Counterrevolution: The National Movements
Having looked at The Holy Alliance, the counterrevolution from without, we now turn our attention to The National Movements of the inter-war years to analyze the counterrevolution from within.
Following World War One, many European countries were facing economic and political instability. Weimar Germany is the infamous example, but Portugal, Italy, Greece, Romania, and Spain, all suffered from 1) economic depressions, 2) political unrest, and 3) a seeming incapable governing class who did not address points 1 and 2, or, as it may be claimed, exacerbated them. Liberal democracy was viewed by the left as a mechanism to pacify the working-class, using the vote, as I have argued, as a cheap substitute for economic power, and the right accused it as being necessarily factionary1 and unable to provide a robust alternative to communism. Out of this situation arose, on the left, a sympathy for the Soviet Union and, on the right, the National Movements.
It is hard to give the National Movements a precise definition, given their variation, but there are some shared qualities that give an adequate picture of the phenomenon:
A rejection of parliamentary democracy in favor of autocracy
Offering the corporate ideal as the amelioration to the economic situation2
De-politicizing the government by substituting civil servants for politicians
Anti-communism/anti-Sovietism
These qualities were shared by national socialists (Germany), fascists (Italy and Greece), legionaries (Romania), and authoritarian conservatives (Portugal and Spain). What differentiated the above groups, all of whom belonging to the broad genre of “National Movement”, was their subject: race for the national socialists, the state for the fascists, Orthodox Christians for the legionaries, and the citizenry for the authoritarian conservatives. How the four shared qualities manifested themselves, and how they were justified, differed according to the national subject. In the case of national socialism, whose subject is race, the autocrat was the vanguard of the Aryan people, who were united together in corporations for their common racial benefit, in the context of a government free of inter-racial conflict, edged on by politicians, and with the strength to fend off a Soviet inspired insurgency. In the case of fascism, the autocrat was the realization of the state’s will, who applied the corporate ideal to unify the state which, in its perfected form, would be run by a civil service and not politicians, and would be free of all political movements, especially revolutionary ones like communism. I could go on, but that would be repetitive. What is important is that these four common qualities were the framework into which a subject was inserted, activating the framework.
Like the Holy Alliance, the National Movements rejected democracy and its radical elements in favor of rule by one (definitional monarchy). Unlike the Holy Alliance, the National Movements arrived at their reactionary positions after economic and political strife demonstrated (or at least seemed to demonstrate) that liberal democracy was not working. What was opposition in principle in the case of the former was practical opposition in the later. A further point of difference was that the Holy Alliance did not specify an enemy any further than Jacobinism, whereas the National Movements often, though not always, highlighted specific groups within the folds of both democracy and communism (Jews, Free Masons, and/or establishment politicians). Not only was there an enemy from without (the Soviets), but there was an enemy from within (democracy) and that enemy was headed by a wealthy elite (Jews, Masons, establishment politicians). Because of the added “enemy from within”, the National Movements took on a darker tone… “The barbarians are already among us, and even rule us.”
In 2022, not much remains from these National Movements. Portugal is firmly left-wing; Germany is the heart of the European Union; and Greece’s Prime Minister has been photographed with copies of Klauss Schwab’s books on his desk. What happened? Why did they fail? The obvious answer is World War Two. If the second world war did not happen, Germany might still be national socialist, and Italy might still be fascist. However, it is not apparent that Greece would be fascist (she fought against the Axis), or Romania (who never got directly involved in the war), and this does not explain the fall of both Spain and Portugal who not only did not get directly involved in the war but also did not send any SS volunteers (as Romania did). World War Two does not explain the failure of the National Movements as a whole. Let us look at Spain and Portugal because their success or failure stands outside the conditions of World War Two.
Salazar and Franco’s regimes fell following their respective deaths, and both countries have been on the left ever since. Why? Two genral reasons can be given:
There were no apparent successors to either Salazar or Franco
Neither Salazar nor Franco achieved “deep” institutional capture
For point one, there were no naturally charismatic leaders ready to take the role of autocrat, there were no leaders in training (as would be the case with the death of a monarch), and there were no qualified experts who had the political wherewithal and the desire to rule. In both democracy and monarchy, the succession problem is already solved: either you elect a new executive, or the new executive is the oldest child of the previous executive. In an autocracy, however, there is no built-in mechanism for determining a successor. Sometimes this lack leads to violent outbursts, as was the case in Romania.
On point two, while Salazar and Franco did take control of their countries’ institutions, they were not able to bar political opponents from entry, nor were they able to completely oust the “deep state”, the lifetime civil servants who were around before Salazar and Franco took power and were happy to undo what they achieved when they left power. If Salazar and Franco were able to block democrats and communists from taking high positions at universities, in the media, and in government, as well as establishing a new deep state, then Portugal and Spain may look very different today.
Point two, incidentally, is why former President Donald Trump was not able to enact the changes that he was elected to. Assuming that his run was genuine, it has to be asked why President Joe Biden was able to, so quickly, reverse the changes Trump made. Like Salazar and Franco, Trump never achieved deep institutional capture. Deep state operatives stayed where they were and are still there today.
For the future counterrevolutionary there are two imperatives:
When you gain power, make sure that you not only have a successor, but a mechanism by which competent, and let me say that again, competent successors can be chosen.
When you gain power, unless you A) bar democrats and communists from institutional power and B) clean out the deep state and insert a new one (this is just substituting one civil service for another…do not be alarmed), or else your project will crumble as soon as you leave office.
Democracy works, after all, by having multiple voting blocs compete for representation. During times of exceptional political and economic unrest, these blocs transform from interest groups into existentially oppositional factions.
The corporate ideal being the unification of both workers and bosses into economic associations that allowed for both parties to have their needs met, without resorting to a class war (in favor of either side). This was in contrast to the established system in which bosses were favored by default, and to the communist model of revolutionary trade unions that would, when the time was right, launch a general strike to cripple the state and initiate the workers’ revolution.