The first fascist movements emergedin Italy duringWorld War I before spreading toother European countries, most notablyGermany.[1] Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe.[8] Fascists saw World War I as arevolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society, the state, and technology. The advent oftotal war and themass mobilization of society erased the distinction between civilians and combatants. A military citizenship arose, in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner.[9] The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines, providing logistics to support them, and having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.[9]
Since the end of World War II in 1945, fascism has been largely disgraced, and few parties have openly described themselves asfascist; the term is oftenused pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptionsneo-fascist orpost-fascist are sometimes applied to contemporary parties with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements.[1][19]
Etymology
Thefasces, a symbol ofAncient Rome, was employed in the modern era by various political movements to denote strength through unity.[20]
The Italian termfascismo is derived fromfascio, meaning 'bundle of sticks', ultimately from theLatin wordfasces.[4] This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known asfasci, groups similar toguilds orsyndicates. According to Italian fascist dictatorBenito Mussolini's own account, theFasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915.[21] In 1919, Mussolini founded theItalian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became theNational Fascist Party two years later. The fascists came to associate the term with the ancient Roman fasces orfascio littorio,[22] a bundle of rods tied around an axe,[23] anancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civicmagistrate,[24] carried by hislictors.[25] The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.[26]
Prior to 1914, the fasces symbol was widely employed by various political movements, often of a left-wing or liberal persuasion. For instance, according to Robert Paxton, "Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, was often portrayed in the nineteenth century carrying the fasces to represent the force of Republican solidarity against her aristocratic and clerical enemies."[20] The symbol often appeared as an architectural motif, for instance on theSheldonian Theater at Oxford University and on theLincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.[20]
HistorianIan Kershaw once wrote, "Trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall."[27] Each group described as "fascist" has at least some unique elements, and frequently definitions of "fascism" have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow.[28][page needed] According to many scholars, fascists—especially when they are in power—have historically attacked communism, socialism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the far-right.[29]
"Fascist goals" – the creation of a nationalistdictatorship to regulate economic structure and to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture, and the expansion of the nation into an empire.
"Fascist style" – a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership.[35]
Payne's understanding was developed by Griffin andRoger Eatwell, who defined their theories as the "new consensus" in fascist studies. Roger Griffin follows the description of Payne and adds an emphasis[36] on the "mythic core" of fascism which is apalingenetic form of populistultranationalism."[37] Without palingenetic ultranationalism, there is no "genuine fascism" according to Griffin.[38] Griffin further describes fascism as having three core components: "(i) the rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism, and (iii) the myth of decadence."[39] In Griffin's view, fascism is "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist "armed party" politics opposing socialism and liberalism, and promising radical politics to rescue the nation from decadence.[40]
Eatwell defines fascism as "an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on aholistic-national radicalThird Way",[41] whileWalter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as "self-evident: nationalism;social Darwinism; racialism, the need for leadership, a new aristocracy, and obedience; and the negation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution."[42]
Kershaw argues that the difference between fascism and other forms of right-wing authoritarianism in theinterwar period is that the latter generally aimed "to conserve the existing social order", whereas fascism was "revolutionary", seeking to change society and obtain "total commitment" from the population.[43] InAgainst the Fascist Creep,Alexander Reid Ross writes regarding Griffin's view: "Following theCold War and shifts in fascist organizing techniques, a number of scholars have moved toward the minimalist 'new consensus' refined by Roger Griffin: 'the mythic core' of fascism is 'a populist form ofpalingenetic ultranationalism.' That means that fascism is an ideology that draws on old, ancient, and even arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop a plan for the 'new man.'"[44] Griffin himself explored this 'mythic' or 'eliminable' core of fascism with his concept ofpost-fascism to explore the continuation of Nazism in the modern era.[45] Additionally, other historians have applied this minimalist core to exploreproto-fascist movements.[46][47]
[A] cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation ... The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.
Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser argue that although fascism "flirted with populism ... in an attempt to generate mass support", it is better seen as an elitist ideology.[49] They cite in particular its exaltation of the Leader, the race, and the state, rather than the people. They see populism as a "thin-centered ideology" with a "restricted morphology" that necessarily becomes attached to "thick-centered" ideologies such as fascism, liberalism, or socialism. Thus populism can be found as an aspect of many specific ideologies, without necessarily being a defining characteristic of those ideologies. They refer to the combination of populism, authoritarianism and ultranationalism as "a marriage of convenience".[50]
[Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.[51]
Umberto Eco lists fourteen "features that are typical of what [he] would like to call 'Ur-Fascism', or 'Eternal Fascism'. These features cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds ofdespotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it."[52] HistorianJohn Lukacs argues that there is no such thing as generic fascism. He claims thatNazism andcommunism are essentially manifestations ofpopulism, and that states such as Nazi Germany andFascist Italy are more different from each other than they are similar.[53]
[A] modern political phenomenon,revolutionary,anti-liberal, andanti-Marxist, organized in a militia party with atotalitarian conception of politics and the state, an activist and anti-theoretical ideology, with a mythical, virilistic and anti-hedonistic foundation, sacralized as a secular religion, which affirms the absolute primacy of the nation, understood as an ethnically homogeneous organic community, hierarchically organized in acorporate state, with a bellicose vocation to the politics of greatness, power, and conquest aimed at creating a new order and a new civilization.[54]
Historian and cultural criticRuth Ben-Ghiat has described fascism as "the original phase of authoritarianism, along with early communism, when a population has undergone huge dislocations or they perceive that there's been changes in society that are very rapid, too rapid for their taste".[55]
Racism was a key feature of German fascism, for whichthe Holocaust was a high priority. According toThe Historiography of Genocide, "In dealing with the Holocaust, it is the consensus of historians that Nazi Germany targeted Jews as a race, not as a religious group."[56] Several historians, such as Umberto Eco,[52] Kevin Passmore,[57] and Moyra Grant,[58] stressracism as a characteristic component of German fascism. HistorianRobert Soucy stated, "Hitler envisioned the ideal German society as aVolksgemeinschaft, a racially unified and hierarchically organized body in which the interests of individuals would be strictly subordinate to those of the nation, or Volk."[59] Kershaw noted that common factors of fascism included "the 'cleansing' of all those deemed not to belong—foreigners, ethnic minorities, 'undesirables'"—and belief in its own nation's superiority, even if it was not biological racism like in Nazism.[43] Fascist philosophies vary by application, but remain distinct by one theoretical commonality: all traditionally fall into the far-right sector of anypolitical spectrum, catalyzed by afflicted class identities over conventional social inequities.[1]
Scholars place fascism on thefar right of the political spectrum.[1][6][7] Such scholarship focuses on itssocial conservatism and itsauthoritarian means of opposingegalitarianism.[61] Roderick Stackelberg places fascism—including Nazism, which he says is "a radical variant of fascism"—on the political right by explaining: "The more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be."[62]
Fascism's origins are complex and include many seemingly contradictory viewpoints, ultimately centered on a mythos of national rebirth from decadence.[63] Fascism was founded duringWorld War I by Italiannational syndicalists who drew upon bothleft-wing organizational tactics andright-wing political views.[64]Italian fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s.[65] A major element of fascist ideology that has been deemed to be far right is its stated goal to promote the right of a supposedlysuperior people to dominate, while purging society of supposedly inferior elements.[66]
Mussolini andGiovanni Gentile described their ideology as right-wing in the political essayThe Doctrine of Fascism (1932), stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century."[67] Mussolini stated that fascism's position on the political spectrum was not a serious issue for fascists: "[F]ascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on the mountain of the center. ... These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged meaning: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don't give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words."[68]
Major Italian groups politically on the right, especially rich landowners and big business, feared an uprising by groups on the left, such as sharecroppers and labour unions.[69] They welcomed fascism and supported its violent suppression of opponents on the left.[70] The accommodation of the political right into the Italian Fascist movement in the early 1920s created internal factions within the movement. The "fascist left" includedMichele Bianchi,Giuseppe Bottai,Angelo Oliviero Olivetti,Sergio Panunzio, andEdmondo Rossoni, who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize the economy and advance the interests of workers and the common people.[71] The "fascist right" included members of the paramilitaryBlackshirts and former members of theItalian Nationalist Association (ANI).[71] The Blackshirts wanted to establish fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, includingAlfredo Rocco, sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace the liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites.[71] Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create anabsolute monarchy under KingVictor Emmanuel III of Italy.[71]
A number of post-World War II fascist movements described themselves as a "third position", outside the traditional political spectrum.[72]Falange Española de las JONS leaderJosé Antonio Primo de Rivera said: "[B]asically the Right stands for the maintenance of an economic structure, albeit an unjust one, while the Left stands for the attempt to subvert that economic structure, even though the subversion thereof would entail the destruction of much that was worthwhile."[73]
The termfascist has been used as apejorative,[74] regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum.George Orwell noted in 1944 that the term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, "as used, the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'",[75] and in 1946 wrote that"'Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable."[76] Richard Griffiths of theUniversity of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".[77]Fascist is sometimes applied to post-World War II organizations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly termneo-fascist.[78]
