the nature of fascist thought

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1898299Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1898299

Joseph Verbovszky Case Western Reserve University

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The Nature of Fascist Thought

I: Introduction

Quite some time ago, a group of countries known as the axis powers, organized

themselves against the emerging social-democratic order and suffered a catastrophic defeat in the

Second World War. Despite cultural, political and economic differences, they were all

categorized under the blanket term “fascism.” Nearly a century later however, this definition of

the axis powers as “fascist” seems to break down under scrutiny. For more than 80 years since

Mussolini coined the term, no one definition for fascism can be agreed upon; in great part due to

the vast cultural, political, and economical differences between the axis powers. In addition,

recent polemical works such a Jonah Goldberg’s Liberal Fascism further complicate the issue by

attempting to place fascism as a left wing ideology, despite its traditional viewing as a

reactionary movement of the right-wing. Finally, the term has been so misused and abused that it

has become little more than a pejorative used to slander politicians or countries that are deemed

politically unpalatable. It seems the only conclusion that can be reached regarding fascism, is

that it is an inappropriate term whose already questionable utility at its inception has given way

to virtual uselessness. Despite the unfortunate state of the term, we argue that it still holds

validity when referring to “fascist” powers. Our argument rests on the fact that those studying

fascism have too long looked at it in terms of a political doctrine. It is not. It cannot be, for the

manner in which it seeks to change the lives of its citizens goes far beyond politics, deep into

core of human thought. It is rather an ethos, a philosophy, a way of thought and it is in these

terms that it must be examined. Our goal then, is to provide the necessary functional definition

for Fascism, one that encompasses the most vital aspects of it while still remaining lax enough to

Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1898299Electronic copy available at: http://ssrn.com/abstract=1898299


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account for all the subtle differences that exist between the regimes. We will, in the subsequent

sections of this paper, fully analyze each portion of our new definition in order to clarify its

contents. In order, then, to demonstrate the usefulness of this new definition, we will apply it to

four most famous examples of the twentieth century fascist regimes: Italy, Spain, Germany and

Japan. This definition can be applied to each of these individual cases while still highlighting

how each of these systems developed differently according to the particular nature of the

regimes.

II: The Definition

Fascism: a romantically naturalist way of thought which, believing that all life is constant

and eternal struggle (Faustrecht), conceives of its own particular nation in terms of a single Volk,

a community of familial and spiritual nature, made up of ethnic and cultural bonds, which

possesses its own individual consciousness and will, and which demands the loyalty and filial

piety of all its citizens, to which end it seeks to shape and mold every aspect of their lives in

order that the Volk, having become conscious of its own existence at a particularly historic

moment in time, can through a sacrificial war, seen as a test of strength, achieve its Destiny, a

concept that combines elements of the particular nation’s past with an idealized and evolutionary

future.

To make this definition more comprehensible I have broken up and ordered the sections

to emphasize this importance: 1. Faustrecht 2. The Volk and the Will 3. War and Destiny.

1. Faustrecht


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Fascism begins with a stoic conception of life that I refer to as Faustrecht.1 This

Weltanschauung is key to understanding the way in Fascism functions. Faustrecht is a mixture of

Thomas Hobbes’ state of nature and Social Darwinism. Hobbes writes: “To this war of every

man against every man, this is also consequent, that nothing can be unjust. The notions of right

and wrong, justice and injustice have there no place. Where there is no common power, there is

no law, where no law, no injustice.”2 This is essentially anarchy, but most importantly, there is

no moral law, nothing to keep man from quite literally tearing his neighbor to pieces. The only

way to survive such an environment is to be stronger than one’s adversary. With such an

anarchic outlook, Social Darwinism of the highest order follows; only the strongest shall prevail.

Oswald Spengler, a writer whose work was greatly favored by the National Socialists, writes this

clearly: “the fact-world of history knows only the success which turns the law of the stronger

into the law of all. Over ideals it marches without pity, and ever a man or a people renounces its

power of the moment in order to remain righteous – then, certainly, his or its theoretical fame is

assured in the second world of thought and truth, but assured also is the coming of a moment in

which it will succumb to another life-power that has better understood realities.”3 In Spengler’s

writing we see an obvious acceptance of Faustrecht, the principle according to which, in a world

of anarchy, only the strongest can survive. What we also see, especially in the last sentence is an

open embrace of Social Darwinism, an avocation of what one could call the will to power.4 In

the Fascist conception of the world, one must not strive to change the world, to remove anarchy

and create the safe and secure Social Contract of democracies. Instead, one should gird oneself

1 Literally, law of the fist. This may have its origins in the story of Göz von Berlichingen, an Imperial German knight who had a hand made out of iron. The story about him is written by Johann Wolfgang von Goethe who incidentally also wrote the story of Faust. Thus, the titular character, Faust, whose name means lucky in Latin and fist in German shares his name with this social-darwinian law. 2 Hobbes, Thomas. Leviathan (1651). Oxford, The Clarendon Press. (1909) 94-98. 3 Spengler, Oswald. Decline of the West Volume II. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (1928), 364. 4 Friedrich Nietzsche’s Gesamelte Werke


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for war, prepare to crush one’s enemies and emerge powerful enough that cannot be overthrown.

Giovanni Gentile (1875-1944), known as the “Philosopher of Fascism” and wrote The Origins

and Doctrine of Fascism, writes that this is specifically the object of Fascism in education: “We

will educate our children… to feel that life is not pleasure but duty. If one loves one’s neighbor,

one is counseled not to provide him with, or facilitate his obtaining, the quiet life. Rather, one

should assist and prepare him for labor, for sacrifice.”5 In one way, Fascism is a naturalistic

philosophy, at least in the sense in which the Fascist views the world. Rather than to

accommodate nature to himself, he seeks to adapt himself to what he perceives nature to be.

However, the problem still remains that the philosophical basis of life as struggle is ultimately an

individualistic philosophy.6 How does a philosophy which stresses the individualistic necessity

of the will to power become a movement of mass mobilization for entire nations of people?

Fascists, therefore, had to find a method to graft the view of struggle onto the nation, a

democratization of individualistic principles. Hobbes, for instance, believed that the fear of death

was the motivator for man to exit the state of nature and enter the social contract.7 Fascists

however, whom history has shown to be quite unafraid of death, the way to the will to power, the

way to survive in the state of anarchy was through blood; a familial system that evolved around

commonly shared blood relations. This, in Fascist thought is explained through perhaps the

strangest entity in the whole system of Fascism, that of the Volk.

2. The Volk and the Will

Perhaps the most complex and difficult to understand, the Volk is the definitive

component of all Fascist systems. The Volk begins with the basic unit of family. The concept of

5 Gentile, Giovanni. The Origins and Doctrne of Fascism. (1934) 52. 6 Indeed, Hobbes considered the state of nature the “war of everyman against everyman.” 7 Hobbes.


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family is grafted out of its purely domestic role and onto the national stage. Fascism differs from

simple nationalism in that the Volk is not only seeing all members metaphorically as family

members but rather seeing the Volk as an impersonal individual who possesses a separate and

transcendent will made from the collective wills of all the people in a society. What we are then

faced with is the concept of a completely unified society that is capable of individual action. In

other words, the Volk possesses one voice and one will; a collective consciousness. This is the

heart of the totalitarian nature of Fascism. There are no separate interests within Fascist society,

there is only one interest, only one will; that of the Volk, and it is a will that must be expressed.

Fascism believes in the Will to Power in an international sense; the national will seeks to be

dominant, whether it is locally, regionally or globally. The level of hegemonic aggression

depends on another rather amorphous entity of Fascist thought that will be covered later, Destiny.

The idea of the Volk really began to emerge during the German War of Liberation waged

by German nationalists against Napoleon in writings by Johann Gottfried Herder and Johann

Gottlieb Fichte. Their conception was a spiritual community based in the cultural and blood ties

of the nation. Furthermore, the Volk is not complete unless it also possesses a home or

Fatherland. This concept is deeply rooted in the concept of the nation and culture. Spengler in

particular saw cultures as plants, explaining how early towns have roots and a “plant-like”

nature.8 Subsequently, we see that Fascism has a preoccupation with the idea of the Volk having

a designated homeland, a Fatherland, from which the culture is born. The nature of this

relationship to the Fatherland, though, goes beyond belonging; there is a sacred aspect to it.

Gentile writes the Fascists should have a “simple readiness to serve the ideal, to work, to live and

to die for the Fatherland – that Fatherland that occupies the foremost place in thought, venerated,

8 Ibid.


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sanctified.”9 It is as if the Fascists truly think that they are “born” of the Fatherland; the Fascist

believes that the Fatherland is sacred and demands the loyalty of the Volk because it has given

the Volk its identity and place in the world.

Thus, it follows that if land is one integral aspect of the Volk then the other necessary

component is blood i.e. Blut und Boden. Fascists, following the organic metaphor, believe that

the Volk is connected through the blood of the people within it. If one recalls, the Fascist way of

coping with the state of nature was blood rather than fear of death. The logic behind it is that the

blood relations, i.e. family, are extensions of the individual. Thus in many respects, when one

relies on family members, one relies on oneself as those family members are seen as part of the

individual. It must be stated however, that the “blood” of Fascism is to be taken in both a literal

and a metaphorical sense. No society is so “pure” that the racial composition will not have

influxes of blood that is not of the particular Volk; hence the Volk develops a method

differentiating who is and who is not part of the Volk through a system that varies from culture

to culture. There is one aspect though, that all cultures share and that is a mechanism that I refer

to as Assimilation vs. Extermination. The manner in which this mechanism functions is that there

are certain individuals that share acceptable or idealized character traits with members of the

Volk and thus, although they are not physically related, are able to be assimilated. They must

however abandon any previous national identity, as conflicting identities interfere with the

general interest of the Volk and result in something quite unacceptable to Fascists, a pluralistic

society. Therefore, those who refuse to abandon their secondary cultural heritage are considered

“foreign bodies” in a sense very similar to foreign matter in the human body; they must be

expelled from the society or eradicated to preserve the organic unity of the Volk. 9 Ibid. 56. When referring to the Fatherland, Gentile is in effect also referring to the state in more eloquent terms. It is the same with the National Socialists who frequently utilized both Volk and Fatherland as motivating ideals.


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Unity is, of course, extremely important to the Fascists. As we have seen, there is a stress

on the organic nature of the Volk, either in terms of a plant with roots in the Fatherland or as

family bound by blood ties. The next metaphor employed in Fascist thought, and perhaps the

most important, is to see the Volk in terms of an independent, organic human being. Gentile

writes of the Volk (although he refers to it as a state): “The Fascist State, in order to penetrate

and direct the consciousness of its citizens, wishes to organize them in national unity; a unity

possessed of a soul. That unity would manifest itself as a unitary being, possessed of a powerful

will, and conscious of its own ends.”1011 This essentially summarizes what one may call the

“Fascist Dream.” Fascists, believing that the people of the nation, composed of blood and

familial bonds, sharing a common love of the fatherland, are all part of a collective

consciousness, a “hive-mind” so to speak, that has its own consciousness and will, functioning as

an individual person. This is where we see the totalitarian nature of Fascism, something that

Fascists are perfectly open about. Gentile writes: “The first point therefore, that must be

established in a definition of Fascism, is the totalitarian character of its doctrine, which concerns

itself not only with political order and direction of the nation, but with its will, thought and

sentiment.”12 This is the point at which Fascism departs the political realm and truly enters

philosophy. The concern of fascists is not to bring people politically into line with the regime but

rather to make people accept the Fascist Weltanschauung of Faustrecht, and that the only real

concern of a person’s life should be that he directs himself according to the will of the Volk. This

is the firm belief of Fascists, made abundantly clear when Gentile describes the will of the

10 Gentile. 72. 11 While I realize that Gentile refers to the Volk as a state, I chose the word Volk because it evokes the spiritual and familial connections that state does not. We are too familiar with Max Weber’s state (a compulsory political organization with a centralized government that maintains a monopoly of legitimate violence within a given territory) to be able to comprehend the metaphysical nature of the Fascist state; hence the use of the word Volk. 12 Gentile. 21.


