The Conceptions of Fascism, Anarchy, and National Anarchism
I recently finished the book Mussolini's Intellectuals: Fascist Social and Political Thought by A. James Gregor. In it the author explores the rich and varied world of the thinkers and intelligentsia that gave rise to, and support of, Fascism in the historical context of the regime headed by Mussolini and his Partito Nazionale Fascista (PNF). I can wholeheartedly recommend the reader to that excellent book for further inquiry on the subject.
I want to talk about what fascism is and it's relationship to the anarchist movement, both historically and in the contemporary context.
Some anarchists have been promoting the idea of National Anarchism as equal to or disguised form of fascism. In the ideological context I wish to prove that this is false and compare the differences between the two. Furthermore, I wish to undertake an intellectually honest appraisal of the subject without giving vent to pejoratives and constant moralizing that is typical of the Left on this subject.
First, some definitions. Much ado is made about the oblique definition of the word fascism in political discussions today. It has degenerated away from an ideology into an insult.
Historical fascism formed from a number of distinct attributes. This included an adherence to a centralized planned economy referred to as national syndicalism or corporatism and might today be referred to as gild socialism. The goal of the PNF's economic policies was to transform the mostly agrarian economy of Italy into one of the leading industrialized nations of economic productivity and efficiency. To do this they advocated for a system of complete government control of the economy and increase the participation of workers control in the workplace, the ultimate goal of which was to have the workers accede to the dominant position of political power in the country. Completely aware of the disaster that transpired in Soviet Russia with the immediate effects of destroying all industry by "socializing" the entire economy, leading to famines and innumerable hardships, they commenced on a conservative and evolutionary path to reaching their goal. Their means were strict and uncompromising, Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato, ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.") was their motto. This insistence on state-sanctioned and evolutionary growth of workers power is the basis of anarchist objections to fascism as a political ideology.
Many anarchists today believe that to reach a classless, anti-hierarchical society where anti-authoritarianism rules the day must have no state intervention whatsoever and must be a bottoms up, internationalist undertaking. A neat explanation of the doctrinal reasons for this is what Hakim Bey describes as the technique of immediatism(*). If the degree by which libertarian, non-government induced methods of community empowerment are practiced in Western countries, it can safely be said that all hitherto attempts at promoting freedom from government has failed and is failing at a tragically alarming rate.
Although by no means the only (or primary) anarchist rationale, immediatism is an excellent example of the motivations that make anti-Statist anarchism different from other class struggle movements such as social democracy and Marxism. Immediatism implies exactly what the word entails, that the revolution can and must be done immediately and without the mediation of agencies or political parties to control the course of events. In practice (and what Hakim Bey recommends) is a series of individual and collective rebellions against the social agenda of capitalism until essentially, differences between all races, classes, and genders are erased through the ecstasy of having a fun time as authority structures whither away into meaninglessness, as greater numbers of "poetic terrorists" take up the banner of anti-authoritarianism.
Using a government, that is, the State, to achieve these ends is anathema to anarchists for the belief that it impossible for a hierarchical organization to provide complete (and totalitarian) individual and collective liberty.
Moving on, Roger Griffin and Umberto Eco are scholars that have written much about historical fascism and often referred to as the primary meaning of the term fascism in a modern context. Take this from Griffen for example:
"Fascism: modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence."
Such definitions have little more than puff value when analyzed. Suffice to say in the first sentence the regimes of Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Stalin, Mussolini, and George Bush all fit in one happy camp. The second sentence is equally less helpful, Communist China, military juntas, monarchy, Castro, George Bush are all fascists. A tactic in political dishonesty is to use one term to describe a series of people as all representing the same interests. Anything seemingly un-liberal is NOT fascism. The third sentence is laudable as the number one opponent of fascism, communism, has caused one hundred times the rate of death of openly fascist societies(**). Historically, that would be limited to Spain and Italy. The last sentence can just just as equally be applied to the European Union depending on ones point of view.
A further complaint of the anti-fascist anarchists lobby is the appeal to the perceived nationalism, racism, and homophobia it implies (or in different times in history, promoted).
Each of these warrant their own bit of explanation.
