Nazifascism as a ruse

Image: Görkem Dalgıç
Whatsapp
Facebook
Twitter
Instagram
Telegram

By ROBERSON DE OLIVEIRA*

When accusing the Brazilian far right of being Nazi, fascist or neo-Nazi, what appears to be a strong criticism, a denunciation of an enemy of civilization, actually becomes a cloud of smoke.

“Rule: Call things by their name” (Lev Tolstoy, Diary entry, 17/01/1851).

For some decades now, a tendency has been consolidated among progressive and left-wing sectors that are active at various levels of political struggle in Brazil to refer to various factions of the Brazilian right and extreme right as Nazis, fascists, Nazi-fascists, neo-Nazis, neo-Nazi-fascists, etc. In fact, on many occasions, these factions of the right and extreme right reproduce attitudes and symbolism that refer directly to this ideology, as if trying to legitimize the name given to them by their political enemies. Furthermore, as a rule, they do not make the slightest effort to contest the name given to them, reacting in some situations with indifference and in others, with derision.

In general, several progressive and left-wing groups argue that the authoritarian vocation of these groups, the relentless persecution of workers' rights and their organizations, the authoritarianism, the exacerbated intolerance, the use of violence and the physical elimination of enemies as a privileged resource for political action, the misogyny, racism, homophobia, and aporophobia legitimize the labeling of this extreme right as Nazi-fascists. The impression given is that this denomination is used in an attempt to represent these extreme right-wing groups and their sympathizers as the incarnation of evil. And since Nazi-fascism was lavish in its use of barbarity and cruelty, the association seems to make sense.

But after all, is this extreme right, in fact, Nazi-fascist?[1] Does it make sense to call these far-right groups Nazi-fascist because they embody evil, cruelty, intolerance, and the exercise of open and unbridled violence against their political enemies, in this case, workers, the poor, and the vulnerable, the “different”? In this way, would Fulgencio Batista, Anastasio Somoza, Baby Doc, Mobutu, Suharto, Pinochet, and Medici all be Nazi-fascists, neo-fascists, or similar? Is it reasonable to argue that authoritarian or dictatorial, intolerant, violent, cruel, and oppressive regimes necessarily constitute lineages of Nazi-fascism?

This discussion may seem strictly academic, excessively abstract, even Byzantine, without much practical relevance. However, from the point of view we have adopted here, it has been urgent and relevant for some time now to demarcate the total and radical impossibility of associating the right-wing, far-right sectors and their sympathizers that exist in Brazil, and by extension, in all countries of colonial extraction, with the label of Nazi-fascist or similar.

As in the case of the concepts of totalitarianism and populism (the latter, in the version from the (19)60s), both of liberal extraction, by the way), the application of this label to the fractions of the reactionary propertied classes and their associates that operate in Brazil, obscures, dissimulates and camouflages rather than reveals and explains the real nature of the political program that unifies the various fractions of the right and the extreme right in Brazil. The result is the creation of a series of imaginary enemies and false targets for the progressive sectors and the left in general that contributes to the framework of widespread disorientation that prevails among the civilizing forces and the popular classes in the country.

Just in advance, and with a little provocation, the emergence of a Nazi-fascist right or far-right in Brazil would constitute an inestimable qualitative leap. At least we would not have to deal with the humiliating, servile, degrading and symbolically charged situation of a president of the republic saluting the flag of the Empire. Or can anyone imagine Hitler or Mussolini saluting the flags of England or France? A Nazi-fascist far-right in Brazil could at least be an additional pole of resistance to the lines of force that currently induce the country to a position of dog-like submission to the interests of the Empire on duty that characterizes almost all of the Brazilian property-owning classes and their associates, in civil society, the political system, the middle classes, the state bureaucracy, the Armed Forces, the Police Forces and the Judiciary.

A Nazi-fascist far right in Brazil could perhaps contribute in some way to containing the apparently inexorable trend that, from crisis to crisis, from privatization to privatization and in successive rounds of internationalization of entire sectors of the national economy, has been “promoting” the country from the condition of the empire’s backyard, dominated by encamped exploiters, to the condition of a wasteland, subject to various lineages of organized crime.

With regard to the left, in particular, it is intriguing that an era in which the demand for “rigor” in the declension of pronouns and in the naming of the various modalities of existence and expression of sexuality, for example, coexists naturally and comfortably with the scandalous lack of precision and clarity in the naming and characterization of the program and underlying political objectives of the forces that are the main enemies of so-called “diversity”. In other words, while in one field of political debate adequacy, “rigor” and “precision” in naming are demanded, in another decisive field, that of the precise naming of enemies, it is naturally accepted to call “a vulture my laurel”.

