Marxism Took on Properties of a Religious Conviction

By the turn of the century, as a consequence, a variety of Marxisms had made their appearance—each arguing that it was true to the ideas of the founders. Marxism had begun to take on some of the properties of religious conviction.

Like religious beliefs, in general, the Marxism of Marx and Engels was subject to regular reinterpretation by adepts, with each precipitating outcries of heresy and unorthodoxy. The faithful of whatever “orthodoxy” were convinced that a “true” faith might be discerned amid the growing confusion. Whatever their interpretation, the faithful tended to believe it to be the one true expression of inherited doctrine. Each community of believers conceived their own construction to be impeccably true—and that of others grievously, and perhaps maliciously, flawed.

--A. James Gregor, Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 50.

Empirical Science Challenges the Validity of Marxism

He argued that as a scientific enterprise, it was incumbent upon Marxism to continually test the accuracy and reliability of its factual claims. Furthermore, the canons of empirical science required that Marxism be prepared to confirm or disconfirm its predictions against the evolving reality of the modern world.... In almost all the cases to which Bernstein alluded, he claimed that existing data, and measurable projections, tended to disconfirm the empirical claims and substantive predictions of the founders of revolutionary Marxism.

--A. James Gregor, Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 49-50.

Revolutionary Variants of Classical Marxism Arose

Out of all this, revolutionary variants of classical Marxism arose. Several made their appearance at almost the same time. After the death of Friedrich Engels in 1895, no longer was there an authoritative control over developments of what might pass as ideological orthodoxy. Almost immediately after Engels’s death, Eduard Bernstein’s first efforts at theoretical revision made their appearance. There no longer was an “official” guide for what was to be considered Marxist “orthodoxy.” The result was a rapid unraveling of the dense ideological system as it had been left by its founders.

--A. James Gregor, Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 48. 

 

In the "War Against Fascism," the Soviet Union Is Portrayed as an Incipient Democracy

With the coming of the Second World War, “totalitarianism” was used almost exclusively to refer to the Axis powers. The Soviet Union, by that time an ally in the “war against fascism,” was generally exempt, with the often unspoken suggestion that Stalin’s Russia was some sort of incipient democracy. Those sympathetic to Stalin, Marxists of one or another degree of commitment, given their identification of fascism and monopoly capitalism, insisted that “totalitarianism” could only refer to fascist systems—with fascism representing the pathological reaction of capitalism in decline.

--A. James Gregor, introduction to Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 13. 

Giovanni Gentile: Philosopher of Fascism

The rationale of totalitarianism was articulated before the Great War of 1914–1918 by Giovanni Gentile—the author of the variant of Hegelian idealism that ultimately came to animate Mussolini’s Fascism. Before the First World War, Gentile had proposed a conception of political rule that conceived individuals organically united in a society that found its identity in an “ethical state.” Gentile conceived society and the state intrinsic, rather than extrinsic, to the individual. Like Hegel, and Aristotle before him, Gentile conceived the individual outside society and the state only an “abstraction.”

--A. James Gregor, introduction to Marxism, Fascism, and Totalitarianism: Chapters in the Intellectual History of Radicalism (Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2009), 11.

The Era of Tyrannies Dates from August 1914

Writing in 1936, Halévy proposed a kind of baseline that has held up remarkably well. Finding the resulting new regimes characteristic of the era, he described them not as mere dictatorships but as tyrannies, connoting something provisional, an emergency expedient as opposed to a full-scale system of government:

The era of tyrannies dates from August 1914, that is, from the time when the belligerent nations turned to a system which can be defined as follows:

(a) In the economic sphere, greatly expanded state control of all means of production, distribution, and exchange;—and, at the same time, an appeal by the governments to the leaders of workers’ organizations to help them in implementing this state control—hence syndicalism and corporatism along with étatisme.

(b) In the intellectual sphere, state control of thought, in two forms: one negative, through the suppression of all expressions of opinion deemed unfavorable to the national interest; the other positive, through what we shall call the organization of enthusiasm.

 --David D. Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great Politics (New York: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2006), 166.

Ariosophists Combined Völkisch Nationalism, Racism, and the Occult to Prophesy a Coming Era of German World Rule

The Ariosophists, initially active in Vienna before the First World War, combined German völkisch nationalism and racism with occult notions borrowed from the theosophy of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky, in order to prophesy and vindicate a coming era of German world rule. Their writings described a prehistoric golden age, when wise gnostic priesthoods had expounded occult-racist doctrines and ruled over a superior and racially pure society. They claimed that an evil conspiracy of anti-German interests (variously identified as the non-Aryan races, the Jews, or even the early Church) had sought to ruin this ideal Germanic world by emancipating the non-German inferiors in the name of a spurious egalitarianism. The resulting racial confusion was said to have heralded the historical world with its wars. economic hardship, political uncertainty and the frustration of German world power. In order to counter this modern world, the Ariosophists founded secret religious orders dedicated to the revival of the lost esoteric knowledge and racial virtue of the ancient Germans, and the corresponding creation of a new pan-German empire.

--Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, introduction to The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology (1985; repr., London: Tauris Parke Paperback, 2005), 2.

