Fascism

For the Italian political movement of "Fascism", see Italian Fascism.

For the book published by Oxford University Press, see Fascism (book).

Fascism, Template:PronEng, comprises a radical and authoritarian nationalist political ideology and a corporatist economic ideology. Fascists advocate the creation of a single-party state. Fascists believe that nations and/or races are in perpetual conflict whereby only the strong can survive by being healthy, vital, and by asserting themselves in combat against the weak. Fascist governments forbid and suppress criticism and opposition to the government and the fascist movement. Fascism opposes class conflict, blames capitalist liberal democracies for its creation and communists for exploiting the concept. Fascism is much defined by what it opposes, what scholars call the fascist negations - its opposition to rationalism, liberalism, conservatism, capitalism, and communism. In the economic sphere, many fascist leaders have claimed to support a "Third Way" in economic policy, which they believed superior to both the rampant individualism of unrestrained capitalism and the severe control of state communism. This was to be achieved by a form of government control over business and labour (called "the corporate state" by Mussolini). No common and concise definition exists for fascism and historians and political scientists disagree on what should be in any concise definition.

Following the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II and the publicity surrounding the atrocities committed during the period of fascist governments, the term fascist has been used as a pejorative word.

Etymology

The term fascismo is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means "bundle", group, or "union", and from the Latin word fasces. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods that were tied around an axe, were an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrates; they were carried by his Lictors and could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command. Furthermore, the symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. This is a familiar theme throughout different forms of fascism; for example the Falange symbol is a bunch of arrows joined together by a yoke.

Definitions

Main article: Definitions of fascism

Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism. Since the 1990s, scholars like Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin and Robert O. Paxton have begun to gather a rough consensus on the system's core tenets. Each form of fascism is distinct, leaving many definitions as too wide or too narrow.

Griffin wrote:

[Fascism is] a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism. As such it is an ideology deeply bound up with modernization and modernity, one which has assumed a considerable variety of external forms to adapt itself to the particular historical and national context in which it appears, and has drawn a wide range of cultural and intellectual currents, both left and right, anti-modern and pro-modern, to articulate itself as a body of ideas, slogans, and doctrine. In the inter-war period it manifested itself primarily in the form of an elite-led "armed party" which attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to generate a populist mass movement through a liturgical style of politics and a programme of radical policies which promised to overcome a threat posed by international socialism, to end the degeneration affecting the nation under liberalism, and to bring about a radical renewal of its social, political and cultural life as part of what was widely imagined to be the new era being inaugurated in Western civilization. The core mobilizing myth of fascism which conditions its ideology, propaganda, style of politics and actions is the vision of the nation's imminent rebirth from decadence.

Paxton wrote that 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.

Position in the political spectrum

Most academics describe fascism as extreme right, radical right, far right or ultra right; some calling it a mixture of authoritarian conservatism and right-wing nationalism. However, there exists a dissenting view that fascism represents radical centrism. Moreover, a number of writers highlight aspects of some types of fascist ideology which may typically be associated with the left.

Benito Mussolini promoted ambiguity about fascism's positions in order to rally as many people to it as possible, saying fascists can be "aristocrats or democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists". Mussolini claimed that Italian Fascism's economic system of corporatism could be identified as either state capitalism or state socialism, which in either case involved "the bureaucratisation of the economic activities of the nation." Mussolini described fascism in any language he found useful.

Eugen Weber places fascism on the right: "...their most common allies lay on the right, particularly on the radical authoritarian right, and Italian Fascism as a semi-coherent entity was partly defined by its merger with one of the most radical of all right authoritarian movements in Europe, the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI)." Walter Laqueur says that historical fascism "did not belong to the extreme Left, yet defining it as part of the extreme Right is not very illuminating either", but that it "was always a coalition between radical, populist ('fascist') elements and others gravitating toward the extreme Right". Roger Griffin argues that since the end of World War II, fascist movements have become intertwined with the radical right, describing certain groups as part of a "fascist radical right". Stanley Payne notes the alliances and sometimes fusion between fascists and right-wing authoritarians, but stresses the important differences between the two, and contends that German Nazism was closer to Russian communism than to any other noncommunist system. Zeev Sternhell sees fascism as an anti-Marxist form of socialism.

On economic issues, fascists reject ideas of class conflict and internationalism which are commonly held by Marxists and international socialists in favour of class collaboration and statist nationalism. Italian fascism declared its objection to excessive capitalism which it called supercapitalism.

A number of fascist movements described themselves as a "third force" that was outside the traditional political spectrum altogether. Many scholars accept fascism as a search for a Third position between capitalism in parliamentary democracies and communism. Roger Griffin argued, "Not only does the location of fascism within the right pose taxonomic problems, there are good ground for cutting this particular Gordian knot altogether by placing it in a category of its own "beyond left and right." Baronet Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, described his position as "hard centre" in the political spectrum. Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera was critical of both left-wing and right-wing politics, once saying that "basically 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". Seymour Martin Lipset sees fascism as "extremism of the center". In some two dimensional political models, such as the Political Compass (where left and right are described in purely economic terms), fascism is ascribed to the economic centre with its extremism expressing itself on the authoritarianism axis instead.

While some writers have historically placed fascism on the right of the "political spectrum," Lipset, in his paper "Fascism -- Left, Right and Center," and others have placed it in the centre, and Linehan states "The dispute amongst historians...overlaps with another contentious area of scholarship, the question of whether fascism was an ideology of the right, left or centre." The entire aptness of a left-right Political spectrum has also been challenged by many current historians.

Fascist as epithet

Main article: Fascist (epithet)

Following World War II, the word fascist has become a slur throughout the political spectrum. In contemporary political discourse, some adherents of political ideologies on both the left and right wings of the political spectrum associate fascism with their political enemies, or define it as the opposite of their own views. Some argue that the term fascist has become hopelessly vague over the years and that it is now little more than a pejorative epithet. George Orwell wrote in 1944:

The word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.– George Orwell, What is Fascism?. 1944.

Richard Griffiths argued in 2005 that the term fascism is the "most misused, and over-used word of our times".

Historical causes of the rise of fascism

A variety of views exist on what led to the rise of fascism as an ideology. Common views include that fascism was a response to events during World War I that led to perceived failings of democracy, liberalism, and Marxism for each having favoured either individualism or internationalism at the expense of nations and nationalism. In Italy, the perceptions of failures of democratic government within the country, Italian liberalism, and the fears of Italian society having been torn apart by Marxism stimulated the creation and popularity of Italian Fascism. Fascism presented itself as a radical nationalist alternative to rising Bolshevism that came in the Russian October Revolution of 1917 but it did incorporate government infrastructure aspects of Bolshevism into the ideology, such as the single-party state, the concept of rule by an elite group to represent the masses, and appeals to proletarian workers. With economic problems and unemployment facing recently returned veterans of World War I, fascism appealed to collectivism and honouring soldiers and the military by calling for the end of bourgeois individualism while calling for war on Marxism for its anti-nationalist and perceived anti-patriotic ways. The creation of the League of Nations after World War I aggravated nationalists in the world, as the League was seen as the imposition of an internationalist political order upon nations. Fascists saw the League of Nations as only benefiting the wealthy, capitalist democracies. Disillusionment with liberalism deepened with the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Great Depression and also created nationalist sentiment in opposition to internationalism.

Core tenets

Nationalism

Fascists see the struggle of nation and race as fundamental in society, in opposition to communism's perception of class struggle and in opposition to capitalism's focus on the value of productivity and individualism. The nation is seen in fascism as a single organic entity which binds people together by their ancestry and is seen as a natural unifying force of people. Fascists promote the unification and expansion of influence, power, and/or territory of and for their nation. Fascism seeks to solve existing economic, political, and social problems by achieving a millenarian national rebirth, exalting the nation or race above all else, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity. Benito Mussolini stated in 1922, "For us the nation is not just territory but something spiritual... A nation is great when it translates into reality the force of its spirit."

