Week 6 & 7 Fascist Revolution?

Although described as "revolution against revolution," Fascism certainly did not pose itself in purely negative terms - i.e. as an abnegation of Bolshevism. Right from the outset of his political career, Benito Mussolini proclaimed Fascism to be the doctrine of the forthcoming age, just as liberalism, democracy, faith in progress, etc. had been the guiding ideas of the preceding century. Having come to power in 1933 (we are going to take a closer look at this during our next lecture), Hitler announced the beginning of the "National-Socialist Revolution" with its own program and a streamline plan to redemption.

Now, could one describe fascism in revolutionary terms? If not fully, what was so radically novel about it? In what manner was fascism distinct from the traditional Right? Are there any aspects which bring fascism in affinity with its alleged mortal opponent - Marxism? In other words, what was 'modern' about the movement?

(To give a good answer to this question, I suggest you to take a look at the 25 Points of the NSDAP (1920) and an essay "Doctrine of Fascism" of Benito Mussolini. Both files are attached to this post and are uploaded on the intranet)

"Doctrine of Fascism" Benito Mussolini

25 Point Program

Week 5 - Eurasian Revolutions

Lenin, having arrived from Switzerland in a sealed wagon to engineer revolution in Russia, acted upon a presumption that the European war would soon be transformed into a world-wide revolution and a civil war. Time would soon prove him partially right, for the official cessation of hostilities on November 11, 1918, meant, more often than not, a kind of quaint projection of the external fronts into the sphere of domestic struggle. As it unilaterally withdrew from the conflict, Russia led the way, with war petering out and then flaring up again in the form of an all-out battle for the future of the fallen empire. Germany then, the provisional victor, soon followed the suit, becoming a scene of its own civil war. Out of the ashes of the Austro-Hungarian Empire emerged new states, among which Hungary stood somewhat apart with its pro-Bolshevik, Soviet government. At one time or another, as Paxton writes, "the red flag flew from the Clydeside of western Scotland to Siberia" - a nigh-universal phenomenon giving rise to a plethora of dramatic epithets, all pertaining to capture the essence of those years: "European Civil War," "Eurasian Times of Trouble", etc.

Yet, contrary to Lenin's forecast, forces claiming to embody the most radical aspect of the Revolution, succeeded only in Russia. What Bolsheviks achieved remained an unfulfilled dream for their Hungarian counterparts (Bela Kun and Company), the Spartacists, workers in Milan and Turin, various forms of red regimes in Hamburg, Munich or Vienna. The question then is simply why the Bolsheviks succeeded where others had failed? Were Russian conditions in 1917 so distinct from the European situation one year later that the Revolution had to halt within the bounds where it began?

Week 4 - On the Eve

My apologies, first of all, for posting this week's assignment so late.

Given how little we have covered this week, I do not believe we are fully equipped to tackle the Revolution itself.

Hence, I propose that you image yourself to be a very well informed resident of the Russian empire in the year of 1900. You are wary, of course, of all the internal rumbling and discontent in the country, of the revolutionary underground organizations both within and without, of the accompanying and seemingly chronic incompetence of the government and of all the problems unleashed by the recent state-buttressed industrialization drive. At the same time you recognize readily all the advantages associated with the relative youth of the Russian society; you discern rapid changes within the social structure and are mildly hopeful that the economic transformations may ultimately enable the country to discard the burden of its own - real and perceived - backwardness.

Experiencing this mixture of hope and chagrin, you are asked to outline for a less informed observer than yourself two or three alternative paths that Russia may possible traverse in the near future. What lies in store for the country? your interlocutor asks you. Give him your prognosis for the next twenty years (forgetting, of course, the fact that you - real you in 2014 - have all seen it and knows everything in advance). Substantiate your forecast with arguments and examples.