Fascism is an authoritarian political ideology (generally tied to a mass movement) that considers individual and other societal interests subordinate to the needs of the state, and seeks to forge a type of national unity, usually based on, but not limited to, ethnic, cultural, or racial attributes. Various scholars attribute different characteristics to fascism, but the following elements are usually seen as its integral parts: nationalism, authoritarianism, statism, militarism, corporatism, populism, totalitarianism, anti-communism, racism and opposition to economic and political liberalism.^[1][2][3]

There are numerous debates among scholars and other individuals regarding the nature of fascism and the kinds of political movements and governments that may accurately be called fascist. The extent to which German Nazism may be considered a form of fascism is debated. Most scholars see fascism as on the political right or allied with right-wing movements.^[4] In addition, some scholars see fascism as the radicalization of the center or as a populist revolt of the middle classes,^[5][6][7][8] or even a derivative of anarchism.^[9] Historically, however, fascist movements have been much better received amongst the moneyed classes, than the working classes, where capitalists were more accepting and unions were most opposed.^[10]. Fascist movements sometimes claim they represent a "Third Way between left and right, between Marxian socialism and capitalism."^[11]

Fascism has been defunct in the Western world as a major political ideology since the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II. There is considerable stigma attached to the name and to the concept, and it is not uncommon for people to label their political opponents (or authority figures in general) pejoratively as "fascists". However, a small number of openly fascist political groups continue to exist, such as the Italian Fiamma Tricolore.

The term 'fascism'

The term fascismo was first coined by the Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini^{[citation needed]}. It is derived from the Italian word fascio, which means "union" or "league", 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, and the symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is very difficult to break.

Roots and branches

Originally, the term "fascism" (fascismo) was used by the political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (see Italian fascism). Later, fascism became a broader term that was used to cover a whole class of authoritarian political ideologies, parties and political systems, though 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 such definitions can be found in the article Definitions of fascism.

Part of the difficulty arises from the fact that there are, at present, very few self-identified fascists. Since the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, the word has become a slur throughout the rest of the political spectrum; since 1945 it has been extremely uncommon for political groups to call themselves fascist. In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it as embodying the opposite of their own views.

The governments and parties most often considered to have been fascist include Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, Spain's Falange, Portugal's Estado Novo, Hungary's Arrow Cross Party, Romania's Iron Guard, and other similar movements that existed across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Some authors reject this broader use of the term or exclude certain of these parties and regimes.^[12]

Fascism attracted political support from diverse sectors of the population. In countries such as Romania and Hungary (and to a lesser extent in other states), Fascism had a strong base of support among the working classes and extremely poor peasants. Other supports have included members of big business, farmers and landowners, nationalists, and reactionaries, disaffected World War I veterans, intellectuals such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Curzio Malaparte, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger, conservatives and small businessmen.

Definitions

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.

Mussolini defined fascism as being a right-wing collectivistic ideology in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He wrote in The Political and Social 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 (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the 'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State. (a version of the text is here).

Since Mussolini, however, 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."^[13]

Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:

• "1. 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."^[14]

Fascism is associated by many scholars with one or more of the following characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation, state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing it.

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.^[15] 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.^[16] 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.^[17]

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. Some scholars and political commentators argue that fascism is a form of socialist dictatorship similar to that in the Soviet Union.^[18]

Scope of the word Fascism

Authoritarian and totalitarian state

Part of the Politics series
Basic forms of government
List of forms of government List of countries by system of government
Source of power Democracy (rule by many) Demarchy Direct Liberal Representative Social Socialist Others Oligarchy (rule by few) Anocracy Aristocracy Gerontocracy Kleptocracy Kritarchy Meritocracy Noocracy Particracy Plutocracy Stratocracy Technocracy Theocracy Autocracy (rule by one) Despotism Dictatorship Military dictatorship Tyranny Anarchy (rule by none) Anarchism Free association Stateless
Power ideology Monarchy Republic (socio-political ideologies) Absolute Communist Constitutional Directorial Legalist Parliamentary Presidential Semi-presidential Authoritarian Libertarian (socio-economic ideologies) Anarchism Colonialism Communism Despotism Distributism Fascism Feudalism Socialism Totalitarianism Tribalism Religious Secular State religion Secular state State atheism Global Local (geo-cultural ideologies) City-state Intergovernmental organisation National government World government Nationalism Internationalism Globalism
Power structure Unitarism Unitary state Empire Principality Client state Associated state Dependent territory Dominion Protectorate Puppet state Puppet monarch Satellite state Self-governing colony Tributary state Buffer state Vassal state Viceroyalty Federalism Confederation Devolution Federation Superstate Supranational union International relations Small power Regional power Middle power Great power Superpower
Related Administrative division Democracy indices Democratic transition Autocratization Democratisation Hybrid regimes
Politics portal

The term fascism is sometimes but very rarely applied to other authoritarian regimes of the same period, such as those of Imperial Japan under Hideki Tojo, Austria under Engelbert Dollfuss, and Greece under Ioannis Metaxas. Its use for similar, but longer-lived, regimes such as Spain under Francisco Franco and the Estado Novo of António de Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, is widespread among opponents of those regimes, but often disputed by supporters and by some historians. Hitler and Mussolini supported what they believed were fascist policies in the New Deal programs of Franklin Roosevelt in the United States. This trend toward the term being used only by opponents is even more pronounced in the case of more recent anti-communist authoritarian regimes, such as Chile under Augusto Pinochet^{[citation needed]} or Indonesia under Suharto. There are also several instances of labeling political opponents as fascists even if they officially subscribe to socialist doctrines. During 1928-1935 period policy of the communist movement was to describe social democracy as a form of social fascism, and during the Sino-Soviet dispute Chinese officials labeled the Soviet Union under Leonid Brezhnev as fascist.^[19] Post-Mao Chinese communists also argue that Mao Zedong's regime in China was a form of fascism.^[20]

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 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.