Despite fascist movements' history ofanti-communism,Communist states have sometimes been referred to asfascist, typically as an insult. It has been applied toMarxist–Leninist regimes inCuba underFidel Castro andVietnam underHo Chi Minh.[79] Chinese Marxists used the term to denounce theSoviet Union during theSino-Soviet split, and the Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists,[80] in addition tosocial democracy, coining a new term insocial fascism. In the United States,Herbert Matthews ofThe New York Times asked in 1946: "Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?"[81]J. Edgar Hoover, longtimeFBI director and ardent anti-communist, wrote extensively ofred fascism.[82] TheKu Klux Klan in the 1920s was sometimes calledfascist. Historian Peter Amann states that, "Undeniably, the Klan had some traits in common with European fascism—chauvinism, racism, a mystique of violence, an affirmation of a certain kind of archaic traditionalism—yet their differences were fundamental ... [the KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system."[83]
Bust of the ancient Greek philosopherPlato, whose works were admired by Mussolini[84]Depiction of a Greek Hoplite warrior; ancientSparta has been considered an inspiration for fascist and quasi-fascist movements, such asNazism and quasi-fascistMetaxism[85]
Early influences that shaped the ideology of fascism have been dated back toancient Greece. Mussolini had a strong attachment to the works of the Greek philosopherPlato.[86] In October 1943, Mussolini was reported to have kept Plato's workRepublic on his desk at home, and he claimed to consult it from time to time before beginning his work each day.[87] The political culture of ancient Greece and specifically the ancient Greek city state ofSparta underLycurgus, with its emphasis on militarism and racial purity, were admired by the Nazis.[88][89][90] Hitler emphasized that Germany should adhere to Hellenic values and culture – particularly that of ancient Sparta.[88][89]
Plato supported many similar political positions to fascism.[91] In his workRepublic (c. 380 BC),[92] he emphasized the need for a philosopher king in an ideal state.[92] He believed the ideal state would be ruled by an elite class of rulers known as "Guardians" and rejected the idea ofsocial equality.[91] He believed in an authoritarian state.[91] He heldAthenian democracy in contempt by saying: "The laws of democracy remain a dead letter, its freedom is anarchy, its equality the equality of unequals".[91] Like fascism, he emphasized that individuals must adhere to laws and perform duties while declining to grant individuals rights to limit or reject state interference in their lives.[91] He claimed that an ideal state would have education that was designed to promote able rulers and warriors.[91] However, there are also significant differences between Plato's ideals and fascism.[91] Unlike fascism, he never promoted expansionism and he was opposed to offensive war.[91]
Georges Valois, founder of the first non-Italian fascist partyFaisceau,[93] claimed the roots of fascism stemmed from the late 18th centuryJacobin movement, seeing in its totalitarian nature a foreshadowing of the fascist state.[94] HistorianGeorge Mosse similarly analyzed fascism as an inheritor of themass ideology andcivil religion of theFrench Revolution, as well as a result of the brutalization of societies in 1914–1918.[94]
The historianZeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the 1880s and in particular to thefin de siècle theme of that time.[102] The theme was based on a revolt againstmaterialism,rationalism,positivism,bourgeois society, anddemocracy.[103] Thefin-de-siècle generation supportedemotionalism,irrationalism,subjectivism, andvitalism.[104] They regarded civilization as being in crisis, and as requiring a massive and total solution.[103] Their intellectual school considered the individual as only one part of the larger collectivity, which should not be viewed as a numerical sum of atomized individuals.[103] They condemned the rationalistic,liberal individualism of society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society.[103]
Thefin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by various intellectual developments, includingDarwinian biology,Gesamtkunstwerk,Arthur de Gobineau's racialism,Gustave Le Bon'spsychology, and the philosophies ofFriedrich Nietzsche,Fyodor Dostoyevsky, andHenri Bergson.[105] Social Darwinism, which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed the human condition as an unceasing struggle to achieve thesurvival of the fittest.[105] It challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment.[105] Its emphasis onbiogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered the legitimacy and appeal of nationalism.[106] New theories of social and political psychology rejected the notion of human behaviour being governed by rational choice and instead claimed that emotion was more influential in political issues than reason.[105] Nietzsche's argument that "God is dead", coinciding with his attack on the "herd mentality" ofChristianity, on democracy, and on moderncollectivism, his concept of theÜbermensch, and his advocacy of thewill to power as a primordial instinct, were major influences upon many of thefin-de-siècle generation.[107] Bergson's claim of the existence of anélan vital, or vital instinct, centred upon free choice and rejected the processes of materialism and determinism; this challengedMarxism.[108]
In his workThe Ruling Class (1896),Gaetano Mosca developed the theory that claims that in all societies an "organized minority" would dominate and rule over an "disorganized majority",[109] stating that there are only two classes in society, "the governing" (the organized minority) and "the governed" (the disorganized majority).[110] He claims that the organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority.[110]
French nationalist andreactionary monarchistCharles Maurras influenced fascism.[111] Maurras promoted what he calledintegral nationalism, which called for the organic unity of a nation, and insisted that a powerful monarch was an ideal leader of a nation. Maurras distrusted what he considered the democratic mystification of thepopular will that created an impersonal collective subject.[111] He claimed that a powerful monarch was a personified sovereign who could exercise authority to unite a nation's people.[111] Fascists idealized Maurras' integral nationalism, but modified into a modernized revolutionary form - devoid of Maurras'monarchism.[111]
French revolutionarysyndicalistGeorges Sorel (1847-1922) promoted the legitimacy ofpolitical violence in his workReflections on Violence (1908) and in other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie through ageneral strike.[112] InReflections on Violence, Sorel emphasized need for a revolutionarypolitical religion.[113] Also in his workThe Illusions of Progress (1908), Sorel denounced democracy as reactionary, stating that "nothing is more aristocratic than democracy".[114] By 1909, after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views—advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries.[115] Initially, Sorel had officially been arevisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 he had announced his abandonment of socialist literature. In 1914, using an aphorism ofBenedetto Croce, he claimed that "socialism is dead" because of the "decomposition of Marxism".[116] Sorel began to support reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in 1909, and this influenced his works.[116] Maurras held interest in merging his nationalist ideals with Soreliansyndicalism, known asSorelianism, as a means to confront democracy.[117] Maurras stated, "A socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a well made glove fits a beautiful hand."[118]
The fusion of Maurrassian nationalism and Sorelian syndicalism influenced radical Italian nationalistEnrico Corradini (1865-1931).[119] Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight.[119] Corradini spoke of Italy as being a "proletarian nation" that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the "plutocratic" French and British.[120] Corradini's views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI, founded in 1910), which claimed that Italy's economic backwardness was caused by corruption in its political class, liberalism, and division caused by "ignoble socialism".[120]
The ANI had ties and influence amongconservatives, Catholics, and thebusiness community.[121] Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeois values, democracy, liberalism, Marxism,internationalism, andpacifism, and the promotion ofheroism, vitalism, and violence.[122] The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism. They believed that humans are naturally predatory, and that nations are in a constant struggle in which only the strongest would survive.[123]
Futurism was both an artistic-cultural movement and initially a political movement in Italy led byFilippo Tommaso Marinetti (1876-1944) who wrote theManifesto of Futurism (1908), that championed the causes of modernism, action, and political violence as necessary elements of politics while denouncing liberalism and parliamentary politics.[125][126][page needed] Marinetti rejected conventional democracy - based on majority rule and egalitarianism - for a new form of democracy, promoting what he described in his work "The Futurist Conception of Democracy" as the following: "We are therefore able to give the directions to create and to dismantle to numbers, to quantity, to the mass, for with us number, quantity and mass will never be—as they are in Germany and Russia—the number, quantity and mass of mediocre men, incapable and indecisive."[127]
Futurism influenced fascism in its emphasis on recognizing the virile nature of violent action and war as necessities of modern civilization.[128] Marinetti promoted the need of physical training of young men, saying that, in male education, gymnastics should take precedence over books. He advocated segregation of the genders because womanly sensibility must not enter men's education, which he claimed must be "lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic".[129]
At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Italian political left became severely split over its position on the war. TheItalian Socialist Party (PSI) opposed the war but a number of Italian revolutionary syndicalists supported war against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the grounds that their reactionary regimes had to be defeated to ensure the success of socialism.[130] Angelo Oliviero Olivetti formed a pro-interventionistfascio called theRevolutionary Fasces of International Action in October 1914.[130] Benito Mussolini upon being expelled from his position as chief editor of the PSI's newspaperAvanti! for his anti-German stance, joined the interventionist cause in a separatefascio.[131] The term "fascism" was first used in 1915 by members of Mussolini's movement, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action.[132]
The first meeting of the Fasces of Revolutionary Action was held on 24 January 1915[133] when Mussolini declared that it was necessary for Europe to resolve its national problems—including national borders—of Italy and elsewhere "for the ideals of justice and liberty for which oppressed peoples must acquire the right to belong to those national communities from which they descended."[133] Attempts to hold mass meetings were ineffective and the organization was regularly harassed by government authorities and socialists.[134]
Adolf Hitler as a German soldier in World War I
Similar political ideas arose in Germany after the outbreak of the war. German sociologistJohann Plenge spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "ideas of 1914" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the French Revolution).[135] According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789"—such as the rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism—were being rejected in favor of "the ideas of 1914" that included "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order.[135] Plenge believed that racial solidarity (Volksgemeinschaft) would replace class division and that "racial comrades" would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of "proletarian" Germany against "capitalist" Britain.[135] He believed that theSpirit of 1914 manifested itself in the concept of the People's League of National Socialism.[136] This National Socialism was a form ofstate socialism that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany under the leadership of the state.[136] This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism because of the components that were against "the national interest" of Germany but insisted that National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in the economy.[136] Plenge advocated an authoritarian rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchicaltechnocratic state.[137]
