Robert Paxton, 'Anatomy of Fascism'.

Fascism is a misused term. The basic ideal of Fascism is not a modern conception, but one with ancient lineages. Fascist theology is fundamentally this: a pagan cult which imposes the destruction of the individual, the eradication of free-will, ethical beliefs and morality, and the submergence of humans into a communal cult, with specific aims and objectives, much of them ideological, tribal, national, or racially specific. This is my definition. I much prefer it to others for the simple reality, that pagan Fascist governance certainly antedates the modern period. The attributes of Islamic Fascism including Sharia Law, misogyny, racism, supremacism and a stupid supine belief in irrational non-human powers; can be found in the liturgy of Nazism, Communism, Castroism, or the societal creations of Chavez, Nasser, Mao, and Idi Amin.

Enter Paxton's seminal work on the topic. Paxton is a former Professor who taught the subject of Fascism for years, he was perplexed that in discussions with students, no clear definitions or models were apparent. Why was Franco's militarism, which certainly had aspects of Fascist governance, so different than the Romanian variety, or that of Mussolini's Italy? Wasn't Russian Communism just another variety of Fascism, with different claims but similar objectives as Hitler's Reich?

Paxton erroneously believes that Fascism is a modern phenomenon, with the use of technology and communications making a state-military occupation of territory and populations much easier. I would completely disagree with this. Paxton identifies the dislocations and misery during and post World War I, as the progenitor of modern Fascism. This is undoubtedly true. But the beliefs, the dogma, the emotional irrationality, the will-to-power, the love of violence, the lust for destruction, the rampant racism, the sick supremacism, the use of propaganda – all these and more long predate the breakdown of the European system in 1914:

“The mobilizing passions of fascism are hard to treat historically, for many of them are as old as Cain. It seems incontestable, however, that the fevers of increased nationalism before World War I and the passions aroused by that war sharpened them. Fascism was an affair of the gut more than of the brain, and a study of the roots of fascism that treats only the thinkers and the writers misses the most powerful impulses of all.”

The cultural zeitgeist of the late 19^th century prepared the way for the various Fascisms of the 20^th. With a marked decline in religion, the Enlightenment period gave way in the 19^th century to theories of racial and cultural superiority, might-makes-right, and nationalist prerogatives including the redress of historical 'wrongs'. Social Darwinism quickly mutated through academics, writers and philosophers, into intolerant systems of thought espousing conflict, war, national differences, and theories of dialectical inevitability. Modern Fascisms, along with Marxist programs, seized on these and proffered solutions, doctrines and national programs which neatly and quite simplistically, 'explained it all', to the masses. With World War I, the depression and social upheaval on a colossal scale from 1914 to 1930, the time was ripe and ready for Fascism, premised on economic, cultural, and social Marxism, to assume power.

Even given Paxton's correct analysis that the Great War was the initiator and abettor of modern Fascism, there is precious little that is unique or novel in the modern forms of Fascist governance, which cannot be viewed in the Orientalisms of Pharoanic Egypt; or the empire of Sargon the Great in Mesopotamia. This is a main objection one can have with Paxton's book. Fascism, in its Oriental, pagan, and communal ideal, is not a modern creation. Fascism as an ideology is undeniably ancient, quite pagan, and consumed with death and a belief that humans are individually worthless, and that the cult of the state is the only important matter in life.

A second great objection is Paxton's mistaken and quite academic belief, that Fascism is a right-wing concept. This is plainly ridiculous. There is nothing 'right wing' about any of the Fascist tenets. Few people can even define what 'right-wing' means, but usually it is some form of conservative program. Conservatism has no relation whatsoever to either Statism, or its more vulgar expression in Fascism. Conservatism supports free-will, freedom of speech, freedom of religion, free-trade, individual responsibility and a cult of life. Statism and Fascism promote the opposite. Any cursory study of modern Fascism reveals that it is a direct outgrowth of Marxism. Hitler was a Marxist and openly admits that in Mein Kampf – a book that Paxton should have read. All Fascism's employ some variety of Hitler's 'National Socialism', in which the cult manages all of the important functions of the market, the media, propaganda, a police state; whilst granting 'guarantees' of services such as health care, dental care, day care, education and even jobs. There is nothing 'right-wing' about this program of Fascist control. The Fascist cult disposes of the individual and builds up the communal.

