Neal Ascherson

“All the same, conservatism still eludes satisfactory definition even as an aim. If it were just a style, as some writers seem to assume, the Soviet regime would qualify without difficulty, but all states which endeavour to avoid political change will not be allowed by the nouveaux philosophes of the right, wherever in the world, to be conservative. ‘Rightism’ will not do either: the Nazi programme of destroying an entire social order and its institutions, though supported initially by many German conservatives, drove some of them in the end to conspiratorial resistance.”