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Fascism, then, is more of an energy than an ideology. It does not communicate through the mind. It is pumped into the heart and enforced by the fist. It is intellectually vacuous and constantly shifting
The specific circumstances that birthed fascism between the two world wars no longer exist, but the energy that drove it does. All around us, we can see an obsession with national rebirth, the demonisation of enemies, and the channelling of material anxieties into violent, irrational, conspiratorial, apocalyptic movements. It is that dark blood-magic that distinguishes fascism from conventional hard-right governments
It is not necessarily about precise definitions, or watertight checklists, or strictly policed usage. It is about recognising that fascism appeals to some of the darkest instincts of human nature: the hatred of difference, the yearning for order, the sublimation of the individual to the group, the enchantment of violence
At heart, what fascism became was both a substitute religion and a conspiracy theory, founded on an apocalyptic myth of a decisive battle between good and evil: the nation is tormented by a rolling crisis that democracy cannot resolve; the race is in decline, undermined by enemies within; the only solution is a dynamic strongman who can purify and unite the chosen people and eliminate their foes by any means necessary
Fascists, however, wanted access to people’s souls. No part of private life would be spared their attention. No institution, no matter how old, would be respected. Society was to be moulded into a vast homogenous mass, enraptured in worship of race leadership. They were seeking the creation of a New Man for a new future: the total uniformity of the human spirit
On a practical level, it was an ultra-modern machine for exercising power, fit for the age of the aeroplane and the moving picture. But it drew its emotional power from an apocalyptic myth of national renewal. Fascism proposed that a once-mighty nation had grown weak, decadent and polluted. Only a project of violent cleansing could regenerate its soul and breed a New Man: virile, dynamic, patriotic, warrior-like
All of this had been laid out 14 years earlier in Mein Kampf. ‘I think it is one of the most incredible stories in history,’ the journalist Dorothy Thompson said after the invasion of Poland, ‘that a man could sit down and write in advance exactly what he intended to do; and then, step by step, begin to put his plan into operation. And that the statesmen of the world should continue to say to themselves: “He doesn’t really mean it! It doesn’t make sense!
For fascism to prevail, four conditions had to be met: the apparent failure of the democratic status quo, the perceived threat of leftist revolution, a divided opposition, and the anxious complicity of conservatives, establishment figures and the middle classes. Fascism needed to be seen as the only solution to otherwise insurmountable problems.
Stalin was the first person to popularise the use of ‘fascist’ as an all-purpose insult (in 1924 he called social democracy ‘objectively the moderate wing of fascism’), only to ally himself with Hitler in 1939. Yet this pact did not prevent Russia from crafting its subsequent war with Nazi Germany, at the cost of 8.7 million military and 19 million civilian lives, into a national myth of heroic resistance to the evils of fascism. The Russian definition of fascism was simple: it meant anti-Russian. ‘Under Stalin,’ wrote Timothy Snyder, ‘fascism was first indifferent, then it was bad, then it was fine until . . . it was bad again. But no one ever defined what it meant. It was a box into which anything could be put
When Soviet communism collapsed between 1989 and 1991, Russia lost not only its satellite states in Eastern Europe and the Baltic but partners such as Ukraine and Georgia. Russia’s transition to democracy and capitalism in the 1990s was so abrupt and badly managed that it caused immense chaos and suffering, enriching a new elite of ruthless oligarchs at the expense of ordinary citizens. Many Russians came to feel that, rather than voluntarily dismantling a dictatorship, they had been defeated, albeit not in battle. This produced a burning sense of humiliation and resentment similar to that which the losers of the First World War had felt. Putin offered to remedy that
Populism has a pretty rudimentary founding proposition, which is more akin to a children’s story than a political theory. It states that society can be split into two groups: the people and the elite. The people are pure and authentic; the elite are corrupt
For right-wing populists, ‘the people’ generally refers to the dominant ethnic culture and ‘the elite’ is composed of liberals and immigrants
Perhaps the biggest obstacle to understanding fascism is the simple fact that every schoolchild learns far more about Nazi Germany than any other authoritarian regime. Hitler therefore becomes synonymous with dictator, Goebbels with propaganda, the Holocaust with persecution. If you invoke 1930s Germany to criticise a draconian right-wing policy, you will be widely understood. But if, for the sake of accuracy, you reference modern Hungary, 1970s Chile, 1940s Spain, or even 1920s Italy, most people will not have any idea what you are talking about. This narrow band of shared knowledge erases most of the history of authoritarianism and creates a false binary: either a country is a healthy, tolerant democracy or it is on the road to Nazism. The vast middle ground must be understood, now more than ever, because that is where the populists operate.
Fascism and populism share a conceptual root. They both feature an all-encompassing insistence on the ‘will of the people’ as the only source of political legitimacy, unlike liberalism, which places a strong emphasis on individual rights, diversity and the separation of powers
Populism is not so much a programme for government as the perpetual weaponisation of grievances
Fascism could not be understood purely in terms of political systems. There was a religious element too. It moved simultaneously backwards and forwards. Like conservatism, it exploited nostalgia for a mythic past of strength, certainty and rock-solid hierarchies. But it also promised to revive those values in a thrilling future of dynamic young men in fast machines