Threat Of Fascism Research Articles

Gerd Gemünden. Continental Strangers: German Exile Cinema, 1933–1951.

Continental Strangers: German Exile Cinema, 1933–1951 investigates the significance of emigration and exile as articulated in the creative output of leading German film personnel who worked in Hollywood. It examines how German exiles are identifiable in their work through subject positions and ways of seeing and crafting that were distinct from those of Hollywood filmmakers. These identifiers resisted studio formulas and yet proved assimilable. Gerd Gemünden argues that the result was not an alternative or counter-cinema, but a hybrid exhibiting a “leftist-liberal bent” (p. 189). In a studio system that fostered apolitical, quasi-universal entertainment, German émigrés and exiles found space, admittedly circumscribed, to engage contemporary issues, above all the threat of fascism. Noting that the German contribution to Hollywood stood out in particular genres—horror, the biopic, comedy, anti-Nazi productions, and film noir—Gemünden selects one motion picture from each of these genres for detailed analysis. In addition he examines a film made in postwar Germany about the experience of re-emigration that was co-authored by, directed by, and starred Peter Lorre. In four instances the directors—Edgar Ulmer, William Dieterle, Ernst Lubitsch, and Fred Zinnemann—were émigrés of the 1920s. In the other two—Fritz Lang and Lorre—Hollywood offered escape from Nazi Germany. Despite very diverse pre-Hollywood careers, the shared element for all six directors was their experience in Weimar cinema. With respect to stylistic devices and sociopolitical awareness, the Weimar legacy, from expressionism to the new objectivity, figures prominently in the analysis.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt: a famous patient.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt is arguably one of the greatest of American Presidents. His encounter with the polio that crippled him at an early age and its transformative impact upon him are here discussed with particular reference to his relationship with his physician, Dr. George Draper. This transformation liberated energy in Roosevelt to lead and to show empathy for others in ways that both challenged the political and social status quo in the U.S.A. as well as helped save the world from the threat of Fascism in World War II. This essay seeks to demonstrate how an investigation of the life and struggles of this famous patient is one avenue for relating the study of the humanities to medical education. An earlier version of this paper was presented as the Heberden Lecture in the History of Medicine at the New York Academy of Medicine in 2012.

Portrait of the Psychiatrist as a Young Man: The Early Writing and Work of R.D. Laingby BeveridgeAllan. Oxford, United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2011, 352 pp., $79.95.

Portrait of the Psychiatrist as a Young Man: The Early Writing and Work of R.D. Laingby BeveridgeAllan. Oxford, United Kingdom, Oxford University Press, 2011, 352 pp., $79.95.

The Spanish Foreign Legion during the Asturian Uprising of October 1934

In October 1934 socialists in Spain attempted to seize control of the government in response to a perceived fascist threat by the present right-leaning government. The uprising failed everywhere except for Asturias, where socialists, anarchists, and communists joined in a united front led by radicalized coal miners. The uprising turned into a full-scale social revolution which threatened the nascent Second Republic. Fearful that conscripts were incapable of dealing with such a serious threat, the government turned to the battle-tested ‘Army of Africa’, composed of the Spanish Foreign Legion and the Moroccan Regulares. By employing the Army of Africa the government was able to quickly and ruthlessly crush the rebellious miners and restore order to Asturias. The use of the Army of Africa in 1934 would serve as a harbinger of what was to come for Spain in the summer of 1936.

"Meint Ihr's auch ehrlich?"

Taking Leipzig and Lyon as case studies, the article asks why the German working-class movement 'surrendered without putting up a fight' (M. Scharrer) to the National Socialists, while in France the working class-movement was able to successfully mobilize itself against a perceived fascist threat between 1934 and 1936. The article argues that the leftist milieu in Leipzig was characterized by a tremendous distrust that is examined in detail in the article. In Lyon, in contrast, trust could be established much more easily, which was one key precondition, the article argues, for the successful mobilization of the Popular Front on a local level.

