Liberal Fascism: The Secret History of the American Left, From Mussolini to the Politics of Meaning

the sickness they hope to remedy. Good medicine, like good economics, depends on discarding unproven mythology. Yet for nearly a century the left and liberals have been using textbooks brimming with superstition. These myths are entwined with one another in a magnificent knot of confusion. Among the strands of this knot are the palpably false notions that big business is inherently right-wing or conservative (in the American sense); that European fascism was a tool of big business; and that the way to keep business from corrupting government is for government to regulate business to within an inch of its life.

In reality, if you define 'right-wing' or 'conservative' in the American sense of supporting the rule of law and the free market, then the more right-wing a business is, the less fascist it becomes. Meanwhile, in terms of economic policy, the more you move to the political center, as defined in American politics today, the closer you get to true fascism. If the far left is defined by socialism and the far right by laissez-faire, then it is the mealymouthed centrists of the Democratic Leadership Council and the Brookings Institution who are the true fascists, for it is they who subscribe to the notion of the Third Way, that quintessentially fascistic formulation that claims to be neither left nor right.³ More important, these myths are often deliberately perpetuated in order to hasten the transformation of American society into precisely the kind of fascist — or corporatist — nation liberals claim to oppose. To a certain extent we do live in a fascistic 'unconscious civilization,' but we've gotten here through the conscious effort of liberals who want it that way.⁴

CUI BONO?

The notion that fascism was a tool of big business is one of the most persistent and enduring myths of the past century. It has been parroted by Hollywood, countless journalists, and generations of academics (though not necessarily by historians who specialize in the subject). But as Chesterton said, fallacies do not cease to be fallacies simply because they become fashions.

Doctrinaire Marxism-Leninism defined fascism as 'the most reactionary and openly terroristic form of the dictatorship of finance capital, established by the imperialistic bourgeoisie to break the resistance of the working class and all the progressive elements of society.' Trotsky, an admirer of Mussolini's, conceded that fascism was a 'plebeian movement in origin' but that it was always 'directed and financed by big capitalist powers.'⁵ This interpretation was fore-ordained because by the 1920s communists were convinced that they were witnessing capitalism's long overdue collapse. Marxist prophecy held that the capitalists would fight back to protect their interests rather than face extinction in the new socialist era. When fascism succeeded in Italy, communist seers simply declared, 'This is it!' At the Fourth Congress of the Communist International in 1922, less than a month after the March on Rome — long before Mussolini consolidated power — the assembled communists settled on this interpretation with little debate over the actual facts on the ground.

That the defeated Italian Reds had already spread the rumor that their former comrade had betrayed the movement for his thirty pieces of silver only made this self-serving myth easier to swallow. Convinced that they alone were on the side of the people, the Reds responded to every political defeat by asking, 'Cui bono?' — 'Who benefits?' The answer had to be the ruling capitalists. 'Fascism' thus became a convenient label for 'desperate capitalists.'

Ever since, whenever the left has met with political defeat, it has cried, 'Fascism!' and insisted the fat cats were secretly pulling the strings. Max Horkheimer, the Frankfurt School Freudian Marxist, declared that no anticapitalist theories of fascism could even be entertained. 'Whoever is not prepared to talk about capitalism should also remain silent about fascism.' 'Central to all socialist theories of fascism,' writes the historian Martin Kitchen, 'is the insistence on the close relationship between fascism and industry.' Yale's Henry Ashby Turner calls this an 'ideological straightjacket' that constrains virtually all Marxist-influenced scholarship. 'Almost without exception...these writings suffer, as do those of 'orthodox' Marxists, from over-reliance on questionable, if not fraudulent scholarship, and from egregious misrepresentation of factual information.'⁶ In point of fact, there is zero evidence that Mussolini was the pawn of monolithic 'big capitalism.' Far from being uniformly supportive of fascism, big business was bitterly divided right up until Mussolini seized power. Fascist intellectuals, moreover, were openly contemptuous of capitalism and laissez-faire economics.