Nearly all Anarchists are self-described as internationalists. This means that they perceive all nations as being the result of oppression and a false sense of belonging. The rise of the nation-state is said to have evolved through a false sense of isolation due to a shared culture, language, boundary, or otherwise, that people characterize themselves by. As such, the nation-state, and by extension, nationality must be opposed in place of an internationist position that rallies to the common cause with all struggles of workers (or all of the oppressed) around the globe(***). Identity politics are a constant source of anxiety in the modern anarchist movement (****). On the one hand they wish to appeal to the likes of potential revolutionary allies such as black nationalists, even though they wish to deny the validity of ethnic or national concerns in the class struggle. So far the anarchist movement is happy to have it's cake and eat it too: any European-ethnic nationalism is bad, while any black, Hispanic, Palestinian, Marori, Tibetan, etc (or in sum: non white) nationalism is desirable in so much as it is used to promote a revolutionary potential against capitalism in European-populated countries.
Racism is an evil referred to as either the result of fascism or implicit due to the nationalist or uniformly ethnic character that formerly used to define a people that lives in a nation-state. Originally Fascism was not a racist or anti-Semetic ideology as A. Gregor's book above carefully documents. Later on, in about 1937 with the deepening of it's relationship with National Socialist Germany, Mussolini made doctrinal changes to the fascist program that included racist and anti-Semitic notions. Most Fascists were not however biological racists that were characteristic of the National Socialists and there are well documented cases of non compliance with their anti-Semitic program.
Fascist homophobia stems from the primary insistence that men and women remain adamantly hetrosexual(*****) for reasons of national "vitality." Anarchists of course denounce any limit or pre-conceived role and function of a pre-defined type of consensual sexual practice.
At this point in the article we believe we have covered the major themes that describe the differences between Fascism and Anarchism, as they relate both ideologically and in historical context. Now I want to consider the role of all of this to the National Anarchist positions.
National Anarchists contend that an internationalist system of anti-authoritarianism is an incorrect approach to the question of territorial administration (******).
Central to the reasons for this belief is that National Anarchists disavow internationalist centralized political authority (for those unfamiliar with the term research the Communist International) as being contrary to anarchist principals. Belief in a truly bottoms up society would necessitate the free and accepted practice of decentralizing all political authorities and increasing local autonomy in it's own affairs. By allowing local autonomy (and disavowing one-liner anarchist "catechisms" that describe a subject by a pejorative) is that this does not deny the legitimacy of identity politics, or the universal belief that the existence of racial tribalism is everywhere and always oppressive.
National Anarchists contend that it more natural for a people to organize amongst themselves for greater political sovereignty then the international "working class." National Anarchists also believe that if history is any guide, not all belief systems, classes, sexual practices, ethnic groups, or religions, are mutually compatible for an "equal" existence in a political authority such as is attempted in the modern liberal democracy. We accept these differences not as false consciousness or "brainwashing" but characteristics that will always identify differing human groups that use inherently different customs from each other. This natural order is a part of the human diversity that makes us all different as individuals.
National Anarchists demand respect and tolerance for groups that peacefully coexist amongst each other. But we have no patience for those that would do harm to another for any reason. They affirm and respect these differences, not to be laid out in the rule of nation-states but tribal boundaries as established by local custom and the direct participation of it's human population. We believe that this integral view of a local society is a more important goal than the global seizure of the means of production by the international working class.
National Anarchists are equally unimpressed with historical fascism or it's newer variants. Anti-Statism is a principal that does not justify cooperation with the State in any circumstances. Totalitarianism that requires complete and total submission to the agency of a government to organize social life is at odds with National Anarchist insistence on autonomy and the decentralization of political power. The same goes for the ugly manifestations of racism, homophobia, and chauvinism that characterizes much of the national (if not global) debate on these issues. It is clear to this author that Mussolini (and by extension, Hitler and the National Socialists) would just as quickly persecute National Anarchists for their refusal to go along with his imperial fancies or domination of State authority in local affairs.
What we want the traditional Left of the anarchist movement who are inspired by such figures as Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, Durruti, and countless others is to go back to the roots of the movement and remember that anarchism is not a vehicle to promote neo-Marxism or closet State Capitalists who want to browbeat everyone in society with their politically correct superiority complex. In our movement we use history as our benchmark to measure success and in the history of the anarchist Left since the 1970s it can be proven that if the positions that were supported back then just as they are now were not universally true and correct in all circumstances and that we would long ago be living in the world that has been much discussed and long dreamt of, and yet is farther away then ever. Moving beyond the dogmas of conventionally accepted political discourse is the first step in breaking away from the intellectual chains that has held back the anarchist movement and the time to start this project is today.
Notes:
* Which in part can be read here.
** http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM
*** http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secD6.html
**** http://www.anti-politics.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=882&hilit=
***** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_of_masculinity_under_fascist_Italy
****** Chapter 26 Tradition & Revolution by Troy Southgate
I want to talk about what fascism is and it's relationship to the anarchist movement, both historically and in the contemporary context.
