| TITLE: | Political Consciousness in the U.S.A.: Traditions and evolutions. |
| UNCLASSIFIED: | Academy of Sciences of the U.S.S.R.~ |
| PUBLISHER: | Progress Publishers |
| COPYRIGHT: | © CTBO «HayKa», 1980 English translation of the revised Russian text © Progress Publishers 1984 Printed in the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics |
| BINDING TYPE: | book |
RIGHT-WING RADICAL TRADITIONS IN AMERICAN
POLITICAL CONSCIOUSNESS
....“Right-wing radicalism" could also be denoted as " reactionary rebelliousness”. This rebelliousness appears as a phenomenon inherent in bourgeois consciousness, a special part of the political spectrum of bourgeois society in the age of imperialism and socialist revolutions. Right-wing radicalism, which was expressed during the first stage of the general crisis of capitalism in the form of a fascist movement, determined the dominant form oi bourgeois political consciousness in Italy, Germany and in a number of other countries. Right-wing radical traditions in these countries served the creation of ideological and psychological prerequisites for the liquidation of bourgeois-democratic law and order and the formation of totalitarian dictatorial regimes expressing the interests of the most reactionary monopolistic groupings. Following the rout of fascism, right-wing radicalism develops both in the form of neofascist trends, which frankly declare their political continuity in regard to prewar fascism, and also in the form of reactionary trends which, although believing themselves to be far from fascism, actually often represent phenomena basically 147 similar to it even though they take root in a different national climate and in a different historical situation.
The formation of a reactionary-rebellious consciousness usually takes place on the basis of the interaction of two main processes. The leading role here belongs to the evolution of conservatism to the right, when a crisis of more simple, more stable and moderate forms of conservative consciousness leads to its general “hardening” and conservatism becomes less effective as a political movement and ideological trend (and with this as a form for mobilizing the masses politically). While proclaiming with increasing determination its loyalty to the fundamentals of capitalism, conservatism renounces the traditional social institutions to which it swore allegiance yesterday, but which today it already considers dangerous from the point of view of preserving the “fundamentals”. Relinquishing things of minor importance in the status quo for the sake of preserving the main thing is the procedure which consciousness periodically is forced to perform while it is not able and not willing to be reconciled with social progress. And conservatism performs this procedure not only during its swing to the right, but also during the process of a constant painful accommodation with liberal innovations. The basic difference between the two variants of this procedure is that by evolving towards liberalism, conservatism makes a definite concession to the objective demands of social development, while upon becoming transformed into right-wing radicalism, conservatism goes backwards, both in words and deed, towards its fetishes of yesterday. As a result, conservatism becomes so alienated from the status quo that it begins to forfeit its right to be called conservatism. From a guardian of "law and order" it becomes its violator. Its adventurism grows by leaps and bounds, it takes oppositional catch-slogans from the liberals and even from the Left. Regardless of consistency, it tries to make use of the widest possible spectrum of social protest.
Right-wing radicalism’s profound internal dependence on conservatism, both genetic and in substance, predetermines the basic identity of their ideological substratum. While examining conservative consciousness, we have already noted that it is formed mainly on the basis of ideological structures borrowed from other traditions and transformed to a certain degree. This is also true of right-wing radicalism, with the only difference that whereas the ideology of conservatism is “secondary”, the ideological substratum of the right-wing types or consciousness is “tertiary”, since basically it represents a borrowed and transformed (sometimes substantially) ideology of conservatism.
The closeness of conservative and right-wing radical consciousness is also expressed in a similarity of their social and socio-psychological bases.One can say that the degree of the political success of right-wing radicalism is in direct proportion to the scale of the mood of social protest which is identifiable in the ideological structures of conservatism in its rightward shift.
The process of activating and disseminating social discontent and protest never represents a straight-line movement from active support for the existing order to a clearly apprehended need for a real social alternative. Discontent is usually caused by a systematic practice of infringing the rights of a definite social group, arousing in its consciousness a stable feeling of injustice inflicted by the dominant order and a wish to change it.
The next phase in the development of social discontent is the search for initial causes of injustice on the basis of the generalization of real experience. But this step in the absence of a sufficiently strong influence (at least from the point of view of the possibility of an impact on mass consciousness) of a "subjective factor”, capable of providing a scientifically substantiated answer to sore questions, often turns out to be false. The possibility of a false interpretation of the causes for a social crisis sharply increases when it is a question of the consciousness of a petty-bourgeois type, the very social nature of which hampers an objective analysis of social processes.
The evolution of social protest that gives birth to rightwing radicalism is explained to a large degree by the inability of the individual to find a real community, the defense of whose positions would at the same time be a defense of the individual’s own interests. Mass consciousness leading to reactionary rebellion sharply feels the presence of social antagonisms, and sees in their elimination with the help of radical means the only solution to the pressing problems of society. However, the model of an “organic” society, to which right-wing radicalism strives, is based on a completely false interpretation of the substance of the basic antagonism which is to be eliminated.
