Chapter 4 expands the narrative to include the creation of the modern, radical-right populist parties in France and Austria, and the subsequent chapter explores connections between more clearly fascist “Third Position” parties and groupuscules, as well as the fight to stop their advance. Chapter 6 continues the narrative toward an assessment of rising alternative fascist ideologies like national-anarchism, while Chapter 7 elaborates on emerging systems of radical-right and fascist groups and their attempted integration with leftist-driven “new social movements.” The next chapter discusses the phenomenon of “autonomous nationalism” in greater depth, followed up with an analysis of the conflictive sites of social protest created by the Tea Party and the Occupy movement. Against the Fascist Creep finishes with a contemporary look at emerging configurations of neoreactionary and patriarchal movements, and their crossovers with the left and post-left.
Finally, regarding grammatical issues, I will note for the sake of clarity that I have capitalized Fascism only when referring directly to the interwar Italian variety—both the political party and movement. All other places where fascism is mentioned, the word will appear in lowercase. Also, to clarify, unfortunately the far right has claimed the title of libertarian as its own in the United States. This is not the case elsewhere in the world, but due to context, when I write about libertarians, it should be assumed that I am writing of the far-right variety, not “libertarian socialism.” In cases where I do write about the latter, it is typically under the name “anarchism.”
Dedications and Disclosures
This book is dedicated to the memory of my grandparents, to their generation of antifascists, and to all those continuing to ensure that the fascist creep is not able to access those levels of power that would bring about the “new age” of intolerance, injustice, and war. I hope the reader will recognize that this text is not an attempt to launch into polemics, as the title might imply, but to engage in serious scholarship and research in order to shed light on a phenomenon that is often elusive and difficult to study for many reasons.
It would be careless to neglect a full disclosure of my partisanship, however. My earliest experience in this kind of scholarship occurred in 2005, when I worked at a human rights publication in Moscow and a close friend was attacked in the streets repeatedly by National Bolshevik squads. After returning to the United States and dedicating myself to global justice work, I participated in the movement against the anti-immigration Arizona SB 1070 and J. T. Ready’s Americans First march. Beginning in 2014, I devoted more of my studies to the avant-garde subcultures surrounding fascism and its esoteric side.
Despite, or perhaps because of, my activism, I encourage a great deal of sensitivity when discussing and researching fascism today. For many who have lost family members and spent years in prison, this subject is not something to be undertaken in a cavalier manner. Relationships fall to pieces, lives are put in danger, and trauma can awaken in terrifying ways. Furthermore, allegations of “fascism” make for an excellent broadsword to be wielded at one’s enemies, but as such, its blows usually fall upon straw men. Without clear, cogent, and responsible assessment of the meaning and history of fascism, the word is emptied of content.
The concerns over a “Brown Scare” are often thrown around to shield from very real associations, but they can also hold some truth. Like anything with deep social networks, fascism can be incredibly difficult to isolate in one person or groupuscule. As a cultural phenomenon, it can spread through memes, symbols, and catchphrases. Often, people do not even understand the reality behind what they are spreading or have managed to detach themselves from it through the kind of explanations provided by the European New Right, or Nouvelle Droite. At this point, it is imperative to be armed with knowledge but to also recognize a limit to the extent to which one can actually intervene. There are different strategies and tactics for breaking down fascism in different contexts. While some are discussed in this text, more research and discussion must take place. Archives of journals like Breakthrough, Searchlight, and Love and Rage have a tremendous amount of information, some of which is available online at the fantastic Arm the Spirit archive and the Freedom Archives. New resources and publications are also becoming increasingly important.
Acknowledgments
I am deeply grateful first and foremost to my family for supporting me through this endeavor—particularly my mom and my dad, Shay Emmons, and my son Francis. Friends of mine have also helped provide crucial assistance in producing this work. That includes, but is not limited to, Christo Alfred, Kazembe Balagun, Matthew Bristow, Danica Brown, Nick Caleb, Caroline Crow, Kelila Eichstadt, Amye Greene, Arun Gupta, Jordan Karr-Morse, Mike Losier, Paul and Lara Messersmith-Glavin, Hyung Kyu Nam, Stephen Quirke, N. O. Bonzo, Leah Rothschild, and Ahjamu Umi.
Big B, Mic Crenshaw, scott crow, Kieran Knutson, and M. Treloar deserve a great amount of thanks for contributing interviews for this project, as do Leonard Zeskind and Don Hamerquist, as well as Scott Schroder and Elona Trogub. My immense gratitude also extends to Laure Akai, Dmytriy Kovalevich, Rose City Antifa, Mariya Radeva, Sylvére Lotringer, Chris Kraus, Jed Brandt, Aragorn Eloff, Ben Jones, Joshua Stephens, and Stéfanie Noire. Thanks also go out to the Moscow Institute of Science and Art and the Chronicle of Current Events, as well as Aleksey Roschin, Evgeny Ivanov and Fanny Ivanov-Adda, and Katherine Lahti.
I am deeply in debt to people who looked at early drafts and provided crucial feedback; namely, Matthew Lyons, Kevin van Meter, and Kristian Williams. My eternal gratitude goes out to Shane Burley, Peter Staudenmaier, Geran Wales, Jeffrey M. Bale, Luigi Celentano, and Roger Eatwell in particular, who helped considerably in testing, critiquing, and extending the depth of my research in fascism. Lastly, I would like to thank Chip Berlet and Roger Griffin for encouraging me to persevere in my work, as well as the editors who have helped along the way, like Doug at It’s Going Down, Josh Frank and Jeffrey St. Clair at CounterPunch.org, Grayson Flory at the Earth First! Journal, Sue Udry and Steve Wishnia at the Defending Dissent Newswire, Andy Lee Roth with Project Censored, Adrienne Varkiani with ThinkProgress.org, and of course those indefatigable workers at AK Press, Charles, Zach, Bill, Lorna, and Suzanne.
1 See Zeev Sternhell, “Fascist Ideology,” in Fascism: Critical Concepts in Political Science, eds. Roger Griffin and Matthew Feldman, 5 vols. (New York: London, 2004), 1:118.
2 Philippe Burrin, La Derive Fasciste: Doriot, Déat, Bergery (1933–1945) (Paris: Le Seuil, 1986).
3 See Norberto Bobbio, Left and Right: The Significance of a Political Distinction, trans. Allan Cameron (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1996), 60–72.
4 The idea of fascism as an ideology that comes out of the left as well as the right was perhaps first suggested by Zeev Sternhell. Scholar Roger Eatwell further notes that fascism relies on a “spectral-syncretic” quality, joining positions not typically understood as commensurate, such as elements of liberalism and state control. See Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994); Roger Eatwell, “Towards a New Model of Generic Fascism,” in Griffin and Feldman, eds., Fascism (New York: London, 2004), 1:249.
5 Stephen D. Shenfield, Russian Fascism: Traditions, Tendencies, Movements (London: ME Sharpe, 2001), 35 & 180.
6 See George Michael, Willis Carto and the American Far Right (Gainsville, FL: University Press of Florida, 2008), 144–56.