Eoin O'Duffy, an Irish national corporatist, stated in 1934,

We must lead the people always; nationally, socially and economically. We must clear up the economic mess and right the glaring social injustices of to-day by the corporative organization of Irish life; but before everything we must give a national lead to our people...The first essential is national unity. We can only have that when the Corporative system is accepted. We shall put our National programme to the people, and it is a programme in which even the most advanced Nationalist can find nothing to disturb him.

Joseph Goebbels described the Nazis as being affiliated with authoritarian nationalism:

It enables us to see at once why democracy and Bolshevism, which in the eyes of the world are irrevocably opposed to one another, meet again and again on common ground in their joint hatred of and attacks on authoritarian nationalist concepts of State and State systems. For the authoritarian nationalist conception of the State represents something essentially new. In it the French Revolution is superseded.

Plínio Salgado, leader of the Brazilian Integralist Action party emphasized the role of the nation:

The best governments in the world cannot succeed in pulling a country out of the quagmire, out of apathy, if they do not express themselves as national energies...Strong governments cannot result either from conspiracies of from military coups, just as they cannot come out of the machinations of parties or the Machiavellian game of political lobbying. They can only be born from the actual roots of the Nation.

Foreign policy

Italian fascists described expansionist imperialism as a necessity. The 1932 Italian Encyclopedia stated: "For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence." Similarly the Nazis promoted territorial expansionism to in their words provide "living space" to the German nation. Fascists oppose pacifism and believe that a nation must have a warrior mentality. Benito Mussolini spoke of war idealistically as a source of masculine pride, and spoke of pacifism in negative terms:

War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it. Fascism carries this anti-pacifist struggle into the lives of individuals. It is education for combat...war is to man what maternity is to the woman. I do not believe in perpetual peace; not only do I not believe in it but I find it depressing and a negation of all the fundamental virtues of a man.

Joseph Goebbels of the Nazi Party compared World War II to childbirth, and described war as a positive transformative experience:

Every birth brings pain. But amid the pain there is already the joy of a new life. It is a sign of sterility to shy away from new life on the account of pain[...] Our age too is an act of historical birth, whose pangs carry with them the joy of richer life to come. The significance of the war has grown as its scale has increased. It is relentlessly at work, shattering old forms and ideas, and directing the eyes of human beings to new, greater objectives.

Authoritarianism

All fascist movements advocate the creation of an authoritarian government that is an autocratic single-party state led by a charismatic leader with the powers of a dictator. Many fascist movements support the creation of a totalitarian state. The Italian Doctrine 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." Political theorist Carl Schmitt, as a Nazi party member, published The Legal Basis of the Total State in 1935, describing the Nazi regime's intention to form a totalitarian state:

The recognition of the plurality of autonomous life would, however, immediately lead back to a disastrous pluralism tearing the German people apart into discrete classes and religious, ethnic, social, and interest groups if it were not for a strong state which guarantees a totality of political unity transcending all diversity. Every political unity needs a coherent inner logic underlying its institutions and norms. It needs a unified concept which gives shape to every sphere of public life. In this sense there is no normal State which is not a total State.

Japanese fascist Nakano Seigo described the need for Japan to follow the Italian Fascist and Nazi regimes as a model for Japanese government and declared that a totalitarian society was more democratic than democracies, saying:

Both Fascism and Nazism are clearly different from the despotism of the old period. They do not represent the conservatism which lags behind democracy, but are a form of more democratic government going beyond democracy. Democracy has lost its spirit and decayed into a mechanism which insists only on numerical superiority without considering the essence of human beings. It says the majority is all good. I do not agree, because it is the majority which is the precise cause of contemporary decadence. Totalitarianism must be based on essentials, superseding the rule of numbers.

Some have argued that in spite of Italian fascism's attempt to form a totalitarian state, fascism in Italy devolved to a cult of personality around Mussolini. However, both proponents and opponents of fascism in Italy claimed that it had a clear intention to establish a totalitarian state. Hungarian fascist leader Gyula Gömbös and his Hungarian National Defence Association attempted to form a totalitarian state in Hungary, but that attempt failed after Gömbös' death in 1936. The Nazi regime in Germany has been described as totalitarian by most scholars and critics.

A key element of fascism is its endorsement of a prime national leader, who is often known simply as the "Leader" or a similar title, such as: Duce in Italian, Führer in German, Caudillo in Spanish, Poglavnik in Croatia, or Conducător in Romanian. The fascist movement demands obedience to the leader, and may exhort people worship the leader as an infallible saviour of the people. Fascist leaders who ruled countries were not always heads of state, but heads of government, such as Benito Mussolini, who held power under the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.

Social Darwinism

Fascist movements have commonly held social darwinist views of nations, races, and societies. Italian Fascist Alfredo Rocco shortly after World War I claimed that conflict was inevitable in society:

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 philosopher Giovanni Gentile in The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism promoted the concept of conflict being an act of progress by stating that "mankind only progresses through division, and progress is achieved through the clash and victory of one side over another".

Fascist movements commonly follow the social Darwinist view that in order for nations and races to survive in a world defined by perpetual national and racial conflict, nations and races must purge themselves of socially and biologically weak or degenerate people while simultaneously promoting the creation of strong people.

In Germany, the Nazis utilized social Darwinism to promote their racialist concept of the German nation as being part of the Aryan race and the need for the Aryan race to be strong in order to be victorious in what the Nazis believed was ongoing competition and conflict between different races.

The Nazis attempted to strengthen the Aryan race in Germany by murdering those they regarded as weaker Germans. The name given to this mass murder was the T4 Project. The T4 project was introduced in the late 1930s and organised the murders of around roughly 275,000 handicapped and elderly German civilians using carbon monoxide gas.

Social interventionism

Generally fascist movements endorse social interventionism dedicated to influencing society to promote the state's interests. Some scholars say that one cannot speak of “fascist social policy” as a single concept with logical and internally consistent ideas and common identifiable goals.

Different fascist movements have spoken of creating a "new man" and a "new civilization" as part of their intention to transform society. Mussolini promised a “social revolution” for “remaking” the Italian people. Hitler promised to purge Germany of non-Aryan influences on society and create a pure Aryan race through eugenics.

Indoctrination

Fascist states have pursued policies of indoctrination of society to their fascist movements such as through propaganda deliberately spread through education and media through regulation of the production of education and media material. Education was designed to glorify the fascist movement, inform students of it being of major historical and political importance to the nation, attempted to purge education of ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the fascist movement, and taught students to be obedient to the fascist movement.

Thus fascism tends to be anti-intellectual. The Nazis in particular despised intellectuals and university professors. Hitler declared them unreliable, useless and even dangerous. Hitler said of them: "When I take a look at the intellectual classes we have - unfortunately, I suppose, they are necessary; otherwise one could one day, I don't know, exterminate them or something - but unfortunately they're necessary."

Abortion, eugenics and euthanasia

In 1935 Nazi Germany expanded the legality of abortion by amending its eugenics law, to promote abortion for women who have hereditary disorders. The law allowed abortion if a woman gave her permission, and if the fetus was not yet viable, and for purposes of so-called racial hygiene.

The fascist government in Italy banned literature on birth control and increased penalties on abortion in 1926, declaring them both crimes against the state. 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" unborn remained strictly forbidden. For non-Aryans, abortion was not only allowed, but often compelled. Their eugenics program stemmed also from the "progressive biomedical model" of Weimar Germany. The security chief of the neo-Nazi group Aryan Nations expressed similar views, stating: "I’m just against abortion for the pure white race. For blacks and other mongrelized races, abortion is a good idea."

Culture and gender roles

Fascism tends to promote principles of masculine heroism, militarism, and discipline; and rejects cultural pluralism and multiculturalism.

Initially Italian Fascism officially stood in favour of expanding voting rights to women. In 1920 Mussolini declared that "Fascists do not belong to the crowd of the vain and skeptical who undervalue women's social and political importance. Who cares about voting? You will vote!". Women were briefly given the right to vote until 1925 when the Italian Fascist government abolished elections.

