"Twentieth-century Fascism is a byproduct of disintegrating liberal democracy. Loss of
hope in the possibilities of existing order and society, disgust with their corruption and
ineffectiveness, above all the society’s evident loss of confidence in itself, all these produce
or spur a revolutionary mood in which the only issue lies in catastrophic action—but
always with a strong social tinge: ‘I place my only hope in the continuation of socialist
progress through fascisms,’ writes Drieu [a French Fascist author of the 1930s]. And the
editor of the French Fascist publication, the Insurgent, Jean-Pierre Maxence, would call
for insurgents of all parties to join ‘the front of united youth, for bread, for grandeur and
for liberty, in immense disgust with capitalist democracy.’ From this angle, as from many
others, Fascism looks very much like the Jacobinism of our time." - Eugen Weber, historian, Varieties of Fascism, 1964.
Weber’s argument linking Fascism and Jacobinism implies that he was influenced by
which of the following?
(A) Marxist materialist analysis of social change and historical development
(B) Social Darwinist belief in the importance of struggle in historical progress
(C) Positivist emphasis on the role of technology in shaping human affairs
(D) Post-modernist subjectivist critiques of the ethos of western society