This thread was sparked by a brief, cut off conversation in the Telegram which I’d enjoy seeing discussion on.
It started with St Codreanu and the Legion of the Archangel Michael being mentioned in the context of Fascism, despite the fact that I can’t find a single reference of Codreanu calling himself or his movement Fascist, and indeed he was critical of Fascism despite seeing Fascists and any nationalists as friends or allies or co-strugglers.
I contest the common consensus that Fascism represents some kind of traditionalist revolution. Many eould say it is traditional just in the sense that it was opposed to various Leftist progressivist movements of its day. But that is not enough. In fact, Fascist movements had a lot of modernism going on; most affirmed sufferagism and supported women having rights to vote and even be political leaders. I believe Oswald Mosley’s British Union of Fascists to be the worst in this regard, blatantly progressive but just from a slightly right wing perspective that still included nationalism (or perhaps more appropriately imperialism?) and light antisemitism (“SOME Jews…”). For the purposes of this thread we can consider German National Socialism as well, even if some would argue it is distinct. There was an abundance of women’s lib stuff going on in Germany too. And the point of these observations isn’t some cartoonish intent to “oppress women”, for I promise not to shitpost on the forum like I do so enjoy doing on telegram, but to demonstrate a very ‘modernist’ ethos going on in these movements, because these ideas were completely foreign and even near sacrilege in truly traditional societies; and after all, traditionalist Christians should attempt to emulate traditional society.
Some would also say, and did effectively tell me on telegram, that being authoritarian and/or wanting to revitalize a national spirit is traditionalist. It sure sounds like it, but that’s not altogether true either. Mao Zedong and Vladimir Lenin were very authoritarian. So was Franklin Delano Roosevelt. But you should agree these figures are antithetical to tradition. Moreover, even most Communist countries quickly gave up Marxist ideals of global proletarian revolution and quickly became more or less nationalist regimes, which thrived on national spirit, while modernizing and secularizing the people. So that itself cannot be inherently traditional either.
The worst bit of Fascism (or any modern ideology), however, is the secularism. Most fascist leaders were nominally pro Christian, because they were populists who had to appeal to the people, but there wasn’t really any piety there for the most part, except in a few lesser known cases. I know Italian oriented people say Mussolini is in heaven - but I’m speaking of his earthly life, not after-the-fact tradition. As I recall, Franco was religious and Codreanu was exclusively religious (if we consider him Fascist), and the short-lived Austrofascist movement and Belgian Rexists were explicitly Roman Catholic. But usually what we see is nominal support of whatever the dominant religion is, and tolerance of other religions except those that might be involved in treasonous activity like Jehovah’s Witnesses which are often utilized by United States intelligence operations.
This is antithetical to a traditional worldview. Sacrality is THE building block of ethnic and cultural unity. There is no ethnicity and certainly no empire without common worship & ritual, alongside common heritage and language. If you try to have the latter without the former…behold Sweden today. And do not mistake me: ancient societies did have religious plurality. The Roman imperium tolerated, for a time, second temple ‘Judaism’ and Zoroastrianism and the Greek mystery cults which were similar to but not identical to the religio Romana with its collegium pontificum, and while there was persecution of non-Muslims in many islamic societies there were also tolerant iterations. But it’s worth noting these examples are empires which are by definition multi-ethnic and multi-linguistic if not also multi-cultural but with a dominant culture. A small tribal kingdom would collapse without sacral religious unity. The very notion of secularism is pretty blasphemous to any religion, not just ours, and a secularist attitude to politics is, in my view, incompatible with our religion. We must always have an explicitly Christian agenda.
None of this is to say there were no traditionalist fascists. There definitely was a traditionalist wing, and it was the best of the bunch. But it was forced to coexist with futurists and oligarchs that wanted authoritarianism but secret sex parties and creepy modern art et cetera.
In conclusion I think if a traditional christian it to utilize Fascism as such it must be made explicitly in the traditionalist form, such as the superfascism ofJulius Evola or the Legionarism of Codreanu who said fascism and national socialism were preoccupied with the body and clothing but left out the soul. The cross must always be front and center, with a crown following closeby. And so if we join fascist groups it must be our directive to struggle to purify them of the undesirable elements and baptise them.
I myself am nostalgically fond of fascism and national socialism, especially ecofascism and ‘superfascism’, but I haven’t been really able to call myself one in a few years partly because of what I’ve covered in this post and hope to cover in replies.
For reading material related to this I suggest For My Legionaries if you haven’t, and “Fascism and Tradition” which is a compilation of Evola’s essays about fascism and NS which are actually fairly critical which makes it ironic that internet fascists like cherrypicking other works of his to intellectually masturbate with.
I’d like to hear what anyone has to say about this and discuss further.