Benito Mussolini perceived women's primary role as childbearers while men should be warriors, once saying "war is to man what maternity is to the woman". The Italian Fascist government during the "Battle for Births" gave financial incentives to women who raised large families as well as policies designed to reduce the number of women employed to allow women to give birth to larger numbers of children. In 1934, Benito Mussolini declared that employment of women was a "major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment" which Italy was facing at the time and said that women having a habit of 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". Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as "reproducers of the nation" and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to honour women's role within the Italian nation.

In the 1920s, the Italian Fascist government's Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND) allowed working women to attend various entertainment and recreation events including sports that in the past had traditionally been played by men. The Italian Fascist regime was criticized by the Roman Catholic Church that claimed that these activities were causing "masculinization" of women. The Italian Fascist regime responded to such criticism by restricting women to only being allowed to take part "feminine" and "womanly" sports, while forbidding them to be part of sports that were played mostly by men.

The British Union of Fascists believed that it was unnatural for women to have more influence in a relationship with a man. After Oswald Mosley was arrested in 1940, during interrogation he declared that the British Fascists were committed to equality of the sexes and commended women's role in the British Fascist movement, claiming that the movement had "been largely built up by the fanaticism of women...Without the women I could not have got a quarter of the way...". It is believed that women accounted for 20 per cent to one-third of the British Union of Fascists' membership.

Nazi policies toward women strongly encouraged them to stay at home to bear children and keep house. This policy was reinforced by bestowing the Cross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more babies. 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. At other times the Nazis opposed such behaviour. The growth of Nazi power, however, was accompanied by a breakdown of traditional sexual morals with regard to extramarital sex and licentiousness.

Fascist movements and governments oppose homosexuality. The Italian Fascist government declared it illegal in Italy in 1931. The British Union of Fascists opposed homosexuality and pejoratively questioned their opponents' sexual orientation, especially of male anti-fascists. The Romanian Iron Guard opposed homosexuality as undermining society. The Nazis thought homosexuality was degenerate, effeminate, perverted and undermined the masculinity which they promoted, because it did not produce children. Nevertheless the Nazis considered homosexuality curable through therapy. They explained it though modern scientism and the study of sexology which said that homosexuality could be felt by "normal" people and not just an abnormal minority. Critics have claimed that the Nazis' claim of scientific reasons for their promotion of racism, and hostility to homosexuals is pseudoscience, in that scientific findings were selectively picked that promoted their pre-existing views, while scientific findings opposing those views were rejected and not taken into account.

Economic policies

Further information: Economics of fascism

The central economic idea of all forms of fascism is corporatism. Corporatism is government control of the economy by cartelizing it, that is, by selecting favoured firms in an industry. These favoured firms fix prices and create barriers to entry and obstacles for competitors, and by controlling which firms have corporate rights. The government thereby maintains a level of power over the economy.

The most important claim made by fascism was that it alone could offer the creative prospect of a 'third way' between capitalism and socialism. Hitler, in Mein Kampf, spoke enthusiastically about the 'National Socialist corporative idea' as one which would eventually 'take the place of ruinous class warfare'; whilst Mussolini, in typically extravagant fashion, declared that 'the Corporative System is destined to become the civilization of the twentieth century. - The Fascism Reader by Aristotle A. Kallis.[36]

Fascists explicitly promoted their ideology as a "Third Position" between capitalism and communism. Italian Fascism involved corporatism, a political system in which economy is collectively managed by employers, workers and state officials by formal mechanisms at national level. Fascists advocated a new national multi-class economic system that is labeled as either national corporatism, national socialism or national syndicalism. Common aim of all fascist movements was elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, the existence of large-scale capitalism.

Fascist governments exercised influence over the economy differently than that of communist-led states, in that individual private property was controlled but not nationalized. Nevertheless, like the Soviet Union, fascist states pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as consolidating trade unions to be state or party-controlled. Attempts were made by both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to establish "autarky" (self-sufficiency) through significant economic planning, but both failed to make the two countries self-sufficient.

National corporatism, national socialism and national syndicalism

While fascists support the unifying of proletariat workers to their cause along corporatistic, socialistic, or syndicalistic lines, fascists specify that they advocate a nationalized form of such economic systems such as corporatism, national socialism, or national syndicalism which promotes the creation of a strong proletarian nation, but not a proletarian class. Fascists also make clear that they have no hostility to the petite bourgeoisie (lower middle-class) or to small businesses and promise these groups protection alongside the proletariat from the upper-class bourgeoisie, big business, and Marxism. The promotion of these groups is the source of the term 'extremism of the centre' to describe fascism. Fascism blames capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and in turn blames communists for exploiting class conflict. In Italy, the Fascist period presided over the creation of the largest number of state-owned enterprises in Western Europe such as the nationalization of petroleum companies in Italy into a single state enterprise called the Italian General Agency for Petroleum (Azienda Generale Italiani Petroli, AGIP).

Fascists made populist appeals to the middle class (especially the lower middle class) by promising to protect small business and small property owners from communism, and by promising an economy based on competition and profit while pledging to oppose big business.

On economic issues, Benito Mussolini in 1933 declared Italian Fascism's opposition to "decadent capitalism" that he claimed prevailed in the world at the time, but did not denounce capitalism entirely. Mussolini claimed that capitalism had degenerated in three stages, starting with dynamic or heroic capitalism (1830-1870) followed by static capitalism (1870-1914) and then reaching its final form of decadent capitalism, also known as supercapitalism beginning in 1914. Mussolini argued that Italian Fascism was in favour of dynamic and heroic capitalism for its contribution to industrialism and technical developments but claimed that it did not favour supercapitalism, which he claimed was incompatible with Italy's agricultural sector. Thus Mussolini claimed that Italy under Fascist rule was not capitalist in the modern use of the term which referred to supercapitalism. Mussolini denounced supercapitalism for causing the "standardization of humankind" and for causing excessive consumption. Mussolini claimed that at this stage of supercapitalism "[it] is then that a capitalist enterprise, when dificultires arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously." Mussolini went on to claim that Fascism was the next logical step to solve the problems of supercapitalism and claimed that this step could be seen either as a form of capitalism or socialism which involved state intervention, saying "our path would lead inexorably into state capitalism, which is nothing more nor less than state socialism turned on its head. In either event, [whether the outcome be state capitalism or state socialism] the result is the bureaucratization of the economic activities of the nation."

The Nazis initially attempted to form a corporatist economic system like that in Fascist Italy, and created the National Socialist Institute for Corporatism in May 1933, which included many major economists who argued that corporatism was consistent with National Socialism.. In Mein Kampf, Hitler spoke enthusiastically about the "National Socialist corporative idea" as one which would eventually "take the place of ruinous class warfare" However, the Nazis later believed that corporatism was not beneficial to Germany because they deemed that it institutionalized and legitimized social differences within the German nation and instead the Nazis went on to promote economic organizations that emphasized the biological unity of the German national community.

Economic planning

Fascists opposed laissez-faire economic policies dominant in the era prior to the Great Depression. After the Great Depression began, many people from across the political spectrum blamed laissez-faire capitalism for the Great Depression, and fascists promoted their ideology as a "third way" between capitalism and communism. Fascists declared their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering. Nazis and other anti-Semitic fascists, considered finance capitalism a "parasitic" "Jewish conspiracy". Fascist governments nationalized some key industries, managed their currencies and made some massive state investments. Fascist governments introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic interventionist measures.

Other than nationalization of certain industries, private property was allowed, but property rights and private initiative were contingent upon service to the state. For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labour than he would find profitable." According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, dirigisme was an inherent aspect of fascist economies. The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7: "The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation", then goes on to say in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."

Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual." They also introduced price controls and other types of economic planning measures.

Fascism had Social Darwinist views of human relations and promoted "superior" individuals and saw people who were weak as being inferior. In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businesses while banning trade unions and other workers' organizations. Benito Mussolini in his English autobiography in one section focused on the economy of the United States where he stated that he agreed with the capitalist notion held by Americans that profit should not be taken away from those who produced it from their own labour for any purpose, saying "I do not respect—I even hate—those men that leech a tenth of the riches produced by others".

