Fascism

I

Introduction

Fascism, form of totalitarianism that seeks the strict regimentation of national and individual existence in accordance with nationalist and often militarist ideals; conflicting interests being adjusted by total subordination to the service of the state and unquestioning loyalty to its leader. In contrast to the left-wing totalitarianisms identified with Communism, fascism draws its ideas and form from extreme conservatism. Fascist regimes often resemble—and sometimes change into—dictatorships, military governments, or authoritarian tyrannies, but fascism itself is distinguishable from any of these as a specifically political movement and doctrine often maintained by political parties out of power.

Fascism emphasizes nationalism, but its appeal has been international. It first flourished between 1919 and 1945 in several countries, mainly Italy, Germany, and Spain. In a narrow sense, the word Fascism applies only to the Italian party that originally coined it, but it has been expanded to cover any comparable political ideology. Japan similarly endured in the 1930s a militarist regime exhibiting strong fascist characteristics. Fascist regimes also existed for varying lengths of time in many other countries. Even such liberal democracies as France and England had important fascist movements during the 1920s and 1930s. After the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, Fascism suffered a long eclipse, but it has recently resurfaced in various more or less overt forms in modern Western democracies, particularly France and Italy.

II

Fascist Doctrines

Before World War I, several writers, among them the celebrated Italian poet Gabriele D'Annunzio, and the French thinkers Georges Sorel, Maurice Barrès, Charles Maurras, and Comte Joseph de Gobineau, expressed fascist ideas. They all opposed the Enlightenment values of individualism, democracy, and secular rationalism; and their ideas as a whole have been represented as a reaction to these values that the French Revolution had embodied. (The Italian Fascisti answered the revolutionary ideals of “liberty, equality, fraternity” with the exhortation “Believe! Obey! Fight!”) In general they venerated strength: the heroic will of the great leader, the vital force of the state, the mystique of paramilitary uniforms and formations, and the unrestrained use of violence to secure and further political power. The philosophy of Friedrich Nietzsche, though misinterpreted by most fascists, provided powerful ideas and slogans for fascism, notably the “triumph of the will” and the “superman”. Some fascists appealed to Christianity as a conservative force, while others rejected Christian morality as an emasculating curb on the will. Many adopted ideas from social Darwinism of competitive struggle within and between states, and of the evolutionary obligation of the strong to crush the weak: these ideas often involved racism. Most fascist theoreticians espoused extreme nationalism, which in some (Gobineau, Barrès, Maurras) included anti-Semitism. As part of their antirationalism, some proposed a mystical cult of tradition and of the state.

Benito Mussolini's “battle for births” typified the fascist view of the role of women, as passive home-makers and mothers of future personnel for the armed forces. “Woman”, wrote the Italian Fascist Ferdinando Loffredo, “must return under the subjection of man—father or husband—and must recognize therefore her own spiritual, cultural, and economic inferiority”. Associating militant feminism with Marxism and class struggle, fascists called for conciliation between the sexes as well as between economic classes—but on male terms. Pierre Drieu La Rochelle, a French novelist who later became an apologist for the Nazi occupation, damned feminism as a “pernicious doctrine” and claimed that women, lacking the spiritual qualities of men, were a source of decadence. Despite this, many women have supported fascism, notably Alessandra Mussolini, the grandaughter of Mussolini prominent in the Italian neo-fascist party the National Alliance.

III

Origins

The Dreyfus Affair in France created the first full-blown fascist movement, as conservatives united with monarchists and other opponents of republican government against the left-wing heirs of French revolutionary values who were trying to overturn the conviction for treason of the Jewish officer Alfred Dreyfus. Charles Maurras formed the political group Action Française, with a violent youth wing called the Camelots du Roi and an ideology furnished by himself and Barrès. Republicanism dominated France in the wake of the Dreyfus Affair, but Maurras and Barrès had provided a pattern for future movements. Economic dislocation after World War I and the threat of communism arising from the Russian Revolution of 1917, led to the resurgence of fascism as a serious political force. Powerful feelings of grievance over defeat, or insufficiently rewarded victory, in World War I created support for future military adventures. Fascism drew support from all sections of society, but principally from members of the middle class who feared the threat of Communist revolution, business leaders with similar fears, discharged veterans who had failed to adjust to civilian life, and violent young malcontents.

IV

Italian Fascism

The actual term Fascism was first used by Benito Mussolini in 1919 and referred to the ancient Roman symbol of power, the fasces, a bundle of sticks bound to an axe, which represented civic unity and the authority of Roman officials to punish wrongdoers. Mussolini, the founder of the Italian Fascist Party, began his political career as a Marxist. In 1912, as the editor of Italy's leading socialist newspaper, Avanti!, he opposed both capitalism and militarism. By 1914, however, he had changed his attitude, calling on Italy to enter World War I and moving towards the political right. Influenced by Sorel and Nietzsche, he glorified “action” and “vitality”. After the war, when a series of socialist-backed urban and rural strikes broke out in Italy Mussolini put his movement at the service of conservative business and landlord interests that, together with the Roman Catholic Church and the army, wanted to check the “red wave”. Mussolini's about-face brought him the political and financial backing he needed, and his own considerable oratorical powers did the rest (like Hitler in Germany, he was a highly effective demagogue). His Action Squads, first set up in 1919 and called “Blackshirts” after the example of the Redshirts of Giuseppe Garibaldi gave the movement effective muscle and set a fashion for fascist paramilitary style. In 1922 Mussolini seized control of the Italian government, threatening a coup d'état if his demands were refused. At first governing constitutionally at the head of a cross-party coalition, he soon shook off remaining curbs on his authority and established a dictatorship. All political parties except the Fascist Party, were banned, and Mussolini became Il Duce—the leader of the party. Labour unions were abolished, strikes were forbidden, and political opponents were silenced.