The German example, which really became the head of Fascism-dominated Europe, appears quite simple with respect to decisive factors asked in the topic question. Despite the defeat and the depressing aftermath of the post-WWI rebellions, the militant labour movement lead by the KPD had become strong enough to really challenge the capitalist system by the advent of the 30's. Its popular strength felt in streets and factories was even reflected in the parliamentarian elections. The prospects for the revolution in Germany appeared realistic in both the communists' and the bourgeoisie's view. For the German bourgeoisie, communism was not quarantined within the USSR borders and the parliamentarian political system had failed in marginalising it.
The participation of the KPD in the parliamentarian elections was an important part of their revolutionary tactics. This participation wasn't just a method for the KPD to
measure its popular support outside the organised proletariat - it was also a necessary means to
dispel parliamentarian illusions among its own electoral base, and to eventually
force the bourgeoise state to strip its parliamentarian mask.
It's a truism of Marxism-Leninism that bourgeois repression increases with the growth of the revolutionary movement, and that the more electoral support a communist party receives,
the more it has to concentrate on extra-parliamentarian, clandestine and downright insurrectionary activities. A genuine communist party has no peaceful, parliamentary road to governmental power in an intact bourgeois state. The Spanish republic had been
deserted by half the bourgeoisie and the Central and Eastern European bourgeois states had been literally
crippled by the war, fascist occupation and retreat, the armed resistance and the physical presence of the victorious Soviet Army - in all cases of
relatively peaceful ascension to power, the factor of
violence was present and decisive.
So the question remains, why didn't Germany follow the semi-fascist or semi-parliamentarian (is the glass half full or half empty) road as did Finland, where the parliamentarian
form of government was retained
while the communists and wider left-wing were barred from elections and where the tradeunion movement was subjugated under a police-forced corporatism? There was fascist movement in Finland, but most of the industrial bourgeoisie didn't support it, effectively confining it into a rural party of the big land-owners.
My answer to that question is primarily militarism. There was a militarist consensus among the German capitalist class before there was fascist consensus. The need for military expansion of the German capitalism wasn't migitated but aggravated by the Versailles peace conditions. Add to that the lessons of the Spartakist rebellion, the lagging behind of the colonial power of France and Britain, and the economic depression. For these reasons or others, the German bourgeoisie chose militarism and anti-communism. The German working masses (including the petty bourgeoisie), too, had basically two options to improve its conditions; either to support the militarism and anti-communism to get some share of the loot, or support the communists and overthrow the whole system.
My speculation is that the aforementioned "Finnish road" (not implicating it was very original, just familiar to me as an example) would've been too slow and too gradual to either accomplish the militarisation of the society fast enough or to repel the revolution in time. To balance all this rationalism I must end by saying that capitalism as a socio-economic system doesn't always act like one conscious body - the irrational factor must be factored in.
Okonkwo wrote:how Hitler (I'm willingly taking this historical example as a starting point) protected the interests of the bourgeoisie with something akin to Keynesian military spending?
More jobs, better chances for military expansion promoting German capital investments in Europe and opening it the door to oil and other raw material resources, and not least of all the creation of a happy German labour aristocracy? If all this had to offer for the German monopoly bourgeoisie was increased profits and national-social peace, then it was enough as the maximisation of profits is the primary economic law of monopoly capitalism and as the maximisation of profits is impossible without securing the national-social peace.
It's not like capitalism itself was bankrupt in pre-Nazi German, but rather the social order.
I don't see how you can "extract" the social order from the system as a whole.
If you wish to examine another case, take Mussolini's Italy: striving for how would autarky benefit any nation's bourgeoisie?
Was it striving for autarky or just promoting national industry?