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individual: “That is the way it is. My true volition is the will of the State (Volk) acting as a

particular will – in fact, my true volition is the will of the world of nations in which my own

State (Volk) coexists with others, upon which it acts, and which act upon it. My will is not my

own; it is a universal will. It is a form of universality embodied in a political community in

which single individuals associate and unite themselves in a higher individuality historically

different from other political entities that are similar.”13 We see here, rather clearly, the fascist

conception of how the Volk interacts with the outside world; namely in the respect that the world

is made of multiple Volks who interact with one another as if they were individual human

beings. This illustrates also, especially in the face of our previously conceived notion that

Fascists simply sought to megalomaniacally dominate society for some obscure or unknown

reason, that Fascists actually conceived of their existence as part of an organic individual whose

indomitable will directed their conscious existences.

Therefore, since Fascism is dominated by the idea of a will that pervades and directs the

entire Volk in its actions, we must take a look at the nature of this will. In the simplest sense, the

Fascist Will that animates the Volk is very similar to Rousseau’s General Will with the exception

of a few differences. Rousseau believed that the General Will was the expression of the Will of

the majority and could be achieved through direct representation.14 If we look at it from this

perspective, Fascism is also democratic. However, the will of the Volk, rather than being

expressed through repeated voting processes finds its expression in the individual will of the

leader. For Gentile this will is exemplified by Mussolini.15 It would appear that rather than

13 Ibid. 84. 14 Jean-Jacques Rousseau. The Social Contract 15 Gentile. 17.


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following the will of the leader, the Fascist conception is that the leader represents the will of the

Volk.

If we look closer at this will we see another difference from Rousseau’s General Will,

namely that it is indomitable and unchanging. In this sense, the Fascist Will follows the logic of

Schopenhauer; rather than being a free Will, it is an unconscious driving force. In other words,

the Fascist will is not the fickle will of individuals, a historic necessity drives this will, compels

it to its ends; it is the will of God. Indeed, Fascists believe that the will of the Volk is a perfectly

natural occurrence and that once it has manifested itself in the historic moment when the Volk

becomes conscious, it inevitably and relentlessly pursues that ultimate end which it seeks, the so-

called Destiny of the Volk.

3. War and Destiny

With such an indomitable Will, there must naturally follow some object which this Will

is directed toward and a means of obtaining it. This is where we find ourselves introduced to the

existential relationship the Fascism has with war. War, unlike in liberal societies, where it is

shunned as an aberration of nature, is considered by Fascists as a religious rite of passage for the

Volk. For Fascists, war is a bloody sacrifice and therefore a religious act. It is seen as a test of

the Volk’s strength, a test of merit. If the Volk can pass through this rite of passage, it can then

claim its reward, its Destiny. This is a concept which, once again, is culturally specific but which

almost always involves some mixture of the historical past and an idealized future. Bound up in

this too is the concept of Dasein which, although made famous by the philosopher Martin

Heidegger had been already employed by numerous philosophers and writers such as Nietzsche

and Spengler and entails a real or self-imposed existence, a self-willed existence.


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Thus, Fascists view war in religious terms. It comes primarily from their belief in

Faustrecht, that all life is struggle. Gentile describes this very accurately when comparing the

different types of violence: “There is another violence, willed by God and by all men who

believe in God and in order – in support of laws that God certainly wishes to obtain in the

world.”16 Violence for Fascists is justified when it is willed by God or more specifically when it

is the will of the Volk. Gentile frequently refers to Fascism as a religion, one which pervades the

existence of the individual in the same way as a Catholic should always behave in a Catholic

manner in every aspect of his life.17 It would therefore not be presumptuous to assume that for all

intents and purposes, the Volk and God are one. However, it would not be just to say that

because God or the Volk wills violence and war, Fascists are simply violently aggressive

maniacs. Gentile explains that “Keep in mind: human life is sacred. Why? Because man is spirit

and as such has absolute value. Things are instruments, human beings are ends. And still, the life

of the citizen, when the laws of the fatherland demand it, must be sacrificed.”18 What we see

here is a peculiar morality. The Fascist understands the value of life but is still willing to

sacrifice it, to destroy what he loves, so to speak. This view of life is one of stoicism and yet, it is

also what one may call a “warrior” mentality. Namely, duty triumphs over conscience. Hence,

concepts of duty, loyalty and honor i.e sacrificial values, are highly prized in Fascist societies,

making many of the figures in these societies what one may call nobly tragic.

It is with such a warrior mentality that the Fascist approaches warfare in general. It is

viewed as a terrible yet necessary phenomenon. It is sometimes necessary to use violence.19

There is something existential about Fascist violence, a belief that it is a real event, something

16 Gentile. 51. 17 Ibid. 57. 18 Ibid. 54. 19 Ibid. 49.


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that concludes with a real outcome, a stark contrast to the unreal deliberations of parliamentary

democracies. It is honest, if one could employ such language, and in that respect it is liberating.

It has the appeal of not having back room deals or other forms of political intrigue. There is only

the sword in hand and the enemy who stands directly in front in opposition, a clash of wills. In

this sense, violence has immense symbolic value.20 And so in Fascism it takes on religious

significance. One could say it is not unlike the old human sacrifices of the Aztecs who sliced out

the hearts of their defeated enemies so that the sun god, suckled on the blood of the victims

might give them another day of sunlight. However, the sacrifices of the Fascists are of a much

larger scale and involve the enemy as well as members of the Volk. We see this indeed in the

view that Gentile takes when he speaks of the war sacrifice bringing Italy great power status.21

There is a belief that through such a sacrificial war, the Volk can be reborn into something

greater and stronger than it was before. Gentile writes “The youth of Italy, who had suffered and

been tormented, felt that the war was a grand and fatal experiment for the Italian people. All of

this was to find expression in the war – a kind of judgment of God, in which this people that had

never fought such a war, was required to unite in a national war of life and death.”22 There is,

contained in this passage, the idea of the phoenix, the idea that the nation can force itself to

undergo a terrible conflagration, only to emerge stronger by it. That, in essence, is the Fascist

conceptualization of war. It is seen as a great test, a spiritual purification that will either destroy

the Volk or make it greater and allow it to achieve its Destiny.

I have mentioned the term a number of times, but its elusiveness remains. It is imperative

to uncover what exactly is meant by the Fascists when they refer to Destiny. In the case of each

20 As we can all attest to, a culture who still lives in the shadow of the last great war. 21 Ibid. 22 Ibid. 58.


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Fascist society, the specifics of what is considered Destiny vary. However, what they all share is

that destiny is a mixture of the historic past and an idealized future. There is something here that

is evolutionary; Fascism is not reactionary, it does not seek an idealized past, it seeks, as I have

mentioned, a rebirth, a new baptism of fire, so that the Volk will be newer and greater than it was

before. In one way, the concept of Destiny is similar to the concept of Nietzsche’s Übermensch

in which man is only a bridge to the Übermensch, a willing sacrifice so that this new superior

being may come about.23 It is in these terms that Fascists likely saw society itself.24 As they

conceived of the Volk as an individual organism, and given the fascist view of war, the entire

society was conceived of as the willing sacrifice to bring about a rebirth, a self-initiated

evolution. There is an idea here that something must be; as if there is an unseen imperative that

drives this evolution. There has to be a motivator for man to choose the way of struggle, the way

of the Übermensch over the way of comfort, the Last Man. Much like in Faustrecht, only the

strong survive. It is in this sense we really begin to understand the peculiar term of Dasein.

Spengler writes “Die Weltsgeschichte ist das Weltgericht: sie hat immer dem stärkeren, volleren,

seiner selbst gewisseren Leben Recht gegeben, Recht nämlich auf das Dasein, gleichviel ob es

vor dem Wachsein recht war, und sie hat immer die Wahrheit und Gerechtigkeit der Macht, der

Rasse geopfert und die Menschen und Völker zum Tode verurteilt, denen die Wahrheit wichtiger

war als Taten, und Gerechtigkeit wesentlicher als Macht.”25 Dasein, it would appear here, the

forceful and self-willed existence, is granted by the judgment of history to those who best

understand the world in terms of Faustrecht. This idea of Dasein may have actually originated

23 Nietzsche, Friedrich. Also Sprach Zarathustra. 7. 24 We know, for certain, of one case that made use of this idea; the German National Socialists. 25 Spengler, Oswald. Untergang des Abendlandes. München, C.H. Beck’sche Verlagsbuchhandlung (1927) 629. (World History is the World Court. She has ever given the right, the right, namely of Dasein, to the stronger, fuller and more self-assured life; regardless of whether this was so in waking-consciousness, and she has always sacrificed truth and justice to might and race and condemned to death those men and peoples to whom truth meant more than deeds and justice more important than might.)


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with Johann Gottlieb Fichte, as he writes about something similar in terms of a goal for man,

although he doesn’t give it a name: “The natural impulse of man, to be surrendered only in case

of true necessity, is to find heaven already on this earth and to infuse his daily labors with

everlastingness; to plant and cultivate the imperishable in the temporal itself – not merely in a

manner beyond comprehension, connected with the eternal only by a gulf impenetrable to mortal

eyes, but in a manner visible even to the mortal eye.”26 This concept Dasein, of presence and

immanence is vital to understanding Fascism. It is for the Fascist, a means of immortality; it is

the Destiny which he pursues. This Dasein is the essence of the Volk, the only real thing that

exists. It matters more, as Spengler points out, than waking-reality itself. It is the goal of Fascism

to have Dasein so that their nation will not disappear from the pages of history but would rather

immortalize itself through burning its mark deep into the earth.

-----------------------------------

Thus we have laid the foundation from which we will build our work. We have, for all

intents and purposes, redefined the conventional meaning of Fascism. It is not, as it has so often

been conceived as, a political doctrine but is rather a philosophy, a way of thought or even a

religion. Born into a world of struggle, people fight for their survival, relying on the only

individuals they can, their blood relations, extensions of themselves. At some point however, this

group of people, this Volk, becomes conscious of itself and ceases to be a mere group but

becomes something greater, a transcendent being with a will. All those contained within this new

being are thus subject and part of this will; they are many and they are one. Self-conscious, the

Volk now sees in the distant future its destiny, something that can only be achieved through

sacrifice and struggle, natural elements of the cruel world. War therefore, which has unified the

26 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Addresses to the German Nation. Cambridge University Press. (1808), 101.


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Volk through blood and has tested its mettle and worthiness, takes on religious significance. The

Volk will achieve its destiny; it is demanded by historic necessity. This is the Fascist ethos; this

is how they had conceived the world, a conception so different from what we are commonly

taught. It only remains now to demonstrate that, despite superficial differences, this ethos was

present at the core of each of the Fascist empires: Italy, Spain, Germany and Japan, and that

through this worldview, they directed their actions.

III: Comparison of the Fascist Systems

Italian Fascism: The Two Italys

Italian Fascism is the most appropriate place to begin when studying Fascism since it was

here that the term was conceived. The underlying narrative of Italian Fascism is that of rupture

and rebirth, centering on the concept of the “Two Italys;” the “old” degenerate and complacent

Italy of the Renaissance and Enlightenment and the “new” aggressive, decisive and proud Italy

of the Risorgimento. It is here, during the days of Italian unification, that the Italian Faustrecht is

born; when the Italians decide that unification can only be achieved through struggle and

sacrifice. Hence, it is here also that the concept of a unified Italian Volk finds an inception. This,

the Fascists argue, is where Italy became conscious of itself as an individual identity with a

particular destiny. Thus, the great struggle for the Italian Fascists becomes the overcoming of the

cosmopolitan period of Italian history which occurred between the end of the Risorgimento and

the coming of Mussolini. The Fascists wish to wipe away this past, a past of division and shame,

and usher in a new era of Italian greatness. This great progressive energy of overcoming the past

makes itself evident even before the coming of the Italian Fascism, in the works and ideas of the

Futurists, a group of romantic and violent progressive nationalists who were eventually


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swallowed whole by Mussolini’s Fascist party. In their writings, the glorification of violent

struggle and war which becomes part of the Fascist warrior ethos, even as it is enhanced by

Italy’s engagement in the Great War on the winning side. This all culminates in the Italian

Destiny, the end of the historical division of Italy and its entry as a great power onto the world

stage.