Nazi fascism? Neo-Nazi fascism? Neofascism?[2]

Let's get straight to the point. Why is it a huge mistake to call the various factions of the far right and their associates embedded in Parliament, the Judiciary, the Armed Forces, the Civil and Military Police Forces, the press, the business sector, the middle classes, coaches, YouTubers, and influencers of all kinds Nazi-fascists, neo-Nazis, and similar variants? Why are the political consequences of this mistake disastrous?

To answer the first question, there is no way to avoid rescuing the concept of the Nazi-fascist political phenomenon in its essential aspects. The next step would be to verify whether it makes any sense to resort to this concept to characterize the factions of the Brazilian extreme right and the project they have for the country.

That said, at first glance, it is necessary to make a huge effort not to notice the imperial nature of the Nazi-fascist ideology and program. However, it is not just any imperial program. It is an imperial program that is articulated at a certain stage of capitalist development in Italy and Germany in a context in which the world market is already divided and hierarchized among a few hegemonic industrial powers.

In view of this, in order to ensure the continuity of its economic development and affirm the sovereignty of the national state, the Nazi-fascist program has as its strategic objective to challenge and reorder the imperial order already established and dominated by the condominium of hegemonic capitalist powers. There is no possibility whatsoever of understanding the nature and program of Nazi-fascism if we do not pay attention to this essential element that, in the end, guaranteed the organicity of practically all the other characteristics of this project.

It is important to emphasize that Nazi-fascism cannot be reduced to a set of characteristics. Although several elements of Nazi-fascist ideology had been circulating in Europe for a few decades before they came to power, Mussolini and Hitler did not simply enter a supermarket of ideas and take from the shelves those with which they felt most empathy. Nazi-fascist ideology implied an organic, cohesive project for the nation and the state, guided by a vector of imperial expansion, financed by large Italian and German capital, whose objective was to project the economic and military power of the nation on the world stage and affirm the sovereignty of the nation-state before other imperial powers, whatever the cost!

Almost everything relevant implemented internally and externally by the fascist and Nazi programs in Italy and Germany was to meet this strategic objective. If we imagine Nazi-fascism as the scene of a painting governed by the rules of perspective, the imperial project that contested the hierarchy of power in force in the international order was the vanishing point of the painting, the reference that organized and dimensioned all the other elements that made up the scene.[3]

At the outset, it is necessary to recognize the astonishing lucidity and clarity of the Nazi-fascist leadership, Mussolini and Hitler, in relation to the size of the trouble they had ahead of them and the immense demands that would need to be met, internally and externally, in order to achieve their strategic objectives.

In both cases, as soon as they came to power, Mussolini and Hitler did not hesitate to unleash a relentless persecution against all possible sources of opposition, aiming to establish a dictatorship capable of ensuring the internal cohesion necessary for the large-scale external confrontation that they had no doubt they would face. This is where the anti-liberal, anti-democratic and anti-communist character of Nazi-fascism derives, and, as a counterpoint, the incorporation of the corporatist ideal.

In the Nazi-fascist conception, institutional coexistence with liberals, democrats and communists was unacceptable, since each in their own way conspired against the necessary social and political cohesion that the regime demanded to achieve its imperial objectives in the context of the 19s and 20s. Liberalism was considered a chronic threat of political and institutional instability due to its defense of individual rights, civil rights (freedom of the press, freedom of expression), for recognizing the legitimacy of the political-parliamentary struggle between legal parties and accepting the rotation of power through periodic elections.

Democracy was an equally unacceptable ideal, since the cohesion and continuity of the project could not be left to the mercy of open debate of ideas and the resolution of conflicts by majority decision. From the point of view of Nazifascism, its program was clear. There was nothing to discuss. It was about preparing the nation to implement it. Communism and organized workers were considered mortal enemies, since the doctrine contemplated the radicalization of the class struggle aiming at a revolution that would eliminate private ownership of the means of production, whose subject would be the workers. This was everything the Nazis wanted to avoid, since this doctrine threatened, at the same time, the social and political cohesion demanded by the program and the very reason for Nazifascism's existence, that is, the interests of the owning classes of big Italian and German capital.

The anti-liberal, anti-democratic and anti-communist elements of Nazi-fascism were also justified on the external plane, since the Nazi-fascist leadership attributed responsibility for the crisis that hit Italy and Germany in the post-war period to France and England, regimes affiliated with liberal-democratic governments. The fascists and Nazis did not miss the opportunity to mobilize the hatred, resentment and feelings of revenge of the popular classes against France and England in their speeches, since the Italians felt betrayed by having their imperial ambitions frustrated by the Treaty of Versailles.

