The Nature Of Fascism Revisited [1st Edition] 0880336668, 9780880336666

Leading experts review the theory and historiography of fascism, discussing how developments within the social sciences

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The Nature Of Fascism Revisited [1st Edition]
 0880336668, 9780880336666

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Table of contents :
Cover......Page 1
Title......Page 2
Title - complete......Page 4
Copyright......Page 5
Dedication......Page 6
Contents......Page 8
List of Figures and Tables......Page 10
Preface and acknowledgements......Page 12
1 - Fascists: A 'revolutionary right' in interwar Europe......Page 20
2 - The origins of fascist ideology: the sternhell debate......Page 48
3 - New interpretations (I): The constituencies of fascism......Page 66
4 - New interpretations (II): Conceptual problems......Page 82
5. Fascism, dictators, and charisma......Page 98
6. Ruling elites, political institutions, and decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships: Comparative perspectives......Page 108
7. Fascism, corporatism, and authoritarian institutions in interwar European dictatorships......Page 138
Index......Page 170

Citation preview

Contributors: Pedro Tavares de Almeida, New University of Lisbon; João Pereira Coutinho, New University of Lisbon; André Freire, Lisbon University Institute; Carlos Jalali, University of Aveiro; Pedro Magalhães, University of Lisbon; Diogo Moreira, University of Lisbon; Maria Teresa Paulo, Portuguese Parliament, Lisbon; Nuno Piçarra, New University of Lisbon; António Costa Pinto, University of Lisbon; Madalena Meyer Resende, New University of Lisbon; Sebastian Royo, Suffolk University; João Pedro Ruivo, New University of Lisbon; Nuno Severiano Teixeira, New University of Lisbon; Maarten Vink, Maastricht University

For information on books of related interest Columbia University Press 61 West 62nd Street, New York, NY 10023 212-459-0600 For customer service inquiries please contact: Perseus Distribution by phone at 1-800-343-4499 For customers in The United Kingdom, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, South Asia, and South Africa: e-mail: [email protected] Columbia University Press c/o John Wiley 1 Oldlands Way Bognor Regis West Sussex PO 22 9SA United Kingdom

The Europeanization of Portuguese Democracy

NUNO SEVERIANO TEIXEIRA is a professor of international relations and director of the Portuguese Institute of International Relations, New University of Lisbon. He holds a doctorate from the European University Institute, Florence. He has been a visiting professor at Georgetown University and, from 2006 to 2009, was Portugal’s minister of defence. He has published extensively on Portuguese foreign policy and on military history, including: L’entrée du Portugal dans la Grande Guerre: objectifs nationaux et stratégies politiques (1998). He co-edited Southern Europe and the making of the European Union (2002); and edited The international politics of democratization (2008).

Driven primarily by political concerns to secure democracy, Portugal’s accession to the EU in 1986 also served as a catalyst for dynamic economic development following a complex process of democratization and the decolonization of Europe’s last empire. This book analyses how the European Union has helped shape the political process in Portugal on key institutions, elites, and its citizen’s attitudes.

Of interest to the general reader as well as the specialist, this book analyses how the European Union has helped shape the political process in Portugal on key institutions, elites, and its citizen’s attitudes. Driven primarily by political concerns to secure democracy, Portugal’s accession to the EU in 1986 also served as a catalyst for dynamic economic development following a complex process of democratization and the decolonization of Europe’s last empire.

Edited by Nuno Severiano Teixeira and António Costa Pinto

ANTÓNIO COSTA PINTO is a Research professor at Institute of Social Sciences, University of Lisbon. He holds a doctorate from the European University Institute, Florence. He has been a visiting professor at Stanford University (1993) and Georgetown University (2004), and a senior visiting fellow at Princeton University (1996) and at the University of California, Berkeley (2010). He has co-edited recently Southern Europe and the Making of the European Union (2002); Ruling Elites and Decision-Making in Fascist-Era Dictatorships (2009); and Dealing with the Legacy of Authoritarianism. The “Politics of the Past in Southern European Democracies (2011).

!"#$%&!'(#$)*$*&+,-+. (#/-+-!#0 ANTÓNIO COSTA PINTO

SOCIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS Distributed by Columbia University Press www.cup.columbia.edu

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SOCIAL SCIENCE MONOGRAPHS

Jacket design by Joaquim António Silva

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DISTRIBUTED BY COLUMBIA UNIVERSITY PRESS, NEW YORK 2012

© 2012 António Costa Pinto ISBN 978-0-88033-666-6 Library of Congress Control Number: 2009939128 Printed in the United States of America

For my son Filipe

Contents

1.

List of Figures and Tables

vii

!"#

Preface and acknowledgements

ix

!"#

Fascists: A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

1

$"#

The origins of fascist ideology: The Sternhell debate

29

%"#

New interpretations (I): The constituencies of fascism

47

&"#

New interpretations (II): Conceptual problems

63

'"#

Fascism, dictators, and charisma

79

("#

Ruling elites, political institutions, and decisionmaking in fascist-era dictatorships: Comparative perspectives

89

)"#

Fascism, corporatism, and authoritarian institutions in interwar European dictatorships 119

$"#

Index

151

List of Figures and Tables

Figures 5.1

The charismatic triangle

Tables 5.1 6.1 6.2 7.1

Forms of political legitimation Ministers’ occupational background (%) Political offices held by ministers (%) Dictatorship and corporatism in Europe (1918–45)

82

85 108 109 125

Preface and acknowledgements

The topics explored in this book relate to empirical research and theoretical reflections on fascism I have been conducting for some time. Over the past few decades, the historiography of fascism has integrated contributions from political science as well as the historical research that partially erased segments of the para-Marxist ‘economicist’ approach dominant during the 1970s, and which did not do justice to the many perspectives on the autonomy of ideology in political and cultural change.1 Of course, many of the changes are also limited to reflect the impact of new social science paradigms and the emergence of more culturalist interpretations, and some of the old cleavages remain present. However, the emergence of new themes for research, such as those of symbolic and political mobilization, violence and genocide, gender, or the relationship between fascism and religion, has been important.2 As Adrian Lyttelton noted, ‘the greatest advance (over recent decades) has certainly come from taking fascist values and ideology seriously.’3 Although historians dominate current research on fascism, it is clear they will continue to be influenced by other social science disciplines in the future. Indeed, Juan J. Linz may very well be the political scientist who has left the greatest mark on the historiography of fascism and dictatorships, and Michael Mann’s Fascists represented a welcome return from the best traditions of comparative historical sociology towards the analysis of fascism and its role in the crises and collapse of democracy.4 On the other hand, the ‘big world’ of 20th-century dictatorships has again become an important field 1

D. D. Roberts, ‘Fascism, Marxism, and the question of modern revolution’, European Journal of Political Theory 9, no 2, 2010, pp. 183 –201.

2

For an overview see A. C. Pinto, ed., Rethinking the nature of fascism, London, 2011.

3

A. Lyttelton, ‘Concluding remarks’, in Pinto, Rethinking, p. 272.

4

M. Mann, Fascists, Cambridge, 2004.

x

The nature of fascism revisited

of study.5 Some of the interwar authoritarian political institutions expanded across the world following the end of the Second World War and, as we shall see below – as another ‘-ism’ of ideologies, political movements, and regimes – comparison should not be confined simply to the phenomena that have been labeled fascist. In recent years social science literature has returned to the matter of the factors leading to the survival or downfall of the dictatorships and dictators: the construction of legitimacy, the regimes’ capacity to distribute resources, divisions within the power coalitions, the political institutions of the dictatorships, their capacity for survival, and the cost-benefit analysis of rebellion.6 On the other hand, the survival (and appearance) of several dictatorships after the end of the Cold War, and particularly the increasing complexity of their institutions, has led to a new field of study into the hybrid nature of many contemporary political regimes that were already present in the political landscape of the era of fascism’ The essays in this book point in that direction, reassessing such dimensions as decision-making and institutions, legislatures, and parties, which are most typically integral to a dictatorial regime. Chapter one, ‘Fascists: A “revolutionary right” in interwar Europe,’ is intended for the general reader and seeks to present a descriptive and analytical overview of the state of the art in respect of European fascism.7 Since the 1930s many observers and researchers have regularly returned to the classic questions: Who were the fascists? How did they grow? Who supported them? And what were the conditions most conducive to their rise? The structure of this chapter follows the three-stage cycle of fascism: (1) the creation of the movements and their role in the interwar political spectrum, (2) the seizure of power, and (3) the exercise of power. In the conclusion I present the hypothesis that certain characteristics of fascism in power are the common patrimony of 20th-century right-wing dictatorships, with some even prospering after the ‘end of fascism’ in 1945: the ultra-nationalism, the communitarian and/or corporatist relationship between the state and civil society, the single party, and the anti-communism. These themes are developed systematically in the chapters that follow. 5

N. Ezrow and E. Frantz, Dictators and dictatorships: Understanding authoritarian regimes and their leaders, London, 2011.

6

J. Gandhi, Political institutions under dictatorships, Cambridge, 2008; M. W. Svolik, The politics of authoritarian rule, New York, 2012.

7

Originally published in N. Atkin and M. Bidiss, eds, Themes in modern European history, 1890-1945, London, 2009, pp. 215–41.

Preface and acknowledgements

xi

Chapter two, ‘The origins of fascist ideology: The Sternhell debate’, revisits the theme of fascist ideology.8 The subject of the ideological origins of fascism has mobilized a considerable number of historians and the ‘ideology versus political praxis and institutions’ debate is still very much present in the field. Some of these works were anticipated by the theses systematized by the Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell. His work, however, is part of a specific interpretative approach that tends to focus on the contributions of ideological families not traditionally associated with fascism, as in the cases of socialism or of revolutionary syndicalism. These authors tend to consider there to be a strict separation between fascism and the conservative right, and they focus on the revolutionary character of its ideology and political practice as well as in its left-wing origins. However, even within this current of thought we find a vast spectrum of positions among which the provocative theses of Sternhell were individualized. His major works, and especially his book Neither left nor right, gave rise to a very interesting debate in 1980s.9 For Sternhell, the crisis of liberalism at the time of the eruption of the masses into political life produced fascism as an ideology. The name did not yet exist, but its corpus was already formed. All Sternhell’s work is aimed at proving this double genealogy through a study of the contributions made by its various agents. Chapter two is an overview of this debate and a critique of the ambiguities running through Sternhell’s work. Chapters three and four provide a critical overview of new interpretations based on two review articles in which some major works on fascism are debated: Michael Mann’s Fascists and R. O. Paxton’s The anatomy of fascism.10 The first book asks the classic questions: Who were the fascists? How did they grow? Who supported them? And what are the conditions most conducive to their taking power? Mann attempts to construct a dynamic model that is not merely a taxonomy of fascism. Like Mann’s study, The anatomy of fascism is also a critical reaction to some aspects of the ideological centrism of recent years. Because it was written by a historian, criticism of culturalism is more present in Paxton’s book, with the author more marked than Mann by the historiographical debates. By claiming ‘what fascists did tells us at least as much as what they said ’ (a stance criticised by historians such as Sternhell and Roger Griffin), Paxton attempts to locate the ideas in their rightful place. 8

Originally published in European History Quarterly 16, 1986, pp. 465–83.

9

Originally published in French, his major works were later published in English as Neither left nor right: Fascist ideology in France, Princeton, NJ, 1995 and The birth of fascist ideology, Princeton, NJ, 1995 (with M. Snajder and M. Asheri).

10 Originally published in Contemporary European History 15, no 1, 2006, pp. 103–15, and 21, no 2, 2012, pp. 287–300.

xii

The nature of fascism revisited

If Mann’s research concentrates on the conditions leading to the growth of fascist movements, Paxton’s studies the processes involved in their seizure of power and the nature of the resulting regimes. The comparative study of European fascism, whether as a movement or as a form of political regime, has undergone a remarkable empirical development, albeit within important conceptual limitations. Today we have at our disposal a significant number of monographs and comparative studies on interwar fascist movements, even although the fluidity of the radical right during the interwar period has at times led to the appearance of a classificatory essentialism that is only interesting when operationalized. Para-fascism, semi-fascism, clerico-fascism, ‘fascistized,’ and other adjectives have been used and abused in the historiography, albeit with some justification. In fact, as a regime type, the fascist concept has travelled neither far nor well, even within Europe. A second limitation, debated in chapter four, is the intuitive and dysfunctional use of the concept of totalitarianism. It is interesting to note that after more than 60 years of use, its adoption by historians, initially with many reservations, is still not generally operationalized. However, the most important challenge will be the chronological and thematic enlargement of the comparison. In fact, Italian Fascism and German National Socialism provided powerful institutional and political inspiration for other regimes; their types of leadership, institutions, and operating methods already encapsulating the dominant models of the 20th-century dictatorship at least in three domains: personalised leadership, the single- or dominant-party, and the technicoconsultative and corporatist political institutions. These are the themes addressed in the remaining chapters. The central concerns of chapter five, the concluding chapter of a book resulting from a research project on charisma and fascism, and written with my colleague and friend Stein U. Larsen, were to decide on how a distinct ideological color or event determined what kind of charisma a particular leader exerted or will develop, whilst being put at the head of a distinct fascist movement or regime.11 Did all fascist leaders behave in the same manner? And did they convey the same message to their national movements and audiences? More directly, can we claim ideology, with its national characteristics, was the main determining force of the fascist leaders? While in a very embryonic form, we seek to answer this question with what we have called the charismatic triangle, which illustrates the distinction between three aspects of the 11 A. C. Pinto and S. U. Larsen, ‘Conclusion: Fascism, dictators and charisma’, Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions 7, no 2, 2006, pp. 251–7. This is the conclusion of a collective work in which some of the themes are yet to be developed; however, it seemed to me useful to republish it unaltered here.

Preface and acknowledgements

xiii

charismatic ‘calling’: the individual leader, the followers, and the triggering event. In order to succeed, all dictators depended upon the interplay within these three fields. Firstly, the dictator must install themself as a charismatic figure; then they must appeal to their followers as a charismatic leader; finally, they must locate or invent an event demanding an unusual response or solution. Every fascist dictator had to possess some individual abilities that made them extraordinary: they needed followers to understand or appreciate and to connect these qualities. Finally, there must be a situation or an event requiring these unusual abilities, or which call for the reconstruction of the regime in such a way as to allow the application of new solutions to problems. The charismatic triangle stresses the interplay between these poles. Chapter six, ‘Ruling elites, political institutions, and decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships’ has a long history. It began as an article and became better known following a debate with D. D. Roberts.12 Some years later the article became the basis for a project on the theme, which gave rise to a book.13 The basis for this research project emerged with the creation of the ICS dataset on the fascist elite, which includes complete prosographical data on the ministers of Fascist Italy, Nazi Germany, Franco’s Spain, and Salazar’s Portugal. This chapter explores an underdeveloped area in the study of fascism and right-wing dictatorships, viz, the structure of power. As monocratic regimes, dictatorships have been characterized as ‘the selectorate of one’: the dictator, whose power remains significant. However, dictators do not rule alone, and a governing elite stratum is always formed below them. The old and rich tradition of elite studies can tell us much about the structure and operation of political power in the dictatorships associated with fascism, whether through the characterization of the socio-professional structure or by the modes of political elite recruitment that express the extent of its rupture and/or continuity with the liberal regime, the type of leadership, and the relative power of the political institutions in the new dictatorial system. Analyzing four regimes associated with fascism (Nazi Germany, Fascist Italy, Franco’s Spain, and Salazar’s Portugal) from this perspective, chapter six investigates the dictator-cabinet-single party triad from a comparative perspective. 12 See A. C. Pinto, ‘Elites, single parties and political decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships’, Contemporary European History 11, no 3, 2002, pp. 429–54; D. D. Roberts, ‘Comment: Fascism, single-party dictatorships, and the search for a comparative framework’; and my reply, ‘State, dictators and single parties: Where are the fascist regimes?’, Contemporary European History 11, no 3, 2002, pp. 455–61 and 462–6. 13 A. C. Pinto, ed., Ruling elites and decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships, New York, 2009.

xiv

The nature of fascism revisited

In the seventh and final chapter ‘Fascism, corporatism, and authoritarian institutions in interwar European dictatorships’, we examine the role of corporatism as a political device against liberal democracy, a device that permeated the political right during the first wave of democratization, and especially as a set of authoritarian institutions that spread across interwar Europe and which was an agent for the hybridization of the institutions of fascist-era dictatorships. Powerful processes of institutional transfers were a hallmark of interwar dictatorships, and here it is argued corporatism was at the forefront of this process, both as a new form of organized interest representation and as an authoritarian alternative to parliamentary democracy. The diffusion of political and social corporatism, which with the single-party are hallmarks of the institutional transfers among European dictatorships, challenges some rigid dichotomous interpretations of interwar fascism. *** While some adaptations have been made to the texts included in this volume, it is important for the reader to be aware the chapters were written independently and that there will inevitably be some repetition, particularly of citations and references.14 With that out of the way, I would like to record my thanks to those colleagues and friends to whom I owe a debt of gratitude. The first are, naturally, Stanley G. Payne and Juan J. Linz, from whom I have learned a great deal on the themes addressed in this book and with whom I have debated and discussed several of the topics contained herein. Chapter one was revised at the invitation of Nicolas Atkin, and has also benefited from the careful comments of Michael Bidiss. Chapter two, on the Sternhell polemic, was discussed with Stanley G. Payne, Martin Blinkhorn, and the late George L. Mosse. I later had the opportunity to collaborate with Zeev Sternhell, with whom I maintain frequent dialogue. During this period, Emilio Gentile, one of Italy’s more renowned historians of fascism, was also an active presence in many of the projects I had developed. Some of these chapters were also discussed with an informal working group on fascism that met regularly in the Institute of Social Science of the University of Lisbon, of which Aristotle Kallis, Michel Dobry, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, Stein U. Larsen, Didier Musiedlak, Stephen FischerGalati, and Gerhard Botz were the most regular attendees, and who were joined more recently by David D. Roberts, Constantin Iordachi, Kevin Passmore, John Pollard, Giulia Albanese, Adrian Lyttelton, Miguel Jerez Mir, Mary Vincent, and Goffredo Adinolfi. I would also like to mention Philippe 14 For example, this is the case with definitions such as those by Mann and Paxton, which are outlined in chapter one and then repeated and explained in chapter three, and in some other cases that will be evident to the reader.

Preface and acknowledgements

xv

C. Schmitter, author of several pioneering studies on corporatism, both comparative and in relation to the Portuguese case. I have constantly come across his writing ever since my time at Stanford and Florence in the 1980s and can say that his work has always been a source of inspiration to me. I would also like to thank the Institute of Social Science of the University of Lisbon and the Portuguese Foundation for Science and Technology for their generous support for the research for chapters six and seven (grants PTDC/HAH/65818/2006 and PTDC/HIS-HIS/100544/2008), and Stewart Lloyd-Jones of CPHRC Editorial Services, who originally translated most of the material in this book from Portuguese, for editing the texts and preparing them for publication. Finally, I would like to record my gratitude to Routledge, Sage, and Cambridge University Press for authorizing the republication of chapters one and five, chapter two, and chapters three and four, respectively.

#

António Costa Pinto Lisbon, August 2012

1

Fascists: A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

When on 23 March 1919, in Milan, around 100 people attended a meeting at which Benito Mussolini officially launched Fascism, those present could not have imagined they were coining what would become one of the 20th century’s most used concepts.1 Yet it is here that we must begin, as part of the ideological and political character of the founding group gave identifying traits to a generic fascism that appeared throughout Europe during the first half of the 20th century. The revolutionary, anti-capitalist, and radical nationalist discourse; the militarized party, anti-communism, and the radical critique of liberal democracy; the electoral tactics and the political violence – all of these became regular features of fascism, irrespective of its national variations. 2 At the beginning of the 1930s, when Mussolini was creating his new state from his position of authority, and while National Socialism was being transformed into a movement with vast electoral support in Germany, almost all European countries had broadly similar parties of their own. Although the factors conditioning their emergence and the extent of their success varied from case to case, they were all easily identified by the common citizen as fascist. The speed with which at least some of them obtained power had an appropriate symbol: Mussolini had become head of government only three years after the foundation of his party. 1

See A. Lyttelton, Seizure of power: Fascism in Italy, 1919–29, 2nd ed., London, 2004. The concept itself derives from the Latin fascis (plural fasces): a bundle of rods lashed together around a protruding axe blade symbolizing the unity, strength and discipline of the magistracy in ancient Rome. This image would feature strongly in the visual propaganda developed by Mussolini’s movement.

2

R. Griffin, The nature of fascism, 2nd ed., London, 1993, pp. 26–52.

2

The nature of fascism revisited

In 1932,Oswald Mosley founded the British Union of Fascists in the UK and Rolão Preto created the National Syndicalist Movement (MNS – Movimento Nacional-Sindicalista) in Portugal.3 The following year, José Antonio Primo de Rivera established the Falange (Falange Española) in Spain and Vidkun Quisling set up National Unity (Nasjonal Samling) in Norway.4 Despite failing to achieve significant electoral success within the democracies, the diversity of their destinies typifies much of the history of fascist parties between the wars. While Mosley never seriously troubled Britain’s democracy, the MNS was banned in 1934 by Portugal’s new Catholic dictator, António de Oliveira Salazar. In neighboring Spain, following the execution of its leader and despite its weak electoral support, the Falange lent some of its program and political activism to General Francisco Franco, where it was transformed into the founding nucleus of his single party after his victory over the Spanish Second Republic. In Norway it was thought that, following defeat after defeat within the parliamentary system, there was no room for local fascism; however, the German occupation in 1940 changed Quisling’s luck and raised him to a position of prominence, even if the Nazis never allowed him any real power. The new order in Nazi-occupied Europe was incoherent, and many fascist groups died at the hands of their right-wing competitors. This was to be the fate of what had been perhaps the most successful fascist movement in Eastern Europe, the Iron Guard (Garda de Fier), which, after briefly holding power in Romania, was eliminated by General Antonescu.5 The enemies of fascism readily bracketed it with many other movements of the extreme right. Yet its relations with rival conservative and right-wing parties and groups were not always easy, and the consolidation of dictatorships involved several combinations. In the cases of Italy and Germany the fascists dominated; in some instances, such as Franco’s Spain and Englebert Dollfuss’ Austria, they became junior parties in anti-democratic right-wing coalitions. There was also the kind of relationship which, in the further case of Salazar’s Portugal (or in Getúlio Vargas’s Brazil), led to the eventual elimination of fascism. Such tactical ambiguities, together with the Nazis’ radical contribution to bringing about the Second World War and the Holocaust, have made fascism and its legacy a fiercely debated topic. Since the 1930s many observers 3

R. Thurlow, Fascism in Britain: A history, 1918–1985, Oxford, 1987; A. C. Pinto, The Blue Shirts: Portuguese fascism in interwar Europe, New York, 2000.

4

S. G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977, Madison, WI, 1999; H. F. Dahl, Quisling: A study in treachery, Cambridge, 1995.

5

R. Ioanid, The sword of the Archangel: Fascist ideology in Romania, New York, 1990.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

3

and researchers have regularly returned to the classic questions: Who were the fascists? How did they grow? Who supported them? And what were the conditions most conducive to their rise? The structure of this discussion follows the three-stage cycle of fascism: (1) the creation of the movements and their role in the interwar political spectrum, (2) the seizure of power, and (3) the exercise of power. However, we first need to take a small detour into the world of definitions, which are particularly extensive in this subject. Defining fascism The sociologist Michael Mann has presented a particularly useful definition of fascism, in which he identifies three fundamentals: key values, actions, and power organizations. He sees it as ‘the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism’.6 This suggests five essential aspects, some of which have internal tensions: ƒ Nationalism: the ‘deep and populist commitment to an “organic” or “integral” nation’. ƒ Statism: the goals and organizational forms that are involved when the organic conception imposes an authoritarian state ‘embodying a singular, cohesive will [as] expressed by a party elite adhering to the “leadership principle”.’ ƒ Transcendence: the typical neither/nor of fascism as a third way – that is, as something transcending the conventional structures of left and right. Mann stresses that the core constituency of fascist support can be understood only by taking its aspirations to transcendence seriously. ‘Nation and state comprised their centre of gravity: not class.’ ƒ Cleansing: ‘Most fascisms entwined both ethnic and political cleansing, though to differing degrees.’ ƒ Paramilitarism: as a key element both in values and in organizational form. Like previous analysts, Mann notes that ‘what essentially distinguishes fascists from many military and monarchical dictatorships of the world is [the] “bottom-up” and violent quality of its paramilitarism. It could bring popularity, both electorally and among elites.’ All this is not too far removed from other definitions of fascism, notably that suggested by Stanley G. Payne in his wide-ranging study.7 For Robert 6

M. Mann, Fascists, Cambridge, 2004, p. 13. Further elements quoted from Mann’s definition come from the pages immediately following.

7

Based on the table, ‘Typological description of fascism’, in S. G. Payne, A history of fascism, 1914–1945, Madison, 1995, p. 7.

4

The nature of fascism revisited

Paxton: ‘Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood, and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elite groups, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence, and without ethical or legal restraints, goals of internal cleansing and external expansion’.8 Some points are common to the definitions offered by Mann and Paxton. Perhaps the most important is the emphasis on ideology, collective action, and organization. This allows Paxton to stress that ‘what fascists did tells us at least as much as what they said.’ 9 Or, as Mann puts it, ‘without power organizations, ideas cannot actually do anything’ – which means we must add programs, actions, and organizations to the analysis.10 Such approaches illustrate the more general point that in recent years the comparative study of fascism has become increasingly concerned with ideological and cultural dimensions – at times becoming ideology-centered. We could even say that the analysis of so-called generic fascism has moved from a sociological to a more political perspective, giving both ideology and culture much more importance than was previously the case. The fascists: Where, when, who, how and why? While acknowledging the culture of fascism extended to other continents (most notably Latin America), most historians would agree with Roger Eatwell’s description of it as being ‘European-epochal.’11 This reflects a consensus about its main placement in terms not simply of geography but also of periodization, with particular reference to the years between 1918 and 1945. From the beginning of the 20th century, several movements and ideological currents were already coming to embody some of the cultural and political principles from which the magma of fascism was to emerge. Historians such as Zeev Sternhell attempted to prove that the ideological synthesis of fascism was born in France on the eve of the First World War.12 Without doubt, it 8

R. O. Paxton, The anatomy of fascism, London, 2005, p. 218.

9

Ibid.

10 M. Mann, Fascists, p. 12. 11 R. Eatwell, ‘Towards a new model of generic fascism’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 4, no 2, 1992, pp. 161–94. 12

Z. Sternhell, The birth of fascist ideology, Princeton, 1995; Z. Sternhell, Neither right nor left: Fascist ideology in France, Princeton, 1995.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

5

is possible to identify doctrinal precursors of fascism within that country: the radical socialist nationalism of Maurice Barrès, the integral nationalism of Charles Maurras’ neo-royalist Action Française, and the revolutionary syndicalism of Georges Valois. A large part of what was to become the fascist program – with its radical nationalism, its anti-democratic stance, its communitarian and corporatist alternative, and its anti-socialist third way – were all present in the European cultural milieu from the beginning of the century. However, it is equally important to recognize fascism cannot be separated from a new type of political formation that appeared in the wake of the 1914–18 conflict: the ‘revolutionary’ militia party. Adopting the rhetoric of ‘neither left nor right’, the fascists relied here on an innovative brand of organization characteristic of the era of mass movements and of postwar European democratization. Where do the fascists fit into the political scene of interwar Europe? Michael Mann frames the growth of fascism around four crises: ‘war between mass citizen armies, severe class conflict exacerbated by the Great Depression, the political crises arising from the attempts of many countries at a rapid transition toward a democratic nation-state, and a cultural sense of civilizational contradiction and decay.’13 Although these crises weakened the ability of elites to perpetuate their natural role as leaders within society, fascism offered solutions in every case. With further reference to these challenges, Mann suggests this type of movement ‘was strongest where we find distinct combinations of all four’. The problem remains, however, that many of the cleavages analyzed previously are really those of authoritarianism in general. Italian Fascism presented itself as an anti-party that was particularly hostile to communism. It had its own progressive social program, with nationalism as the driving force of its political action. The initial anti-capitalist features were very quickly removed from the movement’s agenda following its failure in the 1919 elections. However, the most important change took place in 1920, with the emergence of squadrismo in the agricultural areas of the Po Valley and Tuscany. Having begun as a largely urban Jacobin and revolutionary movement, fascism now acquired the profile of an armed militia financed by the rural landowners and in violent conflict with the socialists and agricultural unions. In a very short space of time, it won over many supporters through a more authoritarian nationalist program. By the end of 1920 the movement had more

13

Mann, Fascists, p. 23.

6

The nature of fascism revisited

than 20,000 members, by May 1921 it had 35 parliamentary deputies, and by July its membership was approaching 200,000.14 The confirmation of Mussolini as the undisputed leader of the party was no easy task, as part of his success rested with the ras (the powerful local party chiefs), who did not always accept the pacts he attempted to negotiate with the conservatives when they imposed limits on squadrista violence. It was only with some difficulty that Mussolini was able to transform the Fasci into the National Fascist Party (PNF – Partito Nazionale Fascista), which consecrated the position of Il Duce. Although it was a minority element at the parliamentary level, the PNF developed very rapidly into a mass party of the new militia kind – not only because of its armed units, but also ‘because its organization, its political culture, its ideology, and its way of life were derived from squadrismo.’15 The seizure of power in Italy was the product of a series of crises in which the fascists became active participants. Despite the choreography of the March on Rome, they were called to power by the king under the terms of the constitution. However, a role was also played by the fascist activities that were taking place under the cover of a semi-peaceful insurrection – one that resulted in the occupation of dozens of public buildings, train stations, and other locations without any repressive response from the government. Military intervention might have resolved the situation, but as this did not occur Mussolini was able to negotiate his takeover of power with the liberal politicians. While Italy had to wait one more year for the Fascist dictatorship to fully assert itself, the truth remains that ‘for the first time in the history of the European liberal democracies, parliamentary government had been entrusted to the leader of a militia party who repudiated the values of liberal democracy and proclaimed the revolutionary intention of transforming the state in an anti-democratic direction.’16 Compared with the Italian fascist movement, Nazism in Germany consolidated itself much more slowly, but then arrived in power with a greater political and electoral strength. When in 1921 Adolf Hitler imposed himself as the leader of the small extremist racist grouping that Anton Drexler had founded two years before, the program of the new National Socialist German Workers’ Party (NSDAP – Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei) underwent some conservative alterations. The most fundamental changes took place in the party’s discourse and in its organization. Hitler’s targets 14 E. Gentile, ‘The Fascist party’, in C. P. Blamires, ed., World fascism: A historical overview, vol. 1, Santa Barbara, CA, 2006, p. 226. 15 Ibid., p. 227. 16 Ibid., p. 228.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

7

were the humiliation caused by the Versailles Treaty, together with the Jewish and Marxist conspiracies that had served to bring this about. As for the structural shifts, these included a concentration of leadership in a single person – one renowned for his oratorical skills – increased discipline within the party’s paramilitary formation, and the creation of the protective squadron (SS – Schutzstaffel) as a squad of personal bodyguards for the Führer. In November 1923 Hitler became increasingly visible in the press, having led, with General Ludendorff, the attempted Munich putsch, following which the Nazi party was banned and Hitler sentenced to five years’ imprisonment. However, the Nazi leader was only to serve nine months, during which time he wrote the first part of Mein Kampf: a confused mixture of political ideas. In 1926 the party was restored to legality, and Hitler succeeded in controlling its local bosses and in returning to its leadership after outmaneuvering his rival, Gregor Strasser. The economic crisis and its impact on the young Weimar democracy were reflected in the electoral polarization that favored Hitler much more clearly than fascists in any other democracy. Between 1928 and 1930 the Nazi Party’s support increased from 2.6 to 18.3 per cent. Under conditions of mass unemployment, increasingly authoritarian measures, and some political violence, the NSDAP won the biggest share of the vote (37.3 per cent) in the elections of June 1932. Although this fell to 33.1 per cent in a further poll five months later, Nazism had more popular backing than its Italian counterpart ten years earlier, maintaining the characteristics of a fascist party with an extremist program and a paramilitary praxis. Like Mussolini, Hitler arrived in power by broadly constitutional means, occupying the Reich Chancellery at the invitation of President Hindenburg. Although several conservative politicians pressed for this choice in January 1933, Hitler then proceeded swiftly to marginalize them. Furthermore, the pace at which he dismantled the democratic system and dealt with dissident elements among his own stormtroopers (SA – Sturmabteilung) was similarly impressive. What did fascism offer the conservatives in Italy and Germany that led them to choose this option instead of other possible alternatives? As Paxton puts it, ‘the fascists offered a new recipe for governing with popular support, but without any sharing of power with the left, and without any threat to conservative social and economic privileges and political dominance. The conservatives, for their part, held the keys to the door of power.’17 At the beginning of the 1930s, with the rise of German National Socialism and Italian Fascism, the effect of contagion began to be very significant, and broadly similar parties emerged in almost every European country. 17 Paxton, Anatomy, p. 102.

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However, the successes of Hitler and Mussolini were not easily replicated: not all the crises of democracy provoked a distinctively fascist response. This is particularly true where the authoritarian elite held power without fascist help. As we shall see below, conservative regimes often provided unfavorable terrain for fascism to attain power. In some other cases, it was the decision of the conservatives that was at the root of fascist success. In Italy and Germany, the crises favored the fascists and they were co-opted into power. The role of the masses in the crisis of interwar democracies also needs some clarification. Most cases of authoritarian takeover in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s involved a problem that can be usefully analyzed through the model of polarized pluralism developed by Giovanni Sartori. He states that ‘party systems (and the party elite) must restrain the forces of polarity inherent in political democracies. If party systems fail to constrain both the ideological range and the number of parties … centrifugal forces will tear democracy apart.’18 However, as Nancy Bermeo suggests, ordinary people are the ‘stonemasons of polarization’ in only a very small number of cases.19 Thus it can be argued that elite polarization was much more important in the breakdown of democracy during the epoch in question. In the case of France, historians have devised an abundance of classificatory polemics concerning extreme right-wing movements during the interwar period, and it has often been asserted by French writers that the country possessed an allergy to fascism.20 Although these organizations came close to subverting the democratic order in 1934, their success had to await the coming of the Second World War. During the 1930s, the many French extraparliamentary leagues developed more or less obvious links with employers’ groups, the royalist elite, and traditionalist Catholics. 21 They also came together in a number of violent anti-government demonstrations with conspiratorial undertones in 1934. Of the numerous extreme-right bodies, the most important was Colonel François de la Rocque’s Croix de Feu (Cross of Fire). However, the victory of the left in the 1936 elections and the formation of a Popular Front government led to bans on most of the leagues. In this same year, Jacques Doriot, a dissident communist, created the French Popular 18 G. Sartori, Parties and party systems: A framework for analysis, New York, 1976, pp. 132–4. 19 This is the term used by N. Bermeo, Ordinary people in extraordinary times: The citizenry and the breakdown of democracy, Princeton, 2003. 20

M. Winock, Nationalism, anti-Semitism and fascism in France, Stanford, 1998.

21 B. Jenkins, ed., France in the era of fascism: Essays on the French authoritarian right, Oxford, 2004.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

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Party (PPF – Parti Populaire Français), which was the most ‘working-class’ of all the fascist groupings. However, once again the most serious challenge stemmed from the Croix de Feu, which transformed itself into the French Social Party (PSF – Parti Social Français). According to Paxton, the PSF was the only far-right movement ‘that achieved mass catch-all party status between 1936 and 1940,’ with a radical nationalist and anti-parliamentary program that was nevertheless not anti-Semitic.22 When de la Rocque turned to the electoral struggle, he moderated his program and abandoned his paramilitary style; however, he was never to compete directly for votes, as the 1940 elections did not take place because of the advent of war. The Belgian Rexist movement founded by Léon Degrelle sprang from Catholic traditionalism. Degrelle was a young militant, whose journal Christus Rex (Christ the King) challenged the Catholic Party’s moderation. Rexism was largely inspired by Italian Fascist corporatism and by the traditional Catholic values of order and family. It erupted onto the political scene in 1936 when, even while still being organizationally weak, it obtained 11.5 per cent of the overall vote and demonstrated some particular appeal to the Walloon community. In the same elections, its counterpart in the Dutch-speaking areas, the Flemish National League (VNV – Vlaams Nationaal Verbond), won 7.1 per cent. Waving the banner of authoritarian independence from Francophone domination, the VNV was in contact with the Nazi movement from an early stage, and was chosen in 1940 by the German occupiers to be their main point of positive contact with Belgian sympathizers. Isolated by the Catholic Church, Rex was electorally and politically finished in 1939, when the VNV took 15 per cent of the vote in Flanders. The two movements were to converge in their collaboration with Nazism after the occupation, when both became active within the SS.23 Several other democracies survived until 1939. This was notably true of the Netherlands, Denmark, and Norway, where small fascist parties, strongly influenced by Nazism, attempted to destabilize democracy. In the Netherlands this influence was flagrant in the National Socialist Movement (NSB – Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging), which was founded in 1931 by Anton Mussert, and which had a program practically copied from that of the Nazis. The NSB enjoyed some success in the 1935 regional elections when it managed to elect four deputies, yet Mussert was isolated 22 R. O. Paxton, ‘France’, in Blamires, World fascism, p. 246. 23 M. Conway, Collaboration in Belgium: Léon Degrelle and the Rexist movement, 1940–44, New Haven, CT, 1993.

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by both left and right until the German occupation.24 In neighboring Denmark, the Danish National Socialist Workers’ Party (DNA – Danmarks Nationalsocialistiske Arbejderparti), founded in 1930, never managed to attract more than 1.8 per cent of the electorate, and was largely ignored during the German occupation. The same happened in prewar Norway and Sweden, where the coalitions of conservatives and socialists were powerful obstacles to fascism’s anti-system dynamic. The fascist movements were important actors in the democratic crises of the interwar period, even though in most countries they failed to achieve power at that stage. Some of the transitions to authoritarianism that occurred during the 1920s and 1930s involved ruptures with democracy that were simply violent, while others (such as the German and Italian cases) featured a more ‘legal’ assumption of power. There was, however, no strict correlation between either of these initial modes and the particular form taken by the radicalization that then occurred during the process of consolidating such dictatorships. Salazar in Portugal and Smetona in Lithuania, who arrived in power after a coup d’état, or Franco, whose rise to power was the result of a civil war, had much greater room for maneuver than either Mussolini or Hitler, who both achieved their positions through ‘legal’ routes and with the support of a radical right that was less inclined towards charismatic and totalitarian adventures.25 The differences between these cases lay above all in the type of party and leader that dominated the transitional process. Exercising power It is much easier to identify a fascist movement than a fascist regime. For many historians, only the dictatorships of Mussolini and Hitler can be truly classified as fascist, although it is obvious their political engineering once in government partially inspired some other European regimes during the 1930s. What was it then that distinguished fascism in power from the other right-wing dictatorships of the 20th century? Fascism in power was a powerful amalgam of different but broadly compatible conservative, fascist, and radical-right ingredients ‘bound together by common enemies.’26 The question as to who dominates seems to be the vital 24 G. Hirschfeld, Nazi rule and Dutch collaboration: The Netherlands under German occupation, Oxford, 1988. 25 J. J. Linz and A. Stepan, eds, The breakdown of democratic regimes, Baltimore, MD, 1978; D. Berg-Schlosser and J. Mitchell, eds, The conditions of democracy in Europe, 1919–1939, London, 2000. 26 Paxton, Anatomy, p. 206.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

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issue. Paxton distinguishes the regimes according to those tensions between certain poles of power he describes as ‘the four-way struggle for dominance’: the fascist leader, his party (whose militants clamored for jobs, perquisites, expansionist adventures, and the fulfilment of some elements of their early radical program), the state apparatus (functionaries such as police and military commanders, magistrates, and local governors), and finally, civil society (holders of social, economic, political ,and cultural power, such as professional associations, leaders of big business and big agriculture, churches, and conservative political leaders). These four-way tensions gave these regimes their characteristic blend of febrile activism and shapelessness. 27 While the taking of power was possible only with the support of other conservative and authoritarian groups, the nature of the leadership and its relationship with the party appears to be the fundamental variable. As several historians have observed, the crucial element is ‘to what extent the fascist component emancipated itself from the initial predominance of its traditional conservative sponsors, and to what degree it departed – once in power – from conventional forms/objectives of policy-making towards a more radical direction.’28 Italian Fascism and German National Socialism were each attempts to create a charismatic leadership and a ‘totalitarian tension’ that was present in other dictatorships of the period in one form or another. 29 After taking power, both these movements became powerful instruments of a new order, agents of a parallel administration and promoters of innumerable tensions within dictatorial political systems. Transformed into single parties, they flourished as the breeding ground for a new political elite and as agents for a new mediation between the state and civil society. The ensuing tensions between their own monolithic structure and the apparatus of the state produced new patterns of political decision-making that concentrated power in the hands of Mussolini and Hitler, but which also removed it from the government and the ministerial elite, who were often increasingly subordinated to the single party and its parallel administration. Even so, the party and its ancillary organizations were not simply parallel institutions. They attempted to gain control of the bureaucracy and select the governing elite, thereby forcing some dictatorships towards an unstable equilibrium and becoming the central agents for the creation and maintenance 27 Ibid., pp. 123–4. 28 A. Kallis, ‘The “regime-model” of fascism: A typology’, European History Quarterly 30, 2000, pp. 96–7. 29 A. C. Pinto, R. Eatwell and S. U. Larsen, eds, Charisma and fascism in interwar Europe, London, 2007.

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The nature of fascism revisited

of the leader’s charismatic authority. The gradation of these tensions, which may be illustrated by the eventual emergence of a weaker or stronger dualism of power, appears to be the best determining factor when trying to classify the kinds of dictatorship that have historically been associated with fascism. These have been most typically categorized either as authoritarian and totalitarian, or as authoritarian and fascist.30 Mussolini and Italian Fascism While Mussolini obtained power with the assistance of the PNF, the subsequent dismantling of the democratic regime was slow, and the reduced social and political influence of the party obliged Mussolini to accept compromises with the monarchy and the armed forces, as well as with other institutions, such as the Catholic Church. The consolidation of the dictatorship had to involve the imposition of a greater degree of discipline within the party, the actions of which during the initial phase of Mussolini’s regime had not simply undermined the compromises essential for its institutionalization, but had also threatened to increase the tensions within the tripartite system of party, dictator, and state. Viewed overall, the Italian case was illustrative of takeover by a united political elite, whose base was a fascist party that was transformed into the primary motor for the institutionalization of the dictatorship and, from the 1930s, into the main instrument for the totalization of power. At times Mussolini did use the party to abandon his concessions to bureaucratic-legal legitimacy, although he lacked the courage and the opportunity to abolish the monarchy and thus eliminate the diarchy he had inherited.31 When what remained of the liberal legacy was crushed during the latter half of the 1930s and when under Achille Starace the PNF proposed the conquest of civil society, Mussolini’s attempts to enhance his personal and charismatic authority through the party, state, and cultural machines culminated in the creation of the cult of Il Duce. 32 Several historians have suggested it was this that signaled the completion of a shift from authoritarian to totalitarian fascism, both of which tendencies had coexisted during the earlier phases of the dictatorial consolidation. Mussolini progressively abolished the formal limits to his power. In 1926, the PNF became Italy’s de facto sole party. Two years later the Fascist Grand Council, the PNF’s supreme body since 1923, was transformed into a state institution under Mussolini’s leadership. This marked, at the very peak of the 30 J. J. Linz, Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, Boulder, CO, 2000. 31 P. Milza, Mussolini, Paris, 1999. 32 E. Gentile, The sacralization of politics in Fascist Italy, Cambridge, MA, 1996.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

13

fascist political system, a fusion of party and state carried out in a manner that did not subordinate the former to the latter. If the government had ceased to be a collegiate body when confronted by the Duce’s all-powerful secretariat, the Grand Council was transformed into the main focus of state-party union from above, even while remaining subordinate to the dictator. The secretary of the PNF, who was also secretary of the Grand Council, became the second most important figure of Italian Fascism. The abolition of the chamber of deputies, the last vestige of liberal representation, led to the creation of the Fascist and Corporate Chamber (Camara degli Fasci e delle Corporazione) of which the PNF’s leaders automatically became members. Once consolidated, the ministerial elite of Mussolini’s regime was dominated by men who had been Fascists from the very earliest days. With the exception of military officers, nearly all of them were also members of the Fascist Grand Council. Ministers, undersecretaries and presidents of both parliament and senate came, almost without exception, from this inner circle. Before they entered government the main emblematic figures of Italian Fascism – men such as Dino Grandi, Italo Balbo, and Guiseppe Bottai (PNF ras in Bologna, Ferrara, and Rome, respectively) – had all participated in the squadristi-led violence of the early 1920s. The few mainly conservative and monarchist officers of the armed forces who also rose to ministerial rank generally followed a path similar to that of Emilio de Bono, who joined the PNF in 1922 and then served in the fascist militia before obtaining this political promotion. As the sole arbitrator of an often unstable equilibrium between the party, the government, and the administration, Mussolini reserved to himself the final say on all disputed political issues. From this perspective, the Duce matches the classic model of the strong dictator. Yet his powers should not be overstated. Even though his cabinet was undoubtedly devalued in relation to the Grand Council, the relationship between Mussolini (who himself at times took direct responsibility for up to six departments) and his ministers remained a significant element in the policy-making process. Despite having been transformed into a heavy – and sometimes clientelistic – machine, the PNF elite always included a large number of fascists who had joined the movement before the March on Rome. 33 The militia was the first institution to be taken out of the party’s control and placed under Mussolini’s direct command. The political police were never independent of the state, although several of the mass organizations (and particularly those involving youth, women, or the working classes) were subjected to many different transfers. In this way, the PNF gathered to itself increasing control 33 E. Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, Madrid, 2005, p. 183.

