Fascism

Fascism is a system of governing in which a dictator controls the lives of the populace and disagreement with the government is strictly prohibited. Absolute State Power: Fascist governments are highly centralized and have a powerful national government. The fascist regime wants complete dominance over all significant facets of society. To serve the demands of the entire society, as embodied by the state, individuals must renounce their private desires and rights. Adolf Hitler's Nazi Party promoted a fascist ideology that included virulent antisemitism, anti-communism, scientific racism, and the application of eugenics.Far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist politics are at the heart of fascism. During World War I, Italy saw the emergence of the first fascist movements, which later spread to other European nations. Fascists support the creation of a dirigiste economy and a totalitarian one-party state. The word fascismo, which means "bundle of sticks" in Italian, comes from the word fascio. This was the designation given to the fasci political parties in Italy.
The term fascism eventually came to be associated with the fasces or fascio littorio of classical Rome. Jason Stanley describes fascism as a cult of the leader that promises national restoration in the face of humiliation caused by purported communists, Marxists, and minorities in his book How Fascism Works. According to historian John Lukacs, there is no such thing as a universal fascist. Fascism is an ideology that creates a vision for the "new man" by using old, obscure, and racially, culturally, ethnically, and nationally based beliefs. According to other historians, populism is a "thin-centered ideology" with a "limited morphology" that inevitably ties in with other ideologies like fascism.
The Holocaust was a top concern for German fascism, which had racism as one of its central tenets. Fascist ideas differ in their methods but have one theoretical element that makes them different. They all typically fall on the far-right side of any political spectrum, driven more by damaged class identities than by traditional societal injustices. Italian national syndicalists who took inspiration from both right-wing political ideologies and left-wing organizational strategies formed fascism during World War I. In the first decade of the 1920s, fascism shifted to the right.
According to Mussolini, the place of fascism on the political spectrum is not a significant concern for fascists. Mussolini wanted to re-radicalize Italian fascism following World War II. Numerous fascist movements in the years following World War II referred to themselves as the Third Position. On the far right of the political spectrum, movements have been derogatorily referred to as fascist. It is sometimes used to refer to organizations and styles of thinking from the post-World War II era that scholars more commonly refer to as neo-fascist.
J. The former FBI director and fervent anti-communist Edgar Hoover wrote extensively about red fascism. In the 1920s, the Ku Klux Klan was occasionally referred to as fascist. The outlook of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries was influenced by a variety of intellectual movements, including Darwinian biology, Gesamtkunstwerk, racial theory of Arthur de Gobineau, psychology of Gustave Le Bon, and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche, Fyodor Dostoyevsky, and Henri Bergson. The individual was only seen as a little component of the wider collectivity by their intellectual school.
The integral nationalism of Charles Maurras was romanticized by fascists but changed into a contemporary revolutionary expression. Maurras disregarded what he saw as democracy's mystification of the will of the people. Georges Sorel, a French revolutionary and syndicalist, supported the legality of political violence. Enrico Corradini argued that a nationalist-syndicalist movement was required, one that would be led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a readiness to engage in combat. The rejection of bourgeois ideals, democracy, liberalism, Marxism, internationalism, and pacifism were shared values among Italian national syndicalists.
The term "fascist" was originally used in 1915 by members of Mussolini's organisation, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action, which he created and led to the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria, which promoted Italian involvement in World War I. In his "Spirit of 1914" theory, Johann Plenge regarded the start of hostilities as the catalyst for the formation of nationalistic German solidarity. In the conflict between "proletarian" Germany and "capitalist" Britain, Plenge thought that race solidarity would replace class rivalry and that "racial comrades" would band together to build a socialist society. In the eyes of fascists, World War I brought about revolutionary changes in society, the state, technology, and the conduct of war. The absolute mobilization of the state's people during the war and technological advances in armament were seen by fascists as symbols of a new era in which state power would be combined with mass politics, technology, and technology.
