The Three Paths and Their Common Structure
This text is a preview of History of the Reception of Hegel, volume II, to be published in 2026 by Reflexivity Press.
Fascism was the catastrophe to which all three paths responded. But each diagnosed it differently, and each drew different conclusions.
The Western bloc read fascism as totalitarianism—as too much state, too much collective, too little individual freedom. The solution: liberal democracy, the rule of law, pluralism, market economy. Hegel was ambivalent: on the one hand suspect (his state too powerful), on the other useful (his ethical life against atomized individuals). Reception oscillated between rejection (Popper, Berlin) and rehabilitation (Ritter, Gadamer, Taylor).
The Eastern bloc read fascism as the final stage of capitalism—as the logical consequence of a class society that cannot resolve its contradictions and therefore resorts to violence. The solution: socialism, planned economy, socialization of the means of production. Hegel was the foundation—as dialectician, as philosopher of history, as the one who had made Marx possible. Reception swung between orthodox instrumentalization (dialectical materialism) and critical appropriation (Bloch, the Praxis group).
The Third World read fascism as colonialism turned inward—as the application of colonial methods to one’s own population. Domenico Losurdo formulated this most clearly: what Europeans had practiced in the colonies for centuries (racism, disenfranchisement, mass murder), the fascists now applied against Europeans themselves. The solution: decolonization, cultural self-assertion, non-alignment. Hegel was the challenge—his Eurocentrism had to be overcome. But his method (the master-slave dialectic) could be used for this purpose (Fanon).
All three were partly right. Fascism was authoritarian (the Western bloc sees this), it served capital interests (the Eastern bloc sees this), and it turned colonial methods inward (the Third World sees this). These three aspects do not contradict each other—they are moments of a complex totality.
Hegel’s position was ambivalent. His dialectic, his recognition, his mediation could be mobilized against fascism—and they were (by Marcuse, by Kojève, by Fanon). But his philosophy of history, his Eurocentrically formulated belief in progress, his Prussian statist conservatism could be misused as legitimation—and to some extent were (though the fascists themselves mostly rejected Hegel).
The task was: to preserve Hegel’s method, to criticize his content. This succeeded to varying degrees. Some (like Ritter) preserved too much, others (like Deleuze) discarded too much. Finding the right balance remains a task.