Re: Deleuze-Guattari

[Wojtek Sokolowski <sokol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

At 05:40 PM 10/7/97 -0400, Louis Proyect wrote, inter alia:

>The important question for Marxists is why these irrational ideologies get
>a mass following. I explain this in terms of economic crisis. Fascism
>arises at a time when there is great unemployment and/or hyperinflation and
>in societies that have a rather well-developed working-class movement, such
>as Italy, Spain and Germany. The fascist movement gains a middle-class base
>because it stresses a "national socialism", one that rises above the class
>antagonisms of Bolshevism. This message has an enormous appeal to the
>shopkeeper and farmer, who were ruined by the capitalist class and
>inconvenienced by working-class militancy.



Just a minor comment in support.  Not long ago I did number crunching for
someone who's researching the emergence of Nazism between 1925 and 1930 (his
idea is that the success of Nazism lies in its clever network building
strategy), trying to find a pattern among the themes of Nazi public speeches
(based on archival data) in that period.  Although no clear-cut patterns
emerged thus far, one thing is pretty clear: Jew and Bolshevik bashing were
never a central theme (in terms of incidence) of Nazi speeches; moreover,
there seems to be an inverse relationship between the incidence of Jew
bashing and the popularity of the movement, and a positive relationship
between Bolshevik bashing and the movement's popularity.

Thus, anti-semitism featured in 6.2% of the sample (N=1,052 events), broken
down by the period: 7.9% between 1925 and mid 1927; 5.3% between mid 1927
and mid 1929; and 4% between mid 1929 and end 1930 -- a nearly 50% drop as
the movement popularity grew.

Anti-communism featured in 8.7% of the sample, broken down by the period:
7.1% between 1925 and mid 1927; 9% between mid 1927 and mis 1929; and 11.3%
between mis 1929 and end 1930 -- a hefty increase as the nazi popularity grew.

Moreover, as the Nazi movement started gaining popularity in early 1930, the
themes of the economy and the prospects of the feature became most salient.
This seems to suggest that Nazis become popular not because of their
Kulturkampf and Jew hating, but because they were able to offer a more
appealing vision of the economic development than that of the Left at that time.

A lesson for the 1990s: identity politics, either ethnicity- or
ideology-based, is a cul de sac, a losing proposition; a winning proposition
is a sexy vision of the economic future.

wojtek sokolowski
institute for policy studies
johns hopkins university
baltimore, md 21218
sokol@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
voice: (410) 516-4056
fax:   (410) 516-8233

POLITICS IS THE SHADOW CAST ON SOCIETY BY BIG BUSINESS. AND AS LONG AS THIS
IS SO, THE ATTENUATI0N OF THE SHADOW WILL NOT CHANGE THE SUBSTANCE.
- John Dewey