Fascism () is a
radical authoritarian nationalist political
ideology. Fascists seek rejuvenation of their
nation based on commitment to an organic national community where its individuals are united together as one people in
national identity by
suprapersonal connections of
ancestry,
culture, and
blood through a
totalitarian single-party state that seeks the mass mobilization of a nation through
discipline,
indoctrination,
physical education, and
eugenics. Fascism seeks to purify the nation of foreign influences that are deemed to be causing
degeneration of the nation or of not fitting into the national culture. Fascists have commonly presented themselves as politically
syncretic—opposing firm association with any section of the
left-right spectrum, considering it inadequate to describe their beliefs, and being critical of the
left,
right, and
centre. However fascism's goal to promote the rule of people deemed innately superior while seeking to purge society of people deemed innately inferior is a prominent
far-right stance.
Fascism promotes political violence and war, as forms of direct action that create national regeneration, spirit and vitality. Fascists commonly utilize paramilitary organizations for violence against opponents or to overthrow a political system. Fascism opposes multiple ideologies: conservatism, liberalism, and two major forms of socialism—communism and social democracy. Fascism claims to represent a synthesis of cohesive ideas previously divided between traditional political ideologies. To achieve its goals, the fascist state purges forces, ideas, people, and systems deemed to be the cause of decadence and degeneration.
The fascist party is a vanguard party designed to initiate a revolution from above and to organize the nation upon fascist principles. The fascist party and state is led by a supreme leader who exercises a dictatorship over the party, the government and other state institutions. Fascism rejects liberal democracy based upon majority rule and the parliamentary system but fascists deny that they are against democracy as a whole. Fascism condemns liberal democracy for basing government legitimacy on quantity rather than quality, and for causing quarreling partisan politics. Fascists claim that their ideology is a trans-class movement, advocating resolution to domestic class conflict within a nation to secure national solidarity. It claims that its goal of cultural nationalization of society emancipates the nation's proletariat, and promotes the assimilation of all classes into proletarian national culture.
Fascists advocate a state-directed, regulated economy that is dedicated to the nation; the use and primacy of regulated private property and private enterprise contingent upon service to the nation, the use of state enterprise where private enterprise is failing or is inefficient, and autarky. It supports criminalization of strikes by employees and lockouts by employers because it deems these acts as prejudicial to the national community.
The term ''fascismo'' is derived from the
Latin word ''
fasces''. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods that were tied around an axe, was an
ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic
magistrate. They were carried by his
lictors and could be used for
corporal and
capital punishment at his command. The word ''fascismo'' also relates to political organizations in Italy known as
fasci, groups similar to
guilds or
syndicates.
The symbolism of the fasces suggested ''strength through unity'': a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. Similar symbols were developed by different fascist movements. For example the Falange symbol is five arrows joined together by a yoke.
Historians, political scientists and other scholars have long debated the exact nature of fascism. Each form of fascism is distinct, leaving many definitions too wide or narrow. Since the 1990s, scholars including
Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell,
Roger Griffin and
Robert O. Paxton have been gathering a rough consensus on the ideology's core tenets.
For Griffin, fascism is "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist "armed party" politics opposing socialism and liberalism and promising radical politics to rescue the nation from decadence. Mussolini said that Fascism is revolutionary against liberalism "since it wants to reduce the size of the State to its necessary functions."
Paxton sees fascism as "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."
One common definition of fascism focuses on three groups of ideas:
The ''Fascist Negations'' of anti-liberalism, anti-communism and anti-conservatism.
Nationalist, authoritarian goals for the creation of a regulated economic structure to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture.
A political aesthetic using romantic symbolism, mass mobilisation, a positive view of violence, promotion of masculinity and youth and charismatic leadership.
There is a running dispute among scholars about where along the
left/right spectrum that fascism resides. Fascism was founded during
World War I by Italian
national syndicalists who combined
left-wing and
right-wing political views, but Italian Fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s. A major element of fascism that has been deemed as clearly
far-right is its goal to promote the right of claimed superior people to dominate while purging society of claimed inferior elements.
Fascism is commonly described as "extreme right" although some writers have found placing fascism on a conventional left-right political spectrum difficult. There is a scholarly consensus that fascism was influenced by both left and right, conservative and anti-conservative, national and supranational, rational and anti-rational. A number of historians have regarded fascism either as a revolutionary centrist doctrine, as a doctrine which mixes philosophies of the left and the right, or as both of those things.
Fascism is often considered right-wing due to its social conservatism and authoritarian means of opposing egalitarianism. Robert Stackleberg places fascism — including Nazism, which he says is "a radical variant of fascism" — on the right, explaining that "the more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be."
Many fascist leaders had previously been associated with leftist movements or governments. Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini previously was a Socialist and later a syndicalist, and chief editor of Italian Socialist Party's newspaper ''Avanti!'' before becoming an Italian Fascist.Japanese fascist Ikki Kita was previously a Marxist. British fascist Oswald Moseley was previously a member of the British Labour Party.
While fascism opposes Bolshevism, both Bolshevism and fascism have been noted to hold significant ideological similarities: both advocate a revolutionary ideology, both believe in the necessity of a vanguard elite, both have disdain for bourgeois values, and both had totalitarian ambitions. In practice, fascism and Bolshevism have commonly emphasized revolutionary action, proletarian nation theories, single-party states, and party-armies. However Mussolini later became unimpressed by Lenin, regarding Lenin as merely a new version of Tsar Nicholas. Also, in spite of ideological differences, Fascist Italy was the first western country to recognize the Soviet Union, in 1933 Fascist Italy had signed a friendship and nonaggression treaty with the Soviet Union, and in the late 1930s both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany supported rapproachment with the Soviet Union. Petroleum from the Soviet Union fueled the Italian navy during Fascist Italy's conquest of Ethiopia when Western powers imposed sanctions on Italy. In support of Hitler's strategy of rapproachment of the Soviet Union in 1939, Mussolini in September 1939 informed fellow Fascist official Giuseppe Bottai that the internal differences between fascism and Bolshevism had grown less acute over time and noted that both fascism and Bolshevism held common contempt of the "demo-plutocratic capitalism of the western powers". In October 1939 Mussolini had considered making a public statement to the Italian people that would announce Fascist Italy's abandonment of hostility to the ideology of Stalin's Soviet Union by claiming that Stalin's regime had effectively dissolved Bolshevism and that it had been replaced by a Slavic fascism. Mussolini's foreign minister and son-in-law Galeazzo Ciano persuaded Mussolini not to make this statement. Similar to Mussolini, Hitler believed that Soviet Bolshevism was transforming into a form of Nazism and said in 1934:
Fascism is also significantly influenced by anarchism on the far-left - particularly the originally anarchist Mikhail Bakunin's concept of propaganda of the deed advocating action as the primary motivation and means of politics - including revolutionary violence.
Benito Mussolini in 1919 described fascism as a syncretic movement that would strike "against the backwardness of the right and the destructiveness of the left". Later the Italian Fascists described fascism as a right-wing ideology in the political program ''The Doctrine of Fascism'', stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century." The "Fascist right" included members of the paramilitary ''Squadristi'' and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI). The ''Squadristi'' wanted to establish Fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco, sought an authoritarian corporatist state to replace the liberal state in Italy, while retaining the existing elites. There were also smaller factions within the Italian Fascist movement, such as the clerical Fascists, who sought to shift Italian Fascism from its anti-Catholic roots to accepting Catholicism. There were also "monarchist Fascists" who sought to use Fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy.
In ''The Doctrine of Fascism'', Italian Fascism was described as on the political right, stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century." They also, however, officially declared that although they were "sitting on the right" they were generally indifferent to their position on the left-right spectrum, as being a conclusion of their combination of views rather than an objective, and considering it insignificant to the basis of their views, which they claimed could just as easily be associated with "the mountain of the center" as with the right.
A number of fascist movements described themselves as a "third position" outside the traditional political spectrum. Benito Mussolini promoted ambiguity about fascism's positions in order to rally as many people to it as possible, saying fascists can be "aristocrats or democrats, revolutionaries and reactionaries, proletarians and anti-proletarians, pacifists and anti-pacifists." Mussolini claimed that Italian Fascism's economic system of corporatism could be identified as state capitalism which he claimed was state socialism "turned on its head", which in either case involved "the bureaucratisation of the economic activities of the nation." Mussolini described fascism in any type of language he found useful. Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera said: "basically the Right stands for the maintenance of an economic structure, albeit an unjust one, while the Left stands for the attempt to subvert that economic structure, even though the subversion thereof would entail the destruction of much that was worthwhile".
Following the defeat of the
Axis powers in
World War II, the term
''fascist'' has been used as a
pejorative word, often referring to widely varying movements across the political spectrum.
George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist'".
Richard Griffiths argued in 2005 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times". "Fascist" is sometimes applied to post-war organisations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly term "
neo-fascist".
Contrary to the common mainstream academic and popular use of the term, Communist states have sometimes been referred to as "fascist", typically as an epithet. Marxist interpretations of the term have, for example, been applied in relation to Cuba under Fidel Castro and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh. Herbert Matthews, of the ''New York Times'' asked "Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?" J. Edgar Hoover wrote extensively of "Red Fascism". Chinese Marxists used the term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet Split, and likewise, the Soviets used the term to identify Chinese Marxists.
Early influences that shaped the ideology of fascism have been dated back to the ancient Greece. The political culture of ancient Greece under
Pericles and particularly the ancient Greek city state of
Sparta with its emphasis on rule by a minority of elites and on racial purity were admired by the Nazis. The Spartans were emulated by quasi-fascist
4th of August Regime of
Ioannis Metaxas called for Greeks to wholly commit themselves to the nation with self-control as the Spartans had done. Nazi ''
Führer''
Adolf Hitler in emphasized that Germany should adhere to Hellenic values and culture - particularly that of ancient Sparta. Hitler rebuked potential criticism of Hellenic values being non-German by emphasizing the common
Aryan race connection with ancient Greeks, saying in ''
Mein Kampf'': "One must not allow the differences of the individual races to tear up the greater racial community". Hitler went on to say in ''Mein Kampf'': "The struggle that rages today involves very great aims: a culture fights for its existence, which combines millenniums and embraces
Hellenism and Germanity together." Supporters of the
4th of August Regime in the 1930s to 1940s justified Metaxas' dictatorship on the basis that the "First Greek Civilization" involved an Athenian dictatorship led by Pericles who had brought ancient Greece to greatness. Philosopher
Plato's work ''
The Republic'' (approx. 380 BC). In ''The Republic'', Plato emphasizes the need for absolute and unlimited authority of a philosopher king in an ideal state. Plato supported many similar political positions to fascism. Plato believed the ideal state would be ruled by an elite class of rulers known as "Guardians", and rejected the idea of
social equality. Plato believed in an authoritarian state with unlimited powers. Plato held
Athenian democracy in contempt, saying "The laws of democracy remain a dead letter, its freedom is anarchy, its equality the equality of unequals". Like fascism Plato emphasized that individuals must adhere to laws and perform duties while declining to grant individuals rights to limit or reject state interference in their lives. Like fascism Plato claimed that an ideal state would have state-run education that was designed to promote able rulers and warriors. Italian Fascist ''
Duce''
Benito Mussolini had a strong attachment to the works of
Plato. However there are significant differences between Plato's ideals and fascism. Unlike fascism Plato never promoted expansionism and he was opposed to war. Unlike fascism, Plato advocated an effectively
communist economy while fascism is ideologically opposed to communism.
