Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion

Roger Griffin

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2013
• ISBN:
  9781136871757
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Politics & International Relations
• Subtopic: Politics
• Index: Politics & International Relations

9/11 and its aftermath demonstrate the urgent need for political scientists and historians to unravel the tangled relationship of secular ideologies and organized religions to political fanaticism.

This major new volume uses a series of case studies by world experts to further our understanding of these complex issues. They examine the connections between fascism, political religion and totalitarianism by exploring two inter-war fascist regimes, two abortive European movements, and two post-war American extreme right-wing movements with contrasting religious components.

A highlight of this collection is a fresh article from Emilio Gentile, recently awarded an international prize for his contributions to our appreciation of the central role played by political religion in the modern age. This is preceded by an editorial essay by Roger Griffin, one of fascist studies' most original thinkers.

Alongside these contributions the reader is presented with a wealth of work that redefines the complex concept of 'totalitarian movement' and our understanding of generic Fascism. Taken as a whole, it comprehensively analyses the links between particular totalitarian movements and regimes and the concrete historical phenomena produced in the light of current, radical theories of fascism, totalitarianism and political religion.

This book will be of great interest to all students and scholars of international relations, politics and contemporary history.

This volume was previously published as a special issue of the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions.

Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion: Definitions and Critical Reflections on Criticism of an Interpretation

EMILIO GENTILE

Translated by Natalia Belozentseva

To be a historian is to seek to explain in human terms. If God speaks, it is not through him. If He speaks to others, the historian cannot vouch for it. In this sense the historian is necessarily secularist. Yet, with equal force, nothing human is alien to him, and religion, whatever else it may be for true believers, is profoundly human.

Cushing Strout, The New Heavens and New Earth

An Interpretation in Three Definitions

Ever since the last decade of the twentieth century, there has been growing scholarly preoccupation with the problem of totalitarianism and political religion. This fact is proved by ever more numerous publications on these subjects, as well as by the founding of the journal Totalitarian Movements and Political Religions in 2000. In the first issue of this journal I had the opportunity to expound my interpretation of the relationship between totalitarianism, secular religion and modernity, viewed as the expression of a more general phenomenon I defined as the ‘sacralisation of politics’. This term I define as ‘the formation of a religious dimension in politics that is distinct from, and autonomous from traditional religious institutions’.¹ As a concrete historical example of the link between totalitarianism and political religion, as well as of the relation between the sacralisation of politics and modernity I also referred to Italian Fascism. For the reasons I explored in depth in my studies on the Fascist ideology, party and regime,² I believe that the experience of Italian Fascism – which, as is well known, gave rise to the very concept of totalitarianism – is to be located within the sphere of totalitarian experiments. In the same way, as a result of specific research done in this field, I also believe that fascism belongs to the sphere of modern manifestations of the sacralisation of politics.³

My interpretation of fascism as a form of both totalitarianism and political religion has given rise to criticism of various kinds, not confined to reservations about the way these concepts are used in my research. It contests the very validity of these concepts as instruments of analysis in the interpretation of some phenomena within contemporary history. In this sense, a critical reflection on the criticism of my interpretation of fascism as both totalitarianism and a political religion – the subject suggested to me by Roger Griffin as the editor of this special issue of TMPR – will hopefully make a useful contribution to the discussion of these questions.

