Re: Fascism Seminar -- Guerin, Part 1.

["Bryan A. Alexander" <bnalexan@xxxxxxxxx>]

Glad to see this post - comments follow, interleaved:

Bryan Alexander
Department of English
University of Michigan
**********************

On Wed, 10 Jan 1996, Matt D. wrote:

> Fascism and Big Business, Daniel Guerin (1936)
> *****
>...
> Chapter 1: Big Business Finances Fascism
> *****
> Contra L. Proyect, Guerin has it that fascism comes to power not to thwart
> imminent revolution -- indeed the absence of strong revolutionary forces is
> one factor in its rise -- but rather to allow the bourgeoisie to resolve
> acute and persistent economic crises in ways made too difficult by
> "democratic" forms of government and civil society.

Good point to bring up.  I've heard lefties make a similar argument more
than a few times - and it seems to be wrong: we see Hitler, Mussolini,
and Franco arise over against some measure of successful workers' power;
we don't see FDR doing the same in this country, in no small part due to
the comparative weakness of the prole movement here.  Again, remember the
doubling and extensive nature of the conflict: the forces of capital and
reaction organize a complex system of alliances across most social
strata, while the revolutionary party enacts a similar strategy.  A
systemic crisis of high intensity is obviously requires to enable such
drastic measures, but only a potent challenge from the working classes
generates such complementary, contradictory, in-depth coalitions.

> We find it in Italy and Germany because as "late-bloomers" among the
> imperialist nations, they did not have the resources to "ride out" the
> post-war collapse in the manner of, say, the Rooseveltian New Deal.

I'd love to see some stats on this.  It doesn't convince me, offhand.
>
> Guerin points out the division between light industry and heavy w/ regard to
> the fascist solution.
>
> Heavy industry -- nationally organized, integrated w/ the military machine,
> and with a high organic composition of capital meaning high fixed charges --
> favors a tough labor policy over "social peace" since reducing wages
> drastically is the only way to restore profitability.
>
> Light industry is not necessarily as open to fascism.  Production for the
> international market, a need to maintain the purchasing power of consumers
> to realize value, a low organic composition of capital meaning low fixed
> costs, and a resentment of the social and economic domination of heavy
> industry lead light industry to tend to favor "industrial peace" labor 
> policies.
>
> Guerin includes the chemical industry in Germany -- which produced for an
> international market -- among "light industry", so I'm not sure how these
> divisions correspond to the departmental breakdown being discussed on the 
> list.

Interesting distinction.  This was for decades a major problem in
post-Stalin Soviet politics, from Khruschev's attack on the steel eaters
through Gorbachev's last plans.
        I'm not sure how valuable this distinction is today, given
capital's cross-pollination - transnationals don't stick to just one type
of industry.  I'm not sure how accurate this is for the 1930s, either.

>...
> Big business first organizes fascist forces as an anti-labor militia.  This
> is financed by the industrial bourgeoisie in the cities, and the great
> landed proprieters in the countryside.  When the time comes to introduce
> them into the electoral game, enormous subsidies are poured into the fascist
> campaigns by the same forces.

That coalition politics again.
>
> Chapter 2: The Middle Classes Considered as Fascism's Mass Base
> *****
> "The backbone of the fascist troops was the urban 'middle classes'."
>
> As a result of the post-war crisis, the traditional middle strata had not
> been _proletarianized_ but rather merely _pauperized_.  "The more they
> suffer, the more they cling to their existence as a class."
>
> And the "new" (white-collar) middle classes or managers, engineers, etc. --
> created by capitalism -- exist from the first in a precarious state of
> dependence.
>
> Guerin goes into a good bit of theoretical detail about the class anxiety of
> the petty bourgeois, confronted w/ his own ruin -- especially at a time when
> industrial workers, despite great unemployment, are doing relatively better
> due to union contracts among other things.

Damn, does this sound familiar to this American reader!
>
> Fascism recruits from:
>
>       (1) the urban middle classes -- for the reasons just mentioned
>
>       (2) the peasantry -- ruined by rationalization in industry (including
> increased fertilizer costs) and incresed taxation to pay for the social
> expenditures won by the workers (many of which the peasant does not see
> himself); deceived by the landowners as to a commonality of "agricultural"
> interests

Yes.  This returns us to Gramsci and helps correct Trotsky.
>
>       (3) war veterans -- especially the unemployed and retired NCOs; many
> veterans' nationalism makes them resistant to the idea of class struggle;
> they have a hatred of war profiteers, but also of "defeatest" socialists