Social welfare

Benito Mussolini promised a "social revolution" that would "remake" the Italian people, which was only achieved in part. The people who primarily benefited from Italian fascist social policies were members of the middle and lower-middle classes, who filled jobs in the vastly expanding government workforce, which grew from about 500,000 to a million jobs in 1930. Health and welfare spending grew dramatically under Italian fascism, with welfare rising from 7% of the budget in 1930 to 20% in 1940. A major success in social welfare policy in Fascist Italy was the creation of the Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro (OND) or "National After-work Program" in 1925. The OND was the state's largest recreational organizations for adults. The Dopolavoro was responsible for establishing and maintaining 11,000 sports grounds, over 6,400 libraries, 800 movie houses, 1,200 theatres, and over 2,000 orchestras. Membership in the Dopolavoro was voluntary but had high participation because of its nonpolitical nature. It is estimated that by 1936 the OND had organized 80% of salaried workers. Nearly 40% of the industrial workforce had been recruited into the Dopolavoro by 1939 and the sports activities proved popular with large numbers of workers. The OND had the largest membership of any of the mass Fascist organizations in Italy. The enormous success of the Dopolavoro in Fascist Italy was the key factor in Nazi Germany creating its own version of the Dopolavoro, the Kraft durch Freude (KdF) or "Strength through Joy" program of the Nazi government's German Labour Front, which was even more successful than the Dopolavoro. KdF provided government-subsidized holidays for German workers. KdF was also responsible for the creation of the original Volkswagen ("People's Car") that was a state-made automobile that was meant to be cheap enough to allow all German citizens to be able to own one.

While fascists promote social welfare for ameliorating negative economic conditions that are affecting their nation or race as whole, they do not support social welfare for egalitarian reasons. Fascists abhor egalitarianism for preserving the weak; they promote social Darwinist views and claim that nations and races must preserve and promote their strengths to ensure survival in a world that is in a perpetual state of national and/or racial conflict and competition. Adolf Hitler was opposed to egalitarian and universal social welfare because, in his view, it encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and feeble. While in power, the Nazis created social welfare programs to deal with the large numbers of unemployed. However, those programs were neither egalitarian nor universal, but instead residual, as they excluded multiple minority groups and certain other people whom they felt were incapable of helping themselves, and who would pose a threat to the future health of the German people.

Non-universal characteristics

Racism and racialism

Fascists are not unified on the issues of racism and racialism. In the 1920s, Italian fascists recognized the existence of races and Benito Mussolini declared that the white race in Europe was threatened by coloured races, in terms of social decline in cities and the rapid birthrate of coloured people. In Mussolini's autobiography produced in the 1920s, he affirmed the importance of race, saying, "Race and soil are strong influences upon us all" and spoke of World War I from a racialist perspective, saying: "There were seers who saw in the European conflict not only national advantages but the possibility of a supremacy of race". In a 1921 speech in Bologna, Mussolini stated that "Fascism was born...out of a profound, perennial need of this our Aryan and Mediterranean race". Mussolini said in 1928:

[When the] city dies, the nation—deprived of the young life—blood of new generations—is now made up of people who are old and degenerate and cannot defend itself against a younger people which launches an attack on the now unguarded frontiers[...] This will happen, and not just to cities and nations, but on an infinitely greater scale: the whole White race, the Western race can be submerged by other coloured races which are multiplying at a rate unknown in our race.

The Italian Fascists had strong hostility towards Slavs, especially the neighbouring Yugoslav (South Slav) nations whom the Italian Fascists saw Italians as being in competition with and had territorial claims on territories of Yugoslavia, particularly Dalmatia. Mussolini spoke of the threat he perceived as being posed by Yugoslavs after Italy did not receive the territory along the Adriatic coast at the end of World War I as promised by the Treaty of London in 1915, saying: "The danger of seeing the Jugo-Slavians settle along the whole Adriatic shore had caused a bringing together in Rome of the cream of our unhappy regions. Students, professors, workmen, citizens—representative men—were entreating the ministers and the professional politicians.

Italian Fascist anti-Slavism and xenophobic views associated with anti-Slavism were present amongst various Italian Fascists in the 1920s, who accused Serbs of having "atavistic impulses", that Yugoslavs were conspiring together on behalf of "Grand Orient masonry and its funds" and one anti-Semitic claim that Serbs were part of a "social-democratic, masonic Jewish internationalist plot". Mussolini himself once utilized anti-Semitism in a 1919 speech to denounce Soviet Russia, claiming that Jewish bankers in London and New York were bound by the chains of race to Moscow, and claimed that 80 percent of the Soviet leaders were Jews.

In 1933, Mussolini contradicted his earlier statements on the important role of races in society and instead dismissed the role of races in society, and said: "Race! It is a feeling, not a reality: ninety-five percent, at least, is a feeling. Nothing will ever make me believe that biologically pure races can be shown to exist today. [...] National pride has no need of the delirium of race."

Relation to religion

The attitude of fascism toward religion has run the gamut from persecution, to denunciation, to cooperation, to embrace. Stanley Payne notes that fundamental to fascism was the foundation of a purely materialistic "civic religion" that would "displace preceding structures of belief and relegate supernatural religion to a secondary role, or to none at all", and that "though there were specific examples of religious or would-be 'Christian fascists,' fascism presupposed a post-Christian, post-religious, secular, and immanent frame of reference." According to Payne, such "would be" religious fascists only gain hold where traditional belief is weakened or absent, as fascism seeks to create new non-rationalist myth structures for those who no longer hold a traditional view. The rise of modern secularism in Europe and Latin America, and the incursion and large-scale adoption of western secular culture in the mid-east leave a void where this modern secular ideology, sometimes under a religious veneer, can take hold.

Many fascists were anti-clerical in both private and public life. Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anti-clerical, they both understood that it would be rash to begin their Kulturkampfs prematurely, such a clash, possibly inevitable in the future, being put off while they dealt with other enemies. Hitler had a general plan, even before the rise of the Nazis to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich. The leader of the Hitler Youth stated "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement" from the start, but "considerations of expedience made it impossible" publicly to express this extreme position. In Mexico, the Red Shirts were vehemently atheist, renounced religion, killed priests, and on one occasion gunned down Catholics as they left Mass.

According to a biographer of Mussolini, "Initially, fascism was fiercely anti-Catholic" - the Church being a competitor for dominion of the people's hearts. Mussolini, originally an atheist, published anti-Catholic writings and planned for the confiscation of Church property, but eventually moved to accommodation. Mussolini endorsed the Roman Catholic Church for political legitimacy, as during the Lateran Treaty talks, Fascist Party officials engaged in bitter arguments with Vatican officials and put pressure on them to accept the terms that the regime deemed acceptable. Protestantism in Italy was not as significant as Catholicism, and the Protestant minority was persecuted. Mussolini's sub-secretary of Interior, Bufferini-Guidi issued a memo closing all houses of worship of the Italian Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses, and imprisoned their leaders. In some instances, people were killed because of their faith.

The Ustaše in Croatia had strong Catholic overtones, with some clerics in positions of power. The fascist movement in Romania, known as the Iron Guard or the Legion of Archangel Michael, preceded its meetings with a church service, and their demonstrations were usually led by priests carrying icons and religious flags. The Romanian fascist movement promoted a cult of "suffering, sacrifice and martyrdom."

In Latin America, the most notable fascist movement was Plinio Salgado's Brazilian Integralism. Built on a network of lay religious associations, its vision was of an integral state that "comes from Christ, is inspired in Christ, acts for Christ, and goes toward Christ." Salgado criticised the "dangerous pagan tendencies of Hitlerism".

Hitler and the Nazi regime attempted to found their own version of Christianity called Positive Christianity which made major changes in its interpretation of the Bible which said that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but was not a Jew and claimed that Christ despised Jews, and that the Jews were the ones solely responsible for Christ's death. By 1940 however, it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianty.

