Fascism: Difference between revisions

Fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by placing the interests of the individual as subordinate to that of the nation or race and promoting cults of unity, energy and purity.

Fascists promote a type of national unity that is usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, national, racial, and/or religious attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: patriotism, nationalism, statism, militarism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, economic planning (including corporatism and autarky), populism, collectivism, autocracy and anti-liberalism (i.e., opposition to political and economic liberalism).

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.

The term fascism

The term fascismo was coined by the Italian Fascist dictator 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 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. It is also strongly associated with the fascist militia "fasci italiani di combattimento" ("League of Combat"). Originally, the term "fascism" (fascismo) was used by the political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini.

Definitions and scope of the word

Main article: Definitions of fascism

Main article: Fascism and ideology

Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton. According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, but fascism, especially once in power, has historically attracted support primarily from the political right, especially the "far right" or "extreme right." (See: Fascism and ideology).

Mussolini defined fascism as being a collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, classical liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Doctrine of Fascism:

Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.

Since Mussolini, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term fascism. Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood 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."

Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:

...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination."

Stanley Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism; anti-conservatism. He argues that common aim of all fascist movements was elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, the existence of large-scale capitalism. Semiotician Umberto Eco attempts to identify the characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of tradition, rejection of modernism, cult of action for action's sake, life is lived for struggle, fear of difference, rejection of disagreement, contempt for the weak, cult of masculinity and machismo, qualitative populism, appeal to a frustrated majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy enemies, education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and ethnic people.

Free market economists, principally those of the Austrian School, like Ludwig Von Mises argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that of the Soviet Union.

Authoritarian and totalitarian state

Although the broadest descriptions of fascism may include every authoritarian state that has ever existed, most theorists see important distinctions to be made. Fascism in Italy arose in the 1920s as a mixture of syndicalist notions with an anti-materialist theory of the state; the latter had already been linked to an extreme nationalism. Fascists accused parliamentary democracy of producing division and decline, and wished to renew the nation from decadence. They viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect individual rights, or as one that should be held in check. Fascism universally dismissed the Marxist concept of "class struggle", replacing it instead with the concept of "class collaboration". Fascists embraced nationalism and mysticism, advancing ideals of strength and power.

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, sometimes brutal militia or police force for enforcing them. Fascism exalts the nation, state, or group of people as superior to the individuals composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; 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 (Führerprinzip). Fascism is also considered to be a form of collectivism.

Fascist as epithet

Main article: Fascist (epithet)

The word fascist has become a slur throughout the political spectrum following World War II (WWII), and 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 strict sense of the word, Fascism covers movements before WWII, and later movements are described as Neo-fascist.

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’.

Italian Fascism

See also: Fascio and Italian fascism

Fascio (plural: fasci) is an Italian word used in the late nineteenth century to refer to radical political groups of many different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of nationalist fasci later evolved into the twentieth century movement known as fascism. Benito Mussolini claimed to have founded fascism, and Italian fascism (in Italian, fascismo) was the authoritarian political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under Mussolini's leadership. Fascism in Italy combined elements of corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, militarism and anti-Communism. Fascism won support as an alternative to the unpopular liberalism of the time. It also won the support of anti-socialist Italians.

Differences and similarities between Italian Fascism and Nazism

Further information: Nazism

File:Hitlermusso2 edit.jpg

Benito Mussolini giving the Roman salute standing next to Adolf Hitler

Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, some scholars, such as Gilbert Allardyce 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. The two ideologies almost came to blows over racial issues, as the Nazis claimed that the Fascists had the potential to be a positive force in Italy only if the Fascists worked to purify their party's ranks and the Italian nation itself. Nazis deemed the Italians a polluted race, while the Fascists took this as an insult to their country. Eventually, as Italy became diplomatically isolated, Fascist Italy drew closer to Germany and adopted anti-Semitic and other racially discriminatory policies.

Racism

Nazism differed from Italian fascism in that it had a stronger emphasis on race, 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. But subservance to the Nazi state was also a requirement on the population. 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. Unlike Hitler, Mussolini repeatedly changed his views on the issue of race according to the circumstances of the time.