Not to mention, vets make excellent thugs, simply because of their
military skills.
>
>       (4) youth -- again, unemployment is key; sentimentalism about "youth" 
> as a
> social force is usually a bourgeois conceit (ain't that the truth!),
> separate from the experience and aspirations of young proletarians, but
> after the war the situation of bourgeois and proletarian youth was
> indistinguishable

I wonder how this applies to postWWII "youth culture."  I'm reminded of
the Dead Kennedys' attacks on punk fascists.
>...
> Chapter 3: Fasicst Mysticism: The Man of Destiny, The Fatherland.
> *****
> Fascist mysticism aims to unite the heterogeneous elements outlined above
> into a real social movement.
>
> The deification of the man of destiny is a gradual process.  First the
> fascists attempt to create a need/expectation among the masses for a
> "messiah".  Only then do they propose their candidate.  "Ten times in
> succession they propose -- without success -- their messiah, bur the
> eleventh time, the petty bourgeoisie begins to wonder: 'After all, perhaps
> he is the savior!'"

Pace Gramsci's "Unknown Leader."
>
> Following on this is the identification of the man of destiny with the
> fatherland and the "nation".

Ya know, Clinton was one of the first governors to pass an English
language law in the past 30 yeats.
>
> We also find:
>
>       (1) Cult of the dead -- fascists fallen in the civil war

Which feeds on itself: militias suffer casualties, which require death
cults, which further stoke violent tendencies, which produce more
conflicts and casualties...
>...
> Characteristics of fascist propaganda:
>
>       (1) employment of modern technical methods -- very significant for its
> time, e.g. the nazi campaign blitz in 1933
>
>       (2) use of visual and vocal symbols
>
>       (3) repetition, repetition, repetition
>
>       (4) oratory preferred to the written word
>
>       (5) assembly of vast crowds in spectacular settings
>
>       (6) marching/parading, and the uniform fetish
>
> Of course, all these methods (except perhaps #6) are employed by all
> electoral parties today.  What does that mean?  NOI and the militias both
> add #6.  What does that mean?

It means that Adorno and Horkheimer were right!
>
>
> Chapter 4: Fascist Demagogy: "Anti-Capitalist" Capitalism
> *****
> The strategy of fascist demagogy is divert inchoate/inconsistent
> middle-class anti-capitalism into nationalism and anti-Semitism, e.g. "the
> international plutocracy" and "Jewish bankers".

This opposition to money seems like a perverse philosophy of difference,
resisting exchange values in favor of unique use value for communities,
nations, in favor of difference against a certain leveling - and the last
is more the key.  Fascism is directed against workers' revolt, and that's
where the truly fearsome threat of leveling dwells.

 >
> Attacks on the national bourgeoisie take the form of a call for its
> "rejuvenation" by plebian fascist elements.

Which leads to another cult for the list: the cult of nation
iconography.  The fascists need to create a vibrant history-image to be
workshipped -and recalled.  Think of Mussolini and Rome, Hitler and
Frederick the Great.
>
> Attacks on capitalism "as such" actually reflect the resentment of the petty
> bourgeois towards "idle" capital -- that is, the organization of credit, the
> "abolition of slavery to interest."  Of course, there is no way to abolish
> credit while retaining capitalism, so it is either retained or reintroduced
> under different guise, e.g. Nazi "credit cooperatives".

Again, this only makes sense in the face of a threat from the lower
classes.  The characterization of capital of "idle" is clearly aimed at a
workerist mentality, as credit coops try to capture the cooperative
nature of the underclass.

> ...
> Chapter 6: The Rise and Fall of the Fascist Plebians
> *****
> In order to consolidate the dictatorship and deal the final blow to the
> organized working class, the bourgeoisie tolerates the elimination of its
> existing political staff and their replacement by fascist plebians.  But
> simultaneously with the absorption of the state by the party, the
> anti-capitalist elements in the party are "tamed" by the dictatorial state
> -- purged or killed.

Yes, we must remember the autophagy of the fascist coalition system.
>
> (Note that the bourgeoisie does _not_ under any circumstances tolerate the
> wholesale purging of its _military_ staff -- which in Italy and Germany both
> remained largely intact through the transition.)
>
Unlike Stalin.  Yes.

>...
> A nod to the "left" now and again also gives the plebian fascists a base
> from which to resist unreconciled elements of the old bourgeoisie and the
> military -- "the threat [admittedly small] from the right."  (In Germany, in
> particular, monarchist elements were an early and persistent threat.)

More right than fascists?  <shudder>
>
> (To be continued.)
>
> -- Matt D.
Thanks for the great post, Matt.

        


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