Fascism

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

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

"Fascist" redirects here. For the 1961 Italian film, see The Fascist.

Fascism is an authoritarian or totalitarian nationalist ideology. It is primarily concerned with solving the perceived problems of national decline or decadence, by achieving a millenarian national rebirth, calling for the subordination of individual self-interest to the interests of the nation or race, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity. Fascists typically seek to form a mass movement of militants who are willing to engage in violence against their perceived enemies. Fascism opposes communism, conservatism, democracy, individualism, international socialism, liberalism, materialism, pacifism, laissez faire capitalism and political pluralism. Some fascists see themselves as advocating a third position alternative to both capitalism and communism.

Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism (including collectivism and populism based on nationalist values); third positionism (including class collaboration, corporatism, economic planning, mixed economy, national socialism, national syndicalism, protectionism,); authoritarianism and totalitarianism (including dictatorship, indoctrination, major social interventionism, and statism); and militarism.

Some authors reject broad usage of the term or exclude certain parties and regimes. Following the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, there have been few self-proclaimed fascist groups and individuals. In contemporary political discourse, the term fascist is often used by adherents of some ideologies as a pejorative description of their opponents.

Etymology

The term fascismo was brought into popular usage by the Italian founders of Fascism, Benito Mussolini and the Neo-Hegelian philosopher Giovanni Gentile. It is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means "bundle" or "union", and from the Latin word fasces. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods often 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. In 1919 Fasci italiani di combattimento was founded and the Fascist manifesto was published, outlining Italian fascism, which was the original meaning of the term.

Definitions

Main articles: Definitions of fascism and Fascism and ideology

The popular presentation of fascism in the publications of the Western World have been radically different in the period during and after World War II than in the period 1919—1939, when Mussolini and the Italian fascists were widely acclaimed. As fascism was associated with the Axis powers who fought and lost the war, and the Western World were mostly among the victorious Allied powers, it was difficult for many years to provide a neutral view of the topic. English-speaking (and other) historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism. However 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.

While various attempts to define fascism have been made, the problem scholars often run into is that each form of fascism is different from any other, leaving many definitions as too wide or too narrow. Below are two examples of attempts to define fascism:

[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.– Roger Griffin, The palingenetic core of generic fascist ideology

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.– Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism .

Political spectrum

There is no clear consensus on where fascism is on the political spectrum. The most common view is that fascism is far right or that it is outside the conventional left-right spectrum. However, some authors have argued that it is extreme centrist, and a few have claimed that it belongs on the political left.

Fascism rejects the idea of class conflict in favor of class collaboration, and internationalism in favor of statist nationalism. In 1932, Italian fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile described fascism as a collectivist and statist right-wing ideology:

Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the "right", a Fascist century. If the 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the State."

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". Some authors, such as Roger Griffin argue 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. Eugen Weber also addressed this point, saying about fascists that "...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)."

On the other hand, A. James Gregor argues that the most "uninspired effort to understand fascism" is to simply place it on the right-wing, or the radical right. The founders of fascism in Italy included people who were previously socialists, syndicalists, military men or anarchists — who had become angered at the international left's opposition to patriotism. Benito Mussolini, Michele Bianchi and Dino Grandi were all previously socialists. The Fascist Manifesto's initial promises included nationalization of property and class conflict, but some their promises were moderated or abolished later. A few advocates of laissez faire capitalism, such as Ludwig von Mises, define socialism as any ideology that advocates a society in which the means of production are socialized, and argue that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were socialist countries according to this definition. Zeev Sternhell sees fascism as an anti-Marxist form of socialism.

Fascists described themselves a "third force" that was outside the traditional political spectrum altogether. Many scholars accept fascism as a search for a third way between capitalism and communism. Sir Oswald Mosley, the leader of the British Union of Fascists, described his position as "hard centre" in the political spectrum. Lipset sees fascism as "extremism of the center".

Fascism as epithet

Main article: Fascist (epithet)

Following World War II, the word fascist has become a slur throughout the political spectrum, and since the end of the war, it has been uncommon for political groups to call themselves fascist. In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some political ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it as the opposite of their own views. In the post-war era, the terms fascism or neo-fascism have commonly been associated with white supremacy, anti-Semitism and racism. However, fascist movements have existed in non-white societies and racially mixed societies such as Brazil, and Japan, and arguably the former Zaire (now the Democratic Republic of Congo) under the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko. Some have argued that the term fascist has become hopelessly vague over the years and that it has become 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".

Core tenets

Nationalism

Fascism sees 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, materialism, 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. Many fascists have strongly emphasized the role of a nation in society, declaring the absolute necessity for national unity and a strong national spirit to exist.

"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." Benito Mussolini, October 24, 1922.

"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." Eoin O'Duffy, Irish National Corporatist, November 16, 1934.

