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2 ReferencesFists and guns. Violence in the European fascists and the Spanish Falange
Abstract
This article raises the need to track the past of those Spanish young people who became fascists and the way in which those fascists developed into soldiers. So it pays special attention to the first times of the Spanish Falange. This paper talks about the political training of Spanish fascists from a European comparative perspective. Main sources for this research are new information coming from the local and private archives. Thanks to these data, this essay develops new images to improve our knowledge of the history of the political violence in the Spanish thirties.
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- [Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: This study examines the determination of the Italian Fascists' extra-parliamentary, para-military, violent strategy. What were the effects of the socialists' political strategy, relying on electoral democracy, on the creation and strategy of the Fascist Action Squads? A comparison among Italy's 69 provinces, based on quantitative and qualitative historical evidence reveals a distinct pattern in the Fascists' violence. They attacked mainly provinces where the Socialists enjoyed the greatest electoral support. This pattern was a product of two historical processes: (a) the threat of the Socialist party to the landlords' economic and political hegemony, and (b) the landlords' tradition of militant anti-worker organization which culminated in their alliance with the Fascists. The Fascists' struggle for, and takeover of, political power was not an immanent historical necessity. It was first and foremost an anti-socialist reaction. It was shaped both 'from below', by the political power and radicalism of the PSI and the para-military capacity of the Fascist Squads; and 'from above', by the active support the Fascists received from the landlords and the state. Supported by organized landlords and blessed with the authorities' benevolence, the Squads were able to destroy - physically and politically - the legitimately constituted provincial governments of the Socialists. The alliance with the landlords determined the Squads' almost exclusive attacks on Socialist provincial strongholds that constituted the greatest threat to the landlords' interests, while provinces dominated by the ruling Liberal party were excluded from the Squads' path of 'punitive expeditions'.
- [Show abstract] [Hide abstract] ABSTRACT: Competing theories of why voters in Weimar Germany chose the NSDAP (Nazi party) have been only partially supported; the notion of a “catch-all” party, with voters in different classes and social groups, is gaining adherents. Previous research has treated the German electrorate as a national unit. Regional and local elements of the voting surface have been generally ignored, even though strong historical and material conditions generated important deviations from the national trends. Using descriptive spatial statistics, this article documents the importance of spatial heterogeneity and dependence in the 1930 Nazi vote. A mixed structural-spatial model, in whichkey variables from the several theoretical explanations of the NSDAP vote are included with geographic variables, demonstrates the importance of spatial and contextual effects. Regional variations from the average NSDAP vote (18.3 percent in 1930) persist even after religious and class effects are controlled. Accordingly, domain-specific models based on the regions of Weimar Germany are preferable to national models. The former indicate that specific combinations and relative significances of the explanatory factors vary from region to region. Domain-specific models sustain electoral geography's central tenet, namely, that places and contexts influence voting choices in addition to the social characteristics of the voter. Context introduces a new and important element in the interpretation of the Nazi rise to power.
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