The Five Stages of Fascism
Author(s): Robert O. Paxton
Source: The Journal of Modern History, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Mar., 1998), pp. 1-23
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The Five Stages of Fascism*
Robert 0. Paxton
ColumbiaUniversity
At firstsight, nothingseems easierto understandthanfascism. It presentsitself
to us in crude,primaryimages: a chauvinistdemagogueharanguingan ecstatic
crowd;disciplinedranksof marchingyouths;uniform-shirtedmilitantsbeating
up membersof some demonizedminority;obsessive preoccupationwith community decline, humiliation,or victimhood;and compensatorycults of unity,
energy,and purity,pursuedwith redemptiveviolence.
Yet great difficulties arise as soon as one sets out to define fascism.' Its
boundariesare ambiguousin both space and time. Do we include Stalin?Do
we reach outside Europeto charismaticdictatorsin developing countrieslike
Nkrumah,with his single party and official ideology of Nkrumaism,or Saddam Hussein, gigantic statues of whose own forearmsraise crossed swords
over a Baghdadavenue?2WhataboutimperialJapanin the 1930s or the nationalist syndicalismof JuanPeronin Argentina(1946-55)? How far back in time
must we go? If we choose to trace a conservativepedigree, we may reach all
the way back to Josephde Maistre,whose darkvision of violence and conspiracy in human affairs and conviction that only authoritycould represshuman
destructiveinstincts offer a propheticglimpse, accordingto Isaiah Berlin, of
* An earlierversionof this paperwas deliveredas the MarcBloch Lectureof the Ecole
des HautesEtudesen Sciences Sociales, Paris,on June 13, 1994. I thankmembersof my
graduateseminarsoverthe years,andAlice Kaplanandherstudents,for stimulatingcomments.
I We capitalize"Fascism"when referringto the Italianparty,andreferto genericfascism in the lower case. Following a periodof active studyof genericfascism in the 1960s
and early 1970s, stronglyinfluencedby Marxism,scholarlyactivity shifted afterabout
1975 awayfrom generic fascism to particularcases. See Tim Mason, "WhateverHappened to Fascism?" in Reevaluatingthe ThirdReich, ed. Thomas Childers and Jane
Caplan(New York,1993), pp. 253-62. Now the studyof genericfascism is reappearing,
in a rathertraditionaldescriptivevein. Roger Griffin,The Nature of Fascism (London,
1993), and Roger Eatwell, Fascism: A History (London, 1996), approachfascism as a
doctrine.Stanley G. Payne,A History of Fascism, 1914-1945 (Madison,Wis., 1995),
providesan encyclopedic empiricalsurvey.WalterLaqueur,Fascism: Past, Present,and
Future(New York,1996), deals morefully with the presentandfuturethanwith the past.
2 Samir el-Khalil, The Monument(Berkeley and Los Angeles, 1991). He does not
evoke fascism overtly.
[TheJournalof ModernHistory 70 (March1998): 1-23]
?1998 by The Universityof Chicago. 0022-2801/98/7001-0001$02.00
All rightsreserved.
2
Paxton
twentieth-centurytotalitarianismsof the Left and the Right.3If we prefer to
tracea lineage withinthe Left, drawingon the Enlightenment'sown perception
that individualliberty can underminecommunity,some have gone back as far
as Rousseau.4
Even if we limit ourselves to our own century and its two most notorious
cases, Nazi Germanyand Fascist Italy,we find that they display profounddifferences. How can we lump togetherMussolini and Hitler,the one surrounded
by Jewish henchmenand a Jewish mistress,the otheran obsessed antisemite?5
How can we equate the militarizedregimentationof Nazi Partyrule with the
laxity of Mussolinian Italy? Such eminent authoritiesas the late Renzo De
Felice in Rome and KarlDietrich Bracherof the Universityof Bonn have denied that GermanNazism and Italian Fascism belong to the same category.6
This article argues for their conceptual kinship, for reasons that we will develop as we proceed.7
Five majordifficultiesstandin the way of any effort to define fascism. First,
a problem of timing. The fascist phenomenon was poorly understoodat the
beginning in part because it was unexpected. Until the end of the nineteenth
century,most political thinkersbelieved that widening the vote would inevitably benefit democracyand socialism. FriedrichEngels, noting the rapidrise of
the socialist vote in GermanyandFrance,was surethattime and numberswere
on his side. Writingthe prefacefor a new edition in 1895 of KarlMarx'sClass
Struggles in France, he declaredthat "if it continues in this fashion, we will
conquerthe majorpartof the middle classes andthe peasantryand will become
the decisive power."8It took two generationsbefore the Left understoodthat
3 Sir Isaiah Berlin, "Josephde Maistreand the Origins of Fascism,"in The Crooked
Timberof Humanity(New York,1991).
4 JacobL. Talmon,The Origins of TotalitarianDemocracy (Boston, 1952). Talmon's
studentZeev Stemhell is the preeminentscholartodayof fascism'sintellectualroots in a
heresy of the Left, nationalsyndicalism.See, among many works, Zeev Stemhell with
MarioSznajderandMariaAsheri,TheBirthof FascistIdeology:FromCulturalRebellion
to Political Revolution(Princeton,N.J., 1994).
5 The formidableMargherita
Sarfatti,patronof the artsandMussolini'sofficialbiographer,is the subjectof Philip CanistraroandBrianR. Sullivan,Mussolini'sOtherWoman
(New York, 1993). Mussolini'smost notoriousJewishhenchmanwas Aldo Finzi, implicatedin the murderof the socialist leaderGiacomoMatteottiin June 1924.
6 Renzo De Felice, Fascism:An InformalIntroductionto Its Theoryand Practice:An
Interview with Michael A. Ledeen (New Brunswick, N.J., 1976), pp. 15, 55-56, 67,
94-96; Karl-DietrichBracher, Zeitgeschichtliche Kontroversen:Um Totalitarismus,
Faschismus,Demokratie(Munich,1976), p. 20.
7 RichardBessel, ed., Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany:Comparisonsand Contrasts
(Cambridge,1996), thepapersof a conferencein honorof TimMason,is the latestexaminationof the complicatedbut essentialconceptualunity of the two regimes.
8 FriedrichEngels, 1895 preface to KarlMarx, Class Strugglesin France(1848-50),
in TheMarx-EngelsReader,ed. RobertC. Tucker,2d ed. (New York,1978), p. 571.
Five Stages of Fascism
3
fascism is, after all, an authenticmass popularenthusiasmand not merely a
clever manipulationof populist emotions by the reactionaryRight or by capitalism in crisis.9
A second difficulty in defining fascism is createdby mimicry.In fascism's
heyday,in the 1930s, manyregimes thatwere not functionallyfascist borrowed
elements of fascist decor in orderto lend themselves an auraof force, vitality,
and mass mobilization.They were influencedby the "magneticfield" of fascism, to employ Philippe Burrin'suseful phrase.'0But one can not identify a
fascist regime by its plumage. George Orwell understoodat once that fascism
is not defined by its clothing. If, some day, an authenticfascism were to succeed in England, Orwell wrote as early as 1936, it would be more soberly
clad than in Germany."The exotic black shirts of Sir Oswald Mosley are one
explanationfor the failure of the principalfascist movement in England, the
BritishUnion of Fascists. Whatif they had wornbowler hats and carriedwellfurled umbrellas?The adolescent skinheadswho flauntthe swastikatoday in
parts of Europe seem so alien and marginal that they constitute a law-andorderproblem(seriousthoughthatmay be) ratherthan a recurrenceof authentic mass-basedfascism, astutely decked out in the patrioticemblems of their
own countries.Focusing on externalsymbols, which are subjectto superficial
imitation,addsto confusion aboutwhatmay legitimatelybe consideredfascist.
This leads to the thirdproblem with defining fascism, posed by the dauntingly wide disparityamong individualcases in space and in time. They differ
in space because each nationalvariantof fascism drawsits legitimacy, as we
shall see, not from some universal scripturebut from what it considers the
most authenticelements of its own communityidentity.Religion, for example,
would certainlyplay a much greaterrole in an authenticfascism in the United
States than in the first Europeanfascisms, which were pagan for contingent
historical reasons.'2They differ in time because of the transformationsand
9 In the 1970s, WesternMarxistscriticizedStalin'sinterpretationof fascism andfound
an alternatetraditionin AugustThalheimer,the Austro-Marxists,andAntonio Gramsci.