Impact of World War I
Members of Italy'sArditi corps, shown here in 1918 holding daggers, a symbol of their group. They were formed in 1917 as groups of soldiers trained for dangerous missions, characterized by a refusal to surrender and a willingness to fight to the death. Their black uniforms inspired those of the Italian Fascist movement.[138]
Fascists viewed World War I as bringing revolutionary changes in the nature of war, society, the state and technology, as the advent oftotal war and mass mobilization had broken down the distinction between civilian and combatant, as civilians had become a critical part in economic production for the war effort and thus arose a "military citizenship" in which all citizens were involved to the military in some manner during the war.[9] World War I had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines or provide economic production and logistics to support those on the front lines, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.[9] Fascists viewed technological developments of weaponry and the state's total mobilization of its population in the war as symbolizing the beginning of a new era fusing state power withmass politics, technology and particularly the mobilizing myth that they contended had triumphed over the myth of progress and the era of liberalism.[139]
TheOctober Revolution of 1917, in whichBolshevik communists led byVladimir Lenin seized power in Russia, greatly influenced the development of fascism.[140] In 1917, Mussolini, as leader of theFasces of Revolutionary Action, praised the October Revolution, but later he became unimpressed with Lenin, regarding him as merely a new version ofTsar Nicholas II.[141] After World War I, fascists commonly campaigned on anti-Marxist agendas.[140]
Andreas Umland argues that there are similarities between fascism and Bolshevism, including that they believed in the necessity of a vanguard leadership, showed contempt for bourgeois values, and had totalitarian ambitions.[140] He says that in practice both have commonly emphasized revolutionary action, proletarian nation theories, one-party states, and party-armies;[140] With the antagonism betweenanti-interventionist Marxists and pro-interventionist fascists complete by the end of the war, the two sides became irreconcilable.[citation needed] The fascists presented themselves asanti-communists and as especially opposed to theMarxists.[142] In 1919, Mussolini consolidated control over the fascist movement, known asSansepolcrismo, with the founding of theItalian Fasces of Combat.[70]
In 1919,Alceste De Ambris andfuturist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created "The Manifesto of the Italian Fasces of Combat".[124] The Fascist Manifesto was presented on 6 June 1919 in the fascist newspaperIl Popolo d'Italia and supported the creation ofuniversal suffrage, includingwomen's suffrage (the latter being realized only partly in late 1925, with all opposition parties banned or disbanded);[144]proportional representation on a regional basis; government representation through acorporatist system of "National Councils" of experts, selected from professionals and tradespeople, elected to represent and hold legislative power over their respective areas, including labour, industry, transportation, public health, and communications, among others; and abolition of theSenate of the Kingdom of Italy.[145] The Fascist Manifesto supported the creation of aneight-hour work day for all workers, aminimum wage, worker representation in industrial management, equal confidence in labour unions as in industrial executives and public servants, reorganization of the transportation sector, revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance, reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55, a strongprogressive tax on capital, confiscation of the property of religious institutions and abolishment of bishoprics, and revision of military contracts to allow the government to seize 85% of profits.[146] It also called for the fulfillment of expansionist aims in the Balkans and other parts of the Mediterranean, the creation of a short-service national militia to serve defensive duties,nationalization of the armaments industry, and a foreign policy designed to be peaceful but also competitive.[147]
Residents ofFiume, now Rijeka, Croatia, cheer the arrival ofGabriele d'Annunzio and his blackshirt-wearing nationalist raiders, as D'Annunzio and fascistAlceste De Ambris developed the quasi-fascistItalian Regency of Carnaro (a city-state in Fiume) from 1919 to 1920 and whose actions inspired the Italian fascist movement. The Italians claimed Fiume on the principle of self-determination, disregarding the 50.4% of its population that wereYugoslavs.[148]
The next events that influenced the fascists in Italy were the raid ofFiume by Italian nationalistGabriele d'Annunzio and the founding of theCharter of Carnaro in 1920.[149] D'Annunzio and De Ambris designed the Charter, which advocated national-syndicalist corporatistproductionism alongside D'Annunzio's political views.[150] Many fascists saw the Charter of Carnaro as an ideal constitution for a fascist Italy.[151] This behaviour of aggression towards Yugoslavia andSouth Slavs was pursued by Italian fascists with their persecution of South Slavs—especially Slovenes and Croats.[152][153]
Accommodating conservatives
In 1920, militant strike activity by industrial workers reached its peak in Italy and 1919 and 1920 were known as the "Red Year" (Biennio Rosso).[154] Mussolini and the fascists took advantage of the situation by allying with industrial businesses and attacking workers and peasants in the name of preserving order and internal peace in Italy.[155]
Fascists identified their primary opponents as the majority of socialists on the left who had opposed intervention in World War I.[151] The fascists and the Italian political right held common ground: both held Marxism in contempt, discounted class consciousness and believed in the rule of elites.[156] The fascists assisted the anti-socialist campaign by allying with the other parties and the conservative right in a mutual effort to destroy the Italian Socialist Party and labour organizations committed to class identity above national identity.[156]
Fascism sought to accommodate Italian conservatives by making major alterations to its political agenda—abandoning its previous populism,republicanism andanticlericalism, adopting policies in support offree enterprise and accepting theCatholic Church and the monarchy as institutions in Italy.[157] To appeal to Italian conservatives, fascism adopted policies such as promotingfamily values, including policies designed to reduce the number of women in the workforce—limiting the woman's role to that of a mother. The fascists banned literature on birth control and increased penalties for abortion in 1926, declaring both crimes against the state.[158]
Although fascism adopted a number of anti-modern positions designed to appeal to people upset with the new trends in sexuality and women's rights—especially those with a reactionary point of view—the fascists sought to maintain fascism's revolutionary character, with Angelo Oliviero Olivetti saying: "Fascism would like to be conservative, but it will [be] by being revolutionary."[159] The Fascists supported revolutionary action and committed to secure law and order to appeal to both conservatives and syndicalists.[160]
Prior to fascism's accommodations to the political right, fascism was a small, urban, northern Italian movement that had about a thousand members.[161] After Fascism's accommodation of the political right, the fascist movement's membership soared to approximately 250,000 by 1921.[162] A 2020 article byDaron Acemoğlu, Giuseppe De Feo, Giacomo De Luca, and Gianluca Russo in theCenter for Economic and Policy Research, exploring the link between the threat ofsocialism and Mussolini's rise to power, found "a strong association between the Red Scare in Italy and the subsequent local support for the Fascist Party in the early 1920s."[163] According to the authors, it was local elites and large landowners who played an important role in boosting Fascist Party activity and support, which did not come from socialists' core supporters but fromcentre-right voters, as they viewed traditional centre-right parties as ineffective in stopping socialism and so turned to the fascists.[163] In 2003, historian Adrian Lyttelton wrote: "The expansion of Fascism in the rural areas was stimulated and directed by the reaction of the farmers and landowners against the peasant leagues of both Socialists and Catholics."[163]
Fascist violence
Beginning in 1922, fascist paramilitaries escalated their strategy from one of attacking socialist offices and the homes of socialist leadership figures, to one of violent occupation of cities. The fascists met little serious resistance from authorities and proceeded to take over several northern Italian cities.[164] The fascists attacked the headquarters of socialist and Catholic labour unions in Cremona and imposed forced Italianization upon the German-speaking population ofBolzano.[164][165] After seizing these cities, the fascists made plans to takeRome.[164]
On 24 October 1922, the Fascist Party held its annual congress inNaples, where Mussolini ordered Blackshirts to take control of public buildings and trains and to converge on three points around Rome.[164] The Fascists managed to seize control of several post offices and trains in northern Italy while the Italian government, led by a left-wing coalition, was internally divided and unable to respond to the Fascist advances.[167] King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy perceived the risk of bloodshed in Rome in response to attempting to disperse the Fascists to be too high.[168] Victor Emmanuel III decided to appoint Mussolini asPrime Minister of Italy and Mussolini arrived in Rome on 30 October to accept the appointment.[168] Fascist propaganda aggrandized this event, known as "March on Rome", as a "seizure" of power because of Fascists' heroic exploits.[164]
Upon being appointed Prime Minister of Italy, Mussolini had to form a coalition government because the fascists did not have control over the Italian parliament.[169] Mussolini's coalition government initially pursuedeconomically liberal policies under the direction of liberal finance ministerAlberto De Stefani, a member of the Center Party, including balancing the budget through deep cuts to the civil service.[169] Initially, little drastic change in government policy had occurred and repressive police actions were limited.[169]
The fascists began their attempt to entrench fascism in Italy with theAcerbo Law, which guaranteed a plurality of the seats in parliament to any party or coalition list in an election that received 25% or more of the vote.[170] Through considerable fascist violence and intimidation, the list won a majority of the vote, allowing many seats to go to the fascists.[170] In the aftermath of the election, a crisis and political scandal erupted after Socialist Party deputyGiacomo Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered by a Fascist.[170] The liberals and the leftist minority in parliament walked out in protest in what became known as theAventine Secession.[171] On 3 January 1925, Mussolini addressed the Fascist-dominated Italian parliament and declared that he was personally responsible for what happened, but insisted that he had done nothing wrong. Mussolini proclaimed himself dictator of Italy, assuming full responsibility over the government and announcing the dismissal of parliament.[171] From 1925 to 1929, fascism steadily became entrenched in power: opposition deputies were denied access to parliament, censorship was introduced and a December 1925 decree made Mussolini solely responsible to the King.[172]
Catholic Church
The signing of theLateran Treaty, Mussolini shown on the right side of the photograph.
