Draft: Nationalism, fascism, socialism

 Intro

"We declare war against socialism, not because it is socialism, but because it has opposed nationalism. Although we can discuss the question of what socialism is, what is its program, and what are its tactics, one thing is obvious: the official Italian Socialist Party has been reactionary and absolutely conservative. If its views had prevailed, our survival in the world of today would be impossible."

– Benito Mussolini

One would be beating a dead horse today by claiming that a main feature of nationalism is to sort out and exclude people. When it comes to nationalism, one inevitably hears the bromide, attributed to Charles de Gaulle, that what distinguishes "ultra nationalism" from "healthy nationalism", or put differently, "nationalism from patriotism" is that nationalists hate others, and patriots simply love their own people. Ironically, this line about simply loving one's own people that is bandied about by today's democracy-lovers against fascists or right-wing populists was a staple in Hitler's Mein Kampf. "My whole thought and action belongs to it. I love this Volk...".

Furthermore, in America, the land of free dumb, one can also hear from many pundits that fascists were basically the same as socialists and communists, because they are all "collectivists". Many conservatives even insist that fascism was socialism. "National socialism" even has it in the name. 

"Every patriot hates foreigners. They are only men and nothing in his eyes."

--Jean Jacque Reauseau, "Emile or On Education", book I

It is true that exclusion of foreigners has something to do with nationalism, but it misses the forest for the trees: exclusion is ultimately just as necessary as it is secondary. You can't have one without the other. The exclusion directed at non-members, foreigners, is always matched by an at least equally strong inclusion for those who are considered part of the group, and for all those who qualify as citizens, “Aryans”, “natives” or whatever it may be called. The experience is radically different from that of a person who “does not belong”, and it has to be. The nationalist conceives of belonging to the nation as a service and honor that is rendered onto the citizens and thus also conferring the duty or obligation to sacrifice for the nation, through hard work and even sacrificing oneself in war. 

This is not seen as a transaction conditional upon one's materialistic calculations, what one really gets from it, but as an unquestionably highest ideal. To even question what one gets is to mark someone as traitorous. 

Nationalism is sometimes described today as “the loving movement”, and this is hardly a coincidence. Regardless of whether the pretext de jour happens to be spelled culture, nation, "the people", or race -- something which Alfred Rosenberg (along with many other Nazis) pointed out in his "Myth of the 20th Century" -- the underlying principle is the same: nationalism imagines a fundamental community, and identity, between people, a community that is based on something deeper than the egoistic interests or character traits of the individual. This belonging is supposedly pre-political, primordial in the primal nature of people. It is not a choice, but historical or even providential destiny. 

If you are Swedish, for example, you have a claim to a place where you belong, a brotherhood that – at least in theory – will accept you without too much reservation, regardless of the faults and inadequacies you carry as an individual. In other words, an unpretentious, unconditional kind of love is bequeathed to those willing to give unconditional sacrifice, to use their willpower to build the nation. 

As is well-known, the reality is far more somber than the ideal type outlined above, but this hardly changes much in ideal substance. Exceptions, contradictions and acquiescence notwithstanding: the basic idea behind the political project that today's right-wing populism is a part of is still that everyone should be involved civically, and that everyone also has a fundamental right to be involved (as long as they are true sons or daughters of the nation, that is). Long before nationalism was even nascent, the apostle Paul expressed a similar kind of principle with the following winged words: "There is no longer Jew or Greek, slave or free, male or female. You are all one in Christ Jesus."  In nationalist thinking, once a homogenous state is achieved, there are hardly any unemployed or directors, no poor and no rich, no capitalists or proletarians: only nationals, bearers of a common (cultural) heritage of incomparable dignity.

This was the fascist answer to communism. Volkish equality. Not the abolition of classes, but to treat every vocation as equally morally dignified insofar as it served the national community. 

The message may be as simple as it was never actually realized (the antagonistic interests of diametrically opposed classes did not magically disappear but was violently suppressed by destroying the old militant worker's movement, by extirpating social democrats, communists, and critical intellectuals), but it nevertheless carries an enormous kind of explosive power, a power that can be asserted both politically and emotionally. The successes of right-wing populism today can't be understood without first taking into account the very skill with which these parties constantly put forward and exploit this message of belonging, unity, social togetherness to achieve the well-being of "the people".

However, this is terrain that people like to avoid discussing today, in favor of endless discussions about how racism is "wrong", "stupid" and "unacceptable". On the one hand, patriotism and the nation-state itself is seen as having very little to do with racism. On the other hand, no one seems to deny that anti-immigrant sentiments can quickly become outright racism. Perhaps the reluctance here on the part of leftists has to do with simply feeling uncomfortable: perhaps this reminds them a little too much of a part of history that they would prefer to forget today. In another time, after all, a very similar message sounded from the left's own ranks: proletarians of all countries, unite!

Fewer and fewer seem to remember that not so long ago socialism could boast apostles and preachers who put Paul himself to shame in terms of insistence and fervor. A time when communist and socialist clubs of all kinds flourished, when they legitimately existed a mass movement. Reduced to its basic components, the secular gospel that dominated the nineteenth and twentieth centuries was more than just a bastard child of the original, and the explosive power of the message it carried can hardly be exaggerated: here there were no French or Russians, no Walloons, Americans, or Saxons. Here there was only proletariat and bourgeoisie, and it was taken for granted that the community as proletarians was far more important than all the worldly differences between them. Equally obvious was that this community-forming characteristic (class affiliation) took precedence over other characteristics such as race, language, gender, nationality, etc. All workers therefore had a right (and actually an obligation) to participate, completely regardless of individual circumstances. Even reactionary workers were thus at least latently included, and they could thus claim to be included in the socialist movement if or when they came to their senses.