Facism in France

GreatScottMarty

maverick said:
What? I really don't think Price Control and the Conscription are fascistic...unless the United States, amongst other countries, was secretly fascist in the 1930s or 1970s...
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I was typing at work and wanted to get something down and I was going to come back and edit. You could make an argument about the US and fascism especially if you are libertarian, but I don't think that is the case in the US.

My point was that Robespierre justified these moves not as way of fighting the recession but instead argued that measures such as Price Controls and Conscription were for the betterment of the people because Price Controls would ensure that the French People would be freed from aristocratic control by being able to afford whatever they needed. Conscription because they were bring liberty to their oppressed comrades. Robespierre's proto-fascism existed in his rhetoric if not his policies.

I have always considered Fascism to be roughly this:

" It centers on a cult of personality with a philosophy that looks back fondly to an idealized past, and in an attempt to reach this 'past' the greater society lead by the personality scapegoat's a particularly undesirable section of there populace. In the process the Cult of Personality's govt. nationalizes industry and society and aggressively spreads it's beliefs to its nieghbors either through economic or military means."

Edit: Pasha I forgot Turkey, Ataturk was an interesting fellow
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
My big question (and this is especially big when thinking about Ataturk) is where we draw the line between authoritarianism and fascism?

Oh, also GSM, you ought to add a proviso into that definition about religion. While fascism often starts out with anti-religious rhetoric, it often quickly comes to term with and sometimes outright embraces/incorporates religion into its practices and institutions.
 
Jape

Jape

The problem with defining Fascism is that half of Mussolini's promised policies were never touched or merely alluded to once in power, as such even just in the literal case of Fascism theory and practice are miles apart, while policies changed wildly. Mussolini spent much of the 20s following a pretty orthodox economic lines for the times before moving towards centralisation.

I think French Fascism would be a unique creature but one look at France's history shows there was plenty 'teasing'. Bonapartist cult of personality, Boulanger, Action Francaise, Croix de Feu, Cagoulle, hell even Gaullism had elements in terms of strong leader, people vs parliament, nationalist economics and geopolitics etc.

The ultimate ruin for French Fascism is Republic or a Monarchy, arguably a split that crippled the various movements. The left had been the traditional republicans but the 'national-populism' pariticularly after WWI saw plenty of traditionally left-wing ideas transfer, including the common Frenchman's patriotism to the 'idea' of the Republic if not nessecarily the institution itself. I think either you need a Monarchy in place which will see the right united against a republican left despite minor divisions, or have a civil war of some sort to again unite the causes. I'm basically lifting the latter from the Spanish example but I think it holds some truth.

French Fascism might end up a truly populist movement if a semblance of 'common man' Republicanism holds on, a sole leader and his loyal foot soldiers, with the middle party bureaucracy fair game for both.

Images of a French Fascist Cultural Revolution in my head *shudder*.
 

GreatScottMarty

Wolfpaw said:
My big question (and this is especially big when thinking about Ataturk) is where we draw the line between authoritarianism and fascism?

Oh, also GSM, you ought to add a proviso into that definition about religion. While fascism often starts out with anti-religious rhetoric, it often quickly comes to term with and sometimes outright embraces/incorporates religion into its practices and institutions.
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I wouldn't have thrown in Ataturk intially but as I thought more about it and flipped through my copy of Ataturk, I thought Pasha had been more right than wrong.

As for drawing a line I don't think you have to I think Authoritarianism evolves from Fascism.

As for your religion point it is certainly valid and I tried to cover it in my point about philosophy because the religion that exists in a fascist state isn't true religion in my opinion but something used to prop up the state and feed the leader's cult of personality. In most examples of fascism Romania, Germany, Italy religion is used to elevate the leader. Germany most famously used all sorts of "religous" iconography to support itself from the Leni Refienstahl taped rallies to the SS induction rituals none of them channeled mainstream Christianity but they did sort of reach into Germany's "pagan" past. Italy used Roman imagery and used this to support Mussolini's belief in his "Roman Empire" and lastly and most disturbingly IMO ( I am sorry if I offend any Orthodox members of the site but the following is my opinion to the best of my knowledge) was the way Romanian Orthodox Christianity was a wiling participatory in the persecution of Jews during WW2. Orthodox clerics and leaders commonly draped themselves in both Brotherhood of the Archangel Michael and Iron Legion (IIRC the name of the 2nd group) imagery while conducting Anti-Semitic actions and while conducting state sponsored rallies and gatherings in niether Germany nor Italy to my knowledge did this occur and if it did than certainly not to the level of the Romania incidencies
 

Zajir

GreatScottMarty said:
I wouldn't have thrown in Ataturk intially but as I thought more about it and flipped through my copy of Ataturk, I thought Pasha had been more right than wrong.

