Fascism

In order to determine whether fascism is confined to being a historical phenomenon of the 1930’s and 40’s or if it can exist in our contemporary times, the term fascism must first be defined. According to Stanley Payne, fascism is a “form of revolutionary ultranationalism for national rebirth that is based on a primary vitalist philosophy, is structured on a extreme elitism, mass mobilization and the fuhrerprinzip [leadership values], positively values violence as end as well as a means and tends to normalize war and/or the military virtues.” Payne adds that this definition might only describe “interwar European fascist movements and not to a presumed category of fascist regimes or systems.” Despite his supplementary explanation, the goals and ideology of fascism are quite clear: to regenerate and revive a “modern, self-determined, secular culture” with economic corporatism that is anti-liberal, anti-communist and hostile to cultural pluralism and social division.

Since the fascist regimes of Hitler, Mussolini and Franco, several neofascists and Rightwing Extremists have emerged. Few of these parties truly encapsulate the original ideology of fascism but still possess a postmodern form of its philosophies. However, Payne believed that fascism is an abstraction that can never exist in its pure empirical form but simply serves to provide political phenomena with a basis for analysis. Therefore, although these new parties may not posses the same precise elements of 1930’s fascism, they still retain the same general notion that Payne defines, consequently establishing that fascism is not restricted to being a political phenomenon of the past but that it can change forms and can very well exist in a postmodern age.

Before the 1980s, many extreme right groups in Europe were marginalized because it maintained continuity with interwar fascism but the 1980s represented a radical break between 1930’s fascism and contemporary neo-fascism. By breaking the association with interwar fascism, the neo-fascists gained electoral credibility as a legitimate form of government. The key elements of this were the denial of fascist lineage, rejection of overthrowing the democratic government, abandonment of primacy of state in national renewal yet the preservation of anti-egalitarianism, anti-pluralism and anti-liberalism. Piero Ignazi describes this form as a “post-industrial fascism.” Some examples of these post-industrial fascists were Italy’s Liga Norte and Austria’s Freiheits Partei Цsterreich. This break in the fascist ideology was due to economical damages to self-employed and manual workers. The European neo-fascists now have more blue-collar working members rather than the middle class