The Aryan Foundations of Fascism

by Zoltanous

Following the feedback on my article "What Is Fascism?", I will clarify the concept of the Aryan figure in the context of Fascist ideology. It's crucial to acknowledge that the ethnonationalist sentiment and völkische movement predating and permeating National Socialism weren't solely Adolf Hitler’s creations. These ideas and cultural tenets would likely have emerged without him, as they have throughout history and continue to do so. It’s also important to define "Aryan" accurately. In my discussion, "Aryan" pertains to its original linguistic and cultural significance. Historically, "Arya" in Vedic tradition represents nobility and honor. In Sanskrit, "Arya Lok" denotes the community of Aryan people, characterized by a commitment to virtue and societal rites. An Aryan upholds their duties with utmost fidelity. Essentially, an Aryan embodies their Dharm, or sacred duty. This notion of Arya extended west from India, influencing various cultures, including the naming of Iran, which originates from "Aryan."

The notion of Aryan, originating from India, influenced European language and society, evident in words like "Aristocrat" and "Aristocracy," derived from the Greek "Aristo" (best) and "Kratos" (rule), implying "rule by the best." The German term for honor, "Ehre," also connects to the Sanskrit "Arya." Historically, Aryan came to signify "the finest," with the criteria for this distinction deeply embedded in theological doctrines later overshadowed by the spread of Christianity. With the rise of Christianity among leaders and thinkers, a conflation occurred between the Aryan ideal and Christ-like virtues. In Christian theology, as God made humans in His image, to be Aryan was to emulate the divine. This emulation is reflected in the creation of a high culture, a society striving for harmony, selfless community values, and a dedication to a loftier purpose. From a scientific standpoint, the term “Aryan" does not refer to a single homogenous group but to a collection of Aryan peoples, each with unique anthropological features yet united by a shared spiritual essence. This variety encapsulates a balance of diversity within unity.

According to Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst from the Ahnenerbe:

“What do we mean by Aryans in the scientific sense at all? The Aryans include the Nordic peoples who reside in Europe and speak an Indo-European language, the Indo-Aryans who reside in India and the Iranians sitting to the west of it.

These Aryans (Indian and Iranian) have a great decisive advantage for us. They possess, and this is a basic truth that cannot be denied, the oldest Indo-European literature. They already had it at a time when people didn't even know about German literature, runes and similar things. At the end of the first, and in the second, and already in the third millennium BC, these Indo-Aryans and Iranians called what we now call literature their own. Works that deal with reality. We immediately see how important it is that we still have this literature. There are the Vedas and other wisdom and the promises of Zaratustra, an Iranian worldly sage.

Finally, the oldest documents of Indo-European rulers from the 6th and subsequent centuries have also been preserved. While the Iranian monuments clearly show a Semitic influence, this does not apply to the oldest literature." 

— Prof. Dr. Walther Wüst of the Ahnenerbe in June 1936 in The Auditorium Maximum of The University of Munich

When exploring the ideological underpinnings of Third Positionism, it's important to recognize the formative impact of several documents and philosophies predating Hitler's ascent. The 1904 Trautenau Program, the 1913 Iglau Program, the 1918 Vienna Program, and Rudolf Jung's 1919 work, National Socialism: An Introduction to Its Foundations and Its Goals, laid the essential ideological pillars for what would become National Socialism and its early intellectual architects. These ideas have endured and still find resonance because they speak to a sense of empowerment that some derive from Fascist philosophy. This includes Hitler's interpretation of National Socialism, which drew influence from the philosophy and aesthetic principles of Mussolini's Fascism — a term Mussolini once used in a broad sense to herald the emergence of his Fascist Italy. Fascism as an ideology incorporates a transcendental aspect that focuses on the unity and progress of the nation, the functionality's efficacy, and the holistic welfare of both individuals and the community across physical, psychological, and spiritual dimensions. It advocates for the collective good, the development of a robust and vibrant populace, and the overall progression of society.

Adolf Hitler articulated these concepts in one of his speeches:

“Those who do not understand have not experienced the same calamities among their people. These things appear enigmatic and mysterious that hundreds and thousands would be led to assemble amidst calamity and passion. Others cannot understand that this is not an order of the State! They are deceiving themselves. The State does not order us. We order the State!” 

— Adolf Hitler, Triumph Of The Will

Fascism taps into a deep metaphysical idealism that aligns with the inherent human yearning for something beyond the mundane — a quest to connect with a life force that transcends the ordinary. Fascism's aim is to structure the State around this quest for transcendence. Julius Evola articulates the importance of forging a palpable link between the individual's experience and a supreme order.