Some anarchists have been promoting the idea of National Anarchism as equal to or disguised form of fascism. In the ideological context I wish to prove that this is false and compare the differences between the two. Furthermore, I wish to undertake an intellectually honest appraisal of the subject without giving vent to pejoratives and constant moralizing that is typical of the Left on this subject.
First, some definitions. Much ado is made about the oblique definition of the word fascism in political discussions today. It has degenerated away from an ideology into an insult.
Historical fascism formed from a number of distinct attributes. This included an adherence to a centralized planned economy referred to as national syndicalism or corporatism and might today be referred to as gild socialism. The goal of the PNF's economic policies was to transform the mostly agrarian economy of Italy into one of the leading industrialized nations of economic productivity and efficiency. To do this they advocated for a system of complete government control of the economy and increase the participation of workers control in the workplace, the ultimate goal of which was to have the workers accede to the dominant position of political power in the country. Completely aware of the disaster that transpired in Soviet Russia with the immediate effects of destroying all industry by "socializing" the entire economy, leading to famines and innumerable hardships, they commenced on a conservative and evolutionary path to reaching their goal. Their means were strict and uncompromising, Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato, ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State.") was their motto. This insistence on state-sanctioned and evolutionary growth of workers power is the basis of anarchist objections to fascism as a political ideology.
Many anarchists today believe that to reach a classless, anti-hierarchical society where anti-authoritarianism rules the day must have no state intervention whatsoever and must be a bottoms up, internationalist undertaking. A neat explanation of the doctrinal reasons for this is what Hakim Bey describes as the technique of immediatism(*). If the degree by which libertarian, non-government induced methods of community empowerment are practiced in Western countries, it can safely be said that all hitherto attempts at promoting freedom from government has failed and is failing at a tragically alarming rate.
Although by no means the only (or primary) anarchist rationale, immediatism is an excellent example of the motivations that make anti-Statist anarchism different from other class struggle movements such as social democracy and Marxism. Immediatism implies exactly what the word entails, that the revolution can and must be done immediately and without the mediation of agencies or political parties to control the course of events. In practice (and what Hakim Bey recommends) is a series of individual and collective rebellions against the social agenda of capitalism until essentially, differences between all races, classes, and genders are erased through the ecstasy of having a fun time as authority structures whither away into meaninglessness, as greater numbers of "poetic terrorists" take up the banner of anti-authoritarianism.
Using a government, that is, the State, to achieve these ends is anathema to anarchists for the belief that it impossible for a hierarchical organization to provide complete (and totalitarian) individual and collective liberty.
Moving on, Roger Griffin and Umberto Eco are scholars that have written much about historical fascism and often referred to as the primary meaning of the term fascism in a modern context. Take this from Griffen for example:
"Fascism: modern political ideology that seeks to regenerate the social, economic, and cultural life of a country by basing it on a heightened sense of national belonging or ethnic identity. Fascism rejects liberal ideas such as freedom and individual rights, and often presses for the destruction of elections, legislatures, and other elements of democracy. Despite the idealistic goals of fascism, attempts to build fascist societies have led to wars and persecutions that caused millions of deaths. As a result, fascism is strongly associated with right-wing fanaticism, racism, totalitarianism, and violence."
Such definitions have little more than puff value when analyzed. Suffice to say in the first sentence the regimes of Abraham Lincoln, Joseph Stalin, Mussolini, and George Bush all fit in one happy camp. The second sentence is equally less helpful, Communist China, military juntas, monarchy, Castro, George Bush are all fascists. A tactic in political dishonesty is to use one term to describe a series of people as all representing the same interests. Anything seemingly un-liberal is NOT fascism. The third sentence is laudable as the number one opponent of fascism, communism, has caused one hundred times the rate of death of openly fascist societies(**). Historically, that would be limited to Spain and Italy. The last sentence can just just as equally be applied to the European Union depending on ones point of view.
A further complaint of the anti-fascist anarchists lobby is the appeal to the perceived nationalism, racism, and homophobia it implies (or in different times in history, promoted).
Each of these warrant their own bit of explanation.
Nearly all Anarchists are self-described as internationalists. This means that they perceive all nations as being the result of oppression and a false sense of belonging. The rise of the nation-state is said to have evolved through a false sense of isolation due to a shared culture, language, boundary, or otherwise, that people characterize themselves by. As such, the nation-state, and by extension, nationality must be opposed in place of an internationist position that rallies to the common cause with all struggles of workers (or all of the oppressed) around the globe(***). Identity politics are a constant source of anxiety in the modern anarchist movement (****). On the one hand they wish to appeal to the likes of potential revolutionary allies such as black nationalists, even though they wish to deny the validity of ethnic or national concerns in the class struggle. So far the anarchist movement is happy to have it's cake and eat it too: any European-ethnic nationalism is bad, while any black, Hispanic, Palestinian, Marori, Tibetan, etc (or in sum: non white) nationalism is desirable in so much as it is used to promote a revolutionary potential against capitalism in European-populated countries.
