[Marxism] Re: Fascist intellectuals?

["Paul Flewers" <trusscott.foundation@xxxxxxxxxx>]

Thanks to Jim and Alex for their replies re French syndicalism. I think that
another thing about the French leftists who shifted rightwards was their
disdain for democracy, not just a rejection of the results of the corruption
of bourgeois democracy, or a recognition of the limitations of bourgeois
democracy in order to transcend it, but in essence a strong authoritarian
approach to political activity. It will be interesting to see what
Mussolini's attitude towards democracy in the labour movement was during his
left-wing days.

Not a few French leftists did little or nothing to help the campaign to free
Dreyfus, seeing it as a squabble amongst bourgeois factions, some even
opposed involvement in the campaign because they were anti-Jewish, seeing
Jews as the concentrated essence of bourgeois society. (It must be
remembered that Proudhon was virulently anti-Jewish, amongst his other vile
prejudices.) Others saw something positive in the rise of the right-wing
populist Boulanger; Engels took Marx's son-in-law Paul Lafargue to task for
doing this.

This authoritarian leftism leading to a slide to the far right and fascism
has something of a melancholy tradition in France. Sorel, Vaillant and
others were followed in the 1930s by Doriot, a PCF leader in Paris who took
much of his support in the PCF into fascism with the People's Party of
France, and Marcel Déat, a leading Socialist Party theoretician who (like
the Belgian socialist Henri de Man) developed an authoritarian, statist
brand of socialism that led them both into collaborating with the Nazi
occupation of France and Belgium.

Paul F




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