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'''Fascism''' is a term used to describe [[authoritarianism|authoritarian]] [[nationalism|nationalist]] political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a [[Millenarianism|millenarian]] national rebirth by exalting the [[nation]] or [[race (classification of human beings)|race]], and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.<ref name="Paxton">Robert O. Paxton, ''The Anatomy of Fascism'', page 218. Knopf, 2004</ref><ref>Roger Griffin, ''Nature of Fascism'', New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991, p. xi</ref><ref name="Passmore">Kevin Passmore, ''Fascism: A Very Short Introduction'', page 31. Oxford University Press, 2002</ref><ref>"fascism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 20 Apr. 2008 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9117286></ref><ref>Walter Laqueur, ''Fascism: Past, Present, Future'', Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 150</ref>
'''Fascism''' is an [[Authoritarianism|authoritarian]] political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and social interests subordinate to the interests of the [[state]] or party. Fascists seek to forge a type of national unity, usually based on (but not limited to) [[Ethnicity|ethnic]], [[Culture|cultural]], [[Race|racial]], and [[religious]] attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: [[nationalism]], [[statism]], [[militarism]], [[totalitarianism]], [[anti-communism]], [[corporatism]], [[populism]], [[collectivism]], and opposition to [[liberalism|political]] and [[economic liberalism]].<ref>[[Roger Eatwell|Eatwell, Roger]]. 1996. ''Fascism: A History.'' New York: Allen Lane.
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Fascists promote a type of national unity that is usually based on (but not limited to) [[Ethnicity|ethnic]], [[Culture|cultural]], [[nation]]al, [[Race (classification of human beings)|racial]], and/or [[religion|religious]] attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as among its integral parts: [[nationalism]], [[militarism]], [[anti-communism]], [[totalitarianism]], [[statism]], [[dictatorship]], [[economic planning]] (including [[corporatism]] and [[autarky]]), [[populism]], [[collectivism]], [[autocracy]] and opposition to classic [[liberalism|political]] and [[economic liberalism]].<ref>[[Roger Eatwell|Eatwell, Roger]]. 1996. ''Fascism: A History.'' New York: Allen Lane.
 
</ref><ref>[[Roger Griffin|Griffin, Roger]]. 1991. ''The Nature of Fascism''. New York: St. Martin’s Press. On "populism, see p. 26: "Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism".</ref><ref>[[Ernst Nolte|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.  
 
</ref><ref>[[Roger Griffin|Griffin, Roger]]. 1991. ''The Nature of Fascism''. New York: St. Martin’s Press. On "populism, see p. 26: "Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism".</ref><ref>[[Ernst Nolte|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.  
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</ref><ref>[[Robert Paxton|Paxton, Robert O]]. 2004. ''The Anatomy of Fascism''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 1-4000-4094-9</ref><ref>[[Stanley Payne|Payne, Stanley G]]. 1995. ''A History of Fascism, 1914-45''. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0-299-14874-2</ref><ref>"populism," See: Fritzsche, P. 1990. ''Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and political mobilization in Weimar Germany''. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.</ref><ref>"collectivism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. [[12 January]] [[2007]] <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024764> "Collectivism has found varying degrees of expression in the 20th century in such movements as socialism, communism, and fascism."; Grant, Moyra. Key Ideas in Politics. Nelson Thomas 2003. p. 21; De Grand, Alexander. Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development. U of Nebraska Press. p. 147 "Nationalism, statism, and authoritarianism culminated in the cult of the Duce. Finally, collectivism was important...Despite general agreement on these four themes, it was hard to formulate a definition of fascism..."</ref>
 
 
Historically, there was a period where several countries and leaders openly accepted the label of "fascist" to describe their political systems, particularly in the 1930s and 1940s. However, owing to the historical record and verdict on these past fascist countries, the term has now fallen largely into disuse as an objective description. It is now used more as an epithet than as a term for any existing systems. This is true even in countries where it might legitimately apply.
 
 
 
Some of the governments and parties most often considered to have been fascist include [[Italian Social Republic|Fascist Italy]] under [[Mussolini]], [[Nazi Germany]] under [[Adolf Hitler]], [[Spain]]'s [[Falange]], [[Portugal]]'s [[Estado Novo (Portugal)|New State]], [[Hungary]]'s [[Arrow Cross Party]], [[Japan]]'s [[Imperial Way Faction]], and [[Romania]]'s [[Iron Guard]]. Some authors reject broad usage of the term or exclude certain of these parties and regimes.<ref>Griffiths, Richard ''Fascism''. (Continuum, 2005), 91-136. ISBN 0-8264-8281-3</ref> Following the defeat of the [[Axis powers]] in [[World War II]], there have been few self-proclaimed fascist groups and individuals. In contemporary political discourse, [[Fascist (epithet)|''fascist'' has become a slur]], used by adherents of some ideologies to describe their opponents.
 
  
Fascism attracted political support from diverse sectors of the population. In countries such as [[Romania]] and [[Hungary]], fascism had a strong base of support among the [[working class]]es and extremely poor [[peasants]]. Other supporters have included representatives of [[big business]], [[farmer]]s, [[landowner]]s, disaffected [[World War I]] veterans, [[small business]] owners, [[Nationalism|nationalists]], [[Reactionary|reactionaries]] and extreme [[Conservatism|conservatives]]. Intellectuals who have supported fascism include: [[Giovanni Gentile]] (who [[Ghostwriter|ghostwrote]] the [[Doctrine of Fascism]]), [[Gabriele D'Annunzio]], [[Curzio Malaparte]], [[Filippo Tommaso Marinetti]], [[Ezra Pound]], [[Ernst Jünger]], [[Carl Schmitt]], [[Martin Heidegger]], [[Knut Hamsun]], and [[Mircea Eliade]].
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Some authors reject broad usage of the term or exclude certain parties and regimes.<ref>Griffiths, Richard ''Fascism''. (Continuum, 2005), 91-136. ISBN 0-8264-8281-3</ref> Following the defeat of the [[Axis powers]] in [[World War II]], there have been few self-proclaimed fascist groups and individuals. In contemporary political discourse, the term [[Fascist (epithet)|''fascist'']] is often used by adherents of some ideologies as a pejorative description of their opponents.
  
 
==The term ''fascism''==
 
==The term ''fascism''==
The term ''fascismo'' was first coined by the [[Italian Fascist]] dictator [[Benito Mussolini]]<ref>[http://www.kressworks.com/Politics/Fascism.htm#2 Fascism], Kressworks.com. Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref> and Hegelian philosopher [[Giovanni Gentile]]. It is derived from the [[Italian language|Italian]] word ''[[fascio]]'', which means "bundle" or "union",<ref>Payne, Stanley (1996). ''A History of Fascism''. Routledge. ISBN 1857285956 p.3</ref> and from the [[Latin language|Latin]] word ''[[fasces]]''. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods tied around an axe, were an [[Ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] symbol of the authority of the civic [[magistrate]]s, and the symbolism of the fasces suggested ''strength through unity'': a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.  It is also strongly associated with the Italian word "fasci" meaning streetfighter. Originally, the term "fascism" ''(fascismo)'' was used by the political movement that ruled [[Italy]] from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Later, ''fascism'' became a broader term used to cover a whole class of authoritarian political ideologies, parties and political systems, although no consensus was ever achieved on a precise definition of what it means to be "fascist." Various scholars have sought to define fascism, and a list of definitions can be found in the article ''[[Definitions of fascism]]''.
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The term ''fascismo'' was coined by the [[Italian Fascist]] dictator [[Benito Mussolini]] and the [[Absolute_idealism#Neo-Hegelianism|Neo-Hegelian]] philosopher [[Giovanni Gentile]]. It is derived from the [[Italian language|Italian]] word ''[[fascio]]'', which means "bundle" or "union",<ref>Payne, Stanley (1996). ''A History of Fascism''. Routledge. ISBN 1857285956 p.3</ref> and from the [[Latin language|Latin]] word ''[[fasces]]''. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods tied around an axe, were an [[Ancient Rome|ancient Roman]] symbol of the authority of the civic [[magistrate]]s; they were carried by his [[Lictor]]s and could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command. Furthermore, the symbolism of the fasces suggested ''strength through unity'': a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.  It is also strongly associated with the fascist militia "fasci italiani di combattimento" ("League of Combat"). Originally, the term "fascism" (''fascismo'') was used by the political movement that ruled [[Italy]] from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of [[Benito Mussolini]].
  
 
===Definitions and scope of the word===
 
===Definitions and scope of the word===
{{Main|Definitions of fascism}}
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{{Main|Definitions of fascism|Fascism and ideology}}
Many diverse regimes have identified themselves as fascist, and many regimes have been labeled as fascist even though they did not self-identify as such. Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and [[Robert O. Paxton]].
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Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of [[Stanley Payne]], [[Roger Eatwell]], [[Roger Griffin]], and [[Robert O. Paxton]]. According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and fascism, especially once in power, has historically attacked communism, conservatism and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the "far right" or "extreme right."<ref>Laqueuer, 1996 p. 223; Eatwell, 1996, p. 39; Griffin, 1991, 2000, pp. 185-201; Weber, [1964] 1982, p. 8; Payne (1995), Fritzsche (1990), Laclau (1977), and Reich (1970).</ref> (See: [[Fascism_and_ideology#Fascism_and_the_political_spectrum|Fascism and ideology]]).
  
Mussolini defined fascism as being a [[Right-wing politics|right-wing]] [[Collectivism|collectivistic]] ideology in opposition to [[socialism]], [[liberalism]], [[democracy]] and [[individualism]]. He wrote in ''The Political and Social [[Doctrine of Fascism]]'':
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Mussolini defined fascism as being a [[Collectivism|collectivistic]] ideology in opposition to [[socialism]], [[classical liberalism]], [[democracy]] and [[individualism]]. He wrote in ''The Doctrine of Fascism'':
<blockquote>Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.<ref> [http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm Benito Mussolini, "The Doctrine of Fascism"]. Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref></blockquote>
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<blockquote>Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.<ref> [http://www.worldfuturefund.org/wffmaster/Reading/Germany/mussolini.htm Benito Mussolini "The Doctrine of Fascism"]</ref></blockquote>
  
 
Since Mussolini, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term ''fascism''.  Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that:
 
Since Mussolini, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term ''fascism''.  Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that:
  
<blockquote>Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood 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."<ref>[[Robert Paxton|Paxton, Robert O.]]  ''The Anatomy of Fascism''. (Knopf Publishing Group, 2005), 218. ISBN 1-4000-4094-9</ref>
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<blockquote>Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood 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."<ref name = "Paxton-p218">[[Robert Paxton|Paxton, Robert O.]]  ''The Anatomy of Fascism''. (Knopf Publishing Group, 2005), 218. ISBN 1-4000-4094-9</ref>
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
 
Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:
 
Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:
<blockquote>...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination."<ref>[[Robert Paxton|Paxton, Robert O.]]  ''The Anatomy of Fascism''. (Knopf Publishing Group, 2005), 218. ISBN 1-4000-4094-9</ref></blockquote>
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<blockquote>...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination."<ref name = "Paxton-p218"/></blockquote>
  
Stanley Payne's ''Fascism: Comparison and Definition'' (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; [[fascist symbolism]]; anti-[[liberalism]]; [[anti-communism]]; anti-[[conservatism]].<ref>{{cite book | author=Payne, Stanley | title=Fascism: Comparison and Definition | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | year=1980 | pages = 7}}</ref> He argues that common aim of all fascist movements was elimination of the autonomy or, in same cases, the existence of large-scale [[capitalism]].<ref>Payne, Stanley (1996). ''A History of Fascism''. Routledge. ISBN 1857285956 p.10</ref> [[semiotics|Semiotician]] [[Umberto Eco]] attempts to identify the characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of [[tradition]], rejection of [[modernism]], cult of [[Social action|action]] for action's sake, life is lived for struggle, fear of [[difference]], rejection of [[disagreement]], contempt for the weak, cult of [[masculinity]] and machismo, qualitative [[populism]], appeal to a frustrated majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy enemies, education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in his popular essay ''Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt''.<ref>{{cite journal | author=Umberto Eco | title=Eternal Fascism Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt | journal=New York Review of Books | year=1995 | issue=June 22 | pages= 12–15|url=http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html }} Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref> More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated [[nation]] and ethnic people.<ref>{{cite book | first=Roger | last=Griffin | year=1995 | title=Fascism | publisher=Oxford University Press | url=http://web.archive.org/web/20030618105039/http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/FAECRG2.htm}} Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref>
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Stanley Payne's ''Fascism: Comparison and Definition'' (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; [[fascist symbolism]]; anti-[[liberalism]]; [[anti-communism]]; anti-[[conservatism]].<ref>{{cite book | author=Payne, Stanley | title=Fascism: Comparison and Definition | publisher=University of Wisconsin Press | year=1980 | pages = 7}}</ref> He argues that common aim of all fascist movements was elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, the existence of large-scale [[capitalism]].<ref>Payne, Stanley (1996). [http://books.google.com/books?id=9wHNrF7nFecC&vq A History of Fascism] Routledge. ISBN 1857285956 p.10</ref> [[semiotics|Semiotician]] [[Umberto Eco]] attempts to identify the characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of [[tradition]], rejection of [[modernism]], cult of [[Social action|action]] for action's sake, life is lived for struggle, fear of [[wiktionary:Difference|difference]], rejection of [[disagreement]], contempt for the weak, cult of [[masculinity]] and machismo, qualitative [[populism]], appeal to a frustrated majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy enemies, education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in his popular essay ''Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt''.<ref>{{cite journal | author=Umberto Eco | title=Eternal Fascism Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt | journal=New York Review of Books | year=1995 | issue=June 22 | pages= 12–15|url=http://www.themodernword.com/eco/eco_blackshirt.html }}</ref> More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated [[nation]] and ethnic people.<ref>{{cite book | first=Roger | last=Griffin | year=1995 | title=Fascism | publisher=Oxford University Press | url=http://web.archive.org/web/20030618105039/http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/FAECRG2.htm}}</ref>
  
Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually allies with the political right, especially after attaining state power. For example, [[Nazism]] began as a socio-political movement that promoted a radical form of ''National Socialism'', but altered its character once [[Adolf Hitler]] was handed state power in Germany. Far right economists like Ludwig Von Mises argue that fascism is a form of [[Socialism|socialist]] dictatorship similar to that of the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>[[Ludwig von Mises]], [http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Mises/msSApp.html ''Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis''], Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc. 1981. Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref>
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Free market economists, principally those of the Austrian School, like [[Ludwig Von Mises]] argue that fascism is a form of [[Socialism|socialist]] dictatorship similar to that of the [[Soviet Union]].<ref>[[Ludwig von Mises]], ''[http://www.econlib.org/LIBRARY/Mises/msSApp.html] [[Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis]]'', Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc.. 1981</ref>
  
 
===Authoritarian and totalitarian state===
 
===Authoritarian and totalitarian state===
Although the broadest descriptions of fascism may include every authoritarian state that has ever existed, most theorists see important distinctions to be made. Fascism in Italy arose in the 1920s as a mixture of [[syndicalist]] notions with an anti-[[Materialism|materialist]] theory of the state; the latter had already been linked to an extreme [[nationalism]]. Fascists accused [[parliamentary democracy]] of producing division and decline, and wished to renew the nation from decadence. They viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect individual rights, or as one that should be held in check. Fascism universally dismissed the Marxist concept of "[[class struggle]]," replacing it instead with the concept of "[[class collaboration]]." Fascists embraced nationalism and [[mysticism]], advancing ideals of strength and power as means of legitimacy. These ideas are in direct opposition to the liberal ideals of humanism and rationalism characteristic of the [[Age of Enlightenment]].
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Although the broadest descriptions of fascism may include every authoritarian state that has ever existed, most theorists see important distinctions to be made. Fascism in Italy arose in the 1920s as a mixture of [[syndicalist]] notions with an anti-[[Materialism|materialist]]{{Fact|date=February 2008}} theory of the state; the latter had already been linked to an extreme [[nationalism]]. Fascists accused [[parliamentary democracy]] of producing division and decline, and wished to renew the nation from decadence. They viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect individual rights, or as one that should be held in check. Fascism universally dismissed the Marxist concept of "[[class struggle]]", replacing it instead with the concept of "[[class collaboration]]". Fascists embraced nationalism and [[mysticism]], advancing ideals of strength and power.  
  
Fascism is also typified by [[totalitarianism|totalitarian]] attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic, by way of a strong, single-party government for enacting laws and a strong, sometimes brutal militia or police force for enforcing them.<ref>David Baker, "The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality?" ''New Political Economy'', Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006 , pages 227 – 250 </ref>  Fascism exalts the [[nation]], [[state]], or group of people as superior to the individuals composing it. Fascism uses explicit [[populism|populist]] rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, leading to a [[cult of personality]] and unquestioned obedience to orders ([[Führerprinzip]]). Fascism is also considered to be a form of [[collectivism]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Triandis, Harry C.|coauthors=Gelfand, Michele J.|title=Converging Measurement of Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|volume=74|issue=1||year=1998|pages=119}}; ''Collectivism''. (2006). ''Encyclopædia Britannica''. [http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024764] Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref><ref>Calvin B. Hoover, "The Paths of Economic Change: Contrasting Tendencies in the Modern World," ''The American Economic Review'', Vol. 25, No. 1, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. (Mar., 1935), pp. 13-20; Philip Morgan, ''Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945, New York Tayolor & Francis 2003, p. 168</ref><ref>Friedrich A. Hayek. 1944. ''The Road to Serfdom''. Routledge Press.</ref>
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Fascism is typified by [[totalitarianism|totalitarian]] attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic, by way of a strong, single-party government for enacting laws and a strong, sometimes brutal militia or police force for enforcing them.<ref>David Baker, The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality? New Political Economy, Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006 , pages 227 – 250 </ref>  Fascism exalts the [[nation]], [[state]], or group of people as superior to the individuals composing it. Fascism uses explicit [[populism|populist]] rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, leading to a [[cult of personality]] and unquestioned obedience to orders ([[Führerprinzip]]). Fascism is also considered to be a form of [[collectivism]].<ref>{{cite journal|author=Triandis, Harry C.|coauthors=Gelfand, Michele J.|title=Converging Measurement of Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism|journal=Journal of Personality and Social Psychology|volume=74|issue=1|year=1998|pages=119|doi=10.1037/0022-3514.74.1.118}}; ''Collectivism''. (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved [[November 14]] [[2006]], from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024764</ref><ref>Calvin B. Hoover, "The Paths of Economic Change: Contrasting Tendencies in the Modern World," ''The American Economic Review'', Vol. 25, No. 1, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. (Mar., 1935), pp. 13-20; Philip Morgan, ''Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945, New York Tayolor & Francis 2003, p. 168</ref><ref>Friedrich A. Hayek. 1944. ''The Road to Serfdom''. Routledge Press</ref>
  
 
===Fascist as epithet===
 
===Fascist as epithet===
 
{{main|Fascist (epithet)}}
 
{{main|Fascist (epithet)}}
The word ''fascist'' has become a slur throughout the [[political spectrum]] following World War II (WWII), and it has been uncommon for political groups to call themselves ''fascist.'' In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some political ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it as the opposite of their own views. In the strict sense of the word, Fascism covers movements before WWII, and later movements are described as [[Neo-fascism|Neo-fascist]].
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The word ''fascist'' has become a slur throughout the [[political spectrum]] following [[World War II]], and it has been uncommon for political groups to call themselves ''fascist.'' In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some political ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it as the opposite of their own views. In the strict sense of the word, Fascism covers movements before WWII, and later movements are described as [[Neo-fascism|Neo-fascist]].
  
 
Some have argued that the term ''fascist'' has become hopelessly vague over the years and that it has become little more than a pejorative [[epithet]]. [[George Orwell]] wrote in 1944:
 
Some have argued that the term ''fascist'' has become hopelessly vague over the years and that it has become little more than a pejorative [[epithet]]. [[George Orwell]] wrote in 1944:
<blockquote>...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, [[Social Credit]], [[corporal punishment]], [[fox-hunting]], [[bull-fighting]], the [[1922 Committee]], the [[1941 Committee]], [[Kipling]], [[Gandhi]], [[Chiang Kai-Shek]], [[homosexuality]], [[J. B. Priestley|Priestley]]'s broadcasts, [[Youth Hostel]]s, [[astrology]], women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.<ref name="orwell1944">[http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc George Orwell: ‘What is Fascism?’]</ref>
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<blockquote>...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, [[Social Credit]], [[corporal punishment]], [[fox-hunting]], [[bull-fighting]], the [[1922 Committee]], the [[1941 Committee]], [[Rudyard Kipling|Kipling]], [[Gandhi]], [[Chiang Kai-Shek]], [[homosexuality]], [[J. B. Priestley|Priestley]]'s broadcasts, [[Youth Hostel]]s, [[astrology]], women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.<ref name="orwell1944">[http://orwell.ru/library/articles/As_I_Please/english/efasc George Orwell: ‘What is Fascism?’]</ref>
 
</blockquote>
 
</blockquote>
  
 
==Italian Fascism==
 
==Italian Fascism==
 
{{see also|Fascio|Italian fascism}}
 
{{see also|Fascio|Italian fascism}}
''Fascio'' (plural: ''fasci'') is an [[Italian language|Italian]] word used in the late nineteenth century to refer to radical [[political groups]] of many different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of [[Nationalism|nationalist]] ''fasci'' later evolved into the twentieth century movement known as fascism. [[Benito Mussolini]] claimed to have founded fascism, and Italian fascism (in Italian, ''fascismo'') was the authoritarian political movement that ruled [[Italy]] from 1922 to 1943 under Mussolini's leadership. Fascism in Italy combined elements of [[corporatism]], [[totalitarianism]], nationalism, [[militarism]] and [[anti-Communism]]. Fascism won support as an alternative to the unpopular [[liberalism]] of the time. It also won the support of anti-socialist Italians.
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''Fascio'' (plural: ''fasci'') is an [[Italian language|Italian]] word used in the late nineteenth century to refer to radical [[political groups]] of many different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of [[Nationalism|nationalist]] ''fasci'' later evolved into the twentieth century movement known as fascism. [[Benito Mussolini]] claimed to have founded fascism, and Italian fascism (in Italian, ''fascismo'') was the authoritarian political movement that ruled [[Italy]] from 1922 to 1943 under Mussolini's leadership. Fascism in Italy combined elements of [[corporatism]], [[totalitarianism]], nationalism, [[militarism]] and [[anti-Communism]]. Fascism won support as an alternative to the unpopular [[liberalism]] of the time. It opposed communism, international socialism, and capitalism as international socialism did not accept nationalism while capitalism was blamed for allowing Italy being dominanted economically by other world powers in the past. The Italian Fascists was promoted fascism as the patriotic "third way" to international socialism and capitalism. Corporatism was the economic policy of the Fascists which they claimed would bring together workers and businessmen into corporations where they would be required to negotiate wages.
  
==Differences and similarities with Nazism==
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==Differences and similarities between Italian Fascism and Nazism==
{{see|Nazism}}
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{{Further|[[Nazism]], [[European fascist ideologies]]}}
[[Image:Hitlermusso2 edit.jpg|thumb|[[Benito Mussolini]] giving the [[Roman salute]] standing next to [[Adolf Hitler]]]]
 
  
Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, some scholars, such as Gilbert Allardyce and [[A.F.K. Organski]], argue that Nazism is not fascism—either because the differences are too great, or because they believe fascism cannot be generic.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Gilbert Allardyce|title=What Fascism Is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Concept|year=1979|journal=American Historical Review|volume=84|issue=2|pages=367-388|doi=10.2307/1855138}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Paul H. Lewis|title=Latin Fascist Elites|year=2000|publisher=Praeger/Greenwood|id=ISBN 0-275-97880-X|pages=9}}</ref> A synthesis of these two opinions, states that German Nazism was a form of racially-oriented fascism, while Italian fascism was state-oriented.
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Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, some scholars, such as Gilbert Allardyce and [[A.F.K. Organski]], argue that Nazism is not fascism — either because the differences are too great, or because they believe fascism cannot be generic.<ref>{{cite journal|author=Gilbert Allardyce|title=What Fascism Is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Concept|year=1979|journal=American Historical Review|volume=84|issue=2|pages=367–388|doi=10.2307/1855138}}</ref><ref>{{cite book|author=Paul H. Lewis|title=Latin Fascist Elites|year=2000|publisher=Praeger/Greenwood|id=ISBN 0-275-97880-X|pages=9}}</ref> A synthesis of these two opinions, states that German Nazism was a form of racially-oriented fascism, while Italian fascism was state-oriented.
  
Nazism differed from Italian fascism in that it had a stronger emphasis on race, in terms of social and economic policies. Though both ideologies denied the significance of the individual, Italian fascism saw the individual as subservient to the state, whereas Nazism saw the individual, as well as the state, as ultimately subservient to the race.<ref>Grant, Moyra. ''Key Ideas in Politics''. Nelson Thomas 2003. p. 21</ref> Mussolini's Fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it was not necessarily in the state's interest to interfere in cultural aspects of society.
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Nazism differed from Italian fascism in that it had a stronger emphasis on race, in terms of social and economic policies. Though both ideologies denied the significance of the individual, Italian fascism saw the individual as subservient to the state, whereas Nazism saw the individual, as well as the state, as ultimately subservient to the race.<ref>Grant, Moyra. Key Ideas in Politics. Nelson Thomas 2003. p. 21</ref> Mussolini's Fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it was not necessarily in the state's interest to interfere in cultural aspects of society.
The only [[purpose of government]] in Mussolini's fascism was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, a concept which can be described as [[statolatry]]. Where fascism talked of state, Nazism spoke of the ''[[Volk]]'' and of the ''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]''.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
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The only [[purpose of government]] in Mussolini's fascism was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, a concept which can be described as [[statolatry]]. Where fascism talked of state, Nazism spoke of the ''[[Volk]]'' and of the ''[[Volksgemeinschaft]]'' <ref> Kershaw, Ian. The Nazi Dictatorship, Problems & perspectives of interpretation, 4th Edition. Hodder Arnold 2000, p41 </ref>
  
 
The Nazi movement, at least in its overt ideology, spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes; however, the Italian fascist movement sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Nevertheless, the Italian fascists did not reject the concept of [[social mobility]], and a central tenet of the fascist state was [[meritocracy]]. Yet, fascism also heavily based itself on [[corporatism]], which was supposed to supersede [[class conflict]]s.{{Fact|date=May 2007}} Despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p.62) observes:
 
The Nazi movement, at least in its overt ideology, spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes; however, the Italian fascist movement sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Nevertheless, the Italian fascists did not reject the concept of [[social mobility]], and a central tenet of the fascist state was [[meritocracy]]. Yet, fascism also heavily based itself on [[corporatism]], which was supposed to supersede [[class conflict]]s.{{Fact|date=May 2007}} Despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p.62) observes:
  
<blockquote>There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make it worthwhile applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and Germany a movement came to power that sought to create national unity through the repression of national enemies and the incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently mobilized nation.<ref>[http://www.cf.ac.uk/hisar/people/kp/] Retrieved December 17, 2007.</ref></blockquote>
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<blockquote>There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make it worthwhile applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and Germany a movement came to power that sought to create national unity through the repression of national enemies and the incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently mobilized nation.<ref>[http://www.cf.ac.uk/hisar/people/kp/ http://www.cf.ac.uk/hisar/people/kp/]</ref></blockquote>
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==Nationalism==
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All fascist movements advocate [[nationalism]], especially [[ethnic nationalism]] and seek to integrate as many of their dominant nationality's people and as much of their people's territory into the state. Fascists support [[irredentism]] and [[expansionism]] to unite and expand the nation.
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==Dictatorship==
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A key element of fascism is its endorsement of the leadership of a dictator over a country. The leader of the movement is often literally known as the "Leader" (Duce in Italian, Führer in German, Conductator in Romanian). Fascist leaders are not always heads of state but are always the head of government of the state, such as [[Benito Mussolini]] as Prime Minister of the [[Kingdom of Italy]].
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==Military policy==
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Fascists typically advocate a strong military that is capable of both defensive and offensive actions. In Germany and Italy under Hitler and Mussolini, enormous amounts of funding was dedicated to the military. In some fascist regimes, the fascist movement itself has a paramilitary wing which is included in the armed forces of the country, such as the [[SS]] in Germany and the [[MVSN]] in Italy, which are devoted directly and specifically to the fascist movement.
  
