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There are numerous debates concerning fascism and ideology and where fascism fits on the political spectrum. The definitional debates and arguments by academics over the nature of fascism fill entire bookshelves.

Fascism

Fascism, capitalized, was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Similar political movements spread across Europe between World War I and World War II and took several forms such as Nazism and Clerical fascism. The term neo-fascism is generally used to describe post-WWII movements seen to have fascist attributes.

More generally, fascism, uncapitalized, is typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and economic. The fascist state regulates and controls (as opposed to nationalizes) the means of production. Fascism is also typified by exaltation of the state; use of explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and by loyalty to a single leader, often to the point of a cult of personality.

There are elements of both left and right ideology in the development of Fascism, but it generally attracts political support from right-wing and ultra-conservative movements and electoral parties. Some feel that Fascism is more properly placed on the left than on the right, and some reject the dichotomy of left right politics entirely. This is discussed in more detail below.

Fascism and the political spectrum

Despite important differences from other right-wing ideologies, fascism is often considered to be a part of "the Right." This is somewhat parallel to the customary inclusion of Marxism-Leninism (and, in particular, that of the Stalinist Soviet Union and Maoist China) in "the left." Nonetheless, fascism differs significantly from other politics that are usually classified as right-wing, and most right-wingers (even many far right groups) reject any association with it on the grounds that fascism is collectivist and statist rather than individualist. Most left-wingers (even many communists) similarly reject any association with Stalinism and Maoism.

Fascism developed in Italy out of fascio, a form of radical socialism. While opposing communism and social democracy, fascism was rooted in radical left philosophy, including the theories of those such as Gabriele D'Annunzio (a former anarchist), Alceste de Ambris (influenced by anarcho-syndicalism), or former socialist Benito Mussolini.

Many of the creators of Italian Fascism had originally been supporters of the political left. Philosophers such as Robert Michel, Sergio Panunzio, and Giovanni Gentile were originally syndicalists, a group normally identified with the left and whose tactical propensity for direct action became an element in Italian Fascism. In Gentile's treatise Doctrine of Fascism, fascism is identified as being of the "collective" century and it is declared that the 20th century will be the "century of the state". Benito Mussolini himself was originally a socialist, though he disavowed his ties by the time he was leading the fascist party and many of his old comrades were the first targets of his political police.

David Schoenbaum argued in his book Hitler's Social Revolution: Class and Status in Nazi Germany, 1933-1939 that Nazism contained certain revolutionary and socialist aspects (although more in rhetoric than in reality), and it was no coincidence that the Nazis often found themselves in a struggle with the Communists for the same constituency. The DAP, which later became the Nazi Party, was formed in response and in opposition to a brief Communist revolt in Bavaria. While the Nazis opposed individualism and laissez faire capitalism, vigorous opposition to Communism and Social democracy was a founding and continuing tenet of National Socialism.

Fascism rejects Marxism and the concept of class struggle in favor of corporatism and class collaboration. The fascist view of the role of the state is sometimes said to exemplify why fascism would be placed on the right, rather than the left. Marxism considers the state to be merely a "tool of the people", sometimes calling it a "necessary evil", which exists to serve the interests of the people and to protect the common good. Ultimately, according to Marxists, the state will "wither away" to be replaced by a truly communist society. Certain forms of libertarian socialism reject the state altogether. Fascism however holds the state to be an end in and of itself (see also statism).

Imperial Japan in the 1930s and during World War II, while a distinct phenomenon, is also ordinarily understood as an expression of a right-wing philosophy; but like other forms of fascism, it is only unequivocally right wing if the terms of comparison are limited.

Griffin, Eatwell, Laqueuer, and Weber are reluctant to call fascism simply a right-wing ideology. Yet in their lengthy discussions they observe that generally fascism and neofascism ally themselves with right-wing or conservative forces on the basis of racial nationalism, hatred of the political left, or simple expediency.

Laqueuer (1996): "But historical fascism was always a coalition between radical, populist ('fascist') elements and others gravitating toward the extreme Right" p. 223.

Eatwell (1996) talks about the need of fascism for "syncretic legitimation" which sometimes led it to forge alliances with "existing mainstream elites, who often sought to turn fascism to their own more conservative purposes." Eatwell also observes that "in most countries it tended to gather force in countries where the right was weak" p. 39.

Griffin (1991, 2000) also does not include right ideology in his "fascist minimum," but he has described fascism as "Revolution from the Right" (2000), pp. 185-201.

Weber: "...their most common allies lay on the right, particularly on the radical authoritarian right, and Italian Fascism as a semi-coherent entity was partly defined by its merger with one of the most radical of all right authoritarian movements in Europe, the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI)." ( 1982), p. 8.