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The nature of fascism revisited

over the popular mass bodies. The National Workers’ Recreational Organization (OND – Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro), a cultural grouping within the economics ministry, was the object of some rivalry between the ministry of corporations and the PNF before responsibility for it was finally placed with the latter in 1927, by which stage it was the largest mass organization within the regime. 34 A similar process was to take place in relation to the youth groups, which were initially voluntary bodies within the PNF. In 1929, however, responsibility for them was transferred to the ministry of education. A few years later, with Starace as its secretary, the party regained control over them, and in 1937 they were amalgamated into a single youth movement, the Gioventù Italiana del Littorio. The monopoly over the political socialization of youth was not only a source of tension between the PNF and the state, but also involved the Catholic Church, which saw its independent Catholic Action youth organizations alternately tolerated and dissolved. 35 The PNF was also involved in the trade unions (syndicates). During the initial period it had its own syndicates over which it maintained indirect control, as the interference of party organizations was recognized by the corporatist apparatus. The complementary nature of the relationship between the state and the party was also significant within the women’s organizations, from the Fasci Femminile to the Massaie Rurali, in which after some hesitations the PNF invested heavily throughout the 1930s.36 By the eve of the Second World War, Italian Fascism had clearly evolved from one phase, which many historians describe as authoritarian, to another that was more totalitarian. This was evident in the alliance with Nazi Germany, in the introduction of anti-Semitic legislation (1938), in the attempts to permeate Italian society with fascist values, and in the regime’s expansionist imperialism. The decision to enter the war on the side of Germany was taken against the opinion of the most conservative sections of the Catholic Church, and was pursued partly through an imperialist desire to secure Italy as the hegemonic power in the Mediterranean and the southern Balkans. The military disasters experienced by the Axis after 1942 led, on the night of 25 July 1943, to the Fascist Grand Council dismissing Mussolini and restoring power to King Victor Emmanuel: a move that provoked the collapse 34 V. de Grazia, The culture of consent: Mass organisation of leisure in Fascist Italy, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 33–59. 35 T. H. Koon, Believe, Obey, Fight: Political socialization of youth in Fascist Italy, 1922– 1943, Chapel Hill, NC, 1985, pp. 11–142. 36 V. de Grazia, How fascism ruled women: Italy, 1922–1945, Berkeley, CA, 1993, pp. 234– 71.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

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of the Fascist regime. Having escaped detention with the assistance of Nazi forces, Mussolini established the Republic of Salò in German-occupied northern Italy. This new regime was riven by conflict between anti-Fascist partisans and Fascist republicans, and was never anything more than a puppet of the Nazi Reich. Hitler and German National Socialism Hitler’s dictatorship was much closer than Mussolini’s to the model of charismatic leadership associated with fascist rule, and the Nazi Party and its militias exercised a greater influence over both the political system and civil society. 37 Although in the immediate aftermath of Hitler’s rise to power he had to overcome some opposition from elements within the NSDAP’s own SA militia, it was his own firm control over Europe’s most powerful fascist party that contributed towards the weakening of authoritarian decision-making within strictly state structures. Thus the Führer came to operate personally at the top of a system in which the ‘coexistence [of] and conflict [between] uncoordinated authorities very often undermin[ed] solidarity and uniformity in the exercise of power.’38 Whether as part of a deliberate strategy, or merely as a consequence of Hitler’s leadership personality, this also provoked a multiplication of ad hoc decisions and ensured there would be no real or formal limits to his authority. Despite this concentration of power, his political and ideological beliefs led him to immerse himself excessively in such matters as the military and strategic defense and expansion of the Third Reich, at the expense of the command and control dimension of the administration and of day-to-day domestic politics. The Nazi cabinet was quickly transformed into a bureaucratic body totally subservient to Hitler. Even in this condition it ceased to exist as a collegiate body because political power within the state was simultaneously concentrated in Hitler’s person and dispersed throughout the various Nazi institutions, severely undermining ordinary governmental processes. In 1937, with Hans Heinrich Lammers as head of the Reich Chancellery, ministerial access to Hitler became more difficult as he deliberately reduced the cabinet’s status. 39 At the same time, the party-based secretariat of the deputy Führer, headed by Rudolf Hess and later by Martin Bormann, moved closer to Hitler. 37 I. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 1889–1936: Hubris, London, 1998; vol. 2, 1936–1945: Nemesis, London, 2000. 38 M. Broszat, The Hitler state, London, 1981, p. 351. 39 E. N. Peterson, The limits of Hitler’s power, Princeton, NJ, 1969, pp. 26–33.

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The nature of fascism revisited

The tensions created by the legality of the Nazi takeover and the rapid development of Hitler’s charismatic leadership were resolved by the publication of a series of decrees conveying total power to him, obliging ministers to answer only to the dictator.40 The NSDAP – even while experiencing internal crises – set about assuming control of the existing state apparatus and creating a parallel structure, in the process of which it multiplied and confused the spheres of decision making in several areas of national and regional authority.41 The existence of a large administration of NSDAP functionaries was symbolic of a revolutionary strategy. This aimed at undermining much of the previous pattern of bureaucratic control (although ‘the Nazi leadership always relied on the old elite to maintain the essential functions of government,’ particularly within German territory, as distinct from the eastern occupied territories, where party officials were more important).42 The increasing legislative confusion surrounding attempts to interpret the leader’s will represents the most extreme subversion of the traditional methods of political decisionmaking employed by dictatorships. Not only did the bureau of the deputy Führer, as administered by Bormann, become the most important channel to Hitler, it also obtained some control over the government. Simultaneously, the party achieved political and financial autonomy and developed as a parallel state apparatus. According to Martin Broszat, three distinct centers of power began to emerge within a structure that was in a tense and unstable balance: ‘the single party monopoly, the centralized governmental dictatorship, and the absolutism of the Führer … undermin[ed] the unity of the government and the monopoly of government by the Reich cabinet.’43 Special authorities, which were under Hitler’s direct control, soon developed alongside the ministries at the same time as several political and police organizations, some of which were controlled by the NSDAP and others by the SS, began to act independently of the government. Among the former were organizations such as the German Road System and the German Labor Front (DAF – Deutsche Arbeitsfront), together with others that were more overtly political and repressive. Within the second category we must include the Hitler Youth (Hitler Jugend). While still under the party’s control, this was transformed into a Reich authority completely independent of the ministry of education. Thus 40 Broszat, Hitler state, pp. 57–95. 41 J. Caplan, Government without administration: State and civil service in Weimar and Nazi Germany, Oxford, 1988, chapter 5. 42 M. H. Kater, The Nazi Party: A social profile of member and leaders, 1919–1945, Cambridge, MA, 1983, p. 238. 43 Broszat, Hitler state, pp. 262, 264.

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it became a counterweight both to that ministry and to the armed forces in matters of political and ideological training. Heinrich Himmler’s SS is a further example of this pattern. Its gradual assumption of the policing functions previously assigned to the interior ministry operated in a complex manner that generated innumerable tensions. Although the SS remained at least formally reliant on the party and on the state, it ‘had detached itself from both and had become independent.’44 Wilhelm Frick’s interior ministry was thus emasculated of any practical authority over the police, just as the position of the minister of labor was partially weakened by the DAF’s independence. It has to be admitted that the Nazifiction of government bureaucracy was at times more superficial than real. Even so, those organizations that developed into parallel party-based administrations under Hitler represent the most extreme examples of the ways in which a fascist dictatorship might subvert the autonomy of the state. By 1938, Hitler was the most powerful of Europe’s dictators. The conservative constraints on his authority had been removed and the territorial enlargement of Germany had commenced through the annexation (Anschluss) of Austria. It was soon clear, however, that the Führer’s ambitions were not limited merely to revision of the Versailles Treaty. The still bolder expansionism that led to the outbreak of the Second World War continued after 1939 as a form of new imperialism, the ideological and ethnic violence of which was particularly obvious in the east. Some of the characteristics of the Nazi dictatorship help explain the increase in its ideological radicalization.45 Although anti-Semitism and racial nationalism had from the outset been central elements in the NSDAP’s political program, it was in the context of the war, and especially the invasion of the Soviet Union, that the ad hoc means of annihilation were superseded by the systematically-organized Holocaust. This decisive shift was possible only as a result of the independent development of institutions such as the SS and the Nazi party’s parallel administration. During the 1930s the euthanasia campaigns, the extermination of asylum patients, and the enforced sterilizations were already extremely important examples of brutalization. Fascism and other right-wing dictatorships The regimes operated by Hitler and Mussolini affected even those other right-wing European dictatorships that opposed their own home-grown 44 Ibid., p. 272. 45 I. Kershaw, The Nazi dictatorship: Problems of interpretation, 4th ed., London, 2000, pp. 82–106.

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fascist movements and represented more traditionalist forms of authoritarianism. These further cases demonstrate the adaptability of fascist institutions, models, and ideological components within the wider context of right-wing politics during this era. The most paradigmatic example was undoubtedly Franco’s dictatorship in Spain, although neighboring Portugal was also significant for its emulation of some aspects of Italian fascism. Iberian cousins The main characteristic of Franco’s regime, which lasted until the mid-1970s, was its radical break with the Second Republic. Franco’s rule was the product of a protracted and bloody civil war waged from 1936 to 1939, in which there were a greater number of political purges and executions than during the overthrow of any other democratic regime in the era after the First World War. Francoism as a political system rejected the fundamentals of the liberal legacy and was inspired by fascism to a much greater degree than the Salazar regime in Portugal. It was within those areas that had been occupied by his military forces that Franco created the embryo of his future political system – one marked by a reactionary and militaristic coalition of Catholics, monarchists, and fascists. He formed a single party, based on the small, pre-existing fascist movement known as the Falange Española, which had been formed in 1933 by José Antonio Primo de Rivera, who was executed by the Republicans at the beginning of the Civil War.46 Franco developed this into a broader organization under the amended title of Falange Española Tradicionalista (FET).47 He did so by forcing the original Falangists to integrate with the Catholics and the monarchists, thus setting in motion his ambition to build a regime that was close to fascism from the very beginning. During the civil war, the old-style Falange lent Franco its ideological backing as well as the support of its political activists and its modest militia, in the hope that after its enforced unification with other right-wing elements it would still be allowed to play ‘a genuinely fascist role in the implementation of a mobilized society.’48 However, the fascists saw their position weaken as a result of their inclusion within a single party that incorporated several other political families. This Francoist union was a heterogeneous one that maintained several 46 Its full title was the Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista, often referred to as FET-JONS. 47 Payne, Fascism in Spain, p. 487. 48 R. Chueca, El fascismo en los comienzos del regime de Franco, Madrid, 1983, p. 401.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

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identities, particularly at the intermediate levels.49 Nevertheless, Franco and the victors of the civil war initially outlined the creation of a Spanish New State, even though the tentative outlines of its proposed totalitarianism were to be rapidly eliminated as the defeat of Nazi ambitions became more predictable. In terms of legitimacy, Franco’s regime resembled the charismatic model of fascism, despite his regime including a strong religious aspect that was practically absent in the Italian example and completely non-existent in the German. His concessions to Spain’s liberal past were few and far between. Here the dictator did not have to deal with either a president or a king, subordinate or otherwise; nor, unlike Mussolini and Salazar, did he need to pervert a parliament. As Stanley Payne noted, in 1939 the Spanish dictator ‘was the European ruler who, both formally and theoretically, retained the most absolute and uncontrolled power.’50 Some of Franco’s personal characteristics, and his relationship with the institutions that were the basis of his victory, would influence the nature of the new political system. He was a general of very average ability with very few political ideas beyond the values of order, anti-communism, traditionalist Catholicism, and an obsession with the ‘liberal-Masonic conspiracy.’51 His relationship with FET was also more utilitarian than ideological. He was not the leader of the original Falangist movement, nor had its organization been a determining factor in his taking power – sensitive as he was to both the armed forces and the Catholic Church, which were the other significant institutions involved in founding the new regime. His educational background and professional career made it difficult for him to position himself as an outright fascist once he was in power and, despite his pro-Axis sympathies, he maintained Spanish neutrality during the Second World War.52 Franco placed the FET under the strict control of himself and his government. Nevertheless, the movement managed both to provide itself with a party apparatus and improve its access to the national and local administration. However, it is possible to detect the existence of some political families (including Catholics and monarchists, as well as the original Falangists) 49 J. J. Linz, ‘From Falange to movimiento-organización: The Spanish single party and the Franco regime, 1936–68’, in S. Huntington and C. Moore, eds, Authoritarian politics in modern society: The dynamics of established one-party systems, New York, 1970, pp. 128–203. 50 Payne, Fascism in Spain, p. 487. 51 P. Preston, Franco: A biography, London, 1993. 52 S. G. Payne, Franco and Hitler: Spain, Germany, and World War II, New Haven, CT, 2008.

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within the single party. Until 1944, with 66 per cent of the leadership positions under its control, the latter of these groups dominated the party, while the Catholics were the second-largest family followed by the military. Despite being subordinated to Franco’s control, FET initially integrated into certain administrative bodies within the state apparatus: for example, by uniting the position of civil governors with those of the party’s regional secretaries. One important struggle that was immediately lost was the attempt to prevent its independent militia from falling under military authority. However, the party did maintain a considerable collection of ancillary organizations, such as the Youth Front, the Spanish University Union, the Women’s Section, the Trade Union Organization, and the Education and Recreation Union Organization (equivalent to Mussolini’s OND). More importantly, the party retained responsibility for propaganda within the regime. While never promoting the conquest of the state, ‘the existence of a single party that was quite clearly subordinate was a notable counterweight’ to other means of access to the government during this period.53 Despite FET’s origins in the enforced unification of several heterogeneous movements, the Falangists managed to exert their supremacy and ensured their position as the principal force within the new Francoist political elite. Tensions between the party and the state were infrequent and largely episodic in a situation in which the government’s domination was almost total and where the position of the party and of its Falangist core was rapidly diminished after 1945. In the case of Portugal, a new state was consolidated in the 1930s out of a military dictatorship that had been implanted in 1926.54 Its leader was Oliveira Salazar, a university professor with links to the Catholic Party who had become minister of finance in 1928 and who then went on to hold the premiership from 1932 until 1968. Salazar could not be considered a charismatic figure; moreover, the military origins of his regime ensured his position was linked to that of the president of the republic, General Óscar Carmona, who had been formally legitimated in direct elections and who retained the authority to dismiss him. The regime’s single party, the National Union (UN – União Nacional), was weak and elitist, created from above by the interior ministry and initially controlled by an administration over which the premier’s rule was complete.55 Salazar also benefited from a new constitution – the product of a compromise 53 C. V. Pi-Sunyer, El personal politico de Franco, Barcelona, 1978, p. 202. 54 A. C. Pinto, Salazar’s dictatorship and European fascism: Problems of interpretation, New York, 1995. 55 P. T. de Almeida, A. C. Pinto and N. Bermeo, eds, Who governs Southern Europe? Regime change and ministerial recruitment, 1850–2000, London, 2003, pp. 33–4.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

21

between corporatism and liberalism that had been approved by popular plebiscite in 1933. Within this structure, the UN exerted no real control over either the government or the administration. It was merely a political tool, used to select members for the chamber of deputies and the local administration, and to provide some veneer of legitimacy in the regular non-competitive elections. In several of the dictatorial regimes associated with fascism, both the government and its administration were to some extent subjected to interference from a single party that had become an influential organization. This did not happen in Portugal, where a centrally controlled public administration was instead the main instrument of dictatorial political power. When the New State created such organizations as the paramilitary Portuguese Youth movement (MP – Mocidade Portuguesa) and the anti-communist Portuguese Legion militia (LP – Legião Portuguesa), these were controlled by the ministry of education and the ministry of the interior, respectively, upon whom they remained dependent for the duration of the regime. The same was true of Salazar’s political police (PVDE – Polícia de Vigilância e de Defesa do Estado), which was similarly responsible to the minister of the interior. The main characteristic of the New State’s governing elite was that its members belonged to a small and exclusive political and bureaucratic class that almost completely dominated the senior ranks of the armed forces, the senior administration, and the universities – within which the legal profession was strongly represented. Portugal’s single party, being kept organizationally weak and dependent, was never an important element either in the political decision-making process or in the selection of the ministerial elite. Several organizations, such as the LP, MP, and PVDE, were kept entirely dependent on the ministers. National propaganda was administered by a directorate-general within the state apparatus, equipped with its own autonomous leadership responsible to Salazar personally rather than to the party. Similarly, the National Federation for Happiness at Work (FNAT – Federação Nacional para Alegria no Trabalho, a modest Portuguese version of Mussolini’s OND and Hitler’s DAF), was dependent on the undersecretary of state for corporations. The party’s main function was to select the local and the parliamentary elites, and it remained small and devoid of organizations capable of mobilizing political influence. In sum, despite early Francoism’s proximity to fascism, both Iberian regimes represented a dictatorial model that was closer to that of Catholic and corporatist traditionalism, complete with a strong military elite and a controlled fascist minority.

22

The nature of fascism revisited

Central and Eastern Europe Compared with their contemporaries in Southern Europe, the right-wing dictatorships that developed in Central and Eastern Europe were generally of much shorter duration and less institutionalized. They also tended to become more deeply conditioned by the Second World War and some were, to a greater or lesser degree, forced into agreements with home-grown fascist movements.56 The regime of Englebert Dollfuss and Kurt Schuschnigg that was formed in Austria in 1934, and which ended with the country’s annexation by Nazi Germany in 1938, has often been described as clerico-fascist and compared with the Iberian dictatorships.57 It was a regime established from above and rooted in social Catholicism, with a corporatist constitution anchored in traditionalist Catholic values and in the establishment of a one-party state under the Fatherland Front (VF – Vaterländische Front). It suffered from the impact of an Austrian Nazi party that had strong links with Hitler’s movement, and of a home-grown fascist movement, the Heimwehr. The course of the dictatorship was marked dramatically by the assassination of Chancellor Dollfuss in June 1934, which was carried out by a group of conspirators from the banned Austrian Nazi Party.58 His policies were continued by his successor, Kurt Schuschnigg, who strengthened Austria’s links with Italy, despite his room for maneuver being increasingly restricted by the clandestine Nazi Party and the growing alliance between Hitler and Mussolini from 1936. Internal conflicts with the Heimwehr led it to leave the government and forced its integration into the VF, a symbol of the classic tension between the authoritarian elite and native fascism. Hitler’s pursuit of Anschluss approached its climax in February 1938 when he forced Schuschnigg to legalize the Austrian Nazi Party and include it in his government. Presented early the following month with an ultimatum from Hitler to nominate the Nazi Arthur Seyss-Inquart as chancellor, Schuschnigg resigned, leading Hitler to announce an annexation that was generally welcomed by the Austrians population. Poland was similarly fertile territory for the development of fascist movements, in a situation in which national minorities comprised 35 per cent of the population, where significant levels of anti-Semitism existed and where 56 I. T. Berend, Decades of crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before the Second World War, Berkeley, CA, 2001, pp. 301–45. 57 G. Bishof, A. Pelinka and A. Lassner, The Dollfuss-Schuschnigg era in Austria: A reassessment, New Brunswick, NJ, 2003. 58 B. Pauley, Hitler and the forgotten Nazis: A history of Austrian national socialism, Chapel Hill, NC, 1981, pp. 28–133.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

23

the consolidation of parliamentary democracy within the post-1918 republic had proved problematic. However, as in some other countries of the European periphery, a preventative coup d’état had limited the development of native fascism. After this was carried out in 1926 by General Józef Pilsudski he was able to establish a form of single-party rule. Yet his dictatorship did not establish authoritarian institutions on a scale comparable with its southern European counterparts; nor did the German (or Soviet) occupation in 1939 help the local fascists, some of whom – particularly those involved with Boleslaw Piasecki’s National-Radical Camp (ONR – Obóz Narodowo Radykalny) – participated in the resistance. The origins of Hungarian fascism are much stronger and clearer, with an important national socialist mark. Rooted in the collapse of the AustroHungarian empire and in the counter-revolutionary movements that followed in 1918, the emergence of extreme right-wing paramilitary movements deeply affected Hungarian political life. Admiral Miklós Horthy, who from 1920 was theoretically the regent of a country awaiting some form of restored monarchy, presided over its destiny until 1944. At that point, the leader’s futile attempts to break his alliance with Germany and strike a deal with the advancing Red Army led to a period of Nazi occupation.59 The Hungarian fascist groups were strongly anti-Semitic, blending their racism with a Christian fundamentalist mysticism. Several right-wing governments entered into conflict with the oft-banned fascists. In 1938, Ferenc Szálasi established a Hungarian national socialist party. Although swiftly proscribed, it equally quickly reappeared as the Arrow Cross Party. This was the banner under which the Hungarian fascists gained parliamentary representation with 48 deputies. The country’s participation in the Second World War on the side of Germany did not provide the fascists with access to power, however. It was only in 1944, following the Nazi occupation, and particularly after the Germans had provided support for an Arrow Cross coup against Horthy, that Hungary (now as a mere puppet state) came under fascist control for a few short months. Although anti-Semitic activities preceded Szálasi’s arrival in power, a significant number of Magyar civil and military officials now became important actors in the deportation of Hungarian Jews to Auschwitz. In Romania, the parliamentary regime endured several crises until 1938. As noted previously, this country was the birthplace of Eastern Europe’s most successful fascist movement: the Iron Guard. Founded in 1927 as the Legion of the Archangel Michael, and named after the famous Orthodox 59 M. Ormos, Hungary between the two world wars, 1914–1945, New York, 2007.

24

The nature of fascism revisited

icon, this organization had a strongly religious and mystical component.60 It was anti-Semitic and pro-rural, and attracted a significant number of young intellectuals. The movement was always at crossed swords with the liberal governments: its leader, Corneliu Zelea Codreanu, was often arrested and its activities banned. In 1932, the party won five seats in parliament – although the following year it was once again outlawed. Political violence was one constant of its existence, but the life of its legionnaires was to become much more difficult in 1938, with the establishment of a royal dictatorship by King Carol II, who swiftly ordered Codreanu’s execution. In September 1940, King Carol nominated General Ion Antonescu as his prime minister. At a stage when concessions (such as the transfer of Transylvania to German control) were being made to Hitler, Antonescu speedily assumed dictatorial powers and forced the king to abdicate in favor of his swon and heir, Michael. Preparing to enter the war on the side of the Nazis, Antonescu called the Iron Guard’s legionnaires into his government. Early in 1941, however, fearing a fracture in the authoritarian state’s bureaucratic structure and acting with Hitler’s approval, he dissolved the Iron Guard in response to a fascist rebellion and exiled many of its leaders to Germany. Antonescu’s own brand of conservative military dictatorship survived until 1944, when he was arrested on the authority of King Michael. War and occupation It is clear that the development of a number of existing dictatorships was strongly conditioned by the outbreak of the Second World War. Yet, certain other dictatorial regimes, including some rooted in local elites and possessing various degrees of autonomy, came about only as the direct products of German occupation. The Vichy government led by Marshal Pétain is perhaps the best known of these, but they include Quisling’s administration in Norway and Mussolini’s Republic of Salò, among others. There were also cases, such as Jozef Tiso’s regime in Slovakia and that of Ante Pavelić’s Ustasha in Croatia, where dictatorships emerged in new countries with a view to fulfilling demands for autonomy or independence. When in June 1940, following the German invasion, what remained of the French government led by Pétain installed itself in the town of Vichy, the old Marshal had complete power to write a new constitution and to govern by decree. He was to rule the part of France that was not under German direct control between 1940 and 1944 in an attempt to promote a ‘national 60 C. Iordachi, Charisma, politics and violence: The Legion of the Archangel Michael in interwar Romania, Trondheim, 2004.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

25

revolution’ that would make France ‘authoritarian, hierarchical, corporatist, anti-Semitic, and Catholic.’61 In its early incarnation, Vichy was influenced by the ideology of Action Française and conservative Catholicism. Under the slogan ‘work, family, and homeland,’ and under the gaze of bronze busts of Pétain, the regime embarked on projects of corporatist organization, supported Catholic schools, and abolished divorce. There was no single-party in the dictatorship, which governed through an administration not so dissimilar in structure from the Third Republic. This pursued the anti-Semitic policies that since 1940 had characterized the regime’s active collaboration with the German occupiers. The majority of French fascist groups (for example, Doriot’s PPF) remained in Paris with the Germans, where they criticized Vichy. In 1944, faced with conservative hesitation, Vichy increasingly became a police state in which the fascist influences became more evident – particularly those of Marcel Déat and Joseph Darnand. The first Slovak republic was established in 1939 as a puppet regime after the Germans had partitioned Czechoslovakia and occupied its western regions of Bohemia and Moravia. Under those circumstances, Hitler offered Slovakia its formal independence, which was immediately proclaimed by the priest Tiso. The Slovak People’s Party (SLS – Slovenská L’Udová Strana) – renamed Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party-Party of Slovak National Unity (HSLS-SSNJ – Hlinkova Slovenská L’Udová Strana-Strana Slovenskej Národnej Jednoty) following the death of its founder, Father Andrej Hlinka, in 1938 – very quickly transformed itself into a single-party with a youth section and a militia, the Hlinka Guard (Hlinkova Garda).62 Dominated by Nazi Germany until the collapse of 1945, the movement that ran this Slovak satellite state was constantly marked by tension between its authoritarian Catholic section and the radical faction led by Vojtech Tuka, which was much closer to German National Socialism. Extremist nationalism was also present in the independent state of Croatia between 1941 and 1945, which was led, under the protective wing of Germany and Italy, by Ante Pavelić’s Ustasha.63 This regime was characterized by its severe ethnic violence against Jews, Gypsies, and particularly Serbs. The Ustasha’s authority was quickly contested, and from 1942 it was only able to 61 R. O. Paxton, Vichy France: Old guard and new order, New York, 2001. 62 J. R. Felak, ‘At the price of the republic’: Slovak People’s Party, 1929–1938, Pittsburg, PA, 1995. 63 I. Goldstein, ‘Ante Pavelić: Charisma and national mission in war-time Croatia’, in Pinto, Eatwell and Larsen, Charisma and fascism, pp. 87–96.

26

The nature of fascism revisited

continue by means of the German military support that protected it from increasing anti-fascist guerrilla attack until 1945. In the north of Nazi-dominated Europe, the most complete institutionalization of a local fascist regime with German support took place in Norway, where following the German occupation that began in April 1940 Vidkun Quisling’s miniscule National Unity was installed in power. Inspired directly by Nazi Germany, with a Führer and a monopolistic party, tensions soon emerged between Quisling and the German administration which, according to internal reports, did not give his government the respect it had expected.64 Conclusion When Europe celebrated victory over fascism in 1945, and when what generally became known as ‘the Quislings’ faced trial and execution, the major political actors had no doubts about the end of fascism. While the extreme right had not disappeared in the rubble of the Second World War, and while the Iberian dictatorships had survived the conflict, the fascist era was over. During the interwar period, the two main challengers to liberal democracy had been fascism and communism. While the former had been limited both geographically and culturally, the latter now emerged not only partially victorious, but also with the capacity greatly to expand its influence during the later 1940s. Even though fascist movements were a decisive feature of the interwar period, it was their arrival in power in Italy and Germany that provided a template for elsewhere. Certain characteristics of fascism in power were the common patrimony of the modern right-wing dictatorships of the 20th century, with some even prospering after the end of fascism in 1945: the ultranationalism, the communitarian, and/or corporatist relationship between the state and civil society, the single party, and the anti-communism. But could it be that the stage of radicalization shows us fascism at its most distinctive? Some historians perhaps exaggerate when they claim the ‘fascist regimes tried to redraw so radically the boundaries between private and public that the private sphere almost disappeared.’65 However, it seems obvious that the totalitarian tension is an area in which the fascists differed from the other right-wing dictatorships of the period. It is only recently that, regarding Mussolini’s regime, certain aspects of this tension have been grouped to underline 64 Dahl, Quisling. 65 Paxton, Anatomy, p. 144.

A ‘revolutionary right’ in interwar Europe

27

the eventual radicalization of Italian fascism in power: the Ethiopian war, the ‘totalitarian leap’ (svolta totalitaria) of the 1930s, and the racist legislation against Jews (albeit more limited in scope than Hitler’s decrees).66 In the Nazi case, however, no doubt at all surrounds the completeness of extremism. There, as Paxton concludes concerning the issue of a total radicalization, ‘comparison is hardly possible: only one fascist regime really reached it.’67

66 F. H. Adler, ‘Why Mussolini turned on the Jews’, Patterns of Prejudice 39, no 3, 2005, pp. 285–300. 67 Paxton, Anatomy, p. 169.

2

The origins of fascist ideology: The Sternhell debate

With Ni droite ni gauche: L’idéologie du fascisme en France, published in 1983, the Israeli historian Zeev Sternhell completed a stage in his research on fascist ideology and its origins, thus finishing the work begun with Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français, followed in 1978 by La droite révolutionnaire (1885–1914): Les origines françaises du fascisme. Although it is this latter work that defines Sternhell’s theoretical and methodological premises, it was Ni droite ni gauche that unleashed a polemic that was both rich and far-reaching.1 The debate began, naturally, in France, where it went beyond the academic world, became politicized, got into the press, and eventually reached the courts. A certain person who objected to the role given him by the historian took the relatively unprecedented step by taking Sternhell to court, with such well-known intellectuals as Raymond Aron becoming involved.2 The most important contributions to the polemic were published in 1983 and 1984 in publications such as L’Esprit, Le Débat, Annales (Économie, Sociétés, Civilisations) and Vingtième Siècle, 3 and were mainly hyper-critical of 1

Z. Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche: L’ idéologie du fascisme en France, Paris, 1983; Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français, Paris, 1972; La droite révolutionnaire (1885–1914): Les origines françaises du fascisme, Paris, 1978.

2

Bertrand de Jouvenel took Sternhell to court. Raymond Aron, one of his main witnesses, died soon after returning from one of the court sessions. The decision of the court was not entirely favourable to Sternhell. Amongst others, Ernst Nolte, François Furet, Maurice Agulhon, René Rémond, Eugen Weber, Stanley Payne, and George Mosse were witnesses on behalf of the Israeli historian. For this trial see P. Assouline, ‘Enquête sur un historien condamné pour difamation’, L’Histoire 68, June 1984, pp. 98101. For Aron’s opinion on Sternhell’s work see L’Express, 11 February 1983, pp. 22–4.

3

In this review the following works of Sternhell are considered: La droite révolutionnaire; Ni droite ni gauche, and the following articles participating in the polemic (published up to June 1985), presented in chronological order: M. Winock, ‘Fascisme à la française ou fascisme introuvable?’, Le Débat 25, May 1983, pp. 35–44; S. Sand, ‘L’idéologie fasciste en France’, L’Esprit, August/September 1983, pp. 149–60; J.-M. Domenach, ‘Corre-

30

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Sternhell’s theses. Although the debate was less heated in the Anglo-Saxon world, something was added to it in Italy. This should not be considered surprising, for it is here that similar interpretations have been developed. Sternhell responded to this first wave of criticism at the end of 1984, specifying his position,4 and the argument shows every sign of continuing. In spite of this it is possible to conduct an initial evaluation of the polemic. The importance of Sternhell’s work lies both in his exhaustive empirical research on French fascism and, especially (and it is this viewpoint that is of interest to us), in his expressing an overall theory of the nature of fascist ideology and of its formative process. This dimension has dominated a large part of the research on this theme in the last few years, and the Israeli historian raised the old problem of its composite origin from a new standpoint. Some analysts, mainly contemporaries of fascism, deny it has even a minimally structured and coherent ideological dimension: more than a few scholars took as their own the words of Samuel Barnes: Some totalitarian mobilization systems arise in reaction to the mobilization structures of others. They are in fact largely negative rather than ideological, and though they often have a formal pseudo-ideology, it is not a guide to action and is taken seriously primarily by the young, the ignorant, and the academic.5

Sternhell is directly opposed to this position. His fascism, along with liberalism or communism, possesses a perfectly structured conceptual framework. Although one recognizes the inherent difficulties in defining the concept, they are no different from those posed by other ideological systems from the same period – the first half of the 20th century. ‘Like liberalism, socialism, and communism’, claims Sternhell, ‘fascism constitutes a universal

spondance’, L’Esprit, August/September 1983, pp. 176–9; S. Berstein, ‘La France des années trente allergique au fascism: A propos d’un livre de Zeev Sternhell’, Vingtième Siècle: Revue d ’Histoire 2, April 1984, pp. 84–94; J. Julliard, ‘Sur un fascisme imaginaire: À propos d’un livre de Zeev Sternhell’, Annales: ESC, July/August 1984, pp. 849–61; L. Rapone, ‘Fascismo né destra né sinistra?’, Studi Storici 3, July/September 1984, pp. 799–820; P. Burrin, ‘La France dans le champs magnetique des fascismes’, Le Débat 32, November 1984, pp. 52–72; Z. Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascisme et sa variante française’, Le Débat 32, November 1984, pp. 28–51; S. Romano, ‘Sternhell lu d’Italie’, Vingtième Siècle: Revue d ’Histoire 6, April/June 1985, pp. 75–81; D. Cofrancesco, ‘Recensioni’, Storia Contemporanea 2, April 1985, pp. 353–71. 4

This first reply from Sternhell refers only to Winock ‘Fascisme à la française’.

5

M. V. Cabral, ‘Portuguese fascism in comparative perspective’, paper presented at the 12th International Political Science Association World Congress, Rio de Janeiro, August 1982, p. 1.

The Sternhell debate

31

category with its own variants’.6 Up to this point he is not alone in the historiographical work on this subject.7 Since the 1960s, one of the central debates has developed around the definition of a fascist minimum, which would characterize a generic fascism and typify its national variants. Of the three levels on which it is presented historically (that is, ideology, movement, and regime) it is only the first that is of interest to Sternhell, and his choice of the French case is not without forethought. The fact that in France fascism has never been a unified and significant party or political regime is advantageous in that ‘the nature of an ideology is always clearer in its aspirations than in its application,’8 and here it has never had to compromise, remaining closer to the ideal type.9 The interest in the ideological level is also of more value as ‘the era of fascism is, firstly, that of an ideology and of the movements that are associated to it rather than an era of a certain type of regimes’.10 At this point he still has a significant, but somewhat smaller group of co-thinkers. After the first wave of work on regimes within this group, the most novel ideas produced on the subject are in the field of the study of fascism as an ideology and a movement. However, on breaking away from those who underestimated the ideological factor in fascism, Sternhell represents perhaps the most extreme position. We shall discuss this later, but it is worth noting at this point that one of his well-publicized central hypotheses is that the study of the ideological dimension allows us to observe how fascism deeply impregnated European political culture between the two world wars in a much vaster movement, which in the French case went beyond the world of the small parties that arose from it.11 6

Z. Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascisme’, p. 30.

7

For a bibliographic view of this theme see an article by the author of the theses under debate, Zeev Sternhell, ‘Fascist ideology,’ in Walter Laqueur, ed., Fascism: A reader’s guide – analyses, interpretations, bibliography, Harmondsworth, 1979, pp. 325–406. The most recent bibliography is found in a work considered by Sternhell himself as the best synthesis, S. G. Payne, Fascism: Comparison and definition, Madison, WI, 1980. Several authors discussed in the works cited above have already debated the theme of a generic fascist ideology, as in the case of Juan Linz, George L. Mosse, and Renzo di Felice. See Mosse’s position in M. A. Leeden, ed., Intervista sul nazismo, Rome and Bari, 1977. Renzo di Felice does not hold the same position, see M. A. Leeden, ed., Intervista sul fascismo, Rome and Bari, 1975.

8

Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche, p. 15.

9

Ibid., p. 293.

10 Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascisme’, p. 30. 11 Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche, p. 21

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The subject of the ideological origins of fascism has mobilized a considerable number of historians. After some pioneer research, a substantial number of works on the subject from both a national and a comparative perspective have been published in the last few years. Some of these anticipated the theses systematized by Sternhell. His work, however, is part of a specific interpretative approach that tends to focus on the contributions of ideological families not traditionally associated with fascism, as in the case of socialism or revolutionary syndicalism. These authors tend to consider there to be a strict separation between fascism and the conservative right, and they focus on the revolutionary character of its ideology and political practice as well as its left-wing origin. But even within this current of thought we find a vast spectrum of positions, among which the provocative theses under debate are individualized. Taken as a whole, Sternhell’s work represents an important contribution to the study of what I prefer to call the cultural origins of European fascism. Here we shall not attempt to discuss all his hypotheses, but rather will focus only on those that have given rise to greater polemic. Fascism as an ideology is the product of a synthesis. Elements of various ideological groups contribute to it. Compared with other systems, such as socialism or communism, fascism ‘does not have a single source like Marxism.’12 Sternhell’s hypothesis refers to Georges Valois’ famous formula: nationalism plus socialism equals fascism. For him, fascism is the product of the synthesis of a new type of nationalism and a certain form of socialism, in which in fact Mussolini, Gentile, or Mosley always recognized the essence of the phenomenon.13 It is a revolutionary ideology that combines a new organic nationalism with a socialism that, abandoning Marxism, remains revolutionary: ‘new left and new right in symbiosis forge this rebellious, seductive, and brilliant ideology that the researcher defines as a fascist ideology, even though its followers may never wear brown shirts.’14 In order to study its creation it is necessary to go back to the end of the 19th century, a period of social and political change without which fascism would not have appeared. It is here that we shall have to begin since, from the point of view of the history of ideas, the First World War does not show the complete break that is attributed to it in so many other areas. Fascism belongs not only to the postwar period, but also to the period that began with the modernization process of the European continent at the end of the 19th century. The crisis of liberalism at the time of the eruption of the masses 12 Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascism’, p. 29. 13 Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche, p. 21. 14 Ibid., p. 311.

The Sternhell debate

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into political life produced fascism as an ideology. The name did not yet exist, but its corpus was already formed. The First World War created the social conditions for the emergence of fascism as a movement but did not add to its ideology. The formative synthesis of fascist ideology can be historically verified earlier in France than in Italy or Germany. All Sternhell’s work is aimed at proving, with excellent erudition, this double genealogy through the study of the contributions made by its various agents. A new revolutionary right emerged early in France, representing something very different from a mere continuity of counter-revolutionary, legitimist and anti-liberal thought. Like other movements, it was the product of the same phenomenon: industrialization and urbanization causing a crisis of the adaptation of liberalism to the new mass society. In Boulangism, for the first time ‘the crisis of the liberal order encountered its expression in the politics of the masses.’15 This new right – nationalist, populist, and anti-democratic – gave political expression to a whole process of intellectual revolution and to the social changes of the end of the century. It was far from being a bayonet looking for an ideology. Constructed from social Darwinism, which gave it its conceptual framework, the ideology of the new right was a synthesis of anti-rationalism and anti-positivism, of racism and nationalism.’16 It had a point in common with Marxism: determinism – but this was biological and racial. It was revolutionary because ‘in a bourgeois society which practiced liberal democracy, an ideology conceived as the antithesis of liberalism and individualism, that had the cult of violence and activist minorities, was a revolutionary ideology.’17 The generation of 1890 – Barrès, Sorel, and Le Bon – expressed this intellectual rebellion against the rationalist individualism of liberal society and the new industrial society very well by exalting the nation. This revolt found legitimacy in the scientific and cultural climate. If before then science and liberal ideology appeared to go hand-in-hand, the panorama changed at the end of the century. The new human and social sciences – Darwin’s biology, Taine’s history, Le Bon’s social psychology, and the Italian school of the political sociology of Pareto and Mosca – ‘rose up against the postulates upon which liberalism and democracy were based,’18 Elitism, racism, nationalism, and the unconscious versus reason were all an integral part of 15 Sternhell, La droite révolutionnaire, p. 26. 16 Ibid., p. 28. 17 Ibid., p. 28. 18 Ibid., p. 17.

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The nature of fascism revisited

this revolutionary new-right ideology. Sternhell describes how this cultural change was rapidly translated in the political world. It legitimized and gave respectability to the violent downfall of the liberal order, as well as supplying the conceptual framework for the take-off of fascism. He also shows how this new right manifested itself in the organizational field through the Jaune and Action Française, movements of the prewar period that anticipated many of the postwar fascist movements. It used modern methods of organization, propaganda, and street action, assuming the role of a mass mobilizing movement.19 With the Dreyfus case, French socialism, responding to nationalist and anti-Semitic agitation from the radical-right, proclaimed itself the guardian of liberal democracy. In taking this decision the French workingclass movement ceased to be a revolutionary factor and integrated itself in the democratic consensus. Those on the extreme left who remained opposed to this progressive integration would meet up with those from the other side who also rejected democracy. 20 The contributions of the left date from the crisis of Marxist socialism at the end of the 19th century: a period during which one detects an ideological revisionism that is an integral part of its genealogy. Without this revolt of socialist origin fascist ideology is unintelligible. Out of this crisis of Marxism and the loss of confidence in the proletarian revolution, two solutions appeared. The first gave rise to liberal revisionism of the type of Bernstein and Jaurès, which incorporated democracy and integrated itself in the established order. The second, represented in pre-First World War leftism, led to an ethical and spiritual revision of Marxism, while maintaining a position of frontal rejection of democracy and not abandoning the revolutionary principle. This current of thought ‘represented not only a total denial of the established order, of its social and political structures, but also constituted a revolt against its moral values, against the type of civilization that the bourgeois world represented.’21 The revolutionary syndicalists were the first at the beginning of the century ‘to rise up against materialism, against all materialism, not only liberal 19 Sternhell shows the difference between the nationalist revolutionary character of Action Française in the pre-First World War period and its conservative authoritarian character in the 1930s. The early use of fascist political tactics by the Action Française has already been mentioned by E. Nolte, Three faces of fascism, New York, 1964. But the majority of scholars on this theme contest this association of Sternhell’s. See, for example, E. Weber, L’Action Française, Paris, 1962, and R. Rémond, Les droites en France, Paris, 1982, pp. 169-80. 20 Sternhell, La droite révolutionnaire, p. 27. 21

Sternhell, Ni droite ni gauche, p. 81.