In 1921, Mussolini promoted the development of the Italian race such as when he said:

"The nation is not simply the sum of living individuals, nor the instrument of parties for their own ends, but an organism comprised of the infinite series of generations of which the individuals are only transient elements; it is the supreme synthesis of all the material and immaterial values of the race." Benito Mussolini, 1921

Like Hitler, Mussolini pubicly declared his support of an eugenics policy to improve the status of Italians in 1926 to the people of Reggio Emilia:

"We need to create ourselves; we of this epoch and this generation, because it is up to us, I tell you, to make the face of this country unrecgonizable in the next ten years. In ten years comrades, Italy will be unrecognizable! We will create a new Italian, an Italian that does not recognize the Italian of yesterday...we will create them according to our own imagination and likeness." Benito Mussolini, 1926

In private, in a conversation with Emil Ludwig in 1932, Mussolini derided the concept of a biologically superior race and denounced racism as being a foolish concept. Mussolini did not believe that race alone was that significant. Mussolini viewed himself as a modern day Roman Emperor, a cultural elite and wished to "Italianise" the parts of the Italian Empire he had desired to build. A cultural superiority of Italians, rather than a view of racialism. Mussolini believed that the development of a race was insignificant in comparison to the development of culture, but did believe that a race could be improved through moral development, but does not say that this will make a superior race:

"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." "Only a revolution and a decisive leader can improve a race, even if this is more a sentiment than a reality. But I repeat that a race can change itself and improve itself. I say that it is possible to change not only the somatic lines, the height, but really also the character. Influence of moral pressure can act deterministically also in the biological sense."

— Benito Mussolini, 1932.;

Mussolini believed that a biologically superior race was not possible, but that a morally superior race was. That being said, he believed that Italian culture and morals were superior to those of other nations, such as African nations. For Mussolini, inclusion of people in a fascist society depended on their loyalty to the state. Meetings between Mussolini and Arab dignitaries from the colony of Libya convinced Mussolini that the Arab population was worthy to be given extensive civil rights, and allowed Muslims to join a Muslim section of the Fascist Party - the Muslim Association of the Lictor. However under pressure from Nazi Germany, the Fascist regime eventually did take on racist ideology, such as promoting the concept of Italy settling Africa to create a white civilization in Africa and handing out five-year criminal sentences for Italians caught in a sexual or marital relationship with native Africans. For those colonial peoples who were not loyal, vicious repression was used, such as in Ethiopia, where in 1937, native Ethiopian settlements were burned to the ground by Italian armed forces. Under Fascism, native Africans were allowed to join the Italian armed forces as colonial forces and appeared in Fascist propaganda.[2][3]

The Nazi movement, at least in its overt ideology, spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes; however, the Italian fascist movement sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture. Nevertheless, the Italian fascists did not reject the concept of social mobility, and a central tenet of the fascist state was meritocracy. Yet, fascism also heavily based itself on corporatism, which was supposed to supersede class conflicts. Despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p.62) observes:

There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make it worthwhile applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and Germany a movement came to power that sought to create national unity through the repression of national enemies and the incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently mobilized nation.

Nazi ideologues such as Alfred Rosenburg were highly sceptical about the Italian race and Fascism but saw an improvement of the Italian race as possible if major changes were made to convert it into an acceptable "Aryan" race, and said that the Italian Fascist movement would only succeed if it purified the Italian race into an Aryan one. Nazi theorists believed that the downfall of the Roman Empire was due to interbreeding of different races which created a "polluted" Italian race which was inferior. Hitler believed this, but saw Mussolini as representing the attempt to revive the pure elements of the former Roman civilization, such as the desire to create a strong and aggressive Italian people, but Hitler was still audacious enough when meeting Mussolini for the first time in 1934 to tell him that all Medittereanean peoples were tainted by "Negro blood" and thus in his racist view, they were degenerate.