The Catholic Church was particularly suppressed by Nazis in Poland. Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 members, 18% of the Polish clergy, were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps. In the annexed territory of Reichsgau Wartheland it was even harsher than elsewhere. Churches were systematically closed, and most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government. The Germans also closed seminaries and convents persecuting monks and nuns throughout Poland. Eighty percent of the Catholic clergy and five of the bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939; in Chełmno, 48%. One hundred eight of them are regarded as blessed martyrs. Among them, Maximilian Kolbe was canonized as a saint.

Not only in Poland were Christians persecuted by the Nazis. In the Dachau concentration camp alone, 2,600 Catholic priests from 24 different countries were killed.

One theory is that religion and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic weltanschauung" claiming the whole of the person. Along these lines, Yale political scientist, Juan Linz and others have noted that secularization had created a void which could be filled by a total ideology, making totalitarianism possible, and Roger Griffin has characterized fascism as a type of anti-religious political religion. Such political religions vie with existing religions, and try, if possible, to replace or eradicate them.

Variations and subforms

See also: European fascist ideologies

Movements identified by scholars as fascist hold a variety of views, and what qualifies as fascism is often a hotly contested subject. The original movement which self-identified as Fascist was that of Benito Mussolini and his National Fascist Party. Intellectuals such as Giovanni Gentile produced The Doctrine of Fascism and founded the ideology. The majority of strains which emerged after the original fascism, but are sometimes placed under the wider usage of the term, self-identified their parties with different names. Major examples include; Falangism, Integralism, Iron Guard and Nazism as well as various other designations.

Italian Fascism

Main article: Italian Fascism

See also: The Doctrine of Fascism, Actual Idealism, and March on Rome

Italian Fascism was the first form of fascism to emerge and the originator of the name. Founded by Benito Mussolini, it is considered to be the model for later fascist movements.

Benito Mussolini

Fascism was born during a period of social and political unrest following World War I. The war had seen Italy, born from the Italian unification less than a century earlier begin to appreciate a sense of nationalism, rather than the historic regionalism. Despite the Kingdom of Italy being a fully fledged Allied Power during the war against the Central Powers, Italy was given what nationalists considered an unfair deal at the Treaty of Versailles; which they saw as the other allies "blocking" Italy from progressing to a major power. A significant example of this was when the other allies told Italy to hand over the city of Fiume at the Paris Peace Conference, this saw war veteran Gabriele d'Annunzio declaring the independent state Italian Regency of Carnaro. He positioned himself as Duce of the nation and declared a constitution, the Charter of Carnaro which was highly influential to early Fascism, though he himself never became a fascist.

Flag of the National Fascist Party.

Origins

Benito Mussolini founded Italian fascism as the Fasci italiani di combattimento after he returned from World War I and published a Fascist manifesto. The birth of the Fascist movement can be traced to a meeting he held in the Piazza San Sepolcro in Milan Italy on March 23, 1919. This meeting declared the original principles of the Fascists through a series of declarations.

The first declaration was a dedication to Italian war veterans. The second declaration spoke of the fascist movement's loyalty to Italy and its opposition to foreign aggressors, and stated that the fascist movement was "opposed to the imperialism of other peoples at the expense of Italy....." The third declaration announced that the fascists would fight against other political factions, saying that the fascists would "sabotage in every way the candidates of neturalists in all the various parties...."

After declaring their first three declarations, the fascists declared their opposition to bolshevism and socialism, particlarly the socialism of the Italian Socialist Party, for their anti-nationalism, saying:

"...We don't need to place ourselves programmatically on a revolutionary footing because, in a historic sense, we already did so in 1915. It isn't too necessary to set forth too analytical a program.....it has now been demonstrated beyond a doubt that Bolshevism has ruined the economic life of Russia.... We declare war against Socialism, not because it is socialist but because it has opposed nationalism...We who have led the attack on political life in these past few years are going to expose the responsibiities of the official Socialist party."

It is inevitable that majorities become static, whereas minorities are dynamic. We intend to be an active minority, to attract the proletariat away from the official Socialist party. But if the middle class thinks we are going to be their lightning rods, they are mistaken. We must go halfway towards meeting the workers...(comments on Worker rights)...We shall support these demands, partly because we want workers to get accustomed to the responsibilities of management and to learn as a result that it isn't easy to operate a business successfully."

The fascists made a moderate stance on the economy, effectively declaring that they favoured class collaboration while opposing excessive state intervention into the economy, and calling for pressure on industrialists and workers to be cooperative and constructive, saying:

As for economic democracy, we favour national syndicalism and reject State intervention whenever it aims at throttling the creation of wealth.

We shall fight against technological and moral backwardness. There are industrialists who shun both technological and moral innovations. If they don't find the strength to transform themselves they will be swept aside. We must impress upon the workers, however, that it is one thing to destroy, and quite another to build. Destruction can be the work of an hour, but construction may require years or centuries.

The fascists on that day declared their intention to seize power and their opposition to the multiparty representative democracy in Italy.

...We must act fast...we must be ready to take its place. For that reason we must be ready to rush into the piazzas and cry out 'The right of political succession belongs to us, because we were the ones who pushed the country to war and led it to victory!"...The existing system of political representation cannot satisfy us; we want every distinct interest group to be represented directly.

An important factor in fascism gaining support in its earliest stages was the fact that it opposed discrimination based on social class and was strongly opposed to all forms of class war. Fascism instead supported nationalist sentiments such as a strong unity, regardless of class, in the hopes of raising Italy up to the levels of its great Roman past. Mussolini did not ignore the plight of the working class, however, and he gained their support with stances such as those in The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle, published in June 1919. The Manifesto demanded the end of the Italian monarchy and the creation of a republic, restricting the power of the Roman Catholic clergy, the creation of a minimum wage, large-scale nationalization of property, showing the same confidence in labour unions as was given to industry executives or public servants, voting rights for women, and the systemisation of public transport such as railways. Much of the Manifesto was moderated or cancelled, moving the Fascists away from republicanism to a pro-monarchy stance, from anti-clericalism to support of the Roman Catholic Church, and moving away from advocating large nationalization of property to advocating protection of private property while allowing nationalization when private enterprise was failing.

Mussolini and the fascists managed to be simultaneously revolutionary and traditionalist; because this was vastly different from anything else in the political climate of the time, it is sometimes described as "The Third Way". The Fascisti, led by one of Mussolini's close confidants, Dino Grandi, formed armed squads of war veterans called Blackshirts (or squadristi) with the goal of restoring order to the streets of Italy with a strong hand. The blackshirts clashed with communists, socialists and anarchists at parades and demonstrations; all of these factions were also involved in clashes against each other. The government rarely interfered with the blackshirts' actions, due in part to a looming threat and widespread fear of a communist revolution. The Fascisti grew so rapidly that within two years, it transformed itself into the National Fascist Party at a congress in Rome. Also in 1921, Mussolini was elected to the Chamber of Deputies for the first time and was later appointed as Prime Minister by the King in 1922. He then went on to install a dictatorship after the 10 June 1924 assassination of Giacomo Matteotti, who had finished writing The Fascist Exposed: A Year of Fascist Domination, by Amerigo Dumini and others agents of the Ceka secret police created by Mussolini.

Influenced by the concepts of the Roman Empire, with Mussolini viewing himself as a modern day Roman Emperor, Italy set out to build the Italian Empire whose colonialism would reach further into Africa in an attempt to compete with British and French colonial empires. Mussolini dreamt of making Italy a nation that was "great, respected and feared" throughout Europe, and indeed the world. An early example was his bombardment of Corfu in 1923. Soon after he succeeded in setting up a puppet regime in Albania and forcibly ended a rebellion in Libya, which had been a colony (loosely) since 1912. It was his dream to make the Mediterranean mare nostrum ("our sea" in Latin), and he established a large naval base on the Greek island of Leros to enforce a strategic hold on the eastern Mediterranean.

Nazism (National Socialism, Germany)

Main article: Nazism

See also: Austrian National Socialism, Arrow Cross, Ustaše, and Rexism

Adolf Hitler

Flag of the National Socialist German Workers' Party.