As for drawing a line I don't think you have to I think Authoritarianism evolves from Fascism.

As for your religion point it is certainly valid and I tried to cover it in my point about philosophy because the religion that exists in a fascist state isn't true religion in my opinion but something used to prop up the state and feed the leader's cult of personality. In most examples of fascism Romania, Germany, Italy religion is used to elevate the leader. Germany most famously used all sorts of "religous" iconography to support itself from the Leni Refienstahl taped rallies to the SS induction rituals none of them channeled mainstream Christianity but they did sort of reach into Germany's "pagan" past. Italy used Roman imagery and used this to support Mussolini's belief in his "Roman Empire" and lastly and most disturbingly IMO ( I am sorry if I offend any Orthodox members of the site but the following is my opinion to the best of my knowledge) was the way Romanian Orthodox Christianity was a wiling participatory in the persecution of Jews during WW2. Orthodox clerics and leaders commonly draped themselves in both Brotherhood of the Archangel Michael and Iron Legion (IIRC the name of the 2nd group) imagery while conducting Anti-Semitic actions and while conducting state sponsored rallies and gatherings in niether Germany nor Italy to my knowledge did this occur and if it did than certainly not to the level of the Romania incidencies
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The was no second group there was the Legion (not Broderhood) of Archangel Michael also know as the Iron Guard, The All for the Motherland Party or the Legionary Movement.
Secondly while many lower rank clergy were part of the Legionary Movement, most of the higher ranked ones didn't, also the Legionary Movement was in power only for five months between septemember 1940 and january 1941 in power-sharing with the Army, while it is true that they committed theft of jewish property and pogroms, to claim that they were more antisemitc than the Nazis is flase, as is the idea that the Nazis were somehow terrified by the LM, when in reality they supported the Army because they thought the Army would be more compentent.
 

GreatScottMarty

Zajir said:
The was no second group there was the Legion (not Broderhood) of Archangel Michael also know as the Iron Guard, The All for the Motherland Party or the Legionary Movement.
Secondly while many lower rank clergy were part of the Legionary Movement, most of the higher ranked ones didn't, also the Legionary Movement was in power only for five months between septemember 1940 and january 1941 in power-sharing with the Army, while it is true that they committed theft of jewish property and pogroms, to claim that they were more antisemitc than the Nazis is flase, as is the idea that the Nazis were somehow terrified by the LM, when in reality they supported the Army because they thought the Army would be more compentent.
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Thanks for the refresher I wrote the paper a few years ago. I disagree with the characterization of being terrorized but the Nazis viewed the actions of the LM with favor. I agree with the competency point but the Army still co-opted a lot of the Legionary Movements ideas, concepts, rhetoric while there was a fairly bloody coup it was more along the Night of Long Knives than the unsuccessful Valkyrie Plot. In the sense that the Romanian Army purged the fanatics and the untrustworthy (which is what the SA under Rohm had become) than an outright replacement of authority (which is what Valkyrie attempted). Many of the members of the Legionary movement were Veterans of WW1 and were Army leaders as well. The truth and the point I was trying to make was that Romanian Anti-Semitism was deeper ingrained in the nation's psyche than Germany and was also more commonplace than in Germany.

