2007 08 03 book reviews

This section includes book notes of 150-300 words as well as some book reviews of 600-900 words on books of particular interest to the members of our group. If you have either suggestions for books you would like to review or see reviewed (including recent books of your own), please contact please contact Andreas Umland [andreumland@yahoo.com] or Matthew J. Goodwin [matthewjamesgoodwin@yahoo.com].

Book Notes

Aleksandr Verkhovskii (ed), Putiami nesvobody [By Paths of Bondage]. Moscow: Information-Analytical Center ‘SOVA’,2005. 184 pp. ISBN 5-98418-004-9 (hb).

Reviewed by Stephen D. Shenfield (Independent Analyst, Providence, RI, USA).

Most of the articles in this collected volume analyze Russian nationalist ideas, primarily as expressed within the political mainstream –although, as Galina Kozhevnikova explains, a range of ideas and individuals previously considered extremist and relegated to the margins of public life (Aleksandr Dugin being the most notorious case in point) have now been incorporated into the mainstream. Kozhevnikova has two articles. In the first she discusses the nationalism of political figures especially close to or supportive of Putin. In the second she analyzes the internet output of the Political News Agency (APN), which – together with the associated Institute of Political Strategy – serves as a vehicle for a circle of publicists who advocate authoritarian and imperial policies. The ideas of another circle of active publicists, the ‘liberal conservatives’ associated with the magazine Ekspert and the (now defunct) Serafimov Club, are the focus of an article by Verkhovskii. Two articles in this volume survey and analyze the ideologies of specific segments of the Russian nationalist scene.

Marlène Laruelle examines the heterogeneous elements that constituted the left-nationalist electoral bloc Rodina(Motherland). In October 2006 Rodina merged with other groups to form the new party Spravedlivaia Rossiia (Fair Russia). A second article by Verkhovskii dissects tendencies

and trends within Orthodox religious politics. Other articles worthy of note consider the ‘anti-terrorist’ campaign (Tatiana Lokshina and Sergei Lukashevskii) and the textual characteristics of conservative discourse (Olga Tikhomirova). Iaroslav Shimov compares nationalism in Russia and in Central-Eastern Europe.

Aleksandr Verkhovskii (ed), Tsena nenavisti: Natsionalizm v Rossii i protivodeistvie rasistskim prestupleniiam [The Price of Hatred: Nationalism in Russia and Counteraction Against Racist Crimes].

Moscow: Information-Analytical Center ‘SOVA’,2005. 256 pp. ISBN 598418-005-7 (hb).

Reviewed by Stephen D. Shenfield (Independent Analyst, Providence, RI, USA).

The main theme of this volume is counteraction against radical nationalism and extremism, although the last two articles are analyses of ideology – Evgenii Moroz on Russian neo-paganism and Marlène Laruelle on Aleksandr Dugin. The book opens with Galina Kozhevnikova’s survey of radical nationalist activity in 2004 and the first half of 2005. The three most important articles are, perhaps, those dealing with legal issues and strategies: a general survey of legal counteraction over a three-year period (Verkhovskii and Kozhevnikova), proposals of the ‘SOVA’ center for improving existing legislation, and a discussion by criminologists of the practice of‘expert evaluation’ of materials to determine whether they are ‘aimed at arousing enmity and hatred’ (Mikhail Kroz and Natalia Ratinova). Also of great interest are Andreas Umland’s observations on the social context of nationalist activism in Russia and Germany and Aleksandr Tarasov’s account of the defeat of the skinhead movement by rival youth subcultures in the city of Naberezhnye Chelny (in Tatarstan).

Geoffrey Hosking, Rulers and Victims: The Russians in the Soviet Union. London: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2006.

XI+484 pp. ISBN 978-067-402178-5 (hb). £22.95.

Reviewed by Andreas Umland (National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv).

