“Argentina 1985” is a good film streaming on Amazon Prime. It is about the trial of the dictators who ran Argentina’s Dirty War. If you can get over the fact that it’s dubbed (pretty well) and you like courtroom dramas, you’ll like this one. There’s a lot to be learned, but great questions still need to be answered:
- How does fascism come about?
2. How does fascism end, as it clearly can and does
3. Why?
Writers across the world, including me, are warning that fascism is approaching. Even the President of the United States recently joined in the same caution. Such scholarly articles as can be seen at https://pdfs.semanticscholar.org/d9c0/3a042dd7f1bf8ffbd0096c2eed88a0403600.pdf warn us that fascism is approaching on a world-wide basis.
Scholars almost always study the fascism of Italy and Germany that ended in ruins during World War II. That is one way that fascism might end, but not the only way. I’ve seen very little reference to fascist governments since WWII. Undoubtedly, fascism in Germany and Italy owed much to the support of Western Imperialism. In that respect, they are similar to the fascist governments that arose in Spain, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil, South Africa and other countries. But those latter nations survived fascism and returned to limited democracy. Why don’t we study them?
I am curious about those latter countries’ experience with fascism because they apparently survived it and returned to the kind of limited capitalist democracy that they had before and, for that matter, is similar to what the United States has had since its inception: limited capitalist democracy. Working people are “free” to vote and to do a good many other things, but not to control the economy nor foreign policy.
And yet we continue to talk about fascism as a one-way street to destruction, as it was in the classic examples of Italy and Germany. Why don’t we know anything about fascism as a transitory form of government as it clearly was in, for example, Chile?
My Best Solution to the Riddle
Fascism In Germany and Italy were created and then destroyed by western imperialism. Their driving force was to overcome the progressive forces, primarily the communists who had been inspired by the Soviet revolution of 1917. Similarly, western imperialism is responsible for initiating fascism in Chile and other countries that, later on, returned to one form or another of limited capitalist democracy.
Fascist Rule is a Conscious Choice
Like almost all riddles concerning social progress, this one can only be solved with class analysis. None of the fascist governments came about by revolutions. That is, there was never a change in the class that ruled. Fascism is just one form of capitalist class rule. In fact, fascism cannot come about without the ruling capitalist class consciously choosing it. That’s the answer to the first question: a necessary requirement for fascism is that the capitalists must choose it as their form of government.
Mussolini defined fascism as “corporatism.” Hitler could never have come to power without the backing of the ruling class of capitalists.
Ending Fascist Rule is Also a Conscious Choice
If a ruling capitalist class can consciously choose to rule with fascism, they can also consciously decide to discontinue it. And that is what happened in Spain, Indonesia, Chile, Argentina, Brazil and the other countries in this discussion. That’s the answer to the second question: fascism ended the same way it began — as a conscious decision of the capitalist class. Why, one might legitimately ask, would they opt for fascism in the first place? The answer is the same as in Germany and Italy: they chose fascism to avoid the extension of democracy under socialism. When democracy threatens to exceed its limits, the ruling class reacts.
Why, then, would they choose, once the immediate democratic threat is lessened, to discontinue fascist rule? Because authoritarian regimes make for inefficient economies. Limited democracy and capitalism worked together to build the most powerful economies that the world had ever known. That’s why they easily conquered all previous forms of government and came to rule the world. Authoritarian governments, where the population is basically forced to work for the state, may be able to build powerful war economies, but only temporarily. To the extent that workers are not enslaved, but “free labor,” or at least if workers believe themselves to be “free,” economies thrive.
Other Considerations
Here, I set out only to answer the question “Why have some nations survived fascism?” I did not set out to discuss the implosion of the Soviet Union. But one might ask if the Soviet Union might have lived up to its potential if it had not been forced by imperialist war threats to adopt an authoritarian stance over its government and, more unfortunately, its economy.
And consider China today. China seems to be balancing a market economy with a socialist government. The economic results, so far, are better than any previous socialist revolution has been able to achieve. One might even argue that the Chinese approach of socialist rule with limited economic democracy is proving itself superior to limited capitalist democracy.
Summary
But understanding the USSR and China are far beyond my ambitions. I simply want to make these two critical points: 1) Fascism is a form of rule that is sometimes chosen by capitalists and 2) Nations have survived fascism, once the threat of “excessive” democracy is past.
–Gene Lantz
I’m on KNON.org “Workers Beat” radio talk show at 9AM Central Time ever Saturday. If you are curious about what I really think, you might look at my personal web site.
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