The Germans, in turn, felt humiliated by the impositions of the same treaty that reduced the once powerful German economy to ruins. Just to reiterate, one of the main drivers of Nazi-fascist ideology was the visceral hatred against the established imperial powers because, and this was a fact, they blocked the economic rise of Italy and Germany and their aspirations to become powers, hindering the affirmation of the full national sovereignty of the two states. That is why the Nazi-fascists did not salute the flags that represented the empire on duty!

With the USSR the problem was different. The immeasurable natural resources that Germany, especially, had in mind to boost its industrial development, assert its sovereignty and force its entry into the condominium of hegemonic imperial powers (living space – I lebensraum). Nazifascism considered the extermination of actually existing socialism to be a condition of survival, both in its internal manifestation (German CP) and externally (due to the fact that the USSR held the necessary resources that big German capital considered necessary for the continuation of its development).

Internal social and political cohesion and the ability to confront external powers could only be achieved through a strong state. Hence the central role it plays in the ideology of Nazism. It is responsible for implementing and operationalizing, on the internal level (social, political and economic), all the measures necessary to make the imperial objectives viable on the external level. In other words, there was a close relationship between the objectives of imperial expansion and the forms of organization the nation-state should adopt to achieve them.

Workers were submissive but still employed; a solid alliance between the propertied classes, big capital and the party; eventual privatizations of strategic areas for national businessmen; large-scale state orders for national industries, particularly the arms industry. The large state orders for the Italian and German military-industrial complex were the pillar that supported the success of the Nazi-fascist program at home and abroad. At home, they generated jobs and wages for workers and boosted accumulation for big national capital.

On the external front, large-scale rearmament made the imperial project viable. Military operations to conquer territories, markets and resources would be the means by which the nation-state would qualify itself to claim and affirm its participation in the condominium of hegemonic powers of the current imperial system. These conquests, in turn, would also guarantee the conditions for the continuity of economic and industrial development and private accumulation demanded by the national property-owning classes, without whose support the power of the nation-state in relation to other powers would not be able to be sustained.

Racism, incorporated as a decisive element of Nazi ideology, was a corollary of the main programs of conquest and imperial expansion that were in force in the 19th century. The European imperial powers used theories of white men's racial superiority to legitimize conquest and the use of all types of violence to subdue territories, populations, and the large-scale confiscation of natural resources in Africa and Asia. The propertied classes in the United States used their version of racial superiority theories to justify the conquest and confinement in concentration camps, or rather, on reservations, of the indigenous people who occupied territories targeted by powerful economic interests.

The Nazis, in particular, adapted to their interests the racism that legitimized the imperial expansion of the European powers and the United States in a twofold movement. In the first step, they internalized for the European context the same procedure that the traditional European imperialist nations had been using to subdue the peoples of Africa and Asia. Just as the Europeans claimed a supposed innate superiority to justify their imperial actions in these continents, the Nazis resorted to an updated version of racism, claiming a supposed superiority of the Germanic peoples over the other peoples of Europe to justify their ambitions for imperial power in the European scenario.

What the Nazis did, basically, was to turn against the European imperial powers the same racist ideas that they had been using to legitimize their conquests in Africa and Asia. The second step was to incorporate, almost without modification, the doctrine of Manifest Destiny, according to which divine providence had assigned white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men (WASP) of the United States, the task of expanding the experiment in freedom and democracy that they had implanted in America. A corollary of this doctrine was a supposed racial superiority WASP to legitimize the conquest of territories and, ultimately, the extermination of the indigenous populations of the West of the American subcontinent.

Since the natives were an obstacle to this expansion and, in addition, there was a great difference between their habits and customs and those of the white man, the step to consider them a sub-human “race” was not long in coming. The problem they represented had two types of solutions; the first consisted of removing them from economically important territories and confining them to concentration camps, or rather, reservations, in which the extinction of these native peoples was more or less evident in the long term (definitive solution – ultimate solution); or make them economically useful by employing them in forced labor camps.

The major US economic groups considered that the indigenous peoples were an obstacle to territorial integration, hindering the accumulation of capital and compromising the economic development necessary to reinforce the power and sovereignty of the nation-state. Either they were to be brought into line to contribute to these objectives or they had to be exterminated. The Nazis, except for divine delegation, did not feel the need to make any further changes to the US racist program.

It fit perfectly with the destiny that the Nazis intended to give to the territories of the USSR and to the Slavic peoples, who were considered by them exactly like the American Indians by the white Anglo-Saxon Protestant men of the USA. The general plan of the Nazis for the USSR and Asia in general was to conquer and transform the continent and its predominantly Slavic population into an immense forced labor camp for the benefit of big German capital and the imperial power of the Third Reich. Hence, racism played, with certain particularities, a highly functional role in the Nazi-fascist imperial program, just as it had been playing in other competing imperial programs.

