Fascism: Past, Present, Future
Walter Laqueur
Language: English
Pages: 272
ISBN: 019511793X
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Mussolini's march on Rome; Hitler's speeches before waves of goose-stepping storm troopers; the horrors of the Holocaust; burning crosses and neo-Nazi skinhead hooligans. Few words are as evocative, and even fewer ideologies as pernicious, as fascism. And yet, the world continues to witness the success of political parties in countries such as Italy, France, Austria, Russia, and elsewhere resembling in various ways historical fascism. Why, despite its past, are people still attracted to fascism? Will it ever again be a major political force in the world? Where in the world is it most likely to erupt next?
In Fascism: Past, Present, and Future, renowned historian Walter Laqueur illuminates the fascist phenomenon, from the emergence of Hitler and Mussolini, to Vladimir Zhirinovsky and his cohorts, to fascism's not so distant future. Laqueur describes how fascism's early achievements--the rise of Germany and Italy as leading powers in Europe, a reputation for being concerned about the fate of common people, the creation of more leisure for workers--won many converts. But what successes early fascist parties can claim, Laqueur points out, are certainly overwhelmed by its disasters: Hitler may have built the Autobahnen, but he also launched the war that destroyed them. Nevertheless, despite the Axis defeat, fascism was not forgotten: Laqueur tellingly uncovers contemporary adaptations of fascist tactics and strategies in the French ultra-nationalist Le Pen, the rise of skinheads and right-wing extremism, and Holocaust denial. He shows how single issues--such as immigrants and, more remarkably, the environment--have proven fruitful rallying points for neo-fascist protest movements. But he also reveals that European fascism has failed to attract broad and sustained support. Indeed, while skinhead bands like the "Klansman" and magazines such as "Zyklon B" grab headlines, fascism bereft of military force and war is at most fascism on the defense, promising to save Europe from an invasion of foreigners without offering a concrete future. Laqueur warns, however, that an increase in "clerical" fascism--such as the confluence of fascism and radical, Islamic fundamentalism--may come to dominate in parts of the Middle East and North Africa. The reason has little to do with religion: "Underneath the 'Holy Rage' is frustration and old-fashioned class struggle." Fascism was always a movement of protest and discontent, and there is in the contemporary world a great reservoir of protest. Among the likely candidates, Laqueur singles out certain parts of Eastern Europe and the Third World.
In carefully plotting fascism's past, present, and future, Walter Laqueur offers a riveting, if sometimes disturbing, account of one of the twentieth century's most baneful political ideas, in a book that is both a masterly survey of the roots, the ideas, and the practices of fascism and an assessment of its prospects in the contemporary world.
Neonazis, la seducción de la Svástica
Reich Of The Black Sun: Nazi Secret Weapons & The Cold War Allied Legend
Rendered unto him also those things that were not his by right of tradition, accommodation might have been impossible for the long term. Workers and Peasants What was the attraction of the successful fascist movements for millions of peasants and workers in some countries and its failure to make inroads elsewhere? In the 1930s, class divisions were more pronounced than they are in the 1990s, and in the 1930s, there were more manual workers in industry than there are sixty years later, and the.
Closely with the neofascists in Western Europe. The new fascism opposes Communism, but Communism has ceased to be a threat. As America reduces its presence in Europe, the American threat is also declining, except perhaps on a spiritual-cultural level. The extreme Right in Europe, in the Middle East, and in Asia has always been antiAmerican. It has usually favored some form of neutralism (often called "the third way"), even while the cold war was raging. Some grudgingly accepted NATO, and others.
The Nouvelle droite became fashionable, pro-Sovietism virtually disappeared on the French Left. Because de Benoist realized that it was pointless to flog a dead horse (Marxism), the main brunt of his attack was against "Americanism" (also known as the "Coca-Cola culture" and "McDonaldism"), liberalism, and Western-style capitalism. He offered no clear alternatives other than general references to the need for new elites and the baneful effects of arithmetical democracy. The New Right always.
Thousand, about half of them in East Germany. About two-thirds of them identified with the extreme Right,- the others were apolitical. They are, in brief, a problem for the police and the educators, rather than the politicians. According to some estimates, a considerably larger segment—15 to 20 percent—of the young generation in Germany sympathizes with extreme right-wing groups. But it is still unlikely that they would become a political force in the forseeable future. Two questions remain to be.
Stalinist form. But from a doctrinal point of view, Stalinism never quite divorced itself from its intellectual base—the Enlightenment, secularism, the ideals of the French Revolution. It claimed to be rational in inspiration and was, of course, antireligious, in contrast to fascism, which paid at least lip service to religion. Like fascism, radical fundamentalism is a populist movement, based on social tensions and the misery and resentment of an underclass that has not benefited from.