The Sternhell debate

35

and bourgeois, but also Marxist and proletarian’. 22 While hardly anything of Marxism remained in these men coming from the left and far left, the revolutionary principle survived. The conceptual framework of the revolution was nevertheless profoundly altered. Sorel, Lagardelle, Roberto Michels, and the revolutionary syndicalists started on an ideological route that was a forerunner, with great similarities, of the route to fascism taken by others in the period between the wars: the socialist Marcel Déat, for example, or Henri De Man, leader of the Belgian workers’ party. A large part of Sternhell’s work is devoted to an attempt to prove the existence of this movement. He summarizes it thus: Sorel, Michels, and Berth, like the planistes and the neo-socialists, rejected historical materialism and replaced it with an explanation of a psychological nature. They eventually reached a socialism that no longer required a relationship with the proletariat. Thus, from the beginning of the century, socialism began to expand, to become a socialism for all, a socialism for the whole community, a socialism that launched an attack on capitalism using not just one social class but the whole community.23

This route is exemplary in Sorel, leading him to reject Marxism and theorise about a socialism that had little to do with the rationalist tradition of the 18th century. His theory of myths assumed a central role that led him in the political field to foster the Cahiers du Cercle Proudhon, uniting revolutionary syndicalists and neo-nationalists of the Action Française before the First World War. In Sorel’s writing, the idea of a class struggle now covered an ideology in which vitalism, intuition, pessimism and activism, the cults of energy, heroism, and proletarian violence, replaced Marxist rationalism. The nation and tradition were to emerge as the sole moral creative forces, the only ones able to prevent decadence. All that remained was ‘to replace the conceptual framework of Marxism, replacing the concept of proletariat by that of nation.’24 A similar route led Roberto Michels and Labriola to work with Enrico Corradini and the nationalists in La Lupa. The rejection of historical materialism and the role of the proletariat made this anti-liberal socialism a natural ally of neo-nationalism. We thus obtain a national socialism without the proletariat, producing a ‘conjugation based on the nationalist anti-liberal and anti-bourgeois right on the one hand, and 22 Ibid. 23 Ibid., p. 295. 24 Ibid., p. 96.

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The nature of fascism revisited

the socialist and socializing left on the other, all equally determined to smash liberal democracy.’25 The planiste and corporatist options, political and economic anti-liberalism, nationalism, and anti-communism, were to be unifying points of this natural synthesis between the new socialism and the young radical nationalism that also rose up against the old conservative world, against the aristocracy and the bourgeoisie. Together they were to form a war machine against capitalism without precedent: Corporatism and the strong state, controlling all the instruments to command the economy, freed once and for all from ties of universal suffrage, parliamentarianism, committees, and parties, constituted the means for this attack on the capitalist citadel, on society divided into antagonistic classes, on the decadence of the nation, on the decline of a whole civilization.26

The men who contributed towards this synthesis were by no means just the ‘official’ fascists. Their fate might be different when Vichy and the Nazi occupation arrived, but their struggle against the weaknesses of the system and the very foundations of the liberal system were to contribute decisively to the downfall of the legitimacy of democracy and of a certain vision of the world associated with the heritage of the Enlightenment and the principles of 1789. In the period between the two world wars it was not only Bucard, Doriot, or Marcel Déat who followed routes comparable to those of the pre-war generation. Intellectuals like Bertrand de Jouvenel, Brasillach, and Maulnier participated in this fascist impregnation of French society during the 1930s, looking for a third way between capitalism and socialism. ‘Never had any ideology fed to such an extent on the ambiguity and lack of clarity that prevailed between the two wars.’27 Fascism in that era, Sternhell notes, constituted a political ideology like any other; a legitimate political option far beyond the restricted circles of those who openly adopted it, thus allowing a large number of intellectuals ‘to be fascists without knowing it.’28 It was not until the end of the war (though some would never get that far) that the latter recognized that to combine political and economic liberalism, the so-called bourgeois

25 Ibid., p. 10. 26 Ibid., p. 295. 27 Ibid., p. 312. 28 Ibid., p. 311.

The Sternhell debate

37

liberties, democracy, and disorder in the same condemnation ‘meant opening the doors to fascism.’29 Sternhell’s theories unleashed a very rich polemic, which we hope to outline here, indicating the points that tend to support the central hypotheses under debate. The majority of Sternhell’s critics tend to reject his analysis totally. Shlomo Sand, Michel Winock, Serge Berstein, Jacques Julliard, and Leonardo Rapone are unanimous in considering his thesis unacceptable, particularly that part relating to the definition (sometimes imprecise) of fascist ideology and its formative process. A second rejection – which is also fundamental – concerns the actual historiographic genre and the methodology practiced. Other contributions support some points, as with Philip Burrin, or at least refrain from flatly rejecting his theses, as in the cases of Sergio Romano and Dino Cofrancesco. Sternhell’s first reply reaffirmed his positions and made them more precise, and he has continued to publish articles complementary to Ni droite ni gauche. 30 I shall start with what seems to me to be Winock’s and Julliard’s central contribution to the debate: a kind of theoretical and methodological introduction. For them, Sternhell’s error derives from his reliance upon a deceptive history of ideologies: he ignores, they insist, the advances of historical science and the tendencies of modern historiography, and produces a history of ideas without a sociological dimension, artificially separating the ideological world from political and social practice. Julliard points out that while modern historiography tends to prefer practice rather than theory, Sternhell falls into the trap of a ‘somewhat traditional philosophical and historical idealism that does not incorporate the acquisitions of social history:’31 that is to say, ‘when the history of ideas is not accompanied by an evaluation of its social importance it leads to a distorted view.’32 A similar position is defended by Leonardo Rapone, who shows his perplexity at this Sternhellian view of history ‘exclusively through the filter of ideas’ based on a literal interpretation of texts that does not take into consideration any contribution of social and political history. 33 Julliard is peremptory in his conclusion, considering the work symptomatic of the return of the 29 Ibid., p. 312. 30 See Z. Sternhell, ‘Emmanuel Mounier et la contestation de la démocratie libérale dans la France des années trente’, Revue Française de Science Politique 6, December 1984, pp. 1141–80. 31 Julliard, ‘Fascisme imaginaire’, p. 850. 32 Ibid., p. 853. 33

L. Rapone, ‘Fascismo né destra’, p. 820.

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The nature of fascism revisited

ideological refoulé that takes the form of revenge against economic and social history and of a return to the old history of ideas, which contents itself with its internal arrangement, ancestry, and affiliation, but does not consider its temporal and environmental integration.34 Without negating the hypothesis that fascism may usefully be analyzed as an ideology, Sand, Winock, and Julliard deny its structured character and tend to give support to its pragmatism. For Sand, fascism, ‘more than any other social movement of the 20th century, is based principally on its practices. Fascism is a pragmatic movement, whose theoretical elements constantly change.’35 Not even when unified in a movement, as in Italy, do we find this ‘solid conceptual framework’ of fascist ideology. Here Winock notes, quoting Sergio Romano, Fascism – more so than in Germany – presents itself as ‘a system conditioned by events.’36 Sternhell, however, goes further, for one of his hypotheses is that of the existence of a structured fascist ideology before the appearance of the name and of the movements themselves. Here we enter into the complex problem of origins. According to Sternhell, if it is true that it was the First World War that provoked the appearance of fascist movements, this does not constitute a milestone in fascist ideology which was already structured before the outbreak of the war. What is seen by his critics as no more than an a posteriori construction of diverse and heterogeneous elements is for Sternhell an existing solid conceptual framework. Where Sternhell sees a fascist ideology already perfectly structured, his critics more cautiously see a somewhat eclectic. pre-fascist culture ‘that only has any meaning par retrodiction.’37 Separating fascist ideology from actual fascism artificially, Sternhell loses the fundamental reference points of his arguments. The definition of fascist ideology as a synthesis of right and left, which has also been rejected, does not stand up to questioning either, for ‘a little, even superficial, attention to the only fascism of interest to the historian – that is, that which exists – would have convinced Sternhell the main forces of fascism were to the right and not the left, and that its main adversaries were on the left and not on the right.’38 When Sternhell analyses the role of revolutionary syndicalism or socialist revisionism, he quotes names unrepresentative of the respective currents and movements, and whose impact on these movements was nil. 34 Julliard, ‘Fascisme imaginaire’, p. 858. 35 Sand, ‘L’idéologie fasciste’, p. 151. 36 Winock, ‘Fascisme à la française’, p. 40. 37 Ibid., p. 40. 38

Julliard, ‘Fascisme imaginaire’, p. 859.

The Sternhell debate

39

But there is still a methodological criticism, referring to the way Sternhell applies his concept of fascist ideology to the authors he analyses. In Serge Berstein’s view, Sternhell successively isolates some parts that could be included in a purely phenomenological description of fascism (nationalism, corporatism, anti-democratism, planisme, etc.) without giving the phenomenon a definition that presents its components as a whole. From there he gives an overall classification to each contributor included in one of the isolated parts. To prove this he uses and abuses the so-called false identity syllogism. Sand explains that one separates one or more aspects of a group and uses this to identify another group: de Gaulle equals anti-communist, Hitler equals anticommunist, therefore de Gaulle equals Hitler.39 Sternhell does not give an alternative to the ideological world under analysis: refuting Marxism without accepting democracy is equal to fascism and so on. On the other hand, teleology runs throughout his work. The actors parade with an unrivalled coherence, without interruption, from socialism to Vichy. Julliard is surprised at this religion of origins in which each period is reviewed on the ideological level as a remake of the preceding one.40 Here we enter into Sternhell’s own concept of fascist ideology. In fact, if all his critics accuse him of being diffuse or even lacking in concept, only some of them draw near to him in the polemic. Serge Berstein makes this absence the axis of his contribution. He defines some of the fundamental and non-dissociable criteria that characterize fascism. In the first place, he says, it arises as a direct result of the eruption of the masses into the political field and the resultant crisis of integration. In the second place, it was the First World War that acted as the founder event of this phenomenon. Fascism thus derives, like other movements and ideologies (socialism or revolutionary syndicalism), from this crisis of the integration of the masses into the political system. Its political program is part of what Berstein called third-way ideologies that try to find an intermediate solution between liberalism and socialism and which are strictly associated with the aspirations of the urban and rural middle classes. But fascism is a variant of this ideological constellation, as is, for example, Christian democracy or radicalism. Even though these last two were born before the First World War, this was not the case with fascism. There are obviously some common links between them, such as, for example, state economic intervention of a more-or-less planned nature, various corporatisms, and antagonism towards democracy. Sternhell solves the problem by considering them all as fascists, and ignores Berstein’s fourth criterion – 39 Sand, ‘L’idéologie fasciste’, p. 153. 40 Julliard, ‘Fascisme imaginaire’, p. 852.

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The nature of fascism revisited

totalitarianism – since ‘fascism is inseparable from its practice totalitarianism.’41 This is tendentiously found in the ideology of fascist movements and is put into practice after the seizure of power. The Sternhellian confusion of fascist ideology and the family of national reunification ideologies forms the basis of Philip Burrin’s critical contribution. Both of these have common themes such as anti-liberalism and the refusal to accept ‘conflict and division as fundamental parts of all society.’42 Nevertheless, there are still important differences, and for Burrin fascist impregnation is an imported phenomenon in France. Dino Cofrancesco stands apart from the rhetoric of complexity of Sternhell’s critics. He rejects Sternhell’s ‘ideolo-centrism,’ that underestimation that limits the value of his research, of analyses of institutions of political power, and of the actual national make-up. He also rejects the solid conceptual framework of the ideology under analysis. But he opposes Sternhell’s critics on the grounds that the analysis itself remains valid, particularly in regard to the different degrees of contribution to fascist ideology by authors of diverse origins. In the formation of the theory of the enemy brothers that associated liberalism and Marxist socialism in the same rejection and constituted the ‘ideal humus of fascism,’ the contributions during the period between the two wars were many and varied.43 In his reply Sternhell systematizes what for him constitutes the fascist minimum: a denial of individualism, capitalism, liberalism, Marxist determinism and its social democratic variant, and their replacement with a ‘conception of man as a social animal, an integral part of an organic whole.’44 But he adds something about the nature of the Vichy regime, which was the deposit of the whole process of ‘fascistization’ within French society. Unlike those who accentuate the difference between Vichy and fascism, Sternhell stresses the revolutionary and not merely conservative, authoritarian character of the new regime, underlining its similarities with Nazism and Italian fascism.45 41 Berstein, ‘La France des années trente’, p. 88. 42 Burrin, ‘Le champs magnétique’, p. 53. 43 Cofrancesco, ‘Recensioni’, p. 366. 44 Sternhell, ‘Sur le fascisme’, p. 36. 45 Ibid., pp. 50-1. This position, defended in the debate, is different from the implied description of the Vichy regime as conservative authoritarian present in the work being analysed. This evolution seems to be natural given a large part of the Sternhellian description of fascist ideology is assumed by the Pétain regime. Sternhell’s initial contradiction is also noted by R. Austin, ‘Propaganda and public opinion in Vichy France: The department of Hérault’, European Studies Review 13, no 4, 1983, pp. 503-5.

The Sternhell debate

41

While basically in agreement with some of the criticisms mentioned above, at this point I would like to highlight the merit of Sternhell’s work: it supplies an impressive analytical picture of the cultural origins of fascism. His research seems to me to be decisive in its definition of a generic cultural matrix of this cultural and political phenomenon that can be applied to its national variants. All ideology appears in society with an articulated set of negations, and with great perspicacity Sternhell characterizes the cultural field that produces one of the central negative points of fascism: democracy as an ideology and a political system. Sternhell correctly attributes the origins of fascism to the cultural changes occurring at the turn of the century, placing them with precision in the liberal crisis at the time of the emergence of the masses in the political field under the impact of the industrialization and urbanization processes. Unless we take into account how much fascism owed to these processes, we will be unable to analyses the ideology, political practice, and social basis of the postwar movements. This is the link that his critics fail to mention, and which is considered incontrovertible by the majority of scholars working in this area.46 Sternhell’s framework of references, however, is not entirely original. Pareto and Mosca’s theories of elitism, Vacher de Lapouge’s racist anthropology, Gustave le Bon’s social psychology, social Darwinism, and Sorel’s theory of myths (to mention only some of Sternhell’s favorite themes), have been included in the debate on the cultural origins of fascism since the 1960s. In the case of France, Ernst Nolte and Eugen Weber may be considered Sternhell’s predecessors,47 and in that of Germany, George L. Mosse.48 In short, the Sternhellian analysis of this process of cultural change that legitimates a genuine attack on the ideological foundations of liberalism and democracy seems to me to be fundamental. I nevertheless do not believe the authors just mentioned support Sternhell’s hypotheses regarding fascist ideology itself. Another merit of Sternhell’s work (which I shall not discuss here) is his analysis of the political and social reflection of this process of change, characterized by the appearance in France of movements that anticipated, in ideology and political action, many of the characteristics of postwar fascist-type parties. 46 Consult the bibliography in Payne, Fascism, pp. 34–41. 47 And a substantial group of more recent monographs. A review of some of them may be found in E Weber. ‘Fascism(s) and some harbingers’, Journal of Modern History 4, December 1982, pp. 746–65. 48 G. L. Mosse, The crisis of German ideology: Intellectual origins of the Third Reich, New York, 1964; The nationalization of the masses, New York, 1975. For a comparative perspective, see G. L. Mosse, ‘Toward a general theory of fascism’, International fascism: New thoughts and new approaches, London, 1979, pp. 1–38.

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To underestimate the ideological dimension of fascism seems to me, on the other hand, to be an error opposite to Sternhell’s. Some of his critics seem to make this mistake – Shlomo Sand, for example, considers fascism to be ‘a pragmatic movement the theoretical elements of which constantly change.’ To react to Sternhell’s ideologism by choosing pragmatism as the central dimension of fascism leads to the disappearance of one of its typifying criteria, which differentiate it from other movements and similar regimes. It is dangerous to confuse the compromises of fascism once in power with actual pragmatism: fascism was never pragmatic and in power acted in conformity with the spirit of its ideology.49 However, entering into the area analyzed by Sternhell, I find some of his theses unacceptable. His ambiguity arises largely from conceptual and methodological problems. The first of these manifests itself in the confusion of culture with ideology. Sternhell associates all traces of an emerging anti-democratic and irrationalist culture at the beginning of the 20th century with fascist ideology, and he classifies all its contributors according to this criterion. It is this confusion that leads me to conclude that if his work is a useful tool for understanding cultural origins, it is less valuable regarding what seems to be his objective: defining fascist ideology itself. The problem is complex because in the case of fascism it is difficult to distinguish between these two areas of emphasis, the themes that make up its central nucleus having been available on the ideological market since the beginning of the last century. All Sternhell’s ambiguity arise from here. Encompassing all those elements within fascist ideology that belong, albeit never in a structured form, to the cultural magma in which fascism is included, Sternhell classifies as fascist all those that at any moment are included in one of the elements considered. This is only possible because he never applies his definition of fascist ideology in its totality to each one of the authors under analysis. Taken to the extreme, Sternhell’s work reminds one of a religious procession in which each participant takes his offering to the protecting saint of fascism: one brings corporatism, one planisme, another antiliberalism, yet another brings 49 What I wish to point out is that pragmatism cannot constitute an individualizing characteristic of fascism. The fascist dictatorships appear in fact highly ideologized if we compare them with other political regimes. On the importance of ideology in fascism, contrast the positions of two differing authors, Juan Linz and Mihaly Vajda. As the latter points out, it is important not to confuse ideology with the programs of fascist parties: ‘fascism never hesitated in radically modifying its declared program and even changed it completely if the interests of power required such a tactic. But it never renounced its ideology.’ See M. Vajda, Fascisme et mouvement de masses, Paris, 1979, p. 17. See also J. J. Linz, ‘Some notes toward a comparative study of fascism in sociological historical perspective’, in Laqueur, Fascism, pp. 25–6.

The Sternhell debate

43

anti-capitalism. To apply the classification to them with any rigour, each one should bring an overall sample. Sternhell begins his study without a structured concept of fascist ideology and does not rigorously define all the concepts he uses: revolution, socialism, and capitalism all appear throughout his work without clear definitions. He starts without any means of interpreting the ideological text and propaganda, and accepts as absolute truth, with no discussion, his anti-capitalism or socialism. Here we shall have to do justice to his critics. His ambiguity is related to the historiographical genre: a mere history of the ideological événement. Only the total separation of ideology and social practice allows him to accept the fascist rhetoric. But considering that the basic cultural themes of fascist ideology have been available since the beginning of the past century, what seems to me to be needed is a sociological study of its formative process, which might explain the specific manner in which it was formed after the First World War. In this field Sternhell is of little use to us. All this becomes even more complicated when Sternhell tries not only to cover the specific case of France but also to analyze the universals of a generic fascist ideology. The contributions to fascism of a certain socialist revisionism and revolutionary syndicalism have been pointed out by various scholars. For historians like A. James Gregor, for example, fascism is fundamentally an heir of socialism, a kind of Marxist heresy.50 Some of Sternhell’s theses concerning the approximation between Action Française and revolutionary syndicalism in the Cercle Proudhon had already been presented by Paul Mazgaj.51 But if in the specific French case we have to include the route of a certain anti-Marxist revisionism towards fascism, mirrored in the theories of national socialism, this movement cannot be included in a generic definition of the phenomenon. The anti-capitalist component of fascist ideology resulted from its negation of economic liberalism in the strictest sense. Arising in an era of crisis, 50 Cited in E. Weber, ‘Fascism(s)’, p. 757. A. James Gregor represents in the Italian case the thesis that takes the left ideological roots of fascism further, considering them as the product of ‘a long intellectual tradition that has its origins in the ambiguous legacy given to revolutionaries by the work of Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels’; A. J. Gregor, Italian Fascism and developmental dictatorship, Princeton, NJ, 1979, p. 121 and Young Mussolini and the intellectual origins of Italian Fascism, Berkeley, CA, 1979. One is tempted to try to follow the ideological routes of various personalities from Marxist socialism, or even communism, to fascism (Doriot, for example). What seems to be necessary is to distinguish where apostasy starts and heresy finishes, as Martin Blinkhorn and Eugen Weber note. 51 P. Mazgaj, The Action Française and revolutionary syndicalism, Chapel Hill, NC, 1979, pp. 170–222. Positively reviewed by M, Launay, Le Mouvement Social 121, October/ December 1982, pp. 125–9. For Sorel and his relations with fascism see J. R. Roth, The cult of violence: Sorel and the Sorelians, Berkeley, CA, 1980, pp. 89–143, 180-211.

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fascism presented itself as the defender of economic nationalism and of the more-or-less planned intervention of the state, as did social Catholicism and social democracy. But there is no reason for Sternhell to characterize its goals as anti-capitalist. Even though some such movements initially included anticapitalist proposals in their programs, this is one of the characteristics that, owing to its great rarity, ought not to be included in a generic definition of fascist ideology.52 However, this does not apply to anti-individualism and anti-liberalism. The negation of political liberalism and of democracy without doubt constitutes a fascist universal. Here I consider Sternhell’s work crucial, demonstrating as it does fascism’s position as the main inheritor of an anti-liberal culture that refuses to have anything to do with democracy and denies the institutionalization of conflict. The vision of society as an organic whole, as a national and integrated community in which conflict disappears, represents a universal characteristic of fascist ideology.53 The usefulness of the Sternhellian concept of fascism is limited in two connected ways. It is simultaneously so restrictive (socialism plus nationalism) that hardly anyone can get in, and so vast (anti-liberalism) that there is room for all the enemies of democracy. I do not believe that it is feasible to introduce a double genealogy of right and left into the generic concept of fascist ideology, since in the majority of national variants of the phenomenon this is simply not verifiable. Sternhell rigorously analyses the conjunctural confluence bringing together revolutionary syndicalism and the revolutionary right in fascism, yet this confluence remains an essentially negative one, based upon a denial of democracy. I do not question that fascism absorbed cultural themes that were originally produced on the left of the early 20th-century European political spectrum. These cannot, however, be considered proto-fascist per se. As Emilio Gentile notes in reference to the Italian case, ‘fascism combines in a new synthesis the themes of national radicalism, but these were not per se protofascist forerunners, in that they can be put together in various ways, giving 52 The theme of the anti-capitalism of fascist ideology obviously deserves more detailed discussion. Effectively, certain movements and ideologies – and even regimes – present projects that, in a very restricted sense, can be considered anti-capitalist. Returning to the conceptual imprecision of Sternhell – if we adopt any minimum commonly accepted to define capitalism as a historical, economic and social phenomenon, it would be very difficult to include anti-capitalism as a universal of fascist ideology. J. J. Linz in Laqueur, Fascism, pp. 34–9. 53 Philippe Burrin considers that ‘the fascist project is that of a compact and tense (not calm, harmonious and organic) society.’ I do not feel fascism’s tendency towards a totalitarian character eclipses this integrative organic and non-conflictive model of its ideology and political practice.

The Sternhell debate

45

results which are different from, and antithetical to, those derived from the fascist synthesis.’54 Thus we return to the ambiguity that runs throughout Sternhell’s work: while it is a fact fascism took and synthesized diverse existing themes, it does not seem to me legitimate to speak of its ideology before it became a political movement, for it is here that there that ideological synthesis that stimulates political practice is produced. Its character as a latecomer helps to explain, as Juan Linz notes, the negations of its ideology and appeal, ‘transforming existing elements into other ideologies and movements.’55 The various ‘anti(s)’ of fascism served to define its identity in relation to other parties (some of which were already using identical ideological themes) and to enable it to appeal to its backers on the basis of greater militancy and effectiveness against its enemies.56 This is why it seems to me to be wrong to speak of structured fascist ideology before the appearance of the movements themselves. These limitations do not, however, invalidate the exhaustive analysis of the relationship between anti-liberal ideology and fascism. What Sternhell did, as Dino Cofrancesco notes, was to place various essential components of fascist ideology together in a continuum in order to test, by analyzing individual cases, degrees of approximation.’57 While a more rigorous conceptual framework may be required, some of his hypotheses nonetheless remain operative and could be tested in cases other than that of France. Sternhell’s work contributes in an unprecedented way towards a redefinition of the cultural origins of fascism and its ideology. In the French case, he demonstrates how fascism permeated French society and its intellectual elites, far beyond those groups most closely attached to it. His analysis of the evolutionary process towards fascism, of men and of currents flowing from revolutionary syndicalism and from socialism, seems to me to be decisive. But one central theme stands out in his work: the connection between the production of an ideology seeking the destruction of democratic legitimacy and the corresponding process of fascist impregnation, a movement that is difficult to dissociate from the first half of the 20th century in Europe. 54 E. Gentile, Il mito dello stato nuovo dall ’antigiolittismo al fascismo, Roma and Bari, 1982, p. 26. Gentile covers the theme of the impact of the new mass society on \\Italian political culture and the ideological origins of fascism in various short works. See also R. Vivarelli, Il fallimento del liberalismo studi sulle origine del fascismo, Bologna, 1981, pp. 25–76. 55 Linz in Laqueur, Fascism, p. 15. 56 Ibid. 57 D. Cofrancesco, ‘Recensioni’, p. 369.

3

New interpretations (I): The constituencies of fascism

European fascism continues to attract a considerable degree of attention, as witnessed by the publication of many works over the past few years.1 Recently the comparative study of fascism has increasingly centered on its ideological and cultural dimensions, at times becoming ideology-centered. We could even say that, at least on a superficial level, the analysis of so-called generic fascism has moved from a sociological to a more political perspective, giving both ideology and culture much more importance than previously. On the other hand, this area has become more restricted in disciplinary terms with historians clearly dominating, while sociology and political science seem to be abandoning the subject.2 Michael Mann’s Fascists represents a welcome return from the best traditions of comparative historical sociology towards the analysis of fascism and its role in the crises and collapse of democracy. This book restores society and politics to the center of the study of fascism. Deviating slightly from his major work, The sources of social power (1986, 1993), Mann utilizes the vast academic literature on fascism to provide an analysis of both the phenomenon and the conditions for its success. This book asks the classic questions: Who were the fascists? How did they grow and who supported them? And what 1

In this chapter I review the following books: M. Mann, Fascists, Cambridge, 2004; R. O. Paxton, The anatomy of fascism, London, 2004; N. Bermeo, Ordinary people in extraordinary times: The citizenry and the breakdown of democracy, Princeton, NJ, 2003; D. Musiedlak, Mussolini, Paris, 2005; P. H. Lewis, Latin fascist elites: The Mussolini, Franco and Salazar regimes, Westport, CT, 2003.

2

With some exceptions that are connected to studies of the crises and fall of democratic regimes, as in the case of D. Berg-Schlosser and J. Mitchell, eds, Conditions of democracy in Europe, 1919–39: Systematic case studies, London, 2000, and from the same editors, Authoritarianism and democracy in Europe, 1919–39: Comparative analyses, London, 2003, as well as Bermeo’s book, which is reviewed here. See also G. Capoccia, Defending democracy: Reactions to extremism in interwar Europe, Baltimore, MD, 2005.

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are the conditions most conducive to their taking power? Through an examination of six cases in which fascist movements were important in overthrowing the liberal democratic order, and where they obtained power as either the dominant political force or as a junior partner, Mann attempts to construct a dynamic model that is not merely a taxonomy of fascism. Like Mann’s study, the historian Robert O. Paxton’s The anatomy of fascism is also a critical reaction to some aspects of the ‘ideological centrism’ of recent years. Because it was written by a historian, criticism of culturalism is more present in Paxton’s book, the author of which is more marked by the ‘fascistology’ debates than Mann. By claiming that ‘what fascists did tells at least as much as what they said ’ (a stance that has been criticized by historians such as Zeev Sternhell and Roger Griffin), Paxton attempts to locate the ideas in their rightful place.3 It would be reductionist to say Paxton’s work is a development of his article, ‘The five stages of fascism’; however, in strictly theoretical-methodological terms, that is exactly what this is.4 What Paxton has achieved in this book – which is the culmination of several years research and teaching and which is destined for a much greater audience than just the specialists – is to present a global vision of the fascist phenomenon in a more developed and sophisticated manner than before. The book’s structure follows the five stages cycle: (i) the creation of the movements, (ii) their embedding in the political system, (iii) the seizure of power, (iv) the exercise of power, and (v) ‘finally, the long duration, during which the fascist regime chooses either radicalization or entropy’ (p. 32). According to Paxton, this creates a simpler illustration of how fascism ‘far from [being] static, was a succession of processes and choices,’ requiring different conceptual tools for each stage. What is fascism? I readily confess that I do not know where the tendency for short definitions of fascism comes from. Such definitions are obviously central to the functionality of an analysis; however, some are little more than soundbites. There has to my knowledge been no similar obsession in the study of communism or democracy. Nevertheless, neither Mann nor Paxton can resist the temptation that captured their predecessors. Despite this, however, these works are 3

See the indirect critique by Z. Sternhell, New York Review of Books 52, no 8, 12 May 2005, which comments on A. Lyttelton’s review of Paxton, New York Review of Books 51, no 16, 21 October 2004, and the very critical review of R. Griffin in American Historical Review 109, no 5, 2004, pp. 1530–1.

4

R. O. Paxton, ‘The five stages of fascism’, Journal of Modern History 70, no 1, 1998, pp. 1–13.

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much richer than the definitions and particularly in the case of the former the definitions represent the anchor in a sophisticated set of hypotheses concerning the success or failure of fascism. In other words, they are instruments of study that structure both the analysis and the narrative. Mann begins his book with a definition of ‘fascism in terms of [the] key values, actions, and power organizations of fascists. Most concisely, fascism is the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism’ (p. 13). The five key terms, some with internal tensions, are nationalism, statism, transcendence, cleansing, and paramilitarism. Given that many of these concepts are relatively consensual it is not necessary to introduce them in any great detail: ƒ Nationalism: the ‘deep and populist commitment to an “organic” or “integral” nation’; ƒ Statism: this is concerned with goals and organizational form. The organic conception imposes an authoritarian state ‘embodying a singular, cohesive will [as] expressed by a party elite’ adhering to the leadership principle (p. 14). Mann is well aware of the tensions between movement and bureaucracy and confirms that ‘fascism was more totalitarian in its transformational goals than in its actual regime form’ (p. 13); ƒ Transcendence: this is the typical neither/nor of fascism as a third way. Mann stresses that the core constituency of fascist support can be understood only by taking their aspirations to transcendence seriously. ‘Nation and state comprised their center of gravity, not class’ (p. 15); ƒ Cleansing: ‘Most fascisms entwined both ethnic and political cleansing, though to differ[ring] degrees’ (p. 16);5 ƒ Paramilitarism: both a key fascist value and an organizational form. Just as many analysts have done before him, Mann stresses that ‘what essentially distinguishes fascists from many military and monarchical dictatorships of the world is [the] “bottom-up” and violent quality of its paramilitarism. It could bring popularity, both electorally and among elites’ (p. 16). This is not too far from other definitions of fascism, such as Stanley G. Payne’s typological description, to give only one example.6 Mann states that the diverse combinations of this definition can result in more-or-less fascist movements, but that he does not have the imagination to ‘plot fascist movements (each one obviously unique) amid a five-dimensional space’ (p. 17). However, one of the problems with the functionality of his definition is that 5

M. Mann, The dark side of democracy: Explaining ethnic cleansing, New York, 2005.

6

S. G. Payne, A history of fascism,1914–194, Madison, WI, 1995, p. 7.

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it talks of different units: at times referring to parties or movements, at others referring to political regimes, and sometimes referring to both. This same problem is also present in Paxton’s book, given that ‘a definition that does full justice the phenomenon of fascism must apply to the later stages as effectively as it does to the earlier ones’ (p. 206). Paxton provides the definition at the end of his book: Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood, and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elite groups, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion (p. 218).

Paxton views fascism ‘primarily as [a] political phenomenon’. However, his attempt to obtain a balance between the various stages in the definition is very difficult to achieve, since it is not part of a rigorous anchor, thereby underlining the need to use different conceptual tools for each stage. ‘Fascism in action looks much more like a network of relationships than a fixed essence’ (p. 207). There are some points common to both definitions, with the first being the trilogy: ideology/collective action/organizational forms. In different ways, they both criticize the cultural-linguistic turn. In his explicit criticism of Roger Griffin, the author of the influential book The nature of fascism,7 Mann claims that ‘without power organizations, ideas cannot actually do anything,’ meaning we must therefore add to its values, ‘programs, actions, and organizations’ (p. 12). I do not believe that it is worth spending much time discussing the ideology versus political praxis and institutions debate that exists amongst ‘fascistologists,’ a debate that has already achieved parochial proportions. In the past, some historiographical polemics about the relative importance of ideology were significant, particularly on the rejection by some Marxist historians of the importance of ideas in Italian fascism, for example, or on the relative strength of French fascism.8 Some of these discussions, such as the debates regarding the concept of totalitarianism or about fascism versus 7

R. D. Griffin, The nature of fascism, London, 1991. See his review of Fascists, in which he states Mann ‘adds nothing substantially new to the sociological comparative approach of Juan Linz nearly three decades ago,’ considering his definition ‘an anticlimax,’ in History Today 54, no 11, 2004, p. 78.

8

For more on the so-called Sternhell debate concerning French fascism see chapter two. See also R. Eatwell, ‘On defining the “fascist minimum”: The centrality of ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies 1, no 3, 1996, pp. 303–19.

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authoritarianism as the characterization of the right-wing dictatorships of the period, were more general in nature.9 Almost all of these debates had an ideological component, although the majority of the most noted historians of fascist ideology developed definitions of fascism that also integrated the type of party and form of regime.10 Developing a synthesis of these debates in 1995, Payne noted that the ‘complexity of fascism cannot be adequately described without recourse to a relatively complex typology, however laudable the principle of parsimony may be.’11 Where, who, how, and why? More consensually, and in agreement with many historians, Mann considers fascism – to use Roger Eatwell’s expression – to be ‘European-epochal,’ and a variant of authoritarian reactions in the context of crises.12 Nevertheless, despite fascism there ‘was set aside a single large geographical block of authoritarian regimes’ in which ‘notions of general crisis do best at explaining the general authoritarian surge, less well at explaining the rise of fascist movements’ (p. 48). It is in the context of the democratic crises of the interwar period that he could have incorporated Nancy Bermeo’s excellent work, Ordinary people in extraordinary times, into his analysis. This is a book she herself defines as a comparative political history of the role of ordinary citizens in the breakdown of democracy. Bermeo analyses 17 cases of authoritarian takeover in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, testing the polarization thesis.13 This classic model of 9

See J. J. Linz, Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, Boulder, CO, 2000; Fascismo, autoritarismo, totalitarismo, Rome, 2003.

10 For example, Emilio Gentile defines Italian Fascism as ‘an experiment in political domination undertaken by a revolutionary movement... that aspires toward a monopoly of power and that... constructs a new state based on a single-party regime, with the chief objective of conquering society.’ See ‘Fascism and the Italian road to totalitarianism’, paper presented to 19th International Congress of Historical Sciences, Oslo, 6–13 August 2000, p. 3. See also E. Gentile, Fascismo: Storia e interpretazione, Bari, 2002. 11 Payne, History, p. 5. 12 R. Eatwell, ‘Towards a new model of generic fascism’, Journal of Theoretical Politics 4, no 2, 1992, pp. 161–94; ‘European fascism? Approaches and definitions’, in Stein U. Larsen, ed., Fascism outside Europe, New York, 2001, pp. 15–45. See also A. Kallis, ‘The “regime-model” of fascism: A typology’, European History Quarterly 30, 2000, pp. 77–104. 13 Nancy Bermeo’s work examines the European experiences of the period between the two world wars and the Latin American experiences of the 1960s and 1970s; however, only the introduction and first part of this book will be reviewed here. Some other reviews of this work are more concerned with the Latin American aspects. See, for

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polarized pluralism, which was developed by the Italian political scientist Giovanni Sartori, states that ‘party systems (and the party elite) must restrain the forces of polarity inherent in political democracies. If party systems fail to constrain both the ideological range and the number of parties... centrifugal forces will tear democracy apart’ (p. 19). While this does not negate the validity of the thesis according to which political actors, when they group themselves in opposing and distant ideological camps, vacate the middle ground and leave democracy vulnerable to collapse. Bermeo shows that ordinary people are ‘the “masons of polarization”’ in only a very small number of cases: ‘mass defections to extremist parties are rare’ (p. 5). Elite polarization is therefore much more important in the breakdown of democracy. In order to substantiate her argument, Bermeo examines two levels of polarization: private polarization, such as changes in voting preferences; and public polarization, including mobilizations and counter-mobilizations in public space. Her conclusion is that the fall of the democracies was mainly a story ‘of elite failure’ (p. 6). To verify the classic hypothesis of polarization, in each democracy there must be relevant anti-system parties that are situated two poles apart on the left–right spectrum, ‘mutually exclusive, bilateral oppositions flanking the democratic governments that fail,’ and, most importantly, the enfeeblement of the center and the ‘prevalence of centrifugal drives over centripetal ones’ (p. 52). Ordinary citizens, as voters, would desert centrist parties and transfer their allegiance to the extremes. Nonetheless, only the second characteristic is present in virtually all cases. Rather unhelpfully, however, it is also present where democracy survived. Elsewhere, polarization is much more obvious among the elite and in the public space. Bermeo illustrates well the conservative elite’s over-reaction to what she calls ‘polarization in public spaces.’ For Mann, too, ‘class does matter, profoundly, if in a rather peculiar way;’ hence, the upper classes greatly exaggerated the dangers, ‘reaching for the gun too abruptly, too early’ (p. 25). Yet this cannot explain fascism, ‘since only a few countries in this zone actually generated mass fascism, and they did not normally do so at the initiative of the upper classes’ (p. 25). As Bermeo notes, ‘the rise of fascism and the fall of interwar democracies are not synonymous processes: in fact, using the cases of fascist victory as a base for generalizations about the breakdown of democracy can be highly misleading’ (p. 22). Whereas Bermeo deals with all the cases in which democracy broke down, Mann looks at where authoritarianism emerged victorious, where fascism emerged as a variant of authoritarianism, and where it played an important example, W. Rand Smith, Latin American Politics and Society 46, no 3, 2004, pp. 131–4, and Frances Hagopian, ‘What makes democracies collapse?’, Journal of Democracy 15, no 3, 2004, pp. 166–9.

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part in the downfall of democracy. The strength of fascism-as-a-movement was greater in Germany, Hungary, Austria, and Italy, where fascists arrived in power with varying degrees of social and political support. Spain, on the other hand, was chosen to exemplify a case in which ‘fascism remained the subordinate member of the authoritarian family’ (p. 30). Mann also examines macro-theories concerning the crises of democracy and the rise of the dictatorships, seeking those that are also operatives for fascism. He successively tests the hypotheses related to the economy, politics, and ideology, even although with some lack of precision and a fluid prose that is full of exceptions. There are a great many studies correlating dictatorships with the degree of economic development. In empirical terms, and with Germany as the exception, it would seem ‘the rise of authoritarianism was mainly a problem for the less-developed countries of interwar Europe,’ although ‘the largest fascist movements were found at all levels of development.’ It would seem, therefore, that fascism is unrelated to levels of economic development (p. 51). The relationship between fascism and class conflict has led to the publication of a profusion of academic studies. For Mann, it ‘is less profit than the defense of property that motivates the capitalist class,’ and ‘property was associated in the ideology of the time with two fundamental desirable social values: order and security’ (p. 63). Perhaps ‘because of the role that ideology plays in defining “interests” more broadly than rational-choice theory suggests’ (p. 63), Mann finds five reasons for the over-reaction. These are all well-known: the ‘security dilemma,’ the vulnerability of the property rights of agrarian landlords, the threat to the ‘caste-like autonomy’ of the military by the left, the reaction of the churches to the secularism of the left, and finally ‘geopolitics also marked the problem of order’ (p. 356). In the military arena, which is often underestimated in the social sciences, Mann notes that some of the links are with the First World War; yet here the most operative dimension is the link between military and ideological power: that is, on the rise of paramilitary values. We could go on, but the problem is that many of the cleavages previously analyzed are those of authoritarianism in general. As Mann recognized, ‘the major divide – both conceptually and geographically – was between liberal democracy and forms of rightist authoritarianism’ (p. 90). Where then do the fascists fit in? Clarity is not Mann’s strength, and in his conclusion he considers they were ‘nurtured among the authoritarian rightists,’ even if they were distinctive. Thus, ‘neither their organization nor their values [were] allowed to be simply a vehicle for class interests. Organizationally they were a “bottom-up” movement, not a top-down one. And they were driven in “radical” directions by their own core values’ (p. 358). However, characterizing fascism along these lines does not explain its success in all cases. As Mann

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himself recognizes, it is much easier to generalize about the causes of the rise of authoritarianism than it is for the rise of fascism. Fascists is more interesting for its attempted characterization of the social settings that led to the growth of fascism than it is for the analysis of the regimes and their institutions. Mann frames the growth of fascism around four crises associated with the four sources of power: ‘war between mass citizens’ armies, severe class conflict exacerbated by the Great Depression, the political crises arising from the attempts of many countries at a rapid transition toward a democratic nation-state, and a cultural sense of civilizational contradiction and decay’ (p. 23). While all four crises weakened the ability of elites to continue leading, fascism offered solutions for them. Despite having different causes in each country, fascism ‘was strongest where we find distinct combinations of all four’ (p. 23). Mann then concentrates on the three core fascist constituencies, including the fascist values and organizations identified earlier and which resonated most strongly, and therefore came to ‘organize actual fascist movements’ (p. 26). Here Mann includes the broad category of followers – both fascist militants and the electorate. ƒ Constituencies favoring paramilitarism: in all cases, the fascist core consisted of the two successive generations of young men who came of age between the end of the First World War and the late 1930s. These men were the product of the modern and moral socialization of two institutions – secondary and higher education and the armed forces – which were encouraging militarism. ƒ Constituencies favoring transcendence: the class composition of fascism is complex and variable. More important is its localization in the economic sector: ‘fascists tended to come from sectors that were not in the front line of organized struggle between capital and labor,’ thereby favoring a movement that would transcend class struggle (p. 27). ƒ Constituencies favoring nation-statism: ‘Fascists were at the heart of either the nation or the state... locations were similar across countries. Soldiers and veterans above all, but civil servants, teachers, and publicsector manual workers were all disproportionately fascist’ in countries with mass fascism (p. 27). It is within this framework that Mann analyses the national examples. While I am unable here to do justice to his chapters on the five case studies, all of which are extremely rich in information and analysis (even if a little confusing at times), his final conclusions do not explain the fascists’ success

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satisfactorily.14 In the Italian case, it was ‘intense class struggle, postwar paramilitarism, and a weakened old regime.’ In the German case paramilitarism was again important; class conflict, though relevant, was not dominant. Unlike Italian Fascism, Nazism was also a popular electoral movement, ‘thus Nazi transcendent nation-statism was sufficiently popular to bring it to the brink of power’ (p. 362). Austrian fascism was divided between two rival fascist movements: ‘[t]he paramilitaries of both parties attempted coups, but got into power only with the help from the military power of the state’ (p. 362). Hungarian and Romanian fascism only emerged during the mid-1930s, well after the threat from the left, ‘thus fascists had no capitalist bias; indeed, they became rather proletarian in their composition. In both cases paramilitarism was used more as an electoral tool than to repress rivals or to seize power.’ In the end the military triumphed over paramilitary power, and radicalizing authoritarians triumphed over fascists. ‘Only the chaos of the final years of the war allowed the fascists a brief, doomed victory’ (p. 363). In the Spanish case the ‘old regime experienced the least disruption among all the case studies, and so conservative authoritarians, not fascists, dominated’ (p. 363). While the explanation for each case requires local factors, are there ‘common factors determining the power of fascists?’ One of the least important factors was the threat of the working class. In relation to the strength of fascism, the main attraction for militants centered on its ability to trap young single men within fraternal, hierarchical, and violent cages. Fascism also attracted substantial electoral support based on a combination of the first three of Mann’s fascist characteristics: statism, nationalism, and class transcendence. In the end, ‘the popularity of fascism was greatly affected by the political strength and stability of old regime conservatism, which, more than liberal or social democracy, was fascism’s main rival’ (p. 364). In conclusion, ‘fascism resulted from the process of democratization amid profound warinduced crises’ (p. 365). Paxton is less ambitious in his analysis of the factors behind the success of fascist movements. His chapters dealing with the emergence of fascism underline the fact that fascism was a latecomer. He notes that there is one precondition: mass politics. Recruitment to and the social bases of the fascist movements are dealt with in fewer than four pages. His principal goal is to avoid the false trails, namely to study fascism by its origins. He examines two 14 Some reviewers (for example, F. H. Adler in Comparative Political Studies 38, no 6, 2005, p. 733) have noted several errors of fact in Michael Mann’s book. It is natural for some mistakes to be made in a comparative study such as Mann’s; however, a more attentive editor could have eliminated many. I will limit myself to indicating two errors: Portugal was not neutral in the First World War, but fought on the side of the Allies, suffering large numbers of casualties in the process (p. 67); Mann also talks of the Spanish Third Republic when it was in fact the Second Republic (p. 363).

