What is Fascism?

Most of us have heard people accusing politicians of being ‘fascists’ or ‘Nazis’, but what do we really mean? Is it a legitimate accusation, or is it just another term we throw out with the intention of offending or labelling.

 Well quite clearly some of these accusations do not stand the test of analysis if we carefully analyse what we mean by the term ‘fascist’ or ‘fascism’.

 Opponents of fascism usually tend to categorise it as a ‘far right ideology, yet this is something that adherents would violently oppose. Indeed, Paxton (2004 p.) has argued:

“The ultimate fascist response to the Right-Left political map was to claim that they had made it obsolete by being ‘neither Right nor Left’, transcending such outdated divisions and uniting the nation.”

 

Furthermore, Jackson (2018) complicated matters even further by pointing out how any defining fascism is inexorably obfuscated by the fact that any interpretation will be tainted by the analysts own worldview. Thus, for example, a Marxist might see fascism as a creation of modernity that identified how capitalism was in a state of crisis and offered a violent response to fend off a true workers’ revolution. Alternatively, psychologists have argued fascism is either an adolescent rebellion (Erikson) or an alienation of man in the modern world (Fromm).

 

	British Union of Fascists	PNF – Italian Fascist Party	Swastika – symbol of the NSDAP – Nazi Party (Germany
Symbols of Fascist Organisations

 While interesting, none of this fully explains what is fascism and what underpins it ideologically. In an attempt to address this, Paxton (1998) argued several mobilising passions needed to be present for a movement to be described as ‘fascist’. These included:

• The primacy of the group toward which one has duties, superior to every right whether universal or individual;
• The belief that one’s group is a victim and that action again those enemies (both internal and external is justified);
•  A dread that because of liberalism, one’s group is sliding into a state of decadence;
• Closer integration of the group into a ‘brotherhood’ to protect its purity is critical even if this includes exclusionary violence;
• The authority of natural chiefs (always male) culminating in a national leader who will guide the group’s identity;
• The beauty of violence when it is devoted to the success of the group in a Darwinian struggle.

 Meanwhile, Finchelstein (2008) argued:

“Fascism is a political ideology that encompassed totalitarianism, state terrorism, imperialism, racism and, in the German case, the most radical genocide of the last century: the Holocaust.”

 While Griffin saw fascism as:

“Fascism should be seen as a revolutionary form of nationalism guided by the myth of the imminent rebirth of the nation in decadence.” 

 Other theorists have seen it as an expression of lower middle-class resentments (Lipset, 1963) while a multitude of observers have seen fascism as a sub-species of totalitarianism.

Oswald Mosley and the British Union of Fascists

Clearly, we can see from all this there is no universal agreement on what is meant by the term. However, for our purposes and for future understanding of all posts that will follow in this blog, the following elements will generally be assumed to exist within the ideology of what is generally termed ‘fascism’. While far from definitive, it offers a starting point for future discussion:

1. A closed ideological system that places the state and the nation at the centre of all human life;
2. A rejection of political and cultural liberalism;
3. Opposition to the democratic process including parliamentary democracy;
4.  A total opposition to Marxist/ Communist ideology;
5. A belief in the notion of the Corporate State as defined by Gentile and Mussolini;
6. Totalitarian or authoritarian ambition;
7. The leader principle - the belief that the party and the state should have a single leader with absolute power;
8. Mass mobilisation of the population;
9. The creation of “the new man” - transforming the ordinary man into the “new man,” a “virile” being who would put decadent bourgeoisie, cerebral Marxists, and “feminine” liberals to shame;
10. A sense of victimhood - despite claims of superiority, fascists tends to claim the nation group has been victimized by others;
11. Ultra-nationalism that seeks to expand the nation's influence and power;
12. Racial scapegoating - exclusion of certain groups, often through violence;
13. Sexism and misogyny - women are urged to perform their traditional gender roles as wives and mothers and to bear many children for the nation;
14. Anti-intellectualism;

 What does this mean?

Even a superficial reading of the above clearly shows that the term “fascism” is frequently misused and often reduced to a term of abuse. The trouble with this approach is that it leads to a dead end. If we allow this continue, where does it lead and, more importantly, what terms can we then adopt when we need to actually describe genuine fascist movements. Indeed, in the coming weeks, I will hopefully demonstrate that in the last thirty years, we often describe extreme, or far right groups as ‘fascist’, when in fact they may be nothing of the sort, even though many of their views may be repugnant to decent minded people.

 Anyway, I hope you enjoyed this post and do feel free to comment. In the meantime, have a great weekend.