Thus according to these scholars, as well as Payne (1995), Fritzsche (1990), Laclau (1977), and Reich (1970), there are both left and right influences on fascism as a social movement, and right-wing ideology should not be considered part of the "fascist minimum"; nonetheless fascism ultimately attracts support from the political right, especially after attaining state power.

Fascists themselves often rejected categorization as left or right-wing, claiming to be a "third force" (see international third position and political spectrum for more information). However, the only relevant self-proclaimed fascist party in modern world, the Italian Social Movement called itself "National Right".

In contemporary politics, neofascists and neonazis are said to be far-right. Authoritarian conservatives such as supporters of the former Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet or supporters of the military juntas that ruled much of Latin America in the 1970s are also said to be far-right.

Fascism and Conservatism

There is some controversy about the ideological impact of the conservative element in fascism. European fascism drew on existing anti-modernist conservatism, and on the conservative reaction to communism and 19th-century socialism. Conservative thinkers such as historian Oswald Spengler provided much of the world view (Weltanschauung) of the Nazi movement. However, traditionalist, monarchist, and Roman Catholic conservatives often despised the fascist mass movements, and the personality cult around the leader. In Britain, the conservative Daily Mail enthusiastically backed Sir Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists, and part of the Conservative Party supported closer ties with Nazi Germany. When defeat in World War II ideologically and historically discredited fascism, almost all Western conservatives tried to distance themselves from it. Nevertheless, many post-war Western conservatives continued to admire the Franco regime in Spain, clearly conservative but also fascist in origin. With the end of the Franco regime and Portugal's Estado Novo in the 1970s, the relationship between conservatism and classical European fascism was further weakened.

The relationship of fascism to right-wing ideologies (including some that are described as neo-fascist) is still an issue for conservatives and their opponents. Especially in Germany, there is a constant exchange of ideology and persons, between the influential national-conservative movement, and self-identified national-socialist groups. In Italy too, there is no clear line between conservatives, and movements inspired by the Italian Fascism of the 1920s to 1940s, including the Alleanza Nazionale which is member of the governing coalition under premier Silvio Berlusconi. Conservative attitudes to the 20th-century fascist regimes are still an issue.

Fascism, totalitarianism, and corporatism

Some historians and theorists regard fascism and "Soviet Communism" (more specifically, Stalinism) as being similar, lumping them together under the term "totalitarianism." They condemn both groups as dictatorships and totalitarian police states. They argue that communist states have had much in common with fascist states, in matters ranging from militarism to censorship. In addition, both Hitler and Stalin committed mass murder of their country's civilians who did not fit in with their plans.

Hannah Arendt asserts that fascism, Nazism and Stalinism are all forms of totalitarianism, and that "totalitarian movements use socialism and racism by emptying them of their utilitarian content, the interests of a class or nation." (The Origins of Totalitarianism by Hannah Arendt, page 348). Similar views have also been espoused by Karl Popper and others. However, neither Arendt nor Popper challenged the prevailing perception of communism being on the left and fascism on the right.

A few scholars, such as Friedrich Hayek and Ludwig von Mises, dissent from the idea that fascism is a right-wing movement.

Hayek argues that the differences between fascism and totalitarian forms of socialism, such as Stalinism, are rhetorical rather than actual. In particular, he notes that the economic preferences of the fascists mirrored those of the socialists and communists. For example, all three put in place capital controls, wage and price controls as means of controlling the economy (and, subsequently, the people as Hayek's Road To Serfdom claimed). He found the distinctions to be nothing more than rhetorical differences in the justifications for why these economic preferences are put in place: to protect the lower class in class warfare, or to protect the interest of the state. Such rhetorical differences are therefore said to be negligible compared to the outcomes of the state economic control used by the three ideologies.

According to the libertarian Nolan chart, "fascism" occupies a place on the political spectrum as the capitalist equivalent of communism, wherein a system that supports "economic liberty" is constrained by its social controls such that it becomes totalitarian. Among libertarians, fascism is seen as not only promoting the state, but also nationalist collectivism, above the individual by merging "syndicalism and nationalism."

In 1947, Austrian School economist Ludwig von Mises published a short book entitled Planned Chaos. He asserted that fascism and Nazism were socialist dictatorships and that both had been committed to the Soviet principle of dictatorship and violent oppression of dissenters. He argued that Mussolini's major heresy from Marxist orthodoxy had been his strong endorsement of Italian entry into World War I on the Allied side. (Mussolini aimed to "liberate" Italian-speaking areas under Austrian control in the Alps.) This view contradicts the statements of Mussolini himself (not to mention his socialist opponents), and is generally viewed with skepticism by historians.