I must stress that my interpretation of fascism as a totalitarian phenomenon does not derive solely from my historical studies, but also from my revision of the concept of totalitarianism via a critical reconsideration of the main theories of totalitarianism appearing after the Second World War. The term ‘totalitarianism’ can thus be taken as meaning:

an experiment in political domination undertaken by a revolutionary movement, with an integralist conception of politics, that aspires toward a monopoly of power and that, after having secured power, whether by legal or illegal means, destroys or transforms the previous regime and constructs a new State based on a single-party regime, with the chief objective of conquering society; that is, it seeks the subordination, integration and homogenisation of the governed on the basis of the integral politicisation of existence, whether collective or individual, interpreted according to the categories, myths and values of a palingenetic ideology, institutionalised in the form of a political religion, that aims to shape the individual and the masses through an anthropological revolution in order to regenerate the human being and create the new man, who is dedicated in body and soul to the realisation of the revolutionary and imperialistic policies of the totalitarian party, whose ultimate goal is to create a new civilisation beyond the Nation-State.⁴

Although this definition may appear to be a lengthy one, it arises from a deliberate choice of how to present the phenomenon. In this way, I intend to highlight the reciprocal connection between all the elements contributing to my concept of totalitarianism, both essential and complementary, so as to represent, in so far as a theoretical definition permits, the historical reality actualised by totalitarian regimes during the twentieth century. In my opinion, this reality cannot be theoretically identified with any of its constituents in isolation from the others. The elements comprising my definition of totalitarianism are the revolutionary party, the monopoly of power, a political religion, the conquest of society, an anthropological revolution and expansionist ambitions. These elements are thus to be considered interconnected, both logically and chronologically, within a dynamic and dialectical relation. This is the reason why my interpretation of totalitarianism differs from those theories that base their definition mainly on the institutional notion of the ‘totalitarian regime’. I believe, indeed, that by its own nature totalitarianism is a continuous experiment in political domination, which is why I believe that the very notion of the ‘totalitarian regime’ has to be viewed essentially from a dynamic, not a static, point of view, and has to be defined bearing in mind specific historical circumstances in which totalitarian experiments were born and put into practice, even when they do not appear ‘perfect’ or ‘completed’.

One of the constituents of my definition of totalitarianism is ‘political religion’, a term by which I mean:

a type of religion which sacralises an ideology, a movement or a political regime through the deification of a secular entity transfigured into myth, considering it the primary and indisputable source of the meaning and the ultimate aim of human existence on earth.

The essential characteristic distinguishing ‘political religion’ from ‘civil religion’ is the extremist and exclusive nature of its historical mission. For example, political religion does not accept coexistence with other political ideologies and movements; it denies the autonomy of the individual while affirming the primacy of the community; it sanctifies violence as a legitimate weapon in the struggle against those it considers internal and external enemies, and as an instrument of collective regeneration; it imposes obligatory observance of its commandments and participation in the political cult; while dealing with traditional or institutional religions, it either assumes hostile behaviour, aiming at their complete elimination, or tries to establish a relation of symbolic coexistence with them in the sense that political religion aims at incorporating a traditional religion in its own system of beliefs and myths, attaching to the latter an instrumental or auxiliary function.

According to this definition, the concept of political religion does not refer solely to the institution of a system of beliefs, rites or symbols; it also relates to other fundamental aspects of the totalitarian experiment, that is, to the conquest of society, the homogenisation of the society formed by the governed, an anthropological revolution, the production of a new type of human being, and even to the ambitious expansion and construction of a new supranational civilisation.

The concepts ‘totalitarianism’ and ‘political religion’, understood in the terms outlined above, are two of the constitutive elements of my interpretation of fascism, which I have synthesised in the following definition:

fascism is a modern political phenomenon, which is nationalistic and revolutionary, anti-liberal and anti-Marxist, organised in the form of a militia party, with a totalitarian conception of politics and the State, with an ideology based on myth; virile and anti-hedonistic, it is sacralised in a political religion affirming the absolute primacy of the nation understood as an ethnically homogeneous organic community, hierarchically organised into a corporative State, with a bellicose mission to achieve grandeur, power and conquest with the ultimate aim of creating a new order and a new civilisation.

