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A. James Gregor
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The Faces of Janus: Marxism and Fascism in the Twentieth Century Hardcover – January 11, 2000

by A. James Gregor (Author)
4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 23 ratings
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This book challenges the long-held position that Marxism and Fascism are antithetical political philosophies. Unfortunately this misconception has left us without a coherent understanding of the revolutionary history of the twentieth century. Recent study has suggested there are many more similarities between the two ideologies than originally thought. The book traces that relationship by following the progressive decay of Marxist theory over seven decades as it devolves into a variant of Fascism.
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  1. Print length
    256 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publisher
    Yale University Press
  4. Publication date
    January 11, 2000
  5. Dimensions
    6.5 x 0.75 x 9.75 inches
  6. ISBN-10
    0300078277
  7. ISBN-13
    978-0300078275
  8. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

The Roman god Janus represents beginnings and endings, the gateway to all knowledge. Gregor (political science, Univ. of California, Berkeley; Phoenix: Fascism in Our Time), who has written extensively on fascism, takes issue with 20th-century historians who make fascism and communism the opposing faces of Janus. OCLC WorldCat indicates the availability of over 600 works on fascism in the 1990s, but Gregor is the first to use Marxist theory systematically to bend the political spectrum from a linear to a circular form. That is, fascism and communism meld into each other. Fascism had its origins in communism, and communism exhibited facets of fascism from its inception. Since the Soviet empire broke up, its logical course is toward fascism. The real political spectrum Gregor sees is democratic and nondemocratic: "The fact is that what is now spoken of as 'communofascism' and 'Stalinofascism' serves as testimony to affinities long recognized by those who have refused to place the revolutions of the twentieth century on a continuum from Left to Right." Gregor uses the repetition of key points to convince his audience but uses subtle changes in each new chapter to move his argument forward in small increments. Recommended for all political science collections, this book supplements The Black Book of Communism (LJ 11/1/99).
-Harry V. Willems, Southeast Kansas Lib. Syst., Iola
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Yale University Press; First Edition (January 11, 2000)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 256 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0300078277
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0300078275
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 1.08 pounds
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6.5 x 0.75 x 9.75 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.9 4.9 out of 5 stars 23 ratings

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A. James Gregor

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4.9 out of 5 stars
23 global ratings

Top reviews from the United States

James J. Bjaloncik
5.0 out of 5 stars Exceptional Comparison of Two Totalitarian Political Concepts
Reviewed in the United States on January 30, 2018
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Professor Gregor's book is probably the most highly illuminating text on the comparison of Marxism and Fascism that I have come across. The parallels of the two over the time period starting at the beginning of the 20th Century are startling. Mussolini, essentially the Father of Fascism, was a socialist, and Fascism was his vision and version of socialism. The book covers both political concepts, compares and contrasts them, and finds them, much like the cover image, to be two sides of the same coin. It also looks very closely at the history of fascism and communism, especially what went on in the former Soviet Union over the decades it held sway.
3 people found this helpful
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Hale
5.0 out of 5 stars Another Gregor classic
Reviewed in the United States on September 7, 2019
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Professor Gregor has made a career of proving that communism and fascism have the same intellectual roots. They are both forms of totalitarianism. Castro and Mao should bot be preferred to Hitler and Mussolini!
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Puchacz2005
5.0 out of 5 stars Great reading, very interesting and enlightening.
Reviewed in the United States on September 9, 2019
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The book arrived on time, as promised in good condition. The text is impecable, easy to understand and explains a very controversial matter in history.
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Jorge Sorosa
5.0 out of 5 stars Gregor anticipates the development of the present-day Russian and Chinese regimes following the collapse of orthodox Marxism.
Reviewed in the United States on November 20, 2012
Gregor describes the evolution of the critique of Fascism developed by Soviet and Chinese scholars from the 1920's until the 1990's. Early critiques of Fascism by Soviet scholars of the 1920's mirrored the primitive right-left dichotomy of present-day Western Marxists. Unlike Western leftists, Soviet scholars were supremely confident in the ascendancy of Marxism, and had no need to invent defenses against the open discussion of the common intellectual origins of Marxism and Fascism. Following the schism between the Soviet politburo and Mao's dictatorship, Soviet scholars began to identify the Fascist characteristics of Mao's totalitarianism. In their turn, Chinese scholars identified the Fascist characteristics of the Leninist-Stalinist and the post-Stalinist Soviet regimes. This dialectic led to the inevitable conclusion, "We are both, essentially, Fascists." In the aftermath of the collapse of the Soviet Union and of Mao's clique within China, while Western scholars fantasized about the emergence of new liberal democracies, Russia and China have emerged as modern Fascist states. The latter part of Gregor's book follows the progress of obscure Fascist politicians within Russia of the 1990's.

