“These walls tell a story of the past, of the present day, but above all of a bright future”, the leader of an Italian far-right movement told me, commenting on the posters hanging around his movement’s headquarter, located in the residential area of Florence. During our short tour of the venue, my interlocutor talked to me about a series of initiatives and pointed to the things which, at least at first glance, gave the impression that activism performed by his movement are “all about the past”. We looked at the collection of books about fascism, photos documenting work at the cemeteries from the Second World War, and black and white illustrations from Dante’s Divine Comedy adorning one of the walls. I listened to the accounts of the encounters with war veterans and on the work that the activists carry out in a foundation documenting the period of fascism.
However, the activists I researched stubbornly rejected the suggestion that they were past-oriented. Even more so, they would draw the distinction between themselves and the people active in communist associations to emphasize that, contrary to the communists, they have a vision for the future. One of the members said when describing the veterans with whom the movement works in the foundation mentioned above:
“The fascists who lived the war – the living ones, the last ones – are not at all nostalgic. They have never been (…) They are not at all nostalgic; they are and they have always been oriented toward the future. Instead, antifascists, communists, partisans – they are super nostalgic because they don’t have any alternative – they don’t offer anything, so they have nothing to relate to. Their behaviours are simply archaic.”
In my short contribution, I draw on this statement to reflect on a few issues. Firstly, while not taking my research participants’ self-portrayal at face value, I ask how to understand the far right’s claims about the future. Secondly, I consider how their understanding(s) of the future relate to the notions of progress, modernity or development. Finally, since fascism and fascists constitute an inspiration for the milieus I have been studying, I ask if and why it is useful to refer to fascist conceptions of time in order to try to comprehend the far right today.
This paper draws on the ethnographic research on far-right youth movements active in several European countries (Pasieka 2024). Due to space constraints, I offer here only a very brief comparative sketch. The groups I have been studying strongly emphasize their identity as movements, as grassroots communities which differ from political parties. Their membership varies considerably, with some groups having a few dozen members to those having a few hundred. The members’ demographic background also varies, in that the movements seem to attract young people from all walks of life, who engage in a variety of initiatives: from concerts of musicians associated with far-right milieus and joint watching of football to charity actions and cultural events. In terms of ideology, they are all ultra-nationalist, and emphasize the importance of Christian heritage and traditional gender roles. Anti-Semitic and anti-Muslim rhetoric is widespread, and numerous activists were successfully prosecuted in court due to violent rhetoric and physical violence (occurring especially during demonstrations and rallies).
While the question of violence is of great importance, it is important to note that all the movements have been undergoing the process of what they themselves refer to as “de-skinization” – to “polish” their public image and because they realized that a soup kitchen for the poor might be a better recruitment pool than the football stadium. Given that the scholarship on the far right tends to focus on political parties, I was often asked what is important about the small milieus that I have been studying; to which I have consistently answered that my study makes evident why certain forms of activism and certain ideas appeal to the contemporary youth. In light of this issue’s theme/journal’s profile, it is worth adding that the groups I have studied are deeply rooted in the urban realities they inhabit and simultaneously express longing for a “reconnection” with nature and tend to idealize rural life against the frenziness of the city. Henceforth, the calendar of their activities features both work in the poor neighbourhoods and degraded urban peripheries and weekend communitarian hikes in the mountains; and what connects them is a strong emphasis on roots and belonging.
In order to comprehend the kind of activism these movements are pursuing, it is necessary to begin with the premise – crucial when we take into account the far right’s vision(s) of the future – that there is no single far-right ideology. Nowadays, the term “far right” includes both proponents of an unlimited free market and socialism, privatization and state-ownership, and low and high taxation. Even if we consider that the far right tends to be illiberal or anti-liberal, we need to recognize that liberalism sometimes refers to a liberal democratic system, a neoliberal economy or ideas about gender, morality or the role of religion. In short, there is no ideological consistency among the parties and movements we tend to dub “far right”, even if what they appear to have in common is a tendency to justify their policies and socio-economic agenda based on nationalism and national belonging. The movements I have been studying oppose both capitalism and communism, finding a sort of third way ideology in radical nationalism and fascism; they also oppose liberalism tout court, liberalism understood in terms of a political, economic and moral system.
