F

Fabians

The Fabian Society (which takes its name from the Roman general, Quintus
Fabius Maximus ‘Cunctator’, famous for his tactics of delay) was set up in 1884
by a group of left-wing intellectuals in England, and was one of the groups that
joined together around the end of that century to organize theLabour Party.
Its predominant position has always been one of advocating peaceful political
progress towardssocialism, through electoral and constitutional politics (see
gradualism). Today there is little to distinguish Fabianism from generalsocial
democracywithin the Labour Party, but in the earlier part of the 20th
century it was far more important, representing a powerful non-revolutionary
analysis of the need for, and pathways to, socialism, when the alternatives were
either pure trade-union politics, or extreme militancy. As orthodox social
democracy has lost its grip on Labour party thinking with the development of
‘New Labour’ and the growth of ideas associated with theThird Way,
Fabianism may, ironically, return to salience as a legitimate alternative view of
the party, taking the place of the ‘hard’ left, itself forever discredited.
No specific doctrines could be said to underlie Fabianism over any length of
time—it does not, for example, have any particular overall analysis of the shape
of the economy in a socialist country, for it is not an ideologically organized
group. In its early days intellectuals such as George Bernard Shaw and Sidney
and Beatrice Webb, were members, and it was partly the Webbs’ disappoint-
ment with the actions of the post-1917 communist governments in the Soviet
Union that held the Fabians to their gradualist position. Today the membership
is very similar, with a considerable sprinkling of senior academics and writers.
It has very little influence in the contemporary Labour Party, although its
constant production of highly regarded policy-discussion papers gives it the
status of a semi-official ‘think-tank’ for those disenchanted with both the party
leadership and the traditional left.

Falangism

The original ‘Falange’ was the Spanishfascistmovement, Falange Espan ̃ola,
which helped to bring General. FranciscoFrancoto power in the Spanish