Transnational Fascism?

A leftist analysis of the failure to implement authentic transnational fascism.

Read the whole thing; here I examine excerpts and summarize my thoughts on the matter. To start with – the author.

See this.

Also see this.

Abstract

To better understand cross-border fascist solidarity, this article suggests a new conceptual framework revolving around the term ‘pan-fascism’ and its ‘paradox’. It argues that the existence or non-existence of a pan-fascist ‘paradox’ in the minds of historical fascists is a matter of optics, as it all depends on who is mobilizing the notion of fascist transnationalism. 

It is always easy to identify pseudo-intellectual leftist pablum by reading such phrases as “mobilizing the notion of fascist transnationalism.”  And now we have “unpacked” - 

Because of such optical issues, which all must be unpacked historically...

…the conceptual framework of ‘pan-fascism’ does not offer a simple solution. It, rather, puts emphasis on a key question: how did certain fascists, at various moments in their lives, think about the possibility of fascist transnationalism? To demonstrate the effectiveness of this approach, this paper takes the work, thought, and practices of the French editors of Je suis partout as a case study, and demonstrates how they attempted to reconcile their commitment to French nationalism with fascist transnationalism.

If we overcome the Culture Retarding petty nationalism promoted by some on the Far Right, then there would be no need to “reconcile” national and transnational fascism.

Although these editors at JSP publicly engaged in collaboration with foreign fascist movements from mid-1936 onward, they never renounced their commitment to French nationalism. This, then, raises a thought-provoking question that transcends the particularities of these French fascists and their unique contexts: how do nationalist-minded fascists think transnationally?

The people best suited to answer that question are actual fascists, not snide leftists writing superficial analyses that use obfuscating language to hide the lack of intellectual heft.

This article sets out to answer this question. The first section examines the historiography on transnational fascism and argues that the current theoretical framework for understanding cross-border collaboration and interaction between fascists is limited. It, thereafter, demonstrates that cross-border connections between fascists can best be examined from the conceptual framework of ‘pan-fascism’. Pan-fascism, as defined in this paper, contains the capacity of a very distinct way of understanding fascism, seeing that it seems to bear a paradox within its own name: how does transnational fascism comport with nationalist and imperialist aspects inherent to many fascist ideologies?2 It is this friction which makes ‘pan-fascism’ inherently unstable.

Putting aside the irritating leftist jargon, the core point here is the assumption that a paradox exists because fascism is inherently hostile to the other, with self and other defined in strictly ethnic and national terms; therefore, any type of transnational ”pan-fascism” is “inherently unstable.” This fallacy – or is leftist wishful thinking – will be exposed by my critique and comments below. At this point, we can understand that is petty nationalist/ethnonationalist versions of fascism that results in the stereotype underlining the assumption leading to the “paradox.”  It should come as no surprise that the name “Yockey” does not appear, not even once, in this leftist screed.  After all, a certain agenda must be promoted and, hence, source material must be cherry picked to fit that agenda. The agenda is, of course, to delegitimize transnational fascism, and, by extension, pan-European racial nationalism, and promote division within the international Far Right. That the Left finds willing accomplices for this agenda among certain denizens of the Far Right supports the Yockey’s contention that petty nationalist Culture Retarders are, essentially, traitors to Europe and to the West.

The word ‘paradox’, here, helps to underscore that there is a tension between the desire to create a community of fascist nations, or perhaps even a supranational fascist community, and the seeming impossibility of achieving this.3 This goes beyond the question of how one could create an international movement out of national movements, as there are a multitude of examples from the eighteenth century onward where nationalism was not primarily organized around defeating other nationalisms, but where nationalist movements aimed to dismantle—for instance—absolute monarchies, and dynastic state formations. Buried in there was also a latent possibility for conflict, but ‘ideologically’ these forms of nationalism were mostly structured around a common enemy. A great deal of ‘fascist’ ideologues in the first half of the twentieth century, however, primarily structured their thinking about ‘nationalism’ around defeating other nationalisms, rather than implying that national movements in different countries could happily exist besides one another.

That’s the sort of petty nationalist ethnonationalist that treasonous filth like the Counter-Currents crew promotes.

Apart from a conceptual friction in the term ‘pan-fascism’, the existence or non-existence of a pan-fascist ‘paradox’ in the minds of historical fascists is clearly a matter of optics, as it all depends on who is mobilizing the notion of fascist transnationalism; as well as on their reasons for doing so. Because of such optical issues, which must all be unpacked historically, the conceptual framework of ‘pan-fascism’ does not offer simple solutions. Rather it puts emphasis upon several key questions: how did certain fascists, at various moments in their lives, think about the possibility of cross-border fascist solidarity? Why did they—or: why did they not—believe that fascist transnationalism was intrinsically paradoxical, and how did this affect them, their thinking, and their actions? This framework, in other words, offers a distinct perspective to analyze how fascists mediated the relationship between nationalism and transnationalism.

The preceding paragraph is essentially meaningless nonsense.  It has no explanatory power nor does it point to any direction leading to such power.

The second section of this paper employs this conceptual framework in a very practical sense. It takes the work, thought, and practices of the French editors of JSP as a case study, and demonstrates how they attempted to reconcile their commitment to French nationalism with fascist transnationalism. 

I’ll look at what this buffoon has to say about that, see below.  Essentially, the French were hoodwinked by the Germans, but the delusional French were complicit in their own hoodwinking.

The third section of this article argues that one should consider ‘pan-fascist romanticism’ to understand how individual fascists thought transnationally. By zeroing in on the relationship between these French editors and foreign fascists, it illustrates that most instances of ‘fascist transnationalism’ were driven by distinct ‘romantic’ narratives. 

I’m sure I will not like any of that nonsense.

Practically, this means that the ‘myths’ are altered to cater to a different ‘in-group’. These narratives could be grounded upon antisemitism, pan-Europeanism, various forms of transnational racialism (such as Aryanism or white supremacism), anti-Bolshevism, anti-capitalism, or a complicated combination and overlapping of these and other ideas. 

Note – “myths.”

This third section also examines cases of interaction between the editors of JSP and various representatives of the German National Socialist regime in the 1930s. 

This emphasis on “the German National Socialist regime in the 1930s” mirrors the “movement’s obsession with that regime. Given what we will learn here (see below), which is generally supportive of the known historical narrative of the Germans being selfishly focused on narrow ethnic – or at nest, pan-Germanic or subracial – interests, this obsession has been unfortunate and feeds into the “movement’s” Nordicism and culture-retarding ethnonationalism.

The fourth section of this paper demonstrates that the narratives of ‘pan-fascist romanticism’ could be employed to achieve contradicting goals. Whereas they could stimulate and facilitate interaction and collaboration between fascists, they could also be used to manipulate foreign fascist peoples, movements, and regimes. Certain representatives of the Nazi regime, for instance, fed into a specific narrative of cross-border fascist collaboration, as a vehicle to further their own ultra-nationalist, imperialist, goals. Some of these representatives saw ‘pan-fascist romanticism’ as a form of camouflage, which could be employed to—temporarily—conceal Nazi Germany’s drive for geographical expansion and physical struggle.9 Through the continuing assertion and dissemination of ‘pan-fascist romanticism’ in their communication with French fascists, these individuals hoped to implant ‘pan-fascist illusions’ in the minds of France’s ultra-right, and aimed to further ‘obscure’ something which these Nazis regarded as the irreconcilable paradox of fascist transnationalism.

This is important and exposes one reason why the “movement’s obsession with the Nazi experience is so destructive.  Rather than being authentic “pan-Aryan” fascists, with an interest in the well-being of all Europeans, the Nazis had a “drive for geographical expansion and physical struggle” against other Europeans, and faked an interest in transnational fascism. Indeed, it was only after the disaster of Stalingrad that the more pan-European elements of the SS dominated over the more strictly Nordicist faction and it is questionable how sincere even that pan-European faction really was.  Did they have an authentic attachment to the pan-European ideal, or was it a desperate expediency to mobilize anti-Bolshevik Europeans to “buy into” German war aims?

And here is another important point. Is it possible that the “movement” learned from the Nazis too well? Just as the German Nationalists used transnational fascism as a camouflage to mask their narrow national imperialist agenda, and thus hoodwinked foreign fascists into accepting Germanocentric agendas under the guise of “unity,” so do modern White nationalists who are really Nordicist hoodwink Southern and Eastern Europeans to follow an agenda that exclusively serves Northwest European interests, with those narrow interests camouflaged behind a mask of “White unity.”  Thus, exposing the Nazi scam may assist in exposing the modern one, and pointing sincere pan-Europeanists away from the modern scam and toward an authentically pan-European movement.