To begin with, let us take a look at the Fascist interpretation of the Risorgimento, which

the Fascists credit as the event that leads to their eventual existence. This was the beginning of

the “new Italy.” Giovanni Gentile writes: “Italy’s more recent history is that of the Risorgimento

– the national movement of unification of the nineteenth century – at which time this new Italy

awakened and sought to arise and affirm itself.”27 The Risorgimento meant, for Gentile, the

awakening or rebirth of a national consciousness of the Italian people; notice his reference to a

singular Italy rather than the Italian people. Such an idea is meant to differentiate between the

unity of the new Italy versus the division of the old. The national unification was certainly

something new to the Italians who had spent centuries as divided entities, many of whom were

under Habsburg rule. This early period of a divided Italy was what Gentile refers to as “old

Italy.” Gentile traces the origins of the old Italy back to the Renaissance, which he believes was

not only the high point of “old” Italian culture but also the high point of apathy, individualism

and, that all of this culture, the pride of the Renaissance, was “sterile, dead.”28 He further writes

that this old Italy is “a legacy which we must candidly admit is a disgrace of which we would be

free – for which we must make amends.”29 Gentile believed that these two “souls” of Italy were

27 Gentile. 4. 28 Ibid. 44. 29 Ibid.


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constantly struggling, the only possible outcome the triumph of one over the other.30 Such a view

of Italian history naturally betrays the Social-Darwinist nature of Fascist thought. Gentile

conceived of Italian history as a struggle and that only when the Italians became conscious of

this (during the Risorgimento) would they have hope of being great. The Italy of the

Renaissance, and its culture was abhorrent to Gentile for the very reason that it tolerated the

existence of division and foreign rule in Italy. It was this shame of complacency and

individualism during Italy’s past that helps bring about the new united Italian Volk, conscious of

its own soul.

The concept of the Volk is not something new in Italian history at this time; the symbol

adopted by the Fascists, the Fasces is a testament to that.

The earliest reference to the Fasces is actually from Aesop’s Fables in the story of “The Bundle

of Sticks” in which a father asks his sons first to break one stick and then a bundle of sticks

demonstrating the moral of the story: Union gives Strength.31 The Fasces of the Romans, with its

axe-head attached to the bundle, was a weaponized version of the fable. It is from this

weaponized version that the Fascists of twentieth century Italy draw their inspiration. However,

the new addition to this fable, provided by the twentieth century Fascists, is Gentile’s

metaphysics. Gentile adds the concept of an independent consciousness and will to the idea of

30 Ibid. 1. 31 Æsop. (Sixth century B.C.) Fables. The Harvard Classics. 1909–14.


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unity. The State, Gentile writes: “is that national consciousness, and the will of that

consciousness – and draws from that consciousness the ideal toward which it aims and towards

which it directs all its activity.”32 This is what the Italian Fascists conceived of as the Italian

Volk, even though Gentile refers to it as “The State.” This reveals the fact that each form of

Fascism conceives of itself differently, in its own peculiar way. The Italian State functions in its

capacity as a Volk. Yet, unlike the Nazi racial state that the term Volk infers; the Italian State was

of a much more cosmopolitan character, its basis being rooted in the citizenship of the Italian

people, similar to Roman custom, rather than phenotypic standards. Nevertheless, the

characteristic “individual consciousness and will” remain. This seems to indicate that a Volk

although based on the concept of ethnicity and race ultimately sets its own parameters of

belonging. The last part of Gentile’s statement is probably the most important as it explains what

exactly the consciousness is and will do. These are directed toward some aim or goal; which

form the Destiny of Italian Fascism.

As I mentioned earlier, the Italian Fascists were, in one part, ashamed of their

Renaissance and Enlightenment past in which, although culturally prominent, Italy was

politically divided and weak. The Destiny therefore, which Italian Fascists aspire to, is a great

future in which Italy is a powerful entity, free and capable in the realm of international politics.

Gentile makes this clear: “We must remake our souls. We must acquire a roper consciousness of

our mission. It is an imperial mission – not so much in the external world, although the external

world requires that Italy, that great mother of peoples, expands in order to live – but more so

within Italy itself, to instill in the national consciousness the realization that, as a consequence of

our past contribution and our riches in human potential, we possess not only the right, but the

32 Gentile. 54.


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duty to reach out.”33 What Gentile is holding as the mission of Italy is that it remake itself in the

image of Fascism, in the image of the Risorgimento as he sees it, that the new Italy should burst

forth and conquer the old, taken from it only that which is salvageable.34 Contained in this

concept is the idea of rebirth, an idea of purification and transcendence.

Much of this actually predates the Fascists by a couple of decades and is found within the

manifesto of the Futurists. Points 9 and 10: “We will glorify war—the world’s only hygiene—

militarism, patriotism, the destructive gesture of freedom-bringers, beautiful ideas worth dying

for, and scorn for woman. We will destroy the museums, libraries, academies of every kind, will

fight moralism, feminism, every opportunistic or utilitarian cowardice.”35 Apparently, the idea of

washing away the past had been plaguing Italy for at least a decade before the Fascists took

power, but they were the first to propose a solution, the means to achieve this purification and

absolution of the past: war. Already here, a foreshadowing of Italy’s entry into the First Great

War, we see a turn away from the democratic and enlightenment notions of bourgeois Italy and

an embrace of the sacrificial warrior values characteristic of Fascist thought. Italy’s engagement

and victory in the war further propound the situation, and Gentile writes: “Entry into the war was

necessary in order to finally unite the nation through the shedding of blood.”36 In other words, it

was as if the entire nation entered a blood pact with each other that symbolized their coming

together as a unified entity; this was the way in which the Italian people became one blood, one

family, one Volk. Essentially, war serves a vital function: the creation of a state of emergency

which binds people together and unifies them; it puts them in a constant state of “battle-

33 Ibid. 65. 34 Ibid. 1. 35 Marinetti, F.T.. The Founding and Manifesto of Futurism. 1909. 36 Gentile. 2.


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readiness.” This is what Gentile means when he states that Fascists “take life seriously.”37 This

warrior mentality also underlies Gentile’s “anti-intellectualism” and his worship of Giuseppe

Mazzini. Gentile makes frequent references to Mazzini throughout his works, most importantly

to Mazzini’s motto: “Thought and action.”38 Essentially, for Gentile, any intellectual movement

was only worthwhile if it produced a decision, if it could be made use of; parliamentarian

ideologies of debate and compromise were absolutely unpalatable.

Thus armed with this concept of an incredibly and immensely powerful collective will, as

well as the belief in a need for sacrifice and purification, the Fascists were prepared to direct this

will in such a manner that would remake Italy. We therefore return to Gentile’s mention of the

imperial mission and Italy’s Destiny. The impetus, of course, was directed at rejuvenation and

rebirth. This was a time of Spring, as part of the refrain of the National Anthem of Fascist Italy

clearly shows.

Giovinezza, Giovinezza, Primavera di bellezza

Della vita nell'asprezza Il tuo canto squilla e va!39

The song embodies the spirit, so to speak, of the Fascist movement. One can definitely see the

attempts to convey the idea of youthful struggle to create something new. Sustained by the

song’s jaunty tune, the listeners were to toil on joyfully in pursuit of their goal. This new

37 Ibid. 57. 38 Ibid. 5.

39 Radio Marconi. 1997. [Youth, Youth, Spring of beauty, In the hardship of life Your song rings and goes!]


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movement reacts against the old Italy in the architecture, much of it created by Futurists who

joined the Fascists.40 Take this example by Antonio Sant'Elia (30 April 1888 - 10 October 1916):

Although certainly a modern structure, one can see the strong lines of verticality in the building.

Its appearance is imposing, like a modern fortress. This building speaks to the concept of Dasein.

It is strong and has a definite commanding presence as well as a sense of permanence. This is a

characteristic of Fascism in architecture. It concerns itself with strength and permanence; a

reaction perhaps against the ephemeral and transparent nature of modern sky scrapers. It presents

a willful existence. This Italian structure is also a reaction against the numerous “dead” 40 The Futurists were, in their entirety, swallowed by the Fascist party in 1919.


21

structures that Italy had retained throughout its history; museums and mausoleums of Rome and

the Renaissance. This new Fascist architecture demonstrates the force of a new will attempting to

impose itself on the future of Italian culture and is a reflection of Fascism as a movement itself.

Italian Fascists saw this as Italy’s Destiny. The imperial mission was to make Italy great.

For too long had Italy suffered, in their eyes, under the burden of division of Italy’s

principalities, ruled by the foreign Habsburgs as well as the tales of history, groaning out from

every fragmented stone of the great Roman mausoleums, reminding the Italians what greatness

had once inhabited their land. From this perspective, Mussolini sought to wipe away the shame

brought by this past and bring forth a new future, a future of greatness for the Italian people. In

this sense, Italian Fascism was a progressive force that sought a new forceful existence for Italy,

a new pride to be felt through the unity and power of the Italian Volk. To this end, the Fascists

sought Italy’s place in the sun, status and respect from the other great powers.

German Nazism: To the Strongest

Compared to their Italian counterparts, the Nazis in Germany had developed their

conceptions of Fascism much further. Like Italy, German Nazism grounded its foundation in the

worldview of Faustrecht. The Nazis however, went beyond the Italians in that it was not enough

to struggle eternally in a world of blood and iron but rather to seek to become master. The Nazis,

in this regard, applied Nietzsche’s famous Will to Power in an international sense to assume a

position of mastery of their rivals and nearly all of Europe. This rule by the strongest they

viewed to be the natural order of things, which was subsequently disrupted by Western

Modernity, something that would have to be rectified. In contrast, once again, to the Italians, the


22

Nazis had a much more concrete definition of what the German Volk was.41 For this purpose, the

word Volk, made famous by Johann Gottlieb Fichte in his Addresses to the German Nation, in

which it was given its modern interpretation, suited the Nazis purposes perfectly; it became

considerably easier to convey the message of unity, homogeneity and totality, that is central to

Fascism through this word which blends together the ideas of family and ethnicity. Also integral

to German Nazism was the long-standing traditions of the military in Germany and, in particular,

Prussia. The Germans, as a consequence, understood, far better than the Italians, the concept of

sacrifice which was to become the mainstay of the Third Reich. All of this was part of the Nazi’s

elaborate concept of German Destiny in which the Germans were (borrowing once again from

Nietzsche, in this case the Übermensch concept) the Herrenvolk (Master-race) destined to

become the most powerful nation on Earth, ruling a vast empire, subjugating all inferior peoples.

This was the Nazi view of the “Natural” world where the strongest prevailed and the weak were

either destroyed or subjected to the will of the master.

The German conception of Faustrecht is much harsher than that of the Italians. Whereas

Gentile spoke of Fascists “taking life seriously,” the German authority on the subject, Oswald

Spengler, conceived of the law of the fist as a merciless force of nature: “the fact-world of

history knows only the success which turns the law of the stronger into the law of all. Over ideals

it marches without pity, and ever a man or a people renounces its power of the moment in order

to remain righteous – then, certainly, his or its theoretical fame is assured in the second world of

thought and truth, but assured also is the coming of a moment in which it will succumb to

another life-power that has better understood realities.”42 Contained in this statement is much of

41 The word National Socialism, from whence the pejorative “Nazi” is derived, is based in this understanding of the Volk. The Nazis wanted to emphasis that they were socialists for the nation or Volk. 42 Spengler, Oswald. Decline of the West Volume II. Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (1928), 364.