Abstruse Ideas and Weird Cults Anticipated the Political Doctrines and Institutions of the Third Reich

This is an unusual history. Although it presents an account of past events relating to the origins and ideology of National Socialism in Germany, its proper subject is not the parties, policies and organizations through which men rationally express their interests in a social and political context. Rather, it is an underground history, concerned with the myths, symbols and fantasies that bear on the development of reactionary, authoritarian, and Nazi styles of thinking. It is also a marginal history, since its principal characters were mystics, seers and sectarians who had little to do with the outer realities of politics and administration. But such men had the imagination and opportunity to describe a dream-world that often underlay the sentiments and actions of more worldly men in positions of power and responsibility. Indeed, their abstruse ideas and weird cults anticipated the political doctrines and institutions of the Third Reich.

--Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, introduction to The Occult Roots of Nazism: Secret Aryan Cults and their Influence on Nazi Ideology (1985; repr., London: Tauris Parke Paperback, 2005), 1.

Lenin Warned Against Stalin

This did not mean that Stalin would automatically become Lenin’s successor. Indeed, his ambitions incurred Lenin’s distrust to the extent that, in his Political Testament, Lenin warned against Stalin and, in a codicil added in January 1923, recommended his removal from the post of General Secretary. However, Lenin died before any further action could be taken and Stalin was soon able to put himself forward as one of the contenders for the succession.

--Stephen J. Lee, Stalin and the Soviet Union, Questions and Analysis in History (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2005), 1.

The Jefe Is Responsible before God and History

In the draft of his speech for July 18, 1938, commemorating the second anniversary of the National Movement, he applied the adjective “Fascist” to his regime and, more extravagantly, to the Catholic monarchs but decided to delete it from the final version. The official statutes of the party, promulgated on August 4, 1937, structured a completely authoritarian and hierarchical system. Franco’s role was defined in Articles 47 and 48:

The Jefe Nacional of F. E. T., supreme Caudillo of the Movement, personifies all its values and honors. As author of the historical era in which Spain acquires the means to carry out its destiny and with that the goals of the Movement, the Jefe, in the plenitude of his powers, assumes the most absolute authority. The Jefe is responsible before God and history.

 --Stanley G. Payne and Jesús Palacios, Franco: A Personal and Political Biography (Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 2014), 160-161.

Mussolinian National Socialism Implicitly Recognized the Permanence of Capitalism

In accordance with a now classic development, Mussolinian national socialism implicitly recognized the permanence of capitalism. Six months before the first shot was fired, the editor of Utopia expressed himself with great clarity on this subject:

Capitalism—that is, the economic-political system of the modern nations—confronts us with its reality. It is various and multiform: it is a reality in movement. At a certain moment, the socialists became victims of a very serious error. They believed that capitalism had had its time. Capitalism, however, is still capable of reversals, and its series of transformations has not yet come to an end. Capitalism presents us with a reality with many facets, especially economic ones.

This idea, which had been developed for a long time by the revolutionary syndicalists and which amounted to a defense of the existing economic order, now served as the starting point of national socialism, a link in the chain leading to fascism.

--Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, trans. David Maisel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 217-218.

Mussolini’s Theory of National Socialism

Mussolini’s theory of national socialism, as we have seen, progressed in stages and evolved together with a process of revising Marxism. But, as always, this evolution took place in accordance with the realities of the period: it accelerated from the winter of 1914. Originally, Mussolini’s national socialism was an offshoot of the antimaterialist revision of Marxism, but it gradually acquired its own character. As an independent phenomenon, Mussolinism was an amalgam of elements that, blended together in a kind of “mixer,” produced something very different from any of its original components. Mussolini himself played an important part in this process.

--Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, trans. David Maisel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 215.

Mussolini's Marxism Was the Marxism Revised by Sorel

In 1909 Mussolini was careful to point out that his Marxism was not the original Marxism known in Germany but a Marxism revised by Sorel.... In May 1909, Mussolini published his most important article on revolutionary syndicalism—a review of La teoria sindacalista by Giuseppe Prezzolini. In this article, Mussolini described himself as having been “a syndicalist for the last five years.” In making his adherence to revolutionary syndicalist ideas go back to 1904, he was faithfully reconstructing the reality of his first years as an activist.

--Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution, trans. David Maisel (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1994), 199.

Nationalism, Syndicalism, Gentilian Idealism: Three Components of Fascism

Nationalism, syndicalism, and Gentilian idealism were but three components in the generally messy mixture of Fascist ideas and aspirations.... More specifically, all saw the scope for a radical departure that, under present circumstances, would have to be overtly anti-Marxist.... the contrast between producers and parasites was more relevant for the foreseeable future than orthodox Marxist class conflict.... The sense of having worked through and beyond Marxism, as an outmoded nineteenth-century conception of problems and solutions, was a major aspect of the Fascist self-understanding and claim to leadership.

--David D. Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great Politics (New York: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2006), 195-196.

Sorel Advocates for Revolutionary Syndicalism

Understood from within the Marxian framework, the scope for a different, “socialist” kind of society depended, as Sorel saw it, on the industrial working class maturing and acting on its own, outside bourgeois political institutions. On that basis, Sorel became an advocate of revolutionary syndicalism, insisting that the possibility of revolutionary transformation rested not on political parties operating in parliament but on the syndicats, in the trade unions.

--David D. Roberts, The Totalitarian Experiment in Twentieth-Century Europe: Understanding the Poverty of Great Politics (New York: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2006), 110-111.