Critics of this view point out that Mussolini imprisoned Antonio Gramsci from 1926 until 1934, after Gramsci, a leader of the Italian Communist Party and leading Marxist intellectual, tried to create a common front among the political left and the workers, in order to resist and overthrow fascism. Other Italian Communist leaders like Palmiro Togliatti went into exile and fought for the Republic in Spain.

Proponents of communism argue that the Marxist concept of dictatorship of the proletariat is not the same as the fascist concept of dictatorship. Dictatorship of the proletariat is supposed to mean workers' democracy: dictatorship by the working class, rather than the dictatorship by the capitalist class that Karl Marx claimed existed in the capitalist societies of his time. They claim that this concept was distorted under Stalin, in a deviation from Marxism, to mean dictatorship by the General Secretary over the Party and the working class. Opponents of Communism, however, argue that the Soviet Union was already dictatorial under Lenin.

The fascist economic model of corporatism promoted class collaboration by attempting to bring classes together under the unity of the state, a concept that is anathema to classic socialism.

Critics of corporatism ranging from libertarian economists Mises, Flynn, and Hayek to socialists such as Gabriel Kolko and anarchists such as Kevin Carson, argue that fascism is in some ways similar or even identical to corporatism.

Fascism and police state regimes

The fascist states from the period between the two world wars were police states as were many post-WWII communist states. Conversely, there have been multi-party socialist states that have not been police states, and non-socialist states that have been police states.

Examples of police states in modern times, outside of the Communist world, include:

• Afghanistan under the Taliban;
• Brazil under Getulio Vargas (fascism-like state) and also during the military dictatorship from 1964 to 1986;
• Burma (Myanmar) under the current military dictatorship;
• Chile under General Augusto Pinochet;
• the Republic of China under Chiang Kai-shek's Kuomintang;
• Iran under the Mohammad Ali Shah, as well as under the last Shah, Mohammad Reza Pahlavi, and later on under the Islamic Republic;
• Iraq and Syria under Ba'athist dictatorships;
• South Vietnam, South Korea, Singapore, etc. during certain periods of their recent history.

Fascism in the United States?

(More contemporary examples are discussed on the page Neo-Fascism).

While many people hold the view that there are certain fascist elements operating within the United States, certainly very few scholars would call the U.S., in its entirety, a fascist country.

The idea of fascism developing in the United States was presented in the 1935 satirical novel It Can't Happen Here by Sinclair Lewis.

Cases have been made both for and against this allegation on all sides of the political spectrum.

Primarily from the political left there are also those who point to the Business Plot, which was an alleged attempt to overthrow Franklin D. Roosevelt after the widespread popularity of the New Deal threatened the interests of the industrial and financial elite.

Primarily from the political right comes the argument that Roosevelt was the first to introduce Fascism to America through his New Deal Policies, specifically the National Recovery Administration, which was ruled as an unconstitutional usurption of Legislative power by the Executive Branch. As a result, the next step that FDR attempted, namely the "court packing" plan was also viewed by critics as fascistic.

Historic view from the Right

A small number of libertarians and ultraconservatives argue that the U.S. has been imposing a fascist system of government since the New Deal.

While Mussolini cartelized Italian industry with his "Fascist Confederation of Industry," critics argue that Franklin D. Roosevelt cartelized US industry under the National Recovery Act, using populist rhetoric to mask fascist structures. Even theorists such as Gabriel Kolko saw some parallels between Mussolini, Hitler, and Roosevelt.

The central argument is that while similar to state socialism in its authoritarianism, fascism prefers state control over ostensibly private property rather than nationalization as carried out by Roosevelt. According to Joseph R. Stromberg:

"More recently, historians have taken a second look at the actual structural parallels in these corporatist experiments. While it is now generally agreed that corporatism survived the demise of fascism, it can also be asked whether fascism survived its supposed death. In 1954, Hofstadter chided those who had worried about "several close parallels" between FDR’s N.R.A. and fascist corporatism. There are more than "several" parallels. In 1944, John T. Flynn made the case in "As We Go Marching," where he enumerated the stigmata of generic fascism, surveyed the interwar policies of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, and pointed to uncomfortably similar American policies.

"For Flynn, the hallmarks of fascism were:

• 1) unrestrained government;
• 2) an absolute leader responsible to a single party;
• 3) a planned economy with nominal private ownership of the means of production;
• 4) bureaucracy and administrative "law";
• 5) state control of the financial sector;
• 6) permanent economic manipulation via deficit spending;
• 7) militarism, and
• 8) imperialism (pp. 161-62).