The goal of this article, ultimately, lies beyond discussing the particularities of its case study.10 It demonstrates that approaching case studies from the perspective of ‘pan-fascism’ and its ‘paradox’ can make sense of the ideological flexibility found in the work, thinking, and practices of historical agents involved in fascist connections and collaboration across borders. It might stimulate scholars to turn, or stay, away from one-dimensional approaches to fascist transnationalism. And instead of trying to replace these inflexible perspectives with a new, global, or more complicated theory of fascist transnationalism, this paper—again—points towards ‘the pan-fascist paradox’. It does so for one reason in particular: fascism as a clearly defined body of ideas does simply not exist. 

That last part is really a stretch. Fascism may be protean but there is always a core present.  Whether one wants to deny that core id “a clearly defined body of ideas” depends upon one’s “optics” – to borrow the phraseology of this author.

The Heterogeneity of Fascist Transnationalism

Fascist politicians and intellectuals have often been depicted as ideologues who espoused extreme nationalism, condemned cross-border collaboration, and preached cultural parochialism.12 As a result, many scholars have approached fascism from a ‘national’ lens, and investigated their historical subjects in the context of national histories. Scholars of ‘international fascism’, in contrast, predominantly aimed to discern characteristics to differentiate between fascist ideologies and movements in time and space. Rather than examining fascist parties and practices in their unique historical contexts, they focused on constructing abstract typologies.13 A recent strand of research on ‘transnational fascism’, however, foregrounds cross-border cooperation and intellectual exchange between fascists. Certain scholars affiliated with this emerging school of thought have started emphasizing the pan-European elements of fascism, to challenge the conception that right-wing movements were purely driven by nationalism.14

Those “certain scholars” are on the right track, at least for fascisms other than the German variety.

One example of this is Arnd Bauerkämper’s article ‘Ambiguities of Transnationalism’ (2007) in which he effectively employed the idea of pan-Europeanism to emphasize the vital role of cross-border exchange and collaboration between European fascists.15 Recently, Bauerkämper published a collection of thirteen essays on the same topic with Grzegorz Rossollinski-Liebe, entitled Fascism without Borders (2017). The editors argued against the idea that fascism is inseparable from nationalism. Instead, they focused on ‘transnational connections and cooperation between movements and regimes in Europe’ and urged scholars to recognize the pan-European aspects of fascism.16 But while setting out to show that fascism transcended borders, the underlying thought that connected all the contributions in this collection was that a small group of right-wing politicians and intellectuals, to a certain extent, had substituted national borders with European borders. Rather than truly dismantling the logic of ‘thinking in borders’, and the nationalist sentiments underlying fascism, they simply displaced them.

So?  Leftists are offended that the fascist ingroup is limited to Europeans and does not include their favored Colored populations of African and Asian racial descent? I realize that leftist academics become hysterical over borders and any exclusion, but an ideology based in part on “ultra-nationalism” needs to define some sort of “nation” – be it ethnic or racial. A “nation” encompassing all of humanity loses any substantive meaning.

Studies that approach fascism from this pan-European fascist paradigm are particularly effective in elucidating the limitations of ‘national’ approaches to fascism. When trying to analyze the transnational dimensions of fascism, however, this perspective is limited in its own right, as it heavily relies on one particular possibility of transnationalism: pan-Europeanism.

Again, so?

Firstly, this notion of pan-Europeanism deals awkwardly with fascism outside Europe or collaborations between ‘European’ and ‘non-European’ fascists. One thing that comes to mind is South African right-wing nationalism in the 1930s. Whereas many members of the Ossewabrandwag felt closely related to the Netherlands and Belgium as their Stamlande [‘root-countries’], some of them supported the Nazis in their occupation of these countries, as they felt that it was a necessary step to defeat the British and dismantle their empire. Other examples are how the leaders of the Chinese government in Nanjing had become particularly enchanted by Italian and German fascism, or how a group of predominantly white and Dutch settlers in the Dutch East-Indies wanted to establish an Indonesian ‘fatherland’ independently from the Netherlands; for which they employed anti-Dutch and anti-European fascist language and attempted to mobilize native nationalism among the population of Indonesia. To examine such complicated cases of fascist transnationalism, the prism of pan-Europeanism falls short.

It doesn’t “fall short,” you mendacious retard, if you realize that “pan-European” includes Europeans in the Diaspora, and not only in Europe itself.  If that excludes your precious Chinese, then that is just too bad (HBDers weep).

Of course, no author seems to defend the position that fascist transnational solidarity was exclusively about European categories…

Why do non-fascist (typically leftist) academics feel the need to “defend the position” of fascists?  Isn’t that the obligation of fascists themselves?

This is insufficient, as it perpetuates Eurocentrism…

Do you need any more evidence of the biases of this author?  If academics objectively study the reality that White fascists are concerned with White people, then acknowledging that reality is perpetuating “Eurocentrism.”  On the one hand, it is a good thing that anti-fascist academics are so deluded, but it does make much of their work more or less useless for our purposes.

Secondly, the pan-European paradigm sheds a very narrow light on the thought and work of fascists—both outside and within the presupposed borders of Europe—because it primarily fixates on the extent to which these fascists dreamt about (the rebirth of) a ‘Europe’ for the ‘Europeans’. It does not give much room to recognize that the thought and work of most fascists was only abstractly related to this pan-European perspective, that pan-European language was often employed to convey disparate meanings, and that most fascists evoked more complicated possibilities of transnationalism.18

A mostly meaningless paragraph, the only agenda of which is to be anti-“Eurocentric.”

There was a seemingly paradoxical relationship between France and Nazi Germany in Cousteau’s analysis of the contemporary political situation, as Hitler was regarded both as a threat to France, as well as its savior…What needs to be made clear, here, is that the JSP editors were not primarily driven by Germanophilia. They did not choose Germany’s nationalism over France’s. Instead, they regarded German officials as natural allies in their struggle against the Third Republic and the French government, while remaining loyal to a mythical image of France. 

Mythical?

In contrast to Cousteau, Brasillach—who functioned as JSP’s editor-in-chief from June 1937 onward—was skeptical about collaboration between France’s ultra-right and the German National Socialists.30 Brasillach openly affiliated himself with fascism, but with ‘Latin fascism’ in particular. 

Blasphemy!  

While being particularly fond of Spanish fascism, he had also praised Benito Mussolini for being a Latin poet, and he recognized ‘the Latin fascist traditions’ in the Belgian politics of the French-speaking Léon Degrelle.31 Brasillach asserted that France, historically, had always been the primary guardian of the ‘Latin culture’. 

Durocher weeps.

German fascism, however, was inherently different. Brasillach wrote in the early 1930s that he was worried about Hitler’s ‘primary racism’, that he regarded Hitler’s speeches as the work of ‘a sort of enraged teacher’, and that he believed that Nazi Germany was the greatest political threat to France.32

Blasphemy!

Brasillach still asserted that the German National Socialism could function as a model for French fascism. He admired the fascist aesthetics of Nazi Germany, as well as the ‘social’ impact of National Socialism. In the Third Reich, according to Brasillach, people were energetic and joyful. There, people had a sense of sacrifice and honour. He wanted to reproduce this in France. But, to succeed, ‘the French must find their poetry, their myths, their French images, as well as confidence in themselves and in a national ideal’. He concluded that ‘we can make it ours, not by a useless copy or imitation but by a more developed knowledge of who we are’.37

That seems reasonable to me.

Brasillach’s early engagement with fascism was primarily intellectual, seeing that his journalism and writings mostly discussed aesthetics and racism, without putting forward a political, social, or economic program. His dreams and hopes, however, were of a political nature. He wanted France to arise ‘Phoenix-like’ from the political and cultural decadence of its time, but rather than pushing for this to happen, he believed that it would be the result of spontaneous combustion. 

Passiveness never accomplishes anything.

Brasillach believed that the existence of a uniquely French fascism, grounded in French culture, would be enough to spark a fascist revolution. The fact that it did not, made him increasingly more disillusioned.

He should have blamed himself. You need to work for change.  The greater the change, the more work and effort required.  Nothing comes easy, least of all, a new society.

It made Brasillach’s later work—from mid-1938—more dismissive about France’s culture and people. 

Projection.

