Since the late 1980's I have been reconsidering the fascism of the 1930's because I sense a similarity between that period and the 1990's. But it is just as possible to say that the actual courses of events are unrelated. If some repetition of the 1930's can be proven in the events of the 1990's@` then@` in what aspect? My point is that if there is repetition in history@` what is repeated are not the events themselves@` but the form immanent in them. In order to shed some light on the question of repetition@` I have revisited Marx's The 18th Brumaire of Louis Bonaparte. I believe it can function as something like an additional geometrical line in the consideration of historical repetition. First of all@` accounts of fascism tend to be modeled mainly after the German experience@` which does not fit the case of Japan very well; as a result@` the absurd opinion that there has never been fascism in Japan has come to be widely accepted. Second@` when considering the 1990's@` the 1930's is not a perfect model after all. Still@` The 18th Brumaire seems to be hinting at clues that make an essential assessment possible@` not only of the imperialism of the 1870's and the fascism of the 1930's@` but also of the situations that have been developing since 1990. The process through which Louis Bonaparte grasped hegemony@` as described by Marx@` was initiated by a collapse of the leftists in 1848@` a circumstance common to events of the 1870's@` 1930's@` and 1990's@` regardless of their different historical backgrounds. Simply said@` from my perspective@` fascism is a form of Bonapartism@` or "Caesarism"-the term Gramsci coined from his jail cell.1 The 18th Brumaire offers an analysis of Bonapartism that is much more actual and crucial than that general concept as later developed by Engels. This text breathtakingly reveals the process of how the crisis of representation in bourgeois society was solved imaginairily. And it is this process that should be taken into account when considering fascism in its repetitive form. In this text Marx speaks to the problem of representation in at least four respects. One is the question of parliamentarism. The February Revolution of 1848 brought universal suffrage: this was the starting point. The series of events analyzed in The 18th Brumaire took place in a situation where nothing could take form except through "the symbolic"-called the parliamentary system. Marx points out the existence of the actual social classes lurking behind the representation@` while at the same time cautioning that political parties and their discourses are independent of the actual classes. In other words@` the relationship between the representer and the represented is arbitrary@` and it is this arbitrariness that allowed even the labor class to regard Bonaparte as its representative.2 Also Marx does not neglect to mention the existence of a class that in fact has neither its own representative nor the discourse to protect its interests@` but is represented only by its master: the peasants.