 

References:

Finchelstein, F.  (2008) On Fascist Ideology Constellations. 15(3) 320 – 331

Griffin, R. (2002) Cruces gamadas y caminos bifurcados: las dinámicas fascistas del Tercer Reich” in Mellón, J.A. (ed.): Orden, Jerarquía y Comunidad. Fascismos, Dictaduras y  Postfascismos en la Europa Contemporánea, Madrid, Tecnos, p.103-149.

Jackson, P. 2018) Colin Jordan and Britain’s Neo-Nazi Movement – Hitler’s Echo. Bloomsbury, London.

Lipset, S.M. (1963) Political Man. Doubleday. New York

Paxton, R.O. (1998) The five stages of Fascism. Journal of Modern History. 70(1) 1 – 23.

Paxton, R.O (2004) The Anatomy of Fascism. Penguin. London

Welcome - I am back!!

First, and before I go any further, thanks for visiting my blog – I hope you’ll find it informative and interest you enough to make you want to come back. As I sued to 10 years ago, at the bottom of all my posts, I’ll leave space for you to comment, or ask questions on any of the topics, so feel free to participate in any way you feel appropriate. Most of my posts will be about fascism past and present as well as the far-right in the UK and some of my opinions won’t meet with everyone’s approval, particularly if you are, or have been a supporter of a British far-right, fascist or neo-Nazi group – so be warned. I’m not setting out to offend people, but equally, I think it would be dishonest if I tried to pretend that I have no opinion on the matter. I do (I would describe myself as anti-fascist) and with this in mind, you need to know that discussion and different views will always be welcomed, but any offensive comments directed directly towards me or any contributors will be deleted and repeat offenders will be blocked from making further comments.

Harsh I know, but I want this to be a safe space for moderate and liberal people to speak freely and without fear of being abused.

As for me, I first became “interested” in the far-right as a teenager and watched with interest and concern as groups like the National Front, National Party and British National Party grew and then faded away into near oblivion. It didn’t take very long for me to move from being a student sitting on the side-lines into becoming an activist and one of the early members of the Anti-Nazi League (ANL) in the South-West of England. As the years went by and the clashes between the far-right and ‘anti-fascist became fewer, I returned to being a student (albeit informally) as I was particularly interested in understanding their history and political ideology. In all this I was fired by a single question – ‘How could ultra-nationalist, anti-democratic ‘political soldiers’ attract support after all the misery and horror of the Second World War’?

I never really found an answer.

But what I did notice was that over the years, I heard liberals, left-wingers and ‘anti-fascists’ call their opponents “fascist”, “Nazi”, “far-right”, or “neo-Nazi” without regard for whether these labels were accurate. As I listened, it seemed most of the people were using these terms as abuse rather than with any concern for accurate political labelling. So, Margaret Thatcher became a “Nazi” with no evidence she was antisemitic (yes, that is how it should be spelt!) and Tony Blair was a ‘fascist’ because of his action against Saddam Hussein. Then, as this labelling became more common the power behind the words started to wane, until finally two mates drinking in a pub arguing about their local club football match might end up calling each other ‘fascist’, almost as an amiable (but with no offence meant) slur.

So, I decided to resurrect this blog, but this time I. I wanted to define these terms and see if others were also concerned about how we are watering down our language by using terms like ‘Nazi’. In all of this, I wanted to rediscover:

What is fascism?

What is Nazism?

What is neo-Nazism?

What do we really mean by the ‘far-right?’

With this as a foundation, I began to set about the task and as I did, I realised that it was impossible to discuss these terms without looking into the history of British and European fascism. So, it became clear that another aspect of this blog would be to go on to explore the nature and history of the far right in Britain tracing its roots from about the start of the twentieth century and following through to the present day. As part of this, it became clear to me that it was essential to look at the people behind these groups and how their views made them into some of the most hated people of their time.

I hope you agree it’s an exciting project and I look forward to sharing it with you.

A Month of Shame

Today is April Fool’s Day and we were the fools who believed the Cameron lie that there is such a thing as “Caring Conservativism”. Since then, he and his cronies must have been laughing all over their faces. Even worse, since Thatcher destroyed our trade union movement and Blair hijacked the Labour Party and swung it even further to the right there has been no effective opposition to the Tory destruction of the Welfare state.

Admittedly there are marvellous groups such as the Coalition of Resistance and the Right to Work campaign, but on the whole they cater for existing activists and have done little to draw in new people.