23

what would become the underlying moral structure of the Nazi regime. There is a cold disdain

for morality which, in this view is a “second-world” apart from this one in which cruel reality

reigns. Ideals are destroyed in the face of Faustrecht, only brute power remains. Adolf Hitler

himself makes this abundantly clear: “Those who want to live; let them fight; and those who do

not want to fight in this world of eternal struggle do not deserve to live.”43 This statement, in

many ways, is self-explanatory. However, there is an implication in these statements that goes

beyond mere fighting for survival; there is a “Nazi” way out of the state nature. Spengler’s

statement at the end refers to “succumbing to another life-force that has better understood

realities.” This speaks of course to the Nietzschean concept of the Will to Power. Those who

understand the laws of Nature (i.e. force and conquest) and embrace them, will receive posterity.

Spengler explains this clearly: “Ever in history it is life and life only – race-quality, the triumph

of the Will to Power - and not the victory of truths, discoveries, or money that signifies.”44 Aside

from the obvious avocation of the Will to Power, there is the implicit critique and condemnation

of what Spengler conceives as Liberal values i.e. money and “truths.” Hitler too speaks snidely

of how these modern pacifists foolishly seek to “overcome Nature.”45 In the Nazi worldview

then, the liberal democratic countries of the West were aberrations of Nature, abnormal state-

formations that would be crushed by those who “understand” Nature better. Also, the way in

which Hitler refers to Nature throughout Mein Kampf is framed in a deified manner in which it

possesses its own will and intentionality such as “Nature’s” view of racial mixing which is later

on referred to in the same context as a “sin against the will of the eternal creator.”46 Clearly

Hitler sees a connection between God and the Natural law that the Nazis are espousing. With

43 Hitler, Adolf.Translated by Ralph Mannheim. Mein Kampf. Mariner Books. (1999), 289. 44 Spengler. 507. 45 Hitler. 287. 46 Ibid. 286.


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such a connection the Nazi ideological system is clearly no longer a political doctrine but rather a

new ethos of Deified Naturalism.

It is in this cruel world then that the German Volk finds itself. The concept of a unified

German people, ironically in a history filled with so much disunity, has been around for a

considerable amount of time. Etymologically, the word “Deutsch” actually means “the

people.”47 If we add the term Volk to that, as was and is frequently done, we compound the

meaning. Also, the word embodies that concept of one whole out of many i.e. “E pluribus

Unum” since it is a singular noun, Das Volk in comparison to the plural noun people. Most

famously, the conception of a German Volk occurs during the Napoleonic wars when Johann

Gottlieb Fichte wrote his Addresses to the German Nation in which he extolled the ideas of

national unity and homogeneity as well as the uniqueness of the German people. Over a century

later, these very ideas of unity, homogeneity and uniqueness became the grounding of the

German Volk in the Nazi context.

In the Fascist ethos, the way out of the state of nature is through the blood, specifically

the blood of kinship and community. The Nazis also viewed the state of nature in this

particularly harsh and severe context. Hence, the Nazis would emphasize a particularly

homogenized and totalized Volk that would be able to cope with such a hard and unforgiving

world. We can see an example of this in one of Hitler’s speeches in which he proclaims: “Aus

Bauern, Bürgern und Arbeitern muss wieder werden ein Deutsches Volk.”48 Here we see the

homogenization and totalization of the German people. There are to be no class distinctions,

there is only the German Volk. The classic Fascist references to the will of the Volk also appear

47 Fichte, Johann Gottlieb. Addresses to the German Nation. Cambridge University Press. (2008), 85. 48 Klöss, Erhard. Reden des Führers. Taschenbuch Verlag GmbH & Co. KG, München. (1967), 92. (Out of Farmers, Middle-class and Workers must arise a German People.)


25

in the same speech: “Wir wollen wiederherstellen die Einheit des Geistes und des Willens der

deutschen Nation.”49 The fact, of course, that the unity of the will and spirit must be restored

implies that at the point in time that Hitler is speaking, that unity is missing. This has to do with

the racialization of the German Volk. Hitler believed that the spirit or genius of the Volk was

manifested in the corporeal existence of the people.50 Hence Hitler’s vision was to cultivate the

race to refine the both physical as well as spiritual (geistliche) traits that Hitler saw as desirable;

this meant, of course, the exclusion of those that disrupt this process. In the context of the Nazis

these “foreign elements” are, naturally, the Jews. The Jews, as Hitler states, always form a “state

within a state.”51 This stems from the fact that Jews, although they may have converted from

their religion, often retained a concept of a separate identity which is simply intolerable, as I

have mentioned previously, inside of a Volk, as these entities seek idealized homogenization.

Hence, by such logic, they are always foreign entities and can only be discriminated against if

they are considered racially rather than religiously separate from the Volk. The Nazis viewed the

nation as an organic entity, as Hitler himself makes clear.52 Following this metaphor, the Jews

were considered a type of “foreign body,” (from which arises the famous cancer and parasite

metaphors), which ruins the “healthy” organic unity of the Volk. It is not so much health however

as it is an ideal that the Nazis pursued. Hence, they were always willing to bend their racial rules

when individuals matched the ideal make-up of the Volk; as was the case with the “adoption” of

kidnapped Polish children who matched the Aryan ideal. In a similar vein, the Nazis allowed

Erhardt Milch, second-in-command to Hermann Göring of the Luftwaffe, who was at least half-

Jewish, to sign away his Jewish blood and claim to be pure Aryan. Instances such as these can

49 Ibid. 91. (We want to restore the unity of spirit and will of the German nation.) 50 Hitler. 293-294. 51 Hitler. 150. 52 Ibid. 328.


26

only be rectified by understanding that even in such an exclusive Volk as that of Nazi Germany,

both assimilation and extermination still holds.

Another vital aspect of Nazism was the Cult of the Warrior; one could even say it was the

“backbone” of the ideology. Germany already had a vibrant warrior culture based on its history

of conflict and the victorious wars waged by famous German leaders from Frederick the Great to

Bismarck. Incidentally, the Fascist conception of war as something terrible but necessary makes

its presence most strongly felt, out of all European Fascist regimes, in Nazi Germany. Ironically

a line from the poem Den Kindern by Hermann Hesse, by no means a supporter of the Nazis,

provides the best illustration of this warrior mentality: “Und wie auf Tod und Opfer vieler das

kleinste Glück sich baut.”53 We can see just how important this idea of self-sacrifice is to the

Nazis in the oath that was inscribed on the blades of the daggers of SS officers “Meine Ehre heist

Treue.” (My honor is loyalty). At the same time however, there was another aspect to this

warrior culture, a new, more aggressive aspect which exalted in the carnage of warfare and

viewed it as a means of transcendence. This can be seen in the writings of Ernst Jünger. In his

famous Storm of Steel, Jünger writes: “The immense desire to destroy that overhung the

battlefield precipitated a red mist in our brains. We called out sobbing and stammering fragments

of sentences to one another, and an impartial observer might have concluded that we were all

ecstatically happy.”54 The preceding passage gives the indication that the author may have been

“drunk” with blood lust during the event described. Not horrified by the slaughter and the

prospect of immanent death, he instead rushes headlong to meet it. Jünger addresses this

overcoming of fear and death more specifically in his essay On Pain. In it he comments on how

53 Hesse, Hermann. Poems. Cape Editions. (1971), 72. (and how, upon more death and sacrifice, the tiniest happiness builds itself.) 54 Jünger, Ernst. Storm of Steel. Penguin Books, New York. (2004), 232.


27

modernity and the enlightenment, characterized by Jünger as Nietzsche’s “Last Man” have

utterly failed in their attempts to alleviate pain.55 In response he argues the rise of a new superior

breed of man who overcomes pain through his willingness to engage pain and death head on.56

This is an example of the Fascist warrior ethic which sees in pain and violence that which

transcends mortal man, a spiteful superiority gained by enduring the laceration of struggle.

Hence, there is something liberating about war, as Jünger writes: “Only he who feels himself

secure in immediate proximity to death finds himself in the highest state of security.”57 This

feeling that Jünger espouses naturally has its origins in Nietzsche. This new breed of warrior are

those who “knoweth fear but vanquisheth; who seeth the abyss, but with pride.”58 There is

something explicitly terrifying about this ideal, especially when we blend the spirit of self-

sacrifice, accepting of the terrible but necessary war, together with this new transcendence of

fear and death. We find the logical result of this blend in the infamous Posen speeches of

Heinrich Himmler. In the speech, Himmler speaks to his troops about the annihilation of the

Jews. What is most shocking is how he openly acknowledges and accepts the fact that they are

going to kill other human beings. He compares what the SS are about to do to the executions that

they participated in of their own comrades following Hitler’s Blood Purge in 1934. He ends his

speech with the lines: “Wir haben diese schwerste Aufgabe in Liebe zu unserem Volk getan. Und

wir haben keinen Schaden in unserem Innern, in unserer Seele, in unserem Charakter daran

genommen.”59 What we see here is the true Nazi ideal. The propaganda and dehumanization

55 Jünger, Ernst. On Pain. Telos Press (2008), 10. 56 Ibid. 19. 57 Ibid. 34. 58 Nietzsche, Friedrich. Thus Spoke Zarathustra. Wordsworth Editions Limited. (1997), 278.

59 Himmler, Heinrich. The Complete Text of the Poznan Speech. http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml (We have carried out this most difficult task for the love of our people. And we have taken on no defect within us, in our soul, or in our character.)

http://www.holocaust-history.org/himmler-poznan/speech-text.shtml



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campaign are for the masses and general public but the true Nazi warrior is one who has become

a cold and ruthless machine. He has faced his own monstrous deeds and has accepted them. He

has overcome the human conscience. These men took on a position that was forbidden to mortal

man, they transgressed on the sacred laws of humanity. In essence, they had taken a position

beyond good and evil.

Consequently, all that has been heretofore mentioned plays a part in the Nazis’ grand

vision of bringing about the German Destiny. To be sure, like Italian Fascism, Nazism claims a

rebirth for the German people, not a reactionary continuation of the past. Hitler makes this clear

when he writes about the standard of the Nazi movement. He writes how the Nazis must have a

new flag since they represent the new and, although the Second Reich was good, it is a thing of

the past and something new must take its place.60 It is here then that we are introduced to this

new Destiny of the German people, the Herrenvolk. The Herrenvolk is the amalgam of goals that

the Nazis had for the German people, all of which centered on the attainment and advancement

of the Aryan ideal. In its truest form, the Herrenvolk is a democratization of Nietzsche’s

Übermensch. The Übermensch is Nietzsche’s goal for mankind, as he says “man is something to

be surpassed.”61 The Übermensch was also the embodiment of aristocratic values such as honor,

courage, and pride. In a serious departure from Nietzsche, the Nazis took these values out of the

individual realm to which the Übermensch belonged and grafted them onto the Volk as a whole.

We have seen what the ideal Nazi was to be like in the person of the Warrior. In another respect,

the Herrenvolk idea is similar to Germany’s Platz an der Sonne (place in the sun) of the Second

Reich era which was part of Chancellor von Bülow’s Weltpolitik. However, the idea of the

60 Hitler. 494. 61 Nietzsche, 6.


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Herrenvolk was much more bold and aggressive. The Herrenvolk was the future toward which

Germany was to turn its collective will. It was the ideal that was to be pursued. In the longest

term, it was to be a new world order in which the Herrenvolk would rule over the inferior

peoples and thereby bring order and peace to the world. Hitler describes this peace as: “a peace,

supported not by the palm of tearful, pacifist female mourners, but based on the victorious sword

of a master people, putting the world into the service of a higher culture.”62 It was this “higher”

culture that expressed what could be considered the Nazi Dasein. It was most present in their

architecture. Take this example: Albert Speer’s “Cathedral of Light.”

Nazi architectural style seemed to emphasize large spatial dimensions as a sign of power. This

was not much different from the Roman designs of antiquity which were essentially massive

62 Hitler. 396.


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versions of the proportional Greek temples. Like the Romans, the Nazis were enamored with the

column. They also preferred open fields that were used as staging grounds for communal events

or could be viewed as a part of the natural environment (harkening back to the naturalism of the

Nazis). In this particular shot, we see the creation of columns of light, a cathedral effect,

although outside. The title too, gives the meaning; the world is the cathedral, the sky is the limit.

