Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919–1945 (review)

Federico Finchelstein is an outstanding historian who has been working on Argentina’s version of fascism for several years. The very question of the existence of a non-European fascism has been debated for a long time from a wide variety of perspectives, and there is no definitive consensus on the issue. Yet for most scholars, fascism is a European phenomenon that has inspired in its epoch politicians, intellectuals, and ideologues outside Europe. The fascist revolution and the introduction of a third way between liberalism and communism affected nationalist movements worldwide. In some societies, the appearance of such third-way movements was a curious phenomenon without political consequences. In other societies—Argentina is a case in point—the debate on the fascist inspiration of nationalism had become a central feature of the debate on its own national identity. Indeed, the importance of Finchelstein’s book is in the fact that it touches the nerves of Argentinean national identity and its most important political expression, Peronism.

In Transatlantic Fascism Finchelstein deals with the pre-Peronist era and looks into its ideological roots. He advances a very interesting, compelling claim: “Generally speaking, historians of Argentina find themselves in a position of ‘inferiority’ with respect to their Argentine fascist sources. Argentine fascists knew more about European fascisms than their historians currently do” (p. 11). Argentinean fascist intellectuals were well acquainted with the fascist political and ideological phenomenon. They understood its theoretical sources, its composition as a synthesis of integral nationalism and left revolutionary syndicalism, and its revolutionary potential. This understanding is much more substantial and determinant than Benito Mussolini’s own claim that fascism as a radical form of nationalism is not for export.

For Italian fascists such as Franco De Felice, Argentina became a civilized nation after Italian immigration (p. 88). In this sense Argentina was a repository of Italian blood (p. 164).

However, as Finchelstein correctly claims, the transnational features of fascism were ideological, not ethnic. Finchelstein understands what few other historians grasped, that Argentinean fascists or antiliberal nationalists understood the transnational character of fascism. However, at the same time, Argentinean fascists understood that under the revolutionary spirit of fascism different political expressions could rise up. Very few Argentinean national fascists considered themselves as members of a fascist international political movement as worldwide communist members of the Third International did. However, the spirit of fascism is totally present. It is a universal spirit that sets the third road between liberalism and communism.

Finchelstein highlights that both fascism and antisemitism are transnational formations and puts especial emphasis on what can be defined as a core fascist unconscious. The role of violence as a purification act rooted in Georges Sorel’s Reflections on Violence (London, 1908) was totally adopted by Argentina’s fascists. This is indeed the spirit of fascism, which should be contrasted with the organizational realm of the communist Third International.

In sum, Finchelstein underscores the fascist self-understanding and its conceptions of the sacred. The idea of the transnational phenomenon challenges most historians’ claims regarding the European character of fascism.

This had a clear political connotation regarding Peronism. Was Peronism a “nationalized” type of fascism? Could Peronism be included inside the fascist ideal type? As noted, this is a question that touches Argentina’s national identity. In Finchelstein’s account, Peronism was influenced by fascism. It was an authoritarian movement that represented the “third way,” as fascism did. To a certain extent Argentinean antiliberal nationalists reformulated fascism until it was unrecognizable (p. 165). We might conclude that this reformulation of fascism was nothing original. Most fascists in Europe and abroad reformulated fascism to meet their particular cultural backgrounds. Different from communism, however, Italian fascism hardly had an ideological police.