“There was also the demand to integrate man through means of an ‘immanent relation to a higher law, endowed with an objective will transcending the individual and raising him to conscious membership of a spiritual society’. The formulation of this demand is significant, even if its content was never adequately defined. There are various possible judgments one can make regarding the concrete forms with which Fascism tried to meet this demand so as to consider itself the perfect representative of the doctrine of the state we have just discussed. Recognising the superficial and contrived character of the various initiatives and customs of Fascist Italy should not provide a pretext for neglecting a problem which is of fundamental importance no less now than then. It is basically a question of the problem of how to confront an impulse of ‘self-transcendence’ that can be repressed and silenced, but never completely eliminated, except in the extreme case of systematically degrading people into a bovine state. Yesterday’s ‘nationalist revolutions’ tried to furnish a political center to crystallize this impulse (again, this is the action we have mentioned of ‘form’ on ‘matter’), to impede its running wild and its onset or breaking out into destructive forms. 

Indeed, no one can ignore the deep crisis of the ‘rationalizing’ of existence attempted by bourgeois culture, given the many examples of the emerging of the irrational or ‘elemental’ (in the sense of the elemental character of a force of nature) through the fissures of this culture on every level. Today, with the return of this obsession with ‘rationalizing’, there is a tendency to render service to an ideal that is not political but ‘social’ and which belongs to physical comfort, and to marginalize and discredit everything that is comprised of existential tension, heroism and the galvanizing force of a myth. But it has been correctly pointed out that a profound crisis is inevitable at the point when prosperity and comfort will finally become boring. The early signs of this crisis are already apparent. They consist of all those forms of blind, anarchic and destructive revolts embraced by a youth that, precisely in the most prosperous nations, notice the absurdity and senselessness of an existence that is socialized, rationalized, materialistic, and dominated by the so-called ‘consumer culture’. In these revolts, this elementary impulse finds no object and, left to itself, becomes barbaric. In traditional societies, there has always existed a certain liturgy or mystique of power and sovereignty that was an integral part of the system, and which furnished a solution to the problem we have been addressing.”

— Julius Evola, Fascism Viewed From The Right

Hence, the enduring appeal of these ideologies among those who reflect deeply on national identity is understandable, linking back to the historical precedents set by National Socialists prior to Hitler's prominence. It's critical to acknowledge that Hitler was not the sole architect of National Socialism; rather, he was one among numerous thinkers who nurtured its evolution. There's a common misconception that Fascism lacks intellectual substance or philosophical rigor, with some dismissing it as an incoherent set of beliefs. Yet, as I have consistently shown, Fascist and Nazi ideologies are underpinned by intellectual and philosophical grounding. Those who deny this are often uninformed or rigid in their beliefs. Even some communists, despite their fundamentally different ideology, occasionally recognize this truth.

“Who is a fascist intellectual? Fascism springs from a person’s social and intellectual attitudes and it is essential to go into its genesis. When idealists talk of fascism they usually refer to the murderous crusades carried out as a result of social, political or religious dogmas: they picture dismembered bodies and recall all kinds of physical killing and persecution. Idealist historians suggests that all of a sudden somebody, some class of people, or some society went berserk and started killing people. This is a simplistic definition of fascism, a comfortable rationalization which ignores the reality of the human situation. Do people become murderers all of a sudden? No. The moment people believe something without undertaking the act-of-finding out they are manifesting a fascist tendency; to accept without questioning the premise involved in a statement, an analysis or a concept is to create the basis of fascism. Cold war slogans operate precisely in this manner. Beliefs devoid of experiential validity and made up of the accumulated prejudices of the society give rise to overt fascism.” 

— Communist Party of Ireland Marxist-Leninists, Objective Idealism is Fascism: A Denunciation of Northrop Frye’s Literary Criticism

Criticism of Neo-Hegelianism is not unexpected, and unfortunately, some communists have taken to using "Fascism" as a term of disparagement in a way similar to the historical negative connotations of "Jesuitical." Such usage is not reflective of the truth. For example, the Führerprinzip advocated by Hitler and the maxims of Italian Fascism illustrate the mental restrictions imposed on individuals, despite the fact that Giovanni Gentile's concept of pure immanence was not fully realized.

Reflect on the decrees within Fascism that assert total and voluntary compliance as the supreme virtue and proclaim the Duce to be unerringly correct. In modern discourse, accusations of Fascist origins are frequently and carelessly leveled by both political extremes against each other. Yet, the early National Socialists, before Hitler's time, included a heterogeneous mix of former Social Democrats (Marxists), Conservatives, Republicans, and Syndicalists. Benito Mussolini took cues from Syndicalism, Anarchism, Republicanism, and aimed for a reconcilable relationship with Catholic Traditionalism. Adolf Hitler held a sincere belief in his vision for German workers, and both the National Socialists and Italian Fascists positioned themselves as opponents of capitalism, like other contemporaneous movements between the World Wars.