The convergence with the imperial project of ensuring maximum internal cohesion to enhance the vectors of expansion and conquest aiming at the affirmation of the power of the nation-state internally and before other imperial powers can be observed in other aspects of the Nazi-fascist ideology and program, such as in the control of the media, in cultural policy, in the cultural industry.

There was a State plan for each of these spheres in line with the most cherished ideological values ​​of Nazifascism, such as those listed here. This characterization could go on, but I believe the panel presented, although incomplete, is sufficient to demarcate some of the main elements of the Nazifascist ideology and program, highlighting its objectives, the main elements of the doctrine and program and the way in which they were articulated with a view to meeting its strategic objectives.

Nazifascism, neofascism in Brazil?

That said, it is worth asking to what extent the Nazi-fascist ideology and program that we have explored so far can be related to what the extreme right thinks and proposes for Brazil?

Now, a glimpse, even if precarious and superficial, clearly shows that, at least since the post-World War II period, the essence of the far right's program for the country has been to undertake all kinds of efforts to reinforce its colonial extraction, reiterating its condition as a major supplier of commodities agricultural, mineral (and more recently, commodities financial and animal protein) whose export generates sufficient resources to ensure the flow of imports of high value-added “beads”, produced by the large industrial corporations of the imperial condominium administered by the USA.

Strictly speaking, strictly speaking, having made the necessary adaptations in relation to the type of commodities that the country exports and in relation to the type of mechanism for extracting the surplus, which has changed over time, this general model can be traced back to the 16th century. In these terms, the extreme right that exists in Brazil today would be just the end point of a long trajectory of the propertied classes that for five centuries have been acting systematically and successfully, always with the support of the empires in power, to keep the country, essentially, as a supplier of agricultural and mineral products for export.

With globalization, a new type of commodities, the financial one. Our currency, the exchange rate, public debt securities, the stock market, all these assets also became part of the shelf of financial products through which the imperial condominium managed by the USA extracts huge surpluses and increases the value of its liquid capital.[4]

Over the last forty years, several measures have been adopted to ensure that this model, typical of colonial extraction (characterized by political submission and economic plunder), is repeated. Among these measures, the imposition of strict limits on public spending and investment stands out, so that policies to stimulate domestic demand, financing and the creation of large national industrial groups (“national champions”) are blocked. In addition, a hostile environment for private investment in the industrial sector has been created by maintaining interest rates at outrageously high levels for decades, much higher than those practiced by the major G10 economies, for example.

To achieve this, the monetary policy manager, the Central Bank, must be immune to pressures that could reduce interest rates, make credit cheaper and stimulate growth and development. In other words, the Central Bank must be independent of the State and subject to demands for remuneration of net capital (domestic and foreign). Measures were adopted to privatize strategic state-owned companies to prevent them from being used as development instruments by the State. The most timid industrial policy initiatives, such as those practiced by all currently industrialized countries, were terminated.

The scarce resources available for investment, both internal and external, were channeled into research sectors aimed at increasing productivity. commodities agricultural, to increase the volume of these exports, reduce their prices and reinforce the country's dependence on the export of these commodities (Embrapa). At the same time, the purchasing power of the vast majority of the population is kept close to the subsistence level or below, since an increase in internal demand could translate into a reduction in the supply of commodities agricultural products and animal protein destined for export.

The reduction in supply destined for the external market would increase the prices of these commodities in global markets and would increase import costs for the powers of the imperial condominium. In other words, keeping millions of Brazilians close to or below the subsistence line is functional to the great interests of the imperial condominium because the transformation of these millions of Brazilians into consumers of commodities agricultural and animal protein, would translate into an increase in the prices that the imperial condominium pays for these products. Hence, the entry of millions of Brazilians into the consumer market, especially for basic products, is not necessarily good news for the imperial condominium and the property-owning classes that earn in dollars.

Although many people do not realize it, the elimination of poverty, misery and hunger in Brazil, and the creation of a large domestic market, cannot be reduced to a social and economic problem. It is, above all, a geopolitical problem and involves aspects of national sovereignty. It is no coincidence that all governments that have tried to address this problem to date have been targeted by the manager of the imperial condominium and have been shot down in mid-flight.

Liberals, far right and the great consensus.

