Neo-fascism
Neo-fascism is a post-World War II far-right ideology which includes significant elements of fascism. Neo-fascism usually includes ultranationalism, ultraconservatism, racial supremacy, right-wing populism, authoritarianism, nativism, xenophobia, and anti-immigration sentiment, as well as opposition to social democracy, parliamentarianism, Marxism, communism, socialism, liberalism, neoliberalism, and liberal democracy.
History
According to Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, neo-fascism emerged in 1942 after Nazi Germany invaded the USSR and decided to reorient its propaganda on a Europeanist ground. Europe then became both the myth and the utopia of the neo-fascists, who abandoned previous theories of racial inequalities within the white race to share a common euro-nationalist stance in the aftermath of World War II, embodied in Oswald Mosley's Europe a Nation policy. The following chronology can therefore be delineated: an ideological gestation before 1919; the historical experience of fascism between 1919 and 1942, unfolded in several phases; and finally neo-fascism from 1942 onward.Drawing inspiration from the Italian Social Republic, institutional neo-fascism took the form of the Italian Social Movement. It became one of the chief reference points for the European far-right until the late 1980s, and "the best example of a Neofascist party", in the words of political scientist Cas Mudde. At the initiative of the MSI, the European Social Movement was established in 1951 as a pan-European organization of like-minded neo-fascist groups and figures such as the Francoist Falange, Maurice Bardèche, Per Engdahl, and Oswald Mosley. Other organizations like Jeune Nation called in the late 1950s for an extra-parliamentarian insurrection against the regime in what amounts to a remnant of pre-war fascist strategies. The main driving force of neo-fascist movements was what they saw as the defense of a Western civilization from the rise of both communism and the Third World, in some cases the loss of the colonial empire.
In 1961, Bardèche redefined the nature of fascism in a book deemed influential in the European far-right at large entitled Qu'est-ce que le fascisme?. He argued that previous fascists had essentially made two mistakes in that they focused their efforts on the methods rather than the original "idea"; and they wrongly believed that fascist society could be achieved via the nation-state as opposed to the construction of Europe. According to him, fascism could survive the 20th century in a new metapolitical guise if its theorists succeed in building inventive methods adapted to the changes of their times; the aim being the promotion of the core politico-cultural fascist project rather than vain attempts to revive doomed regimes: In addition, Bardèche wrote: "The single party, the secret police, the public displays of Caesarism, even the presence of a Führer are not necessarily attributes of fascism.... The famous fascist methods are constantly revised and will continue to be revised. More important than the mechanism is the idea which fascism has created for itself of man and freedom.... With another name, another face, and with nothing which betrays the projection from the past, with the form of a child we do not recognize and the head of a young Medusa, the Order of Sparta will be reborn: and paradoxically it will, without doubt, be the last bastion of Freedom and the sweetness of living."
In the spirit of Bardèche's strategy of disguise through framework change, the MSI had developed a policy of inserimento, which relied on gaining political acceptance via the cooperation with other parties within the democratic system. In the political context of the Cold War, anti-communism began to replace anti-fascism as the dominant trend in liberal democracies. In Italy, the MSI became a support group in parliament for the Christian Democratic government in the late 1950s–early 1960s, but was forced back into "political ghetto" after anti-fascist protests and violent street clashes occurred between radical leftist and far-right groups, leading to the demise of the short-lived fascist-backed Tambroni Cabinet in July 1960.
The psychologist David Pavón-Cuéllar, of the Universidad Michoacana de San Nicolás de Hidalgo, has argued that the emergence of neoliberalism in the late-twentieth century prompted neoliberalist politicians to utilize neo-fascism as a means to remove all limits to capital. According to Pavón-Cuéllar, this is done by employing the aestheticization of politics and by using the narcissism of small differences to find a target for hate, maintain a social hierarchy instead of protecting all individuals.
Causes and description
A number of historians and political scientists have pointed out that the situations in a number of European countries in the 1980s and 1990s, in particular France, Germany and Italy, were in some significant ways analogous to the conditions in Europe in the period between World War I and World War II that gave rise to fascism in its many national guises. Constant economic crises including high unemployment, a resurgence of nationalism, an increase in ethnic conflicts, and the geo-political weakness of national regimes were all present, and while not an exact one-to-one correspondence, circumstances were similar enough to promote the beginning of neo-fascism as a new fascist movement. Because intense nationalism is almost always a part of neo-fascism, the parties which make up this movement are not pan-European, but are specific to each country they arise in; other than this, the neo-fascist parties and other groups have many ideological traits in common.While certainly fascistic in nature, it is claimed by some that there are differences between neo-fascism and what can be called "historical fascism", or the kind of neo-fascism which came about in the immediate aftermath of World War II. Some historians claim that contemporary neo-fascist parties are not anti-democratic because they operate within their country's political system. Whether that is a significant difference between neo-fascism and historical fascism is doubted by other scholars, who point out that Hitler worked within the existing political system of the Weimar Republic to obtain power, although it took an anti-democratic but constitutional process in the form of presidential appointment rather than election through the Reichstag. Others point to the current neo-fascists not being totalitarian in nature, but the organization of their parties along the lines of the Führerprinzip would seem to indicate otherwise. Historian Stanley G. Payne claims that the differences in current circumstance to that of the interwar years, and the strengthening of democracy in European countries since the end of the war prevents a general return of historical fascism, and causes true neo-fascist groups to be small and remain on the fringe. For Payne, groups like the National Front in France are not neo-fascists in nature, but are merely "right radical parties" that will, in the course of time, moderate their positions in order to achieve electoral victory.