Italian Fascists identified their ideology as being connected to the legacy of ancient Rome and particularly the Roman Empire. Julius Caesar and Augustus were idolized by Italian Fascists. Italian Fascism views the modern state of Italy as the heir of the Roman Empire and emphasized the need for renovation of Italian culture to "return to Roman values". Italian Fascists identify the Roman Empire as being an ideal organic and stable society in contrast to contemporary individualist liberal society that they identify as being chaotic in comparison. Julius Caesar has been identified as a role model by fascists because he led a revolution that overthrew an old order to establish a new order based on a dictatorship in which Julius Caesar wielded absolute power. Benito Mussolini emphasized the need for dictatorship, activist leadership style, and the leader cult like that of Julius Caesar, that involved "the will to fix a unifying and balanced centre and a common will to action". Italian Fascists also idolized Augustus as the champion who built the Roman Empire. The fasces - a symbol of Roman authority was the symbol of the Italian Fascists. While a number of Nazis rejected Roman civilization that they saw as incompatible with Aryan Germanic culture that they saw as outside of Roman culture, Adolf Hitler personally admired ancient Rome. English political theorist Thomas Hobbes in his work ''Leviathan'' (1651) created the ideology of absolutism that advocated an all-powerful absolute monarchy to maintain order within a state. Absolutism was an influence on fascism. Absolutism based its legitimacy on the precedents of Roman law including the centralized Roman state and the manifestation of Roman law in the Catholic Church. Though fascism supported the absolute power of the state, it opposes the idea of absolute power being in the hands of a monarch and opposes the feudalism that was associated with absolute monarchies.
During the Enlightenment a number of ideological influences arose that would shape the development of fascism. During the Enlightenment the development of tbe study of universal histories by Johann Gottfried Herder resulted in Herder's analysis of the development of nations, Herder developed the term ''nationalismus'' ("nationalism") to describe this cultural phenomenon, at this time nationalism did not refer to the political ideology of nationalism that was later developed during the French Revolution. Herder also developed the theory that Europeans are the descendents of Indo-Aryan people based on language studies, Herder argued that the Germanic peoples held close racial connections with the ancient Indians and ancient Persians, who he claimed were advanced peoples possessing a great capacity for wisdom, nobility, restraint, and science. Contemporaries of Herder utilized the concept of the Aryan race to draw a distinction between what they deemed "high and noble" Aryan culture versus that of "parasitic" Semitic culture, and this anti-Semitic variant view of Europeans' Aryan roots formed the basis of Nazi racial views. The Nazis accused the French Revolution of being dominated by Jews and Freemasons and were deeply disturbed by the Revolution's intention to completely break France away from its past history in what the Nazis claimed was a repudiation of history that they asserted to be a trait of the Enlightenment. Furthermore the Nazis idealized the ''levée en masse'' (mass mobilization of soldiers) that was developed by French Revolutionary armies, and the Nazis sought to use the system for their paramilitary movement. The theme was based on revolt against materialism, rationalism, positivism, bourgeois society and liberal democracy. The ''fin-de-siècle'' generation supported emotionalism, irrationalism, subjectivism and vitalism. The ''fin-de-siècle'' mindset saw civilization as being in a crisis that required a massive and total solution. Social Darwinism, which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed the human condition as being an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest. Social Darwinism challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment. Social Darwinism's emphasis on biogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered legitimacy and appeal for nationalism. New theories of social and political psychology also rejected the notion of human behaviour being governed by rational choice, and instead claimed that emotion was more influential in political issues than reason. Nietzsche's argument that "God is dead" coincided with his attack on the "herd mentality" of Christianity, democracy and modern collectivism; his concept of the ''übermensch''; and his advocacy of the will to power as a primordial instinct, were major influences upon many of the ''fin-de-siècle'' generation. Bergson's claim of the existence of an "''élan vital''" or vital instinct centred upon free choice and rejected the processes of materialism and determinism, this challenged Marxism.
With the advent of the Darwinian theory of evolution came claims of evolution possibly leading to decadence. Proponents of decadence theories claimed that contemporary Western society's decadence was the result of modern life, including urbanization, sedentary lifestyle, the survival of the least fit, and modern culture's emphasis on egalitarianism, individualistic anomie, and nonconformity. Mosca claims that there are only two classes in society, "the governing" (the organized minority) and "the governed" (the disorganized majority). He claims that the organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority. Mosca developed this theory in 1896 in which he argued that the problem of the supremacy of civilian power in society is solved in part by the presence and social structural design of militaries. He claims that the social structure of the military is ideal because it includes diverse social elements that balance each other out and more importantly is its inclusion of an officer class as a "power elite". Mosca presented the social structure and methods of governance by the military as a valid model of development for civil society. Mosca's theories are known to have significantly influenced Mussolini's notion of the political process, and fascism.
Related to Mosca's theory of domination of society by an organized minority over a disorganized majority, was Robert Michels' theory of the iron law of oligarchy that has become a mainstream political theory. The theory of the iron law of oligarchy, created in 1911 by Michels, was a major attack on the basis of contemporary democracy. Michels argues that oligarchy is inevitable as an "iron law" within any organization as part of the "tactical and technical necessities" of organization and on the topic of democracy, Michels stated: "It is organization which gives birth to the dominion of the elected over the electors, of the mandataries over the mandators, of the delegates over the delegators. Who says organization, says oligarchy". He claims that "Historical evolution mocks all the prophylactic measures that have been adopted for the prevention of oligarchy." Hr states that the official goal of contemporary democracy of eliminating elite rule was impossible, that democracy is a façade legitimizing the rule of a particular elite, and that elite rule, that he refers to as oligarchy, is inevitable. Michels had formerly been a Marxist but became drawn to the syndicalism of Georges Sorel, Édouard Berth, Arturo Labriola, and Enrico Leone and had become strongly opposed the parliamentarian, legalistic, and bureaucratic socialism of social democracy and in contrast supported an activist, voluntarist, anti-parliamentarian socialism. Michels would later become a supporter of fascism upon Mussolini's rise to power in 1922, viewing fascism's goal to destroy liberal democracy in a sympathetic manner.
Maurice Barrès, who greatly influenced the policies of fascism, claimed that true democracy was authoritarian democracy while rejecting liberal democracy as a fraud. Barrès claimed that authoritarian democracy involved spiritual connection between a leader of a nation and the nation's people, and that true freedom did not arise from individual rights nor parliamentary restraints, but through "heroic leadership" and "national power". He emphasized the need for hero worship and charismatic leadership in national society. Barrès mixed anti-Semitic nationalism with socialism and identified as a "national socialist" and in 1889 he was a founding member of the League for the French Fatherland and in 1898 he became a member of the National Socialist Republican Committee and was elected to French parliament in 1906—though only after he abandoned ties with anti-Dreyfusard politicians. Sorel promoted the legitimacy of political violence in his work ''Reflections on Violence'' (1908) and other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie through a general strike. In ''Reflections on Violence'', Sorel emphasized need for a revolutionary political religion. Also, in his work The Illusions of Progress, Sorel denounced democracy as reactionary, saying "nothing is more aristocratic than democracy". By 1909 after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views - advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries. Initially Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that "socialism is dead" due to the "decomposition of Marxism". Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian integral nationalism beginning in 1909 that influenced his works. Maurras famously stated "a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as a well made glove fits a beautiful hand". Sorelianism is considered to be a precursor to fascism. This fusion of nationalism on the political Right with Sorelian syndicalism on the Left, around the outbreak of World War I. Sorelian syndicalism, unlike other ideologies on the left, held an elitist view that the morality of the working class needed to be raised. The Sorelian concept of the positive nature of social war and its insistence on moral revolution led some syndicalists to believe that war was the ultimate manifestation of social change and moral revolution.
The fusion of Maurassian nationalism and Sorelian syndicalism influenced radical Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini. Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight. Corradini spoke of Italy as being a "proletarian nation" that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the "plutocratic" French and British. Corradini's views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI), which claimed that Italy's economic backwardness was caused by corruption in its political class, liberalism, and division caused by "ignoble socialism". The ANI held ties and influence among conservatives, Catholics, and the business community. Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeois values, democracy, liberalism, Marxism, internationalism, and pacifism, and the promotion of heroism, vitalism, and violence.
Radical nationalism in Italy — support for expansionism and cultural revolution to create a "New Man" and a "New State" — began to grow in 1912 during the Italian conquest of Libya, and was supported by Italian Futurists and members of the ANI. Futurism that was both an artistic-cultural movement and initially a political movement in Italy led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who founded the ''Futurist Manifesto'' (1908), that championed the causes of modernism, action, and political violence as necessary elements of politics while denouncing liberalism and parliamentary politics. Marinetti rejected conventional democracy for based on majority rule and egalitarianism while promoting a new form of democracy, that he described in his work "The Futurist Conception of Democracy" as the following: "We are therefore able to give the directions to create and to dismantle to ''numbers'', ''to quantity'', ''to the mass'', for with us ''number'', ''quantity and mass'' will never be—as they are in Germany and Russia—the number, quantity and mass of mediocre men, incapable and indecisive". The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism, claiming that humans are naturally predatory and that nations were in a constant struggle, in which only the strongest could survive.
Until 1914, however, Italian nationalists and revolutionary syndicalists with nationalist leanings remained apart. Such syndicalists opposed the Italo-Turkish War of 1911 as an affair of financial interests and not the nation, but World War I was seen by both Italian nationalists and syndicalists as a national affair.