In 1929, the fascist regime briefly gained what was in effect a blessing of the Catholic Church after the regime signed a concordat with the Church, known as theLateran Treaty, which gave the papacy state sovereignty and financial compensation for the seizure of Church lands by the liberal state in the 19th century, but within two years the Church had renounced fascism in the EncyclicalNon Abbiamo Bisogno as a "pagan idolatry of the state" which teaches "hatred, violence and irreverence".[173] Not long after signing the agreement, by Mussolini's own confession, the Church had threatened to have him "excommunicated", in part because of his intractable nature, but also because he had "confiscated more issues of Catholic newspapers in the next three months than in the previous seven years."[174] By the late 1930s, Mussolini became more vocal in his anti-clerical rhetoric, repeatedly denouncing the Catholic Church and discussing ways to depose the pope. He took the position that the "papacy was a malignant tumor in the body of Italy and must 'be rooted out once and for all,' because there was no room in Rome for both the Pope and himself."[175] In her 1974 book, Mussolini's widow Rachele stated that her husband had always been an atheist until near the end of his life, writing that her husband was "basically irreligious until the later years of his life."[176]
The Nazis in Germany employed similar anti-clerical policies.[177] The Gestapo confiscated hundreds of monasteries in Austria and Germany, evicted clergymen and laymen alike and often replaced crosses with swastikas.[178] Referring to the swastika as "the Devil's Cross", church leaders found their youth organizations banned, their meetings limited and various Catholic periodicals censored or banned. Government officials eventually found it necessary to place "Nazis into editorial positions in the Catholic press."[179] Up to 2,720 clerics, mostly Catholics, were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned inside of Germany's Dachau concentration camp, resulting in over 1,000 deaths.[180]
Corporatist economic system
The fascist regime created a corporatist economic system in 1925 with creation ofthe Palazzo Vidoni Pact, in which the Italian employers' associationConfindustria and fascist trade unions agreed to recognize each other as the sole representatives of Italy's employers and employees, excluding non-fascist trade unions.[181] The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers' strikes and lock-outs and in 1927 created theCharter of Labour, which established workers' rights and duties and created labour tribunals to arbitrate employer-employee disputes.[181] In practice, the sectoral corporations exercised little independence and were largely controlled by the regime, and the employee organizations were rarely led by employees themselves, but instead by appointed Fascist party members.[181]
In the 1920s, Fascist Italy pursued an aggressive foreign policy that included ambitions to expand Italian territory.[183] In response to revolt in the Italian colony ofLibya, Fascist Italy abandoned previous liberal-era colonial policy of cooperation with local leaders. Instead, claiming that Italians were a superior race to African races and thereby had the right to colonize the "inferior" Africans, it sought to settle 10 to 15 million Italians in Libya.[184] This resulted in an aggressive military campaign known as theSecond Italo-Senussi War also known as the Pacification of Libya against natives in Libya, including mass killings, the use ofconcentration camps and the forced starvation of thousands of people.[184] Italian authorities committedethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica in Libya, from their settlements that was slated to be given to Italian settlers.[185]
The March on Rome brought fascism international attention. One early admirer of the Italian fascists was Adolf Hitler, who less than a month after the March had begun to model himself and theNazi Party upon Mussolini and the Fascists.[186] The Nazis, led by Hitler and the German war heroErich Ludendorff, attempted a "March on Berlin" modeled upon the March on Rome, which resulted in the failedBeer Hall Putsch inMunich in November 1923.[187]
International impact of the Great Depression and buildup to World War II
The conditions of economic hardship caused by theGreat Depression brought about an international surge of social unrest.[189] Fascist propaganda blamed the problems of the long depression of the 1930s on minorities andscapegoats: "Judeo-Masonic-bolshevik" conspiracies,left-wing internationalism and the presence of immigrants.[190]
In Germany, it contributed to the rise of the Nazi Party, which resulted in the demise of theWeimar Republic and the establishment of the fascist regime,Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.[191][192] With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933,liberal democracy was dissolved in Germany and the Nazis mobilized the country for war, with expansionist territorial aims against several countries.[193][194] In the 1930s, the Nazis implemented racial laws that deliberately discriminated against,disenfranchised and persecuted Jews and other racial and minority groups.[195]
Fascist movements grew in strength elsewhere in Europe. Hungarian fascistGyula Gömbös rose to power as Prime Minister ofHungary in 1932 and attempted to entrench hisUnity Party throughout the country.[citation needed] He created an eight-hour work day and a forty-eight-hour work week in industry; sought to entrench a corporatist economy; and pursuedirredentist claims on Hungary's neighbors.[196] The fascistIron Guard movement inRomania soared in political support after 1933, gaining representation in the Romanian government, and an Iron Guard member assassinated Romanian prime ministerIon Duca.[197] The Iron Guard was the only fascist movement outside Germany and Italy tocome to power without foreign assistance.[198][199] During the6 February 1934 crisis,France faced the greatest domestic political turmoil since theDreyfus Affair when the fascistFrancist Movement and multiple far-right movements rioteden masse in Paris against the French government resulting in major political violence.[200] A variety ofpara-fascist governments that borrowed elements from fascism were formed during the Great Depression, including those ofGreece,Lithuania,Poland and Yugoslavia.[201] Inthe Netherlands, theNational Socialist Movement in the Netherlands was at its height in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, especially in 1935 when it won almost eight percent of votes, until the year 1937.[11]
During the Great Depression, Mussolini promoted active state intervention in the economy. He denounced the contemporary "supercapitalism" that he claimed began in 1914 as a failure because of its allegeddecadence, its support for unlimitedconsumerism, and its intention to create the "standardization of humankind."[206] Fascist Italy created theInstitute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI), a giant state-owned firm and holding company that provided state funding to failing private enterprises.[207] The IRI was made a permanent institution in Fascist Italy in 1937, pursued fascist policies to create nationalautarky and had the power to take over private firms to maximize war production.[207] While Hitler's regime only nationalized 500 companies in key industries by the early 1940s,[208] Mussolini declared in 1934, "[t]hree-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state."[209]
Due to the worldwide depression, Mussolini's government was able to take over most of Italy's largest failing banks, who held controlling interest in many Italian businesses. The IRI reported in early 1934 that they held assets of "48.5 percent of the share capital of Italy", which later included the capital of the banks themselves.[210] Political historian Martin Blinkhorn estimated Italy's scope of state intervention and ownership "greatly surpassed that in Nazi Germany, giving Italy a public sector second only to that of Stalin's Russia."[211] In the late 1930s, Italy enacted manufacturing cartels, tariff barriers, currency restrictions and massive regulation of the economy to attempt to balance payments.[212] Italy's policy of autarky failed to achieve effective economic autonomy.[212] Nazi Germany similarly pursued an economic agenda with the aims of autarky and rearmament and imposedprotectionist policies, including forcing the German steel industry to use lower-quality German iron ore rather than superior-quality imported iron.[213]
World War II (1939–1945)
Map of World War II in Europe from 1941-1942. Axis powers shown in red and Allied powers shown in blue.