The problem of immigrants, both legal and illegal or irregular, whether called "foreigners", "foreign workers", "economic refugees", "ethnic minorities", "asylum seekers", or "aliens", is a core neo-fascist issue, intimately tied to their nativism, ultranationalism, and xenophobia, but the specifics differ somewhat from country to country due to prevailing circumstances. In general, the anti-immigrant impetus is strong when the economy is weak or unemployment is high, and people fear that outsiders are taking their jobs. Because of this, neo-fascist parties have more electoral traction during hard economic times. Again, this mirrors the situation in the interwar years, when, for instance, Germany suffered from incredible hyperinflation and many people had their life savings swept away. In the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, some neo-fascist groups likewise argued for a Third Position as an alternative to market capitalism.
In contemporary Europe, mainstream political parties see the electoral advantage the neo-fascist and far-right parties get from their strong emphasis on the supposed problem of the outsider, and are then tempted to co-opt the issue by moving somewhat to the right on the immigrant issue, hoping to slough off some voters from the hard right. In the absence in post-war Europe of a strong socialist movement, this has the tendency to move the political centre to the right overall.
While both historical fascism and contemporary neo-fascism are xenophobic, nativist and anti-immigrant, neo-fascist leaders are careful not to present these views in so strong a manner as to draw obvious parallels to historical events. Both Jean-Marie Le Pen of France's National Front and Jörg Haider's Freedom Party of Austria, in the words of historian Tony Judt, "revealed prejudices only indirectly". Jews would not be castigated as a group, but a person would be specifically named as a danger who just happened to be a Jew. The public presentation of their leaders is one principal difference between the neo-fascists and historical fascists: their programs have been "finely honed and 'modernized'" to appeal to the electorate, a "far-right ideology with a democratic veneer". Modern neo-fascists do not appear in "jackboots and brownshirts", but in suits and ties. The choice is deliberate, as the leaders of the various groups work to differentiate themselves from the brutish leaders of historical fascism and also to hide whatever bloodlines and connections tie the current leaders to the historical fascist movements. When these become public, as they did in the case of Haider, it can lead to their decline and fall.
International networks
In 1951, the New European Order neo-fascist European-wide alliance was set up to promote pan-European nationalism. It was a more radical splinter group of the European Social Movement. The NEO had its origins in the 1951 Malmö conference, when a group of rebels led by René Binet and Maurice Bardèche refused to join the European Social Movement as they felt that it did not go far enough in terms of racialism and anti-communism. As a result, Binet joined with Gaston-Armand Amaudruz in a second meeting that same year in Zürich to set up a second group pledged to wage war on communists and non-white people.Several Cold War regimes and international neo-fascist movements collaborated in operations such as assassinations and false flag bombings. Stefano Delle Chiaie, who was involved in Italy's Years of Lead, took part in Operation Condor; organizing the 1976 assassination attempt on Chilean Christian Democrat Bernardo Leighton. Vincenzo Vinciguerra escaped to Franquist Spain with the help of the SISMI, following the 1972 Peteano attack, for which he was sentenced to life. Along with Delle Chiaie, Vinciguerra testified in Rome in December 1995 before judge María Servini de Cubría, stating that Enrique Arancibia Clavel and US expatriate DINA agent Michael Townley were directly involved in General Carlos Prats' assassination. Michael Townley was sentenced in Italy to 15 years of prison for having served as intermediary between the DINA and the Italian neo-fascists.
The regimes of Francoist Spain, Augusto Pinochet's Chile and Alfredo Stroessner's Paraguay participated together in Operation Condor, which targeted political opponents worldwide. During the Cold War, these international operations gave rise to some cooperation between various neo-fascist elements engaged in a "Crusade against Communism". Anti-Fidel Castro terrorist Luis Posada Carriles was condemned for the Cubana Flight 455 bombing on 6 October 1976. According to the Miami Herald, this bombing was decided on at the same meeting during which it was decided to target Chilean former minister Orlando Letelier, who was assassinated on 21 September 1976. Carriles wrote in his autobiography that "we the Cubans didn't oppose ourselves to an isolated tyranny, nor to a particular system of our fatherland, but that we had in front of us a colossal enemy, whose main head was in Moscow, with its tentacles dangerously extended on all the planet."
The March 2015 International Russian Conservative Forum organized by pro-Putin Rodina-party has been described as a neo-Fascist event by multiple sources. The event was attended by fringe groups like Nordic Resistance Movement from Scandinavia but also by more mainstream MEPs from Golden Dawn and National Democratic Party of Germany. In addition to Rodina, Russian Imperial Movement and Rusich Group were also in attendance. The event was attended by several notable American white supremacists including Jared Taylor and Brandon Russell.