Fascism - Volume 12, Issue 1, 2023

A major development on the European far right since 1945 is the turn to a ‘metapolitics’ supposedly influenced by the Italian Marxist theorist Antonio Gramsci. Metapolitics, in this sense, deemphasizes electoral politics in favor of intellectual activism and the pursuit of ‘cultural hegemony’ as a prelude to seizing political power. This article examines the metapolitics of the European New Right (ENR) from a new theoretical and historical perspective. It argues that the literature of the US ‘culture wars’ better explains the ENR’s practice than any reception of Gramsci. And it presents ENR metapolitics not as the strategic reformulation of interwar fascism but as part of a broad transatlantic backlash against the leftist successes of the 1960s. This approach better accounts for ENR intellectuals’ function as ‘culture warriors’ specializing in demonization and mastery of the tools of public discourse.

Military occupation is the maximum level of political intervention based on coercion, but even under Axis rule, the institutional design of dictatorships by their ‘collaborationist’ elites was influenced by different models and political families. Military occupation opened a window of opportunity for the takeover of power by different segments of authoritarian and fascist elites, and the tension and forced pacts between different projects of dictatorial institutionalizations were a clear sign of this dynamic process. This article examines how the complicated relationship between the radical right, authoritarian conservatives and fascists were present in the institutional crafting of new regimes.

During the first decades of the twentieth century conceptions about Latinism and Hispanism were fundamental to constructing transnational discourses at the service of national causes in Europe and Latin America. In this framework, both in Argentina and Spain the new Right emerged in the heat of the fin-de-siècle carrying new visions on Latinism and Hispanism. During the First World War Latinism and Hispanism were harshly confronted. After the conflict, a process of ‘cross-fertilization’ took place in both countries. In the interwar period, authoritarian movements and right-wing regimes shared a series of political objectives, a common vision, and the feeling of being part of a historical mission against communism in the name of a ‘Catholic civilization’. In the context of the Spanish Civil War a ‘Catholic renaissance’ unfolded: a Hispanism that included a Latinist dimension was projected both in Francisco Franco’s Spain and unstable pre-Perón’s Argentina.

The creation of the Fascist New Man was one of the primary objectives of the Mussolini regime. This article aims to examine the theme by way of a specific case study of the physician and Fascist party official Giorgio Alberto Chiurco. A Fascist ‘of the first hour’ and faithful follower of Mussolini, Chiurco expressed his commitment to the project of creating a new Italian man with activity in various sectors. In medicine and sports, by promoting the training of new generations that would be healthy and athletic. In eugenics, by promoting the defense of the national genetic heritage from the ‘peril’ of contamination. In politics and culture, by promoting the so-called fascistization of schools and universities. All this activity shows, on the one hand, the important contribution made by single individuals to the totalitarian project of the regime and, on the other, the efficacy with which Fascism succeeded in orienting the activities of intellectuals and scientists on a national and international level.