. the Spanish Falange, the Austrian Stahlhelm etc.), they managed to emancipate themselves institutionally from their initial political sponsors and consolidate their power to such a degree that enabled them to rule virtually unchallenged by other domestic actors. Second, the two regimes followed a trajectory of radicalization, displaying both the ‘revolutionary’ ambition of effecting a new ‘historic(al) beginning’ and the radical political dynamism that enabled them to constantly break taboos and redefine the political horizon in inter-war Europe. The combination of these criteria meant that only Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany could clear the classificatory hurdle; all other regime cases fell short in one test or the other.

There was a further complication, however, in this classificatory approach. The apparent – at the time – ‘success’ and dynamism of Italian Fascism and German National Socialism exercised a spectacular influence well beyond the boundaries of the two countries. Movements and parties sprang up across the continent that sought to emulate, replicate or adapt the recipe of ‘success’ of the PNF and the NSDAP.⁴ Only a few, like the British Union of Fascists (BUF) or the Dutch National Socialist Movement (Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging, NSB) proudly brandished the name of one of the two ‘paradigmatic’ fascist parties; the majority branded themselves in ways that invoked national particularities and allowed them to avoid criticism that they were ‘aping’ foreign examples. All of them, however, declared their admiration for, or at least strong interest in, what was being pursued and represented by the two ‘fascist’ regimes – or at least by one of them – and wanted to be considered part of a wider campaign of – perceived – historic change in their own countries. Meanwhile, the way in which the Italian and then German regimes exercised power – their unique political style and discourse, their organizational experiments, their uncompromising assault on their perceived ‘enemies’, their radical activism – appealed to much wider constituencies across the continent, including entrenched political elites of the traditional (conservative and/or authoritarian right). They, too, appeared increasingly willing to borrow or adapt selectively features from the ‘fascist’ rule in Italy and/or Germany, praising them as effective solutions to common perceived ‘problems’. Anything from the suspension of the democratic system and the relentless abrogation of liberal rights to the ruthless persecution of the organized left and particular minority groups, were taboos that the two fascist regimes had challenged and in the end shattered (with impunity), setting an empowering and liberating precedent that others were only too keen to follow. As a result, a constantly growing number of regimes in the 1920s and particularly 1930s appeared to be following – in different ways and to different degrees – the radical political course set by the two regimes in Italy and Germany. While some of them co-opted native ‘fascist’ elements in order to instil a movement-style dynamics to the regime, others experimented with the introduction of ‘fascist’ political and organizational features ‘from above’ without risking entanglements with far more radical and uncontrollable political movements, which in some cases they even actively suppressed.⁵

Broadly speaking, the classificatory paradigms of ‘generic fascism’ have treated these regimes and movements beyond Italy and Germany as ‘failed’ in one way or another. In a sense, Mussolini’s and Hitler’s conquest of power set the bar of political ‘success’ for fascist movements extremely high, meaning that exercise of power (and indeed the establishment of a single-party fascist dictatorship) was the ultimate test of ‘success’ for inter-war fascist contenders.⁶ Organizational expansion and electoral performance of a fascist party were considered further benchmarks for ‘success’, influenced by the levels of party membership and voter support achieved by the NSDAP in 1933 and only approximated (temporarily) by fascist parties in Romania and Hungary – although interestingly not by the PNF in Italy. In addition, the relentless drive towards radicalization displayed primarily by the Nazi regime cast a number of other dictatorial regimes – ideologically less radical from the outset or less determined to forge ahead and challenge taboos – as ‘failed’ in a different sense. They fell short because they lacked what David Roberts described as ‘energizing self-confidence and history-making self-importance’ or because of what Robert Paxton has described as ‘entropy’ (loss of radical momentum due to institutionalization once in power).⁷

Nevertheless, these ‘failures’ challenge even the most sophisticated classificatory paradigms of ‘generic fascism’. Together, they demarcate an interim anti-democratic, anti-socialist, and post-liberal political space in inter-war Europe, situated in a grey zone of crucial crossovers between ‘fascism’ and conventional ‘authoritarianism’. Unpredictable ideological and political entanglements in different areas and for different reasons in each case make this grouping of regimes essentially a ‘hybrid’ category that is extremely hard to classify and theorize adequately with the standard conceptual tools of either ‘fascism’ or ‘authoritarianism’. Even more confusingly, volatile political identities and outlooks during the inter-war period meant that a number of right-wing actors were attracted to the ‘fascist’ regime model and chose to (tactically and selectively) emulate and/or adapt some of its radical innovations, thus perforating and obfuscating the claimed boundaries between ‘fascist’ and ‘non-fascist’ inter-war right. One of the leading theorists of generic fascism, Stanley Payne, attempted to reclassify the spectrum of the inter-war right by inserting a hybrid interim category between ‘fascism’ and ‘authoritarian (conservative) right’ that he labelled ‘radical right’. He noted that, while fascists were both the most radical constituency and uniquely espousing a ‘revolutionary’ vision of epoch-defining change, the ‘radical rightists’ were almost as extreme but still shied away from fully embracing fascism’s revolutionary alternative.⁸ A similar classificatory perspective underpinned Michael Mann’s comparative study of inter-war fascism, in which he introduced not one but two ‘intermediate’ categories (‘semi-reactionary’ and ‘corporatist’, in ascending order of radicalization).⁹ While both authors recognized the need to make distinctions between ‘fascists’ and other inter-war rightists (as well as between regimes led by each of these constituencies), they nevertheless admitted that the conceptual boundaries between their interim categories and ‘fascism’ were porous and entanglements were becoming more widespread at the time.

