People are talking more and more about fascism, and often confusing it with populism. Paul D. Kenny argues that we need to understand how fascism stands out. It has never been just a matter of words or beliefs. It is a leader-centred cult that uses violence to eliminate opposition

What are the features of fascism?

Most efforts to define fascism start by cataloguing the features of the canonical fascist movements of Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler, and work backwards to build a generic concept. Umberto Eco, for instance, identified fourteen traits of Ur-fascism, including the cult of tradition, contempt for the weak, machismo, and populism. Although descriptively useful, such checklists raise obvious problems: must every element be present? If not, which traits are decisive? Is twelve out of fourteen enough? How do we distinguish between regimes that share some, but not all of these features?

Subsuming populism within fascism obscures the differences between these types of politics, but where does populism end and fascism begin?

A particular problem arises in including populism as a feature of fascism, since one of the central questions today is precisely where populism ends and fascism begins.

Is fascism an ideology?

An alternative approach is to try to establish a minimalist core based on some kind of conceptual first principles. This general instinct is right, but problematically, it has meant treating fascism as a species of political ideology, along the lines of socialism or conservatism.

Roger Griffin, for example, defines fascism as ‘a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism’. Although this definition includes all of those regimes we’d like to label fascist, it likely incorporates many more that we wouldn’t. It really isn’t clear what makes populist palingenetic ultra-nationalism so different from mere nationalism, a belief embraced by countless movements and regimes.

The fact is that the architects of fascism themselves insisted that they had no ideology. Mussolini declared that his ideology was ‘the church of all heresies’ – in other words, fascism was a philosophical bricolage, not a coherent worldview. We should be less concerned with what fascists believe, or say they believe, than with what they do.

What was fascism really about?

Viewing fascism as a set of ideas neglects two of the features that mattered most to its practitioners.

First, it was a politics built around a charismatic leader: there was no Italian fascism without Il Duce — the leader. The Mussolini cult was central to the movement and then the regime’s legitimacy. Similarly, German fascism was based on the Führerprinzip, the principle of the leader, while the Nazi party itself was often simply described as the Hitlerbewegung — the Hitler Movement.

To view fascism simply as a set of ideas neglects two crucial features: the charismatic leader, such as Hitler or Mussolini, and the inherent violence

Second, fascism was violent. As historian of fascism Stanley Payne noted, ‘Hitler’s place in history is not based on his remarks’. Fascism’s essence was the creation of a new kind of political organisation: the paramilitary party. The Italian fascists’ infamous March on Rome may have been more of a spectacle than a military operation, but throughout their rise to power they deployed widespread violence against their rivals. In power, fascist violence towards its opponents only escalated. The centrality of violence to Nazism hardly needs restating here.

These features naturally tie fascism to the interwar decades, but not by arbitrary definition, as many historians insist. The far greater strength of the state today makes it much more difficult to win power through street violence. But whether leaders already in power could rule in a fascist mode remains a question worth asking of today’s strongmen.

Fascism today

Take Donald Trump, Narendra Modi, and Recep Tayyip Erdoğan. All display the first half of the formula: extreme personalism. Their parties and movements revolve around them, not around institutions or traditions. In office, each has sought to aggrandise executive power, ruling with only minimal judicial and legislative oversight.

Yet even though each has harassed rivals, sometimes aggressively, elections remain at least minimally competitive, and opponents, however weakened, still exist. Rather, this is populism — a species of democracy in which leaders balk at institutional protections for their opponents but ultimately tolerate them.

Fascism is different. It is defined by the violent eradication of opposition — not mere harassment or rhetorical vilification, but arrests, concentration camps, and mass murder. Whatever one might say about Trump, Modi, or Erdoğan, they have not (yet) used systematic, organised violence to eliminate their opponents. Even Trump’s deployment of the National Guard in American cities falls short of fascist modes of violence.

If fascism is defined by the violent eradication of opposition, then Vladimir Putin is the contemporary leader who comes closest to fascism, combining extreme personalism with systematic destruction

There is, however, at least one contemporary leader who comes closer to fascism in this respect. Vladimir Putin combines extreme personalism with the systematic destruction of the opposition. Unlike the military strongmen of the twentieth century, he rose through repeated elections, building his own leadership cult. Schoolchildren are compelled to record birthday greetings for Putin and encouraged to enter artistic competitions depicting his likeness. Even his cabinet members are expected to pay ritualised public obeisance.

Yet unlike other populists, as Putin consolidated his authority, he turned the police state on his opponents: Mikhail Khodorkovsky, Boris Berezovsky, Alexei Navalny, Yevgeny Prigozhin. Critics from the world of culture and journalism have found themselves imprisoned, poisoned with exotic substances, or the victims of supposed muggings gone wrong. More broadly, authorities have arrested thousands of ordinary Russians for anti-war protests or critical social media posts — more than 13,500 people in two months of protest in 2022 alone – often facing harsh detention, beatings, or torture.

Fascism tomorrow

Fascism is distinct in two dimensions: in how it mobilises its supporters and how it treats its opponents. It differs from other forms of authoritarianism, which may be repressive but rely on military or bureaucratic control rather than the charismatic mobilisation of a popular base. And it differs from populism, which is personalist but still democratic: populists insult and harass their opponents, but they must tolerate them and compete for votes.

Fascism is a rare fusion of charismatic personalism and the violent destruction of opposition. That is what made it unique in the past — and what makes it something to resist in the future.

No.44 a thread on the 'illiberal wave' 🌊 sweeping world politics