This may be interpreted, for example, as an antagonism between races, between ethnic groups, between an individual proprietor and the state, between "productive elements" (i.e., mostly people engaged in the production sector of the economy) and the “nonproductive” intellectuals, between groups differing in the amount of their incomes. In all these versions right-wing radical consciousness seeks to represent "the nation”, "the people”, "the majority" 149 who arc oppressed and exploited in all ways by ihe allmighty minority who have usurped political and economic power. Correspondingly, the way out of the social crisis is seen in struggle by the “nation” united on the basis of this or that motive against the- usurpers, the overthrow of their rule and the reorganization of the whole of society on the basis of an "organically united" race, an ethnic group, the mass of proprietor-individuals, a community of “producers” and so on. A social protest channeled in this direction produces in this way an especially conservative, to be more exact, reactionary result: not simply the preservation of the existing system of social relations, but a restoration of its obsolete, archaic forms.
The self-identification of an individual protesting against the existing order with such a false community becomes possible only under conditions when his protest does not transcend the borders of the consciousness of the petty proprietor, who defends above all his individual conditions for existence, who limits himself to them and therefore is unable to discover a real community that reveals to him a social future. It is precisely on the question of private property that the conservatism of the ruling class, evolving towards the right, and the petty-bourgeois rebelliousness find common ground for their right-wing radical symbiosis.
Despite their common attitude to private property, the two tendencies, on the basis of the merging of which rightwing radicalism exists, in the final analysis exclude one another. The conservatism of the upper crust, appearing in the form of a crude, straightforward defense of private property, represents a last ditch, a frenzied attempt to save a social system which is falling apart. Contrariwise, the petty-bourgeois protest of the lower strata, assuming a right-wing radical form, is only the start of the radicalization of the more backward section of the masses, a process the logical development of which may bring its participants, or at least part of them, to a struggle to topple the existing order.
To achieve their aims the right-wing radicals resort to different methods of political action, which, however, are united by a striving to destroy democracy. Claiming the role of a defender of the "middle class”, and even the driving force in its fight against "conspiracy in high places" and castigating contemporary liberalism as a weapon of the oligarchy, right-wing radicalism inevitably gravitates towards other forms of political action than those that constitute a norm for basic bourgeois political trends and parties.
The propaganda of the right-wing radicals is of a pogrom 150 nature, actually denying their political opponents, primarily, the left-wing forces, their legitimate right to exist. Any kind of pluralism is quite alien to right-wing radical consciousness. This propaganda’, into the bargain, is aimed at undermining the prestige of the ruling elite and of all bourgeois-democratic institutions.
A special type of political organization characteristic of right-wing radicalism is secret societies or sects with a more or less hard structure, bureaucratic: centralism, and strict ideological orthodoxy. Resting on the sects as organizations of leaders, functionaries and activist cadres, right-wing radicalism at the same time takes advantage of methods of mass political mobilization, viz. protest campaigns against certain actions by the government, the nomination of charismatic leaders at elections, a skilled use of television, and the establishment of parties outside the two-party system. All these methods of work among the masses have one characteristic trait: the activity of the masses is precisely regulated and directed from above, the intermediary instances linking the rank and file of the movement with the leadership operate solely "from top to bottom”. Inner-party democracy is strictly proscribed for right-wing radical movements due to the objective incompatibility of the political trends that have brought them to life. At the same time the- combination of bureaucracy and elitism with which the right-wing radical leaders direct their following often results in the latter (at least partially) easily being cooptcd by other political trends. This circumstance only increases the hatred of the right-wing radicals for democracy, increases their intolerance of political opponents.
Right-wing radicals, denying the legitimacy of bourgeois democracy, preaching the cult of force, and regarding themselves as "fighters against tyranny”, take to the path of civil disobedience, of replacing state police functions with a system of private political spying, and, finally, of outright physical terror.A typical example of their rhetoric is a quotation from the right-wing radical newspaper National Spotlight (Dec. 15, 1975): "We have those who caution,’Work within the system! Never challenge a law except as a plaintiff in court in a civil action! As long as a “law” is on the books it is your sac-red obligation to obey it! Your only recourse is to petition your congressman or legislator to change it!’... In short, there is no way to patch up socialism. It must be resisted and challenged, as our Founding Fathers resisted and challenged the British... They knew that a ’higher law’ had to be supported... Patriots must strike hard and they must strike immediately. Tomorrow you will 151 be a slave and will only have slave-tools to resist with.”
Terrorist groups play a special role among the right-wing radicals, for private terror, all the more physical terror, as a downright crime, represents the most direct, frank and brutal challenge to law and order that can be made by a political body. But private terror is not only a challenge to law and order; as an attempt to usurp the right to physical coercion, which is a prerogative of the state, it is a direct substitution, an usurpation of state power.
However, the fact that the right-wing radical terrorists actually act outside the law and that they dispute one of the sovereign rights of the state, is very seldom openly recognized by the state itself. Firstly, right-wing terror serves the same class objectives as the activities of the bourgeois state. Secondly, the state itself exercises physical terror for political objectives, and it does this on an incomparably larger scale than the right-wing radicals. Thirdly, one should take into account the existence in the United States of strong and deep historical traditions of private political violence, originating from the specific traits of the country’s development. (See V.E. Petrovsky, Lynch Law. Essays on the History of Terrorism and Intolerance in the USA, Moscow, 1967, in Russian.)