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successful examples (Italy and Germany) and one unsuccessful (France), as well as brief regional and national studies (the Po Valley, Schleswig Holstein, and France) to illustrate the conditions that nurtured fascist movements. Paxton’s general direction is well known, but it lacks structure and fails to priorities among violence, nationalism, and polarization. The strength of his analysis, however, is in the elegant examination of the processes and context of fascism’s rise to power. As he states, ‘fascist success depends as much on allies... as on the special qualities of the movements themselves.’ It is exactly because of this that he dedicates one chapter to the ‘final essential precondition of successful fascism: decision-makers ready to share power with fascist challengers’ (p. 86). Describing the classic examples of Italy and Germany, Paxton begins by telling us what did not happen: electoral majority or victorious insurrections. He attempts a non-deterministic description that underlines what it was fascism offered to the conservatives (such as a mass following, new faces, a ‘magic formula’ for weaning workers away from Marxism, overcoming disorder) that made them reject other alternatives and ‘choose the fascist option’ (p. 102). To put it briefly, ‘the fascists offered a new recipe for governing with popular support, but without any sharing of power with the left, and without any threat to conservative social and economic privileges and political dominance. The conservatives, for their part, held the keys to the door of power’ (p. 104). It was, therefore, a pure exercise of elite rational choice: the revolution came after the seizure of power. Paxton and Bermeo agree the crises of democracy and fascism are far from being a marriage. In the middle of the crises, it was the decision of the conservatives that was at the root of fascist success. ‘All that is required to fit [Paxton’s model] is polarization, deadlock, mass mobilization against internal and external enemies, and complicity by existing elites’ (p. 116). But why is it, ‘if [when] conservatives could rule alone, they did,’ that they decided to call for the fascists? As almost all writers before him, Paxton, like Mann, recognizes that ‘conservative regimes of all sorts have provided unfavorable terrain for fascism to reach power’ (p. 111). However, in the Italian and German cases, the crises favored the fascists, and they were co-opted into power. Paxton seems to rely a great deal on elite choice: ‘it works better to see the fascist seizure of power as a process: alliances are formed, choices made, alternatives close off.’ Crises may have made the space available, but it ‘was the unfortunate choices [made] by a few powerful establishment leaders that actually put the fascists into the space’ (p. 118).

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Exercising power Paxton dedicates half of his book to the functional operation of the new political power in Italy and Germany. He does so in a way that is coherent, with his characterization of ‘Fascism in power [as] a compound, a powerful amalgam of different but marriageable conservative, national socialist, and radical right ingredients, bound together by common enemies’ (p. 206). Following the ‘dual state-polyocracy’ route that is an analytical tradition of studies of Nazism,15 and attempting new applications of the same – particularly in relation to Mussolini’s Italy – Paxton distinguishes the regimes according to the tensions between the four poles of power he developed in his 1998 article as the four-way struggle for dominance: The fascist leader; his party (whose militants clamored for jobs, perquisites, expansionist adventures, and the fulfillment of some elements of their early radical program); the state apparatus (functionaries such as police and military commanders, magistrates, and local governors); and finally civil society (holders of social, economic, political, and cultural power such as professional associations, leaders of big business and big agriculture, churches, and conservative political leaders). These four-way tensions gave these regimes their characteristic blend of febrile activism and shapelessness (pp. 123–4).

Some of these poles are not well defined by Paxton, and they vary between the article and the book. This is so in respect of the armed forces, which disappear in the book to be amalgamated under the item civil society, a term that aggregates organized interests, including the churches. Nevertheless, the hypothesis remains very fruitful. From this perspective he compares the two dictatorships, concentrating on charismatic leadership and the tug-of-war between the fascists and the conservatives, the leaders and the party, and the party and the state. While the perspective may not be new, he illustrates the functional dynamic of fascism in power in relation to these axes with great analytical and comparative elegance. More importantly, he stresses that these are the fundamental differences from other variants of authoritarian rule that did not experience these tensions during the period. I am, perhaps, a poor critic of Paxton, because I have to admit I identify with his hypotheses. This perspective has already been used to analyze German Nazism.16 Paxton, however, believes Italian Fascism can also be interpreted ‘as an Italian version of the dual state’ using the same tools, although Mussolini had 15 E. Fraenkel, The dual state, New York, 1941. 16 See the pioneering works by M. Broszat, The Hitler state, London, 1981; H. Mommsen, From Weimar to Auschwitz, Princeton, NJ, 1991; and N. Frei, National Socialist rule in Germany: The Führer state, 1933–1945, Oxford, 1993.

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to ‘accord far more power to the normative state than Hitler did’ (p. 122). For Paxton, although Hitler’s and Mussolini’s styles of rule were different, charismatic leadership is one of the identifying traits of fascist dictatorships. While Hitler has been the subject of countless studies, biographies of Mussolini only recently experienced a surge with the publication of two voluminous works about the Italian dictator.17 The French historian, Didier Musiedlak, who is the author of an excellent study of the Fascist political class,18 has written a concise biography of Mussolini. This study is particularly interesting because it is not so much a narrative biographical study, but is concerned with the construction of the myth of Mussolini, his charismatic affirmation, and his place in the functioning of the Fascist regime. Musiedlak is close to Paxton in his constant references to the role of the institutions in the construction of the myth of the Duce, in the decision-making process and in the incomplete dual state. In this biography, Mussolini’s transformation from head of government to Duce and the ‘sacralization’ of his person are particularly well illustrated. It was a task of both the propaganda apparatus and the party, which was the principal source of power independent of the old elites – the king included. As Musiedlak notes, ‘before the Fascist Party, Mussolini’s attitude is, in a certain sense, always coherent: denying the party parity with the state and, a fortiori, any idea of the supremacy of the party over the state;’ however, ‘state and party encounter their unity in the context of a personal union around the leader’ (p. 317). To use Hans Mommsen’s typology, Mussolini was a strong dictator who centralized a large proportion of decision-making and concentrated ministerial portfolios in his person, even if by the end of the 1930s he was obliged to coexist with ‘a system of legislative production that, even while reformed, was maintained’ (p. 390). As Musiedlak has noted, studies of the decision-making process and of the fascist governing elite are scarce. The old and rich tradition of elite studies in political science can tell us much about the structure and operation of political power in the dictatorships associated with fascism, whether through the characterization of the socio-professional structure or by the modes of political elite recruitment that express the extent of its rupture and/or continuity with the liberal regime, the type of leadership, the relative power of the institutions in the new dictatorial system, and other aspects we have discussed above. This is what Paul H. Lewis, a political scientist and author of two pioneering works on the ministerial elite of the Iberian dictatorships, has 17 P. Milza, Mussolini, Paris, 1999; R. J. B. Bosworth, Mussolini, London, 2002. 18 D. Musiedlak, Lo stato fascista e la sua classe politica, 1922–1943, Bologna, 2003.

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done.19 In his book Latin fascist elites he conducts and develops these studies to include Italian Fascism. It is strange that while there are a large number of studies of Italian Fascist leaders, there has been, to my knowledge, no comparative study of contemporaneous south European regimes.20 Lewis’s book is very informative, and not only does its structure enable us to observe the changes in government composition, but it also presents a convincing periodization, as well as an operative classification that is based on the studies of Harold D. Lasswell (technocrats, ‘politicians,’ military) in order to observe the relative weight of the institutions in the composition of the elite. 21 This same framework is used for the three regimes, thereby enabling interesting comparisons. The ministerial elite of consolidated Italian Fascism was overwhelmingly dominated by men who had been Fascists from the very earliest days, almost all of whom, with the exception of military officers, were also members of the Fascist Grand Council. Main entry points to a ministerial position until the 1930s, besides membership of the Grand Council, were either through the ranks of the Fascist Party (PNF – Partito Nazionale Fascista), or through the provincial federations in which the PNF occupied a dominant position. The corporatist apparatus was yet another source for recruiting the ministerial elite, and one that came to dominate during the second half of the 1930s. The least significant recruiting ground was the civil service, and the very few who took this route still had to be vetted by the various Fascist organizations involved in public administration. Reshuffles of the ministerial elite were common practice, and it was rare for any minister to serve more than three years. Mussolini tended to accumulate ministries for his own person, and at times was responsible for up to six portfolios. Il Duce was inclined to place loyal Fascists he could trust in the 19 See P. H. Lewis, ‘The Spanish ministerial elite, 1938–1969’, Comparative Politics 5, no 1, 1972, pp. 83– 106; ‘Salazar’s ministerial elite, 1932–1968’, Journal of Politics 40, 1978, pp. 622–47. Spanish social science has produced a large number of excellent studies of the political elite and the structure of power during Francoism. See R. Chueca, El fascismo en los comienzos del régimen de Franco: Un estudio sobre la FET-JONS, Madrid, 1983; M. Jerez Mir, Elites politícas y centros de extracción en España, 1938–1957, Madrid, 1982; and A. Cazorla Sanchez, Las políticas de la Victoria: La consolidación del nuevo estado Franquista (1938–1953), Madrid, 2000. 20 In the majority of cases, the more recent studies carried out in the same vein include Salazarism and Francoism, but not Italian Fascism. See P. T. de Almeida, A. C. Pinto and N. Bermeo, eds., Who governs Southern Europe? Regime change and ministerial recruitment, London, 2003. Also see E. Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo: I partiti italiani fra le due guerre, Florence, 2000, and G. Adinolfi’s recent effort, ‘The fascist ministerial elite’, Portuguese Journal of Social Science 3, no 2, 2004, pp. 91–102. 21 H. D. Lasswell and D. Lerner, eds., World revolutionary elites: Studies in coercive ideological movements, Cambridge, MA, 1965.

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important interior and foreign ministries, but he remained wary of the PNF’s power, subordinating it to his control and limiting its access to the state. The claim that the ministers ‘were only technical collaborators with the head of government’ was progressively promoted, although this does not mean an exclusively bureaucratic career had somehow been transformed into a preferential route to ministerial office. Lewis’s study confirms Emilio Gentile, who showed that the ‘political faith that had been demonstrated through an active membership of the PNF and by obedience to the party’s orders, always prevailed over the principle of technical competence,’ in the selection of the elite.22 The Fascist Party and its para-state organizations were to remain determining factors in access to a ministerial career, even when the power of the ministries was limited by the dictator and the single party. Not surprisingly Salazar’s Portugal went to the opposite extreme with a cabinet dominated by technocrats, and Franco was somewhere in the middle (p. 180). What is interesting in Lewis’s study is that it illustrates quite well the greater weight of the PNF in the selection of the elite, the rapid abandonment of the coalition character of the fascist governments, and a more centralizing type of leadership. As Lewis states, ‘more than Franco or Salazar, he (Mussolini) ran a one-man show’ (p. 184). The relatively large number of Fascist ministers without a university education (21.8 per cent) also illustrates the greater predominance of political activists compared with the social and professional elitism that was later more apparent in Salazar’s and Franco’s dictatorships, although it would be an exaggeration to state ‘Mussolini’s brand of fascism was the most anti-establishment’ (p. 193). At the end of The anatomy of fascism Paxton assesses the fascist revolution regarding the relationship between program and praxis: ‘In no domain did the proposals of early fascism differ more from what fascist regimes did in practice than in economic policy’ (p. 145). Thus there was little anti-capitalism and a largely intact social structure. However, this was different with regard to the totalitarian control of civil society. Paxton is perhaps being a little excessive when he says the ‘fascist regimes tried to redraw so radically the boundaries between private and public that the private sphere almost disappeared’ (p. 144). However, it seems obvious that this is an area in which the fascists differed from the other right-wing dictatorships of the period. As Musiedlak has noted, it was necessary to wait for several years before the historiography was able ‘to see the fascist party that in 1942 had a membership of 27 million Italians, recuperate the place that was its: the key of the mechanism of the organization of fascist totalitarianism’ (p. 303). 22 Gentile, Fascismo, p. 240.

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Paxton also illustrates the radicalizing pulse of fascism in power through an analysis of its themes and agents within the two regimes, but could it be that ‘[t]he radicalization stage shows us fascism at its most distinctive’ (p. 169)? Here, as we have seen above – and regardless of the two styles of rule – the relationship between the leader and their army of followers is the motor. ‘Fascist regimes embrace radicalizing impulses from below’ (p. 153); however, the expansionist wars appear to be the determining element. If in the Nazi case the question does not leave any doubts, it is only more recently that these aspects have been grouped in historiography as a symbol of the internal radicalization of the Italian regime: the Ethiopian war, the ‘totalitarian leap’ (svolta totalitaria), and racist legislation against Jews (even if it could not be compared in extent with that of Germany). 23 At this final stage, wrote Paxton, ‘comparison is hardly possible: only one fascist regime really reached it’ (p. 169). While the assumption of power was only possible with the support of other conservative and authoritarian groups, the nature of the leadership and its relationship with the party appears to be the fundamental variable. As numerous historians have observed, the crucial element ‘is to what extent the fascist component emancipated itself from the initial predominance of its traditional conservative sponsors and to what degree it departed – once in power – from conventional forms/objectives of policy-making towards a more radical direction.’24 Both Mann and Paxton have produced excellent comparative studies, integrating the most recent empirical research and offering appropriate interpretative hypotheses. The former concentrates on the conditions that led to the growth of fascist movements, and the latter studies the processes that were involved in their seizure of power and the nature of the resulting regimes. It is Paxton’s work, however, which, in the tensions affecting the functioning of the regimes, has successfully managed to identify the distinguishing characteristic of what we call fascist regimes.

23 See F. H. Adler, ‘Why Mussolini turned on the Jews’, Patterns of Prejudice 39, no 3, 2005, pp. 285–300. 24 Kallis, ‘Regime-model’, pp. 96–7. See also C. Levy, ‘Fascism, National Socialism and conservatives in Europe, 1914–1945: Issues for comparativists’, Contemporary European History 8, no 1, 1999, pp. 97–126.

4

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Fascism continues to fascinate scholars within the social sciences, perhaps as much as communism, that other great non-democratic ‘-ism’ of the 20th century.1 The topic also seems to be of continuing interest to the student and commercial book markets. In some cases bland repetition is the norm, but the pressure from commercial publishers often results in some excellent syntheses, even if based on secondary material, and that is not to mention the biography genre, which is always attentive to charismatic leaders and dictators – the more cruel the better. Moreover, the already voluminous academic literature on contemporary dictatorships often returns to the fascist and dictatorial regimes of the interwar period.2 During the past 20 years the comparative study of fascism has concentrated increasingly on its ideological and cultural dimensions. When in 1969 the British historian Stuart Woolf published The nature of fascism, a balance of the main research tendencies concerning fascism, the situation within the social sciences was very different: indeed, so much so that a simple description of his main headings highlights the difference. 3 The first part of the book’s four sections is dominated by a blend of theories of totalitarianism and modernization; in the second some Marxist class determinisms were very much present; the third part, which contains Tim Mason’s brilliant essay ‘The primacy of politics: Politics and economics in National Socialist Germany,’ was 1

In this chapter I review the following books: R. J. B. Bosworth, ed., The Oxford handbook of fascism, Oxford, 2010; B. Bruneteau, Le totalitarisme: Origines d ’un concept, genèse d ’un débat, 1930–1942, Paris, 2010; D. Riley, The civic foundations of fascism in Europe: Italy, Spain and Romania, 1870–1945, Baltimore, MD, 2010.

2

However, most only include the dictatorships established after 1945. For an overview of this literature in textbook form see N. Ezrow and E. Frantz, Dictators and dictatorships: Understanding authoritarian regimes and their leaders, London, 2011.

3

S. Woolf, ed., The nature of fascism, New York, 1969.

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much more nuanced; while the fourth part was dominated by George L. Mosse’s pioneering ‘Fascism and culture.’ The division between historians and political scientists was clearer then than it is today; however, the main turning point of the last decade was the cultural turn in fascist studies, which has helped refine earlier approaches and inspired new research. During recent decades, the historiography of fascism has integrated contributions from political science, such as the totalitarian-authoritarian binomial that invaded national and comparative research and which partially erased the ‘para-Marxist economicist’ approach dominant during the 1970s, without doing justice to the many perspectives on the autonomy of ideology in political and cultural change. Of course, many of the changes are also limited to reflect the impact of new social science paradigms and the emergence of more culturalist interpretations. But this new culturalist consensus on generic Fascism ‘left many historians cold,’ to quote Roger Eatwell, and some of the cleavages are still present. However, the emergence of new themes for research, such as those of symbolic and political mobilization, violence and genocide, gender, or the relationship between fascism and religion, has been important. As Adrian Lyttelton recently noted, ‘the greatest advance (over recent decades) has certainly come from taking fascist values and ideology seriously.’4 New analytical models, such as political religion, were at the forefront for a short while.5 Although historians dominate current research on fascism, it is clear they will continue to be influenced by other social science disciplines in the future. Indeed, Juan J. Linz may well be the political scientist who has left the greatest mark on the historiography of fascism and dictatorships, and Michael Mann’s Fascists represented a welcome return from the best traditions of comparative historical sociology towards the analysis of fascism and its role in the crises and collapse of democracy.6 On the other hand, the big world of 20th-century dictatorships has again become an important field of study. Some of the interwar authoritarian political institutions expanded across the world following the end of the 4

A. Lyttelton, ‘Concluding remarks’, in A. C. Pinto, ed., Rethinking the nature of fascism, London, 2011, p. 272.

5

For a defence of the political religion concept in the study of political history, see E. Gentile, Politics as a religion, Princeton, NJ, 2006, and for the study of fascism, see R. Griffin, ed., Fascism, totalitarianism and political religion, London, 2006. See also D. D. Roberts, ‘“Political religion” and the totalitarian departures of interwar Europe: On the uses and disadvantages of an analytical category’, and the reply of C. Levy, ‘Frustrated of Islington’, Contemporary European History 18, 2009, pp. 381–414 and pp. 415–18.

6

M. Mann, Fascists, Cambridge, 2004.

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Second World War and as we shall see below – as another ‘-ism’ of ideologies, political movements and regimes – comparison should not be confined simply to the phenomena that have been labeled fascist. Some contemporaries of fascism had already realized that some of the institutions created by the interwar dictatorships could perhaps be durable. As the committed early 20th-century observer, Romanian academic and politically authoritarian, Mihail Manoilescu noted, ‘of all the political and social creations of our century – which for the historian began in 1918 – there are two that have in a definitive way enriched humanity’s patrimony...: corporatism and the singleparty.’ 7 Manoilescu dedicated a study to each of these political institutions in 1936 without knowing some aspects of the former would be long-lasting and that the latter would become one of the most durable political instruments of contemporary dictatorships.8 In recent years, social science literature has returned to the question of the factors leading to the survival or downfall of the dictatorships and dictators: the construction of legitimacy, the regimes’ capacity to distribute resources, divisions within the power coalitions, the political institutions of the dictatorships, their capacity for survival, and the cost-benefit analysis of rebellion.9 On the other hand, the survival (and appearance) of several dictatorships after the end of the Cold War and, particularly, the increasing complexity of their institutions, has led to a new field of study into the hybrid nature of many contemporary political regimes that were already present in the political landscape of the era of fascism.10 A handbook without concepts or historiography Compared with the careful structure of many other books in this series, the Oxford handbook of fascism, edited by the historian Richard Bosworth, is one of the sloppiest. Readers will be surprised to note this handbook has no conceptual or thematic entries. Ironically, while the articles are generally of good quality, without the guiding hand of the editor they tend to steer their own course. The first part of the book, ‘Ideas and formative experience,’ consists of four chapters: the first dealing with the ideological origins of fascism, which 7

M. Manoilescu, Le parti unique: Institution politique des regimes nouveaux, Paris, 1936, p. viii.

8

M. Manoilescu, Le siècle du corporatisme, Paris, 1934.

9

J. Gandhi, Political institutions under dictatorships, Cambridge, 2008; Frantz and Ezrow, Politics of dictatorships.

10 See S. Levitsky and L. A. Way, Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold War, New York, 2010.

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is followed by two chapters dealing with the First World War and one chapter looking at the postwar period. There is no chapter on the interpretations of fascism, nor is there a comparative empirical examination of fascist parties in interwar Europe. Moreover, almost all of the themes are sliced up by country. The only exception in this first part is Kevin Passmore’s chapter on the ideological origins of fascism before 1914, which offers a solid critique of theories of political religion on the roots of fascism and a strong defense of the heterogeneity of the origins of fascist ideology, which he considers to be an ‘agglomeration of ideas taken from very different sources’ (p. 29). The second part, ‘The first fascist nation,’ could be an excellent textbook anthology on Italian Fascism and published independently. Comprising 14 chapters, it is the book’s pièce de résistance. In the main they are excellent chapters addressing a wide variety of themes, from squadrismo to the intellectuals, from corporatism to Catholicism, and from peasants to women. As a specialist on the Italian case, the editor was able to call on the services of several Italian historians and Italianists who could bring clarity to the subject. Nevertheless, there remains a lack of coherence among even these chapters. Some discuss only Italian Fascism (Squadrismo, Culture, Peasants, Corporatism, Women, Repression, War), while others discuss Italian Fascism largely in comparison with Nazi Germany (Catholicism, Propaganda and youth, Mussolini as dictator). Nazism, the godfather of the fascist family, has no independent presence in this book, and is addressed in three comparative chapters on the Italian experience (State and society, Race, Diplomacy and war). The fourth part, entitled ‘Others,’ is the most curious since it consists of one thematic chapter on communism and ten more on national experiences. As we know, organizing works such as this by country can be unhelpful: if there is no accompanying explanation of the selection of cases and of the criteria for the choices made (relative importance of the particular fascist movement, fascist and non-fascist regimes, governments of occupation, or any other reason), it is difficult to know why some countries are included while others are not. In this book the United Kingdom is included: but why Britain’s Mosley rather than Plínio Salgado’s Ação Integralista Brasileira, the most important fascist movement in Latin America? The Netherlands are included, but why not Norway, where a fascist movement was in power under German occupation? Croatia is there, but why not Tiso’s Slovakia? Japan, why not Argentina? Austria under Dollfuss, why not the Portuguese New State under Salazar? When there is no comparative methodology and no framework within which to select cases, chance seems to dominate and the final result suffers. Even more curious, however, is the divergence of themes and chronology

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between each chapter. Some, such as those on Spain and Austria, necessarily examine local fascist movements during the first phase of Francoism (until 1945) and of the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg regime, while others, for example the chapters on France and Romania, concentrate on movements rather than regimes. However, while the majority of the chapters are national case studies that end in 1945, others continue until the end of the 20th century. The chapters on the Netherlands, Hungary, and Yugoslavia and its successor states also address the neofascist movements of the 1980sand 1990s, with the latter developing the theme of relations between fascism and Franjo Tudjman’s Croatia and Slobodan Milosevic’s Serbia. In part five, entitled ‘Reflection and legacies,’ we finally encounter the book’s saving grace, Robert O. Paxton’s chapter ‘Comparisons and definitions,’ which because his questions could (and probably should) have shaped the entire handbook perhaps ought to have been the introduction. The handbook then concludes with two chapters on fascism’s legacy and the question of neofascism. Bosworth acknowledges that, as editor, he was ‘self-consciously a weak dictator’ (p. 3). As an anonymous reviewer once remarked in relation to a manuscript submitted by this writer: ‘Essay collections by diverse authors are always awkward creatures: they normally suffer from too diffuse a focus, and their component essays are almost invariably uneven in quality.’ While not necessarily agreeing with this opinion, since such collections are often the best means of presenting the results of collective research, this reviewer suggests this handbook is no exception. In the introduction, the editor dedicates his attention to those who appear to be his pet historiographical enemies: the historians Emilio Gentile, Roger Griffin, ‘and their supporters’ (p. 5). The importance of these historians should not be underplayed, as they have produced excellent work on this theme, but it is strange that after 50 years of academic studies on fascism only a critique of the theory of political religion is worthy of being highlighted in the introduction to a handbook on fascism.11 Barrington Moore, George L. Mosse, Stuart Woolf, Juan J. Linz, Stanley Payne, Zeev Sternhell, Hans Mommsen, Michael Mann, and many other major scholars of fascism are absent.12 The main theoretical schools, from the Marxist-oriented to totalitarianism, are deemed unworthy of space in the introduction. 11 According to the editor, this group promoted their ideas in the academic journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions, but Emilio Gentile had left the journal several years before, while it also changed editors, focus, and even its title. 12 For two excellent anthologies introducing these authors and the main interpretations since the 1960s, see A. Kallis, ed., The fascist reader, London, 2004 and C. Iordachi, ed., Comparative fascist studies: New perspectives, London, 2009.

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Theories of totalitarianism: The vision of contemporaries For those who do not find what they are looking for in this handbook concerning the origins of the uses of the concept of totalitarianism, the excellent Le totalitarisme: Origines d’un concept, genèse d’un débat, 1930–1942, edited by Bernard Bruneteau, is well worth reading. During the Cold War, rivers of ink were spilled in academic and political tomes comparing fascism and communism, and placing them in the same dictatorship typology. However, even before the Second World War – indeed from the end of the 1920s – there was a pre-history of the use of the concept that, as Hannah Arendt noted, has resisted the passage of time very well. It is the intellectual journey of this concept that Bruneteau takes us on in this anthology of texts from the 1930s. Following an erudite general introduction, the editor presents a carefully chosen selection of texts that are always accompanied by a biography of the authors. We know that even before Mussolini and the fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile had consecrated the term, another Italian, Giovanni Amendola, had already used it. From his exile in London in 1926 Don Luigo Sturzo, leader of the Catholic Popular Party (Partito Popolare), developed the foundations of a liberal theory of totalitarianism applied to fascism and communism.13 It was a decisive decade for the concept until the first book on the topic, Franz Borkenau’s The totalitarian enemy (1940).14 Along with other ex-Marxists and former communists, Borkenau was one of the best analysts of the phenomenon back in the 1930s, defining it as different forms of ‘revolutionary autocracies’ (p. 401). Moreover, the comparative method of studying these dictatorships developed at a precocious rate within academic circles. In the United States, George H. Sabine was quick to group single-party dictatorships under the same category in his entry ‘State’ in the International encyclopedia of social sciences (1934),15 and that is without mentioning either Hans Kelsen or Hermann Kantorowicz. Before Ernst Fraenkel developed his theory of the dual state in National Socialism in 1941, Kelsen had already made this duality the basis of his party dictatorship typology in an article in the London School of Economics journal Politica (pp. 354–66).16 13 See M. Schafer, ‘Luigi Sturzo as theorist of totalitarianism’, in H. Maier, ed., Totalitarianism and political religion: Concepts for the comparison of dictatorships, London, 2004, pp. 22–31. 14 F. Borkenau, The totalitarian enemy, London, 1940. 15 G. H. Sabine, ‘State’, in International encyclopedia of social sciences, New York, 1934. 16 E. Fraenkel, The dual state, New York, 1941.

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By revisiting the origins of the use of the concept of totalitarianism, years before its instrumental codification during the Cold War, Bruneteau’s anthology allows us to confirm Hannah Arendt’s thesis that the visions of her contemporaries during the 1930s, ‘would seriously resist the test of time’ (p. 6). The number of times the concept is used in the Oxford handbook of fascism is a clear illustration of this. Fascism and civil society: Gramsci versus Tocqueville and Barrington Moore At least since Tocqueville, the density and mobilization of civil society is supposed to have produced vibrant liberal democracies; however, for some time research has shown civil society moving in many different directions, and not always towards democracy.17 In his book, The civic foundations of fascism in Europe, the sociologist Dylan Riley investigates the relationship between the density of civil society and regime types in early 20th-century Europe. He asks why it was that in countries such as Italy, Spain, and Romania (the cases studied in the book), each of which had liberal parliamentary institutions at the end of the 19th century, the intense wave of associational growth favored the implantation of fascist regimes rather than democracy. What is missing from the Oxford handbook of fascism is present in a large dose in Riley’s book: theories and classics from the social sciences, with the bonus of the rediscovery of Antonio Gramsci. The author does not reject Tocqueville, although he quotes Gramsci and his concept of ‘hegemonic politic,’ which he uses to explain the paradox of the cases in which some vibrant civil societies produced fascism.18 For Riley, the consequences of associational development for regime outcomes depend on the presence or absence of ‘hegemonic politics:’ where it led to fascism it was ‘because it preceded rather than followed the establishment of strong political organizations (hegemonic politics) among both dominant classes and non-elites’ (p. 2). That is, the development of voluntary associations tends to promote democracy, but in the absence of adequate political institutions ‘this democratic demand assumed a paradoxically anti-liberal and authoritarian form: a technocratic rejection of politics as such. Fascist movements and regimes grew up out of this general crisis of politics’ (p. 2). Although he does not make explicit use of the Mossean concept of the ‘nationalization of the masses,’ Riley comes close to it when he says the fascist 17 N. Bermeo and P. Nord, eds, Civil society before democracy: Lessons from 19th-century history, Lanham, MD, 2000. 18 On Gramsci and Fascism see D. D. Roberts, ‘Reconsidering Gramsci’s interpretation of fascism’, Journal of Modern Italian Studies 16, no 2, 2011, pp. 239–55.

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project was concerned with making the modern state more representative of the nation than was possible with liberal parliamentary institutions (p. 11).19 Fascist regimes, he writes, not only claimed popular legitimacy, they constructed institutions conceived specifically as alternatives to electoral democracy. As another reviewer wrote, ‘while agreeing that fascism was profoundly anti-liberal, he shows that its ideological core rested on claims of being more representative of the modern nation than the factional liberal democratic status quo.’20 The most interesting of Riley’s conclusions, then, seems to be that he stresses that rather than a high degree of polarization between the left and the right it was ‘the absence of well-structured parties (that) lend great plausibility to the fascist critique of liberalism’ (p. 211). Riley finds three varieties of fascism in Italy, Spain, and Romania: ‘party fascism’ in Italy, where the ‘nation was understood as a political project’ and the party a ‘pedagogical institution’ to nationalize the masses; ‘traditional fascism’ in Spain, where ‘the nation was to be represented through the family, the monarchy and the Church’; and ‘statist fascism’ in Romania, which was based neither on a political party nor in pre-existing institutions that supposedly embodied the nation, but which ‘instead sought to constitute the nation through organization’ (p. 21). The book’s main argument is an interesting and well-documented fact: the absence of well-structured parties gave fascists great plausibility in relation to their criticism of liberalism and its political class; however, the usefulness of reinventing the concepts of democracy and dictatorship and Riley’s redefinition of fascism as authoritarian democracy rather than a type of dictatorship is not convincing, and neither is the tripartite traditionalist-statistparty typology. While the former is a conceptual problem – he does not use a procedural definition of democracy – the latter is more empirically confusing, since for Riley the outcome is fascism regardless of the different types of regimes-versus-movements dynamics in the three cases studied. Nevertheless, his main argument remains persuasive. As Jeffrey Kopstein notes, in Italy a fascist party could draw on an independently organized civil society, while in Spain fascists drew on traditional and Catholic associations, and in Romania civic life was always guided by the state and therefore fascist rulers drew on state institutions and state-created associations for their support. 21

19 G. L. Mosse, The nationalization of the masses, New York, 1975. 20 C. Ban’s review, Journal of Politics 73, no 2, 2011, p. 501. 21 J. Kopstein, Perspectives on Politics 9, no 1, 2011, pp. 205–6.

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Fascist Italy revisited In his chapter in the Handbook dedicated to Italy, Riley defines Italian Fascism as ‘a symbiosis of party and state,’ with the most obvious indication of this being ‘the growth of a massive parallel administration separate from the ministerial bureaucracy’ (p. 61). This more recent line of research on Italian Fascism is partially adopted by several of the contributors to the Handbook. Since Italy represents half of the book, it is worth developing some of the themes. While some of the articles may be little more than summaries, others are research articles in a very true sense. As Paxton notes, ‘how fascist dictators exercised their power is a fruitful matter for comparison,’ and the ‘polycratic image of fascist rule, proposed for Nazi Germany is also appropriate for Mussolini’s rule’ (pp. 558, 561). Italian Fascism pioneered a style of rule and a set of institutions – personalization, single-party, and corporatism – that were to inspire many other dictatorships. However, most recent research has noted that the tensions between political institutions controlled by the single party, the state, and para-state were a trademark of fascist regimes. In his chapter on the role of Mussolini in the fascist dictatorship, the editor of the Handbook uses the old strong versus weak dictator debate on the role of Hitler to analyze the place of Mussolini in the fascist political system.22 Bosworth notes that ‘the key to Mussolini’s new form of tyranny was its basis on ideas’ (p. 367); however, with the consolidation of the regime, in the balance between repression and loyalty, Il Duce was undoubtedly a strong dictator. Thus, one conclusion deserving attention from a comparative perspective is that in the Italian case ‘the dictator’s authority was enhanced by the useful division between the Fascist Party and the Italian state’ (p. 270).23 As another historian of Italian Fascism noted, ‘Mussolini’s authority was established on the basis of a complex system of rivalries between different agencies.’24 The dictator’s rule was always based on this balance, which – as several of the chapters illustrate, was not always stable. It is therefore interesting to note how the most recent research into the Italian fascist regime, following in the wake of Ernst Fraenkel’s work, tends to highlight the ‘polycratic’ elements of Mussolini’s dictatorship. In one of the few comparative chapters, 22 On the more recent shifts of the German debate on Nazism see H. Mommsen, ‘Changing historical perspectives on the Nazi dictatorship’, European Review 17, 1, 2009, pp. 73–80. 23 G. Melis, ed., Lo stato negli anni trenta: Instituzione e regimi fascisti in Europa, Bologna, 2008, and especially, L. di Nucci, Lo stato-partito del Fascismo: Genesi, evoluzione e crisi, 1919–1943, Bologna, 2009. 24 D. Musiedlak, ‘Mussolini, charisma, and decision-making’, in A. C. Pinto, ed., Ruling elites and decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships, New York, 2009, p. 14. See also his excellent short biography, Mussolini, Paris, 2004.

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Gustavo Corni finds parallels between the Nazi and the Fascist regimes ‘in their proliferation of centers of authority or of organisms, that often – with considerable inefficiency – drift into conflict with each other’ (p. 287). The youth organizations and the implantation of the corporatist system are also good illustrations of this. Despite the vast academic literature on Italian corporatism, whether dealing with its leading ideologues or with its institutions, little is known about ‘how corporative institutions operated in practice’ (p. 156). Philip Morgan’s chapter is an informed introduction to the process of establishing the corporatist system that, along with other reforms, was also ‘hindered by long-running inter-ministerial disputes over areas of jurisdiction and competence’ (p. 158). Nevertheless, by the end of the 1930s, among interest and political representation organizations, Italian Fascism had a significant set of corporatist bodies and, with the establishment of the Fascist and Corporatist Chamber (Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni) that replaced parliament, Mussolini’s regime came close to the corporatist model of political representation and interest organization.25 The analysis of the type of repression becomes more complex if we use the binomial classification authoritarianism-totalitarianism. For Mauro Canali, the evidence of fascist repression’s explicit tendency to become genuinely totalitarian is its ‘willingness to use any form of violence to wipe out every obstacle to its acquisition of complete and unchallenged power’ (p. 226). However, while he has written an excellent study of Italian Fascism’s political police, Canali does not explain what distinguishes types of repression in totalitarianism and authoritarianism. 26 To put it another way: What is specifically totalitarian in the political repression of Italian Fascism? It is certainly not in its quantitative dimension. Where Canali does see it is in the ‘criminal violence against the opposition’ (p. 226), which is not much to distinguish it from other dictatorships, such as Francoism in Europe, and the Latin American regimes of Péron and Vargas, which are usually less associated with the totalitarian paradigm.

25 A. Gagliardi, Il corporativismo fascista, Bari, 2010, and the excellent study of para-state organisations associated with interest organisations, J.-Y. Dormagen, Logiques du fascisme: L’ état totalitaire en Italie, Paris, 2007. 26 M. Canali, Le spie del regime, Bologna, 2004.

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In the world of fascism with adjectives? Para-fascism, semi-fascism, clerico-fascism, ‘fascistized,’ and other adjectives have been used and abused in the historiography, albeit with some justification.27 In fact, as a regime type, the fascist regime concept has travelled neither far nor well, even within Europe, a fact demonstrated in several of the chapters containing national case studies. In her excellent chapter on fascism and Francoism in Spain, Mary Vincent holds up the mirror to an interpretative debate that has been repeated by other historiographies, because it was in relation to Franco’s regime that the political scientist Juan J. Linz developed his ideal-type of authoritarian regime that for many decades was an essential reference in the study of dictatorships.28 Albeit with slightly different contours, the discussions about the nature of the Vichy regime in France, Salazar’s Portugal and DollfussSchuschnigg’s Austria, dominated by the authoritarian-fascist binomial, can be invoked here.29 In the case of Spain, where a civil war followed a failed military coup, a small fascist party – which in the meantime became the apparently dominant partner in the regime’s new single-party – a particular section of the military elite, a personalized leadership, and ‘fascistized’ segments of the Catholic and monarchist radical right, together formed a political regime Vincent believes to be a typical example of an old concept: ‘to call Francoism “fascistized” may be to state the obvious, but it is a far closer approximation of its natures than either “authoritarian” or “fascist”’ (p. 379). The same tensions have characterized the debates on the nature of French fascist movements and some of the classificatory ambiguities surrounding the French radical-right during the 1930s, particularly François de la Rocque’s 27 For a explicit use of these definitions see, for example, R. Griffin, The nature of fascism, London, 1991; A. Janos, East central Europe in the modern world: The politics of the borderlands from pre- to post-communism, Stanford, CA, 2000; M. Feldman and M. Turda with T. Georgescu, eds, Clerical fascism in interwar Europe, London, 2008. 28 J. J. Linz, Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Boulder, CO, 2000. 29 For more on these historiographical debates, see T. J. Miley, ‘Franquism as authoritarianism: Juan Linz and his critics’, Politics, Religion and Ideology 12, no 1, 2011, pp. 27–50; B. Jenkins, ed., France in the era of fascism: Essays on the French authoritarian right, New York, 2005; M. Dobry, ed., Le mythe de l ’allergie française au fascisme, Paris, 2003, A. C. Pinto, Salazar’s new state and European fascism, New York, 1996; P. Pasteur, ‘“Austrofascisme” ou régime autoritaire corporatiste chrétien?’, in C. Horel, T. Sandu and F. Taubert, eds, La péripherie du fascisme: Le cas de l ’Europe centrale entre les deux guerres, Paris, 2005, pp. 111–22. For an overview of the research and debates on Fascism in central and eastern Europe, both in conceptual and empirical terms, see C. Iordachi, ‘Fascism in interwar east central and southeast Europe: Towards a new transnational research agenda’, East Central Europe 37, 2010, pp. 161–213.

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Croix de Feu and the Vichy regime itself, although Joan Tumblett’s analysis is much faster. 30 Austria is clearly another borderline case in which several fascist movements and the institutionalization of the Dollfuss-Schuschnigg dictatorship fuelled a parallel debate that was also based in the fascism-authoritarianism binomial, as explained by Corinna Peniston-Bird. However, where Austria and Dollfuss are presented as being avowedly transnational is in the area of corporatism. The author acknowledges this third way also found support in Portugal, Poland, and Spain, and differentiates the Austrian Catholic corporate state from ‘earlier fascist corporatist structures in Italy and (to a much lesser extent) Germany’ (p. 448). In the Austrian case this was the mortar that cemented the important convergence between Dollfuss and the native fascist movement, the Heimwehr. However, the most important comparative dimension relates to the adoption of corporatist institutions, not only the forced integration of interest organization but also through the adoption of a type of organic political representation as an alternative to liberal democracy, and which extended beyond the four dictatorships cited here and which, in one form or another, created institutions that were inspired both by Catholic and fascist corporatist theory. As the author of the chapter on Japan correctly notes, ‘history is littered with ambiguity and discomfort when relativism is seen to threaten the integrity of a concept’ and that of fascism, as it is used by several of the authors in the Handbook, slips up in some cases (p. 528). We already know Japan challenges the classificatory rationale and use of the fascist regime concept; however, the same is also true of the regimes neighboring Nazi Germany. The late Mark Pittaway, author of the chapter on Hungary, defines Miklós Horthy’s interwar regime(s) as being an example of oligarchic liberalism or authoritarian liberalism, in which ‘the fascist movements in the 1930s existed in a symbiotic relationship with the structures and patterns of social support for the dominant interwar regime’ (p. 380). In fact, until the 1940s and the coming to dominance of the Arrow Cross Party, Hungary was a typical example of a hybrid regime in which formal democratic institutions existed and were widely perceived to be the primary means of gaining power. Pluralism is present, ‘but in which the incumbents’ abuse of the state puts them at a significant advantage vis-à-vis their opponents.’31 It is time to conclude with Robert O. Paxton’s ‘Comparisons and definitions,’ since although he briefly restates some of the points of his book 30 R. Soucy, French fascism: The second wave, 1933–1939, New Haven, CT, 1995, and Albert Kéchichian, Les croix-de-feu à l ’ âge des fascismes: Travail, famille, patrie, Paris, 2006. 31 Levitsky and Way, Competitive authoritarianism.

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Anatomy of fascism, his is by far the only chapter to design a comparative framework in this Handbook. 32 Paxton begins with the classic question: ‘Why does fascism take root and succeed in some parts of Europe and not in others?’ (p. 548). While just some of the chapters in the Handbook analyze the answers provided by the social sciences, the truth is they are various and for all theoretical and disciplinary tastes. From Barrington Moore to Juan Linz and Michael Mann the options are many; however, the choice of these last two (and of Paxton) is the most rewarding – to ‘concentrate on the short-term preconditions for fascism: the particular crises in which fascist movements found space to grow and, in some cases, reach power’ (p. 552). A second analytical axis is more often cited than studied: ‘How did fascist dictators exercise their power?’ (p. 558) and here we must agree some old versions of the theories of totalitarianism are ‘blind to the most interesting questions,’ mainly because they reinforce the myth of the all-powerful dictator and downplay the ruler’s relations with elites, social groups, institutions, and civil society. For Paxton and the large majority of researchers in this area, ‘despite their national variations, fascist movements and regimes share a sufficient number of common elements to sustain a general definition,’ but he advise us to avoid the ‘misleading static image of the phenomenon’ or the search for a ‘general essence of Fascism’ (p. 549). In fact, there are important aspects of the empirical development of fascism that are analytically interesting without having much to do with fascism as such. European fascism: A new research agenda? The comparative study of European fascism, whether as a movement or as a form of political regime, has undergone a remarkable empirical development, albeit with important conceptual limitations. Today we have at our disposal a significant number of monographs and comparative studies on interwar fascist movements, even although the fluidity of the radical-right during the interwar period has at times led to the appearance of a classificatory essentialism that is only interesting when operationalized. In this respect, or rather, in the comparative analysis of the conditions conducive to the ascendancy of fascist movements in Europe, Michael Mann’s opus continues to be the most interesting operational reference produced in the past few years. A second limitation, apparent in several of the chapters in the Handbook, is the intuitive and dysfunctional use of the concept of totalitarianism. It is interesting to note that after more than 60 years of use, its adoption by 32

R. O. Paxton, The anatomy of fascism, New York, 2004.

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historians, initially with many reservations, is still not generally operationalized.33 However, the most important challenge will be the chronological and thematic enlargement of the comparison. Italian Fascism and German National Socialism provided powerful institutional and political inspiration for other regimes, their types of leadership, institutions and operating methods already encapsulated the dominant models of the 20th-century dictatorship at least in three domains: personalized leadership, the single- or dominant-party, and the technico-consultative political institutions. The dictatorships associated with fascism during the first half of the 20th century were personalized dictatorships. It is interesting to see that even in those regimes that were institutionalized following military coups, military dictatorships gave birth to personalist regimes. The personalization of leadership in dictatorial regimes became a dominant characteristic. More than half of 20th-century dictatorships ‘initiated by the military, parties or a combination of the two had been partly or fully personalized within three years of the initial seizure of power.’34 However, autocrats need institutions and elites to govern, and the role these played is often underestimated given the increased centralization of decision-making to the dictators. To avoid seeing their legitimacy undermined and their authority usurped, dictators need to co-opt elites and either create or adapt institutions that are the locus of negotiation and, sometimes, decision-making.35 On the other hand, as Amos Perlmutter noted, no dictatorship can survive politically without the critical support of modern elites: bureaucrats, managers, technocrats, and the armed forces. 36 The fascist regimes were also the first ideological one-party dictatorships located on the right of the European political spectrum, and their development – alongside the consolidation of the first communist dictatorship – decisively marked the typologies of dictatorial regimes. While Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski recognized the single-party played a more modest role within the fascist regimes than it did within their communist peers, part of the classification debate about European fascism and the theories of 33 An excellent analysis of the relations between fascism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism is J. J. Linz, Fascismo, autoritarismo, totalitarismo: Connessioni e differenze, Rome, 2003. 34 B. Geddes, ‘Stages of development in authoritarian regimes’, in V. Tismaneanu, M. M. Howard and R. Sill, eds, World order after Leninism, Seattle, WA, 2006, p. 164. 35 In relation to the Italian fascist regime, see G. Adinolfi, ‘Political elite and decisionmaking in Mussolini’s Italy,’ in Pinto, Ruling elites, pp. 19–54. 36 A. Perlmutter, Modern authoritarianism: A comparative institutional analysis, New Haven, CT, 1981, p. 11.