In short, over the last forty years, the program of the far right, and of the right in general, for Brazil has been limited to implementing, without anesthesia, the program developed by the multilateral credit organizations based in Washington, which can be summed up as the elimination of the role of the state in development tasks, fiscal balance at any cost, trade and financial liberalization, and the privatization of public services. Strictly speaking, the program of all factions of the right in Brazil (from liberals to the far right, from Faria Lima to Bolsonaro) has been basically the same for some time now. The ultimate and strategic objective is to maintain and reproduce our status as the “world’s farm.” What differentiates the factions of the right are the ways in which this objective can be achieved.

Liberals and their allies believe that it is possible to maintain Brazil as the “world’s farm” while preserving the small enclosure of democracy that truly exists in Brazil. They believe that by dismantling the party structure, freedom of the press, holding periodic elections and supporting the diversity agenda, providing scholarships to Harvard for young people from the outskirts and the middle class, among other things, it is perfectly possible to maneuver the correlation of political forces in such a way as to prevent left-wing groups and other civilizing factions of our society from joining forces to overcome the “world’s farm” model in the long term.

The far right, for its part, believes that the best way to achieve the “world farm” model is to simply exterminate the groups that oppose it. This explains its ongoing flirtation with dictatorship. It believes that by exterminating the left, it will be able to take all necessary measures to definitively reduce the country to the conditions of a “world farm” or a consummate protectorate of the imperial condominium administered by the United States.

Who knows, it might even turn the country into the fifty-first state of the empire or even into a vast territory with a status similar to that of Puerto Rico. If all this may seem like an exaggeration, perhaps it is worth remembering that Brazil has gone through a savage process of privatization and deindustrialization in the last forty years.[5].

Since the discovery of pre-salt oil and the adoption of the sharing system, the country has been under a fierce, uninterrupted and methodical campaign of destabilization. At the end of Jair Bolsonaro's government, the share of industry in GDP was at the level observed in the years immediately preceding JK's Plano de Metas (1955). All the industrialization efforts undertaken during the Plano de Metas, I PND, II PND were practically destroyed during the governments of FHC, Michel Temer and Jair Bolsonaro. The initiatives adopted during the governments of Lula and Dilma Rousseff were insufficient to contain the forces that combined, internally and externally, to reprimarize the country.

Recently, we have seen the current government sponsoring new initiatives aimed at reindustrializing the country. Let us not be under any illusions. At this very moment, the empire is acting to, at the right time, put an end to this initiative, as it did in 1954, 1964, during the lost decade, with the imposition of the Washington Consensus, with the mensalão, with the Lava Jato operation, with the 2016 coup, with Lula's arrest... Brazilians may not have realized, but since the discovery of the pre-salt layer in 2006, the Empire and its internal agents have sponsored a methodical and systematic war against the forces that intended to impose some limits on the plundering of the country.

The 2016 coup represented the consummation of the defeat of these forces! What followed is what is normally applied to a country defeated in a war. The victorious troops began an operation of destruction and looting. The construction, shipbuilding and petrochemical sectors underwent a selective process of destruction, deactivation and privatization. The pre-salt layer was opened to American oil companies, under conditions of exploration and price per barrel at the well that bordered on confiscation; Petrobras was ordered to pay huge compensations in the US and became, in the following years, the oil company that paid its shareholders the largest dividends in the world, most of which traded on the New York Stock Exchange. Procedures in line with those adopted by the British Empire after the victory over China in the Opium War, when an operation of confiscation (of ports) and compensations followed to remunerate the military operation.

Lula's victory in 2022 and the initiatives for reindustrialization and the timid and careful assertion of national sovereignty that are following constitute an interregnum. The return of liberals or the extreme right to power (or both), already in preparation, through elections or a new coup, will result in an effort to revoke this set of initiatives and reframe the country to the designs of the empire, namely, reiterating the country's status as a supplier of commodities agricultural, mineral and financial sectors, in which a small portion of the population earns income to consume high value-added “beads” generously offered by the corporations of the imperial condominium.

Representatives of the far right (and we could say, the right in general, including liberals) in Brazil take pride in revering and saluting the flag of the empire. When they face difficulties, they seek refuge or assistance in Orlando, Miami, Langley (Virginia), Maryland and Washington. They even say that their cell phones automatically connect to the Wi-Fi network when they visit the CIA and the NSA. The far right does not hesitate to invoke foreign intervention in Brazil, as it has done in the past, because it sees no contradiction between its interests and those of the empire.

Without forcing the colors, their program could be reduced to two essential points: the first is the implementation of a dictatorship in Brazil and the second is, through this dictatorship, to align the country clearly, explicitly, fully and definitively with the dictates and interests of the empire. Few realize, but unlike what happens in European countries or countries that have overcome their colonial heritage, the Brazilian far right has not the slightest commitment to national sovereignty.

