ANATOMICALLY POLITICALLY CORRECT:

Mussolini's tone: a review of The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton (Martin Clark, Times Literary Supplement)

Paxton regards Fascism as a five-stage process. The first stage is simply one of grievances or threats to established interests or groups, and of normal democratic processes being unable or unwilling to resolve them. Often this is because the old political system or parties have collapsed, leaving a political vacuum or at least much instability. Paxton tends to blame irresponsible intellectuals for this: they undermine liberal regimes with their constant criticism, and they have a nasty habit of apologizing for violence. At any rate, instability is common enough, and hence there have been and still are a large number of "fascist" movements in temporary agitation. We learn, in this book, about the travails of the Greyshirts in Iceland and of the Blueshirts in Ireland. However, most of these agitators progress no further, and are of academic interest at most. The second stage, "taking root", is more serious. The "fascist" movements become not only spokesmen but also organizers for the disaffected, and start tackling the grievances themselves, illegally but effectively, and with some official connivance. Paxton is right to stress the importance of this development. It was not Mussolini, sitting in Milan and sounding off about Italy's rights on the Adriatic, who made Fascism a mass movement in Italy; it was the youthful "squads" of armed vigilantes in the Po Valley, destroying socialist labour unions and throwing out newly elected socialist mayors. They then founded their own unions and ran local government themselves. Much the same happened in Schleswig-Holstein. In these regions, populist vigilantism enjoyed the support of all right-thinking, or Right-thinking men, including policemen and judges. Elsewhere, however, it did not, and Fascism progressed no further. "Taking root" is more difficult than might appear, since the movement is bound to be local, there are always rivalries and splits, and governments can usually buy off the militants or take over the agitation themselves.

The third stage, "getting power", is the most vital of all. Paxton, who made a notable contribution to Franco-American relations in 1972 by pointing out, in Vichy France: Old guard and new order 1940-1944, that the Vichy regime was run not so much by Fascist zealots as by the French Establishment, argues that Fascists do not seize power, they have it thrust upon them. They make a "historic compromise" with existing state authorities, who are anxious to absorb the crude provincials into the official system and who of course assume that they themselves will continue to decide everything. The key to understanding how Fascists came to power in Italy and Germany lies, therefore, not so much with the manoeuvres of Mussolini or Hitler but with those of king or president, top army officers and a handful of others. Paxton's argument here is not novel, nor altogether convincing. Certainly both Mussolini and Hitler were appointed in a more or less constitutional manner, and certainly existing elites thought they would retain most of their power and status; but the two leaders' manoeuvres in the few months before they won office, and indeed their very personalities and their unwillingness to compromise, were vital to the outcome in both cases. They may not have needed to use much force, but they certainly had the threat of it available and they made sure everyone knew it. The existing authorities may have manoeuvred too, but the point is that they were outmanoeuvred. They did not "compromise" so much as surrender.

Paxton's fourth stage is the "exercise of power", but he has to admit that the two leaders behaved very differently once in office. Both of them, of course, got rid of their more obstreperous followers, and both managed to keep the Establishment fairly happy and to provide some rapid economic benefits. Both ended up trying to transform everything. However, Mussolini governed essentially through the state machinery, supplemented by ad hoc "parallel bureaucracies" run by state technocrats. The Party was for propaganda; also to distribute favours and to mobilize the young. Hitler was far more reliant on the Party and its parallel bureaucracies, although he too, of course, used the State. These differences were hugely important. It was not just that Mussolini had to put on a bowler hat and visit the King twice a week; it was that he did not control the armed forces, judiciary, or Senate, and that he might eventually be dismissed like any other Prime Minister when he lost the confidence of the King, that is, of the political and military elite. Hitler had no such worries. Moreover, in his later years Mussolini tried to run everything himself and allowed his colleagues little initiative; Hitler, far more idle, permitted competitive leeway. Paxton does not explain these politico- administrative contrasts, which clearly owed more to personality differences than to anything else. At any rate, generalizations about how the Fascists "exercised power" rather break down when there are only two examples, which differed as wildly as this.

Paxton's final stage is "radicalization or entropy?". He argues that both Mussolini and Hitler had to keep up the Fascist muscle tone (Paxton's phrase) by becoming ever more radical both at home and, particularly, abroad; otherwise their regimes would simply have become flabby. This looks very much like a psychological explanation, hitherto taboo. The fact is that any modern government, Fascist or no, needs to fight campaigns and proclaim resounding victories, or else the citizenry becomes restless. Perhaps Fascist governments are more liable to become extremist, but there is not much evidence: Mussolini had been in office thirteen years before he attacked Ethiopia, and only became noticeably radical at home three years after that -- by which time "entropy" had already set in. Hitler's regime also became more radical as Germany began losing. Radicalization and entropy were not alternatives, they went together.

It's a pretty good book, though in the attempt to keep Nazism inside the tent of fascism he basically has to force every other seemingly fascist movement out. He would have done better to treat all the others as fascism and Nazism as what it was, a weird hybrid of fascism and applied Darwinism.

Posted by Orrin Judd at September 26, 2004 8:05 AM