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totalitarianism ‘deformed’ their role, often without any empirical support.37 The inherent dilemma in the transformation of the single-party as the dictatorship’s ruling institution into the leader’s instrument of rule is somewhat different in right-wing dictatorships from in their socialist equivalents.38 In the dictatorships associated with fascism, the single-party was not the regime’s ruling institution: rather, it was one of many. Many civilian rulers do not have a ‘ready-made organization upon which to rely,’ and to counteract that precarious position civilian dictators tend to have their own type of organization. 39 During the interwar period some fascist movements emerged either as rivals to or unstable partners in the single- or dominant-party, and often as inhibitors to their formation, making the institutionalization of the regimes more difficult for the dictatorial candidates. However, the relationship between the dictators and their parties, particularly in those that existed prior to the taking of power, is certainly very complex. For example, Italian Fascism seems to provide a good illustration of the thesis that ‘where a party organization has developed prior to the seizure (of power) in which able lieutenants have made their careers, possibly developed regional bases of support, and command the loyalty of men who fought under them, party members also have greater ability to constrain and, if necessary, replace leaders’.40 The center of decision-making is also very different across the dictatorships. As many case studies have shown, ‘to mitigate the threat posed by elites, dictators frequently establish inner sanctums where real decisions are made and potential rivals are kept under close scrutiny.’41 We can classify this investigation as the symbol of a new institutionalist turn in the study of dictatorships, reassessing their previously neglected dimensions, such as decision-making, their constitutions, courts, and interests associations, or nominally democratic institutions, such as legislatures, parties, and elections, which are most typically integral to a dictatorial regime.42 The number of dictatorships has expanded so much since the Sec37 C. J. Friedrich and Z. K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian dictatorship and autocracy, Cambridge, MA, 1956. 38 P. Brooker, Twentieth-century dictatorships: The ideological one-party states, New York, 1995, pp. 9–10. 39 Gandhi, Political institutions, p. 29. 40 Geddes, ‘Stages of development’, p. 164. 41 Gandhi, Political institutions, p. 20. 42 See A. Schiedler, ‘The new institutionalism in the study of authoritarian regimes’, Working Paper 215, Mexico DF, 2009. For an overview of a ‘rational choice’ approach to the study of dictatorships see R. Wintrobe, ‘Dictatorship: Analytical approaches’, in C. Boix and S. Stokes, eds, The Oxford handbook of comparative politics, Oxford, 2007, pp. 363–94.

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ond World War that it is perhaps time to update our analytical tools in the light of the great variety of regimes and their universals. In fact, it may be time, as Michel Dobry wrote, to ‘bring the category or concept of fascism back home:’ in other words, to ‘think in relational terms,’ and to use the comparative method seriously, leading to the ‘methodological normalization of these phenomena.’43

43 See M. Dobry, ‘Desperately seeking “generic fascism”: Some discordant thoughts on the academic recycling of indigenous categories’, in Pinto, Rethinking, pp. 53–84.

5

Fascism, dictators, and charisma*

By the beginning of the Second World War, and particularly after the German invasion of Eastern Europe on 22 June 1941, Europe was strangled by various dictatorships: some fascist/Nazi dictatorships, some puppet, and a variety of semi-fascist or right-wing national and royalist authoritarian regimes.1 There were only a very few of the smaller neutral states that kept democracy alive:2 Ireland, led by a Catholic (but authoritarian) Fianna Fail government under Eamon de Valera; Iceland, which was occupied by ‘friendly’ British and American forces; Switzerland, which was under heavy pressure to restrict political freedoms so as not to not provoke invasion from Germany; and Sweden, which had to allow German troops and weapons pass through its territory. Finland was in a special position: as a consequence of its recent war against the Soviet Union (the Winter War of 1939-40), it was permitted to retain its largely democratic regime whilst simultaneously being allied to Germany and governed by the authoritarian president, Carl Mannerheim. Democracy was attempted in three countries. Denmark, which was occupied but allowed to retain a semi-autonomous government, held restricted parliamentary elections in 1943. There were also elections in Sweden, although there fascists were interned and communists restricted. Switzerland also held free elections, although these were limited by the context of being surrounded externally by fascist dictatorships and its own domestic Nazi movement. The United Kingdom was the only free country in the sense of having no outside pressure steering its political system (although there *

With S. U. Larsen.

2

R. Griffin, The nature of fascism, London, 1991; S. G. Payne, A history of fascism, Madison, WI, 1995; R. Paxton, The anatomy of fascism, London, 2004; M. Mann, Fascists, Cambridge, 2004.

1

This chapter is based on the conclusion of A. C. Pinto, R. Eatwell and S. U. Larsen, eds, Charisma and fascism in interwar Europe, London, 2007, pp. 131–7.

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was no general election during the war in Europe). 3 Yet even here, the state had interned Oswald Mosley’s fascists and placed several restrictions on the populace in terms of censorship and the control of opposing views and ideas. Thus, democracy was limited even where it remained functioning. Perhaps it was not even the most popular political system to emerge with the Allied victory. Democracy proved unable to stop authoritarian movements from taking power, just as it had failed in its endeavor to make the extremist alternatives – whether of the left, right, or center – look irresponsible and unacceptable. That said, however, mass support for the breakdown of democracy has often been exaggerated.4 The Marxist historian, Eric Hobsbawm, designated the 20th century the age of extremism. Examining the difficulties that exist in present democratic systems, one Russian political scientist, Andrei Melville, has described the Russian democratic consolidation as a process of deinstitutionalization. With this concept he contends that what is now taking place is a process of the personalization of politics, which involves moving away from stable democratic norms (such as institutions that give citizens predictable procedures and political accountability) towards a regime that functions with improvised decision-making processes, short-termism and which depends on the president’s individual maneuvers. This situation could describe the main topic of this chapter, and which is succinctly described in Rainer Lepsius’s essay on Germany.5 His emphasis on the ‘charismatization’ of political institutions illustrates how Hitler and his companions, through their implementation of the Führerprinzip, broke down most of the relevant democratic institutions, leaving decision-making to spontaneous acts by the Führer who ruled by so-called multi-central means that granted most of the lower level structures parallel institutions, making the entire system unpredictable and internally confusing. With the spread of this charismatic form of deinstitutionalization in mind, we could add to Hobsbawm’s age of extremism that the 20th century was the age of charismatic rule.6 The beginning of the century was also marked by the rule of charismatic monarchs, emperors, and oligarchic strongmen who were elected 3

The 1945 general election took place in July, after the surrender of Germany but before that of Japan.

4

D. Berg-Schlosser and J. Mitchell, eds, Conditions of democracy in Europe 1919-1939: Systematic case studies, London, 2000; N. Bermeo, Ordinary people in extraordinary times: The citizen and the breakdown of democracy, Princeton, NJ, 2003.

5

See M. R. Lepsius, ‘The model of charismatic leadership and its applicability to the rule of Adolf Hitler’ in Pinto, Eatwell, and Larsen, Charisma and fascism, pp. 37–52.

6

A. Schweitzer, The age of charisma, Chicago, IL, in 1984; A. C. Pinto, ‘Elites, singleparties and political decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships’, Contemporary European History 2, no 3, 2002, pp. 425–50.

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from restricted caucus parties: a tradition that continued in a less obvious manner after 1945. This is without even mentioning the continuation of both Franco’s and Salazar’s regimes in Southern Europe. It is in this context that this chapter must be understood: as an analysis of how democratic rule was usurped through the charismatization of politics. The two main and often contradictory impulses of early 20th-century Europe – identity and equality – were intensified, or at least ideologically stylized and simplified, by the charismatization of both the politics and the political systems of Europe. The dictators were the charismatic bearers of these two impulses, which were interpreted and often shaped into unrecognizable programs. The regimes themselves were also charismatized when their establishment was said to be a direct consequence of the need to fulfil the promises made by the new Führers. The basic structures of democracy, and even ideological support for democracy, were changed everywhere in interwar Europe, as even the non-dictatorial regimes sought to strengthen both external and internal security by placing restrictions on the exercise of some normal democratic freedoms as a result of the charismatization of politics. This is an aspect of charismatization that we must emphasize very strongly: no European regime escaped the effects of charismatization. We illustrate also how this resulted in the establishment of a seemingly contradictory connection between cause and effect; how the widely accepted values of identity and equality could be turned into a brutal reality of dictatorship and expansionist war by charismatic (and often elected) leaders. Understanding the dynamics of charisma Through all the essays above, and particularly Roger Eatwell’s text on the development of charismatic thinking,7 the authors have touched upon an important distinction between three aspects of the charismatic calling: the individual leader, the followers, and the triggering event. In order to succeed, all dictators depended upon the interplay within these three fields. Firstly, the dictator needed to install himself as a charismatic figure. Then he needed to appeal to his followers as a charismatic leader. Finally, he needed to ‘locate’ or ‘invent’ an event that demanded an unusual ‘response’ or ‘solution’. Every fascist dictator had to possess some individual ability that made them extraordinary.8 He needed followers to understand or appreciate 7

See R. Eatwell, ‘The concept and theory of charismatic leadership’, in Pinto, Eatwell and Larsen, Charisma and fascism, pp. 3–18.

8

Or as Willner would say: ‘superhuman’. See A. R. Willner, The spellbinders: Charismatic political leadership, New Haven, CT, 1984.

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The nature of fascism revisited Figure 5.1: The charismatic triangle

and to connect these qualities. Finally, there must be a situation or an event that required these unusual abilities, or which could call for the reconstruction of the regime in such a way as to allow the application of new solutions to problems. The charismatic triangle (see Figure 5.1) stresses the interplay between these poles. The main reason for studying charismatic leadership is to find out how it varies within different contexts and different settings.9 The inner dynamic between how the charismatization of the event can instigate a charismatic following and then induce the dictator into a particular charismatic appeal from above, is thus a central focus of analysis. We also examine how the initial latent charismatic process came into being in the first place. When the charismatic dictator appears as a superhuman leader in different countries he is chosen by his followers because of their need to be led – because of his potential charismatic force – and only succeeds when the relevant event has happened, following which he is ready to present the calling to wider circles of followers. Roger Eatwell has shown how success in this respect is dependent on the existence of four individual traits in each of the charismatic leaders, and four internal factors that are specific to the relevant society.10 The idea of the charismatic triangle is to make explicit the dynamics of the interplay between the individual leader, the closed circles, and the triggering event 9

Eatwell, ‘Concept and theory.’

10 Ibid.

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that eventually gives the leader their success and leads to the breakdown of democratic order. Not every event can be a charismatic event, and not every individual can be a charismatic leader: it is the interplay at a precise moment that serves to resolve the issue, and this is not something that can be easily predicted. In Germany there are several examples that can illustrate the dynamics of the charismatic triangle. If we examine the burning of the Reichstag in 1933, it is direct evidence of how Adolf Hitler charismatized a situation of internal threat to the German people from the communists and Jews by deliberately falsifying the news of how events happened. It was all orchestrated to make the Germans – and particularly Nazi Party supporters – believe in the need to have a great leader capable of protecting them. In Italy the charismatization of an event can be seen in how the Fascists exploited the Abyssinian crisis of 1935.11 Italy’s subsequent withdrawal from the League of Nations was used by the Fascists to broaden support for Benito Mussolini. In Portugal, António Salazar emerged as the country’s savior, preventing inevitable economic collapse, while in neighboring Spain, Francisco Franco was the leader of the nationalist victory over ‘communism’. In Croatia, the glorification of the murders of King Alexander and the French minister of foreign affairs, Jean Louis Barthou, by the Ustasha in 1934, as well as the death penalty imposed on Ante Pavelić, were typical charismatic events that gave support to the leader. If we take examples from Larsen’s essay on Vidkun Quisling’s Norway, we can further illustrate the usefulness of the charismatic triangle model. Quisling was a charismatic leader from below, that is to say, he was made a Führer because many needed such a figure. However, he had to invent charismatic events, such as the 1935 Trotsky Affair and the 1939 decision to prolong parliament without recourse to fresh elections, in order to stimulate his followers and reactivate the charismatic bond. Ideological legitimacy: Adding a new ideal-type of legitimate rule or domination From the beginning of this project, we accepted the implicit understanding among scholars studying fascist leaders that, since fascism was the single and most important inspiration for all these dictators, they would over time become increasingly similar in appearance and make similar strategic decisions. The ideology of fascism was thus a homogenizing force that lay behind them, and explains why they can be compared. However, Max Weber’s writings 11 D. Musiedlak, Mussolini, Paris, 2005.

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on charisma predated the age of ideology that began with the mass appeal of the 1917 Russian Revolution. In Weber’s famous 1919 lecture on the vocation of politics, because of the inherent weaknesses of the regimes that plunged Europe into the First World War he expresses real support for the idea of some sort of rule by a strong man. At that moment, the full force of Marxist-Leninist (not to mention fascist) ideology had yet to be understood. Perhaps if he knew then what we know now he would have added ideology as a fourth item on his famous list of forms of political authority (traditional, legal, and charismatic).12 Of these three, however, there is no doubt the question of charismatic rule has aroused much uncertainty and disagreement.13 This doubt does not concern its central role in identifying why people obey, but rather with the essence of the definition: what do we mean when we say that a leader has charisma; what is meant by the routinization of charisma; and what are we claiming when we talk of the charismatization of a regime? Our central concerns in starting this project were thus to decide on how a distinct ideological color or event determined what kind of charisma a particular leader exerted or will develop while being put at the head of a distinct fascist movement or regime. Did all fascist leaders behave in the same manner, and did they convey the same message to their national movements and audiences? More directly, can we claim that ideology (with its national characteristics) was the main determining force of the fascist leaders? By asking this last question, we are well aware we are talking about an ideal type. We recognize that in every case the actual leadership types included different blends at different times of all three of Weber’s ideal forms of domination, depending on the tasks and national traits before each dictator. Hitler used the greatness of the Reich as his traditional symbol, using legal and quasi-legal means to change the Weimar constitution when he needed to. He also used his talent for delivering theatrical speeches to achieve desired psychological effects, whilst sticking to the goals of Nazism as the ultimate end for him and his party. The many ideas that were embedded within Nazism – Blut und Boden, Kraft durch Freude, and the Nazi Party’s early 21-point program – were necessarily intertwined with Hitler and his appearance as the German people’s Führer. According to all public pronouncements, Hitler had a mission and an ideological program from which proceed: he was not simply seeking to further his own personal desire for power. 12 Eatwell, ‘Concept and theory’. 13 W. J. Mommsen, The political and social theory of Max Weber: Collected essays, Cambridge, 1989; Willner, Spellbinders; R. van Dooren, Messengers from the promised land: An interactive theory of political charisma, Leiden, 1994; K. Pekonen, Charismatic leadership and the role of image in modern politics: Charismatic effects and the problem of political presence – The case of Finland in the 1980s, Jyväskulä, 1989.

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Table 5.1: Forms of political legitimation

Legitimation of power

Basis in regime

Appearance of leader

Legal authority

Reference to a ‘contract’: people obey the laws and the rulers are anchored in some sort of informal or formal concession: constitution, law book, or unbroken legal institutions.

No specific appearance, but usually in formal institutions such as parliaments that identify the legal duties and authority.

Traditional authority

Charismatic authority

Ideological authority

Habit: rule is legitimate because power is invested in traditional structures, such as a royal family, religious leader, etc., or because this is the only alternative.

Superstition: people obey the leader because they believe they possess extraordinary capabilities. The leader appears on special occasions wearing specific clothing and making use of special ceremonies, etc. Belief: followers trust the goals and ends. People obey and support the leaders and the regime because they fulfill their inner thoughts of what is right. The leader is only an individual who expresses this will.

Leaders carrying crosses, crowns, books of honor, and similar mythical marks of ancient traditions. Speaks on the necessity of traditional bonds as legitimizing power.

Führers appear at mass rallies or closed meetings bringing with them messianic messages through which they seek to convert audiences. The enthusiasm among the listeners and supporters also convince them of the truth of their calling.

Leaders always refer to party programs and specific mythical signals when legitimizing decisions. Followers publicly adhere to ideological manifestos and oaths, and implement them as part of their daily life.

The idea of adding a fourth term to Weber’s three ideal forms of political legitimacy extends our understanding of how the dictatorships could be established and accepted so easily in interwar Europe. All the dictatorships analyzed above based their rule and legitimized their power on the mix of traditional, legal (often quasi-legal), and charismatic domination; but they also had to give reasons justifying their proposals to effect regime change

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from constitutional democracy to authoritarian rule. These reasons could include economic depression, military threat, fear of the containment of communist extremism from the Soviet Union, exalted fear of the Jews, fear of the unruly masses, and so on. All of these motives, however, are only negative appeals for security. Positive legitimation had to come from the meaning and content of the dictatorship: that is, in its goals and plans for the future. It is within this aspect that the idea of introducing ideology as the fourth type of legitimate domination lies. People would not die for Josef Stalin or Vladimir Lenin as they would for the regime, even if this ideology was interpreted and reinterpreted almost on the whim of the dictator. It is the political ideology that gives strength and reason to the regime, and which embodies the ideas of identity and equality. Ideology gives its followers the definitive reason for their individual support for the leader, as well as for their willingness to sacrifice themselves in order to fight for the cause. Table 5.1 clarifies and simplifies these arguments, and illustrates the main differences between the four types of legitimate domination. Today Europe is free of dictatorships. This is a rather recent development, and one we hope will be durable. The study of the fascist dictatorships provides us with an opportunity to remind ourselves this is a situation we should not take for granted, however. We must understand how the charismatization of politics may carry a serious challenge to democracy with it. In a way, charismatization is a direct contradiction of democracy, and those who today demand strong leadership would do well to remember that unlike institutionalized politics there is no limit to (or defined measure for) what personalized rule may lead to. The comparative analysis of fascist charismatic leadership therefore carries an important lesson for both civil society and future generations of politicians. We have underlined how the complex logic of the evil politics of dictatorships may be understood as an unintended consequence of what we have called positive ideological impulses by pointing to the historical impact of liberalism and equality. In the end, we must remember that even good ideologies can advance bad politics. This led us to a re-examination of Weber’s basic ideal forms of political domination. Our conclusion is that the power of political leaders does not solely depend upon their being legitimized by traditional, legal, and charismatic means, but that the ideological platform to which they make systematic appeal is every bit as important, whether it be based on religious, national, ethnic, or left-right political ideology or ideologies. The followers of Hitler, Mussolini, Quisling, Pavelić, Corneliu Codreanu, Philippe Pétain, and so on, must, therefore, be understood in the context of the legitimizing role of

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ideology.14 The content of the leader’s messianic message added a great deal to the persuasive manner of his charisma.15 All of the dictators studied here relied on some ideological elements of fascism, even if some of them came closer to the Fascist/Nazi ideal type than others. When Miklós Horthy and Ion Antonescu sent their national armies into the Soviet Union in 1941, and while other fascist leaders elsewhere strongly supported efforts to recruit socalled volunteers for the Waffen SS, these decisions could only be legitimized by utilizing the ideological arguments of fascism. We have attempted to use the charismatic triangle model as a tool with which to compare each of the dictatorships in terms of the importance in each case of the interplay between charisma from above, from below, or from the event. Given the few cases presented here and the limitations of space, we have had to be modest in drawing any firm conclusions. We hope, nonetheless, that this kind of effort might stimulate others (as well as ourselves) to broaden the scope of comparison and to apply a more open and flexible design when analyzing dictators (whether fascist or not) in the future. In our opinion, it is important to distance ourselves from the often sterile approach of great man studies that is so often inherent in the biographies of individual fascist leaders. The interplay within and between the European dictatorships, and the context of their existence are always important, but these are precisely the points the biographical approach often overlooks. Our final message is that any study of charismatic fascist leaders has to be comparative, contextual, and based on the interplay of the three sources within the triangle of charismatic politics.

14 R. Eatwell, ‘On defining the “fascist minimum”: the centrality of ideology’, Journal of Political Ideologies 1, no 3, 1996, pp. 303–19; E. Gentile, The sacralization of politics in Fascist Italy, Cambridge MA, 1996. 15 See M. Dobry, ‘Hitler, charisma and structure: Reflections on historical methodology’, Pinto, Eatwell, and Larsen, Charisma and fascism, pp. 19–33.

6

Ruling elites, political institutions, and decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships: Comparative perspectives

A comparative analysis of the institutions, elites, and political decisionmaking in the right-wing dictatorships of interwar Europe highlights some of the characteristics that were to dominate 20th-century dictatorships. While Italian Fascism and German National Socialism provided powerful institutional and political inspiration for other regimes, their types of leadership, institutions, and operating methods already encapsulated the dominant models of the 20th-century dictatorship: personalized leadership, the single or dominant party, and the technico-consultative political institutions.1 The fascist regimes were the first ideological one-party dictatorships situated on the right of the European political spectrum, and their development, alongside the consolidation of the first communist dictatorship, decisively marked the typologies of dictatorial regimes elaborated during the 1950s. 2 While Carl Friedrich and Zbigniew Brzezinski recognized that the singleparty played a more modest role within fascist than within communist regimes, part of the classificatory debate over European fascism continued to insist – eventually excessively – on this point, and theories of totalitarianism deformed their role, often without any empirical support. 3 On the other hand, many historians examining the ideology and political activities of the fascist parties viewed their transformation as institutions of power within the new dictatorships with some simplistic analyses, stressing the contradictions

1

A. C. Pinto, ed., Ruling elites and decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships, New York, 2009.

2

P. Brooker, Non-democratic regimes, London, 2009.

3

C. J. Friedrich and Z. K. Brzezinski, Totalitarian dictatorship and autocracy, New York, 1956.

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between the revolutionary nature of the movement phase (prior to taking power) and the regime phase.4 In the transitions to authoritarianism that occurred during the 1920s and 1930s there is no strict correlation between the abrupt and violent ruptures with democracy in Portugal and Spain and the ‘legal’ assumption of power in Germany and Italy, or with the extent of the break from the liberal institutions following the consolidation of their respective dictatorial regimes. Salazar, who arrived in power after a coup d’état, and Franco, whose ascension was the result of a civil war, both had much greater room for maneuver than either Mussolini or Hitler, who both obtained their positions through ‘legal’ routes and with the support of a conservative right less inclined towards radical adventures.5 The type of transition does not seem to explain the extent of the rupture with the liberal institutions and the innovation of the new institutions created by the subsequent dictatorships. Rather than in the nature of the transition, the differences between the regimes lay in the role of the party and in its relationship with the leader who dominated the transitional process. The dictatorships associated with fascism during the first half of the 20th century were personalized dictatorships.6 It is interesting to see that even those regimes that were institutionalized following military coups, and which passed through a phase of military dictatorship, gave birth to personalist regimes and more or less successful attempts to create single or dominant parties.7 In the majority of these cases, the inherent dilemma in the transformation of the single party as the dictatorship’s ruling institution into the leader’s instrument of rule is somewhat different than it was for the socialist dictatorships.8 Some authors speak of the degeneration of the party as a ruler organization into an agent of the personal ruler in the case of the communist 4

Renzo de Felice in M. Leeden, ed., Intervista sul fascismo, Bari, 1975.

5

J. J. Linz and A. Stepan, eds, The breakdown of democratic regimes, Baltimore, MD, 1978; J. J. Linz, Authoritarian and totalitarian regimes, Boulder, CO, 2000; D. BergSchlosser and J. Mitchell, eds, The conditions of democracy in Europe, 1919–1939, London, 2000.

6

S. G. Payne, A history of fascism, Madison, WI, 1996; R. Griffin, The nature of fascism, London, 1991.

7

The military played a central role in Portugal in 1926, and then in Spain, where a failed military coup led to a civil war. See also J. B. Fischer, Balkan strongmen: Dictators and authoritarian rulers of south-east Europe, London, 2006.

8

A. C. Pinto, R. Eatwell and S. U. Larsen, eds, Charisma and fascism in interwar Europe, London, 2007.

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parties in power.9 In the dictatorships associated with fascism, the singleparty was not the regime’s ruling institution – it was one of many. It is only in the paradigmatic cases of Italy and Germany that this question was raised and resolved during the regimes’ institutionalization phase. In the cases of Franco’s Spain and Salazar’s Portugal, the single-parties were created from above as instruments of rule for the leader. In the dictatorships of central and eastern Europe, such as Austria and Romania, and also Marshall Petain’s Vichy France, some fascist movements emerged either as rivals to or unstable partners in the single or dominant party, and often as inhibitors to their formation, making the institutionalization of the regimes more difficult for the dictatorial candidates. The boundaries of these regimes were fluid, demonstrating fascism’s amazing ability to permeate the authoritarian right during the 1920s and 1930s. The most paradigmatic case was without doubt that of early Francoism, although Salazarism in Portugal also emulated some aspects of Italian Fascism. Italian Fascism and German National Socialism represented attempts to create a new set of political and para-state institutions that were in one form or another present in other dictatorships of the period. After taking power, both the National Socialist and Fascist Party became powerful instruments of a new order, agents of a parallel administration: transformed into singleparties they flourished as breeding-grounds for a new political elite and as agents for a new mediation between the state and civil society, creating tensions between the single-party, the government, and the state apparatus in the process. These tensions were also a consequence of the emergence of new centers of political decision-making that transferred power from the government and the ministerial elite and concentrated it into the hands of Mussolini and Hitler.10 While taking power was only possible with the support of other conservative and authoritarian groups, the nature of the leadership and its relationship with the party was an important variable. As some historians have observed, a crucial element is ‘to what extent the fascist component emancipated itself from the initial predominance of its traditional conservative sponsors and to what degree it departed – once in power – from conventional forms and objectives of policy-making towards a more radical direction.’11 This tension 9

P. Brooker, Twentieth-century dictatorships: The ideological one-party states, New York, 1995.

10 A. C. Pinto, ‘Elites, single parties and political decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships’, Contemporary European History 11, no 3, 2002, pp. 429–54. 11 A. Kallis, ‘The “regime-model” of fascism: A typology’, European History Quarterly 30, no 1, 2000, pp. 77–104.

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may be illustrated by the eventual emergence of a weaker or stronger dualism of power that appears to be the determining factor for the typological and classificatory variations used to qualify those dictatorships historically associated with fascism, which have been defined variously as authoritarian and totalitarian, or as authoritarian and fascist.12 The interaction between the single party, the government, the state apparatus, and civil society appears fundamental if we are to obtain an understanding of the different ways in which the various dictatorships of the fascist era functioned. The party and its ancillary organizations were not merely parallel institutions: they were also central agents for the creation and maintenance of the leader’s authority and legitimacy. While their impact on the functioning of the political system may be difficult to assess, the personality of the leader is of particular importance within dictatorial regimes, because while not underestimating the role of the institutions, this is central for the definition of the respective style of rule.13 For this very reason, the type of leader-single-party axis appears to be the fundamental element of explanation for the diminution (or not) of the government, and of an opening that favored (or not) dualism in the nature of power and decision-making: or in other words, of the extent of the de-institutionalization of norms and the bypassing of bureaucratic authoritarianism (here expressed by the dictatorcabinet-state apparatus axis) by the leader and his followers.14 This chapter analyses the relationship between the single-parties and the political decision-making institutions within four dictatorships associated with fascism, focusing on the relationship between the dictators, the singleparties, the cabinet, and the governing elites, while also seeking to identify the locus of decision-making power and the main institutional veto players.15

12 J. J. Linz, Fascismo, autoritarismo, totalitarismo, Rome, 2003. 13 J. Blondel, Political leadership: Towards a general analysis, London, 2007; F. I. Greenstein, Personality and politics: Problems of evidence, inference, and conceptualization, Princeton, NJ, 1987. 14 M. R. Lepsius, ‘The model of charismatic leadership and its applicability to the rule of Adolf Hitler’, in Pinto, Eatwell, and Larsen, Charisma and fascism, pp. 37–52. 15 As both Iberian dictatorships continued long after the end of the fascist era, this chapter will consider these regimes from their creation during the 1930s to the end of the Second World War in 1945.

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Single party, cabinet, and political decision-making: Locating power in fascist-era dictatorships The political engineering of Italian Fascism in power While Mussolini conquered power as leader of the National Fascist Party (PNF – Partito Nazionale Fascista), the subsequent dismantling of the democratic regime was slow and the reduced social and political influence of the party, and/or the political will of Mussolini, made him accept compromises with the king, the armed forces, and with other institutions, such as the Catholic Church. The consolidation of the dictatorship had to involve the imposition of a greater degree of discipline within the party, the actions of which during the initial phase of Mussolini’s regime could threaten the compromises essential for its institutionalization. The Italian case is an example of the seizure of power by a united political elite, the base of which was a Fascist party transformed into the primary motor for the dictatorship’s institutionalization. However, for several years Mussolini had to work with a parliament, and until the end of his regime he had also to work with a senate. Securing political control of the parliament was not easy during the 1920s, and the entire legislative process had to pass through both it and, until the end of the regime, the king. Musiedlak notes that ‘the powerful Fascist leader of Italy had to behave as the classical prime minister of a liberal system... appealing for votes and fearing abstention.’16 Securing political control of the senate was a slow and complex process that involved the PNF infiltrating its way into the institution and encircling the royalist conservative elite.17 Nevertheless, while he needed the party to control institutions and strengthen his personal power, Mussolini remained suspicious of some of its sections. Unlike Hitler, Mussolini did not view the party as an army of followers: he feared its autonomy could threaten his authority. The ambition of the single-party to control society also collided with the state bureaucracy, so much so that it was not until the 1930s that Mussolini allowed the PNF to extend its control over the state apparatus. Mussolini did at times use the party to abandon his concessions to bureaucratic-legal legitimacy. Although he lacked the opportunity to eliminate the diarchy he inherited he never abolished the monarchy.18 When what remained of the liberal legacy was eliminated during the latter half of the 1930s and when under Achilld Starace the PNF proposed the conquest of civil 16 D. Musiedlak, ‘Mussolini, charisma and decision-making’, in Pinto, Ruling elites, pp. 1–16. 17 D. Musiedlak, Lo stato fascista e la sua classe politica, 1922–1945, Bologna, 2003. 18 P. Milza, Mussolini, Paris, 1999.

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society, Mussolini’s attempts to enhance his personal and charismatic authority through the party, state and propaganda apparatus culminated in the creation of the cult of Il Duce.19 This represented the zenith of a movement several historians of fascism suggest signals the passage from an authoritarian to a totalitarian fascism. Tendencies of both had coexisted during the consolidation of Mussolini’s dictatorship. 20 In 1926, the PNF became the de facto single party. The 1928 transformation of the Fascist Grand Council – the PNF’s supreme body since 1923 – into a state institution under Mussolini’s leadership marked the fusion of the party and the state at the very peak of the Fascist political system, without subordinating the former to the latter. As one student of Italian Fascism has noted: The Fascist Grand Council retained a political importance that was greater than that of the cabinet... In this aspect, however, the theoretical supremacy of the state over the party cannot be interpreted as the subordination of the party’s organs to those of the government.21

The main reforms of the Italian political system began with the Fascist Grand Council, although this body – even while technically more important than the council of ministers – was formally a consultative body that met only infrequently after the consolidation of Fascism. One of the last reforms was the creation in 1938 of the Fascist corporatist chamber, of which the leaders of the PNF became automatic members. The Grand Council consequently lost its right to draw up the list of deputies with the abolition of the liberal parliament. The secretary of the PNF, who was also the secretary of the Grand Council and a government minister, was to become the second-most important figure of Italian Fascism.22 During the first years of his regime, Mussolini was afraid the party’s radicalism and indiscipline would compromise the consolidation of Fascist power. Purges, the closure of the party to new members and limiting its access to both the state and to the government were all characteristics of the dictatorship during the 1920s.23 However, throughout the 1930s the PNF, which was by then under Starace’s leadership and had been imbued with a 19 E. Gentile, The sacralization of politics in Fascist Italy, Cambridge, 1996. 20 E. Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo: Il partito e lo stato nel regime fascista, Rome, 1995. 21 A. Lyttelton, ‘La dittatura fascista’, in G. Sabbatucci and V. Vidotto, eds, Storia d ’Italia: Guerra e fascismo, 1914–1943, vol. 4, 1998. See also H. A. Steiner, Government in Fascist Italy, New York, 1938. 22 Gentile, La via italiana. 23 Ibid., pp. 168–98.

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structure that was more ‘disciplined [both] horizontally and vertically’, became a powerful machine used both to shape civil society and promote the ideological socialization of the Duce leadership cult. Mussolini was the ruler of an often unstable balance between party, government, and administration, and reserved political decision-making power to his person while subordinating both the party and the governmental elite to his sole authority. Lupo illustrated this well when he wrote, ‘the group of leaders that emerged from the Fascist mobilization took important steps towards the conquest of power on a path that was blocked to them by both conservative resistance and by jealousy and paranoia of Il Duce that quickly transformed into tyranny.’24 From this perspective, Mussolini accumulated a large part of the political decision-making power to his own person. His cabinet was undoubtedly formally devalued in relation to the Grand Council; however, the relationship between Mussolini (who often took direct responsibility for up to six ministries) and his ministers was still a determining element of political decision-making, while the council of ministers survived as an institution. Some other institutions inherited from the liberal regime that remained largely ‘un-fascistized’, such as the council of state, were also to act as legislative filters. 25 The significant reduction in the number of meetings by both the Grand Council and the council of ministers from the mid-1930s was indicative of the increasing concentration of power to Mussolini’s person: the Grand Council did not meet at all between 1939 and 1943, ‘without affecting the regime’s ability to function.’26 However, this was the domain of the Fascist ruling elite that dismissed Mussolini in 1943, and while the council of ministers also held significantly fewer meetings, at least decisions made there were ratified. 27 At the meeting of the Grand Council at which Mussolini was removed from office, Grandi accused him of having a personalist management style that bureaucratized and stifled the party and paralyzed the regime. 28 This first accusation was not far from the truth, while the second only served to 24 S. Lupo, Le fascisme italien: La politique dans un régime totalitaire, Paris, 2003. 25 G. Melis, ‘Le istituzioni italiane negli anni trenta’, in G. Melis, ed., Lo stato negli anni trenta: Istituzioni e regimi fascisti in Europa, Bologna, 2008, pp. 91–107. 26 G. Adinolfi, ‘Political elite and decision-making in Mussolini’s Italy’, in Pinto, Ruling elites, pp. 17–52. 27 Ibid., p. 49. 28 P. H. Lewis, Latin fascist elites: The Mussolini, Franco, and Salazar regimes, Westport, CT, 2002, p. 51.

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highlight the progressive reduction of the Grand Council’s once significant political decision-making authority. Despite having been transformed into a centralized party-state machine (as was the case for other official single parties), 80 per cent of the PNF elite had joined the movement before the March on Rome and they did not like latecomers. 29 The militia was the first institution to be taken out of the party’s control and placed under Mussolini’s direct command. The political police was never independent of the state, although several of the mass – particularly those involving youth, women, and the working classes – were subjected to many different transfers. The PNF took control of the popular mass organizations, even although these organizations were initially dependent upon the ministries. 30 The national recreation club (OND – Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro, a cultural organization within the economics ministry), was the object of some rivalry between the ministry of corporations and the PNF before responsibility for it was finally placed with the latter in 1927, when it was the regime’s largest mass organization. 31 A similar event took place in relation to the youth organizations: originally voluntary organizations within the PNF, responsibility for them was transferred to the ministry of education in 1929. A few years later, with Starace at its head, the party regained control of them, and in 1937 they were amalgamated into a single youth movement, the Italian Fascist Youth (GIL – Gioventù Italiana del Littorio). The monopoly over the political socialization of youth was not only a source of tension between the PNF and the state, it also involved the Catholic Church, which saw its independent Catholic Action youth organizations alternately tolerated and dissolved. 32 The PNF was also involved in the trade unions. During the initial period the PNF had its own unions over which it maintained indirect control. The complementary nature of the relationship between the state and the party was significant within the women’s organizations, from the Fascist Women’s Section (FF – Fasci Femminili) to Rural Housewives (MR – Massaie

29 Gentile, La via italiana al totalitarismo, p. 183; M. Palla, ‘Lo stato-partito’, in M. Palla, ed., Lo stato fascista, Milan, 2001, p. 17. 30 It is interesting to see that a great deal of recent empirical research confirms much of the pioneering working hypotheses on the PNF in power originally posited by D. L. Germino in 1959. 31 V. de Grazia, The culture of consent: Mass organization of leisure in Fascist Italy, Cambridge, 1981, pp. 33–59. 32 T. H. Koon, Believe, Obey, Fight: Political socialization of youth in Fascist Italy, 1922– 1943, Chapel Hill, NC, 1985.

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Rurali), in which – and after many hesitations – the party invested heavily throughout the 1930s. 33 Despite the lack of success that met its attempts to fascistize the bureaucracy, political control over access to the civil service was strengthened progressively following the transfer of the Fascist civil service association to the PNF in 1931 and the introduction of obligatory membership of this association in 1937. In 1938, membership of the PNF became a necessary precondition for admission to the state apparatus.34 Several other examples can be given to demonstrate the party’s increasing influence within the state and of the privileges it could extend to its professional members. Newly appointed judges, whether members of the PNF or not, were obliged to attend courses on Fascist culture within the party’s political education centers before they could take up their posts, while trainee lawyers were allowed a reduction of their training period, but only if they joined the PNF before they qualified. 35 We should not forget that alongside the central state apparatus a large para-state sector linked to the coordination of the economy and to the corporatist system was developed, a true parallel administration in which there was greater flexibility in the nominations, but in which the nominees for positions came not only from professional civil servants, but increasingly from within an elite closely associated with the Fascist movement and its leader. 36 In Italian Fascism, not only did the locus of political decision-making power begin to diverge from the classical dictator-government binomial as a result of the existence of the Grand Council, but the single party was transformed into the only route into government and controlled civil society through its parallel political organization, which was at the service of the dictator and his regime, and which increasingly interfered in the workings of both the state apparatus and the bureaucracy. The concentration of seven or eight portfolios in Mussolini’s hands and the erratic and volatile nature of a ministerial elite that could be (and which was) dismissed at any moment, resulted in the appointment of indecisive ministers and left a shadow over direct relations between Il Duce and the senior bureaucracy.

33 V. de Grazia, How Fascism ruled women: Italy, 1922–1945, Berkeley, CA, 1993, pp. 234–71; P. Willson, Peasant women and politics in Fascist Italy, London, 2002. 34 G. Melis, ‘La burocrazia’, in A. del Boca, M. Legnani and M. G. Rossi, eds, Il regime Fascista, Bari, 1995, p. 264. 35 P. Pombeni, Demagogia e tirannide: Uno studio sulla forma-partito del fascismo, Bologna, 1984, p. 256. 36 J.-Y. Dormagen, Logiques du fascisme: L’ état totalitaire en Italie, Paris, 2007.

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Hitler and the deinstitutionalization of the Nazi dictatorship The Nazi dictatorship was much closer to the model of charismatic leadership and the Nazi Party (NSDAP – Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterspartei), and militias like the Schutzstaffel (SS), exercised a greater influence over the political system. Both factors make it much more difficult to identify the location of political decision-making within Nazism. One of the most fruitful interpretations of the Nazi political system is that which defines it as a polyocracy – a political system that consists of several decision-making centers, all of which were mediated individually by Hitler. 37 Such a system has many tensions – for example, between the party and its bureaucratic apparatus and the local and central administrations – however, we should not exaggerate them, since in many cases they complemented each other. This investigation has revised some of the interpretations that have bequeathed us an image of forced coherence where there was little coherence. 38 It is also clear the Second World War acted as a catalyst, driving events that under other circumstances would probably have followed a different path. Hitler’s dictatorship was in every aspect of its existence closer to a charismatic regime than any other, and this had significant implications for the operation of the Nazi political system.39 The Nazi leader was at the head of the most powerful fascist party, and although Hitler had to overcome some opposition from elements within the NSDAP’s militia – the Sturmabteillungen (SA) – in the immediate aftermath of his rise to power, he soon made the party his ‘instrument of rule.’ Hitler’s style of rule caused a weakening of the authoritarian state’s decision-making structure, resulting in his rise to absolute power at the head of a system in which the ‘coexistence [of] and conflict [between] uncoordinated authorities very often undermined solidarity and uniformity in the exercise of power.’40 Whether as part of a deliberate strategy or merely as a consequence of Hitler’s leadership personality, this also provoked a multiplication of ad hoc decisions and ensured there would be no real or formal limits to his authority.41 Despite this concentration of power, Hitler’s style of rule led him to immerse himself in such matters as the military and the strategic defense 37 E. Fraenkel, The dual state, New York, 1942. 38 Friedrich and Brzezinski, Totalitarian dictatorship. 39 I. Kershaw, Hitler, vol. 1, 1889–1936: Hubris, London, 1998; Hitler, vol. 2, 1936–1945: Nemesis, London, 2000. 40 M. Broszat, The Hitler state: The foundation and development of the internal structure of the Third Reich, London, 1981, p. 351. 41 H. Mommsen, From Weimar to Auschwitz, Princeton, NJ, 1991, pp. 163–88.

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and expansion of the Third Reich, and to underestimate the command and control dimension of the administration and of day-to-day domestic politics. As in the other dictatorships analyzed here, the Nazi cabinet was quickly transformed into a bureaucratic body totally subservient to Hitler. However, even in this compliant condition the cabinet ceased to exist as a collegiate body and political power within the Nazi regime was simultaneously concentrated in Hitler and dispersed throughout the various autonomous institutions – severely undermining the government. Regular meetings of the cabinet ceased in 1935, with even the symbolic meetings that remained coming to an end just three years later.42 In 1937, with Hans Heinrich Lammers at the head of the Reich Chancellery, ministerial access to Hitler became more difficult as he deliberately reduced the cabinet’s status.43 At the same time the office of the deputy Führer, headed by Rudolf Hess and later by Martin Bormann, and which represented the NSDAP, moved closer to Hitler. One important biographer of the German Führer noted: Whichever way one viewed it, and remarkable for a complex modern state, there was no government beyond Hitler and whichever individuals he chose to confer with at a particular time. Hitler was the only link of the component parts of the regime.44

The status associated with ministerial rank diminished as both a de facto and symbolic position of power within National Socialism with the rapid emergence of various para-state structures with parallel powers. While the ministerial elite was more politically homogeneous, the initial pressure from several Nazi ministers to create a centralized dictatorship based on the control of the administration led to its swift weakening under pressure from the party, the SS, and other parallel institutions – very often with Hitler’s support. According to Broszat, in National Socialism three distinct centers of power began to emerge within a structure that was in a tense and unstable balance: The single party monopoly, the centralized governmental dictatorship, and the absolutism of the Führer... undermined the unity of the government and the monopoly of government by the Reich cabinet.45 42 Broszat, Hitler state, p. 280. 43 E. N. Peterson, The limits of Hitler’s power, Princeton, NJ, 1969, pp. 26–33. 44 Kershaw, Hitler, Vol. 2, p. 227. 45 Broszat, Hitler state, pp. 262–4.

