fascism

fascism is a generic name for a particular brand of totalitarian regime, several of which made their appearance in Europe between 1922 and 1936.

The name, taken from the Latin fasces, the ceremonial bundle of rods and an axe carried before magistrates in ancient Rome, symbolizing the power and unity of the Roman imperium, was coined by Mussolini, whose National Fascist Party was the first such group to gain power. In a general sense, it can be taken to include the National Socialists of Adolf Hitler in Germany, the Falangists in Spain, Salazar's regime in Portugal, the Ustašas in Croatia, and the Iron Guard and Arrow Cross parties in Romania and Hungary respectively. It also had its adherents, such as the British Union in the UK, Action Française in France, and the Falanga in Poland, where it never became the dominant political force.

Though as a doctrine fascism has no coherent political programme, the fascists of the 1920s and 1930s shared a number of political beliefs, or organizational methods, psychological traits, and common enemies. Fear of anarchy and of Bolshevik insurrection were elements common to all forms of fascism and important in attracting the support of the middle classes and petty bourgeoisie. Fascists were all ultranationalist, fervently believing in the special mission and often the racial superiority of their nation. They all laid emphasis on the collective life of the nation and its destiny, minimizing the rights and interests of individual citizens.

The climate in which fascism arose favoured also the emergence of charismatic politicians or military commanders, and fascist parties developed the cult of the all-powerful national ‘leader’— Duce, Führer, or Caudillo—and they gave monopoly powers to their own ruling party. Like the communists, they established a system of parallel party organs whose function was to control all institutions of the state; and they raised élite forces—such as the Nazi SS—whose first tasks were to defend the party and to subordinate the regular army to it. A façade of popular elections and legislative assemblies was usually maintained; but through rigged electoral commissions, subservient courts (see People's Court), police terror, and, in extreme forms, concentration camps, fascists were able to eliminate most effective active opposition. They paid great attention to education, to youth movements (see Hitler Youth), and to the techniques of modern propaganda; and hence to rallies, processions, films, uniforms, the subservience of all forms of art, and social regimentation of all kinds.

By these means, fascists were able to create a social ethos marked by conformism, hostility to outsiders, routine violence, contempt for the weak, and extreme hatred of dissident opinions. They believed themselves to be building a new social order, dominated by a new sort of human being. As a result, in the more radical variants, they had no truck with the conservative traditions of the church (see religion) or the army. The political evils against which their crusade was directed were liberal democracy and, above all, communism.

Some western political scientists, strongly influenced by fascism's enmity with communism, have generally classified it as a radical right-wing movement (in this, they followed the original communist analysis). In fact this classification is misleading: fascism was a brew of both right-wing and left-wing elements, the particular mix varying from country to country and from phase to phase. Fascism was not so much the opposite of communism as its rival, offering an alternative radical vision for rebuilding the world through violence.

However, the fascist movement was anything but homogenous. The Italian Fascisti, for example, possessed a distinct, left-wing socialist element, as did the German National Socialists up to the Röhm Purge of 1934; the Spanish Falangists did not. The Nazis made anti-Semitism a central theme in their philosophy, as did the Iron Guard; the Fascisti and the Falangists were much less concerned with it. Both the Italian and the Romanian fascists worked within the framework of a monarchy, whereas the Nazis overturned all pre-existing state structures. The Falangist party had close ties to the Catholic Church, and saw itself as the latest stage in Spain's thousand-year Christian crusade. Mussolini's Fascist Party was largely indifferent in religious matters once it had made peace with the Vatican through the Concordat of 1929. Hitler's fascists, in contrast, were ostentatiously pagan and anti-Christian (but see German Christians), losing no opportunity to publicize their allegiance to the ancient German gods and the Wagnerian legends.

Inevitably, perhaps, the hysterical nationalism which was inherent in each branch of the fascist movement excluded the possibility of true harmony among them, and the Axis powers did not display any great degree of common ‘fascist’ purpose during the war. Franco, the Caudillo of Spain, remained coldly aloof from Nazi designs throughout the war. He rebuffed Hitler outright at their one and only meeting at Hendaye in 1940; and Spanish assistance to Germany was limited (see Blue Division and Spanish Legion). In Portugal, Salazar followed Franco's lead. Mussolini was less than enthusiastic about Nazi activities in the first stage of the war. Later on, the Germans deeply resented the need to rescue the Italian fascists from their misconceived and ill co-ordinated Western Desert and Balkan campaigns. The wholesale massacre of Italian soldiers, and of Italian prisoners in Germany, after Italy surrendered in September 1943 was evidence of this resentment (see also Garibaldi Division).

Fascism did inspire a measure of public support in many countries of wartime Europe, so long as it was seen to be fighting a successful anti-communist war. The number of French, Flemish, Dutch, Scandinavian, Yugoslav, and Baltic volunteers recruited by the Waffen-SS was impressive (see also Soviet exiles). But the success, such as it was, came from essentially negative motives. Fascism was saturated with hatred, which could only be channelled into effective action so long as it could feed on triumphs over enemies real and imagined.

Norman Davies