Exploring the history of Liberalism reveals Giuseppe Mazzini's influence on the youthful Giovanni Gentile, initially a liberal humanist. Mussolini considered himself a socialist up until his demise. Hitler and his associates, based on various sources, opposed capitalism and saw themselves as authentic socialists. Gentile believed his Fascist ideology to be an "evolution" of liberalism and communism, informed by Mazzini's philosophy. He advocated for a transformation towards his idea of the Organic State and Actual Idealism, in light of the shortcomings he perceived in Italian liberalism and communism. This is the ideological essence of the "Third Position" or "Third Way" within National Socialist Fascism.

These insights come straight from primary sources — the very words of the protagonists themselves. By tracing the historical threads of Romanticism, German and Italian folk culture, Idealism, Syndicalism, and Nationalism, we can see why the claims that "Leftists are Fascists!" from the Right, and "The Right are Nazis!" from the Left, become muddled when removed from their historical context. Many commentators on the topic shy away from engaging directly with these primary sources, possibly out of concern that they might find themselves sympathetic to certain Fascist tenets. Yet, the metaphysical and intellectual strata of Fascism are far more expansive, representing a culmination of a broader spectrum of Italian intellectual heritage. The evolution of Fascist thought can be traced through historical lines. It is noteworthy that Aryan racial doctrines were not initially integral to Fascism and did not stem from the Ariosophy of Guido von List or Jörg Lanz von Liebenfels, nor were they originally part of National Socialism.

Early Fascist thinkers, such as Giovanni Gentile, were firmly against incorporating Ariosophical racialism into Fascism. It's also notable that National Socialism dismissed such theories. National Socialism crafted its own narrative centered on the purity of blood and the safeguarding of what they considered the sacred essence of the Germanic people, which they termed "Aryan." Mussolini sought to elevate Italians to Aryan status, an endeavor he pursued by cultivating a national unity rooted in the glory of the Roman Empire and the Catholic tradition. Joseph Goebbels, too, touched upon this theme in his outreach to Christian Germany, declaring that God created the German people. This belief led to the persecution and marginalization of various groups such as Freemasons, Theosophists, Jews, Anthroposophists, and others.

In the twilight of his life, nationalist philosopher Houston Stewart Chamberlain emerged as a significant intellectual influence on the National Socialist ideology. Chamberlain's scholarship, which delved into ancient history through a völkisch lens, left a lasting imprint. The notion of “folkdom” sprang from Romanticist thought, and the weaving of myth and folklore became central to the Fascist movement's identity and pursuits, in harmony with the principles of the Traditionalist school of thought. Historian Eric Kurlander has acknowledged the significant role that traditional German mythology played within the National Socialist worldview. The völkisch ideology, when merged with the populist idealism of the National Socialist party, crafted a unique political-religious doctrine. Goebbels was adamant about dismissing any association with paganism; even as the Germanic tribes converted to Christianity, they preserved elements of their indigenous traditions and stories. This is the backdrop against which Goebbels claimed that they were fortunate to have a form of Christianity that did not conflict with their ancestral heritage. Additionally, this context aids in understanding Gentile's assertion that:

“Catholicism is truly the most perfect religion, just as modern European philosophy is the most perfect philosophy: together, they are the highest creations of the Aryan spirit."

 — Giovanni Gentile, The Error of Modernism and The Relationship Between Religion and Philosophy

During an address in Bologna, Italy, in 1921, Mussolini asserted that Fascism emerged from an intrinsic, long-standing impulse of the Aryan race. This statement reinforces the central point of my analysis, which is the pivotal role of the Aryan narrative in molding the Fascist ideology. As detailed by Edouard Calic in Secret Conversations With Hitler, the core of the National Socialist belief system revolved around a doctrine of blood, which was adapted theoretically to fit within an Idealist framework. In a 1931 dialogue with an editor from a Leipzig newspaper, Adolf Hitler fervently stated that the National Socialist movement assessed people by the spiritual vigor they could manifest. He referred to this as a "historic mission" and a "spiritual cause," necessitating the emergence of extraordinary spiritual warriors to forge and maintain a Reich meant to last a millennium. In a similar vein, Italian Fascists looked up to Dante Alighieri as a prophetic figure, whose ideas prefigured and later became the tenets of the Fascist doctrine. 

1. Ancient Rome

2. The Catholic Idea of Salvation in Christ

3. The Fascist Idea

4. Empire

In the 19th century, the idea of a unique "Aryan" ancestry for various European ethnic groups found favor among Russian Slavophiles. Leading Slavophile Alexey Stepanovich Khomyakov, together with his followers Alexander F. Hilferding, Dmitry Ivanovich Ilovaisky, and Ivan Yegorovich Zabelin, posited that Europeans stemmed from "Aryan" forebears. These proponents of Slavophilism linked Orthodox Christianity with an Aryan lineage, suggesting that Byzantium's conversion to Christianity was influenced by Aryan groups. This notion resonated with the ideology of many Nazis and some Italian Fascists. Additionally, early Chinese dynasties had interactions with the Aryan Tocharians, impacting their governance structures. This influence extended to the Japanese, who share ancestry with the Chinese and inherited these Aryan concepts, as seen in the principle of Hakko Ichiu.