Mussolini and Hitler were not always allies, and France under [[Pierre Laval]] tried to ally itself with Italy against Germany, leading to the 1935 [[Stresa Front]]. The [[United Kingdom]] also moved closer to Italy and France when they negotiated on the fate of [[Ethiopia]] in spite of the [[League of Nations]]. Nazi Germany and fascist Italy came close to blows when in 1934, [[Engelbert Dollfuss]], the [[Austrofascism|Austrofascist]] leader of [[Austria]] and ally of Italy, was assassinated by Nazi [[Brown shirts]] on Hitler's orders in preparation for a planned [[Anschluss]], which prompted Mussolini to move troops to the Austrian-Italian border in readiness for war against Hitler. Nevertheless, Dollfuss's successor, [[Kurt Schuschnigg]], was not as favorable to the Italians as Dollfuss was. When Hitler and Mussolini first met, Mussolini referred to Hitler as "a silly little monkey" before the Western Allies forced Mussolini into an agreement with Hitler.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Mussolini also reportedly asked the [[Pope]] to excommunicate Hitler. [http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2003/09/27/wpope27.xml]
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==Fascism and Religion==
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According to a biographer of Mussolini, "Initially, fascism was fiercely anti-Catholic" - the Church being a competitor for dominion of the people's hearts. <ref>Farrell, Nicholas [http://books.google.com/books?id=aSlIzmsxU8oC&dq Mussolini: A New Life] p.5  2004 Sterling Publishing
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Company, Inc.</ref>  The attitude of fascism toward religion has run the spectrum from persecution, to denunciation to cooperation. <ref name = "oktyar">Laqueur, Walter [http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] p.41 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref> Relations were close in the likes of the Belgian [[Rexism|Rexists]] (which was eventually denounced by the Church), but in the Nazi and Fascist parties it ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation.<ref name = "oktyar"/>
  
Hitler and Mussolini recognized commonalities in their politics, and the second part of Hitler's ''Mein Kampf''—"The National Socialist Movement"—(1926) contains this passage:
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Mussolini, originally an [[atheist]], published [[anti-Catholic]] writings and planned for the confiscation of Church property, but eventually moved to accommodation. <ref name = "oktyar"/>  Hitler was born a Roman Catholic but renounced his faith at the age of twelve and largely used religious references to attract religious support to the Nazi political agenda. Mussolini largely endorsed the Roman Catholic Church for political legitimacy, as during the [[Lateran Treaty]] talks, Fascist officials engaged in bitter arguments with Vatican officials and put pressure on them to accept the terms that the regime deemed acceptable.<ref>Pollard, John F. (1985). ''The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929-32.'' Cambridge, USA: Cambridge University Press. p53</ref> In addition, many Fascists were [[anti-clerical]] in both private and public life. <ref>Laqueur, Walter[http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] p.42 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref>  Hitler in public sought the support of both the Protestant and Roman Catholic religions in Germany, but in a far more muted manner than Mussolini's support of Roman Catholicism.
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The Nazi party had decidedly [[pagan]] elements and there were quarters of Italian fascism which were quite anti-clerical, but religion did play a real part in the [[Ustasha]] in Croatia. <ref>Laqueur, Walter[http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] p.148 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref> 
  
<blockquote>I conceived the profoundest admiration for the great man south of the Alps, who, full of ardent love for his people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists, but to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it. (p. 622){{Fact|date=May 2007}}</blockquote>
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One position is that religion and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic wetanshauungen" claiming the whole of the person. <ref name = "oktyar"/> 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<ref>Griffin, Roger [http://books.google.com/books?id=FSgODum-CTUC&dq Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion], p. 7 2005Routledge </ref><ref>Maier, Hans and Jodi
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Bruhn [http://books.google.com/books?id=Wozo1W7giZQC&dq Totalitarianism and Political Religions], p. 108, 2004 Routledge</ref>, and [[Roger Griffin]] has characterized fascism as a type of anti-religious [[political religion]].<ref>Eatwell, Roger [http://people.bath.ac.uk/mlsre/EWE1&2.htm The Nature of Fascism: or Essentialism by Another Name?] 2004</ref>  Such political religions vie with existing religions, and try, if possible, to replace or eradicate them. <ref>Maier, Hans and Jodi
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Bruhn [http://books.google.com/books?id=Wozo1W7giZQC&dq Totalitarianism and Political Religions], p. 108, 2004 Routledge</ref> 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]] which said that [[Jesus Christ]] was the son of God, but was not a Jew and claimed that Christ despised Jews, and that the Jews were the ones solely responsible for Christ's death.
  
In Soviet usage (which has translated into modern Russian usage), the epithet fascist is synonymous with Nazi Germans. This came to be only after Hitler's invasion of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR). Several historians, such as Valery Senderov, have claimed that Stalin created the "fascist" epithet for Nazi Germans, because he did not want to use the term Nazi, fearing it would cast a negative spin on the word socialism (National ''Socialism'').{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
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In Mexico the fascist<ref>[http://www.bartleby.com/65/ga/GarridoC.html "Garrido Canabal, Tomás"]. ''The Columbia Encyclopedia'' Sixth Edition (2005).</ref><ref>[http://books.google.com/books?id=MopMAAAAMAAJ&q=&pgis=1 The New International Yearbook] p. 442, Dodd, Mead and Co. 1966</ref><ref>Millan, Verna Carleton, [http://books.google.com/books?id=2zInbon4a6cC&q=&pgis=1 Mexico Reborn], p.101, 1939 Riverside Press</ref> [[Red Shirts (Mexico)|Red Shirts]] not only renounced religion but were vehemently atheist<ref>Krauze, Enrique [http://www.tnr.com/doc.mhtml?i=20060619&s=krauze061906&c=2 THE TROUBLING ROOTS OF MEXICO'S LÓPEZ OBRADOR: Tropical Messiah] The New Republic June 19, 2006</ref>, killing priests, and on one occasion gunned down Catholics as they left Mass.<ref>Parsons, Wilfrid [http://books.google.com/books?id=mduJHmsrzhEC&pg=PA239&lpg=PA239&dq=redshirts+catholics+killed&source=web&ots=a1G_9dWEoO&sig=vVnwzJ1GLjWLlfsu4NLVwerORto&hl=en#PPA239,M1 Mexican Martyrdom],  p. 238, 2003 Kessinger Publishing</ref>
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Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anticlerical, they both understood that it would be rash to begin their [[Kulturkampf]]s prematurely, such a clash, possibly inevitable in the future, being put off while they dealt with other enemies. <ref>Laqueur, Walter[http://books.google.com/books?id=fWggQTqioXcC&dq Fascism: Past, Present, Future] pp. 31, 42, 1996 Oxford University Press]</ref>
  
 
==Economic planning==
 
==Economic planning==
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{{see|Economics of fascism}}
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Fascists opposed what they believe to be [[laissez-faire]] or quasi-laissez-faire economic policies dominant in the era prior to the [[Great Depression]].<ref>David Baker, "The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality?", ''New Political Economy'', Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006 , pages 227–250.</ref> People of many different political stripes blamed laissez-faire [[capitalism]] for the Great Depression, and fascists promoted their ideology as a "{{dn|Third way|third way}}" between capitalism and [[Marxian economics|Marxian socialism]].<ref>Philip Morgan, ''Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945'', Taylor & Francis, 2003, p. 168.</ref> Their policies manifested as a radical extension of government control over the economy without wholesale [[expropriation]] of the [[means of production]]. Fascist governments [[Nationalization|nationalized]] some key industries, managed their [[Currency|currencies]] and made some massive state investments. They also introduced [[Incomes policy|price controls]], wage controls and other types of [[Economic interventionism|economic planning]] measures.<ref name = "Andreski-p64">Stanislav Andreski, Wars, Revolutions, Dictatorships, Routledge 1992, page 64</ref> Fascist governments instituted state-regulated allocation of resources, especially in the [[Finance|financial]] and [[raw materials]] sectors.
  
Fascists opposed what they believe to be [[laissez-faire]] or quasi-laissez-faire economic policies dominant in the era prior to the [[Great Depression]].<ref>David Baker, 2006. pp. 227-250 </ref> People of many different political stripes blamed laissez-faire [[capitalism]] for the Great Depression, and fascists promoted their ideology as a "[[third way]]" between capitalism and [[Marxian economics|Marxian socialism]].<ref>Philip Morgan, ''Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945'', New York Tayolor & Francis 2003, p. 168</ref> Their policies manifested as a radical extension of government control over the economy without wholesale [[expropriation]] of the [[means of production]]. Fascist governments [[Nationalization|nationalized]] some key industries, managed their [[Currency|currencies]] and made some massive state investments. They also introduced [[Incomes policy|price controls]], wage controls and other types of [[Economic interventionism|economic planning]] measures.<ref>Stanislav Andreski, ''Wars, Revolutions, Dictatorships'', Routledge, 1992, p. 64</ref> Fascist governments instituted state-regulated allocation of resources, especially in the [[Finance|financial]] and [[raw materials]] sectors.
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Other than nationalization of certain industries, private [[property]] was allowed, but property rights and private initiative were contingent upon service to the state.<ref>James A. Gregor, The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 7</ref> For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labor than he would find profitable."<ref name = "McGann-p30">Herbert Kitschelt, Anthony J. McGann. The Radical Right in Western Europe: a comparative analysis. 1996 University of Michigan Press. p. 30</ref><ref name = "McGann-p30"/> According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, ''[[dirigisme]]'' was an inherent aspect of fascist economies.<ref>Tibor Ivan Berend, ''An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe'', Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 93</ref> The [[Labour Charter of 1927]], promulgated by the [[Grand Council of Fascism]], stated in article 7:
 
 
Other than nationalization of certain industries, private [[property]] was allowed, but property rights and private initiative were contingent upon service to the state.<ref>James A. Gregor, ''The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science'', Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 7</ref> For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labor than he would find profitable."<ref>Herbert Kitschelt, Anthony J. McGann. ''The Radical Right in Western Europe: a comparative analysis''. 1996 University of Michigan Press. p. 30</ref><ref>Herbert Kitschelt, et al. 1996. p. 30</ref> According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, ''[[dirigisme]]'' was an inherent aspect of fascist economies.<ref>Tibor Ivan Berend, ''An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe'', Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 93</ref> 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 goes on to say in article 9 that: ''"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."''  
 
:''"The corporative State considers private initiative, in the field of production, as the most efficient and useful instrument of the Nation''," then goes on to say in article 9 that: ''"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."''  
  