In contrast to Payne, Mann, Paxton, and some other theorists of ‘generic fascism’ who sought to separate ‘fascism’ not just conceptually/analytically but also in linguistic terms from other forms of the inter-war European ‘right’, Roger Griffin labelled his own interim category as ‘para-fascism’. In so doing, he recognized the latter’s critical influence from, and political debts to, the emerging paradigm of fascism in Italy and Germany. For Griffin, ‘para-fascism’ designated a residual political space of the ‘not-quite-fascist’ – more radical than conventional authoritarianism and shaped under the influence of ‘fascist’ precedents but not radical (that is, revolutionary, aggressive and/or ambitious) enough when compared to the Italian and German paradigmatic cases.¹⁰ The term sought to overcome the essentialism of the dualistic scheme ‘either fascist or authoritarian’, recognizing that even those ‘not-quite-fascist’ dictatorial regimes of the inter-war period could not be sufficiently understood without ‘fascist’ insights. The intriguing ambiguity of the prefix ‘para’ gave the term a dynamic quality: it indicated proximity (like in the case of similar prefixes used by others, such as ‘proto’, ‘quasi’ and ‘semi’), conditional qualitative similarity, appendage, variation, but also incompleteness, peripherality, distortion or even defect.¹¹ It also acknowledged a complex reality of hybridization, on the level of both ideas and political praxis, recognizing the influence that ‘fascism’ exerted on a wider array of movements and regimes across inter-war Europe.¹² Not unlike Herbert Marcuse’s ‘incipient fascism’,¹³ Griffin’s classificatory neologism of ‘para-fascism’ indicated a (successful) ‘departure’ (towards a radical post-liberal, anti-democratic and anti-socialist political space), the primary source of inspiration for it (namely, the political alternative represented by ‘fascism’ in Italy and Germany), and a (never-reached) ‘destination’. In essence, Griffin suggested that the regimes belonging to this interim ‘para-fascist’ political category were essentially more ‘fascist’ than ‘authoritarian’ or ‘conservative’.

‘Departure’, ‘destination’, and fascism’s ‘demonstration effect’

‘Para-fascism’ became a rather more welcoming shelter for all sorts of ‘fascist’ misfits. The cases that Griffin was willing to include in this category (anything from General Franco’s regime in Spain to the dictatorships in Austria, Hungary, and many Balkan countries) were in his opinion fascist underachievers, by conviction or circumstance; but he was willing to recognize that in different ways all these regimes could not be analysed without making reference to a broader inter-war political context shaped by the revolutionary agency and – apparent at the time – success of the two fascist regimes. As Mann has noted, inter-war Europe experienced a widespread, multifaceted, and profound challenge to the political and moral legitimacy of liberal democracy.¹⁴ In what he called ‘the authoritarian half of Europe’ (countries of central, eastern, and southern Europe) democratic regimes either imploded or degenerated over time, replaced by dictatorships. This was a trend that had predated the success of Italian Fascism in 1922 (for example, Hungary had made a painful transition, first, to a short-lived socialist republic under Béla Kun and then to a semi-pluralist authoritarian regime under Admiral Miklós Horthy in 1919–20). According to David Roberts, the deeper roots of this ‘departure’ lay in the unsettling experience of the First World War.¹⁵ Yet, its momentum and relevance to the history of the entire inter-war European right were crucially strengthened after Mussolini’s rise to power; and grew even further in the wake of Hitler’s appointment as German chancellor in 1933.

The perceived ‘success’ and dynamic of the radical political experiments in Italy and Germany functioned as an increasingly more powerful catalyst for the diffusion of the ‘authoritarian (post-liberal) departure’ across the continent. It provided a powerful confirmation of the wider post-liberal/authoritarian departure itself, shattering the taboo of political pluralism, destroying individual and group freedoms, and reconceptualizing dramatically the relations between the individual, national society, and the state.¹⁶ In many ways, the victory of fascism in Italy and its diffusion across Europe in the following two decades produced a spectacular demonstration effect that sought to challenge the earlier diffusion of both democracy and socialism. When Mussolini declared that Fascism was the dominant doctrine of the twentieth century, just as liberalism and socialism had a commanding influence in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries respectively,¹⁷ he staked out his vision of trans-national and indeed potentially universal victory of his Fascist experiment. In hindsight, the events of 1922 and 1933 infused the wider ‘authoritarian departure’ with a ‘world-historical significance’ and diffusion dynamic that matched (and, in terms of propagating results, exceeded) that of the Bolshevik revolution.¹⁸

It is thus not a coincidence that the seismic ‘authoritarian departure’ in inter-war Europe unfolded in three ‘waves’, chronologically connected to events in Italy or Germany. The first (and, by compariso...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Title Page
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Illustrations
• Foreword
• Acknowledgements
• Notes on Contributors
• List of Abbreviations
• Introduction
• Part I: Theoretical and Comparative Perspectives
• Part II: Case Studies
• Conclusion: Embracing Complexity and Transnational Dynamics: The Diffusion of Fascism and the Hybridization of Dictatorships in Inter-War Europe
• Select Bibliography
• Index