An Introduction to Modern Politics: 1, Populism [1985]
Feudalism, autocracy and kingship took no account of nationality. The bonds of ruling stretched beyond national or racial boundaries. To gain popular support, when they thought they needed it, and did not just disdain it, they used the authority of the Church. Rulers were ‘appointed by God’, therefore rebels against the ruling powers were flying in the face of religion and natural order.
With the rise of the middle class, the cosmopolitanism of the aristocracy was held as treason. National feelings became their standard and the treacherous attitude of kings led to their downfall, as the kings saw it, ‘treason’ was waging war against the king. But when middle class nationalism became the norm there was a confrontation with the working class. The middle class now saw rebellion by the workers as being treacherous because, though they did not see themselves as put there by God (though some went near to thinking that), the natural cosmopolitanism of the working class would be treason against the national State and moreover would displace them.
This is how ‘populism’ was born – as a deliberate counter-balance to revolutionary working class movements that challenged capitalism, and the liberalism that opened the gates to them.
It is essentially working class in character but opposed to working class policy, or any manifestation of working class power. It takes various shapes according to the national character of the middle class, but essentially it is Loyalism and enshrines the ‘good old’ virtues which it believes threatened. Fearing individuality, it cherishes violence, but that of the lynch law mob, whereby superior, because prepared violence is directed by a gang or temporary/local majority against an unpopular minority (or as was the case in the USA down South, against a majority it intends by unpopularity to keep in minority status); or against opponents caught alone. Football hooliganism is the latest manifestation – national war the highest.
American Grassroots Populism
In the USA, populism has been an integral part of a grassroots movement that has both a solid working class basis, and a solid bias against working class organisation or policies, reinforced with a bias against liberalism. It has been nourished by the rising capitalist class whose main source of propagandising has been ‘the old-fashioned religion’. The rebel churches that rejected the Church and feudalism of Europe have in their turn become the guardians of the ruling class.
Fundamentalist religion with its appeal to ignorance and bigotry serves the Populism of North America. The KKK – ‘the political wing of the Presbyterian Church’ – infiltrated it with its racial policies, but these are today weakening as the main pillar of populism, and the modern populists are associated with ‘red neck’ Christianity, tax avoidance, hatred of States rights (but with a commitment to central State obedience and patriotism), in survivalism, dislike of city folk etc.
German Anti-Semitism
In Germany, Populism was more or less associated with the Catholic Right and its dislike of city folk, liberalism and capitalism generally supporting the landlord Junker class as the bulwark of traditional Germany. But the Junkers were secretly selling out to the growing capitalist class. So the Populists solved their dilemma by aligning themselves with the anti-Semitic movement. Indeed, anti-semitism as an independent political force, and especially as a stick to beat the growth of working class movements, and liberal ‘tolerance’, was invented by Populists in the 1880s. ‘Bad capitalist Jews’ presumed good capitalist Christians.
Anti-Semitism, as currently anti-Asianism, appeals to the Populist since they can show they are actively bashing the capitalist or entrepreneur without actually challenging capitalism, and so be approved and often financed by other capitalists, far higher up on the financial rung. But any other minority will do, and Catholics, Protestants, Atheists, liberal journalists, or scientists, can equally serve as scapegoats in different circumstances.
South German anti-semitism – more Catholic and less based on the racial, as distinct from the religious, myth – fostered the Catholic anti-Freemason populism that permeated many countries, and was a peasant-like hatred of the city, usually in an urban setting like Vienna.
North German populism, crossed with German Nationalism and other theories including the Nordic Superman theory actually turned inside out had a spectacular success when adopted by the Nazis. Originally thought of as merely Bavarian monarchist, they ditched the monarchy and led a rival ‘socialist’ movement with extraordinary vitality, so much so that – partly by vigilante methods (using bullyboy tactics against first one unpopular minority, then another, when its gangs encountered individuals; and so getting a reputation for thuggery, and therefore becoming necessary to the capitalists who were wondering how to get the country back to ‘order’) they not only conquered the working class – actually ranged against them – but succeeded in bringing many to their ranks, and finally, making their own capitalist paymasters bow down to their will.
It is one of the ironies of history that this particular train is now going backwards: German Nazism has been so indelibly stained in the eyes of the world, even the right wing – if not because of its excesses then certainly because of its military defeat – that many fascists today, seeking to escape from the fascist past allows no escape route for the politically ambitious, turn back to populism. In the National Front today, G.K. Chesteron and Hilaire Belloc, and their distributism (Catholic Populism) is now offered as an alternative to the Hitler scenario.