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Special authorities under Hitler’s direct control soon developed alongside the ministries at the same time as several political and police organizations, some controlled by the NSDAP and others by the SS, began to act independently of the government. These leader-retinue structures were not only tolerated by Hitler, he actually encouraged them. Among the former were organizations such as the German Road System, the Labor Service, and others, of which the most important were those that were either more overtly political or repressive. The Hitler Youth, which remained under the party’s control, was transformed into a Reich authority independent of the ministry of education, with the objective of becoming a counterweight to both the ministry and the armed forces in political and ideological education. In a complex manner that generated innumerable tensions, the gradual removal of the police from the interior ministry into the hands of Himmler’s SS is yet another example. It was transformed into an institution that was at least formally dependent upon the party and the state, but ‘which had detached itself from both and had become independent.’46 Frick’s interior ministry was thus emasculated of any practical authority over the police, just as the position of the minister of labor was also partially weakened with the independence of the German Labor Front (DAF – Deutsche Arbeitsfront).47 If the Nazification of the administration was at times more superficial than real, the creation of those organizations viewed as parallel administrations represent the most extreme examples of the subversion of an authoritarian concept of government and state within the collection of dictatorships that have been associated with fascism. Even although it had been subordinated, the appointment of NSDAP leaders to ministerial office was – in much the same way as in the other dictatorships – a symbol of the Nazi Party’s victory as it represented the diminution of the government. It is also worth noting that even although it survived as an institution, albeit with much of its legislative authority removed and controlled by the NSDAP, the Reichstag was seldom used as a legitimizing institution. The tensions created by the legality of the NSDAP’s rise to power and the rapid development of Hitler’s charismatic leadership were resolved by the publication of a series of decrees conveying total power to his person. The NSDAP, even while experiencing internal crises, created a parallel structure, multiplying and upsetting the spheres of decision-making power in several areas of national and regional authority. The existence of a large 46 Ibid., p. 272. 47 Peterson, The limits of Hitler’s power, p. 77; N. Frei, L’ état hitlérien et la société allemande, 1933–1945, Paris, 1994, p. 171.

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administration of NSDAP functionaries was symbolic of a revolutionary strategy before a controlled bureaucracy, although according to several studies the Nazi leadership always relied on the old elite to maintain the essential functions of government, particularly within German territory, given that the party was more important in the eastern occupied territories.48 Nevertheless, the increasing legislative confusion that sought to interpret the leader’s will represents the most extreme subversion of the traditional methods of political decision-making in the four dictatorships being studied. The NSDAP, while not achieving its ambition to secure political and ideological control of the administration, did obtain for itself a much stronger position before the government.49 Not only did Bormann’s office of deputy Führer become the most important channel to Hitler, it also secured some political control over the government through, for example, its power to veto civil service promotions. Simultaneously, the party achieved political and financial autonomy, and developed as a parallel state apparatus.50 The Nazi Party in power was transformed into a complex organization, and many studies have pointed out that the leaders of the party ‘became stuck mid-way through their journey toward the creation of a truly innovative, even revolutionary elite.’51 While the formal rigidity of many of the typologies labeling National Socialism as an example of where the party commands the state cannot be verified, it was in Nazi Germany that the single-party obtained its greatest autonomy and was the leading force in the drive to reduce the importance of the governmental and administrative elites, and in the progressive and unstable subversion of ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism’ in the locus of political power and decision-making. As a single-party, the NSDAP represents the strongest shadow state of the cases being examined. Portugal’s New State: The primacy of bureaucratic authoritarianism The Portuguese New State, which was institutionalized in 1933, emerged from the military dictatorship that overthrew the liberal First Republic in 1926. António de Oliveira Salazar, a young university professor and Catholic leader, was appointed prime minister in 1932 by the president of the republic, 48 M. H. Kater, The Nazi Party: A social profile of member and leaders, 1919–1945, Cambridge, 1983, p. 238. 49 J. Caplan, Government without administration: State and civil service in Weimar and Nazi Germany, Oxford, 1998, pp. 131–88. 50 D. Orlow, The history of the Nazi Party: 1933–1945, Pittsburgh, PA, 1973. 51 Kater, Nazi Party, p. 33.

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General Óscar Carmona, whose position was legitimized in an election held in 1928. Despite the significance of the fact the president decided not to assume the position of prime minister or to declare himself dictator, he did appoint military officers to the position of prime minister until 1932. Salazar played no role in the 1926 coup, nor was he listed as a candidate for dictator during the final years of the parliamentary regime. Salazar’s expertise was in finance and his backing by the Catholic Church and the small Catholic party made him a natural candidate for the post of finance minister, and it was in that capacity he joined the cabinet in 1928. His rise in government was made possible by the concessions he was able to demand from the dictatorship as a condition of accepting the ministerial post. The New State’s political institutions resulted from the often difficult negotiations that took place between Salazar and the military leaders – the majority of whom were conservative republicans – both within the government and the framework of limited pluralism within the dictatorship. Curiously, the first institution to be created was the National Union (UN – União Nacional) in 1930, a single-party formed by the government within the interior ministry that served to legitimate the elimination of those political parties that had survived the First Republic – even those, such as the Catholic Party (PC – Partido Católico), that supported the dictatorship. Initially consisting of local conservative republican notables, the UN was soon attracting monarchists, Catholics, and even some dissident fascists from Rolão Preto’s National Syndicalism Movement (MNS – Movimento Nacional-Sindicalista) – a movement that had challenged Salazar before being banned in 1934. It was also during the final days of the military dictatorship that the republican opposition made several serious and violent attempts to overthrow it. Once appointed prime minister, Salazar set about the task of legitimating the regime through the promulgation of a new constitution. The resulting constitution of 1933 heralded an early compromise with the conservative republicans, but its liberal principals were weak while the corporatist and authoritarian ones were strong. Rights and liberties were formally maintained but were actually eliminated by government regulation. De jure freedom of association existed, but parties were effectively eliminated. Formally, the UN never became a single-party, although it functioned as such after 1934. As president of the UN, Salazar had final say in the nominations for parliamentary deputies, a task he took great care over during the first phase of the regime. Adopting a methodology that he was to refine, he asked for lists of names and suggestions from his informal group of advisers and from the UN leadership, often personally selecting candidates for the list.52 52 J. M. T. Castilho, Os deputados da Assembleia Nacional, 1934–1974, Lisbon, 2009, pp. 213–30; R. Carvalho, A Assembleia Nacional no pós-guerra, 1945–1949, Oporto, 2002.

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The president, to whom the prime minister was responsible, was elected by universal male suffrage. During the first years of Salazar’s rule only the president and the army posed any constitutional or political threat to his position. While the constitution retained the classic separation of powers, the chamber of deputies had few powers and the corporatist chamber had only advisory functions. Before the creation of the corporations, members of the corporatist chamber were chosen by the corporatist council, which consisted of Salazar and the ministers and secretaries of state of the sectors involved. Above all else, Salazar was a master whose manipulation of a perverted rational-legal legitimacy meant he had little need to seek recourse in a charismatic style that could rise above bureaucratic and governmental mediation between himself and the nation. Moreover, the military origins of his regime ensured his position was linked to that of President Carmona. Salazar’s single-party was established within an authoritarian regime and the impetus for its formation came from the government with assistance from the state apparatus. State dependency marked the life of the party and, once its leaders had been appointed and the national assembly representatives chosen, the UN practically disappeared. In 1938 the dictator himself recognized the single party’s activity had ‘progressively diminished to near-vanishing point.’53 Its internal structure was weak and it lacked the propaganda, socioprofessional, and cultural departments of other single parties. However, it did strengthen Salazar’s authority, limit pressure groups, and the political families, and integrate them into the regime, while also keeping reins on the president. Students of the New State have emphasized the impact the outbreak of the Spanish Civil War had on the nature of the regime. In response to the ‘red threat’ from Spain, Salazarism developed a new political discourse and symbolism, and set up two militia organizations. These steps have often been interpreted as the fascistization of the regime, although the single-party was not a part of the new dynamics. Several organizations, such as the regime’s militia the Portuguese Legion (LP – Legião Portuguesa), the Portuguese Youth organization (MP – Mocidade Portuguesa), and the political police (PVDE – Polícia de Vigilância e Defesa do Estado), were kept entirely dependent on the ministers. The National Propaganda Secretariat (SPN – Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional) was a general directorate within the state apparatus, equipped with its own autonomous leadership that was responsible to Salazar directly rather than to the party. The National Foundation for Happiness at Work (FNAT – Fundação Nacional para a Alegria no Trabalho), a modest Portuguese version 53 M. B. da Cruz, O partido e o estado no Salazarismo, Lisbon, 1980, p. 140.

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of Mussolini’s OND and Hitler’s DAF, was dependent upon the undersecretary of state for corporations.54 Salazar’s extensive centralization of decision-making authority clearly justifies the use of the expression strong dictator in any characterization of the power exercised by him. However, it is important to stress that the locus of power and of political decision-making was always with the dictator and his ministers, as it was through these that the great majority of decisions passed. In several other dictatorships, single-parties functioned at least as parallel political apparatuses. However, this never happened in Salazarism, where political control was mainly effected through administrative centralization rather than through the single-party. Not only was there no tension between Salazar’s UN and the cabinet-state apparatus, but neither the dictatorial system nor the political decision-making process were ever challenged by the existence of autonomous political institutions directly subordinated to the dictator. Early Francoism and the fascist appeal While during their long existence the two Iberian dictatorships eventually converged as forms of authoritarianism, their markedly different origins were clearly evident during the period being studied.55 The main characteristic of Francoism was its radical break with the Second Spanish Republic. The product of a protracted and bloody civil war in which there were a greater number of political purges and executions than during the overthrow of any other democratic regime following the First World War, Francoism as a political system rejected the fundamentals of the liberal legacy and was inspired by Italian Fascism to a much greater degree than was Salazarism.56 Franco set about establishing his embryonic political system within those areas that had been occupied by his Nationalists: it was a system marked by a reactionary and militaristic coalition of conservative Catholics, monarchists and fascists. In order to create his single-party, FET-JONS (Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista) – which was based around the small Spanish fascist movement – Franco forced the 54 J. C. Valente, Estado Novo e alegria no trabalho: Uma história política da FNAT (1935– 1958), Lisbon, 1999. 55 S. G. Payne, The Franco regime, 1936–1975, Madison, WI, 1987; A. Cazorla-Sánchez, Las políticas de la victoria: La consolidación del Nuevo Estado franquista (1938–1953), Madrid, 2000. 56 J. Tusell, La dictadura de Franco, Madrid, 1988; J. Tusell, E. Gentile and G. Di Febo, eds, Fascismo y franquismo cara a cara, Madrid, 2004; I. Saz Campos, Fascismo y franquismo, Valencia, 2004.

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Falange’s fusion with the Catholics and the monarchists.57 During the civil war, the Falange lent Franco the support of its political militants and its ideology as well as its modest fascist militia in the hope its imposed unification would ensure for it ‘a genuinely fascist role in the implementation of a mobilized society.’58 However, the fascists saw their position weaken as a result of their inclusion into a single-party that incorporated several political families. The Francoist single-party was a heterogeneous union maintaining several identities, particularly at the intermediate levels.59 Nevertheless, Franco and the victors of the civil war initially outlined the creation of a Spanish new state: one that lacked the palliatives and compromises of its Portuguese peer, even although the tentative outlines of its proposed totalitarian tendencies were to be rapidly eliminated as the defeat of German Europe became more predictable.60 Franco’s concessions to Spain’s liberal past were few and far between: the dictator did not have to deal with either a president or a king, subordinate or not, and nor did he have to pervert a parliament as Mussolini had. As Stanley Payne noted, in 1939 the Spanish dictator ‘was the European ruler who, both formally and theoretically, retained the most absolute and uncontrolled power.’61 Some of Franco’s personal characteristics, and his relationship with the institutions that constituted the base of his victory, were to influence the nature of the new political system. Franco was a conservative military man expressing values of order, anti-communism, traditionalist Catholicism, and an obsession with the ‘liberal-Masonic conspiracy.’62 His relationship with FET-JONS was also more utilitarian than ideological – he was not the original party leader and neither was the Falange to be a determining factor in his seizure of power – sensitive as he was to both the armed forces and the Catholic Church (the other powerful institutions involved in founding the new regime). Despite Franco’s support for the Axis during the Second World 57 S. G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, 1923–1977, Madison, WI, 2000. 58 R. Chueca, El fascismo en los comienzos del régimen de Franco: Un estudio sobre la FETJONS, Madrid, 1983, p. 401. 59 J. J. Linz, ‘From falange to movimiento-organización: The Spanish single-party and the Franco regime, 1936–1968’, in S. P. Huntington and C. H. Moore, eds, Authoritarian politics in modern societies: The dynamics of established one-party systems, New York, 1970, pp. 128–203; G. Sánchez Recio, Los quadros politicos intermedios del régimen franquista, 1936–1959, Alicante, 1996. 60 J. M. Thomàs, La Falange de Franco: El proyecto fascista del régimen, Barcelona, 2001. 61 Payne, Fascism in Spain, p. 487. 62 P. Preston, Franco: A biography, London, 1993.

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War, his intellectual background and his professional career make it difficult to position him as a fascist leader once he was in power. Franco placed the single party under his and his government’s strict control. Nevertheless, FET-JONS not only managed to create a party apparatus and ancillary organizations that were much more powerful than those enjoyed by its Portuguese counterpart, but its access to both the national government and the local administration was also greater. Despite being subordinate, FET-JONS was initially integrated into certain administrative bodies within the state apparatus: for example, by uniting the position of civil governors with those of the party’s regional secretaries.63 One important struggle that was immediately lost was the attempt to retain an independent militia: as was the case in Portugal, the militia was placed under military control. However, the party did control a considerable collection of ancillary organizations, such as the Youth Front (FJ – Frente de Juventudes), the Spanish University Union (SEU – Sindicato Español Universitario), the Women’s Section (SF – Sección Feminina), the Syndical Organisation (OO. SS – Organización Sindical), and the Spanish equivalent of Italy’s OND, the Education and Recreation Syndical Organisation (OSED – Organización Sindical de la Educación y Descanso).64 More importantly, the party retained responsibility for propaganda within the regime.65 The intertwining of party and state notwithstanding, the coincidence of ministerial charges with the same section within the party are certainly worthy of greater attention. The party’s national education delegate was responsible for the various youth organizations, and as the occupant of this post was also always the minister of education, this minister effectively headed these organizations.66 Propaganda, which in 1938 was the responsibility of an undersecretary of state within the Nationalist government, was transferred to the single-party until 1945, when it became a government task once more. During Ramón Serrano Suñer’s short spell as the leading party figure he was also the party’s propaganda delegate, and when he was appointed interior 63 For an interesting comparison between the Spanish civil governors and the Italian Fascist prefects see D. A. G. Madrid, ‘Le relazioni tra il partito e lo stato: Il prefetto e il Gobernador civil (1922–1945)’, in G. Di Febo and R. Moro, eds, Fascismo e franchismo: Relazioni, immagini, rappresentazioni, Soveria Mannelli, 2005, pp. 455–67. 64 J. Sáez Marin, El Frente de Juventudes: Política de juventud en la España de la posguerra (1937–1960), Madrid, 1988; M. A. Ruíz Carnicer, El Sindicato Español Universitário (SEU), 1939–1965, Madrid, 1996; C. Molinero, La captación de las masas: Política social y propaganda en el régimen franquista, Madrid, 2005. 65 F. Sevillano Calero, Propaganda y medios de comunicación en el franquismo, 1936–1951, Alicante, 1998. 66 Chueca, Fascismo, p. 401.

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minister he took the party’s propaganda specialists with him, further blurring the boundaries and increasing the confusion as to where the party ended and the state began.67 The syndical apparatus was without doubt an area of power reserved to the Falangists, but it was regulated by the ministry of labor. It was in this area that some of the Falangists experimented with the language of social demagogy in a way that created tensions with the government and which led to some dismissals.68 Generally, at least until 1945, ‘the predominance of the Falange elite and military officials was obvious,’ particularly at the governmental level.69 Single-parties and the ministerial elites of fascist-era dictatorships The main divergence in the characteristics of the ministerial elite of the four dictatorships being examined can be found in their political origins. In both National Socialism and Italian Fascism the hegemony of the PNF’s and NSDAP’s professional politicians is overwhelming as a condition for obtaining ministerial office. We should note there were a greater number of full-time politicians in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy than there were in either Portugal or Spain, where bureaucrats and military officials constituted the larger proportion of both Salazar’s and Franco’s ministers (Table 6.1). While in the Portuguese New State only a small number of the single party’s leaders served in Salazar’s governments, in the other three dictatorships the party leaders had a very strong presence in government (Table 6.2). The ministerial elite of consolidated Italian Fascism was dominated by men who had been Fascists from the very earliest days, almost all of whom – with the exception of military officers – were also members of the Fascist Grand Council.70 According to Pierre Milza, ‘the inner circle of [Fascist] power was made up of about 30–40 people whose names also figure in the list of members of the Grand Council for most of this period.’71 Ministers, undersecretaries and presidents of both parliament and senate – almost all occupants of these positions came from this inner circle. Before they became members of government, the main emblematic figures 67 Cazorla-Sánchez, Consolidacíon, p. 40; Chueca, Fascismo, pp. 287–8; Molinero, Captación, pp. 73–185. 68 Cazorla-Sánchez, Consolidación, pp. 112–263; Chueca, Fascismo, pp. 341–8. 69 M. Jerez Mir, Elites políticas y centros de extracción en España, 1938–1957, Madrid, 1982. 70 E. Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo: I partiti italiani fra le due guerre, Florence, 2000; Adinolfi, ‘Political elite’. 71 Milza, Mussolini, p. 521.

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Occupational categories Military Army Navy Air Force Judge or public prosecutor Diplomat Senior civil servant Middle civil servant Officer of state corporatist agencies University professor Teacher Employee Writer or journalist Lawyer Doctor Engineer Manager Businessman, industrialist, or banker Landowner or farmer Full-time politician Other N

Portugal 26.7 20.0 6.7 0.0 3.3 3.3 10.0 0.0 0.0 40.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.0 0.0 0.0 0.0 10.0

Spain 41.2 35.3 5.9 0.0 0.0 0.0 11.8 0.0 2.9 2.9 2.9 0.0 2.9 17.6 0.0 14.7 0.0 2.9

Italy 8.0 5.3 2.7 0.0 0.0 5.3 2.6 1.3 1.3 26.6 0.0 0.0 6.6 6.6 0.0 3.9 9.3 0.0

Germany 10.8 5.4 2.7 2.7 13.5 8.1 18.9 0.0 10.8 2.7 0.0 0.0 2.7 5.4 0.0 2.7 0.0 2.7

6.7 0.0 3.3 30

5.9 0.0 0.0 34

0.0 70.7 0.0 75

0.0 56.8 2.7 37

Note: Occupations immediately before the first ministerial appointment. Multiple coding has been applied. Percentages do not therefore total 100. N = number of ministers. Source: ICS database on the fascist elite, University of Lisbon, 2009.

of Italian Fascism – men such as Dino Grandi, Italo Balbo, and Guiseppe Bottai, who were PNF ras (bosses) in Bologna, Ferrara, and Rome, respectively – had all participated in the squadristi-led violence of the early1920s.72 Of the few – mainly conservative and monarchist – officers of the armed forces who rose to ministerial rank during Fascism, many followed a path similar to that of Emilio de Bono, who joined the PNF in 1922 and then served in the Fascist militia before receiving a ministerial post.73 Other main entry points to a ministerial position before the 1930s were either through the ranks of the PNF or through the provincial federations within which the PNF occupied a dominant position. 72 P. Nello, Dino Grandi, Bologna, 2003; C. G. Segre, Italo Balbo: A Fascist life, Berkeley, CA, 1990; P. Corner, Fascism in Ferrara, Oxford, 1974. 73 F. Fucci, Emilio de Bono: Il maresciallo fucilato, Milan, 1989.

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Table 6.2: Political offices held by ministers (%)

Political offices None Mayor or local councilor Prefect Colonial governor Parliamentarian Deputy Peer or senator Member of corporatist chamber

Secretary or undersecretary of state Member of cabinets ministériels Ministerial director Local or national leader of the single-party Youth movement Militia Para-state corporatist institutions Party officers N

Portugal 56.7 16.7 3.3 0.0 16.7 16.7 0.0 3.3

Spain 14.7 8.8 14.7 8.8 32.4 26.5 5.9 8.8

Italy 6.6 12.0 1.3 5.3 82.7 76.0 6.7 –

Germany 21.6 16.2 0.0 0.0 51.4 51.4 – –

0.0 3.3 3.3 0.0 30

– – 0.0 00 34

1.3 10.7 22.7 61.3 75

0.0 2.7 13.5 48.7 37

26.7 0.0 0.0 16.7

5.9 – 5.9 62.1

41.3 0.0 0.0 34.7

21.6 3.1 10.8 13.5

Note: Occupations immediately before the first ministerial appointment. Multiple coding has been applied when ministers had held different political offices. Percentages do not therefore total 100. N = number of ministers. Source: ICS database on the fascist elite, University of Lisbon, 2009

The corporatist apparatus was another source for ministerial recruitment, and one that came to dominate during the second half of the 1930s: of the 28 presidents of Fascist federations, 14 were to become undersecretaries of state or ministers.74 The least important recruiting ground was the civil service, and the few who did come by this route still had to be vetted by the various Fascist organizations involved in public administration (Table 6.2). Ministerial reshuffles were common, and it was rare for any person to serve more than three years. There were very few like Guiseppe Bottai, who was moved from one ministry to the other. Mussolini tended to accumulate ministries to his own person, and at times was responsible for up to six portfolios. He was inclined to place loyal Fascists he could trust in the important interior and foreign ministries, but he remained wary of the PNF’s power, subordinating it to his control and limiting its access to him while simultaneously allowing it a substantial degree of freedom in the framing of civil society. Nevertheless, the party-state tensions – whether latent or open 74 Lyttelton, ‘Dittatura fascista’, p. 210.

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– were almost always resolved in favor of the latter, especially within the local administrations.75 The opinion that ministers were only technical collaborators with the head of government was progressively promoted, although, as we have seen, this does not mean an exclusively bureaucratic career had somehow been transformed into a preferential route to ministerial office.76 As Emilio Gentile noted, ‘the political faith that had been demonstrated through an active membership of the PNF and by obedience to the party’s orders, always prevailed over the principle of technical competence.’ 77 The PNF and its para-state organizations were to remain determining factors in access to a ministerial career, even when the power of the ministries was limited by the dictator. The promotion of the secretary of the party to the position of minister without portfolio in 1937 was a potent symbol of the party’s importance.78 The political origins of the Nazi regime’s ministers were probably the most homogeneous of the four dictatorships. If we disregard the initial coalition period, we see that ‘active, official, and publicized membership of the Nazi Party became a condition sine qua non’ for access to ministerial office.79 No fewer than 90 per cent of Hitler’s ministers were NSDAP leaders, and 78 per cent of these had been party members prior to Hitler taking power.80 However, more impressive is the 56.8 per cent of Hitler’s ministers who had been political officials within the NSDAP (Table 6.1). The usual examples were Hitler, Goebbels, and Hess; however, ministers such as Rust at the ministry of science and education had been party officials before the regime took power.81 Despite the fact that it was not until 1937 that Hitler established the rule that all ministers must also be party members, the NSDAP professionals had soon established their hegemony within the government. Although the ministerial elite came from within the NSDAP, there were significant differences in the paths followed. Once nominated, many of the 75 For example, of the 115 prefects nominated by Mussolini between 1922 and 1929, only 29 came from within the party, the remaining 86 were professional administrators. See Gentile, La via italiana, p. 173. 76 R. de Felice, Mussolini il Duce: Lo stato totalitário, 1936–1940, vol. 2, Turin, 1981, p. 89. 77 Gentile, Fascismo e antifascismo, p. 240. 78 H. A. Steiner, Government in Fascist Italy, New York, 1938, p. 65. 79 M. E. Knight, The German executive, 1890–1933, New York, 1971, p. 21. 80 A. M. Fonseca, ‘Ministers and centres of power in Nazi Germany’, in Pinto, Ruling elites, p. 69. 81 Ibid., p. 68.

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ministers were to create tensions between themselves and the party’s institutions, increasing feelings of mutual mistrust, either as a result of party interference in the ministries or by the impression some of the ministers had only recently joined the party for opportunistic reasons. Hans Heinrich Lammers, who was responsible for coordinating the ministries, was viewed with mistrust, despite the importance of his role within the state. The minister of agriculture, Walther Darré, was also a latecomer to the party, although he was more ideological.82 Wilhelm Frick was an early member of the party, but these distinctions were to become increasingly irrelevant as such criteria were often no more than positional – that is, they were used in defense of ministerial authority before agencies that were either autonomous or linked to party institutions. With efforts to create a centralized dictatorship, such as that attempted by Frick, being blocked by Hitler, there followed a succession of conflicts between ministers and the parallel structures, even when the minister also occupied the equivalent department within the party, as Goebbels did. Secondary ministers very soon lost their access to Hitler and enjoyed more autonomy as a result. There was a great deal of stability in Hitler’s ministries and very limited mobility between portfolios; however, the large majority of his ministers lost access to him, with the result their power within the overall political system and their authority to make decisions greatly diminished. The rise in the number of ministers without portfolio, often to represent the party, was a form of compensation for those who had lost their ministerial position, and was symbolic of their lack of function. Nevertheless, despite the frequent conflicts between the NSDAP and ministerial structures, the party was not a centralized political actor: rather, it was a collection of several autonomous institutions that came together to fulfil their para-state duty. The main characteristics of the Portuguese New State’s governing elite was that it belonged to a small and exclusive political and bureaucratic group of men who almost completely dominated the senior ranks of the armed forces, the senior administration and the universities – within which the legal profession was strongly represented (Table 6.1). Very few of Salazar’s ministers had been active in politics during the First Republic, and almost none had occupied any position within the republican regime. Because of their youth some had only become involved in politics after the 1926 coup, and almost all were ideologically and politically affiliated to Catholic conservatism and monarchism. While the dual affiliation of Catholic and monarchist was shared by some members of the elite, the fundamental issue – particularly in relation to the 82 A. Bramwell, Blood and soil: Walther Darré and Hitler’s ‘Green Party’, Bourne End, 1985.

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military dictatorship – was the steady reduction within the ministerial elite of those who had been affiliated to the conservative-republican parties, and a corresponding increase in those whose roots were in the monarchist camp, and particularly those who had been influenced during their youth by the Action Française-inspired royalist movement, Lusitanian Integralism (IL – Integralismo Lusitano). Those whose connections were with Catholicism also saw their numbers increase slightly. A large number had no previous affiliation, and only a small minority had come from Preto’s MNS following its prohibition in 1934.83 The remainder may be identified by their connections to conservative ideas associated with the more pragmatic and inorganic ‘interest’-based right-wing.84 The use of the classifications military, politician and technician allow us to illustrate an important comparative dimension in the study of authoritarian elites, and to know their sources of recruitment and the extent of the more political institutions’ access to the government.85 Given the conjunction of a technically competent political elite with institutions – such as an armed service containing several politicized officers, as well as participants in the regime’s political organizations, in parliament, and as militia leaders in the LP – Salazarism presents us with some complex boundary cases. Nevertheless, despite the Portuguese example confirming the tendency towards the greater presence of politicians in the institutionalization and consolidation phases of dictatorships, followed by a process of routinization that strengthened the technical-administrative elements, the governing elite during the 1930s was more one of technicians (40 per cent) than it was one of politicians (31 per cent).86 These results, when compared with an analysis of other indicators of the ministerial elite’s cursus honorum, clearly indicate the diminished presence of the truly political institutions of the regime as a central element for access to 83 A. C. Pinto, The Blue Shirts: Portuguese fascism and the New State, New York, 2000. 84 P. A. Oliveira, Armindo Monteiro: Uma biografia política, Lisbon, 2000, p. 56. 85 In the classifications adopted here, the following distinctions are used: military – those ministers who prior to their nomination had spent the majority of their professional life as officers in the armed forces; politicians – those who were activists and leaders of official regime organisations or, previously, of other political organisations prior to taking office; and technicians – those ministers who had previously been professional administrators or specialists, and who had not been active in the regime’s political organisations or actively involved in politics prior to becoming ministers. 86 Paul Lewis reaches a similar conclusion for the period 1932–1947. See Lewis, Latin fascist elites; P. T. de Almeida, A. C. Pinto and N. Bermeo, eds, Who governs Southern Europe? Regime change and ministerial recruitment, 1850–2000, London, 2003.

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the government. However, it should be noted that even the politicians were tightly woven into the university elite. As a dictator, Franco’s managerial style differed from that of Salazar: the Caudillo was much less concerned with the minutiae of day-to-day government.87 A military officer with no desire to become bogged down in the day-to-day affairs of government, Franco concentrated his attentions on the armed forces, domestic security, and foreign policy. In the remaining areas of government he practiced a transfer of power to his ministers, although they remained subordinate to him.88 With respect to the more technical areas of governance, particularly following the consolidation of the regime, Franco’s interventions were even fewer as he adopted the more pragmatic attitude of result management.89 Franco’s ministerial elite was relatively young in political terms, and although a substantial number had been members of conservative and fascist organizations during the Second Republic, the regime’s break from its predecessor was almost total.90 The socio-professional composition of Franco’s ministers also points towards a significant degree of social exclusiveness and the near hegemony of civil servants. A significant number of ministers were involved in the legal profession, with the university elite also being present in large numbers – although not on the same scale as in Portugal.91 Another divergence from the Portuguese dictatorship can be found in respect of ministers who were officers in the armed forces. While the military presence within the Portuguese regime had not completely disappeared with the consolidation of Salazarism – where it continued within institutions such as the censorship, the political police, and the militia – the Spanish regime continued to count on a large number of military officers both in the single-party and in the governing elite, with 41.2 per cent of all ministers having a military background (Table 6.1). By classifying Franco’s ministers as politicians, technicians and military we are presented with a significant swing towards the politicians, who accounted for more than 40 per cent of all ministers during this period, with 87 A. de Miguel, Sociologia del franquismo: Análisis ideologica de los ministros del régimen, Barcelona, 1975; Preston, Franco. 88 C. R. Alba, ‘The organization of authoritarian leadership: Franco’s Spain’, in R. Rose and E. N. Suleiman, eds, Presidents and prime ministers, Washington, DC, 1980, p. 267. 89 J. Fusi, Franco: A biography, London, 1987, pp. 43–4. 90 C. Viver Pi-Suner, El personal político de Franco (1936–1945): Contribución empírica a una teoría del régimen franquista, Barcelona, 1978, p. 191. 91 Ibid., p. 117.

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the remainder fairly evenly split between technicians and military.92 This preponderance of politicians suggests the single-party had an important presence within the political system, and in particular in the composition of the ministerial elite. The promotion of the secretary of FET-JONS to ministerial rank was an immediate indication that this represented a formal means of access to the government. The co-optation of FET-JONS’ leaders into the ministerial and state elite was significant: during the period in question, FET-JONS was the principal recruiting ground for the government.93 As one student of the Franco elite notes: ‘before occupying a ministerial post during the first decade of the Franco regime, [the candidate] had occupied six positions within FET.’ 94 The second main means of access, and the only route that did not require promotion through the single party (although it did not preclude it), was through the military. A third possible route was through the bureaucracy, although it was ‘rare for anyone to become a minister as a result of an administrative career.’ 95 When we analyze the political families (Falangists, Catholics, and monarchists) within the single-party, we see that until 1944 the Falange had 66 per cent of the leadership positions under its control – dominating the party. The Catholics were the second largest family, followed by the military.96 During this period, the number of leaders whose origins were within the Falange or the military outnumbered those of the Catholics.97 As Pi-Suner notes, ‘The existence of a single-party that was quite clearly subordinate was a notable counterweight’ to other means of access to the government during this period.98 Despite FET-JONS’ origins in the enforced unification of several heterogeneous movements, the Falange managed to exert its supremacy and ensured its position as the dominant force within the new Francoist political elite. Tensions between the party and the state were infrequent and largely

92 Lewis, Latin fascist elites, p. 119. 93 M. Jerez Mir, ‘Executive, single-party and ministers in Franco’s regime, 1936–45’, in A. C. Pinto, Ruling elites, pp. 164–211. 94 V. Pi-Suner, Personal político de Franco, p.193. 95 Ibid., p. 197. 96 Ibid., pp. 163–4 97 Jerez Mir, Elites politicas; Viver Pi-Suner, Personal político de Franco, p. 202. 98 Viver Pi-Suner, Personal político de Franco, p. 202.

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episodic, and the domination of the dictator-government axis was almost total.99 Conclusions As monocratic regimes, dictatorships have been characterized as being ‘a selectorate of one:’ the dictator, whose patronage powers remained significant.100 However, the different approaches towards the resolution of what Robert Paxton has called the four-way struggle for dominance (between the leader, his party, the regular state functionaries, and institutions like the Church, the army, and elite interest groups), depends fundamentally on the dictatorsingle-party axis.101 The promotion of secretaries of the single-parties to ministerial positions was an expression of the parties’ symbolic value as well as an important element of political control. Only Salazarism made no mention of any superiority in the relationship between the dictator-government before the party. Within Francoism, Italian Fascism, and Nazism, the presence of these party secretaries signified both their increased legitimacy before the government and their pretentions of superiority: or, at the very least, their equality with their technico-bureaucratic institutions and governmental components. Their presence also underlined the parties’ pretensions to be an exclusive route to ministerial office and to other senior positions within the state apparatus; however, the single-party’s ability to become an institution capable of vetoing and subverting bureaucratic authoritarianism can be found at the roots of their diversity. With respect to the recruitment methods and political composition of the ministerial elite within the four regimes, the differences are clear. NSDAP and PNF emerge as the only source of recruitment to the government in Germany and Italy, respectively. In each country, the governing elite is chosen from a reservoir of Fascist and Nazi leaders, with few concessions being made to other avenues for promotion following the consolidation of the respective regimes. This provided the PNF and the NSDAP with the legitimacy they required. Under Franco, FET-JONS remained the dominant element, although it was much more sensitive to the other institutions, particularly 99 A. Cazorla-Sánchez, ‘Family matters: Ministerial elites and the articulation of the Francoist dictatorship’, Portuguese Journal of Social Science 3, no 2, 2004, pp. 73–89. 100 R. D. Putnam, The comparative study of political elites, Eaglewood Cliffs, NJ, 1976, pp. 52–3. 101 R. O. Paxton, ‘The five stages of fascism’, The Journal of Modern History 70, no 1, 1998, p. 18.

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the armed forces and the Church. Salazarism, which had a single-party with limited influence and access to the government – despite that being its main political function – is the dictatorship that most closely resembles ‘bureaucratic authoritarianism.’ As Clement Moore notes: The party cannot establish its legitimacy, it would seem, unless it acquires some autonomy as an instrument for recruiting top political leaders. Thus, dictators who attain power through other bases of support often have difficulties creating a party to legitimate their regimes.102

Salazar created a party, but he gave it very limited functions. The Portuguese case appears thus to confirm Juan J. Linz’s assertion that when the single-party is weak the opportunities to become a member of the governing elite are limited without belonging to one of the senior branches of the administration, or to one of the interest organizations, since the party is only a complementary guarantee.103 Moreover, this is the generic tendency for all political systems: in fact, ‘when the parties and the private sector are weak, public and semi-public organizations become natural sources of recruitment.’104 The dependence of the mobilizing political organizations, of the party, or of the government and the ministries, constitutes yet another extremely interesting indicator, as it highlights the important tensions existing within the dictatorships associated with fascism. In the case of the militias, their direct dependence on the German, Italian, and Spanish dictators disguises a wide variety of situations. Once again, Salazarism made the LP dependent on the ministry of the interior and ensured it was always headed by a member of the armed forces. It was only under Nazism that the SS achieved significant autonomy from both the state apparatus and the armed forces. With respect to the organizations dedicated to mass socialization – the various youth, worker, OND, and women’s organizations – the tension between the government and the party was an important factor within Francoism, Fascism, and Nazism, with the party winning important battles – although, as we have noted above, with significant variations. The balance made above leads us to a critique of the typological rigidity based in party-state relations. In the dictatorships analyzed here, the singleparty was never transformed into a dominant institution within the new regimes – not even in Nazi Germany. In the Portuguese case, not only was the government the locus of power – taking political decision-making authority 102 C. H. Moore, ‘The single party as a source of legitimacy’, in S. Huntington and C. Moore, eds, Authoritarian politics, New York, 1970, p. 51. 103 V. Pi-Sunyer, Personal político de Franco, p. 69. 104 J. Blondel, Government ministers in the contemporary world, London, 1985, p. 62.

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for itself – but the single-party had less influence either as a means of access to the government or as an instrument for controlling civil society. Mussolini was very distrustful of the PNF for the simple reason that his leadership over it was much more fragile than Hitler’s was over the NSDAP. Nevertheless, in Fascist Italy the Grand Council and the PNF succeeded in becoming important actors in the relocation of the government’s political decision-making authority – something that did not happen in either Franco’s Spain or Salazar’s Portugal. It is only in Nazi Germany that the most important relocation of decision-making power to the Axis leader and autonomous politico-administrative organizations is visible. However, more than the domination of the party over the state, what is being seen is a radicalization scale characterized by the diminution of the government through the construction of parallel organizations and by the limited relocation of political decision-making power. In the German case, the party did not have any centralized decision-making structures and lacked a leading body that could replace the cabinet, which was always blocked by Hitler, who was subject to very few institutional constraints.105 The most appropriate explanatory hypothesis for the variations in the composition of the ministerial elite, its importance in the political decisionmaking process and as a means of access to ministerial office within the dictatorships associated with fascism is the presence or absence of an independent fascist party during the period of transition to a dictatorial regime and, once the regime is institutionalized, within the single party. The greater and more exclusive the role of the dictator-party axis, the lesser is that of the ministerial elite in the political decision-making process. Also resulting from this is the reduction in the importance of the large administrative corps in the composition of the elite and the cabinet in the political decision-making process.

105 Y. Gorlizki and H. Mommsen, ‘The political (dis)orders of Stalinism and National Socialism’, in M. Geyer and S. Fitzpatrick, eds, Beyond totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism compared, New York, 2009, p. 55.

7

Fascism, corporatism, and authoritarian institutions in interwar European dictatorships

Corporatism put an indelible mark on the first decades of the 20th century, both as a set of institutions created by the forced integration of organized interests (mainly independent unions) in the state and as an organic-statist type of political representation alternative to liberal democracy.1 Variants of corporatism inspired conservative, radical right, and fascist parties, not to mention the Roman Catholic Church and the third-way options of segments of the technocratic elites. It also inspired dictatorships – stretching from António de Oliveira Salazar’s Portuguese New State through Benito Mussolini’s Italy and Engelbert Dollfuss’ Austria, right across to the new Baltic states – to create institutions to legitimate their regimes. The European variants spread throughout Latin America and Asia, particularly in Argentina, Brazil, and Turkey.2 When we look at 20th-century dictatorships we note a large degree of institutional variation. Parties, cabinets, parliaments, corporatist assemblies, juntas, and a whole set of parallel and auxiliary structures of domination, mobilization and control were symbols of the (often tense) diversity characterizing authoritarian regimes. 3 These authoritarian institutions, created in the 1

Like Alfred Stepan and Juan Linz, we use this expression to refer to the ‘vision of political community in which the component parts of society harmoniously combine... and also because of the assumption that such harmony requires power and the unity of civil society by the architectonic action of public authorities-hence organic-statism’. See A. Stepan, The state and society: Peru in comparative perspective, Princeton, NJ, 1978; J. J. Linz, Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, Boulder, CO, 2000, pp. 215–7.

2

See P. H. Lewis, Authoritarian regimes in Latin America: Dictators, despots, and tyrants, Lanham, MD, 2006, pp. 129–54; D. Musiedlak, ed., Les experiences corporatives dans l ’aire latine, Bern, 2010; T. Parla and A, Davison, Corporatist ideology in Kemalist Turkey. Progress or order?, Syracuse, NY, 2004.

3

A. Perlmutter, Modern authoritarianism. A comparative institutional analysis, New Haven, CT, 1981, p. 10.

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political laboratory of interwar Europe, expanded across the globe after the end of the Second World War: particularly the personalization of leadership, the single-party and the organic-statist legislatures. Some contemporaries of fascism had already realized some of the institutions created by the interwar dictatorships could be durable. As the committed early 20th-century observer, Romanian academic and politically authoritarian Mihail Manoilescu, noted, ‘of all the political and social creations of our century – which for the historian began in 1918 – there are two that have in a definitive way enriched humanity’s patrimony... corporatism and the single party.’4 Manoilescu dedicated a study to each of these political institutions without knowing in 1936 that some aspects of the former would be long-lasting and that the latter would become one of the most durable political instruments of dictatorships.5 Interwar dictatorships were personalized authoritarian regimes:6 even those regimes that were institutionalized following military coups or military dictatorships gave rise to personalist regimes and attempts to create single or dominant regime parties.7 However, autocrats need institutions and elites to exercise their rule and their role has often been underestimated as it has been taken as a given that decision-making power was centralized in the dictators.8 To prevent the undermining of their legitimacy and the usurpation of their authority, dictators need to co-opt elites and to either create or adapt institutions to be the locus of the co-optation, negotiation, and (sometimes) decision-making: ‘without institutions they cannot make policy concessions.’ 9 If the typical fascist regimes of Italy and Germany were based on a takeover of power by a party, many civilian and military rulers of interwar Europe did not have a ‘ready-made organization upon which to rely.’10 In order to counteract their precarious position, dictators tended to create regime parties. 4

M. Manoilescu, Le parti unique: Institution politique des regimes nouveaux, Paris, 1936, p. viii.

5

M. Manoilescu, Le siècle du corporatisme, Paris, 1934; Manoilescu, Le parti unique.

6

A. C. Pinto, R. Eatwell and S. U. Larsen, eds, Charisma and fascism in interwar Europe, London, 2007.

7

More than half of all 20th-century authoritarian regimes ‘initiated by militaries, parties, or a combination of the two, had been partly or fully personalized within three years of the initial seizure of power’. See B. Geddes, ‘Stages of development in authoritarian regimes’, in V. Tismaneanu, M. M. Howard and R. Sil, eds, World order after Leninism, Seattle, WA, 2006, p. 164.

8

A. C. Pinto, ed., Ruling elites and decision-making in fascist-era dictatorships, New York, 2009.

9

Geddes, ‘Stages of development’, p. 185.

10 J. Ghandi, Political institutions under dictatorship, Cambridge, 2008, p. 29.

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Some fascist movements emerged during the interwar period either as rivals to or unstable partners within the single- or dominant-government party, and often as inhibitors to their formation, making the institutionalization of the regimes more difficult for the dictatorial candidates. Interwar dictators also established controlled parliaments, corporatist assemblies, or other bureaucratic-authoritarian consultative bodies. Autocrats also need compliance and cooperation and, in some cases, ‘nominally democratic institutions can help authoritarian rulers maintain coalitions and survive in power,’11 and corporatist parliaments are legitimating institutions for dictatorships and are also sometimes the locus of that process. In this chapter we will examine the role of corporatism as a political device against liberal democracy that permeated the political right during the first wave of democratization, and especially as a set of authoritarian institutions that spread across interwar Europe and which was an agent for the hybridization of the institutions of fascist-era dictatorships. Powerful processes of institutional transfers were a hallmark of interwar dictatorships, and we will argue corporatism was at the forefront of this process, both as a new form of organized interest representation and as an authoritarian alternative to parliamentary democracy. Social and political corporatism during the first wave of democratization Corporatism as an ideology and as a type of organized interest representation was initially promoted by the Roman Catholic Church from the late-19th through to the mid-20th century as a third way in opposition to socialism and liberal capitalism.12 Much of the model predates the Papal encyclical, Rerum Novarum (1891), and was due to the romanticization of medieval Europe’s feudal guilds by 19th-century conservatives who had become disenchanted with liberalism and fearful of socialism and democracy. However, ‘the church’s explicit endorsement surely moved corporatism from seminar rooms to presidential palaces,’ especially after the publication of the encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno (1931).13 Corporatism became a powerful ideological and institutional device against liberal democracy during the first half of the 20th century, but the 11 Geddes, ‘Stages of development’, p. 164. 12 M. Conway, ‘Catholic politics or Christian democracy? The evolution of interwar political Catholicism’, in W. Kaiser and H. Wohnout, eds, Political Catholicism in Europe, 1918–45, vol. 1, London, 2004, pp. 235–51. 13 R. Morck and B. Yeung, ‘Corporatism and the ghost of the third way’, Capitalism and Society 5, no 3, 2010, p. 4.