This is the best book on 20th century Russian history that I have read so far, and displays deep knowledge, considerable empathy and even wisdom. It begins with a discussion of the role of Marxism in Russian messianism, goes step by step through the history of the Soviet Union, and ends with the ‘unanticipated creation: the Russian Federation’. If you want to get not only extensive, interesting and reliable information on, but also a feeling of, what happened to, the Russians in the Soviet period, Hosking’s magisterial work is the most effective I know of. A plethora of little stories, anecdotes, and quotes from prominent and simple Russians combined with revealing facts and incisive interpretations make this book in so far exceptional as it reads almost like a novel. While we have, with Hosking’s study, now another brilliant (or even the best) survey of Soviet history, I believe, we are still lacking a more narrowly focused study of the role of Russians, Russian national identity and Russian nationalism in the USSR. For those of us interested in this particular subject, Hosking’s book will not contribute that much. His focus it too broad and use of the specialized literature, for instance, on Russian nationalism too selective. While Hosking might have consciously excluded some authors on Russian nationalism from his bibliography, the number of relevant books and articles on various aspects of Russian national identity and ideology in the 20th century not referred to and seemingly not used in this book is too large. This concerns virtually all varieties of émigré, Soviet and post-Soviet Russian nationalism.

Michael S. Neiberg (ed), Fascism. Adlershot and Burlington: Ashgate, 2006. XXV+618 pp. ISBN 0-7546-2574-5 (hb). £135.00 Reviewed by Andreas Umland (National Taras Shevchenko University of Kyiv).

This is an impressive reprint of 26 important papers from the historiography of non-German and non-East European varieties of inter-war right-wing extremism. The latter formula would seem to be a more apt designation for this collection than the book’s actual title Fascism. That term is, partly, a misnomer in as far as the volume does not fully reflect the course, range and reigning definitions and theories in contemporary comparative fascist studies. Not only is the Third Reich dealt with in another volume of Jeremy Black’s ‘Library of Essays on Political History’ within which Neiberg’s collection appeared. The book’s heading also does not reveal that no interwar East European variety of fascism is dealt with in depth within the

contributions to this collection. What is surprising too about Neiberg’s introduction and choice of papers is that he seems to regard Francoism as falling within – what he terms as – the ‘wide definition’ of fascism (p. XI). To be sure, the papers reprinted in Neiberg’s volume are by themselves of a very high calibre and include Adamson on modernism, Allardyce on the deflation of ‘fascism’, Gentile on political religion, Paxton on stages of fascism, Vivarelli on fascism’s origins, Wellhofer on inter-war Italy, CazorlaSanchez on Francoist Spain, De Grand on women under Fascism, Hametz on Italian antisemitism, Luconi on Mussolini’s racial legislation, Payne on Iberian peninsula, Schatz on the Spanish Second Republic, Bingham, Hellman and Irvine on French fascism, Hillman, Webber and Renton on British fascism, Amann on American fascism, Bean on Italian-American identity, Ciccarelli on Peru, Duus and Okimoto on pre-War Japan, Etchepare, Stewart and Klein on Chile, and Seitenfus on Brazil. However, I am not sure that I would recommend this book first, if I were asked how one could get a good overview of the current state of fascist studies.

Book Reviews

Giuseppe Scaliati, Dove va la Lega Nord: Radici ed evoluzione politica di un movimento populista [Where Does the Lega Nord Go: Roots and Political Evolution of a Populist Movement]. Milan: Edizioni Zero in Condotta, 2006. 128 pp. Є7.00.

Reviewed by Hans-Georg Betz (Independent Scholar, Nyon, Switzerland).

Where is the Lega Nord headed? Giuseppe Scaliati’s answer is straightforward and unambiguous: if in the early 1990s, at the height of the Italian political revolution, the party represented a major (largely positive) force for political change, since the late 1990s, the Lega Nord has increasingly drifted toward the extreme right. Scaliati identifies the year 1998 as the crucial turning point in the party’s ideological and programmatic development. Until then, the party’s main political objective was to transform Italy into a federal state. Starting in 1998, the Lega Nord, in an attempt to copy the successful programmatic strategy of parties such as the FPÖ, the Vlaams Blok and, of course, the Front national, began a decisive move to the right, adopting an increasingly strident rhetoric on

immigration, the question of Islam, European integration, and, last but not least, gay rights.