As relations were initially poor, things grew worse after the assassination of Austria's fascist chancellor Engelbert Dollfuss by Austrian Nazis in 1934. Austria under Dolfuss was a key ally to Mussolini and Mussolini was deeply angered by Hitler's attempt to take over Austria, and angrily mocked Hitler's earlier remark on the impurity of the Italian race by declaring that a "Germanic" race did not exist and notes how Hitler's society's repression of Jews indicates that Germany did not have a pure race:

"But which race? Does there exist a German race. Has it ever existed? Will it ever exist? Reality, myth, or hoax of theorists? (Another paranthesis: the theoretician of racism is a 100 percent Frenchman: Gobineau) Ah well, we respond, a Germanic race does not exist. Various movements. Curiousity. Stupor. We repeat. Does not exist. We don't say so. Scientists say so. Hitler says so." Benito Mussolini, 1934

Mussolini and Hitler were not always allies. While Mussolini wanted the expansion of fascist ideology throughout the world, he did not initially appreciate Hitler and the Nazi party. Hitler was an early admirer of Mussolini and asked for Mussolini's guidance in how the Nazis could pull off their own March on Rome. Mussolini did not respond to Hitler's requests as he did not have much interest in Hitler's movement and regarded Hitler to be somewhat crazy. Mussolini did attempt to read Mein Kampf to find out what Hitler's National Socialist movement was but was immediately dissappointed, saying that Mein Kampf was "a boring tome that I have never been able to read" and claimed that Hitler's beliefs were "little more than commonplace clichés."

Mussolini had personal reasons to oppose anti-Semitism: his longtime mistress and Fascist propaganda director, Margherita Sarfatti was Jewish. She had played an important role in the foundation of the Fascist movement in Italy and promoting it to Italians and the world through supporting the arts. However within the Italian Fascist movement, there were a minority who endorsed Hitler's anti-Semitism and wanted anti-Semitism in Italy. These included Roberto Farinacci and Julius Evola, who represented the far-right wing of the Fascist party.

There were also nationalistic reasons why Germany and Italy were not immediate allies. Habsburg Austria (Hitler's birthplace) had an antagonistic relationship with Italy since it was formed, largely because Austria had seized most of the territories once belonging to Italian states such as Venice. Although initially neutral, Italy entered the First World War on the side of the Allies against Germany and Austria-Hungary when promised several territories (South Tyrol, Trieste, Istria and Dalmatia). After the War had ended, Italy was rewarded with these territories but in Germany and Austria the annexation of South Tyrol was controversial as the province was made up of a large majority of German speakers. While Hitler did not pursue this claim, many in the Nazi Party felt differently. In 1939 Mussolini and Hitler agreed on the Alto Adige Option Agreement. However, when Mussolini's government collapsed in 1943 and the Italian Social Republic was created South Tyrol was annexed to Greater Germany, but restored to Italy after the war.

Religion

The two ideologies were different on the public level about their views on religion, in private both regimes saw it necessary that religion be made to conform to their ideologies. Both Hitler and Mussolini were technically Roman Catholic when they were in power, but both had been critical of religion in the past. Mussolini, originally an atheist, as leader of the Fascist movement began to endorse Christianity as a means to draw religious Italians to the Fascist cause. Hitler was born a Roman Catholic but was not an active religious person 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. In addition, many Fascists were anti-clerical in private life. Hitler in public sought the support of both the Protestant and Roman Catholic religions in Germany, but in a far more muted manner than Mussolini's support of Roman Catholicism. 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 a Jew and claimed that Christ despised Jews, and that the Jews were the ones responsible for Christ's death.

Foreign Affairs

While the two ideologies had a number of similarities and differences that could be overlooked, one issue that could not be overlooked was the potential of a clash between the Pan-German aims of the Nazis and the Italian nationalist aims of the Fascists, as the Italian region of Tyrol was German populated and part of Austrian Empire for centuries prior, while the Fascists claimed the area, as it had been part of the regin of Italy in the Roman Empire. With the collapse of Austria in World War I, an independent Austria was no longer a serious threat to Italy, but the popularity of Pan-German nationalism in both Germany and Austria was a threat. Due to this threat to Italy's territory, the Fascist regime opposed the Nazis expansionist efforts towards Austria and supported Austria's sovereignty and promoted the adoption of fascism in the country.

