George Orwell
What is Fascism?
TRIBUNE
1944
Of all the unanswered questions of our time, perhaps the most important is: ‘What is Fascism?’
One of the social survey organizations in America recently asked this
question of a hundred different people, and got answers ranging from
‘pure democracy’ to ‘pure diabolism’. In this country if you ask the
average thinking person to define Fascism, he usually answers by
pointing to the German and Italian régimes. But this is very
unsatisfactory, because even the major Fascist states differ from one
another a good deal in structure and ideology.
It is not easy, for instance, to fit Germany and Japan into the same
framework, and it is even harder with some of the small states which are
describable as Fascist. It is usually assumed, for instance, that
Fascism is inherently warlike, that it thrives in an atmosphere of war
hysteria and can only solve its economic problems by means of war
preparation or foreign conquests. But clearly this is not true of, say,
Portugal or the various South American dictatorships. Or again,
antisemitism is supposed to be one of the distinguishing marks of
Fascism; but some Fascist movements are not antisemitic. Learned
controversies, reverberating for years on end in American magazines,
have not even been able to determine whether or not Fascism is a form of
capitalism. But still, when we apply the term ‘Fascism’ to Germany or
Japan or Mussolini's Italy, we know broadly what we mean. It is in
internal politics that this word has lost the last vestige of meaning.
For if you examine the press you will find that there is almost no set
of people — certainly no political party or organized body of any kind —
which has not been denounced as Fascist during the past ten years. Here
I am not speaking of the verbal use of the term ‘Fascist’. I am
speaking of what I have seen in print. I have seen the words ‘Fascist in
sympathy’, or ‘of Fascist tendency’, or just plain ‘Fascist’, applied
in all seriousness to the following bodies of people:
Conservatives: All Conservatives, appeasers or
anti-appeasers, are held to be subjectively pro-Fascist. British rule
in India and the Colonies is held to be indistinguishable from Nazism.
Organizations of what one might call a patriotic and traditional type
are labelled crypto-Fascist or ‘Fascist-minded’. Examples are the Boy
Scouts, the Metropolitan Police, M.I.5, the British Legion. Key phrase:
‘The public schools are breeding-grounds of Fascism’.
Socialists: Defenders of old-style capitalism
(example, Sir Ernest Benn) maintain that Socialism and Fascism are the
same thing. Some Catholic journalists maintain that Socialists have been
the principal collaborators in the Nazi-occupied countries. The same
accusation is made from a different angle by the Communist party during
its ultra-Left phases. In the period 1930-35 the Daily Worker
habitually referred to the Labour Party as the Labour Fascists. This is
echoed by other Left extremists such as Anarchists. Some Indian
Nationalists consider the British trade unions to be Fascist
organizations.
Communists: A considerable school of thought
(examples, Rauschning, Peter Drucker, James Burnham, F. A. Voigt)
refuses to recognize a difference between the Nazi and Soviet régimes,
and holds that all Fascists and Communists are aiming at approximately
the same thing and are even to some extent the same people. Leaders in The Times
(pre-war) have referred to the U.S.S.R. as a ‘Fascist country’. Again
from a different angle this is echoed by Anarchists and Trotskyists.
Trotskyists: Communists charge the Trotskyists
proper, i.e. Trotsky's own organization, with being a crypto-Fascist
organization in Nazi pay. This was widely believed on the Left during
the Popular Front period. In their ultra-Right phases the Communists
tend to apply the same accusation to all factions to the Left of
themselves, e.g. Common Wealth or the I.L.P.
Catholics: Outside its own ranks, the Catholic Church is almost universally regarded as pro-Fascist, both objectively and subjectively;
War resisters: Pacifists and others who are
anti-war are frequently accused not only of making things easier for the
Axis, but of becoming tinged with pro-Fascist feeling.
Supporters of the war: War resisters usually
base their case on the claim that British imperialism is worse than
Nazism, and tend to apply the term ‘Fascist’ to anyone who wishes for a
military victory. The supporters of the People's Convention came near to
claiming that willingness to resist a Nazi invasion was a sign of
Fascist sympathies. The Home Guard was denounced as a Fascist
organization as soon as it appeared. In addition, the whole of the Left
tends to equate militarism with Fascism. Politically conscious private
soldiers nearly always refer to their officers as ‘Fascist-minded’ or
‘natural Fascists’. Battle-schools, spit and polish, saluting of
officers are all considered conducive to Fascism. Before the war,
joining the Territorials was regarded as a sign of Fascist tendencies.
Conscription and a professional army are both denounced as Fascist
phenomena.
Nationalists: Nationalism is universally
regarded as inherently Fascist, but this is held only to apply to such
national movements as the speaker happens to disapprove of. Arab
nationalism, Polish nationalism, Finnish nationalism, the Indian
Congress Party, the Muslim League, Zionism, and the I.R.A. are all
described as Fascist but not by the same people.
* * *
It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely
meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly
than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social
Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922
Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek,
homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women,
dogs and I do not know what else.
Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning.
To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some
of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the
régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if
‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I
have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others.
Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in
every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By
‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous,
arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for
the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English
person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as
near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.
But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then,
cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we
shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long,
but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism
satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists
themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are
willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a
certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade
it to the level of a swearword.
1944
THE END
2 comments:
Since the inauguration of our Pumpkin in Chief, sales of Orwell's book, "1984" have soared in the US. It seems a bit late for revelation or an epiphany, but better late than never I suppose. The truly sad thing is that it won't change what already is.
Sabre
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