Fascism also operated from a [[Social Darwinism|Social Darwinist]] view of human relations. Their aim was to promote "superior" individuals and weed out the weak.<ref>Alexander J. De Grand, ''Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany'', Routledge, 1995. pp. 47</ref> In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying [[trade union]]s and other organizations of the [[working class]].<ref>Alexander J. De Grand, 1995. pp. 48-51</ref> Lawrence Britt suggests that protection of corporate power is an essential part of fascism.<ref>Britt, Lawrence, "The 14 characteristics of fascism", ''Free Inquiry'', Spring 2003, p. 20.</ref> Historian [[Gaetano Salvemini]] argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."<ref>Salvemini, Gaetano. ''Under the Axe of Fascism''. 1936.</ref>
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Fascism also operated from a [[Social Darwinism|Social Darwinist]] view of human relations. Their aim was to promote "superior" individuals and weed out the weak.<ref>Alexander J. De Grand, ''Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany'', Routledge, 1995. pp. 47.</ref> In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying [[trade union]]s and other organizations of the [[working class]].<ref>De Grand, ''Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany'', pp. 48–51.</ref> Historian [[Gaetano Salvemini]] argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."<ref>Salvemini, Gaetano. ''Under the Axe of Fascism'' 1936.</ref>
  
Economic policy in the first few years of Italian fascism was largely liberal, with the Ministry of Finance controlled by the old liberal [[Alberto De Stefani]]. The government undertook a low-key [[laissez-faire]] program - the tax system was restructured (February 1925 law, 23 June 1927 [[decree-law]], etc.), there were attempts to attract foreign investment and establish trade agreements, efforts were made to balance the budget and cut subsidies. The 10% tax on capital invested in banking and industrial sectors was repealed,<ref name=Guerin2> [[Daniel Guérin]], ''Fascism and Big Business'', Chapter IX, Second section, p.193</ref> while the tax on directors and administrators of [[S.A. (corporation)|anonymous companies (SA)]] was cut down by half.<ref name=Guerin2/> All foreign capital was exonerated of taxes, while the [[luxury tax]] was also repealed.<ref name=Guerin2/> Mussolini also opposed [[municipalization]] of enterprises.<ref name=Guerin2> Daniel Guérin, p. 193</ref>
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Economic policy in the first few years of Italian fascism was largely liberal, with the Ministry of Finance controlled by the old liberal [[Alberto De Stefani]]. The government undertook a low-key [[laissez-faire]] program - the tax system was restructured (February 1925 law, 23 June 1927 [[decree-law]], etc.), there were attempts to attract foreign investment and establish trade agreements, efforts were made to balance the budget and cut subsidies. The 10% tax on capital invested in banking and industrial sectors was repealed,<ref name=Guerin2> [[Daniel Guérin]], ''[[Fascism and Big Business]]'', Chapter IX, Second section, p.193 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions </ref> while the tax on directors and administrators of [[S.A. (corporation)|anonymous companies (SA)]] was cut down by half.<ref name=Guerin2/> All foreign capital was exonerated of taxes, while the [[luxury tax]] was also repealed.<ref name=Guerin2/> Mussolini also opposed [[municipalization]] of enterprises.<ref name=Guerin2> [[Daniel Guérin]], ''[[Fascism and Big Business]]'', Chapter IX, Second section, p.193 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions </ref>
  
The 19 April 1923 law abandoned [[life insurance]] to private companies, repealing the 1912 law which had created a State Institute for insurances and which had envisioned to give a state monopoly ten years later.<ref name=Guerin> [[Daniel Guérin]], ''[[Fascism and Big Business]]'', Chapter IX, First section, p.191 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions </ref> Furthermore, a 19 November 1922 decree suppressed the Commission on [[War profiteering|War Profits]], while the 20 August 1923 law suppressed the [[inheritance tax]] inside the family circle.<ref name=Guerin2> Daniel Guérin, ''Fascism and Big Business'', Chapter IX, Second section, p.193 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions </ref>
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The 19 April 1923 law abandoned [[life insurance]] to private companies, repealing the 1912 law which had created a State Institute for insurances and which had envisioned to give a state monopoly ten years later.<ref name=Guerin> [[Daniel Guérin]], ''[[Fascism and Big Business]]'', Chapter IX, First section, p.191 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions </ref> Furthermore, a 19 November 1922 decree suppressed the Commission on [[War profiteering|War Profits]], while the 20 August 1923 law suppressed the [[inheritance tax]] inside the family circle.<ref name=Guerin2> [[Daniel Guérin]], ''[[Fascism and Big Business]]'', Chapter IX, Second section, p.193 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions </ref>
  
 
There was a general emphasis on what has been called [[productivism]] - national economic growth as a means of social regeneration and wider assertion of national importance. Up until 1925, the country enjoyed modest growth but structural weaknesses increased inflation and the currency slowly fell (1922 L90 to £1, 1925 L145 to £1). In 1925 there was a great increase in speculation and short runs against the [[lira]]. The levels of capital movement became so great the government attempted to intervene. De Stefani was sacked, his program side-tracked, and the Fascist government became more involved in the economy in step with the increased security of their power.
 
There was a general emphasis on what has been called [[productivism]] - national economic growth as a means of social regeneration and wider assertion of national importance. Up until 1925, the country enjoyed modest growth but structural weaknesses increased inflation and the currency slowly fell (1922 L90 to £1, 1925 L145 to £1). In 1925 there was a great increase in speculation and short runs against the [[lira]]. The levels of capital movement became so great the government attempted to intervene. De Stefani was sacked, his program side-tracked, and the Fascist government became more involved in the economy in step with the increased security of their power.
  
In 1925, the Italian state abandoned its monopoly on telephones' infrastructure, while the state production of matches was handed over to a private "Consortium of matches' productors."<ref name=Guerin/> In some sectors, the state did intervene. Thus, following the deflation crisis which started in 1926, banks such as the ''[[Banco di Roma]]'', the ''[[Banco di Napoli]]'' or the ''[[Banco di Sicilia]]'' were assisted by the state.<ref name=Guerin3> [[Daniel Guérin]], p.197 </ref>
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In 1925, the Italian state abandoned its monopoly on telephones' infrastructure, while the state production of matches was handed over to a private "Consortium of matches' productors."<ref name=Guerin/> In some sectors, the state did intervene. Thus, following the deflation crisis which started in 1926, banks such as the ''[[Banca di Roma]]'', the ''[[Banca di Napoli]]'' or the ''[[Banca di Sicilia]]'' were assisted by the state.<ref name=Guerin3> [[Daniel Guérin]], ''[[Fascism and Big Business]]'', Chapter IX, Fifth section, p.197 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions </ref>
  
Fascists were most vocal in their opposition to [[finance capitalism]], [[interest]] charging, and profiteering.<ref>Frank Bealey, et. al. ''Elements of Political Science''. Edinburgh University Press, 1999, p. 202</ref> Some fascists, particularly [[Nazism|Nazis]], considered finance capitalism a "[[Parasitism|parasitic]]" "[[anti-Semitism|Jewish conspiracy]]".<ref>[[Moishe Postone|Postone, Moishe]]. 1986. "Anti-Semitism and National Socialism." ''Germans & Jews Since the Holocaust: The Changing Situation in West Germany'', ed. Anson Rabinbach and Jack Zipes. New York: Homes & Meier.</ref> Nevertheless, fascists also opposed Marxian socialism and independent [[trade union]]s.
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Fascists were most vocal in their opposition to [[finance capitalism]], [[interest]] charging, and profiteering.<ref>Frank Bealey & others. Elements of Political Science. Edinburgh University Press, 1999, p. 202</ref> Some fascists, particularly [[Nazism|Nazis]], considered finance capitalism a "[[Parasitism|parasitic]]" "[[anti-Semitism|Jewish conspiracy]]".<ref>[[Moishe Postone|Postone, Moishe]]. 1986. "Anti-Semitism and National Socialism." ''Germans & Jews Since the Holocaust: The Changing Situation in West Germany'', ed. Anson Rabinbach and Jack Zipes. New York: Homes & Meier.</ref> Nevertheless, fascists also opposed [[Marxism]] and independent [[trade union]]s.
  
According to sociologist [[Stanislav Andreski]], fascist economics "foreshadowed most of the fundamental features of the economic system of [[Western Europe]]an countries today: the radical extension of government control over the economy without a wholesale expropriation of the capitalists but with a good dose of nationalization, price control, incomes policy, managed currency, massive state investment, attempts at overall planning (less effectual than the Fascist because of the weakness of authority)."<ref>Stanislav Andreski, 1992, p. 64</ref> Politics professor Stephen Haseler credits fascism with providing a model of economic planning for [[social democracy]].<ref>Stephen Haseler. ''The Death of British Democracy: Study of Britain's Political Present and Future''. Prometheus Books 1976. p. 153</ref>
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According to sociologist [[Stanislav Andreski]], fascist economics "foreshadowed most of the fundamental features of the economic system of [[Western Europe]]an countries today: the radical extension of government control over the economy without a wholesale expropriation of the capitalists but with a good dose of nationalisation, price control, incomes policy, managed currency, massive state investment, attempts at overall planning (less effectual than the Fascist because of the weakness of authority)."<ref name = "Andreski-p64"/> Politics professor Stephen Haseler credits fascism with providing a model of economic planning for [[social democracy]].<ref>Stephen Haseler. The Death of British Democracy: Study of Britain's Political Present and Future. Prometheus Books 1976. p. 153</ref>
  
==Anti-Communism==
+
In Nazi economic planning, in place of ordinary profit incentive to guide the economy, investment was guided through regulation to accord to the needs of the State. The profit incentive for business owners was retained, though greatly modified through various profit-fixing schemes: "Fixing of profits, not their suppression, was the official policy of the Nazi party." However the function of profit in automatically guiding allocation of investment and unconsciously directing the course of the economy was replaced with economic planning by Nazi government agencies.<ref>{{citation
 +
  | author = Arthur Scheweitzer
 +
  | title = Profits Under Nazi Planning
 +
  | journal = The Quarterly Journal of Economics
 +
  | volume = Vol. 61, No. 1
 +
  | pages = 5
 +
  | date = Nov., 1946}}</ref>
  
{{main|Anti-Communism}}
+
==Anti-communism==
Fascism and [[Communism]] are political systems that rose to prominence after World War I. Historians of the period between World War I and World War II such as [[E.H. Carr]] and [[Eric Hobsbawm]] point out that liberalism was under serious stress in this period and seemed to be a doomed philosophy. The success of the [[Russian Revolution of 1917]] resulted in a revolutionary wave across Europe. The socialist movement worldwide split into separate [[social democratic]] and [[Leninist]] wings. The subsequent formation of the [[Third International]] prompted serious debates within social democratic parties, resulting in supporters of the Russian Revolution splitting to form [[Communist Parties]] in most industrialized (and many non-industrialized) countries.
+
{{Disputed-section|date=March 2008}}
 
+
{{main|Anti-communism}}
At the end of World War I, attempted socialist uprisings or threats of socialist uprisings occurred throughout Europe, most notably in Germany, where the [[Spartacist uprising]], led by [[Rosa Luxemburg]] and [[Karl Liebknecht]] in January 1919, was eventually crushed. In Bavaria, Communists successfully overthrew the government and established the [[Bavarian Soviet Republic]] that lasted from 1918 to 1919. A short lived [[Hungarian Soviet Republic]] was also established under [[Béla Kun]] in 1919.
+
The [[October Revolution|Russian Revolution]] inspired attempted revolutionary movements in Italy, with a [[Biennio rosso|wave of factory occupations]]. Most historians view fascism as a response to these developments, as a movement that both tried to appeal to the working class and divert them from Marxism. It also appealed to capitalists as a bulwark against [[Bolshevism]]. Italian fascism took power with the blessing of Italy's king after years of leftist-led unrest led many conservatives to fear that a communist revolution was inevitable ([[Marxist philosopher]] [[Antonio Gramsci]] popularized the conception that fascism was the Capital's response to the organized [[workers' movement]]). Mussolini took power during the 1922 [[March on Rome]].
 
 
The Russian Revolution also inspired attempted revolutionary movements in Italy with a [[Biennio rosso|wave of factory occupations]]. Most historians view fascism as a response to these developments, as a movement that both tried to appeal to the working class and divert them from Marxism. It also appealed to capitalists as a bulwark against [[Bolshevism]]. Italian Fascism took power with the blessing of Italy's king after years of leftist-led unrest led many conservatives to fear that a communist revolution was inevitable ([[Marxist philosopher]] [[Antonio Gramsci]] popularized the conception that fascism was the Capital's response to the organized [[workers' movement]]). Mussolini took power during the 1922 [[March on Rome]].
 
  
 
Throughout Europe, numerous [[aristocracy|aristocrats]], conservative intellectuals, capitalists and industrialists lent their support to fascist movements in their countries that emulated Italian Fascism. In Germany, numerous right-wing nationalist groups arose, particularly out of the post-war [[Freikorps]] used to crush both the Spartacist uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
 
Throughout Europe, numerous [[aristocracy|aristocrats]], conservative intellectuals, capitalists and industrialists lent their support to fascist movements in their countries that emulated Italian Fascism. In Germany, numerous right-wing nationalist groups arose, particularly out of the post-war [[Freikorps]] used to crush both the Spartacist uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic.
  
With the worldwide [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s, liberalism and the liberal form of capitalism seemed doomed, and Communist and fascist movements swelled. These movements were bitterly opposed to each other and fought frequently, the most notable example of the conflict being the [[Spanish Civil War]]. This war became a [[proxy war]] between the fascist countries and their international supporters—who backed [[Francisco Franco]]—and the worldwide Communist movement, which was aided by the Soviet Union and which allied uneasily with [[Anarchism|anarchists]]—who backed the [[Popular Front (Spain)|Popular Front]].  
+
With the worldwide [[Great Depression]] of the 1930s, [[liberalism]] and the liberal form of capitalism seemed doomed, and Communist and fascist movements swelled. These movements were bitterly opposed to each other and fought frequently, the most notable example of the conflict being the [[Spanish Civil War]]. This war became a [[proxy war]] between the fascist countries and their international supporters — who backed [[Francisco Franco]] — and the worldwide Communist movement, which was aided by the Soviet Union and which allied uneasily with [[Anarchism|anarchists]] — who backed the [[Popular Front (Spain)|Popular Front]].  
  