See, e.g., Nicos Poulantzas,Fascism and Dictatorship(London,1974); andAnson Rabinbach, "Towarda MarxistTheory of Fascism and National Socialism,"New German
Critique,no.3 (Fall 1974), pp. 127-53. WolfgangWippermannsurveysthe Germancase
in "ThePostwarGermanLeft andFascism,' Journalof ContemporaryHistory 11 (October 1976): 185-219, and in Fascismustheorienzum Stand der GegenwartigenDiskussion, 5th ed. (Darmstadt,1989).
'0PhilippeBurrin,"LaFrancedansle champmagnetiquedes fascismes,"Le Debat 32
(November1984): 52-72.
11GeorgeOrwell,TheRoad to WiganPier (New York,1961), p. 176. See also TheLion
and the Unicorn (1941), quoted in The Collected Essays, Journalism,and Letters of
GeorgeOrwell,ed. Sonia OrwellandIanAngus (New York,1968), 3:93.
12 Payne,History (n. 1 above),pp. 490, 518, considersfascism inherentlyanticlerical;
religious fundamentalisms,he asserts,aremorelikely todayto produceauthoritarianism
4
Paxton
accommodationsdemandedof those movementsthatseek power.A little circle
of dissidentnationalistsyndicalists, such as those whom Zeev Sternhellstudies, functionsdifferentlyfrom a partyin searchof alliances and of complicities
within the country'selites. Disparatein their symbols, decor,and even in their
political tactics, fascist movementsresemble each other mainly in their functions (a point to which we shall return).
A fourth and even more redoutabledifficulty stems from the ambiguous
relationshipbetween doctrine and action in fascism. We shall have to spend
much more time with this problem than with the others. As intellectuals,
almost instinctively, we classify all the great political movements-all the
"isms"-by doctrine.It is a time-honoredconventionto take for grantedthat
fascism is an "ism" like the others and so treat it as essentially a body of
thought.'3By an analogy that has gone largely unexamined, much existing
scholarshiptreatsfascism as if it were of the same natureas the greatpolitical
doctrinesof the long nineteenthcentury,like conservatism,liberalism,and socialism. This articleundertakesto challengethatconventionandits acompanying implicit analogy.
The great "isms" of nineteenth-centuryEurope-conservativism, liberalism, socialism-were associatedwith notablerule, characterizedby deference
to educated leaders, learned debates, and (even in some forms of socialism)
limited popular authority.Fascism is a political practice appropriateto the
mass politics of the twentiethcentury.Moreover,it bears a differentrelationship to thought than do the nineteenth-century"isms."Unlike them, fascism
does not rest on formalphilosophicalpositions with claims to universalvalidity. There was no "FascistManifesto,"no founding fascist thinker.Although
one can deduce from fascist language implicit Social Darwinist assumptions
about humannature,the need for communityand authorityin human society,
andthe destinyof nationsin history,fascism does not base its claims to validity
on theirtruth.'4Fascists despise thoughtandreason, abandonintellectualpositions casually,and cast aside many intellectualfellow-travelers.They subordinate thought and reason not to faith, as did the traditionalRight, but to the
thanneofascism. In practice,however,fascisms can be close to churchesidentifiedwith
the nationalcause, as in Croatia,as Paynehimself shows. Laqueur,Fascism (n. 1 above),
pp. 95, 148-5 1, posits a closer link betweenreligiousfundamentalismandneofascism.
13 Roger Griffinand RogerEatwell (n. 1 above) assertvigorously thatfascism is to be
understoodas a doctrine.The most ambitiouseffort is Griffin's;he overcomesthe problems of variationand contradictionby paring the fascist minimum down to national
regeneration.Even Payne'smorenarrativeHistorysays "readingfascist programs"is his
methodologicalstartingpoint (pp. 11, 472).
14 A recentbriefreview of these assumptionswithinNazism, with an extensivebibliography,is found in Michael Burleigh and Wolfgang Wippermann,The Racial State:
Germany1933-1945 (Cambridge,1991), chap.2.
Five Stages of Fascism
5
promptingsof the blood andthe historicdestinyof the group.Theironly moral
yardstickis the prowess of the race, of the nation, of the community.They
claim legitimacy by no universalstandardexcept a Darwiniantriumphof the
strongestcommunity.
Fascists deny any legitimacy to universalprinciplesto such a point thatthey
even neglect proselytism.Authenticfascism is not for export.'5Particularnational variants of fascism differ far more profoundly one from another in
themes and symbols than do the nationalvariantsof the true "isms."The most
conspicuous of these variations,one that leads some to deny the validity of
the very concept of generic fascism, concems the natureof the indispensable
enemy: within Mediterraneanfascisms, socialists and colonized peoples are
more salient enemies thanis the Jewry.'6Drawingtheir slogans and their symbols from the patriotic repertoryof one particularcommunity,fascisms are
radically unique in their speech and insignia. They fit badly into any system
of universalintellectualprinciples. It is in their functions that they resemble
each other.
Further,the wordsof fascist intellectuals-even if we acceptfor the moment
that they constitute fundamentalphilosophical texts-correspond only distantly with what fascist movements do after they have power. Early fascist
programsare poor guides to later fascist policy. The sweeping social changes
proposedby Mussolini'sfirstFascist programof April 1919 (includingthe vote
for women, the eight-hourday, heavy taxation of war profits, confiscation of
church lands, and workers' participationin industrialmanagement)stand in
flagrantconflict with the macho persona of the later Duce and his deals with
conservatives.Similarly,the hostility of the Nazi Twenty-FivePoints of 1920
towardall capitalismexcept that of artisanproducersbearslittle relationto the
sometimes strainedthough powerfullyeffective collaborationfor rearmament
between Germanbusiness and the Nazi regime.'7
15MichaelA. Ledeen, UniversalFascism: The Theoryand Practice of the Fascist International,1928-1936 (New York, 1972), explores Mussolini's short-livedattemptto
gatherthe otherfascist movementsaroundhimself in an internationalorganization.Hitler
manifestedlittleinterestin his foreigndisciples, showingnotablereluctanceto entrustthe
governanceof conqueredterritoriesto Quislingslike the originalin Norway(outof power
until 1942), Mussertin Holland,andDegrelle in Belgium.A recentstudyis MartinConway, Collaborationin Belgium: Leon Degrelle and the Rexist Movement(New Haven,
Conn., 1993).
16 Emilio Gentile, TheSacralizationof Politics in Fascist Italy,trans.Keith Botsford
(Cambridge,Mass., 1996), pp. 24-25, examines the ritualpurificatoryburningof captured socialist materialsby the squadristi. For Italian Fascist racialism(more cultural
thanbiological) directedagainstLibyansandEthiopians,see n. 61 below.
17 Currentauthorsstill sometimes claim that the Nazis violated the aspirationsof big
business. See, for example, Payne,History,p. 190. In fact, most businessleaders,whose
negativememoriesof Weimarandthe Depressionwere still fresh,swallowedtheirreluc-
6
Paxton
Stermhellrespondsto this line of argumentby assertingthat every political
movement deforms its ideology under the constraintsof exercising power.'8
Fascism, however (unlike Stalinism),never producesa casuistic literaturedevoted to demonstratinghow the leader'sactions correspondin some profound
way to the basic scriptures.Being in accord with basic scripturessimply does
not seem to matterto fascist leaders, who claim to incarnatethe nationaldestiny in theirphysical persons.
Feelings propel fascism more thanthoughtdoes. We might call them mobilizing passions, since they function in fascist movementsto recruitfollowers
and in fascist regimes to "weld"the fascist "tribe"to its leader.'9The following
mobilizing passions are present in fascisms, though they may sometimes be
articulatedonly implicitly:
1. The primacyof the group,towardwhich one has duties superiorto every
right, whetheruniversalor individual.
2. The belief that one's group is a victim, a sentiment which justifies any
action againstthe group'senemies, internalas well as external.
3. Dreadof the group'sdecadenceunderthe corrosiveeffect of individualistic and cosmopolitanliberalism.
4. Closerintegrationof the communitywithin a brotherhood(fascio) whose
unity andpurityareforgedby commonconviction,if possible, or by exclusionary violence if necessary.
5. An enhancedsense of identity and belonging, in which the grandeurof
the groupreinforcesindividualself-esteem.
6. Authorityof naturalleaders (alwaysmale) throughoutsociety, culminating in a national chieftain who alone is capable of incarnatingthe group's
destiny.
tance aboutNazi autarkyandthrivedhandsomelyon rearmament.PeterHayes,Industry
and Ideology:IG Farben in the Nazi Era (Cambridge,1987), finds an "intersection,not
an identity,of interests"(p. 120). Daimler-Benzenjoyedparticularfavorwith the regime.