They go to demonstrations wearing yellow shirts, waving the flag of the empire and asking for the intervention of the marines. In the context of the 19s and 20s, can anyone imagine a militant going to a fascist or Nazi demonstration in Italy or Germany waving the flags of England or France? The far right around the world is nationalist and chauvinist. Right-wing extremists in Brazil are pro-imperialist.

In short, the underlying program that unifies the various factions of the Brazilian right, from liberals (of all stripes) to the most extreme groups, is to definitively transform the country into a reprimarized vassal state. Liberals and the far right differ on the best way to achieve this strategic objective. Liberals believe that it is perfectly possible to do so under the conditions of democracy that actually exists in the country. The far right believes that the best way is to establish a dictatorship, exterminate the left and definitively adapt the country to the designs of the empire.

Delay as a cohesion factor.

Perhaps it would be a good idea to consider this point more carefully. This current split between the Brazilian property-owning classes (from liberal factions to the extreme right) is a re-enactment, with new content, of the split that arose between the Brazilian property-owning classes during the transition from colonial status to that of an independent state. Between 1822 and 1840, apart from the various projects that emerged for the country during this period, two stood out as the most influential. The first to emerge shortly after the break with Portugal was the “federalist” or “autonomist” “project.”

It brought together the fractions of the propertied classes that wanted to ensure a certain degree of autonomy for the provinces in relation to the central power based in Rio de Janeiro. The other “project”, whose main exponent and defender was José Bonifácio, defended a model of a centralized state in which the provinces would have their political prerogatives severely restricted. The clash between these two “projects” was already insinuated in the debates during the drafting of the first constitution. But it became radical during the Regency period (1831-1840) when disputes over the division of power between the aristocratic fractions that controlled the central power, based in Rio de Janeiro, and the provincial aristocratic groups, evolved into an open civil war with the revolts of Cabanagem, in Pará, Farrapos, in Rio Grande do Sul, Sabinada, in Bahia, and Balaios, in Maranhão.

These conflicts were eventually resolved in the early 18s with the implementation of the Second Reign and the establishment of a monarchical model more in line with the project of the aristocratic factions that defended a centralized state with consequent restrictions on the prerogatives of provincial powers. It is not the case here to go into the particularities of each of these revolts, some of which were separatist and republican and others which simply sought to expand the prerogatives of power in the provinces.

The question that interests us here is that the aristocratic factions that decided the fate of the post-independence imperial state diverged for a time on the model of state to be adopted, whether centralized or federalist, but there was a fundamental feature of our formation of colonial extraction that unified them. This common element around which the convergence between the various aristocratic factions was total consisted of the barbarity of slavery. They could take up arms for various reasons, but the communion around slavery was absolute.

This resolute cohesion around slavery will explain a lot. It will help us understand the motivations behind the implementation of the Second Reign, from the conflicts with England to the abolition of slave trade in 1850.[6]; will help to understand the difficulties of abolitionism and, finally, the great economic backwardness accumulated by the country as a result of the end of slavery having occurred only at the end of the 19th century. While the country was trying to settle accounts with slavery, industrialization was advancing rapidly in other countries and the inter-imperialist race put armed conflict between the powers on the horizon.

What is the purpose of this digression? In order to gain a historical perspective on our situation and the issues that have been at stake for some decades now, I believe it is possible to observe some parallels between the dilemmas of the construction of the imperial state and the recent trajectory of the struggles that have been going on in the Brazilian national state. In the Imperial period, the aristocratic factions had their differences regarding what type of monarchical state to adopt (“federalist” or centralized), but they had a fundamental convergence, namely, an unshakeable commitment to the barbarity of slavery.

Currently, the main fractions of the propertied classes (from the most enlightened liberals to the crude extreme right and all those within their sphere of influence) admit to some degree of divergence in relation to the type of regime most suited to the country, a liberal democracy or a dictatorship, but there is something around which they maintain a fundamental agreement, an equally unassailable commitment, namely, the consummation of a reprimarized vassal State.

While countries like the USA, Russia, China, India (the few countries in the world that can be compared to Brazil when we consider territory, population, availability of natural resources for development and to ensure food and energy security) strive to reinforce the sovereignty of their respective nation-states by strengthening their industry, deepening their technological capabilities, increasing the power of their armed forces, their nuclear arsenal, etc. In Brazil, the owning classes and their spokespeople place all kinds of obstacles and objections to reindustrialization programs, openly and shamelessly assuming the strategic objective of consummating a vassal state reduced to the condition of a world farm.

At the end of the first quarter of the 21st century, Brazil has not yet come to terms with the national sovereignty of its nation-state and is still debating whether or not to industrialize. Meanwhile, in the US, Russia, China and India, these two issues have been resolved for decades, in some cases for more than a century.