Liberal critics of fascism and the Bolsheviks assert that the two ideologies have a number of characteristics. Both emphasize party-armies, one-party states, proletarian nation ideas, and revolutionary action in practice. But both make it apparent how they differ from one another in terms of objectives and strategies. The establishment of an eight-hour workday for all employees was encouraged by the fascist manifesto. It urged the achievement of expansionist objectives in the Balkans and other Mediterranean regions.
Italian fascism was influenced by Gabriele d'Annunzio's acts in Fiume. Fascism made significant changes to its political platform in an effort to appease Italian conservatives. In 1926, the fascists outlawed birth control literature and toughened abortion laws. Fascism's membership grew to 250,000 by 1921 as a result of its accommodation of the political right. Attacks against socialist leadership's homes and offices marked the beginning of fascism in Italy.
Benito Mussolini gave the orders for the Blackshirts to seize control of the public buildings and railways in the Rome area in October 1922. Due to the Fascists' valiant actions, the March on Rome was described as a "seizure" of power.
The Acerbo Law, which guaranteed a majority of seats in parliament to any party or coalition list that gained 25% or more of the vote, marked the beginning of the Fascists' attempt to enshrine fascism in Italy. From 1925 through 1929, fascist gradually consolidated its hold on power. After signing a concordat with the Church in 1929, the Fascist regime momentarily received what may be considered the Catholic Church's blessing. Fascism was denounced by the Church as a "pagan idolatry of the state" that promotes "hate, violence, and irreverence" in less than two years. With the establishment of the Palazzo Vidoni Pact in 1925, the fascist administration established a corporatist economic structure.
Fascist Italy abandoned its prior colonial policy of collaboration with local leaders in response to the uprising in its colony of Libya during the liberal era. It began an aggressive military operation against Libyan nationals known as the Pacification of Libya. Fascist propaganda scapegoated immigrants, left-wing internationalism, and "Judeo-Masonic-bolshevik" conspiracies as the causes of the lengthy depression's woes. In order to firmly establish a corporatist economy in Hungary, Gyula Gömbös instituted an eight-hour workday. Mussolini encouraged significant state engagement in the economy during the Great Depression.
The extent of governmental intervention in Italy "far exceeded that in Nazi Germany." According to the Brazilian Integralists, there are up to 200,000 members. The National Socialist Movement of Chile increased its representation in the legislature. Mussolini called for irredentist Italian claims to be reclaimed, establishing Italian domination of the Mediterranean Sea and securing Italian access to the Atlantic Ocean. From the 1930s through World War II, both Mussolini and Hitler pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas in Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy. Mussolini commanded Italy's entry into the war as an axis power in 1940.
After losing the Battle of Britain, Germany's plans to invade the United Kingdom in 1940 were abandoned. Following the start of Operation Barbarossa by Hitler in 1941, the Axis campaign reached the Soviet Union. Numerous fascist governments in Europe fell after World War II. Several Nazi commanders were found guilty of crimes against humanity related to the Holocaust at the Nuremberg Trials. However, there were still a number of organizations and governments with fascist ideologies.
Argentina under Juan Perón modeled its economic policies after those of Fascist Italy. According to historians, the Estado Novo was mostly para- and non-fascist in nature. It is regarded as fascist by some historians, such as Fernando Rosas and Manuel Villaverde Cabral. Fascism had an influence on the Peronism that is identified with the Juan Perón dictatorship. The Italian Social Movement, led by Giorgio Almirante, was a significant neo-fascist movement in Italy. Neo-fascism is the term used to describe fascist movements that emerged following World War II.
