396 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biographyunder slightly different circumstances. In order to evaluate the Obama phenomenon of 2008, we
must realize that overt jingoistic militarism is not necessary for fascism to arise.
Many assume that all fascists must necessarily be first and foremost aggressive warmongers, but
this is not necessarily the case. As one scholar has noted, “most fascist parties in stable, prosperous
western European countries with mature colonial empires preached a kind of ‘peace fascism,’
unlike their counterparts in central and eastern Europe.”^217 Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism,
1914-1945 [Madison, Wisconsin: The University of Wisconsin Press, 1995], 298 Stanley G. Payne
elaborates on the question of fascism and militaristic aggression as follows: “Fascism is usually said
to have been expansionist and imperialist by definition, but this is not clear from a reading of
diverse fascist programs. Most were indeed imperialist, but all types of political movements and
systems have produced imperialist policies, while several fascist movements had little interest in or
even rejected new imperial ambitions. Those which appeared in satisfied national or imperialist
states were generally defensive rather than aggressive. All, however, sought a new order in foreign
affairs, a new relationship or set of alliances with respect to contemporary states and forces, and a
new status for their nations in Europe and the world. Some were frankly oriented towards war,
while others merely prized military values but projected no plans for aggression abroad. The latter
sometimes sought a place of cultural hegemony or other nonmilitary forms of leadership.” (Payne
11) If we insert soft power and subversion after cultural hegemony, we may be close to
understanding the postmodern fascist ideology of a possible Obama regime.
Examples of “peace fascism” included the French Parti Populaire Français, originally a proto-
fascist formation which emerged from the defeat of the mass strike upsurge of June 1936, the
biggest strike wave in France before 1968. The PPF grew in reaction to the socialist-communist
popular front regime of Léon Blum, which soon disappointed its own left-wing followers. This PPF
received “considerable financial backing from big business interests, which sought to encourage a
popular nationalist and anti-communist force. The chef or leader was Jacques Doriot, a former
communist. “The new state envisaged by the PPF was to be ‘popular’ and authoritarian but
decentralized, honoring the family, the community, and the region, with the latter being strongly
emphasized.” The PPF had its own approach to reforming broken souls: “PPF propagandists did
encourage an activist and vitalist philosophy and the creation of an homme nouveau (new man), and
the movement drew the support of some accomplished fascistic intellectuals like Pierre Drieu
LaRochelle.” (Payne 298) The PPF shows that it is possible to be fascist and anti-war at the same
time: “...though the PPF preached vitalism and activism, together with the military virtues, it was –
like all the French nationalist groups from the fascists of Bucard to the most conservative – a ‘peace
party’ that discouraged talk of war and sought no particular territorial aggrandizement for France.”
(Payne 298)
To see what fascism looked like in the English speaking world during the 1930s, we have the
case of Sir Oswald Mosley and his British Union of Fascists, which was formed in 1932 and was
banned by the government when the Second World War began in 1939. British fascism was not
explicitly pro-war: “Like other fascist movements in satisfied imperial powers, the BUF never
preached war and expansion, but peace and prosperity. Mosley was obsessed with overcoming
social, economic, and cultural decadence, and he believed that only the disciplined nationalism and
new cultural dynamism of a fascism on the Italian model could achieve it.” Also like Obama, the
BUF embraced corporatist solutions for the world economic crisis of the Great Depression: “The
BUF was one of the most thoroughly programmatic of all fascist movements, with elaborate
corporatist economic proposals. Its thrust was decidedly modernist, paying serious attention to
economic theory and concepts of ‘scientific production,’ while also espousing equal pay for women.