In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, both Mussolini and Hitler pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas from the 1930s through the 1940s culminating in World War II.[citation needed] From 1935 to 1939, Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs. Italyinvaded Ethiopia in 1935 resulting in its condemnation by theLeague of Nations and its widespread diplomatic isolation.[citation needed] In 1936, Germanyremilitarized the industrial Rhineland, a region that had been ordered demilitarized by theTreaty of Versailles. In 1938, Germany annexedAustria[214][215] and Italy assisted Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims onCzechoslovakia by arranging theMunich Agreement that gave Germany theSudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war.[216][217] These hopes faded when Czechoslovakia was dissolved by the proclamation of the German client state ofSlovakia, followed by the next day of the occupation of the remainingCzech Lands and the proclamation of the GermanProtectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain.[218] In 1939, Germany prepared for war with Poland, but attempted to gain territorial concessions from Poland through diplomatic means.[219] The Polish government did not trust Hitler's promises and refused to accept Germany's demands.[219]
The invasion of Poland by Germany was deemed unacceptable by Britain, France and their allies, leading to their mutual declaration of war against Germany and the start of World War II.[220][221] In 1940, Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis. During World War II, the Axis Powers in Europe led by Nazi Germany participated in the extermination of millions of Poles, Jews, Roma, Sinti and others in the genocide known as the Holocaust.[222][223][224] In 1943, after Italy faced multiple military failures, the complete reliance and subordination of Italy to Germany, the Allied invasion of Italy and the corresponding international humiliation, Mussoliniwas removed as head of government and arrested on the order of King Victor Emmanuel III, who proceeded to dismantle the Fascist state and declared Italy's switching of allegiance to the Allied side.[citation needed] Mussolini was rescued from arrest by German forces and led the German client state, the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945.[225]
On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian communist partisans. On 30 April 1945, Hitler committed suicide.[226] Shortly afterwards, Germany surrendered and the Nazi regime wassystematically dismantled by the occupying Allied powers. An International Military Tribunal was subsequently convened inNuremberg. Beginning in November 1945 and lasting through 1949, numerous Nazi political, military and economic leaders weretried and convicted ofwar crimes, with many of the worst offenders being sentenced to death and executed.[227][228]
The victory of the Allies over the Axis powers inWorld War II led to the collapse of many fascist regimes in Europe. TheNuremberg Trials convicted several Nazi leaders of crimes against humanity involving the Holocaust.[229] However, there remained several movements and governments that were ideologically related to fascism.[230]
Francisco Franco'sFalangist one-party state in Spain was officially neutral during World War II, although Franco's rise to power had been directly assisted by the militaries of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during theSpanish Civil War.[231][232] The first years were characterized by a repression against the anti-fascist ideologies, deep censorship and the suppression of democratic institutions (elected Parliament,Spanish Constitution of 1931, Regional Statutes of Autonomy).[233][234] After World War II and a period of international isolation, Franco's regime normalized relations with the Western powers during the Cold War, until Franco's death in 1975 and the transformation of Spain into a liberal democracy.[235]
Historian Robert Paxton observes that one of the main problems in defining fascism is that it was widely mimicked. Paxton says: "In fascism's heyday, in the 1930s, many regimes that were not functionally fascist borrowed elements of fascist decor in order to lend themselves an aura of force, vitality, and mass mobilization." He goes on to observe thatSalazar "crushed Portuguese fascism after he had copied some of its techniques of popular mobilization."[236] Paxton says: "Where Franco subjected Spain's fascist party to his personal control, Salazar abolished outright in July 1934 the nearest thing Portugal had to an authentic fascist movement, Rolão Preto's blue-shirted National Syndicalists. ... Salazar preferred to control his population through such 'organic' institutions traditionally powerful in Portugal as the Church. Salazar's regime was not only non-fascist, but 'voluntarily non-totalitarian,' preferring to let those of its citizens who kept out of politics 'live by habit.'"[237] However, historians tend to view theEstado Novo aspara-fascist in nature,[238] possessing minimal fascist tendencies.[239] Other historians, includingFernando Rosas and Manuel Villaverde Cabral, think that the Estado Novo should be considered fascist.[240]
The term neo-fascism refers to fascist movements that generally originated after World War II. According toJean-Yves Camus andNicolas Lebourg, the neo-fascist ideology emerged in 1942, afterNazi Germanyinvaded the USSR and decided to reorient itspropaganda on a Europeanist ground.[242] In Italy, theItalian Social Movement led byGiorgio Almirante was a major neo-fascist movement that transformed itself into a self-described "post-fascist" movement called theNational Alliance (AN),[243] which has been an ally ofSilvio Berlusconi'sForza Italia for a decade.[244] In 2008, AN joined Forza Italia in Berlusconi's new partyThe People of Freedom, but in 2012 a group of politicians split from The People of Freedom, refounding the party with the nameBrothers of Italy.[245][246] In Germany, various neo-Nazi movements have been formed and banned in accordance with Germany's constitutional law which forbids Nazism. TheNational Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) is widely considered a neo-Nazi party, although the party does not publicly identify itself as such.[247]
In Argentina,Peronism, associated with the regime ofJuan Perón from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was influenced by fascism.[248][249] Between 1939 and 1941, prior to his rise to power, Perón had developed a deep admiration of Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on Italian fascist policies.[248] However, not all historians agree with this identification,[250] which they consider debatable[251] or even false,[252] biased by a pejorative political position.[253] Other authors, such as the historianRaanan Rein, categorically maintain that Perón was not a fascist and that this characterization was imposed on him because of his defiant stance against US hegemony.[254]
After the onset of theGreat Recession and economic crisis in Greece, a movement known as theGolden Dawn, widely considered a neo-Nazi party,[255] soared in support out of obscurity and won seats inGreece's parliament,[256] espousing a staunch hostility towards minorities, illegal immigrants and refugees.[257] In 2013, after the murder of an anti-fascist musician by a person with links to Golden Dawn, the Greek government ordered the arrest of Golden Dawn's leaderNikolaos Michaloliakos and other members on charges related to being associated with a criminal organization.[258][259] On 7 October 2020, Athens Appeals Court announced verdicts for 68 defendants, including the party's political leadership. Nikolaos Michaloliakos and six other prominent members and former members of parliament (MPs) were found guilty of running a criminal organization.[260] Guilty verdicts were delivered on charges of murder, attempted murder, and violent attacks on immigrants and left-wing political opponents.[261]
Marlene Laruelle, a French political scientist, contends inIs Russia Fascist? that the accusation of "fascist" has evolved into a strategic narrative of the existing world order.[262] Geopolitical rivals might construct their own view of the world and assert the moral high ground by branding ideological rivals as fascists, regardless of their real ideals or deeds.[263] Laruelle discusses the basis, significance, and veracity of accusations of fascism in and around Russia through an analysis of the domestic situation in Russia and the Kremlin's foreign policy justifications; she concludes that Russian efforts to brand its opponents as fascist is ultimately an attempt to determine the future of Russia in Europe as an antifascist force, influenced by its role in fighting fascism in World War II.[264]
According toAlexander J. Motyl, an American historian and political scientist, Russian fascism has the following characteristics:[265][266]
Yale historianTimothy Snyder has stated, "Putin's regime is ... the world center of fascism" and has written an article entitled"We Should Say It: Russia Is Fascist."[268] Oxford historian Roger Griffin compared Putin's Russia to the World War II-eraEmpire of Japan, saying that like Putin's Russia, it "emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist."[269] Historian Stanley G. Payne says Putin's Russia "is not equivalent to the fascist regimes of World War II, but it forms the nearest analogue to fascism found in a major country since that time" and argues that Putin's political system is "more a revival of the creed of TsarNicholas I in the 19th century that emphasized 'Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality' than one resembling the revolutionary, modernizing regimes of Hitler and Mussolini."[269] According to Griffin, fascism is "a revolutionary form of nationalism" seeking to destroy the old system and remake society, and that Putin is a reactionary politician who is not trying to create a new order "but to recreate a modified version of the Soviet Union". German political scientistAndreas Umland said genuine fascists in Russia, like deceased politicianVladimir Zhirinovsky and activist and self-styled philosopherAleksandr Dugin, "describe in their writings a completely new Russia" controlling parts of the world that were never under tsarist or Soviet domination.[269] According to Marlene Laurelle writing inThe Washington Quarterly, "applying the "fascism" label ... to the entirety of the Russian state or society short-circuits our ability to construct a more complex and differentiated picture."[270]
While initially composed of distinctive movements, in the 21st century, many U.S. Neo-Nazi groups have moved towards more decentralized organization and online social networks with a terroristic focus.[274] After the election ofDonald Trump, fascist groups began coalescing around his right-wing populism to take advantage of it.[275] In 2017, theUnite the Right rally[276] saw marchers come together from a variety of far-right groups and movements, including members of thealt-right,[277]neo-Confederates,[278] neo-fascists,[279]white nationalists,[280] neo-Nazis,[281] Klansmen,[282] andfar-rightmilitias.[283] Around this period, a number of prominent fascist groups were also founded, including theProud boys andPatriot Front.[284][285]
Tenets
Robert Paxton finds that even though fascism "maintained the existing regime of property and social hierarchy", it cannot be considered "simply a more muscular form of conservatism" because "fascism in power did carry out some changes profound enough to be called 'revolutionary.'"[286] These transformations "often set fascists into conflict with conservatives rooted in families, churches, social rank, and property." Paxton argues:
fascism redrew the frontiers between private and public, sharply diminishing what had once been untouchably private. It changed the practice of citizenship from the enjoyment of constitutional rights and duties to participation in mass ceremonies of affirmation and conformity. It reconfigured relations between the individual and the collectivity, so that an individual had no rights outside community interest. It expanded the powers of the executive—party and state—in a bid for total control. Finally, it unleashed aggressive emotions hitherto known in Europe only during war or social revolution.[286]
Ultranationalism, combined with the myth of national rebirth, is a key foundation of fascism.[287] Robert Paxton argues that "a passionate nationalism" is the basis of fascism, combined with "a conspiratorial andManichean view of history" which holds, "the chosen people have been weakened by political parties, social classes, unassimilable minorities, spoiled rentiers, and rationalist thinkers."[288] Roger Griffin identifies the core of fascism as being palingenetic ultranationalism.[37]