The reasons for the party’s programmatic change in direction are easy to understand. Most important of all, there is the party’s consistent failure to advance its federalist agenda. Despite the fact that in the mid-1990s, the Lega Nord counted more than 170 deputies in the lower house of parliament, its political impact was close to zero. To make things worse, with the creation of Forza Italia, the Lega Nord lost not only a large part of its electoral base but also a significant number of its elected officials to Berlusconi. In response, the party increasingly mobilized around issues, which were likely to appeal to traditional catholic voters. In the process, theLega Nord turned into one of the most aggressively Islamophobic parties in Western Europe, en a par with the Vlaams Belang and theDansk Folkeparti.

Scaliati’s book, albeit relatively short, offers a relatively comprehensive overview of the development of the Lega Nord since its origins in various regional leagues in the 1980s. It contains a wealth of information, both on the evolution of the Lega’s program and the history of defections and purges, which have played an important role in the party’s development.

The author also spends considerable time discussing the often rather bizarre ideological twists and turns of Bossi’s various projects for his beloved Padania (culminating in his call for secession), raising the question why anyone in their right mind would vote for this party.

The author makes a strong case in support of his main thesis, although one might wish he had provided a strong theoretical and analytical framework for his main arguments. As a result, more often than not, the author relies on assertions rather than dispassionate and reasoned analysis to advance his case, which unnecessarily leaves him open to charges of lack of objectivity. These reservations notwithstanding, the book is a welcome addition to the literature on the contemporary populist right.

Uwe Backes and Eckhard Jesse (eds), Gefährdungen der Freiheit: Extremistische Ideologien im Vergleich [Threats to Democracy: Extremist Ideologies in Comparison]. Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 2006. 592 pp. ISBN 978-3-525-36905-0 (hb). Є54.90.

Reviewed by Thomas Grumke (Ministry of the Interior of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Germany).

It is not easy to write a concise review of an edited volume that contains 17 diverse articles spread over 600 pages. But this is exactly what Uwe Backes and Eckhard Jesse, two seasoned authors on extremism and editors of the well-established Jahrbuch Extremismus & Demokratie (Yearbook on Extremism & Democracy) have published. In the focus of this massive volume – the result of a conference at the Hannah Arendt Institute at Dresden in 2004 – are political forces that ideologically and programmatically negate the values, rules and institutions of the democratic state. Consequently, the editor’s often cited and often criticized Extremismustheorie (extremism theory) includes right-wing and left-wing extremism as well as Islamism.

In the first article, Backes outlines the conceptual history of political extremism. He names four contrasting points that distinguish extremism from the democratic ‘political center’: 1. pluralism vs. monism; 2. common good vs. egoistic interests; 3. constitutional state vs. despotism; 4. selfdetermination vs. heteronomy. Backes acknowledges that there are many different extremist ideologies that have completely different goals and roots. Extremists, however, have in common that they negate the democratic constitutional state, want to establish a monistic autocratic system that is intolerant to all ambiguities and claim to hold an exclusive truth.

Jürgen P. Lang bemoans timidity when it comes to include the left in the study of extremism and therefore demands more thorough comparative studies of right- and left-wing extremism and Islamism. 44 pages (and 262 footnotes!) later of fast gallop through the current state of research in a number of countries, Lang sees fruitful comparative approaches only within the study of right-wing extremism but no comparable studies involving all forms of extremism. He likes to see that gap closed.

Cas Mudde focuses on extremism and radicalism in Western Europe and sees the main challenge to democracy not coming from Neo-Nazis, but from right-wing populists (or radicals) that have indeed been able to enter several governments in Europe in recent years.

The analysis of (right-wing and left-wing) populism follows by Florian Hartleb who defines it as an ‘anti-ism’ which has four dimensions: style, content, personal and medial. He concludes, that populism is not per se antidemocratic (like extremism) and no grey area between democracy and extremism either. Populists, left or right, profit from any mistake made and any political gap left by the political center. Therefore, Hartleb demands a lively dispute as regards populism’s contents by the established democratic parties.

The article by Patrick Moreau and Eva Steinborn somewhat disrupts the high standard of the volume up until this point. Their piece on‘altermondialists’ never gets off the ground as it not even defines its subject. The authors talk about a ‘meta-movement’ of anti-globalization activists since Seattle 1999 that remains totally foggy. It also remains unclear what all this has to do with political extremism and who this ‘movement’ actually consists of.

