Fascism as Anarchism in Power: A Marxist Analysis of the State
Haz Al-Din
Abstract
This article advances a provocative Marxist analysis of anarchism and fascism, arguing that the two share a common underlying logic despite their apparent ideological opposition. Rejecting formal and self-descriptive definitions, the paper approaches anarchism as an aesthetic formation—a mode of interpreting social contradiction rooted in the historical dissolution of traditional authority under capitalist modernity. Tracing its origins through early modern ruptures such as the Reformation and the English Civil War, and its philosophical articulation in figures like Hobbes and Stirner, the article contends that anarchism emerges from the positivization of negation: the elevation of the loss of foundational legitimacy into a universal principle. This framework reduces political reality to the arbitrary will of individuals and collapses the complexity of historically mediated social relations. Fascism, in turn, is interpreted as the realization of this logic at the level of state power: the direct, unmediated assertion of force stripped of institutional justification. Through an analysis of figures such as Proudhon and historical movements linking anarchism, syndicalism, and early fascism, the article demonstrates a structural continuity between anarchist negation and fascist affirmation. Ultimately, it argues that both function as ideological responses to contradictions within the bourgeois state, obscuring the material basis of political power and diverting revolutionary struggle away from proletarian organization and dialectical analysis.
Keywords
Anarchism, Bourgeois State, Dialectical Materialism, Fascism, Ideology