In the 1920s, Hitler wanted an alliance of the Nazi movement with Mussolini's regime, and recognized that his pan-German nationalism was being seen as a threat by Italy. In Hitler's unpublished sequel to Mein Kampf, Hitler attempts to address concerns among Italian Fascists about Nazism. In the book, Hitler puts aside the issue of Germans in Tyrol by explaining that overall Germany and Italy have more in common than not and that the Tyrol Germans must accept that it is in Germany's interests to be allied with Italy. Hitler claims that Germany, like Italy was subjected to oppression by its neighbours, and he denounces the Austrian Empire as having oppressed Italy from completing national unification just as France oppressed Germany from completing its national unification. Hitler's denounciation of Austria in the book is important as Italian Fascists were skeptical about him he was born in Austria which Italy long considered to be its primary enemy for centuries and saw Germany as being an ally to Austria. By declaring that the Nazi movement was not interested in the territorial legacy of the Austrian Empire, this is a way to assure the Italian Fascists that Hitler, the Nazi movement, and Germany were not enemies of Italy.

Despite public attempts of good will by Hitler to Mussolini, Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy came close to blows when in 1934, Engelbert Dollfuss, the Austrofascist leader of Austria and ally of Italy, was assassinated by Nazi Brown shirts on Hitler's orders in preparation for a planned Anschluss, which prompted Mussolini to move troops to the Austrian-Italian border in readiness for war against Hitler. Hitler did not want to have a war with Mussolini's Italy, and reluctantly put aside immediate plans to annex Austria. When Hitler and Mussolini first met, Mussolini referred to Hitler as "a silly little monkey" before the Western Allies forced Mussolini into an agreement with Hitler. Mussolini also reportedly asked the Pope to excommunicate Hitler. [4] From 1934 to 1936, Hitler and the Nazi regime continually attempted to woe the support of Italy for Nazi polices, such as by endorsing Italy's occupation of Ethiopia while the international community condemned Italy. With other countries opposing Italy, the Fascist regime had no choice but to draw closer to Nazi Germany to regain a stable bargaining position in international affairs. Germany joined Italy in sending forces and material to the fascist Spanish nationalist forces of Francisco Franco during the Spanish Civil War. Later, Germany and Italy signed the Anti-Comintern Pact committing the two regimes to oppose communism. By 1938, Mussolini allowed Austria to be annexed in return for Hitler to officially renounce German claims to Tyrol. After the annexation of Austria and the abdication of claims to Tyrol, Mussolini supported Germany's annexation of the Suddetonland during the Munich agreement talks. In 1939, the Pact of Steel was signed, creating an official alliance of Germany and Italy. The Nazi party's official newspaper the Völkischer Beobachter claimed that the alliance was mutally beneficial and meant for both states to endorse each other's territorial claims while claiming to be striving for peace by saying:

"Firmly bound together through the inner unity of their ideologies and the comprehensive solidarity of their interests, the German and the Italian people are determined also in future to stand side by side and to strive with united effort for the securing of their Lebensraum [living space] and the maintenance of peace." Völkischer Beobachter, May 23, 1939.

Hitler and Mussolini recognized commonalities in their politics, and the second part of Hitler's Mein Kampf — "The National Socialist Movement" — (1926) contains this passage:

I conceived the profoundest admiration for the great man south of the Alps, who, full of ardent love for his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists, but to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it. (p. 622)

