The Essence of Fascism by Karl Polanyi   VICTORIOUS FASCISM is not only the downfall of the Socialist Movement; it is the end of Christianity in all but its most debased forms. The common attack of German Fascism on both the organisations of the working-class movement and the Churches is not a mere coincidence. It is a symbolic expression of that hidden philosophical essence of Fascism which makes it the common enemy of Socialism and Christianity and alike. This is our main contention. All over Central Europe Socialist Parties and trade unions. are being persecuted by the Fascists. But so are Christian Pacifists and Religious Socialists. In Germany National Socialism is setting up definitely as a counter-religion to Christianity. The Churches are suffering oppression, not for some unchristian rivalry with the secular power, but because, in spite of all compromise with the world, they have not ceased to be Christian. The State is attacking the religious independence of the Protestant Churches, and, when they succeed in asserting their independence, it calmly proceeds to secularise society and education. Even the Roman Church is under heavy fire in Germany. There is reason to doubt whether the Lateran Treaty in Italy has fulfilled her expectations. Where she seemingly holds her own, as in Austria, her position is both politically and morally more than precarious. Our picture may seem to over-stress the importance of the German developments and to ignore the fact that the struggle between Fascism and the Churches is far from general. Undoubtedly, the Roman Church follows a different line of policy in different countries; and even in one and the same country the attitude of the various Christian communities to the Fascist Party State varies. In the encyclical, Quadragesimo Anno, the Pope opened an avenue of compromise with Fascist sociology; though this happened before the victory of National-Socialism, it left no doubt about the direction in which Rome was eventually prepared to take its bearings on the future. Its experiment with a kind of Catholic Fascism in Austria proves this conclusively. But these instances of the Catholic will to compromise seem rather to enhance than to diminish the significance of the German Church conflict, the seriousness and the reality of which should not be underrated. It bears out our conviction that it is to National-Socialism we must turn to discover the political and philosophical characteristics of fall-fledged Fascism. Parallel movements in other countries are but comparatively undeveloped variants of the prototype. Italian Fascism, in spite of Mussolini, has no distinctive philosophy of its own; indeed, it is almost characterised by a deliberate lack of it. Corporative Austria is marking time. Only in Germany has Fascism advanced to that decisive stage at which a political philosophy turns into a religion. National-Socialism is, indeed, almost as far ahead of Italian or Austrian Fascism as Socialism in Soviet Russia is of the tentative Socialist policies of Labour Governments in Central Europe. But, even so, there are objections to using the German Church conflict as a proof of the inherent antagonism of Fascism to Christianity. There is, for one, the patent lack of identity between Christianity and the Churches; secondly, the traditional feud between the Socialist Movement and the Churches on the Continent. Undoubtedly, it would be impossible to argue that he who attacks the Christian Churches is attacking Christianity. Only too often has the opposite been true in the course of history. Even in Germany to-day, Christian Pacifists and Religious Socialists are as far removed from the pale of the official Churches as ever; the same applies to Religious Socialists in Austria. Not even common persecution could bridge the gulf between the live faith of Christian revolutionaries and organised Christianity. However, as long as the Church in Germany stands up against Fascism in defence of her Christian faith, in the universality of her mission the significance of her witness cannot be denied. Incidentally, in this an important difference between the fate of the Western Churches in Germany and the Orthodox Church in Russia is revealed, where the Church suffered persecution not because she was faithful to her Christian mission, but because she was not; for who could deny that the Orthodox Church in Russia was the political mainstay of tsarist tyranny, at a time when the social ideal of Christianity was inherently on the side of revolution? This helps to clear up the second objection: the reference to the traditional feud between the Socialist Parties and the Churches on the Continent. From the rise of the workingclass movement this hostility existed. But the Russian example should be a strong warning from adducing it as an argument. For in the eyes of the masses, also, the Western Churches were far from embodying the ideals of Christianity. Though organised Christianity paid cautious lip service to the idealist aims of Socialism, it fought its advance with all its power. At the present juncture, however, the Churches, though predominantly reactionary, are unconsciously bearing witness to that Christian content which they have in common with Socialism. Thus, not in spite of its antagonism to Marxian Socialism, but in consequence of it, is National-Socialism attacking them. This, however, is precisely our contention. On the face of it, the argument is really extremely simple. No attack on Socialism can be permanently effective that fails to dig down to the religious and moral roots of the movement. But at these roots lies the Christian inheritance. The Fascists setting out to deliver mankind from the alleged delusions of Socialism cannot pass by the question of the ultimate truth or untruth of the teachings of Jesus. But politics does not deal with abstractions. That which may seem an insoluble contradiction in the realm of pure thought does not necessarily lead to a clash in reality. If Fascist Governments take great risks in order to infuse pagan elements into the Christian religion, they do this for compelling reasons of a purely practical order. What are these reasons? Are they accidental only, or do they spring inevitably from the efforts of Fascism to re-cast the structure of society in such a manner as to rule out for ever the possibility of the development towards Socialism? And, if so, why can they not eliminate this possibility without removing at the same time every vestige of the influence Christian ideals may have had on the political and social institutions of Western civilisation? It is to the philosophy and sociology of Fascism we must turn for the answer. Go forward to the next section: I. FASCIST ANTI-INDIVIDUALISM