Racism is an evil referred to as either the result of fascism or implicit due to the nationalist or uniformly ethnic character that formerly used to define a people that lives in a nation-state. Originally Fascism was not a racist or anti-Semetic ideology as A. Gregor's book above carefully documents. Later on, in about 1937 with the deepening of it's relationship with National Socialist Germany, Mussolini made doctrinal changes to the fascist program that included racist and anti-Semitic notions. Most Fascists were not however biological racists that were characteristic of the National Socialists and there are well documented cases of non compliance with their anti-Semitic program.
Fascist homophobia stems from the primary insistence that men and women remain adamantly hetrosexual(*****) for reasons of national "vitality." Anarchists of course denounce any limit or pre-conceived role and function of a pre-defined type of consensual sexual practice.
At this point in the article we believe we have covered the major themes that describe the differences between Fascism and Anarchism, as they relate both ideologically and in historical context. Now I want to consider the role of all of this to the National Anarchist positions.
National Anarchists contend that an internationalist system of anti-authoritarianism is an incorrect approach to the question of territorial administration (******).
Central to the reasons for this belief is that National Anarchists disavow internationalist centralized political authority (for those unfamiliar with the term research the Communist International) as being contrary to anarchist principals. Belief in a truly bottoms up society would necessitate the free and accepted practice of decentralizing all political authorities and increasing local autonomy in it's own affairs. By allowing local autonomy (and disavowing one-liner anarchist "catechisms" that describe a subject by a pejorative) is that this does not deny the legitimacy of identity politics, or the universal belief that the existence of racial tribalism is everywhere and always oppressive.
National Anarchists contend that it more natural for a people to organize amongst themselves for greater political sovereignty then the international "working class." National Anarchists also believe that if history is any guide, not all belief systems, classes, sexual practices, ethnic groups, or religions, are mutually compatible for an "equal" existence in a political authority such as is attempted in the modern liberal democracy. We accept these differences not as false consciousness or "brainwashing" but characteristics that will always identify differing human groups that use inherently different customs from each other. This natural order is a part of the human diversity that makes us all different as individuals.
National Anarchists demand respect and tolerance for groups that peacefully coexist amongst each other. But we have no patience for those that would do harm to another for any reason. They affirm and respect these differences, not to be laid out in the rule of nation-states but tribal boundaries as established by local custom and the direct participation of it's human population. We believe that this integral view of a local society is a more important goal than the global seizure of the means of production by the international working class.
National Anarchists are equally unimpressed with historical fascism or it's newer variants. Anti-Statism is a principal that does not justify cooperation with the State in any circumstances. Totalitarianism that requires complete and total submission to the agency of a government to organize social life is at odds with National Anarchist insistence on autonomy and the decentralization of political power. The same goes for the ugly manifestations of racism, homophobia, and chauvinism that characterizes much of the national (if not global) debate on these issues. It is clear to this author that Mussolini (and by extension, Hitler and the National Socialists) would just as quickly persecute National Anarchists for their refusal to go along with his imperial fancies or domination of State authority in local affairs.
What we want the traditional Left of the anarchist movement who are inspired by such figures as Bakunin, Kropotkin, Proudhon, Durruti, and countless others is to go back to the roots of the movement and remember that anarchism is not a vehicle to promote neo-Marxism or closet State Capitalists who want to browbeat everyone in society with their politically correct superiority complex. In our movement we use history as our benchmark to measure success and in the history of the anarchist Left since the 1970s it can be proven that if the positions that were supported back then just as they are now were not universally true and correct in all circumstances and that we would long ago be living in the world that has been much discussed and long dreamt of, and yet is farther away then ever. Moving beyond the dogmas of conventionally accepted political discourse is the first step in breaking away from the intellectual chains that has held back the anarchist movement and the time to start this project is today.
Notes:
* Which in part can be read here.
** http://www.hawaii.edu/powerkills/COM.ART.HTM
*** http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/1931/secD6.html
**** http://www.anti-politics.net/forum/viewtopic.php?f=13&t=882&hilit=
***** http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Model_of_masculinity_under_fascist_Italy
****** Chapter 26 Tradition & Revolution by Troy Southgate
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