2000/04/01 by Ian R. Barnes · 1 citation
Arts and Humanities · Social Sciences · #French Historical and Cultural Studies #Communism, Protests, Social Movements #European history and politics #Antisemitism #Communism #Politics #Nazi Germany #Subversion #Nazism #Liberalism #Power (physics) #Law #Judaism #Political science #Sociology #Economic history #Political economy #History #Archaeology
paper · doi:10.1080/00313220008559140
openalex publication_date 2000/04/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/29
Maurice Bardèche is an important neo-fascist writer whose ideas derive from those of Pierre Drieu la Rochelle and Robert Brasillach. After 1945 he argued that right-wing thought had been ghettoized and even imprisoned by a post-Nuremberg liberal political establishment. In the face of a US military and cultural occupation of Western Europe and an encroaching Communist Soviet menace, Bardèche argued for a united European ‘third force’ to confront these two enemies. His dream was of a fascist-ruled Europe that would regenerate and defend the continent and the West against Communism and liberalism. Organic and idealist fascist states, without the faults of Nazi Germany and Mussolini's Italy, would implement a moral revolution, bolster economic affairs and prevent Europe being swamped by foreign goods, such as Asian electronics. He regretted Europe's membership of NATO and its being sucked into Cold War conflicts in the Middle East and in support of Israel. Europe's and fascism's enemies were blamed for all their ills, and a Jewish conspiracy was blamed for its campaign against the world whether in the guise of US financial power or through its control of Bolshevism, the latter being judged responsible for terrorism and subversion in the developing world. Bardèche was purely a warrior of the pen, and was important primarily for providing a link between fascism and neo-fascism and a training ground for new fascist writers in his journal Défense de l'Occident.