"The only way to held the German people achieve its goal is the Führer's way: to turn the German nation into a political factor of such power and internal cohesion that the conscience of an international community, deaf to rational argument, cannot help but be suddenly awakened." Paul Ritter, member of the Nazi Party, 1937.

"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." Plínio Salgado, leader of the Brazilian Integralist Action party, 1935..

Expansionism

Fascists claim the expansion of a nation is a natural process. On the issue of expansionist imperialism, Italian Fascists described it as a necessity for the nation, the Italian Encyclopedia written in 1932 in Fascist Italy declared: "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.

National socialism and national syndicalism

While fascists support the unifying of proletariat workers to their cause along socialistic or syndicalistic lines, fascists specify that they advocate 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) and small businesses and promise these groups protection alongside the proletariat from the upper-class bourgeoisie, big business, and Marxism. Also, national-socialistic fascists, unlike international socialists, do not believe in the notion of equality of people across ethnic, cultural, national, or religious lines. Fascists declare either nation or race as the supreme unifying source of a people, and claim that class divisions which they perceive as being imposed by capitalism, communism, and international socialism must be subdued to allow the nation or race to unify.

"The ideological basis of the national economy and programme of Hungarism is social nationalism and its conscious practice. The individual can become a conscious national socialist only through the ideology and function of social nationalism. National socialism is a nationalist order in socialism, and social nationalism is a social order within nationalism." Ferenc Szalasi, leader of the national-socialist fascist Arrow Cross Party.

In the case of Italy, Fascism arose in the 1920s as a mixture of national syndicalist notions with an anti-materialist theory of the state. Many Italian Fascists were former international socialists who abandoned international socialism due to its perceived unpatriotic nature for being unwilling to support Italy's war against Austria-Hungary in World War I as international socialists condemned the conflict as being a "bourgeois war". While others with nationalist sympathies saw the war as necessary to reunite Italian territories in Austria to Italy to end what they perceived as national oppression of Italians in Austria-Hungary. Mussolini and other ex-socialists formed the Fascist movement in 1919 with a left-wing platform combined with nationalism in the Fascist Manifesto of 1919. Over time the Italian Fascists would drift rightward on social and economic policies, such as abandoning previous hostility to the monarchy, the Roman Catholic Church, and businesses in order to attract more support for the Fascist regime while retaining its nationalist agenda. Upon being ousted in 1943 and a new Fascist regime being created in the German puppet state of the Italian Social Republic, Mussolini briefly returned to earlier left-wing promises to attempt to regain support for the Fascist movement, such as advocating major nationalization of property and promoting the Fascist movement as a left-wing movement.

Fascists accused parliamentary democracy of producing division and decline, and wished to renew the nation from decadence. Fascists dismissed the Marxist concept of "class struggle" and oppose international socialists' promotion of internationalism instead of nationalism, by advocating "class collaboration" devoted to unifying the nation.

Nationalist-oriented collectivism, and populism

Fascism appealed both to collectivism, and populism along a basis that promoted nationalism. Fascism made populist appeals to the middle-class, especially the lower middle-class by promising the protection of the middle-class and small business and small property owners from communism such as by promising the protection of private property and an economy based on competition and profit while pledging to oppose big business. Fascism also has elements of populism that appealed to an Agrarian myth. Fascism also tends to be anti-intellectual. The Nazis in particular despised intellectuals and university professors. Hitler declared them unreliable, useless and even dangerous. Still, Hitler has been quoted as saying "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."

Economic nationalism

Fascist regimes have advocated economic nationalism as a means to bolster their economies and economic conditions for society and reduce the country's dependence on other countries. To do this fascists promoted a policy called autarky which was designed to create a fully self-sufficient country which would no longer have any dependence on international trade.

Third Position economics

Further information: Economics of fascism

Fascists promoted their ideology as a "third position" between capitalism and communism. Italian Fascism often involved corporatism, but German Nazism officially rejected corporatism. What fascists did have in common was the goal of a new national multiclass economics which is either labeled national corporatist, national socialist or national syndicalist. Thus, Third Position economics stipulates fascists' opposition to the elements of capitalist and communist political and economic systems. Fascism opposes the demands by capitalist systems for little government intervention, opposes capitalism's unequivocal support of free trade (i.e. fascists enacted protectionist policies), opposes capitalism's support for free international movement of capital, and opposes capitalism's support of individualism. Fascism opposes communism for its promotion of a class-based world society where nations would cease to exist. Fascists see communism as unpatriotic and a major enemy to their agenda.

Corporatism

Main article: Corporatism

Corporatism generally refers to a political system in which economy is collectively managed by employers, workers and state officials by formal mechanisms at national level. In such system capital and labor are integrated into guilds, known as "corporations" (not the same as contemporary business corporations), that represent economic, industrial, agrarian, and professional groups. These associations are obligatory bodies with a strict hierarchy; their purpose is to exert control over their respective areas of social or economic life through class collaboration.

