Traverso’s analysis of fascism introduces a welcome precision in unpicking the development of modern versions of the ideology, but we are not yet ‘post-fascist’, argues Chris Nineham

Enzo Traverso’s book, published in 2019, is a thought-provoking discussion of the nature of the new right in Europe that has generated serious debate. One of the book’s great strengths is that it aims to be concrete and precise about the new right in all its variety and to avoid the tendency to use the term fascism loosely.

Fascism, as Traverso argues, is a particular social and historical phenomenon different from other forms of authoritarian government. He points to continuity and change with ‘classic’ fascist movements, and he identifies both common trends and differences in what is happening today: ‘The main feature of today’s post fascism is precisely the contradictory coexistence of the inheritance of classical fascism with new elements that do not belong to that tradition.’ And: ‘The new forces of the right are a heterogenous and composite phenomenon … they have certain points in common but are also very different from one another (p.6).

My contention is that there are serious weaknesses with Traverso’s conclusions, weaknesses that have become clearer since the book’s publication. But there is a lot here that is important and useful.

The limits of liberalism

First, Traverso insists on going beyond a liberal critique of fascism and on breaking from liberal politics in practice. This means, among other things, rejecting the term ‘populism’. Traverso takes the whole concept of populism apart, pointing out the absurdity of throwing together various governments and movements of the left and the right, which are completely different in terms of where they come from and where they seek to head.

As he argues, whatever their limits, many recent Latin American governments dubbed populist have tried to redistribute wealth and include people hitherto excluded: ‘Conversely, the populist parties in Europe are characterised by xenophobia and racism and their goal is precisely to exclude the lowest, most precarious and marginal layers of the population’ (p.15).

Similarly, he argues that the term ‘totalitarianism’ conflates completely different historical experiences by focussing on style rather than substance, blinding us to their fundamental nature: ‘Both populism and totalitarianism are categories that suppose a vision of classical liberalism as a historical, philosophical norm’ (p.19). What is more, the use of ‘populism’ as a term of abuse reveals an aristocratic contempt and anxiety about the people, not just amongst the neoliberal elites, but also amongst some who think of themselves as more critical liberals (p.19).

In fact, as Traverso argues, the far right has been enabled by the liberal centre in Europe both by its austerity economics and by its contempt for democracy: ‘The IMF, the European Central Bank and the EU Commission dictate policies to every national government, evaluate their application and decide on compulsory adjustments’ (p.10). At various times in Greece, Italy and elsewhere, they have intervened directly in domestic politics, removing ministers, changing policies, even appointing prime ministers. This represents the complete submission of the political to the financial, an emptying out of politics that has meant, ‘government has been replaced by governance’ (p.11).

Far from being a barrier to the growth of the far right, the EU has fuelled it by its attacks on democratic sovereignty. This has been particularly toxic in the context of large flows of migrants across the continent.

Anti-Semitism to Islamophobia

One of the most important chapters of the book, ‘Spectres of Islam’, charts the shift from anti-Semitism to Islamophobia as the animating hatred at the heart of today’s far right. This shift has coincided with a transition from biological to cultural racism: ‘Today, racism has changed its forms and its targets: the Muslim immigrant has replaced the Jew. Racialism – a scientific discourse based on biological theories – has given way to cultural prejudice that emphasized anthropological discrepancy between Judeo-Christian Europe and Islam’ (p.66).

Comparing Germany in the 1930s with France today, Traverso argues that anti-Semitism allowed Germans to negatively define a national consciousness: ‘in a country troubled by rapid modernization and the concentration of Jews in the big cities, where they appeared the most dynamic group … In a similar way, today, Islam is becoming a cultural code that allows conservative writers to find by negative demarcation a lost French identity threatened or engulfed in the process of globalisation’ (p.69).

As Traverso points out, this shift points to the far right’s close relation to imperialism and colonialism: ‘Islamophobia’s colonial matrix explains both its virulence and its prevalence’ (p.75). Islamophobia has been fuelled by events in the Middle East since the Iranian revolution and boosted by the war on terror. It has been turbo-charged by the increasing brutality of Israel towards the Palestinians and their resistance to it.

The result has been a progressive deepening of the problem, particularly in France where statistics show that the second generation of Muslims feel less integrated than the first, ‘an unprecedented reversal of the established historical tendency’ (p.75).