However, there is also another side to this Dasein, one which acknowledges its frail and

ephemeral nature. For instance, once this “Cathedral’s” lights are turned off, it ceases to exist; in

its place remains only the stone structure in the background, still a strong presence but

nonetheless a mere shell of what it once was. There is no doubt that this was intentional; the

Nazis designed much of their architecture around Albert Speer’s “Theory of Ruin” in which the

buildings over the centuries, as they decayed, would still present an indication of their former

power and glory.63 What we have from this way of thought is an indication that the Nazis

understood that their reign would not last for eternity. In fact the name, “Thousand Year Reich”

has a definitive end to it. It seemed that the Nazis anticipated, in some respect, their eventual

passing. This idea is further reinforced by Spengler’s concept of history being cyclical; all

cultures have a rise and a fall, an alpha and an omega. This can be seen, of course, in the Nazis

use of symbolism i.e. the Swastika.

63 Ironically it would not be these buildings that stand as a testament to the Nazis’ actions.


31

Although the original is on a flat plain, the Nazi version is tilted at a 45 degree angle such that it

almost appears to be in motion, spinning perhaps. A version of it with many more angles is

inscribed on the floor of the Wewelsburg Castle and is known as the “Black Sun.” It may have

something to do with the cyclical nature of the suns rise and fall.64 Such a way of thinking would

also coincide with their view of Nature as a cruel entity that granted victory to the most

powerful. In that respect then they were concerned with immortalizing themselves, as Fichte

described “to plant and cultivate the imperishable in the temporal itself,” to make their presence

echo in eternity.

Thus German National Socialism presents the fundamental concepts of Fascism in a way

that distinguishes itself from other forms of Fascism but nonetheless keeps the core concepts

intact. At its core is the concept of Faustrecht. However, unlike the Italians, who were slightly

more modest, the Germans sought supremacy through the Will to Power. In terms of a Volk, the

Nazis were far more communalistic as well as exclusionary, creating a racialized Volk. Their

concept of war too, was far more advanced than other Fascist systems. The ideals of self-

sacrifice and loyalty became the mainstays of the Third Reich. Through the fires of war, the

Nazis sought to create a new and terrible being; a warrior beyond. Finally, the Destiny of the

German Herrenvolk is completely peculiar to the Nazi regime. Through it, they sought to bring

about their reign as the master-race and thereby immortalize their ephemeral selves in the

permanence of history. Such a reign, they believed, would be harsh but just as its foundation was

in the natural law and would last until that same natural law would grant victory, once again, to

the strongest.

Falangist Spain: Fascism Stillborn

64 In German, sunsets are sometimes referred to by the word “Untergang” which can also mean downfall.


32

One could call Spanish Falangism the runt of the European Fascist movements that

occurred in the first half of the twentieth century. Unlike the other movements, the Falange was

unable to independently consolidate its public support like r Mussolini in Italy or Hitler in

Germany. Instead, the Falange joined an uneasy alliance with other nationalist but also

conservative elements leading to the Francoist “Fascism” that emerged in the wake of the

Spanish Civil War. Francisco Franco was by no means a Fascist under the definition we are

working under; in fact, he would be what one could easily call a reactionary, a perfect example

of the real conservative right-wing. Nevertheless, in its early days, the Falange was, in earnest, a

Fascist movement, very similar, in fact, to Mussolini’s Italy; modern and revolutionary, it

foresaw the rebirth of Spain as a great power, worthy of the respect it once held as the Spanish

empire, though all this was lost following the merger with the Carlist conservatives under

Franco. At that point, although much of the imagery was similar, Spanish Falangism was dead.65

We will analyze the ideological foundation of the Spanish Falange before the fatal mating with

the Carlists and show that its fervent idealism paralleled its counterparts; we are here to see what

still-born Fascism looks like.

Naturally, like the other Fascist movements, Falangism presupposes a worldview of

Faustrecht. Struggle and war are the natural state of man. In an interview with reporter Luisa

Trigo, Jose-Antonio responded to her question regarding anti-war education: “Men need war. If

you regard war as an evil, then because men need evil. Out of the eternal struggle against evil

comes the triumph of good, says St. Francis. War is absolutely indispensable and inevitable. Man

feels it inside with an intuitive, atavistic pull, and it will be in the future what it has been in the

65 Franco even kept the name, leading, naturally, to more confusion regarding the nature of Fascism


33

past…The peoples of Earth without war?”66 This betrays a view of humanity reminiscent of

Hobbes. Man has here an intuition to go to war, to struggle and to overcome. None of that is very

new though, we have seen it a number of times in the other Fascist writings and speeches. What

is interesting however, is the comment about men needing evil. There is a move here away from

the commonly accepted Western Dualist philosophy for something else. This comment truly

hints at what the moral outlook of Fascism may be toward the concept of evil. That view would,

of course, be that evil is a natural part of a human being, something that, like good, may be

harnessed to accomplish something. It is thus merely a means to an end.

The Falange was very similar to Fascist Italy. Its conception of a Volk too bears

resemblances. Most telling is the flag of the Falange with its use of a “weaponized” bundle of

sticks.

The sticks in this case are the arrows, bound together by the yoke, a symbol that dates back to the

reign of Ferdinand and Isabel. Not only does this symbol represent the strength through unity of

the classic “fasces” fable of Aesop but also connotes the connection that the Falange is making

with the idealized past of Spain, thereby exhibiting the peculiarly Spanish identity of the

Falange. The Falange also paralleled the Italians in the sense of bringing about a homogenous

and totalized Volk. Primo de Rivera makes this clear in the sixth point of his “Programmatic Rule

66 Primo de Rivera, José-Antonio: "El voto de la mujer." La Voz. Madrid. February 14, 1936. Obras Completas de José Antonio. Rumbos.


34

of the Phalanx: “Our state will be a totality.”67 In some respects too, Primo de Rivera almost

echoes Gentile when he writes: “Only he who belongs to a strong, free nation is truly free.”68

This is very similar to Gentile, who also considered the Volk to be the basis of the individual, in

his case in terms of consciousness. However, unlike the Italians the Falangists conceived of

Spain as a Nacion i.e. Volk made up of numerous Pueblos (peoples).69 These Pueblos, the local

nationalisms, were a threat to a unified Spain, not because of their opposition to national

sentiment but rather because they represented the “authentic” form.70 From the Falange’s

perspective, in line with all of Fascist thought, the Volk had the territorial component attached to

it. The Falange believed though, that this attachment to the land would ultimately undermine

their mission because the people (Pueblos) would be more willing to support their own local

regions vs. the abstract notion of the nation.71 The Falange therefore understood the Volk in

terms of Nacion, as a transcendent being which overcomes the regional differences in order to

bring about both a spiritual and physical whole. “Nations,” writes Primo de Rivera, “aren’t

contracts, rescindable by the will of those that grant them, they are foundations, with their own

substantivity.”72 This “substantivity,” that Primo de Rivera is describing, would be roughly

described as an essence or presence. This is very similar to the concept of Dasein. Thus, the

Nacion is an entity that is greater than the parts that make it up i.e. the Pueblos.

While Primo de Rivera sees the concept of the Nacion as the ideal for Spain, he

nevertheless acknowledges that it is something to strive for, not an already grounded reality. In 67 Primo de Rivera, Jose Antonio. “Programmatic Rule of the Phalanx.” 68 "Norma programática de Falange Española de las J.O.N.S. November 1934. 69 It can certainly be confusing trying to untangle Fascist rhetoric, particularly when every system relies on and employs different words in order to produce concepts with similar meanings. This no doubt contributed to the cretin interpretation of Fascism being an incoherent ideology; an ideology would be, in this sense, a rigid and structured political program that dictates the goals and means of a political movement. 70 Primo de Rivera, Jose Antonio. “Essay on Nationalism.” 71 Ibid. 72 Primo de Rivera, Jose Antonio. “Spain is Irrevocable.”


35

order to achieve this transcendent whole, naturally, sacrifice is necessary. “The creation of great

unions like Spain is the result of many generations engrossed in constant effort. The hard-earned

glory of such a great task rests on centuries of sacrifice.”73 This sacrifice, of course, is the

sacrifice of war. Primo de Rivera viewed war as “an element of progress” which was “absolutely

necessary.”74 In this respect, he meant a war that would create national unity out of the fractious

sub-state Pueblos that made up Spain. Primo de Rivera thought this type of sacrificial war that

would bind the nation through blood would be found in what became the Spanish Civil War.

All this was done, of course, so that Spain might achieve its Destiny. Primo de Rivera

makes this abundantly clear: “We believe in the supreme reality of Spain. To strengthen her, to

make her great is the paramount task of every Spaniard.”75 His idea of greatness, of course, was

very similar to what the Italians under Mussolini hoped to achieve. He states: “We have the will

for empire-building. We affirm that the historical fulfillment of Spain is the empire. We seek for

Spain a preeminent place in Europe. We do not tolerate international boycotts or foreign

mediation. In regard to the countries of Spanish America we favor the unification of culture, of

economic interests and of power. Spain puts forward her pivotal role in the affairs of the

Hispanic world as entitlement to occupy a position of dominance in global affairs.”76 In his view,

Spanish Destiny was to reclaim its sovereign role in the world. Thus, it would seem that an

imperial Destiny of expansion is part of every Fascist system. The Spanish empire is the past that

the Falangists were yearning for, yet, like the other Fascist systems, they wanted something new.

They were not monarchists or reactionaries, but rather revolutionaries who sought to create this

73 Primo de Rivera, José-Antonio: "El separatismo sin máscara" (F.E., no. 14, July 12, 1934). Obras Completas de José Antonio. Rumbos. 74 Primo de Rivera, José-Antonio: "El voto de la mujer. 75 "Norma programática de Falange Española de las J.O.N.-S. November 1934. 76 Ibid.


36

“supreme reality of Spain” which he also refers to as the “Unity of Destiny.”77 This idea

encompasses the idea of a Volkisch Spain that has unified the Pueblos into a homogenous and

totalized whole. This was the goal of the Falangists.

None of this however, actually occurred, mostly for two reasons. First, unlike the Fascists

in Italy or Germany who were able to consolidate their power through their own self-sufficiency,

the Falangists in Spain formed a fatal alliance with the most conservative nationalists, the

Carlists, led by Francisco Franco. The Carlists were extremely reactionary; their inception

occurred because they believed Salic law broken by Ferdinand VII in 1830. Franco led this party

and, when merging with the Falange, although the name of the Fascists was kept, the character of

the movement remained conservative. This coincides with the second reason for the failure of the

Falange to implement its totalitarian goals, namely, the death of Primo de Rivera. He was

executed by the Spanish Republicans in 1936, thus leaving the party without a true leader.

Subsequently, by the end of the Spanish Civil War, most of the original leadership of the Falange

was dead, leaving a power vacuum which favored the Francoists. As a result, Spain was ruled

until 1975 by a regime that, although nominally Fascist, was, in fact, extremely conservative in

nature.78 The truth is though that the true Falange of Primo de Rivera, with its revolutionary

totalitarianism, was already dead when Franco assumed power.

Imperial Japan: The Rising Sun

The Empire of the Rising Sun is a truly unique example of a fascist system in that it

develops independently of and before its European counterparts. The beginning of Japanese

fascism comes with the Meiji Restoration in response to the imperialism of the West. Although 77 Primo de Rivera, Jose Antonio. “Spain is Irrevocable.” 78 Strangely enough, the Falangists themselves acknowledged the un-Fascist nature of Franco, giving rise to such parties, in recent years, as the “Authentic Falange.”


37

the Japanese already had a stoic acceptance of nature and struggle imparted by Buddhism and

Zen, it is at this period that true Faustrecht comes to the fore. Realizing that there were only two

possibilities in face of Western expansion and shocked into reality by Matthew Perry’s

“battleship diplomacy,” Japan refused to bow to the imperialists and realized that, in order to

defeat the West, one must become like them; it meant an acceptance of the Will to Power. At the

same time, the Japanese were in a very favorable position regarding the other aspects of Fascism.

