affinistim

Tim Affinis · @affinistim

28th Jan 2012 from Twitlonger

@jaspergregory Perhaps a trivia point - but many don't know the origin of "Fascism" (at least in the classic sense of the Italian Fascists). Mussolini started his political career as a hard-left revolution-oriented Marxist (Lenin considered him a leader of great potential). He remained in the Socialist Party fold, though at the militant-revolutionary end, until he rejected neutrality in the midst of WWI. Mussolini's "Fasci" (the word means "bundle", implying strength via the group) was initially a heterodox socialist "action faction". They initially espoused various standard socialist positions (i.e. participatory democracy in factories/worker participation in management, a minimum wage, an eight hour work day, progressive taxation of capital, heavy taxation of war profits, improved state insurance for workers, universal suffrage including for women, well-funded state education with elimination of Catholic schools, confiscation of church property, nationalization of various industries, a requirement that landowners cultivate their fields with fallow fields handed over to peasant cooperatives, etc.). However, they rejected neutrality in WWI (leading to Mussolini's formal expulsion from the Socialist Party), prioritized action, and railed against the Socialist Party as centrist/liberalism/reformist (rather than revolutionary)/too conciliatory. Their blackshirt garb (the color was borrowed from anarchists - Mussolini admired Sorel's philosophy) served as a de-individuating, binding uniform (ala the idea of strength as "Fasci", acting collectively).

Some lefties who were members of SDS and opposed the Weathermen faction actually do reference Mussolini as a parallel.

The Sorel connection is also interesting. Sorel advocated an aestheticized notion of revolutionary violence, argued for the need for heroic violent forms of resistance to capitalism, argued for the importance of "revolutionary consciousness" inspired/infused by myth, pushed agitational direct action. Typical Sorel text: "Proletarian violence carried on as a pure and simple manifestation of the sentiment of class war, appears thus as a very beautiful and very heroic thing." I've seen BB anarchists cite Sorel approvingly. The aestheticized notion of violence is very similar (evident in BB agitaprop - high production value violence pron videos and lit). CrimethInc - Days of Love, Nights of War: "When we tell tales around the fire at night of heroes and heroines, of other struggles and adventures...we are offering each other examples of just how much living is possible" - very Sorelian.

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