It, at the same time, prompted his thinking about foreign fascist movements to become progressively heroic and romantic; as many foreign peoples, in contrast to the French, had brought about profound social and national revolutions. 

And their leaders worked to make it happen; they did not assume it would occur automatically.

To instigate a French fascist revolution, some editors at JSP even considered asking the Nazis, once the exotic other, for military assistance. Rebatet, at one point, publicly invited Hitler to invade France. 

Madness.

While diagnosing the decline and decay of France on countless fronts, these JSP editors prophesied that fascism could bring about a spiritual and cultural renewal. Fascism, for them, was the antidote to the decadency of democracy, capitalism, liberalism, and Marxism. According to them, a fascist revolution would—undoubtedly—lead to the cultural, spiritual, and national rebirth of France. They found proof of this in other countries, such as Nazi Germany. Although Brasillach, throughout the 1930s, kept regarding Nazi Germany as the ‘other’, due to the ‘foreign’ content of its national symbols and myths, the JSP editors consistently presented this country as a magical and safe place, untouched by the corruption of democracy, Judaism, capitalism, liberalism, and Marxism. It was depicted as a place where the Jews and Bolshevists could not impose their decadent ways. Germany, in other words, was sculptured into a purer mirror of an impure France.

More Germany worship from the Far Right. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

While agreeing on the goal, the editors of JSP employed different strategies to spark a fascist revolution: Cousteau warned the French people that they had to eliminate the ‘internal enemies’ and overthrow the French government themselves, in order to prevent Nazi Germany from invading France to eradicate the Judeo-Bolshevists. Brasillach, in contrast, asserted in his early work that intellectual engagement with a uniquely French fascism, grounded in French culture, would be enough to trigger a French revolution. 

Cousteau was right.

Before thinking about the specific relationship between these French fascist editors at JSP and the German National Socialists, one must first recognize that the Nazis themselves were quite hesitant to export their ideology abroad. Hitler himself strongly doubted that exporting National Socialism would be possible, because he regarded it as an exclusively German phenomenon. 

The man was an idiot, despite whatever other virtues he had. National Socialism as an ideology can be applied to virtually any ethny, at least in theory.  It is a form of fascism that stresses biological race, in the form of a collectivist people’s community in which biological-genetic-racial-eugenic principles and interests are paramount.  Now,the particular German manifestation of this ideology was “an exclusively German phenomenon” but not the ideology itself. It is like saying that communism was specifically Russian (or, more properly, Jewish).

He, however, also believed it to be counterproductive, as it ‘would only lead to a strengthening of nationalism in other countries’, which ‘leads to a weakening of Germany’s position’ on the world stage. 

There you go, the self-centered petty nationalist culture retarding ethnonationalist par excellence.  And how did that work out for Germany?  In actuality, Germany’s long term stability and well-being would have been optimized as part of a strong and secure Europe in which all peoples enjoyed the protection of fascistic and national socialist principles.  By attempting to selfishly grasp too much, Hitler and the Nazis lost all.  It is analogous to a billionaire who destabilizes his host society by greedily trying to get more and more money of low marginal value, instead of protecting his already sufficient wealth by supporting a stable society to live in.

Hitler, therefore, was glad that the Nazi parties in other countries had ‘not produced leaders of his own calibre’, who were often ‘mere copyists’ without ‘original or new ideas’. As ‘they only imitated us and our methods slavishly’, he believed that they ‘would never amount to anything’.44 

Wonderful. Some pro-White leader he was.

The primary issue here, for Hitler, was ‘belatedness’. Much of Hitler’s contempt for foreign fascist movements seems to come from the fact that they come late, making them inevitably minions and imitators. For this reason, Hitler did not expect much from most foreign fascists: ‘in every country you have to start from different premises and change your methods accordingly’.45

So?  One could adopt basic principles to each people’s particular traits.

This, however, did not stop the Nazis from interacting with foreign fascists, nor from spreading ‘pan-fascist romanticism’. Already on 16 November 1933, Hitler proclaimed in an interview with the French journalist Fernand de Brinon that he wanted to start conversations ‘between the good French and the good Germans, between the good Poles and the good Germans, and between 100 % English people and 100 % German ones’. He asserted that cross-border collaboration between all ‘superior human races’—such as the ‘Aryan’ French and German races—could lead to a strengthening of the social, cultural, and political position of these peoples in their respective countries.46 People of ‘mixed race’ and ‘internationalists’, in contrast, had to be kept outside of these conversations.

Truth or lies?

This Nazi narrative of pan-fascist romanticism, drenched in transnational racialism, was fundamentally at odds with the core message of most of Hitler’s German-language speeches and writings, which was shamelessly German-nationalist. Hitler, for instance, consistently depicted the French as irredeemable since they had gone too far in their degenerative process of ‘Vernegerung’ [‘negrification’]. In his German speeches and writings, the Führer consistently repeated throughout the 1930s that the inferior status of the French people and race posed a lurking danger to ‘white humanity’ and ‘the white race’.47 

So, the previous comments were lies.  One could imagine his attitude toward Italians. Well, there's a passage in Mein Kampf about Southern Italy that makes the disdain clesr.

For the translation-process of Mein Kampf…This narrative, obviously, contrasted greatly from what Hitler wrote and said to his German audience. There, Hitler continued to argue that France as a country should be perceived as ‘a sin against the existence of white humanity’… Mein Kampf’s original narrative of German-nationalist, fascist, romanticism was thus substituted by a narrative of non-national, racialized transnationalism. Hitler’s book was profoundly altered to lead a second life as a carrier of pan-fascist romanticism.

So the Nazis were lying to non-Germanic Europeans about Nazi attitudes toward intra-European ethnoracial differences, camouflaging the real Germanocentric racial contempt with a false mask of transnational fascism. This is similar to how the “movement” lies to White ethnics, pretending to believe in “White unity” while in actuality the real attitude is contempt for White ethnics.

After Hitler’s rise to power in 1933, Nazi propaganda originally aimed to cultivate and establish amicable relations with French ministers and diplomats. Until early 1936, the Nazis kept close ties with various French officials.56 To help these negotiations, and to further their cause, the Nazis deemed it advisable to deemphasize the ideological and political significance of Hitler’s blatantly anti-French statements in Mein Kampf. 

More fundamental dishonesty.

Seduction, Deception, and Self-Delusion

That sounds like the relationship of the “movement” with White ethnics.

The relationship and interaction between certain members of the Nazi regime and the editors of JSP, however, cannot be fully explained by noting that these French fascists were solely passive recipients of ‘Nazi’ narratives of pan-fascist romanticism. The story, of course, was a whole lot more complicated. In the thought of a handful of Nazi officials including Hitler, Himmler, and Goebbels, there was a certainly a strong belief that the nationalist and transnationalist dimensions of fascism were irreconcilable, or, in other words, that transnational fascism was intrinsically paradoxical. So, in their minds there was not really so much a ‘paradox’ as, rather, the recognition of a pattern of delusion on the side of the other fascist peoples and movements that they wished to exploit. 

That shows how absolutely despicable the Nazis were with respect to their relations with non-Germanic peoples, and is akin to how today’s “movement” treat White ethnics.

Consider what non-German fascists tried to do.

The conference was not able to bridge the gulf between those participants who proposed achieving national integration by a corporative socio-economic policy and those who favored an appeal to race.[9] Pretensions to "universal fascism" could not survive this rift, and the movement did not meet its goal of acting as a counterbalance to international communism.

If true, that analysis suggests that one reason for the failure of inter-war transnational fascism was ideological, not any “instability” due to the “paradox” of “ultra-nationalists” trying to engage across national identities.  Also, the German resistance to transnational fascist cooperation and Mussolini’s capture as a vassal of Germany (another hoodwinked fascist) meant that such conference were no longer being promoted by an established fascist state.

Back to the original essay:

Because they were convinced that they saw through the paradox of transnational fascism, and believed they understood where German interests really lay, they attempted to manipulate foreign fascist peoples and movements by feeding into the narrative of ‘pan-fascist collaboration’, and feeding into the ‘delusion’ through a continuing assertion and dissemination of pan-fascist romanticism. This, for them, served the purpose of implanting ‘pan-fascist illusions’ in the minds of foreign fascists to further obscure, what they regarded as, the paradoxical nature of transnational fascism.

The paradox was not inherent, it was due to the petty nationalist tendencies of ethnonationalist filth.