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neocorporatist practices of some democracies during its second half – not to speak of the more recent use of the word within the social sciences – demands a definition of the phenomenon being studied, and for the sake of conceptual clarity, to disentangle social from political corporatism: Social corporatism ‘can be defined as a system of interest representation in which the constituent units are organized into a limited number of singular, compulsory, non-competitive, hierarchically ordered, and functionally differentiated categories, recognized or licensed (if not created) by the state and granted a deliberate representational monopoly within their respective categories in exchange for observing certain controls on their selection of leaders and articulation of demands and support’.14 Political corporatism can be defined as a system of political representation based in an organic-statist view of society in which its organic units (families, local powers, professional associations, and interest organizations and institutions) replace the individual-centered electoral model of representation and parliamentary legitimacy, becoming the primary and/or complementary legislative or advisory body of the ruler’s executive.

A central ideal of corporatist thinkers was the organic nature of society in the political and economic sphere. This was based on a critique of what Ugo Spirito called the egotistical and individualist homo economicus of liberal capitalism, which was to be replaced by homo corporativus, which would be motivated by the national interest and common values and objectives.15 During the interwar period corporatism permeated the main political families of the conservative and authoritarian political right: from the Catholic parties and social Catholicism, to radical right royalists and fascists, not to speak of Durkheimian solidarist and supporters of technocratic governments.16 Royalists, republicans, technocrats, fascists, and social Catholics shared a notable degree of common ground on views about democracy and representation and on the project of a functional representation as an alternative to liberal democracy, namely as constituencies of legislative chambers or councils, that were established in many authoritarian regimes during the 14 P. C. Schmitter, ‘Still the century of corporatism?’, in F. B. Pike and T. Stritch, eds, The new corporatism: Social-political structures in the Iberian world, Notre Dame, IN, 1974, p. 94. 15 C. Bastien and J. L. Cardoso, ‘From homo economicus to homo corporativus: A neglected critique of neo-classical economics’, The Journal of Social Economics 36, 2007, pp. 118– 27. 16 O. Dard, ‘Le corporatisme entre traditionalistes et modenisateurs: Des groupements aux cercles du pouvoir’, in Musiedlak, Les experiences corporatives, pp. 67–102.

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20th century.17 However, there were differences between the Catholic corporatist formulations of the late-19th century and the integral corporatist proposals of some fascist and radical right-wing parties. When we look at fascist party programs and segments of the radical right, like the Action Françaiseinspired movements, the portrait is even clearer, with many reinforcing integral corporatism vis-à-vis a social Catholicism. Although part of the same ideological magma, social and political corporatism did not necessarily follow the same path in 20th-century politics. The historical experience with corporatism has not been confined to dictatorships, and in liberal democracies ‘implicit tendencies toward corporatist structures developed both before and concurrently with the emergence of fascism.’18 In fact, occupational representation was not limited to the world of dictatorships, with several democracies discovering complements to the typical parliamentary representation. Corporatist ideology was particularly strong in Ireland’s 1937 constitution, for example, which called for the election of groups representing interests and services, while several other interwar bicameral democracies introduced corporatist representation to their upper chambers. 19 Many ideologists of social corporatism – particularly within Catholic circles – advocated a societal corporatism without an omnipresent state, but the praxis of corporatist patterns of representation was mainly the result of an imposition by authoritarian political elites ‘to civil society.’ 20 Under interwar dictatorships corporatism became synonymous with the process of forced unification of organized interests into single units of employers and employees that were closely controlled by the state, and which eliminated their independence: especially that of trade unions. Social corporatism offered autocrats a formalized system of interest representation to manage labor relations, legitimizing the repression of free labor unionism by the cooptation of some of its segments through state-controlled unions, often with compulsory membership. Last but not least, corporatist arrangements also sought to ‘allow the state, labor and business to express their interests and arrive at outcomes that are, first and foremost, satisfactory to the regime.’21 17 P. J. Williamson, Corporatism in perspective, London, 1989, p. 32. 18 L. Panitch, ‘The development of corporatism in liberal democracies’, Comparative Political Studies 10, no 1, 1977, p. 629. 19 K. Lowerstein, ‘Occupational representation and the idea of an economic parliament’, Social Science, October 1937, p. 426. 20 Stepan, State and society, p. 47. 21 W. Kim and J. Gandhi, ‘Co-opting workers under dictatorship’, The Journal of Politics 72, no 3, 2010, p. 648.

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However, during this period corporatism was also (and in some cases mainly) used to refer to the comprehensive organization of political society beyond state-social groups relations seeking to replace liberal democracy with an anti-individualist system of representation. 22 In fact, in many cases the corporatist, or economic parliaments, either coexisted with and assisted parliaments or replaced them with a new legislature with consultative functions, and which provided the government with technical assistance. The most influential theorist of Quadragesimo Anno, the Jesuit Heirich Pesch, did mention the economic parliament as a central clearing house of his organic view, but he left its structure to the future. 23 With Rerum Novarum, the corporatism frame became clearer, with a corporatist reorganization of society associated with the strong anti-secular principals of parliamentary democracy held by Pope Pius XII. In 1937 Karl Loewenstein saw ‘this romantic concept of organic representation,’ in new legislatures trying to be a ‘true mirror of the social forces of the nation and a genuine replica of its economic structure.’24 However, the role of corporatist bodies within the dictatorships was certainly much less romantic. George Valois, the syndicalist ideologist of Action Française and founder of one of the first French fascist movements, encapsulated the functions of corporatist legislatures when he proposed the replacement of parliament with general estates (etats géneraux). ‘This body was not to be an assembly in which decisions were made based on majority votes or where the majority would be able to overwhelm the minority; rather, it was to be an assembly in which the corporations adjusted their interests in favor of the national interest.’25 In 1926, the Spanish general, Miguel Primo de Rivera, was not engaging in intellectual romanticism when he introduced corporatist principals in his dictatorship, proclaiming: ‘The parliamentary system has failed and no-one is crazy enough to re-establish it in Spain. The government and the Patriotic Union call for the construction of a state based on a new structure. The first cell of the nation will be the municipality around which is the family with its old virtues and its modern concept of citizenship’.26 In Austria in 1934, 22 D. A. Chalmers, ‘Corporatism and comparative politics’, in H. J. Wiarda, ed., New directions in comparative politics, Boulder, CO, 1991, p. 63. 23 P. Misner, ‘Christian democratic social policy: Precedents for third-way thinking’, in T. Kselman and J. A. Buttigieg, eds, European Christian democracy: Historical legacies and comparative perspectives, Notre Dame, IN, 2003, p. 77. 24 Loewenstein, ‘Occupational representation’, p. 423. 25 See A. Chatriot, ‘Georges Valois: La representation professionelle et le syndicalisme’, in O. Dard, ed., Georges Valois: Intinéraire et receptions, Berne, 2011, p. 65. 26 J. L. Gómez Navarro, El regimen de Primo de Rivera, Madrid, 1991, p. 267.

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Table 7.1: Dictatorship and corporatism in Europe (1918–45) Regime

Type of party system

Social corporatism

Political corporatism

Austria

Dollfuss-Schuschnigg (1934–38)

Single

Strong

Strong

Bulgaria

Velcheg (1934)

No

Strong

Strong

Royal dictatorship (1935–44)

Dominant

Weak

Weak

Single

Strong

Medium

Vichy (1940–44)

No

Medium

Medium

Metaxas (1936–41)

No

Medium

Weak

Dominant

Weak

Weak

Estonia

Pats (1934–40)

France Greece Hungary

Horthy Bethlen period Gömbös (1932–35)

Single

Strong

Medium

Italy

Fascism (1922–43)

Single

Strong

Strong

Latvia

Ulmanis (1934–40)

No

Strong

Medium

Lithuania

Smetona (1926–40)

Dominant

Strong

Weak

Poland

Pilsudsky (1926–35)

Dominant

Weak

Strong

Portugal

Sidónio Pais (1917–18)

Dominant

Weak

Medium

Salazar (1933–74)

Single

Strong

Medium

Royal (1937–40)

Single

Strong

Strong

Romania

Antonescu (1940–44) Slovakia

Tiso (1940–44)

Spain

Primo de Rivera (1923–31) Francoism (1939–75)

No*

Weak

Weak

Single

Strong

Medium

Dominant

Strong

Medium

Single

Strong

Strong

* After the dissolution of the Iron Guard

Chancellor Englebert Dollfuss reaffirmed the words of the Spanish general, words that many dictators were either thinking privately or repeating publicly: ‘this parliament... will never, and must never, return again.’27 From this perspective, corporatism was a powerful agent for the institutional hybridization of interwar dictatorships, largely surpassing the ground from which it sprang (see Table 7.1). 28 27 H. Wohnout, ‘Middle-class governmental party and secular arm of the Catholic Church: The Christian Socials in Austria’, in Kaiser and Wohnout, Political Catholicism, p. 184. 28 The classification is based on the degree of adoption of institutions associated with social and political corporatism based on the constitutions and projects for constitutional reform, independently of their effective institutionalization, given that some regimes

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Since representation was an essential element of modern political systems, authoritarian regimes tended to create political institutions in which the function of corporatism was to give legitimation to organic representation and to ensure the co-optation and control of sections of the elite and organized interests. ‘Working out policy concessions requires an institutional setting: some forum to which access can be controlled, where demands can be revealed without appearing as acts of resistance, where compromises can be hammered out without undue public scrutiny, and where the resulting agreements can be dressed in a legalistic form and publicized as such.’29 The tendency of interwar dictatorships towards the creation of organic legislatures should not be separated from the creation of regime parties – whether single or dominant – that provided legitimation for the abolition of political pluralism, forcing the authoritarian coalition to merge in a single or dominant party under personalized rule. Another implicit goal of the adoption of corporatist representation, Max Weber noted, was to disenfranchise large sectors of society. 30 As Juan J. Linz notes: ‘corporatism encourages the basic apoliticism of the population and transform issues into technical decisions and problems of administration.’31 Institutionalized in the wake of polarized democratizations, interwar dictatorships tended to choose corporatism both as a process for the repression and co-optation of the labor movement, interest groups, and of elites through organic legislatures. It is from this perspective we revisit the processes of the institutional crafting of interwar European dictatorships, observing in particular the adoption of social and political corporatist institutions and regime parties.

were very short-lived. We did exclude the National Socialist Dictatorship from this table because even while it had some corporatist structures, we have doubts about its classification in this scale. 29 J. Gandhi and A. Przeworski, ‘Authoritarian institutions and the survival of authocrats’, Comparative Political Studies 40, no 11, 2007, p. 1282. 30 M. Weber, Economy and society: An outline of interpretive sociology, Berkeley, CA, 1968, pp. 1, 298. 31 And ‘those chambers are only components in their regimes... no legislature in an authoritarian regime has either the formal or de facto power to question the ultimate authority of a ruler or ruling group.’ See J. J. Linz, ‘Legislatures in organic-statist-authoritarian regimes: The case of Spain’, in J. Smith and L. D. Musolf, eds, Legislatures in development: Dynamics of change in new and old states, Durham, NC, 1979, pp. 91, 95.

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Interwar dictatorships and corporatist institutions The primacy of Italian Fascism In the celebrated Futurist Manifesto of 1918, Filippo Marinetti announced the ‘transformation of parliament through the equitable participation of industrialists, farmers, engineers, and businessmen in the government of the country’.32 However, even before their fusion with the Fascist Party, the nationalists of Enrico Corradini and Alfredo Rocco were the most systematic ideologists of integral corporatism and national syndicalism. For Rocco, this integral syndicalism represented both the integration into the state of organized interests and the elimination of parliament and senate in favor of bodies representing professions and other functional groups.33 Rocco’s statism was perhaps the most different from Catholic corporatism, since it was a strategy for the passive and subordinated integration of the masses into the state. Many authors stress the primacy of institutional reform over the economic question in Italian Fascism. In the inaugural speech of the Fasci di Combattimento, Mussolini immediately referred to the need for the direct representation of interests, which was also noted in the Fascist Party’s 1921 program.34 Mussolini and the National Fascist Party (PNF – Partito Nazionale Fascista) had institutional reform and the elimination of liberal representation in mind ever since the March on Rome of 1922; however, the ‘legal’ nature of the Fascist seizure of power and the presence of a monarch who was heir of the liberal period ensured the process was slow and full of tension. The Fascists’ first concern was to secure political control of the parliament, which they quickly achieved, while eliminating its capacity for legislative initiative and declaring the independence of the executive and the head of government. 35 Following this, corporatist representation was an everpresent in the proposals for the abolition of a parliament that managed to continue existing – at least formally – for a few more years. In 1929 elections were replaced with plebiscites in which Italians could respond yes or no to a list of candidates chosen by the Fascist Grand Council from a list of names put forward by the PNF, the Fascist syndicates, and business organizations. 32 See A. Gagliardi, Il corporativismo fascista, Rome, 2010, p. 4. 33 A. J. de Grand, The Italian National Association and the rise of Fascism in Italy, Lincoln, NE, 1978, p. 100. 34 F. Perfetti, ‘La discussione sul corporativismo in Italia’, in Musiedlak, Les experiences corporatives, pp. 102–15; Gagliardi, Il corporativismo fascista. 35 D. Musiedlak, Lo stato fascista e la sua classe politica, 1922–43, Bologna, 2003; G. Adinolfi. ‘Political elite and decision-making in Mussolini’s Italy’, in Pinto, Ruling elites.

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In this way representation became organic, accompanied with the corporatization of interest organizations, as outlined in the 1927 Carta del Lavoro (Labor Charter), and the chamber dominated by the PNF. As a declaration of the principles of Fascist corporatism, the Carta fell short of the aspirations of Fascist syndicalism; however, it was the most influential document within those dictatorships that adopted social corporatism. 36 In 1931 Mussolini called on the Fascist Grand Council to begin reforming parliament. The secretary of the PNF, Giovanni Giuriati, who was also president of parliament, was charged with the project. At the beginning of the 1930s the debate around corporatism and the reform of representation was a hot topic. 37 There were several options evident within the limited pluralism of the regime, with the former nationalist, Alfredo Rocco, calling for a model of corporatism that was restricted more to labor relations, while Giuseppe Bottai called for a more decentralized model without forgetting the manifest desire of the PNF to dominate the future chamber. Roberto Farinacci opposed the proposal to turn the National Council of Corporations into a corporatist chamber because he thought this would undermine the PNF. Giuriati finally proposed the establishment of a Fascist legislative assembly and the dissolution of the senate; however, Mussolini, possibly in order not to enter into conflict with the king, opposed the abolition of the upper house of the liberal era, which the PNF subsequently ‘fascistized.’38 Another commission was then created by hierarchies of Fascism and jurists, supported by functionaries who studied the systems in Germany, Poland, Portugal, and Austria. 39 It was not until 1936 – 14 years after taking power – that Mussolini was finally able to announce the establishment of the Fascist and Corporatist Chamber (Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni), and with it the corporatization of political representation. This chamber became the functional representation of the PNF’s national council and National Council of Corporations, while members of the Fascist Grand Council became ex-officio members. A survey of its members in 1939 allows us to note a difficult balance between counselors of the PNF and the corporations, with the latter being – at least formally – dominant. In practice the situation was different, since the PNF was also represented within the corporatist 36 D. D. Roberts, The syndicalist tradition and Italian Fascism, Chapell Hill, NC, 1979. 37 Perfetti, ‘La discussion’. 38 P. Colombo, La monarchia fascista, 1922-1940, Bologna, 2010, p. 105. 39 M. di Napoli, M., ‘The Italian Chamber of Fasci and Corporazioni: A substitute for parliament in a totalitarian regime’, in W. Brauneder and E. Berger, eds, Repräsentation in Föderalismus und Korporativismus, Frankfurt am Main, 1998 p. 257.

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structures.40 Because he had to recognize all national counselors by decree, Mussolini had the last word. While initially underestimated by many historians, the importance of the work carried out by the National Council of Corporations and later by the chamber, and its co-opting and negotiating functions, has been stressed both by contemporary observers and in some more recent historiography.41 Organized in 12 standing committees, the meetings of which were not public, the chamber had very few legislative powers: in practice it was the cabinet that initiated legislation. Due to the variation in the leadership of PNF and corporations, the turnover of counselors was high. According to a report on the first three years of activity submitted to Mussolini by Grandi, ten days were enough to pass 80 per cent of the bills, with just 23 per cent amended.42 Legislation was often discussed and amendments completed; however, as one student of the theme – citing Bottai – notes, this was clearly without ‘exceeding the limits of a technical and conceptual critique,’ and always within the regime’s boundaries.43 Fascism and social Catholicism in the Iberian Peninsula If we exclude the one-year presidentialist dictatorship of Sidónio Pais in Portugal (1918), the dictatorship of Miguel Primo de Rivera in Spain (1923-30) was probably the first to replace parliamentarianism with a unicameral system based on corporatism and by the creation of the Patriotic Union (UP – Unión Patriotica), a regime party endowed with a well-defined political doctrine. While Sidónio Pais had earlier outlined a program for corporatist representation, the truth is that the Catalan general introduced a political formula for modern dictatorships in which corporatism was a central element of its legitimation. In September 1923, Miguel Primo de Rivera led a coup against the liberal regime, issuing a manifesto to the country in which he denounced social agitation, separatism, and clientelism. His imposition of order was justification for a transitional dictatorship; however, he held a plebiscite on a plan to change the constitutional order and institutionalize a new regime. This was quickly implemented through the creation of a party, the UP, which was controlled by the government, of a corporatist parliament 40 Musiedlak, ‘Le corporatisme dans la structure’; J.-Y. Dormagen, Logiques du fascisme: L’ état totalitaire en Italie, Paris, 2008; Gagliardi, Il corporativismo fascista. 41 L. G. Field, The syndical and corporative institutions of Italian Fascism, New York, 1938; Di Napoli, ‘The Italian chamber’. 42 Di Napoli, ‘The Italian chamber’, p. 261. 43 Musiedlak, ‘Le corporatisme dans la structure’, p. 151.

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with limited powers and an attempt to integrate all organized interests into the state with the abolition of class-based unions.44 The fact the dictator was a soldier was no obstacle to the institutionalization of the regime, and Miguel Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship was an illustration of ‘the idea that the existence of a single national interest contained in military thinking coincides with the vision of the common good of the organic-statist model.’45 The UP played the role of the regime party in Primo de Rivera’s dictatorship, despite the regime’s limited pluralism allowing other parties to exist legally, indicating that ‘within the regime there is only one party.’46 In fact, the UP represented the attempt to create a party from the top down. As it was mainly an instrument of the dictator and of the government, the UP was a weak single-party in terms of elite recruitment and as a decision-making center only exercised some functions at the local administration level. A national consultative assembly was established in 1927 which, as its name suggests, collaborated rather than legislated. The National Consultative Assembly, the first corporatist chamber in interwar Europe, consisted of 400 representatives of the state, local authorities, the party, municipalities, and professional groups in a process controlled by the interior ministry. Even while participating in this corporatist assembly, some conservatives remained suspicious of its rubber-stamp functions. On the eve of the dictatorship’s collapse in 1929, the project for the new constitution that would result in a dramatic increase in the executive’s powers and the establishment of a single chamber, the members of which were to be nominated by the UP and elected by direct and corporatist suffrage in equal measure, was presented to the public. Some of the institutional traces of this early dictatorial experiment in the Iberian Peninsula were also present in Portugal, which experienced one of the longest dictatorships of the 20th century, and which until the end claimed a corporatist legitimacy.47 On 28 May 1926 a military coup put an end to Portugal’s parliamentary republic. Between the end of the republic and the institutionalization of Salazar’s New State there were seven unstable years of 44 M. A. Perfecto, ‘Influências ideológicas no projecto de corporativismo político-social da ditadura de Primo de Rivera (1923–1930)’, Penélope 5, 1991, pp. 99-108; ‘La droite radicale espagnole et la pensée antiliberale française durant le premier tiers du XX siècle’, in Dard, Georges Valois, pp. 99–108. 45 Gómez Navarro, El regimen de Primo de Rivera, p. 86. 46 Ibid, p. 207. 47 M. Lucena, A evolução do sistema corporativo português, vol. 1: O Salazarismo, Lisbon, 1976.

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military dictatorship; however, it is worth citing the project for a new constitution that the leader of the military uprising, General Manuel de Oliveira Gomes da Costa, presented to the first government of the dictatorship just one month after the coup: ‘A new constitution based on the following principles: national representation by direct delegation from the municipalities, the economic unions, and the educational and spiritual bodies, with the absolute exclusion of individualist suffrage and the consequent party representation.’48 Other projects were discussed during the years that followed, but this example demonstrates the importance of corporatist alternatives in Portuguese anti-democratic elite political culture. In fact, in 1918, during the brief dictatorship of Sidónio Pais, a parliament controlled by a dominant party formed by the government coexisted with a senate with corporatist representation; however, it lasted only briefly. The first political institution to be created by the dictatorship was the single party, the National Union (UN – União Nacional). Created by Salazar in 1930, this accompanied the dissolution of political parties – including the Catholic Party, of which Salazar had been a leading member. The impetus for its formation came from Salazar and the government, with decisive aid from the state apparatus, especially the interior ministry and its local delegations. Both in the UN’s manifesto and in Salazar’s inaugural speech to the party in 1930, the future dictator’s intention was already clear as he announced the ‘creation of the social and corporatist state that would closely follow the natural constitution of society.’49 The foundation stone of social corporatism in Portugal was contained in the 1933 National Labor Statute (ETN – Estatuto do Trabalho Nacional). As a declaration of corporatist principals the ETN owed a great deal to Italian Fascism’s labor charter, although tempered by the ideals of social Catholicism.50 With the ETN approved unions were the first sector to be affected, and subsequent legislation foresaw a long series of intermediate bodies that would lead to the constitution of the corporations.51 Social corporatism was strongly institutionalized in the Portuguese case, with agencies to encompass virtually all social groups and professions, but, until the 1950s, when the corporations were finally created, a sizeable part of the representation of the 48 A. Madureira, O 28 de maio: Elementos para a sua compreensão, Lisbon, 1978, p. 243. 49 A. de O. Salazar, Discursos e notas politicos, vol. 1, Coimbra, 1934, p. 87. 50 F. Patriarca, A questão social no salazarismo, 1933–47, Lisbon, 1995. 51 P. C. Schmitter, Portugal: Do autoritarismo à democracia, Lisbon, 1999; H. J. Wiarda, Corporatism and development: The Portuguese experience, Amherst, MA, 1977.

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organic elements of the nation was chosen by the corporatist council, made up by Salazar and ministers connected with the sector. The development of Salazar’s constitutional project at the beginning of the 1930s and the institutions defined by him were symptomatic of the role of the various conservative currents supporting the dictatorship and the role of the military. The first project called for a corporatist system for the election of both the president and parliament; however, between this and the project presented to the public in 1932 many changes were introduced by Salazar and his council of notables.52 In the 1932 project there was a legislature of 90 deputies, half elected by direct suffrage and half by corporatist suffrage. This project was strongly criticized by some republican military officials as well as by the Integralists and by Francisco Rolão Preto’s fascists, while the Church was more concerned with the absence of God in the constitution.53 Republican military officials criticized the corporatization of representation, while the fascists and the Integralists believed the constitution had given up too much ground to republican liberalism. The final version approved by Salazar and submitted to a plebiscite was a compromise. Portugal became ‘a unitary and corporatist republic,’ but the president and the National Assembly were elected through direct – not corporatist – suffrage. In fact, the constitution opted for a single chamber, with a national assembly occupied exclusively by deputies selected by the single party and elected by direct suffrage; however, it also created a consultative corporatist chamber composed of functional representatives. The National Assembly had few powers before an executive free of parliamentary ties; however, the corporatist chamber was to be an auxiliary and consultative body. The Portuguese corporatist chamber, which consisted of 109 procurators and whose meetings were held in private, remained a consultative body for both the government and the National Assembly. The longevity of the Portuguese regime and some research into Salazar’s corporatist chamber allows us to reach some conclusions (which, unfortunately, cannot be generalized given the absence of comparative data) about functional representation. Despite the great majority of procurators in the chamber representing functional interests, a small group of administrative interests were nominated by the corporatist council that was led by the dictator and which constituted the chamber’s elite.54 In practice, these political 52 A. Araújo, A lei de Salazar, Lisbon, 2007; N. Estevão, ‘A câmara corporativa no Estado Novo: Composição, funcionamento e influência’, doctoral dissertation, Instituto de Ciências Sociais, Universidade de Lisboa, 2009. 53 A. C. Pinto, The Blue Shirts. Portuguese fascism in interwar Europe, New York, 2000. 54 J. M. T. Castilho, Os procuradores à câmara corporativa, 1935–74, Lisbon, 2010.

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procurators, making up an average of 15 per cent of all procurators, controlled the chamber. An analysis of a large number of the corporatist chamber’s advisory opinions during the first decade of its operation allows us to conclude that its function within the framework of the dictator’s consultation system, ‘permitted it a first hearing of the impact of public policies and to make suggestions about the implications of the measures to be adopted.’55 Finally, it also underlined its subordinate character compared to the National Assembly, given that its advisory opinions were not necessarily taken into account during debates there.56 However, it is worth stressing that the National Assembly was also given a subordinate role as an adviser on legislation and was ‘closely integrated’ with the executive and subservient to it in a regime, not of separation of powers but of ‘organic unity.’57 While during their long existence Salazar’s regime and Francoism converged as forms of authoritarianism, their markedly different origins were evident, as they were from the Primo de Rivera dictatorship. Ironically, one of the leading figures behind Spanish corporatism was the Catalan, Eduardo Aunós, who was an inspiration for the two corporatist parliaments and institutions in Spanish dictatorships. Aunós’ background was one of liberal conservative elitism: he served as minister of labor in the Primo de Rivera regime, as a consultant to the Falange and then as editor of Fuero del Trabajo (Labor Charter) and as minister of justice under Franco. However, this apparent continuity between some of the figures and institutions of 20thcentury Spanish authoritarianism cannot hide the fact the origins and original configuration of Francoism had little in common with the Primo de Rivera dictatorship, with that of Salazar in Portugal, or indeed with any of the central and eastern European dictatorships. The product of a bloody civil war, the main characteristic of the first years of the Franco regime was its radical break with democracy and the fact it was inspired by the dynamics of fascism to a much greater degree. As Stanley G. Payne notes, during the early years of Francoism ‘the nominal structure of the Franco regime was the most purely arbitrary of the world.’58 Officially announcing a totalitarian model following the creation of a single-party formed through the forced unification of groups that had supported him during the civil war, the FET-JONS, under Falange leadership – even if placed under 55 Estevão, ‘A câmara corporativa’. 56 Castilho, Os procuradores. 57 Wiarda, Corporatism and development, p. 101. 58 S. G. Payne, The Franco regime, 1936–75, Madison, WI, 1987, p. 323.

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Franco’s authority – not only managed to create a party apparatus and ancillary organizations that were much more powerful, but its access to segments of the new political system was comparable with the PNF in Mussolini’s Italy.59 Social corporatism was an essential component of Francoism and its institutions, which began to be sketched out in Nationalist-controlled areas during the civil war, where tensions existed between the FET’s national syndicalist model and those of groups closer to conservative Catholics. Not all of these conflicts were doctrinal in nature; some were expressions of the fears within FET that its role in the creation of the new corporatist structure would be reduced. However, these fears were not confirmed, as both the 1938 Fuero del Trabajo and the definition of the institutional structure of the Francoist labor organization gave the Falange a central role.60 In 1940, when the Law of Syndical Union required most workers, technicians, and employers to join one of the 27 multi-function, vertical, and sectoral syndicates, the process was controlled both at the state and party level by the Falangists.61 Despite the fascist rhetoric accompanying the creation of the corporatist system being powerful, with the removal in 1941 of Salvador Merino, the FET’s director of syndicates, the party’s influence was to diminish and, more significantly, the original concept of vertical syndicates was to be replaced, with employers and workers being represented in separate sections. Under Ramón Serrano Suñer’s leadership, in 1940 FET’s political committee outlined the first project of constitutional laws, which also anticipated the establishment of a corporatist parliament. A total of 20 of the draft’s 37 articles were devoted to it. As Stanley G. Payne notes, Serrano Suñer backed a ‘more fully fascist political system than Franco was willing to permit.’62 The most controversial proposal contained in this project was the institutionalization of FET’s political committee as a collegiate coordination body between the state and the movement: a kind of Francoist version of Mussolini’s Fascist Grand Council. Conservatives viewed this body as the interjection of the party in the state, and Franco dismissed it.63 Franco’s decision to create a corporatist parliament in 1942 was an important step in the consolidation of his regime – particularly given the tide 59 M. Jerez Mir, ‘Executive, single party and ministers in Franco’s regime, 1936–45’, in Pinto, Ruling elites. 60 S. G. Payne, Fascism in Spain, Madison, WI, 2000. 61 F. B. Garcia, El sindicalismo vertical: Burocracia, control laboral y representación de interesses en la España franquista (1936–51), Madrid, 2010. 62 Payne, The Franco regime, p. 285. 63 Ibid., p. 260.

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of the Second World War was turning against fascism – and the chief institutional innovation of this phase of redefinition of legitimacy. Religion and organic-statist views of state-society relations did play a central role.64 The Spanish Christian roots, the exceptional historical position of the Caudillo, and representation of the people through a system of organic democracy, were to be the main elements of consolidated Francoism’s legitimacy after the era of fascism.65 The Spanish corporatist parliament, the Cortes, was established as an instrument of collaboration with Franco. According the law governing it this new legislature was to serve ‘for the expression of contrasting opinions within the unity of the regime.’ Franco, the head of state, would continue as ‘the supreme power and to dictate legal norms,’ but Cortes would represent ‘a valuable instrument of collaboration in that task.’66 The first Cortes consisted of around 423 procurators, made up of 126 members of the single party’s national council, 141 from the syndical organization, 50 designated by the Caudillo, and the remainder representatives of the municipalities, political families and associations of liberal professions, etc.67 Cabinet ministers and the head of the judiciary were also members.68 The large majority of procurators were public servants; consequently, the weight of the bureaucracy within it was very significant.69 The only change in the composition of the Cortes, was the introduction in 1967 of 108 family representatives, formally elected through a restricted electoral system. Needless to say, the cabinet was responsible to the head of state and Cortes was designed to advise and to deliberate upon proposed laws coming from the government. To avoid the creation of informal factions within the Cortes, its president, who selected the heads of commissions, was nominated by Franco. Few institutional changes took place during the dictatorship’s long durée. Dollfuss’ Austria The brief institutionalization of Englebert Dollfuss’ dictatorship in Austria was the most complete expression of an attempt at the authoritarian fusion of 64 Linz, ‘Organic-statist-authoritarian’. 65 R. Gunther, Public policy in a no-party state, Berkeley, CA, 1980, p. 36. 66 Gómez Navarro, Primo de Rivera, p. 2. 67 B. Diaz-Nosty, Las cortes de Franco, Barcelona, 1972. 68 A. G. Morales, Autoritarismo y control parlamentário en las cortes de Franco, Murcia, 1977. 69 R. B. Martinez, Poder de la burocracia y cortes franquistas, 1943–71, Madrid, 1978.

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social and political corporatism under the hegemony of conservative Catholicism. In Austria, corporatism was a dream shared by fascists, Heimwehren, and Catholics.70 However, the domination of its institutionalization by political Catholicism was obvious. From the beginning of the 1920s the Social Christian Party advanced proposals for the partial corporatization of political representation and, by the beginning of the following decade, under the leadership of Ignaz Seipel, the Social Christians moved away from democracy. This social Christian leader was one of the most important supporters of the corporatist option as the true democracy in Austria.71 In 1929 the Social Christians repeated some of their 1919 proposals for a corporatist upper chamber, a proposal that was rejected by the Socialists. However, when Dollfuss suspended the constitution, dissolved parliament, banned the political parties, and began governing with emergency powers, the transition to authoritarianism was enabled through the institutionalization of corporatist representation formalized in the 1934 constitution. In this context, the influence the Heimwehr fascists had on the corporatist option cannot be underestimated, since it coincided with the time they had their greatest political influence within the new regime. As they were closer to the Italian fascist model and to Othmar Span, they had been proposing projects for the corporatization of the political system since 1930. The 1934 constitution established a period of transition, and when Hitler invaded Austria in 1938 a large part of the corporatization process was still only on paper. According to the new constitution, the duumvirate of the president and the chancellor gave powers to the latter. In electoral terms, the organic vote was established and the legislature replaced by four advisory bodies representing the state, culture, the economy, and the regions. These advisory bodies sent delegates to the federal diet of 59 members. The corporatist bodies had only one more delegate than the others within the federal diet; however, we should not forget that as elsewhere, with the absence of organized corporations these bodies were composed of members appointed by the president and the chancellor, since only two of the seven professional corporations had been created by 1938. The Social Christians were dominant in many of these advisory bodies, although during the first two years of

70 P. Pasteur, ‘“Austrofascisme” ou regime autoritaire corporatiste Chrétien?’, in C. Horel, T. Sandu and F. Taubert, eds, La périphérie du fascisme: Le cas de l ’Europe central entre les deux guerres, Paris, 2006, pp. 111–22; Les états autoritaires en Europe, 1919–45, Paris, 2007, p. 120. 71 K. von Klemperer, Ignaz Seipel: Christian statesman in a time of crises, Princeton, NJ, 1971, p. 247.

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the regime the Heimwehr had more places within them than their electoral strength in the old parliament of the democratic period.72 The government had a great deal of autonomy in relation to these advisory bodies, which had only limited and partial veto powers that could be circumvented by the executive. The subjection of the legislative branch to the authoritarian executive left little room for the expression of opinion on public policy not sanctioned by the executive.73 In fact, between 1938 and the end of the regime following the Nazi invasion, 69.31 per cent of the legislation was adopted directly by the council of ministers.74 A central element in the institutionalization of the new regime was the creation of a single political movement, the Fatherland Front (VF – Vaterländische Front), in 1933, from where segments of the old Social Christian party and the Heimwehr were channeled from above. Dollfuss created this organization as a political tool that was highly centralized and which was completely obedient to its creator; however, it has been noted that the VF ‘remained a bureaucratic organizational shell with no dynamic development or significance of its own.’ 75 Dollfuss’ successor, Kurt Schuschnigg, was able to reduce the influence of the Heimwehr and forced it to partially unite within the VF, but the life of this outline of a single-party was very brief. The challenges of corporatism in the competitive authoritarianisms of central and eastern Europe Some interwar regimes were ‘able to work within a formal parliamentary framework with a dominant government party that obtained a majority through corrupt electoral practices, co-optation of some political elites and outlawing or harassing those that oppose them, and by tolerating a weak and tamed opposition.’ 76 While the form of government divided conservatives and the radical right, as Andrew Janos correctly notes, these regimes incorporated significant compromises that even led to the establishment of

72 P. Pasteur, Les états autoritaires en Europe, 1919–45, Paris, 2007, p. 160. 73 A. Diamant, Austrian Catholics and the First Republic: Democracy and the social order, 1918–34, Princeton, NJ, 1960, p. 269. 74 H. Wohnout, ‘A chancellorial dictatorship with a “corporative” pretext: The Austrian constitution between 1934 and 1938’, in G. Bishof, A. Pelinka and A. Lassner, eds, The Dollfuss/Schuschnigg era in Austria: A reassessment, New Brunswick, NJ, 2003, p. 151. 75 Ibid, p. 156. 76 Linz, ‘Organic-statist-authoritarian’, p. 92.

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poorly-institutionalized regimes.77 Interwar Hungary and Poland are the closest examples of this. The stabilization of Hungary following the successful counter-revolution gave rise to a hybrid regime under the paternal but firm leadership of Admiral Miklós Horthy; however, it was under the premiership of Count Stephen Bethlen in 1921 that the new regime was consolidated. Bethlen, as with so many European conservative leaders, believed democracy was ‘suitable only for rich, well-structured and highly-cultured countries,’ which was not true of Hungary in the 1920s. Hungary needed to be somewhere ‘between unbridled freedom and unrestrained dictatorship.’ 78 He carried out a program of electoral reform that reconciled a reduction in the electorate with a clientelist open vote in the rural districts, while retaining the secret ballot in the major cities. The second step was the creation of a government party that would ensure, through political pressure and clientelistic procedures, its domination of the system. This was achieved with the creation of the Unity Party (EP – Egységes Párt), which from 1922 won successive semi-competitive elections during the Bethlen era.79 To the EP-dominated house of representatives was joined an upper house that was restored in 1925 along corporatist lines, with representatives of the three religious denominations, 36 professional and economic chambers, 76 representatives of the counties and municipalities, 48 life members appointed by Horthy, and 38 aristocrats. When in 1932 Horthy reluctantly appointed Gyula Gömbös prime minister, despite the fragmentation of the Hungarian extreme right, the regime began to move to the right. Gömbös had been the leader of a right-wing paramilitary association and was a close associate of Horthy, who nevertheless mitigated the most radical parts of the former’s strategy. He reorganized the EP, renamed it the Party of National Unity (NEP – Nemzeti Egység Pártja), gave it more responsibilities in respect of extra-electoral political mobilization, provided it with a small paramilitary section, and turned its attention to mass mobilization. Gömbös also planned a system of compulsory organized interest representation based on vertical corporatism inspired by the Italian labor charter, with several professional chambers in which representatives of both employers and employees would handle labor issues. He attempted to suppress the bicameral parliament (through the creation of a council of state 77 A. Janos, East central Europe in the modern world, Stanford, CA, 2000. 78 A. Janos, The politics of backwardness in Hungary, 1825–1945, Princeton, NJ, 1982, p. 210. 79 W. M. Batkay, Authoritarian politics in a transitional state: Istvan Bethlen and the Unified Party in Hungary, 1919–26, New York, 1982.

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to replace the senate) and presented plans for the creation of a new parliament consisting of elected representatives and delegates from the municipalities, state departments, and professional corporations.80 In 1935, plans for the institutionalization of a single-party dictatorship were announced to Goering; however, Gömbös died the following year, and with him his plans, which had in any event been blocked for some time when the corporatist system was taken off the agenda and the reorganization of the party suspended.81 Some of the party’s organizations were dismantled, and it was restored to its ‘original condition of an electoral machine based on the local bureaucracy.’82 Somehow anticipating the academic discussion on hybrid or semi-democratic regimes that was to take place at the beginning of the 21st century, in 1972 one historian of Poland defined the interwar Polish regime as a ‘semiconstitutional guided democracy.’83 In fact, when Józef Pilsudski led the coup d’état that overthrew Poland’s parliamentary democracy in 1926, it did not lead to a rapid transition to dictatorship. With his origins in democratic nationalism, which was very different from the counter-revolutionary origins of the Hungarian leading elite at the same time, some of the dilemmas in classifying Pilsudski’s regime do not differ greatly from those of Bethlem’s Hungary. The concentration of power, the creation of a coalition party, the Non-partisan Bloc for Co-operation with the Government (BBWR – Bezpartyjny Blok Wspólpracy z Rzadem), to support the general in parliament and, finally, the presentation of a new constitution and of a more coherent dominant party were the marks of his governance.84 While Pilsudski had many powers, parliament – despite having been diminished and controlled – continued to be a problem for the president, given 80 I. T. Berend, Decades of crises: Central and eastern Europe before World War Two, Berkeley, CA, 1998; J. Vonyó, ‘Tentative de l’organization totale de la société hongroise sous le gouvernement de Gyula Gömbös’, in Horel, Sandu, and Taubert, La périphérie, p. 59; M. Ormos, Hungary between the wars, New York, 2008, pp. 254–58. 81

I. Romsics, István Bethlen: A great conservative statesman of Hungary, New York, 1995, p. 335.

82

Janos, Politics of backwardness, p. 290.

83 A. Polonsky, Politics of independent Poland, 1921–39: The crisis of constitutional government, Oxford, 1972, p. vii; S. Levitsky and L. A. Way, Competitive authoritarianism: Hybrid regimes after the Cold War, New York, 2010. 84 The predominance of Roman Catholicism in Poland did not give rise to strong Catholic parties, and although the detailed model of a corporatist system that made provision for setting a new vertical power system at whose head would be a corporatist national chamber was part of the small Christian Democratic Party’s program, this did not influence Pilsudski’s institutional reform. See L. Kuk, ‘A powerful Catholic Church, unstable state and authoritarian political regime: The Christian Democratic Party in Poland’, in Kaiser and Wohnout, Political catholicism, p. 157.

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that it still represented a very significant degree of pluralism. In 1935 a new constitution attempted to limit much that was already the functional praxis of the regime. The executive was made responsible to the president rather than parliament, with article two stating the president was responsible only ‘to God and history’ for the fortune of the state.85 The constitution provided for a bicameral system; however, the amount of legislation that could be decided by decree was increased. The decisive break with liberal parliamentarism was nevertheless adopted by the electoral laws defining the legislature’s composition. The innovation was in the definition of the electorate, which remained individual and direct, although candidates were to be nominated organically. The parliament (Sejm) had 209 deputies, with the country divided into 104 two-member constituencies in which the candidates were selected by local commissions led by a president nominated by the government and comprising of delegates from local government, corporations, the chambers of commerce, industry and agriculture, the liberal professions, and trade unions. The scope of manipulation by the government was impressive and a homogeneous and obedient Sejm was assured. The upper house was later reduced to 96 members, with one-third appointed by the president and two-thirds by electoral councils elected by similar organic institutions.86 Opposition parties reacted by boycotting the elections. Pilsudski died in 1935 and Poland remained a dictatorless dictatorship led by his closest military associates, although with increased factionalism. The regime’s institutional fragility following the dissolution of the BBWR led in 1936 to the creation of the Camp of National Unity (OZON – Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego), a regime party that was better structured and more powerful than its predecessor, and which was more of a single-party. Adam Koc, a young Pilsudski follower, endowed the party with a youth section that he wanted to offer to the fascist Falanga, which had a more clerical and corporatist political program. Koc also proposed the liquidation of the trade union movement and the establishment of a system of corporations on the fascist model as part of OZON’s program; however, this option was far from consolidated when Poland was invaded and occupied in 1939.87 85 E. D. Wynot Jr., Polish politics in transition: The Camp of National Unity and the struggle for power, 1935–39, New York, 1974, p. 24. 86 The general electorate could send a delegate to these electoral commissions only with 500 notarised signatures, which was a worthless procedure. See Polonsky, Independent Poland, p. 397; Wynot, Polish politics in transition, p. 26. 87 Polonsky, Independent Poland, p. 430.