Returning to the question

That said, let's return to the initial question proposed. What does this program and this role that the extreme right arrogates to itself in Brazil have to do with Nazifascism?

The essence of the ideology and program of the extreme right (and the right as a whole) for Brazil is the exact opposite of the ideology and program of Nazifascism.

The essential feature of the ideology of the Brazilian far right is that of colonial reconversion, deindustrialization, and the crushing of national sovereignty. Everything it thinks and does aims to keep the country in the position of the empire's backyard. More recently, it has worked to promote the country as a wasteland. See the destructive action exercised between 2019 and 2022 in the economy, in public policies aimed at development, science, education, health, culture, the environment, cutting-edge technology, etc.

The Nazi-fascist ideology and program were characterized as an imperial project of expansion, conquest, industrial development and affirmation of the sovereignty of the nation-state, whatever the cost! They did not hesitate to set the world on fire to achieve the goal of including Italy and Germany in the condominium of industrialized, imperial and hegemonic nations.

Why it was possible to associate an imperial ideology of aggressive expansion and affirmation of the nation-state through a global war with an extreme right that assumes the role of henchman of an external imperial power without the slightest commitment to the sovereignty and affirmation of the nation-state is a mystery that deserves to be unraveled. In the case of Nazi-fascism, the dictatorship was a political device to ensure internal cohesion, project the power of the nation-state on the international stage and affirm it among the powers. For decades, the Brazilian extreme right has dreamed of a dictatorship that would definitively and consummately align our economy and the nation-state with the interests of the empire.

The word that defines the far right in Brazil is not fascism or Nazism or anything similar. The Brazilian far right does not have the slightest connection with Nazism. The barbarity that characterizes it is a direct heir to our colonial and slave-owning tradition.[7] It plays a role equivalent to that of the colonial sugar mill owner's henchman. It exists to guarantee order among the slaves on the large exporting property in the expectation of protection and rewards.

The nickname of jagunço, capitão de mato, capanga or, for those who prefer a more up-to-date terminology, proxy of the empire, suits him well because he is a paid agent, fierce in the position of command, but of submission and dog-like obedience to the manager of the empire, always in the hope of protection and rewards. Nazi-fascist barbarity, on the other hand, refers to another legacy, resulting from a distinct historical process in which the achievement of national unity, industrial modernization and the search for a place among the powers, occurred in a context of exacerbation of inter-imperialist conflicts.

Nazi-fascism is an agent of internal interests, led by big national capital. It aims to promote industrial development and affirm the sovereignty of the nation-state by confronting other powers and resorting to war, if necessary. This is a description! In our case, the factions of the Brazilian extreme right disseminated within the Armed Forces, the Judiciary, the state bureaucracy, the mainstream press, the propertied classes, the middle classes, etc. compete frantically with each other to promote the empire's designs in the country more efficiently, always in the expectation of protection and rewards.

In the case of Nazism, the interests that guided the doctrine were contrary, opposed to those of the other imperial powers in the sense that gains on one side implied losses on the other. The result was confrontation, war. In the case of the extreme right in Brazil, its interests are convergent, coincide with the interests of the empire, and are contrary, antagonistic to development, to the well-being of the nation and the affirmation of national sovereignty.

Hence their actions for secular political submission, for the reprimarization of production, for the reproduction of poverty, misery and hunger and all the other ills that block the country's development. There are common elements, but their proposals are completely distinct, exclusive, incommensurable. We are not facing a particular manifestation of a general phenomenon (Nazifascism, in this case). They are distinct phenomena, of a distinct nature and central antagonistic propositions.

So, why is it a tragic mistake to use the term Nazi-fascists to designate the extreme right in Brazil? What is the practical effect, or perhaps more precisely, what is the side effect of this very common procedure on the left?

The empire spends hundreds of millions of dollars annually on its news agencies and its cultural industry (cinema, music, shows, etc.) to convey in occupied countries, or countries under subjugation, or countries with a fragile cultural identity, or those that meet all three conditions, an image of a champion of freedom, defender of justice, and enemy of oppressors and dictators. In other words, the empire spends a significant amount of resources to establish its image as a “good guy,” defender of the best causes and of a world based on rules (created by whom?).

Whenever we call a representative of the far right in Brazil, or what amounts to the same thing, an agent of the empire, a Nazi, a fascist or the like, the empire's paw disappears. In the absence of a counterpoint, the symbolic field is free for the news agencies and the empire's cultural industry to fix their image as a champion of freedom and justice. When we call a Brazilian right-wing extremist a fascist because he or she defends the implementation of a dictatorship in Brazil, for example, we are helping to camouflage this agent, because he or she is, in fact, a fascist. proxy of the empire.

