As We Go Marching

by John T. Flynn

Book Overview

As We Go Marching is John T. Flynn's classic work from 1944 on how wartime planning brought fascism to America. Flynn was a prominent journalist and the rare case of an American public intellectual... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: B0006AQ8GO
• Release Date: January 1944
• Publisher: Doubleday, Doran and Co., Inc.
• Length: 272 Pages
• Weight: 0.86 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Political Realities vs. Political Labels

John T. Flynn's book titled AS WE GO MARCHING is indeed a classic study of Fascism whatever that political disapproval word means. Flynn's study gives the historical background to late 19th century and early 20th century Italy and German. The book concludes with the U.S. political and economic schemes before, during, and after World War I. Flynn also compares U.S. economic planning and control with that of "Fascist" Italy and Germany. Flynn introduces readers to the economic realities in the second half of the 19th. century in Italy and Germany. A good point is the fact that deficit spending, protectionism, and economic classifications originated in 19th. century and were not new to rise of Fascism. Flynn provides "chatper-and-verse" statistics of the Italians and German budgets prior to World War I. Flynn's economic analysis is connected with the political changes that occured in these two countries. Flynn cites the "Classical Liberals" and their political allies who preached limited government and balanced budgets but voted for deficits and expanded military budgets. Flynn patiently explains the rise of Mussolini and Hitler. These two political dictators did not rise to power through luck or what some consider gangsterism. Both Mussolini and Hitler got power due to the political climate and laws that were enacted in Italy and Germany in the late 19th. and early 20th. century. Given the legal and political conditions, both Mussolini and Hitler rose to power via quite legal means. The naive view that they used gangster tactics disintegrates when exposed to reality. Flynn is very clear on this point in pages 149-153. Flynn then compares the political and economic problems with the background to the U.S. New Deal and the economic schemes that were enacted as part of the New Deal. Flynn makes the remark that the New Deal was not new at all, and FDR'S "Brain Trust" merely emulated their German and Italian counterparts. The New Dealers created government corporations, and Fascist Italy was known as The Coporate State. The tax and budget plans of Germany were adopted in by the New Dealers. The Italian and German "Fascists" resorted to borrowing and deficit spending when taxes were too high. The New Dealers did the same. The late A.J.P. Taylor made an interesting remark in his book titled THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR. On page 72 or page 70 in the newer edition of this book, Taylor wrote that Hitler stumbled on the economics of full employment exactly as FDR did. The only difference is that the German New Deal worked better and did indeed eliminate unemployment. Those in the U.S. who equate Fascism with militarism should look in the mirror. Flynn argued that military expendatures were part of the economic plans in German and Italy. Had Flynn had access to Burton Klein's book titled GERMANY'S ECONOMIC PREPARATIONS FOR WAR, he would have altered his views. Klein cites German and U.S. documents ( not hysteria)to clearly pro

Well written study of the economic roots of fascism

John T Flynn was a business journalist who originally covered graft and Wall Street scandals in the 1920s and 1930s. Originally a supporter of Roosevelt, he came to believe the New Deal's compulsory cartels under the NRA was a betrayal of traditional 'trust busting' liberalism. He saw FDR's massive reliance on public borrowing and deficit spending, rather than fiscal reform, was dangerous. A former Nye Committee investigator, Flynn was involved in Nye's exposure of the role major banks and munitions makers played in President Wilson's march to war in 1918. Flynn believed the failure of the New Deal to bring jobs would see FDR turn to military spending as an economic cure. When this prediction eventuated, Flynn became a leading spokesman for the America First Committee. After the war, wrote one of the first exposes arguing FDR had prior knowledge of the Pearl Harbor attack. Flynn stayed a committed "isolationist" after the war, believing the same pattern of was re-emerging in the then new Cold War. This book was written in 1944. I read the 1973 reprint "Free Life" edition of the book. It includes an excellent preface essay by Ronald Radosh summarising Flynn's life and work and placing his ideas in a broader context. Radosh compares Flynn's analysis to that of Indian / British communist writer R. Palme Dutt whose "Fascism and Social Revolution: A Study of the Economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay" provides something of an interesting "odd couple" pairing. "As We Go Marching" provides an analysis of fascism that looks beyond the biographies of Mussolini and Hitler, and even the histories of the fascist and nazi parties. Flynn is interested in the political economy roots of fascism. This he locates in the economic crisis, but he goes beyond the depression, into the on-going political and economic crises of his subject states. This is really two books in one. Flynn provides a background to the development of fascism in Italy and Germany and then looks as fascistic trends in the US during the war and pre-war periods. If Flynn had excluded the US chapters his well written book would have been more broadly acknowledged as a dissection of the roots of nazism. His American chapters however are what make the book controversial, especially as most (but not all) of the faults he identifies are rooted in the New Deal. Has he left the American material out he would probably have had a wider audience. Thankfully he didn't. But even the most one eyed liberal reader will find something to appreciate in his non-American sections. Flynn shows how non-fascist politicians paved the way for fascist and nazi rule in Italy and Germany. The Weimar Constitution, with it's dictatorial Article 48 provision, exploited opportunistically by non-authoritarian politicians, was a time bomb waiting to explode. In both countries, it was non-fascist leaders, opportunists dealing with crises, paved the way for later dictators. They did so by building

The Roots of American Fascism.

