Fascism

Fascism A totalitarian ideology which is opposed to Communism, liberalism, and democracy. The term was derived from the Latin fasces, a bundle of rods with a projecting axe which was the insignia of consular authority in ancient Rome. It was first used by an Italian anti-socialist militia, Fascio di Combattimento, in 1919, and was applied by Mussolini to his movement after his rise to power in 1922. A number of movements in interwar Europe modelled themselves on Mussolini's movement and have been frequently referred to as Fascist, such as Franco's Falange in Spain, the Croatian Ustase, or Hitler's Nazi Party. The basis for these Fascist movements was an extreme form of nationalism which contrasted some glorified (mystical) past with current problems. These were usually held to be caused by all those that were considered to be apart from the ‘national community’, in particular foreigners and domestic minorities such as gypsies and Jews. The wide appeal of these largely irrational, emotive, and prejudicial arguments during the interwar years was encourged by large-scale economic crises and the failure of the political systems in many European countries to cope with them. Fascists encouraged domestic industrial self-sufficiency (not least to improve the nation's prospects in wartime), and tried with some success to regulate economic supply and demand. In contrast to Communism, however, Fascism was not principally opposed to private property, despite the existence of some anti-capitalist tendencies. Fascism was anti-liberal and anti-democratic, and once in power it was reliant on an authoritarian state machine in order to remain in power.

Since the end of World War II there have been a number of neo-Fascist popular movements in Europe. Most recently, however, the term has been popularly used to denote movements like the French Front Nationale, the far-right Liberal Party in Austria, and the neo-Fascist part of the Italian National Alliance, which formed part of Silvio Berlusconi's governments. They were distinguished more by their distinctive populism and their xenophobia, which often included anti-Semitic rhetoric. These populist movements generated strong support across social classes. However, the label of Fascism has usually been applied wrongly to these movements, since the actual content of their policies differed widely. They ranged from a defence of liberalism in the Netherlands, to an ostensible defence of French republican values in France.

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