The People’s Toff Celebrates

So, what has been the consequence? Over the course of April we will see

1. The introduction of the bedroom tax - 660,000 people in social housing will lose an average of £728 a year.
2. Thousands of people will lose access to legal aid
3. Council tax benefit moves into local control resulting in increased bills for most people
4. 240 local commissioning groups made up of doctors, nurses and other professionals will take control of budgets to buy services for patients
5. Disability Living Allowance is scrapped
6. Benefit uprating begins - Nearly 9.5 million families will be affected, including 7 million in work, by £165 a year.
7. Welfare Benefit cap - no welfare claimants will receive in total more than the average annual household income after tax and national insurance
8. Universal Credit introduced

As if that isn’t bad enough, Cameron will rub salt into the wood by scrapping the 50p tax for high earners.

Without doubt it can only be described as a month of shame for the Tories, but they do not see it that way. They remain convinced they are in the right – and without an effective opposition they will undoubtedly stretch things further.

Over the coming weeks we must organise an effective opposition. The Labour party has failed to take that lead and though the trade unions have made some effort, the result has been limited. Hopefully the Bedroom Tax campaign will be the start of something powerful – a return to the mentality of the Poll Tax campaign. If we can bring about an effective challenge to the Tories there is a chance we can rebuild the left, but if we fail then we risk obscurity for at least a generation.

Trident: one good cut the government could make

A couple of days ago, Left Foot Forward published an entry from Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament Chair, Dr Kate Hudson. Bearing in mind the significance of the content and the importance of the demonstration tomorrow, we are publishing it here in full

Dr Kate Hudson

In tough times, tough decisions must be made. Such is the mantra peddled by George Osborne and co – reinforced in last week’s budget which unveiled further public spending cuts.

But while it is happy to push these cuts onto crucial public services, the government refuses to make what most people consider a ‘good cut’.

We spend around £3bn annually on running Trident, Britain’s nuclear weapons system. Just in one year.

But not only are the Conservatives happy to pay this amount, they’re pushing for a replacement of the ageing Vanguard Class submarines (which carry our nukes) to the tune of more than £100bn.

That’s £20-25bn over the next few years just to build them (to which you can add the £3bn per year running cost of our current system), £3bn per annum running costs over the next 30-40 years, and then an estimated £25bn in decommissioning.

That’s before we get into the Ministry of Defence’s ubiquitous overruns on major projects: typically delivering them around 40 per cent over-budget.

On Easter Monday – April Fools’ Day no less – CND will be continuing a tradition which first brought the issue of Britain’s nuclear arsenal to prominence from 1958 onwards: protesting at the Atomic Weapons Establishment (AWE) in Aldermaston. We’re calling on the government to see sense, with the message: ‘Scrap Trident: Time to Stop Fooling with Nuclear Weapons’.

And the issue is not just the untenable economics of Trident replacement – it’s also strategically redundant. The government itself has said that nuclear weapons are not relevant to the kind of security threats we face. In its National Security Strategy in 2010, the threat of state-on-state nuclear attack was downgraded to a tier-two risk.

And many in the military agree. Senior figures in the armed forces have said Trident is “completely useless” and concern is growing in the military and Whitehall over its ruinous impact on the MoD’s ability to fund conventional defence forces.

Tory Housing and Pension advice to the common people of Britain

The UK's Work and Pensions Secretary, Iain Duncan Smith, has warned young people not to rely on home ownership to fund their retirement. Unveiling a radical overhaul of the state pension, the Work and Pensions Secretary said rising house prices were putting bricks and mortar out of reach. He added it was "absolutely imperative" that the Government took steps to "secure the position of the next generation" and encourage saving.

Swanbourne, Buckinghamshire

He added that 70 per cent of today's pensioners owned their own homes, but their grandchildren were "struggling to even get a foot on the housing ladder" because house prices for first-time buyers had risen by 40 per cent in real terms over the last decade. "The next generation will not be able to rely on bricks and mortar in the way their parents have been able to," he said. "It's no wonder our children are increasingly cynical about saving." Now Iain Duncan Smith happens to live not too far from the Sage's Castle in Buckinghamshire and I happen to know a bit about his own bricks and mortar.

Lord and Lady Cottesloe

This is such good advice from a person who when he was made redundant had the comfort and support of his father in law, John Fremantle, 5th Baron Cottesloe, who built and gave him a house on his 1,400 acres of land at Swanbourne, in North Buckinghamshire where IDS lives to this day. Iain Duncan Smith is married to Elizabeth "Betsy" Fremantle. As IDS observed during the Foot & Mouth epidemic, he understands the plight of the ordinary farmer. And no doubt the ordinary person made redundant who doesn't have the cushion of an aristocratic father-in-law?