Nazism, short for National Socialism, is the political ideology of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party that ruled Germany from 1933 until 1945. The term national socialist is also a descriptive term used to refer to the Austrian National Socialism of a similar ideology, as well as several puppet states under Nazi control, including; the Arrow Cross of Hungary, the Ustaše of Croatia (also heavily influenced by Italian Fascism), and Rexism of Belgium. The Nazis came to prominence in Germany's Weimar Republic through democratic elections in 1932; their leader Adolf Hitler was appointed Chancellor of Germany the following year, subsequently putting into place the Enabling Act, which effectively gave him the power of a dictator. Hitler's book detailing the national socialist ideology Mein Kampf, was authored during the mid-1920s. The NSDAP announced a national rebirth, in the form of the Third Reich nicknamed the Thousand Years Empire, promoted as a successor to the Holy Roman Empire and the German Empire.

After Mussolini's successful March on Rome in 1922, Hitler gained profound admiration of Mussolini and shortly after Mussolini gained power, the Nazis presented themselves as a German version of Italian Fascism and through their media outlets constantly compared their movement with Italian Fascism and compared Hitler to Mussolini. Nazi member Hermann Esser proclaimed, "In Bavaria too we have Italy's Mussolini [sic]. His name is Adolf Hitler."

In addition, the Nazis attempted to copy the Italian Fascists' March on Rome with a "March on Berlin" to topple what they saw as a "Marxist" government leading Germany (in reality a non-Marxist, social democratic government was in government at the time) and during their march, they would overthrow "red" governments in the German states. A month after Mussolini had risen to power and amid claims by Hitler and the Nazis that they were equivalent to Mussolini the Italian Fascists, Hitler's personal popularity in Germany began to grow and large crowds beginning to attend the Nazi rallies, German media began to pay attention to Hitler's activities with the newspaper Berlin Lokal-Anzeiger featuring a front page article about Hitler, saying "There are a lot of people who believe him to be the German Mussolini".

In private, Mussolini himself did not appreciate Hitler or the Nazis as he saw them as merely imitators of Italian Fascism and when Mussolini met with the Italian Consul in Munich prior to the failed Beer Hall Putsch in 1923, he stated that he thought the Nazis were "buffoons".

Nazi official Joseph Goebbels credited Italian Fascism with starting a conflict against liberal democracy which the Nazis supported, saying,

The march on Rome was a signal, a sign of storm for liberal-democracy. It is the first attempt to destroy the world of the liberal-democratic spirit[...] which started in 1789 with the storm on the Bastille and conquered one country after another in violent revolutionary upheavals, to let... the nations go under in Marxism, democracy, anarchy and class warfare..."

Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type of generic fascism, some scholars, such as Gilbert Allardyce, Zeev Sternhell and A.F.K. Organski, argue that Nazism is not fascism– either because the differences are too great, or because they believe fascism cannot be generic. A synthesis of these two opinions, states that German Nazism was a form of racially oriented fascism, while Italian fascism was state-oriented. Nazism differed from Italian fascism in that it had a stronger emphasis on race, especially exhibited as antisemitism, in terms of social and economic policies. Though both ideologies denied the significance of the individual, Italian fascism saw the individual as subservient to the state, whereas Nazism saw the individual, as well as the state, as ultimately subservient to the race. Mussolini's fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it was not necessarily in the state's interest to interfere in cultural aspects of society. The only purpose of government in Mussolini's fascism was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, a concept which can be described as statolatry. Where fascism talked of state, Nazism spoke of the Volk and of the Volksgemeinschaft

Roger Griffin, who is a leading exponent of the generic fascism theory wrote:

It might well be claimed that Nazism and Italian fascism were separate species within the same genus, without any implicit assumption that the two species ought to be well-nigh identical. Ernst Nolte has stated that the differences could be easily reconciled by employing a term such as 'radical fascism' for Nazism.⁵⁶ [...]
The establishment of fundamental generic characteristics linking Nazism to movements in other parts of Europe allows further consideration on a comparative basis of the reasons why such movements were able to become a real politicial danger and gain power in Italy and Germany, whereas in other European countries they remained an unpleasant, but transitory irritant...

Sternhell views National Socialism as separate from fascism:

Fascism can in no way be identified with Nazism. Undoubtedly the two ideologies, the two movements, and the two regimes had common characteristics. They often ran parallel to one another or overlapped, but they differed on one fundamental point: the criterion of German national socialism was biological determination. The basis of Nazism was a racism in its most extreme sense, and the fight against Jews, against 'inferior' races, played a more preponderant role in it than the struggle against communism.

During Hitler's rise to power, he was seen by the media and by himself as associated with fascism, and being the "Mussolini of Germany".

Iron Guard (Romania)

Main article: Iron Guard

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Symbol of the Iron Guard .

The Iron Guard was an antisemitic fascist movement and political party in Romania from 1927 to 1941. It was briefly in power from September 14, 1940 until January 21, 1941. The Iron Guard was founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on 24 July 1927 as the "Legion of the Archangel Michael" (Legiunea Arhanghelul Mihail), and it was led by him until his death in 1938. Adherents to the movement continued to be widely referred to as "legionnaires" (sometimes "legionaries"; Template:Lang-ro) and the organization as the "Legion" or the "Legionary Movement" (Mişcarea Legionară), despite various changes of the (intermittently banned) organization's name.

It was strongly anti-Semitic, promoting the idea that "Rabbinical aggression against the Christian world" in "unexpected 'protean forms': Freemasonry, Freudianism, homosexuality, atheism, Marxism, Bolshevism, the civil war in Spain, and social democracy" were undermining society.

The Iron Guard "willingly inserted strong elements of Orthodox Christianity into its political doctrine to the point of becoming one of the rare modern European political movements with a religious ideological structure."

Early Falangism (Spain)

Main article: Falangism

See also: Falangism in Latin America and Kataeb Party

File:JoseAntonio-DeRivera.jpg

José Antonio Primo de Rivera

Falangism is a form of fascism founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1934, emerging during the Second Spanish Republic. Primo de Rivera was the son of Miguel Primo de Rivera who was appointed Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Spain by Bourbon monarch Alfonso XIII of Spain; José's father served as military dictator from 1923—1930. In the local and municipal elections of 1931, republican candidates won the majority of votes in urban areas, what led to Alfonso XIII "suspend(ing) the exercise of royal power" and going into exile in Rome. Spain went from a kingdom into a far-left republic overnight. A liberal Republican Constitution was written, giving the right of autonomy to regions, stripping the nobility of juristic status and stripping from the Catholic Church its schools.

In this environment José Antonio Primo de Rivera was inspired by Mussolini and Italy. Primo de Rivera founded the Falange Española party; referring to Ancient Greek military formation phalanx. A year later Falange Española merged with the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista party of Ramiro Ledesma and Onésimo Redondo. The party and Primo de Rivera presented the Falange Manifesto in November 1934; it promoted nationalism, unity, glorification of the Spanish Empire and dedication to the national syndicalism economic policy, inspired by integralism in which there is class collaboration. The manifesto supported agrarianism, to improve the standard of living for the peasants of the rural areas. It supported anti-capitalism, anti-Marxism, repudiated the latter's divisive class war philosophy, and was directly opposed to the ruling Republican regime. The Falange participated in the Spanish general election, 1936 with low results compared to the far-left Popular Front, but soon after increased in membership rapidly, with a membership of 40,000. José Antonio Primo de Rivera wrote in the Falange Manifesto:

We reject the capitalist system, which disregards the needs of the people, dehumanizes private property, and transforms the workers into shapeless masses that are prone to misery and despair. Our spiritual and national awareness likewise repudiates Marxism. We shall channel the drive of the working classes, that are nowadays led astray by Marxism, by demanding their direct participation in the formidable task of the national State.

Flag of the FET y de las JONS party.

Primo de Rivera was captured by Republicans on 6 July 1936 and held in captivity at Alicante. The Spanish Civil War broke out on 17 July 1936 between the Republicans and the Nationalists, with the Falangistas fighting for Nationalist cause. Despite his incarceration Primo de Rivera was a strong symbol of the cause, referred to as El Ausente, meaning "the Absent One"; he was summarily executed on 20 November after a trial by socialists. General Francisco Franco, already the leader of the rebel Nationalists took over the leadership of the Falangists, even though he was less ideological than his predecessor. Franco's focus at this time was the push for victory in the war, and important flows of material came from Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany.

