I’ve been reading Martin Kitchen’s book ‘fascism’, who has an interesting theory about the rise of fascism. The theory is incredibly complex and those that love dense theory should probably read it themselves, but I’ve put together a little adaptation of my own (that Kitchen would probably criticize on many points):
1. First you got your early fascist fringe groups, founded mostly by frustrated middle class men. Since the violent language of fascism is considered impolite in middle class circles, the first public supporters are frustrated working class men. At this stage there are sometimes attempts at a fascist coup.
2. With increasing power, the basic language of fascism is gradually normalized. Within this period, fascists spread the idea that there is a threat (jews, immigrants, muslims, etc) that could destroy all you love. Sometimes part of the tone is anti-capitalist but in that case the target is not the whole middle and upper class but a segment of it (’the jewish capitalist’, ‘the cultural-marxist elite’) so the middle class supporters can feel safe knowing that they will not be a target. Being a fascist is not yet socially acceptable in middle class communities at this point.
3. If there is an economic crisis or great economic uncertainty, the working class shifts to the left. But the middle class starts to consider fascism an acceptable option. Democratic politicians seem to fail to protect them against financial loss, scary foreigners and the growing of the left, so one strong leader who is going to restore traditional values and punish the rebellious sounds attractive. Most fascist supporters are lower-middle class who have property and could realistically lose that property and become poor. Being a fascist becomes socially acceptable in middle class communities.
4. Once a part of the middle class openly accepts fascism, there is often a very quick development where the economic upper class (rich capitalists) start embracing fascism as well and pumping their money into its election campaign. The media also joins in at this point. If fascism ever had an anti-capitalist tone as part of it’s anti-establishment image, it now drops this tone. With a small but weaponized segment of frustrated working class men, a large middle class voter base, media support and MONEY, it becomes almost impossible to stop the fascists rise to power.
5. Once voted into power (either alone or in a coalition), fascism suppresses left-wing movements and dismantles democratic systems. Disagreement within the fascist group itself is removed during this road to dictatorship.
6. At some point, the dictatorship reaches a point of no return. It is so powerful and controls such a large amount of unquestioningly obedient violence and intelligence agencies that only massive armed struggle can destroy it.
So in short:
- Middle class founders with working class fight club
- Normalization of fascism
- Economic crisis, middle class openly support fascism
- Capital and media support fascism, it becomes very difficult to stop
- Voted into power, removes political enemies & moves toward dictatorship
- Strongly established dictatorship can only be removed by force
Kitchen argues that this process can only take place in a late capitalist state with high levels of economic uncertainty, where the political left is large enough to scare the middle class but not strong enough to resist fascism.
I would add that a conservative right-wing that responds to crisis by expanding state force and dismantling human and civil rights does a big part of making the road from being voted into power to full dictatorship easier.
I’d argue that a lot of European states are currently at 3 or 4 with a lot of the road to dictatorship being paved by the established right-wing, while some states already have fascists in their coalition (step 5) and the US has a significant number of fascists in positions of political power (also step 5). How much of the system has been dismantled towards dictatorship varies.
Finally, it’s important to keep in mind that these processes are not always strictly linear and there are always competing fascist movements. Often a brutish loud fascist movement will be the first to normalize fascist language while a more polished, educated and polite fascist movement will be the one to win the support of the middle class and achieve power.
I would expand point 5 to be about three steps, but its still alarmingly close to what we have seen
Yeah, or more. Establishing dictatorship tends to involve (without a strict order of events)
– suppressing political enemies
– suppressing people who could challenge the road to dictatorship from within your own movement
– supressing communication that disagrees with you (controling the media, setting up elaborate surveillance agencies, etc)
– getting unrestrained control of the political decision making process
– getting unrestrained control of the legal process (judges etc)
– ensuring unquestioning obedience of the forces of violence (cops, soldiers, etc)
Generally with a lot of little steps, each time testing obedience. Another terrible policy is announced. Do the cops follow orders? Who resists? Who publically disapprovs? Obedience is mapped and a next step is taken, and another.
Robert Paxton frames it very similarly in “The Anatomy of Fascism”, which is freely available as a pdf. I don’t see any mention of Martin Kitchen in the fairly extensive bibliography, so I’ll have to look into that book to see some of the details.
Yay free stuff!
Kitchen wrote this in 1977 (and was basing some of it on work already done by others) and Paxton wrote that in 2004 so it’s quite possible that Paxton got some of his ideas from authors who got some of their ideas from Kitchen, etc.
QueerAnarchism 