Suchergebnisse

This conference, organized by Arnd Bauerkämper, Grzegorz Rossoliński-Liebe, Anna Lena Kocks and Silvia Madotto, and supported by the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung für Wissenschaftsförderung and Freie Universität Berlin, offered important insights into various aspects of the study of transnational fascism and diverse forms of connections and co-operation between fascist movements and regimes in Europe between 1918 and 1945. It fostered the concept of fascism as a border-crossing phenomenon albeit with strong national and local roots. The conference made clear that even without an institutionalized 'Fascist international,' fascism was a transnational phenomenon, which affected national societies and non-national groups. By widening the perspective on different forms of European fascism, the participants of the conference managed to highlight connections, interactions and entanglements not considered by the previous historical research. The conference demonstrated how this methodological approach proves useful for a more comprehensive understanding of the complex phenomenon of fascism and the numerous interactions between fascist activists, groups, parties, movements and regimes.

Today's European movements active within the spectrum of generic fascism have become sophisticated at internationalizing their ideology. This is illustrated in the present article through a study of the Swedish pan-European web encyclopaedia Metapedia, a fascist equivalent of the mainstream Wikipedia, working in the fields of metapolitics and gramscisme de Droite. The article argues that contemporary internationalization goes hand-in-hand with the historical traditions of Swedish fascism since the 1940s and 1950s, and indeed can be interpreted as a part of Swedish national identity. As such, the idea of Metapedia as 'Ikea Fascism' is not as far-fetched as it would seem, since there is a link between the founder of the multinational Swedish furniture company and the internationalization of Swedish fascism.

In this article I respond to the important questions raised by Roger Griffin and David D. Roberts by asserting the following points. First, that there is no justification to the position that the historical function of fascism was to establish the political hegemony of finance capital, as Marxist-Leninist scholars have maintained without providing a shred of evidence in support of their position. On the contrary, fascism was an epochal phenomenon which occured on several continents and had features which point to a declaration of war against bourgeois society, its power structures, its values and its way of life. It was a revolt generated by disgust for a world dominated by those whom Hitler called 'the worshippers of Mammon'. Second, that fascism was not at all an alternative modernity, but a violent and radical reaction which rejected all the values and institutions of the modern world, from individual freedom to the rights of man and citizen, from pluralist democracy to secularization. Third, that the history of fascism, like the history of communism, has shown that ideas are no mere fantasmagorical reflexes of the socioeconomic structure, as Marxist sociology claims. This was demonstrated by its political ideology, which was intent on revolutionizing the foundations of society and producing a new man, diametrically opposed to the 'bourgeois'.

Des hommes et mouvements se réclamant du fascisme stricto sensu ont bien existé mais leur influence fut limitée, à la mesure de leur base sociale. Leur hostilité à la démocratie parlementaire, leur xénophobie, leur antisémitisme, leur pâle imitation de modèles transalpins ou la fascination pour l'Allemagne nazie, n'ont pas permis avant la Seconde Guerre mondiale l'implantation d'un « fascisme français ». Et le régime de Vichy, né de la défaite de 1940, pour condamnable qu'il ait été et en dépit des vœux de certains, ne le réalisa pas.

Robin reviews The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton and The Nazi Conscience by Claudia Koonz.

Based on the example of Russian fascism in Harbin, Manchuria, this paper demonstrates how the concept, 'transnational' can relate to fascism in three ways: as a transnational phenomenon, as a transnational movement and in terms of the study of fascism from a transnational perspective, focusing on the relations and exchanges between fascist movements and how fascism crossed borders. One way of approaching implementing this perspective is to focus on the appropriation and adaptation of fascist bodies of thought into various local contexts. This paper argues that in this context the studies in fascism from a transnational perspective can profit from by focusing on a contemporary understanding of fascism instead of a priori academic definitions. Harbin fascists perceived fascism as a universal idea, which assumed distinct manifestations depending on the particularities of each nation. Therefore in the view of contemporaries fascism also constituted a transnational movement. In a second step this paper reflects on the question to what extend fascist studies could also benefit from the extension from a transnational to a transcultural perspective to better grasp the diverse influences on various manifestation of fascism and deepen our understanding of change and entanglements between fascist movements as well as their respective environments on a global scale.

Avec notre esthétique du corps parfait et notre refus de la mort, nous désirons toujours le fascisme. Et le migrant climatique s'annonce comme la nouvelle race maudite dans le capitalisme écocidaire. Saurons-nous redevenir mortels ?