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Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time
A great deal of effort has been expended by Anglo-American scholars in an attempt to isolate past and contemporary "fascisms," "neofascisms," "cryptofascisms," and "latent" fascisms in the modern world. A. James Gregor's Fascism in Our Time offers an insightful history of the intellectual rationale for Benito Mussolini's fascism. His work examines the complex rationale provided by major Italian intellectuals. The book provides a list of recurrent features that helps to identify the generic phenomenon. This lucid account reviews seriously neglected aspects of intellectual history, describing the socioeconomic and political conditions that precipitate and sustain fascism. Gregor shows that Italian fascism was supported by a responsible and credible rationale. His account of that rationale permits us to understand the appeal fascism as an ideal has exercised over elites and masses in the twentieth century. Gregor offers a credible list of traits in showing how instances of fascism can be identified when they first appear. The last chapters of the work are devoted to a case study of the newly emergent post-Soviet Russian nationalism and its affinities with historic fascism. Gregor discusses the implications of the rise of generic fascism in the former Soviet Union and post-Maoist China. This timely volume now available in paperback offers an alternative to conventional mechanical interpretations of the major historical events of the twentieth century. Phoenix is must reading for scholars and policymakers dealing with European history between the two world wars, and will be instructive for anyone interested in prospects for a fascist ideology in the new millennium.
- GenresPolitics
204 pages, Hardcover
First published July 9, 1999
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About the author
A. James Gregor
44 books40 followersAnthony James Gregor (April 2, 1929 – August 30, 2019) was a Professor of Political Science Emeritus at the University of California, Berkeley, well known for his research on fascism, Marxism, and national security.
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May 26, 2015
Gregor has been writing the same book for 40 years. Fascism has, he thinks, been misunderstood.
Though this little volume lacks some of the analytical intensity of Gregor's best work (e.g., The Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism, or Mussolini's Intellectuals), it is nonetheless an excellent primer to Gregor's views, and can thus be highly recommended.
Like Zeev Sternhell, Gregor has been arguing for decades that early revolutionary fascism (Movement Fascism) was essentially a Marxist heresy that (much like Leninism itself) arose out of a voluntaristic, non-deterministic, Sorelian vision of the revolutionary Left that was most closely associated with the prewar Revolutionary Syndicalists, and which then merged under the crucible pressure of WWI with the reactive nationalists to form the First Fascism of San Sepolcro and the March on Rome. The result was the substitution of the 'nation' (in the sense of a Sorelian, revolutionary 'myth') for 'class' as the organizing sentiment; the idea of nationalism as the means of stimulating and motivating and mobilizing the masses of backwards, humiliated 'proletariate nations' seeking their place in the sun against the advanced 'plutocratic' nations of bourgeois liberalism; and the whole under the directorship of an elite, vanguard minority party guided by a charismatic leadership. In short, a developmental dictatorship. In this, Gregor sees little difference between Left and Right, between national socialism, and socialist nationalisms (like Stalin's 'Socialism for one nation').
The first chapter is an especially clear précis of Gregor's views on the early period. His discussion in this book of Giovanne Gentile (the 'philosopher of fascism') is too dense, and one is better off reading Gregor's book on Gentile, which is outstanding.
This is not the whole story of fascism, and should be read against the views of Robert Soucy, for example. But it is, as said, an excellent introduction into Gregor's always formidable, though sometimes ideosyncratic world.
Though this little volume lacks some of the analytical intensity of Gregor's best work (e.g., The Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism, or Mussolini's Intellectuals), it is nonetheless an excellent primer to Gregor's views, and can thus be highly recommended.
Like Zeev Sternhell, Gregor has been arguing for decades that early revolutionary fascism (Movement Fascism) was essentially a Marxist heresy that (much like Leninism itself) arose out of a voluntaristic, non-deterministic, Sorelian vision of the revolutionary Left that was most closely associated with the prewar Revolutionary Syndicalists, and which then merged under the crucible pressure of WWI with the reactive nationalists to form the First Fascism of San Sepolcro and the March on Rome. The result was the substitution of the 'nation' (in the sense of a Sorelian, revolutionary 'myth') for 'class' as the organizing sentiment; the idea of nationalism as the means of stimulating and motivating and mobilizing the masses of backwards, humiliated 'proletariate nations' seeking their place in the sun against the advanced 'plutocratic' nations of bourgeois liberalism; and the whole under the directorship of an elite, vanguard minority party guided by a charismatic leadership. In short, a developmental dictatorship. In this, Gregor sees little difference between Left and Right, between national socialism, and socialist nationalisms (like Stalin's 'Socialism for one nation').
The first chapter is an especially clear précis of Gregor's views on the early period. His discussion in this book of Giovanne Gentile (the 'philosopher of fascism') is too dense, and one is better off reading Gregor's book on Gentile, which is outstanding.
This is not the whole story of fascism, and should be read against the views of Robert Soucy, for example. But it is, as said, an excellent introduction into Gregor's always formidable, though sometimes ideosyncratic world.
Displaying 1 of 1 review