See BemardP. Bellon, Mercedesin Peace and War(New York,1990). The most important common interest, of course, was the emasculationof the labor movement.These
issues are magisteriallytreatedby CharlesMaier,"The Economics of Fascism and Nazism," in his In Search of Stability: Explorations in Historical Political Economy
(Cambridge,1987), pp. 70-120.
18 Stermhell
et al. (n. 4 above),p. 231, arguethatactionsconflictwith programsno more
extensivelywith fascism thanwith otherpolitical currents.
191drawthese termsfromMarcBloch'sdescriptionin summer1943 of the twopolitical
systems then engaged in a life-and-deathstruggle:"the tribe that a collective passion
welds to its leader is here-that is, in a republic-replaced by a communitygovemed
by laws."Marc Bloch, "Pourquoije suis republicain,"Les Cahierspolitiques, Organe
du Comite general d'etudesde la Resistance,no. 2 (July 1943), one of the "ecritsclandestins" published in L'Etrangedefaite (Paris, 1993), p. 215. He evoked the same
distinctionin L'Etrangedeaite, p. 176:Hitlerism"remplacela persuasionparla suggestion emotive."
Five Stages of Fascism
7
7. The beauty of violence and of will, when they are devotedto the group's
success in a Darwinianstruggle.
Programsare so easily sacrificedto expediency in fascist practice that, at
one point, I was temptedto reduce the role of ideology in fascism to a simple
functionalism:fascists proposeanythingthat serves to attracta crowd, solidify
a mass following, or reassuretheir elite accomplices. That would be a gross
oversimplification.Ideas count in fascism, but we must be precise about exactly when and how they count.They count more at some stages thanat others.
At the beginning, their promise of radical spiritual-culturalrenewal and restored national community helps fascists recruit a broad and varied public,
including some respectableintellectuals.20Early fascist ideas helped amplify
the disreputeof the liberalvalues to which the broadmiddle classes had largely
adheredbefore WorldWarI. But it is only by distancingthemselvesfrom those
elements of the early radicalprogramsthat were threateningto conservatives
that certainfascist movementshave been able to gain and exercise power.
In power, what seems to count is less the faithful applicationof the party's
initial ideology than the integratingfunctionthat espousing one official ideology performs, to the exclusion of any ideas deemed alien or divisive. Much
laterin the fascist cycle, at the climactericmoment,underthe influenceof war,
partsof the originalradicalfascist programsthatdo not threatenexisting social
or economic hierarchies(such as the Nazis' racial obsessions) may recover
their ascendancy.We will returnto these matterswhen we discuss the stages
in detail. The contradictionsthat obscure every readingof fascist texts can be
resolved, therefore,only by the study of the choices made by the fascists in
their daily actions.
To illustratethis proposition,considerthe two most ambiguousconcepts in
the fascist lexicon: revolutionand modernity.Fascists like to call themselves
revolutionaries,but one discovers best by their actions what they really want
to change. Their revolutionconsists of hardeningthe characterand purifying
and energizing the community ratherthan making the social structureor the
economic system morejust or free. Fascist militantsproclaimthemselves antibourgeois;what they hate in the bourgeoisie, however,is not exploitationbut
softness. Sternhellhas put his fingerprecisely on what distinguishesthose revolutionarieswho abandonearly fascism, when it begins to repositionitself for
power,from those who remainfaithfulto it throughall its transformations.The
first remaincommittedto a change in the socio-economic order.The faithful,
20
WalterL. Adamson, "Modernismand Fascism: The Politics of Culture in Italy,
1903-1922,"AmericanHistoricalReview95 (April 1990): 359-90, holds thatthe principal effect of Mussolini'sassociationwith modernistintellectualswas the legitimationthis
lent earlyFascism(p. 361). "Theimportantissue . .. is not the contentof fascist ideology
but the culturalsources of fascist rhetoricand of the secular-religiousaurait sought to
project"(p. 363).
8
Paxton
by contrast, preach a moral revolution in order to create "the new fascist
believe in change in the sense used by Tanman."921Fascist "revolutionaries"
credi, scion of the decayingnoble Sicilian family in Giuseppe di Lampedusa's
great novel The Leopard: "If we want things to stay as they are, things will
have to change."22
Similar confusions surroundthe fascist understandingof modernity.Hitler
loved to arrivetheatricallyaboarda superchargedMercedes or by airplane.It
is true that he nursedthe archaicdreamof installing Germanpeasantcolonies
in the plains of easternEurope,but this dreamcould be realized only by modem weaponry.Hitlerexecratedthe Bauhausstyle; the young Mussolini, on the
contrary,was attractedto aesthetic modernism.23It has been traditionalto try
to resolve these conflicts by scrutinizingfascist texts.24These conflicts can best
be resolved, however,by examining fascist actions: all fascists seek technical
and militarypower while simultaneouslytryingto escape the destabilizingsocial effects of the industrializationsuch power requires.They combine technical modernitywith a system of authorityand discipline intended to suppress
the disorderlysocial consequencesof industrialexpansion.The meaningsthat
fascists give to the concepts of revolution and modernity,ambiguous in the
texts, become comprehensiblein their concrete applications.
The fifth and final difficultywith definingfascism is caused by overuse:the
word "fascist"has become the most banal of epithets.Everyoneis someone's
fascist. ConsiderRush Limbaugh's"feminazis.' A couple of summers ago, I
heard a young Germancall Western-sponsoredbirth control programsin the
ThirdWorld"fascist,"forgettingthat the Nazis and the ItalianFascists were,
for once, agreed in encouraging large families-except, of course,
among those considered either eugenically or racially inferior.Those people
were condemnedto sterilization,if not worse.25The term "fascist"has been so
21
Stemhell et al., pp. 193, 249.
Giuseppe di Lampedusa,The Leopard, trans. ArchibaldColquhoun (New York,
1950), p. 40.
23
BarbaraMiller Lane, Architectureand Politics in Germany,1918-1945 (Cambridge, Mass., 1985); WalterL. Adamson,Avant-gardeFlorence: BetweenModernism
and Fascism (Cambridge,Mass., 1993).
24 JeffreyHerf,ReactionaryModernism(Cambridge,1984), tries,with greaterudition,
to extractthe meaningof the "modern"fromwithinfascist texts.
25 Gisela Bock, Zwangssterilisationim Nationalsozialismus:Studienzur RassenpolitikundFrauenpolitik(Opladen,1986), has transformedourunderstandingof Nazi family
policy by underliningthe antinatalistcharacterof its programsof obligatorysterlization
for foreigners,the incurablyill, Jews, andGypsies.These antinatalistpolicies coexisted,
however,with a natalistpolicy for "the masterrace."See Atina Grossmann,"Feminist
Debates aboutWomenand NationalSocialism,"Genderand History 3 (Autumn1991):
350-58.
22
Five Stages of Fascism
9
loosely used that some have proposed giving it up altogether in scholarly
research.26
Nevertheless,we cannot give up in the face of these difficulties.A real phenomenon exists. Indeed, fascism is the most original political novelty of the
twentiethcentury,no less. It successfully gathered,againstall expectations,in
certainmodem nations that had seemed firmly planted on a path to gradually
expandingdemocracy,a popularfollowing aroundhard,violent, antiliberaland
antisocialistnationalistdictatorships.Then it spreadits "politicsin a new key"
throughmuch of Europe, assembling all nationalistswho hated the Left and
found the Rightinadequate.27
We must be able to examine this phenomenonas
a system. It is not enough to treat each national case individually,as if each
one constitutesa categoryin itself. If we cannotexamine fascism synthetically,
we risk being unable to understandthis century,or the next. We must have a
word, and for lack of a better one, we must employ the word that Mussolini
borrowedfrom the vocabularyof the ItalianLeft in 1919, before his movement
had assumedits matureform.28Obliged to use the word fascism, we ought to
use it well.
Unfortunatelymuch scholarlywork on fascism complicatesthings still further by two very widespreaderrorsof approach.First, most authoritiestreat
generic fascism in a static manner.With several remarkableexceptions-I
think particularlyof PierreMilza and Philippe Burrin-they look for a fixed
essence: the famous "fascist minimum."29Second, most works consider
26
HenryA. Turner,Jr.,doubtedthatgenericfascism is a validoruseful conceptin "Fascism and Modernization,"in Reappraisalsof Fascism, ed. Henry A. Turner,Jr. (New
York,1975), pp. 132-33. GilbertAllardycepushedskepticismfurthestin "WhatFascism
Is Not: Thoughtson the Deflationof a Concept,"AmericanHistorical Review 84 (April
1979): 367-88.
