Fascism(s) modernized? The oblique relationship of historical fascism with the extreme right

Abstract

This article addresses the issue of how historical fascisms relate to the political space occupied today by far-right movements. The analysis takes as its axis the book Ellos los fascistas. La banalización del fascismo y la crisis de la democracia, by the historians Javier Rodrigo and Maximiliano Fuentes, to delve into the elements of historical fascisms that we can, today, find “modernized” in extreme right movements. It also explores the Spanish case, arguing that even if we cannot call the Francoist regime fascist for its entire duration, it was a regime that oscillated between fascistization and defascistization.