The fascist view of a nation is of a single organic entity that binds people together by their ancestry and is a natural unifying force of people.[289] Fascism seeks to solve economic, political, and social problems by achieving amillenarian national rebirth, exalting the nation orrace above all else and promoting cults of unity, strength, and purity.[290][291][8] European fascist movements typically espouse a racist conception of non-Europeans being inferior to Europeans.[292] Beyond this, European fascists have not held a unified set of racial views.[292] Historically, most fascists promoted imperialism, although there have been several fascist movements that were uninterested in the pursuit of new imperial ambitions.[292] For example, Nazism and Italian Fascism wereexpansionist andirredentist.[293][294] Falangism in Spain envisioned the worldwide unification of Spanish-speaking peoples (Hispanidad).[295]British Fascism wasnon-interventionist, though it did embrace the British Empire.[296]
Totalitarianism
Fascism promotes the establishment of a totalitarian state.[12] It opposes liberal democracy, rejects multi-party systems, and may support aone-party state so that it may synthesize with the nation.[13] Mussolini'sThe Doctrine of Fascism (1932), partlyghostwritten by philosopher Giovanni Gentile,[297] who Mussolini described as "the philosopher of Fascism", states: "The Fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value. Thus understood, Fascism is totalitarian, and the Fascist State—a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values—interprets, develops, and potentiates the whole life of a people."[298] InThe Concept of the Political, Nazi political theoristCarl Schmitt argued against liberal and parliamentarian democracy as being obstacles to the execution of state power.[299] InThe Legal Basis of the Total State, Schmitt further described the Nazi intention to form a "strong state which guarantees a totality of political unity transcending all diversity" in order to avoid a "disastrous pluralism tearing the German people apart."[300]
Fascist states pursued policies of socialindoctrination throughpropaganda in education and the media, and regulation of the production of educational and media materials.[301] Education was designed to glorify the fascist movement and inform students of its historical and political importance to the nation. It attempted to purge ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the fascist movement and to teach students to be obedient to the state.[302]
Historians and other scholars disagree on the question of whether a specificallyfascist type ofeconomic policy can be said to exist. David Baker argues that there is an identifiable economic system in fascism that is distinct from those advocated by other ideologies, comprising essential characteristics that fascist nations shared.[303] Payne, Paxton, Sternhellet al. argue that while fascist economies share some similarities, there is no distinctive form of fascist economic organization.[304][305][306]Gerald Feldman andTimothy Mason argue that fascism is distinguished by an absence of coherent economic ideology and a lack of serious economic thinking. They state that the decisions taken by fascist leaders cannot be explained within a logical economic framework.[307]
Fascists presented their views as an alternative to both international socialism and free-market economics.[308] While fascism opposed mainstream socialism, fascists sometimes regarded their movement as a type of nationalist "socialism" to highlight their commitment tonationalism, describing it as nationalsolidarity and unity.[309][310] Fascism had a complex relationship withcapitalism, both supporting and opposing different aspects of it at different times and in different countries. In general, fascists held an instrumental view of capitalism, regarding it as a tool that may be useful or not, depending on circumstances.[311][312] Fascist governments typically established close connections between big business and the state, and business was expected to serve the interests of the government.[311][312] Economic self-sufficiency, known as autarky, was a major goal of most fascist governments.[313]
Fascist governments advocated for the resolution of domesticclass conflict within a nation in order to guarantee national unity.[314] This would be done through the state's mediating relations between the classes (contrary to the views ofclassical liberal–inspired capitalists).[315] While fascism was opposed to domestic class conflict, it held thatbourgeois–proletarian conflict existed primarily in international conflict between proletarian nations and bourgeois nations.[316] Fascism condemned what it viewed as widespread character traits that it associated with the typical bourgeois mentality that it opposed, such as materialism, crassness, cowardice, and the inability to comprehend the heroic ideal of the fascist "warrior"; and associations with liberalism, individualism, andparliamentarianism.[317] From 1914, Enrico Corradini developed the idea of "proletarian nations", defining proletarian as being one and the same with producers, aproductivist perspective that associated all people deemed productive, including entrepreneurs, technicians, workers and soldiers as being proletarian.[318][319][320] Mussolini adopted this view in his description of the proletarian character.[citation needed]
The need for apeople's car (Volkswagen in German), its concept and its functional objectives were formulated byAdolf Hitler.[321]
Because productivism was key to creating a strong nationalist state, it criticized internationalist and Marxist socialism, advocating instead to represent a type of nationalist productivist socialism.[322] Nevertheless, while condemning parasitical capitalism, it was willing to accommodate productivist capitalism within it so long as it supported the nationalist objective.[323] The role of productivism was derived fromHenri de Saint Simon, whose ideas inspired the creation ofutopian socialism and influenced other ideologies that stressed solidarity rather than class war and whose conception of productive people in the economy included both productive workers and productive bosses to challenge the influence of the aristocracy and unproductive financial speculators.[324] Saint Simon's vision combined the traditionalist right-wing criticisms of the French Revolution with a left-wing belief in the need for association or collaboration of productive people in society.[324] Whereas Marxism condemned capitalism as a system of exploitative property relations, fascism saw the nature of the control of credit and money in the contemporary capitalist system as abusive.[323]
Unlike Marxism, fascism did not see class conflict between the Marxist-defined proletariat and the bourgeoisie as a given or as an engine of historical materialism.[323] Instead, it viewed workers and productive capitalists in common as productive people who were in conflict with parasitic elements in society, including corrupt political parties, corrupt financial capital, and feeble people.[323] Fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Hitler spoke of the need to create a new managerial elite led by engineers and captains of industry—but free from the parasitic leadership of industries.[323] Hitler stated that the Nazi Party supportedbodenständigen Kapitalismus ("productive capitalism") that was based upon profit earned from one's own labour, but condemned unproductive capitalism or loan capitalism, which derived profit from speculation.[325]
Fascist economics supported a state-controlled economy that accepted a mix ofprivate andpublic ownership over themeans of production.[326]Economic planning was applied to both the public and private sectors, and the prosperity of private enterprise depended on its acceptance of synchronizing itself with the economic goals of the state.[207] Fascist economic ideology supported theprofit motive but emphasized that industries must uphold the national interest as superior to private profit.[207]
While fascism accepted the importance of material wealth and power, it condemned materialism, which was identified as being present in both communism and capitalism, and criticized materialism for lacking acknowledgment of the role of the spirit.[327] In particular, fascists criticized capitalism, not because of its competitive nature nor support of private property, which fascists supported—but due to its materialism, individualism, alleged bourgeois decadence and alleged indifference to the nation.[328] Fascism denounced Marxism for its advocacy of materialist internationalist class identity, which fascists regarded as an attack upon the emotional and spiritual bonds of the nation and a threat to the achievement of genuine national solidarity.[329]
In discussing the spread of fascism beyond Italy, historian Philip Morgan states:
Since the Depression was a crisis of laissez-faire capitalism and its political counterpart, parliamentary democracy, fascism could pose as the 'third-way' alternative between capitalism and Bolshevism, the model of a new European 'civilization.' As Mussolini typically put it in early 1934, 'from 1929 ... fascism has become a universal phenomenon ... The dominant forces of the 19th century, democracy, socialism, [and] liberalism have been exhausted ... the new political and economic forms of the twentieth-century are fascist'.[330]
Fascists criticized egalitarianism as preserving the weak and instead promoted social Darwinist views and policies.[331][332] They were in principle opposed to the idea ofsocial welfare, arguing that it "encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and the feeble."[333] The Nazi Party condemned the welfare system of the Weimar Republic, as well as private charity and philanthropy, for supporting people whom they regarded as racially inferior and weak and who should have been weeded out in the process of natural selection.[334] Nevertheless, faced with the mass unemployment and poverty of the Great Depression, the Nazis found it necessary to set up charitable institutions to help racially pure Germans in order to maintain popular support while arguing that this represented "racial self-help" and not indiscriminate charity or universal social welfare.[335] Thus, Nazi programs such as theWinter Relief of the German People and the broaderNational Socialist People's Welfare (NSV) were organized as quasi-private institutions, officially relying on private donations from Germans to help others of their race—although in practice those who refused to donate could face severe consequences.[336] Unlike the social welfare institutions of the Weimar Republic and the Christian charities, the NSV distributed assistance on explicitly racial grounds.[336] It provided support only to those who were "racially sound, capable of and willing to work, politically reliable, and willing and able to reproduce." Non-Aryans were excluded, as well as the "work-shy", "asocials" and the "hereditarily ill".[337] Under these conditions, by 1939, over 17 million Germans had obtained assistance from the NSV, and the agency "projected a powerful image of caring and support" for "those who were judged to have got into difficulties through no fault of their own."[337] Yet the organization was "feared and disliked among society's poorest" because it resorted to intrusive questioning and monitoring to judge who was worthy of support.[338]
Direct action
Fascism emphasizesdirect action, including supporting the legitimacy of political violence, as a core part of its politics.[339] Fascism views violent action as a necessity in politics that fascism identifies as being an "endless struggle";[340] this emphasis on the use of political violence means that most fascist parties have also created their own privatemilitias (e.g. the Nazi Party'sBrown shirts and Fascist Italy'sBlackshirts).[341] The basis of fascism's support of violent action in politics is connected to social Darwinism.[340] Fascist movements have commonly held social Darwinist views of nations, races, and societies.[342] They say that nations and races must purge themselves of socially and biologically weak ordegenerate people while simultaneously promoting the creation of strong people in order to survive in a world defined by perpetual national and racial conflict.[343]
Age and gender roles
Members of thePiccole Italiane, an organization for girls within the National Fascist Party in ItalyMembers of theLeague of German Girls, an organization for girls within the Nazi Party in Germany