Class collaboration

Fascism seeks class collaboration as a means to resolve class conflict and create a unified society across class lines. Fascism blames capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and in turn blames communists for exploiting class conflict.

Economic planning

Fascists opposed what they believed to be laissez-faire or quasi-laissez-faire economic policies dominant in the era prior to the creation of the Federal Reserve and the Income Tax, and the subsequent Great Depression. People of many different political stripes blamed laissez-faire capitalism for the Great Depression, and fascists promoted their ideology as a "third way" between capitalism and Marxian socialism. Their policies manifested as a radical extension of government control over the economy without wholesale expropriation of the means of production. Fascist governments nationalized some key industries, managed their currencies and made some massive state investments. They also introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic planning measures. Fascist governments instituted state-regulated allocation of resources, especially in the financial and raw materials sectors.

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 labor 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 that: "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 also operated from a Social Darwinist view of human relations. Their aim was to promote "superior" individuals and weed out the weak. In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying trade unions and other organizations of the working class. Historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."

Fascists were most vocal in their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering. Some fascists, particularly Nazis, considered finance capitalism a "parasitic" "Jewish conspiracy". Nevertheless, fascists also opposed Marxism and independent trade unions.

According to sociologist Stanislav Andreski, fascist economics "foreshadowed most of the fundamental features of the economic system of Western European countries today: the radical extension of government control over the economy without a wholesale expropriation of the capitalists but with a good dose of nationalisation, price control, incomes policy, managed currency, massive state investment, attempts at overall planning (less effectual than the Fascist because of the weakness of authority)." Politics professor Stephen Haseler credits fascism with providing a model of economic planning for social democracy.

In Nazi economic planning, in place of ordinary profit incentive to guide the economy, investment was guided through regulation to accord to the needs of the State. The profit incentive for business owners was retained, though greatly modified through various profit-fixing schemes: "Fixing of profits, not their suppression, was the official policy of the Nazi party." However the function of profit in automatically guiding allocation of investment and unconsciously directing the course of the economy was replaced with economic planning by Nazi government agencies.

Fascism is a more subtle form of government ownership than socialism. While socialism is a system in which the government owns and controls the means of production, fascism is a system in which government leaves nominal ownership of the means of production in the hands of private individuals but exercises control by means of regulatory legislation and reaps most of the profit by means of heavy taxation. The owners nonetheless bear all of the risks involved in entrepreneurship.

Mixed economy

Fascist economies are typically inbetween laissez-faire capitalist and statist socialist economic systems. Unlike laissez-faire capitalist systems, fascist corporatism involved significant government intervention such as regulations, objectives, and nationalization of certain enterprises. Unlike statist socialist systems, fascist economies for the most part protect the right of private property and allowed significant independence for private free enterprise except in areas deemed vital to the national interest where private enterprise was not able to meet economic expectations of the state, in which such enterprises are nationalized. 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).

Authoritarianism and Totalitarianism

All fascist movements advocate the creation of an authoritarian government that is an autocratic single-party state led by 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. Doctrine of Fascism 1935.

Political theorist Carl Schmitt as a member of the Nazi party published a work titled "The Legal Basis of the Total State" in 1935, describing the Nazi regime's intention to form a totalitarian state, as shown in this statement:

The recognition of the plurality of autonomous life would, however, immediately lead back to a disasterous 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 coherant 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. Carl Schmitt, 1935

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. Nakano Seigo

Some have claimed however that in spite of Italian Fascism's attempt to form a totalitarian state, this was not achieved in Italy, arguing that Fascism in Italy as a political movement devolved to a cult of personality around Mussolini. However both proponents and opponents of Italian Fascism at the time of its rule in Italy claimed that it had a clear intention to establish a totalitarian state. In addition, Hungarian fascist leader Gyula Gömbös and his fascist Hungarian National Defence Association attempted to form a totalitarian state in Hungary but failed after Gömbös' death in 1936 and the movement subsequently failed to remain in government.

The Nazi regime in Germany has also been seen by most scholars as well as critics as being a totalitarian regime.

In addition while fascist movements declared their intention to form a totalitarian state, they exercised much less influence over the economy that that of communist-led states, in that private property remained largely free from government interferance. Nevertheless, like the Soviet Union, fascist states pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as by consolidating trade unions to be state-controlled unions. Attempts were made by both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to establish "autarky" (self-sufficiency) through singificant economic planning, but both failed to make the two countries self-sufficient.