After an article by Harald Bergsdorf on the study of the ideologies of rightwing and left-wing parties, Armin Pfahl-Traughber takes up Jürgen Lang’s postulation and offers a comparative analysis of right-wing, left-wing and Islamist movements. Even though this is definitely a vehement challenge, Pfahl-Traughber analyses coherently these movements’ ideology, enemy image and structure. He is able to show, that while there is no convergence in terms of ideology, all extremists share common enemy images (especially a fierce opposition towards the United States and ‘Americanism’). On a structural level, all extremists show dogmatic absolutism, political authoritarianism and identity politics. But since there are no common denominators on the positive items (ideology) and only shared attributes on the negative and structural items, Pfahl-Traughber sees very little chances for sustainable collaboration and only a chance for issue-related, short term cooperation against a common enemy.

Viola Neu reports on an empirical study commissioned in 1997 by the Konrad-Adenauer-Foundation on extremist values in Germany. One of the results is, that a good chunk of the extremist potential is tied to the two main parties (CDU and SPD) and could be mobilized if a convincing actor would emerge, especially on the extreme right.

Kai Arzheimer even untertakes an analysis of right-wing and left-wing potential in the whole of Europe. His basis is the third wave of the

European Values Study of 1999/2000. His findings show very convincingly, that the extremes do indeed not ‘touch’ (horseshoe pattern), but that in most countries extremists are concentrated mostly on one side of the political spectrum. In Western Europe, the further on the right the respondents saw themselves, the more he/she rejected democratic principles. In Eastern Europe, a horseshoe pattern is more likely, but especially here, respondents rarely see themselves as extremists at all and position themselves in the left or right center.

Steffen Kailitz takes a critical look at Herbert Kitschelt’s thesis of a ‘winning formula’ for the radical right in Western Europe. Kailitz does not agree that there is indeed a winning formula since economic issues are seen by him as secondary to questions of immigration and ethnicity. What he sees though is a ‘losing formula’ for the left in the classic combination of authoritarian socialism.

After a very thorough analysis of extremism in East Central Europe by Tom Thieme (who offers an interesting typology of nine types, p. 351) and a report on ‘panslavism’ in the Czech Republic by Miroslav Mares, another highlight of the volume is the article by Andreas Umland. The author presents an excellent and readable analysis of one of the most complex topics in the study of extremism today: the case of Russia. Though one is sometimes flabbergasted by Umland’s love for details and lengthy footnotes, this article makes for fascinating reading into the four main antidemocratic forces in Russia today (Russian National Unity, LDPR, International Eurasian Movement, CPRF). In the absence of a social democratic party, the democratic left seems all but abandoned which leaves the political spectrum to nationalists of all shades and persuasions: since 2003, there is no faction left in the Russian Duma that is not nationalistic.

The last quarter of the volume is dedicated to articles on Islamism. Herbert Müller asks if Islamism is a totalitarian ideology as well as a broad social movement. He states that, indeed, Islamism today is a totalitarian social movement that is not a reaction to, but a part of, modernity. Johannes Urban’s article is concerned with international Islamic terrorism in all its forms and Monika Prützel-Thomas writes about the specific phenomenon of Jihadism. She analyses very convincingly that Jihadism is a phenomenon closely linked to other modern Western terrorist ideas that glorified the ‘propaganda of the deed’ and the ‘creative power of

violence’ (p. 491). Prützel-Kraus very fittingly adapts Karl Kraus when she says that Jihadism is the symptom of a malady it pretends to heal.

Finally, Eckhard Jesse muses about the limits of protection of democracy in an open society. In this highly stimulating article, Jesse rightfully declares the often heared slogan ‘no freedom for the enemies of freedom’ as unfit as the idea of ‘the same freedom to the enemies of freedom’ to uphold an open democratic system. A militant democracy should act on the formula ‘no freedom to abolish freedom’. Too little protection can harm democracy as well as too much protection. What Jesse calls ‘democratic fanatism’ must be avoided and basic rights must and can not be denied (even) to extremists.