_As We Go Marching_ by John T. Flynn, first published in 1944 during the Second World War, and reprinted in The Right Wing Individualist Tradition in America series, is an attempt to come to grips with fascism by an opponent of the New Deal and a non-interventionist. Flynn, who began his career as a proponent of progressive economic policies, came to oppose Roosevelt's New Deal policies and the entry of the United States into the Second World War. In this book, Flynn predicts how these policies are leading in the direction of increasing militarism, socialism, and eventually totalitarianism and fascism. Flynn's understanding of fascism is in economic terms, an attempt to overturn the capitalist system through state borrowing and continued militarism (i.e. the state sanctioned continuation of perpetual revolution) and corporativism. While Flynn recognizes the defects in the capitalist system, particularly those that have led to the coming crisis, he believes that this system is far superior to that of fascism in which individual liberties are trampled upon. In this sense, Flynn may be seen as an advocate for classical liberalism against government intervention and the debt based economy. This book traces the history of fascism as it developed in Italy and Germany and then turns its attention to the United States, where Flynn sees a creeping fascism. Against those who argue that "it cannot happen here" or who point to the various pro-German or outright Nazi groups in America at the time as the only fascist threat, Flynn argues that the fundamental basis for the totalitarian state is already established and that all that remains is for the President to claim for himself absolute power. Flynn begins by tracing the origins of fascism in the Italian state under Mussolini. In particular, he shows the conflicts that arose between various socialist groups who sought to abolish the capitalist system and conservative groups. While conservative groups often represented a reaction of the most heavily taxed, it became apparent that while they would not support the growth of public welfare projects that they would support an increase in militarism. In particular, militarism became a means to achieve full employment. In addition, rather than trying to achieve a balanced budget, the government became based upon a system of tax and borrow and spend. Another important point to note is the growth of syndicalism as a viable alternative to socialism. While socialism had sought for the state to seize control of the means of production, being little more than "state capitalism", syndicalism proposed the alternative that the means of production should actually be controlled by the workers themselves and the state composed of worker's counsels. The theory of syndicalism was advocated by Georges Sorel as the alternative to socialism and as an answer to the crisis in capitalism and was taken up by the young Mussolini. Indeed, Mussolini's system came to make u

A Hard Look In The Mirror

"As We Go Marching" is a three-part examination of fascism in Italy (part 1) and Germany (part 2). Part 3 ties things together with an examination of Franklin D. Roosevelt's so-called "New Deal." The book covers periods from the mid-1800's, the time of the respective unification of Italy and Germany, to mid-WWII. Briefly, neither Mussolini nor Hitler laid the foundations, let alone invented, the social-government systems that supported their regimes. Both systems of fascism, Italian and German, had roots in the early days of industrialization, with deep and powerful roots in the concept of syndicalism. Mr. Flynn opines that, absent certain events related to The Great War, neither Mussolini nor Hitler would ever have amounted to much more than minor political nuisances; but that someone else could very well have held power and governed via fascism through pre-existing government institutions. (eg, imagine a German Chancellor without the anti-semitism but still with the militarism.) The third part of "Marching" concerns the intellectual and systemic relationships between Italian and German fascism, and FDR's New Deals (there were at least three of them). Although the reader will learn a lot of Italian and German hisotry, the entire book concerns what FDR was doing to the United States in the 1930's. Mr. Flynn's view is through a lens of what had happened in Italy and Germany. In 1944, some critics called Mr. Flynn's publication of "Marching" treasonous. But I doubt they read the book before doing so. Mr. Flynn was labeled, in his day, as a "Roosevelt-hater," and summarily dismissed in polite company of the time. Many people worked overtime to discredit him and his books. But to this modern reader, Mr. Flynn offers a historical and logical, well written and consistent study of fascism, with a disturbingly accurate critique of FDR and his programs.You will gain additional perspective by reading Mr. Flynn's "The Roosevelt Myth" (1948/rev 1956). This latter book utterly demolishes FDR and his four terms of office, like a fast freight train hitting a stalled pickup truck. "The Roosevelt Myth" should be required reading in every US history course. No, that is not quite right. What I really mean is that the legend of FDR the Great President and Wartime Leader cannot co-exist in any universe in which a single copy of "The Roosevelt Myth" remains unburned. John T. Flynn -- a forgotten master from a different era.