Once again, for the Brazilian far right, the establishment of a dictatorship only makes sense if it is to fulfill the empire's designs in what it considers a backyard of more than eight million square kilometers. By accusing the Brazilian far right of being Nazis, fascists, neo-Nazis, etc., what appears to be a strong criticism, a denunciation of an enemy of civilization, in fact becomes a cloud of smoke, or a camouflage that hides the real nature of the target of the criticism or denunciation. They know this, they provoke... and they have fun! And the empire, wholeheartedly, thanks them!

Fulgencio Batista, Anastasio Somoza, Baby Doc, Mobutu, Suharto, Pinochet, Medici, Rafael Videla and many other dictators of the post-colonial world were agents of external imperial powers. There is a well-known name for this type of regime. It is called a protectorate!

They can exist in various forms or gradations, but basically the protectorate is a vassal state, governed by local, native oligarchic leaderships, but protected by imperial powers that support them, relying, ultimately, on an indirect military presence through deep connections and/or equipping of the Armed Forces of the submissive state, which is practically reduced to an imperial Praetorian Guard.

It is with this model of regime that the Brazilian far right has been flirting for quite some time, with a view to consummating it definitively. It is not about Nazism, fascism or neo-fascism, but simply about agents who intend to fulfill the role of thugs of the empire. Perhaps it is time to name them by what they really are.

*Roberson de Oliveira holds a PhD in Economic History from USP.

Notes


[1] This discussion is not new. José Chasin, in his study published in 1978, The Integralism of Plinio Salgado seeks to demonstrate the inadequacy of considering Integralism a local version of Nazism. This article seeks to recover the basic argument of the thesis by relating it to the current factions of the Brazilian extreme right and to the context of Brazil-USA relations after World War II.

[2] The aim here is not to provide a bibliographical retrospective of the subject. It is basically to recover the essential elements of the Nazi-fascist ideology and program around which there is relative consensus in the bibliography, emphasizing the organic nature of these elements in the context of the doctrine and program. In other words, the idea is to present the concept of Nazi-fascism as an organic whole, situated historically, abandoning the method of demarcating the concept by making a list of characteristics. For an introduction, see Hobsbawm, Eric. Age of Extremes: The Short Twentieth Century 1914-1991. New York, New York: Routledge, 1995.

Mazzucchelli, Frederick. The Years of Lead: Economy and International Politics Between the Wars. Cambridge, MA: Cambridge University Press, 2009.

Saes, Flavio A. M.; Alexandre M. General Economic History. Sao Paulo: Saraiva, 2013.

Konder, Leandro. Introduction to Fascism. Rio de Janeiro: Grail Editions, 1977.

Losurdo, Domenico. War and Revolution: The World a Century After October 1917. São Paulo: Boitempo, 2017.

————————-. Against the History of Liberalism. Aparecida SP: Ideas & Letters 2006.

————————-. War and Revolution: The World a Century After October 1917. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

————————-. Stalin and Hitler: twin brothers or mortal enemies? In 1917, The year that shook the world. New York: Oxford University Press, 2017.

Mattei, Clara E. The Order of Capital: How Economists Invented Austerity and Opened the Door to Fascism. New York: Oxford University Press, 2023.

[3] Regarding the concepts of “empire” and “imperial condominium” to which we refer here, see

Flowers, Jose L. (org.) States and currencies in the development of nations. Petropolis RJ: Voices, 1999.

———————– the american power. Petropolis RJ: Voices, 2004.

Wood, Ellen M. The Empire of Capital. New York: Oxford University Press, 2014.

[4] Fiori, José L., Medeiros, Carlos (org.) Global Polarization and Growth. New York: Routledge, 2001.

[5] Palm, Jose Gabriel. Four sources of “deindustrialization” and a new concept of “Dutch disease”. Paper presented at the Conference on Industrialization, Deindustrialization and Development organized by FIESP and IEDI, FIESP Cultural Center, August 28, 2005.

—————————. “De-industrialisation, 'premature' de-industrialisation and the Dutch-disease”. NECAT Magazine – Year 3, nº5 Jan-Jun 2014.

DEPECON – FIESP/CIESP. Loss of Participation of the Manufacturing Industry in GDP, Sao Paulo May/2015.

[6] Alencastro, Luiz Felipe. “The burden of bachelors” New Studies CEBRAP, no. 19, December 1987 pp. 68/72.

[7] Souza, Jesse. The elite of backwardness. Rio de Janeiro: Brazil Station, 2019.


the earth is round there is thanks to our readers and supporters.
Help us keep this idea going.
CONTRIBUTE