Laure's War: Selfhood and Sacrifice in Colette Peignot

Laure's War:Selfhood and Sacrifice in Colette Peignot Sean Connolly Le sacré—c'est ce pour quoi j'aurais donné ma vie Colette Peignot Introduction Despite the publication of her writings some 35 years ago, woman author and political activist Colette Peignot (1903-1938)—also known as Laure, "la sainte de l'abîme"1—remains an obscure figure of the French avant-garde. The reasons for this are many; among them was her early death from tuberculosis at 35 and her relatively scant number of publications. Indeed, the greater part of her work might never have seen the light of day had it not been for her more visible friends, many of whom were among the most prominent French intellectuals of the inter-war period. In addition to Michel Leiris and Georges Bataille, who prepared her writings for posthumous publication, she was friend to philosopher-activist Simone Weil and intimate with Boris Souvarine of Le Cercle communiste democratique. Like them, she was politically engaged in the tumultuous interwar years, rejecting republicanism, Catholicism, fascism, and Stalinist Russia. In response to the growing fascist threat in the early 30s, she embraced Trotskyism and turned to anti-Stalinist Russia for political cause and inspiration, befriending these progressive contemporaries and sharing their political engagement. Her fervent dedication to the worker's cause motivated her to learn Russian, visit the U.S.S.R., join Souvarine's anti-Stalinist group, and write for many preeminent leftist journals, including Le Travailleur communiste syndical et coopératif, La Critique sociale (in which Bataille published his famous "La Notion de dépense") and, later, Bataille's own political journal [End Page 17] Contre-attaque. Her fidelities to the politics of the French left would wane in the mid-1930s, however, when she would embrace an even more radical, if not entirely unwieldy position strongly influenced by her friends—principally Bataille—and her reading of William Blake, D.A.F. de Sade, and Friedrich Nietzsche. To be sure, she was not alone in this departure from normative politics; 1930s France fomented with diffuse and complex political attitudes of all kinds. The Spanish Civil War and the failure of the Front populaire in 1937 further intensified this trend. Figures like Louis Aragon called for the "crusade of poetry and art" while others like Georges Bernanos championed a gallic antifascist Catholicism. Disenchanted with the failures of both the Right and Left, many like Laure sought out a radically new politics beyond both sides of the political spectrum. Perhaps the earliest traces of this transformation are to be found in her highly revealing self-chosen pseudonym, "Claude d'Araxe," which derives from a memorable phrase taken from the Virgil's Aneid, Book VIII, later placed atop a private letter to paramour Bataille: "Pontem indignatus Araxes" ("Araxes, indignant of bridges"). The Araxes, dividing Iran and Turkey on the one side and the former Soviet Union on the other, is a legendarily rapid and vehement river, one that historically confounded all attempts to build a bridge over it.2 That Laure used this as a pseudonym in her political writings no doubt recalls the country that she admired, but it also illustrates a general virulence, rebelliousness, and recalcitrance, an obstinate refusal of all things stagnant, a denial of established limits, and an impassioned assent to transgress them. Her contempt for fixity—l'emmerdement d'être fixé as she once termed it—is ironically quite fixed throughout her writing, actions, and thought from this period. Her politics were by no means exempt from this contempt; ultimately, they adhered neither to an orthodox Marxism nor to the more coherent agenda of Souvarine and le Cercle communiste démocratique. If her early political revolt first found its home in the more established communist movement, it would later resist this very movement, taking the form not of organized coalition or political essay, but of poetry, aphorism, and fragmentary flights of the pen. These fervent yet ultimately unallied political beliefs made her a remarkable albeit enigmatic figure to her fellow leftist contemporaries. In her private journal, for example, she wrote the following, privately addressing the enamored activist [End Page 18] Jean Bernier: "Ma vie inconsistante, ne servant...

The Role of MI5 in the Internment of British Fascists during the Second World War

Despite the controversy that will inevitably continue to surround Britain's use of executive detention to contain domestic fascists during the Second World War, recently declassified Security Service (MI5) records reveal the details of MI5's role in the defence regulations. MI5 was one of three bodies responsible for the administration of Defence Regulation 18b (DR18b) and as such its power was limited by an inherent system of checks and balances. As others have suggested, the administration of DR18b was full of tension; however, it is now apparent that this tension was a positive feature of the defence regulations and one that protected the individual rather than condemned him. The strategic detention of key figures from Britain's fascist circles effectively destroyed the ability of fascists to function in unified organizations. Newly available records provide answers to previously unanswerable questions related to the nature of the fascist threat as it was perceived and as it changed throughout the war.

