The fascist order

The chapter examines various historical examples through the theories of Georges Sorel; Sorel considered the Syndicates first and foremost the example of a violent revolutionary elite, the bearer of myth and herald of innovation. The Syndicate was thus the first structural consolidation of the “Sorelian” order. As a proletarian order, it had to keep its distance from the bourgeoisie, just as the isolated monasteries and convents preserved Catholicism in its confrontation with Protestantism. ¹ Sorel became more concrete in regard to revolutionary issues than he had been before the war. ² He ascribed great importance to military or paramilitary organizations and looked forward to the appearance of a “Cromwellian” army of devoted revolutionaries. He began to think in terms of the consolidation of power by military means. For example, he strengthened his conception of the leader after becoming acquainted with the Action Francaise, and he learned about the problems of Russia, the giant that awakened in the shadow of the October Revolution. Sorel began to consider the future, shifting his concepts of myth, the elite and violence from the revolutionary movement to the post-revolutionary order.