There was, however, a lot of conflict among Nazi officials regarding the desired treatment of France. Himmler and Goebbels were especially hostile to the idea of collaborating with France’s ultra-right, and Hitler was initially hesitant as well. 

Surprise!

When looking at the position of the French fascists working at JSP, one should not forget that they had actively sought out rapprochement with the Nazis themselves. They did so for a couple of reasons. The JSP editors had been extremely hostile to the French government from mid-1936 onward, which caused them to create two dissociated conceptions of France. In their minds, it was their mission to defeat France as a ‘political entity’ to save their ‘ideal’ and ‘mythical’ conception of France. From mid-1938 onward, however, they became profoundly frustrated after they believed that a uniquely French fascist revolution was postponed indefinitely due to the ‘weakness’ and ‘unmanliness’ of the French population. In addition to their racial disillusionment, they were jealous about supposedly successful ‘social’ and ‘national’ revolutions in other countries and hoped to learn—and to receive inspiration—from foreign fascists. At the same time, they understood their position as a relatively powerless minority group in France, which meant that their collaboration with the German regime and officials was grounded upon an asymmetrical power relationship…For the longest time, the JSP editors also kept explaining away anything that contradicted their ‘illusory’ convictions. Whenever Cousteau, for instance, was confronted with the anti-French sentiments from Hitler’s Mein Kampf, he asserted that these statements were simply outdated.

That is all perfectly consistent with the delusions White ethnics have with the “movement.”  When confronted with ingoing “movement” Nordicism and disdain for Southern and Eastern Europeans, many ethnics try to convince themselves (and others) that it is “simply outdated” and doesn’t mean anything.

This logic, of course, was of a circular kind. To explain why they had omitted the anti-French passages in Ma Doctrine, the JSP editors referred to the Nazi’s pan-fascist narrative of the last years to illustrate and prove that Hitler had changed his attitude towards France and the French people, even though their Nazi-authorized publication, at the same time, propounded exactly the same pan-fascist narrative, and was produced and disseminated to re-assert it. Rather than regarding such examples of crooked logic as failed attempts to defend themselves against allegations from negative reviews, it seems to be emblematic of what the JSP editors themselves believed in from mid-1938 onward. 

Sound familiar?  I suppose I was guilty of doing the same in the past as well.

Reality be damned.

Indeed.

Conclusion…many fascists often incorporated countless combinations of contradictory elements into their thinking and constantly kept modifying their ideas, definitions, and principles throughout their careers. Seeing that tackling their self-defined problems was usually seen as a matter of life and death, many fascists, and this is, of course, particularly the case for ‘fascists’ who had not managed to secure the support of their ‘target groups’, and who had become disillusioned by the social, cultural, and political realities of their time, were also overly flexible in their choice of allies. 

Too much flexibility makes you snap, as what has happened to many in the “movement” today.

How did certain individual fascists, at specific moments in their lives, think about the possibility of cross-border fascist solidarity? How did they mediate the relationship between nationalism and transnationalism; and how did these fascists—in other words—‘think transnationally’?

For example, if one does regard nationalism as a core element of fascism, then that logically seems to mean that transnational fascism is—at least partially—paradoxical. 

Again, this describes the ethnonationalist error. True White nationalism – the fascism that makes sense today – has race as nation (what this author decries as “Eurocentric”) and can eliminate the “paradox."

The thought, work, and practices of fascists, however, almost never followed simple logical assumptions. Fascist thinking, instead, is all too often molded by resentment, fear, and shame…

Typical leftist ad hominem.

When doing so, one will easily find that many individual fascists do not regard nationalism as a core element of fascism; and, because of this, most of them will not regard transnational fascism as inherently paradoxical. 

Yes.

…especially after 1945, it is apparent that distinguishable groups of fascists have substituted nationalism with racism.

That’s my whole point.  So much for the “paradox?”

For many of them, ‘the white race’ …

Note the scare quotes. Leftist alert!

…has become the common denominator, which is inherently transnational. The claim to defend ‘white superiority’ ..

Liar.  Who on the Far Right (apart perhaps Spencer) talks about “white superiority?”

The main takeaway from this paper on the usefulness of ‘pan-fascism’ for future historical studies on transnational fascism is that it all boils down to optics. 

Nonsense.

As regards footnotes:

This paper maintains Roger Griffin’s definition of ultra-nationalism, namely that it is essentially xenophobic and is known to legitimize itself ‘through deeply mythicized narratives of past cultural or political periods of historical greatness or of old scores to settle against alleged enemies’. Cyprian P. Blamires, ed., World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia (Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2006), 452.

The definition is palingenetic ultra-nationalism, you mendacious leftist scum.

In 2020, Anson Rabinbach wrote that fascism should be understood as an ‘ethos or Gesinnung, a willingness to adhere to the general precepts of a worldview, which was vague and indistinct enough to embrace a variety of related perspectives’. Somewhat similarly, Sven Reichardt argued that one should think about fascism as seven distinctive ‘processes’, because ‘fascism as a movement, acting within a democratic system, should be understood as fundamentally different from a state carrying out a genocide in the exceptional situation of the Second World War’. Sven Reichardt, ‘Fascism’s Stages: Imperial Violence, Entanglement, and Processualization,’ History of Ideas 82, no. 1 (2021): 85–107; Anson Rabinbach, Staging the Third Reich: Essays in Cultural and Intellectual History, eds. Stefanos Geroulanos and Dagmar Herzog (London, etc.: Routledge, 2020), 121, 160, 174.

There’s some truth in that, given that flexible and protean nature of fascism, but shouldn’t be taken too far.

Some individual fascists at various moments in time, however, were primarily committed to the ‘pan-European’ idea. As Roger Griffin wrote: ‘certain strands of interwar fascism were actively concerned with resolving the decadence brought about by the status quo as a whole, not just in a particular nation, and thus thought of rebirth in pan-European or even Western terms’. Roger Griffin, ‘Europe for the Europeans: Fascist Myths of the European New Order 1922–1992,’ in A Fascist Century: Essays by Roger Griffin, ed. Matthew Feldman (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2008), 132–181.

And that’s a good thing.

My bottom line – genuine pan-Europeanism eliminates the so-called “paradox” in fascist thought, and the “paradox” lingers on today because of the culture-retarding ethnonationalists who divide Whites and who proudly self-identify as petty nationalists (e.g., Greg Johnson).

Holy Legionary Youth

Book review.  The Legionary Movement.

See this.

I have long been a supporter of the Legionary Movement, and try to read good quality material on this topic, avoiding “hit pieces” animated by anti-Legionary bias. Thus, this book looked like an attractive offering. Alas, I was disappointed with respect to this book being a purely objective approach by the author. Unfortunately, it wasn't.

The author is obviously some sort of simpering leftist (see his bias here) who has a footnote in the beginning of the book agonizing over the use of words like “Romanians” and “Jews”- terms linked to “racist” sources.  How dare you identify people by ethnicity!  What a buffoon this idiot is. First, subjectively, Jews have no problem self-identifying as Jews, distinct from Romanians (and vice versa) – so how is it “racist” to recognize that these identity groups exist?  Second, objectively, genetic analysis allows us to distinguish ethnic Jews from ethnic Romanians – so how is recognizing these differences something wrong and “racist?”

The author considers fascism to be a “social category,” one becomes a fascist, and does so through everyday activities, by action, one lives a fascist lifestyle, rather than following a specific ideology. There is some truth to that, but the author and others he cites follows that line too far, the idea that fascism has no ideology would certainly come as a surprise to, say, Gentile or Rosenberg.  But, again, fascism is more of a secular religion, a lived experience, an existential form of politics, rather than an extremely formalized rigid theoretical ideology.  One can of course move forward from that, thus underscoring the difference between authentic fascism and para-fascism. Can anyone imagine Franco and members of his conservative reactionary authoritarian regime living a fascist life, following a secular religion?  The idea is ludicrous. Many of the reactionary regimes classified by political retardates as “fascist” were no more “fascist” than Ronald Reagan or Donald Trump.  Fascism – contra leftist lies – is a revolutionary movement, and considering it as a “social category” and a lived experience is useful for distinguishing it from para-fascist reaction.

