Fascism: Genesis & Causes

Introduction

Fascism is derived from the Latin word “fasces” meaning “a bundle of sticks” which is associated with the ancient Roman fasces or fascio littorio — a bundle of rods tied around an axe. It was an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate carried by his lictors, which could be used for corporal and capital punishment at his command. The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.

Defining Fascism

Some things are more difficult to define than they seem to be. Fascism is one such concept that has as many definitions as there are scholars of this phenomenon.

This definition by Jason Stanley is closest to its meaning

“a cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by enemies posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation, and that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.”

B. Stanley G. Payne focuses on three concepts:

1. Fascist Negations: anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism;

2. Fascist Goals: the creation of a nationalist dictatorship to create a modern, self-determined culture, & expansion of the nation into an empire

3. Fascist Style: a political aesthetic of romantic symbolism, mass mobilization, a positive view of violence, and promotion of masculinity, youth, and charismatic authoritarian leadership

All these are based on three myths-1. Glorious Past, 2. Decadent Present 3. Bright Future

Features of Fascism

Roger Griffin has listed the following ten features of “generic” fascism.

1. Fascism is Anti-Liberal: Fascists oppose pluralism, tolerance, individualism, democracy, the idea of natural rights, and the like. While fascist movements have often used democratic means to achieve power this does not deny their anti-democratic ends. Fascists view liberalism as a decadent and failed ideology.
2. Fascism is Anti-Conservative: The key element of Fascism is that it seeks a “national rebirth” or “new order”, this may refer to a glorious past but doesn’t call for a return to it. They reject conservative status quo politics.
3. Fascism is Populism: It tends to operate as a charismatic form of politics relying on personality cults, mass movements and appeals to collective emotions over reason.
4. Fascism is Anti-Rational: Fascists do not view man’s capacity to reason as the key human ability, but rather the capacity to be driven to heroic action using belief, myth, symbols, and the like.
5. Fascistic Socialism: Though staunch enemies of socialists and communism, fascists claim the same goals as socialism offers; their movement offers the end of class conflict in society along with the adequate reward for the productive members of the nation. Similarly, Fascists are strong supporters of a strong state’s role in the economy. Likewise, Syndicalism and Corporatism are strong elements in fascist economics.
6. Fascism is Totalitarianism: A fascist utopia would see the state as all-powerful, and the population as homogeneous and well-regimented to the ends of the state. The machinery required to ensure ideological and behavioural uniformity in that state would be Orwellian in scale. Mussolini put it frankly when he said: “All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state”
7. Heterogeneous Social Support: In theory, fascism has no bias in support by class. In principle, fascism should appeal to all classes equally. Both Italian Fascism and German Nazism made strong rhetorical gestures to all classes. The same could be said of support by gender, though the tendency to emphasize militarism and physical courage could be considered an appeal to chauvinism.
8. Fascism is Racism: Griffin says, “By its nature, fascism is racist since all ultra nationalisms are racist in their celebration of the alleged virtues and greatness of an organically conceived nation or culture”. In the same way, fascism opposes the “liberal vision of the multicultural, multi-religious, multiracial society”.
9. Fascist Internationalism: While focused on issues relevant to its nation, fascism is perfectly capable of supporting and finding solidarity with fascist movements in other nations. Especially when facing common enemies. The Axis Powers are a clear example of this.
10. Fascist Eclecticism: Fascists are not averse to taking an idea or two from both the far right (illiberalism, racism) and the far left (syndicalism). This was considered a strength by fascist leaders and these nearly contradictory ideas are always united by their relation to the concept of national rebirth.

Some Fascist Regimes

1. Italy’s Mussolini.

2. Germany’s Hitler.

3. Imperial Japan.

4. Austro-Fascism.

5. Brazil’s Integralist Party.

6. Croatia’s Ustase Movement.

7. France’s Vichy Regime.

8. Greece’s 4th of August Regime

C. Origins of Fascism

Although the roots of fascism can be traced to the Jacobin movement during the French Revolution, it started in the aftermath of the 1st World War which created favourable conditions for its rise. According to most scholars, much credit for the spread of Fascism in Italy also goes to Mussolini who made the best use of the confusion caused by the economic crisis as well as by some political parties (especially by the Communists and the Socialists).

He organized armed gangs against the Communists and the Socialists in 1919 A.D. On 28th October 1922 A.D., he along with his volunteers and supporters attacked Rome (i.e., the Capital of Italy) and compelled the liberal Prime Minister of Italy (named Giolitti) to resign. The king of Italy- Victor Emmanual III invited Mussolini to join his government and soon he was made the Prime Minister. Now Mussolini was all in all in Italy. In 1926 A.D. he banned all political parties except his Fascist party. He suppressed his main political rivals i.e. the communists and the socialists. He followed the policy of war and expansion.

Some of the reasons for the rise of fascism in Italy are as follows

1. WW1 was First Total War

2. Emergence of Powerful State

3. Technology for Mass Mobilisation

4. Political Discontentment

5. Economic Frustration

6. Inefficient Government

7. Weak Opposition

8. Reaction against Communism

1. WW1 was First Total War

WW1 has been rightly termed as the first Total War in which the mass mobilization of society erased the distinction between civilians and combatants. A military citizenship arose in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner.