As Paxton comments, Fascism is a decidedly Statist enterprise;

“At its fullest development, fascism redrew the frontiers between private and public, sharply diminishing what had once been untouchably private. It changed the practice of citizenship from the enjoyment of constitutional rights and duties to participation in mass ceremonies of affirmation and conformity. It reconfigured relations between the individual and the collectivity, so that an individual had no rights outside community interest.”

Fascism and Socialism were fighting over the same space. Mussolini was a hard-core Marxist, a fact born out by any study of the man's career. Hitler openly crowed that the Fascists had taken the most vital parts of their social platform from the Marxists and Communists. The clashes in Italy and Germany between the two far-left movements, the Fascists and the Marxists, were simply battles over the same political space. Both Marxism and Fascism had to appeal to a broad cross-section of society to get 'elected' in an age of suffrage. Both needed to show how tough and determined they were to right the wrongs of society, cure depressions, create jobs, build infrastructure, and fight off 'national enemies', including Jews, Gypsies, Gays, Slavs, or other undesirables.

Paxton acknowledges the above when he states:

“Fascism received its name and took its first steps in Italy. Mussolini was no solitary adventurer, however. Similar movements were springing up in postwar Europe independently of Mussolini's Fascism but expressing the same mixture of nationalism, anti-capitalism, voluntarism, and active violence against both bourgeois and socialist enemies.”

The Fascist desired control over all the functions of economic, political, social and informational life. In this regard the Fascist regime has to be mutable, somewhat opportunistic, and it must use the existing structures of society to its benefit. Only in Communist Russia did the Communists or Fascists, [there was little difference between the two ideals]; eradicate the state and start again. Much more common was the Nazi program in Germany, imitated elsewhere, where the Fascist cult, took over using parallel organizations the normative state:

“...parallel structures....the process of achieving power, and of exercising power. It is one of the defining characteristics of fascism....Fascist regimes...retained both the parallel structures and the traditional state, in permanent tension,which made them function very differently from the Bolshevik regime once in power.”

The dual state is entirely valid. Fascists can only get and retain power by appealing to all classes, including the bureaucracy, the rich, the industrial, the political, and the middle-class. Fascism is thus a very broad based movement using simpleton catch-all themes to buy votes and emotional support. 'Conservative' elements in a Fascist state view the cult as a means to hold off the more irrational and violent 'communalists'. The wealthy can work with the Fascists to retain their money and perhaps even expand their wealth. The poor get bought off with the promises of jobs, education and free national services. The middle class view the Fascists as the keepers of societal peace and are enchanted by the myths, the pagan symbols and the irrational rhetoric of solidarity and community. Everyone except the targets of state violence and racism, seems to win in the Fascist state.

All of the above is valid and confirmed by Paxton's survey. So what does he say about Islam? As one would expect – nothing. Paxton apparently believes that a pagan Arabian moon cult, named Submission and mired in communal worship of a celestial object, misogynous, racist, supremacist, irrational, poor, brutal and violent, is a system of faith. For Paxton, 'religions' cannot be Fascistic. This line of thinking is merely a metaphysical debate. Any system of societal control can of course be Fascist. It matters not what the label of the program is, but what the details of the program entail. Islam is the great expression of pagan Fascism, the clearest example in history of destroying the individual for the benefit of the cult, and of using war, violence, slavery and racism to spread its doctrine. This huge omission is thus a third major criticism and objection to Paxton's work.

On the positive side there is plenty of information and national studies of Fascism. This is very helpful. Most people would be surprised and hopefully dismayed at how prevalent post World War I, the Fascist movement was throughout Europe. The most important asset of Paxton's study is that he covers all of the modern European Fascisms and highlights the similarity of each project even as the Fascist project mutated to national and tribal-cultural peculiarities. This is valuable since it provides the reader with some insight into how such an insidiously evil project can mutate and take on different forms in different regions of the globe, under different labels and names. But by ignoring Islam, and non-European Fascism, the book is incomplete, counter-factual and ultimately disappointing.