The elaboration of this interpretation began in the early 1970s. It has developed during a period particularly conducive to progress in the comparative study of fascism, and has given rise to the topics and problems that are now at the very centre of historical research and theoretical discussion, including the current reawakening of interest in the problem of totalitarianism and political religion. This progress consists of the continuous enrichment of our empirical knowledge by means of historical research; of substantial revisions in our understanding of topics and problems, our methods of analysis, and of our perspectives and interpretations. The renewed concern with achieving progress in the analysis of fascism has developed within three main fertile periods that we can characterise according to the type of approach, topics and problems prevailing in each phase.

The Three Periods of Renewal

The first period, lasting from the mid-1960s to the end of the 1970s, was characterised by extended empirical scholarship and new attempts to elaborate a general theory of fascism consistent with the new knowledge produced by empirical research.⁵ One of the most important results, if not the most important, was the gradual tendency to move beyond the traditional representation of fascism, so prevalent in the early 1960s, which has had a continuing influence upon both theories and empirical studies of fascism that persists to the present day.

According to this traditional representation, fascism did not have its own historical individuality in the same way as liberalism, democracy, socialism or communism. Instead, it was a sort of anti-historical and anti-modern epiphenomenon without culture or ideology. Everywhere fascism was a movement of violent mercenaries, in the service of the most reactionary part of the bourgeoisie, led by cynical and opportunistic demagogues who merely subjugated and led astray the innocent and recalcitrant masses. Based on this interpretation, the tragic reality of fascism was thus a parenthesis in the ‘authentic’ course of contemporary history, as if historians were performing an act of consolation or exorcism that transformed the movement into a sort of malign excrescence foreign to the healthy body of modernity. In consequence, fascists represented something inhuman, an expression of diabolical madness, or, in the opposite sense, they were presented as a caricature or in a clownish guise. As a result, whether demonised or trivialised, fascism was reduced to a ‘historical negativity’.⁶

Such interpretations predominated for so long because they were considered the only ones that seemed consistent with a committed political stance of anti-fascism. Thus, this way of conceiving fascism became a kind of ‘sacred representation’ which could not be discussed in Italy without reopening the deeply contested political question of anti-fascism. Indeed, the interpretation of Italian Fascism as ‘historical negativity’ led to a serious impoverishment of the cultural anti-fascist tradition itself. In fact, as early as the 1920s, anti-fascist culture produced not only polemical and schematic interpretations, but also gave rise to a more complex and realistic analysis of fascism as a mass movement and a regime which emphasised the ideological, cultural, organisational and institutional character of fascism, as well as its links with modernity and with the transformation of politics under the impact of modernisation and mass society. The researchers who first used the concepts ‘totalitarianism’ and ‘political religion’ (although only the first a scholarly neologism) were opponents of fascism, who often became its victims. At the centre of their interpretation of fascism they placed the role of mythic thought, the mobilisation of the masses, the cult of the leader, the single party, the organisation of culture, and grandiose ideas about collective regeneration.⁷

After the Second World War, this important anti-fascist legacy of historical and theoretical analysis was either ignored or almost totally forgotten, whereas the thesis of ‘historical negativity’ became prevalent. Even if this interpretation appeared convincing, it nevertheless failed to address a fundamental problem of fascism, namely, its novelty as a movement and a political regime, which exerted an attraction on the masses as well as on outstanding intellectuals. The tragic irony of the fascist experience may lie precisely in the ‘sincerity’ of its irrationalism and in the appeal of its ideology. Fascism was certainly demagogic, but it cannot be accused of disguising its intentions and goals. In a clear and brutal way, fascism proclaimed its disdain for liberty, for equality, for wealth and peace as life ideals; it exalted the power of a minority while imposing blind obedience on the part of the masses; it asserted a fundamental inequality between individuals, classes, nations and races. The militaristic ethics of fascism glorified sacrifice, austerity, a disdain for hedonism, total devotion to the State, discipline and unconditional fidelity, all in order to stand up to the challenge of new wars in the name of grandeur and the power of the nation. All this was not only proclaimed publicly at mass rallies, preached in schools, imprinted on the walls of buildings and along the streets, but was put into practice as the policy of the regime. Despite this ‘sincerity’, millions of people, both cultured and otherwise, saw in fascism an inspirational movement that was able to provide an answer to questions pertaining to human existence. In addition, many of them considered the totalitarian system an effective solution to the conflicts of modern society, the dawn of a new era of national grandeur, or the birth of a ‘new civilisation’ destined to last forever.