Fascism emphasizesyouth both in a physical sense of age and a spiritual sense as related to virility and commitment to action.[344] The Italian Fascists' political anthem was calledGiovinezza ("The Youth").[344] Fascism identifies the physical age period of youth as a critical time for the moral development of people who will affect society.[345] Walter Laqueur argues "[t]he corollaries of the cult of war and physical danger were the cult of brutality, strength, and sexuality ... [fascism is] a true counter-civilization: rejecting the sophisticated rationalist humanism of Old Europe, fascism sets up as its ideal the primitive instincts and primal emotions of the barbarian."[346]
Italian fascism pursued what it called "moral hygiene" of youth, particularly regardingsexuality.[347] Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in youth while denouncing what it considered deviant sexual behaviour.[347] It condemnedpornography, most forms ofbirth control and contraceptive devices (with the exception of thecondom),homosexuality andprostitution as deviant sexual behaviour. However, enforcement of laws opposed to such practices was erratic, and authorities often looked the other way.[347] Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation beforepuberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth, declared homosexuality a social disease and pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce prostitution of young women.[347]
Mussolini perceived women's primary role as primarily child bearers, while that of men as warriors, once saying: "War is to man what maternity is to the woman."[348] In an effort to increase birth rates, the Italian Fascist government gave financial incentives to women who raised large families and initiated policies intended to reduce the number of women employed.[349] Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as "reproducers of the nation", and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to celebrate women's role within the Italian nation.[350] In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a "major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment" and that for women, working was "incompatible with childbearing"; Mussolini went on to say that the solution to unemployment for men was the "exodus of women from the work force."[351]
The German Nazi government strongly encouraged women to stay at home to bear children and keep house.[352] This policy was reinforced by bestowing theCross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more children. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Nazi propaganda sometimes promoted premarital and extramarital sexual relations, unwed motherhood and divorce, but at other times the Nazis opposed such behaviour.[353]
The Nazis decriminalized abortion in cases where fetuses had hereditary defects or were of a race the government disapproved of, while the abortion of healthy pure German,Aryan fetuses remained strictly forbidden.[354] For non-Aryans, abortion was often compulsory. Theireugenics program also stemmed from the "progressive biomedical model" ofWeimar Germany.[355] In 1935, Nazi Germany expanded the legality ofabortion by amendingits eugenics law to promote abortion for women with hereditary disorders.[354] The law allowed abortion if a woman gave her permission and the fetus was not yet viable[356][357] and for purposes of so-calledracial hygiene.[358][359]
The Nazis said that homosexuality was degenerate, effeminate, perverted, and undermined masculinity because it did not produce children.[360] They considered homosexuality curable through therapy, citing modernscientism and the study ofsexology. Open homosexuals were interned in Nazi concentration camps.[361]
Fascism emphasizes both palingenesis (national rebirth or re-creation) andmodernism.[362] In particular, fascism's nationalism has been identified as having a palingenetic character.[363] Fascism promotes the nation's regeneration and purging it of decadence.[362] Fascism accepts forms of modernism that it deems promote national regeneration while rejecting forms of modernism regarded as antithetical to national regeneration.[364] Fascism aestheticized modern technology and its association with speed, power, and violence.[365] Fascism admired advances in the economy in the early 20th century, particularlyFordism andscientific management.[366] Fascist modernism has been recognized as inspired or developed by various figures—such as Filippo Tommaso Marinetti,Ernst Jünger,Gottfried Benn,Louis-Ferdinand Céline,Knut Hamsun,Ezra Pound andWyndham Lewis.[367]
In Italy, such modernist influence was exemplified by Marinetti, who advocated a palingenetic modernist society that condemned liberal-bourgeois values of tradition and psychology while promoting a technological-martial religion of national renewal that emphasized militant nationalism.[368] In Germany, it was exemplified by Jünger who was influenced by his observation of the technological warfare during World War I and claimed that a new social class had been created that he described as the "warrior-worker";[369] Like Marinetti, Jünger emphasized the revolutionary capacities of technology. He emphasized an "organic construction" between humans and machines as a liberating and regenerative force that challenged liberal democracy, conceptions of individual autonomy, bourgeois nihilism, and decadence.[369] He conceived of a society based on a totalitarian concept of "total mobilization" of such disciplined warrior-workers.[369]
The standard definition of fascism, given by Stanley G. Payne, focuses on three concepts, one of which is a "fascist style" with an aesthetic structure of meetings, symbols, and political liturgy, stressing emotional and mystical aspects.[34]
Emilio Gentile argues that fascism expresses itself aesthetically more than theoretically by means of a new political style with myths, rites, and symbols as a lay religion designed to acculturate, socialize, and integrate the faith of the masses with the goal of creating a "new man".[373]
Fascist aesthetics ... flow from (and justify) a preoccupation with situations of control, submissive behavior, extravagant effort, and the endurance of pain; they endorse two seemingly opposite states, egomania and servitude. The relations of domination and enslavement take the form of a characteristic pageantry: the massing of groups of people; the turning of people into things; the multiplication or replication of things; and the grouping of people/things around an all-powerful, hypnotic leader-figure or force. The fascist dramaturgy centers on the orgiastic transactions between mighty forces and their puppets, uniformly garbed and shown in ever swelling numbers. Its choreography alternates between ceaseless motion and a congealed, static, 'virile' posing. Fascist art glorifies surrender, it exalts mindlessness, it glamorizes death.[374]
Sontag also enumerates some commonalities between fascist art and the official art of communist countries, such as the obeisance of the masses to the hero, and a preference for the monumental and the "grandiose and rigid" choreography of mass bodies. But whereas official communist art "aims to expound and reinforce a utopian morality", the art of fascist countries such as Nazi Germany "displays a utopian aesthetics – that of physical perfection", in a way that is "both prurient and idealizing".[374]
According to Sontag, fascist aesthetics "is based on the containment of vital forces; movements are confined, held tight, held in." Its appeal is not necessarily limited to those who share the fascist political ideology because fascism "stands for an ideal or rather ideals that are persistent today under the other banners: the ideal of life as art, the cult of beauty, the fetishism of courage, the dissolution of alienation in ecstatic feelings of community; the repudiation of the intellect; the family of man (under the parenthood of leaders)."[374]
In Italy, the Mussolini regime created theDirezione Generale per la Cinematografi to encourage film studios to glorify fascism.[375] Italian cinema flourished because the regime stopped the import of Hollywood films in 1938, subsidized domestic production, and kept ticket prices low. It encouraged international distribution to glorify its African empire and to oppose the accusation that Italy was backward.[376] The regime censored criticism and used the state-run Luce Institute film company to laud the Duce through newsreels, documentaries, and photographs.[377] The regime promoted Italian opera and theatre as well, making sure that political enemies did not have a voice on stage.[378]
Fascist parties were closely contested byanti-fascist movements from thepolitical centre andleft wing throughout the Interwar period. The defeat of theAxis powers in World War II and subsequent revelation of thecrimes against humanity committed during the Holocaust by Germany have led to an almost universal condemnation of both past and present forms of fascism in the modern era. "Fascism" is today used across the political spectrum as a pejorative or byword for perceived authoritarianism and other forms of political evil.
One of the most common and strongest criticisms of fascism is that it is atyranny.[384] Fascism is deliberately and entirely non-democratic and anti-democratic.[385]
...encompassedtotalitarianism,state terrorism, imperialism, racism and, in the German case, the most radical genocide of the last century: the Holocaust. Fascism, in its many forms, did not hesitate to kill its own citizens as well as its colonial subjects in its search for ideological and political closure. Millions of civilians perished on a global scale during the apogee of fascist ideologies in Europe and beyond.[389]
Unprincipled opportunism
Some critics of Italian fascism have said that much of the ideology was merely a by-product of unprincipledopportunism by Mussolini and that he changed his political stances merely to bolster his personal ambitions while he disguised them as being purposeful to the public.[390]Richard Washburn Child, the American ambassador to Italy who worked with Mussolini and became his friend and admirer, defended Mussolini's opportunistic behaviour by writing:
Opportunist is a term of reproach used to brand men who fit themselves to conditions for the reasons of self-interest. Mussolini, as I have learned to know him, is an opportunist in the sense that he believed that mankind itself must be fitted to changing conditions rather than to fixed theories, no matter how many hopes and prayers have been expended on theories and programmes.[391]
Child quoted Mussolini as saying: "The sanctity of an ism is not in the ism; it has no sanctity beyond its power to do, to work, to succeed in practice. It may have succeeded yesterday and fail to-morrow. Failed yesterday and succeed to-morrow. The machine, first of all, must run!"[392]
Some have criticized Mussolini's actions during the outbreak of World War I as opportunistic for seeming to suddenly abandon Marxist egalitarian internationalism for non-egalitarian nationalism and note, to that effect, that upon Mussolini endorsing Italy's intervention in the war against Germany and Austria-Hungary, he and the new fascist movement received financial support from Italian and foreign sources, such asAnsaldo (an armaments firm) and other companies[393] as well as the British Security ServiceMI5.[394] Some, including Mussolini's socialist opponents at the time, have noted that regardless of the financial support he accepted for his pro-interventionist stance, Mussolini was free to write whatever he wished in his newspaperIl Popolo d'Italia without prior sanctioning from his financial backers.[395] Furthermore, the major source of financial support that Mussolini and the fascist movement received in World War I was from France and is widely believed to have been French socialists who supported the French government's war against Germany and who sent support to Italian socialists who wanted Italian intervention on France's side.[396]
Mussolini’s transformation away from Marxism into what eventually became fascism began prior to World War I, as Mussolini had grown increasingly pessimistic about Marxism and egalitarianism while becoming increasingly supportive of figures who opposed egalitarianism, such as Friedrich Nietzsche.[397] By 1902, Mussolini was studying Georges Sorel, Nietzsche andVilfredo Pareto.[398] Sorel's emphasis on the need for overthrowing decadent liberal democracy and capitalism by the use of violence, direct action, general strikes andneo-Machiavellian appeals to emotion impressed Mussolini deeply.[399] Mussolini's use of Nietzsche made him a highly unorthodox socialist, due to Nietzsche's promotion of elitism and anti-egalitarian views.[397] Prior to World War I, Mussolini's writings over time indicated that he had abandoned the Marxism and egalitarianism that he had previously supported in favour of Nietzsche'sübermensch concept and anti-egalitarianism.[397] In 1908, Mussolini wrote a short essay called "Philosophy of Strength" based on his Nietzschean influence, in which Mussolini openly spoke fondly of the ramifications of an impending war in Europe in challenging both religion andnihilism: "[A] new kind of free spirit will come, strengthened by the war, ... a spirit equipped with a kind of sublime perversity, ... a new free spirit will triumph over God and over Nothing."[128]
