398 Barack H. Obama: The Unauthorized Biography“sheepish submissiveness” and the “cowardly treachery” of the labor-based Social Democratic
Party. Haffner found that “it is in the final analysis only that betrayal [by the Social Democrats] that
explains the almost inexplicable fact that a great nation, which cannot have consisted entirely of
cowards, fell into ignominy without a fight.” But it is very easy for modern-day left liberals with
CIA connections to fault the German labor politicians of 75 years ago. Haffner did not mention that
his British paymasters had thrown their support to Hitler, as in the case of Lady Astor and her
Cliveden Set. What can we say of Howard Dean, Pelosi, Jay Rockefeller, Ted Kennedy, and the
other rotten Democratic politicians who have rushed to support postmodern fascism in the form of
the Obama campaign long before any seizure of power? The modern American politicians do not
fare well in this comparison.
THE MASS MOVEMENT IS CRITICAL FOR THE ADVENT OF FASCISM
A more basic objection to Brit’s entire approach is that this method might be some use for a
dreamer or time traveler who suddenly woke up or landed in a given society and wanted to know if
that society were fascist. But that is not our problem. In practice, the only way to enter a fascist
society is through the successful activity of a fascist mass movement, and it is here that the
characteristics listed by Brit not only fail utterly, but actually become dangerously misleading. The
only way real fascism has ever been created is through an irrationalist, demagogic, anti-
parliamentary mass movement or reasonable facsimile thereof, stressing togetherness and the
negation of class struggle and partisan haggling. Such movements have seen heavy representation
of fervently idealistic young students, unemployed workers, artists and intellectuals, disgruntled
veterans and crazed petty bourgeois (like bankrupt stock brokers, real estate agents, and salesmen).
Many of the first fascists have generally been leftists, or political neophytes with little ideological
coloration. Brit’s total omission of any mention of the fascist mass movement makes his list a factor
of confusion and disorientation among many left liberals and libertarians today, who continue in
many cases to imagine that fascism is a purely top-down phenomenon, when in reality it is the
grass-roots and protest movement aspects of fascism which constitute its essence and make it so
menacing. Brit may be describing Italy in 1938, when the regime had become consolidated and
fossilized, but he is not saying anything worthwhile about Italy in 1919-1922, when fascism was
clawing its way to power in society. He may have some insights into Germany in 1938, but not
Germany in 1929-1933, when fascism was struggling to seize power.
Once again, there is simply no comparison between just another bourgeois regime, no matter
how bellicose, no matter how corrupt, no matter how oppressive, and the leap into the abyss of
fascism. Payne distinguishes among fascists (the German Nazi party and the Italian National Fascist
Party), the radical right (Hugenburg, Chancellor von Papen, and the Stahlhelm organization in
Germany, and the Italian Nationalist Association in Italy), and the conservative right (President
Hindenburg and Chancellors Brüning and von Schleicher in Germany, and Prime Ministers Sonino
and Salandra in Italy). Payne attempts to describe the resulting confusion in the following terms:
“Comparative analysis of fascist-type movements has been rendered more complex, and often more
confused, by a common tendency to identify these movements with more conservative and rightist
forms of authoritarian nationalism in the interwar period and after. The fascist movements
represented the most extreme expression of modern European nationalism, yet they were not
synonymous with all authoritarian nationalist groups. The latter were pluriform and highly diverse,
and in their typology they extended well beyond or fell well short of fascism, diverging from it in
fundamental ways. The confusion between fascist movements in particular and authoritarian
nationalist groups in general stems from the fact that the heyday of fascism coincided with a general