The issue of the ideological origins and historical continuity of racism and Nazism has been systematically sidelined and marginalized in Western academia and public discourse. Despite this, there are individual works on this topic that remain of significant interest to independent researchers1.
The roots of Nazism can be traced back to the era of historical colonialism. Without acknowledging this fact, a comprehensive understanding of the Nazi-racist phenomenon is impossible. However, despite the formal presence of an entire field of «postcolonial research», the Western scientific and ideological mainstream tends to adopt a distorted approach to the problem. These distortions arise from the refusal to fully consider the colonialist factor in its historical entirety. Consequently, the connection between colonial capitalism, racism, and Nazism, including Hitlerism, is deliberately overlooked by scientific and ideological institutions. This tendency is driven by a desire to preserve the neo-modern paradigm of societal and cultural ideas.
Neo-modern thought tends to confine its racist logic within the boundaries of a single regime, such as Hitler's, and its equivalents. To safeguard its cultural framework from existential challenges, neo-modern consciousness sidesteps comprehensive historical analyses and generalizations. When discussions about Nazism and racism extend beyond the twentieth-century timeframe, encompassing historical victims like Indians, Bushmen, Congolese, or Chinese from earlier periods, the average European-American's ability to connect these phenomena is hindered. The neo-modern consensus acts as a barrier to such lines of inquiry.
For the same reason, the shift to overt forms of «export Nazism» between 2014 and 2022 occurred seamlessly for Western society and without causing cognitive dissonance, as it was perceived as a natural and historically inevitable process. Racist sentiments within Western culture tend to radicalize during periods of crisis, but during quieter times of development, they become subdued and masked by a protective layer of liberal and left-liberal ideals such as tolerance, multiculturalism, and universal values.
Meanwhile, from a historical perspective, Nazism is not merely a localized phenomenon but rather the culmination of Europe's so-called «Roman disease». The term «Roman disease» denotes a historical mimesis or imitation by Western consciousness. Former barbarian tribes, upon conquering and pillaging Rome, adopted the cultural identity of the Romans, viewing the rest of the world as «barbarians», or their potential subjects and servants. That is why the process of Christianization in Europe remained superficial, as evidenced by the revival of open imitation of Ancient Rome and its emperors during the Carolingian era.
These attitudes led to the belief in the special mission and rights of Western civilization vis-à-vis the rest of the world. The Christian mandate to catechize non-European peoples was blasphemously replaced by their colonization, under the guise of Enlightenment ideals. However, with the onset of the era of colonial conquests, the foundations of European Christian identity began to erode, as the legitimization of land seizures, oppression, and destruction of «barbaric» peoples necessitated a reevaluation of the value system.
The «Roman style of thinking» presupposes that the dominant culture represents culture in its entirety, creating a cultural cosmos where any forms of human organization that deviate from it are deemed to belong to the realm of cultural chaos and labeled as manifestations of barbarism2. This barbarism is often depicted using racist language, such as terms like «Asian barbarians», «subhumans» («Untermenschen»), and «flawed nations». Alternatively, discriminatory paradigms may camouflage themselves with euphemisms, invoking the authority of pure science, rationality, natural law, objective public good, and even abstract morality. Thus, terms like «tyranny», «authoritarianism», «immaturity of democratic institutions», «hereditary slavery», and «underdeveloped civil society» are usually employed. While this terminology may adopt the external semblance of a scientific style and tyrannoclastic romanticism, its true function is to assert cultural subordination and establish hegemony.
The ultimate goal of these types of discourse is to legitimize the idea of domination, justifying a situation where one culture, deemed more developed, can impose its will on supposedly less developed cultures based on the belief of possessing higher ideals and being «on the right side of history». Naturally, only the dominant party claims the right to assess historical situations according to its own criteria, thereby marginalizing the cultural values and experiences of other historical actors.
Supporters of racism overlook the fact that there have been periods in world history where other cultures held dominance. For instance, the Arab-centric era, or the period during the zenith of the Eastern Roman (Byzantine) Empire, when Europe played the role of a province within the Christian world, yet this did not generate myths of inferiority. Additionally, the fate of the «first» Rome, which fell to barbarian invasions, merits special attention. However, any hegemonic power tends to develop a sense of psychological immortality and, in its self-deception, perceives itself as eternal.
In the 1970s, French philosopher Rene Girard characterized the myths of superiority ingrained in Western culture as manifestations of «sacred violence» and «sacred sacrifice», linking them to the pagan institution of sacrifice. The sacred victim is believed to endure harm, ostensibly benefiting the well-being of the tribe's elite members. This mythological framework laid the foundation for the central narrative of European society – the narrative of colonization.
