until Hitler’s invasion of the Soviet Union) led the way in metingrnout rough justice to “collabos” in areas freed of Germanrncontrol. During this “epuration” thousands lost their lives, andrnmany more suffered public humiliation, like being beaten andrnspat upon or, in the case of women thought to be fraternizingrnwith the enemy, having their heads shaved. Similar ghasdy displaysrnoccurred in Italy, particularly in liberated Rome in Junern1944; and a feature stor)’ in Corriere della Sera in April 1995 describesrnone such anti-fascist bloodletting. This strage engulfedrnthe innocent and not very guilty as well as those who may havernaided the occupying German army, and it was carried outrnagainst hundreds of Italians with the connivance of the Gommitteernof National Liberation, which was in charge of organizingrnthe post-fascist government. Even more ominously, millionsrnof Eastern Europeans were killed, imprisoned, orrndeported between 1945 and 1948, as Stalin tightened his griprnon the region in the name of “anti-fascism.” In view of the ugly,rnbloody histor}’ attached to digging up and concocting profascistrndossiers, it is understandable that the French were longrnreluctant to renew the post-liberation witch-hunt of 1944-45.rnIn interwar Europe, fascist and quasi-fascist movements flourished,rna situation that has attracted considerable scholarly attention.rnHistorians have debated the differences and overlapsrnamong fascist groups: whether, for example, the GermanrnNazis, who claimed some affinity with European fascism, werernrepresentative fascists, or whether the Nazis were more likernStalinist totalitarians, as suggested by George Watson, RobertrnConquest, and Stanley Payne. Latin fascists like Jose AntoniornPrimo de Rivera and Giovanni Bottai did not have either the totalitarianrnagenda or the anti-Semitic fixation of Hitler and hisrnlieutenants. Those fascists spoke for national revolutionaryrnmovements that left their mark on non-Latins as well: bothrnblack nationalist Marcus Garvey and revisionist Zionist ZevrnJabotinsky were strongly drawn to the Italian national revolution,rnidentified with Mussolini. Well into the 1930’s (Renzo dernFelice has shown in his dissertation), the Zionist right both expressedrnadmiration for and sought favor with the Duce. He, inrnturn, granted Jabotinsky’s followers the right to build a navy atrnGenoa for a future Jewish state.rnIsraeli francophone historian Zeev Sternhell has written copiouslyrnon the background of the Latin fascism that came of agernin the 1920’s. Looking at the “founding generation” of thinkersrnand activists concerned with bourgeois decadence and the irrationalrnsources of power and social actions, Sternhell traces backrnto the late 19th century a revolutionary force that was “neitherrnleft nor right” in any traditional sense. It also combined varyingrndegrees of economic collectivism with a belief in hierarchy andrna vivid sense of the national past.rnUnlike Sternhell, German intellectual historian Ernst Nolterndownplays the anti-bourgeois aspect of fascist movements.rnRather, he focuses on their role as a bulwark of bourgeois civilizationrnin the face of the social ferment following World WarrnI. For all their invective against the liberal capitalist order, insistsrnNolte, fascists were essentially bourgeois opponents of thernrevolutionary left. The movements they created were “counterrevolutionaryrnimitations of Bolshevism” that drew their idealsrnfrom a folkish past.rnWliile Nolte may indeed understate the revolutionar’ thrustrnof some interwar fascist movements, he is correct to stress theirrnbourgeois component. Fascist leaders and thinkers were recruitedrnfrom the business and professional classes, and Italianrnbourgeois liberals such as Vilfredo Pareto, Luigi Einaudi, andrnGino Olivetti generally gave Mussolini the benefit of the doubt,rnat least in the 20’s. The major proto-fascist movement in earlyrn20th-century France, Action Frangaise, nimibered many professionals,rnparticularly physicians, in its ranks. And faced by arnchoice between restive socialists and clerical fascists in Austriarnin the 1930’s, classical liberal economist Ludwig von Misesrnquickly made his peace with the clericalist imitator of Italianrnfascism, Engelbert Dollfuss.rnDespite this bourgeois and occasionally reactionar)- directionrntaken by interwar fascism, its reforming image also appealedrnto some on the left. Most signifieantiy, American advocatesrnof an expanded welfare state followed English and Frenchrnsocialists in holding up Mussolini’s Italy as a political model. Inrnthe 1920’s, the New Republic published essay after essay by,rnamong other contributors, Horace Kallen and Herbert Groly,rnpraising Mussolini’s socialist zeal. Mussolini and Fascism: ThernView from America by J.P. Diggins treats this love affair thatrnlarge parts of the American left had with fascism, seen as anrnanti-capitalist, revolutionary force and as a nationalist variationrnon Marxist-Leninism.rnThis romance, however, was supplanted by an implacablernhate, which has characterized the left’s relation to fascism everrnsince. While there certainly are explanations for this hate, includingrnthe reasons most often given—that all fascism came tornbe identified, rightiy or wrongly, with Nazism, which producedrnthe holocaust—the standard explanation is not entirely convincing.rnMass murder is not a moral problem for much of thernleft. When the communists undertook this experiment in Russiarnand Maoist China, journalists and academics tried to lookrnthe other way. Afterwards, they urged (and continue to urge)rn”healing” in dealing with commimist killers and their accomplices,rnin order that we might get on with the unfinished businessrnof atoning for right-wing oppression. Such ideologuesrnhere and in Europe do not wish to be diverted by the fact ofrncommunist genocide from dealing with the apparently real enemy,rnanyone thought to have been passively as well as activelyrnimplicated in fascist crimes. It is therefore not even worthy ofrnnote that at the end of World War II, Truman, Churchill, andrnAnthony Eden all collaborated in returning hundreds of thousandsrnof Eastern Europeans to Stalin’s rule and certain death,rnin Operation Keelhaul. Such behavior, which barely amountsrnto a footnote in most histories of the war, would seem to makernthe alleged crimes of Subprefect Papon pale by comparison.rnIt is no longer clear what fascism was or is, save for an extensionrnof Hitlerism into the present. This extended Hitlerismrnis imagined to be behind every political or religious movementrnthat is guilty of political incorrectness, from anti-immigrationistsrnto homeschoolers and evangelical Christians. Meanwhile,rnthe holocaust, as depicted in the New York Times and LernMonde, has been revised to exaggerate the sufferings of homosexualsrn(fewer than 5,000 died directly or indirectly owning tornNazi mistreatment) and to include the entirely fictitious afflictionsrnof lesbians. This is consistent with revised definitions ofrnfascism that make it synonymous with homophobia, sexism,rnand general insensitivit)-. As a proclaimed effort to combat suchrninsensitivit)’ and to expiate the national part, the German Bundestagrnhas decided to have two separate monuments erected tornhomosexual and lesbian victims of the Nazi regime.rnIn the language of Critical Theory, “fascism” and “anti-fascism”rnhave been instrumentalized. From being a failed modelrn14/CHRONICLESrnrnrn