"He proceeded to show that all these were alive and well under the wartime New Deal administration (pp. 166-258). Pragmatic American liberalism had produced "a genteel fascism" without the ethnic persecutions and full-scale executive dictatorship seen overseas." - Joseph R. Stromberg, Fascism: Déjà Vu All Over Again

Sources

• FDR Scandal Page
• Fireside Chat on Reorganization of the Judiciary, March 9, 1937.
• The Roosevelt Myth, by John T. Flynn, San Francisco: Fox and Wilkes, 1998. ISBN 0930073274 Book Review

Historic view from the Left

In 1933, retired General Smedley Butler testified to the McCormack-Dickstein Committee that he had been approached by a group of wealthy business interests, led by the Du Pont and J. P. Morgan industrial empires, to orchestrate a fascist coup against Roosevelt. The alleged coup attempt has come to be known as the Business Plot.

Neo-Fascism

Contemporary neo-fascism and allegations of neofascism are covered in a number of other articles rather than on this page:

• See: Neo-Fascism; Neo-Nazism; Neofascism and religion; Christian Identity; Creativity Movement; Ku Klux Klan ; National Alliance; Nouvelle Droite; American Nazi Party; Alain de Benoist; William Luther Pierce; George Lincoln Rockwell; Producerism.

See also

• Fascio (usage 1890s to World War I)
• The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle
• George Seldes, early reporter of US fascism.
• Horst Wessel Lied, a German song that encapsulates much of Fascist ideology.
• Fascist symbolism
• Japanese nationalism, Japanese Radical Right-Nationalist Local Ideology from the World War II times to the present day.

References

• Hitler, Adolf. Mein Kampf (1992). London: Pimlico. ISBN 071265254X
• "Labor Charter" (1927-1934)
• Mussolini, Benito. Doctrine of Fascism which was published as part of the entry for fascismo in the Enciclopedia Italiana 1932.
• Sorel, Georges. Reflections on Violence.
• Wallace, Henry. "The Dangers of American Fascism". The New York Times, Sunday, 9 April 1944.

General bibliography

• De Felice, Renzo Interpretations of Fascism, translated by Brenda Huff Everett, Cambridge ; London : Harvard University Press, 1977 ISBN 0674459628.
• Hughes, H. Stuart. 1953. The United States and Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Payne, Stanley G. 1995. A History of Fascism, 1914-45. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0299148742
• Eatwell, Roger. 1996. Fascism: A History. New York: Allen Lane.

Bibliography on Fascist ideology

• De Felice, Renzo Fascism : an informal introduction to its theory and practice, an interview with Michael Ledeen, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1976 ISBN 0878551905.
• Laqueur, Walter. 1966. Fascism: Past, Present, Future, New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Griffin, Roger. 2000. "Revolution from the Right: Fascism," chapter in David Parker (ed.) Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560-1991, Routledge, London.
• Schapiro, J. Salwyn. 1949. Liberalism and The Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France (1815-1870). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Laclau, Ernesto. 1977. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: NLB/Atlantic Highlands Humanities Press.
• Sternhell, Zeev with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri. 1994. The Birth of Fascist Ideology, From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution., Trans. David Maisei. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Fritzsche, Peter. 1990. Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195057805
• Gentile, Emilio. 2002. Fascismo. Storia ed interpretazione . Roma-Bari: Giuseppe Laterza & Figli.
• Flynn, John T., As We Go Marching. Originally published 1944.
• Hayek, F.A., The Road to Serfdom. Originally published by the University of Chicago Press September 18, 1944.

Bibliography on international fascism

• Coogan, Kevin. 1999. Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Autonomedia.
• Griffin, Roger. 1991. The Nature of Fascism. New York: St. Martin’s Press.
• Paxton, Robert O. 2004. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Weber, Eugen. 1982. Varieties of Fascism: Doctrines of Revolution in the Twentieth Century, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, (Contains chapters on fascist movements in different countries.)

Further reading

• Seldes, George. 1935. Sawdust Caesar: The Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism. New York and London: Harper and Brothers.
• Reich, Wilhelm. 1970. The Mass Psychology of Fascism. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
• Mises, Ludwig von. 1944. Omnipotent Government: The Rise of the Total State and Total War. Grove City: Libertarian Press.

External links

• The Doctrine of Fascism by Benito Mussolini (complete text)
• The Political Economy of Fascism - From Dave Renton's anti-fascist website
• Fascism and Zionism - From The Hagshama Department - World Zionist Organization
• Fascism Part I - Understanding Fascism and Anti-Semitism
• Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt - Umberto Eco's list of 14 characteristics of Fascism, originally published 1995.
• Site of an italian fascist party Italian and German languages
• Site dedicated to the period of fascism in Greece (1936-1941)
• Text of the papal encyclical Quadragesimo Anno.
• The Economics of Fascism, Supporters Summit 2005, October 7-8, 2005, Mises Institute, Auburn, Alabama.
• When the Supreme Court Stopped Economic Fascism in America by Richard M. Ebeling - Discusses the new deal as Economic Fascism

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