Fascism, when invented by the post-[war] adventurer Gabriele d’Annunzio, had no meaning, any more than Justicialism or Distributism, and that very jabberwockery made it an attractive name for an originally Populist movement which promised sound and fury, romantic nationalism and beating up stray workers and liberal professors, combined with a cult of youth, but no social change whatever. Mussolini, who replaced the cult of youth with the ‘comradeship of the trenches’ appeal, gave it point and power, and altered it from Populism to a clear meaning of its own (later copied by Hitler). The capitalists regarded him as a super-vigilante against the occupation of the factories, and were prepared to sacrifice a few trimmings to maintain the social fabric. Unlike Hitler, Mussolini never managed to conquer his financial backers.
In some countries it might appear that Populism has been allied with both left and right wing ideologies. This is because the blatant and widespread corruption of politicians and military have been dealing in international politics, and a ‘bow’ to Russia means they are described as ‘left wing’ while a ‘bow’ to America or its allies makes them as ‘rightwing’. The Lebanon is a typical example.
The heyday of South American populism was in the Argentine, where Gen. Peron – or rather, Eva Peron, the real brains of the movement – made an appeal to the masses unprecedented in the annals of repressive right wing movements. They denied being fascist, because there was an undercurrent of hatred against fascism and capitalism, and proclaimed their own populist ideology, Peronism.
They called it by another fancy name, Justicialism, which meant exactly whatever they wanted it to mean. Eva ‘slagged’ the rich as much as anyone, but didn’t want to see them disappear. On the contrary, she revelled in dressing in jewels and appearing at their fashionable balls and then asking for their jewellery; she would ostentatiously go out and present a diamond out of her hair and present it to an old woman scrubbing the steps saying graciously ‘You have more need of this than I, my daughter’ and going back and replacing it with another out of the collection!
Eva Peron’s impassioned broadcasts to the ‘shirtless’ were full of appeals to hatred of the ‘bad rich’, insistence that they be punished, earning her the hatred of the well-to-do and high society in Buenos Aires. All the feelings of the ‘mob’ were diverted into demonstrations attacking the ‘rich’; the English, the foreign capitalists. All that happened in the way of reform, when the Perons had unlimited power, were more, or less compulsory charity collections among the fashionable elite, who still remained a fashionable elite. The regime certainly incorporated fascist techniques, if by that we mean solely murder, torture, and suppression. But it did nothing to alter the economic basis of society, and that is the whole art and theory of Populist demagogy.
Liberalism
As we can see in England at the present time, there is far more hatred of liberal measures thought to favour blacks and Asians than there is of obviously capitalist ones. This is generated by ignorance (and bigotry) which takes its cue from the supposition given out as fact that the capitalist or State creates jobs or houses, that there are only so many to come round, and that anyone coming in takes the bread or roof of another. When the State had need of people to come in and fight during the war, there was no such prejudice.
The liberal argument that one should ‘tolerate’ is rejected. And tolerance is only the flip side of intolerance. Both imply having power. The anarchist argument that the workers create jobs and houses, and maintain the State and capitalism besides, destroys the populist argument when it is raised.
The scorning of liberalism which is a watchword of Populism, and became a major force of fascism, is understandable. Liberalism is seen at its true value, as a gesture of the professional class or ambitious politicians seeking votes, now epitomised in the Labour Party, and especially its ‘left wing’. The distaste for State communism, and the excesses of Statism in Russia in particular, have been naturally appropriated by the Populists, and though expressed in absurd enough terms, is understandable. One can see how ‘populism’ has been able to be fuelled by a rightful scorning of liberalism and hatred for ‘Marxism’. Sometimes it is racialist and sometimes it isn’t. Its religious side is Fundamentalism; but it isn’t necessarily Christian. Islamic populist movements, sometimes claiming to be socialistic and sometimes not, are a feature of the modern world.
Populism may either be directed at a vague ‘The People’ (as opposed to a working class); or directed at a wholly working class culture while denigrating working class organisations and any aspirations (in this form it appeals to the yobbo element today and therefore though not necessarily fascist or racialist, is regarded by fascists or racialists as something which they can influence or a pool in which they can swim.)
But essentially it stands for no change; however demagogic, however powerful it may become, populism represents a standstill for capitalism. Its sole aim is to put an obstacle between the working class and social revolution, by offering them an outlet that sounds as if it might be revolutionary but is only hot air and knuckle dusters. Only the emergence of a capable trained party and a charismatic, credible leader can take populism out of this morass and make it a workable tool for the capitalist class, or even ultimately dictate to its capitalist paymasters. Fortunately, no such party or leader exists at the present time in any part of the ‘western’ world. Nor is the capitalist class in Great Britain, certainly, and possibly not, so far as one knows, elsewhere in any great need of it, or him – or, it could now be, her. Only among the Islamic fundamentalists are there contestants for the role. Elsewhere, if there should be any mute inglorious Mussolini organising a march on Rome, there will result only a brief flutter of intensive publicity in the media, nothing more.
Black Flag 142 (21-10-1985)