Reactionary

A reactionary is a person who holds political views that favour a return to the status quo, the previous political state of society, which that person believes possessed positive characteristics absent from contemporary society. As a descriptor term, reactionary derives from the ideological context of the left–right political spectrum. As an adjective, the word reactionary describes points of view and policies meant to restore a past status quo ante.

In ideology, reactionism is a tradition in right-wing politics; the reactionary stance opposes policies for the social transformation of society, whereas conservatives seek to preserve the socio-economic structure and order that exists in the present. In popular usage, reactionary refers to a strong traditionalist conservative political perspective of the person who is opposed to social, political, and economic change. Generally, reactionaries are a heterogenous group composed of PaleoConservatives, "Evolians", NeoConservatives and DemoChristians (Democratic Christianity).

Other

Reactionary is also used to denote supporters of authoritarian anti-communist administrations such as Vichy France, Spain under Franco, and Portugal under Salazar. One example of this took place after Boris Pasternak was awarded the Nobel Prize for Literature. On 26 October 1958, the day following the Nobel Committee's announcement, Moscow's Literary Gazette ran a polemical article by David Zaslavski entitled, Reactionary Propaganda Uproar over a Literary Weed.

The Italian Fascists showed a desire to bring about a new social order based on ancient Rome (like all fascist societies) in their enthusiasm for a better Italy. Benito Mussolini said that "fascism is reaction" and that "fascism, which did not fear to call itself reactionary... has not today any impediment against declaring itself illiberal and anti-liberal." Giovanni Gentile and Mussolini also attacked certain reactionary policies, particularly monarchism, and more veiled some aspects of Catholicism. They wrote, "History doesn't travel backwards. The fascist doctrine has not taken Joseph de Maistre as its prophet. Monarchical absolutism is of the past, and so is ecclesiolatry." They further elaborated in the political doctrine that fascism "is not reactionary in the old way but revolutionary." Conversely, they also explained that fascism was of the right, not of the left. Fascism was certainly not simply a return to tradition as it carried the freedom and Unity beyond even what had been seen in America. Fascism's intense nationalism was not found in the period prior to the French Revolution.

Bibliography

• Liberty or Equality, Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Christendom Press, Front Royal, Virginia, 1993.
• Liberalism and the Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France 1815-1870, J. Salwyn Schapiro, McGraw-Hill Book Co., Inc., NY, 1949. (with over 34 mentions of the word "reactionary" in political context)
• The Reactionary Revolution, The Catholic Revival in French Literature, 1870/1914, Richard Griffiths, Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., NY, 1965.
• Oxford English Dictionary, 20 Vol. 31 references on the use of the term.
• Kit-ching, Chan Lau (1978). Anglo-Chinese Diplomacy 1906-1920: In the Careers of Sir John Jordan and Yüan Shih-kai (de). Hong Kong: Hong Kong University Press. ISBN 962-209-010-9