Gregor follows the development of leftist orthodoxy from the death of Engels in 1895 into the 1990's. Having none of the intellectual baggage of the leftwing true believer, Gregor freely describes the crisis that developed among Marxist believers following the death of Pope Engels. Bereft of its central authority, one who could authenticate the true belief, Marxism radiated into fragments.

By 1895, even the most ardent of Marxist believers had to admit that very little of Marx's prognostications had come true. In order to maintain the pretense of Marxism as a science, some Marxists, notably German, felt the need to adapt Darwinism with Marxism. On the other hand, Lenin found himself with a revolution in Europe's most primitive country, not the most developed, as Marx had predicted. Thus, Lenin found it necessary to invent "imperialism" to explain away the discrepancy. While in Italy, Marxist Benito Mussolini believed that Italy just had not reached the level of development that Marx claimed was required for a "true" revolution.

Lenin named Benito Mussolini one of the five greatest Marxist theoreticians of the twentieth century, noting that he watched Mussolini's development with great interest. Others have noted that Benito Mussolini, had he not allied himself with Adolf Hitler, might have died in his bed as the pre-eminent politician of modern Italy. Mussolini's designs presaged the politically dominated economies and welfare states of modern Europe. And modern Russia and China and, well, not us. Really?

Safe to say, Gregor does not persist in the right-left, one-dimensional world of the Marxist apologists. If you had trouble with math, as Marxists inevitably do, an n-dimensional political world is not for you. On the other hand, the negative side of Gregor? You will never find, outside of Kant's "Critique of Pure Reason" or other turgid crap like it, a more unreadable text than Gregor's. You may find yourself diagramming sentences with a dictionary at hand. However, at the end, Gregor is free of the distinctions that amount to no real difference found in most other analyses of Marxism and Fascism. In addition, he gets it right by making an accurate forecast of future Russia and China, unlike Marx and his believers.

So why not abandon the right and left, and add an y- and a z- axis, or God Marx Forbid, n-dimensions, to your political analysis, by reading Gregor for a start?
8 people found this helpful
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"03jdc"
5.0 out of 5 stars Deeply Insightful
Reviewed in the United States on April 12, 2001
This book is an absolute must-have for any serious student of totalitarianism in the 20th century. Gregor has put together a very well-researched and cogent account of the singular nature of Bolshevism and Fascism, and explores convincingly the link each has to popular revolution in the face of national humiliation and economic weakness. Of special interest is the idea that because the Bolshevik Revolution took place in a largely agrarian and "industrially retrograde" society its similarities to Mussolini's Fascism were inevitable. Furthermore, Gregor's thesis helps to underline how the USSR, Communist China, and their satellite states operated or operate under a perversion of true Marxist doctrine. Almost implies that Fascism is really just Bolshevism unchained by phony Enlightenment values. This book is HIGHLY recommended.
42 people found this helpful
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"mnkos"
5.0 out of 5 stars Exactly what the radical left needs to hear....
Reviewed in the United States on September 21, 2003
This book brilliantly exposes the true, almost universal nature of 20th century revolutionary regimes. The similarities between Stalinism and Italian Fascism were indeed more profound than their differences... and one conclusion that can be taken away from this book is that supporters of the so-called "leftist" version of this phenomenon should indeed be held to the same level of accountability as the supporters of the "right-wing" variant.
One should also consider the ability of Stalinists to portray their fascist revolutions in progressive light during the 20th century... and what forms of radical ideology could/are being made to seem palatable to the West in 21st century...
Radical Islamo-fascism primarily comes to mind.
19 people found this helpful
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johann strauss
5.0 out of 5 stars A Great Book by a Great Author
Reviewed in the United States on June 28, 2000
This book was very good. It explained one man's theory of how fascism and Marxism are alike. This subject interests me greatly so I decided to buy the book. His theory is one that I have never truly thought of but now I wish he would write a sequel to this book. It is well researched, wrote, and just about everything else. It is definitely worth the price. However I must note that you must know the meaning of the word proletariant and many other words to fully understand this book. At times this book had questionable parts and I would re-read them and then understand them. If you know a lot about communism, marxism, fascism, and revolutions then this book might seem like a walk in the park for you. Overall it is a very good book.
22 people found this helpful
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Top reviews from other countries

Captain Canada
5.0 out of 5 stars Great book
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 28, 2023
Verified Purchase
Should be recommended reading to everyone with an interest in political science and philosophy. Presents a counter argument to the generic narrative that Communism and Fascism are incompatible.
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