The far right’s rejection of liberalism is undoubtedly a common argument in the literature. However, such discussions tend to focus on specific aspects of liberalism. Studies on far-right political leaders – be it Donald Trump, Victor Orbán or Jair Bolsanaro – tend, for example, to emphasize the destruction of the rule of law and democratic institutions, i.e. the challenge that such a politics constitute for the very idea of liberal democracy. Scholars focusing on the so-called “pro-life movements” and the rise of Christian nationalism perceive them as attacks on the liberal idea of freedom. Finally, numerous works have held neoliberalism to be responsible for the rise of the far right: the key focus here is on dispossessed, disenfranchised citizens who embrace far-right promises due to a resentment and disillusionment with the capitalist system and treat nationalism as a new source of social cohesion (once the working-class identity has lost this capacity).
However, distinguishing between different aspects of liberalism appears nonsensical to my research participants. While it may sound surprising, in outlining their agenda, they seem to echo the conversation between Nancy Fraser and Rahel Jaeggi, in which the two philosophers challenge the idea of approaching capitalism in purely economic terms (Fraser/Jaeggi 2023). They note that capitalism ought to be seen as a system, an order of things, in a way similar to what feudalism was, for example. This view similarly mirrors the opinion of Douglas Holmes, who, in his path-breaking account on “fast capitalism” and the growth of the far right, emphasized that a globalized economic regime ought to be seen as a chain of “ethical, moral and social maneuvers” (Holmes 2000: 11).
In considering our discussion here, this “holistic” take on capitalism and liberalism has two main implications. The first one looks at the language of crisis that dominates in the debates on the far right. Recent years have brought a wealth of works addressing the “rise” of the far right. While rich in insights on the contemporary far-right scene, such works often fall short of adequately acknowledging that the nationalist, far-right alternative has been growing, albeit with different dynamics, for decades – as fascism did over a century ago. As Holmes demonstrates, it has been developing with a renewed force since capitalism became naturalized as the order, and was eagerly promoted not only by the pro-market right but also the left, which, as Fraser puts it, simply proposed “progressive neoliberalism”. In challenging the discourse which sees the rise of the far right as a (sudden) rupture and anomaly, and a solution – a return to normal, i.e. the earlier status quo – such an approach forces us, likewise, to reconsider the notion of crisis.
Jaeggi (2023) claims in her recent work that societies do not have a goal but solve problems, and she sees progress as a cumulative process of problem-solving and experimentation. Inspired by this viewpoint, Johann Braun and Anke Schwarz (2025) ask about the far right’s ways of crisis-solving and ideas on how to fix the crisis-ridden present. In light of my ethnographic work, I would like to propose an albeit different reading. One of the things that surprised me in my encounters with far-right activists was a frequently articulated claim that they “do not have an answer yet”, or that they are still looking for an answer or considering what to do. Such a response appeared when I asked them about a variety of things: political reforms, climate-related policies, and even contemporary military conflicts. This is why I refer to them as querists. I draw here inspiration from Holly Case’s book The age of questions (2018), in which she analyzes a series of nineteenth-century “questions” (such as the woman question, the social question, the Jewish question, etc.) and contrasts the posing of questions with the resolution of crises. The notion of the question indicates ambiguity. On the one hand, it encompasses the very act of pondering, asking and exploring that I just emphasized. On the other hand, as Case notes, inhabitants of nineteenth-century Europe who asked questions (“querists”) were “allergic to the present”, wanted change but were not necessarily progressive, and demanded definitive solutions. In short, question indicates a tension between the past and the future, the answers that are known and desired and those that are still to be explored. We can also see that the far-right way of asking “questions”, in this understanding, is situated somewhere in between Jaeggi’s reading of progress (understood as collective experimentation) and regress (understood as unlearning).
The second implication regards one of the answers the far-right activists propose to the question, with the key question for them being the liberal question. Radical nationalism – understood as a socio-political project linking nationalist claims with anti-communist and -capitalist rhetoric – is seen by them as the best response to the global order. In rejecting liberal tout court, they see radical nationalism as a project that offers an alternative: economic order, ethical framework, view of the social and, last but not least, temporality.
Numerous activists speak not only about radical nationalism but about its specific variant, fascism, which we can define, after George Mosse, as a revolutionary radical nationalism. As mentioned earlier, far-right activists reject the claim that they mimic or want to restore fascism. They emphasize that fascism is a source of inspiration but nothing more, as it does not fit contemporary circumstances, and, as such, cannot be copied. What is it that they find inspiring and how do they make fascism speak to the future?
I have mentioned above that the groups I have been studying foreground their identity as movements and communities. It is, thus, far from surprising that when talking about fascism as inspiration, they refer to similar milieus from the interwar era. Indeed, the key reference for contemporary movements is the “Romanian Legion of Archangel Michael”, led by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu. The legionary movement was an ultra-nationalist organization which connected inspirations from Orthodox mysticism with anti-Semitism and violence against political opponents. It strongly emphasized the necessity for the Romanian society to be “reborn” and was very active in local communities, gaining a lot of popularity in the countryside and at the universities alike.