When presented with evidence of fascism’s genuine popularity, the main historiographical schools of the post-war period, inspired by both Marxism and liberalism, either remained silent and indifferent, or limited themselves to presenting these aspects of fascism as marginal or unimportant ones. As Marco Gervasoni has recently observed, Marxist historiography ‘despite all of its nuances, remained dumbfounded in the face of the irrational, tending to approach it in a reductionist spirit as a mystification of economic interests’, while liberal historiography ‘has always felt uneasy when confronted by the accomplishments of mass politics, often ending up explaining totalitarian phenomena on the basis of the psychology of its leaders’.⁸ In this way, the problem of fascism’s attraction was simply ignored or concealed by interpretations that reduced everything to demagoguery, opportunism and terror. This may be the ‘disguising’ of the ‘appeal of fascism’ that Primo Levi, the Jewish intellectual and a victim of fascism, protested against in 1976:

Everybody knows or even remembers that Hitler and Mussolini, when making public speeches, were believed, applauded, admired, adored as if they were gods. They were ‘charismatic leaders’ who possessed the secret power to seduce which did not derive from any real credibility or from the justness of the things they said, but from the ‘fascinating’ way in which those things were said, from their eloquence, their histrionic art, maybe instinctive or maybe patiently exercised and learned. The ideas they proclaimed were not the same all of the time, and were in general aberrant, foolish, or cruel; but still they were cheered and followed by millions of believers until they died. We should remember that those believers, including the diligent executors of inhuman orders, were not born torturers, nor monsters (save few exceptions): they were ordinary people. Monsters do exist but they are not as many as to be really dangerous; the man in the street is much more dangerous, the servant ready to believe and to obey without arguing, like Eichmann, like Höss, the commander of Auschwitz, like Stangl, the commander of Treblinka, like the French soldiers twenty years later, the slaughterers in Algeria, like the American soldiers thirty years later, the slaughterers in Vietnam.⁹

Understanding the grounds for the appeal that fascism exerted on millions of people between the two world wars was one of the reasons underpinning the first period of renewal in the field of research and interpretation. As we have seen, this period began in the early 1960s, when several historians started studying fascist ideology and culture, and recognised that the success of fascism depended not only on demagogy, opportunism or terror, but also on its capacity to interpret collective aspirations, desires and ambitions; not concealing its brutal and belligerent conception of life and politics but, on the contrary, professing it openly in front of the applauding masses. It is remarkable that it was another Jewish intellectual, George L. Mosse, also a victim of Nazism (but luckier than Primo Levi because he did not go through the hell of the death camps), who became one of the first historians daring to call into question the validity of prevailing presentations of fascism as ‘historical negativity’. Mosse was a persecuted man who, being an historian, undertook the task of trying to understand the reasons the spell that his persecutors cast upon millions of people seemed to work, and he went about this by s...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• CONTENTS
• Acknowledgements
• About the Contributors
• Preface
• INTRODUCTION God’s Counterfeiters? Investigating the Triad of Fascism, Totalitarianism and (Political) Religion
• 1 Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion: Definitions and Critical Reflections on Criticism of an Interpretation
• 2 Nazism and the Revival of Political Religion Theory
• 3 The British Union of Fascists as a Totalitarian Movement and Political Religion
• 4 The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard
• 5 The Upward Path: Palingenesis, Political Religion and the National Alliance
• 6 Christian Identity: The Apocalyptic Style, Political Religion, Palingenesis and Neo-Fascism
• Index