`Fascism', `Para-Fascism' and `Fascistization': On the Similarities of Three Conceptual Categories

This article revisits the conventional conceptual distinction between `fascism' proper, `para-fascism' and `fascistization' in the context of interwar European politics. While postwar interpretations of the interwar dictatorial regimes have widely introduced a heuristic dichotomy between radical fascism and para-fascist authoritarianism, essentially pointing to two different ideal-types of rule, the subsequent analysis aims to challenge the inflexible way in which the concept of `fascism' has been employed with regard to the description of interwar political systems. Although from the point of view of the history of ideas, fascist ideology can be juxtaposed to the fascist-authoritarian amalgam of the 1920s and 1930s systems of rule (even the `reference' regimes of Italy and Germany), it should not be forgotten that both `fascist' and `para-fascist' regimes originated within a matrix of élite experimentation with novel forms of political control and populist legitimation. This process (in itself based on a fusion of `fascist' and traditional authoritarian elements) started in Italy in the early 1920s and was a powerful precedent for sympathetic or simply crisis-ridden élites across Europe. The result was a single trend towards fascistization (the term indicates approximation of `fascism', not adoption of fascist ideology) that manifested itself in three different forms: voluntary appropriation of fascist trapping from above; preventive co-opting of fascist constituencies (primarily leaderships), under overall élite control; and, finally, fascistization as a last resort strategy, through the co-habitation of fascist and traditional élites in a confused and uneasy cosntellation of power that in some cases (notably Italy and Germany) resulted in the domination of the fascist partner.