Both regimes had a common despise for countries like France and Yugoslavia. Both the Fascists and the Nazis saw France as an enemy to both their countries as France held territories with Germans and Italians that were claimed by both Germany and Italy. For Hitler, Yugoslavia as a Slavic state was racially degenerate. For Mussolini, Italy had territorial aims on Yugoslav territory, such as Dalmatia, and saw the destruction of Yugoslavia as essential for Italian expansion. Hitler viewed all Yugoslavs as inferior but did not see importance in an immediate invasion of Yugoslavia, as he saw the Soviet Union as more important to focus attention on. Mussolini on the other hand favoured Croatian extreme nationalists called the Ustashe, as being able to be a useful tool to tear down Yugoslavia, led by a Serbian monarchy which Croatian nationalists despised. In 1941, with the Italian military campaign failing in Greece, Hitler reluctantly began a Balkan campaign by invading Yugoslavia along with Italy. In the aftermath, with the exception of Serbia and Macedonia, most of Yugoslavia was reshaped based on Italian Fascist foreign policy objectives. Mussolini demanded and received Dalmatia from the Croats in exchange for supporting the independence of Croatia. Mussolini's policy of creating an independent Croatia prevailed over Hitler's anti-Slavism and eventually the Nazis and the Ustashe regime of Croatia would develop closer bonds due to the Ustashe's brutal effectiveness at suppressing Serb dissidents.

Economic planning

Further information: Economy of Italy under Fascism

Fascists opposed what they believe to be laissez-faire or quasi-laissez-faire economic policies dominant in the era prior to the 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."

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. Lawrence Britt suggests that protection of corporate power is an essential part of fascism. 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."

Economic policy in the first few years of Italian fascism was largely liberal, with the Ministry of Finance controlled by the old liberal Alberto De Stefani. The government undertook a low-key laissez-faire program - the tax system was restructured (February 1925 law, 23 June 1927 decree-law, etc.), there were attempts to attract foreign investment and establish trade agreements, efforts were made to balance the budget and cut subsidies. The 10% tax on capital invested in banking and industrial sectors was repealed, while the tax on directors and administrators of anonymous companies (SA) was cut down by half. All foreign capital was exonerated of taxes, while the luxury tax was also repealed. Mussolini also opposed municipalization of enterprises.

The 19 April 1923 law abandoned life insurance to private companies, repealing the 1912 law which had created a State Institute for insurances and which had envisioned to give a state monopoly ten years later. Furthermore, a 19 November 1922 decree suppressed the Commission on War Profits, while the 20 August 1923 law suppressed the inheritance tax inside the family circle.

There was a general emphasis on what has been called productivism - national economic growth as a means of social regeneration and wider assertion of national importance. Up until 1925, the country enjoyed modest growth but structural weaknesses increased inflation and the currency slowly fell (1922 L90 to £1, 1925 L145 to £1). In 1925 there was a great increase in speculation and short runs against the lira. The levels of capital movement became so great the government attempted to intervene. De Stefani was sacked, his program side-tracked, and the Fascist government became more involved in the economy in step with the increased security of their power.

In 1925, the Italian state abandoned its monopoly on telephones' infrastructure, while the state production of matches was handed over to a private "Consortium of matches' productors." In some sectors, the state did intervene. Thus, following the deflation crisis which started in 1926, banks such as the Banca di Roma, the Banca di Napoli or the Banca di Sicilia were assisted by the state.

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.

Anti-Communism

Main article: Anti-Communism

The Russian Revolution inspired attempted revolutionary movements in Italy, with a wave of factory occupations. Most historians view fascism as a response to these developments, as a movement that both tried to appeal to the working class and divert them from Marxism. It also appealed to capitalists as a bulwark against Bolshevism. Italian fascism took power with the blessing of Italy's king after years of leftist-led unrest led many conservatives to fear that a communist revolution was inevitable (Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci popularized the conception that fascism was the Capital's response to the organized workers' movement). Mussolini took power during the 1922 March on Rome.

Throughout Europe, numerous aristocrats, conservative intellectuals, capitalists and industrialists lent their support to fascist movements in their countries that emulated Italian Fascism. In Germany, numerous right-wing nationalist groups arose, particularly out of the post-war Freikorps used to crush both the Spartacist uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

With the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s, liberalism and the liberal form of capitalism seemed doomed, and Communist and fascist movements swelled. These movements were bitterly opposed to each other and fought frequently, the most notable example of the conflict being the Spanish Civil War. This war became a proxy war between the fascist countries and their international supporters — who backed Francisco Franco — and the worldwide Communist movement, which was aided by the Soviet Union and which allied uneasily with anarchists — who backed the Popular Front.

