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WW11?
If fascism arose again in Europe, what would the British response be?
- Thread starter ItWillNeverWork
- Start date
WW11?
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
What happened to the Kraijina Serbs was ethnic cleansing in that they were forced out of Craatia by Tudjmans military rather than slaughtered wholesale.
dylans
overlord of all acorns
yes world war eleven. Where have you been? jeez.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
You're right about Milosevic but IIRC Tudjman had been put in jail for being part of a Croatian nationalist movement and had written a book from a revisionist pro-Ustasha pov. Don't know much about the Kosovar Albanian leaders' prior history though.
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
No, Who knows if WW2 would have occurred if Hitler had just stuck to murdering a section of his own population & not invaded other countries? Our government works with despotic regimes all over the world if they consider it in the interests of this country. No word of China/Tibet now Europe needs China's money.
Which European country would be most likely to elect a fascist government, Austria maybe? They would probably deny it was fascist tho. I think any fascist would deny they are fascist as the BNP denies it is racist. It could be argued that France is 'ethnically cleansing' by sending Roma back to Romania which is against EU law, I think.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The Nazi regime had a built in expansionist dynamic, the 'flight forward'. It could no less not be territorially aggressive than the British Empire could be.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
What you mean is what would have happened if Hitler and the NS regime had totally ignored Lebensraum, one of the central tenets of their politics?
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
So we can't really compare Hitler's Germany to a democratically elected far right regime then? Ok, the op just speaks of a democratically elected extreme right wing government I think. I doubt that government would murder sections of its population so I guess the answer is that our government would work with them if it was in UK interests to do that.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
Of course you can. Being a properly constituted regime (as The Nazi regime was) didn't stop them murdering millions did it? What's this got to do with my point that the Nazi regime was forced by a number of logics (materially, ideologically, politically etc) into being aggressively expansionist though?
SaskiaJayne
Rural Guerrilla
Well if you consider that no extreme right wing government can exist with invading neighbouring countries & with an eye for world domination then obviously nearby countries would not allow that to happen or we would have WW3, but that is different from this country working with another country who's politics & treatment of its people we disagree with.
No European country is likely to be capable of replicating Nazi Germany anyway but I suppose it is possible that an extreme right wing government could be elected in a European country.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
I don't consider that to be the case though. The last century was littered with extreme-right wing govts that didn't invade their neighbours. My point is that the nazi regime was, for a number of reasons (international resource competition, internal political trouble,etc) compelled to act in an aggressively expansionist manner.
butchersapron
Bring back hanging
The flight forward model
That looks a bit mad, tbh. The invasion of France was an act of "desperation" on Hitler's part?
redsquirrel
This Machine Kills Progressives
That's not that controversial these days is it? I thought it was largely agreed that Germany had to be expansionistic.
The book makes Hitler sound like a reckless, suicidal gambler whose luck inexplicably paid off.
Nylock
I hate 'these days'...
Supine, Vainglorious, chock full of hubris and utterly ineffectual...
gosub
~#
topping yourself, wife and dog in a bunker while russian tanks and british and US bombers blow the city above to bits, He really lucked out there.
SIS blocked assasination attempts on Hitler for the last two years of the war coz they were worried German might end up in the hands of someone with a clue
Nope, as a number of other posters have said already ... that aint Fascism , Frankie Jack, and we would be foolish to think that a range of Right Wing economic measures on their own do equal Fascism. There was a trend amongst old CP trades unionists in the 70's to declare "Gawd Hitler didn't do this damage in his first (insert timescale) in power compared to that Thatcher ", every time the Thatcher government implemented yet another of its right wing policies. "Apart from the mass internments, mass murders in cellars and camps, destruction of all Labour Movement and Left organisations, and creation of a totalitarian state" a wee Trot like me was tempted to cheekily riposte ... but I didn't .. because those old CP hacks were grizzled old leading trades unionists ... and I was just a daft wee student.
I think most posters are quite right to be sceptical that Europe is about to fall prey to fascist goverments --- but I would,t be at all surprised to see GREECE fall under yet another of its periodic Military Juntas if it is thrown out of the Eurozone.
We should always be wary though in trying to be too definite about exactly what fascist movements look like in their early years. The whole point about the rise of German and Italian Fascism was that they were so fluid/flexible in their claimed policies - rabid racism and nationalism here, but some very "leftish" stuff in the mix too , to attract the Working Classes. I've been looking recently at the long development of Peronism in Argentina -a pretty straight fascist movement in the 1930's and 40's (with some very significant variations vis a vis the attraction of the urban poor), developing into a movement in the 1970's which had a Marxist wing ! (With armed conflict between Left and Right WITHIN Peronism) Currently Peronism provides the wildly popular, and populist Argentinian president, who is pursuing policies which are radical, nationalist, but often significantly anti Big Business, with welfare programmes which give it massive support amongst the Argentinian masses. My point is that a movement of the radical right , because they can be so ideologically slippery, can become wildly popular during times of major economic upheaval (as no doubt the BNP did dream - but they are just such obvious died in the wool Nazis - very few are fooled).
Peronism though is an interesting example of a party with fascist roots which HAS gained state power - yet of course in doing so they have become something other than a traditional fascist party. So that tends to back up the posters who don't really see formal fascism as a real danger in the current European context. The buggers need watching though ! All sorts of strange and extreme political movements can come out of nowhere when economic systems fall apart. Heavens above ... even SOCIALIST ones !