Fascism is also 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..^[21] 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). Hannah Arendt classed Italian fascism as an ordinary authoritarian ideology, and included only Stalinism and Nazism as totalitarians.^[22] Fascism is also considered to be a form of collectivism.^[23]

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’.^[24]

Italian Fascism

Fascio (plural: fasci) is an Italian language word which was 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 been the founder of fascism. Italian fascism (in Italian, fascismo) was the authoritarian political movement which 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 support of Italians who were anti socialist.

Differences and similarities with Nazism

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.^[25][26] 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.^[27] Mussolini's Fascism held that cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it wasn't 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.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[28]

Mussolini and Hitler weren't 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 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. However, Dollfuss' 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 he was forced by the Western Allies into an agreement with Hitler.^{[citation needed]} Mussolini also reportedly asked the Pope to excommunicate Hitler. [2]

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:

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)^{[citation needed]}

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 USSR. Several historians, such as Valery Senderov, have claimed that the "fascist" epithet for Nazi Germans was created by Stalin who did not want to use the term Nazi, fearing it would cast a negative spin on the word socialism (National Socialism).^{[citation needed]}

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.^[29] 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 socialism. ^[30] 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.^[31] 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.^[32] 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."^[33][34] According to historian Tibor Ivan Berend, dirigisme was an inherent aspect of fascist economies.^[35] Fascists were most vocal in their opposition to finance capitalism, interest charging, and profiteering.^[36] Some fascists, particularly Nazis, considered finance capitalism a "parasitic" Jewish conspiracy (see anti-Semitism).^[37] However, fascists also opposed Marxian socialism 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)."^[38] Politics professor Stephen Haseler credits fascism with providing a model of economic planning for social democracy.^[39]

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.

At the end of World War I, there were attempted socialist uprisings or threats of socialist uprisings 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 Russian Revolution also 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, which were used to crush both the Spartacist uprising and the Bavarian Soviet Republic.

With the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s, it seemed that liberalism and the liberal form of capitalism were doomed, and Communist and fascist movements swelled. These movements were bitterly opposed to each other and fought frequently, the most notable example of this 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 allied uneasily with anarchists and Trotskyists — who backed the Popular Front — and were aided chiefly by the Soviet Union.

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 was largely unsuccessful due to the 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 were endeavoring 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 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, there were debates about the nature of fascism. Communist theoretician Rajani Palme Dutt crafted one view that stressed the crisis of capitalism.^[40] 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."^[41]

Fascism and religion

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. 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^[42] restated the hostility of Rerum Novarum to both unbridled competition and class struggle. Apologists claim the criticism of both socialism and capitalism in these encyclicals was not fascist but rather closer to Christian Democracy or distributism.^{[citation needed]}

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.^{[citation needed]}

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 led to the party's disintegration in rural areas where it relied on clerical assistance.^{[citation needed]}

The Vatican subsequently established Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action) as a non-political lay organization under the direct control of bishops. The organization was forbidden by the Vatican to participate in politics, and thus was not permitted to oppose the fascist regime. Pius XI ordered all Catholics to join Catholic Action. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of Catholics withdrawing from the Partito Popolare, and joining the apolitical Catholic Action. This caused the Catholic Party's final collapse.^[43]

When Mussolini ordered the closure of Catholic Action in May 1931, Pius XI issued an encyclical, 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.^{[citation needed]}

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 "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.)^{[citation needed]}

The Vichy regime in France was also deeply influenced by the reactionary Catholic-influenced ideology of the Action Française. 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 Jews during the Holocaust.^{[citation needed]}

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.^[44]

Fascist movements like Rexism in Belgium and the Christian Social Party also combined fascist and conservative populist Roman Catholic elements.^{[citation needed]}

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. There were some instances of people being killed because of their faith.^[45]

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 synagogues 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 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 28 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 Lutherans and Evangelicals 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, was strongly opposed to the Nazis. Though there is some debate as to 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 Niemoeller 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

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.^[46] 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.

Every woman adores a Fascist,

The boot in the face, the brute

Brute heart of a brute like you.^[47]

But Sylvia Plath's angry metaphor may simply be a repetition of the old 'woman as masochist' claim. As this came in a poem about her German father, Plath may have been associating all Germans with fascism [something that was common in Britain until fairly recently].^{[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."^[48]

See also

Neo-fascism

Footnotes

Further reading

External links

Critics

• Understanding Fascism and Anti-Semitism - by Geoff Price
• The Functions of Fascism - radio lecture by Michael Parenti
• The Political Economy of Fascism - from Dave Renton's website
• Fascism and Zionism - by Suzanna Kokkonen
• Fascism: What it is and How to Fight it - by Leon Trotsky
• Fascism and Social Revolution - by Rajani Palme Dutt
• Searchlight Magazine
• After Fascism: Muslims and the Struggle for Self-determination - by Abid Ullah Jan

Proponents

• The Doctrine of Fascism - by Benito Mussolini