Uniting a Divided Community? Re-appraising Jewish Responses to British Fascist Antisemitism, 1932-39

Traditionally, work on Anglo-Jewish responses to British fascism has concentrated on its ‘working-class’, activist manifestations, particularly in east London over the period 1935-37, when Jews were prominently involved in confronting the British Union of Fascists. Such a focus has neglected other forms of Jewish activity, and this study examines two such aspects — early responses in the period up to 1935, and the defence work of the Board of Deputies of British Jews — drawing attention to the varying forms that Jewish opposition to domestic fascism took, as well as the different motivations that lay behind them. Furthermore, it challenges the perception that the communal leadership was unsympathetic to Jews who directly faced fascist antisemitism and ineffective in protecting them from it. Finally, it contests the belief that the debate over communal defence caused divisions within Anglo-Jewry, demonstrating instead that, while it certainly highlighted existing fissures, reflected in the varied initial responses to British fascism, the fascist threat eventually helped bring about greater unity and played a significant role in wider shifts in communal identity and power.

Yves R. Simon: A Philosopher's Quest for Science and Prudence

AbstractThis essay treats the inspiration and nature of Yves Simon's philosophical life. His embrace of that life was importantly shaped by his engagement with the republican tradition in France, his passionate opposition to the fascist threat to France, and his later attachment to the aspirations of American democracy. However, his early philosophical interests took direction and inspiration from his encounter with Jacques Maritain who drew him to Thomism. His devotion to the truth was fierce, and he confronted honestly the threats to this defining quality of philosophical life from the pressures of social conformity and from the discouragement of seeing the inadequacies and disagreements in the history of philosophy. He came, as especially evident in his most influential book, Philosophy of Democratic Government, to esteem highly the virtue of prudence, seeking to protect it from both philosophy and social science.

‘Cease Fire, Comrades!’ Anarcho‐syndicalist Revolutionary Prophesy, Anti‐Fascism and the Origins of the Spanish Civil War

This article challenges the traditionally accepted claims that in the early months of 1936, the anarcho‐syndicalist labour union Confederación Nacional del Trabajo [National Confederation of Labour], or CNT, posed a revolutionary threat to the Spanish Second Republic. This argument has been used to explain the collapse of the Republican regime, and consequently the military coup that sparked the Spanish Civil War in July 1936. Though revolutionary insurrectionism was inherently characteristic of the CNT and the anarcho‐syndicalist movement, in 1936, the organisation was neither prepared nor willing to incite a social revolution. This article analyses the reasons for the anarcho‐syndicalists' turn to moderation, paying special attention to the emergence of a perceived ‘fascist threat’ that heavily influenced the change in anarcho‐syndicalist insurrectionary tactics which lasted into the Spanish Civil War. It also evaluates the impact of these findings on Civil War historiography, and proposes a reconsideration of the assessment of blame for beginning the conflict.

Is There a Relationship between Guns and Freedom? Comparative Results from 59 Nations

I. INTRODUCTION Is there a relationship between firearm ownership in a nation and level of freedom? Many people have thought so. The American founding generation thought that relationship was positive. James Madison spoke of the advantage of being armed, which Americans possess over people of almost every other nation, and contrasted United States with the several kingdoms of Europe, where the governments are afraid to trust people with arms.1 Two centuries later, Senator Hubert Humphrey affirmed same idea: Certainly one of chief guarantees of freedom under any government, no matter how popular and respected, is right of citizens to keep and bear arms .... The right of citizens to bear arms is just one guarantee against arbitrary government, and one more safeguard against tyranny which now appears remote in America, but which historically has proved to be always possible.2 Other people argue that there is a negative relationship between guns and freedom. Former U.N. Secretary General Kofi Annan stated: The proliferation of small arms, ammunition and explosives has also aggravated violence associated with terrorism and organized crime. Even in societies not beset by civil war, easy availability of small arms has in many cases contributed to violence and political instability. These, in turn, have damaged development prospects and imperiled human security in every way.3 Proponents of both theories can readily cite examples. Widespread ownership of firearms helped Americans win independence from Britain in American Revolution and preserve that independence in War of 1812.4 The well-armed Swiss were able to deter Nazi invasion during World War II, even though Joseph Goebbels thought Hitler might eventually be known as Butcher of Swiss.5 Conversely, guns in hands of warlords and terrorists have played a major role in harming civil society in modern nations such as Lebanon and Ivory Coast.6 Increased United Nations attention to gun control issue in 1990s and early 21st century has resulted in much greater academic interest in international firearms issues.7 It is now possible to use a large panel, consisting of fifty-nine nations, to test for a relationship between increased gun density and various measures of freedom.8 Using data on per capita firearm ownership from Small Arms Survey,9 this Article examines relationship between per capita firearm rates and several measures of freedom. These measures are: * Freedom House's ratings of political rights (such as free elections) and civil liberty (such as freedom of religion). * Transparency International's ratings of government corruption levels. * Heritage Foundation's ratings of economic freedom. * World Bank's ratings of economic success. Part II of this Article describes these data sources. Part III reports findings from comparative analysis. Part IV discusses various ways in which higher levels of firearms density might work to increase or decrease different aspects of freedom. II. DATA SOURCES A. Freedom House's Ratings of Political Rights and Civil Liberty Founded in 1941 by Eleanor Roosevelt and others concerned by threat of fascism, Freedom House is a leading voice against political and civil oppression, regardless of ideology of oppressor.10 Every year Freedom House publishes a monograph titled Freedom in World, in which each country is given a rating for two categories: political rights and civil liberty. Freedom in World defines these categories as follows: Political rights enable people to participate freely in political process, including through right to vote, compete for public office, and elect representatives who have a decisive impact on public policies and are accountable to electorate. Civil liberties allow for freedoms of expression and belief, associational and organizational rights, rule of law, and personal autonomy without interference from state. …