Putting aside the author's implied nonsense of nationalism being some sort of construct used by “social actors” to achieve goals independent of objective nationhood, we can observe how Romanian nationalism evolved, with "the other” being Ottomans, Greeks, etc., before Romanian nationhood, and then focused on the Jewish problem (Jews as "the other") afterward. Interestingly, after widespread Jewish immigration (invasion) into Romania, Romanian texts of that time characterized Jews as “sly, deceitful, ugly, smelly, cowardly, and lazy.” I’ll leave it up as an exercise to the reader to reflect on how these “stereotypes” - particularly those about “sly, deceitful,” and ugly” - seem consistent over time and space with respect to how those peoples thought about the Jews living amongst them. There does seem to be an element of consistency there.  If a wide variety of peoples have the same opinion, is it perhaps the target of the opinion that needs to be looked at as the problem, rather than all of the other, varied aggrieved peoples?  After decades of Holocaust propaganda and associated guilt-tripping, as well as intense social pricing against “anti-Semitism,” anti-Jewish hostility still exists, testament to the characteristics of Jews that continuously trigger these reactions among the vast array of the Gentile peoples.

As an example of the mendacious leftist approach to these issues, let us consider how the author evaluates the outbreak of aggressive nationalism and “anti-Semitism” among Romanian university students in the early 1920s.  We are told that this activism was an “outlet for their frustrations;” thus, the Romanians were poorly educated and ill-prepared for the university, and were also subject to sub-standard living conditions; thus, they picked on the poor, innocent, persecuted Jews. As a specific example of mendacity by omission and implication, we can consider the Jewish cadaver controversy. The author relates the following.  Jewish religious belief opposes, or at least opposed, the use of Jewish bodies for medical dissection. The Romanian students accused Jewish students of removing Jewish bodies from the school to prevent their use, but at the same time the Jewish students were very willing to dissect “Christian” (i.e., Gentile – presumably mostly ethnic Romanian) bodies. Presumably, the Romanian students, in contrast, made no distinction, and would use all bodies.  I note that the author doesn’t comment on whether this anti-Jewish accusation was true (likely, it was), but instead omits any analysis of the actual facts and implies that the incident reflects hateful Romanian racist “anti-Semitism” and the “frustrations” of the students.

But, we shall consider the situation here.  If the author acknowledges that Jewish religious belief is so opposed to the use of Jewish bodies for dissection (while having no such opposition for Gentile bodies), then isn’t it possible – likely even – that Jewish students would refuse to dissect Jewish bodies?  Isn’t it possible that the Romanian students noticed Jewish bodies missing and “put two and two together” to realize that the Jewish students were removing the Jewish bodies to prevent their use?  Isn’t it possible, and likely, that at least some Jewish students were actually removing the Jewish bodies? And isn’t it true that those same Jews would have no problem dissecting Romanian cadavers?  Isn’t it possible that there was strong evidence supporting the accusation?  And isn’t it reasonable that such Jewish behavior would fuel anti-Jewish feeling among Romanians?  Or are we to believe that the accusation was made up over nothing, that Jewish students happily dissected Jewish cadavers in opposition to their religion, and that the whole thing was nothing more than “dumb Romanians venting their frustrations?”

What do you think?

Interestingly, the issue was resolved by the school saying that Christian students dissect Christian cadavers and Jewish students dissect Jewish ones (dissection separatism), and if the Jewish students didn’t like it, they could go study anatomy in a museum.  Sure sounds to me like the medical school certainly believed that there was a problem with Jewish students refusing to allow Jewish bodies to be dissected.

Then, the author dismisses Romanian complaints of Romanians being attacked by Jews, because those attacks “were not reported by non-fascist sources,” while all instances of Romanians attacking Jews are accepted at face value by the author.  Looking at how the American media of today selectively reports news, and ignores Black-on-White crime, selectively reports only rare instances of the opposite, and harps on about almost non-existent “White supremacist” violence while ignoring Antifa/BLM rioting, you can judge for yourself the probability that Jewish-leftist-establishment Romanian newspapers of the interwar period were accurately reporting instances of inter-group violence.

Broad segments of Romanian society at that time supported even the most radical of the students, including the so-called Vacarestini, led by Codreanu and Mota, who were accused of plotting assassinations in 1923. This later evolved into the broad support given to the Legionary Movement.  This is contrasted to the complete lack of support given to even the most moderate pro-White activists in America, and throughout the “West.” 

The continued acquittals of Romanian student nationalists – even when obviously guilty; thus, they were political acquittals – was another sign of broad support. Indeed, not only students benefited from this; in one case, a Romanian peasant was acquitted for killing a Jewish landowner with an ax based on the fact that the murder was viewed as a legitimate protest against the Jewish danger. Thus, we can assume that “over-the-top” Romanian ultranationalist behavior, while perhaps sometimes regrettable, was often provoked by Jewish misbehavior. Further, elite individuals supported the nationalist cause, and the fact that so many students were on the Far Right – unlike the “West” today – is suggestive of a broad support for nationalism in Romanian society at that time. Also, we can consider the Legion's emphasis on youth. Now, I have been critical of the Alt Right and its "youth culture," but that's not the same thing as what the Legion did. The Legion appealed to youth on the Legion's terms, on the basis of high morals and the ideal of the New Man That was unlike the Alt Right associating itself with juvenile jackassery as its own manifestation of so-called "youth culture." The Legion appealed to the best aspects of Romanian youth, while the Alt Right catered to the lowest aspects of "youthful" behavior.

Even taking the author’s biases into account, it is clear that the ultranationalist students used “intimidation and violence” to influence events to their advantage. While the Sallis Groupuscule preaches peace and pacifism – I ooze with the milk of human kindness indeed! – we can ask whether any dissident movement can achieve its goals without a bit of “intimidation and violence.” Another interesting note is the intra-nationalist feuding and fighting going on in interwar Romania, particularly that between the Legionaries and the Cuzists, which makes one reflect on the bitter, but mostly non-violent and mostly memetic, feuding and fighting within the “movement” today.  At least back then, the nationalists were successful against the Left; today, it seems the only “victories” achieved are those against others on the Right. Interestingly as well, the author seems to have no problem with violence against Legionaries, such as gendarmes and other state actors attacking members of the Legion.

One can contrast the discipline and dedication of the Legionaries (even when they were being violent) with the defective freaks of Der Movement today. Codreanu exerted strict control over the behavior of the people in his movement, gave out punishments (some even arbitrary), and once, bizarrely, punished one prominent follower for no reason other than to “test” how that person “would react to an injustice that came from the head of the Legion.” Financial mismanagement and selfish enrichment, including stealing money, was harshly dealt with; this can be contrast to the grifters of the “movement” today.  In contrast to “the big tent” promoted by today’s Quota Queens (we must maximize “D’Nations” after all), Codreanu emphasized quality – he asserted, “As few Legionaries and as many friends as possible…for every twenty requests to join, nineteen will be rejected and one accepted. The best one.” Can you imagine the money-hungry grifters of today being so stringent with membership (cutting back on “membership dues”)?  Codreanu also made a distinction between the Legionaries who went through the persecutions of 1933 and others who joined later, when things were easier – the latter had to prove themselves with a long apprenticeship before being accepted as full-fledged Legionaries. Again compare to today’s “anything goes” attitude.

The “New Man” was the key to Legionary ideology; hence, the author quotes Codreanu: 

This country is dying because it lacks men, not because it lacks [political] programs. That is our belief Therefore, we do not need to build programs, but men, new men.”  

And thus, the Legionary movement was, according to Codreanu:

...more a school and an army than a political party…Everything that our minds can imagine that is nobler in soul, everything that can make our race prouder, higher, more righteous, stronger, wiser, purer, harder working, and more courageous – that is what the legionary school must produce!

One can contrast that not only to other fascist groups of that period but especially to the Far Right of today, which excuses the abysmal, degenerate “quality” of many of its members and supporters by invoking “big tent,” and which is led by “leaders” many of whom are freaks, perverts, incompetents, grifters, frauds, and those with terminally poor judgment. One can compare the Legionary work camp, where constructive practical work was done to help build character, to today’s displays of homosexual flirting and harassment at Alt Right meetings, or to folks going to inept Alt Right rallies dressed in cosplay costumes. To those who claim that work camps today would be subject to persecution and thus activists are at a disadvantage compared to the Legionaries, I reply that they should recall that the Legionaries were getting their heads bashed in regularly by gendarmes, and they were being routinely jailed. The circumstances are not the same as today that is true; for example, the Legionaries enjoyed a degree of popular support that the Far Right of today can only dream of, but, still, there was still enormous risk in all of their endeavors.