27
The termis fromCarlSchorske,Fin-de-siecle Vienna(New York,1980), chap. 3.
28 The termfascio was used by syndicalistsin the 1890s, as in thefasci siciliani; it emphasizes the solidarityof brothersin action. Pro-interventionsyndicalists broughtthe
wordinto the nationalistlexicon duringWorldWarI, as in the Fasci de Difesa Nazionale
in Ferrara,to whosejournal,Il Fascio, Mussolinicontributedin 1917. The formfascismo
seems to be Mussolini'sown inventionin 1919.
29 PierreMilza, Fascismefrancais:passe etpresent(Paris,1987), presentsa four-stage
model of fascism; PhilippeBurrin,La De'rivefasciste(Paris, 1986), elegantlytracesthe
itinerariesby which JacquesDoriot,MarcelDeat, andGastonBergery,steeringbetween
blockages and opportunities,shifted from the Left to fascism. Most recentauthorsseek
some "fascistessence."Payne,History,pp. 487-95, while rejectingany monocausalor
reductionisttheory,presents"elementsof a retrodictivetheory.of fascism"thatapply to
movementsas well as to regimes;Laqueur,Fascism, finds fascism like pornography,in
that"it is difficult-perhaps impossible-to definein an operational,legally validway,"
but neverthelesspresents"theessence of fascism"(pp. 6, 13-2 1); in TheNatureof Fascism, Griffinproposes a "new ideal type" of fascism defined as "a genus of political
10
Paxton
fascisms in too isolated a manner,without sufficientsustainedreferenceto the
political, social, and cultural spaces in which they navigate. Together,these
two common errorsof approachproduce what we might call "bestiaries"of
fascism. Like medieval naturalists,they present a catalog of portraitsof one
beast afteranother,each one portrayedagainsta bit of backgroundscenery and
identifiedby its externalsigns.30
We can get beyond the "bestiary"approachby adoptingthree quite simple
historicalstrategies.One is to study fascism in motion, paying more attention
to processes than to essences. Another is to study it contextually,spending
at least as much time on the surroundingsociety and on fascism's allies and
accomplices as on the fascist movements themselves.31 The more actively a
fascist movement participatesin the political life of its country,the less one
can understandit in isolation. It is ensnaredin a web of reciprocalinfluences
with allies or rivalsin its country'scivil society.Finally,we can put the disconcerting malleabilityof fascisms in time and in space to good use. That malleabilityis not necessarilyan obstacleto understanding.It may even makeunderstanding easier, by making comparison possible. Comparisonis "a way of
thinkingmore than a method,"and it worksbetterwhen we try to account for
differences than when we try to amass vague resemblances.32Comparison
works revealinglywith fascisms, since every Westernsociety has containedat
least some marginalexample. Their different fates across time and space in
neighboringsettings shouldhelp us to identify the principalfactorsin the varying success of specific cases, and even to isolate the constants.33
ideology whose mythiccore in its variouspermutationsis a palingeneticformof populist
ultranationalism"
(p. 26); for Eatwell,fascism is a "coherentbody of thought(n. 1 above,
p. xvii) whose "essence"is a "formof thoughtthatpreachesthe need for social rebirthin
orderto forge a holistic-nationalradicalThirdWay"(p. 14).
30 An extremecase of this genre,AnthonyJoes, Fascism in the Contemporary
World:
Ideology,Evolution,Resurgence(Boulder,Colo., 1978), includespracticallyeverymassbased dictatorshipin the developingworld.
31 A superiorexample is Adrian Lyttleton, The Seizure of Power: Fascism in Italy,
1919-1929, 2d ed. (Princeton,N.J., 1987).
32 Raymond Grew, "On the CurrentState of ComparativeStudies,"in Marc Bloch
Aujourd'hui:Histoirecompare'eet sciences sociales, ed. HartmutAtsmaandAndreBurguiere (Paris,1990), p. 331.
33 MarcBloch, a greatexponentof comparisonin history,distinguishedtwo kinds:the
juxtapositionof similarphenomenain differentcultures,such as feudalismin the West
andin Japan;andtheparallelstudyof "neighboringandadjacentsocieties"havingknown
"changein the same direction."Marc Bloch, "Pourune histoire compareedes societes
europeennes,"Revuede Synthese46 (1928):15-50, reprintedin MarcBloch, Melanges
historiques,2 vols. (Paris, 1963), 1:16-40. This second type of historicalcomparison,
confrontingdifferentoutcomes for the same process in two neighboringregions, is the
sharpertool. Onethinksof the two halvesof thedepartementof the Sarthe,one republican
Five Stages of Fascism
11
But one must comparewhat is comparable.A regime where fascism exercises power is hardlycomparableto a sect of dissidentintellectuals.We must
distinguish the different stages of fascism in time. It has long been
standardto point to the differencebetween movementsand regimes. I believe
we can usefully distinguishmore stages thanthat,if we look clearly at the very
different sociopolitical processes involved in each stage. I propose to isolate
five of them:34(1) the initial creationof fascist movements;(2) theirrooting as
parties in a political system; (3) the acquisitionof power; (4) the exercise of
power; and, finally,in the longer term, (5) radicalizationor entropy.Since differentkinds of historicalprocess areinvolvedin each stage, moreover,we must
deploy differentscholarlystrategiesin the analysis of each.
Considerthe first stage. First-stagefascism is the domainof the intellectual
historian,for the process to be studied here is the emergence of new ways of
looking at the world and diagnosing its ills. In the late nineteenthand early
twentieth centuries, thinkers and publicists discredited reigning liberal and
democraticvalues, not in the name of eitherexisting alternative-conservative
or socialist-but in the name of somethingnew thatpromisedto transcendand
join them:a novel mixtureof nationalismand syndicalismthathad found little
availablespace in a nineteenth-centurypolitical landscapecompartmentedinto
Left and Right (thoughretrospectmay reveal a few maverickprecedents).This
first stage is the partof the fascist elephantthat scholarshave found most congenial as a subject;examining one limb, of course, may mislead us about the
whole beast.
Comparisonis of little help to us at this firststage, for all modernstateshave
had protofascistmilitants and publicists since the 1914-18 war. Fascism can
appearwhereverdemocracyis sufficientlyimplantedto have arouseddisillusion. That suggests its spatialand temporallimits: no authenticfascism before
the emergence of a massively enfranchisedand politically active citizenry.In
orderto give birthto fascism, a society must haveknown political liberty-for
betteror for worse.
But early fascisms were so ubiquitous that we can hardly attributetheir
origin to any one particularnational intellectual history. George Mosse has
fingered post-EnlightenmentGermany;Sternhell, France at the turn of the
and the other counterrevolutionary,
compared so fruitfully by Paul Bois, Paysans de
l'ouest(Paris, 1971); and of MauriceAgulhon'scomparisonof the differentreceptionof
republicanismin the earlynineteenthcenturyin two regions of the Var,one of them "virtually immobile" and the other "touchedby the fever of industrialdevelopment":La
Re'publiqueau village (Paris, 1979), p. 32.
34 Milza proposesfour stages:a firstfascism, thatof marginalmovementsof intellectuals from both Right and Left; a second fascism, that of militantactivists on the road to
power;a thirdfascism, exercisingpower;anda fourth,underthe pressuresof war.
12
Paxton
century,followed by Italian disciples.35A body of thought that one can call
"protofascist"appearedeven in the United States, at the end of the nineteenth
century.Brooks Adams, scion of a greatNew Englanddynasty,descendantof
two presidentsof the United States, lamentedthe moral decline of the United
States as a result of the concentrationof financialpower.36Later on, in 1918,
Adamsbelieved he had found the remedyto Americandecline in an authoritarian regime directing a state socialism. After the First WorldWar,the United
States,too, enteredthe "magneticfield"of Europeanfascisms. "Coloredshirt"
movementssprangup, such as the "SilverShirts,"or "S.S.,"of William Dudley Pelley.37
But it is furtherback in Americanhistory that one comes upon the earliest
phenomenon that seems functionally related to fascism: the Ku Klux Klan.