The bourgeois state, as experience shows, takes steps to protect its monopoly on terror mainly in those cases when an act violating this monopoly hampers the activity of the state in spheres vital for the bourgeoisie. The strictness of these measures, however, only in rare cases accords with the graveness of the crime perpetrated: the contradictions between separate links of the state apparatus, reflecting the infighting of the bourgeoisie, result in the interaction between state and private terror having a restraining impact on the attempts to restrict this latter terror. Thus, the activities of the right-wing terrorists present a contradictory picture; on the one hand, these terrorists are regularly brought to trial for breaking the law, and they operate more or less secretly; on the other hand, it is as regularly discovered that the terrorist organizations have secret patrons within the law enforcement bodies.
Applying a wide range of methods of struggle for power, right-wing radicalism always has in reserve an option for an extra-legal seizure of power by a coup, preferably a military coup. The right-wing radicals attach special importance to work in the army, and usually they find sympathy and backing among the military. They invariably side with the military in all conflicts within the ruling elite whether it be a question of Pentagon appropriations, or the role of the generals in elaborating and realizing military policy.
Speaking of the specific traits of right-wing radical consciousness in the United States, it is necessary to stress the organic interconnection between the phenomenon of right-wing radicalism and the level of the development of the crisis tendencies in society. Pragmatic conservatism, an inert attachment to the socio-political status quo, is most characteristic of the ruling class when it does not apprehend a serious threat to its positions. Only a situation of acute crisis can give rise to sharp dissatisfaction among the bourgeoisie at the ineffectiveness of conservatism and an urge to create more dynamic, more aggressive forms of struggle against social change. The scale of the spreading and influence of right-wing radical consciousness, as a rule, is in direct proportion to the scale of the crisis. Thus, the socio-political crisis of the late ’60s led to a marked weakening of the impact of conservatism among the nonmonopolistic bourgeoisie, while at the same time within the ranks of the financial oligarchy a different consensus was formed—for modernizing conservatism and expanding its base. The oligarchy, more objectively assessing the situation, did not at all consider this crisis fatal for the social foundations, and it favored only a dosed form of authoritarian methods, at the same time making a series of liberal concessions, both in foreign and home policy. This resulted in right-wing radicalism having to be satisfied with the role of an auxiliary force, acting, in the final analysis, in the interests of a wider coalition of conservative forces led by President Nixon. All attempts to transcend the framework of this role aroused sharp dissatisfaction within the monopolistic circles, which assessed them as a threat to political stability, and they inevitably ended unsuccessfully.
A mass protest against the status quo, which assumes a right-radical form, is even more unstable. The natural evolution of a protest of the masses against the oligarchy, which initially develops as right-wing radicalism, in due course inevitably comes into collision with the main stream of this trend, determined by its leading elements which represent the interests of the ruling class. The incompatibility of the tendencies on the basis of which right-wing radicalism is formed sooner or later becomes evident to the bulk of those who adhere to it. As a consequence the movement is shaken from within and it splits into rival groupings, which in the end weakens its potential.
From this it follows that right-wing radical consciousness can be a stable form of political consciousness only for a narrow circle of politically committed persons—- professional or -semi-professional leaders and activists, while right– 153 wing radicalism as a mass phenomenon finds expression mainly in the form of outbreaks of mass political activity, arising from crisis situations. The scale and concrete forms of these outbreaks differ depending on the situation: a mass right-wing radical protest may arise in the form of a purely local and short-term campaign against a definite measure imposed by the authorities (for example, against school bussing in Detroit in 1971, and in Boston in 1974– 1975) or in the form of a more prolonged and broader movement aimed at changing the balance of political forces in the country during a nation-wide crisis situation (for example, the George Wallace for President campaign in the late ’60s and the early ’70s and the New Right movement of the late ’70s and early ’80s). The instability of the mass base, certainly, weakens this trend, but it does not at all turn it into a "paper tiger”. As history teaches, in a situation of an extremely acute social crisis an outbreak of right-wing radicalism may play a decisive role in sharply changing a political regime, in consequence of which the shaky postulates of right-wing radical consciousness receive a mighty support in the form of state coercion. In less critical situations, however, outbreaks of right-wing radicalism do not exert a decisive influence on the fate of a political regime, their instability to a certain degree constitutes an earnest of their repetition.
Right-wing radicalism, which is objectively a form of disorientation of mass protest, fulfills this function the better the more amorphous its ideology and the organization of its mass base. A systematically organized participation by the masses in a right-wing radical movement inevitably explodes it from within, while occasional participation by the masses in this movement, with a constant change of slogans and with an effective isolation of its rank and file from the guidance of the movement, blunts the disenchantment of the masses and, in the end, protects the movement (at least for some time) from disintegration.
