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I really like this book series. The size constraint works very well, and the authors are knowledgeable and engaging.

Chapter 3, “Fascism before Fascism”, reminded me of the book on Russian anarchists I read recently. Seems to be the same chaotic substrate of misinterpreted science, vague post-religion, and fashionably political thought. I don’t know how it makes me feel. I wonder if the weirdness of the Russian political / cultural scene of the ’90s correlates.

In discussion of Fascism per se, the author focuses on internal contradictions inherent in a worldview of revolutionary traditionalism.

The definition of Fascism given in the book:

Fascism is a set of ideologies and practices that seeks to place the nation, defined in exclusive biological, cultural, and/or historical terms, above all other sources of loyalty, and to create a mobilized national community. Fascist nationalism is reactionary in that it entails implacable hostility to socialism and feminism, for they are seen as prioritizing class or gender rather than nation. This is why fascism is a movement of the extreme right. Fascism is also a movement of the radical right because the defeat of socialism and feminism and the creation of the mobilized nation are held to depend upon the advent to power of a new elite acting in the name of the people, headed by a charismatic leader, and embodied in a mass, militarized party. Fascists are pushed towards conservatism by common hatred of socialism and feminism, but are prepared to override conservative interests – family, property, religion, the universities, the civil service – where the interests of the nation are considered to require it. Fascist radicalism also derives from a desire to assuage discontent by accepting specific demands of the labour and women’s movements, so long as these demands accord with the national priority. Fascists seek to ensure the harmonization of workers’ and women’s interests with those of the nation by mobilizing them within special sections of the party and/or within a corporate system. Access to these organizations and to the benefits they confer upon members depends on the individual’s national, political, and/or racial characteristics. All aspects of fascist policy are suffused with ultranationalism.

Passmore calls Fascism an “available ideology”: something that, once it has appeared, remains an option for a political movement. Further analysis of post-war (up to 2002, the book’s publication date) nationalist movements in France, Italy, and elsewhere does not fully support it: all modifications are somehow a diluted product.

Of course, we live in 2025, when the same — and new — movements seem to be winning in Western countries. Mass militarized parties are still not available to charismatic leaders, though, so there’s hope.