Just after the Civil War,some former Confederateofficers, fearing the vote
given to AfricanAmericansby the Radical Reconstructionistsin 1867, set up
a militiato restorean overturnedsocial order.The Klanconstitutedan alternate
civic authority,parallelto the legal state,which, in its founders'eyes, no longer
defended their community'slegitimate interests.In its adoption of a uniform
(white robe and hood), as well as its techniquesof intimidationand its conviction that violence was justified in the cause of the group's destiny, the first
version of the Klan in the defeatedAmericanSouth was a remarkablepreview
of the way fascist movementswere to functionin interwarEurope.38It is arguable, at least, thatfascism (understoodfunctionally)was bornin the late 1860s
in the AmericanSouth.
Since fascisms take theirfirststeps in reactionto claimed failings of democracy, it is not surprisingthat they should appearfirst in the most precocious
democracies,the United States and France.But we come now to a paradox:it
is not necessarily in the countriesthat generatedthe first fascisms that fascist
systems have had, historically,the best chance of succeeding.
The second stage-rooting, in which a fascist movementbecomes a party
35 GeorgeMosse, The Crisis of GermanIdeology(New York,1964), andotherworks.
Zeev Stemhell, Le droite re'volutionnaire,1885-1914: Les originesfranCaisesdufascisme (Paris, 1978); Stemhell et al. (n. 4 above).
36 Brooks Adams, The Law of Civilization and Decay: An Essay in History (New
York,1895).
37 Seymour MartinLipset and Earl Rabb, The Politics of Unreason:Right-WingExtremisminAmerica,1790-1970, 2d ed. (New York,1978), is a serviceable"bestiary"for
the United States.Pelley is treatedmost fully in Leo P.Riboffo, TheOld ChristianRight:
The ProtestantFar Rightfrom the Great Depression to the Cold War (Philadelphia,
1983). For a subtlediscussionof how appropriatethe fascist label is for the extremeright
in the United States duringthe 1930s, see Alan Brinkley,Voicesof Protest:Huey Long,
Father Coughlin,and the GreatDepression(New York,1982), pp. 269-83.
38 David M. Chalmers,HoodedAmericanism:TheFirst Centuryof the Ku KluxKlan,
1865-1965, 3d ed. (Durham,N.C., 1987), chap. 1. Correspondencesbetween fascism
Five Stages of Fascism
13
capable of acting decisively on the political scene-happens relativelyrarely.
At this stage, comparisonbecomes rewarding:one can contrastsuccesses with
failures. Success depends on certain relatively precise conditions: the weakness of a liberal state, whose inadequacies seems to condemn the nation to
disorder,decline, or humiliation;and political deadlockbecause the Right, the
heir to powerbut unableto continueto wield it alone, refuses to accept a growing Left as a legitimate governingpartner.Some fascist leaders, in their turn,
are willing to reposition their movements in alliances with these frightened
conservatives,a step that pays handsomely in political power, at the cost of
disaffectionamong some of the early antibourgeoismilitants.
To illustratethe issues raised by the rooting stage, consider the growth of
fascism among farmers.I have been studyinga peasantmovementin the west
of Francein the 1930s, whose leader,Henry Dorgeres, linked himself openly
with fascism, at least at the beginning,in 1934. I chose this subjectnot because
his Greenshirtsplayed a majorrole in interwarFrance-they did not, except
for severalconspicuouscrowd actions exaggeratedby the press-but because
it was in the countrysidethat GermanNazism and Italian Fascism first succeeded in becoming the representativesof an importantsocial and economic
interest.The comparisonbetween the success of ruralfascism in Germanyand
Italy and its relativefailure in Franceseems to me a fruitfulone. It permitsus
to identify those aspects of the FrenchThirdRepublicthatmade it a less propitious setting thanWeimarGermanyor the Italianliberal monarchyfor the political rooting of the local varietyof fascism.
All three of these countries experienced massive strikes of agricultural
workers:east-Elbian Germanyduring the postwar crisis in 1919-23; the Po
Valley and Apulia in Italy in 1920-21; and the big farms of northernFrance
and the ParisBasin duringthe two summersof the PopularFront,in 1936 and
1937.39The Germanstrikes were brokenby vigilantes, armedand abettedby
local army authorities,in cases in which the regularauthoritieswere too conciliatory to suit the landowners.The Italianones were brokenby Mussolini's
famous blackshirtedsquadristi, whose vigilantism filled the void left by the
andthe Klanin the 1920s areexploredby Nancy Maclean,BehindtheMaskof Chivalry:
TheMakingof the SecondKlan (New York,1994), pp. 179-88.
39 On east-ElbianGermany,see FriedaWunderlich,GermanFarm Labor,1810-1845
(Princeton,N.J., 1961), pp. 52, 105-8; Erich D. Kohler, "RevolutionaryPomerania,
1919-1920: A Study in MajoritySocialist AgriculturalPolicy and Civil-MilitaryRelations,"CentralEuropeanHistory9 (September1976):250-93; andMartinSchumacher,
LandundPolitik:Eine UntersuchungiiberpolitischeParteienundagrarischeInteressen
(Dusseldorf,1978), pp. 294-309; on Italy,see PaulCorner,Fascism in Ferrara(Oxford,
1976); FrankM. Snowden, Violenceand Great Estates in the South of Italy: Apulia,
1900-1922 (Cambridge,1986); andSimonaColarizi,Dopoguerraefascismo in Puglia,
1919-1926 (Bari, 1971); andon France,see Robert0. Paxton,FrenchPeasant Fascism
(New York,1997).
14
Paxton
apparentinability of the liberal Italian state to enforce order.It was precisely
in this direct action againstfarm-workerunions that second-stagefascism was
born in Italy and even launched on the path to power, to the dismay of the
firstFascists, intellectualdissidentsfrom nationalsyndicalism.Many militants
from the first stage resigned from second-stage Fascism at this point, complaining of being transformedinto "watchdogs"for the big planters.40
Francehad squadristi,too: HenryDorgeres'sGreenshirts(chemises vertes),
active duringthe great strikes of agriculturalworkersin the hot summers of
1936 and 1937. But the Greenshirts'role was limited to several symbolic actions in the big wheat and sugarbeet farms of the northand northwest(Aisne,
Somme, Seine-Maritime,Pas-de-Calais).It was the Frenchgendarmerie,even
with Leon Blum in power, who put down the agriculturalstrikes in France.
The Frenchlandownersdid not need the chemises vertes. The authorityof the
state and the power of the conservativefarmers'organizationsleft hardlyany
space in the French countryside for the rooting of a fascist parallel power.
These differencesin availablespace and allies seem to me much more influential than any differencesor resemblancesin vocabularyor programamong rural fascists in France,Germany,and Italy.
That is to say,the most significantdifferencesthatcomparisonreveals to us
concern the setting as much as the characterof the fascist movementsthemselves. This seems to be a quite fundamentalprinciple of good comparative
method (see n. 34 above). The descriptionof fascist movements in isolation
does not explain much. It leads us straightback to the bestiaryor, even worse,
to pruriency,as in Visconti's film The Damned, which invites us to leer at
the decadentperversityof individual fascist thugs.4'We learn much more if
we focus our gaze on the circumstancesthat favor the fascists-polarization
within civil society and deadlockswithin the political system-and on the fascists' accomplices and allies. It is in the surroundingconditionsthat one must
seek the differencesthatcount,for movementsthatsoundrathersimilarin their
rhetorichave arrivedat very differentresults in differentnationalsettings.
Therefore,the methods of intellectualhistorybecome much less helpful beyond the firststage in the fascist cycle. Everyfascist movementthathas rooted
itself successfully as a majorpolitical contender,therebyapproachingpower,
has betrayedits initial antibourgeoisand anticapitalistprogram.The processes
to be examined in later stages include the breakdownof democraticregimes
40
The disillusionedwordsof BarbatoGattelli,a Fascistfromthe movement'sfirstdays,
quotedin Coiner,Ferrara,p. 224.
41
Saul Friedldnder,Reflectionsof Nazism: An Essay on Kitsch and Death (Bloomington, Ind., 1993), explores the nihilistic and erotic undercurrentswithin aesthetic
evocationsof Nazism afterthe 1970s.