The author, of course has to tell us that the work camps mostly benefited the Legion itself rather than being purely charitable – as if that were a bad thing, and then breathlessly tells us how the Legion leveraged kinship networks to make the family “fascist.”  If true, then…so? Sounds good to me. Legionary forays into business, cooperatives, restaurants, etc. was all for the good – helping the Legionaries support themselves and setting up an alternative economy competing against Jewish-owned businesses, and offering fair prices. Sounds excellent. Further, working in such restaurants there were lawyers and other professionals, who were serving lower-class customers, helping to break down intra-ethnic class barriers.

With respect to core aspects of the Legionary worldview, the author evaluates claims that the Legion, like fascism in general, was a “revolt against modernity,” and concludes that the description of “reactionary modernism” fits best – thus, the Legion promoted “traditionalist” values and a more or less specifically Romanian culture and ethos while, at the same time, accepting and utilizing modern technology. In some case, a superficial traditional veneer was plastered over modern life; thus, bride and groom would come to the wedding dressed in peasant garb, riding in a horse drawn cart, while guests would arrive by train or automobile, and the festivities would be recorded by motion picture equipment. But then the author talks about an affinity of Codreanu for a “rural utopia” and then defines “modernism” thus – “a revolt against widespread apathy in the face of the death of God and an attempt to imagine a new world of creative possibilities,” said possibilities including “chaos, violence, mysticism, and nihilism.” So, the author is all over the place here. For another view of the relationship between the Legion and technics, see this.

The author then attempts to solve these conflicts by asserting that the Legion was always more concerned with practical matters than with ideas (like “modernism”) despite that idea of the New Man being a cornerstone of Legionary ideology. Perhaps the author got lost in his own contradictions and this hand-waving “solution” was the easiest way for him to cut the “Gordian knot” of the “modernism” question.

Interestingly, some wealthy Jews contributed to the Legion, ostensibly to protect their business interests.  Also, what to make of the Romanian government outlawing the wearing of shirts of varied colors (each color affiliated with a different political movement) as part of anti-uniform laws?  So many colors were outlawed it is difficult to discern what Romanians were actually wearing that time – the stupidities of “liberal democracy” on full display. The book also discusses the Legion’s foray into electoral politics – so-called “fascist authoritarian democracy” – something they were more adept at than the freakshow rejects of today’s American “scene.” Unfortunately, the author does not discuss the Legion’s participation in the 1934 Montreux conference.

The book retells the end of the Legion, which underscores how vulnerable dissident social-political movements – even very popular ones – are to determined state force. The execrable King Carol declared a royal dictatorship, banned political parties, and superficially instituted some window-dressing ultra nationalist policies.  Codreanu disbanded the Legion, but was still arrested for “treason” and murdered. When the Legion made a brief comeback as part of the National Legionary State under Antonescu, a falling out with that leader led to the Legion being completely crushed with state force. Remaining Legionaries in Romania were later persecuted and tortured by the communist regime.  One remembers how quickly Mussolini’s regime fell as well.  One should never attempt to share power with a King or a military dictator; a movement must take complete control, as did Nazism is Germany.

Essentially, the author is correct in situating fascism more as a way of living, a worldview, a conception of human-political reality, rather than a strict dogmatic ideology – hence, the “protean” nature of fascism we hear so much about from so-called “experts” like Griffin.

I remember an issue of Resistance magazine from the mid-late 1990s that had a picture of some American national socialists, with at least one of them wearing a t-shirt saying “I am born again” (or something like that) with a swastika…you get the overall picture, even if I’m off with some minor details. That is of course why – the Legionary movement being an exception to some extent – there is always some tension between fascism and traditional religion, since fascism itself is a form of secular religion. One becomes a fascist, one lives as a fascist, one believes and acts as a fascist, but there is no one single, specific overarching ideology beyond the minimalist core of “palingenetic ultra-nationalism.” 

Now, in the section on the Legionary Movement and religion, the author states that one reason that Orthodox (and in some cases, Catholic) priests were attracted to the Legionary Movement was precisely because it was not a secular religion, but instead was a political movement with religious views congenial to the priests. However, I see the Legion’s emphasis on religion as an epiphenomenon of its core palingenetic values; thus, I can admire the Legion while myself being an anti-religious atheist. One must distinguish between the fundamental worldview of an entity and how that worldview is manifested in particular cultural contexts.

The book quotes Mota as advocated a life of “truth, justice, and virtue,” and one is reminded of this description of what I call “Type II fascists" -

The others did not have boots, they held up their skinny reformers’ heads severely, they wore glasses, they collected cards, and they made furious speeches.

This all fits with the Legionary emphasis on the New Man, on ethical behavior as opposed to ideology, and to “deeds, not words.”  The lived experience of fascism contrasts to the navel-gazing, nitpicking political-ideological debates of Marxists and other leftists. The Legion constituted an “aristocracy of merit” that transcended class and contrasts to the “degeneracy of ineptness” of today’s “movement.”

Some final criticism of the book is in order here. The book could have used some more careful editing and proofreading. For example, Table 6.1 is a tabulation of the number of Legionary “nests” and their members in Romania over time from 1933-1937, but the table is titled “Ethnic groups in Romania in 1930,” which was actually the (correct) title of Table 1.1. Thus, Table 6.1 had the wrong title.

The overall tone of the book, which was not smooth reading, was a bit of a self-important leftist academic putting “fascists” under the microscope in a manner that is supposed to be objective, but that reflects underlying biases. I didn’t think it possible for a book about the Legionary Movement to be boring, but this author handily accomplished this seemingly impossible task.  Congratulations!

Toward an Analysis of Fascist Fiction

Brassillach, Celine, and Drieu La Rochelle.

See this. That is a scholarly analysis of the writing style and perspectives of three prominent French fascist fiction authors of the inter-war period, and how those styles and perspectives differ from that of the political fiction written by leftist authors.  You are encouraged to read the entire manuscript. 

This article is available in:

Studies in 20th Century Literature: https://newprairiepress.org/sttcl/vol10/iss1/7

TOWARD AN ANALYSIS OF FASCIST FICTION:

THE CONTEMPTUOUS NARRATOR IN THE

WORKS OF BRASILLACH, CELINE AND

DRIEU LA ROCHELLE

MARY JEAN GREEN

Dartmouth College

Excerpts (emphasis added) and my comments:

Three important French novelists of the same period, however, identified themselves with fascism. Of these, the writer who has consistently claimed the greatest attention is Louis-Ferdinand Celine, whose creation of a unique literary language has inspired a constant stream of critical studies. The reputation of Robert Brasillach suffered to some extent from his execution as a collaborator in 1945, but his memory has been kept alive by a loyal coterie of friends and admirers, including his brother-in-law, the literary scholar Maurice Bardeche. Pierre Drieu la Rochelle, known for a long time primarily as the author of Le Feu follet (1931), the novel of decadence made into a film by Louis Malle, has, within the last decade, inspired a number of new critical and biographical studies. There have, however, been few attempts to undertake a general analysis of the nature of French fascist fiction. This is in part because the notion of fascism itself is hard to pin down, existing as it did in many different manifestations.

Yes, but all of those manifestations center on Roger Griffin’s “palingenetic ultra-nationalism.” Thus, palingenesis, rebirth, in the context of the Far Right, from a “nationalist” perspective, underlies the fascist worldview.

In my reading, these texts exhibit the repeated use of a distanced, even contemptuous, narrative voice, a technique which can be clearly related to a recognized feature of fascist ideology and which serves to distinguish these texts written under the sign of fascism from the fiction inspired by an ideology of the Left.

Given the tropism of fascism for elitism, hierarchy, the superior individual, with a disdain for “last man” perspectives, and a disgust with herd conformism toward liberal concepts, it is perfectly understandable that there is a “distanced, even contemptuous, narrative voice” – the fascist does not find common ground with the sheep-like masses; even a populist, collectivist fascism is hierarchical, with a view toward overcoming.  A palingenetic individual will of course view a degenerate society with contempt, with a sense of distance.

Celine, of course, is the extreme case: he is as hard to pin down in his pamphlets as he is in his fiction, and the only elements that seem to emerge clearly from the ideological chaos of his texts is a hysterical fear of war and a violent hatred of the Jew, who becomes an outsized figure summing up all the forces of oppression in the modern world.

That seems a reasonable summation by Celine, particularly when looking at actual history and actual group behavior.