At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Italian political left became severely split over its position on the war. The
Italian Socialist Party opposed the war on the grounds of
internationalism, but a number of Italian revolutionary syndicalists supported intervention against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the grounds that their
reactionary regimes needed to be defeated to ensure the success of socialism. Corradini presented the same need for Italy as a "proletarian nation" to defeat a reactionary Germany from a nationalist perspective. The beginning of fascism resulted from this split, with
Angelo Oliviero Olivetti forming the Revolutionary Fascio for International Action in October 1914. At the same time, Benito Mussolini joined the interventionist cause. The Fascists supported nationalism and claimed that
proletarian internationalism was a failure.
At this time, the Fascists did not have an integrated set of policies and the movement was very small. Its attempts to hold mass meetings were ineffective and it was regularly harassed by government authorities and socialists. Antagonism between interventionists, including Fascists, and anti-interventionist socialists resulted in violence. Attacks on interventionists were so violent that even democratic socialists who opposed the war, such as Anna Kuliscioff, said that the Italian Socialist Party had gone too far in its campaign to silence supporters of the war.
Italy's use of daredevil elite shock troops known as the ''Arditi'', beginning in 1917, was an important influence on Fascism. The ''Arditi'' were soldiers who were specifically trained for a life of violence and wore unique blackshirt uniforms and fezzes. The ''Arditi'' formed a national organization in November 1918, the ''Associazione fra gli Arditi d'Italia'', which by mid-1919 had about twenty thousand young men within it. Mussolini appealed to the ''Arditi'', and the Fascists' ''Squadristi'', developed after the war, were based upon the ''Arditi''.
A major event that greatly influenced the development of fascism was the October Revolution of 1917 in which Bolshevik communists led by Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia. Benito Mussolini consolidated control over the Fascist movement in 1919 with the founding of the ''Fasci italiani di combattimento'', whose opposition to socialism he declared:
In 1919, Alceste De Ambris and Futurist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created ''The Manifesto of the Italian Fasci of Combat'' (a.k.a. the ''Fascist Manifesto''). The Manifesto was presented on June 6, 1919 in the Fascist newspaper ''Il Popolo d'Italia''. The Manifesto supported the creation of universal suffrage for both men and women (the latter being realized only partly in late 1925, with all opposition parties banned or disbanded); proportional representation on a regional basis; government representation through a corporatist system of "National Councils" of experts, selected from professionals and tradespeople, elected to represent and hold legislative power over their respective areas, including labour, industry, transportation, public health, communications, etc.; and the abolition of the Italian Senate. The Manifesto supported the creation of an eight-hour work day for all workers, a minimum wage, worker representation in industrial management, equal confidence in labour unions as in industrial executives and public servants, reorganization of the transportation sector, revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance, reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55, a strong progressive tax on capital, confiscation of the property of religious institutions and abolishment of bishoprics, and revision of military contracts to allow the government to seize 85% of their profits. It also called for the creation of a short-service national militia to serve defensive duties, nationalization of the armaments industry, and a foreign policy designed to be peaceful but also competitive.
The next events that influenced the Fascists were the raid of Fiume by Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio and the founding of the Charter of Carnaro in 1920. D'Annunzio and De Ambris designed the Charter, which advocated national-syndicalist corporatist productionism alongside D'Annunzio's political views. Many Fascists saw the Charter of Carnaro as an ideal constitution for a Fascist Italy. This behaviour of aggression towards Yugoslavia and South Slavs was pursued by Italian Fascists with their persecution of South Slavs - especially Slovenes and Croats.
With the 1920, militant strike activity by industrial workers reached its peak in Italy, where 1919 and 1920 were known as the "Red Years". Mussolini and the Fascists took advantage of the situation by allying with industrial businesses and attacking workers and peasants in the name of preserving order and internal peace in Italy.
Fascists identified their primary opponents as the socialists on the left who had opposed intervention in World War I. The Fascists and the rest of the Italian political right held common ground: both held Marxism in contempt, discounted class consciousness and believed in the rule of elites. The Fascists assisted the anti-socialist campaign by allying with the other parties and the conservative right in a mutual effort to destroy the Italian Socialist Party and labour organizations committed to class identity above national identity.
Fascism sought to accommodate Italian conservatives by making major alterations to its political agenda;– abandoning its previous populism, republicanism, and anticlericalism, adopting policies in support of free enterprise, and accepting the Roman Catholic Church and the monarchy as institutions in Italy. To appeal to Italian conservatives, Fascism adopted policies such as promoting family values, including promotion policies designed to reduce the number of women in the workforce limiting the woman's role to that of a mother. The fascists banned literature on birth control and increased penalties for abortion in 1926, declaring both crimes against the state. Though Fascism adopted a number of positions designed to appeal to reactionaries, the Fascists sought to maintain Fascism's revolutionary character, with Angelo Oliviero Olivetti saying "Fascism would like to be conservative, but it will [be] by being revolutionary." The Fascists supported revolutionary action and committed to secure law and order to appeal to both conservatives and syndicalists.
Prior to Fascism's accommodation of the political right, Fascism was a small, urban, northern Italian movement that had about a thousand members. After Fascism's accommodation of the political right, the Fascist movement's membership soared to approximately 250,000 by 1921.
Beginning in 1922, Fascist paramilitaries escalated their strategy from one of attacking socialist offices and homes of socialist leadership figures to one of violent occupation of cities. The Fascists met little serious resistance from authorities and proceeded to take over several cities, including
Bologna,
Bolzano,
Cremona,
Ferrara,
Fiume, and
Trent. The Fascists attacked the headquarters of socialist and
Catholic unions in Cremona and imposed forced Italianization upon the German-speaking population of Trent and Bolzano. After seizing these cities, the Fascists made plans to take
Rome.
On 24 October 1922, the Fascist party held its annual congress in Naples, where Mussolini ordered Blackshirts to take control of public buildings and trains and to converge on three points around Rome. The march would be led by four prominent Fascist leaders representing its different factions: Italo Balbo, a Blackshirt leader; General Emilio De Bono; Michele Bianchi, an ex-syndicalist; and Cesare Maria De Vecchi, a monarchist Fascist. Mussolini himself remained in Milan to await the results of the actions. The Fascists managed to seize control of several post offices and trains in northern Italy while the Italian government, led by a left-wing coalition, was internally divided and unable to respond to the Fascist advances. The Italian government had been in a steady state of turmoil, with many governments being created and then being defeated. The Italian government initially took action to prevent the Fascists from entering Rome, but King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy perceived the risk of bloodshed in Rome in response to attempting to disperse the Fascists to be too high. Victor Emmanuel III decided to appoint Mussolini as Prime Minister of Italy, and Mussolini arrived in Rome on 30 October to accept the appointment. Fascist propaganda aggrandized this event, known as "March on Rome", as a "seizure" of power due to Fascists' heroic exploits.
Upon being appointed Prime Minister of Italy, Mussolini had to form a coalition government, because the Fascists did not have control over the Italian parliament. The coalition government included a cabinet led by Mussolini and thirteen other ministers, only three of whom were Fascists; others included representatives from the army and the navy, two Catholic Popolari members, two democratic liberals, one conservative liberal, one social democrat, one Nationalist member, and the pro-Fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile. Mussolini's coalition government initially pursued economically liberal policies under the direction of liberal finance minister Alberto De Stefani, including balancing the budget through deep cuts to the civil service. Initially, little drastic change in government policy had occurred and repressive police actions against communist and d'Annunzian rebels were limited. At the same time, however, Mussolini consolidated his control over the National Fascist Party by creating a governing executive for the party, the Grand Council of Fascism, whose agenda he controlled. In addition, the ''Squadristi'' blackshirt militia was transformed into the state-run MVSN, led by regular army officers. Militant ''Squadristi'' were initially highly dissatisfied with Mussolini's government and demanded a "Fascist revolution".
In this period, to appease the King of Italy, Mussolini formed a close political alliance between the Italian Fascists and Italy's conservative faction in Parliament, which was led by Luigi Federzoni, a conservative monarchist and nationalist who was a member of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI). The ANI joined the National Fascist Party in 1923. Because of the merger of the Nationalists with the Fascists, tensions existed between the conservative nationalist and revolutionary syndicalist factions of the movement. The conservative and syndicalist factions of the Fascist movement sought to reconcile their differences, secure unity, and promote fascism by taking on the views of each other. Conservative nationalist Fascists promoted fascism as a revolutionary movement to appease the revolutionary syndicalists while, to appease conservative nationalist fascists, revolutionary syndicalist Fascists declared they wanted to secure social stability and insure economic productivity.
The Fascists began their attempt to entrench Fascism in Italy with the Acerbo Law, which guaranteed a plurality of the seats in parliament to any party or coalition list in an election that received 25% or more of the vote. The Acerbo Law was passed in spite of numerous abstentions from the vote. In the 1924 election, the Fascists, along with moderates and conservatives, formed a coalition candidate list, and through considerable Fascist violence and intimidation, the list won with 66% of the vote, allowing it to receive 403 seats, most of which went to the Fascists. In the aftermath of the election, a crisis and political scandal erupted after Socialist Party deputy Giacomo Matteoti was kidnapped and murdered by a Fascist. The liberals and the leftist minority in parliament walked out in protest in what became known as the Aventine Secession. On 3 January 1925, Mussolini addressed the Fascist-dominated Italian parliament and declared that he was personally responsible for what happened, but he insisted that he had done nothing wrong. He proclaimed himself dictator of Italy, assuming full responsibility over the government and announcing the dismissal of parliament. From 1925 to 1929, Fascism steadily became entrenched in power: opposition deputies were denied access to parliament, censorship was introduced, and a December 1925 decree made Mussolini solely responsible to the King. Efforts to Fascistize Italian society accelerated beginning in 1926, with Fascists taking positions in local administration and 30% of all prefects being administered by appointed Fascists by 1929. In 1929, the Fascist regime gained the political support and blessing of the Roman Catholic Church after the regime signed a concordat with the Church, known as the Lateran Treaty, which gave the papacy state sovereignty and financial compensation for the seizure of Church lands by the liberal state in the nineteenth century. Though Fascist propaganda had begun to speak of the new regime as an all-encompassing "totalitarian" state beginning in 1925, the Fascist party and regime never gained total control over Italy's institutions; King Victor Emmanuel III remained head of state, the armed forces and the judicial system retained considerable autonomy from the Fascist state, Fascist militias were under military control, and initially the economy had relative autonomy as well.