Consequently, even after the end of hostilities, people in most European countries were in war mode. As such it was quite easy for a demagogue to mobilize a sizeable chunk of the population in support of any cause he wanted to espouse.

2. Emergence of Powerful State

The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines and providing logistics to support them, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.

This emergence of the state as the most powerful institution gave an incentive to anyone genuinely desirous of bringing social change in society or for self-aggrandisement to seize power and use its resources to fulfilling its agenda. That is why Mussolini and Hitler were so keen to seize power by hook or crook

3. Technology for Mass Mobilisation

WW1 accelerated technological growth with the result that it became far easier to mobilize people and organise them and transport hundreds of thousands of people in a short period from one place to another.

4. Political Discontent

Before First World War Italy was in the camp of Germany and Austria but joined Allies in the First World War against the Central powers as she was promised monetary rewards and territorial expansion after the war.

But the Treaty of Versailles disillusioned her aspirations. She got much less than she had expected to get out of the spoils of the war. The Italians felt neglected and cheated. Even their genuine demands were not accepted. This gave a shock to Italy’s imperialist designs. This brought Italy into the hold and folds of fascism.

5. Economic Depression

A vast number of Italians were either killed or wounded in the war. The people in large numbers were rendered homeless. This increased the national debt tremendously. There was a great scarcity of food grains in the country. The prices of the commodities of daily use rose to the sky. Trade and industry were ruined. Unemployment was on the increase. The condition of the middle-class people worsened. Italy faced an acute economic crisis after the war. Many riots took place in Italy. The social unrest and discontentment led to the rise of fascism in Italy.

6. Reaction to Communism

It will not be an exaggeration to say that an extensive propagation of communism was responsible for the success of Mussolini’s Fascist Party. The people had grown apprehensive of the growing influence of communism. Ketelby writes that the early Fascism of Italy was a reaction to communism. It put a halt to the growing influence of communism. But Fascism was something more than this. After World War, the atmosphere in Italy was filled with discontent and despondency.

The rise of Marxism and unionism in such an atmosphere produced a violent nationalism among the peasants and workers, so communism began to thrive in Italy. The Italian communists began to dream of establishing the government of the proletariat in Italy by exciting the peasants and workers to revolt as the Bolsheviks had done in Russia. Socialist parties of several hues appeared in the country. In the elections held in November 1919, the socialists secured 156 seats, but Italy did not turn red because the Fascist Party vehemently opposed communism.

7. Inefficient Government

The Treaty of Versailles and the economic crisis spread a wave of anger and unrest in the whole of Italy. The Liberal Government of Italy was weak and inefficient. It did not rise to the occasion. It could not maintain law and order in the country. Hence people craved change. They found in Mussolini their saviour who could rescue the nation from the acute crisis. Thus Fascism grew and thrived in Italy. ‘Bold leadership was the need of the hour and it was supplied by the Fascists’.

Realizing the potential of the state to intervene in the lives of citizens, a group of radical nationalists under the leadership of Benito Mussolini started the fascist movement in Italy for the complete mobilization of society under a totalitarian one-party state as necessary to prepare a nation for meeting its internal and external challenges.

8. Weak Opposition

At that time, there were many political parties in Italy. But they were not united among themselves. Almost all parties got some seats in the Parliament due to the proportionate system of election. No party could be capable of forming an independent government on its own. So, they mostly formed ministries with the cooperation of each other. Consequently, they could not solve the problems of the country properly and wasted their time in making efforts for capturing power into their hands. Thus, there was a lack of unity among themselves. The Fascist party took advantage of their disunity and propagated its principles among the people.

Led by a strong leader like Mussolini, they established a dictatorship to forge national unity and maintain a stable and orderly society. Accepting political violence, war, and imperialism as means that can achieve national rejuvenation, they advocated a mixed economy, with the principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency) through protectionist and interventionist economic policies.

Criticism

Fascism has been widely criticized and condemned in modern times since the defeat of the Axis Powers in World War II.

1. Anti-democratic and tyrannical: One of the most common and strongest criticisms of fascism is that it is a tyranny. Fascism is deliberately and entirely non-democratic and anti-democratic
2. Unprincipled opportunism: Some critics of Italian fascism have said that much of the ideology was merely a by-product of unprincipled opportunism by Mussolini and that he changed his political stances merely to bolster his ambitions while he disguised them as being purposeful to the public. Mussolini’s transformation away from Marxism into what eventually became fascism began before
3. Ideological dishonesty: Fascism has been criticized for being ideologically dishonest. Major examples of ideological dishonesty have been identified in Italian fascism’s changing relationship with German Nazism. Italian fascism’s stance towards German Nazism fluctuated from support from the late 1920s to 1934, when it celebrated Hitler’s rise to power and meeting with Hitler in 1934; to opposition from 1934 to 1936 after the assassination of Italy’s allied leader in Austria, Engelbert Dollfuss, by Austrian Nazis; and again back to support after 1936, when Germany was the only significant power that did not denounce Italy’s invasion and occupation of Ethiopia.

(From my book “International Relations: Basic Concepts & Global Issues”, available at Amazon https://www.amazon.com/dp/B08QZSRWT1)