One should also note the circumstance that a simultaneous "protest on two fronts" typical of right-wing radicalism— against both a ruling oligarchy and a democratic opposition—creates the possibility for a purely eclectic combination within the framework of one and the same movement of positions inherent in different types of political consciousness. Besides orthodox right-wing radicals, the movement can also embrace conservatives, who prefer to ignore the slogans of the populists, seeing the movement as an instrument for the defense of the fundamentals of an existing order, and the populists, who are attracted to the movement primarily by the fierce attacks staged by the 154 right-wing radicals against the oligarchy, and by their declarations in defense of the "ordinary man”.
Although within the framework of the right-wing radical tradition of the American political consciousness there appear and coexist types personifying different socio– political principles and orientations and resting on different social bases, they possess to this or that degree a number of common features, the sum-total of which constitutes the basic ideological content of the right-wing radical tradition in the United States.
Among these common traits militant nationalism probably plays the leading role. “Americanists”, “patriots”, and “nationalists” are the beloved self-designations of the right-wing radicals. Only a right-wing radical party claims the title of "The American Party”. One of the best known terrorist groups of the right-wing radicals bears the name of Minutemen, an analogy with the legendary militia of the War of Independence. Right-wing publications make wide use of “patriotic” symbols: the star-spangled flag, the bell of liberty, the bald eagle, the Founding Fathers and so on. This fetishism, however, simply boils down to the opposition of a specifically interpreted " national unity" to the ideas of class struggle within the framework of the nation and, at the same time, to the ideas of internationalism, cosmopolitanism, global mutual dependence and so on. All types of right-wing radical consciousness inevitably refer to the category of the “nation”, which is regarded in the ideal as a self-contained, organichierarchical community. Class struggle within the nation and legitimacy of any supranational interests are rejected as running counter to the natural course of things. The need for national unity is motivated by a presence of foreign and internal threats to the existence or the nation.
All this would have been just a simplified version of traditionalist conservatism had it not been for two things. First, unlike conservatism, radicalism refuses to recognize the possibility of reaching "national unity" on the basis of the existing conditions of bourgeois democracy. Secondly, right-wing radicalism expresses not simply an opposition to the class struggle and to “internationalism”, ready to compromise in the name of "national unity”, but it demands an immediate achievement of "national unity" with the help of radical methods and its preservation as a necessary condition for the continued existence of capitalism.
Right-wing radicalism believes that the way to ensuring "national unity" lies in “purging” the nation of those elements and institutions whose existence is conducive to class conflicts. It is a question, first, of the forces that 155 directly clelend the interests of the working class, primarily, of the Communist Party. Secondly, right-wing radi– calism relegates to the "enemies of national unity" forces that recogni/e, although within certain limits, the legitimacy of the class struggle as a norm of political life.
Castigating liberalism, right-wing radical consciousness pays special attention to the liberal elements of the ruling class, whom it regards as mostly responsible for the "disintegration of the nation”. From the point of view of right-wing radicalism the liberalism of the upper crust is not an expression of weakness or short-sightedness on the part of a section of the ruling class, it is not a concession to the people, but a contemplated policy of a small ruling elite, who already wields enormous power and strives to make this power absolute.
The myth about a "natural superiority" of the Americans over other nations is a necessary component of right-wing radical nationalism. In the John Birch Society publication American Opinion, for example, one can find the following assertion:
“While Americans were and are kin to all the world, they are now also different from all the rest of the world— somehow a special breed, though composed of various strains.
“Our common characteristics are due to the American experience, but before concluding that this means environment is more decisive than heredity, we must recall that the decision to come to America required a trait of enterprise, of aggression if you like (or even if you don’t), which would seem to have a genetic base, though by no means confined to the nationality or race. There are bold, curious types in every nation and every race, though among countries long settled there may well be significant statistical differences in the frequency of such types...
“But all those variations are due to centuries of interacting natural selection and cultural development. What happened when America was colonized by Europeans in the XVI, XVII, and XVIII Centuries was that the forbidding prospect beyond the Atlantic served as a screening device to separate the men from the boys, to use a colloquialism, or (to put the matter more gravely) to insure an aboveaverage quotient of audacity... They were the most daring examples of Europe’s Renaissance man, they were the Seventeenth Century’s representatives of high seriousness in religion; they were the Eighteenth Century’s truest English gentry.” [155•1
Racism is a necessary component of right-wing radical consciousness, although it may be manifest in varying degrees. The absolutization of race and ethnic differences between individuals is needed by right-wing radical consciousness as an old, tried-out means for moulding an unauthentic community as opposed to class differences. One type of right-wing radicalism presupposes the direct preaching of race hatred, when race features are advanced as a basis for "national unification”, that is, when the "restoration of the race purity" of the nation is declared to be essential for this “unification”.
Far more common, however, is the use of racism as an auxiliary means to mould mass conceptions of an “ authentic” community. In examining the basis of "national unity”, other types of right-wing radicalism shift the emphasis to features not linked to race origin; still they actively support race demarcation as a “natural” form of social organization and stubbornly oppose all attempts to eliminate race segregation.
