Fascists Are Benefiting From World Crisis
A series of crises have shaken the liberal triumphalism of recent decades and produced new antidemocratic forces. Historian Geoff Eley tells Jacobin why it still makes sense to speak of "fascism" — and why the new forms of reaction aren't just a return to the past.
Italian Blackshirts line up in military formation during World War II. (European / FPG via Getty Images)
The rise of far-right movements from the United States to Brazil and India has often prompted discussions of a “new fascism.” The September 25 Italian election victory for Giorgia Meloni, leader of a party with roots in historical fascism, has further polarized analyses between those focused on comparisons with the past and those who emphasize her conservative hues. Yet today’s crises are also producing new forms of reactionary politics that do not look like those of a hundred years ago.
Geoff Eley is Karl Pohrt Distinguished University Professor of Contemporary History at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He has written extensively on the history of the Left and the history of the Right. Currently he is writing a general history of Europe in the twentieth century and a new study of the German right, Genealogies of Nazism: Conservatives, Radical Nationalists, and Fascists in Germany, 1860–1945.
In this interview for Jacobin, Eley discusses how studies of fascism have changed in recent decades to address the rise of antidemocratic and authoritarian movements across the globe. Eley explains that “fascism” is a portable concept that has multiple origins and varied forms that scholars need to contextualize and interpret as part of a strategy for anti-fascism. He also discusses the future of the Left with the rise of neoliberal globalization and climate degradation in the twenty-first century.
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