Five Stages of Fascism
15
and the success of fascist movementsin assemblingnew, broad catch-all parties thatattracta mass following acrossclasses andhence seem attractiveallies
to conservativeslooking for ways to perpetuatetheir shaken rule.42At later
stages, successful fascist partiesalso position themselves as the most effective
barriers,by persuasionor by force, to an advancingLeft and proveadeptat the
formation,maintenance,and dominationof political coalitions with conservatives. But these political successes come at the cost of the first ideological
programs.Demonstratingtheir contemptfor doctrine,successfully rooted fascist parties do not annul or amend their early programs.They simply ignore
them, while acting in ways quite contraryto them. The conflicts of doctrine
and practiceset up by successful fascist movementson the road to power not
only alienate many radical fascists of the first hour; they continue to confuse
many historianswho assume that analyzing programsis a sufficient tool for
classifying fascisms. The confusion has been compoundedby the persistence
of many early fascisms that failed to navigate the turn from the first to the
second and third stages and remainedpure and radical, though marginal,as
";nationalsyndicalisms."43
A thoughtfullook at the first two stages in the original fascist cycle-the
creationandemergenceof such movementsas plausibleplayerson the political
stage-shows how much improvisationwas involvedin the firststeps of Mussolini and Hitler.Mussolini evidently believed in 1919 that his new Fasci di
combattimentowere destined to gather discontented veterans together with
other discontentednationalists,from both Left and Right, in a vast movement
for profound social change. We have noted how the first Fascist program,
draftedin spring 1919, mixed nationalistterritorialclaims with social reforms
thatare astonishinglyradicalin the light of Mussolini'slateractions andmacho
persona.This early fascism was decisively defeated in the elections of 1919,
for there was no space in Italianpolitics for a party that was both nationalist
and Left. Mussolini would be totally forgottentodayif some of his lieutenants
in the provinceshad not discovereddifferentvocations-bashing Slovenes in
Triestein July 1920 andbashing socialist organizersof farmworkersin the Po
Valley in fall and winter 1920-21. Mussolini supportedthese new initiatives
42
It is curioushow little scholarlyattentionhas been devotedto the opening of spaces
within which fascism may expand.The principalwork is JuanLinz andAlfred Stepan,
eds., The Breakdown ofDemocratic Regimes (Baltimore, 1978).
43 Payne, History (n. 1 above), describes dozens of cases. Stemhell considers that
movementsin oppositionrevealmore aboutfascism thanregimes in power:"oneis able
to apprehendthe truesignificanceof thephenomenon"and"obtainsa clearerunderstanding of fascist thoughtandbehavior"if one studiesthe Frenchmovementsthat"neverhad
to makethe inevitablecompromises."Zeev Stemhell,NeitherLeftnorRight:Fascist Ideology in France(BerkeleyandLos Angeles, 1986), p. 270.
16
Paxton
by the ras, and his movementturnedinto somethingelse, thereafterprospering
mightily.44Hitler's efforts to recruit urban and working-class voters faltered
through 1928; he began assembling a mass electorate in 1929-30 when he
turnedhis attentionto recruitingruralpopulationsafflicted by the collapse of
farm prices.45The two apprenticeslearnedhow to be second-stage fascists by
trial and error.Their adaptationsto the availablespace undermineany effort
to portrayhistoricalfascism as the consistent expression of one coherentideology.
At the third stage, the arrivalin power, comparisonacquires greaterbite.
What characteristicsdistinguished Germany and Italy, where fascism took
power, from countries such as France and Britain, where fascist movements
were highly visible but remainedmarginal?We need to recall thatfascism has
never so far takenpower by a coup d'etat,deployingthe weight of its militants
in the street. Fascist power by coup is hardly conceivable in a modern state.
Fascism cannotappealto the streetwithoutrisking a confrontationwith future
allies-the army and the police-without whom it will not be able to pursue
its expansionist goals. Indeed, fascist coup attemptshave commonly led to
militarydictatorshipratherthan to fascist power (as in Romaniain December
1941).46Resorting to direct mass action also risks conceding advantagesto
fascism's principalenemy, the Left, which was still powerful in the street and
workplacein interwarEurope.47The only route to power availableto fascists
passes throughcooperationwith conservativeelites. The most importantvariables, therefore,are the conservativeelites' willingness to work with the fascists (along with a reciprocalflexibility on the partof the fascist leaders) and
the depthof the crisis that induces them to cooperate.
NeitherHitlernor Mussolini took the helm by force, even if they used force
earlierto destablizethe liberalregime and laterto transformtheirgovernments
44 Local fascist leaders were called ras afterEthiopianchieftains,for the Ethiopians'
defeatof the ItalianArmy atAdowain 1896 still rankledItaliannationalists.
45 Nazi ruralorganizershadto overcomeruralsuspicionsbased on Point 17 of the party'sTwenty-FivePointsof 1920. Itcalled forexpropriationwithoutcompensationof land
neededfor nationalpurposes,the abolitionof groundrent,andthe prohibitionof speculation in land. Thomas Childers,TheNazi Voter(ChapelHill, N.C., 1983), pp. 149-15 1,
215-21; J. E. Farquharson,"The AgrarianPolicy of National Socialist Germany,"in
Peasants and Lords in Modern Germany:Recent Studies in AgriculturalHistory, ed.
RobertG. Moeller (Boston, 1986), p. 236. See, more generally,J. E. Farquharson,The
Plough and theSwastika(Berkeley,1976); andAnnaBramwell,Blood and Soil: Richard
WaltherDarre'and Hitler's"GreenParty"(Abbotsbrook,1985).
46 Payne, among others,considers authoritarian
militarydictatorshipsthe most effective barrier,historically,againstfascist acquisitionsof power.See Payne,History,pp. 250,
252,312, 321, 326,395,492.
47 Interwarfascists could rememberhow a general strike had frustratedthe Kapp
Putschin Germanyin 1920.
Five Stages of Fascism
17
into dictatorships.48
Each was invited to take office as head of governmentby
a head of statein the legitimateexercise of his official functions,on the advice
of his conservativecounselors, underquite precise circumstances:a deadlock
of constitutionalgovernment(producedin partby the polarizationthatthe fascists abetted);conservativeleaders who felt threatenedby the loss of their capacity to keep the populationunder control at a moment of massive popular
mobilization;an advancingLeft; and conservativeleaderswho refusedto work
with thatLeft and who felt unable to continueto govern againstthe Left without furtherreinforcement.
Comparisonwith the quite variedcases where fascism flourishedbut failed
to take power can be instructiveat this third stage. In France, if fascism did
not arrivein power before the defeat of 1940, the explanation is not some
mysteriousallergy.49
Earlyfascism prosperedin France,but most conservatives
did not feel sufficiently threatenedin the 1930s to call on it for help, and fascism was not sufficientlyrooted and recenteredto impose itself as a partner.50
British fascism had little space availablebecause the ConservativeParty succeeded in ruling consensually from 1931 to 1945. Franco'smilitary dictatorship preemptedSpanishfascism, and SalazarcrushedPortuguesefascism after
he had copied some of its techniquesof popularmobilization.5'
The fourthstage-the exercise of power-is conditionedby the mannerin
48
Lyttelton (n. 31 above) is still best for this process in Italy. For Germany,KarlDietrich Bracher, Gerhard Schulz, and Wolfgang Sauer, Die nationalsozialistische
Machtergreifung,3 vols. (Cologne andOpladen,1962), is still basic. The most complete
analysisof the finalmomentsis HenryA. Turner,Jr.,Hitler'sThirtyDays to Power,January 1933 (Reading,Mass., 1996).
49 Serge Berstein, "LaFranceallergiqueau fascisme,"Vingtieme
siecle: Revued'histoire2 (April 1984): 84-94.
50PierreMilza (n. 29 above);RobertSoucy, FrenchFascism: The First Wave,19241933 (New Haven, Conn., 1986), and FrenchFascism: The Second Wave,1933-1939
(New Haven, Conn., 1995). The debate about the strengthof native fascism in France
turnson whetherthe largestmovement,Col. Frangoisde La Rocque'sParti socialfranVais, successor to his paramilitaryleague, the Croix de Feu, dissolved in 1936, can
properlybe consideredfascist.The positivecase is madefor boththe league andtheparty
by RobertSoucy andWilliamD. Irvine,"Fascismin Franceandthe StrangeCase of the
Croix de Feu,"Journal of Modern History 63 (June 1991): 271-95. Kevin Passmore,
"Boy Scoutismfor Grown-Ups?Paramilitarismin the Croix de Feu andthe PartiSocial
Frangais,"FrenchHistorical Studies 19 (Fall 1995): 527-57, distinguishesbetween the
league, which he considersfascist on behavioralmore thanideological grounds,andthe
party,which he considers conservative.JacquesNobecourt,Le Colonel de La Rocque,
1885-1946, ou les pie'gesdu nationalismechre'tien(Paris, 1996), an exhaustivesympathetic biography,portraysLa Rocque as a conservativevictimized by false accusations
andpersonalrivalries.
