Fascism

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 exalting the nation or race, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.^[1]^[2]^[3]^[4]^[5]

Some authors reject broad usage of the term or exclude certain parties and regimes.^[13] 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.^[14] It is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means "bundle" or "union", and from the Latin word fasces. ^[15] 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.^[15] Furthermore, the symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.^[16] 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.^[17]

Definitions

The popular concepts of what Fascism is, as presented in the publications of the Anglosphere, are radically different in the period after World War II than the period between 1919?1939 where the Fascists of Italy and Mussolini were given wide acclaim.^[18]^[19] As the Axis powers lost the war, and the Anglosphere was mostly represented within the Allied powers for many years it was difficult to provide a neutral view of the topic and so historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism.^[20] However since the 1990s, with the smoke of post-war propaganda clearing, scholars have began to gather a rough consensus on the systems core tenets, noted proponents include Payne, MacDonald, Griffin, Farrell and Paxton.

Political spectrum

The place of fascism on the political spectrum remains a particularly debated subject. Fascism opposed communism, classical liberalism and certain aspects of socialism and capitalism. Many scholars accept fascism as a search for a Third Way between these fields.^[21]^[22]^[23]^[24]^[25]^[26]^[27]^[28]^[29] Sir Oswald Mosley leader of the British Union of Fascists for example, chose to self-describe his position as "hard centre" on the political spectrum.^[30] Scholar A. James Gregor asserts that the most "uninspired effort to understand fascism" is to simply place it on the right-wing, or the radical right as the common tendency was in the Anglosphere during the post-war period.^[20] Walter Laqueuer notes that historical fascism: "did not belong to the extreme Left, yet defining it as part of the extreme Right is not very illuminating either." and that it "was always a coalition between radical, populist ('fascist') elements and others gravitating toward the extreme Right" ^[31]

The original founders of Fascism were made up of people who were previously socialists, syndicalists, military men and anarchists but had become dishearted and decided to form a new movement; Benito Mussolini, Michele Bianchi and Dino Grandi were all previously socialists.^[32] The two biggest difference between the movements, is that fascism rejects the idea of class war in favor of class collaboration,^[33] while also rejecting socialist internationalism in favor of statist nationalism.^[34] Various attempts to define Fascism have been made, the problem scholars often run into is that each form of fascism is different to each other, leaving many definitions as too wide or too narrow.^[35]^[36] Below are two examples of attempts to define Fascism, in a concise, to the point form;

Post-war misusage

The word fascist has become a slur throughout the political spectrum following World War II, and it has been uncommon for political groups to call themselves fascist. Scholar Richard Griffiths asserted in 2005 that the term fascism is the "most misused, and over-used word of our times".^[36] 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 who some claim have a vague connection to the original form 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, for example socialist George Orwell wrote in 1944;

Italian Fascism

Fascism was born during a period of social and political unrest following the First World War. 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.^[37] 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.^[37] 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.^[22] 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.^[22]

Other variations and subforms

Movements identified by scholars as fascist hold a variety of views, what constitutes 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, National Syndicalism, Integralism and National Socialism as well as various other designations.^[43]

Early Falangism

After this military man Francisco Franco, himself not a fascist, 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.^[52] 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.^[44] This is somewhat controversial in Falangist circles because some elements argue that it was a move away from "authentic Falangism".^[53] Regardless nationalists won the Civil War, inserting the Spanish State in 1939 and under a single-party system Franco ruled.^[44] 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.^[54] 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.^[54]

Although Franco and Spain under his rule adopted some trappings of fascism, he, and Spain under his rule, are not generally considered to be fascist; among the distinctions, fascism entails a revolutionary aim to transform society, where Franco and Franco's Spain did not seek to do so, and, to the contrary, although authoritarian, were conservative and traditional.^[55] ^[56] ^[57] ^[58] ^[59] Stanley Payne, the preeminent scholar on fascism and Spain notes: "scarcely any of the serious historians and analysts of Franco consider the generalissimo to be a core fascist". ^[60]^[61]

Iron Guard

The Iron Guard was founded by Corneliu Zelea Codreanu on July 24, 1927 as the Legion of the Archangel Michael (Legiunea Arhanghelul Mihail), and led by him until Codreanu's death in 1938, adherents to the movement continued to be widely referred to as "legionnaires" (sometimes "legionaries"; Romanian: legionarii) and the organization as the "Legion" or the "Legionary Movement" (Mi?carea Legionar?), despite various changes of the (intermittently banned) organization's name. In March 1930 Codreanu formed the "Iron Guard" (Garda de Fier) as a paramilitary political branch of the Legion; this name eventually came to refer to the Legion itself. Later, in June 1935, the Legion changed its official name to the Totul pentru ?ar? party, literally "Everything for the Country", but commonly translated as "Everything for the Fatherland" or occasionally "Everything for the Motherland".^[62]

Nazism

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.^[66] 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 ^[67] Despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p.62) observes:

Neo-fascism

Neo-fascism is a post-World War II movement that includes significant elements of fascism or intends to continue its legacy. The term neo-fascist, which literally means new fascist, may apply to groups that express a specific admiration for Benito Mussolini and Fascist Italy or any other fascist leader/state. Neo-fascism usually includes nationalism, anti-immigration views, anti-communism, and opposition to the parliamentary system and liberal democracy. Allegations that a group is neo-fascist may be hotly contested, especially if the term is used as a politic epithet. Some post-World War II regimes have been described as neo-fascist due to their authoritarian nature, and sometimes due to their fascination with fascist ideology and rituals. Neo-fascist movements are more straight-forwardly right-wing, and have become intertwined with the radical right.^[69]^[70]

Distinguished from Para-Fascism (Radical Right)

Para-fascism is a term for describing authoritarian regimes which appear like fascism on the surface but differ substantially from true fascism when a more than superficial examination is done.^[71] 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.^[72] Para-fascists typically eschewed radical change and viewed genuine fascists as a threat.^[73] Parafascist states were often unwillingly the home of genuine fascist movements which they eventually suppressed or co-opted.^[74]

Estado Novo

The Estado Novo was an authoritarian regime with an integralist orientation, which differed from fascist regimes by its lack of expansionism, lack of a charismatic leader, lack of party structure and more moderate use of state violence. ^[75] However it incorporated the same principles for its military from Mussolini's system. Its founder in Portugal, Ant�nio 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. One of the pillars of the regime was the PIDE, the secret police. 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. Strict state censorship was in place.

Another authoritarian government, installed in Brazil by President Get�lio 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 (Greece)

Austrofascism

Austrofascism is a controversial category encompassing various para-fascist and semi-fascist movements in Austria in the 1930s.^[76] Austrofascism 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 Dollfu� claimed he wanted to "over-Hitler" (�berhitlern) Nazism.

Austrofascism, however, focused on the history of Austria. The Catholic Church played a large role in the Austrofascist definition of Austrian history and identity, which served to alienate Austrian and German culture. 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.

Nationalism

All fascist movements advocate nationalism, especially ethnic nationalism and seek to integrate as many of their dominant nationality's people and as much of their people's territory into the state. Fascists support irredentism and expansionism to unite and expand the nation. However an authoritarian or ethnic nationalist movement or regime does not necessarily denote a fascist regime, as other key elements are needed for such a definition.

Dictatorship

A key element of fascism is its endorsement of the leadership of a dictator over a country. The leader of the movement is often literally known as the "Leader" (Duce in Italian, F�hrer in German, Conduc?tor in Romanian). Fascist leaders are not always heads of state but are always the head of government of the state, such as Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy.

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.^[77] 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 (F�hrerprinzip). Fascism is also considered to be a form of collectivism.^[78]^[79]^[80]

Military policy

Fascists typically advocate a strong military that is capable of both defensive and offensive actions. In Germany and Italy under Hitler and Mussolini, enormous amounts of funding was dedicated to the military. 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.

Fascism and Religion

According to a biographer of Mussolini, "Initially, fascism was fiercely anti-Catholic" - the Church being a competitor for dominion of the people's hearts. ^[81] The attitude of fascism toward religion has run the spectrum from persecution, to denunciation to cooperation. ^[82] Relations were close in the likes of the Belgian Rexists (which was eventually denounced by the Church), but in the Nazi and Fascist parties it ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation.^[82] Nazism, for example, was typically hostile to religion, arresting hundreds of priests in the late 1930s ^[83] and eventually consigning thousands of them to concentration camps.

Mussolini, originally an atheist, published anti-Catholic writings and planned for the confiscation of Church property, but eventually moved to accommodation. ^[82] 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.^[84] In addition, many Fascists were anti-clerical in both private and public life. ^[85] 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. The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements and there were quarters of Italian fascism which were quite anti-clerical, but religion did play a real part in the Ustasha in Croatia. ^[86]

One position is that religion and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic wetanshauungen" claiming the whole of the person. ^[82] 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^[87]^[88], and Roger Griffin has characterized fascism as a type of anti-religious political religion.^[89] Such political religions vie with existing religions, and try, if possible, to replace or eradicate them. ^[90] 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.

In Mexico the fascist^[91]^[92]^[93] Red Shirts not only renounced religion but were vehemently atheist^[94], killing priests, and on one occasion gunned down Catholics as they left Mass.^[95]

Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anticlerical, 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. ^[96]

Economic planning

Fascists opposed what they believed to be laissez-faire or quasi-laissez-faire economic policies dominant in the era prior to the Great Depression.^[97] 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.^[98] 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.^[99] 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.^[100] 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."^[101]^[101] According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, dirigisme was an inherent aspect of fascist economies.^[102] The Labour Charter of 1927, promulgated by the Grand Council of Fascism, stated in article 7:

Fascism also operated from a Social Darwinist view of human relations. Their aim was to promote "superior" individuals and weed out the weak.^[103] In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying trade unions and other organizations of the working class.^[104] 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."^[105]

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,^[106] while the tax on directors and administrators of anonymous companies (SA) was cut down by half.^[106] All foreign capital was exonerated of taxes, while the luxury tax was also repealed.^[106] Mussolini also opposed municipalization of enterprises.^[106]

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.^[107] 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.^[106]

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."^[107] 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.^[108]

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)."^[99] Politics professor Stephen Haseler credits fascism with providing a model of economic planning for social democracy.^[111]

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.^[112]

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.^[113] 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."^[114]

Fascism, sexuality, and gender roles

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."^[116]

References

Notes

Bibliography

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