 
Initially, the Soviet Union supported a coalition with the western powers against Nazi Germany and popular fronts in various countries against domestic fascism. This policy largely failed due to distrust shown by the western powers (especially Britain) towards the Soviet Union. The [[Munich Agreement]] between Germany, [[France]] and Britain heightened Soviet fears that the western powers endeavored to force them to bear the brunt of a war against Nazism. The lack of eagerness on the part of the British during diplomatic negotiations with the Soviets served to make the situation even worse. The Soviets changed their policy and negotiated a [[non-aggression pact]] known as the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] in 1939. [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] claims in his memoirs that the Soviets believed this agreement was necessary to buy them time to prepare for an expected war with Germany. Stalin expected the Germans not to attack until 1942, but the pact ended in 1941 when [[Nazism|Nazi]] Germany invaded the Soviet Union in [[Operation Barbarossa]]. Fascism and communism reverted to being deadly enemies. The war, in the eyes of both sides, was a war between ideologies.
 
Initially, the Soviet Union supported a coalition with the western powers against Nazi Germany and popular fronts in various countries against domestic fascism. This policy largely failed due to distrust shown by the western powers (especially Britain) towards the Soviet Union. The [[Munich Agreement]] between Germany, [[France]] and Britain heightened Soviet fears that the western powers endeavored to force them to bear the brunt of a war against Nazism. The lack of eagerness on the part of the British during diplomatic negotiations with the Soviets served to make the situation even worse. The Soviets changed their policy and negotiated a [[non-aggression pact]] known as the [[Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact]] in 1939. [[Vyacheslav Molotov]] claims in his memoirs that the Soviets believed this agreement was necessary to buy them time to prepare for an expected war with Germany. Stalin expected the Germans not to attack until 1942, but the pact ended in 1941 when [[Nazism|Nazi]] Germany invaded the Soviet Union in [[Operation Barbarossa]]. Fascism and communism reverted to being deadly enemies. The war, in the eyes of both sides, was a war between ideologies.
  
Even within socialist and communist circles, theoreticians debated the nature of fascism. Communist theoretician [[Rajani Palme Dutt]] crafted one view that stressed the [[crisis of capitalism]].<ref>{{cite web | title= Rajani Palme Dutt: Fascism | work=Fascism and Social Revolution: A Study of the economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay (1934) | url=http://www.plp.org/books/Dutt.html  | accessdate=December 17, 2007}}</ref> [[Leon Trotsky]], an early leader in the Russian Revolution, believed that fascism occurs when "the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat."<ref>{{cite web | title=Leon Trotsky: Fascism | work=Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It | url=http://marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm | accessdate=December 17, 2007}}</ref>
+
Even within socialist and communist circles, theoreticians debated the nature of fascism. Communist theoretician [[Rajani Palme Dutt]] crafted one view that stressed the [[crisis of capitalism]].<ref>{{cite web | title= Rajani Palme Dutt: Fascism | work=Fascism and Social Revolution: A Study of the economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay (1934) | url=http://www.plp.org/books/Dutt.html  | accessmonthday=November 5 | accessyear=2006}}</ref> [[Leon Trotsky]], an early leader in the Russian Revolution, believed that fascism occurs when "the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat."<ref>{{cite web | title=LEON TROTSKY: Fascism | work=Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It | url=http://marx.org/archive/trotsky/works/1944/1944-fas.htm | accessmonthday=November 6 | accessyear=2006}}</ref>
 
 
==Fascism and religion==
 
{{main|Neo-fascism and religion|Nazism and religion|Clerical fascism|Islamofascism}}
 
Some expressions of fascism have been closely linked with religious political movements. This combination is referred to as [[clerical fascism]], a prime example of which is the [[Ustaše]] in [[Croatia]].
 
 
 
===Fascism and the Roman Catholic Church===
 
 
 
A controversial topic is the relationship between fascist movements and the Roman Catholic Church. Fascism became a powerful political movement primarily in Roman Catholic countries (Italy, Spain, Hungary, South America) and even in National Socialist Germany many of the most important political leaders were from Roman Catholic Bavaria and Austria. As mentioned above, [[Pope Leo XIII]]'s 1891 [[encyclical]], ''[[Rerum Novarum]]'' included doctrines that fascists used or admired. Forty years later, the corporatist tendencies of ''Rerum Novarum'' were underscored by Pope Pius XI's May 25, 1931 encyclical ''[[Quadragesimo Anno]]''<ref>{{cite web | title=Rerum Novarum | work=papalencyclicals.net | url=http://www.papalencyclicals.net/Pius11/P11QUADR.HTM | accessdate=December 17, 2007}}</ref> restated the hostility of ''Rerum Novarum'' to both unbridled competition and [[class struggle]]. Defenders of Pope Leo XIII argue the criticism of both socialism and capitalism in these encyclicals was not fascist but rather closer to [[Christian Democracy]] or [[distributism]].{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
 
 
 
In the early 1920s, the Catholic party in Italy ''(Partito Popolare)'' was in the process of forming a coalition with the Reform Party that could have stabilized Italian politics and thwarted Mussolini's projected coup. On October 2, 1922, [[Pope Pius XI]] circulated a letter ordering clergy not to identify themselves with the ''Partito Popolare'', but to remain neutral, an act that undercut the party and its alliance against Mussolini. Following Mussolini's rise to power, the Vatican's [[Secretary of State]] met ''Il Duce'' in early 1923 and agreed to dissolve the ''Partito Popolare'', which Mussolini saw as an obstacle to fascist rule. In exchange, the fascists made guarantees regarding Catholic education and institutions.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
 
 
 
In 1924, following the murder of the leader of the Socialist Party by fascists, the ''Partito Popolare'' joined with the Socialist Party in demanding that the King dismiss Mussolini as Prime Minister, and stated their willingness to form a coalition government. Pius XI responded by warning against any coalition between Catholics and socialists. The Vatican ordered all priests to resign from the ''Partito Popolare'' and from any positions they held in it. This action led to the party's disintegration in rural areas where it relied on clerical assistance.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
 
 
 
The Vatican subsequently established [[Azione Cattolica]] ''(Catholic Action)'' as a non-political lay organization under the direct control of bishops. The Vatican forbid the organization to participate in politics, and thus it was not permitted to oppose the fascist regime. Pius XI ordered all Catholics to join Catholic Action. This order resulted in hundreds of thousands of Catholics withdrawing from the ''Partito Popolare'', and joining the apolitical Catholic Action, which in turn caused the Catholic Party's final collapse.<ref>{{cite web | title=Italy, the Vatican and Fascism | work=The Vatican in World Politics | url=http://www.cephas-library.com/catholic/catholic_vatican_in_world_politics_chpt_9.html | accessdate=December 17, 2007}}</ref>
 
 
 
When Mussolini ordered the closure of Catholic Action in May 1931, Pius XI issued an encyclical, ''[[Wikisource:Non Abbiamo Bisogno|Non Abbiamo Bisogno]]''. This document stated the Catholic Church's opposition to the dissolution, and argued that the order "unmasked the pagan intentions of the Fascist state." Under international pressure, Mussolini decided to compromise, and Catholic Action was saved. For Catholics, the encyclical's disapproval of any system that puts the nation above God or humanity remains doctrine.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
 
 
 
Aside from certain ideological similarities, the relationship between the Church and fascist movements in various countries has often been close. An early example is [[Austria]], which developed a quasi-fascist authoritarian Catholic regime some call the "[[Austrofascism|Austro-fascist]]" ''[[Ständestaat]]'' between 1934 and 1938. There is little debate over [[Slovakia]], where the fascist dictator was a Catholic [[monsignor]]; and the [[Independent State of Croatia]], where the fascist [[Ustashe]] identified itself as a Catholic movement. The [[Iron Guard]] in [[Romania]] identified itself as an Eastern Orthodox movement (with no connection to Roman Catholicism), and had particularly strong leanings toward [[clerical fascism]]. ''(See also [[Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the Ustaša regime]].)''{{Fact|date=May 2007}} In Slovenia collaboration with Nazi Germany was based on Catholic propaganda, which perceived nazis as lesser evil than communists.
 
 
 
The reactionary Catholic-influenced ideology of the ''[[Action Française]]'' also deeply influenced The [[Vichy France|Vichy]] regime in France. This group had actually been led by an agnostic and condemned by the Catholic Church in 1926. Many of its members were reactionary Catholics so this condemnation damaged the group, but then in 1938 the condemnation was lifted. Conversely, many Catholic priests were persecuted under the Nazi regime, and many Catholic laypeople and clergy played notable roles in sheltering [[Jew]]s during [[the Holocaust]].
 
 
 
While some historians wrote that the Catholic organization [[Opus Dei]] and its founder [[Josemaría Escrivá]] supported the fascist regime of Spanish [[dictator]] [[Francisco Franco]], some recent historians state that Escrivá was staunchly non-political, and the connection between Opus Dei and Franco's fascist regime was a [[black legend]] propagated by the [[Falange]] and by some clerical sectors.<ref>See Allen, John (2005). ''Opus Dei: an Objective Look Behind the Myths and Reality of the Most Controversial Force in the Catholic Church''. Random House Double.</ref>
 
 
 
Fascist movements like [[Rexism]] in [[Belgium]] and the [[Christian Social Party (Austria)|Christian Social Party]] also combined fascist and conservative [[populist]] [[Roman Catholic]] elements.{{Fact|date=May 2007}}
 
 
 
===Fascism and the Protestant churches=== 
 
 
 
Protestantism in Italy and Spain 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 Witnesses, and imprisoned their leader. In some instances, people were killed because of their faith.<ref>Rochat, Giorgio, ''Regime fascista e chiese evangeliche'', Torino, Claudiana, 1990 </ref>   
 
 
 
The connection between the German form of Fascism, Nazism, and Protestantism has long been debated, with some saying that the Protestant denominations, especially the German Lutheran Church, was close. According to some scholars, especially Richard Steigman-Gall (''The Holy Reich: Protestantism and the Nazi Movement'', 1920-1945) the relationship was [[collaborationist]]. Hitler, in his manifesto, ''Mein Kampf'', listed [[Martin Luther]] as one of Germany's great historic reformers. In Luther's 1543 book ''[[On the Jews and Their Lies]]'', Luther advocated the burning of [[synagogue]]s and schools, the [[deportation]] of Jews, and many other measures that resemble the actions later taken by the Nazis. 
 
   
 
The overwhelming majority of Protestant church leaders in Germany made no comment on the Nazis' growing anti-Jewish activities. Many Protestants opposed the governments of the [[Weimar Republic]] in the 1920s, which they saw as coalitions between the Socialists and the Catholic Centre party. In 1932, many German Protestants joined together to form the [[German Christians|German Christian Movement]] which enthusiastically supported Nazism, and sought to join Church and State. 3,000 of the 17,000 Protestant pastors in Germany were to join the movement. Hitler wished to unite a Protestant church of twenty-eight different federations into one nationalist body. Pastor [[Ludwig Müller]], the leader of the German Christian Movement, was soon appointed Hitler's adviser on religious affairs. He was elected Reich's Bishop in charge of the German Protestant churches in 1933. Many churches and ministers attempted to purge [[Christianity]] of "Jewish influences" and tried to institute the Nazis' [[Positive Christianity]] viewpoint on religion. 
 
 
 
An "Aryan Paragraph" was introduced to the constitution, which stated that no one of non-Aryan background, or married to anyone of non-Aryan background, could serve as either a pastor or church official. Pastors and officials who had married a non-Aryan were to be dismissed. Much of the [[Lutheran]] establishment and most of the [[Reformed churches]] in Germany had welcomed Hitler's promise to oppose [[Bolshevism]] and social instability. 
 
 
 
The new measures began to raise some opposition to the German Christians from a minority of Protestants who had become increasingly disillusioned with unethical practices of the Nazis and disliked state interference in church affairs. [[Dietrich Bonhoeffer]], a Lutheran pastor and theological liberal, strongly opposed the Nazis. Although some debate his actual involvement in planning the assassination attempt of Hitler, he was found guilty and executed for his alleged part in the conspiracy. A small group of Protestant clergy under [[Martin Niemöller]] and Dietrich Bonhoeffer separated from the main churches to form the [[Confessing Church]]. The group had limited effect, however, as it was forced to meet secretly and was largely dispersed by the Nazis by 1939 at the latest, and the effect of Protestantism on inhibiting Nazism in Germany was limited at best.
 