51 Stanley Payne, The FrancoRegime, 1936-1975 (Madison,Wis., 1987); Paul Preston, Franco:A Biography(New York,1994);AntonioCostaPinto,Salazar'sDictatorship
and EuropeanFascism (Boulder,Colo., 1995). See, generally,MartinBlinkhorn,ed.,
18
Paxton
which fascism arrivesin power.The fascist leaders who have reachedpower,
historically,have been condemnedto governin associationwith the conservative elites who had opened the gates to them. This sets up a four-waystruggle
for dominance among the leader,his party (whose militants clamor for jobs,
perquisites, expansionist adventures,and the fulfillment of elements of the
earlyradicalprogram),the regularstatefunctionariessuch as police commanders and magistrates,and the traditionalelites-churches, the army,the professions, and business leaders.52This four-waytension is what gives fascist rule
its characteristicblend of febrile activism and shapelessness.53
The tensions within fascist rule also help us clarify the frontiersbetween
authenticfascism and otherforms of dictatorialrule. Fascist rule is unlike the
exercise of power in either authoritarianism(which lacks a single party,or
gives it little power) or Stalinism(which lacked traditionalelites).54AuthoritarFascists and Conservatives:The Radical Right and the Establishmentin the Twentieth
Century(London,1990).
52 Racialhygiene has recentlyprovena fruitfulsubjectbecauseit links Nazi practiceto
professionalinterests.See Michael H. Kater,Doctors underHitler (ChapelHill, N.C.,
1989); Robert Jay Lifton, The Nazi Doctors: Medical Killing and the Psychology of
Genocide(New York,1986). BurleighandWippermann(n. 14 above),p. 353, n. 1, advocate, convincingly, a more anthropologicallyinformed study of how fascist regimes
interactedwith specific social groups.
53 Perspicaciouscontemporariessaw this compoundquality of fascist rule as a "dual
state,"in which the "normativestate"jostled for powerwith a "prerogativestate"formed
by the party'sparallel organizations.See ErmstFraenkel, The Dual State (New York,
1941); andFranzNeumann,Behemoth(New York,1942). The compoundnatureof fascist rulehasbeen conceptuallyrefinedsince the 1970s by the "polyocratic"interpretation.
See MartinBroszat, Hitler'sState (London, 1981); Hans Mommsen, in many works,
including From Weimarto Auschwitz,trans.Philip O'Connor(Cambridge,1991); and
Der Fiihrerstaat:Mythosund Realitit, ed. GerhardHirschfeldand LotharKettenacker
(Stuttgart,1981). For an analagousreadingof Fascist Italy,see Emilio Gentile, "Lerole
du partidansle laboratoiretotalitaireitalien,"Annales:Economies,societes, civilisations
43 (May-June 1988): 567-91; and PhilippeBurrin,"Politiqueet societe: Les structures
dupouvoirdansl'Italiefascisteet l'Allemagnenazie,"Annales:Economies,societes, civilisations 43 (May-June 1988): 615-37. For "shapelessness,"see HannahArendt, The
Origins of Totalitarianism,2d ed. (New York, 1958), pp. 389-390, 395, 398, 402. She
creditsthe termto Neumann,Behemoth.
54 JuanJ. Linz has made the classic analysis of authoritarianism
as a distinctform of
rule:"AnAuthoritarianRegime: Spain,"in Mass Politics: Studiesin Political Sociology,
ed. Erik Allard and Stein Rokkan (New York, 1970), pp. 251-83, "FromFalange to
Movimiento-Organizacion:The Spanish Single Party and the Franco Regime, 19361968,"inAuthoritarianPolitics in ModernSocieties: TheDynamicsof EstablishedOnePartySystems,ed. SamuelP.HuntingtonandClementMoore(New York,1970), "Totalitarian and AuthoritarianRegimes," in Handbook of Political Science, ed. Fred I.
Greensteinand Nelson W. Polsby (Reading,Mass., 1975), vol. 3, esp. pp. 264-350. As
for totalitarianism,ArendtincludedStalin andexcludedMussolini, as did CarlFriedrich
Five Stages of Fascism
19
ians would preferto leave the populationdemobilized, while fascists promise
to win the working class back for the nation by their superiortechniques of
manufacturingenthusiasm.55Although authoritarianregimes may trample
due process and individualliberties, they accept ill-defined, though real, limits to state power in favor of some privatespace for individualsand "organic"
intermediarybodies such as local notables, economic cartels, families, and
churches.Fascism claims to reducethe privatesphereto nothing,thoughthatis
propaganda(which has been quite successful, moreover,even with scholars).56
Stalin'sCommunistParty governeda civil society radically simplified by the
Bolshevik Revolution;underHitler,in contrast,the party,the bureaucracy,and
the traditionalelites jostled for power.Even if Stalin'stechniquesof rule often
resembledthose of fascism, he did not haveto concernhimself with concentrations of inheritedautonomoussocial and economic power.
The exercise of power involvedthe same elements in Mussolini'sItaly as in
Nazi Germany.57
It is the balancebetween the partyand traditionalinstitutions
that distinguishesone case from the other.In Italy,the traditionalstate wound
up with primacy,largely because Mussolini feared his own most militantfollowers, the local ras and their squadristi.In Nazi Germany,the partycame to
dominate,especially afterthe warbegan. This interplaybetween single parties
and traditionalelites helps us classify borderlineregimes, especially if we bear
in mind thatthe frontierswere fluid between authoritarianand fascist regimes,
and they might be crossed in either direction.The Vichy regime was certainly
andZbigniew Brzezinski, TotalitarianDictatorshipand Autocracy(Cambridge,Mass.,
1956). By thelate 1960s, the totalitarianismconcepthadcome to seem a ColdWarartifact
and remains in use today mainly in popularlanguage. See BenjaminR. Barber,"The
in Carl J. Friedrich,Michael Curtis, and
ConceptualFoundationsof Totalitarianism,"
BenjaminR. Barber,Totalitarianismin Perspective: ThreeViews(London, 1969). See
now Ian KershawandMoshe Lewin, eds., Stalinismand Nazism:Dictatorshipsin Comparison (Cambridge,1997).
55 The bordersbetweenthe two kindsof regimeareblurredhere,for,in practice,neither
gets its wish. Faced with arousedpublics, authoritariansas well as fascists may attempt
to createa Durkheimian"mechanicalsolidarity."Paul Brooker,The Faces of Fraternalism: Nazi Germany,Fascist Italy, and Imperial Japan (Oxford, 1991). Fascists may
achieve no morethana "superficial"and"fragile"consent.VictoriaDe Grazia,The Cultureof Consent:Mass Organizationof Leisurein Fascist Italy (Cambridge,1981), p. 20
andchap. 8, "TheLimitsof Consent."The most meticulousstudyof Germanpublicopinion underNazism, MartinBroszat's"Bavariaprogram,"concludedthat it was atomized
andpassive. See IanKershaw,Popular Opinionand Dissent in the ThirdReich:Bavaria,
1933-1945 (Oxford,1983).
56 RobertLey, head of the Nazi LaborService, said thatthe only privateindividualin
the Nazi stateis a personasleep.Arendtbelieved him. See Origins,p. 339.
57 AlbertoAquarone,Organizzazione
dello stato totalitario(Turin,1965), hasnot been
superseded.See also the articlesof GentileandBurrincited above.
20
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not fascist at the outset,for it had neithera single partynor parallelinstitutions.
As it became transformedinto a police state underthe pressuresof war,however, parallel institutions appeared:the Milice or supplementarypolice, the
"special sections" in the judiciary,the Police for Jewish Affairs.58Spain and
Portugal,relatedto Vichy by style of rule as well as by sympathy,differed in
thatneutralityin WorldWarII permittedthem to reinforcesteadilythe predominance of the traditionalstate over these countries'small fascist movements.59
In the long run (the fifth stage), fascist "dualpower"can evolve in eitherof
two directions:radicalizationor entropy.Mussolini's regime subsided toward
afterthe establishmentof the dictatorshipin 1925-26,
routineauthoritarianism
except duringcolonial campaigns.The EthiopianWar(1935-36) set off a "rivoluzione culturale"and "svoltatotalitaria"in which the Fascist regime tried
to shape the fascist "new man"by instituting"fascist customs,""fascist language," and racial legislation.60Within the sphere of colonialist action, first
in Libya and then in Ethiopia, the party'sarbitraryrule and policies of racial
discriminationwere free to set the tone.6'The radicalismof ItalianFascism's
early days reappearedat the end of the war in the phantomRepublic of Salo
that governedthe northof Italy underGermantutelage afterSeptember1943.