Numerous neo-Nazi organisations have been established and outlawed in Germany in compliance with the country's constitution, which outlaws Nazism. The charge of fascism has developed into a tactical explanation of the current global order. While Russia is repressive and authoritarian, it cannot be classified as a fascist state for various reasons, including Russia's government being more reactionary than revolutionary. Russia's efforts to brand its opponents as fascist is ultimately an attempt to determine the future of Russia in Europe as an antifascist force, influenced by its role in fighting fascism in World War II. Fascism, according to Robert Paxton, has its roots in "a passionate nationalism" coupled with "a conspiratorial and Manichean interpretation of history." Fascism aims to bring about a millenarian national rebirth in order to address economic, political, and social issues.
It might support a one-party system in order to integrate with the country. The Doctrine of Fascism, written by Mussolini, states: "The Fascist idea of the State is all-encompassing." International socialism and free-market capitalism were both alternatives that fascism offered as a solution. While opposing traditional socialism, fascism occasionally saw itself as a form of nationalist "socialism." According to this argument, national conflicts between proletariat and bourgeois nations were the main source of bourgeois-proletarian conflict.
Fascist economics encouraged a state-run system of production that accepted a mix of private and public ownership. Fascism, in contrast to Marxism, did not assume that the proletariat, as defined by Marxism, and the bourgeoisie would always be in struggle. Instead, it saw workers and successful businessmen as successful individuals at odds with parasitic parts of society. While materialism—which fascism regarded as being present in both communism and capitalism—was acknowledged as important, it was also vilified. Fascists specifically attacked capitalism for its supposed bourgeois decadence, materialism, and individualism rather than for its support of private property or competitive nature.
Social assistance was opposed by the Nazis, who claimed that it promoted the preservation of the "degenerate and feeble". Nevertheless, in order to maintain public support, they established philanthropic organizations to aid racially-pure Germans. They claimed that this was "racial self-help" rather than generalized altruism or social benefit. Fascism places a strong emphasis on direct action, which includes defending the legitimacy of political violence. Social Darwinism serves as the ideological foundation for fascism's endorsement of armed conflict in politics. Fascist movements frequently had social Darwinist perspectives on racial groups, nationalities, and cultures.
Mussolini believed that males should be fighters and that women should be childbearers. Women were to be celebrated as the "reproducers of the nation," according to Italian fascism. In cases when fetuses had inherited abnormalities or belonged to a race that the government disapproved of, the Nazis decriminalized abortion. It has been determined that the nationalism of fascism is palingenetic in nature. Fascism embraces modernism in ways that it believes encourage national renewal while rejecting those that it views as harmful to such renewal.
It is acknowledged that numerous individuals, including Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Ernst Jünger, and Gottfried Benn, contributed to or inspired fascist modernism. Since the Axis powers were defeated in World War II, fascism has been widely denounced and condemned. The art of fascist nations like Nazi Germany "displays a utopian aesthetics - that of physical perfection," in a way that is "both prurient and idealizing." Many aspects of Italian fascism, according to their detractors, were solely the byproduct of Mussolini's unprincipled opportunism. Some people, including Mussolini's socialist rivals at the time, have highlighted that Mussolini was free to publish whatever he wanted, regardless of the financial backing he accepted for his pro-interventionist attitude. Prior to World War I, Mussolini began his transition from Marxism to fascism. Fascism has come under fire for being dishonest in its alliance with Nazism.
The official foreign policy perspectives of Italy frequently used rhetorical exaggeration to support their activities. Italian nationalists' history of mockingly dismissing the arguments of Nordicists had an impact on Italian fascism. Mussolini asserted that Germans were not a monolithic race and ironically observed that the Nazi ideology of German racial superiority was founded on the theories of non-German foreigners, including Arthur de Gobineau. Italian fascism did not have a clear commitment to antisemitism before to 1938, according to fascism expert Mark Neocleous. A minority percentage of Italian fascists were vehemently anti-Semites, while the majority disapproved of the laws and fought them.
