from The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton
Paxton, Robert O. 2004. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
10 -- Even at its most radical, however, fascists' anticapitalist rhetoric was selective. While they denounced speculative international finance (along with all other forms of internationalism, cosmopolitanism, or globalization--capitalist as well as socialist), they respected the property of national producers, who were to form the social base of the reinvigorated nation. When they denounced the bourgeoisie, it was for being too flabby and individualistic to make a nation strong, not for robbing workers of the value they added. [. . .] Once in power, fascist regimes confisticated property only from political opponents, foreigners, or Jews. None altered the social hierarchy,
11 -- except to catapult a few adventurers into high places. At most, they replaced market forces with state economic management, but, in the trough of the Great Depression, most businessmen initially approved of that.
66 -- Close scrutiny of business archives shows that most German businessmen hedged their bets, contributing to all the nonsocialist electoral formations that showed any signs of success at keeping the Marxists out of power. Though some German firms contributed money to the Nazis, they always contributed more to traditional conservatives.
102 -- In a situation of constitutional deadlock and rising revolutionary menace, a successful fascist movement offers precious resources to a faltering elite.
Fascists could offer a mass following sufficiently numerous to permit conservatives to form parliamentary majorities capable of vigorous decisions, without having to call upon unacceptable Leftist partners.
103 -- Fascists had also found a magic formula for weaning workers away from Marxism. Long after Marx asserted that the working class haqd no homeland, conservatives had been unable to find any way to refute him. None of their nineteenth-century nostrums--deference, religion, schooling--had worked. On the eve of World War I, the Action Francaise had enjoyed some success recruiting a few industrial workers to nationalism, and the unexpectedly wide acceptance by workers of their patriotic duty to fight for their homelands when World War I began foretold that in the twentieth century Nation was going to be stronger than Class.
Fascists everywhere have built on that revelation. [. . .] As for the Nazi Party, its very name proclaimed that it was a workers' party, an Arbeiterpartei. Mussolini expected to recruit his old socialist colleagues. Their results were not overwhelmingly successful. Every analysis of the social composition of the early fascist parties agrees: although some workers were attracted, their share of party membership was always well below their share in the general population. Perhaps those few fascist workers were enough. If the fascist parties could recruit some workers, then fascist violence would take care of the holdouts. This formula of divide and conquer was far more effective than anything the conservatives could provide on their own.
Another seductive fascist offer was a way to overcome the climate of disorder that fascists themselves had helped cause. Having unleashed their militants in order to make democracy unworkable and discredit the
104 -- constitutional state, the Nazi and Fascist leaders then posed as the only nonsocialist force that could restore order. [. . .] Fascist terms for a deal were not insuperably high. Some German conservatives were uneasy about the anticapitalist rhetoric still flaunted by some Nazi intellectuals, as were Italian conservativesby Fascist labor activists like Edmondo Rossoni. But Mussolini had long come around to "productivism" and admiration for the industrial hero, while Hitler made it clear in his famous speech to the Dusseldorf Industrialists' Club on January 26, 1932, as well as in private conversations, that he was a social Darwinist in the economic sphere, too.
Even if one had to admit these uncouth outsiders to high office in order to make a bargain, conservatives were convinced that they would still control the state. It was unheard-of for such upstarts to run European governments.
130 -- Since Nazism's defeat in 1945, German conservatives have made much of their opposition to Hitler and of his hostility to them. As we have seen, Nazis and conservatives had authentic differences, marked by very real conservative defeats. At every crucial moment of decision, however--at each ratcheting up of anti-Jewish repression, at each new abridgment of civil liberties and infringement of legal norms, at each new aggressive move in foreign policy, at each further subordination of the economy to the needs of autarky and hasty rearmament--most German conservatives (with some honorable exceptions) swallowed their doubts about the Nazis in favor of their overriding common interests.
218 -- 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 whihc a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
10 -- Even at its most radical, however, fascists' anticapitalist rhetoric was selective. While they denounced speculative international finance (along with all other forms of internationalism, cosmopolitanism, or globalization--capitalist as well as socialist), they respected the property of national producers, who were to form the social base of the reinvigorated nation. When they denounced the bourgeoisie, it was for being too flabby and individualistic to make a nation strong, not for robbing workers of the value they added. [. . .] Once in power, fascist regimes confisticated property only from political opponents, foreigners, or Jews. None altered the social hierarchy,
11 -- except to catapult a few adventurers into high places. At most, they replaced market forces with state economic management, but, in the trough of the Great Depression, most businessmen initially approved of that.
66 -- Close scrutiny of business archives shows that most German businessmen hedged their bets, contributing to all the nonsocialist electoral formations that showed any signs of success at keeping the Marxists out of power. Though some German firms contributed money to the Nazis, they always contributed more to traditional conservatives.
102 -- In a situation of constitutional deadlock and rising revolutionary menace, a successful fascist movement offers precious resources to a faltering elite.
Fascists could offer a mass following sufficiently numerous to permit conservatives to form parliamentary majorities capable of vigorous decisions, without having to call upon unacceptable Leftist partners.
103 -- Fascists had also found a magic formula for weaning workers away from Marxism. Long after Marx asserted that the working class haqd no homeland, conservatives had been unable to find any way to refute him. None of their nineteenth-century nostrums--deference, religion, schooling--had worked. On the eve of World War I, the Action Francaise had enjoyed some success recruiting a few industrial workers to nationalism, and the unexpectedly wide acceptance by workers of their patriotic duty to fight for their homelands when World War I began foretold that in the twentieth century Nation was going to be stronger than Class.
Fascists everywhere have built on that revelation. [. . .] As for the Nazi Party, its very name proclaimed that it was a workers' party, an Arbeiterpartei. Mussolini expected to recruit his old socialist colleagues. Their results were not overwhelmingly successful. Every analysis of the social composition of the early fascist parties agrees: although some workers were attracted, their share of party membership was always well below their share in the general population. Perhaps those few fascist workers were enough. If the fascist parties could recruit some workers, then fascist violence would take care of the holdouts. This formula of divide and conquer was far more effective than anything the conservatives could provide on their own.
Another seductive fascist offer was a way to overcome the climate of disorder that fascists themselves had helped cause. Having unleashed their militants in order to make democracy unworkable and discredit the
104 -- constitutional state, the Nazi and Fascist leaders then posed as the only nonsocialist force that could restore order. [. . .] Fascist terms for a deal were not insuperably high. Some German conservatives were uneasy about the anticapitalist rhetoric still flaunted by some Nazi intellectuals, as were Italian conservativesby Fascist labor activists like Edmondo Rossoni. But Mussolini had long come around to "productivism" and admiration for the industrial hero, while Hitler made it clear in his famous speech to the Dusseldorf Industrialists' Club on January 26, 1932, as well as in private conversations, that he was a social Darwinist in the economic sphere, too.
Even if one had to admit these uncouth outsiders to high office in order to make a bargain, conservatives were convinced that they would still control the state. It was unheard-of for such upstarts to run European governments.
130 -- Since Nazism's defeat in 1945, German conservatives have made much of their opposition to Hitler and of his hostility to them. As we have seen, Nazis and conservatives had authentic differences, marked by very real conservative defeats. At every crucial moment of decision, however--at each ratcheting up of anti-Jewish repression, at each new abridgment of civil liberties and infringement of legal norms, at each new aggressive move in foreign policy, at each further subordination of the economy to the needs of autarky and hasty rearmament--most German conservatives (with some honorable exceptions) swallowed their doubts about the Nazis in favor of their overriding common interests.
218 -- 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 whihc a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.
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