  
 
==Fascism, sexuality, and gender roles==
 
==Fascism, sexuality, and gender roles==
 
{{see|Gender role}}
 
{{see|Gender role}}
There has been a revival of interest in recent times, among many academic historians, with regard to the so-called "cult of masculinity" that permeated fascism, the attempts to systematically control female sexuality and reproductive behavior for the ends of the State.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Italian fascists viewed increasing the birthrate of Italy as a major goal of their regime, with Mussolini launching a program, called the 'Battle For Births', to almost double the country's population. The [[gender role|exclusive role]] assigned to women within the State was to be mothers and not workers or soldiers;<ref>Durham, Martin: ''Women and Fascism'', Routledge 1998, ISBN 0-415-12280-5</ref> however, Mussolini did not practice what some of his supporters preached. From an early stage, he gave women high positions within Fascism, and in Germany, the leader of one of the major feminist organizations pleaded with Hitler to be incorporated into the Nazi Party as early as 1928.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Fascists have generally been opposed to the concept of [[women's rights]] per se, preferring the traditions of [[chivalry]] to guide male-female relations.  
+
[[Image:Rsi f.jpg|thumb|A propaganda poster of the pro-Nazi [[Italian Social Republic]] showing a woman kissing the Fascist flag]]
 +
There has been a revival of interest in recent times, among many academic historians, with regard to the so-called "cult of masculinity" that permeated fascism, the attempts to systematically control female sexuality and reproductive behavior for the ends of the State.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Italian fascists viewed increasing the birthrate of Italy as a major goal of their regime, with Mussolini launching a program, called the 'Battle For Births', to almost double the country's population. The [[gender role|exclusive role]] assigned to women within the State was to be mothers and not workers or soldiers;<ref>Durham, Martin: ''Women and Fascism'', Routledge 1998, ISBN 0-415-12280-5</ref>{{page cite needed}} however, Mussolini did not practice what some of his supporters preached. From an early stage, he gave women high positions within Fascism, and in Germany, the leader of one of the major feminist organizations pleaded with Hitler to be incorporated into the Nazi Party as early as 1928.{{Fact|date=February 2007}} Fascists have generally been opposed to the concept of [[women's rights]] per se, preferring the traditions of [[chivalry]] to guide male-female relations.{{Fact|date=March 2008}}
  
According to Anson Rabinbach and Jessica Benjamin, "The crucial element of fascism is its explicit sexual language, what [[Klaus Theweleit|Theweleit]] calls 'the conscious coding' or the 'over-explicitness of the fascist language of symbol.' This fascist symbolization creates a particular kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. According to this intellectual theory, despite its sexually-charged politics, fascism is an anti-[[eros]], 'the core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure'… He shows that in this world of war the repudiation of one's own body, of femininity, becomes a psychic compulsion which associates masculinity with hardness, destruction, and self-denial."<ref>{{cite book | first=Klaus| last=Theweleit| coauthors= Erica Carter, Anson Rabinbach, Chris Turner (Translator), Anson Rabinbach | title=Male Fantasies, Volume 2: Male Bodies—Psychoanalyzing the White Terror (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 23) | publisher=University of Minnesota Press | location=United States| year=1989 | editor= | id=ISBN 0-8166-1451-2}}</ref>
+
According to Anson Rabinbach and Jessica Benjamin, "The crucial element of fascism is its explicit sexual language, what [[Klaus Theweleit|Theweleit]] calls 'the conscious coding' or the 'over-explicitness of the fascist language of symbol.' This fascist symbolization creates a particular kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. According to this intellectual theory, despite its sexually-charged politics, fascism is an anti-[[Eros (love)|eros]], 'the core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure'… He shows that in this world of war the repudiation of one's own body, of femininity, becomes a psychic compulsion which associates masculinity with hardness, destruction, and self-denial."<ref>{{cite book | first=Klaus| last=Theweleit| coauthors= Erica Carter, Anson Rabinbach, Chris Turner (Translator), Anson Rabinbach | title=Male Fantasies, Volume 2: Male Bodies&mdash;Psychoanalyzing the White Terror (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 23) | publisher=University of Minnesota Press | location=United States| year=1989 | editor= | id=ISBN 0-8166-1451-2}}</ref>
  
 
==See also==
 
==See also==
Line 158: Line 140:
 
* [[Economics of fascism]]
 
* [[Economics of fascism]]
 
* [[Faisceau]]
 
* [[Faisceau]]
 +
* [[Gaullism]]
 +
* [[Gold shirts]] (Mexico)
 
* [[Nashism]]
 
* [[Nashism]]
* [[Nationalism#State nationalism]]
+
* [[Nationalism]]
 
* [[Fascism and ideology]]
 
* [[Fascism and ideology]]
 
* [[Fascism as an international phenomenon]]
 
* [[Fascism as an international phenomenon]]
 +
* [[Fascist International]]
 +
* [[Falange]]
 +
* [[Peronism]]
 
* [[Producerism]]
 
* [[Producerism]]
* [[So Disdained#Sympathetic Portrayal of Fascists]]
+
* [[So Disdained#Sympathetic Portrayal of Fascists|So Disdained: Sympathetic Portrayal of Fascists]]
 
* [[Totalitarianism]]
 
* [[Totalitarianism]]
 +
* [[Oligarchy]]
  
 
===Neo-fascism===
 
===Neo-fascism===
 
*[[American Nazi Party]]
 
*[[American Nazi Party]]
*[[British National Party]]
 
 
*[[Christian Identity]]
 
*[[Christian Identity]]
 
*[[Creativity Movement]]
 
*[[Creativity Movement]]
Line 183: Line 170:
 
*[[William Luther Pierce]]
 
*[[William Luther Pierce]]
 
*[[George Lincoln Rockwell]]
 
*[[George Lincoln Rockwell]]
*[[Stormfront (website)]]
+
*[[British National Party]]
  
==Notes==
+
==Footnotes==
 
{{reflist|2}}
 
{{reflist|2}}
  
==References==
+
==Further reading==
* [[Renzo De Felice|De Felice, Renzo]] ''Interpretations of Fascism'', translated by Brenda Huff Everett, Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 1977 ISBN 0-674-45962-8.
+
===General===
* [[Roger Eatwell|Eatwell, Roger]]. 1996. ''Fascism: A History.'' New York: Allen Lane. {{OCLC|91357779}}
 
* [[Stuart Hughes|Hughes, H. Stuart]]. 1953. ''The United States and Italy.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. {{OCLC|408324}}
 
*[[Ernst Nolte|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. {{OCLC|394593}}
 
* [[Roger Griffin|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. {{OCLC|87368966}}
 
 
* [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler, Adolf]]. ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' (1992). London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-5254-X
 
* [[Adolf Hitler|Hitler, Adolf]]. ''[[Mein Kampf]]'' (1992). London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-5254-X
* [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini, Benito]]. ''[[Doctrine of Fascism]]'' which was published as part of the entry for ''fascismo'' in the ''Enciclopedia Italiana'' 1932.
+
*"Labor Charter" (1927-1934)
 +
* [[Benito Mussolini|Mussolini, Benito]]. "[[The Doctrine of Fascism]]", published as part of the entry for ''fascismo'' in the ''Enciclopedia Italiana'' 1932.
 
* [[Robert Paxton|Paxton, Robert O]]. 2004. ''The Anatomy of Fascism''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 1-4000-4094-9
 
* [[Robert Paxton|Paxton, Robert O]]. 2004. ''The Anatomy of Fascism''. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 1-4000-4094-9
 +
* [[Georges Sorel|Sorel, Georges]]. ''Reflections on Violence''.
 +
* [[Renzo De Felice|De Felice, Renzo]] ''Interpretations of Fascism'', translated by Brenda Huff Everett, Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 1977 ISBN 0-674-45962-8.
 +
* [[Roger Eatwell|Eatwell, Roger]]. 1996. ''Fascism: A History.'' New York: Allen Lane.
 +
* [[Stuart Hughes|Hughes, H. Stuart]]. 1953. ''The United States and Italy.'' Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
 +
*[[Ernst Nolte|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.
 
* [[Stanley Payne|Payne, Stanley G]]. 1995. ''A History of Fascism, 1914-45''. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0-299-14874-2
 
* [[Stanley Payne|Payne, Stanley G]]. 1995. ''A History of Fascism, 1914-45''. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0-299-14874-2
* [[Wilhelm Reich|Reich, Wilhelm]]. 1970. ''The Mass Psychology of Fascism''. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux. ISBN 0374203644
+
* [[Wilhelm Reich|Reich, Wilhelm]]. 1970. ''The Mass Psychology of Fascism''. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
* [[George Seldes|Seldes, George]]. 1935. ''Sawdust Caesar: The Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism''. New York and London: Harper and Brothers. {{OCLC|405623}}
+
* [[George Seldes|Seldes, George]]. 1935. ''Sawdust Caesar: The Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism''. New York and London: Harper and Brothers.
* Sohn-Rethel, Alfred. ''Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism'',London, CSE Bks, 1978 ISBN 0906336007
+
* [[Alfred Sohn-Rethel]] ''Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism'',London, CSE Bks, 1978 ISBN 0906336007
* [[Georges Sorel|Sorel, Georges]]. ''Reflections on Violence''. {{OCLC|786113}}
+
* 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. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0094%28200304%2938%3A2%3C237%3ATEONTE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S
 +
 
 +
===Fascist ideology===
 +
* [[Renzo De Felice|De Felice, Renzo]] ''Fascism : an informal introduction to its theory and practice, an interview with [[Michael Ledeen]]'', New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1976 ISBN 0-87855-190-5.
 +
*[[Peter Fritzsche|Fritzsche, Peter]]. 1990. ''Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany''. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505780-5
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* [[Roger Griffin|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.
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* [[Walter Laqueur|Laqueur, Walter]]. 1966. ''Fascism: Past, Present, Future,'' New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1997. ISBN 0-19-511793-X
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* [[J. Salwyn Schapiro|Schapiro, J. Salwyn]]. 1949. ''Liberalism and The Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France (1815-1870).'' New York: McGraw-Hill.
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* [[Ernesto Laclau|Laclau, Ernesto]]. 1977. ''Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism.'' London: NLB/Atlantic Highlands Humanities Press.
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*Sauer, Wolfgang "National Socialism: totalitarianism or fascism?" pages 404-424 from ''The American Historical Review'', Volume 73, Issue #2, December 1967.
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* [[Zeev Sternhell|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.
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* 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
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===International fascism===
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* [[Kevin Coogan|Coogan, Kevin]]. 1999. ''Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International''. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Autonomedia.
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* [[Jonah Goldberg|Goldberg, Jonah]]. 2007. ''[[Liberal Fascism]]''. New York: Doubleday.
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* [[Roger Griffin|Griffin, Roger]]. 1991. ''The Nature of Fascism''. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
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* [[Eugen Weber|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.)
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* [[Henry A. Wallace|Wallace, Henry]]. [http://newdeal.feri.org/wallace/haw23.htm "The Dangers of American Fascism"]. ''[[The New York Times]]'', Sunday, [[9 April]] [[1944]].
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Part of the Politics series on
Fascism

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Definition
Definitions of fascism


Varieties and derivatives of fascism
Arrow Cross · Austrofascism · Brazilian Integralism · Clerical fascism · Ecofascism · Greek fascism · Iron Guard · Italian Fascism · Japanese fascism · National Syndicalism · Nazism · Neo-Fascism · Rexism · Spanish Falangism · Ustaše . Estado Novo


Fascist political parties and movements
Fascism as an international phenomenon
List of fascist movements by country


Fascism in history
4th of August Regime · Beer Hall Putsch · Estado Novo (Brazil) · Fascio · Fascist Italy · Independent State of Croatia · Italian Social Republic · March on Rome · Nazi Germany · Portugal under Salazar


Related subjects
Actual Idealism · Acerbo Law · Anti-fascism · Ion Antonescu · Black Brigades · Blackshirts · Class collaboration · Corporatism · Economics of fascism · Fascism and ideology · Far right· Fascist symbolism · Fascist unification rhetoric · Adolf Hitler · Grand Council of Fascism · Benito Mussolini · National syndicalism · Neo-Fascism · Ante Pavelić · Plínio Salgado · Ferenc Szálasi · Social fascism · Third Position

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Fascism is a term used to describe authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a millenarian national rebirth by exalting the nation or race, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.[1][2][3][4][5]

Fascists promote a type of national unity that is usually based on (but not limited to) ethnic, cultural, national, racial, and/or religious attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as among its integral parts: nationalism, militarism, anti-communism, totalitarianism, statism, dictatorship, economic planning (including corporatism and autarky), populism, collectivism, autocracy and opposition to classic political and economic liberalism.[6][7][8][9][10][11][12]

Some authors reject broad usage of the term or exclude certain parties and regimes.[13] Following the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, there have been few self-proclaimed fascist groups and individuals. In contemporary political discourse, the term fascist is often used by adherents of some ideologies as a pejorative description of their opponents.

The term fascism

The term fascismo was coined by the Italian Fascist dictator Benito Mussolini and the Neo-Hegelian philosopher Giovanni Gentile. It is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means "bundle" or "union",[14] and from the Latin word fasces. The fasces, which consisted of a bundle of rods tied around an axe, were an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrates; they were carried by his Lictors and could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command. Furthermore, the symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. It is also strongly associated with the fascist militia "fasci italiani di combattimento" ("League of Combat"). Originally, the term "fascism" (fascismo) was used by the political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini.

Definitions and scope of the word

Historians, political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core tenets. Since the 1990s, there has been a growing move toward some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton. According to most scholars of fascism, there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and fascism, especially once in power, has historically attacked communism, conservatism and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the "far right" or "extreme right."[15] (See: Fascism and ideology).