Being a rather secluded island nation which had never been successfully invaded left Japan with

a fairly homogenous population that functioned as the Volk. This Volk had its origins in what was

known as the National Polity, which conceived of the entire Japanese people as a family with the

Emperor and the imperial household at its head. As the Meiji period continued and led to the

Showa period this National Polity began to morph into a single entity with its own will

manifested by the Emperor. Likewise, drawing from the venerable tradition of the Samurai, who

had existed as a noble class until the Restoration, Imperial Japan had disseminated the ideology

of the Bushido code, which held loyalty and filial piety as the highest virtues, throughout the

totality of society. As a result, the imperial Japanese sought to forge a warrior mentality across

all of Japan, a warrior mentality which valued sacrifice and, through certain tenets of Zen

Buddhism allowed for willful acceptance of death and self-annihilation which eventually

represented itself in the famous Kamikaze in the latter portion of the war. For this purpose too,

the famous Sakura or cherry blossoms play an important role, for in them was contained the

concept of ephemerality and the aestheticism of death. Thus, throughout World War Two, the

Japanese sought to bring about their own form of destiny. At its core was the same anti-

imperialism that sparked the Meiji Restoration. Imperial Japan saw itself at the head of an anti-

Western thrust and in a larger sense an anti (post) modern thrust against Western modernity.


38

They had understood that there was no going back. They had to take up the arms of the West in

order to bring down the West. In this sense, Imperial Japan highlights the ultimate goal of

Fascism, the overcoming and surpassing of modernity.

The Japanese version of Faustrecht is deeply seated in the Meiji Restoration period. It is

true however, that one could say that the view of life as a struggle, in some form, had existed

within Japanese culture from before this period. Much of this can be identified in the Zen

Buddhist traditions prevalent in Japan for many generations which possessed a non-

anthropocentric worldview that contemplated the autophagic nature of the world. Dr. Takao

Hagiwara, who looked at the later perceived militarism of D.T. Suzuki and Zen Buddhism,

quotes Suzuki: “The other day, I [Suzuki] saw a movie scene, in which a big snake swallowed

something like a small snake and a frog. The scene was so cruel that I felt like saving the frog

out of the big snake's mouth ... But, snakes and lions eat [small animals] because they are

hungry. If we take their prey away, they in turn will be in trouble. However, I think that to wish

to solve such a situation arises from our Great Compassion.”79 This Buddhist view elucidates, in

contrast to the Judeo-Christian tradition and the subsequent humanist tradition which posits man

as above and/or apart from nature, that there is a cruel yet necessary autophagy that exists in the

world which we are a part of and which, despite our efforts, remains in place. This worldview is

actually fairly close to Faustrecht however, it lacks the normative embrace of power that

Faustrecht has, instead underscoring the compassion that people feel not only for other people

but for all sentient life in dire situations. Nonetheless, events of the mid-nineteenth century

would push Japan in a much more forceful direction.

79 Hagiwara, Takao. “Japan and the West in D. T. Suzuki's Nostalgic Double Journeys.” The Eastern Buddhist XXXIII. 141.


39

True Faustrecht, with a definitive Will to Power, appears after the Meiji Restoration.

After the rise of the Tokugawa which started the Edo period, Japan experienced over two

hundred and fifty years of internal peace. This period ended rather abruptly when Commodore

Matthew Perry sailed into Uraga Harbor with his “Black Ships,” threatening to use force if Japan

did not agree to the American President Filmore’s demands. The Japanese capitulated but the

experience left a permanent scar. Likewise, as the Japanese gazed about them during the latter

half of the 19th century, they could bear witness to the various colonization efforts by the

Europeans in the region: the French in Vietnam, the Dutch in the East Indies, the British in India

and, most importantly, China, once the “Celestial Empire,” now being carved up and brutalized

by nearly every Western power. Viewed in this context, Perry’s “Opening Up” of Japan brought

the Japanese a very real sense of danger to their culture and way of life. Dr. Takao Hagiwara,

who looked at the later perceived militarism of Zen Buddhism and D.T. Suzuki, writes: “when

Japan was dragged into the international power struggles between Western imperialist nation

states around the mid19th century, to Suzuki and many other Japanese, their situation must have

seemed to be primarily that of self-defense, survival and independence rather than wayward

imperialist invasions of the neighboring countries.”80 Indeed, immediately following Perry’s visit

to Japan, the Japanese began a massive modernization program in order to counter the influence

of the West. These efforts culminated in the Boshin war and Meiji Restoration which sealed the

fate of the aristocratic shogunate and ensured a new era ruled by the Imperial faction. It is during

this period that Japan begins to expand its influence into Asia, often conflicting with the West

(the Russo-Japanese War is an example of this) in an attempt to counter the West’s colonial

influence, which consequently meant expansion of their own expeditions in colonial form. It is in

80 Ibid. 135.


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this period too that Japan was reorganized internally with a new understanding of what

constituted the Japanese Volk.

The Japanese traditionally had a very strong conception of a Volk. This was provided

historically by the state Shinto religion which Nitobe Inazo describes in his work Bushido: “Its

[Shinto] nature-worship endeared the country to our inmost souls, while its ancestor worship,

tracing from lineage to lineage, made the Imperial family the fountainhead of the whole nation.

To us, the country is more than land and soil is which to mine gold or to reap grain – it is the

sacred abode of the gods, the spirits of our forefathers: to us the Emperor is more than the Arch

Constable of a Rechtsstaat, or even the Patron of a Culturstaat – he is the bodily representative

of heaven on earth.”81 This is essentially the origins of any Volk. As we can see, the Shinto

concept is based on blood relations and kinship ties, deified, with the Emperor as the head of the

whole family. Nitobe, at one point, actually compares Japan to ancient Israel where, quoting

Arthur May Knapp, he states: “In Hebrew literature it is often difficult to tell whether the writer

is speaking of God or of the common wealth; of heaven or of Jerusalem; of the Messiah or of the

nation itself.”82 This form of the Volk was able to exist fairly easily in Japan due to the fairly

homogenous nature of Japan which, unlike its European counterparts, suffered practically no

foreign invasions or large-scale intermingling of ethnicities throughout much of its history.83

Nevertheless, during the Meiji and subsequent Showa eras, the Japanese conception of the Volk

changed from a simple deification of the race to a much more complex and organic entity. This

transformation was spearheaded primarily by Kita Ikki, a Japanese intellectual, during the early

Showa era. He critiqued this classical conception of the Volk with its worship of the Ten’no

81 Nitobe, Inazo. Bushido. Sweetwater Press (2006). 57. 82 Ibid. 57. 83 One should note that the Mongols did attempt to invade in the 13th Century, only to have the fleet destroyed in a tsunami from which the famous Kamikazes eventually took their name.


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(Emperor) as nothing but a Shinto superstition and slave morality.84 His view of the National

Polity of Japan was that the Emperor was the manifestation of the people’s Will and

subsequently the Will of the entire nation. Walter Skya, in an essay on Kita and the critique of

ultranationalism, writes: “Kita's description of the state closely matched those of nineteenth-

century German organic state theorists. He said that the existence of the state was a "biological

fact" and that the state was a product of "biological evolution”: Ultimately, then, the state was a

large organic body consisting not of independent human beings but of "elements (bunshi)"

separated spatially in an organic totality who cannot survive apart from the body. The state, in

other words, was a gigantic organism that existed and evolved according to its own biological

purposes.”85 Incidentally, this view is very close to Gentile’s view of the Volk as a transcendent

being that possessed its own will and consciousness. Also at this time, another Japanese

philosopher, Kitaro Nishida wrote on the subject of Will. He describes the activity of the Will as

“the establishment of the unity of consciousness.”86 He goes on to say that “What we call the

demands of reason are actually demands for a greater unity; they are demands of the universal

system of consciousness that transcends the individual person, and they can even be seen as the

manifestation of a great, trans-individual Will. The sphere of consciousness is never limited to

the individual person, for the individual is no more than a small system within consciousness.”87

One should be aware, of course, that much of Nishida’s thought is inspired by the Buddhist

concept that there is a universal self or soul at the basis of reality that all should strive to become

one with. Nevertheless, coupled with Kita’s “authentic socialism” we see, once again as with

Gentile, this transcendental being with its own consciousness and will. In Kita’s socialism,

84 Kita, Ikki. On the Kokutai and Authentic Socialism. 85 Skya, Walter. Japan’s Holy War. Duke University Press (2009). 117. 86 Nishida, Kitaro. An Inquiry into the Good. Yale University Press (1990). 27. 87 Ibid. 28.


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although he advocates a departure from the archaic ethno-religious model which would also be

blatantly racist in its conception of what constituted a Volk, he is nonetheless conceiving of a

form of Volk that would allow for the assimilation of other groups of people. This branching out

from simple nationalism to a broader Asianism was part of the Zeitgeist in Japan at the time

which viewed Japan as the savior of Asia and ultimately the triumphant conqueror of Western

anthropocentric modernity.

The impetus for the reorganization of Japanese society was the turbulent relationship,

with the Western world, beginning with Perry’s Black Ships. The relationship was one in which

the West could be viewed as a sort of “other” which the Japanese sought to overcome and

transcend, thereby overcoming Western modernity. This triumphant struggle, from which would

be born a new order that would liberate Asia from the yoke of colonialism, thus became the

sacred war which functioned, in fascist terms, as the cathartic phoenix: The Greater East Asian

War or World War II. To fight this war, the Imperial Japanese harnessed the warrior mentality

that had, for generations, pervaded the Samurai classes but, since the Meiji Restoration and the

fall of the shogunate, was disseminated to all classes of Japanese society.

The Japanese code of war ethics, present in the Japanese society for generations, was the

Bushido Code. It is a peculiar mix of religion and violence, beauty and death. In essence, like

Zen, it is something that contains its negation within itself. Incidentally, it is in Zen that it finds

its spiritual basis which provides it with the underlying moral view. Key to this is the Buddhist

conception of right and wrong as well as the nature of God. Dr. Hagiwara quotes Nishida: “A

god who merely opposes and struggles with evil is a relative God, even if the struggle is to

overcome evil in the end. A God that is merely transcendentally supremely good is nothing but

an abstract God. The absolute God must contain absolute negation within himself. He must be


43

able to descend into ultimate evil. The God that saves [perpetrators of] ultimate atrocities is truly

the absolute God… This does not mean to confuse good and evil.”88 Dr. Hagiwara goes on

further to explain that God and the Devil, from this perspective, “are topologically identical.”89

This non-dualistic view of good and evil is what lies at the basis of Zen Samurai teachings. We

see this also in some of the earliest writings from Zen master Soho Takuan to the famed

swordsman Musashi’s great rival, Munenori Yagyu. He writes: “Without looking at right or

wrong, he is able to see right and wrong; without attempting to discriminate, he is able to

discriminate well.”90 Essentially, Zen is a decisive way of thought. It manifests itself in the act

rather than deliberation. Dr. Hagiwara explains this in terms of Derridean Justice: “Zen

deconstructively passes judgment and thus carries out both good and evil. Derrida says ‘Justice,

as law, is never exercised without a decision that cuts, that divides… It is that which must not

wait.”91 Hence, in terms of warfare, the Zen mentality is one which advocates a decision, based

not on dualistic weighing of costs and benefits, but rather on decisive action with intuitive

justice. The idea of an absolute God too, containing the negation within himself creates the

implication that evil, rather than being completely avoided, can be utilized for the sake of good.

Hence, there is the famous Zen saying that speaks of killing one man so that a thousand may live.

In essence, such a way of thought, being beyond the conventional dualistic structure that we are

accustomed to, is beyond good and evil.

Likewise, when faced with death, the warrior mentality of the Samurai takes a similar

approach. On the first page of Hagakure, the book of the Samurai, Tsunetomo Yamamoto writes:

“The way of the Samurai is found in death. When it comes to either/or, there is only the quick

88 Hagiwara, Takao. “Derrida and Zen: Desert and Swamp.” 8-9. 89 Ibid. 90 Soho, Takuan. The Unfettered Mind. Kodansha Tokyo (2002). 117. 91 Hagiwara. 10.