Police and Politics in Marseille, 1936-8

This article deals with the relationship between the police and national and local politics in France during the mid-1930s. A new left-wing coalition, the Popular Front, had come to power to try to ward off a perceived fascist threat. This threat was felt very keenly in France because most of the surrounding countries were falling under far right control and France had had its own extreme-right demonstrations in 1934. It was important for the new coalition to be able to dispose of a reliable police force. In Marseille, the police was politically divided particularly between those who considered themselves apolitical and the supporters of the ‘fascist’ Sabiani and the socialist Tasso. The battle-lines were drawn partly on ideological lines but essentially around clientelistic considerations. Undoubtedly the socialists dominated the local force and the Popular Front was thus welcomed by the police rank and file, but not without some of their hopes being frustrated.

"Whatever I do, it shall be deliberately": The Consul's Political Epiphany in Under the Volcano

The article addresses the politics of Under the Volcano, arguing against the conventional interpretation of the novel's ending that reads the Consul's death as the final desperate act of a man unable or unwilling to live any longer with the personal and emotional losses caused by his own apolitical self-absorption and his related flight into alcoholism. I contend instead that Lowry employs landscape imagery to develop a theme of political awakening, using the geography of Quauhnahuac, specifically the path to Parián, to represent the polar forces of left and right, thus portraying the stark and unavoidable choices forced on those who would oppose the spread of fascism. In my reading of the final three chapters of the novel, the Consul very consciously chooses the path to the right, towards El Farolito, in order to confront the representatives of reaction because he understands the true nature of the Fascist threat in Mexico, as ultimately shown by his rejection of the Viva Cristo Rey propaganda blaring from the radio. Before dying, he identifies himself with the land and the Mexican working class, accepting that personal sacrifice, even so seemingly futile a sacrifice as giving one's life in such a remote place, has value. Thus, even though throughout the novel the Consul has consistently rejected leftist ideals of community action and concern for the dispossessed, when he sees these ideals threatened by the unreasoning authoritarianism of the fascists, he realizes that they are the last remaining defense for individual freedom in a world otherwise to be dominated by the violent power of the Right. In the end, the Consul dismisses the peasants' offers to help him escape in order to make a principled political stand, an act that reflects Lowry's own political worldview.

British Communists, the British Empire and the Second World War

For a few years after its foundation in 1920 the Communist Party of Great Britain (CPGB) attempted, energetically prompted by the Comintern, to work in solidarity with anticolonial movements in the British Empire. But after the Nazi victory in Germany the Comintern's principal concern was to defend the Soviet Union and the liberal democracies against the threat of fascism. British communists criticized the British Government for failing to defend the Empire against the threat from its imperial rivals. After the entry of the Soviet Union into the war in 1941 they vigorously supported the British war effort, including the defense of Empire. This was not though simply a manifestation of chauvinism. British communists believed that imperialism was suffering a strategic defeat by “progressive” forces and that colonial freedom would follow the defeat of fascism. These chimerical notions were greatly strengthened by the allies' promises of postwar peace, prosperity and international cooperation. In the last year or so of war British communists were clearly worried that these promises would not be redeemed, but nevertheless supported British reassertion of power in such places as Greece, Burma and Malaya. For the great majority of British communists, these were secondary matters when seen in the context of Labour's election victory of 1945 and its promised program of social-imperialist reform.

