Re: [Marxism] Re: Fascist intellectuals?

[Jim Farmelant <farmelantj@xxxxxxxx>]

On Tue, 29 Aug 2006 21:39:14 +0200 Alex <spirit68@xxxxxxxxx> writes:
> I didn't read the book you mention but in his 'The birth of fascist
> ideology' Sternhell describes in quite some depth a certain kind 
> syndicalism
> in late 19th century, early 20th century Europe, especially France 
> and
> Italy, of which a number of activists became facists.




> And since the root of society's ills was a certain 
> culture,
> not it's economic structure, they also turned away from 
> anti-capitalism.
> They were in favor of the capitalism and the 'free market', but 
> within
> parameters set by the new 'proletarian' state. They saw the free 
> market as a
> way to prevent society from becoming stagnant because it stimulates
> competition. In Sternhell's book he quotes one of these syndicalists 
> saying
> something like that his economic views are in favor of a 'class 
> liberalism'
> (whatever that may mean)

Well I know that in the case of Sorel, he saw
class struggle as economically beneficial because
collective action by workers would drive up labor
costs thereby forcing capitalists to seek out new
ways to boost productivity in order to remain
competitive. The resulting increases in productivity
would then benefit both workers and capitalists alike.


> The
> leading thinker of this current was Georges Sorel. His most famous 
> book
> 'Reflections on violence' consists of essays written in 1906. In it 
> he
> praises Mussolini. He later (1919) also added an appendix called 'In 
> defense
> of Lenin'. Confused ideas make people say the craziest things I 
> guess.

In the case of Sorel's political evolution, after drifting away
from syndicalism, he graviated towards the reactionary
Action Francais, which was an avowedly monarchist
and anti-Semitic organization. Considering the fact,
that Sorel had begun his political life as a Dreyfusard,
while the Action Francais, was of course among the
most militant of the anti-Dreyfusards, this was certainly
quite a shift.


I think that the evolution in thinking that had occured
among the kinds of French syndicalists, of which
Sorel was a prime example, was symptomatic of
a larger rethinking of Marxism that was taking
place during the early 1900s as more and more
people began to become disatisfied with the
positivist, evolutionist Marxism that was popularized
by people like Kautsky and Plekhanov. A somewhat
similar rethinking took place in Russia following
the failed revolution in 1905 which manifested itself
in such phenomena as the emergence of the
"god-builders" within the Bolshevik faction and
the emergence of the "god-seekers" among
some of the non-Bolshevik Marxists. Also,
some of the so-called Legal Marxists began
to shift to the right during this period.

Sorel's support for both Lenin and Mussolini
was not all that unusual at that time. In
Britain, G.B. Shaw similarly supported both
Mussolini and Lenin, and at least for a while,
Hitler too. And both Shaw and Sorel even
shared a common philosophical base, in
that both men were admirers of Bergson
and Nietzsche and that they believed that
traditional Marxism needed to be supplemented
by the insights of these two vitalist thinkers.
For that matter, back in Russia, both the
god-builders and the god-seekers were
influenced greatly by Nietzsche.

At the same time it should be noted that not
everyone back then who was influenced by
Nietzsche and/or Bergson turned into a
fascist. In Italy, Antonio Gramsci (who was
not exactly a stranger to Mussolini) was
influenced by Sorel and other-likeminded
thinkers, but instead of turning into a fascist,
he became one of the founders of the PCI.
Most of the Bolshevik "god-builders" either
remained Bolsheviks or remained more or
less sympathetic towards them.

> 
> Alex
> 
> Sternhell points to the numbers of syndicalists who, in the early 
> twentieth
> > century,
> > shifted from the left to the far right, either before or during 
> the First
> > World War. However, he doesn't say what he means by syndicalism. 
> Does
> > anyone
> > have a good definition of what syndicalism meant in France?
> >
> > Paul F
> >
> >
> >
>

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