44

choice of death. It is not particularly difficult. Be determined and advance.”92 This mentality,

like much in Buddhism, is about overcoming, in this case death. To overcome the fear of death is

to be free of death in one sense, as one can accept it freely when it comes. Tsunetomo further

elucidates: “One should expect death daily so that, when the time comes, one can die in peace.

Calamity, when it occurs, is not so dreadful as was feared. It is foolish to torment oneself

beforehand with vain imaginings. · · ·Tranquillize your mind every morning, and imagine the

moment when you may be torn and mangled by arrows, guns, lances, and swords, swept away by

great waves, thrown into a fire, struck down by thunderbolts, shaken by earthquakes, falling from

a precipice; dying of disease, or dead from an unexpected accident: die every morning in your

mind, and then you will not fear death.”93 The penultimate conclusion to be drawn from this is

that the way of the warrior was death. He reconciled the fact that since he lived by the sword, so

too, by the sword would he die. This mentality, after the fall of the shogunate, was disseminated

to the whole of the society. Thus, when the Second World War came much of the military and

even society at large were imbued with such a view of life and death. Thus, the Japanese warrior

understood himself as a sacrifice for the nation. We have seen this manifested in the Kamikazes

who assaulted the American forces with suicide attacks. Ivan Morris, who studied the

Kamikazes, writes that they had accepted their fate and without necessarily a view of a reward in

the afterlife were willing and even happy to face death for the nation.94 This attitude highlights

the Japanese attitude concerning the nature of ephemerality, embodied, in many ways, by the

famous Sakura (cherry blossoms) in Japan.

92 Tsunetomo, Yamamoto. Hagakure. Sweetwater Press (2008). 15. 93 Ibid. 127. 94 Morris, Ivan. The Nobility of Failure: Tragic Heroes in the History of Japan. Holt, Rinehart and Winston (1975) 317.


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The cherry blossom is very dear to Japan. Symbolically, it embodies the idea of extreme

but impermanent beauty that is soon lost. In some ways, it parallels the Germans with their own

concept of ephemerality in the concept of planting something permanent in the temporal or in the

Theory of Ruin developed by Albert Speer. During the Second World War, the cherry blossoms

were particularly important and the short but vibrant lives of the Kamikazes seemed to embody

that sense of ephemeral beauty and intensity of will. One of the Kamikaze units was actually

named Yamazakura in honor of the Cherry Blossom.95 The imagery is unmistakably strong;

flying up above the enemy flak cannons, turning willfully into the blaze of the enemy fire, and as

the plane ignites, it is as if man and machine become one and disappear, joined as a

manifestation of pure will which like a fist out of the heavens, smashes mercilessly into the

decks of the panic-stricken enemy ship. The underlying idea here is that of sacrifice. There is an

unmistakable phoenix idea here. This idea of it is found even in the flag of Imperial Japan, the

Rising Sun.

95 Ibid. 291.


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Although the flag is actually older than the Meiji and subsequent Showa eras, it nonetheless is

symbolically powerful at such an idealistic time. The fact that it is a sun that is rising is

important since with a new dawn, a rising sun, comes a new beginning. Likewise, the blood-red

of the sun and its rays show not only the red of dawn but the blood of those whose sacrifice

makes the new dawn possible. In many respects, it parallels the Aztec blood-sun cycle whereby

sacrifice bears light. Thus, even though the young warrior may not be comforted with thoughts

of reward and afterlife, in fact, his resolve is made stronger because of it; out of his sacrifice,

Japan will be able to obtain its Destiny.

It is here that we come full circle and witness the Destiny that the Imperial Japanese

envisioned for Japan, the reason for the major reorganizing of society, the reason for the

sacrifices of war. Ever since the coming of the Western European and Americans in the middle

of the 19th century, Japan had been seeking a way to defend not only itself but Asia from the

onslaught of a civilization that was so different from theirs. We can see ample proof of this in

ideas put forth by the Imperial Japanese such as the East Asian Co-Prosperity Sphere. While in

its outlook and certainly in its execution, the venture showed imperialistic and colonial

tendencies, the Japanese nonetheless considered it something beneficial for all of Asia. Likewise,

Kita’s redefinition of the Japanese Volk from the racialized one to one that was based on the will

of the people in general thus allowed for Japan to take on the larger role of representing Asia in

the struggle with the West. Also, if we recall the Zen concept of discriminating between good


47

and evil and likewise, the concept of killing one man to save a thousand, one can begin to see

how a decision, a quick decision that cuts, can be made. In this case, it was the decision to

modernize, become an Imperial and colonial power to oppose the other colonial powers. Brian

Victoria, in his work studying the Zen Buddhists in relation to the Second World War, he quotes

D.T. Suzuki, regarding Japan’s Imperial mission: “Therefore, if a lawless country comes and

obstructs our commerce, or tramples on our rights, this is something that would truly interrupt

the progress of all humanity. In the name of religion our country could not submit to this. Thus,

we would have no choice but to take up arms, not for the purpose of slaying the enemy, nor for

the purpose of pillaging cities, let alone for the purpose of acquiring wealth. Instead, we would

simply punish the people of the country representing injustice in order that justice might

prevail.”96 This was likely directed not at any Asian country or even any country in particular

but at any country that would impede the Japanese Destiny; incidentally turned out to be the

United States.

This confrontation with the West highlights another, if not more important aspect of the

Imperial Japanese Destiny, namely, the struggle to overcome Modernity, as brought by the

Western powers colonizing Asia. Dr. Hagiwara cites the sociologist Hitoshi Imamura on the

definition of Modernity:

1. A mechanistic view of the world.

2. An emphasis on rational and systematic methods of production and

construction, and on the supposed autonomy of individuals.

3. An emphasis on systematized, citizenship-based societies and governments.

4. The reduction of all human activities to ‘labor’ (労働).

96 Victoria, Brian. Zen at War. Rowan and Littlefield (2006). 24.


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5. A homogeneous and linear progressive sense of time.97

What Hitoshi is essentially describing is teleological materialism. The teleological aspect revolves around

the idea of humanism and that man is something separate from and superior to Nature. There is a schism

therefore, between Man and Nature, one that is not present in the worldview of Buddhism and subsequently

Japanese society as a whole. Lacking also from the Modern worldview is the “soul,” hence illustrating

another schism of modernity, the separation of church and state. As we are by now aware, the totalizing

nature of Fascism, which was also present in Imperial Japan, seeks to overcome these schisms and eliminate

them. It seeks to restore a “natural order.” We can clearly see this in the writings of Kenji Miyazawa (1896-

1933), a famous poet from the Showa period. Hagiwara demonstrates that he sought, in his works, to blend

the pre-modern magic with the mechanization of modernity.98 In this sense, he seeks to overcome the

schism of Modernity, the separation of rationality and science from religion and magic. Likewise, one of the

central themes of his works is non-anthropocentric autophagy which is the process by which the world feeds

on itself to sustain itself.99 This theme is exemplified by a short story by Miyazawa, Bears of Mount

Nametoko, in which a hunter must hunt the bears, whom he greatly respects, to support his family and

which results in his death at the hands of the bears who in turn give him a funeral.100 Hagiwara cites how

this story illustrates an overcoming of anthropocentrism that is characteristic of the West and thus,

“overcomes Modernity.”101 This theme of overcoming Modernity is vital to the understanding of Imperial

Japan and, in a larger sense, the understanding of Fascism itself. Seen as schismatic, anthropocentric and,

ultimately, unnatural, Modernity has always been anathema to Fascism which has seen the triumph of

humanism and materialism as the extinction of the mystic and cosmic soul that underlies both the idea of a 97 Hagiwara, Takao. ‘Overcoming Modernity’ in Kenji Miyazawa. 1. 98 Ibid. 7. 99 Ibid. 9. 100 Ibid. 14. 101 Ibid. 15.


49

Volk as well as Nature. The Fascists however, as illustrated best by Imperial Japan, sought not to resist

Modernity, but rather, through assimilating Modern concepts and reconciling them with pre-modern ones,

to overcome, and surpass it; thus bringing a perceived wholeness to the various Modern schisms.

In conclusion, Japanese fascism differs greatly from its European counterparts. To begin with, it has

a much longer development and does not involve party politics but rather a general worldview that is

radically altered by the arrival of the American Navy in Edo harbor. Likewise, fascism in Japan found the

rich cultural history of Emperor Worship and Samurai culture to be useful. From the already prevalent

kokutai or National Polity concept which placed the Emperor at the head of the whole Japanese family, it

did not take long for the idea to evolve into that of the Volk which possessed the Will of the people.

Likewise, the Samurai warrior ethos proved very opportune to Imperial Japan. With its focus on sacrifice

and loyalty as well as embrace of death, it provided the perfect basis for the realization of the Destiny of

Imperial Japan, the defense of Asia and the defeat of the West. It is also with the Japanese that we most

clearly see the divide between the Western Democracies and what would become known as the Axis or

Fascist powers. Japan, through Buddhism, had experienced a non-dualistic view of the world much different

from the schismatic Westerners whose various dualities manifested themselves in the forms of separation of

church and state, good and evil, Man and Nature, God and the Devil. This system of duality was anathema

not only to the Japanese but to all of the fascist states who sought to move toward a naturalism that could be

seen as the breaking down of dualities. This can be seen, of course, in Japan’s attempt to assert itself against

the West and thus demonstrate most clearly what may be the Destiny of all Fascist systems, the surpassing

of Modernity.

IV: Fascism and the World


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Even though it is possible to define Fascism and demonstrate the functionality of such a

definition, such a conclusion cannot be wrapped up with a simple quid erat demonstrandum

since the arrival at one conclusion merely becomes the departure to numerous other equally

important and interesting questions, much like a fractal. One such question is: where does one

find Fascism on the political spectrum? It possesses both conservative elements like tradition that

often fall into the right-wing, yet it also contains within itself the revolutionary and at times

progressive elements that the left-wing has famously ascribed to itself. Clearly, such a bizarre

combination makes placement difficult. Another question, much more important in fact, is that,

having understood how Fascism conceives itself, how does it interact with the other societies in

the world? As we have borne witness to, there occurred a great and terrible war in the 20th

century between forces commonly conceived of as democratic and others commonly conceived

of as fascist. Is such a confrontation always inevitable? What breeds such enmity? It is possible

to answer both of these questions with one answer thanks to the Argentinian political philosopher

Mario Bunge and his “freedom square” from his seminal work Political Philosophy.

Bunges’ freedom square is actually a modified version of the famous square of A.J.

Greimas. Unlike the classic binary model that characterizes the political spectrum of two

contrary extreme points with a line between them, this model consists of a square in which the

contrary term is horizontal and a contradictory term is diagonal from the subject term.102

102 Greimas, A.J.. “The Interaction of Semiotic Constraints,” Yale French Studies, No. 41, Game, Play, Literature (1968), pp. 86-105. 88.


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While S1 and S2 are opposites, S1 is the contradiction of S1.103 For example, in the case of

colors black is the opposite of white but non-white is the contradiction of white. In this same

vein, the axes are described by Greimas as

104

What is most important to note for our purposes is the relationship between the two axes, S and

S. Both contradictory axes contains opposites, s1 and s2 for S and s1 and s2 for S. However, as

we will become important in the political model, the contradictory axis, S contains opposites that

are far more easily reconcilable than those in axis S.

103 Ibid. 90. 104 Ibid.


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It is in this form then that we are introduced to Bunge’s “Freedom Square” in his most recent

work, Political Philosophy. The chart is organized by Freedom and Equality and represents the

ideologies of Social-Democracy, Communism, Capitalism and Fascism.105

FE = Democratic socialism FE = Classical liberalism

FE = Soviet communism FE = Fascism

This is the form that it takes in the book but it can also be represented using the square model as

below:

Free Social Democracy Equal

Capitalism Communism

Unequal Fascism Unfree

According to this square, Social Democracy has both freedom and equality or, in the very

least, strives to attain both. Capitalism, in line with the laissez-faire mindset and its

105 Bunge, Mario. Political Philosophy. 110.


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individualistic tenets, sacrifices equality for freedom. Communism meanwhile, characteristic of

the Marxist Weltanschauung, places equality before freedom. Lastly, we have Fascism, which is

said to reject both freedom and equality. As I mentioned earlier, the S axis possesses terms that

are easily reconciled with each other whereas the S axis possesses a seemingly absurd situation.