The Fascist regime began to create a corporatist economic system in 1925 with creation of the Palazzo Vidioni Pact, in which the Italian employers' association Confindustria and Fascist trade unions agreed to recognize each other as the sole representatives of Italy's employers and employees, excluding non-Fascist trade unions. The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers' strikes and lock-outs, and in 1927 created the Charter of Labour, which established workers' rights and duties and created labour tribunals to arbitrate employer-employee disputes. In practice, the sectoral corporations exercised little independence and were largely controlled by the regime, and employee organizations were rarely led by employees themselves but instead by appointed Fascist party members.
In the 1920s, Fascist Italy pursued an aggressive foreign policy that included an attack on the Greek island of Corfu, aims to expand Italian territory in the Balkans, plans to wage war against Turkey and Yugoslavia, attempts to bring Yugoslavia into civil war by supporting Croat and Macedonian separatists to legitimize Italian intervention, and making Albania a ''de facto'' protectorate of Italy, which was achieved through diplomatic means by 1927. In response to revolt in the Italian colony of Libya, Fascist Italy abandoned previous liberal-era colonial policy of cooperation with local leaders. Instead, claiming that Italians were a superior race to African races and thereby had the right to colonize the "inferior" Africans, it sought to settle 10 to 15 million Italians in Libya. This resulted in an aggressive military campaign against natives in Libya, including mass killings, the use of concentration camps, and the forced starvation of thousands of people. Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica in Libya, from their settlements that was slated to be given to Italian settlers.
The March on Rome brought Fascism international attention. One early admirer of the Italian Fascists was Adolf Hitler, who, less than a month after the March, had begun to model himself and the Nazi Party upon Mussolini and the Fascists. The Nazis, led by Hitler and the German war hero Erich Ludendorff, attempted a "March on Berlin" modeled upon the March on Rome, which resulted in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in November 1923, where the Nazis briefly captured Bavarian Minister President Gustav Ritter von Kahr and announced the creation of a new German government to be led by a triumvirate of von Kahr, Hitler, and Ludendorff. The Beer Hall Putsch was crushed by Bavarian police, and Hitler and other leading Nazis were arrested and detained until 1925. Another early admirer of Italian Fascism was Gyula Gömbös, leader of the Hungarian National Defence Association (known by its acronym MOVE) and a self-defined "national socialist" who in 1919 spoke of the need for major changes in property and in 1923 stated the need of a "march on Budapest". Yugoslavia briefly had a significant fascist movement, the ORJUNA that supported Yugoslavism, supported the creation of a corporatist economy, opposed democracy, and took part in violent attacks on communists, though it was opposed to the Italian government due to Yugoslav border disputes with Italy. ORJUNA was dissolved in 1929 when the King of Yugoslavia banned political parties and created a royal dictatorship, though ORJUNA supported the King's decision. Amid a political crisis in Spain involving increased strike activity and rising support for anarchism, Spanish army commander Miguel Primo de Rivera engaged in a successful coup against the Spanish government in 1923 and installed himself as a dictator as head of a conservative military junta that dismantled the established party system of government. Upon achieving power, Primo de Rivera sought to resolve the economic crisis by presenting himself as a compromise arbitrator figure between workers and bosses, and his regime created a corporatist economic system based on the Italian Fascist model. In Lithuania in 1926, Antanas Smetona rose to power and founded a fascist regime under his Lithuanian Nationalist Union.
The events of the
Great Depression resulted in an international surge of fascism and the creation of several fascist regimes and regimes that adopted fascist policies. The most important new fascist regime was
Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933,
liberal democracy was dissolved in Germany, and the Nazis mobilized the country for war, with expansionist territorial aims against several countries. In the 1930s the Nazis implemented racial laws that deliberately discriminated against, disenfranchised, and persecuted Jews and other racial and minority groups. Hungarian fascist
Gyula Gömbös rose to power as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1932 and visited Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to consolidate good relations with the two regimes. He attempted to entrench his
Party of National Unity throughout the country; created an eight-hour work day, a forty-eight hour work week in industry, and sought to entrench a corporatist economy; and pursued irredentist claims on Hungary's neighbors. The fascist
Iron Guard movement in
Romania soared in political support after 1933, gaining representation in the Romanian government, and an Iron Guard member assassinated Romanian prime minister
Ion Duca. During the
6 February 1934 crisis,
France faced the greatest domestic political turmoil since the
Dreyfus Affair when the fascist
Francist Movement and multiple far right movements rioted ''
en masse'' in Paris against the French government resulting in major political violence. A variety of para-fascist governments that borrowed elements from fascism were formed during the Great Depression, including those of
Greece,
Lithuania,
Poland, and
Yugoslavia.
Fascism also expanded influence outside of Europe, especially in East Asia, the Middle East, and South America. In China, Wang Jingwei's ''Kai-tsu p'ai'' (Reorganization) faction of the Kuomintang (Nationalist Party of China) supported Nazism in the late 1930s. In Japan, the Tōhōkai, a Nazi movement was formed by Seigō Nakano. The Al-Muthanna Club of Iraq was a pan-Arab movement that supported Nazism and exercised influence in Iraqi government through cabinet minister Saib Shawkat who formed a youth paramilitary movement. Several, mostly short-lived fascist governments and prominent fascist movements were formed in South America during this period. Argentine President General José Félix Uriburu proposed that Argentina be reorganized along corporatist and fascist lines. Peruvian president Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro founded the Revolutionary Union in 1931 as the state party for his dictatorship. Upon the Revolutionary Union being taken over by Raúl Ferrero Rebagliati who sought to mobilise mass support for the group's nationalism in a manner akin to fascism. He even started a Blackshirts paramilitary arm as a copy of the Italian group, although the Union lost heavily in the 1936 elections and faded into obscurity. In Paraguay in 1940, Paraguayan President General Higinio Morínigo began his rule as a dictator with the support of pro-fascist military officers, appealed to the masses, exiled opposition leaders, and only abandoned pro-fascist policy after the end of World War II. The Brazilian Integralists led by Plínio Salgado, claimed as many as 200,000 members although following coup attempts it faced a crackdown from the Estado Novo of Getúlio Vargas in 1937. In the 1930s, the National Socialist Movement of Chile gained seats in Chile's parliament and attempted a coup d'état that resulted in the Seguro Obrero massacre of 1938.
During the Great Depression, Mussolini promoted active state intervention in the economy. He denounced the contemporary "supercapitalism" that he claimed began in 1914 as a failure due to its alleged decadence, support for unlimited consumerism and intention to create the "standardization of humankind". However, Mussolini claimed that the industrial developments of earlier "heroic capitalism" were valuable and continued to support private property as long as it was productive. With the onset of the Great Depression, Fascist Italy began large-scale state intervention into the economy, establishing the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (''Istituto per la Ricostruzione Industriale'', IRI), a giant state-owned firm and holding company that provided state funding to failing private enterprises. The IRI was made a permanent institution in Fascist Italy in 1937, pursued Fascist policies to create national autarky, and had the power to take over private firms to maximize war production. In the late 1930s, Italy enacted manufacturing cartels, tariff barriers, currency restrictions, and massive regulation of the economy to attempt to balance payments. However, Italy's policy of autarky failed to achieve effective economic autonomy. Nazi Germany similarly pursued an economic agenda with the aims of autarky and rearmament and imposed protectionist policies, including forcing the German steel industry to use lower-quality German iron ore rather than superior-quality imported iron. In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany both pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas from the 1930s through the 1940s culminating in World War II. Mussolini called for irredentist Italian claims to be reclaimed, establishing Italian domination of the Mediterranean Sea and securing Italian access to the Atlantic Ocean, and the creation of Italian ''spazio vitale'' ("vital space") in the Mediterranean and Red Sea regions. Hitler called for irredentist German claims to be reclaimed along with the creation of German ''lebensraum'' ("living space") in Eastern Europe, including territories held by the Soviet Union, that would be colonized by Germans.
From 1935 to 1939 Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 resulting in condemnation by the League of Nations and widespread diplomatic isolation. In 1936 Germany remilitarized the industrial Rhineland; the region had been ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938 Germany annexed Austria and Italy assisted in Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims on Czecholslovakia by arranging the Munich Agreement that gave Germany the Sudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war, these hopes faded when Hitler violated the Munich Agreement by ordering the invasion and partition of Czechoslovakia between Germany and a client state of Slovakia in 1939. At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain, demanding the immediate concession of Corsica and Tunisia from France, a secondary set of objectives including Italian acquisition of Malta and Cyprus from Britain, and a tertiary set of objectives including the long-term goals of eventual Italian control over Gibraltar and the Suez Canal - considered by the Fascist government to be the "keys to the Mediterranean". In 1939, Germany prepared for war with Poland, but attempted to gain territorial concessions from Poland through diplomatic means. Germany demanded that Poland accept the annexation of the Free City of Danzig to Germany and authorize the construction of automobile highways from Germany through the Polish Corridor into Danzig and East Prussia in order to unite the infrastructure of Germany, Danzig, and East Prussia; while aside from Germany's use of the highways, these territories would remain under Polish jurisdiction and a promised twenty-five year non-aggression pact. The Polish government did not trust Hitler's promises and refused to accept Germany's demands. With the strategic alliance between Germany and the Soviet Union against Poland, Germany and the Soviet Union planned to invade Poland in 1939 unless Poland conceded to German demands by 1 September 1939, Poland refused, Germany invaded and was followed by a Soviet invasion of Poland.
The invasion of Poland by Germany was deemed unacceptable by Britain, France and their allies, resulting in their mutual declaration of war against Germany that was deemed the aggressor in the war in Poland, resulting in the outbreak of World War II. Germany and the Soviet Union partitioned Poland between them in late 1939 followed by the successful German offensive in Scandinavia and continental Western Europe in 1940. On 10 June 1940, Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis. Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity to carry out a long war with France or the United Kingdom and waited until France was on the verge of imminent collapse and surrender from German invasion before declaring war on France and the United Kingdom on 10 June 1940, on the assumption that the war would be short-lived following France's collapse. Mussolini believed that following a brief entry of Italy into war with France, followed by the imminent French surrender, Italy could gain some territorial concessions from France and then concentrate its forces on a major offensive in Egypt where British and Commonwealth forces were outnumbered by Italian forces. Plans by Germany to invade the UK in 1940 failed after Germany lost the aerial warfare campaign in the Battle of Britain. The war became prolonged contrary to Mussolini's plans resulting in Italy losing battles on multiple fronts and requiring German assistance. In 1941 the Axis campaign spread to the Soviet Union after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa. Axis forces at the height of their power controlled almost all of continental Europe. By 1942, Nazi Germany annexed Poland to Germany and controlled vast sections of continental Europe, including occupation of large portions of the Soviet Union. By 1942 Fascist Italy occupied and annexed Dalmatia from Yugoslavia, Corsica and Nice from France, and controlled other territories.
