"Fascism will return to the United States not as right wing ideology, but almost as a quasi-leftist ideology.
The content of left-wing fascism is heavily based on an elitist vision of the world. At every level of society, it juxtaposes its minoritarianism against majoritarianism. It may take libertarian or authoritarian forms, but it always defends its leadership vision over any populist vision. Some examples are the hip versus the square, the gay versus the straight, the individualistic free soul versus the family-oriented slave, those who believe in the cult of direct action versus the fools who participate in the political process, those who practise nonviolence over those who assert willfulness and violence as measures of human strength and courage, those who have strong affiliations with cults and cultism over the traditional non-believer (a marked departure from the anti-theological vision of most forms of leftist and socialist behaviour), those who argue the case for deviance over mainline participation in the working class or in segments of class society, those who choose underground organisations in preference to established voluntary organisations and, ultimately, those who choose some type of deracinated behaviour over class behaviour and participation.
Historically, communists, like fascists, have had an uncomfortable attraction to both elitism and populism. The theory of vanguards acting in the name of the true interests of the masses presupposes a higher science of society (or in the case of fascism, a biology of society) beyond the reach of ordinary citizens. The superstructure of science, like culture generally, becomes a realm in which elites act in the name of the public. What happens to the notion of the people determining their own history in their own way? Here populism, or pseudo-populism, steps in to fuse formerly antagonistic trends. In some mysterious, inexplicable manner, these mass forces must be shaped or molded. Under communism, in sharp contrast to fascism, the stratification elements in the national culture are deemed unique or uniquely worth salvaging. But, in the anti-ideological climate of the "new world," people (class) and fold (race) blend, becoming the raw materials for fashioning the new society.
Left-wing fascism does not so much as overcome this dilemma of elitism and populism as it seeks to harness both under the rubric of a movement. Having its roots in the 1960s, left-wing fascism views the loose movement, the foco, the force, as expanding the élan and the communist vanguard. It permits a theory of politics without the encumbrance of parties. It allows, even encourages, a culture of elitism and crackpot technocracy while extolling the virtues of a presumed inarticulate mass suffering under inscrutable false consciousness. The mystification and debasement of language displaces the search for clarity of expression and analysis, enabling a minuscule elite to harness the everyday discontent of ordinary living to a grand mission. Left-wing fascism becomes a theory of fault, locating the question of personal failure everywhere and always in an imperial conspiracy of wealth, power or status.
Fascism requires a focal point of hatred behind which to unify. Thus, when fascists advocate anti-Semitism, they are simply using a tactic, one not opposed by communism. It becomes a modality of affixing the climate of a post-Nazi holocaust, a post-Stalinist Gulag, and the monopoly of petroleum wealth by forces historically antagonistic to Jewish ambitions. The new left-wing fascist segments, weak within the nation, can draw great strength from "world forces" deemed favourable to their cause. The unitary character of anti-Semitism draws fascist and communist elements together in a new social climate. Anti-Semitism is essential motor of left-wing fascism. The grand illusion of seeing communism and fascism as polarised opposites (the latter being evil with a few redeeming virtues, the former being good with a few historical blemishes) is the sort of liberal collapse that reduces analysis to nostalgia -- an abiding faith in the unique mission of a communist left that has long ago lost its universal claims to a higher society. This catalogue of polarities, this litany of beliefs, adds up to a lifestyle of left-wing fascism."
- Irving Louis Horowitz, radical left-wing sociologist, The Decomposition of Sociology, 1929 – 2012) was a radical, left-wing sociologist, Fulbright lecturer, author of more than 25 books and articles, and a Professor of Sociology at Rutgers University
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