Why has the far right returned, after Holocaust and war? Chaos unnerves the vulnerable, sugaring fascism’s hollow promises.
Somewhere in the wake of the 2008 financial crisis, far-right populists emerged here and there. Donald Trump, Viktor Orbán, Narendra Modi, Jair Bolsonaro—initially they were seen merely as ripples in the otherwise turbulent waters of international politics.
But since then, their ideology has spread ever more widely. At least in Europe, they now make themselves appear indispensable. Hungary and Italy are already under far-right rule, as was Poland until the recent elections. In Finland and Sweden, they are critical to right-wing coalitions. In Belgium, France and, following the elections there also, in the Netherlands, these same forces are gaining influence.
Modern fascists
True, there are significant differences among populists, radicals and conservatives. But there is an unmistakable surge in extreme right-wing, even fascistic ideologies in many western nations.
Paul Mason, Social Europe columnist, writer and journalist, warns in How to Stop Fascism that many of these movements subscribe to the ‘great replacement theory’—echoing past extremist ideologies, when indigenous populations were depicted as victims of immigration. They seek to reverse the advances made by feminism, much as they did nine decades ago when women were instead elevated in an imaginary way as ‘breeders for race and nation’. And they disdain democracy and the public sphere, exhibiting scepticism towards intellectuals and the media: Trump’s ‘fake news’ charge recalls that of the Nazis against die Lügenpresse (‘the lying press’).
Until now, most western liberal governments have dismissed the far right as a passing anomaly, often explaining its rise in economic terms. The Oxford political philosopher Anton Jager recently argued in the New York Times that European politicians had become too focused on business interests from the Maastricht treaty of 1992, leading to inequality and deteriorating public services; the far right could thus present itself as the only credible challenger to the status quo.
This economic perspective is important but it is not the whole story. The post-pandemic recovery the European Union has sought to promote would not in itself solve the deeper problem of a population drifting towards authoritarian, fascist ideas. It is like trying to rescue someone entangled in the wild currents of ideological turbulence with a leaking lifebelt.
Embracing lies
The autobiography of Stefan Zweig (1881-1942), The World of Yesterday, sheds admirable light on the appeal of fascism and offers a deeper understanding. Zweig saw the rise of fascism as the outcome of a dynamic process of social and economic disruption—a process plunging the lives of millions into chaos, undermining their self-image and arousing a deep desire to embrace and even disseminate lies.
The Austrian-Jewish Zweig, one of the most feted authors in the 1920s and 30s, was a fervent humanist. The World of Yesterday is an ode to the vibrant Vienna of the early 20th century. A stable Viennese society had been ruled for centuries by the Habsburg dynasty—Zweig even called the 19th century the ‘golden age of certainty’. But eventually Vienna was swept up in the turmoil of world war.
The rise of the far right had however already begun, led by such figures as Karl Lueger, later mayor of the city. They used anti-Semitic rhetoric, neatly wrapped in respectable words, to channel the discontent of the petite bourgeoisie, more afraid of sliding into the Proletariat than envious of the wealthy. Zweig saw here the seeds of later extremist movements.
The upward economic dynamics of the early 20th century led to feverish nationalism and evoked powerful emotions. This excitement was however fleeting and required constant stimulus. Intellectuals, writers and especially journalists played a role in this—in Zweig’s words ‘beating the drum of hate’, which eventually contributed to war.
Frenzied maelstrom
In Zweig’s Austria, postwar epidemic (Spanish flu), housing shortages and especially inflation led to a chaotic, rapidly changing society. Money suddenly lost its value, small change disappeared and cities began printing their own ‘emergency money’. Prices shot up without any logic and people bought anything they could get their hands on. Society became a frenzied maelstrom where savers and debtors switched places, shrewd speculators profited and honest people went hungry.
What happened in Austria unfolded in Germany with even greater force. The Mark danced, spun and crashed in paroxysms of madness. What seemed firmly established yesterday melted like snow before the sun today. The morning paper cost 50,000 marks, while the evening edition asked double and no one found this strange anymore. Exchange rates rocketed, took dizzying leaps and collapsed just as quickly, like a house of cards.
Values were reversed, so what was once a vice suddenly became quite normal here too. In the dark corners of Berlin Zweig sketches, wealthy gentlemen sought the company of high-school students from well-off families (looking to earn some extra money). The city’s nightlife exceeded the debauchery of ancient Rome under the ruthless ‘Suetonius’.
With the arrival of the new German Mark, the frenzy abruptly ended. The ‘little man’ had been defeated; the great triumphed. A period of free experimentation, during which Zweig remarked that the excesses left him a sense of ‘artificiality’, radically changed into its opposite.
Because of the devastating inflation, the German public harboured a deep hatred for the democratic, liberal Weimar republic. Distrust of the government was widespread. Even war, despite its horrors, had brought moments of triumph and joy. But inflation had only deceived and humiliated. A generation would never erase the memory nor forgive the republic—the German self-image was dented. In 1924 the madness seemed over, but the longing for order, stability and authority was stronger than ever.
Slowly but surely, this made Germany yearn again for its former ‘butchers’ who had the first world war on their conscience. The Nazi ‘stab in the back’ myth, wrongly blaming Jews and Communists for Germany’s defeat, thus fell on fertile ground. Zweig remarked: ‘Nothing embittered the German people—and this must always be borne in mind—nothing made them more ripe for Hitler than inflation.’
Identity crisis
Today, a similar social dynamic seems to be returning to some extent. According to Mason, western societies internalised the neoliberal values of competition, materialism and individualism in recent decades, without offering an attractive, alternative narrative.With the collapse of this neoliberal worldview—with the 2008 crash, the rollback of globalisation, rising inequality, the pandemic and the increasingly urgent call for climate action—many citizens find themselves in an identity crisis. The old narrative that hard work and self-improvement would eventually lead to wellbeing and prosperity has lost its power in a stagnant, unfairly shared and polluting economy.
Many long for meaning, but can no longer obtain it by looking at the world through the lens of the market alone. This rupture in the worldview, says Mason, opens the door to far-right, sometimes outright-fascist movements.
These political forces outline an alternative utopian narrative: the leader, in the role of father figure, claims to be able to provide certainty amid uncertain times by exerting total control—by oppression, in other words—while not shunning racism, misogyny and violence. This effects a reversal of modern values and restricts the freedom to be oneself. Yet it provides those who subscribe to it with an illusion of dominance, security and purpose.
Zweig’s autobiography illuminates how, especially in times of crisis, fascism emerges as an ideological conversion among those who shun freedom. It is therefore too simple to rely on superficial economic corrections. What is needed is an alternative leadership characterised by selfless service, which can provide a guiding light in the darkness. Western governments seem however disinclined to demonstrate such leadership—and our democracies are vulnerable.
Zweig was an involuntary spectator at the most horrendous collapse of reason and the most brutal triumph of barbarism. He wrote: ‘Never before—I put this down not with pride, but with shame—has a generation fallen from such a spiritual height, from such moral power as ours.’ In 1942, in the grip of despair, he committed suicide, together with his wife—one day after he had sent the manuscript of The World of Yesterday to his publisher.
Werner de Gruijter is a lecturer in social sciences and pedagogy at the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences.