Harsh Kapoor
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The Political Culture of Fascism (Jairus Banaji)
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11/04/02 at 06:42:31 ğ |
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South Asia Citizens Web | 3 November 2002
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The Political Culture of Fascism
Jairus Banaji
http://www.mnet.fr/aiindex/2002/BanajiSept02.html
[Talk delivered at a Gujarat Seminar organised by the Vikas Adhyan
Kendra in Bombay, September 2002]
I called this talk the political culture of Fascism because I wanted
to draw attention away from the conventional emphasis in left
theories of fascism to aspects that are much less emphasised or not
even seen, precisely because they are so widespread. I want to do
this by starting with the most doctrinaire and, unfortunately, still
the most widespread of the leftıs theories of fascism, which is the
line the Comintern officially endorsed and repeated, endlessly,
throughout the late twenties and 1930s, while the tragedy of fascism
was being played out in Europe. This was the Cominternıs conception
of fascism as what it called the "open terrorist dictatorship of the
most reactionary, most chauvinist and most imperialist elements of
finance capital". This was the Cominternıs official understanding. It
further states that fascism "tries to secure a mass basis (I lay
emphasis on the word triesı) for monopolist capital among the petty
bourgeoisie, appealing to the peasantry, artisans, office employees
and civil servants who have been thrown out of their normal course of
life, particularly to the declassed elements in the big cities, also
trying to penetrate into the working class" (cited Roger Griffin,
Fascism, p. 262). In short, in the Cominternıs line, fascism is the
dictatorship of the most reactionary elements of finance capital.
Now, the Nazi party described itself, formally at least, as a
"workersı party". The Nazis saw themselves, at some superficial
level, in terms of rhetoric anyway, as appealing for the support of
workers. This suggests that there is something slightly specious
about trying to explain the rise of Nazism in the twenties simply in
terms of the dictatorship of capital.
Much of the Left still subscribes to the view that fascism is
primarily a product of the manipulations of capital or big business.
There are several things wrong with this view. It ignores the
political culture of fascism and fails to explain how and why fascist
movements attract a mass following. It embodies a crude
instrumentalism that conflates the financing of fascist movements by
sections of business with the dynamics of fascism itself. It also
views fascism in overtly pathological terms, as abnormality, thus
breaking the more interesting and challenging links between fascism
and normalityı. Finally, it contains a catastrophist vision: it sees
fascism as a kind of cataclysm, like some volcanic eruption or
earthquake, a seismic shift in the political landscape. So far as the
situation in India is concerned, this has surely demonstrated that
that is not how fascism grows. In India the growth of fascism has
been a gradual, step by step process where the fascist elements
penetrate all sectors of society and emerge having built up that
groundwork. So, if we in India have anything to contribute to a
theory of fascism, part of the contribution lies in disproving the
catastrophist element. This still leaves the other two perspectives,
which I called instrumentalistı and pathologicalı respectively.
Both are dangerously wrong and part of the reason why the left has
failed to establish a culture of successful political resistance to
fascism.
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(The full text of this talk could be accessed through the site mentioned above).
Bye
Enjoy reading this talk =
Cheers
Harsh Kapoor |
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