My comment about the level of Anti-Semitism is true. The really deep Anti-Semitism comes from the top of Nazi Party Hitler, Himmler, Goebbels, etc but the secondary members like Speer, and the army officers were in it for the rematch and German Nationalism. I am not excusing Nazi atrocities I believe the motivations were different and that the knowledge of everything going on was held by the truly loyal not just the members of convienence.
As for Romania the problem the average Romanian had with Jews was much deeper seated in there psyche. The Orthodox clergy taught that actively and still do teach that Jews killed Jesus and then coupled with that the fact that most of the Middle Class were Jews. In Romania the people who managed the Estates for the Aristocracy were the Jews, while in Germany the Middle Class was well educated and comparably diverse (meaning not almost wholly Jewish). As a result the Romanian peasants remembered the Jewish tax collector coming to collect and the Romanian landlord who set the prices. Remember one of the more shocking things about the Holocaust is that it happened in such a well educated and heterogeneous culture (Germany).
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
I don't think it's fair to say that an organized religion that helps to prop up a fascist regime isn't a "true" religion. I mean, one of the main reasons that the Nazis (by and large; of course there was rhetoric from neo-pagans like Himmler) left the Catholic Church alone because of their understandings on two major things: anit-Communism and anti-Semitism.

Not to offend any Catholics, but the majority of the fascist puppet states that cropped up in Europe were in full communion with the Vatican and a good number of their leaders and followers were in Catholic orders. This was especially true among the Croatian Ustashe and, I believe, most of Austria's pre- (and some post-) Anschluss leadership. The list goes on to include Spain (though I don't believe they were all that anti-Semitic) Hungary, Vichy, etc., etc. Heck, fascist Slovakia was led by an active Catholic priest, Jozef Tiso.

With regards to Germany, while we often consider the SS largely neo-pagan, around 50% of the Waffen SS was made up of confessing Catholics. Christopher Hitchens actually has a sniping little tale about how only one Nazi leader was ever excommunicated by the Vatican, and that was Goebbels. Why? Because he married a divorced Protestant.

So what am I trying to say? Well, again, I don't think it's fair to give organized religions an excuse for supporting and at times actively participating in dictatorial regimes by saying that they're not "true religions."
 

Wolfpaw

Banned
EvolvedSaurian said:
Who the fuck thinks that the SS was "neo-pagan?" Gods, I'm getting pretty freaking sick of educating people.
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While it would be foolish to think that the SS was a bunch of neo-pagans, we should acknowledge that there was a sizeable minority amongst the SS leadership (especially Himmler and his clique) that did ascribe to various bizzare beliefs in the occult and a mysticism centering around the superiority of the "Aryan race."

And they did adopt rather openly Odinistic ceremonies/trappings as time went on.
 

Faralis

I think that a simplistic, but valid definition of Fascism is this one:

Fascist: I am angry about something but find it difficult to articulate exactly what it is
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http://forum.paradoxplaza.com/forum/showthread.php?t=462468

Its by King, one of the developers of the Victoria II, and although is for the game and too much simple and leaves alone too many things explains clearly the reasons why it was so easy to expand

Basically they were against something, and unscrupulous, charismatic persons were fast in use it ... even against them if they could ... of course the use of violence was an advantage ...

So in the case of France, some sort of revenge feeling against the German ( or anyone if its needed ) and to recover what was lost would impregnate the politics of that sort of party ...
 

EvolvedSaurian

Wolfpaw said:
While it would be foolish to think that the SS was a bunch of neo-pagans, we should acknowledge that there was a sizeable minority amongst the SS leadership (especially Himmler and his clique) that did ascribe to various bizzare beliefs in the occult and a mysticism centering around the superiority of the "Aryan race."

And they did adopt rather openly Odinistic ceremonies/trappings as time went on.
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Did the make blot to Thor (or his German cousin) or any of the gods or spirits or ancestors? They certainly didn't live honourable lives. Occultistic or mystic influence means approximately fuck all.

Also, I'd like some examples of this, apart from runes.
 

GreatScottMarty

Wolfpaw, I wasn't calling them "not true religions" In fact I was stating the opposite. The point is that religion is co-opted and adapted to fit the purposes of the fascist state.
 

mailinutile2

To have a fascist revolution you must have popular discontent towards a former parlamentary (but corrupt/incompetent) regime.
Also, you must be in an historical phase where actualism is an acceptable philosophy.
the main point is not thet you won (e.g. italy) or lost (e.g. germany) the previous war, but the fact thet there HAS BEEN a war, and thus a lot of people have mental taboos about violence (thus illegality) mitigated.

On these grounds, france is a suitable ground for a fascist revolution in the '30.

just consider a more incompetent II (or III? IV? I really do not remember) republic
 
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