His “ordinary farmer” father-in-law is the 5th Baron Cottesloe. He also inherited the Austrian noble title "Baron Fremantle", which is an authorised title in the United Kingdom by Warrant of April 27, 1932. He was Lord-Lieutenant of Buckinghamshire between 1984 and 1997. An Old Etonian and former naval commander, he owns the Swanbourne estate in Buckinghamshire, which includes the picture-postcard village of Swanbourne, complete with post office, village store, tea-rooms, prep school and houses, plus rolling acres of prime farmland. Lord and Lady Cottesloe live in the Old House, a manor house set in five acres. As Betsy is the Cottesloes' oldest child, the next village squire could be Iain Duncan Smith. Despite attempts by Tory Central Office to present him otherwise, Duncan Smith is resolutely upper class.

The Fremantle Family's Betsey Wynne Pub at Swanbourne.

The Pub’s name comes from Betsey, who married Thomas Fremantle when he was a sea Captain with the British Fleet in Naples, 1797. Horatio Nelson was the best man. From their prolific union stems the complete Fremantle line of distinguished Naval Officers, including three Admirals and the present head of the family, Lord Cottesloe, who lives at Swanbourne. IDS's wife is named after her and Fremantle, Swanbourne and Cottesloe in Western Australia are named after the family who claimed Western Australia for the crown and founded the Swan River Colony, today Perth.

IDS served as a British Army officer in the Scots Guards from 1975 to 1981 and his father was a Group Captain in the RAF. Intriguingly, given his wife's family wealth, his two homes, and his children going to public schools, Duncan Smith has complained that life as an MP had been "a financial disaster”. From his aristocratic marriage, military background, free house and personal wealth of over £1 million he is able to understand the hearts and minds of the ordinary men and women of Britain.

IDS cares about housing

It is wondrous to see the Quiet Man of British Politics lead the Tory led Coalition’s cynically amoral assault on the poor (mainly working poor) of Britain claiming there are no “soft options.”

A Newsnight investigation in December 2002 found that Iain Duncan Smith's CV contained 'inaccurate and misleading' claims about his education. The investigation found that Duncan Smith's biography on the Conservative Party website, his entry in Who's Who, and various other places, stated that he went to the Universita di Perugia in Italy. It transpired instead that he had attended the Universita per Stranieri, which is also in Perugia; however the University did not award degrees when Duncan Smith attended in 1973. When challenged by Newsnight, Duncan Smith's office confirmed that he 'didn't get any qualifications in Perugia or even finish his exams'. The first line of Ian Duncan Smith's biography on the Conservative Party website claimed that he was 'educated at Dunchurch College of Management'. Dunchurch was the former staff college for GEC Marconi, where he worked in the 1980s, again Duncan Smith's office confirmed to Newsnight that 'he did not get any qualifications there either, but that he completed six separate courses lasting a few days each, adding up to about a month in total'. John Garside, a former Dunchurch tutor, told the Newsnight investigation team 'I'm puzzled, flattered, but puzzled. What we did was offer short courses… it was not a continuous form of education by any means.

There have been plenty of soft options for IDS who became an arms salesman through the Old Boys network after his short six year Guards career in the army and had his house built for free on his father in law. Lord Cottesloe's, land when he was made redundant after six months in the only real job he ever had. He also (as an MP) took six months off work in 2009 when his wife Betsy was diagnosed with breast cancer. Is this another case of do as I say, not as I do?

IDS is 58 years old and has suckled upon the publicly-funded teat for most of his life. He's signed on the dole. He's had four children and received child benefit for all of them. He has put them each through private school, too. His wife hasn't worked since they married, except for 15 months in which he got her a job paid by the taxpayer.

He and his colleagues eat and drink food you subsidise in a palace you pay for, he is driven around in a car you own, and when he is too old to 'work' any more you will pay for him to have a better pension than you, too. He started out at the age of 21 with six years of taxpayer-funded military service, during which he acted as bag-carrier to a Major-General.

Then in 1981, aged 27, he left the Army and signed on the dole for several months. He then began a period of ordinary work based upon the skills he had gained at the taxpayer's expense, and worked in sales for arms dealer GEC-Marconi. He then moved on to a property firm, where he was made redundant after six months, and then sold gun-related magazines for Jane's Information Group.

After 11 years of this all-too brief career he succeeded in once again boarding the publicly-funded gravy train in 1992. In the intervening 20 years he has been paid by the taxpayer every year more money than most taxpayers earn. He has topped it up, along the way, to more than six figures for a few years here and there. In 2001 he helped his unemployed wife to have a suckle, arranging for you to pay her £15,000 to be his diary secretary.