Initially, the Soviet Union supported a coalition with the western powers against Nazi Germany and popular fronts in various countries against domestic fascism. This policy largely failed due to distrust shown by the western powers (especially Britain) towards the Soviet Union. The Munich Agreement between Germany, France and Britain heightened Soviet fears that the western powers endeavored to force them to bear the brunt of a war against Nazism. The lack of eagerness on the part of the British during diplomatic negotiations with the Soviets served to make the situation even worse. The Soviets changed their policy and negotiated a non-aggression pact known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. Vyacheslav Molotov claims in his memoirs that the Soviets believed this agreement was necessary to buy them time to prepare for an expected war with Germany. Stalin expected the Germans not to attack until 1942, but the pact ended in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Fascism and communism reverted to being deadly enemies. The war, in the eyes of both sides, was a war between ideologies.

Even within socialist and communist circles, theoreticians debated the nature of fascism. Communist theoretician Rajani Palme Dutt crafted one view that stressed the crisis of capitalism. Leon Trotsky, an early leader in the Russian Revolution, believed that fascism occurs when "the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat."

Fascism and religion

Main articles: Religion in Nazi Germany, Neo-fascism and religion, Clerical fascism, Islamofascism, and Christofascism

Some expressions of fascism have been closely linked with religious political movements. This combination is referred to as clerical fascism, a prime example of which is the Ustaše in Croatia.

Fascism and the Roman Catholic Church

A controversial topic is the relationship between fascist movements and the Roman Catholic Church. As mentioned above, Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical, Rerum Novarum included doctrines that fascists used or admired. Forty years later, the corporatist tendencies of Rerum Novarum were underscored by Pope Pius XI's May 25, 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo Anno restated the hostility of Rerum Novarum to both unbridled competition and class struggle. Defenders of Pope Leo XIII argue the criticism of both socialism and capitalism in these encyclicals was not fascist but rather closer to Christian Democracy or distributism.

In the early 1920s, the Catholic party in Italy (Partito Popolare) was in the process of forming a coalition with the Reform Party that could have stabilized Italian politics and thwarted Mussolini's projected coup. On October 2, 1922, Pope Pius XI circulated a letter ordering clergy not to identify themselves with the Partito Popolare, but to remain neutral, an act that undercut the party and its alliance against Mussolini. Following Mussolini's rise to power, the Vatican's Secretary of State met Il Duce in early 1923 and agreed to dissolve the Partito Popolare, which Mussolini saw as an obstacle to fascist rule. In exchange, the fascists made guarantees regarding Catholic education and institutions.

In 1924, following the murder of the leader of the Socialist Party by fascists, the Partito Popolare joined with the Socialist Party in demanding that the King dismiss Mussolini as Prime Minister, and stated their willingness to form a coalition government. Pius XI responded by warning against any coalition between Catholics and socialists. The Vatican ordered all priests to resign from the Partito Popolare and from any positions they held in it. This action led to the party's disintegration in rural areas where it relied on clerical assistance.

The Vatican subsequently established Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action) as a non-political lay organization under the direct control of bishops. The Vatican forbid the organization to participate in politics, and thus it was not permitted to oppose the fascist regime. Pius XI ordered all Catholics to join Catholic Action. This order resulted in hundreds of thousands of Catholics withdrawing from the Partito Popolare, and joining the apolitical Catholic Action, which in turn caused the Catholic Party's final collapse.

When Mussolini ordered the closure of Catholic Action in May 1931, Pius XI issued an encyclical, Non Abbiamo Bisogno. This document stated the Catholic Church's opposition to the dissolution, and argued that the order "unmasked the pagan intentions of the Fascist state". Under international pressure, Mussolini decided to compromise, and Catholic Action was saved. For Catholics, the encyclical's disapproval of any system that puts the nation above God or humanity remains doctrine.

Aside from certain ideological similarities, the relationship between the Church and fascist movements in various countries has often been close. An early example is Austria, which developed a quasi-fascist authoritarian Catholic regime some call the "Austro-fascist" Ständestaat between 1934 and 1938. There is little debate over Slovakia, where the fascist dictator was a Catholic monsignor; and the Independent State of Croatia, where the fascist Ustashe identified itself as a Catholic movement. The Iron Guard in Romania identified itself as an Eastern Orthodox movement (with no connection to Roman Catholicism), and had particularly strong leanings toward clerical fascism. (See also Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime.) In Slovenia collaboration with Nazi Germany was based on Catholic propaganda, which perceived nazis as lesser evil than communists.

