Early communist analysts divided on whether fascism was novel or a bourgeois unity

Evidence

With respect to fascism, Zinoviev in his opening address tended to dismiss it as a transitory phenomenon. He concentrated his fire on the social-democrats—whom he now defined as the “left wing of the bourgeoisie”. Radek’s report on the capitalist offensive, however, was in marked contrast—and may very well have been influenced by Gramsci. It stressed the petit-bourgeois components of fascism, the sectarianism shown by the proletarian organisations towards the ex-combatants, and the aid of the big bourgeoisie in fascism’s rise to power—while reiterating that the fundamental class contradiction remained that between bourgeoisie and proletariat. This complex analysis was in sharp contrast to that of Bordiga, who in the main report to the Congress on fascism refused any distinction between the general capitalist counter-offensive and fascism, and spoke of the latter’s convergence with social-democracy, describing fascism as a great unity movement of the dominant class. He stated that “fascism has introduced no novel elements into traditional bourgeois politics or ideology”. The Congress as a whole tended to accept Radek’s view of the danger of Italian fascism, almost certainly inspired by Gramsci; but ironically enough Gramsci himself-—who had foreseen the possibility of fascist victory in Italy so early and had developed the essential elements of an adequate analysis of the new phenomenon—was to oscillate over the ensuring years in his analysis. Bordiga characteristically remained unswervingly loyal to his univocal view, but Gramsci like the rest of the P.C.I. leaders was to show continuing uncertainty, stressing now the petit-bourgeois origins of fascism, now its internal contradictions, now its agrarian component, now the predominance of finance capital, and now its function as an expression of the entire ruling class. To some extent it was Tasca who was most consistently to develop Gramsci’s early intuitions in the next years, and who was to be most consistent in his emphasis on the specificity of fascism, while Gramsci was still not free of Bordiga’s influence. — Antonio Gramsci, Selections from the Prison Notebooks, 126

Categorization

Category: Causal Relationships

• XREF: Connects forward to Islamophobia reading on how Gramsci’s fascism analysis anticipates analyses of right-wing authoritarian movements and their class composition.
• DEFINE: Shows the competing definitions of fascism at stake — Bordiga’s ‘no novel elements’ reduction vs. Radek-Gramsci’s specificity of petit-bourgeois components.

Related

• The Italian Communist leadership gravely underestimated fascism’s significance for years (similarity 0.83)
• Fascism’s rise combined petit-bourgeois base with big-bourgeois patronage (similarity 0.82)
• Gramsci analyzed fascism through its social base rather than abstract class form (similarity 0.81)
• Fascism arrested class polarisation before the bourgeoisie formed its own party (similarity 0.80)
• Fascism’s essence was disputed among revolutionaries in 1926 (similarity 0.79)
• The early PCI leadership treated fascism as secondary to the social-democratic threat (similarity 0.79)
• Regimes are analyzed through their social base, not as interchangeable forms (similarity 0.78)