This blog post examines how fascism has given rise to diverse interpretations within the complexity of its historical context and ideological spectrum, deeply exploring why it is difficult to define with a single definition.
Defining fascism is never an easy task. Originally, the term referred solely to the political movement, political system, and ideology led by Mussolini from 1919 to 1945. However, it wasn’t long before Hitler’s Nazism also began to be understood as a form of fascism, and the scope of the term gradually expanded. This evolution led to interpretations and definitions of fascism spanning a spectrum as broad as the term itself.
An interpretation that emerged relatively early was fundamentally a Marxist perspective grounded in the concept of class struggle. A prime example of this is the Comintern Theses. According to these theses, fascism signified “the open dictatorship of terror exercised by the most reactionary, most nationalist, and most imperialist faction of finance capital.” In other words, fascism was understood as a tool of the capitalist system and an agent of big capital. However, not all Marxists agreed with this interpretation. Togliatti saw fascism as formed on a popular base with a petty-bourgeois character, while Talheimer and Weyda understood fascism as a phenomenon relatively free from class. According to them, when capital and labor are in conflict but neither side can secure absolute dominance, a third force emerges, and fascism is the prime example of this. Contemporary research generally emphasizes that the relationship between fascism and big capital was characterized more by tension and conflict than by harmonious cooperation. Furthermore, criticism has persistently been raised that the Comintern thesis offered an overly simplistic interpretation.
Meanwhile, after World War II, within the Cold War framework, a tendency emerged to group Italian Fascism, German Nazism, and Soviet Stalinism into a single category, often called totalitarianism theory. This theory summarized the characteristics of totalitarianism as messianic ideology, a single party, terror by secret police, monopoly of mass media, control of the military, and economic control. This attempt was significant in problematizing totalitarianism as a social and political danger and warning of its risks. However, criticism also persisted that fascism and Stalinism pursued different goals based on entirely different class foundations. Therefore, grouping them under the same category obscures the fundamental differences between these systems.
Within this scholarly trajectory, a tendency to analyze fascism micro-historically as individual cases took hold after the 1970s. Then, by the late 1990s, Griffin proposed a new analytical framework, suggesting a more generalized concept applicable to similar cases across multiple nations. According to his view, fascism is a type of modern mass politics that aims to revolutionarily transform the political and social culture of a specific ethnic or racial community. Fascism also employs myth as a means to foster internal cohesion and garner popular support. This myth tells the story of a national community, facing decline amid chaos following liberalism’s collapse, being revived under the leadership of a new elite. Within this mythical framework, fascists distinguished members of the national community from hostile forces and accepted the use of violence against the latter as a duty. To them, violence was an act of healing a dying nation. Yet mere healing was insufficient; for the myth to be realized, community members had to be reborn as ‘fascist men’ armed with dynamism and devotion. Griffin also emphasized that fascism possessed a modern aspect, accepting the capitalist economic order and welcoming the achievements of scientific civilization to build the ultimate realization of the myth—the ‘utopia of the nation’—thus defining fascism as a kind of modern revolution.
Of course, some scholars disagree with Griffin’s arguments. Paxton, for instance, criticizes the interpretation of fascism as a modern revolution, arguing instead that it should be seen as a variant of traditional authoritarian dictatorship. He emphasizes that fascism, despite its revolutionary appearance, actually seized power through alliances with existing institutions and traditional elites. Paxton applied the concept of the ‘dual state’ to analyze fascist regimes. According to this concept, the ‘standard state’—operating through legality and bureaucracy—coexists in conflict and cooperation with the ‘privileged state,’ an autocratic structure built by the party. In Italy, the party branch leader served as the appointed mayor, the party secretary effectively controlled local administration, and the fascist militia functioned as the military. According to Paxton’s analysis, the fascist regime was a unique blend of formal bureaucracy and arbitrary violence. However, unlike Nazi Germany where the privileged state overwhelmed the standard state, a key difference in Italy was that Mussolini largely recognized the authority of the standard state. Ultimately, in July 1943, as the Allies advanced into North Africa and mainland Italy, the standard state judged that fascism no longer served the national interest and finally removed its leader, Mussolini, from power. With this, Italian fascism exited the historical stage.
