Paper short abstract:

I argue that in the case of post-socialist fascism -- climaxing in Putin´s aggression towards Ukraine -- we have to analyse autochtonous reactionary origin of fascism in terms of a historical cultural economy and institunalisation of democracy that predates the crisis of neoliberal capitalism.

Paper long abstract:

Following the call by Douglas Holmes (2019) for analysing fascism in and of our times, I question Lilith Mahmut´s (2020) cross-cultural applicability of fascism’s roots in liberalism and the relevance of radical left as a democratic alternative to this fascism. By comparing her Italian analysis of spectral fascism with my research on cultural economy of protest in East Central Europe (Buzalka 2021), I show the origins of village fascism in and of our postsocialist times developed under state-socialist mass society by the absence of historical liberalism and continues to rise by the apparent weakness of liberalism. The historical and present unimportance of the miniscule anti-fascist left in offering a feasible democratic alternative vis-à-vis fascism applies for most of Eastern Europe. I argue that in the case of post-socialist fascism -- climaxing in Putin´s reactionary regime´s imperialist aggression towards democratic Ukraine -- we have to analyse autochtonous reactionary origin of fascism in terms of a historical cultural economy and institunalisation of democracy that predates the ephemeral crisis of neoliberal capitalism. In other words, if there is liberalism expected to be one of the sources of spectral fascism in post-socialist Europe, it first needs to be proven that this liberalism has been existing and/or has been playing a significant role in this spectrum. I would argue further that the anti-fascist anthropology in/of postsocialist Europe would likely to have a progressive populist flavor.