The reactionary Catholic-influenced ideology of the Action Française also deeply influenced The Vichy regime in France. This group had actually been led by an agnostic and condemned by the Catholic Church in 1926. Many of its members were reactionary Catholics so this condemnation damaged the group, but then in 1938 the condemnation was lifted. Conversely, many Catholic priests were persecuted under the Nazi regime, and many Catholic laypeople and clergy played notable roles in sheltering Jews during the Holocaust.

While some historians wrote that the Catholic organization Opus Dei and its founder Josemaría Escrivá supported the fascist regime of Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, some recent historians state that Escrivá was staunchly non-political, and the connection between Opus Dei and Franco's fascist regime was a black legend propagated by the Falange and by some clerical sectors.

Fascist movements like Rexism in Belgium and the Christian Social Party also combined fascist and conservative populist Roman Catholic elements.

Fascism and the Protestant churches

Protestantism in Italy and Spain 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 (as well as those of the Christian sect the Jehovah's Witnesses), and imprisoned their leader. In some instances, people were killed because of their faith.

The connection between the German form of Fascism, Nazism, and Protestantism has long been debated, with some saying that the Protestant denominations, especially the German Lutheran Church, was close. According to some scholars, especially Richard Steigman-Gall (The Holy Reich: Protestantism and the Nazi Movement, 1920-1945) the relationship was collaborationist. Hitler, in his manifesto, Mein Kampf, listed Martin Luther as one of Germany's great historic reformers. In Luther's 1543 book On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther advocated the burning of synagogues and schools, the deportation of Jews, and many other measures that resemble the actions later taken by the Nazis.

The overwhelming majority of Protestant church leaders in Germany made no comment on the Nazis' growing anti-Jewish activities. Many Protestants opposed the governments of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s, which they saw as coalitions between the Socialists and the Catholic Centre party. In 1932, many German Protestants joined together to form the German Christian Movement which enthusiastically supported Nazism, and sought to join Church and State. 3,000 of the 17,000 Protestant pastors in Germany were to join the movement. Hitler wished to unite a Protestant church of twenty-eight different federations into one nationalist body. Pastor Ludwig Müller, the leader of the German Christian Movement, was soon appointed Hitler's adviser on religious affairs. He was elected Reich's Bishop in charge of the German Protestant churches in 1933. Many churches and ministers attempted to purge Christianity of "Jewish influences" and tried to institute the Nazis' Positive Christianity viewpoint on religion.

An "Aryan Paragraph" was introduced to the constitution, which stated that no one of non-Aryan background, or married to anyone of non-Aryan background, could serve as either a pastor or church official. Pastors and officials who had married a non-Aryan were to be dismissed. Much of the Lutheran establishment and most of the Reformed churches in Germany had welcomed Hitler's promise to oppose Bolshevism and social instability.

The new measures began to raise some opposition to the German Christians from a minority of Protestants who had become increasingly disillusioned with unethical practices of the Nazis and disliked state interference in church affairs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a Lutheran pastor and theological liberal, strongly opposed the Nazis. Although some debate his actual involvement in planning the assassination attempt of Hitler, he was found guilty and executed for his alleged part in the conspiracy. A small group of Protestant clergy under Martin Niemöller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer separated from the main churches to form the Confessing Church. The group had limited effect, however, as it was forced to meet secretly and was largely dispersed by the Nazis by 1939 at the latest, and the effect of Protestantism on inhibiting Nazism in Germany was limited at best.

