Image by BP Miller.

Introduction

On October 24, 1970, in writing for the Amsterdam weekly, Vrij Nederland, Dutch journalist and Trotskyite Igor Cornelissen, (1935–2021) known for his cutting-edge surveys of the second world war, communism, and the history of leftist movements in the Netherlands, wrote a series of book reviews on the leading works in the context of analyzing a renewed fascist epidemic.[1] Cornelissen, the editor from 1962-1996, was also a member of the Fourth International up until 1971. His work as a historian of Dutch radicalism, and his close examinations of figures linked to communism, drew him to analyze these eight seminal works to better understand fascism in the context of the political unrest found in the late 1960s and early 1970s.

The Nature of Fascism

Cornelissen first looked at The Nature of Fascism, edited by S.J. Woolf and published by Vintage Books in 1969. This is a fundamental book that compiles a wide variety of academic papers initially presented at a 1967 graduate symposium at the University of Reading. The anthology analyzes fascism through the perspectives of several countries and provides an interdisciplinary assessment across Europe. In his 1970 review for The New York Review of Books, Leonard Shapiro critiqued the conference held in England, arguing that it failed due to its reliance on unclear concepts rather than concrete historical study. He quoted de Maistre’s cautionary words: “listen to the voice of history.”[2]

Shapiro criticized the attempt to define the final stage of capitalism as a fascist economic system since too many places’ historical realities transcended the ideological generalizations offered in the book. He did point out that Timothy Wright Mason’s writings on Nazi Germany stood out for their accuracy. As for Cornelissen, he highlighted two overarching questions in his review: “Who supported National Socialists?” and “Could Hitler’s seizure of power have been prevented and by whom?” He concluded that only the German Workers Movement, from 1918-1928 was by itself, stronger than the NSDAP. The Nature of Fascism, covering 1918-1933, remains a noteworthy text in the historiography of fascism.[3]

The Nature of Fascism, U.K. Edition, 1968: Weidenfeld and Nicholson.

The Weimar Republic

Arthur Rosenberg’s History of the Weimar Republic (Geschichte der Weimarer Republik), first published in 1935 (redistributed in 1970) also remains as a seminal book. Rosenberg provided a serious investigation of political forces leading to the downfall of Weimar. His central thesis was that the origins of the Republic’s decline rested with a coalition between liberals and the aristocracy.[4] This repressed any workers’ movement as people turned to supporting first world war era militarism. The German Revolution of 1918 brought with it democracy, but Rosenberg pointed out how enough anti-democratic forces remained powerful to disrupt his preferred Social Democratic Party (SPD). Cornelissen asserted that Rosenberg was “merciless in his judgment of the SDP,” of which he was a member, as well as the Communist Party (KPD).[5]

He went on in his review to state that “[Rosenberg] is not a brilliant stylist,” yet “everything he puts down is essential.” Further, “every maneuver of this SDP leadership was followed by further encroachment of the bourgeoisie, which in turn signified a still further departure from the ideals of the revolution and loss of the social and political conquest previously won,” wrote Cornelissen.[6] He summarized how Rosenberg’s analysis provided an explanation for the rise of fascism, and the class warfare (i.e. farmers opposing Bolsheviks) that compromised the fragility of democratic institutions in the face of the nobility and totalitarian structures.

History of the Weimar Republic, First Edition, 1935: Europäische Verlagsanstalt.

Revolution and the Soviet Republic

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