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In the case of Romania, the short dictatorial experiment did not lead to a consolidated regime, but the clear goal was to institutionalize a single-party regime. When on 10 February 1938 King Carol II suspended the constitution and inaugurated a period of royal dictatorship, his first steps were to abolish the political parties, create a single party – the Front of National Rebirth (FRN – Frontul Renasterü Nationale) – and hold a plebiscite on a new corporatist constitution. All of this took place in the same year. The fascists of Corneliu Zelea Codreanu’s Iron Guard, the Legion of the Archangel Michael, did not respond to the royal coup d’état, and initially accepted the Legion’s dissolution.88 The royal dictatorship sought to steal some of the Iron Guard’s ideological appeal, adopting the propaganda of ‘organic nationalism, family, church, and the gospel of work.’ 89 According the constitution, the new parliament was selected according to the sectoral categories of agriculture, industry, commerce, the professions, and the intelligentsia. Ministers were chosen by the king and were responsible only to him, while legislative initiative was transferred from parliament to the king. Manoilescu, the theoretician of corporatism, was an eminent strategist of the royal dictatorship’s economic policy. Following the execution of Codreanu and other fascist leaders, and coming under Nazi pressure to integrate them into the regime, King Carol II reorganized his single-party, renaming it the Party of the Nation (PN – Partidul Natiunii), which incorporated the remaining fascists and to which membership was compulsory for all public and corporatist office holders. Corporatism was a minor ideological component for Codreanu’s Iron Guard, despite Manoilescu’s attempts to develop it.90 As the legionary leader Ion Mota stated, corporatism ‘is entirely colorless from a folk point of view.’91 In 1940, King Carol II went into exile, leaving his son to preside over a duumvirate constituted by General Antonescu and the Iron Guard, now led by Horia Sima. During the short time the Iron Guard was the single-party of the National Legionary State, no initiatives for corporatist reorganization came forward. When Antonescu withdrew the Legion from government, the

88 I. Tiu, The Legionary movement after Corneliu Codrianu, New York, 2009. 89 J. Rothschild, East central Europe between the two world wars, Seattle, WA, 1974, p. 311. 90 Z. Ornea, The Romanian extreme right: The 1930s, New York, 1999, pp. 244–64. 91 H. L. Roberts, Rumania: Political problems of an agrarian state, New Haven, CT, 1951, p. 231.

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regime that remained took on the appearance of a military dictatorship with a plebiscistarian tone.92 While Antonescu’s pro-Nazi dictatorship proved to be poorly institutionalized after the elimination of the Iron Guard fascists, the same cannot be said of Catholic Slovakia. When the Slovak state was created as a German protectorate in 1939, the expanded heir of Andrej Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party (HSLS – Hlinkova Slovenská L’udová Strana) became the single-party led by his successor and vice-chairman, the Catholic priest Jozef Tiso, under the motto: ‘One God, one people, one party.’ 93 However, despite being the guide of the dictatorship and of the single party, Tiso always had to share power with Vojtech Tuka, who was more radical and had been appointed prime minister, and whom the Germans wished to retain. The 1939 constitution proclaimed Slovakia a Catholic state in which ‘the nation participates in power through the HSLS,’ and in fact the single-party took control of parliament.94 The newly-created state council developed into a corporatist upper house to advise Tiso, who had in the meanwhile become president. Members of this privy council included the prime minister, the president of parliament, and members nominated by Tiso, the single-party, and each corporation, Moreover, and similarly to Mussolini’s Fascist Grand Council, this council chose the candidates for parliament.95 As Tiso noted in 1930, the nation was an organic whole, and the creation of a corporatist system called Christian solidarism was designed.96 All Slovaks were obliged to join one of four corporations that replaced the unions, and the political cadres within these corporations had to be members of the single party.97 The new constitution, inspired by Salazar’s Portugal and Dollfuss’ Austria, sought to conciliate liberal parliamentarism with corporatism and within the single-party, the Party of National Unity (SSNJ – Strana 92 D. Deletant, Hitler’s forgotten ally: Ion Antunescu and his regime, Romania, 1940–44, London, 2006. 93 J. K. Hoensch, ed., Catholics, the state, and the European radical right, 1919–45, New York, 1987, p. 174. 94 A. Soubigou, ‘Le “clerico-fascisme” slovaque fut-il une religion politique?’ in T. Sandu, ed., Vers un profil convergent des fascismes? ‘Nouveaux consensus’ et religion politique en Europe central, Paris, 2010, p. 79. 95 Hoensch, Catholics, p. 180; D. Poli and S. Salmi, ‘Lo stato corporativo: Una comparazione fra i casi italiano, portoghese e slovacco’, in M. Pasetti, ed., Progetti corporativi tra le due guerre mondiali, Rome, 2006, pp. 165–86. 96 N. Nedelsky, ‘The wartime Slovak state: A case study on the relationship between ethnic nationalism and authoritarian patterns of governance’, Nations and Nationalisms 7, no 2, 2001, p. 222. 97 Soubogou, ‘Clerico-fascisme’, p. 76.

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Slovenskej Národnej Jednoty), the pro-corporatist clerical faction was the most important.98 The regime’s brief existence, Tuka’s more radical faction, and the influence of Nazi Germany and of the German minority prevented the rapid evolution towards a corporatist and organic system. In south-eastern Europe corporatism also made a brief appearance in Bulgaria and in Metaxas’s Greece. In Bulgaria, following Colonel Damian Velchev’s 1934 coup d’état, both parliament and the political parties were dissolved with the proposal to institute corporatist representation through the creation of seven corporations (estates) that were to provide the basis for the election of three-quarters of the members of the new parliament.99 Plans for a single party were blocked by the king. Feeling his position threatened, King Boris assumed full power, inaugurating a period of royal dictatorship the following year, with a controlled parliament and electoral laws that were carefully constructed to ensure government control of the chamber.100 The 4th of August regime in Greece was established in the wake of a coup d’état led by the prime minister, Ioannis Metaxas, who was head of a small conservative, anti-parliamentary, and royalist party. Metaxas did not create a single party following the dissolution of parliament and the political parties, as this would have been difficult for the king to accept; however, he did place great hope in the creation of an official youth organization, the National Youth Organization (EON – Ethnikí Orgánosis Neoléas), which was inspired by the fascist model. A few weeks after the 1936 coup, Metaxas’ program was clear, with its 14th point indicating ‘the remodeling of society by easy stages on a corporatist national basis so that a truly national representation may emerge’.101 In fact, the regime embarked on a program of ‘horizontal’ restructuring of economic and labor relations in a pattern that revealed the influence of the Italian Fascist and Portuguese Salazarist experiments with corporatism, with this latter being particularly evident in his plans for constitutional revision.102 The plans became more concrete in the political arena when Metaxas designed a new system of national delegation supported by two bodies: the Great Council of National Labor and the Assembly of the 98 Y. Jelinek, The parish republic: Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party, New York, 1976, pp. 47-51; Poli and Salmi, ‘Lo Stato corporativo’, p. 173. 99 R. J. Crampton, A concise history of Bulgaria, Cambridge, 2005, p. 159. 100 Ibid., p. 162. 101 J. Kofas, Authoritarianism in Greece: The Metaxas regime, New York, 1983, p. 65. 102 A. Kallis, ‘Neither fascist nor authoritarian: The 4th of August regime in Greece (1936–41) and the dynamics of fascistisation in 1930s Europe’, East Central Europe 37, 2010, pp. 303–30.

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Professions.103 According to several sources, the king’s strong opposition to corporatist representation led to the postponement of the project. Corporatism and the presidential dictatorships of the Baltic countries The construction of personalized authoritarian regimes in the young Baltic countries was rapid. In 1926 a military coup d’état in Lithuania brought Antanas Smetona to power, while in 1934 an almost syncretic series of coups led to the institutionalization of presidentialist dictatorships in Estonia and Latvia, which were only brought to an end with the Soviet invasion of 1940. The most elaborate attempt to institutionalize corporatist regimes in the region took place under Päts in Estonia and Karlis Ulmanis in Latvia. Despite the influence of the Catholic Church and a generous concordat in Lithuania, the swift concentration of power to President Smetona caused a number of conflicts between the now dominant party, the Tautininkai, and the Christian Democrats, which had initially been involved in the proauthoritarian coalition. By the end of the 1930s this party had a youth wing and a militia. Parliament eventually became a consultative body only, and the president elected by extraordinary representatives of the nation selected by the dominant party; however, despite this, pressures for the official party to have a more active role were not supported by the president.104 Corporatist economic bodies were established during the 1930s, but it was the opposition Christian Democrats who explicitly advanced the idea for the creation of an organic state against Smetona.105 The strategy for controlling parliament involved an electoral process in which the candidates were selected by the municipalities and not the political parties that had in the meanwhile been dissolved. The dominant party obtained an overwhelming majority in the parliament that had mere consultative powers. With Smetona being glorified as the leader of the people, Lithuania became the first authoritarian single-party state of the Baltic countries.106 103 C. Sarandis, ‘The ideology and character of the Metaxas regime’, in R. Highan and T. Veremis, eds, Aspects of Greece: The Metaxas dictatorship, Athens, 1993, p. 156; S. V. Papacosma, ‘Ioannis Metaxas and the “Fourth of August” dictatorship’, in F. Bernd, ed., Balkan strongman: Dictators and authoritarian rulers of south-east Europe, London, 2006, p. 187. 104 A. Eidintas, ‘The presidential republic’, in A. Eidintas, V. Zalys and A. E. Senn, eds, Lithuania in European politics: The years of the First Republic, 1918–40, Vilnius, 1997, pp. 111–37. 105 Ibid., p. 121. 106 G. Von Rauch, The Baltic states: The years of independence, 1917–40, New York, 1995, p. 164.

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After the silencing of parliament following the 1934 coup d’état in Estonia, in 1935 Konstantin Päts dissolved the political parties and sought to create a single party, the Fatherland League, to support the president. This party was not so very different in its origins and initial functions from those of its peers, such as the UN in Salazar’s Portugal. Organization by occupational groups was promoted as an alternative to parties and parliamentarism, since corporatist organizations ‘had been a pet concept of Päts’ for quite some time.’107 Between 1934 and 1938 the regime created 15 professional chambers, representatives of which would later be assigned seats in the upper house of the national assembly. In 1935 a transitional institution to advise the government was also created, with 15 members elected by the occupational chambers and ten appointed by the president. The political system was not made wholly corporatist with the 1938 constitution that created a bicameral system, with a chamber of representatives of 80 directly-elected deputies and a corporatist upper house of 40 members representing administrative departments, professional bodies, and ecclesiastical and secular organizations. In Latvia, Karlis Ulmanis, leader of the main right-wing Agrarian Union, declared a state of siege after several attempts to revise the constitution to limit parliamentary power. Parliament was eventually dissolved, along with the political parties – including his own; however, unlike his Baltic neighbors, Ulmanis did not create an official political party. Nevertheless, mobilization of the members of the previous party elite was significant. Ulmanis initially ruled via the government, and once the presidential mandate was over he combined the office of the prime minister with that of the president. The institutionalization of corporatism in Latvia was the most complete of all of the Baltic States and historians have debated the external influences on it: including the Italian and the Austrian.108 A total of six corporations were created between 1934 and 1938, and the old associative and syndical structures were abolished, with the corporatist chambers being placed under the control of the respective ministries that nominated a large number of their members. The regime also created a National Economic Council and a National Cultural Council to supervise the activities of the different chambers. While some observers have noted the fact Ulmanis wished to create a corporatist parliament, replacing for good the ‘plenary meeting of political parties’, this never saw the light of day.109

107 A. Kasekamp, The radical right in interwar Estonia, London, 2007, p. 121. 108 A. Plakans, The Latvians: A short history, Stanford, CA, 1995. 109 Von Rauch, The Baltic states; Pasteur, Les états autoritaires, p. 166.

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Concluding remarks Corporatism has frequently – and legitimately – been associated with the Catholic political culture of the beginning of the 20th century, even although fascism had also codified it as an authoritarian alternative to liberal democracy. Although it had a presence in the institutions of some democratic regimes, it is only in dictatorships that a serious effort was made to organize political regimes according to corporatist ideology.110 The success of this hybridization effect in European authoritarian political institutions during the first half of the 20th century is a good illustration of how the codification of corporatist institutions became generalized. These experiences not only illustrated the pragmatic adoption of authoritarian institutions in interwar Europe, they also illustrate their use by dictators with no link to the cultural background of the Catholic or fascist corporatism of southern Europe, which suggests it was, in fact, a general trend during the interwar period. While there was some variation, the ideology of a single national interest, typical of the apoliticism of military thinking and of anti-democratic conservative elites was very compatible with the ‘organic-statist’ core of corporatist representation.111 Institutional transfer was a hallmark of interwar dictatorships, but the influences were differentiated. In the case of social corporatism it is clear that the influence of Italian Fascism plays a central role. In its apparent totalitarianism, the first principle of Italian Fascism’s Labor Charter was replicated across interwar European dictatorships: ‘The Italian nation... is a moral, political, and economic union that is globally realized in the fascist state.’ The interwar projects for the introduction of authoritarian constitutions and labor charters, albeit in less statist versions, generally began with the organic principle. Social corporatism as a form of state-led forced integration of interest groups in para-state structures and of the decapitation of autonomous union movements largely transcends the interwar period; however, the process of political engineering through which these dictatorships provided a channel for complex interest groups structure co-optation and its legitimizing discourse became a blueprint of the 1930s. The comparative analysis of the labor charters or equivalent legislation of these regimes demonstrates the role-model function of the Italian Fascist Labor Charter in 11 dictatorships, the national adaptations of which were an expression of the original coalition that formatted them (see Table 7.1). Thus in the Portuguese New State, in Dollfuss’ Austria, in Tizo’s Slovakia, and even in Spain under Franco, political Catholicism has a greater presence than, for example, it had in Vichy France or in eastern Europe. However, 110 Linz, Totalitarian and authoritarian regimes, p. 214. 111 Stepan, State and society.

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this mark is already a determinant in the design of a common heritage for the creation of structures of interest intermediation, for the dissolution of independent unions and the establishment of state-led bargaining structures created to defend the regime. Even when such institutions remain on paper, as in the case of Greece under Metaxas or in Velchev’s Bulgaria, the outlines are very similar. Despite the primacy of social corporatism, the constitution of an organic political representation as an alternative to parliamentary democracy also plays a central role in the hybridization processes of the institutional development of interwar dictatorships, transcending, and in many cases incorporating, historical fascism (see Table 7.1). However, Mussolini’s Italy has a much more limited role in the spread of corporatist legislatures: as we saw above, a comparative analysis of the constitutions and processes of institutional reform show that Portugal under Salazar and Austria under Dollfuss had a more important role. Moreover, Italian Fascism was undergoing institutional reform right up until the end of the 1930s with the creation of the Fascist and Corporatist Chamber. We should not underestimate these authoritarian constitutions since they serve to consolidate autocratic coalitions in power. Uncertainty is very great at the beginning of a new authoritarian regime and constitutions represent ‘one key mechanism through which political actors other than the dictator can codify their right and interests’.112 At the same time, the power of parties and legislatures is often designed by the constitutions, making the boundaries of the ruling group less fluid. The diversity of legislatures designed by authoritarian constitutions suggests the domination of mixed systems of single- or dominant-party legislatures with corporatist chambers. Very few dictators in interwar Europe had, at the outset, the concentration of power that General Franco had in 1939, and the majority of them had great difficulty with the institutional design of their regimes and had to accommodate the more prominent members of the coalitions that brought them to power in their new institutions. The ‘institutionalized interaction between the dictator and his allies results in greater transparency among them, and by virtue of their formal structure, institutions provide a publicly observable signal of the dictator’s commitment to power-sharing.’113 Nevertheless, however appealing the principle of corporatist representation may have been for authoritarian rulers, the creation of corporatist legislatures was much more difficult to implement in several dictatorships, even when it had been part of the dictators’ program. In some 112 M. Albertus and V. Menaldo, ‘Dictators as founding fathers? The role of constitutions under autocracy’, available online at ssrn.com/abstract=1794281 (accessed 8 August 2012). 113 M. W. Svolik, The politics of authoritarian rule, New York, 2012.

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countries, such as in Greece and Bulgaria, it was blocked by monarchs who feared losing their power, while in others, such as in Horthy’s Hungary, it was paternalistic rulers or, as in Portugal, it was the initial compromise with segments of conservative liberal parties that led to the institutionalization of bicameral systems with a corporatist chamber and a parliament controlled by the dominant or single party. Finally, let us not forget the importance of regime parties. Very few interwar European dictatorships existed without a single- or dominant-party, and the relationship between dictators and their parties, particularly in those that existed prior to the seizure of power, is certainly more complex than the rigid versions of the fascism versus-authoritarian dichotomy suggest. The inherent dilemma in the transformation of the single-party as the dictatorship’s ruling institution into the leader’s instrument for rule also challenges rigid dichotomies.114 A regime’s decision to create a political party should not be conflated as a transition to party-based rule,115 and in reality the single-party was not the regime’s ruling institution in the majority of interwar dictatorships: rather, it was one among several.116 Some of the more ‘essentialist’ interpretations of fascism encountered very significant differences between interwar dictatorship regime parties (fascist, non-fascist), but the tendency to create these suggest they fulfilled some important common functions, such as being an instrument of the leader, as a means of elite co-optation and of preventing factionalism or as a means of ensuring a political monopoly on elite recruitment and to balance threats from such institutions as the military. Regardless of their origins (whether pre-dating the dictatorship or being created from above following the breakdown of the previous regime) or their nature (whether they are mass or elite parties) they perform similar roles in the new political system, both as single- or dominant-parties in the legislatures, providing an institutionalized interaction between the dictator and his allies, and the political control of corporatist institutions in the majority of interwar dictatorships. The diffusion of political and social corporatism, which with the single-party are hallmarks of the institutional transfers among European dictatorships, challenges some rigid dichotomous interpretations of interwar fascism.117 The success and expansion of organic-statist regimes with 114 P. Brooker, Twentieth-century dictatorships: The ideological one-party states, New York, 1995, pp. 9–10. 115 N. Ezrow and E. Frantz, Dictators and dictatorships: Understanding authoritarian regimes and their leaders, London, 2011, p. 7. 116 Pinto, Ruling elites. 117 A. C. Pinto, ed., Rethinking the nature of fascism, London, 2011.

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single- or dominant-parties in the world of dictatorships of the second half of the 20th century might bury some of them.

Index

Abyssinian crisis 1935, 83 Action Française, 5, 25, 34–5, 43, 112, 123 Admiral Horthy, Nicholas, 23 Amendola, Giovanni, 68 Anschluss, 17, 22 anti-communism, 36 anti-positivism, 33 anti-rationalism, 33 anti-Semitism France, 34; Germany, 17 Antonescu, Ion, 2, 24, 87, 141, 142 Arendt, Hannah, 68, 69 Aron, Raymond, 29 Arrow Cross Party, See Hungary Aunós, Eduardo, 133 Austria, 2, 17, 22, 55, 74, 91, 125: 1934 constitution, 136; Anschluss, 22, 136; clerico-fascist, 22; corporatism, 74, 119, 125, 136; Dollfuss regime, 135; Dollfuss–Schuschnigg regime, 22, 74; fascism as a movement, 53; Fatherland Front, 22, 137; Heimwehr, 22, 74, 136, 137; Nazi Party, 22; Social Christian Party, 136 Austro-Hungarian empire, 23 authoritarianism: authoritarian-fascist binomial, 73; authoritariantotalitarian binomial, 72; liberalism, 74; rise of, 80; transition to, 90 Balbo, Italo, 13, 108 Barrès, Maurice 5, 33 Barthou, Jean Louis, 83

BBWZ. See Poland, Non-partisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government Belgium, 9, 35: Flemish National League, 9; Rexist Movement, 9 Bermeo, Nancy, 8, 20, 47, 51–2, 113: crises of democracy, 56; Ordinary people in extraordinary times, 51–2; polarization, 8 Berstein, Serge, 29, 37–40: liberal revisionism, 34; totalitarianism, 39 Berth, Édouard, 35 Bethlen, Stephen, 138 Bezpartyjny Blok Wspólpracy z Rzadem. See Poland, Non-partisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government Borkenau, Franz, 68 Bormann, Martin, 15–16, 99, 101 Bosworth, Richard, 58, 63, 65, 67, 71 Bottai, Guiseppe, 13, 108, 110 Boulangism, 33 Brasillach, 36 Brazil, 2: Ação Integralista Brasileira, 66 Broszat, Martin, 15–16, 57, 98–9 Bruneteau, Bernard, 63, 68–9 Brzezinski, Zbigniew, 76, 89 Bulgaria, 143: King Boris, 143 Burrin, Philip, 29, 37, 40: fascist impregnation, 40 Cahiers du Cercle Proudhon, 35 Camara degli Fasci e delle Corporazione. See Italy, Fascist and Corporate Chamber

152 Canali, Mauro, 72 Carmona, General Óscar, 20, 102 Carta del Lavoro. See Italy, Labor Charter Catholic Church, 9, 12: corporatism, 119–21; influence in Baltic States, 144; Italy, 93, 96; Portugal, 102; Spain, 19 Caudillo. See Franco Cercle Proudhon, 43 charisma: Adolf Hitler, 98; dynamics of, 81; fear, 86; Max Weber, 85; Nazi Party, 98; routinization of, 84 charismatic authority, 11–12, 94 charismatic rule age of, 80 charismatic triangle, 81–7 charismatization, 80–6 Christian democracy, 39 Christus Rex, 9 cleansing, 3–4, 49–50 clerico-fascism, 22 Codreanu, Zelea Corneliu, 24, 86, 141 Cofrancesco, Dino, 29, 37, 40, 45 Cold War, 65 communism, 1, 5, 19, 26, 30–2, 83 Corni, Gustavo, 72 corporatism, 9, 21, 36, 39, 42, 65–6, 71, 119–25, 161: Austria, 136; Catholicism, 127, 146; disenfranchisement, 126; Greece, 143; homo corporativus, 122; homo economicus, 122; Hungary, 138; integral, 123; interwar, 122; Ireland, 123; Italian Fascism, 146; Italy, 127, 128; Latvia, 145; Lithuania, 144; neo-corporatism, 122; organic representation, 126; personalization, 120; Poland, 140; political device, 121; political, 122; Portugal, 130–3; Quadragesimo Anno (1931), 121, 124; Rerum Novarum (1891), 121; Romania, 141; Slovakia, 142; social Catholicism, 122–3; social corporatism, 122–3, 146–7; Spain, 124, 129–34; totalitarianism, 146; variants of, 119–21; Weber, Max, 126 Corradini, Enrico, 35, 127 crises of democracy, 53–63 Croatia, 24–6, 83: King Alexander, 83;

The nature of fascism revisited Ustasha, 24–5, 83 Croix de Feu. See France, Cross of Fire culturalism, 48 Czechoslovakia, 25 DAF. See Germany, German Labour Front Danmarks Nationalsocialistitke Arbejderparti. See Denmark, National Socialist Workers’ Party Darnand, Joseph, 25 Darré, Walther, 111 Darwin, Charles, 33 De Bono, Emilio, 13, 109 De Gaulle, Charles, 39 de la Rocque, François, 8, 9 De Lapouge, Vacher, 41 De Man, Henri, 35 de Valera, Eamon, 79 Déat, Marcel, 25, 35, 36 Degrelle, Léon, 9 democracy: interwar crises, 51; in wartime Europe, 79 Denmark, 9: National Socialist Workers’ Party, 9 determinism, 33 Deutsche Arbeitsfront. See Germany, German Labor Front dictator-government binomial: Italy’s divergence from, 97 DNA. See Denmark, National Socialist Workers’ Party Dobry, Michel, 73, 78 Dollfuss, Englebert, 2, 22, 74, 119, 135–7 Doriot, Jacques, 8, 25, 36 Drexler, Anton, 6 Duce, Il. See Mussolini, Benito Durkheim, Emile, 122 Eatwell, Roger, 4, 51, 64, 81–2 Egységes Párt. See Hungary, Unity Party ENT. See Portugal, National Labor Statute EP. See Hungary, Unity Party Estatuto do Trabalho Nacional. See Portugal, National Labor Statute Estonia: 1934 coup, 144–5; Fatherland League, 145 etats géneraux. See Valois, George,

Index general estates Ethnikí Orgánosis Neoléas. See Greece, National Youth Organization Falange Española. See Spain, Falange Falange Española Tradicionalista. See Spain Falange Española Tradicionalista y de las Juntas de Ofensiva NacionalSindicalista. See Spain,FET-JONS Fasci Femminili. See Italy, Women’s Section fascism: authoritarian, 12; crisis of democracy, 8; cultural interpretation, 1–3, 10, 17–19, 31–6, 41–64, 94; determinism, 33; economic development, 53; economic nationalism, 44; European-epochal, 4, 51; fascist minimum, 40; First World War, 39; five stages of, 48; France, 30, 33; generic, 1, 4, 31, 47; hegemonic politics, 69; historiography of, 64; ideological and cultural dimension, 32, 47; Italian, 7, 11, 55–9, 71–6, 89–94, 97; Mann’s definition, 49; Mann’s five essential aspects of, 3; Mann’s four crises, 5; national radicalism, 44; one-party dictatorships, 76; parallel administration, 91; Paxton’s definition, 3, 50; Payne’s definition, 49; political phenomenon, 50; pragmatism, 38; product of democratization, 55; result of polarization, 52; revolutionary syndicalism, 45; single-party, 91; socialism, 45; totalitarian, 12, 60 fascist movements: interwar period, 26; single-parties, 77 fascist regimes: one-party dictatorships, 89 FET. See Spain, Falange Española Tradicionalista FET-JONS. See Spain First World War, 4, 18, 34, 53–4, 84 and fascism, 32–3, 38–9 five stages of fascism. See fascism FNAT. See Portugal, National Federation for Happiness at Work Fraenkel, Ernst, 57, 71 dual state, 68

153 France, 4, 8–9, 24–9, 31, 34, 37, 40–5, 91: allergy to fascism, 8; anti-Semitism, 34; Cross of Fire, 8, 74; Dreyfus case, 34; fascist impregnation, 36, 40; French Peoples’ Party, 25; French Popular Party, 8; French Social Party, 9; liberal revisionism, 34; Nazi occupation, 36; Popular Front, 8; revolutionary right, 33; socialism, 34; Vichy, 24–5, 36, 39–40, 74, 91; working-class movement, 34 Franco, General Francisco, 2, 10, 18–22, 60, 83, 90–1, 105–7, 113, 135: Axis, 106; FET-JONS, 105; institutions, 105; legitimacy, 19; political system, 104; politics, 113; regime survival, 81; single party, 106 Frente de Juventudes. See Spain, Youth Front Frick, Wilhelm, 17, 111 Friedrich, 43, 76, 89 FRN. See Romania, Front of National Rebirth Frontul Renasterü Nationale. See Romania, Front of National Rebirth Führer. See Hitler, Adolf Führerprinzip, 80 Fuero del Trabajo. See Spain, Labor Charter Fundação Nacional para a Alegria no Trabalho. See Portugal, National Foundation for Happiness at Work Garda de Fier. See Romania, Iron Guard Gentile, Emilio, 32, 44, 60, 67, 110 Gentile, Giovanni, 68 Germany, 2–8, 14, 53–6, 61, 80, 101: anti-Semitism, 17; Austria, 17, 22; Blut und Boden, 84; burning of the Reichstag 1933, 83; Croatia, 25–6; Czechoslovakia, 25; decision-making power, 117; German Labor Front, 16–17, 21, 100, 104; German Road System, 16, 100; Hitler Youth, 16, 100; Hungary, 23; Hungary, 23; institutionalization of Nazi Party, 98; invasion of France, 24; Kraft durch Freude, 84; legal transition, 90; Munich Putsch of 1923, 7; National Socialism, 1, 11, 15, 25, 91, 107;

154 Nazi dual state, 68; Nazi ministerial elite, 110–16; Nazi Party in power, 101; Nazi Party internal crises, 100; Nazi Party leadership, 101; Nazi Party parallel administration, 17; Nazi Party revolutionary strategy, 101; Nazi Party rise to power, 100; Nazi Party special authorities, 100; Nazi Party, 2, 6–9, 14–19, 22–7, 55, 61, 83–7, 98–101, 107, 116–17; Nazi political system, 98; Nazi politicians, 107; Nazification of government, 100; Norway, 26; Romanian Iron Guard, 24; SA, 7, 15, 98; single party, 91; SS, 7–9, 16–17, 87, 98–100, 116; support for Nazi Party, 7; territorial expansion, 17; Weimar Republic, 7, 84 Giuriati, Giovanni, 128 Gömbös, Gyula, 138–9 Gomes da Costa, Manuel de Oliveira, 131 Gramsci, Antonio, 69 Grandi, Dino, 13, 108 Great Depression, 5, 54 Greece: 4th of August, 143–4; Assembly of the Professions, 143–4; corporatism, 143; Great Council of National Labor, 143; National Youth Organization, 143 Gregor, James A., 7, 43 Griffin, Roger, 48, 67, 90: The nature of fascism, 50; Paxton, 48 Handbook of fascism, 71–5 Hess, Rudolf, 15, 99 Himmler, Heinrich, 17, 100 Hindenburg, General Paul von, 7 Hitler Jugend. See Germany, Hitler Youth Hitler, Adolf, 6–7, 10–17, 21–5, 39, 58, 71, 84–6, 90–1, 98–100: Austria, 22; Mein Kampf, 7; Nazi Party, 117; style of rule, 98 Hlinka, Andrej, 25, 142, 143 Hlinkova Garda. See Slovakia, Hlinka Guard Hlinkova Slovenská L’Udová Strana. See Slovakia, Hlinka Slovak People’s Party Hlinkova Slovenská L’Udová Strana-

The nature of fascism revisited Strana Slovenskej Národnej Jednoty. See Slovakia, Hlinka Slovak People’s Party-Party of Slovak National Unity Hobsbawm, Eric, 80 Holocaust, 2, 17 Horthy, Miklos, 74, 87, 138 HSLS. See Slovakia, Hlinka Slovak People’s Party HSLS-SSNJ. See Slovakia, Hlinka Slovak People’s Party-Party of Slovak National Unity Hungary, 23, 53–5, 74, 138: antiSemitism, 23; Arrow Cross Party, 23, 74; corporatism, 138; deportation of Jews, 23; fascism as a movement, 53; Germany, 23; Party of National Unity, 138; Unity Party, 138 ideological centrism, 48 integral nationalism, 5 Integralismo Lusitano. See Portugal, Lusitanian Integralism Ireland: 1937 constitution, 123; Fianna Fail, 79 Italian Fascist Party. See Italy Italy, 2, 6–7, 12–14, 22, 56, 71, 106: 1918 Futurist manifesto, 127; 1921 PNF program, 127; 1927 Labor Charter, 128, 146; anti-Semitism, 14, 61; armed forces, 12; Catholic Action, 14, 96; Catholic Church, 12, 14; corporatism, 72, 127–8; Croatia, 25; Fasci di Combattimento, 127; Fasci Femminile, 14; Fascist and Corporatist Chamber, 13, 72, 128; Fascist Grand Council, 12–14, 59, 94–7, 108, 117, 127–8; fascist movement, 26; Fascist Party, 58–60, 71, 91,127; Gioventù Italiana del Littorio, 14, 96; Il Duce, 94, 58; institutional reform, 127; King Victor Emmanuel, 14; leaders, 108; March on Rome, 6, 13, 96, 127; militia, 13; ministerial accession, 109; ministerial elite, 106–7; monarchy, 12; National Council of Corporations, 128–9; National Fascist Party, 6, 12–14, 59–60, 93–7, 107–9, 116–17, 127; National Workers’ Recreational Organization, 13, 20–1, 96, 104–6, 117; Partito

Index Popolare, 68; political elite, 12; politicians, 107; ras, 6, 13, 108; reforms, 94; Republic of Salò, 14, 24; Rural Housewives, 14, 96–7; seizure of power, 127; single-party, 91; squadrismo, 5, 6, 66; tensions within Fascism, 117; totalitarian leap, 27, 61; trade unions, 14; trade unions, 96; Women’s Section, 96 Janos, Andrew, 73, 137 Jouvenel, Bertrand de, 36 Julliard, Jacques, 29, 37–9 Kantorowicz, Hermann, 68 Kelsen, Hans, 68 Koc, Adam, 140 Kopstein, Jeffrey, 70 La Lupa, 35 La Rocque, 74 Labriola, Antonio, 35 Lammers, Hans Heinrich, 15, 99, 111 Lasswell, Harold D., 59 Latvia: 1934 coup, 144; corporatism, 145; National Cultural Council, 145; National Economic Council, 145 Le Bon, Gustave, 33: generation of 1890, 33; social psychology, 41 Legião Portuguesa. See Portugal Lenin, Vladimir, 86 Lepsius, Rainer, 80 Lewis, Paul H., 47, 60, 113: classification of elites, 59; Latin fascist elites, 58 liberal democracy, 55 liberalism, 32–3 Linz, Juan J., 10–12, 19, 31, 42, 44–5, 50, 64, 67, 73, 75, 90: corporatism, 126; single parties, 116 Lithuania, 10: 1926 coup, 144; Christian Democrats, 144; concordat, 144; corporatism, 144; Tautininkai, 144 Loewenstein, Karl, 124 London School of Economics, 68 Ludendorff, General Erich, 7 Lyttelton, Adrian, 1, 48, 64 Mann, Michael, 3–5, 48–54, 61, 67, 75: authoritarianism, 53;

155 conservative regimes, 56; core fascist constituencies, 54; criticism of Griffin, 50; definition of fascism, 49; fascist characteristics, 55; Fascists, 47, 54, 64; First World War, 53; four crises, 5; ideology and interests, 53; property, 53; The sources of social power, 47 Mannerheim, Carl, 79 Manoilescu, Mihail, 65, 120 March on Rome. See Italy Marinetti, Filippo, 127 Mason, Tim, 63 Massaie Rurali. See Italy, Rural Housewives Maurras, Charles, 5 Mazgaj, Paul, 43 Melville, Andrei, 80 Merino, Salvador, 134 Metaxas, Ioannis, 143 Michels, Roberto, 35 Milosevic, Slobodan, 67 Milza, Milza, 12, 58, 93, 108 MNS. See Portugal, National Syndicalist Movement Mocidade Portuguesa. See Portugal, Portuguese Youth Mommsen, Hans, 57–8, 67, 117 Moore Jr, Barrington, 67–9, 75 Morgan, Philip, 72 Mosca, Gaetano 33, 41 Mosley, Oswald, 2, 32, 66, 80 Mosse, George L., 29–31, 41, 64, 67 Mota, Ion, 141 Movimento Nacional-Sindicalista. See Portugal, National Syndicalist Movement, Musiedlak, Didier, 47, 58, 60, 71, 83, 93 Mussert, Anton, 9 Mussolini, Benito, 1, 6–7, 10–26, 32, 57–60, 68–72, 83, 86, 90–97, 104: corporatism, 119; cult of Il Duce, 12; dismissal, 14, 95; militia, 96; ministerial elite, 59; PNF, 93–4, 110, 117; Republic of Salò, 14; seizure of power, 93 Nasjonal Samling. See Norway, National Union Nationaal-Socialistische Beweging. See Netherlands, National Socialist

156 Movement National Socialism, 1, 7, 11, 68, 76, 89, 101, 117 National Socialist German Workers’ Party. See Germany, Nazi Party nationalism, 3, 5, 17, 25–6, 32–3, 36, 39, 49, 56 Nationalsozialistische Deutsche Arbeiterpartei. See Germany, Nazi Party Nemzeti Egység Pártja. See Hungary, Party of National Unity neo-nationalism, 35 neo-socialism, 35 Netherlands, The, 9: National Socialist Movement, 9 Nolte, Ernst, 29, 34, 41 Norway, 2, 9–10, 24, 83: 1935 Trotsky Affair, 83; Germay, 2, 26; National Unity Party, 2, 26, 142 NSB. See Netherlands, National Socialist Movement NSDAP. See Germany, Nazi Party Obóz Narodowo Radykalny. See Poland, National-Radical Camp Obóz Zjednoczenia Narodowego. See Poland, Camp of National Unity OND, See Italy, National Workers’ Recreational Organization ONR. See Poland, National-Radical Camp Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro. See Italy, National Workers’ Recreational Organization Organización Sindical. See Spain, Syndical Organization Organización Sindical de la Educación y Descanso. See Spain, Education and Recreation Syndical Organisation OSED. See Spain, Education and Recreation Syndical Organisation Oxford handbook of fascism, 63, 65–9 OZN. See Poland, Camp of National Unity Pais, Sidónio, 129, 131 paramilitarism, 3, 49, 55 Pareto, Vilfredo, 33, 41 Parti Populaire Français. See France, French Popular Party

The nature of fascism revisited Parti Social Français. See France, French Social Party Partido Católico. See Portugal, Catholic Party Partidul Natiunii. See Romania, Party of the Nation Partito Nazionale Fascista. See Italy, National Fascist Party Patriotic Union. See Spain Päts, Konstantin, 144–5 Pavelić, Ante, 24, 25, 83, 86 Paxton, Robert O., 3–4, 7–0, 27, 48–50, 56–61, 71, 74–5: conservative regimes, 56; crises of democracy, 56; definition of fascism, 50; fascism as a latecomer, 55; fascism as a political phenomenon, 50; five stages of fascism, 48; four-way struggle, 10, 115; France, 56; Germany, 56–7; Hitler, 58; Italy, 56–7; Mussolini, 58; polarization, 56; The anatomy of fascism, 48, 60; theory of fascism, 56 Payne, Stanley G., 2–3, 18–19, 29–31, 41, 49–51, 67, 90, 105, 133: definition of fascism, 49 Peniston-Bird, Corinna, 74 Perlmutter, Amos, 76 personalization, 71, 76, 80 personalized dictatorships, 76, 90 Pétain, Philippe, 24, 25, 40, 86 Piasecki, Boleslaw, 23 Pilsudski, Jozef, 23, 139, 140 Pi-Suner, Viver, 113–15 Pittaway, Mark, 74 planism, 35–9, 42 PN. See Romania, Party of the Nation PNF. See Italy, National Fascist Party Poland, 22: 1935 constitution, 140; anti-Semitism, 23; Camp of National Unity, 140; corporatism, 138–40; Falanga, 140; German occupation, 23; National-Radical Camp, 23; Non-partisan Bloc for Cooperation with the Government, 139, 140 polarized pluralism, 8, 52 Polícia de Vigilância e de Defesa do Estado. See Portugal Politica, 68 Pope Pius XII, 124 Portugal, 2, 10, 18–20, 60, 83, 90–1: 1933 constitution, 132; 1933

Index plebiscite, 21; 28 May 1926 coup, 130; Catholic Party, 9, 20, 102, 131; corporatism, 130–1; corporatist chamber, 133; First Republic, 112; Italian Fascism, 18; Lusitanian Integralism, 80, 112, 132; military dictatorship, 112; ministerial elite, 112–16, 21; National Assembly, 133; National Foundation for Happiness at Work, 21, 104; National Labor Statute, 131; National Propaganda Secretariat, 103; National Syndicalist Movement, 2, 102, 112; National Union, 20–21, 102–4, 117, 131; New State, 20–1, 101, 107; Policia de Vigilancia e de Defesa do Estado, 21, 103; Portuguese Legion, 21, 103, 112, 116; Portuguese Youth, 21, 103; Salazarism, 59, 91, 103–4, 114–15; Spanish Civil War, 103 PPF. See France, French Popular Party Preto, Rolão, 2, 102, 132 Primo de Rivera, José Antonio, 2, 18 Primo de Rivera, Miguel, 124, 129–30 PSF. See Fance, French Social Party Quadragesimo Anno. See corporatism Quisling, Vidkun, 2, 24–6, 83, 86 Rapone, Leonardo, 29, 37 regime parties, 120, 126, 161 Rerum Novarum. See corporatism revolutionary syndicalism, 5, 32–5, 38–9, 43 Riley, Dylan, 69–70 Rocco, Alfredo, 127, 128 Romania, 2, 23, 55, 91: Corporatism, 141; Front of National Rebirth, 141; Iron Guard, 2, 23–4, 141–2; King Carol II, 24, 141; King Michael, 24; Legion of the Archangel Michael, 23–4, 141; National Legionary State, 141; organic nationalism, 141; Party of the Nation, 141; royal dictatorship, 141 Romano, Sergio, 29, 37–8 Russia: 1917 Revolution, 84 Sabine, George H., 68 Salazar, António de Oliveira, 2, 10, 18–22, 60, 73, 81, 90–1, 101–7, 119:

157 1926 coup, 102; 1933 constitution, 102; Catholic Church, 102; centralisation, 104; corporatism, 119; National Union, 102–3; NationalSyndicalist Movement, 102; New State, 102; regime survival, 81; technocratic regime, 60 Salgado, Plinio, 66 Sand, Shlomo, 29, 37–9 fascism as a pragmatic movement, 42 Sartori, Giovanni, 8, 52 Schuschnigg, Kurt von, 22, 74, 137 Schutzstaffel. See Germany, SS Sección Feminina. See Spain, Women’s Section Second World War, 2, 8, 14, 17, 92: dictatorships, 24; eastern Europe, 22; end of, 26; Hungary, 23; Spain, 19 Secretariado de Propaganda Nacional. See Portugal, National Propaganda Secretariat Seipel, Ignaz, 136 Seyss-Inquart, Arthur, 22 Sima, Horia, 141 Sindicato Español Universitario. See Spain, Spanish University Union Slovakia, 25, 143: 1939 constitution, 142; Christian solidarism, 142; corporatism, 142; German protectorate, 142; Germany, 25; Hlinka Guard, 25; Hlinka’s Slovak People’s Party-Party of Slovak National Unity, 25; Party of National Unity, 142–3; Slovak People’s Party, 25, 142 Slovenská L’Udová Strana. See Slovakia, Slovak Peoples’ Party Smetona, Antanas, 10, 144 social Catholicism, 22, 44 social Darwinism, 33, 41 social democracy, 44, 55 socialism, 22, 30–2, 35, 36, 39, 43 socialist nationalism, 5 solidarism, 122 Sorel, Georges, 35, 41: generation of 1890, 33 Soviet Union, 17, 87: German invasion of, 17 Spain, 2, 18–20, 55, 83, 90–1, 106, 113, 124: 1938 Labor Charter, 133–4; anti-communism, 105;

158 Catholic Church, 106; civil war, 18, 104; corporatism, 124, 129–30, 133; corporatist parliament 1942, 134; Cortes, 135; Education and Recreation Syndical Organisation, 20, 106; Falange Española Tradicionalista, 134; Falange support for Franco, 105; Falange, 2, 18, 105–7, 115, 133; FET, 18–20; FET-JONS, 18, 59, 105–6, 114–15, 133; Francoism, 18, 21, 59, 67, 72–3, 91, 104, 115; Italian Fascism, 104; Law of Syndical Union 1940, 134; liberal-Masonic conspiracy, 19, 106; ministerial elite, 113–6; National Consultative Assembly 1927, 130; organic democracy, 135; Organización Sindical, 106; Patriotic Union, 124, 129–30; political elite, 20; political families, 19, 105; Primo de Rivera coup 1923, 129; Second Republic, 2, 18, 104; social corporatism, 134; Spanish University Union, 20, 106; Trade Union Organization, 20; transition by rupture, 90; Women’s Section, 20, 106; Youth Front, 20, 106 Span, Othmar, 136 Spirito, Ugo, 122 Stalin, Josef, 86 Starace, Achille, 12, 14, 94–6 Sternhell, Zeev, 4, 29–32, 44, 67: Aron, 29; La droite révolutionnaire (1885–1914): Les origins françaises du fascisme, 29; Maurice Barrès et le nationalisme français, 29; Ni droite ni gauche: L’idéologie du fascisme en France, 29; Paxton, 48 Strana Slovenskej Národnej Jednoty. See Slovakia, Party of National Unity Strasser, Gregor, 7

The nature of fascism revisited Sturmabteilungen. See Germany, SA Sturzo, Luigo, 68 Serrano Suñer, Ramón, 107, 134 Sweden, 10 Szálasi, Ferenc, 23 Tiso, Jozef, 24–5, 66, 142 Toqueville, Alexis de, 69 totalitarian tension, 11, 26 transcendence, 3, 49, 54–5 Tudjman, Franjo, 67 Tuka, Vojtech, 25, 142 Ulmanis, Karlis, 144–5 União Nacional. See Portugal, National Union Unión Patriotica. See Spain, Patriotic Union United Kingdom: British Union of Fascists, 2 Ustasha. See Croatia Valois, Georges, 5, 32, 124 Vargas, Getúlio, 2 Vaterländische Front. See Austria, Fatherland Front Velchev, Damain, 143 Versailles Treaty, 6, 17 VF. See Austria, Fatherland Front Vincent, Mary, 73 Vlaams Nationaal Verbond. See Belgium, Flemish National League VNV. See Belgium, Flemish National League Von Schuschnigg, Kurt, 22 Weber, Eugene, 29, 34, 41 Weber, Max, 83–6, 126 Winock, Michel, 8, 29–30, 37–8 Woolf, Stuart, 63, 67