Dictatorship

A key element of fascism is its endorsement of the leadership over a country of a dictator, who is often known simply as the "Leader" or a title referring to a leader of some sort such as Duce in Italian, Führer in German, Caudillo in Spanish, Conducător in Romanian, Shogun in Japanese. Fascist leaders that rule countries are not always heads of state, but heads of government, such as Benito Mussolini who held power under the largely figurehead King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III. As part of a totalitarian agenda, the fascist movement does not only ask for obedience to the leader, but wants people to recognize and worship the leader as an infallible saviour of the people.

Statism

Fascism is typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic, by way of a strong, single-party government for enacting laws and a strong militia or police force for enforcing them through threat of reprisal against dissidents or through political violence directed at opponents. Fascism exalts the nation, state, or group of people as superior to the individuals composing it, and uses explicit populist rhetoric. It calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness, and demands loyalty to a single leader, leading to a cult of personality and unquestioned obedience to orders (see Führerprinzip). Fascism is also considered to be a form of collectivism. Fascism promotes the indoctrination of people into the movement, such as through education, propaganda, and organizations.

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.

Societal transformation

Multiple fascist movements speak of the need to create a "new man" and a "new civilization" as part of their intention to transform society to fit the ideology and agenda of the movement. 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.

Interventionist social policies

On the question of whether one can speak of “fascist social policy” as single concept with logical and internally consistent ideas and common identifiable goals, some scholars say that one cannot, pointing for example to German National Socialism where such policy was mostly opportunistic and pragmatic. Generally all fascist movements endorse social interventionism dedicating to influencing society to promote the state's interests.

Social welfare

Mussolini promised a “social revolution” for “remaking” the Italian people which was only achieved in part. The groups that primarily benefited from Italian Fascist social policy were the middle and lower-middle classes who filled the jobs in the vastly expanding government – the government expanding from about 500,000 to a million jobs in 1930 alone. Health and welfare spending grew dramatically under Italian fascism, welfare rising from 7% of the budget in 1930 to 20% in 1940. The Fascist government advocated a number of policies on improving living standards for labourers such as by establishing the nationwide Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro in 1925, which was a state-sponsored organization that created numerous municipal clubs across Italy that allowed lower-income citizens to attend recreational activities, watch movies, and listen to musical performances, etc.

Hitler was personally opposed to the idea of social welfare because, in his view, it encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and feeble. However, once in power the Nazis created welfare programs to deal with the large numbers of unemployed. Nevertheless, unlike social welfare programs in other countries, Nazi social welfare programs were residual, as they excluded certain people from the system whom they felt were incapable of helping themselves and would only pose a threat to the future health of the German people.

Positions on abortion, eugenics and euthansia

The fascist government in Italy banned abortion and literature on birth control in 1926, declaring them both crimes against the state. The fascist government began the "Battle for Births" in 1927, a measure against birth control and abortion.

Nazi eugenics placed the improvement of the Germanic race through eugenics at the center of their concerns, and targeted humans they identified as "life unworthy of life" (German Lebensunwertes Leben), such as mentally and physically disabled, homosexual, feeble-minded, insane, and weak people. Adolf Hitler decriminalized abortion in cases in which fetuses had racial or hereditary defects, while the abortion of healthy "pure" German, "Aryan" unborn remained strictly forbidden. For non-Aryans, abortion was not only allowed, but often compelled. The Nazis based their eugenics program on the United States' programs of forced sterilization. Their eugenics program stemmed also from the "progressive biomedical model" of Weimar Germany. Like their forebears, neo-Nazis oppose abortion not because of concerns about preservation of life, but about propagation of their race. The Aryan Nations security chief stated: "I’m just against abortion for the pure white race. For blacks and other mongrelized races, abortion is a good idea."

Positions on culture, gender roles and relations, and sexual orientation

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

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. Mussolini perceived women's primary role as childbearers while men should be warriors such, once saying "war is to man what maternity is to the woman".

Nazi propaganda sometimes promoted pre- and extramarital sexual relations, unwed motherhood, and divorce and at other times 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.

The Italian Fascist government declared homosexuality illegal in Italy in 1931.

The Nazis' opposition to homosexuality was based on the Nazis' view that homosexuality was degenerate, effeminate, and perverted and undermined the masculinity which they promoted and because they did not produce children for the master race. 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.

The Romanian Iron Guard opposed homosexuality as undermining society.

Militance and Militarism

Fascism sees the struggle of a nation or race as requiring the utilization of violence to preserve and promote it such as through the threat and use of political violence against against political opponents or people that fascists deemed enemies of movement itself or their nation or race, as well as the threat or engagement of war against other countries to advance the interests of a nation or race. Fascist movements typically are militant organizations. In Italy, Fascists fought on the streets against communists and anarchists. In Germany, Nazis also fought on the streets against communists and anarchists along with attacking minority groups such as Jews who were deemed enemies according to Nazi doctrine. In Spain, Falangists fought against communist and international leftist factions during the Spanish Civil War. In some fascist regimes, the fascist movement itself has a paramilitary wing which is included in the armed forces of the country, such as the SS in Germany and the MVSN in Italy, which are devoted directly and specifically to the fascist movement.

