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language: English
country: UK
year: 1937
form: novel
genre(s): science fiction
dates read: 28.2.23-2.3.23
Swastika Night, by Murray Constantine — pen-name of the English lesbian communist Katherine Burdekin — is a deeply troubling dystopian novel originally published in 1937, set some seven hundred years after the victory of Nazi Germany in its wars of conquest. the world is divided between a neo-feudal Germany and imperial Japan. “Hitlerism” is the state religion (with Christians as a tiny, persecuted minority living on the fringes of society), women are kept in abject sexual slavery in cages, the last Jews were killed centuries before, and all written (and much non-written) evidence of history other than the official, mythological history of the rise of Hitler and the Nazi state has been obliterated, leaving behind only a handful of vague and misremembered legends. literacy is restricted to the highest levels of society and some specialists (mechanics and engineers, e.g.) who need it for strictly technical reading.
the novel follows three characters: Hermann, an “ordinary” Nazi (which is to say, someone of pure German blood but not a member of the aristocratic ruling class); the Knight von Hess, a member of the feudal aristocracy; and Alfred, an English friend of Hermann’s traveling to Germany on an officially sanctioned pilgrimage.
the novel takes the form, primarily, of a series of dialogues between its characters, exploring the history of their world — both the false, official history and the true history, recorded in a handwritten book passed down from one of von Hess’s ancestors — and the psychology of fascism as Constantine/Burdekin perceived it, particularly its sexual psychology (I think Wilhelm Reich was likely an influence here) and its treatment of women. (as an aside, male homosexuality has apparently been normalized — German men are legally required to have children before they’re 30, but as long as they fulfill that obligation nobody cares what else they do, and members of the “subject races” can fully just be gay, as Alfred’s younger brother is; Hermann is more or less explicitly gay, and he’s very clearly in ambiguously-requited love with Alfred.) in some ways it’s a decidedly idealist critique, but it’s skillfully and horrifyingly executed. I wasn’t at all sure how I’d feel about it going in, although I was curious (obviously, or I wouldn’t have read it), but I found it really gripping.
Constantine/Burdekin is grappling, I think, with a few questions: how does fascism spread? what does it mean to live in a society whose entire basis is unconcealed violence (indeed, violence that is celebrated and reveled in)? how can we stop it? if there’s a flaw in the book, it’s that it was written just before Constantine had — apparently, per Wikipedia and also based on the note at the beginning of the 1940 “Left Book Club” edition I read — concluded that fascism must be fought and cannot be defeated (solely) in the realm of ideas, even if ideology is also part of the terrain of antifascist struggle.
if there is another flaw, it’s probably the vague romanticization of English character, but this is undercut both by the strong and definitive anti-imperialism and by the fact that Alfred is objectively still not really a good person (and the narrative I think knows that and wants us to understand that). he’s trying to change, but even with his commitment to liberation there are things he can barely begin to grasp, like the possibility that women might be human beings.
I was particularly, re imperialism, struck by this passage:
“[…] The shadows of old Empires——”
“Ha!” cried Alfred, springing up. “There were old Empires, then? You and the Japanese weren’t the only ones? It’s all lies, lies!”
“The Assyrian, the Babylonian, the Persian, the Egyptian, the Greek, the Roman, the Spanish, and the British. In colonial possessions——”
Alfred interrupted him. “The British! And you tell us all those English-speaking races were just disconnected savage tribes! As if anyone but an idiot could ever believe it. You liars! You fools!”
The Knight rose to his feet also, and looked at Alfred with controlled but passionate condemnation. “You’re proud of having had an Empire, are you? Proud of being an Englishman for that reason? Look at that poor clod Hermann there—he daren’t face anything, believe anything, he hardly dares to hear anything, he’s a shrinking, shaking coward, not so much because he believes in Hitler, not so much because he’s German, but because he’s got an Empire! You ought to be ashamed of your race, Alfred, even though your Empire vanished seven hundred years ago. It isn’t long enough to get rid of that taint.”
“It’s you who have taught us to admire Empire!” Alfred flung at him. “The Holy Ones! The Germans!”
The Knight sat down again. “No,” he said quietly, “it was you who taught us. Jealousy of the British Empire was one of the motive forces of German imperialism, one of the forces which made Germany grow from a collection of little kingdoms to be ruler of a third of the world. A tremendous bitter black jealousy, so says [his ancestor] von Hess, though when he lived the triumph had long come. Unshakable, impregnable Empire has always been the dream of virile nations, and now at last it’s been turned into a nightmare reality. A monster that is killing us.”
here I can only see the Knight as speaking not only in character but also on behalf of Constantine/Burdekin facing the prospect of war with Germany.
really powerful book. extremely fucked up. fucked me up. would recommend.
moods: dark, reflective