Drieu and Brasillach, at least, manage to discuss politics in standard expository prose required by their work as essayists and journalists. Even so, their political programs seem commonly to defy analysis. Speaking of Drieu, Brasillach and others of their colleagues, Raoul Girardet observes: . . . fascism corresponds much more exactly to what could more appropriately be called a romanticism. . . . The attraction of fascism is above all that of a few great affective themes of a certain form of lyricism, the exaltation of certain sentimental and moral values. It is to the forces of the passions, it is to the imagination and the sensibility that French fascism aims primarily to address itself.' Girardet's conclusion is a common one, shared by almost all those who attempt to submit these works to serious political analysis.

The above paragraph has a stench of polemical anti-fascism about it, but it is true that fascism is much more about aesthetic values than are the creeds of the Left.  Thus:

In his political biography of Brasillach, William R. Tucker makes a similar point: it is significant, in this context that he never attempted to formulate a definition of fascism. . . . At the same time, however, his intuitive approach to politics prompted an awareness that fascism was as much a response to the movement of time, a style, and a feeling of exhilaration, as it was a political creed."'

Again, this is unfair in the sense of the extreme view in which these ideas are taken to their conclusion, seemingly stripping fascism of any core ideology or serious political content. However, again, there is some truth to the idea that of the various ideological permutations of 20th century world politics, fascism, compared to its rivals, was the one most concerned with style, feeling, and becoming, than with stale ideological dogma. Fascism does have a core, as elucidated by Griffin, and fascist ideology derives from that. But fascism was never about the navel-gazing, turgid, ideological minutiae of, say, Marxism.

The quest for precise statements on political or social issues has already been undertaken by a number of critics, and it has done little to bring out elements of commonality to fascist fiction. The most extensive study of these three writers has been undertaken by Tarmo Kunnas (Drieu la Rochelle, Celine, Brasillach et la tentation fasciste), who examines their views on fifteen issues identified with fascism. Not surprisingly, he finds differences among the three French fascists on almost every item. 

Fascism cannot be broken down into any “fifteen issues" – that is a leftist-style view.  Fascism is palingenetic ultra-nationalism, and within that context, fascism can be fairly protean, with various manifestations.

My approach, therefore, will be a different one. I will examine their fiction for evidence of the use of similar fictional techniques, techniques which might serve to differentiate works produced under the sign of fascism from treatments of often similar subjects produced by major writers of the Left in the 1930s. Taking as a possible point of departure what is perhaps the most striking feature of the phenomenon of European fascism in the inter-war years, we might expect to find in the fiction techniques that make possible the expression of a collective exhilaration, a mass movement of immense vitality.

So, we understand the perspective of this analysis – more on style and perspective than on specific ideological talking points. Very well.

In Les Sept Couleurs (1939), one of his protagonists is impressed by the collective spirit which animates the Nazi youth camps and the Nuremberg rallies and by the spontaneous popular enthusiasm for the Italian fascist regime. It is this eminently fascist spirit of collective enthusiasm that the narrator (and Brasillach) would most like to see in France, uniting the various classes and allowing them to transcend their mundane lives. In his posthumously-published work, Les Captifs, written in 1940, Brasillach's pro-fascist protagonist is even able to participate in an analogous experience in the French right-wing riots of February 1934. 

“…eminently fascist spirit of collective enthusiasm…” – that describes the collectivist nature of fascism; it is not the ideal of the lowest common denominator (contra Evola’s objections of fascism’s mass nature) but a collective enthusiasm for national overcoming, represented in its purest form by an elite at the top of the societal hierarchy. Of course, all in society can contribute to, and partake in, this overcoming, but the hierarchy exists and the popular enthusiasm typically revolve around charismatic leaders – superior individuals.

Collective experience, in fact, seems to be more a property of the fiction of the Left. The influence of Jules Romains's unanimisme is felt strongly in Nizan's Le Cheval de Troie (1935), for example, where a Communist crowd involved in a riot is described as a single entity, animated by a common will. Mass rallies receive a similarly positive portrayal at the conclusion of Aragon's Les Cloches de Bale (1934) and Les Beaux Quartiers (1936) and even among non Communist leftists like Malraux in L 'Espoir (1937) and Le Temps du mepris (1935). In several instances in the fiction of the Left, the protagonist is itself a group, whose destiny is the real subject of the work.

More on this below, but an executive summary – the Left is anti-hierarchical, caters to the lowest common denominator, and is founded on “last man” values.  The Left disdains the individual and individual initiative and views humanity through the lens of impersonal historical processes – akin to the mass-based “psychohistory” in the science fiction books of the Jew Asimov (the Mule is the only redeeming character in those books – the mutant whose individual abilities upsets the historical process applecart).

Rather than emphasizing a collective experience, the fascist fiction here under consideration repeatedly presents the perspective of a narrator or protagonist who is clearly distanced from those around him. Moreover, this narrator/protagonist tends to view other characters with an attitude of condescension, even of contempt. Brasillach, the champion of fascist camaraderie, might seem to present an exception to this contention, especially in his later novels. But when they are not dealing with a small group of kindred souls, Brasillach's narrators exhibit the same remote and contemptuous attitudes found in the more solitary protagonists of Celine and Drieu. 

I write about this more below, but an executive summary – fascist ideology and aesthetic, valuing higher, noble values, founded on palingenesis, aimed at overcoming, would, as a matter of course, view liberal democratic/leftist values with disdain, and have “an attitude of condescension, even of contempt” for The Last Man. Why should any of that come as a surprise?  Consider that “distance” your typical White nationalist of today has for all around him.

The era of the Great Depression, not surprisingly, witnessed a resurgence of the social novel, which had been out of literary fashion since the eclipse of Zola and the naturalists at the end of the nineteenth century. This resurgence was accompanied by a number of manifestos and movements, such as the "populist" and "proletarian" schools of literature and, of course, the ever-evolving doctrines of the Communists. As might have been expected, many of the works that constituted this new "literature of the people" were sympathetic to the goals and ideals of the Left. However, Celine also, quite naturally, set his two novels of the 1930s, Voyage au bout de la nuit (1932) and Mort a credit (1936), in the milieu of the Parisian petite bourgeoisie and working classes in which he had spent his life. Brasillach seemed simply to enjoy observing the inhabitants of the poor districts of Paris where he had lived as a student,6 and he made them the subject of two of his novels of the same period, L'Enfant de la nuit (1934) and Le Marchand d'oiseaux (1936). Although they are set in similar lower-class districts of Paris, Celine's and Brasillach's novels depict radically different worlds. Brasillach's fictional universe seems drawn from the Rene Clair musicals he so admired and is certainly closer to fairy tale and ballet than to the sordid realism of the naturalists. Celine's novelistic vision, on the other hand, turns the same Parisian reality into a nightmare world of asphyxiation and putrefaction…

I have to admit I laughed when I read “a nightmare world of asphyxiation and putrefaction.”  But there is political meaning to that – to a real fascist, the degenerate and corrupt societies produced by liberal democracy, societies inhabited and led by “last men,” are akin to “a nightmare world of asphyxiation and putrefaction.”

…where the inhabitants carry on hostilities that parallel and even surpass those of the Great War. Despite these differences, the ideological stance which emerges from these novels is strikingly similar. At first glance, they seem relatively unburdened by ideological freight, unlike much of the social fiction of the Left. They lack the didactic tone that characterizes, in particular, Communist writers like Nizan and Aragon, and they seem free even of the commitment to improving the lot of the poor which is apparent in all the fiction of the Left. 

However, the portrayal of the lower classes in the fiction of Brasillach and Celine is almost unrelievedly negative. Many of the working-class characters in all four novels are shown to be slovenly, alcoholic, and brutal, if not openly homicidal. 

Truthful depictions?

The negative view of the lower-class milieu found in the social novel of the Right is the consequence of a distance that separates reader and characters. This distance is established through the interposition of an observing intelligence who is not identified with the lower-class setting and who mediates the reader's perception of events. 

At least in fascist fiction this is done openly and honestly, as opposed to heavy-handed leftist writing that pushes an enforced identification of all with the lowest strata of society.

Celine's narrator/protagonists are not totally insensitive to the importance of economic factors. It was for this reason that his first novel, Voyage, was warmly received by critics of the Left. While economic deprivation makes the characters' lives unpleasant, however, it does not really seem to account for the perversity of their actions, which seem rather to result from tendencies inherent in their natures. This impression is made explicit in the many misanthropic aphorisms that punctuate Celine's texts. 

The Right prioritizes inherent human nature and, unlike the Left, does not use excuses to justify subhuman behavior.  As part of the rightist worldview, nature trumps nurture.

