By SERGIO SCHARGEL*
Simple and simplistic definitions abound on social media, but only there can fascism be reduced to something as pathetic as just a “strong state.”
“everything they write / is nothing compared to reality / reality is so perverse / that it cannot be described / no writer has yet described reality / as it really is / and that is what is terrible” (Thomas Bernhard, Heroes' Square).
As any researcher of political theory knows, it is difficult to define what fascism is. Simple and simplistic definitions abound on social media, but only on them can fascism be reduced to something as pathetic as just a “strong state.” Recently, when promoting my new book, Bolsonarism, integralism and fascism, I received as a response an attempt to meme with a checklist of options to find out what fascism is, all reduced to: “The State should control the economy”, “The State should control the press”, “The State should decide labor relations”, “The State should prioritize people by ethnicity”, among others. Arranged in three columns, they appear: “Fascist”, “Brasil Direito” and “University student who calls you fascist”, the first and last, naturally, fill the entire questionnaire.
An interested party might then try to look at Benito Mussolini himself. After all, how did the father of Fascism define him? But such a task will also prove frustrating. Which Benito Mussolini are we talking about? The one from 1919, still with traces of progressivism? The one from 1922, forced into a coalition with the conservatives and liberals? The one from 1932, who seemed the almighty Duce? Or the one from 1944, Hitler's puppet? There are many Mussolinis within one. And there are many fascisms within one fascism.
How did fascism define itself? This is a more complex question than it seems, since its answer is changeable. Just like actions, discourses are not always coherent and can even contradict each other. Time inevitably transforms any narrative. In the case of fascism, this transformation is evident as the movement goes through different stages and cycles.
Fascism, throughout its history, has revealed itself to be a movement full of contradictions, not only between its discourse and practice, but also within its own statements. The “doctrine of fascism,” for example, promoted a fervent anti-liberalism, but this did not prevent Benito Mussolini from adopting liberal measures in the early years of his rule. In short, understanding Fascism requires recognizing these internal contradictions and the complex relationship between theory and practice.
Benito Mussolini did not even know very well what his movement was about when it began to take shape. It was more a union of various anti-communist currents than a cohesive ideological group – something that would only happen later. Proof of this is that his doctrine was only published in 1932, almost 15 years after the beginning of the movement, when fascism had already been firmly in power for years. Benito Mussolini's decision to formalize the fascist doctrine aimed to legitimize the regime both nationally and internationally, dispelling criticism that fascism had no solid ideological basis and was merely a mass movement without direction.
Fascism was legion. Benito Mussolini began his career in the Socialist Party, it is pertinent to remember, but was soon expelled for his warlike stance. Initially opposed to Italy's participation in the First World War, he quickly changed his position, coming to defend the country's entry into the conflict. This abrupt turnaround can be attributed, in part, to the funding he received from the French embassy. Two years after the end of the First World War, he founded the Fasci di Combattimento, fertilizing the embryo that would become the National Fascist Party in a few more years.
The war, in fact, played a crucial role in the rise of Benito Mussolini. Italy faced enormous challenges in reversing its economy from the war effort to civilian production and consumption, resulting in a crisis that devastated the middle classes of society – a group that would become the main support base of fascism. In the following years, the economic recession further aggravated the situation, weakening the establishment liberal-conservative, who did not hesitate to exploit the emergence of the fascist movement as an opportunity to capitalize on unprecedented mass support.
As the Italian economy began to recover, Benito Mussolini consolidated his power. This stabilization was accompanied by a gradual shift toward authoritarian policies as he consolidated his control over the Italian state. The post-war economic and political climate not only paved the way for Benito Mussolini's rise to power, but also provided the right environment for fascism's transition from a movement to an authoritarian regime.
Thus, people, even researchers who study the far right, forget a fundamental point: Hitler and Mussolini came to power through democracy. Only after a few years did they actually establish a dictatorship. There is nothing new in using democracy as a method to destroy democracy itself.
Both Nazi-fascist leaders, but especially Mussolini, claimed that their authoritarianism was a defense mechanism for “true democracy.” As Benito Mussolini said, democracy is a government without a king, but with several kings. Fascism uses democracy as a means of stealthily undermining it from within, like a parasite plucking the feathers from a chicken one by one, as Mussolini illustrated. In the end, it spits out a distorted version, often with a facade that may even resemble a democratic system, as happened in Germany, which preserved the Weimar Constitution.
The truth is that fascism was not thought up, but emerged as a sign of its time. Although Mussolini may have formalized Fascism, he did not invent fascism. Robert Paxton emphasizes this point: “We must have a word, and in the absence of a better one, we must use the word that Mussolini borrowed from the vocabulary of the Italian left in 1919.” Fascist movements were destined to emerge as manifestations of mass democracies. The creation of an official doctrine more than a decade later only reinforces this idea: the movement came first, the concept was formulated later. When studying fascism, it is crucial to understand that practice preceded theory, and that ideological construction came as an attempt to give meaning to an already consolidated movement.
Any similarity with the contemporary is no coincidence. If fascism was multiple in itself, if it is difficult to even speak of one fascism, how can we say that fascism died in 1945, with Hitler? From the beginning, it mutates, transforms, changes, adapts to the needs and particularities of its time and nation. Nothing is more comfortable for Brazilian extremists than to classify them as “populists”, denying, in the process, that the bacillus of fascism is more alive than ever.
*Sergio Scargel He holds a PhD in Communication from UERJ and is a PhD candidate in Political Science from UFF. He is the author of, among other books, Bolsonarismo, Integralismo e Fascismo (Leaves of Grass). [https://amzn.to/42poObH]
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