political attitude and mass movement that tended to dominate political life in central, southern, and eastern-central Europe

between 1919 and 1944. Common to all fascist movements was an emphasis on the nation (race or state) as the centre and regulator of all history and life, and on the indisputable authority of the leader behind whom the people were expected to form an unbreakable unity. The word fascism itself was first used in 1919 by Benito Mussolini in Italy; in the following years the influence of fascism made itself felt in countries as far away as Japan, Argentina, Brazil, and the Union of South Africa, its specific aspects varying according to the country's political traditions, its social structure, and the personality of the leader. The Italian word fascio (derived from the Latin fasces, a bundle of rods with an ax in it) symbolized both aspects: the power of many united and obeying one will and the authority of the state, which was the supreme source of law and order and all national life._ Social and economic conditions that encourage the development of fascismPolitically and socially the modern, industrial middle-class societies that developed in Britain, Scandinavia, Switzerland, the Low Countries, and France in the 19th century showed a great power of resistance to fascism, which was, on the whole, confined to fringe movements. Even in Germany, with her bitter resentments accumulated from her failure in World War I, which Hitler masterfully manipulated and fused with older resentments, fascism would probably not have come to power had it not been for the inflation crisis of 1923 and the widespread unemployment of the early 1930s. Finally, the rise of fascism in Germany owed much to the weakness of civilian democracy in that country. Germany had originated as a nation-state in 1871, thanks almost entirely to the militaryauthoritarian tradition of Prussia and the victories achieved by its army without the aid of any other power. The new Reich was proclaimed at the gates of Paris, the capital of the defeated enemy, and the German middle classes and German scholarship all willingly accepted the traditional values of the efficient ruling class, though by 1900 these values were insufficient to support an expanding modern industrial society._