Nazi Germany alone experienced full radicalization.A victorious war of
exterminationin the East offered almost limitless freedom of action to the
"prerogativestate"and its "parallelinstitutions"released from the remaining
constraintsof the "normativestate,"such as they were. In the "no-man's-land"
of what had been Poland and the western parts of the Soviet Union they put
into applicationtheir ultimatefantasies of racial cleansing.62Extremeradical58
Michele Cointet, Vichyet le fascisme: Les hommes,les structures,et les pouvoirs
(Brussels, 1987).An interestingattemptto evaluateVichy'spropagandaeffortsas a failed
fascist experimentis Denis Peschanski,"Vichyau singulier,Vichy au pluriel:Une tentative avorteed'encadrementde la societe (1941-1942)," Annales: Economies, socie'tes,
civilisations43 (May-June 1988): 639-62. One may ask, with PhilippeBurrin,whether
an authenticfascism is compatiblewith foreign occupation:La Derivefasciste (n. 29
above),p.414.
59 SalazarsuppressedPortugueseNational Syndicalism in 1934 and downplayedthe
PortugueseLegion after1939. CostaPinto (n. 51 above),pp. 160-65, 188-90.
60 The terms are Renzo De Felice's in Mussolini:II Duce: Lo stato totalitario, 19361940 (Turin, 1981), p. 100; for this and other controversialjudgments by Mussolini's
principalbiographer,see BordenW.Painter,"RenzoDe Felice andthe Historiographyof
ItalianFascism,"AmericanHistoricalReview95 (April 1990): 391-405.
61 Claudio Segre, The Fourth Shore: The Italian Colonization of Libya (Chicago,
1974); Denis Mack Smith, Mussolini'sRoman Empire(New York, 1976); Luigi Preti,
"FascistImperialismandRacism,"in TheAx Within,ed. RolandSarti(New York,1974),
pp.187-207.
62 In the debateaboutwhat droveradicalization,the artificialdistinctionbetween "intentionalists"and "functionalists"has been resolved, most effectively by Christopher
Browning, in favor of an interactionbetween the leader'sintentions and competitive
Five Stages of Fascism
21
izationremainslatentin all fascisms, but the circumstancesof war,andparticularly of victorious wars of conquest, give it the fullest means of expression.63
Focus on processes and discriminationamong stages-this article'sprincipal methodological proposals-casts a clarifying light on many specialized
themes in the study of fascism. Social composition,for example, evolves with
successive stages. Any study that proposes a single, fixed social composition
inherentin fascism is flawed.64It also becomes doubtfulthat we can identify
a single unchanging fascist aesthetic that would apply to all the national
cases.65 The macho restorationof a threatenedpatriarchycomes close to being
a universal fascist value, but Mussolini advocated female suffrage in his
first program,and Hitler did not mention gender issues in his Twenty-Five
Points.66
Having picked fascism apart,have we escaped from the nominalismof the
bestiaryonly to fall into anothernominalismof processes and stages? Where
is the "fascism minimum"in all this? Has generic fascism evaporatedin this
analysis? It is by a functional definition of fascism that we can escape from
these quandaries.Fascism is a system of political authorityand social order
intended to reinforce the unity, energy, and purity of communities in which
liberal democracystands accused of producingdivision and decline. Its complex tensions (political revolution versus social restoration,order versus aggressive expansionism,mass enthusiasmversus civic submission) are hard to
harshnessamongsubordinateswho counton his approval.Browning'smostrecentanalysis is ThePath to Genocide:Essays on Launchingthe Final Solution(Cambridge,1992).
63 OmerBartovmakes a somewhatdifferentpoint abouthow the special conditionsof
the Russiancampaigninuredthe Army as well as the SS to brutality.See The Eastern
Front,1941-1945: GermanTroopsand theBarbarizationof Warfare(New York,1986),
andHitler'sArmy:Soldiers,Nazis, and Warin the ThirdReich (New York,1991).
64 Stein U. Larsen,BerntHagtvet,and JanPetterMyklebust,eds., WhoWerethe Fascists? Social Roots of EuropeanFascism (Oslo, 1980), surmountsthis problembetter
thanmost. Currentwork shies awayboth from class andfrom HannahArendt'sclassless
mass, preferringto explore links with more particularlydefined groups: professions
(n. 53 above), clubs, fraternities,and other "intermediarybodies." See Rudy Koshar,
"FromStammtischto Party:Nazi Joinersandthe Contradictionsof GrassRoots Fascism
in WeimarGermany,"
Journalof ModernHistory59 (March1987): 1-24; and,moregenerally, Rudy Koshar, Social Life, Local Politics, and Nazism: Marburg, 1880-1935
(ChapelHill, N.C., 1986).
65 SusanSontagmade an interestingeffortto extractthe elementsof a fascist aesthetic
from the work of Leni Riefenstahl:"FascinatingFascism,"in Susan Sontag, Underthe
Sign of Saturn(New York,1980), but it may applymainlyto Germanculture.
66 Still basic in English is Jill Stephenson,Womenin Nazi Society (New York, 1975);
Burleigh and Wippermann(n. 14 above) have an up-to-datechapteron women in Nazi
Germanyand, more innovatively,one on men. George Mosse, TheImage of Man: The
Creationof ModernMasculinity(New York,1996), culminateswith Nazi Germany.Essential for Italy is Victoria De Grazia,How Fascism Ruled Women:Italy, 1922-1945
(BerkeleyandLos Angeles, 1992).
22
Paxton
understandsolely by readingits propaganda.One must observeit in daily operation, using all the social sciences and not only intellectual-culturalhistory,
and, since it is not static, one must understandit in motion, throughits cycle
of potential(thoughnot.inevitable)stages.
Defining fascism functionally,together with distinguishingclearly among
successive stages, also helps us answer the burningquestion of this moment:
can fascism still exist today, in spite of the humiliating defeat of Hitler and
Mussolini, the declining availabilityof the war option in a nuclear age, the
seemingly irreversibleglobalization of the economy, and the triumphof individualisticconsumerism?After ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, the rise of
exclusionarynationalismsin postcommunistEasternEurope, the "skinhead"
phenomenonin Britain, Germany,Scandinavia,and Italy, and the election of
MirkoTremaglia,a veteranof the Republicof Salo, as chairmanof the Foreign
Affairs Committeeof the ItalianParliamentduringthe Berlusconigovernment,
it would be hardto answer"no"to thatquestion.67
The most interesting cases today, however, are not those that imitate the
exotic colored-shirtmovementsof an earliergeneration.New functionalequivalents of fascism would probably work best, as George Orwell reminded
us, clad in the mainstreampatriotic dress of their own place and time. An
authenticallypopularfascism in the United States would be pious and antiBlack; in Western Europe, secular and antisemitic, or more probably,these
days, anti-Islamic;in Russia and EasternEurope, religious, antisemitic, and
slavophile.It is wiser to pay attentionto the functions fulfilled by new movements of an analogous type, to the circumstancesthat could open a space to
them, and to the potential conservativeelite allies ready to try to coopt them
ratherthanlook for echoes of the rhetoric,the programs,or the aestheticpreferences of the protofascistsof the last fin de siecle. We may legitimately conclude, for example, thatthe skinheadsare functionalequivalentsof Hitler'sSA
and Mussolini's squadristi only if importantelements of the conservative
elite begin to cultivatethem as weapons against some internalenemy, such as
immigrants.
The right questions to ask of today'sneo- or protofascismsare those appropriate for the second and third stages of the fascist cycle. Are they becoming
rooted as parties that representmajor interests and feelings and wield major
influence on the political scene? Is the economic or constitutionalsystem in a
state of blockage apparentlyinsolubleby existing authorities?Is a rapidpolitical mobilization threateningto escape the control of traditionalelites, to the
point where they would be temptedto look for tough helpers in orderto stay
67
Payne,History(n. 1 above),p. 496, alongwith all otherswho considerfascism a specific doctrinebornof late nineteenth-centurynationalsyndicalism,is obliged to conclude
that"thesame forms of fascism could not be effectively revived"after 1945.
Five Stages of Fascism
23
in charge? It is by answeringthose kinds of questions, groundedin a proper
historicalunderstandingof the processes at work in past fascisms, and not by
checking the color of the shirtsor seeking tracesof the rhetoricof the nationalsyndicalist dissidents of the opening of the twentiethcentury,that we may be
able to recognize our own day'sfunctionalequivalentsof fascism.