Fascism, sexuality, and gender roles

Further information: Gender role

File:Rsi f.jpg

A propaganda poster of the pro-Nazi Italian Social Republic showing a woman kissing the Fascist flag

There has been a revival of interest in recent times, among many academic historians, with regard to the so-called "cult of masculinity" that permeated fascism, the attempts to systematically control female sexuality and reproductive behavior for the ends of the State. Italian fascists viewed increasing the birthrate of Italy as a major goal of their regime, with Mussolini launching a program, called the 'Battle For Births', to almost double the country's population. The exclusive role assigned to women within the State was to be mothers and not workers or soldiers; however, Mussolini did not practice what some of his supporters preached. From an early stage, he gave women high positions within Fascism, and in Germany, the leader of one of the major feminist organizations pleaded with Hitler to be incorporated into the Nazi Party as early as 1928. Fascists have generally been opposed to the concept of women's rights per se, preferring the traditions of chivalry to guide male-female relations.

According to Anson Rabinbach and Jessica Benjamin, "The crucial element of fascism is its explicit sexual language, what Theweleit calls 'the conscious coding' or the 'over-explicitness of the fascist language of symbol.' This fascist symbolization creates a particular kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. According to this intellectual theory, despite its sexually-charged politics, fascism is an anti-eros, 'the core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure'… He shows that in this world of war the repudiation of one's own body, of femininity, becomes a psychic compulsion which associates masculinity with hardness, destruction, and self-denial."

See also

• Anti-fascism
• Austrofascism
• Corporatism
• Eco-fascism
• Economics of fascism
• Faisceau
• Gaullism
• Nashism
• Nationalism
• Fascism and ideology
• Fascism as an international phenomenon
• Falange
• Peronism
• Producerism
• So Disdained: Sympathetic Portrayal of Fascists
• Totalitarianism
• Oligarchy

Neo-fascism

• American Nazi Party
• Christian Identity
• Creativity Movement
• Alain de Benoist
• International Third Position
• Ku Klux Klan
• National Alliance (United States)
• National anarchism
• National Bolshevism
• Neo-fascism
• Neo-fascism and religion
• Neo-Nazism
• Nouvelle Droite
• William Luther Pierce
• George Lincoln Rockwell
• British National Party

Further reading

General

• Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf (1992). London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-5254-X
• "Labor Charter" (1927-1934)
• Mussolini, Benito. "The Doctrine of Fascism", published as part of the entry for fascismo in the Enciclopedia Italiana 1932.
• Paxton, Robert O. 2004. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 1-4000-4094-9
• Sorel, Georges. Reflections on Violence.
• De Felice, Renzo Interpretations of Fascism, translated by Brenda Huff Everett, Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 1977 ISBN 0-674-45962-8.
• Eatwell, Roger. 1996. Fascism: A History. New York: Allen Lane.
• Hughes, H. Stuart. 1953. The United States and Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• 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.
• Payne, Stanley G. 1995. A History of Fascism, 1914-45. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0-299-14874-2
• 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. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0094%28200304%2938%3A2%3C237%3ATEONTE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S

Fascist ideology

• De Felice, Renzo Fascism : an informal introduction to its theory and practice, an interview with Michael Ledeen, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1976 ISBN 0-87855-190-5.
• 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
• Schapiro, J. Salwyn. 1949. Liberalism and The Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France (1815-1870). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Laclau, Ernesto. 1977. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: NLB/Atlantic Highlands Humanities Press.
• 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

International fascism

• Coogan, Kevin. 1999. Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Autonomedia.
• Goldberg, Jonah. 2007. Liberal Fascism. New York: Doubleday.
• 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.)
• Wallace, Henry. "The Dangers of American Fascism". The New York Times, Sunday, 9 April 1944.

External links

Critics

• Understanding Fascism and Anti-Semitism - by Geoff Price
• The Functions of Fascism - radio lecture by Michael Parenti
• The Political Economy of Fascism - from Dave Renton's website
• Fascism and Zionism - by Suzanna Kokkonen
• Fascism and the Holocaust - historical analysis by the ICFI
• Fascism: What it is and How to Fight it - by Leon Trotsky
• Fascism and Social Revolution - by Rajani Palme Dutt
• Searchlight Magazine
• After Fascism: Muslims and the Struggle for Self-determination - by Abid Ullah Jan

Proponents

• The Doctrine of Fascism - by Benito Mussolini