All in all this volume is almost too big to handle (and too big to review). It could and should have been divided into at least two smaller books, even though – not least – an impressive 60 pages of bibliography at the end make this a treasure trove for any student of extremism.

Arnd Bauerkämper, Der Faschismus in Europa 1918-1945 [Fascism in Europe 1918-1945]. Stuttgart: Philipp Reclam jun., 2006. 209 pp.

ISBN 978-315-017049-6 (pb). Є5.40.

Reviewed by A. James Gregor (University of California , Berkeley).

This is an intelligent, informative, broadly gauged, survey of ‘fascism’. For all its brevity, it provides the reader with a wealth of information concerning revolutionary movements during the interwar years in Europe .

It focuses, as might well be expected, on Italian Fascism and German National Socialism. It provides a rapid treatment of the various efforts to identify ‘fascism’, ranging from the contrived definition of the Third International that imagined it ‘the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, chauvinistic, and imperialistic element of finance capitalism’ (p.

20), to the more recent efforts to see it as a ‘modernizing’ movement, or as the result of a ‘reactionary effort’, ‘neither right nor left’, to achieve ‘modernity’ without ‘modernizing’ (pp. 25-27). A catalog of putative ‘fascist’ properties follow, and we find the familiar ‘irrational voluntarism’, and an ‘emotional’, rather than ‘rational’, belief system, ‘elitist extremism’, the ‘mobilization of declassed groups’, and ‘antiparliamentarianism’. Following that there is the effort to understand ‘fascism’ in functional terms, responding to the structural

and societal needs of central and southern European political systems in the interwar years, with Italian Fascism a ‘normal fascism’ and National Socialism its ‘radical’ expression (pp. 34-35, 37). Beyond the recitation of alternative interpretations, Bauerkämper's book concerns itself with comparative and topological considerations (pp. 45-46), issues on which, in the past, many, many studies of generic ‘fascism’ have foundered.

Mussolini's Fascism and Hitler's National Socialism were the only manifestations of ‘fascism’ that acceded to power without external support; as a consequence, the treatment of other movements as ‘fascist’ always seems derivative and perhaps contrived. Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, for example, never really seems to qualify as a ‘fascism’ (pp. 90100), however mimetic its political beliefs. To speak of the ‘fascism’ of the religious fundamentalism of the Romanian Legionnaires, and the syncretism of the various Hungarian anti-Marxisms as ‘fascist’, (pp. 145-158) remains unconvincing (as it did for Renzo De Felice and his ‘school’).

The treatment of the first mobilization and expansion of Fascism in Italy is fairly standard. If any mention is made of the hundreds of thousands of workers in the ranks of the movement, they are characterized as ‘marginal’, and seduced by the prospects of a ‘utopia’ of a united community that might wrest for Italy a place in the counsel of nations. Fascism, we are dutifully told, came to power with the exclusive support of landlords, industrialists, and the commercial middleclass (p. 53). The hundreds of thousands of workers in Edmondo Rossoni's Fascist syndicates apparently contributed little to the success of the enterprise. Zeev Sternhell's notion that Fascism, at its inception, was neither of the left nor the right is hardly to be considered. That Fascism was, and must forever remain, of the ‘radical right’ has become a dogma among Western intellectuals. It is an interpretation that shapes all notions of a ‘generic fascism’ – and leads some commentators to see all ‘rightwing extremists’ as ‘fascists’ – a not particularly persuasive interpretive strategy.

In fact, good books often leave the specialist with more questions than answers. That is certainly true of Der Faschismus in Europa. To argue that Italian Fascism and National Socialism shared a sufficient number of criterial traits to allow them to be identified as members of a given class – even though the ‘radical fascism’ of Adolf Hitler made National Socialism distinctive in terms of the measure of its racism, its brutality, and the features of its rule, is to provoke any number of questions. To argue that the anti-

industrialism, inflexible traditionalism, and the unwavering religiosity of the Romanian ‘radical right’ qualified it as ‘fascist’ is to tax credulity (pp. 183184). Like almost all books on generic ‘fascism’, that of Bauerkämper, for all its merits, leads into a classificatory thicket out of which few have ever emerged unscathed.