Mussolini defined fascism as being a collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, classical liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Doctrine of Fascism:

Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses the importance of the State and accepts the individual only insofar as his interests coincide with those of the State, which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man as a historic entity.... The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have value.... Fascism is therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the largest number.... We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the nineteenth century was the century of the individual we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State.[16]

Since Mussolini, there have been many conflicting definitions of the term fascism. Former Columbia University Professor Robert O. Paxton has written that:

Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victim-hood 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."[17]

Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:

...a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign `contamination."[17]

Stanley Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism; anti-conservatism.[18] He argues that common aim of all fascist movements was elimination of the autonomy or, in some cases, the existence of large-scale capitalism.[19] Semiotician Umberto Eco attempts to identify the characteristics of proto-fascism as the cult of tradition, rejection of modernism, cult of action for action's sake, life is lived for struggle, fear of difference, rejection of disagreement, contempt for the weak, cult of masculinity and machismo, qualitative populism, appeal to a frustrated majority, obsession with a plot, illicitly wealthy enemies, education to become a hero, and speaking Newspeak, in his popular essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt.[20] More recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and ethnic people.[21]

Free market economists, principally those of the Austrian School, like Ludwig Von Mises argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that of the Soviet Union.[22]

Authoritarian and totalitarian state

Although the broadest descriptions of fascism may include every authoritarian state that has ever existed, most theorists see important distinctions to be made. Fascism in Italy arose in the 1920s as a mixture of syndicalist notions with an anti-materialist[citation needed] theory of the state; the latter had already been linked to an extreme nationalism. Fascists accused parliamentary democracy of producing division and decline, and wished to renew the nation from decadence. They viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather than as an institution designed to protect individual rights, or as one that should be held in check. Fascism universally dismissed the Marxist concept of "class struggle", replacing it instead with the concept of "class collaboration". Fascists embraced nationalism and mysticism, advancing ideals of strength and power.

Fascism is typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic, by way of a strong, single-party government for enacting laws and a strong, sometimes brutal militia or police force for enforcing them.[23] Fascism exalts the nation, state, or group of people as superior to the individuals composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a single leader, leading to a cult of personality and unquestioned obedience to orders (Führerprinzip). Fascism is also considered to be a form of collectivism.[24][25][26]

Fascist as epithet

The word fascist has become a slur throughout the political spectrum following World War II, and it has been uncommon for political groups to call themselves fascist. In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some political ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it as the opposite of their own views. In the strict sense of the word, Fascism covers movements before WWII, and later movements are described as Neo-fascist.

Some have argued that the term fascist has become hopelessly vague over the years and that it has become little more than a pejorative epithet. George Orwell wrote in 1944:

...the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else... almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’.[27]

Italian Fascism

Fascio (plural: fasci) is an Italian word used in the late nineteenth century to refer to radical political groups of many different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of nationalist fasci later evolved into the twentieth century movement known as fascism. Benito Mussolini claimed to have founded fascism, and Italian fascism (in Italian, fascismo) was the authoritarian political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under Mussolini's leadership. Fascism in Italy combined elements of corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, militarism and anti-Communism. Fascism won support as an alternative to the unpopular liberalism of the time. It opposed communism, international socialism, and capitalism as international socialism did not accept nationalism while capitalism was blamed for allowing Italy being dominanted economically by other world powers in the past. The Italian Fascists was promoted fascism as the patriotic "third way" to international socialism and capitalism. Corporatism was the economic policy of the Fascists which they claimed would bring together workers and businessmen into corporations where they would be required to negotiate wages.

Differences and similarities between Italian Fascism and Nazism

Further information: Nazism, European fascist ideologies

Although the modern consensus sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, some scholars, such as Gilbert Allardyce and A.F.K. Organski, argue that Nazism is not fascism — either because the differences are too great, or because they believe fascism cannot be generic.[28][29] A synthesis of these two opinions, states that German Nazism was a form of racially-oriented fascism, while Italian fascism was state-oriented.

Nazism differed from Italian fascism in that it had a stronger emphasis on race, in terms of social and economic policies. Though both ideologies denied the significance of the individual, Italian fascism saw the individual as subservient to the state, whereas Nazism saw the individual, as well as the state, as ultimately subservient to the race.[30] Mussolini's Fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it was not necessarily in the state's interest to interfere in cultural aspects of society. The only purpose of government in Mussolini's fascism was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, a concept which can be described as statolatry. Where fascism talked of state, Nazism spoke of the Volk and of the Volksgemeinschaft [31]

The Nazi movement, at least in its overt ideology, spoke of class-based society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above established classes; however, the Italian fascist movement sought to preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of established and desirable culture.[citation needed] Nevertheless, the Italian fascists did not reject the concept of social mobility, and a central tenet of the fascist state was meritocracy. Yet, fascism also heavily based itself on corporatism, which was supposed to supersede class conflicts.[citation needed] Despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p.62) observes:

There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make it worthwhile applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and Germany a movement came to power that sought to create national unity through the repression of national enemies and the incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently mobilized nation.[32]

Nationalism

All fascist movements advocate nationalism, especially ethnic nationalism and seek to integrate as many of their dominant nationality's people and as much of their people's territory into the state. Fascists support irredentism and expansionism to unite and expand the nation.

Dictatorship

A key element of fascism is its endorsement of the leadership of a dictator over a country. The leader of the movement is often literally known as the "Leader" (Duce in Italian, Führer in German, Conductator in Romanian). Fascist leaders are not always heads of state but are always the head of government of the state, such as Benito Mussolini as Prime Minister of the Kingdom of Italy.

Military policy

Fascists typically advocate a strong military that is capable of both defensive and offensive actions. In Germany and Italy under Hitler and Mussolini, enormous amounts of funding was dedicated to the military. In some fascist regimes, the fascist movement itself has a paramilitary wing which is included in the armed forces of the country, such as the SS in Germany and the MVSN in Italy, which are devoted directly and specifically to the fascist movement.

Fascism and Religion

According to a biographer of Mussolini, "Initially, fascism was fiercely anti-Catholic" - the Church being a competitor for dominion of the people's hearts. [33] The attitude of fascism toward religion has run the spectrum from persecution, to denunciation to cooperation. [34] Relations were close in the likes of the Belgian Rexists (which was eventually denounced by the Church), but in the Nazi and Fascist parties it ranged from tolerance to near total renunciation.[34]

Mussolini, originally an atheist, published anti-Catholic writings and planned for the confiscation of Church property, but eventually moved to accommodation. [34] Hitler was born a Roman Catholic but renounced his faith at the age of twelve and largely used religious references to attract religious support to the Nazi political agenda. Mussolini largely endorsed the Roman Catholic Church for political legitimacy, as during the Lateran Treaty talks, Fascist officials engaged in bitter arguments with Vatican officials and put pressure on them to accept the terms that the regime deemed acceptable.[35] In addition, many Fascists were anti-clerical in both private and public life. [36] Hitler in public sought the support of both the Protestant and Roman Catholic religions in Germany, but in a far more muted manner than Mussolini's support of Roman Catholicism. The Nazi party had decidedly pagan elements and there were quarters of Italian fascism which were quite anti-clerical, but religion did play a real part in the Ustasha in Croatia. [37]

One position is that religion and fascism could never have a lasting connection because both are a "holistic wetanshauungen" claiming the whole of the person. [34] 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[38][39], and Roger Griffin has characterized fascism as a type of anti-religious political religion.[40] Such political religions vie with existing religions, and try, if possible, to replace or eradicate them. [41] 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 which said that Jesus Christ was the son of God, but was not a Jew and claimed that Christ despised Jews, and that the Jews were the ones solely responsible for Christ's death.

In Mexico the fascist[42][43][44] Red Shirts not only renounced religion but were vehemently atheist[45], killing priests, and on one occasion gunned down Catholics as they left Mass.[46]

Although both Hitler and Mussolini were anticlerical, they both understood that it would be rash to begin their Kulturkampfs prematurely, such a clash, possibly inevitable in the future, being put off while they dealt with other enemies. [47]

Economic planning

Fascists opposed what they believe to be laissez-faire or quasi-laissez-faire economic policies dominant in the era prior to the Great Depression.[48] People of many different political stripes blamed laissez-faire capitalism for the Great Depression, and fascists promoted their ideology as a "" between capitalism and Marxian socialism.[49] Their policies manifested as a radical extension of government control over the economy without wholesale expropriation of the means of production. Fascist governments nationalized some key industries, managed their currencies and made some massive state investments. They also introduced price controls, wage controls and other types of economic planning measures.[50] Fascist governments instituted state-regulated allocation of resources, especially in the financial and raw materials sectors.

Other than nationalization of certain industries, private property was allowed, but property rights and private initiative were contingent upon service to the state.[51] For example, "an owner of agricultural land may be compelled to raise wheat instead of sheep and employ more labor than he would find profitable."[52][52] According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, dirigisme was an inherent aspect of fascist economies.[53] 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 goes on to say in article 9 that: "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."

Fascism also operated from a Social Darwinist view of human relations. Their aim was to promote "superior" individuals and weed out the weak.[54] In terms of economic practice, this meant promoting the interests of successful businessmen while destroying trade unions and other organizations of the working class.[55] Historian Gaetano Salvemini argued in 1936 that fascism makes taxpayers responsible to private enterprise, because "the State pays for the blunders of private enterprise... Profit is private and individual. Loss is public and social."[56]

Economic policy in the first few years of Italian fascism was largely liberal, with the Ministry of Finance controlled by the old liberal Alberto De Stefani. The government undertook a low-key laissez-faire program - the tax system was restructured (February 1925 law, 23 June 1927 decree-law, etc.), there were attempts to attract foreign investment and establish trade agreements, efforts were made to balance the budget and cut subsidies. The 10% tax on capital invested in banking and industrial sectors was repealed,[57] while the tax on directors and administrators of anonymous companies (SA) was cut down by half.[57] All foreign capital was exonerated of taxes, while the luxury tax was also repealed.[57] Mussolini also opposed municipalization of enterprises.[57]

The 19 April 1923 law abandoned life insurance to private companies, repealing the 1912 law which had created a State Institute for insurances and which had envisioned to give a state monopoly ten years later.[58] Furthermore, a 19 November 1922 decree suppressed the Commission on War Profits, while the 20 August 1923 law suppressed the inheritance tax inside the family circle.[57]

There was a general emphasis on what has been called productivism - national economic growth as a means of social regeneration and wider assertion of national importance. Up until 1925, the country enjoyed modest growth but structural weaknesses increased inflation and the currency slowly fell (1922 L90 to £1, 1925 L145 to £1). In 1925 there was a great increase in speculation and short runs against the lira. The levels of capital movement became so great the government attempted to intervene. De Stefani was sacked, his program side-tracked, and the Fascist government became more involved in the economy in step with the increased security of their power.

In 1925, the Italian state abandoned its monopoly on telephones' infrastructure, while the state production of matches was handed over to a private "Consortium of matches' productors."[58] In some sectors, the state did intervene. Thus, following the deflation crisis which started in 1926, banks such as the Banca di Roma, the Banca di Napoli or the Banca di Sicilia were assisted by the state.[59]

Fascists were most vocal in their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering.[60] Some fascists, particularly Nazis, considered finance capitalism a "parasitic" "Jewish conspiracy".[61] Nevertheless, fascists also opposed Marxism and independent trade unions.

According to sociologist Stanislav Andreski, fascist economics "foreshadowed most of the fundamental features of the economic system of Western European countries today: the radical extension of government control over the economy without a wholesale expropriation of the capitalists but with a good dose of nationalisation, price control, incomes policy, managed currency, massive state investment, attempts at overall planning (less effectual than the Fascist because of the weakness of authority)."[50] Politics professor Stephen Haseler credits fascism with providing a model of economic planning for social democracy.[62]

In Nazi economic planning, in place of ordinary profit incentive to guide the economy, investment was guided through regulation to accord to the needs of the State. The profit incentive for business owners was retained, though greatly modified through various profit-fixing schemes: "Fixing of profits, not their suppression, was the official policy of the Nazi party." However the function of profit in automatically guiding allocation of investment and unconsciously directing the course of the economy was replaced with economic planning by Nazi government agencies.[63]

Anti-communism

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Main article: Anti-communism

The Russian Revolution inspired attempted revolutionary movements in Italy, with a wave of factory occupations. Most historians view fascism as a response to these developments, as a movement that both tried to appeal to the working class and divert them from Marxism. It also appealed to capitalists as a bulwark against Bolshevism. Italian fascism took power with the blessing of Italy's king after years of leftist-led unrest led many conservatives to fear that a communist revolution was inevitable (Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci popularized the conception that fascism was the Capital's response to the organized workers' movement). Mussolini took power during the 1922 March on Rome.

Throughout Europe, numerous aristocrats, conservative intellectuals, capitalists and industrialists lent their support to fascist movements in their countries that emulated Italian Fascism. In Germany, numerous right-wing nationalist groups arose, particularly out of the post-war Freikorps used to crush both the Spartacist uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

With the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s, liberalism and the liberal form of capitalism seemed doomed, and Communist and fascist movements swelled. These movements were bitterly opposed to each other and fought frequently, the most notable example of the conflict being the Spanish Civil War. This war became a proxy war between the fascist countries and their international supporters — who backed Francisco Franco — and the worldwide Communist movement, which was aided by the Soviet Union and which allied uneasily with anarchists — who backed the Popular Front.

Initially, the Soviet Union supported a coalition with the western powers against Nazi Germany and popular fronts in various countries against domestic fascism. This policy largely failed due to distrust shown by the western powers (especially Britain) towards the Soviet Union. The Munich Agreement between Germany, France and Britain heightened Soviet fears that the western powers endeavored to force them to bear the brunt of a war against Nazism. The lack of eagerness on the part of the British during diplomatic negotiations with the Soviets served to make the situation even worse. The Soviets changed their policy and negotiated a non-aggression pact known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. Vyacheslav Molotov claims in his memoirs that the Soviets believed this agreement was necessary to buy them time to prepare for an expected war with Germany. Stalin expected the Germans not to attack until 1942, but the pact ended in 1941 when Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Fascism and communism reverted to being deadly enemies. The war, in the eyes of both sides, was a war between ideologies.