A merger between the Falange and the Carlist traditionalists who support a different line of the monarchy to that of exiled Alfonso XIII took place in 1937, creating the FET y de las JONS, a more traditionalist, conservative party than the original Falagnists, and one which is desribed by some "authentic" Falangists as a move away from the party's original fascist principles. Franco balanced several different interests of elements in his party, in an effort to keep them united, especially in regard to the question of monarchy.

The ideas of Falangism were also exported, mainly to parts of the Hispanosphere, especially in South America. In some countries these movements were obscure, in others they had some impact. The Bolivian Socialist Falange under Óscar Únzaga provided significant competition to the ruling government during the 1950s until the 1970s. In Peru, Catholic activist Luis Fernando Figari attempted to promote the ideals of Falangism before creating the youth Catholic association Sodalitium Christianae Vitae, in which, during the 70's, future members were educated in the official social doctine of the Church as well in the Falangismo. The adoctrination relied heavily on the mystic of Falangista songs, especially Cara al Sol. Falangism was significant in Lebanon through the Kataeb Party and its founder Pierre Gemayel. The Lebanese Falange fought for national independence which was won in 1943; they became significant during the complex and multifaceted Lebanese Civil War which was largely fought between Christians and Muslims.

Integralism

Main article: Brazilian Integralism

See also: Action Française

File:Pliniosalgado.jpg

Plínio Salgado

Flag of the Integralists.

Brazilian Integralism is a salutary form of fascism created in Brazil by Plínio Salgado, the movement's figurehead and philosophical leader. The movement was founded in 1932 and was known in its native tongue as Ação Integralista Brasileira; rather than a reaction against the far-left which was not strong in Brazil at the time, the Integralists were initially founded to combat national disunity and the perceived weakness of the liberal state, hoping for national rebirth via a fascist form. Many of the ideas were similar to Italian fascism; it was militarised and favoured the creation of a strong centralised state with a corporatist, government directed economic policy. The party's nationalist element was influenced by the thought of Alberto Torres and was inclusionist, looking to create a strong national unity. While many of the members were Catholics, the group supported freedom of religion so as not to isolate Protestants in Brazil. As an ethnically diverse country due to its colonial history, the Integralists held a non-divisionist and anti-racist stance with the phrase, union of all races and all people; the members were mostly of European background such as Italian and Portuguese but there were also some people of Amerindian and African background. As Brazil was already territorially endowed, the Integralists had no need for an expansionist outlook.

Revisionist Maximalism (British Mandate of Palestine)

File:Ahimier.jpg

Abba Ahimeir, the founder of Revisionist Maximalism.

Prior to Italian fascism's alliance with Nazi Germany and adoption of anti-Semitic policies, there existed an influential but short-lived Jewish fascist ideology, Revisionist Maximalism. Brit HaBirionim (The Strongmen Alliance) was a fascist faction within the nationalist Revisionist Zionist Movement (ZRM) , which existed in the British Mandate of Palestine. The goal of the Brit HaBirionim movement was to take over the ZRM, turn it into a fascist movement and then create a Jewish fascist state based on Benito Mussolini's regime in Italy.

Abba Ahimeir, the founder of Revisionist Maximalism, adopted fascist principles to create an integralist "pure nationalism" amongst Jews. Revisionist Maximalism rejected communism, humanism, internationalism, liberalism, pacifism and socialism, and condemned liberal Zionists for only working for middle-class Jews rather than the Jewish nation as a whole. Ahimeir's Revisionist Maximalists quickly became the largest faction in the ZRM in 1930 and pressured moderate ZRM members to align the ZRM with fascism. Ahimeir declared at a conference:

We want to educate people for the 'Great Day of God' (war or world revolution), so that they will be ready to follow the leader blindly into the greatest danger ... Not a party but an Orden, a group of private [people], devoting themselves and sacrificing themselves for the great goal. They are united in all, but their private lives and their livelihood are the matter of the Orden. Iron discipline; cult of the leader (on the model of the fascists); dictatorship.

In 1932, the Revisionist Maximalists pressured the ZRM to adopt the Ten Commandments of Maximalism, which were written "in the spirit of complete fascism." In 1932, Ahimeir called for the leadership of the ZRM to be redesigned into a dictatorship, for the creation of an indepenent Zionist federation, for a "war on funds" to end corruption in the Zionist movement, and for a war on anti-Semitism. Moderate ZRM members refused to accept this, and moderate ZRM member Yaacov Kahan pressured the Revisionist Maximalists to accept the democratic nature of the ZRM and not push for the movement to adopt fascist dictatorial policies.

Despite the Revisionist Maximalists' opposition anti-Semitism, Achemeir was initially supportive of the Nazi Party in early 1933, believing that the Nazis' rise to power was a sign that attempts by Germany to assimilate Jews had been a failure. In March 1933, Achemeir wrote about the Nazi party, "The anti-Semitic wrapping should be discarded but not its anti-Marxist core.". Ahimeir believed that the Nazis' anti-Semitism was a nationalist ploy that did not have substance. Other Zionists within the ZRM condemned Ahimeir and the Revisionist Maximalists for their support of Hitler. In response to this negative reaction, Ahimeir reversed his position in May 1933 and Revisionist Maximalists began to burn down German consolates and tear down German flags. However, support for the Revisionist Maximalists quickly deteriorated, and support for Ahimeir did not recover. The Revisionist Maximalists collapsed until they were recreated in 1938 under new leadership, but did not regain significant influence.

Rexism (Belgium)

Main article: Rexism

File:Degrelle.jpg

Léon Degrelle

Flag of Rex

Rexism was a fascist political movement in the first half of the twentieth century in Belgium. It was the ideology of the Rexist Party (Parti Rexiste), officially called Christus Rex, founded in 1930 by Léon Degrelle, a Walloon. The name was derived from the Roman Catholic social teachings concerning Christus Rex, and it was also the title of a conservative Catholic journal.

The ideology of Rexism called for the moral renewal of Belgian society in conformity with the teachings of the Church, by forming a corporatist society, and abolishing democracy. The Rexist movement attracted support mostly among the Walloons; it had a counterpart on the Flemish side in the Vlaamsch Nationaal Verbond, or VNV. Rexism soon began to ally itself with the interests of Nazi Germany and to incorporate Nazi-style antisemitism into its platform after Adolf Hitler's rise to power, and got financial support from German interests, while ties to the Roman Catholic Church were increasingly cut off one-sidedly by the Belgian bishops. Some former Rexists went into the underground resistance against Nazi Germany, after they had come to see the Nazis' somewhat anticlerical and very anti-Semitic policies enforced in occupied Belgium (although others, notably José Streel, simply withdrew from political activity as a result of this). Most Rexists however proudly supported the occupiers and assisted Nazi Germany in its endeavors wherever they could.

Para-fascism

Some states and movements have certain characteristics of fascism, but scholars generally agree they are not fascist. Such near-fascist groups are generally anti-liberal, anti-communist and use similar political or paramilitary methods to fascists, but lack fascism's revolutionary goal to create a new national character. Para-fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian regimes with aspects that differentiate them from true fascist states or movements. Para-fascists typically eschewed radical change and some viewed genuine fascists as a threat. Para-fascist states were often the home of genuine fascist movements, which were sometimes suppressed or co-opted, sometimes collaborated with.

See also: Estado Novo (Portugal)

Austrian Fatherland Front

Main article: Austrofascism

File:Engelbert Dollfuß Briefmarke.jpg

Engelbert Dollfuß

Flag of the Fatherland Front of Austria.

"Austrofascism" is a controversial category encompassing various para-fascist and semi-fascist movements in Austria in the 1930s. In particular it refers to the Fatherland Front which became Austria's sole legal political party in 1934. The Fatherland Front's ideology was partly based on a fusion of Italian fascism, as expounded by Gentile, and Austria's Political Catholicism. It had an ideology of the "community of the people" (Volksgemeinschaft) that was different from that of the Nazis. They were similar in that both served to attack the idea of a class struggle by accusing leftism of destroying individuality, and thus help usher in a totalitarian state. Engelbert Dollfuß claimed he wanted to "over-Hitler" (überhitlern) Nazism.

