Fascism

HISTORY
• Reaction to 1789, Enlightenment, liberalism, socialism, communism
• 20th century ideology = product of massified societies
• Collapse of liberal democracies during WWI: authoritarian regimes
in eastern Europe, Spain, Italy, Germany, Japan, Argentina

Fasces: Rods tied together to form a cylinder that holds an axe blade
(strength thru unity)
Fascismo: First coined by Mussolini (WWI)

• Italian and German fascist parties established in the same year

(1919). Mussolini came to power in 1922 and established one-party
state in 1926. Hitler became Chancellor in 1933 & turned Germany
into Nazi regime in a year.
Why?
• Democracy not well established yet, therefore weak &
unstable
• Industrialization threatened lower middle class & therefore
created hostility to both capitalism and communism
• Russian Revolution, therefore fear of communism (counter-
revolution)
• World economic crisis of the 1930s
• WWI heritage of frustrated nationalism & desire for revenge

* Erich Fromm: fear of freedom *

• Statism
– Individual is nothing, the state is everything
– Worship of power & authority
– Rejection of constitutionalism or limited government,
elimination of all intermediary institutions (parties,
elections, parliament, etc.)
– Charismatic leadership demanding unfaltering submission

• Racism, xenophobia or ultra-nationalism

– Extreme intolerance to diversity & difference
– Organic conception of nation or race (Volksgemeinschaft)
– Belief in superiority of nation or race (anti-semitism,
Lebensraum)
• Anti-rationalism
– Importance of myths of heroism & past glory
– Duty, honor & self-sacrifice come before reason or faith
– Action more valued than intellectualism (Mussolini:
“action not talk”)
– Vitalism or exhaltation of instincts & forces of life
• Militarism
– Importance of war: Hitler: “unalterable law of the whole of
life” & ultimate test of strength (Mussolini: “War is to men
what maternity is to women”)
– Politics of the will: aggressivity encouraged and normalized
– Use of force as a means of solving problems
– Expansionist foreign policy (Lebensraum)
• Anti-humanism
– Social Darwinism: weakness is bad, strength is good
– Weak can and must be eliminated for the sake of survival
of species (eugenics, holocaust)
– Creating a new civilization by destroying present corrupt
one (phoenix rising from its ashes)
– Three types of humans: leaders, warriors, masses
• Corporatism
– Against centralized planning and free market economy
– Forced control of all key industries & finance institutions
– Class relations mediated by the state
– Idea that common good (national interest) comes before
private good (individual)
– Pragmatism and anti-communism
Attention:
Fascism is NOT a dictatorship where masses are totally excluded
from politics.
• Populist-mobilizing features: awakening masses to their
destiny
• Use of plebiscites, rallies & demonstration
• Propaganda & political agitation
 
NOT all fascist regimes are totalitarian, but all tend towards
totalitarianism
NOT all fascist regimes are racist, but all racialism tends towards
fascism

• Differences between Italian & German fascism: racialism vs.

glorification of simple folk traditions
 NAZISM

• 1920: Hitler’s membership in German Workers’ Party (NSDAP)

• 1923: Beer Hall Putsch against Bavairan government  jail
• 1924-5: Leadership of NSDAP & foundation of SA & SS
• 1932: NSDAP becomes first party in Reichstag (33%)
• 1933: Hitler becomes Chancellor & burns Reichstag & sets up
concentration camps
• 1934: Liquidation of SA leadership (Röhm)
• 1935: Nuremberg Laws : marriage & interracial relations prohibited
• 1938: Kristallnacht : exclusion of Jews from economy & Anschluss
• 1939: Beginning of World War II
• 1942: The Final Solution
• 1945: Collapse of the Nazi regime
ADOLF HITLER:
Mein Kampf (1924)
• Ideas concerning the masses: virility (leaders) vs. femininity
(masses)
• Invocation of pseudo-scientific laws of nature (or of history) to
demonstrate necessity of racial domination
• Combating poison gas with poison gas (praise of terror)
• Conquest of the world by Germans (Aryan race) vs. instinct of
self-preservation
• Mankind divided into three: Foudners of culture, bearers of
culture, destroyers of culture (Jews)
• Portrayal of the Jew as possessing only negative qualities & as
being responsible for all of the problems of society.
 Argument on Protocols of Zion
National Socialism: 25 points (1920):
• German Workers’ Party = national socialism

Selected Speeches (1923-43)

- Importance of struggle & force (hammer & anvil metaphor)
- Against humanitarianism
- Value of individual derives from his race
- Fatherland as “sacred”

Holocaust: planned & systematic extermination of Jews (as well

as communists, gypsies, gays, etc.)
 Italian Fascism
Mussolini’s March on Rome (1922): coup d’Etat supported by
King, business class, liberal right-wing parties and military

1925: “Il Duce” makes speech in parliament claiming

responsibility for squadristi violence & promising crackdown
on opposition

1925-1927: Dismantling of all constitutional restraints (from PM

to “head of government”)
1. Not responsible before parliament
2. Not revocable by Kings
3. Several ministries at the same time
 police state / one-party state / personality cult
 total state
Benito Mussolini:
The Doctrine of Fascism (1932)
1. Fascism as both action and thought & organic conception of
world
2. Idea of the sacrifice of individual to existence of the nation
3. Against positivism & materialism  fascism as religion
4. Utopia vs. History as reference
5. Against liberalism  totalitarianism (nothing outside the
state)
6. Against democracy (majoritarianism): nation is not the
majority, but is the state
7. Against limited government: state as will of nation
Fascism Liberalism Socialism
National interest General interest Common good determined
determined by leaders determined by elections or by:
market 1. Interests of the
proletariat
2. Collective decision-
making

Individual interest must not Sum of individuals interests Removal of obstacles is

clash with interest of is sufficient to represent necessary for self-
nation general interest determination