21.1 Fascism: An Outline Overview
As we have seen, the 1920s witnessed the rise of a new political ideology, fascism. Fascism takes its name from the Fascist Party of Italy. The Italian Fascists were the followers of Benito Mussolini, the dictator of Italy from 1922 to 1944.
Fascism in Italy was born amid the postwar economic and social chaos bred by labor unrest and attempts at communist and socialist takeover. In 1919 Mussolini organized bands of demobilized soldiers, later called Blackshirts, and with police support brutally suppressed labor agitation in northern Italy. In 1921 he founded the Fascist Party with the backing of conservative and nationalist elements of the Italian population. In 1922 the Italian king, intimidated by a Fascist March on Rome, appointed Mussolini premier.
Mussolini would take the title Il Duce as symbolic of his authority. As head of the political party that controlled the Italian parliament, Mussolini was able to eliminate all political opposition and establish a dictatorship over Italy. His sweeping reforms, which included vast public works projects and the seeming efficiency of his government, won Mussolini great respect from the Italian people.
The success of the Fascists in Italy served as an inspiration for Adolf Hitler as he built the Nazi Party in Germany. The Nazi Party was a fascist party. In Spain the Falangist Party of Francisco Franco was a fascist party.
Mussolini with Hitler
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What is fascism?
Fascism as an ideology defies easy explanation or definition. The consensus among historians is that fascism …
… is a system of one-party totalitarian dictatorship. As such it differs from communism in that its political orientation is to the extreme right.
… is opposed to parliamentary democracy and seeks to make the individual completely subject to the will of the state.
… is centered on a charismatic leader whose thought is believed to be the philosophic foundation of the state.
… is characterized by the use of state-controlled terror, censorship, and propaganda to secure its hold over a population.
… finds its support in its preservation of the existing class structure, preservation of the capitalist economic system, its appeal to nationalism, and an aggressive foreign policy.
Fascism's popular support comes from the lower middle class, the military commanders, and the economic elite (wealthy industrialists, large landowners, financiers, businessmen).
Means whereby Fascist governments kept their regimes in power
Mussolini's Fascists' and Hitler's Nazis' methods of holding and exercising political power were those of a totalitarian dictatorship. Although both governments employed the essentially the same methods, the following apply primarily to the Nazi rule in Germany, 1933 - 1945.
1. Fusion of identity of the party with that of the nation: of the people with the state and with the leader. "Ein Reich, Ein Volk, Ein Führer!" (One Nation, One People, One Leader!)
2. Elimination of all opposition political parties.
3. Severe state control and censorship of the press and broadcast media; of film production.
4. Regulation of all culture (arts, literature) in the interests of the state; the public burning of books by authors condemned by the regime.
5. Use of secret police (the Gestapo) and paramilitary forces (the SA, the SS) to enforce universal conformity to the will of the state.
6. Denial of individual civil rights, legal rights, and liberties; state exercise of arbitrary arrest and imprisonment of dissenters and other enemies in concentration camps.
7. State (and party) control of all education.
8. Formation of youth movements ("Hitler Youth") to indoctrinate young people in the party ideology.
9. Policies and programs of official persecution of designated ethnic or racial minorities. The Nazi persecution of German and Eastern European Jews, Slavs, and other Untermenschen ("subhumans") through their imprisonment in concentration camps and later the policy of systematic extermination (the Holocaust) of these groups represent the extremes to which this policy was taken under the Nazi regime. Hitler also put forth the concept that the German people were "Aryans" and as such a "Master Race" racially superior to all other people.
10. Programs of extensive arms production and military buildup. Fascism was highly militaristic. The power of a state was seen measured in the military might of that state. Hitler defied the Treaty of Versailles by rearming Germany in the 1930s. Mussolini glorified war and likewise focused Italian energies on armaments and enlarging the army and navy.
11. Abolition of all independent labor unions and formulation of laws to prevent strikes and collective bargaining.
12. Widespread and ambitious public works programs intended to provide employment and develop the power of the state. Hitler's public works included the building of a system of high-speed super highways (the Autobahnen) across Germany. Of course, the building of armaments, naval vessels, and combat aircraft and bombers also stimulated employment.
13. Impressive displays of national grandeur, power, and efficiency. The 1936 Olympic Games in Berlin brought world attention to the Nazi state. Frequent military parades and spectacular annual rallies of the Nazi Party faithful in Nuremberg vividly reflected Hitler's commanding presence.
14. Overwhelming presence of the state, party, and leader through propaganda intended to appeal to the emotions and produce conditioned responses: mass meetings, mass parades, military music, uniforms, flags, symbols (the Nazi swastika), salutes, speeches filled with rhetoric and hatred towards the regime's internal and foreign enemies.
15. An aggressive and ambitious foreign policy.
Mussolini sought to create a new Roman Empire. His territorial ambitions included the future conquests of Albania and Greece and expanding Italy’s presence in Africa by taking Ethiopia.
Hitler promised the German people rectification of the wrongs inflicted on Germany by the Versailles Diktat (“Dictation”). This meant the future military occupation of the Rhineland and the unification of all German peoples in one Reich. The German populations of Austria, Poland, and Czechoslovakia would be unified with Germany in one gigantic super state. The growing German population also needed Lebensraum, “Living Space,” to be found in the Slavic lands of Eastern Europe and Russia. Once these lands were conquered, the native Slavs would be enslaved to serve the German "Master Race." It was this philosophy that moved Nazi Germany along the road to World War Two.
16. As a totalitarian concept, fascism was based on the idea that the state was an organism with a life of its own. The individual had no life of his or her own but received life itself and all thought from the society, the people, nation, or culture. Palmer states “individuals were a microscopic cell meaningless outside of the social body. They were but clay to be molded by the imprint of their groups” (Palmer et al., 796)
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The illustration is from Wikipedia.
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Sources for Fascism
Palmer, Robert et al. A History of the Modern World. Boston: McGraw Hill, 2002.
Pauley, Bruce. Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini: Totalitarianism in the Twentieth Century: Wheeling, Il: Harlan Davidson, 2003.