We are not talking about a third way in fascism, we are talking, as the title of your book says, about an authoritarian third way in an era marked by fascism. What other ways does Salazarism differ?
The period between the two wars was a very important dictatorial political laboratory. The dictatorship that most characterized the post-war right-wing dictatorships was Italian fascism. And he was influential in the German National Socialist Party in the beginning. Italian fascism created institutions, namely three central ones: the personalization of power and the charismatic leader, the single party of a revolutionary type, and the corporate system with a new model of relations between capital and work. For example the Letter from Lavoro of Italian Fascism, is the most quoted document in industrial relations of all the dictatorships of the era of Fascism. That said, German National Socialism has undergone a remarkable evolution, and so for the conservative elites of Europe between the two wars, the model of Salazar in the 1930s emerged, but not the result of any propaganda effort. Salazarism was a small regime in terms of international impact, but it created a set of institutions that conservative elites were very sympathetic to.
However, as a clearly right-wing regime, does it not have the revolutionary side of Italian fascism, nor does it resemble the extremism of German hypernationalism?
Precisely. It doesn’t have the radical aspect, it has a dictator who is elitist, college professor, Catholic, and has a constitution that tries to combine liberal elements with authoritarian elements. We already know that the liberals were eliminated by decree and that authoritarianism prevails, but the Portuguese Constitution of 1933 is concerned. Moreover, it is not a political regime of mass mobilization. This creates segments of the traditional Catholic elites in Latin America, citing Salazar’s model that is tastier than Italian fascism, which has an overly radical image. In a way, this is why I wrote this book, because while I was writing about Latin American dictatorships at New York University, I began to see that the conservative and reactionary Catholic press was spending their lives citing of Salazar’s example. And I collected examples from Chile, Colombia, Argentina, Brazil and other countries. I then thought of doing a collective work with a group of social scientists from different countries. To my surprise, this perception and citation of Salazar’s model was much bigger than I thought.
Is it not only in Latin America that Salazar is attracting, but also in Europe?
Exactly, that is, even in occupied Europe. The dictatorship of King Carol of Romania cites Salazar’s model as an example to follow. We already knew that the Vichy conservatives were admirers of Salazarism. But we didn’t know, for example, that when Nazi Germany invaded Denmark, a group of conservative ideologues and businessmen had proposed to the king – something that is denied – an authoritarian regime according to some of the principles of Salazarism. This was not known. The same can be said of the Baltic dictatorships. And Slovakia in the midst of the Second World War, whose constitution was partly inspired by the constitution of Salazarism. The model of Salazarism was used by local political elites as a tastier model to bring together the authoritarian right than Italian fascism.
If you say tasty, does the image of Salazar that he is an academic and not wearing a uniform, like Mussolini or Hitler much? Was it a model that conservative elites often identified with?
Precisely. Salazar is a harbinger of the conservative technocratic dictator model. He happened to be Catholic, but he could be Orthodox or Protestant, that is, cultivating the values of tradition, nationalism and, in a sense, the anti-revolutionary right.
In a sense, when you talk about this authoritarian third way, are you reading about the old controversy of whether Salazar was a fascist or not?
No I am not. Let me say that I think it is currently worth talking about the era of fascism and right-wing dictatorships, almost all of which were influenced by Italian fascism. Italian fascism was the matrix and many other dictators will seek and adjust institutions.
And it is known that Salazar was an admirer of Mussolini.
Yes, this is beyond dispute. Mocidade Portuguesa and Legião Portuguesa are institutions typically inspired by Italian fascism. The National Labor Statute itself copies the principles of the Letter from Lavoro. I believe the debate about fascism or non-fascism has lost some of its meaning, it’s too technical. But what’s interesting to note is that, deep down, Italian fascism was a source of proliferation of authoritarian institutions in Europe between the two wars. However, National Socialism was not, it had very little influence on other dictatorships. Salazarism, largely because it was consolidated in the 1930s, has been a positive model for conservative intellectuals in the Catholic Church. And the Catholic Church was very important in popularizing Catholic politicians in, say, Uruguay, using the Salazarist model to demarcate Italian fascism and its more radical image. Especially when, with the Axis, Italian fascism begins to merge with German National Socialism, with all its racist dimensions, and on its way to the world war.
In the specific case of Brazil and Getúlio Vargas, a man of authoritarianism, but who is at that moment in the Second World War with the Americans and sends troops to Europe to fight Nazis and fascists. Are you also inspired by Salazar?
Getúlio Vargas does not have the origin of Salazar. He is a republican politician of the oligarchic elites of Brazil. It’s pragmatic, but the 1937 Constitution is partly inspired by Salazar’s dictatorship. As one of your ideologues would say, our institutions are your Portuguese business rooms. There is an intense dialogue between authoritarian Portuguese lawyers, namely Marcello Caetano, and the lawyers who will frame Getúlio Vargas’ Estado Novo. The identity between the two regimes is great and Getúlio Vargas will never be a pro-fascist in the classic sense of the word. And allow me to point out that it is more a demand of the national political elites of the tastiest model, to legitimize themselves, than actually an effect of Salazar’s propaganda.
This tasty aspect of Salazar and this appeal of Salazarism as a model stems from this era of fascism, but doesn’t it exist after 1945?
Interestingly, both Francoism and Salazarism exercised a new type of dictatorial political legitimacy in the post-war period. They’re trying to be what they called “organic democracies.” Segments of conservative elites sometimes refer to Salazarism, but the positive image of Salazarism ends with the Second World War, also among Catholic and conservative elites. For the very Christian corporatism of which Salazar was so proud is also associated with the era of fascism. As an authoritarian Colombian politician said in 1950, “We are going to try to establish a corporate regime, but we will end up with the name associated with fascism.”
A comparison was made with Salazar, in 2015, when PIS and Jaroslaw Kaczynski won in Poland. This allusion to Salazar had two components: the politician’s Catholic conservatism and the commitment to the state, not being married. Isn’t that the same thing we’re talking about here?
It is not the same, because here we are mainly talking about the model of political institutions, but there is no doubt that Salazar as an austere leader, theoretically committed to the nation, non-corrupt and with conservative values, was often cited at the time . And it continued to be quoted after that, no wonder there could be such a reference. In fact, I can tell you that Francis Fukuyama mentioned him not long ago when he came to Portugal, about how the ultra-conservative American neo-Christian press still exemplifies Salazar as the good regime.
Source: DN