Unlike the ethnic nationalism promoted by Italian Fascists and Nazis, the Fatherland Front focused entirely on cultural nationalism such as Austrian identity and distinction from Germany, such as extolling Austria's ties to the Roman Catholic Church. According to this philosophy, Austrians were "better Germans" as the German population was mostly Protestant. The monarchy was elevated to the ideal of a powerful and far-reaching state, a status which Austria lost after the Treaty of Saint-Germain. The notion of the Fatherland Front being fascist was claimed due to the regime's support and similar ideology of Fascist Italy, but its intensely conservative nationalism is distinct from revolutionary fascism.

4th of August Regime (Greece)

Main article: 4th of August Regime

File:Metaxas.jpg

Ioannis Metaxas

EON on parade, from its official magazine, I Neolaia. The double axe, emblem of the organisation, is visible on the standard

The 4th of August Regime was an authoritarian regime under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas that ruled Greece from 1936 to 1941. There is some debate over how the regime relates to other authoritarian regimes of the era: those of Franco's Spain, Italian Fascism, and German Nazism. Richard Clogg argues that while the regime had "superficial trappings of Fascism" and Metaxas "did not disguise his admiration for Nazism and Fascism", it is "more correctly categorised as paternalist-authoritarian rather than fascist".

The roots of Metaxas' "New State" were sought in Greece's classical history. Metaxas thought Hellenic nationalism would galvanize "the heathen values of ancient Greece, specifically those of Sparta, along with the Christian values of the Medieval empire of Byzantium". As its main symbol, the followers of Metaxas chose the labrys, the symbol of ancient Minoan Crete. The traditional Greek values of "Country, Loyalty, Family and Religion", which Metaxas praised repeatedly, were also close to those of the ancient Spartans.

Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Japan)

Symbol of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association.

Fumimaro Konoe founded the Imperial Rule Assistance Association in 1940.

The Imperial Rule Assistance Association (大政翼賛会, Taisei Yokusankai) was an coalition of multiple fascist and nationalist political movements of Japan such as the Imperial Way Faction (皇道派, Kōdōha) and the Society of the East (東方会, Tōhōkai) which were previously competing for power.

The IRAA was formed under the guidance of Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe who was seeking to politically unify the various Japanese fascist and nationalist groups together to reduce political friction and strengthen relations with the fascist regimes in Germany and Italy. Prior to creation of the IRAA, Konoe had already passed the National Mobilization Law, which effectively nationalized strategic industries, the news media, and labour unions, in preparation for total war with China. After Konoe was replaced by Hideki Tōjō (a former member of the Imperial Way Faction), Tōjō entrenched the IRAA as the country's ruling political movement. Tōjō during this period attempted to establish himself as the absolute leader of Japan's government, called by his supporters as a Shogun (an ancient title given to supreme military commanders).

The IRAA held one fundamental difference from fascism in Europe, which was that the cult of personality for the movement did not focus on the head of government but instead focused on the Emperor of Japan who is regarded in Japanese society as being associated with the divine.

The IRAA pursued a totalitarian course to take control of Japanese society beginning by creating the mandatory Tonarigumi (Neighbourhood Association) system consisting of 10 to 15 households whereby each unit was responsible for allocating rationed goods, distributing government bonds, fire fighting, public health, civil defense and assisting the IRAA's National Spiritual Mobilization Movement, by distribution of government propaganda, and organizing participation in patriotic rallies. All Japanese youth and women were forced to be part of organizations of the IRAA in 1942. All youth organizations were merged into the Great Japan Imperial Rule Assistance Youth Corps (翼賛青年団, Yokusan Shonendan), based on the model of the Nazi Sturmabteilung. After the 1942 general election, all members of the Japanese parliament were forced to become members of the IRAA, making Japan a single-party state.

The IRAA government promoted Japanese expansionism and imperialism, declaring that Japan would form and lead a "Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere".

References

Primary sources

• Gentile, Giovanni. 1932. The Doctrine of Fascism. Enciclopedia Italiana.
• de Oliveira Salazar, António. 1939. Doctrine and Action: Internal and Foreign Policy of the New Portugal, 1928-1939. Faber and Faber.
• Mosley, Sir Oswald. 1968. My Life. Nelson Publications.
• de Rivera, José Antonio Primo. 1971. Textos de Doctrina Politica. Madrid.
• Mussolini, Benito. 1998. My Rise And Fall . Da Capo Press. ISBN 0306808641
• Ciano, Galezzo. 2001. The Ciano Diaries, 1939—1943. Simon Publications. ISBN 1931313741
• Mussolini, Benito. 2006. My Autobiography: With "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism". Dover Publications. ISBN 0486447774

Secondary sources

• Evans, Richard J, The Third Reich in Power: 1933-1939, The Penguin Press HC, 2005
• De Felice, Renzo. 1976. Fascism: An Informal Introduction to Its Theory and Practice. Transaction Books. ISBN 0878556192
• De Felice, Renzo. 1977. Interpretations of Fascism. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0674459628.
• Ben-Am, Shlomo. 1983. Fascism from Above: The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain, 1923-1930. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0198225962
• Payne, Stanley G. 1987. The Franco Regime, 1936-1975. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0299110702
• Vatikiotis, Panayiotis J. 1988. Popular Autocracy in Greece, 1936-1941: A Political Biography of General Ioannis Metaxas. Routledge. ISBN 0714648698
• Payne, Stanley G. 1995. A History of Fascism, 1914-45. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0299148742
• Costa Pinto, António. 1995. Salazar's Dictatorship and European Fascism: Problems of Interpretation. Social Science Monographs. ISBN 0880339683
• Griffiths, Richard. 2001. An Intelligent Person's Guide to Fascism. Duckworth. ISBN 0715629182
• Lewis, Paul H. 2002. Latin Fascist Elites: The Mussolini, Franco, and Salazar Regimes. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 027597880X
• Payne, Stanley G. 2003. Falange: A History of Spanish Fascism. Textbook Publishers. ISBN 0758134452
• Paxton, Robert O. 2005. The Anatomy of Fascism. Vintage Books. ISBN 1400033918

• Eatwell, Roger. 1996. Fascism: A History. New York: Allen Lane.
• Nolte, Ernst The Three Faces Of Fascism: Action Française, Italian Fascism, National Socialism, translated from the German by Leila Vennewitz, London: Weidenfeld and Nicolson, 1965.
• Reich, Wilhelm. 1970. The Mass Psychology of Fascism. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
• Seldes, George. 1935. Sawdust Caesar: The Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism. New York and London: Harper and Brothers.
• Alfred Sohn-Rethel Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism, London, CSE Bks, 1978 ISBN 0906336007
• Kallis, Aristotle A. ," To Expand or Not to Expand? Territory, Generic Fascism and the Quest for an 'Ideal Fatherland'" Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 38, No. 2. (Apr., 2003), pp. 237–260.
• Fritzsche, Peter. 1990. Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505780-5
• Griffin, Roger. 2000. "Revolution from the Right: Fascism," chapter in David Parker (ed.) Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560-1991, Routledge, London.
• Laqueur, Walter. 1966. Fascism: Past, Present, Future, New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-511793-X
• Sauer, Wolfgang "National Socialism: totalitarianism or fascism?" pages 404-424 from The American Historical Review, Volume 73, Issue #2, December 1967.
• Sternhell, Zeev with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri. [1989] 1994. The Birth of Fascist Ideology, From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution., Trans. David Maisei. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Baker, David. "The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality?" New Political Economy, Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006 , pages 227 – 250
• Griffin, Roger. 1991. The Nature of Fascism. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Weber, Eugen. [1964] 1985. Varieties of Fascism: Doctrines of Revolution in the Twentieth Century, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, (Contains chapters on fascist movements in different countries.)

External links

• The Doctrine of Fascism