Fascism is more than reaction - School of Arts and Humanities ...

we would deny is that fascism is simply an epiphenomenon of capitalism and can only
be combatted effectively by an anti-capitalist movement.
Moreover, while it is true that Sternhell does not consider Nazism a form of
fascism, it is a central assumption of the research into fascism carried out by both Payne
and myself that Nazism completely fits our largely compatible models. Nor do any of us
fall into the trap of seeing Italy as the role model or archetype of all fascisms. It is a
banal point, but one clearly worth stressing yet again, that every variant of a genus in
the realm of human phenomena is unique: the fact that Nazism had unique features (e.g
its biological racism, Aryan myth, and imperialist vision of Europe) which made it
extraordinarily destructive does not somehow disqualify it as a permutation of fascism.
The claim that we argue that ‘fascism equals Mussolini and not Hitler’ is thus quite
unfounded.
The most disturbing allegation contained in Renton’s article, however, is that the
partial consensus on the definition of fascism which I have detected as emerging in the
1990s (though it is far from being ‘hegemonic’ within the discipline) has some sort of
revisionist intent. The stress which we place on its revolutionary dimension, on its
ideology, its ultra-nationalism (all true), and the down-playing of Nazism (untrue)
signals to Renton that ‘we’ are treading a path which leads ‘from an idealist definition
to a positive description of fascism’, and hence to its ‘positive re-evaluation’. The
insinuation that by approaching fascism as a political force driven by a revolutionary
vision of a new order rather than as a reactionary one devoid of sincerely held values
and goals, ‘we’ are somehow minimizing or vindicating the atrocities committed in the
pursuit of its goal is a serious accusation to level at ‘our’ professional integrity. Indeed,
in other contexts it could be construed as libellous. Certainly genuine revisionists might
be tempted deliberately to misconstrue the stress we place on fascism’s revolutionary
thrust as backing up their mendacious position, just as some have sought to mitigate
the horrors of Nazism by seizing on evidence of its ‘modernity’. However, such
misappropriations are no more serious travesties of truth than when someone on the left
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