Militarism is apparent in that the leaders of fascist movements often identify with the military, often wearing military-appearing uniforms. Fascism commits the state to mobilization for war, jingoism, and actively promoting military service as a position of honour. While supporting militarism, fascism in turn strongly opposes pacifism. Mussolini spoke of war idealistically as a source of masculine pride while he spoke of pacifism in negative terms, saying:

War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of mobility 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. Benito Mussolini.

Joseph Goebbels of the Nazi Party, compared the importance of World War II to Germany to that childbirth and described war as a positive transformative experience while claiming that fear of war was equivelant to a woman being cowardly to pain during childbirth:

"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 it's scale has increased. It is relentlessly at work, shattering old forms and ideas, and directing the eyes of human beings to new, greater objectives." Joseph Goebbels, 1942.

Positions on racism

Initially Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler were at odds over the idea of racism. Mussolini in the early 1930s claimed that the concept of a biologically pure and superior race as believed by Hitler was flawed and impossible and saw racism as a flawed ideology. On the subject of social equality, Mussolini on a number of occasions rejected racism, and rejected the notion of the Nazis of biologically superior races. Hitler believed that race and racism was fundamental, and many of his views and policies reflected these. Under pressure from Germany, Mussolini enacted racist policies in the late 1930s, including anti-Semitism which was highly unpopular in Italy and in the Italian Fascist movement itself. Fascists in other countries also had varying positions on racism, Plínio Salgado and his Integralists of Brazil opposed racism, Gyula Gömbös and his M.O.V.E. party in Hungary supported racism, and others were divided on this subject as well. Neofascism has tended to associate with racism.

Positions on religion

The attitude of fascism toward religion has run the spectrum from persecution, to denunciation, to cooperation, to embrace. Stanley Payne notes that fundamental to fascism was the foundation of a purely materialistic "civic religion" which "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 a biographer of Mussolini, "Initially, fascism was fiercely anti-Catholic" - the Church being a competitor for dominion of the people's hearts. Mussolini, originally a socialist internationalist and atheist, published anti-Catholic writings and planned for the confiscation of Church property, but eventually moved to accommodation. Hitler was born a Roman Catholic but renounced his faith at the age of twelve and largely used religious references to attract religious support to the Nazi political agenda. Mussolini largely endorsed the Roman Catholic Church for political legitimacy, as during the Lateran Treaty talks, Fascist officials engaged in bitter arguments with Vatican officials and put pressure on them to accept the terms that the regime deemed acceptable. Nazis arrested and killed thousands of Catholic clergy (18% of the priests in Poland were killed), eventually consigning thousands of them to concentration camps (2600 died in Dachau alone). Although Jews were obviously the greatest and primary target, Hitler also sent Roman Catholics to concentration camps along with the Jews and killed 3 million Catholic Poles along with three million Jewish Poles. The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements. Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anticlerical, some believe 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.

Relations were close in the likes of the Belgian Rexists (which was eventually denounced by the Church). In addition, many Fascists were anti-clerical in both private and public life. In Mexico the fascist Red Shirts not only renounced religion but were vehemently atheist, killing priests, and on one occasion gunned down Catholics as they left Mass.

Others have argued that there has been a strong connection between some versions of fascism and religion, particularly the Catholic Church. Religion did play a real part in the Ustasha in Croatia which had strong religious (Catholic) overtones and clerics in positions of power. Spain's Falangists emphasized the struggle against the atheism of the left. The nationalist authoritarian movement in the Slovak Republic (the People's Party) was established by a catholic priest (Father Hlinka) and presided over by another (Father Tiso). The fascist movement in Romania known as the Iron Guard or the Legion of Archangel Michael invariably preceded its meetings with a church service and "their demonstrations were usually led by priests carrying icons and religious flags." Similar to Ayatollah Khomeini's Shi'a Islamist movement in Iran, it promoted a cult of "suffering, sacrifice and martyrdom." In Latin America the most important 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, however, criticised the "dangerous pagan tendencies of Hitlerism" and maintained that his movement differed from European fascism in that it respected the "rights of the human person". According to Payne, such "would be" religious fascist only gain hold where traditional belief is weakened or absent, as fascism seeks to create new nonrationalist myth structures for those who no longer hold a traditional view. Hence, the rise of modern secularism in Europe and Latin America and the incursion and large scale adoption of western secular culture in the mideast leave a void where this modern secular ideology, sometimes under a religious veneer, can take hold.

One theory is that religion and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic weltanschauungen" 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. 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.

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 the other fascisms, yet there is no agreement about which aspects of structure, tactics, culture, and ideology represent the "fascist minimum" core.