During the past 15 years the racist principle of rightwing radicalism has been greatly stimulated and “ substantiated” due to growing resentment and disenchantment among American society over some aspects of government policy in the field of race relations. The criticism of this policy is by no means a monopoly of the racists; in the ’70s this criticism became widely spread and affected practically all types of political consciousness, including the consciousness of the black Americans. However, the conservatives and right-wing radicals made the biggest political capital (at least at the beginning) out of the revision of the liberal reformism of the ’60s. To a certain degree the traditional antiintegration stand of the right wing was a forecast which came true: for one of the main reasons of the crisis of Washington’s policy on the race question was the fierce, many-sided, skillful resistance put up to it by the right wing.
Liberal reformism in the field of race relations is condemned by the right-wing radicals, firstly, as an expression of government interference into a kind of "natural course of things" which presupposes an inherent superiority of whites over nonwhites and a minimal level of relationship between the races; secondly, as "illegal coercion" of the white majority into race integration in public life, as a trampling on individual rights and the rights of the states by the almighty federal government; thirdly, as an economic exploitation of the whites, part of whose incomes is alienated by the same "big government" in the form of taxation, which is then transferred to the nonwhite poor as “welfare”.
A prominent trait among those inherited by right-wing radicalism from its conservative forefathers is traditionalism. The significance of this element of right-wing radical consciousness sharply increased during the mid-’70s in the conditions of a real traditionalistic boom that embraced the American middle class. Right-wing radicalism received a mighty shot in the arm from the real mass sentiments of the so-called "moral majority”, and it modified its own positions accordingly.
The traditionalist orientation of the right-wing radicals was formulated in the early ’80s in one of their program booklets in the following manner:
“The issues of abortion, the meaning of the equal rights amendment, and whether the state should legitimize all alternative life-styles and living arrangements ... reflect a deep ... chasm between two radically distinct and diametrically opposed moral visions of humanity...
“The struggle is between the Judeo-Christian ethic, based on God-given eternal law, and the secular humanist orthodoxy that rejects God and traditional values. In the secular humanist world review, man, individually and collectively, has the absolute power, based on purely human will and reason, to determine all choices that will fulfill his individual and collective well-being.” [157•1
Right-wing radical consciousness in general tends to exaggerate the role of the moral factor in the life of society. The panicky fear experienced by right-wing radicals in face of current socio-political change forces them to search for the unchangeable, eternal, stable, and intransient to which they cling in order to keep their head above water, and, at the same time, to take their bearings in order to understand the nature of the events that oppress them. Nationalistic fetishes and race or ethnic affiliation provide them with some degree of confidence in themselves and in their political orientation, but here a far greater role is played by the "God-given eternal laws”, their view of the world and the related rigid, dogmatic norms of ethics and morality. Compliance with this “law”, the regulation of the behavior of individuals by some "moral code”, strengthened by legal norms, is regarded as almost the most important condition for the normal functioning of society. Correspondingly, any crisis phenomenon in society—from stagflation to the failure of the foreign policy of the state—can be treated as an effect of "moral degradation”, caused in turn by a negation of the divine principle.
In the United States right-wing radicalism is inseparably linked with religious fundamentalism, above all with Protestant fundamentalism. Fundamentalistir forms of religious consciousness are similar to right-wing radicalism, primarily in that in both cases the genetic basis of consciousness is a specific combination of conservativereactionary and radical-rebellious elements. Affiliation to corresponding denominations does not mean, of course, an inevitable identification with right-wing radical political trends, but it serves for the bulk of American right-wing radicals, especially for the rank and file of their movements, as a necessary condition for such an identification.
Religious fundamentalism is vitally necessary for rightwing radicalism. If we consider political conflicts in absolute categories of good and evil, inspired accordingly by God and the devil, then a reconciliation of such conflicts is ruled out as unthinkable. If communism, liberalism, and secular humanism are declared schemes of the devil, then it turns out to be the duty of every "true believer" to do away with these ills. A political program built on such grounds is inevitably characterized by extreme intolerance and authoritarianism. Simultaneously, the religious element of right-wing radical consciousness also serves as justification of anticipated failure in resolving the eternal conflict and alleviates the right-wing radical’s disenchantment—for if he takes on the devil himself he is sure to lose, while even small, temporary successes constitute an enormous victory.
The central place in the "moral code" of the right-wing radical consciousness belongs to the ethics of the patriarchal family. According to Merrill Root, an ideologist of right-wing radicalism, "we revere the family as a unit based on continuity of blood and purpose and meaning, on a spiritual culture, on a psychic entity... Thus the family, in its integrity, is a chief fortress for our God, against relativism, pragmatism, existentialism, and the collective tyranny of the state—or of the ‘democratic’ mass.” [158•1 "Strong families and strong leaders built this country,” Harold Voth, leader of the movement "in defense of the family”, has declared, "and strong families and strong leaders will save it.” [158•2
The "strong family”, revered by the right-wing radicals, hinges on implicit one-man management and the authority of the father—the “bread-winner”; the social role of women 159 should be restricted to running the household; children are brought up in conditions of strict discipline and loyalty towards "my home, my castle”; extramarital ties are excluded, and sex is treated according to the Bible—^as a sin justified only by the need for reproduction.
The patriarchal-authoritarian ideal of a "strong family" is extremely important for right-wing radical consciousness. The family is regarded as a natural, basic, God-blessed social community, linking the individual with the nation via other than class and political ties.