During World War II, the Axis Powers in Europe, led by Nazi Germany participated in the extermination of millions of Jews and others in the genocide known as the Holocaust. In Asia, Japan committed large massacres of Chinese civilians.
After 1942, Axis forces began to falter. By 1943, after Italy faced multiple military failures, complete reliance and subordination of Italy to Germany, and Allied invasion of Italy, and corresponding international humiliation, Mussolini was removed as head of government and arrested by the order of King Victor Emmanuel III who proceeded to dismantle the Fascist state and declared Italy's switching of allegiance to the Allied side. Mussolini was rescued from arrest by German forces and led the German client state, the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945.
On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian communist partisans who had his body and those of others executed displayed on a meat hook in front of crowds who celebrated his execution. On 30 April 1945, with the Battle of Berlin between collapsing German forces versus Soviet armed forces, Hitler committed suicide. Shortly afterwards Germany surrendered and the Nazi regime was dismantled and key Nazi members arrested to stand trial for crimes against humanity involving the Holocaust.
Yugoslavia, Greece and Ethiopia requested extradition of 1,200 Italian war criminals who however never saw anything like Nuremberg trial, because the British government with the beginning of cold war saw in Pietro Badoglio a guarantee of an anti-communist post-war Italy. The repression of memory led to historical revisionism in Italy and in 2003 the Italian media published Silvio Berlusconi's statement that the Benito Mussolini only "used to send people on vacation", denying the existence of Italian concentration camps, such as Rab concentration camp.
In the aftermath of World War II, the victory of the Allies over the Axis powers led to the collapse multiple fascist regimes in Europe. The Nuremberg Trials convicted multiple Nazi leaders of crimes against humanity involving the Holocaust.
However there remained multiple ideologies and governments that were ideologically related to fascism.
Francisco Franco's quasi-fascist Falangist single-party state in Spain was officially neutral in World War II and survived the collapse of the Axis Powers. Franco's rise to power had been directly assisted by the militaries of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the Spanish Civil War, and had sent volunteers to fight on the side of Nazi Germany against the Soviet Union during World War II. After World War II and a period of international isolation, Franco's regime normalized relations with Western powers in the Cold War, until Franco's death in 1975 and the transformation of Spain into a liberal democracy.
Peronism associated with the regime of
Juan Peron in
Argentina from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was strongly influenced by fascism. Prior to rising to power, from 1939 to 1941, Peron had developed a deep admiration of Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on Italian Fascist economic policies. In 1937 Malan's Purified National Party, the South African Fascists, and the Blackshirts agreed to form a coalition for the South African election. Malan had fiercely opposed South Africa's participation on the Allied side in World War II. Malan's government founded
apartheid, the system of racial segregation of whites and non-whites in South Africa. The most extreme Afrikaner fascist movement is the neo-Nazi white supremacist
Afrikaner Resistance Movement (AWB) that at one point was recorded in 1991 to have 50,000 supporters with rising support. The AWB grew in support in response to efforts to dismantle apartheid in the 1980s and early 1990s, and its paramilitary wing the
Storm Falcons threatened violence against people it considered "trouble makers".
Another ideology strongly influenced by fascism is Ba'athism. Ba'athism is a revolutionary Arab nationalist ideology that seeks the unification of all claimed Arab lands into a single Arab state. Several close associates of Ba'athism's key ideologist Michel Aflaq have admitted that Aflaq had been directly inspired by certain fascist and Nazi theorists. Historian on fascism Stanley Payne has said about Saddam Hussein's regime: "There will probably never again be a reproduction of the Third Reich, but Saddam Hussein has come closer than any other dictator since 1945". However Payne claims that it also has substantial differences from fascism such as its emphasis on traditional religion as the basis of identity. Blamires notes that there is evidence that the RSS held direct contact with Italy's Fascist regime and admired European fascism. The RSS was founded in 1925 and took inspiration from the nationalism of Italian Fascism and later Nazism, and particularly the Nazis' campaign of racial purification of Germany through purging the Jews, in 1938 RSS leader Madhav Sadashiv Golwalkar praised Nazi Germany.
Emulating the Nazis' policies on purity, the RSS declared "Hindus and Hindus alone, constitute the Indian Nation, since they are the original inhabitants and sole creators of its society and culture.". Golwalkar in ''We, Our Nation Defined'' (1938) declared that "Muslims living in India should be second class citizens living on Hindu sufferance, with no rights of any kind.". During the 1960s the RSS emphasized its advocacy of Hindu-izing Muslims in India and utilized anti-communist rhetoric in the China-India war in the 1960s.
Fascists saw the struggle of nation and race as fundamental in society, in opposition to communism's perception of class struggle. The fascist view of a nation is of a single organic entity which binds people together by their ancestry and is a natural unifying force of people. Fascism seeks to solve economic, political, and social problems by achieving a
millenarian national rebirth, exalting the
nation or
race above all else, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity. Benito Mussolini stated in 1922, "For us the nation is not just territory but something spiritual... A nation is great when it translates into reality the force of its spirit."
According to Eoin O'Duffy, an Irish national corporatist, "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".
Joseph Goebbels described the Nazis as being affiliated with authoritarian nationalism:
It enables us to see at once why democracy and Bolshevism, which in the eyes of the world are irrevocably opposed to one another, meet again and again on common ground in their joint hatred of and attacks on authoritarian nationalist concepts of State and State systems. For the authoritarian nationalist conception of the State represents something essentially new. In it the French Revolution is superseded.
Plínio Salgado, leader of the Brazilian Integralist Action party, emphasized the role of the nation:
The best governments in the world cannot succeed in pulling a country out of the quagmire, out of apathy, if they do not express themselves as national energies...Strong governments cannot result either from conspiracies or 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.
Italian fascists described expansionist
imperialism as a necessity. The 1932 ''Italian Encyclopedia'' stated: "For Fascism, the growth of empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence." Similarly, the Nazis promoted territorial expansionism to provide ''
Lebensraum'' ("living space") to the German nation. Fascism views violence as a fact of life that is a necessary means to achieve human progress. It exalts
militarism as providing positive transformation in society and providing spiritual renovation, education, instilling of a will to dominate in people's character and creating national comradeship through military service. Fascists opposed
pacifism and believed that a nation must have a warrior mentality. Benito Mussolini spoke of war idealistically as a source of masculine pride, and spoke negatively of pacifism:
War alone brings up to their highest tension all human energies and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it. Fascism carries this anti-pacifist struggle into the lives of individuals. It is education for combat... war is to man what maternity is to the woman. I do not believe in perpetual peace; not only do I not believe in it but I find it depressing and a negation of all the fundamental virtues of a man.
Many fascist movements support the creation of a
totalitarian state. Mussolini's ''
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." Some have argued that, in spite of Italian Fascism's attempt at totalitarianism, it became an authoritarian cult of personality around Mussolini.
In ''The Legal Basis of the Total State'', Nazi political theorist Carl Schmitt described the Nazi intention to form a "strong state which guarantees a totality of political unity transcending all diversity" in order to avoid a "disastrous pluralism tearing the German people apart"
Japanese fascist Nakano Seigo advocated that Japan follow the Italian and German models, which were "a form of more democratic government going beyond democracy" which itself had "lost its spirit and decayed into a mechanism which insists only on numerical superiority without considering the essence of human beings."
A key authoritarian element of fascism is its endorsement of a prime national leader, who is often known simply as the "Leader" or a similar title, such as ''Duce'' in Italian, ''Führer'' in German, ''Caudillo'' in Spanish, ''Poglavnik'' in Croatia, or ''Conducător'' in Romanian. Fascist leaders who ruled countries were not always heads of state, but were heads of government, such as Benito Mussolini, who held power under the King of Italy, Victor Emmanuel III.
Fascist movements have commonly held
social Darwinist views of nations, races, and societies. They argue that nations and races must purge themselves of socially and biologically weak or
degenerate people, while simultaneously promoting the creation of strong people, in order to survive in a world defined by perpetual national and racial conflict.
Italian Fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile in ''The Origins and Doctrine of Fascism'' promoted the concept of conflict as an act of progress, stating that "mankind only progresses through division, and progress is achieved through the clash and victory of one side over another". Italian Fascist Alfredo Rocco claimed that conflict was inevitable:
Conflict is in fact the basic law of life in all social organisms, as it is of all biological ones; societies are formed, gain strength, and move forwards through conflict; the healthiest and most vital of them assert themselves against the weakest and less well adapted through conflict; the natural evolution of nations and races takes place through conflict.
In Germany, the Nazis used social Darwinism to promote their racialist concept of the German nation as part of the Aryan race and the need for the Aryan race to be victorious in what the Nazis believed was a race struggle—an ongoing competition and conflict between races. They attempted to strengthen the Aryan race in Germany by killing those they regarded as weak. To this end, Action T4 was introduced in the late 1930s and organized the killing of roughly 275,000 handicapped and elderly German and non-German civilians using carbon monoxide gas.
Generally, fascist movements endorsed
social interventionism. According to G.V. Rimlinger, one cannot speak of “fascist social policy” as a single concept with logical and internally consistent ideas and common identifiable goals.
Fascists spoke of creating a "new man" and a "new civilization" as part of their intention to transform society. Mussolini promised a “social revolution” for “remaking” the Italian people. Adolf Hitler promised to purge Germany of non-Aryan influences on society and to create a pure Aryan race through eugenics.
Fascist states pursued policies of social
indoctrination through
propaganda in education and the media and regulation of the production of educational and media materials. Education was designed to glorify the fascist movement and inform students of its historical and political importance to the nation. It attempted to purge ideas that were not consistent with the beliefs of the fascist movement and to teach students to be obedient to the state. Therefore, fascism tends to be
anti-intellectual. The Nazis, in particular, despised intellectuals and university professors. Hitler declared them unreliable, useless, and even dangerous. He said: "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."