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.

Italian Fascist flag.

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. This side of fascism endeared itself to the aristocracy and the bourgeois, as it promised to protect their existence; after the Russian Revolution, they had greatly feared the prospect of a bloody class war coming to Italy by the hand of the communists and the socialists. 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. In the manifesto he demanded, amongst other things, creation of a minimum wage, showing the same confidence in labor unions (which prove to be technically and morally worthy) as was given to industry executives or public servants, voting rights for women, and the systemisation of public transport such as railways.

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 ruthlessly consolidated Italian power 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.

Early Falangism (Spain)

Main article: Falangism

See also: Falangism in Latin America and Kataeb Party

File:José Antonio Primo de Rivera Face.jpg

José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Falangism founder.

Falangism is a form of fascism founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1933, emerging during a complex political time 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 would serve as military dictator from 1923—1930. In the Spanish general election, 1931 the winners were socialists and radical republican parties; this saw Alfonso XIII "suspending the exercise of royal power" and going into exile in Rome. Spain had turned from a kingdom into a far-left republic overnight. A liberal Republican Constitution was instated, giving the right of autonomy to regions, stripping the nobility of juristic status and stripping from the Catholic Church its schools.

It was in this environment that José Antonio Primo de Rivera looked at Mussolini's Italy and found inspiration. Primo de Rivera founded the Falange Española party; the name is a reference to the formidable Ancient Greek military formation phalanx. Just a year after foundation Falange Española merged with the Juntas de Ofensiva Nacional-Sindicalista party of Ramiro Ledesma and Onésimo Redondo. The party and Primo de Rivera revealed 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, looking to improve the standard of living for the peasants of the rural areas. It supported anti-capitalism, anti-Marxism, repudiating 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.

"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."

— José Antonio Primo de Rivera, Falange Manifesto. 1934.

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. After this, Francisco Franco, who was not as ideological as his predecessor, became leader of the Falangists and continued the nationalist fight, with aid from Italy and Germany against the republicans who were supported by the Soviet Union. 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, essentially a move away from fascism. This is somewhat controversial in Falangist circles because some elements argue that it was a move away from "authentic Falangism". Regardless nationalists won the Civil War, inserting the Spanish State in 1939 and under a single-party system Franco ruled. Franco managed to balance several different interests of elements in his party, in an effort to keep them united, especially in regards to the question of monarchy. The Francoist state was strongly nationalist, anti-communist and anti-separatist throughout with his Movimiento Nacional; he supported traditional values such as Christianity, in contrast to the anti-clerical violence of the republicans. Whether or not Francoist Spain itself constituted a genuine form of fascism is debated, for example scholar Stanley Payne, has asserted: "scarcely any of the serious historians and analysts of Franco consider the generalissimo to be a core fascist".

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. Falangism was significant in Lebanon through the Kataeb Party and its founder Pierre Gemayel. The Lebanese Falange fought for the countries 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.

Nazism (National Socialism)

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.

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 Below is a presentation of opposing scholary view on the topic, Griffin is a leading exponent of the "generic fascism" theory, while Sternhell views national socialism as separate to fascism;

It might 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 'racial fascism' for Nazism. [...] 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 in Italy and Germany, whereas in other European countries they remained an unpleasant, but transitory irritant. — Roger Griffin, Fascism: Critical Concepts in Political Science. 2003.

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. — Zeev Sternhell, The Birth of the Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. 1994.

Integralism

Main article: Brazilian Integralism

See also: Estado Novo (Portugal) and Action Française

File:Pliniosalgado.jpg

Plínio Salgado

Flag of the Integralists.

Brazilian Integralism is a form of fascism originating in Brazil with Plínio Salgado, he was 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.

Iron Guard (Romania)

Main article: Iron Guard

Corneliu Zelea Codreanu

Symbol of the Iron Guard .

The Iron Guard was a totalitarian ultra-nationalist, antisemitic 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.

The Iron Guard presented itself as an alternative to corrupt, clientelist political parties, using marches, religious processions and patriotic hymns and anthems, along with volunteer work and charitable campaigns in rural areas. 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." The Guard differed from other fascist movements in that it had its mass base among the peasantry and students. However, it shared the fascist penchant for violence, up to and including political assassinations.

National Corporatism (Ireland)

Flag of the National Guard movement in Ireland commonly called the "Blueshirts".

