New Revisionism: The Politics of Predecessor Selection in the ‘Socialist Origins’ of Nazism

Abstract

This article examines contemporary claims concerning the purported socialist origins of Nazism as a distinctive form of historical revisionism that has gained renewed traction within far-right discursive repertoires. Rather than treating this narrative as a historiographic controversy to be settled through factual adjudication, the study approaches it as a sociological phenomenon. Drawing on Charles Camic’s concept of predecessor selection and Patrick Baert’s positioning theory, the article analyzes how far-right actors construct a retrospective lineage binding socialism, Nazism, and the contemporary left, despite their substantial ideological discontinuities. It argues that this manoeuver constitutes an inverted form of predecessor selection, whereby actors designate the predecessors of their opponents grounded not in doctrinal affinity, but in the negative moral reputation attached to Nazism in postwar political memory. Through this operation, the moral burden of twentieth-century fascism is reassigned to the left, while far-right actors loosen their own attachment to the fascist past and reposition themselves as legitimate bearers of anti-totalitarian and anti-fascist credentials. The article situates this narrative within discourses linking the left, Islam, and Nazism, highlighting their function as metapolitical instruments of coalition-building under polarized conditions.