[Perun]

I'll try getting Stanley Payne's book Fascism in Spain: 1923-77 soon and I'll post anything of interest I find.

Heres another book I'll see if my library has it. Its a comparison of Carlism with Polish nationalist counter-parts. Im sure it'll be interesting read.


http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg...42554?v=glance

Spanish Carlism and Polish Nationalism: The Borderlands of Europe in the 19th and 20th Centuries

Carlism was a form of Spanish Catholic traditionalism, named after the royalist Carlos, was directed against the inimical aspects of modernizing influences. One can think of it as a manifestation of Spanishness (espanolidad). It was specifically directed against the anti-Christian aspects of the French Revolution and the dethroning of God in general. Insofar as Jews had long been disproportionately involved in left wing and atheistic movements, it had a strain of anti-Semitism. Owing to the fact that Freemasonry had professed contempt for the Catholic Church, and included certain rites deemed incompatible with Christianity, the Carlists too condemned it. Not surprisingly, Carlism was strongly anti-Communist. But capitalism was also condemned insofar as it had disrupted Spanish society. Capitalist development had driven the poor off Spanish lands, virtually imprisoning them in barrios. The formerly independent Spanish artisans had become relegated to sweat shops.


However, neither Carlism nor its Polish counterpart had been merely "anti" something. They also possessed a dynamism that led to the active betterment of their respective societies. For instance, in Poland, Catholic traditionalists were responsible for the founding of religious orders that benefited the laity. Nor is it correct to say that Catholic traditionalism implied an uncritical approach to the conduct of the Catholic hierarchy. For instance, Polish nationalist Roman Dmowski was critical of the excessive involvement of the Catholic Church in political matters. Nevertheless, both Carlism and Polish nationalism can be viewed as Maccabean-like movements launched in defense of God.

Carlism persisted well into the 20th century. The Spanish Civil War was and is often (falsely) portrayed as an unsuccessful early struggle of freedom against fascism. Articles in the American press that romanticize the International Brigades appear from time to time (for instance, a laudatory column several years ago by Ann Landers, who also mentioned the large-scale Jewish participation in these Brigades). The Nazi German involvement is frequently mentioned (particularly the bombing of Guernica, which killed 37 people), but not the frightful atrocities directed by the Communists against priests and nuns, which definitely claimed thousands of victims (p. 104). In actuality, the Spanish Civil War, which can properly be thought of as the most recent Carlist war, had been a war against an attempted Communist takeover.

In recent decades, nationalism has become a dirty word, often made synonymous with fascism. Communist and other left-wing propaganda has made this connotation. During and after the process leading to the postwar imposition of the Soviet-sponsored Communist puppet state upon Poland, slurs of fascism were often directed against the legitimate Polish government in exile as well as Polish anti-Nazi and anti-Communist forces such as the AK, NSZ, and their successors. Unfortunately, this mischaracterization of past and present Polish nationalism survives to the present in the form of certain Holocaust materials and discussions.

In actuality, even the most extreme form of Polish nationalism differed from fascism in that it respected a certain degree of civil liberties for all social groups, and its cultural chauvinism was constrained by a respect for Europe's Latin culture (p. 51). Prewar Polish nationalists such as Giertych rejected the omnipotence of the state (p. 59), and had sensed the alien character of fascism to their thinking (p. 58). The deification of the state and race, characteristic of fascism and Nazism, were explicitly rejected by Polish nationalists as forms of historical materialism (p. 52). While perhaps not fully democratic, even the most extreme Polish nationalists recognized the legality of all non-Communist parties (p. 51).

Not mentioned is this book is the fact that the even the most extreme prewar Polish nationalists, while condoning and sometimes practicing violence against Jews, had refrained from attacking synagogues in order to make the point that their hostility was directed against Jewish economic dominance of Poland, not against Jewish religion or Jewish people as a whole. Despite Nazi German support for the Spanish anti-Communists, the Polish nationalists never lost sight of the German threat to Poland (p. 55). It was suggested that the German involvement in the Spanish Civil had been motivated by Germany's desire to regain her former African colonies (p. 60). At no time did even the most extreme Polish nationalists contemplate, much less support, anything resembling genocide against peoples. The book should also mention that, during the ensuing German Nazi occupation of Poland, Polish nationalists, unlike their counterparts in most other German-occupied nations, did not, apart from rare exceptions, participate in the Holocaust. Francisco Franco himself strongly opposed the German conquest of Poland (p. 90), and, with some exceptions, remained a champion of Polish freedom fighters. Bearing in mind that the twin phenomena of Spanish Carlism and Polish nationalism had been efforts to resist the dethroning of God, we should examine their modern counterparts. There is a cultural war going on in Poland, the US, and some other nations. It is part of a rising tide of hostility, by left wing and humanist pseudo-intellectuals, directed against the traditional family, Christian morality, Christian expression, etc. One can sense the ascendancy of consumerism, cultural and moral nihilism, and other manifestations of secularist triumphalism. In the US, the much-maligned Religious Right is fighting against the removal of God from all sectors of public life by unelected humanist judges (as rationalized by "the separation of church and state", "pluralism and diversity", "sensitivity to non-Christians", etc.). In Poland, there is the danger of the secularists of western Europe using Poland's newfound EU membership to force the progressive atheization of Poland. Only time will tell how the cultural wars will eventually play out.