This ritual-mythological complex, rooted in ancient pagan archaism, forms the foundational basis of colonialist ideology in its broadest sense. It rests upon myths of cultural (civilizational, racial, and national) superiority, which have shaped the fundamental cultural codes of the Protestant, particularly the secularist Protestant, West. These notions are critical for constructing the identity of historical Europeans, especially within the context of Anglo-American dominance. In contemporary times, individuals like Slobodan Milosevic, Muammar Gaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and entire nations such as the Serbians or Russians (which is much more tragic), are often cast as sacred victims, the enemies of the ruling world order, accused of real or perceived «crimes against humanity».
Over centuries, the mythological essence of racism has fostered a complex discourse that encompasses a diverse ideological spectrum, ranging from «the white man's burden» to the notion of «universal human values» and multiculturalist theories.
British imperialism, in particular, cultivated a central colonial discourse centered on the concept of the civilizing mission – a mission to «educate the peoples», famously encapsulated in Rudyard Kipling's phrase, «the white man's burden». This discourse embraced Enlightenment messianism, advocating for the civilizing of «savages» regardless of their consent. It was believed that European domination, external control, and interference in the affairs of colonies ultimately served a beneficial, 'civilizing', and educational purpose.
The colonialist doctrine of external, forced civilization was based on a blasphemous ideological and moral substitution. Within this framework, the notion of voluntary and peaceful Christianization, catechization, and spiritual enlightenment served as a facade to justify the violent military and political subordination and oppression of the rest of the world by Western capital centers. Unfortunately, this approach led to the rejection and devaluation of the European (Protestant and Catholic) Christian mission in the eyes of many countries and peoples, ultimately contributing to the West breaking with the Christian tradition.
The legal formalization of colonialist policy should be regarded through the lens of the concept of terra nullius («nobody's land»), which enabled Britain and other European nations on purportedly legal grounds to seize the lands of non-Christian peoples. Even during notorious legal proceedings in the United States in the twentieth century, plaintiffs from Indian tribes failed to abolish this principle and gain recognition that their lands had been seized illegally. It is noteworthy that in this scenario, there is a significant anti-Christian reversal of principles: colonization supplanting catechization.
Notable examples of racist policies include the suppression of sepoy rebellion in India and the opium wars in China. The civilizers genuinely believed that Indian, Native American, Chinese, and Black people were inferior in terms of rights and interests. In certain situations, however, even their Irish neighbors could be assigned the role of sacred victims, as seen during the religious wars in the 17th century when they were sold into slavery3.
One of the Enlightenment's key figures, the Englishman John Locke, renowned for his contributions to freedom philosophy, civil society theory, and the idea of a legal democratic state, paradoxically «participated as one of the era's major investors in the British slave trade. Furthermore, Locke provided a philosophical rationale for the colonists' appropriation of land from North American Indigenous peoples. His perspectives on economic slavery in contemporary scholarly discourse are interpreted either as a natural extension of Locke's anthropological views or as evidence of their internal contradictions»4.
Currently, a broad spectrum of racist ideologies, including national racist (Nazi) theories, is thoroughly documented. However, merely describing these theories does not significantly impact the ideological framework of social and cultural research, which remains predominantly shaped by liberalism and Atlanticism
Books like Pierre-André Taguieff's «Colour and Blood – Racist Doctrines à la Française»5, provide a comprehensive catalog of various racist ideologies in France. This includes concepts of the racist world order in France during the 19th and 20th centuries, such as ethno-racial nationalism, eugenic racism with socialist leanings, evolutionary racism, and social Darwinism. The latter two, as is evident, play a key role in modern neoliberal doctrine.
Research by Pierre-André Taguieff does not provide grounds to confine the concept of «twentieth-century racism» within national boundaries, as presenting it primarily as a German or pan-German phenomenon would itself be considered racist. Similarly, certain statements by Hannah Arendt in her «Origins of Totalitarianism», such as her pan-Slavic theory of communism, may sound racist.
However, it can be confidently asserted that the Anglo-Saxon world has been the most active proponent of racial superiority ideology. It was British colonial practices that served as the fertile ground for the development of racist theories.
In 1676, William Petty, in his book «Hypothesis of a Scale of Creatures», posited an insurmountable «difference in the structure of the mind of a European and an African». This was followed by William Tyson's 1708 essay «Orang-Outang, sive Homo Sylvestris: or, the Anatomy of a Pygmy», which shared similar ideological content. While these were among the earliest writings in the realm of racist theories, the inventor of such theories is officially recognized as Joseph Arthur de Gobineau (1816 – 1882). In 1850, Herbert Spencer's «Social Statistics» was published, which sought to justify colonization as a providential endeavor: «The forces which are working out the great scheme of perfect happiness, taking no account of incidental suffering, exterminate such sections of mankind as stand in their way»6.
