Defining Fascism: "... but nobody ever asks WHY fascism?"

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Defining Fascism: "... but nobody ever asks WHY fascism?"

Sanguinia: Jan 1, 2012; ~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

The conversation about the Confederacy in US news was interesting, keep talking about it and other related topics defining fascism, protofacism, neo-facism, and how much those definitions are dependent on historical context here.

My mom once asked me if Napoleon was a fascist and my mind went completely blank because I wasn't really sure how to approach the question, so feel free to tackle the question of pre-industrial authoritarian militarism as a form of protofascism, I bet that'd be interesting too. We all know the fasc loves the Viking and the Romans, right?

edit: also I hosed up my thread title joke, shameful me. I wish posters could edit thread title :qq:

Sanguinia fucked around with this message at 02:04 on May 8, 2021

# ¿ May 8, 2021 01:57

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# ¿ Apr 16, 2024 05:07

Sanguinia: Jan 1, 2012; ~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

Demon Semen posted:

The best definition of fascism by Georgi Dimitrov:

�Fascism is not a form of state power "standing above both classes � the proletariat and the bourgeoisie," as Otto Bauer, for instance, has asserted. It is not "the revolt of the petty bourgeoisie which has captured the machinery of the state," as the British Socialist Brailsford declares. No, fascism is not a power standing above class, nor government of the petty bourgeoisie or the lumpen-proletariat over finance capital. Fascism is the power of finance capital itself. It is the organization of terrorist vengeance against the working class and the revolutionary section of the peasantry and intelligentsia. In foreign policy, fascism is jingoism in its most brutal form, fomenting bestial hatred of other nations.... The development of fascism, and the fascist dictatorship itself, assume different forms in different countries, according to historical, social and economic conditions and to the national peculiarities, and the international position of the given country."

Everyone should read his book, published in 1935, �The Fascist Offensive and the Tasks of the Communist International in the Struggle of the Working Class against Fascism.� He was imprisoned by the Nazis (falsely accused of torching the Reichstag), and then released after he humiliated Goebbels himself in Court.

Communist definitions of fascism that focus on its anti-communist and class elements to the exclusion of its racial components don't sit well with me. Race may be made up, and from a Marxist view just another tool to divide the working class, but this definition doesn't even mention it when the most famous example of fascism in history, and the one this guy is pretty explicitly talking about, is so predicated on race that they tried to make their target races literal synonyms for communist so they would be inseparable concepts in the minds of their people. The definition of fascism cannot fail to include, if not race specifically, some mention of creating an enemy population through otherizing.

# ¿ May 9, 2021 02:08

Sanguinia: Jan 1, 2012; ~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

fart_man_69 posted:

I would agree that Dimitrov's definition is incomplete. It doesn't really get into the ideological motivation of fascism as much as the material reality of it. It seems to me that the racial aspect of fascism is inseparably integrated with its class aspect. The oppression of the "lower races" was justified by the same principle as the oppression of the worker; someone lower on the class hierarchy, or racial hierarchy, deserved to be abused by their superiors, as was natural. Race was indicative of a constitutional weakness in the same way that the poverty of a worker was. It's telling that the Western eugenics movement, which was embraced by the elites of liberal nations as well, conflated class and race in a similar way.

But doesn't a focus on a conflation between lower races and lower classes in turn ignore that fascism often went after Elites and Middle Class members as well? The original definition you shared limits this to Revolutionary elements of the higher classes, but history doesn't really bear that out. One of the Nazi Germany's biggest problems, economically, was that they continually privileged ideological purity over efficiency and effectiveness. They would deliberately destroy companies and individuals that failed to institute racial purity and anti-Jewish policy and conversely reward those that did, regardless of which ones were actually better or more successful means to their ends. Its arguable that some forms of fascism were so fixated on esoteric ideological goals that they abandoned Capitalism in their pursuit.

Just as a random example that popped into my head, think about how even as it became increasingly clear that the Wermacht couldn't possibly reach Moscow before Winter came during Barbarossa, logistics commanders refused to even begin PRODUCING Winter Clothes for the army, let alone actually shipping them out to the front lines. In the world where fascism is a reactionary capitalist response to communism, why would you ever make your chances of crushing the worker's resistance to your exploitation even the smallest bit less, especially when its ALSO war profiteering and allows you to consolidate even more state wealth by making a product for the army to buy?

The Nazis refused to produce those winter clothes because the slavic communists of Russia were so inferior to Germans according to doctrine that to even consider the possibility that they could stop the advance long enough to make Winter Clothes necessary, even with winter less than three months away, was defeatist bordering on treason. HOW they would win mattered as much, if not MORE, than actually winning, specifically because of who they were fighting. "Capitalism cannot fail, it can only be failed," is not something that Capitalism actually believes, that's why it works so hard to turn state power to its advantage. If you are acting in such a way where you risk the preservation of Capitalism for the sake of Ideology, you're not being a very good capitalist.

# ¿ May 9, 2021 08:04

Sanguinia: Jan 1, 2012; ~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

Beelzebufo posted:

I think China is acting in a colonialist, imperialist manner, but I don't think that's analogous to fascism.

Yeah, Fascism and Imperialism are clearly not the same thing. All Fascists are pretty definitionally imperialists, but not all imperialists are fascists.

# ¿ May 9, 2021 10:17

Sanguinia: Jan 1, 2012; ~Everybody wants to be a cat~
~Because a cat's the only cat~
~Who knows where its at~

Flannelette posted:

I was thinking that it might be getting overthought and fascism is really just another very strict way to protect The Hierarchy (tm) because you have to have the hierarchy, if we didn't people would have to think about all the bad things and how they are guilty of them and maybe try to make things better and that's too icky so better to have system like fascism that brutally enforces the hierarchy even if it is doomed to self destruct.

Yeah, but fascism is also about DEFINING the hierarchy. I don't think you can have fascism without having an ideologically-rather-than-logically driven definition of who the In Group is and who the Out Group is

# ¿ Jun 1, 2021 12:59

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Defining Fascism: "... but nobody ever asks WHY fascism?"