These days he is given the grand total of £134,565 a year from the taxpayer. He lives for free in a £2million Tudor farmhouse on his father-in-law's ancestral estate in Buckinghamshire. He has three acres of land, a tennis court, swimming pool and some orchards, which is not bad for a life in the pay of the state.

Now let us in the spirit of the Tories Big Society all sing the first verse and chorus of the hoary old anthem “We are all in this together.”

Thinking of Mandela

It is a worrying time despite South Africa's presidency saying 94-year-old Nelson Mandela is responding positively to hospital treatment for a recurring lung infection.

The office of President Jacob Zuma also said in a statement that the former president and anti-apartheid leader remains under observation.

Mr Mandela was admitted late Wednesday to a hospital in Pretoria, the South African capital.

But let us never forget that he contracted tuberculosis during his 27-year imprisonment for fighting white racist rule in South Africa. Since his release he has repeatedly had lung problems. White South Africa has much to feel guilty about and it has been a mark of the strength and genertosity of this great leader that he has always held a hand of friendship out to his persecutors.

He is a very rare man and this site salutes him and wishes him every good fortune and a return to good health.

Another disaster at DWP?

Once again the Tories are having to back pedal as their Universal Credit programme shows signs of falling behind schedule and facing major problems. The system, which will roll all benefits and tax credits into a single payment automatically linked to earnings, was expected to be trialled for new claimants across four areas of the country from late April.

Unfortunately, and typical ignorance of the simple realities of life, Iain Duncan Smith failed to check out with those who deliver welfare benefits and consequently he has been forced to scale back the trials to a single JCP office in Ashton-under-Lyne. So much for a grand roll-out.

Three other pilot areas in Wigan, Warrington and Oldham that were also due to ‘test out’ the new programme will not now begin processing the payments until at least July and possibly later.

Of course it would be nice to think that IDS would have the humility to admit to, and display a little embarrassment, but I suspect we may be waiting a long time. This is a man noted for his single-mindedness. No doubt over the coming days we will hear a range of excuses, but the bottom line is that it has been a kick in the pants for the Secretary of State.

In February, 2013, Iain Duncan Smith drafted in one of the Government’s most experienced trouble-shooters to take charge of the programme – a move which led to the departure of another senior DWP civil servant a few weeks later.

The delay in rolling out Universal Credit are probably due to the fact that most frontline staff do not have the training, computer programmes or experience in place to avoid making disastrous mistakes which could lead to people not receiving the benefits to which they are entitled. A point made by a number of welfare organisations months ago. Could this be more evidence that IDS doesn’t listen to those around him?

In its announcement of the delay the Department of Work and Pension made no attempt to explain why it was unable to proceed as planned. Interestingly, in a neat little sidestep a spokesman for the department searched for a way to get IDS off the hook and tried to suggest it was “sensible” to start with one area before rolling it out to the other three in July.

Speaking on behalf of DWP, he said:

“It will allow us to make any changes that we feel we need to make and see what works and what doesn’t”.

Liam Byrne, Labour’s Shadow Work and Pensions Secretary, tried to capitalise on this bungling by condemn UC and describing the announcement as “yet another embarrassing setback”.

He went on to say:

“The scheme is already late and over-budget and in spite of earlier promises Ministers have admitted that they have no idea when out of work claimants will move over to Universal Credit … The truth is the IT for Universal Credit appears to be nowhere near ready. Universal Credit calculations depend on salary data from HMRC's new PAYE Real Time Information system. Obligations for small firms to provide PAYE data on or before each employee payment have recently been delayed from April until October. And DWP are so worried they are now barring access to their five main contractors. This scheme is now on the edge of disaster. Ministers must admit this project is in crisis and start to fix it now – before millions of families tax credits are put at risk.”

Regrettably, Byrne failed to point out that UC will create significant challenge to low-income families. The simple reality is that, according to a Resolution Foundation report, “Conditions Uncertain”, almost 1.2 million low-paid workers entitled to support under Universal Credit will have to look for extra work or face the risk of having payments withdrawn. Furthermore, in a report by Tanni Grey-Thompson, 100,000 disabled children stand to lose up to £28 a week and 116,000 disabled people who work will be at risk of losing up to £40 per week from help towards additional costs of being disabled.

These are injustices that appear to be going through on a nod and a wink. The Tories and their Lib-Dem puppies will force this programme onto the most vulnerable in our society and it is a responsibility of those on the left to expose the extent of these injustices and campaign for their eradication.

We have a responsibility to do everything in our power to protect the poor and the vulnerable. If we fail them now we have no right to ask for their support later.