This socialist mythology became even cruder in response to Nazism. Hitler's success horrified the communists, though not because the communists were delicate little flowers. Nazi tactics in the 1920s were no more barbaric than communist tactics. What terrified the Reds was the fact that the Browns were beating them at their own game. Like Macy's bad-mouthing Gimbels, the Bolsheviks and their sympathizers mounted a desperate campaign to discredit Nazism. Marxist prophecy, it turned out, also made for good propaganda. Stalin personally issued orders never to use the word 'socialist' when referring to fascists — even when fascists routinely identified themselves as socialists — and later, under the doctrine of social fascism, instructed followers to dub all competing progressive and socialist ideologies 'fascist.' Meanwhile, the left-wing press in Germany and throughout the West became a transmission belt for one bogus rumor after another that German industrialists were bankrolling the mad corporal and his Brownshirts. The success of this propaganda effort remains the chief reason liberals continue to link capitalism and Nazism, big business and fascism.

This is all nonsense, as we've seen. The National Socialist German Workers' Party was in every respect a grassroots populist party. Party leaders spouted all sorts of socialist prattle about seizing the wealth of the rich. Mein Kampf is replete with attacks on 'dividend-hungry businessmen' whose 'greed,' 'ruthlessness,' and 'short-sighted narrow-mindedness' were ruining the country. Hitler adamantly took the side of the trade union movement over 'dishonorable employers.' In 1941 he was still calling big-business men 'rogues' and 'cold-blooded money-grubbers' who were constantly complaining about not getting their way. When the left charged that Hitler was being funded by the capitalists, he responded that these were nothing but 'filthy lies.' In particular, German leftists claimed that the capitalist icon Hugo Stinnes was Hitler's secret patron — a charge for which there is still no evidence. Hitler exploded in rage at the suggestion. After all, he'd demonized Stinnes in speeches and articles for quite some time. Stinnes believed that economic improvement and not political revolution would solve Germany's woes, a view that Hitler considered sacrilegious.⁷

It's also important to recognize that while Hitler was first among equals in the Nazi Party in the 1920s, his comrades spoke for 'the movement' as well. And the rank-and-file radicals of the 'old fighters' were resolutely anti- big-business populists. Upon seizing power, the radicals in the Nazi Party Labor Union threatened to put business leaders in concentration camps if they didn't increase workers' wages. That is hardly the sort of thing one would expect from a party secretly on the take from big business all along.

According to Henry Ashby Turner's definitive scholarship, throughout the 1920s the Nazis received virtually no significant support from German — or foreign — industrialists. Some successful professionals, merchants, and small-business men did give nominal support, but that was usually driven by noneconomic concerns, such as rank anti-Semitism and populist rage. The Nazis made most of their money from membership dues and small contributions. Much of the rest came from selling the 1920s equivalent of bumper stickers and T-shirts. The Nazis hawked brown shirts and National Socialist flags. They also endorsed products such as cigarettes (despite Hitler's hatred of them) and even margarine. They charged admission to rallies, which were really youth 'happenings.' The foreign media also paid for interviews with Hitler. 'Compared to the sustained intake of money raised by membership dues and other contributions of the Nazi rank and file,' Turner explains, 'the funds that reached the [party] from the side of big business assume at best a marginal significance.'⁸

When Hitler did raise small amounts from wealthy donors, the motivations for such support more often had to do with radical chic than with preserving the capitalist system. Edwin Bechstein and Hugo Bruckmann are often cited as wealthy supporters of Nazism. But they only met Hitler through their wives, Helene and Elsa. Both women were middle-aged, established members of Munich high society, and while they jealously competed with each other, they shared a common love for Wagnerian opera and were united by their crushes on the fiery radical who would titillate the patrons of their respective salons by hanging his holstered gun and bullwhip on the coatrack before entering and expounding on everything from Wagner to Bolshevism to the Jews. Both women were incensed when rumors circulated that Hitler's whip was a gift from the other woman. The reality was that Hitler had received bullwhips from both women and let each believe that he only carried hers. Such scenes were more reminiscent of Tom Wolfe's account of Leonard Bernstein's fund-raising party for the Black Panthers than of some star chamber where the scions of international capitalism schemed to use Hitler as a sword to beat back the Red menace. Eventually, the husbands offered their wives' pet project some money, but not very much. Hitler still had to ride to many appearances in the back of an old pickup truck.

THE FASCIST BARGAIN

Many liberals are correct when they bemoan the collusion of government and corporations. They even have a