Codreanu’s diary and book about the legionary movement occupy a prominent place in each headquarters, including the one I described in the introduction. Activists eagerly repeat Codreanu’s claims and the familiarity with Codreanu’s texts tends to be a precondition for becoming a member of the movement. There are many reasons behind the fascination with this undoubtedly charismatic figure and his followers. My research participants emphasise, first and foremost, legionaries’ grassroots, “hands-on” approach and spirituality, which other fascist movements supposedly lack. Codreanu’s influence is likewise visible in the activists’ critique of corrupt urban life vis-à-vis idealised countryside. Codreanu is also often considered a “safe” reference, given that he died in 1938, before the horrors of the Second World War (that said, calling him a safe reference may be seen as paradoxical, considering the virulent anti-Semitism of his movement and their ideas, including those on urban life). For the purpose of the argument I develop in this paper, I find Codreanu’s and the legionary movement’s idea of time and nation to be central.
As Raul Carstocea demonstrates, the legionary movement translated the nation into an “atemporal mythical projection that spanned past, present and future” (2015: 79 ff.). My research participants would frequently tell me that Codreanu carried a small pouch containing Romanian soil around his neck and they would quote Codreanu’s statement that the nation comprises “all the Romanians presently alive, all the souls of the dead and the graves of the ancestors, and all those who will be born Romanians” (Codreanu quoted in Carstocea 2015: 84). Their fascination, if not obsession with this statement – the statement featuring not only the past-present-future connection but also the emphasis on the ancestral bonds and ancestral territory – made it easier for me to understand why they manage to successfully tie together a variety of forms of activism, making it clear that “it’s not all about the past” and, first of all, making them attractive to numerous young people.
Cherishing dead soldiers, visiting the cemeteries and marching with torches – the activities that we tend to see in the mass media – may, at first sight at least, put these claims into question. Yet, these celebrations of the past are an integral part of a broader agenda of the groups studied: projects of social assistance, educational and sport activities, campaigns targeting the defence of the “traditional family”, “pro-life” and persecuted Christians. They are not treated as a preoccupation with the past as opposed to an orientation towards today/the future; instead, “past” and “present” are carefully linked, enabling the leaders to cast the various forms of present-day activism as a “natural” continuation of work performed by their ancestors, with whom they are connected through blood and inhabited territory. My ethnographic observations and conversations with far-right militants confirm that they find it convincing and mobilizing for action, because the way this “past and present connection” is established addresses the varied concerns young people have today: concerns regarding unemployment and finding dignifying work, promises of a stable future, being active and bringing about a change.
In foregrounding the role of the community and grassroots work, the activists I researched persistently emphasised the legionary movement’s attempt to establish a parallel temporality. Put differently, a parallel temporality is established via a parallel society: a tight community of activists who venerate their movement and claim to find in it a “refuge” from the modern world and a recipe for the future, and a community that can become a model for a broader society. The foundation of this variant of the far right’s critique of liberalism is thus a view of an alternative temporality and an alternative society, a society which, while rooted in a concrete space/territory, needs to “unlearn” certain ways to move on; or, in Jaeggi’s words, which make some forms of regress a precondition of progress.
In the wake of Donald Trump’s second electoral victory, a New York Times journalist wrote: “No longer can the political establishment write off Trump as a temporary break from the long march of progress.” (Baker 2024) It took the second election to realize that it is hard to think about the far right as a sort of temporary problem or a sudden crisis. Instead, an understanding of the far-right growth and electoral victories is contingent upon comprehending that we cannot reduce the far right to an obsession with the past, to regressive thinking, as we cannot reduce the far-right view of the future to one, homogenous vision.
In escaping the label of backward-looking, my Italian research participants criticize passatisti (indicating people adopting an unreflective orientation to the past), contrasting them with futuristi (which they unsurprisingly associate with fascism). They do so to emphasize that their idea of history has nothing to do with sentimentalism and blind obedience to tradition. While it would be simplistic to take the far-right self-portrait at face value, it is clear that numerous people find the far-right future(s) inspiring. And what might be difficult to accept for anyone struggling to dismantle the far-right plans for the future is the recognition of some affinities in what the far right and the left diagnoses as urgent problems – if we consider the critique of neoliberalism, for example – even if the solutions offered might be diametrically different. Perhaps, then, it is our vision of the future than needs to be bolder. And perhaps, to paraphrase Jaeggi, we need not only to solve problems but also have a goal.