It's worth noting Francis Galton, who incidentally was Charles Darwin's cousin. Galton laid the foundations of the infamous eugenics – the newest pseudoscientific doctrine aimed at the artificial selection of people to improve the human race and create an ideal race. Additionally, Karl Pearson deserves mention as the creator of the most radical, racist version of social Darwinism, which was based on the so-called biometrics. Lastly, James Hunt's 1863 report is significant, as the author defined blacks as an intermediate species between apes and humans.
It's also important to discuss Friedrich Ratzel's «Political Geography» (1897), wherein he asserted that Jews, Gypsies, and South Africans, as nomadic peoples, were deemed ineligible for rights similar to those of Europeans.
Historian Mikhail Magid, summarizing the insights of Professor Antonio Negri from the University of Padua, a prominent figure in the twentieth-century left movement, writes: «Colonial identity operated through the logic of exclusion... The narrative contrasted the attributes of the white, civilized, organized, and productive with those of the colored, natural, chaotic, inefficient, sensual, and wild. As noted by Algerian colonialism researcher Franz Fanon, ”the colonial world is a world split in two”. The colonized are excluded from the European space not only geographically, but also in terms of rights and freedoms, and even on the basis of their thinking, values, and life goals. They are depicted in the mindset of the colonizer as ”others”, relegated beyond the bounds of civilization. The construction of identity is founded on the principle of ”we – them” and hinges on the existence of a rigid border»7.
In this description, the foundation of a racist worldview is precisely delineated, against which social and economic liberalism serves as a necessary legitimizing superstructure.
At the next historical stage, in Hitler's Germany, colonialism manifested as racial and ethnic stratification, placing some European peoples in positions analogous to those previously experienced by peoples on the peripheries of the world. Adolf Hitler fully acknowledged the continuity of his views with those of his ideological predecessors, emphasizing: «I alone possess the ruthlessness necessary to accomplish my objectives, much like the British»8. Furthermore, just before the outbreak of World War II in 1939, he stated: «I admire the English people. They have done unbelievable things in the sphere of colonization»9, suggesting the need to replicate similar conquests, not in India, but in Russia10.
It is noteworthy that concurrently with the rise of Hitlerism in Germany, the «British Union of Fascists» emerged in England under the leadership of Sir Oswald Ernald Mosley, 6th Baronet, in 1932. This organization aimed to address perceived issues of the «weak and worthless» in a eugenic and Malthusian vein.
The communist movement of the last century represented an ultimately unsuccessful effort to dismantle the colonial underpinnings of liberal capitalism. While the USSR was formally built on modernist socialist concepts, at a deep level it tacitly drew upon traditional (communal) egalitarian archetypes ingrained in the Russian collective consciousness. Throughout the Soviet era, reconciling this contradiction proved to be a persistent challenge, culminating in the closure of the Soviet «project» orchestrated by the party elite and a subsequent period marked by effective colonization of the country.
However, despite the setback of the left-wing project, it's worth noting that ideological relics from the colonial era, such as «the white man's burden», «enculturation» and the notion of «civilizing savages», became obsolete just as leftist ideas began to gain traction in their authentic, non-globalist, liberal-style form. Influenced by both Marxist and non-Marxist leftist ideas, critiques of global inequality and social oppression transitioned to the discourse of political economy and the denunciation of global monopolies, which were perceived as perpetuating colonialism.
According to Immanuel Wallerstein, Russian socialism, unlike classical Marxism, developed the idea of national liberation under the guise of class confrontation, specifically advocating for the dismantling of the old colonial system on a global scale. The project originally emerged within the framework of the policy of US President Woodrow Wilson, later undergoing a second, socialist iteration. However, according to Wallerstein, «Leninism presumably represented a more strenuous and combative form of anti-colonialism than Wilsonianism»11.
Nazism, on the contrary, historically aimed against both the decolonization of the world and leftist activism that promoted such decolonization (such as the failed revolution in Germany, the «two red years» in Italy, the influence of the USSR, etc.), although liberal neo-Nazis tend to acknowledge only the latter antithesis. While the success of left-wing projects like the welfare state implemented in the twentieth century may be debatable, the dismantling of the world colonial system and the pursuit of popular democracy are undeniable achievements.
A similar situation is unfolding today, where colonialism takes on the guise of globalism in modern conditions, and decolonization manifests as deglobalization and a shift towards a multipolar world. It is noteworthy that this is currently occurring under the influence of objective crisis processes, rather than the influence of leftist forces. Most leftist forces have long been absorbed and neutralized by the liberal consensus, and those that remain, although retaining their independence, have lost much of their influence among the masses and have regressed to a marginal stage.