== Economics of Facism ==
Whether a uniquely fascist style of economic policy can be claimed to exist is a matter of debate among historians and other academics. Fascism had a complicated relationship with capitalism, supporting and criticizing various facets of it at various points in time and in various nations. Fascist movements typically did not adhere to any set economic principles other than the idea that the economy should contribute to the development of a robust nation. The Nazi war economy, according to Richard Overy, was a mixed economy that integrated free markets with central planning and was situated somewhere between the Soviet Union and the American capitalist system. Others have referred to Nazi Germany as a corporatist, totalitarian, or authoritarian capitalist society.
Private property and individual initiative were the cornerstones of fascist economies, but they were conditioned on state service. Fascism was based on a social Darwinist theory of human interactions that denigrated the weaker people and exalted the people who appeared to be the strongest. A fascist economy is described by Jurgen Kuczynski as a form of "monopoly capitalism." Large-scale capitalism's autonomy was to be removed by fascism, and it was to be subordinated to the state. Fascism does, however, favor the existence of a market economy and private property rights.
The ideology of fascism contained both pro- and anti-capitalist components. Instead of being guided by ideological beliefs, the economic policies of fascist governments were mostly centered on practical objectives. They were primarily focused on developing a robust national economy, encouraging autarky, and being able to finance a significant war effort. The majority of fascist economic policy was modeled after classical liberalism, with the addition of measures that boosted output and balanced the budget. The majority of the state-owned telephone networks and services were sold as part of the Italian privatizations.
Nazi Germany followed as the second nation to use this strategy in the 1930s. Italy was severely affected by the Great Depression in 1929; from 300,787 unemployed people in 1929 to 1,018,953 in 1933. Italian fascists soon started to take satisfaction in this accomplishment, claiming they had made it through the Great Depression without violating private property rights. The state provided financial support to numerous banking and industrial businesses. In order to boost the economy, Mussolini also implemented a Keynesian policy that involved public works spending.
The goal of fascist academics was to promote economic growth so that the economy could "attain its creative maximum." They said that the national interest was served by having "little regard for the well-being of the labor force." After Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935, the League of Nations imposed trade restrictions on Italy. Italy's participation in World War II as an Axis state necessitated the development of a war economy. The corporatist model that had been developed during the Great Depression was severely strained as a result.
The Italian economy had nearly collapsed by the war's end. Hitler never expressed his support for the program in public, and many historians contend that he was actually against it in his own mind. In his book Mein Kampf, Hitler made no reference to the program's tenets. The program had a number of attempts to be modified or replaced totally in the 1920s. Hitler's political outlook was strongly influenced by social Darwinism.
As long as they supported the objectives of the Nazi regime, Hitler accepted private property and permitted the existence of capitalist private firms. Independent labor unions were forbidden by the Nazis, as were strikes. They told Hjalmar Schacht to prioritize rearmament and military production more. Nazi Germany privatized a large number of state-owned businesses and services during the 1930s. The Nazi privatization agenda had two main motivations.
It was initially employed as a means of fostering positive relationships between the government and commercial interests. Second, the Nazi regime significantly boosted public spending, particularly on rearmament of the military. Germany's military expenditures in 1936 were higher than 10% of its GNP. The Nazi administration made an effort to reduce the number of its trading partners. Even though Hitler's dictatorship had defaulted on Germany's foreign debt in 1933, it did not attempt to attain complete autarky.
By 1938, 50% of all foreign trade between Yugoslavia, Hungary, Romania, Bulgaria, and Greece was with Germany. Cartels were no longer restricted to heavy or large-scale businesses as monopolistic price fixing became the norm in the majority of industry. The German economy underwent very minor adjustments as a result of World War II. The Nazis did not significantly raise direct taxes to pay for the war, in contrast to most other governments. As Germany occupied more territory, those newly conquered areas were compelled to offer agricultural products and raw materials to German consumers for absurdly low prices.