The Fascist government in Italy banned literature on
birth control and increased penalties for abortion in 1926, declaring both crimes against the state. The Nazis decriminalized abortion in cases where fetuses had hereditary defects or were of a race the government disapproved of, while the abortion of healthy "pure" German, "
Aryan" fetuses remained strictly forbidden. For non-Aryans, abortion was often compelled. Their
eugenics program also stemmed from the "progressive biomedical model" of
Weimar Germany.
In 1935 Nazi Germany expanded the legality of abortion by amending its eugenics law, to promote abortion for women with hereditary disorders. The law allowed abortion if a woman gave her permission and the fetus was not yet viable, and for purposes of so-called racial hygiene.
Fascism promoted principles of
masculine heroism, militarism and discipline, and rejected
cultural pluralism and
multiculturalism.
Italian Fascism favoured expanding voting rights to women. In 1920, Benito Mussolini declared: "Fascists do not belong to the crowd of the vain and skeptical who undervalue women's social and political importance. Who cares about voting? You will vote!" In November 1925, women were given restricted voting rights, juxtaposed with the eliminaton of opposition parties, which enabled the Fascist government to rule with dictatorial powers. Fascist women's organizations, disgruntled at the lukewarm reforms, were then made subordinate to the secretariat of the party, headed by Roberto Farinacci, although gradual women's suffrage was retained. In the 1920s, the Italian Fascist government's ''Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro'' (OND) allowed working women to attend various entertainment and recreation events, including sports that in the past had traditionally been played by men. The Roman Catholic Church criticized this move, claiming that these activities were causing "masculinization" of women. The Fascists responded to such criticism by restricting women to participating in "feminine" sports.
Mussolini perceived women's primary role to be childbearers, while men were warriors, once saying, "war is to man what maternity is to the woman". In an effort to increase birthrates, the Italian Fascist government gave financial incentives to women who raised large families, and initiated policies designed to reduce the number of women employed. Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as "reproducers of the nation", and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to honour women's role within the Italian nation. In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a "major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment" and that for women, working was "incompatible with childbearing". Mussolini went on to say that the solution to unemployment for men was the "exodus of women from the work force".
The German Nazi government strongly encouraged women to stay at home to bear children and keep house. This policy was reinforced by bestowing the Cross of Honor of the German Mother on women bearing four or more babies. The unemployment rate was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that men could take their jobs. Nazi propaganda sometimes promoted premarital and extramarital sexual relations, unwed motherhood and divorce, but at other times the Nazis opposed such behaviour. The growth of Nazi power, however, was accompanied by a breakdown of traditional sexual morals with regard to extramarital sex and licentiousness.
Fascist movements and governments opposed homosexuality. The Italian Fascist government declared it illegal in 1931. The Nazis argued that homosexuality was degenerate, effeminate, perverted, and undermined masculinity because it did not produce children. They considered homosexuality curable through therapy, citing 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 behind their promotion of racism and hostility to homosexuals is pseudoscience. Open homosexuals were among those interned in Nazi concentration camps. The British Union of Fascists opposed homosexuality, and pejoratively questioned their opponents' heterosexuality. The Romanian Iron Guard opposed homosexuality as undermining society.
Fascists promoted their ideology as a "
Third Position" between capitalism and
Bolshevism. Italian Fascism involved corporatism, a political system in which the economy is collectively managed by employers, workers, and state officials by formal mechanisms at the national level. Fascists advocated a new national class-based economic system, variously termed "national corporatism", "national socialism" or "national syndicalism". The common aim of all fascist movements was elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, the existence of large-scale capitalism.
According to Bruce Pauley, Fascist governments exercised control over private property but did not nationalize it. However, according to Patricia Knight, they did, with the Italian Fascist government coming to own the highest percentage of industries outside the Soviet Union. The Nazis also nationalized some business. In fact, the "Twenty-Five Point Programme" of the Nazi party, adopted in 1920, demanded "the nationalization of all businesses which have been formed into corporations." Other scholars noted that big business developed an increasingly close partnership with the Nazi and Fascist governments as it became increasingly organized. Business leaders supported the government's political and military goals, and in exchange, the government pursued economic policies that maximized the profits of its business allies. Nazi Germany transferred public ownership and public services into the private sector, while other Western capitalist countries strove for increased state ownership of industry. While Fascism claimed that corporatism gave workers power alongside employer in workplaces in reality the concept of "Fuhrerprinzip" gave employers and State-appointed workplace managers absolute control over the workplace as dictated by the State-owned German Labor Front; based on the Social Darwinist ideology that certain individuals are "gifted" and "born to rule", employers thought to be part of that group. In his book, ''Big Business in the Third Reich'', Arthur Schweitzer notes that, "Monopolistic price fixing became the rule in most industries, and cartels were no longer confined to the heavy or large-scale industries. [...] Cartels and quasi-cartels (whether of big business or small) set prices, engaged in limiting production, and agreed to divide markets and classify consumers in order to realize a monopoly profit. Big corporations that were in good political favor of the government, such as Thyssen, Krupp, IG Farben, were not nationalized.
Hitler had no sympathy with the syndicalist tendencies of the NSBO, and in January 1934 a new Law for the Ordering of National Labour effectively suppressed independent working-class factory organisations, even Nazi ones, and put questions of wages and conditions in the hands of the Trustees of Labour (Treuhänder der Arbeit), dominated by the employers. At the same time Muchow was purged and Ley's control over the DAF re-established. The NSBO was completely suppressed and the DAF became little more than an arm of the state for the more efficient deployment and disciplining of labour to serve the needs of the regime, particularly its massive expansion of the arms industry.
Fascists pursued economic policies to strengthen state power and spread ideology, such as consolidating trade unions to be state- or party-controlled. Attempts were made by both Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to establish "autarky" (self-sufficiency) through significant economic planning, but neither achieved economic self-sufficiency.
Fascists supported the unifying of proletarian workers to their cause along corporatistic, socialistic, or syndicalistic lines, promoting the creation of a strong proletarian nation, but not a proletarian class. Italian Fascism's economy was based on
corporatism, and a number of other fascist movements similarly promoted corporatism.
Oswald Mosley of the
British Union of Fascists, describing fascist corporatism, said that "it means a nation organized as the human body, with each organ performing its individual function but working in harmony with the whole". Fascists were not hostile to the ''
petit-bourgeoisie'' or to small businesses, and they promised these groups, alongside the proletariat, protection from the upper-class bourgeoisie, big business, and Marxism. The promotion of these groups is the source of the term "extremism of the centre" to describe fascism.
Fascism blamed capitalist liberal democracies for creating class conflict and communists for exploiting it. In Italy, the Fascist period presided over the creation of the largest number of state-owned enterprises in Western Europe, such as the nationalisation of petroleum companies into a single state enterprise called the Italian General Agency for Petroleum (''Azienda Generale Italiani Petroli'', AGIP). Fascists made populist appeals to the middle class, especially the lower middle class, by promising to protect small businesses and property owners from communism, and by promising an economy based on competition and profit while pledging to oppose big business.
In 1933, Benito Mussolini declared Italian Fascism's opposition to the "decadent capitalism" that he claimed prevailed in the world at the time, but he did not denounce capitalism entirely. Mussolini claimed that capitalism had degenerated in three stages, starting with dynamic or heroic capitalism (1830–1870), followed by static capitalism (1870–1914), and reaching its final form of decadent capitalism or "supercapitalism" beginning in 1914. Mussolini argued that Italian Fascism was in favour of dynamic and heroic capitalism for its contribution to industrialism and its technical developments, but that it did not favour supercapitalism, which he claimed was incompatible with Italy's agricultural sector.
Thus Mussolini claimed that Italy under Fascist rule was not capitalist in the contemporary use of the term, which referred to supercapitalism. Mussolini denounced supercapitalism for causing the "standardization of humankind" and for causing excessive consumption. Mussolini claimed that at the stage of supercapitalism, "a capitalist enterprise, when difficulties arise, throws itself like a dead weight into the state's arms. It is then that state intervention begins and becomes more necessary. It is then that those who once ignored the state now seek it out anxiously." He saw Fascism as the next logical step to solve the problems of supercapitalism and claimed that this step could be seen as a form of earlier capitalism which involved state intervention, saying "our path would lead inexorably into state capitalism, which is nothing more nor less than state socialism turned on its head. In either event, the result is the bureaucratization of the economic activities of the nation." Mussolini claimed that dynamic or heroic capitalism and the bourgeoisie could be prevented from degenerating into static capitalism and then supercapitalism if the concept of economic individualism were abandoned and if state supervision of the economy was introduced. Private enterprise would control production but it would be supervised by the state. Italian Fascism presented the economic system of corporatism as the solution that would preserve private enterprise and property while allowing the state to intervene in the economy when private enterprise failed.
Other fascist regimes were indifferent or hostile to corporatism. The Nazis initially attempted to form a corporatist economic system like that of Fascist Italy, creating the National Socialist Institute for Corporatism in May 1933, which included many major economists who argued that corporatism was consistent with National Socialism. In ''Mein Kampf'', Hitler spoke enthusiastically about the "National Socialist corporative idea" as one which would eventually "take the place of ruinous class warfare". However, the Nazis later came to view corporatism as detrimental to Germany and institutionalizing and legitimizing social differences within the German nation. Instead, the Nazis began to promote economic organisation that emphasized the biological unity of the German national community.
Hitler continued to refer to corporatism in propaganda, but it was not put into place, even though a number of Nazi officials such as Walther Darré, Gottfried Feder, Alfred Rosenburg, and Gregor Strasser were in favour of a neo-medievalist form of corporatism, since corporations had been influential in German history in the medieval era.
Spanish Falangist leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera did not believe that corporatism was effective and denounced it as a propaganda ploy, saying "this stuff about the corporative state is another piece of windbaggery".
Fascists opposed the ''
laissez-faire'' economic policies that were dominant in the era prior to the
Great Depression. After the Great Depression began, many people from across the
political spectrum blamed ''laissez-faire'' capitalism, and fascists promoted their ideology as a "
third way" between capitalism and
communism.
Fascists declared their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering. Nazis and other anti-Semitic fascists considered finance capitalism a "parasitic" "Jewish conspiracy". Fascist governments introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic interventionist measures.
Fascists thought that private property should be regulated to ensure that "benefit to the community precedes benefit to the individual." Private property rights were supported but were contingent upon service to the state. For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labour than he would find profitable." However, they promoted the interests of successful small businesses. Mussolini wrote approvingly of the notion that profits should not be taken away from those who produced them by their own labour, saying "I do not respect — I even hate — those men that leech a tenth of the riches produced by others".
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 continued in article 9: "State intervention in economic production may take place only where private initiative is lacking or is insufficient, or when are at stakes the political interest of the State. This intervention may take the form of control, encouragement or direct management."
Benito Mussolini promised a "social revolution" that would "remake" the
Italian people. According to Patricia Knight, this was only achieved in part. The people who primarily benefited from Italian fascist social policies were members of the
middle and
lower-middle classes, who filled jobs in the vastly expanded government workforce, which grew from about 500,000 to 1,000,000 jobs in 1930 alone. Health and welfare spending grew dramatically under Italian fascism, with welfare rising from 7% of the budget in 1930 to 20% in 1940.
The ''Opera Nazionale Dopolavoro'' (OND) or "National After-work Program" was one major social welfare initiative in Fascist Italy. Created in 1925, it was the state's largest recreational organisation for adults. The ''Dopolavoro'' was responsible for establishing and maintaining 11,000 sports grounds, over 6,400 libraries, 800 movie houses, 1,200 theatres, and over 2,000 orchestras. Membership of the ''Dopolavoro'' was voluntary, but it had high participation because of its nonpolitical nature. It is estimated that, by 1936, the OND had organised 80% of salaried workers and, by 1939, 40% of the industrial workforce. The sports activities proved popular with large numbers of workers. The OND had the largest membership of any of the mass Fascist organisations in Italy.
The enormous success of the ''Dopolavoro'' in Fascist Italy was the key factor in Nazi Germany's creation of its own version of the ''Dopolavoro'', the ''Kraft durch Freude'' (KdF) or "Strength through Joy" program of the Nazi government's German Labour Front, which became even more successful than the ''Dopolavoro''. KdF provided government-subsidized holidays for German workers. KdF was also responsible for the creation of the original Volkswagen ("People's Car"), a state-manufactured automobile that was meant to be cheap enough to allow all German citizens to be able to own one.
While fascists promoted social welfare to ameliorate economic conditions affecting their nation or race as whole, they did not support social welfare for egalitarian reasons. Fascists criticised egalitarianism as preserving the weak. They instead promoted social Darwinist views.
Adolf Hitler was opposed to egalitarian and universal social welfare because, in his view, it encouraged the preservation of the degenerate and feeble. While in power, the Nazis created social welfare programs to deal with the large numbers of unemployed. However, those programs were neither egalitarian nor universal, excluding many minority groups and other people whom they felt posed a threat to the future health of the German people.
The attitude of fascism toward religion has run the gamut from tolerance to almost complete rejection, but is typically anticlerical. Stanley Payne notes that fundamental to fascism was the foundation of a purely materialistic "civic religion" that would "displace preceding structures of belief and relegate supernatural religion to a secondary role, or to none at all", and that "though there were specific examples of religious or would-be '
Christian fascists,' fascism presupposed a post-Christian, post-religious,
secular, and immanent frame of reference."
According to Payne, fascism's own myth of secular transcendence only gains hold where traditional belief is weakened or absent, since fascism seeks to create new non-rationalist myth structures for those who no longer hold a traditional view. The rise of modern secularism in Europe and Latin America, and the incursion and large-scale adoption of western secular culture in the mid-east, leave a void where this modern secular ideology, sometimes under a religious veneer, can take hold.
Many fascists were anti-clerical in both private and public life. Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anti-clerical, they both understood that it would be rash to begin their Kirchenkampfs prematurely; though possibly inevitable in the future, such clashes were put off while they dealt with other enemies. Many Italian Fascists were disgusted by Mussolini's decision to abandon Fascism's anti-clericalism in favour of reconciliation with the Catholic Church. Many historians maintain that the Nazis had a general covert plan, which some say existed even before the Nazis' rise to power, to destroy Christianity within the Reich which was to be accomplished through control and subversion of the churches and to be completed after the war.
The leader of the Hitler Youth stated, "the destruction of Christianity was explicitly recognized as a purpose of the National Socialist movement" from the start, but "considerations of expedience made it impossible" publicly to express this extreme position.
According to a biographer of Mussolini, "Initially, fascism was fiercely anti-Catholic" — the Church being a competitor for dominion over the people's hearts. Mussolini published anti-Catholic writings and planned for the confiscation of Church property, but eventually moved to accommodation. Mussolini endorsed the Catholic Church for political legitimacy; during the Lateran Treaty talks, Fascist Party officials engaged in bitter arguments with Vatican officials and pressured them to accept terms that the regime deemed acceptable. Protestantism in Italy was not as significant as Catholicism, and the Protestant minority was persecuted. Mussolini's sub-secretary of Interior, Bufferini-Guidi, issued a memo closing all houses of worship of the Italian Pentecostals and Jehovah's Witnesses and imprisoned their leaders. In some instances, people were killed because of their faith.
The Ustaše in Croatia had strong Catholic overtones, with some clerics in positions of power. The fascist movement in Romania, known as the Iron Guard or the Legion of Archangel Michael, preceded its meetings with a church service. The Romanian fascist movement promoted a cult of "suffering, sacrifice and martyrdom."
In Latin America, the most notable fascist movement was Plínio Salgado's Brazilian Integralism. Built on a network of lay religious associations, its vision was of an integral state that "comes from Christ, is inspired in Christ, acts for Christ, and goes toward Christ." Salgado criticised the "dangerous pagan tendencies of Hitlerism".
Hitler and the Nazi regime attempted to found their own version of Christianity called Positive Christianity, which made major changes in its interpretation of the Bible, saying that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but was not a Jew. By 1940, however, it was public knowledge that Hitler had abandoned even the syncretist idea of a positive Christianity.
The Catholic Church was suppressed by Nazis in Poland. In addition to the deaths of some 3 million Polish Jews, 2 million Polish Catholics were killed. Between 1939 and 1945, an estimated 3,000 polish clergy (18%) were murdered; of these, 1,992 died in concentration camps. In the annexed territory of ''Reichsgau Wartheland'', churches were systematically closed, and most priests were either killed, imprisoned, or deported to the General Government.
The Germans also closed seminaries and convents, persecuting monks and nuns throughout Poland. Eighty percent of the Catholic clergy and five of the bishops of Warthegau were sent to concentration camps in 1939; in Chełmno, 48%. Of those murdered by the Nazi regime, 108 are regarded as blessed martyrs. Among them, Maximilian Kolbe was canonized as a saint. Not only in Poland were Christians persecuted by the Nazis. In the Dachau concentration camp alone, 2,600 Catholic priests from 24 different countries were killed.
One theory is that religion and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic weltanschauung" claiming the whole of the person. Along these lines, Yale political scientist, Juan Linz and others have noted that secularization had created a void which could be filled by a total ideology, making totalitarianism possible, and Roger Griffin has characterized fascism as a type of anti-religious political religion. Such political religions vie with conventional, actual religions, and try to replace or eradicate them.
Movements identified by scholars as fascist hold a variety of views, and what qualifies as fascism is often a hotly contested subject. The first movement to self-identify as Fascist was the
National Fascist Party of
Benito Mussolini. Strains which emerged after the original fascism, but are often placed under the wider usage of the term, self-identified their parties with different names. Major examples include
Falangism,
Integralism,
Iron Guard, and
Nazism.
''Para-fascism'' is a term used to describe authoritarian regimes with aspects that differentiate them from true fascist states or movements. Para-fascists typically eschew radical change, and some view genuine fascists as a threat.
Italian Fascism and German
Nazism were the two most significant fascist movements in Europe during the 1920s and 30s.
Gyula Gömbös' Hungarian National Defence Association was created in the Hungarian city of Szeged in 1919. Its "Szeged fascism" has been considered a form of proto-fascism in its origins, but consolidated its fascist characteristics in the 1920s and 30s. It came under the control of Miklós Horthy and was merged with Nazi and other far-right Hungarian groupings. Hungary allied with Germany and Italy during World War II but, after his support faltered in 1944, Germany invaded and installed the Arrow Cross Party in government.
The Iron Guard was a fascist movement and political party in Romania from 1927 to 1941. It was briefly in power from September 1940 until January 1941.
Falangism was a form of fascism founded by José Antonio Primo de Rivera in 1934. After the Spanish Civil War and the establishment of the Second Spanish Republic, General Francisco Franco, already the leader of the rebel Nationalists, became leader of the Falangists. A merger between the Falange and the Carlists took place in 1937, creating the FET y de las JONS, a traditionalist, conservative party, which, although retaining some aspects of fascism such as nationalism and authoritarian government, is not considered to be fascist because it sought to preserve the powers of the traditional elites and the Church, and it lacked in particular the revolutionary radicalism of fascism. Franco balanced several different interests of elements in his party in an effort to keep them united, especially in regard to the question of monarchy.
"Austrofascism" is a controversial category encompassing various para-fascist and semi-fascist movements in Austria in the 1930s. In particular it refers to the Fatherland Front, which became Austria's sole legal political party in 1934 and promoted corporatism.
The Estado Novo ("New State") regime in Portugal from 1933 to 1974 has been described as having close similarities to fascism as well as significant differences. Antonio de Oliveira Salazar rose to power in Portugal as Prime Minister in 1932, and after an army coup previously staged in 1926, creating an authoritarian conservative nationalist state. Salazar also instituted economic corporatism and substantial state control over the economy, and, like fascist leaders, he denounced democracy as detrimental to nations.
Greece from 1936 to 1941 was a constitutional monarchy whose government was controlled by General Ioannis Metaxas. He created an authoritarian state based loosely on German national socialism.
During World War II, a number of countries that came under Nazi occupation had fascist puppet regimes installed. In France, the French State controlled part of the country from 1940 to 1944. Part of Yugoslavia was ruled by the Ustaše from 1941 to 1945.
Fascist movements emerged in other European countries in the 1920s and 1930s without gaining significant political power. These included the Lapua Movement in Finland, multiple parties in Sweden, the British Union of Fascists in the United Kingdom and the parafascist Blueshirts in the Republic of Ireland. The traditionalist Croix de Feu in France and the Rexists in Belgium are also sometimes regarded as fascist.
The Kokuhonsha was a Japanese fascist movement of the late 1920s and early 1930s, led by the prominent politician Kiichirō Hiranuma. Hiranuma ordered it dissolved after the February 26 Incident.
