Despite Massive Leftist Propaganda that Hitler Was the Paid Agent of Capitalism, He Garnered Only Limited Financial Support from Big Business; Nazis Campaigned to Rescue Germany from "High Capitalism"

Like Mussolini during 1921–22, Hitler worked during 1931–32 to establish ties with influential sectors of society, cooperating part of the time with the right and trying to reassure businessmen that they had no reason to be apprehensive of Nazi “socialism.” Yet despite massive leftist propaganda that Hitler was the paid agent of capitalism, Hitler garnered only limited financial support from big business. While there was considerable support for Hitler among small industrialists, most sectors of big business consistently advised against permitting him to form a government. The Nazi Party was primarily financed by its own members.

When Hindenburg’s presidential term expired in 1932, Hitler decided to challenge his reelection, knowing that Hindenburg was reluctant to appoint him chancellor. Though Hindenburg failed by a narrow margin to gain an absolute majority in a three-way race with Hitler and the Communist candidate, in a runoff he easily bested Hitler by 53 to 37 percent. Hindenburg’s right-wing advisers then convinced him to appoint as chancellor another right-wing Center Party figure, the aristocrat Franz von Papen. This he did in mid-July. Papen’s goal was much the same as Brüning’s: to convert the German government into a more authoritarian and rightist presidential system. Seeing the Nazis as his main rival, he obtained permission to hold new elections, but in the balloting of July 31 the Nazi vote zoomed to 37 percent, giving the party 230 Reichstag seats and making it the largest single party in Germany. Papen could not possibly dominate such a parliament with only a minority of votes behind him. Soon after the parliament convened in September, he called yet another election, hoping this time to break the Nazis’ momentum. In this he was partially successful; for the first time the National Socialist vote fell, but only to 33 percent and 196 Reichstag seats.

During the electoral campaigns of 1932, the Nazis claimed that only they could save Germany from civil war. They promised security from Marxism but campaigned vigorously against “reaction” in the form of Papen’s right-wing “cabinet of barons,” promising also to rescue Germany from “the American system, or high capitalism.”

--Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-45 (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 167-168.

Revolutionary Syndicalists Encouraged the Full Development and Maturation of Capitalism to achieve Collectivism; Marx and Engels Endorsed British and French Imperialism and the American Conquest of Texas

Increasingly, revolutionary syndicalists held that, as Marxists, they must encourage the full development and maturation of Italian capitalism, since without a fully developed capitalism there could be no successful revolutionary collectivism. Moreover, in Italy the revolutionary movement could never achieve success on the basis of the working class alone. To triumph it must become a cross-class movement, drawing the support of farmers, farmworkers, and as much as possible of the productive middle classes as well. Nor was it a mistake to support “proletarian nationalism” in national war and colonial expansion, for Marx and Engels had themselves consistently endorsed British and French imperialism, together with the American conquest of Texas, as bringing progress to benighted regions. By 1910, therefore, a process was under way by which many revolutionary syndicalists would become nationalist syndicalists.

--Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-45 (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 67.

Revolutionary Syndicalists Called Themselves Marxists; Arturo Labriola Developed His Concept of Italy as a "Proletarian Nation" Exploited by the International Division of Labor

Revolutionary syndicalism began to grow in Italy after 1900, based particularly on the Camere del Lavoro, regional labor exchanges in northern Italy designed to remedy the numerical weakness of the regular trade unions. Though the revolutionary syndicalists called themselves Marxists, their doctrines and tactics were unorthodox, and they had left the Italian Socialist Party by 1907. During 1907–8 they led a radical strike wave and by 1909 had mostly withdrawn from the predominantly Socialist trade union federation, the CGL, three years later organizing a smaller Unione Sindacale Italiana (USI) with no more than a hundred thousand members.

In the process, the ideas of the revolutionary syndicalist leaders became increasingly radical and heterodox. Arturo Labriola, one of their main theorists, had briefly emigrated abroad and had observed discrimination against Italian workers. He developed his own concept of the “proletarian nation”—that Italians as a nationality, rather than merely as a class, were the objects of exploitation by the international division of labor, and that revolutionary transformation must therefore be concerned not merely with one class but with the entire society.

--Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-45 (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 66.

The Nucleus that Founded Fascism Did Not Stem from the Cultural Elite or from the Right-Wing Nationalists, but from the Transformation of Part of the Revolutionary Left

The nucleus that eventually founded Fascism in Italy did not, however, stem either from the cultural elite or from the right-wing nationalists, but from the transformation of part of the revolutionary left, particularly the sector known as revolutionary syndicalists. Revolutionary syndicalism originated in France early in the 1890s, as a reaction against the weakness and moderation of socialism and the trade union movement. It sought to overcome such limitations through “direct action” or what its proponents termed la manière force (the tactics of force), with the goal of achieving revolution through a grand general strike that would make it possible to restructure society around the syndicates (trade unions). Revolutionary syndicalists detested reformism, compromise, and parliamentary government, or what they called “the superstitious belief in majorities.” They were more influenced than most socialists by the cultural crisis of the fin de siècle, particularly by Social Darwinism, the importance of group conflict, and Sorelian ideas about the moral value of violence. In France their apogee occurred in 1902–6, after which their influence quickly waned.

--Stanley G. Payne, A History of Fascism, 1914-45 (London: Taylor and Francis e-Library, 2003), 66.