To Lise Deharme's Lighthouse: Le Phare de Neuilly, A Forgotten Surrealist Review

Lise Deharme (1898–1980) has almost been forgotten, except for being a Surrealist muse and impossible mad love of André Breton. While she may also be remembered (or derided) for her literary salon in the 1950s, her prolific and diverse literary production has been neglected. This article focuses on one particular aspect of her work and investigates the fate of Deharme's forgotten Surrealist review, the ephemeral Phare de Neuilly of 1933. Firstly, this analysis introduces the participants and contributions to the review and retraces the links with the earlier, dissident Surrealist reviews, Documents (1929–30) and Bifur (1929–31). The second section discusses aesthetics and politics, underlining how the technique of collage is applied to mix and (mis)match varied pictures with a wide range of articles. What is highlighted is the subversive and courageous way this ‘phare’ blends ethical and aesthetic issues to address the socio‐political troubles of the early 1930s, in particular the threat of Fascism. Bearing in mind the ambivalence and selective nature of memory and anthologies, the conclusion examines attacks on Le Phare de Neuilly to reassess the reputation and the relevance of this original review and its editor.

Realism and American foreign policy: Wilsonians and the Kennan-Morgenthau thesis

Introduction: The Critique of Wilsonian Internationalism Wilson's Disciples Wilsonianism and the New Era Wilsonians, Neutrality, and the Fascist Threat The New World Order Wilsonians and the Cold War Wilsonians and the Assumptions of Containment Conclusions: The Failure of the Realist Critique Bibliography Index

The Threat of Fascism in Austria

For the first time since the Second World War, the extreme right is a major component in a national European government. The Freedom Party of Austria (FPÖ) has half of the posts and the Deputy Chancellorship in its coalition with the conservative Austrian People's Party (ÖVP), sworn in on February 4, 2000. The only consistent features of FPÖ politics since 1986 have been racism and the determination of Jörg Haider, its most prominent figure, to take power in Austria. Haider is best known for his favorable comments about Nazi Germany, the honorable nature of members of the SS, and the role of the German army under Hitler in defending civilization.This article can also be found at the Monthly Review website, where most recent articles are published in full.Click here to purchase a PDF version of this article at the Monthly Review website.

The Pioneer Fund

Many citations used in The Bell Curve to provide a pseudoscientific veneer for Herrnstein and Murray's academic version of The Turner Diaries for the “cognitive elite” came from advocates of eugenics, whose “research” has been supported by the Pioneer Fund. A Nazi endowment specializing in production of justifications for eugenics since 1937, the Pioneer Fund is embedded in a network of right-wing foundations, think tanks, religious fundamentalists, and global anti-Communist coalitions. This article combines Domhoff's model (1978) of how the ruling class makes public policy, Knapp and Spector's (1991) model of how and why capitalists build racism, and Oliver Cox's (1948) analysis of how and why capitalists build fascism to show that the U.S. ruling class is laying the political, ideological, economic, and paramilitary groundwork for fascism. Liberal reaction to The Bell Curve and the threat of fascism has mainly taken the form of appeasement. History suggests it is time for a different response.

A.M. Klein and Mordecai Richler: Canadian Responses to the Holocaust

Second generation Montreal Jewish writers have manifested preoccupation with recent history of Jewish victimization. Their direct experience of anti-Semitism in the 1930s and 1940s enhanced the sense of identification with the Holocaust. A.M. Klein’s and Mordecai Richler’s response to Jewish suffering reveals a continuum marked by gradual progression towards loss of hope in humanistic ideals. Klein, despite increasing disillusion, perceives the birth of the Jewish State as the symbol of moral rebirth in the wake of the European tragedy: Richler, despite his humanist liberal sympathies, sees the State of Israel as a deterrent of another outburst of anti-Jewish hatred. The consciousness of the fascist threat in Quebec has placed the nightmare of another Holocaust in the context of likelihood.

Toward Victory: Left Film in France, 1930-35

In 1936, French voters elected the first socialist government in France. The electoral alliance of Left parties known as the Popular Front, so delicately orchestrated in the two previous years, could claim victory against the threat of fascism. Shortly afterward, before the new government took office, the largest strike wave in the history of France spread through the country. Millions of workers occupied factories, as if celebrating their newly discovered power and anticipating its long-denied rewards. The euphoria of victory fanned the movement, as additional thousands of workers joined daily. And it was a truly popular movement, taking not only employers, but also union leaders entirely by surprise. Sit-ins took place before the workers had even drawn up a set of demands. A festive atmosphere permeated the factories, for there was little fear of confrontation. The employers did not dare risk the destruction of their property; and the leaders of the Left could hardly remove the very supporters who had put them in office.