Even within socialist and communist circles, theoreticians debated the nature of fascism. Communist theoretician Rajani Palme Dutt crafted one view that stressed the crisis of capitalism.[64] Leon Trotsky, an early leader in the Russian Revolution, believed that fascism occurs when "the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat."[65]

Fascism, sexuality, and gender roles

Further information: Gender role
File:Rsi f.jpg
A propaganda poster of the pro-Nazi Italian Social Republic showing a woman kissing the Fascist flag

There has been a revival of interest in recent times, among many academic historians, with regard to the so-called "cult of masculinity" that permeated fascism, the attempts to systematically control female sexuality and reproductive behavior for the ends of the State.[citation needed] Italian fascists viewed increasing the birthrate of Italy as a major goal of their regime, with Mussolini launching a program, called the 'Battle For Births', to almost double the country's population. The exclusive role assigned to women within the State was to be mothers and not workers or soldiers;[66] however, Mussolini did not practice what some of his supporters preached. From an early stage, he gave women high positions within Fascism, and in Germany, the leader of one of the major feminist organizations pleaded with Hitler to be incorporated into the Nazi Party as early as 1928.[citation needed] Fascists have generally been opposed to the concept of women's rights per se, preferring the traditions of chivalry to guide male-female relations.[citation needed]

According to Anson Rabinbach and Jessica Benjamin, "The crucial element of fascism is its explicit sexual language, what Theweleit calls 'the conscious coding' or the 'over-explicitness of the fascist language of symbol.' This fascist symbolization creates a particular kind of psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction. According to this intellectual theory, despite its sexually-charged politics, fascism is an anti-eros, 'the core of all fascist propaganda is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and pleasure'… He shows that in this world of war the repudiation of one's own body, of femininity, becomes a psychic compulsion which associates masculinity with hardness, destruction, and self-denial."[67]

See also

Portal Fascism Portal
  • Anti-fascism
  • Austrofascism
  • Corporatism
  • Eco-fascism
  • Economics of fascism
  • Faisceau
  • Gaullism
  • Gold shirts (Mexico)
  • Nashism
  • Nationalism
  • Fascism and ideology
  • Fascism as an international phenomenon
  • Fascist International
  • Falange
  • Peronism
  • Producerism
  • So Disdained: Sympathetic Portrayal of Fascists
  • Totalitarianism
  • Oligarchy

Neo-fascism

  • American Nazi Party
  • Christian Identity
  • Creativity Movement
  • Alain de Benoist
  • International Third Position
  • Ku Klux Klan
  • National Alliance (United States)
  • National anarchism
  • National Bolshevism
  • Neo-fascism
  • Neo-fascism and religion
  • Neo-Nazism
  • Nouvelle Droite
  • William Luther Pierce
  • George Lincoln Rockwell
  • British National Party

Footnotes

  1. Robert O. Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism, page 218. Knopf, 2004
  2. Roger Griffin, Nature of Fascism, New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1991, p. xi
  3. Kevin Passmore, Fascism: A Very Short Introduction, page 31. Oxford University Press, 2002
  4. "fascism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2008. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 20 Apr. 2008 <http://search.eb.com/eb/article-9117286>
  5. Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future, Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 150
  6. Eatwell, Roger. 1996. Fascism: A History. New York: Allen Lane.
  7. Griffin, Roger. 1991. The Nature of Fascism. New York: St. Martin’s Press. On "populism, see p. 26: "Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism".
  8. 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.
  9. Paxton, Robert O. 2004. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 1-4000-4094-9
  10. Payne, Stanley G. 1995. A History of Fascism, 1914-45. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0-299-14874-2
  11. "populism," See: Fritzsche, P. 1990. Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and political mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford Univ. Press.
  12. "collectivism." Encyclopædia Britannica. 2007. Encyclopædia Britannica Online. 12 January 2007 <http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024764> "Collectivism has found varying degrees of expression in the 20th century in such movements as socialism, communism, and fascism."; Grant, Moyra. Key Ideas in Politics. Nelson Thomas 2003. p. 21; De Grand, Alexander. Italian Fascism: Its Origins and Development. U of Nebraska Press. p. 147 "Nationalism, statism, and authoritarianism culminated in the cult of the Duce. Finally, collectivism was important...Despite general agreement on these four themes, it was hard to formulate a definition of fascism..."
  13. Griffiths, Richard Fascism. (Continuum, 2005), 91-136. ISBN 0-8264-8281-3
  14. Payne, Stanley (1996). A History of Fascism. Routledge. ISBN 1857285956 p.3
  15. Laqueuer, 1996 p. 223; Eatwell, 1996, p. 39; Griffin, 1991, 2000, pp. 185-201; Weber, [1964] 1982, p. 8; Payne (1995), Fritzsche (1990), Laclau (1977), and Reich (1970).
  16. Benito Mussolini "The Doctrine of Fascism"
  17. 17.0 17.1 Paxton, Robert O. The Anatomy of Fascism. (Knopf Publishing Group, 2005), 218. ISBN 1-4000-4094-9
  18. Payne, Stanley (1980). Fascism: Comparison and Definition. University of Wisconsin Press, 7. 
  19. Payne, Stanley (1996). A History of Fascism Routledge. ISBN 1857285956 p.10
  20. Umberto Eco (1995). Eternal Fascism Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. New York Review of Books (June 22): 12–15.
  21. Griffin, Roger (1995). Fascism. Oxford University Press. 
  22. Ludwig von Mises, [1] Socialism: An Economic and Sociological Analysis, Indianapolis, IN: Liberty Fund, Inc.. 1981
  23. David Baker, The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality? New Political Economy, Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006 , pages 227 – 250
  24. Triandis, Harry C. and Gelfand, Michele J. (1998). Converging Measurement of Horizontal and Vertical Individualism and Collectivism. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 74 (1): 119.; Collectivism. (2006). In Encyclopædia Britannica. Retrieved November 14 2006, from Encyclopædia Britannica Online: http://www.britannica.com/eb/article-9024764
  25. Calvin B. Hoover, "The Paths of Economic Change: Contrasting Tendencies in the Modern World," The American Economic Review, Vol. 25, No. 1, Supplement, Papers and Proceedings of the Forty-seventh Annual Meeting of the American Economic Association. (Mar., 1935), pp. 13-20; Philip Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 1919-1945, New York Tayolor & Francis 2003, p. 168
  26. Friedrich A. Hayek. 1944. The Road to Serfdom. Routledge Press
  27. George Orwell: ‘What is Fascism?’
  28. Gilbert Allardyce (1979). What Fascism Is Not: Thoughts on the Deflation of a Concept. American Historical Review 84 (2): 367–388.
  29. Paul H. Lewis (2000). Latin Fascist Elites. Praeger/Greenwood, 9. ISBN 0-275-97880-X. 
  30. Grant, Moyra. Key Ideas in Politics. Nelson Thomas 2003. p. 21
  31. Kershaw, Ian. The Nazi Dictatorship, Problems & perspectives of interpretation, 4th Edition. Hodder Arnold 2000, p41
  32. http://www.cf.ac.uk/hisar/people/kp/
  33. Farrell, Nicholas Mussolini: A New Life p.5 2004 Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.
  34. 34.0 34.1 34.2 34.3 Laqueur, Walter Fascism: Past, Present, Future p.41 1996 Oxford University Press]
  35. Pollard, John F. (1985). The Vatican and Italian Fascism, 1929-32. Cambridge, USA: Cambridge University Press. p53
  36. Laqueur, WalterFascism: Past, Present, Future p.42 1996 Oxford University Press]
  37. Laqueur, WalterFascism: Past, Present, Future p.148 1996 Oxford University Press]
  38. Griffin, Roger Fascism, Totalitarianism and Political Religion, p. 7 2005Routledge
  39. Maier, Hans and Jodi Bruhn Totalitarianism and Political Religions, p. 108, 2004 Routledge
  40. Eatwell, Roger The Nature of Fascism: or Essentialism by Another Name? 2004
  41. Maier, Hans and Jodi Bruhn Totalitarianism and Political Religions, p. 108, 2004 Routledge
  42. "Garrido Canabal, Tomás". The Columbia Encyclopedia Sixth Edition (2005).
  43. The New International Yearbook p. 442, Dodd, Mead and Co. 1966
  44. Millan, Verna Carleton, Mexico Reborn, p.101, 1939 Riverside Press
  45. Krauze, Enrique THE TROUBLING ROOTS OF MEXICO'S LÓPEZ OBRADOR: Tropical Messiah The New Republic June 19, 2006
  46. Parsons, Wilfrid Mexican Martyrdom, p. 238, 2003 Kessinger Publishing
  47. Laqueur, WalterFascism: Past, Present, Future pp. 31, 42, 1996 Oxford University Press]
  48. David Baker, "The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality?", New Political Economy, Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006 , pages 227–250.
  49. Philip Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 1919–1945, Taylor & Francis, 2003, p. 168.
  50. 50.0 50.1 Stanislav Andreski, Wars, Revolutions, Dictatorships, Routledge 1992, page 64
  51. James A. Gregor, The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science, Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 7
  52. 52.0 52.1 Herbert Kitschelt, Anthony J. McGann. The Radical Right in Western Europe: a comparative analysis. 1996 University of Michigan Press. p. 30
  53. Tibor Ivan Berend, An Economic History of Twentieth-Century Europe, Cambridge University Press, 2005, p. 93
  54. Alexander J. De Grand, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, Routledge, 1995. pp. 47.
  55. De Grand, Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, pp. 48–51.
  56. Salvemini, Gaetano. Under the Axe of Fascism 1936.
  57. 57.0 57.1 57.2 57.3 57.4 Daniel Guérin, Fascism and Big Business, Chapter IX, Second section, p.193 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions
  58. 58.0 58.1 Daniel Guérin, Fascism and Big Business, Chapter IX, First section, p.191 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions
  59. Daniel Guérin, Fascism and Big Business, Chapter IX, Fifth section, p.197 in the 1999 Syllepse Editions
  60. Frank Bealey & others. Elements of Political Science. Edinburgh University Press, 1999, p. 202
  61. Postone, Moishe. 1986. "Anti-Semitism and National Socialism." Germans & Jews Since the Holocaust: The Changing Situation in West Germany, ed. Anson Rabinbach and Jack Zipes. New York: Homes & Meier.
  62. Stephen Haseler. The Death of British Democracy: Study of Britain's Political Present and Future. Prometheus Books 1976. p. 153
  63. Arthur Scheweitzer (Nov., 1946), "Profits Under Nazi Planning", The Quarterly Journal of Economics Vol. 61, No. 1: 5 
  64. Rajani Palme Dutt: Fascism. Fascism and Social Revolution: A Study of the economics and Politics of the Extreme Stages of Capitalism in Decay (1934). Retrieved November 5, 2006.
  65. LEON TROTSKY: Fascism. Fascism: What It Is and How to Fight It. Retrieved November 6, 2006.
  66. Durham, Martin: Women and Fascism, Routledge 1998, ISBN 0-415-12280-5
  67. Theweleit, Klaus and Erica Carter, Anson Rabinbach, Chris Turner (Translator), Anson Rabinbach (1989). Male Fantasies, Volume 2: Male Bodies—Psychoanalyzing the White Terror (Theory and History of Literature, Volume 23). United States: University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0-8166-1451-2. 

Further reading

General

  • Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf (1992). London: Pimlico. ISBN 0-7126-5254-X
  • "Labor Charter" (1927-1934)
  • Mussolini, Benito. "The Doctrine of Fascism", published as part of the entry for fascismo in the Enciclopedia Italiana 1932.
  • Paxton, Robert O. 2004. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, ISBN 1-4000-4094-9
  • Sorel, Georges. Reflections on Violence.
  • De Felice, Renzo Interpretations of Fascism, translated by Brenda Huff Everett, Cambridge; London: Harvard University Press, 1977 ISBN 0-674-45962-8.
  • Eatwell, Roger. 1996. Fascism: A History. New York: Allen Lane.
  • Hughes, H. Stuart. 1953. The United States and Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
  • 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.
  • Payne, Stanley G. 1995. A History of Fascism, 1914-45. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0-299-14874-2
  • 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.
  • Alfred Sohn-Rethel Economy and Class Structure of German Fascism,London, CSE Bks, 1978 ISBN 0906336007
  • 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. Stable URL: http://links.jstor.org/sici?sici=0022-0094%28200304%2938%3A2%3C237%3ATEONTE%3E2.0.CO%3B2-S

Fascist ideology

  • De Felice, Renzo Fascism : an informal introduction to its theory and practice, an interview with Michael Ledeen, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1976 ISBN 0-87855-190-5.
  • 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
  • Schapiro, J. Salwyn. 1949. Liberalism and The Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France (1815-1870). New York: McGraw-Hill.
  • Laclau, Ernesto. 1977. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: NLB/Atlantic Highlands Humanities Press.
  • 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 , pages 227 – 250

International fascism

  • Coogan, Kevin. 1999. Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Autonomedia.
  • Goldberg, Jonah. 2007. Liberal Fascism. New York: Doubleday.
  • 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.)
  • Wallace, Henry. "The Dangers of American Fascism". The New York Times, Sunday, 9 April 1944.

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