Eoin O'Duffy, a former Irish soldier and Irish nationalist who led and created a number of fascist political movements that eventually coelesced into the National Corporate Party which was closely based on Italian Fascism. The first movement that O'Duffy was involved in was the Army Comrades Association which he joined in 1933, one year after the ACA was formed. O'Duffy remained the organization the National Guard and endorsed fascism, along with adapting fascist symbolism such as borrowing the Italian Fascists and Nazis' use of the straight-armed salute. O'Duffy spoke of having an Irish version of the Italian Fascists' March on Rome which would be called the "March on Dublin", but this never proceeded. O'Duffy merged the National Guard along with the National Centre Party with the newly created Fine Gael party in 1933. However O'Duffy and the National Guard had serious disagreements with Fine Gael and broke away and formed the National Corporate Party in June 1935. The National Corporate Party supported the creation of a corporatist state. Irish National Corporatist recruits took part in fighting on the side of nationalist forces in the Spanish Civil War.

Para-fascism and commonly alleged fascist ideologies

A number of states and movements have had various characteristics that are similar to fascism, but which most scholars have denied being affiliated to fascism.

Para-fascism is a term sometimes used to describe authoritarian regimes which appear like fascism on the surface but some scholars claim differ substantially from true fascism when a more than superficial examination is done. Roger Griffin uses the term whereas Stanley Payne uses the term Radical Right. The consensus among scholars rejects these many anti-liberal, anti-communist inter-war movements which lacked fascism's revolutionary goal to create a new national character as fascist. Para-fascists typically eschewed radical change and viewed genuine fascists as a threat. Parafascist states were often unwillingly the home of genuine fascist movements which they eventually suppressed or co-opted.

Besides Parafascism there are also other (not nescessary inter-war) regimes and movements that have had simliaries to fascism.

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. Especially referring 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 distinctness from Germany, such as extolling Austria's ties to the Roman Catholic Church. According to this philosophy, Austrians were "better Germans" (by this time, the majority of the German population was 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.

Francoism

Flag of Francoist Spain.

Francisco Franco.

Spain under the rule of Francisco Franco has been considered by some to be a fascist regime due to the support given to Franco's "Nationalists" by Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the Spanish Civil War. Franco's Spain like fascist states involved authoritarian nationalism, dictatorship, a single-party state, and an economic system similar to Fascist Italy's corporatism. Others have claimed that Francoist Spain while having similarities and showing support towards fascist states was much more of conservative and traditionalist than fascist states which sought societal transformation.

Imperial Rule Assistance Association (Japan)

Symbol of the Imperial Rule Assistance Association.

Hideki Tōjō took over the IRAA from his predacessor, expanded its power, and attempted to establish himself as a Shogun.

The Imperial Rule Assistance Association (大政翼賛会, Taisei Yokusankai) was the most influential fascist political organization in Japan, ruling the government from 1940 to 1945. The association was founded from a unification 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. Prior to creation of the IRAA, Konoe had already passed the National Mobilization Law, which effectively nationalized strategic industries, the news media, and labor 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 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.

Ku Klux Klan

Main article: Ku Klux Klan

A KKK cross burning ritual.

Symbol of the Ku Klux Klan

Some allege that the Ku Klux Klan was a precursor of fascism. The KKK developed in the southern United States nearly half a century before the rise of fascism in Italy. It was formed mainly as a response to the defeat of the South in the American Civil War, and the freeing of African slaves. Its similarities to Nazism include ethnic nationalism, nativism, right-wing populism, racism, antisemitism and anti-Communism. However, the KKK has been mostly reactionary rather than revolutionary. In addition, it was originally an overtly Protestant movement, while the Nazis attempted to promote their racist viewpoints largely through science and culture rather than religion. The KKK worked within the American democratic system to enforce white supremacy, and unlike the fascists and Nazis, has expressed no goals of establishing a dictatorship.

By the late 1930s, the KKK had a prolonged flirtation with fascist organizations in the United States, and many American fascist leaders have appeared at KKK rallies. The KKK had a complex relationship with the pro-Nazi German American Bund; some KKK groups supported it while others were generally hostile to it. After the war, neo-Nazi groups and KKK groups became more strongly allied. Some KKK groups have become increasingly Nazified, adopting the look and emblems of white power skinheads.

Salazarismo

Main articles: Estado Novo (Portugal) and Estado Novo (Brazil)