It is noteworthy that during the Cold War, both Soviet and American propaganda framed the conflict as a confrontation between «two systems», rather than «two cultures» or «two civilizations». This is not coincidental. The presence of a Soviet political alternative (regardless of assessments of the Soviet project itself) necessitated the use of a relatively «decent», sublimated language. After the end of the Cold War and the collapse of the Soviet bloc, the liberal mainstream reverted to the doctrine of overt colonialism rather than economically disguised colonialism. A vivid example of this is Samuel Huntington's concept of the «clash of civilizations». It was a reimagining of the discourse from the period of the British East India Company, during which the rhetoric of the «empire on which the sun never sets» was translated into the language of the socio-political ideologues of the new era.
The concept of a clash of civilizations aligned with a broader and enduring trend in the second half of the twentieth and early twenty-first centuries, during which cultural and civilizational forms of racism gained prominence. Instead of being labeled as «non-Christian», «backward», or «biologically inferior peoples», the status of scapegoat was assigned to the «enemies of world democracy». The category of «biologically inferior peoples» has been replaced by «closed totalitarian societies» and peoples who are deemed «defective» in civil-political terms. This trend became notably evident from 2014 onwards in Ukrainian policy towards the Russian minority, which was backed by the Anglo-American political class.
In such instances, the so-called unconventional actors who are deemed incapable of adhering to the standard political and legal norms prescribed by the Anglo-American hegemon, and thus purportedly espousing «totalitarian prejudices», become the primary targets of colonialist practices. These encompass various «enemies» of the global world order, including rogue states, «closed totalitarian societies» and nations purportedly lacking maturity in civil and political terms, individual «dictators», and at times individuals such as Julian Assange and Edward Snowden who have infringed upon Atlanticist interests.
New forms of racism proliferate under the banners of «civilized society», «open society», and «universal values». At the same time, it's evident that the victims of purges and filtration are indifferent to whether they are repressed in the name of racial purity or under the guise of «advanced civilization» and «democratic standards». Moreover, the «civilizational-ethnic» dichotomy within the framework of colonial policy is largely arbitrary. Immanuel Wallerstein argues that during economic recessions and contractions, entire nations are excluded from the global economy under the guise of being «ethnically inferior», and during periods of growth and expansion, some are «allowed back in». For instance, Hitler, for military and political purposes, was compelled to classify the Japanese as an «Aryan race», as they were supposed to be allies, despite contrary evidence from anthropology and ethnology.
Thus, even in the Third Reich, despite the sacralization of the racial principle, the criterion of civilization could sometimes take precedence over ethnicity.
It is also important not to overlook the phenomenon of «paternalistic colonialism» that emerged in the 19th century as an ideological replacement for military intervention. The latter hinders economic activity in dependent countries and reduces the size of colonial rent, thus sometimes making it less profitable for the economic center countries.
This phenomenon continued to develop in the 20th and 21st centuries, albeit in a neo-colonialist format. This gave rise to an orientalist discourse in culture, portraying a distorted image of the world's peripheries, imposed by political elites not only on Western audiences but also on the peripheries themselves – in particular, exaggerated forms of «patriarchy» on one hand and Westernization on the other. Usually, these images aim to supplant ideas related to the internal, inherent evolution of peripheral countries and their «own way of modernization».
This practice is related to the fact that the interests of Western elites often require maintaining an indefinite, intermediate status of the «periphery» – that is, the status of the East as «not quite Western». This very status ensures trouble-free extraction of civilizational rent and the export of capital and resources. Assimilation, therefore, should neither cease nor reach a logical conclusion. In such a world, the separated parts are nearly at arm's length from each other. Instead of the adage «East is East, and West is West, and never the twain shall meet», we find ourselves in a situation where these two worlds cannot definitively converge nor completely diverge.
This cultural hegemony is established by imposing upon the Other (the global East or the global South) a fabricated image, deliberately constructed to fit within the Western colonial paradigm. A notable example of this practice is evident in present-day Ukraine.
The intensification of this approach was observed as early as the 1960s, following a surge of interest in orientalism. Today, there is a renewed interest in orientalism, wherein the West constructs a notion of a «global East» by employing concepts such as the «world of regions» and «local identities» within the framework of contemporary regionalism.
The issue of simulated cultural images of Orientalism and their politicization is explored in the works of Antonio Negri, Samir Amin, and Edward Said. Edward Said discusses the «false image of the East» and Western oriental studies as an imperial discursive practice. He argues that «Orientalism was often seen as a voice of the oppressed, representing the downtrodden of the world who suddenly started speaking, rather than as a multiculturalist and critical analysis of authorities using knowledge to expand their influence. Thus, as an author, I fulfilled my prescribed role: to represent what had previously been suppressed and distorted in scientific texts, which historically addressed not the peoples of the East, but the West itself»12.
This is how neocolonialism operates in a «complex, changing world».
2024 ãîä