As such, the family is ordained to serve as the foundation of social stability, a kind of damper on social and political dissatisfaction. So far as the individual finds support in the family to accomplish his objectives, so far as the family helps him to overcome (or live with) the difficulties he comes up against, his urge to join forces with other individuals in political organizations to confront the state with social demands is weakened. In the words of one neoconservative ideologist, the family is the only "department of health, education and welfare that works". [159•1
The "strong family" is ordained to make the management of society easier in other respects too. The individual, getting accustomed within the framework of the family to authoritarian norms for adopting decisions, to a hierarchical distribution of social roles, to obedience and selfrestraint for the sake of the common good, is supposed to assimilate a definite type of political conduct, making him an "exemplary citizen”, who does not create problems for the ruling elite.
This "strong family" ideal propagated by the right wing was not interesting even for some right-wing ideologists way back in the ’60s. In the ’70s, however, it received a new and considerable articulation in the conditions of the actual process of the disintegration of the traditional bourgeois family in the United States. This process is expressed in an enormous growth in the number of divorces, in the forfeiting by men 6f many of their privileges in regard to women, in the spreading of "alternative forms" of family and sexual relations, built on hedonism and the negation of many traditional’ ethic norms, and in a sharpening of the conflict of the generations. Right-wing radical consciousness explains all these phenomena as the effect of the schemes of the liberal-reformists obsessed with ideas of “modernization” and “perfection” of society, or due to the atheists bent on destroying the religious foundation of the traditional family, or due to the 160 Communists engaging in "subversive activities" against America.
“The struggle for the family is ... an undeclared civil war, whose outcome will determine how our society defines itself," [160•1 writes Onalee McGraw. In this "civil war”, the right wing comes out under the slogan of a comprehensive "moral counterrevolution”, obstructing the approval of the Equal Rights Amendment to the US Constitution, demanding a ban on abortion, the establishment of a strict “moral” censorship of the mass media, a radical revision of the school c urrk ulums in order to wipe out all the ideas that in one way or another "undermine traditional ethics”, a purge of the teaching staffs, the abrogation of the practice of school desegregation, a resumption of the daily prayers held in the classrooms, the legalization of corporal punishment for the pupils, harsher court measures against juvenile crime and so on. "Textbooks have become absolutely obscene and vulgar,” says one of the appeals of the extreme right to "clean up America”. "Many of them are openly attacking the integrity of the Bible... Darwinian evolution is taught from kindergarten right through high school.” (See: Phi Delta Kappa, May 1980, p. 609.)
Individualism, as stated above, not only does not hinder the forming of a protesting consciousness under the slogans of militant nationalism and racism, but it constitutes a necessary condition for this process. Only a consciousness that in its protest keeps within narrow borders of individual proprietary interests is capable of assuming that " national renewal" by banning the class struggle, routing the left-wing forces and the labor movement, by replacing the existing “chaos” with a corporative “order” resting on the gun, and preparations for a general war to "save Western civilization" represent a “radical” way out of the crisis of contemporary capitalist society.
From the point of view of right-wing radical consciousness an individual has been endowed by nature with a dual quality, that of a producer and a proprietor. Both sides of this quality are given an extended meaning: the proprietor side includes every person who owns any kind of property, while to the producer side are relegated practically all those engaged in the private sector. This cheap popular print has no place for contradictions between the worker (who is regarded as a producer, as far as he works for a private company, and also as a proprietor, as he has his own house and car and some of the stock of this company) and the owner of the company (a proprietor, once he owns capital, and a “producer”, as he has invested this capital into 161 production, and, perhaps, takes part in running the enterprise). The only differences remaining between the two individuals, which cannot by any stretch of the imagination serve as fertile soil for any conflict between them, are the difference in the size of their property, explained by virtue of education, heredity, and so on, and the difference in the content of the “productive” role, explained by the division of functions between labor and capital. The absence of formal obstacles to the worker, who decides to put his savings into his own business, should ensure the individual the possibility of freely substituting one "production function" for another. It is supposed that the model works the better the wider scope there is for the play of market forces.
Here right-wing radicalism once more repeats the conservative postulates, this time of a libertarian fashion, widely publicized by the associations of employers. The difference between right-wing radical individualism and conservative individualism is that, while presenting this model as an ideal, right-wing radical consciousness at the same time admits that reality is quite some distance away from this model. The essence of the matter, from the viewpoint of right-wing radicalism, is that the producers-proprietors, who form a "middle class" and constifute the bulk of the population, are being exploited by the “parasitic” sections of the population through a mighty government apparatus which is increasingly restricting the freedom of the market. The conflicts and contradictions within this "middle class" are therefore explained by pressures from outside that distort the natural play or market forces and deplenish the wealth of the producers-proprietors.