The Estado Novo was an authoritarian regime with an integralist orientation, which differed from fascist regimes by its lack of expansionism, charismatic leader and party structure, and by its more moderate use of state violence. However, it incorporated Benito Mussolini's principles for its military. Its founder in Portugal, António de Oliveira Salazar, was a Catholic traditionalist who believed in the necessity of control over the forces of economic modernisation in order to defend the religious and rural values of the country, which he perceived as being threatened. It is often forgotten that censorship was used only during the first years of the reigme and that it was the biggest period of economical development in Portuguese history, beyond that many schools were built , although the country continued to have thousands that didn't even went to school. Industry was also developed, dozens of factories were build in once rural towns to bring people and divide the population. Also great works like the Ponte Salazar (based on the Golden Gate bridge) and the Lisnave were built to employ several working class men.Today most of the industrial zones of Covilhã, Almada, Porto, Sines and Setubal are closed due to lack of econimical support after the fall of the Estado Novo. One of the pillars of the regime were the family values, today senior citizens live alone or in Hospitals, during the regime it was a crime to leave your parents, sons had the duty of taking care of their families and little things like not eating together at diner were seen as very bad examples, Religion was also very important. Other important thing was the PIDE, the state police was on the most sucessfull ever, they managed to keep out Communist threats and even get informants inside people's families, they were known by their brutality and stealth. The GNR was also very important, they dealed with minor crimes and together with the other PSP and PIDE were able to reduce crime rate in Portugal drastically. The values in Portugal were so strong that a man that comitted a felony was not only arrested but also seen as a shame to his family and friends. Those values kept Portugal in peace till the 70's. Although the PIDE were no saints, many political dissidents were imprisoned at the Tarrafal prison in the African archipelago of Cape Verde, on the capital island of Santiago, or in local jails.

Another authoritarian government, installed in Brazil by President Getúlio Dornelles Vargas, lasted from 1937 to 1945. It was modelled on the Portuguese Estado Novo regime and even took its name.

4th of August Regime

Main article: 4th of August Regime

From 1936 to 1941, Greece was ruled by an authoritarian regime under the leadership of General Ioannis Metaxas. Historians of this period in Greek history, such as Richard Clogg, John Hondros, William McNeill, C. M. Woodhouse and others, all strongly contend that the state was not "fascist" but authoritarian with fascist "leanings". The Metaxas regime differed from regimes such as Mussolini's and Hitler's in many notable ways: it was relatively nonviolent, did not pursue an expansionist agenda, it did not institute anti-semitic programs, and it lacked a mass political movement.

Nouvelle Droite

Main article: Nouvelle Droite

Nouvelle Droite, also called the "New Right", is a school of political thought founded largely on the works of Alain de Benoist and GRECE (Research and Study Group on European Culture). It has been identified as a new or sanitized form of neo-fascism, or an ideology of the extreme right that significantly draws from fascism. Nouvelle Droite arguments can be found in the rhetoric of many major radical right and far-right parties in Europe such as the National Front in France, the Freedom Party in Austria and Vlaams Belang in Flanders (Belgium). This, despite the fact that Alain de Benoist and certain other ideologues of the Nouvelle Droite, since the late 80s, had issued statements against some populist far-right movements.

Mobutism

Mobutu Sese Seko.

Flag of Zaire during the rule of Mobutu Sese Seko and his Popular Movement of the Revolution.

The rule of Mobutu Sese Seko and the ideology of Mobutism within the Popular Movement of the Revolution (Mouvement Populaire de la Revolution, MPR) political party in the former Zaire has been accused by opponents and critics as being fascist such as former Prime Minister of the Democratic Republic of Congo, Patrice Lumumba who was deposed by Mobutu, said "...Mobutu is an imperialist, a fascist..." [26] Rosa Coutino who called Mobutu a "black fascist" [27], United States left-wing activist Huey P. Newton who referred to Mobutu as "Fascist Mobutu of Zaire" [28] and historian Robert K. Carr who considers Mobutu a "fascist dictator" [29]. Mobutism had a totalitaran and revolutionary nationalist nature, radically altering Zairian society, promoting Zairian culture while purging culture of white colonial and western influences such as intiating censorship on western culture [30], banning Christian names while promoting the use of local names and local language. Mobutism like fascism promoted a single-party state with Mobutu as the country's dictator and the MPR and Mobutist ideology was officially enshrined in the constitution of Zaire; developed a personality cult around Mobutu as the "Father of the Nation" and promoted the indoctrination of society to support the MPR such as creating by youth organizations in the MPR; was militarist; officially opposed both capitalism and communism;supported economic planning and nationalized certain corporations along with attempting to garner support from workers for his regime by solidifying all trade unions into a single trade union loyal to the regime called the National Union of Zairian Workers while banning independent trade unions. Others have claimed that Mobutu's rule of Zaire was largely just a kleptocracy, serving to allow him to amass enormous wealth.

Notable Fascists

Ion Antonescu • Sadao Araki • Zoltán Böszörmény • Marcelo Caetano • Gustavs Celmiņš • Corneliu Zelea Codreanu • Marcel Déat • Léon Degrelle • Engelbert Dollfuß • Giovanni Gentile • Gyula Gömbös • Adolf Hitler • Dimitrije Ljotić • Oswald Mosley • Benito Mussolini • Seigō Nakano • Eoin O'Duffy • Ante Pavelić • William Dudley Pelley • Vidkun Quisling • Plínio Salgado • Ferenc Szálasi •

References

Bibliography

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

• 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.
• Goldberg, Jonah. 2007. Liberal Fascism. New York: Doubleday. ISBN 0385511841
• 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