In this case, it makes sense to see people to be treated unequally and at the same time be unfree

i.e. slavery. However, there also appears to be a conflict between Freedom and Equality albeit on

a hierarchically inferior level to the contradictory opposition between Fascism and Social-

Democracy. This perhaps explains the ability for Communists and Capitalists to set aside their

differences as an argument of precedence of Equality over Freedom and vice versa, in order to

confront the Nazi Moloch, which was opposed Social-Democracy on a much more fundamental

level.

However, this model still leaves Fascism as the proverbial “black sheep” in the system

and continues to support the absurd myth that Fascism is a slave system which ruthlessly

oppresses its citizens. It has been the goal of this paper, in attempting to define Fascism, to wipe

away this myth and posit, in its stead, an understanding of a system very different from the one

that we live in. There is a great historic necessity to comprehend the nature of Fascism,

especially if one wishes to prevent the destructive and apocalyptic conflagration that was

conceived of as a war between competing worldviews of Social-Democracy and Fascism. Since

Bunges’ model fails to explain how the fascists, according to him, neither free nor equal, climbed

the dizzying heights of success in their early years, challenged the might of the entire Earth and,

in their twilight hours, as their diabolical orders were crushed under the ruins of their own

ambition, called millions of normal citizens to defend them, even in the face of certain death; I

find his model to be unsatisfactory and, although a step in the right direction, only a step and not


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a leap. Following such logic, I have developed an alternative model to describe the relationship

between the various social orders:

Individual Social Democracy Universal

Value

Capitalism Communism

Particular Fascism Collective

Unlike Bunge’s model, this new one is not based on based on ideologically slippery

concepts such as Freedom or Equality.106 These terms also have different meanings based upon

which system one finds them in i.e. Communism seeks universal equality and democracy seeks

equal opportunity but both simply use the generic term equality. Therefore I have based the model

rather on what each of the ideological systems value or hold as most important in their respective

societies.

106 Freedom is a particularly amorphous concept with multiple definitions. See Isaiah Berlin’s “Two Concepts of Freedom.”


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Hence, in terms of Social Democracy, the individual is esteemed to the highest degree, in a

universal sense. Following the logic that all men, created equal, have certain inalienable rights,

Social Democracies see it as their mission to ensure that there are “universal” human rights

guaranteed to each and every individual. This universal nature of Social Democracy creates an

hostility toward nation-states, something that plays a major role in its relationship with Fascism.

Present here, once again, is the same paradoxical relation that also appeared in Bunge’s model,

which illustrated the conflict between the two positive values of Freedom and Equality. Here too,

Social Democracy struggles to reconcile the value it places on the individual while at the same

time keeping to its universal desire to see these rights of individuals respected throughout the

world.

Communism meanwhile, rejects the individual as the centerpiece of society, holding the

World’s Workers as most important. In this manner, it places a collective as its most important

aspect of society. This fits fairly well with Bunge’s analysis which maintains that Communism

sacrifices freedom in order to attain equality. It seeks to find equalizing commonalities that all

people share i.e. the blood of all workers that makes its way onto the Communist standard, the

Red Flag. This, of course, brings it into conflict with Social Democracy since the individual is all

but extirpated in the Communist Worker’s Paradise. It does however; share the universal idea

present in Social Democracy. In this respect both systems find a common ground in being world-

spanning systems. In the purest form of either, they cannot rest until the goals of one or the other

are spread universally across the globe.

The antithesis of Communism, Capitalism, on the other hand, agrees with Social

Democracy that the individual is the base unit of society but instead of wishing to guarantee

universal rights to all mankind, the capitalist only wishes that individuals be given the opportunity


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to succeed but as to whether they succeed or not, the capitalist is indifferent. In this ideology is a

certain Social Darwinist behavior which believes that only particular individuals who work hard

can succeed, hence laissez-faire economy. It is this logic of the capitalist system which allows for

the creation of corporations which, although clearly group entities, are defined in the capitalist

society as individuals. This view of a collective unit (a company or firm) as an individual is a

value, along with Social Darwinism, which Capitalism shares with Fascism, although in the latter,

these appear in a far more advanced state.

Placed on the negative axis of the Greimas Square, Fascism is clearly the antithesis of

Social-Democracy, placing emphasis on a particular collective (Volk) rather than the universal

individual. Like Communism, Fascism values the collective as the most important aspect of

society. However, Fascism’s relationship to the individual is more complex than the purely

negative attitude that Communism takes toward it. As we have seen across the Fascist spectrum,

beginning with Gentile, Fascism subordinates but does not destroy the individual. Like

Capitalism, Fascism believes in Social Darwinism and would therefore promote individuals to

compete within the society. All of this however, is done for the interest of the Volk, viewed as a

transcendent individual, conscious of itself and in possession of a powerful will being made out of

the collective mass of the people.107 Following such logic, contrary to Bunge’s argument, as well

as the general popular belief about Fascists, they actually do believe in freedom. This freedom

however, is not an assertion of an individual’s rights in relation to state authority but rather an

assertion of the freedom of the Volk, National Freedom. It can also be said that the Fascists

believe in equality, especially since they place the collective at the forefront in terms of

importance. This equality is defined exclusively by the Volk though. Keeping with the family 107 One could actually compare this to Capitalism and see the possible inspiration for the corporation as an individual.


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metaphor, all who are identified as part of the Volk are considered equal. However, all those not

deemed to be part of it are disregarded or worse. Hence, as we have also seen, Fascist societies are

not minority-friendly. The Fascists also share the Social Darwinism of the Capitalists, believing

that only a particular Volk is meant to succeed, namely the strongest. They believe in what is

known as the “Struggle of Nations,” an ethnic survival of the fittest, if you will. This brings them

into conflict with all of the other groups; it rejects Capitalism’s individualism, Communism’s

universalism and above all, Social-democracy, with both its individualism and universalism.

Fascism forms the negative S axis on the Greimas Square. This places it in a position

anathema to Social Democracy which comprises the positive axis. As is normally the case with s1

and s2, Fascism lacks the “hard” opposition found in Social-Democratic systems; there is no

conflict between universal and individual. Instead, there is what one may call “soft” opposition

present in Fascist systems between particular and collective. It is “soft” because it is easily

reconcilable. The Fascists say that their primary concern is the collective. The question is asked

which collective. The response is the Volk. The soft opposition in the Fascist system is the source

of its strength. The lack of opposition means that Fascists are able to unify the people into a Volk

whose sole concern becomes its own survival and eventually, its aggrandizement. Fascist systems

follow the logic of positive freedom. First, the goal is for freedom to exist among other nations, to

not have others’ wills imposed on them. Then the goal becomes the freedom to impose the will of

the Volk on other nations. In the positive system of Social Democracy however, the hard

opposition between individual and universal cannot be reconciled and therefore always maintains

an element of division in Social Democracies. The only time this opposition is calmed is when the

democracy is faced with an external threat, as was the case in the Second World War. In such an


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event, the universal and individual elements are unified and temporarily reconciled by the

necessity to oppose the negative S axis, Fascism.

Immanuel Kant introduced the concept of the peaceful League of Nations comprised of

democracies that do not war with each other; while this may not always be the case and conflicts

may arise between Democratic nations that can lead to war, it is only in the case of conflict with

Fascism that violence is assured. This virulent hatred that emerges between these two systems

emerges primarily from the contradictory s2 + s2 schema of universal vs. particular. The universal

nature of Social Democracies makes them inherently hostile to the concept of the Volk, which, in

many respects, is the “wellspring” from which Fascism flows. Consequently, the Fascist quest to

secure the proverbial “Platz an der Sonne” leads them to despise those who deny them this rightful

reward granted to the strongest by the judgment of history. The fact too that Social Democracy,

rejects the naturalism of fascism is seen as deluded idealism and what one might call the “cardinal

sin” of Fascism; to trample on Faustrecht is to blaspheme against God. The result of all of these

factors is thus the irreconcilable nature of the conflict of values between Fascism and Social-

Democracy, which ends only in victory or death.

V: Conclusion

Fascism is certainly a peculiar system of thought which differs greatly from the social-

democratic orders that now dominate most of the world. Nevertheless, it is not a system that is

incomprehensible or incoherent. It possesses its own functioning logic and a priori foundations

that serve as the basis from which the system itself is able to grow. It begins with Hobbesian

naturalism, a belief that the world is a place of eternal struggle and that the only way of such a

world is not through social contracts or individual rights, but through the blood relations of kin,


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extensions of the individual self, family. These relations engender the defining entity of the

Fascist system, the Volk, an entity not unlike Hobbes’ Leviathan. Although we have seen that

each system differs in its interpretation of what a Volk means, from the cosmopolitan Italians to

the highly racialized Germans to the Spanish who literally sought to invent a Volk out the

miasma of local nationalism that were seen as threats to the national whole, to the Japanese

whose concept of the Volk was by far stronger and more well-developed than any of their

European counterparts. Religious sacrifice in the form of war finds itself too at the heart of the

Fascist Weltanschauung. All of these societies placed a high value on the military, not only as an

aesthetic model but also as a model for thought and action throughout the society. The sacrificial

values of loyalty, piety and honor were the guiding principles akin to religious commandments.

The love of the Volk as a God was the highest virtue and just as God asked Abraham to sacrifice

his son Isaac so too could the Volk demand the sacrifice of a husband, father, brother, or son. It

was through this sacrifice that the Volk could become stronger, strengthened by the millions of

irrevocable decisions of life and death that, by which, the people bound themselves to the

Destiny of their Volk. These Destinies too, found in every one of the Fascist systems were all

different. In fact, one could say that each Destiny depended on the self-perception of the Volk’s

power; ambition in proportion to pride. Thus the Italians and the Spanish, acutely aware of their

recent undistinguished past, yearned to erase the shame of the preceding centuries with a rebirth

of culture and power. The Germans and the Japanese meanwhile, already in positions of

supremacy and self-aware of their cultural worth, sought power on a vast scale, in line with what

each hoped to accomplish. Nonetheless, all of the Fascists were obsessed with the concept of

Dasein, to plant something eternal in the temporal, to immortalize themselves in history. Thus,

they come into conflict with the rest of the world. Social democracy, with its individualism and


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universal aspirations, threatens the very foundations of the Fascist way of thought, becoming

anathema. In some respects, Fascism represents the beginnings of Post-modernism, since the

Fascists sought to overcome modernity but unlike the popular depiction, they were not

reactionaries who couldn’t deal with the new world of modernism. Rather, they were acutely

aware of what was going on around them; they sought to harness the power of modern man in

order to surpass him. They viewed the anthropocentric humanism of the Western Democracies as

an unnatural abomination and an affront to the way of Nature.

That being the case, we may never effectively see an end of Fascism. The systems

illustrated here in this paper are truly dead but the “spirit” of Fascism remains. We are not

dealing with the mere whims of megalomaniacal dictators but rather with the natural

development of various human thought-schemas that incorporate life, family, religion and death

in ways which conflict with the ones that we commonly hold. The view, for example, that life is

an eternal struggle is fairly common, even in the so-called civilized “first-world.” Naturalism

too, has a heavy appeal that can easily compete with Western materialism. The importance of the

family over the individual and the selfless devotion thereto is also common, and maybe more

common in fact, than the belief in “universal rights.” There are nations and peoples who, even

now, believe in sacrifice and death or, more specifically, are willing to accept death as a means

to greatness. Most importantly, man’s conflict with modernity and its attempts to survive his

assaults is omnipresent and evident in numerous iterations of the various “post” movements.

Such activity betrays the incessant attempts of man to understand himself and his place in nature,

the way he would like to see it and the way it is; while even now, as he debates this with himself

in the ever-waning shade cast by modernity, there appears the cosmic autophagy of nature, ready

with its cruel light to shatter this shadow and illuminate the mire of the world.


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the nature of fascist thought

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