The conquering of uncharted territory in the East was a key component of Hitler's Lebensraum policy. Slave labor constituted one-fourth of all employment in Germany by 1944. Thousands of Jews, Slavs, Poles, and other captured peoples were forced into labor as slaves. In the event of a successful invasion, the Nazis also had plans to remove and slave the adult male population of Britain.
== Criticism ==
These concepts have inspired fascist governments to carry out mass murder, forced sterilizations, genocides, and other atrocities. Few political parties have openly referred to themselves as fascist since the end of World War II in 1945; political opponents more frequently use the term derogatorily. Despite being started when Mussolini's terrified lieutenants hurled him overboard, fascism ultimately fell as a result of allied military triumphs and widespread popular revolt. Industrial worker strikes in Nazi-controlled northern Italy were the most prominent of the latter. Class strife as well as the egalitarian and global nature of socialism were rejected by fascism. Liberalism, communism, anarchism, and democratic socialism were all vehemently opposed. Fascism is typically understood to be a political movement supported by far-right nationalism and the violent repression of any kind of resistance, all under the control of a totalitarian state. Marxism, liberalism, and democracy are fiercely opposed by fascists, who think that the interests of the state should come before those of the individual. Absolute State Power: Fascist governments are highly centralized and have a powerful national government. The fascist regime wants complete dominance over all significant facets of society. To serve the demands of the entire society, as embodied by the state, individuals must renounce their private desires and rights.
== Rise and Fall ==
Benito Mussolini was many things to many persons from the time of his birth in 1883 until the day of his death in 1945. Mussolini, the radical blacksmith's son, was a revolutionary from birth. Benito Juarez, the leader of the Mexican revolution, inspired his naming. He experienced the poverty and suffering of the working class as a child. He was one of them, a born leader, and an outright firebrand.
Mussolini rose through the ranks of radicalism and anticlericalism to become the head of the Socialist party and the editor of its newspaper, spending some years in exile in Switzerland due to his steadfast pacifism and refusal to participate in military training. As a result of his disagreement with the party on Italian neutrality in the First World War—he supported Allied participation—he was ejected from it. Mussolini then started his own newspaper, joined the Italian army, was injured, and then went back to run the publication. He turned it into the voice of every group that was unhappy and disenchanted with democracy, including veterans, the unemployed, renegade socialists, nationalists, and so on. More crust than votes An army of supporters, ranging from gangsters to real nationalists, quickly gathered under Mussolini's banner.
The money for this came from alarmed industrialists and other people of wealth who saw in the Mussolini movement a tool to suppress the radical revolution they feared and that Mussolini kept assuring them was on the way. Some of them were organized into strong-arm squads, armed and uniformed as "Blackshirt Militia. " The stated objectives and tenets of the fascist movement may not be important at this time. From extreme radicalism in 1919 to extreme conservatism in 1922, it virtually promised everything. Although the majority of its agenda was focused on the concept of action, for Italy it actually meant bare, individual power that was attained and maintained through violence.
The legislative elections of 1921 featured candidates from the fascist party. Despite some government officials' covert help, they were not very successful. They received only approximately 5% of the overall popular vote in total. However, they were successful in creating the perception that they had the answer to all of Italy's postwar problems. Because the current administration lacked them, the March on Rome—a Gigantic Bluff—became a colossal success.
The early mask is removed In October 1922, when the king asked Mussolini to create a government, very few people in the world understood what was meant by a dictatorial system of governance. Mussolini probably did not have a plan beyond continuing to hold onto power. At first, a majority of parliamentarians supported the fascist administration, and the majority of citizens believed fascism to be a passing phase. They believed that fascism could handle the situation in the interim while Italy eventually returned to freedom. Fascism didn't have any of the racial superiority or blood-and-soil overtones when Mussolini came to power in Germany.
The other components of fascism, such as the belief in violence, the rejection of the rule of law, fervent nationalism, and others, were present. However, throughout the first three years of the rule, totalitarianism was absent. Mussolini constantly mentioning a return to normalcy while opposition parties were still permitted and a powerful opposition press struggled to exist. Only in 1925 did fascism completely remove its mask. The signal came with the assassination of socialist leader Matteotti, a brave legislative foe of fascism.
