Bonapartism and Fascism

[P.O.U.M]

I was reading through "Russia: From Revolution to Counter Revolution" and recently got passed the section describing the class nature of the Soviet state under Stalin. Ted Grant was explaining the differences between fascism and a bonapartist state but to me, that seem to be nearly the same thing.

Is there a difference between the two? I cant find any significant difference.

[redprophet]

I'm not an expert on this, but these are the differences I've generally associated with the two:

Fascism has a generally strong social base in the middle classes, while Bonapartism is a regime that is "suspended in the air" with no real social base, propped up entirely by force of arms.  

Later, in countries like Italy and Germany, we see fascism's social base detiorate and fascism "morphs" into something more like bonapartism.

Another interesting thing one sees with fascism and bonapartism is that bonapartist regimes continue to pretend to represent the "Revolutionary legacy" of the regime they overthrew/subverted, while fascist regimes like to look at themselves as something new, the total opposite of what preceded them.

[turnoviseous]

I agree with redprophet that fascism has generaly a strong social base and support of middle class, lumpenproletariat and also proletariat, but Trotsky also says in his compilation "Fascism", that this support soon goes away. You can see that Fascists rules become more and more evidently "the rules of the sword" as the time goes on. Middle class first believe it is in control, while it is not.

Also, the difference Trotsky and Ted write about are of historical character, while the Bonapartist rule in France was one of capitalism in its revolutionary stage (on world scale, as capitalism was challenging old feudal relations, while bonapartism represented reaction as against the french revolution as such), fascist bonapartist rule historically represents capitalism in its decay and is in no way anymore revolutionary.

I believe that the difference from ordinary bonapartist rule and tat of fascist state rises because of this latter difference, because it is fascism that has to be "revolutionary" at the start to get the masses up, while in revolutionary capitalist stage, they didnt need that, revolution was already made to exploit, same in Russia.

[OUTOFTHENIGHT]

I would also like to add that facism will only thrive after the organisations of the working class have suffered a massive defeat. This is the lesson of Germany , Italy and Spain.

[turnoviseous]

I would also like to add that facism will only thrive after the organisations of the working class have suffered a massive defeat. This is the lesson of Germany , Italy and Spain.

Yes, that is true. This has been a general historical law.