ViolentPanda
Hardly getting over it.
Well, we know from more than half a century of historical research that both Nazism's antecedents (from volkische nationalism to government policy) and Nazism itself were based on ideas about racial purity and about the "sacred mission" of German expansion, so most historians don't see a non-expansionist Nazism as being able to garner the support that Nazism, in fact, did. Bear in mind that Nazism subsumed most of it's competition on the "nationalism" front before it came to power, and that expansionism allied to an aggressive German nationalism was (until 1932, when it became obvious that the Nazis might grasp power) the main selling point of their ideology.
That's what is known, especially by the FCO, as realpolitik.
How are you defining fascism? Do you mean "hard right", or perhaps broadly racist, or even corporatist?
Russia.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
@ayatollah:
That's a very good point. the nazis didn't portray themselves like the caricature of nazism portrayed today (by their supporters as well as mainstream anti fash), their propaganda was extremely sophisticated - you would be shocked at how sophisticated it actually was. Do you think they would have got into power, even then, if they'd announced they were going to attempt to kill all the world's Jews and send Europe into the most destructive war it had ever seen? as someone mentioned up the thread, the problem with fascism would be with World War II comparisons and "they aren't doing x y z so they can't be fash".
That's a very good point. the nazis didn't portray themselves like the caricature of nazism portrayed today (by their supporters as well as mainstream anti fash), their propaganda was extremely sophisticated - you would be shocked at how sophisticated it actually was. Do you think they would have got into power, even then, if they'd announced they were going to attempt to kill all the world's Jews and send Europe into the most destructive war it had ever seen? as someone mentioned up the thread, the problem with fascism would be with World War II comparisons and "they aren't doing x y z so they can't be fash".
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
Why?
The temper of the place seems largely nationalistic, militaristic, xenophobic, bureaucratic, anti-Communist (all Fascist characteristics), but above all there is no distinction between organized crime and politics.
frogwoman
No amount of cajolery...
people have been predicting fascism taking power in russia for 25 years though. there are undoubtedly fascist elements in the country, some of which are very powerful, and have a lot of governmental support (for example, the neo-nazis in St Petersburg and other cities.) I'm not sure to what extent though these are supported by the population. there's no doubt that the Russian state is an extremely unpleasant regime that is riddled with criminality and that it has committed atrocities against the chechens and other groups, and that Putin and other figures have developed personality cults around themselves. But actual fascism? I don't know (although the regime is pretty much on the far right, but then where isn't these days?) For a start, this is perhaps an obvious point, but Russia is too big, too diverse and far too difficult to control even for Putin's regime, ironically even more so with the destruction of communities and the huge increase in drug problems/criminality etc post the collapse of the USSR. The policies of the Russian state towards the "near abroad", Moldova, Georgia, etc, are certainly worrying, but are they really any more worrying than those of the US and the EU towards those states and towards Russia itself? (or for that matter the approaches of those gov'ts)
I used to think that a fascist movement could take power there but I can't see it now. You're right though in that I think if it happened anywhere now, it would be in Eastern Europe. Do you know much about Hungary phil?
eta: oops!
Despite all that, an anti-fascist tradition survives, as you might expect in a place that lost so many millions to fascism. So much so that those behind Putin have created a youth movement that styles itself as anti-fascist and has been known to attack groups of organised fascists.
And rather than being simply anti-communist, nostalgia for the period of Communist rule remains strong, with many of its features surviving. And that period was, of course, nationalistic, militaristic and bureaucratic and, despite the official propaganda, xenophobic when it suited.
Not much. But you may well be right. Was Hrothy a fascist for example? I visited Hungary once, in 1985, and found them the most anti-Communist of any Eastern bloc nation, and I know that the fascists were allegedly involved in the events of 1956.
Fedayn
Well-Known Member
The problem with such a narrative is how does it explain the formation of workers councils? The federations of those councils? How does it explain the attempted democratisation of society? How does it explain the fraternisation attempts by the Revolutionaries. None of those would be described as fascist could they? There certainly were fascists in Hungary at the time, a number were probably in the AVO. How important they were is debated, the only person i've ever seen writing that fascist motives/anti-semitism were at the core of the revolution is David irving.
goldenecitrone
post tenebras lux
I think the Czechs would give them a run for their money for that title. Mind you, by 1985, most of the Eastern bloc was on the turn.
In my experience, the most vehement anti-communists in eastern Europe have been far from being fascists.
In fact, in many cases, 'anti-communism' was an apolitical stance, varying in content from country to country. Political consciousness was, quite understandably, extremely low under Communist rule and the Communists prefered it that way.
In fact, in many cases, 'anti-communism' was an apolitical stance, varying in content from country to country. Political consciousness was, quite understandably, extremely low under Communist rule and the Communists prefered it that way.
Casually Red
tomorrow belongs to me
the revolutionary right came to power as a direct result of the failure of liberal capitalism , which is on the verge of another catastrophic failure . It was encouraged by liberal capitalists as a bulwark to a then strident left . The difference today though is that the european left is so utterly and absolutely shit and no threat to anyones interests whatsoever that theres no need for liberal capitalism to sponsor a hardline alternative to it .
Thats not to say that a combination of a failure of massive proportions within european markets , a derisory european left wing and annoyance with mass immigration wont cause some very hairy far right stuff right accross europe.
Its very very eaasy to get people to hate each other if thats your agenda . The dangers cant be overlooked .
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