Renowned philosophers such as Novalis, Schelling, Schlegel, Hegel, Schopenhauer, Nietzsche, and Herder also embraced the Aryan origin theory. This school of thought held that all Aryan civilizations began in India and disseminated across other continents, including Europe, a belief echoed by figures like Heinrich Himmler and Baron Roman von Ungern-Sternberg. The Vedic culture of the Aryans, originating from India, migrated eastward, linking established ancient religions through this movement. Their "Man-God" traditions culminated in Christianity, as foretold in the Vedas. This demonstrates the prevalence of Aryan traditionalism across various cultures and faiths. It suggests that the Indus region was a birthplace of civilization post a "great deluge" found in global flood narratives, such as the Christian Bible, Zoroastrian Avestas, and the Vedas. This Aryan principle is manifested in historical customs practiced by nobility across different realms, epitomized, in my view, by the Christian peasant in the Western world.

Expanding on this concept, Alexander Dugin's "ethnosociology" examines the Aryan idea. At the ethno-sociological level, the notion of the Aryan parallels the German "volk" or Greek "λαός" (laos). It represents not the smallest societal unit, the ethnos, but rather a collective identity formed when an ethnos's insularity breaks down, acknowledging others and establishing the friend-enemy dynamic. Examples include ancient Greek civilization with its city-states that identified with a wider cultural and racial identity, despite internal conflicts, and the Rus, comprising several ethnoses unified by Orthodox faith and Slavic lineage. The narod is a synthesis of multiple ethnoses, transcending individual ethnic identities while retaining links to their ancestral roots.

The Aryan narod is mythical yet materially real, an indelible part of human consciousness where the spiritual essence of race, the Aryan subject, is seen as an ultimate expression. This arises not from political doctrine but from an impersonal, ontologically earlier principle, fostering the existence of a heroic Aryan narod, diverse but bound by a transcendent unity. Politically, this aligns with a Platonic view of unity and diversity in harmony, where the unified precedes the diverse, echoing an Aristotelian notion. Nature's importance transcends its utilitarian and material qualities, gaining significance through the "normative" word, which embodies all "normal" and harmonious states of being. This insight is not empirical but must be grasped as the absolute, an eternal value. Within the Aryan narod, the Aryan subject assumes the state's role, steering the course of history. History is illuminated when Hegel's "Desired Harmony" is achieved, a condition enabled by Heidegger's "Dasein." The Aryan subject's Dasein is epitomized in the peasant, reflecting Carl Schmitt's concept of terrestrial power, contrasting with the Marxist cosmopolitan worker in a gesechellshaft (versus Ernst Jünger's arbeiter in a volksgemeinschaft) and the Liberal merchant/sea-based power. Unlike the Aryan peasants, these latter groups are cosmopolitan and detached from the nation's land, emerging from a Semitic perspective.

Fascism and National Socialism thus endeavor to reestablish the Aryan subject, deeply woven into the fabric of the nation's soil, manifesting the ideal state that sheds light upon human existence itself. This intrinsic bond with the land, personified through the figure of the peasant, is encapsulated by the Nazi maxim of Blut und Boden (Blood and Soil). A poignant illustration of this ideology was provided during the Nuremberg Trials in 1948, where it is recounted that the presiding judge asked Nazi Richard Walter Darre's defense attorney, Dr. Haris Merkel, to clarify the meaning of "Blood and Soil." With conviction, Merkel displayed photos of robust peasant men working their fields and vigorous peasant women with their offspring, declaring, "This, my Lord, this is Blood and Soil."

Out of this vitalized expanse, a new nobility is born, the nobility of the Aryan, forging a state of their own, as Dugin articulates, "boundless as our land and red as our blood." This is the narrative that thinkers like Gentile, Rosenberg, and visionaries such as Ikki Kita sought to cast a light upon history. The legend of the Nordic Germania, the Italian Romanità, the Spanish Hispanidad, the Russian Eurasia, the Polish Sanacja, the Japanese Hakko Ichiu, the Chinese Wenming, the Indian Akhand Bharat, and even the diverse Brazilian Brasilidade, all converge on this concept of Nietzsche's "Good European." Each of these myths reflects a unique embodiment of the Aryan principle, seeking to define their people's connection to their land and their collective destiny through the lens of a noble and enduring archetype. This is the core of a civilization-state with imperial characteristics.

“The Aryan breaks the chains that bound him to the Jew and the Mason. (Paris 1897)”

— Achille Lemot

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For further exploration on related topics, consider the following: