fascism
Language: English
Part of speech: noun
Pronunciation: enpr: făsh'ĭz(ə)m
ipa: /ˈfæʃɪz(ə)m/
ipa: /faˈsiz(ə)m/
ipa: /faˈsis(ə)m/
Forms: form: fascisms
form: Fascism
Etymology: From Italian fascismo, from fascio (“fasces, bundle, group”) + -ismo (“-ism”) with direct reference to Benito Mussolini's fasci di combattimento ("fight clubs"), from Latin fasces, bundles of axes and rods carried before the magistrates of the ancient Roman Republic as representative of their power of life and death. Originally with exclusive reference to Fascist Italy which used the fasces as an emblem, later broadened to describe all of the Axis Powers of World War II, and subsequently used as a general term of opprobrium in English and international political discourse.
Etymology tree
Proto-Indo-European *bʰask-
Latin fascis
Italian fascio
Proto-Hellenic *-íďďō
Ancient Greek -ῐ́ζω (-ĭ́zō)
Proto-Indo-European *-mos
Proto-Indo-European *-mós
Ancient Greek -μός (-mós)
Ancient Greek -ισμός (-ismós)der.
Latin -ismus
Italian -ismo
Italian fascismolbor.
English fascism
Senses: examples: text: Today "Fascism" like Russian "Bolshevism" does not know what freedom means and cares less about the principles of liberty and the rights of man. It knows only one law and that is the will of Mussolini and his band of "Black Shirts."
ref: 1922 December 23, The American Photo-engraver, volume 15, page 324:
text: Fascism, with all its forcefulness in the prosecution of its violent deeds, is indeed nothing else but the expression of the disintegration and decay of capitalist economy, and the symptom of the dissolution of the bourgeois State.
ref: 1923 August, Clara Zetkin, “Fascism”, in Labour Monthly, volume 5, number 2, page 70:
text: Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes... Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and—this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathize with Fascism—generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything... The mere efficiency of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen.
ref: 1941, George Orwell, The Lion and the Unicorn, Pt. II:
text: Despite the three decades that have passed since the end of the second world war, fascism remains a subject of much heated argument. […] It also continues to be a subject of controversy, partly because it collides with so many preconceived ideological notions, partly because generalizations are made difficult by the fact that there was not one fascism but several fascisms.
ref: 1978, Walter Laqueur, Fascism: A Reader's Guide: Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography:
text: Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes.
ref: 1995 June 22, Umberto Eco, “Ur-Fascism”, in The New York Review of Books, archived from the original on 31 Jan 2017:
glosses: Any right-wing, authoritarian, nationalist ideology characterized by centralized, totalitarian governance, strong regimentation of the economy and society, and repression of criticism or opposition.
examples: text: ...even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come.
ref: 1944, George Orwell, What Is Fascism?:
text: For Argentine fascists and nacionalistas, fascism was not a theory but a mold for Catholic thinking. For instance, one of the most significant nacionalista intellectuals, César Pico, argued that fascism was a "reaction against the calamities ascribed to liberal democracy, socialism, and capitalism. It's a reaction that, although instinctive in its origins, is searching for a doctrine that could justify it."
ref: 2009, Federico Finchelstein, Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, 1919-1945:
glosses: Any system of strong autocracy or oligarchy usually to the extent of bending and breaking the law, race-baiting, and/or violence against largely unarmed populations.
synonyms: sticklerism
glosses: Any extreme reliance on or enforcement of rules and regulations.
Derived terms: anarcho-fascism
anti-fascism
antifascism
Austrofascism
Austro-fascism
biofascism
bio-fascism
body fascism
Christofascism
clerofascism
crypto-fascism
cryptofascism
eco-fascism
ecofascism
Euro-fascism
Eurofascism
fascism lite
Faucism
femifascism
femi-fascism
heterofascism
hetero-fascism
homofascism
homo-fascism
Islamic fascism
Islamo-fascism
Islamofascism
Judeofascism
Judeo-fascism
monarcho-fascism
monarchofascism
neofascism
neo-fascism
palaeo-fascism
palaeofascism
paleo-fascism
paleofascism
para-fascism
post-fascism
postfascism
prefascism
pro-fascism
profascism
proto-fascism
protofascism
pseudo-fascism
pseudofascism
red fascism
semi-fascism
social fascism
superfascism
technofascism
techno-fascism
ziofascism
Related terms: fascist
fascistic
fascistical
fascistically
authoritarianism
blackshirt
Brownshirt
collectivism
communism
Communism
capitalism
globalism
internationalism
international socialism
nationalism
national socialism
National Socialism
Naziism
Nazism
socialism
statism
feudalism
totalitarianism