The totalitarian machine was constructed using every method of overt brutality and covert deception. This implied total state control over all facets of human behavior. It involved promoting the notion that the Italian state and the Fascist party were one and the same. Deifying the country and the leader was the intention. It referred to the stoking of racial and militaristic fervor.
In the end, it meant accepting Nazi doctrine, joining forces with the second major totalitarian force in Europe, and finally actively taking part in the conflict. Responsibility and effects How do we assess the results of fascism's control in Italy? How much blame should we place on the general Italian populace? Numerous things can be found on each side of the balance. First of all, it is important to keep in mind that whereas other postwar countries that were similarly hard affected did not embrace fascism, Italy—and by extension, the Italian people—did.
We should remember that fascism first appeared in Italy before the Nazis established themselves in Germany. Hitler learned many of the dictatorial misrule techniques from fascism, including the use of castor oil. We recall Ethiopia and the raucous shouts Italians used to order their soldiers into battle or to celebrate victory. That overt act of aggression not only put an end to the independence of a free country but also dealt the League of Nations a fatal blow. The collapse of the democratic government in Spain, where Mussolini and Hitler were honing their strategies for the Second World War, was aided by Italian assistance to Franco.
In passing, we should mention that Italy betrayed Albania and took it. And third, we must think back to Italy's seemingly last-minute entry into this conflict for the basest of reasons—a piece of the spoils. Both the cowardly attack against Greece and the "stab in the back" when France was crumbling won't be forgotten. Of course, all of this may be blamed on the fascist administration, which was a mafia organization that exploited and deceived the Italian people. The government was undoubtedly at fault for these things, but were the people also at fault?
They shared in the same crime, and they cannot shirk their fair portion of the blame. When the government acted on their behalf, they weren't always against it. They frequently praised its deeds and hardly ever demonstrated any effort to end its oppression. Numerous Italians praised Mussolini as a magnificent man and genuinely believed that fascism was beneficial for Italy during the exact years when fascism was at its worst in terms of external aggression and domestic persecution. A few of them continue to.
Political gamblers cannot expect a nation that is willing to split their winnings to completely walk away from their losses. The other side of the story As we consider Italy's past and future, there are at least five things to keep in mind: From 1919 through 1923, many Italians fought against fascism. They clashed in the legislature, the media, and the streets. The conflict didn't end until all of the opposition leaders had been killed, banished, or imprisoned, as well as after the physical tools of dissent, such as printing presses, trade union offices, cooperatives, and so on, had been destroyed. It didn't end publicly until the fascist police's relentless pressure rendered open dissent impossible.
Later, fascism adopted covert tactics to earn the Italian people's support. Under a facade of respectability that deceived many people, open violence gave place to legal violence. Politics became less exciting as a period of economic prosperity and acclaim for Mussolini's achievements took hold. Many Italians were perplexed, and their defenses against the fascist movement's gradual moral decay crumbled. The Ethiopian War, which started in 1935, strengthened nationalist support for the fascist government.
On the other hand, it suddenly made many more Italians aware that fascism meant war in actual life—not only dramatic threats of war for defensive reasons, but wrong aggression that would ultimately result in the ruin of the nation. The distinctions between fascism and antifascism were made more clearly between 1936 and 1943. Increasingly people joined the ranks of opposition as the severity of the catastrophe that fascism had plunged Italy into became more apparent. Even if they never attained overwhelming numbers, the clandestine movements grew stronger. Despite being started when Mussolini's terrified lieutenants hurled him overboard, fascism ultimately fell as a result of allied military triumphs and widespread popular revolt.
Industrial worker strikes in Nazi-controlled northern Italy were the most prominent of the latter. This kind of incident didn't occur in Germany.