Ideological dishonesty
Fascism has been criticized for being ideologically dishonest. Major examples of ideological dishonesty have been identified in Italian fascism's changing relationship with German Nazism.[400] Fascist Italy's official foreign policy positions commonly used rhetorical ideologicalhyperbole to justify its actions, although duringDino Grandi's tenure as Italy's foreign minister the country engaged inrealpolitik free of such fascist hyperbole.[401] Italian fascism's stance towards German Nazism fluctuated from support from the late 1920s to 1934, when it celebrated Hitler's rise to power and Mussolini's first meeting with Hitler in 1934; to opposition from 1934 to 1936 after the assassination of Italy's allied leader in Austria,Engelbert Dollfuss, by Austrian Nazis; and again back to support after 1936, when Germany was the only significant power that did not denounceItaly's invasion and occupation of Ethiopia.[402]
After antagonism exploded between Nazi Germany andFascist Italy over the assassination of Austrian Chancellor Dollfuss in 1934, Mussolini and Italian fascists denounced and ridiculed Nazism's racial theories, particularly by denouncing itsNordicism, while promotingMediterraneanism.[403] Mussolini himself responded to Nordicists' claims of Italy being divided into Nordic and Mediterranean racial areas due to Germanic invasions of Northern Italy by claiming that while Germanic tribes such as theLombards took control of Italy after thefall of Ancient Rome, they arrived in small numbers (about 8,000) and quickly assimilated into Roman culture and spoke theLatin language within fifty years.[404] Italian fascism was influenced by the tradition ofItalian nationalists scornfully looking down upon Nordicists' claims and taking pride in comparing the age and sophistication ofancient Roman civilization as well as the classical revival in theRenaissance to that of Nordic societies that Italian nationalists described as "newcomers" to civilization in comparison.[405] At the height of antagonism between the Nazis and Italian fascists over race, Mussolini claimed that the Germans themselves were not a pure race and noted with irony that the Nazi theory of German racial superiority was based on the theories of non-German foreigners, such as Frenchman Arthur de Gobineau.[406] After the tension inGerman-Italian relations diminished during the late 1930s, Italian fascism sought to harmonize its ideology with German Nazism and combined Nordicist and Mediterranean racial theories, noting that Italians were members of the Aryan Race, composed of a mixed Nordic-Mediterranean subtype.[403]
In 1938, Mussolini declared upon Italy's adoption of antisemitic laws that Italian fascism had always been antisemitic.[403] However, Italian fascism did not endorseantisemitism until the late 1930s when Mussolini feared alienating antisemitic Nazi Germany, whose power and influence were growing in Europe.[407] Prior to that period, there had been notableJewish Italians who had been senior Italian fascist officials, includingMargherita Sarfatti, who had also been Mussolini's mistress.[403] Also contrary to Mussolini's claim in 1938, only a small number of Italian fascists were staunchly antisemitic (such asRoberto Farinacci and Giuseppe Preziosi), while others such asItalo Balbo, who came fromFerrara which had one of Italy's largest Jewish communities, were disgusted by the antisemitic laws and opposed them.[403] Fascism scholar Mark Neocleous notes that while Italian fascism did not have a clear commitment to antisemitism, there were occasional antisemitic statements issued prior to 1938, such as Mussolini in 1919 declaring that the Jewish bankers in London and New York were connected by race to the Russian Bolsheviks and that eight percent of the Russian Bolsheviks were Jews.[408]
Anti-fascism is apolitical movement in opposition to fascist ideologies, groups and individuals. Beginning in European countries in the 1920s, it was at its most significant shortly before and during World War II. During the war, the Axis powers were opposed by many countries forming theAllies, and by dozens ofresistance movements worldwide.[409] Anti-fascism has been an element of movements across the political spectrum and holding many different political positions such asanarchism, communism, pacifism, republicanism, social democracy, socialism and syndicalism as well ascentrist,conservative,liberal andnationalist viewpoints.[410]
Organization against fascism began around 1920. Fascism became the state ideology of Italy in 1922 and of Germany in 1933, spurring a large increase in anti-fascist action, includingGerman resistance to Nazism and theItalian resistance movement. Anti-fascism was a major aspect of the Spanish Civil War, which foreshadowed World War II.[411]
Before World War II,the West had not taken seriously the threat of fascism, and anti-fascism was sometimes associated with communism.[412] However, theoutbreak of World War II greatly changed Western perceptions, and fascism was seen as an existential threat by not only the communist Soviet Union but also by theliberal-democratic United States and United Kingdom.[citation needed] The Axis Powers of World War II were generally fascist, and the fight against them was characterized in anti-fascist terms.Resistance during World War II to fascism occurred in every occupied country, and came from across the ideological spectrum. The defeat of the Axis powers generally ended fascism as a state ideology.[413]
^Badie, Berg-Schlosser & Morlino (2011), pp. 887–888, Fascism Payne (1975), p. 162: "[...] goals of radical and authoritarian nationalism" Larsen, Hagtvet & Myklebust (1984), p. 424: "[...] organized form of integrative radical nationalist authoritarianism" Paxton (2004), pp. 32, 45, 173: (32) "[...] antiliberal values, more aggressive nationalism and racism, and a new aesthetic of instinct and violence"; (173) "[...] overtly violent racism and nationalism. [...] its defining elements—unlimited particular sovereignty, a relish for war, and a society based on violent exclusion" Nolte (1965), p. 300: "National fascism, as we have shown, is distinguished from nationalism by, among other things, the fact it demands the destruction of a neighbouring state whose very existence appears to threaten its own position of power and the historic remains of its past dominant status in the area." Merriam-WebsterFascism
^abEncyclopedia BritannicaFascism: "extreme militaristic nationalism, contempt for electoral democracy and political and cultural liberalism, a belief in natural social hierarchy and the rule of elites, and the desire to create aVolksgemeinschaft (German: "people's community"), in which individual interests would be subordinated to the good of the nation"
^Davies & Lynch (2002), p. 275: "Detailed and intrusive state direction of the economy and/or society. Dirigisme was central to both fascism and Communist systems. However, in the case of fascism, there was no requirement for outright state ownership of the means of production, as long as the economy could be harnessed to serve what fascists deemed to be the 'national interest'."
^Encyclopedia BritannicaFasces: "When carried inside Rome, the ax was removed (unless the magistrate was a dictator or general celebrating a triumph) as recognition of the right of a Roman citizen to appeal a magistrate's ruling."
^Mudde & Kaltwasser (2017), pp. 33–34: "... fascism flirted with populism, particularly during their movement phases, in an attempt to generate mass support."
^Mudde & Kaltwasser (2017), p. 6: "... thin-centered ideologies have a restricted morphology, which necessarily appears attached to—and sometimes is even assimilated into—other ideologies. In fact, populism almost always appears attached to other ideological elements, which are crucial for the promotion of political projects that are appealing to a broader public. Consequently, by itself populism can offer neither complex nor comprehensive answers to the political questions that modern societies generate. ... [Populism] is not so much a coherent ideological tradition as a set of ideas that, in the real world, appears in combination with quite different, and sometimes contradictory, ideologies."
^abcdefghSharma, R.N. (1991).Plato: An Inter-disciplinary Perspective. New Delhi, India: Atlantic Publishers and Distributors. pp. 131–132.
^abContemporary Political Theory: New Dimensions, Basic Concepts and Major Trends (12th ed.). New Delhi, India: Sterling Publishers Private Ltd. 2007. p. 705.
^Romero, Ricardo (2015),Perón, Reformismo y nazi fascismo durante la Segunda Guerra Mundial [Perón, Reformism and Nazi fascism during the Second War World] (in Spanish), Departamento de Ciencias Sociales, Colegio nacional de Buenos Aires, UBA, p. 14, archived fromthe original on 7 April 2016,Although it is incorrect to define Peronism as Nazism, and it is debatable to conceptualize it as fascism, the truth is that in the University the Catholic sectors that received the support of the General did much to make the students consider as fascist to Perón.
^Lyttelton (1973), p. 13: "The first half of the article was the work of Giovanni Gentile; only the second half was Mussolini's own work, though the whole article appeared under his name."
^Griffin & Feldman (2004), p. 353: "When the Russian revolution occurred in 1917 and the 'Democratic' revolution spread after the First World War, anti-bolshevism and anti-egalitarianism rose as very strong "restoration movements" on the European scene. However, by the turn of that century no one could predict that fascism would become such a concrete, political reaction ... ."
^Hawkins (1997), p. 285: "Conflict is in fact the basic law of life in all social organisms, as it is of all biological ones; societies are formed, gain strength, and move forwards through conflict; the healthiest and most vital of them assert themselves against the weakest and less well adapted through conflict; the natural evolution of nations and races takes place through conflict." Alfredo Rocco, Italian Fascist.
^Proctor (1989), p. 366: "This emendation allowed abortion only if the woman granted permission, and only if the fetus was not old enough to survive outside the womb. It is unclear if either of these qualifications was enforced."
^Proctor (1989), pp. 122–123: "Abortion, in other words, could be allowed if it was in the interest of racial hygiene. ... the Nazis did allow (and in some cases even required) abortions for women deemed racially inferior. ... On 10 November 1938, a Luneberg court declared abortion legal for Jews."
^Tierney (1999), p. 589: "In 1939, it was announced that Jewish women could seek abortions, but non-Jewish women could not."
^Baudrillard (1994), p. 48: "Fascism itself, the mystery of its appearance and of its collective energy, ... can already be interpreted as the 'irrational' excess of mythic and political referentials, the mad intensification of collective value (blood, race, people, etc.), the reinjection of death, of a 'political aesthetic of death' at a time when the process of the disenchantment of value and of collective values, of the rational secularization and unidimensionalization of all life, of the operationalization of all social and individual life already makes itself strongly felt in the West. Yet again, everything seems to escape this catastrophe of value, this neutralization and pacification of life. Fascism is a resistance to this, even if it is a profound, irrational, demented resistance, it would not have tapped into this massive energy if it hadn't been a resistance to something much worse. Fascism's cruelty, its terror is on the level ofthis other terror that is the confusion of the real and the rational, which deepened in the West, and it is a response to that."
^Mussolini (1998), p. ix. (Note: Mussolini wrote the second volume about his fall from power as head of government of the Kingdom of Italy in 1943, though he was restored to power in northern Italy by the German military.)
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