Traverso recognises that the situation has generated elements of a new anti-Semitism or ‘Judeophobia’ as he calls it. He argues, however, that while this must be challenged, it is a discrete problem caused mainly by the Israel-Palestine conflict and its roots do not lie in Christian Europe. He argues that, amongst some minorities and in parts of the Arab world: ‘because of Israeli policy, Jews have become the embodiment of the West, thus turning upside down the old anti-Semitic paradigm that saw Jews as foreign bodies alien to the nations of Europe’ (p.78).

Crucially this takes place against the background of a general fall in anti-Semitism in Europe. Even in France by 2014, 85% of the population agreed that Jews were ‘French people equal to any other’ compared to just 33% at the end of the Second World War’ (p.77). Writing in particular of the French context, where in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, Jewish people were confronted with state anti-Semitism: ‘today, states defend them. There certainly do exist forms of hostility and violence against Jews, but we live in societies in which schoolkids make visits to the museum at Auschwitz and anti-racist pedagogy centres on the Holocaust. The memory of the Holocaust has become a state civic religion, while the memory of colonial crimes is still denied or repressed’ (p.81).

The problem with ‘post-fascism’

The main problem in the book lies with Traverso’s general judgement that the modern far right is best described as ‘post-fascist’. Traverso argues that though many of the right-wing parties emerging in Europe over the last decades share characteristics with inter-war fascism, they tend to lack its insurgent spirit and its ambition to reshape society completely.

From Trump in the US to Marine Le Pen in France and Meloni in Italy, these new political forces generally bend to the neoliberal order in practice. Trump for example: ‘promoted no alternative model for society. His programme is limited to the slogan “make America Great Again”, he does not want to change the United States’ socioeconomic model, for the simple reason that he himself draws enormous benefit from it’ (p.25).

In a slightly different vein, Traverso argues that Marine Le Pen ‘is no longer a fascist, but she has not converted to democracy, either: she remains in the balance between these two poles … she has been unable to go beyond a pure and simple denunciation of the powers-that-be and presents herself as the herald of a credible governing force’ (p.37).

This in-between, indeterminate type of politics, Traverso calls ‘post-fascism.’ He sees this as a product of a crisis of centrist politics, but one that is not as serious as that of the 1920s and 1930s. Other differences with the interwar period include the lack of a threatening insurgent left. The result of all this is that the ruling classes in Europe are still satisfied with the neoliberal centrist option embodied in the EU, ‘today, economic elites’ interests are much better represented by the European Union than by the radical right’ (p.13).

Traverso’s observations are acute, but I am not sure that the term ‘post-fascism’ helps us. It is itself a catch-all concept and although he hedges it around with warnings, it implies that we have somehow decisively moved beyond classical fascism.

I suspect Traverso himself may now feel that in this book he underestimated the level of crisis in society. The differences with the anti-war period are well observed, but history never repeats itself exactly and it is clearer and clearer that the combination of years of austerity and the hollowing out of politics has generated enormous wells of bitterness and anger. While the liberal centre remains our rulers’ main political point of reference, we would be foolish to ignore their increasingly authoritarian instincts and the willingness of some amongst them to hedge their bets by building relations with the far right.

Meanwhile the return of imperialist war, and the weakening of Western power that drives it, keeps fuelling Islamophobia in particular and xenophobia in general. It is true that the left isn’t a threat in most countries in the West and this limits the appeal of fascism to our elites. But the weakness of the left cuts both ways. It is a problem when it comes to limiting the spread of xenophobic movements.

The second problem is that though Traverso is clearly right to point out that all the conditions for fascist success have so far not coalesced in any one country, the components are nevertheless assembling in some. It is true that Trump for example is not himself a fascist, but he has accelerated the development of neo-Nazi movements and there can be little confidence that he would keep his distance if they developed decisively. Marine Le Pen maybe steering her National Rally Party some way towards respectability, but the growing strength of the RN has undoubtedly empowered the fascist hardcore that exists in her party.

Traverso is exemplary in insisting that there is nothing inevitable about the return of a successful fascist movements and to suggest that what the left does will be decisive. He is absolutely right too to point out at the end of this book that there are signs of a revival of the left and that the left mustn’t reduce itself to anti-fascism. But recognising, analysing and dealing with the threat of a fascist revival must be a serious part of the left’s calculations. This book will help.