[Peace-discuss] "Change as such"

[David Green]

If the historical analysis below is accurate, then the problematic nature of defining fascism reflects its historical origins, and ironically--at this point in history--makes allegations of fascism as politically useful for those now in power as allegations of communism were for fascist movements between the World Wars:

In historian Eugen Weber's Varieties of Fascism (1964), he includes in the appendix The First Program of the Fascist Movement, 1919 (Mussolini). It reads like straightforward social democracy, including "reorganization of production according to the cooperative principle, including the workers' direct share of profit."

Earlier in the text, Weber writes that the Fascios "supported the strikes that raged throughout North Italy, even the first sit-in strikes of 1919, when the workers took over the factories and challenged army and police to dislodge them."

But Weber explains that Mussolini (of course) continued to see himself in competition with Communists, moving from being their "rivals" to their "opponents," turning from "revolution" to "counter-revolution." 

"One of Mussolini's admirers has called him a condottiere--a soldier of fortune--and this provides a clue to the fact that within two years of the radical verbiage of 1919, we find the fascios acting as strike-breakers and within three years the professed Socialist Republican had been called to power by his king.

...."Mussolini had realized that his race for power against Communists and Socialists who were firmly entrenched in labor unions and city councils, he could only be successful with the support of the conservative representatives of the established order. With the Communists he shared a revolutionary radicalism  in which he could never convincingly overbid them; with the conservatives he shared a common Nationalism and a common regard for authority and order, in which the conservatives' inefficiency and their moderation left them at a disadvantage.

..."Mussolini's movement and Mussolini's order, then, appear as the prototype of modern Fascism, which is in effect an opportunistic activism inspired by dissatisfaction with the existing order, but unwilling or unable to proclaim a precise doctrine of its own and emphasizing rather the idea of change, as such, and the seizure of power....Many a revolution has been carried out by people who did not know what they wanted, but knew very well what they opposed."


      
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