Feb 6 1934/Jan 6 2021: What Do The Two Events Really Have In Common?

[Nevilledog]

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Chris Hayes
@chrislhayes
This is such good, lucid, careful historical writing. Have been enjoying all of it.

Feb 6 1934/Jan 6 2021
What Do The Two Events Really Have In Common?
johnganz.substack.com
8:08 PM · Jul 15, 2021

https://johnganz.substack.com/p/feb-6-1934jan-6-2021

Shortly after January 6, I exchanged a few emails with Robert Paxton, author of The Anatomy of Fascism, asking him his opinion about what happened. A long time skeptic of the idea that Trump was a fascist phenomenon, the events of January 6 appeared to have changed his mind. In particular, he made the comparison—made by others in subsequent days—between the January 6 riots and the attempt by far-right leagues and military veterans to storm the Chamber of Deputies in Paris on February 6 1934.

This comparison appealed to me immediately, because I’ve thought for a long time the French Third Republic was a more interesting and productive place to look for parallels to the present than the Weimar Republic or post-World War I Italy. First of all, because the history is less well known in the United States, so its details and particularities wouldn’t be quickly subject to caricature. Second, because France had a much longer democratic and republican culture and tradition, which the far-right had to contend with or co-opt. And third, partly because of that tradition, there is a great deal of ambiguity and debate over whether the term “fascist” is even an appropriate name for the French far right, just as there is now in the United States.

A detailed look at the political crises of the Third Republic was one of the reasons I started this blog and to that end I’ve written a series on the Dreyfus Affair as well as the crisis of the 1930s culminating in the Feb 6 1934 riots. I’m considering continuing the series through the Popular Front years and up to Vichy, but I thought it might be worthwhile to pause and make an explicit comparison between the present day and the Third Republic, something I have only implied so far.

“Diverse” Crowds

So, just how similar were Feb 6 1934 and Jan 6 2021? Starting somewhat superficially, it has to be admitted that there is an eerie parallelism: both involve a far-right mob with many military veterans attempting to to storm the legislative branch that was in the process of recognizing a new administration.

*snip*

[First Speaker]

1. There's a great description of this event in Shirer's "Berlin Diary"...

...I've been fascinated with it ever since. Shirer was a remarkable man, on the scene of virtually every major event in 30s Europe...

[3Hotdogs]

2. And don't forget Prescott Bush's effort to take over the U.S. government during FDR's admin.

That plot was thwarted by General Smedley Butler. The plot was covered in the New York Times for about 3 days. Then crickets.


Prescott, by the way, was G. W. Bush's grandpappy and GHW's pappy.

Fine lineage.

[uponit7771]

3. K&R, too many people think post like this are hyperbole