The coalition of the "enemies of the middle class" includes those who one way or another are materially interested in the intensification of the economic role of the government, viz. the government bureaucracy, the poorest section of the population who live on government aid, the “nonproductive” intellectuals, the "Eastern Establishment" that has become intimately linked with the bureaucracy and multiplied its might thanks to the strengthening of the government. All these forces, the right-wing radicals assert, stand for “collectivism”, which is understood as a compulsory, governmental redistribution of the incomes from the pockets of the “producers” into the pockets of the “parasites”, supplemented by comprehensive interference by the government into the private life of individuals. Accordingly, the destruction of the mechanism of the governmental redistribution of incomes, the restoration of a completely free market, and the suppression of the " 162 collectivistic" aspirations of the nonproductive section of the population should return internal stability and prosperity to the essentially homogeneous "middle class" and, consequently, to the whole of society.
The unity of ownership and productive labor in the rightwing radical consciousness is merely formal. The right-wing radical protest basically represents a defense only of the property interests of the individual, remaining alien towards his labor interests. Defending the rights of the proprietor in opposition to governmental policy, right-wing radicalism defends the freedom of private enterprise. The laws and the government institutions which regulate the activities of private enterprise, the tax system, including the progressive taxation of incomes, the policy of stimulating economic growth, which leads to inflation—all this is roundly condemned as an encroachment on the economic interests of most of the employers, primarily of small business, for which the bureaucratic rules and regulations, the growing taxes, and the laws permitting trade-union activity turn out to be an insufferable burden. The antietatist sentiments of the bourgeoisie are one of the most important sources of all the varieties of right-wing radicalism, and they find expression especially vividly in its “market” variety, directly reflecting the everyday consciousness of the employer.
From the point of view of the impact of the right-wing radical consciousness a far greater role is played by its claims to defend broader property interests, not directly linked to private enterprise as such. A corresponding slogan was formulated by one ideologist in the following manner: "Let the individual keep his dollar!" The property of the individual who does not belong to the class of the employers, the property acquired by the sweat of his brow and ordained to satisfy his basic demands, is the object of a growing encroachment on the part of the government, whose policy is causing inflation and a greater tax burden. A complex, contradictory mechanism of a dual exploitation of the individual by the state-monopoly system appears in right-wing radical consciousness in the form of an absolute opposition of a “natural”, “free” market form of communion of individuals, making them proprietors, to an “unnatural”, coercive, etatist form of communion that constantly threatens their right to property.
Anticommunism is a necessary attribute of right-wing radical consciousness, and in their political fight the right-wing radicals always play the role of zealous, irreconcilable enemies of the communist movement and other leftwing forces. Declaring their anticoimnunism, the right-wing 163 radicals practically never regard the "communist threat" as an independent source of evil, feeling an urge to deduce it rather from race-ethnic differences, from a striving of financial capital to dominate the world, even from the schemes of the devil. The wish of the right-wing radicals to find additional arguments for their anticommunism is explained primarily by the crisis of the more traditional, conventional forms of anticommunist consciousness based on the opposition of bourgeois democracy tocommunism. Another reason is that right-wing radicalism fights not only communism, but also bourgeois democracy and for this reason alone it must look for other anticommunist slogans.
The negation of democracy by the right-wing radicals is not always expressed openly, the less so in America. Appealing to the existing dissatisfaction of the masses, defending in their rhetoric the "man in the street" from the arbitrariness of the almighty elite, the right-wing radicals try to project their movement as a democratic “popular” trend, allegedly striving to replace false bourgeois democracy with a genuine people’s power. They castigate bourgeois democracy for its inability to ensure "national unity" and to end the class struggle of the workers, for allowing the poorest sections of society to pressure the government while at the same time hampering the freedom of action of the punitive organs.
Attacking bourgeois democracy and liberalism, American right-wing radicals of today seldom oppose the bourgeoisdemocratic credo with a comprehensive alternative political system of their own. If we do not take into account the individual groupings that propagate a slightly renovated version of German fascism, then it should be admitted that right-wing radical consciousness has proved to be incapable of evolving a notion of the forms of power it would like to substitute for the existing system. Demanding the stepping up of the reprisals against the democratic forces and against all dissention and striving to destroy democratic rights and civil liberties, the right-wing radicals usually present the matter as if they are fighting for a return to the “original”, "truly American" forms of a socio-political system, dislodged by the advancement of “collectivism”.
This stand is sometimes interpreted by bourgeois researchers as a kind of romantic nostalgia which has nothing to do with reality. However, it appears that the matter is far more serious: the basic outlines of the “alternative” to which the right-wing radicals strive, consciously or unconsciously, are sufficiently clear-cut. It is a question primarily of abrogating the right of working people collectively to defend their interests, and, as an inevitable 164 consequence of this, blocking the channels for influencing the state apparatus on the part of the broad public. The balance of strength which has become established in the political system, with the organized power of the monopolies opposing the organized labor movement and other mass democratic movements (with government recognition of the legitimate right of these movements to fight for their demands), is planned to be radically changed in favor of the ruling class by the outlawing and liquidation of those “collectivistic” structures which nave been formed in the political system as a definite counterweight to the oligarchy, resulting from the persistent struggle waged by the labor movement and its allies. To confine the political rights of citizens to the sphere of strictly individual participation in politics on behalf of strictly individual interests in the conditions of the modern state-monopoly system would mean, in essence, a real ban on political liberties, that is, the establishment of a frank dictatorship of the state-monopoly elite.
