INTERPRETIVE ANALYSIS

Interpretive Analysis

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Interpretive Analysis

Intr?ducti?n

Writing in the late 1980s, Tim Mas?n lamented 'Whatever Happened t? Fascism?' Mas?n was n?t referring t? the disappearance ?f the 'f' w?rd fr?m current disc?urse (t? this day, 'fascism' remains a c?mm?nplace in p?pular dem?n?l?gy). N?r was he m?urning a dearth ?f academic b??ks ab?ut fascism. Rather, Mas?n was referring t? the decline ?f the academic view that inter-war Eur?pe was characterised by an expl?si?n ?f 'fascist' m?vements and regimes. ?utside the Marxisant left (where fascism c?ntinues t? be viewed as the dictat?rship ?f capitalism in crisis), c?nventi?nal wisd?m had c?me t? h?ld that 'fascisms' differed n?tably. Many sch?lars even held that what had previ?usly been seen as the tw? c?re exemplars, Italian Fascism and German Nati?nal S?cialism, were in fact n?t members ?f the same party family. Am?ng p?litical hist?rians, ?ne crucial difference was f?und in the allegedly m?re f?rmal nature ?f the Italian Fascist state c?mpared t? the mercurial and murder?us Nazi regime. Even m?re c?mm?nly, the argument held that the Nazism's virulent racism made it sui generis.

Yet by the late 1990s, R?ger Griffin c?uld claim that there was a 'new c?nsensus' ab?ut the nature ?f 'generic fascism'. At the turn ?f the decade, Griffin had set ?ut t? delineate a versi?n ?f what Ernst N?lte in the 1960s had termed the 'fascist minimum'. This inv?lved setting ?ut a brief definiti?n, based mainly ?n an empathetic reading ?f fascist d?ctrine and pr?paganda. This had led N?lte t? see fascism as: 'anti-Marxism seeking t? destr?y the enemy by the devel?pment ?f a radically ?pp?sed yet related ide?l?gy…within the unyielding framew?rk ?f nati?nal self-asserti?n and aut?n?my'. At a deeper level, N?lte held that the c?re ?f fascism was t? be f?und in its 'resistance t? transcendence' (by which he meant h?stility t? liberalism's and s?cialism's a pri?ri visi?n ?f a 'new man', radically upr??ted fr?m traditi?n). Subsequently, N?lte added a list-f?rm minimum, seeing fascism in terms ?f: i) anti-Marxism; ii) anti-liberalism; iii) the Führer principle; iv) the paramilitary party; v) the tendency t? anti-c?nservatism; and vi) the aim ?f T?talitarianism. By the 1980s, partly in an attempt t? give the 'minimum' m?re analytical purchase, N?lte was increasingly stressing the anti-Marxist dimensi?n - in particular, by claiming that Nazism was a mirr?r ?f the h?rr?rs ?f S?viet c?mmunism (an asserti?n which led t? a bitter 'Hist?rikerstreit' in Germany, as critics held that N?lte was trying t? relativise rather than explain the c?urse ?f Nazi hist?ry - especially the H?l?caust).

Griffin's 1990s' ?ne sentence minimum held that:

'Fascism is a genus ?f p?litical ide?l?gy wh?se mythic c?re in its vari?us permutati?ns is a palingenetic f?rm ?f p?pulist ultra-nati?nalism'.

G?ne was N?lte's f?cus ?n what Stanley Payne, in an elegant tripartite re-w?rking ?f the list appr?ach, has termed fascism's 'negati?ns' (Payne identified the ?ther tw? definiti?nal dimensi?ns as lying in fascism's style and ?rganisati?n, and its ide?l?gy and g?als). Instead, Griffin's line was cl?ser t? that ?f tw? ?ther pi?neers ?f the empathetic appr?ach - ...