The Imperial Rule Assistance Association (''Taisei Yokusankai'') was a Japanese coalition of fascist and nationalist political movements, such as the Imperial Way Faction (''Kōdōha'') and the Society of the East (''Tōhōkai''), formed in 1940 under the guidance of Japanese Prime Minister Fumimaro Konoe. Konoe's successor, Hideki Tōjō, entrenched the IRAA as the country's ruling political movement and attempted to establish himself as the absolute leader, or ''Shogun'', of Japan. The IRAA created ''Tonarigumi'' (Neighbourhood Association) and youth organisations, in which participation was mandatory. After 1942, Japan became a single-party state which promoted Japanese expansionism and imperialism.
The Blue Shirts Society was a secret faction within the Chinese army which existed under the leadership of Chiang Kai-shek in the early 1930s. It was heavily influenced by European fascism.
A number of left-wing anti-Communists in China during the late 1930s, including Wang Jingwei, spoke and wrote positively of European fascism.
Brazilian Integralism (Ação Integralista Brasileira) was a form of fascism founded by
Plínio Salgado in Brazil in 1932. By 1937 they were one of the most important parties in Latin America, with around one million members. Integralist principles included corporativism and
Catholicism, and, like other fascist movements, they exhibited an
anti-capitalist and
anti-communist agenda. They also formed armed squads, nicknamed Greenshirts. During the later years of the
Vargas Era, from 1937 to 1945, Brazil was governed according to principles that drew heavily on fascism.
Falangism, due to its Spanish origins, also composed much of the fascist ideology prevalent in Latin America, particularly South America.
Peronism in Argentina is often characterized as being fascist or at least para-fascist in nature, as encompassed by many of the economic and social policies pursued, encouraged and enacted by Juan Perón, his wife Eva Perón and other leading members. Juan Perón expressed an admiration for the fascist systems of such nations as Italy, openly praising Benito Mussolini following a state visit there. Following WWII, Perón also provided asylum to several Nazis, and habilitated the underground organization ODESSA, composed of former members of the SS.
Tomás Garrido Canabal, the Governor of Tabasco, founded an anti-Catholic fascist organization and paramilitary known as the Red Shirts in the state of Tabasco, Mexico in 1931.
The National Socialist Movement of Chile was established in 1932 and merged into the Popular Freedom Alliance in 1938. There was an attempt to revive it during the 1970s.
Several fascist movements existed in
South Africa including the
South African Fascists, the
South African Gentile National Socialist Movement known as the "Greyshirts", the National Democratic Party known as the "Blackshirts", the
Ossewabrandwag ("Ox-wagon Sentinel"), and the most important movement, the pro-Nazi
Purified National Party of
Daniel François Malan who later became
Prime Minister of South Africa and the founder of
apartheid. In 1937 Malan's Purified National Party, the South African Fascists, and the Blackshirts agreed to form a coalition for the South African election.
Some believe that amongst the indigenous people fascism in its true ideological sense is unheard of, however this can also be deemed a short-sited view, often held by those who hold that fascism is purely a European phenomenon. This can lead to a fairly common mistaken notion that fascism is the same as Nazism. This is not the case as fascism can exist in any indigenous community throughout the globe. Parallels have frequently been drawn between Hitler and Uganda's Idi Amin[17][18] and it has been claimed that Amin's admiration for Hitler was so great that he even intended to build a statue of him.[19] American political scientist and historian Robert Paxton, a scholar on fascism, has stated, that from an ideological standpoint he shared little or nothing with proper fascism, sharing only cruelty and anti-Semitism with Hitler.[20] However Swiss historian Max-Liniger-Goumaz, a scholar on African history, has identified Idi Amin amongst a list of other African leaders as been an example of the phenomenon of "Afro-fascism".[21]
The Coalition for the Defence of the Republic (CDR) has been described as a Rwandan Hutu fascist political party responsible for inciting the Rwandan Genocide.[22][23][24] The CDR refused to operate within the law nor cooperate with other Rwandan political parties.[25] The CDR had a paramilitary wing, the Mupuza Mugambi that repeatedly provoked violent confrontations with members of other parties, using hand grenades and bombs, and served as one of the death squads that massacred Tutsis in the Rwandan Genocide.
Phalangism (or Falangism) was a significant influence in
Lebanon through the
Kataeb Party and its founder
Pierre Gemayel, who won national independence in 1943.In
British Mandate Palestine, the
Brit HaBirionim was a fascist faction of the
Revisionist Zionist Movement, active in the early 1930s. It opposed liberal Zionism and proposed the creation of a fascist Jewish state. In the late 1930s, the Iraqi and pan-Arab
Al-Muthanna Club became a significant pro-fascist force and was linked to the
Golden Square, whose failed coup attempt of 1941 provoked the
Anglo-Iraqi War. It had a youth wing, the
Futuwwa. The founder of the
Syrian Social Nationalist Party,
Antun Saadeh, came under criticism in the 1930s as being influenced by Nazism, which he strongly denied.
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 0-306-80864-1
Ciano, Galezzo. 2001. ''The Ciano Diaries, 1939–1943''. Simon Publications. ISBN 1-931313-74-1
Mussolini, Benito. 2006. ''My Autobiography: With "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism"''. Dover Publications. ISBN 0-486-44777-4
Cyprian Blamires. World fascism: a historical encyclopedia, Volume 1. Santa Barbara, California, US: ABC-CLIO, Inc., 2006.
Costa Pinto, Antonio, ed. ''Rethinking the Nature of Fascism: Comparative Perspectives'' (Palgrave Macmillan; 2011) 287 pages
Evans, Richard J, ''The Third Reich in Power: 1933–1939'', The Penguin Press HC, 2005
De Felice, Renzo. 1976. ''Fascism: An Informal Introduction to Its Theory and Practice''. Transaction Books. ISBN 0-87855-619-2
De Felice, Renzo. 1977. ''Interpretations of Fascism''. Harvard University Press. ISBN 0-674-45962-8.
Kitsikis, Dimitri. 2005. ''Pour une étude scientifique du fascisme''. Ars Magna Editions. ISBN 2-912164-11-7.
Kitsikis, Dimitri. 2006. ''Jean-Jacques Rousseau et les origines françaises du fascisme''. Ars Magna Editions. ISBN 2-912164-46-X.
Ben-Am, Shlomo. 1983. ''Fascism from Above: The Dictatorship of Primo de Rivera in Spain, 1923–1930''. Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-822596-2
Payne, Stanley G. 1987. ''The Franco Regime, 1936–1975''. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-11070-2
Vatikiotis, Panayiotis J. 1988. ''Popular Autocracy in Greece, 1936–1941: A Political Biography of General Ioannis Metaxas''. Routledge. ISBN 0-7146-4869-8
Payne, Stanley G. 1995. ''A History of Fascism, 1914–45''. University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0-299-14874-2
Costa Pinto, António. 1995. ''Salazar's Dictatorship and European Fascism: Problems of Interpretation''. Social Science Monographs. ISBN 0-88033-968-3
Griffiths, Richard. 2001. ''An Intelligent Person's Guide to Fascism''. Duckworth. ISBN 0-7156-2918-2
Lewis, Paul H. 2002. ''Latin Fascist Elites: The Mussolini, Franco, and Salazar Regimes''. Greenwood Publishing Group. ISBN 0-275-97880-X
Payne, Stanley G. 2003. ''Falange: A History of Spanish Fascism''. Textbook Publishers. ISBN 0-7581-3445-2
Paxton, Robert O. 2005. ''The Anatomy of Fascism''. Vintage Books. ISBN 1-4000-3391-8
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.
Seldes, George.
Alfred Sohn-Rethel ''Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism'', London, CSE Bks, 1978 ISBN 0-906336-00-7
Kallis, Aristotle A.," To Expand or Not to Expand? Territory, Generic Fascism and the Quest for an 'Ideal Fatherland'" Journal of Contemporary History, Vol. 38, No. 2. (Apr., 2003), pp. 237–260.
Fritzsche, Peter. 1990. ''Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany''. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505780-5
Griffin, Roger. 2000. "Revolution from the Right: Fascism," chapter in David Parker (ed.) ''Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560–1991'', Routledge, London.
Laqueur, Walter. 1966. ''Fascism: Past, Present, Future,'' New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-511793-X
Sauer, Wolfgang "National Socialism: totalitarianism or fascism?" pages 404–424 from ''The American Historical Review'', Volume 73, Issue #2, December 1967. + -
Sternhell, Zeev with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri. [1989] 1994. ''The Birth of Fascist Ideology, From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution.'', Trans. David Maisei. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. + *Baker, David. "The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality?" New Political Economy, Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006, pp. 227 – 250
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.)
Gentile, Emilio. 2005. ''The Origins of Fascist Ideology, 1918–1925: The First Complete Study of the Origins of Italian Fascism,'' New York: Enigma Books, ISBN 978-1-929631-18-6
Alexander J. De Grand Routledge, 2004. ''Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany: the 'fascist' style of rule''
The Doctrine of Fascism
Readings on Fascism and National Socialism by Various – Project Gutenberg
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hr:Fašizam
io:Fashismo
id:Fasisme
is:Fasismi
it:Fascismo
he:פשיזם
krc:Фашизм
ka:ფაშიზმი
kk:Фашизм
sw:Ufashisti
ku:Faşîzm
la:Fascismus
lv:Fašisms
lb:Faschismus
lt:Fašizmas
jbo:viltrusi'o
hu:Fasizmus
mk:Фашизам
ml:ഫാസിസം
mt:Faxxiżmu
arz:فاشيه
ms:Fasisme
mwl:Fascismo
mdf:Фашизма
mn:Фашизм
nl:Fascisme
new:फासीवादी
ja:ファシズム
nap:Fascismo
no:Fascisme
nn:Fascisme
oc:Faissisme
pnb:فاشزم
pl:Faszyzm
pt:Fascismo
ro:Fascism
rue:Фашізм
ru:Фашизм
sah:Фашизм
sco:Fascism
sq:Fashizmi
scn:Fascismu
simple:Fascism
sk:Fašizmus
sl:Fašizem
sr:Фашизам
sh:Fašizam
fi:Fasismi
sv:Fascism
tl:Pasismo
ta:பாசிசம்
th:ฟาสซิสต์
tg:Фашизм
tr:Faşizm
uk:Фашизм
ug:فاشىسىت
vec:Fasismo
vi:Chủ nghĩa phát xít
fiu-vro:Fassism
war:Pasismo
yi:פאשיזם
zh-yue:法西斯主義
bat-smg:Fašėzmos
zh:法西斯主义