Militarism as an important trait of right-wing radical consciousness is expressed in the apologetics of armed force as a means to implement the government’s foreign and home policy. The need of right-wing radical consciousness in a militaristic orientation is explained primarily by the fact that the task of destroying democracy can ultimately be resolved only with the help of a mass use of armed force. Besides this, the militarism of the right-wing radicals is explained by their notion of the police functions of the state as its most natural functions. Finally, the army apologetics is closely linked to militant nationalism, which is in need of both symbols and concrete forms of the organization of individuals "in the name of the nation”.
The foreign policy orientation of right-wing radical consciousness is based on anticommunism, on the cult of armed force as a means to implement foreign policy, and on extreme nationalism. The thesis of a "growing communist threat" to the West, which is incapable of offering effective resistance, is the initial premise of any right-wing radical analysis of world development. Right-wing radicalism deliberately rejects the idea of the historical nature of the world revolutionary process, and asserts that " communist threat" grows as the result of a secret global conspiracy of a section of the ruling circles in the West. The different types of right-wing radical consciousness identify this section differently (international bankers, international Jewry, the "intellectual elite" and so on) and they describe the motives and methods of this " treacherous Establishment" in the following manner.
p The Establishment is supranational and antinational. Its interests transcend national borders, it thinks in cosmopolitan terms and strives to take advantage of the national resources of the United States and of other countries in the interests of its own struggle for world domination;
as distinct from the “normal” employers (“producers”), the Establishment is parasitic, it creates no wealth and deprives others of their wealth by usury, taxation, nationalization, and direct expropriation. Whereas the source of the enrichment of the “producer” capitalist is the free market, the Establishment robs the “producers” with the help of the state;
the final aim of the Establishment is “collectivism” on a global scale under the aegis of a world state. For this end communism, socialism, social-democracy, the welfare state and also supranational formations—the United Nations, NATO, the International Monetary Fund and so on— have been “created”;
the anticommunism of the Establishment is completely false, for it coexists with communism in all its manifestations; at the same time it encourages the development of “collectivistic” tendencies in the West in the form of progressive taxation, the government’s social policy and the other trappings of the welfare state.
From this it logically follows that the struggle of the United States against communism is senseless while the "treacherous Establishment" which rides roughshod over national interests continues to reign. To "save the West" it is necessary to dislodge the cosmopolitan elite from power and to set up a regime expressing the "interests of the nation" and engaging in an uncompromising war against communism.
Advancing this strategic objective, right-wing radicalism at the same time defends the immediate foreign political demands of reaction: complete rejection of the policy of detente, a build-up of the military potential in order to achieve military superiority over the Soviet Union, the extended use of military force in foreign policy, more support for reactionary dictatorships, no reliance on the reformist forces of the West and of the "third world”, and so on. But the right-wing radical stand on current affairs differs from the conservative stand in its more pronounced nationalistic slant. Thus, the demand to harden anticommunism in foreign policy is formulated in the slogans for "national freedom”, "liberation of captive nations”, and so on, whilst any criticism levelled at the South African, South Korean and other dictatorial regimes is condemned as 166 encroachments on their “sovereignty” and "national honor”. Under the aegis of the fight against "international bankers”, the US right-wing radicals have established their own network of international ties, which includes practically all the ultraright dictatorships of Asia, Africa and Latin America, and also most of the neofascist organizations of the world, including the Italian Scxial Movement—the National Right and the National Democratic Party of the FRG. During the mid-’70s, the idea of setting up an international anticommunist alliance (in opposition to the three “superpowers”), which would include the FRG, Japan, Taiwan, Brazil, Iran, Saudi Arabia, South Africa and a number of other countries, became popular among these circles. [166•1 It is indicative that the initiative in advancing this project be longed to the American right-wing radicals, who tanked on acquiring an international base for their own struggle for power within the United States.
Characteristically enough, the thesis regarding the senseless struggle against communism under the existing US regime, and other similar attacks against Washington often coincide with traditional American isolationism, which sees in the policy of active global interventionism by the United States a threat to the country’s internal stability. Right-wing radical consciousness does not understand, and does not want to understand, the logic of a modern American “empire”, based not only on military coercion, but also on a complex interlacing of economic and political ties, on a striving to accommodate to world social change and to take advantage of a wide range of political forces for its objectives. Most right-wing radicals belong to the social strata which are isolated from the process of foreign policy-making, whose interests practically are not represented in this process, and, most importantly, who are far more concerned at the socio-political changes taking place inside the United States than with what is going on beyond the borders of their country. Nevertheless, the right-wing radical trend is systematically used by the militaristic: groupings of the foreign policy elite as a strike force in the fight against international detente.
The above-mentioned features of contemporary American right-wing radical political consciousness characterize it as a whole. As regards its concrete, specific expressions, which are spelt out in corresponding right-wing radical constellations, here these features are presented in varying measure and in different combinations—more or less stable and representative. This gives grounds for 167 distinguishing three types of right-wing radical consciousness—radical-propertarian, radical-racist and right– populist.