While Brasillach uses narrative strategies different from Celine's in his two social novels, he is careful to maintain a similar distancing. In L'Enfant de la nuit the first-person narrator, named Robert B., is an unemployed interior decorator who has come to live in their poor district of Vaugirard while he is temporarily down on his luck (naturally, he leaves as soon as he gets another job). His background and education raise him above the people he describes, and he observes them with the bemused and tolerant fascination of an outsider-mirroring the position of Brasillach himself when he lived in the same district. 

As in the case of Celine, however, many of Brasillach's characters who live in equally deprived circumstances are able to lead lives of devotion to moral and aesthetic ideals. These people may be said to constitute an aristocracy of the poor in his work, and they are the characters upon whom his narrators lavish their attention. 

The Far Right values personal responsibility, noble values, and self-overcoming; hence, characters from poorer origins who exemplify these traits will be valued.

The narrative distance found in Celine and Brasillach is not at all characteristic of the Left-oriented social novels of the 1930s. In general, the narrative strategies adopted by writers of the non Communist Left correspond to the well-known definition of the "populist" novel put forth by Gabriel Marcel: "a novelist is populist insofar as, taking as heroes men of the people, he succeeds in preserving with respect to them a non-spectacular attitude. . . . They become not only 'you' but `we.’

The Left reduces all to the lowest common denominator, “last man” values – we must all identify with the mass; here, collectivism is suffocating and claustrophobic, no healthy “distance” and perspective is allowed.

The omniscient narrator of the Communists, however, could always be counted upon to adopt what has been called the proletarian point of view." While the Communist writers of the 1930s do not limit themselves to portraying only the working classes, a Communist novel which does do so, Nizan's Le Cheval de Troie, adopts as its privileged point of view the perspective of the Communist worker group. 

Communist fiction can be viewed as a very rigidly ideological form of political polemic, lacking in imagination and in contextual subtlety.

…in Celine's description of the urban settings, certain features are stressed and restressed until they take on the exaggerated nightmare qualities of the Celinian fictional universe. In the opening description of the Paris suburb of La Garenne-Rancy-already well-described by its name, which evokes a rancid atmosphere and hunted rabbits-the page overflows with vocabulary relating to slimy excrement. The same is true of the description of the Passage des Beresinas in Mort a credit, where the clients urinate on the shopkeepers and where the father spends his time shoveling shit. Everything with which Celine's narrators come into contact is deformed by a vision that seeks out and exaggerates the most repugnant features. 

From the fascist perspective, degenerate liberal democratic society, particularly one afflicted with Jewish-derived values, can be represented in such stark terms, and the features can be exaggerated to make the contrast to a more ideal society more distinct.

Brasillach, too, moves away from simple realism in rather the opposite direction. His vision tends to play down or entirely overlook ugliness, to mute colors, to bring out hidden beauty. His preferred time of day in these Parisian novels is twilight, and his attention is attracted especially by the unusual and picturesque-like the bird-peddler or the shoemaker-poet-rather than by the typical or mundane. 

This can be viewed as a form of fascist aesthetic.

Unlike Celine's fiction and some of Brasillach's, Drieu's novels are set in the world of wealth and political power which he himself frequented. The French masses are not at the center of his vision. On the few occasions when his protagonist is forced to confront them, however, he characteristically reacts with contempt and disgust…The first-person narrator of La Comedie de Charleroi is a veteran, returning to the Charleroi battlefield after the war with the mother of a dead comrade. Despite her total inability to comprehend the experience of war (a charge which had become a commonplace of war fiction), this woman, aided by her wealth, has made a career out of being the mother of a dead soldier, an enterprise for which the narrator does not attempt to conceal his disgust. By focusing on her, the novella shows power in French society being exercised by a character who is both a Jew and a woman, both perversions of the natural order according to Drieu. 

This part - "a Jew and a woman, both perversions of the natural order according to Drieu” – can we really blame Drieu for that perspective? Now, with respect to “Jew” this is understandable from a (European-derived) fascist perspective – Jewish identity and the “Jewish soul” are viewed as profoundly alien, and thus a perversion of the natural order in any European, Western society.  As regards women in general, one needs to remember fascism has a much masculinized political aesthetic and thus from the standpoint of inherent superior human values, contextualized as male, women would represent a perversion. But a White woman is not, or should not be, a perversion of the natural order the same as a Jew – the Jew is a perversion in totality form the Western fascist perspective (early Jewish supporters of Italian fascism notwithstanding), while women represent a perversion only from the narrow perspective of the male-oriented hierarchical perspective – there is a hierarchy of sex (male dominant) just as there is one of ethny and civilization and one of superior and inferior individuals.

Gilles's contempt is frequently directed against women characters who, as was the case with Mme Pragen, are often chosen as representatives of larger social groups." This is a technique also used to some extent by Celine, particularly in his distorted portrayal of Lola, the rich American volunteer in Voyage. In Gilles the protagonist's first wife Myriam is the Jewish intellectual, complete with unbecoming glasses…

Can you blame one for having contempt for a Jewess?

Drieu's work, like Caine's, ends with his protagonist isolated from others by his own choice. But this profound isolation has been inherent in the narrative voice from its first appearance. Brasillach's protagonists, too, are cut off from all but a few worthy souls by an attitude of innate superiority. The use of a distanced narrative voice that presents a denigrating view of all which comes within its purview is consequent with an important strain of French fascist thought. 

This contempt for the degeneracy of liberal democracy and its society and the disdain for “last man” values is part and parcel of the superior man’s overcoming; this isolation and contempt has some association with some of Nietzsche’s work, but while Nietzsche’s superior man works for his own overcoming only, that of the fascist man works in the direction of serving is people (even with whatever “distance” he may have from and for them).

Despite the importance of collectivism for German national-socialism, Italian fascism, and even the French right-wing philosophy articulated by Marechal Petain, the three French fascist writers remain profoundly individualistic, as Tarmo Kunnas shows with reference to their political statements. But, Kunnas continues, what is at issue here is less a matter of individualism than of an attitude toward social hierarchy. One aspect of fascism that appears strongly in the work of all three writers is its anti-egalitarianism: It is the antidemocratic spirit, the spirit of hierarchy, which, along with corporatism, dominated the whole of fascist ideology. This antiegalitarian thought attracted our writers much more than the antiindividualism, because they think less of individual liberty than of the liberty of superior individuals. They are convinced that men are not equal…

As part of the fascist ideology and the fascist attitude – the fascist political aesthetic – collectivism is actualized only in the context of hierarchy. It is an individualist form of collectivism – not an oxymoron in this sense – in which the aspirations of the collective are achieved at least in part by the exertions of superior men.  But the collective foundation remains because the superior man works in the interests of his collective – despite (or perhaps because of?) is feelings of distance and contempt for society.

Much the same is true of Sartre's Lucien Fleurier, protagonist of his novella about the evolution of a fascist, "L'Enfance d'un chef." Here, too, the narrator is cut off from the world, and, as he finds his identity with a group of young fascists-much like those idealized by Brasillach-he develops the characteristic attitude of contempt, which finds its natural expression, as with Nizan, in the savage beating of a dark-skinned foreigner. The story ends with Lucien, revelling in his bright new self-image, watching the crowd in a Paris café: All those dagos were floating in a dark heavy liquid whose ripples nudged their soft flesh, picking up their arms, moving their fingers, playing with their lips. The poor guys! Lucien almost felt sorry for them. 

Well, that three sentences are certainly consistent with a Type I fetishist Nutzi “movement” mentality.  Of course, from a British “the wogs begin at Calais” viewpoint, Lucien is just as bad as a “dago.”  Of course, note that this was written by Sartre, a hard leftist, projecting his own views of what a fascist is, rather than being an authentic expression of fascist sensibilities.

In their portraits of fascists, Nizan and Sartre implicitly recognize that a fascist mentality is not just a set of political beliefs but a question of attitude. In the work of Brasillach, Celine and Drieu, this attitude is embedded deeply in the fiction.

Some we come full circle here to the meaning of fascism as reflected by the work of these three authors.  Fascism does have an ideology and a set of political beliefs, but it is more than this – it is also an “attitude.” One can say that about any political ideology I suppose, but it is particularly true of fascism; no other political ideology is as dependent on attitude, on aesthetics, on feeling, on an innate sense of right and wrong than is fascism. In this sense, fascism is the political ideology most akin to religion, it is that ideology most dependent on faith and the least dependent on (as is Marxism) on rigid ideological formulas.