Fascism

Unit 5b: Other ideological traditions
Howard Williams
The Professor in International Politics at the Department of International Politics at the University of Wales, Aberystwyth writes for BBC Parliament

Fascists first came to power in Italy

More perhaps than any other political doctrine in the twentieth century, fascism succeeded in giving ideology a bad name.

Fascism offers to its adherents a complete world-view, drawn together from an immense variety of sources: folklore; anthropology; anthropology; nihilism; nationalism; socialism; conservatism and imperialism.

ALSO IN THIS SECTION: Unit 5B - Other Ideological Traditions Nationalism Anarchism Feminism

It is an activist doctrine that seeks to change the world, capable of gripping the minds of the masses.

In the first half of the twentieth century in Italy, Germany and Spain fascism succeeded in mobilizing a whole generation for its cause, and it took a horrendously destructive world war to break its hold.

Since 1945 it is an ideology that has from time to time threatened to gain hold once again and it remains to this day a significant background movement in the political life of Europe.

Fascism is still a measurable presence in politics in countries like France, Germany and Austria.

Duce, Führer, General

Fascism first announced itself as a political doctrine in Italy at the end of the First World War. The term was used to describe the political movement led by Mussolini that swept to power after the 'March on Rome' in 1922.

The term was derived from the politics of Ancient Rome where the term 'fasces' was used to denote the bundle of rods tied together, symbolizing unity, with a protruding axe-head that was carried at the front of official processions.

The reference to Ancient Rome was significant in that fascist movements usually hark back to a supposedly golden period in the lives of the people it represents who regard themselves as re-instating this period of former glory.

Adolf Hitler then imitated this Italian movement with the National Socialist party in Germany placing more stress on the people or - das volk - than on the state as was the case in Italy.

Franco was then another imitator in Spain who with the Falange - a right wing nationalist movement added a culturally romantic dimension to fascism.

Common features of fascist movements

As is to be expected from an avowedly anti-intellectualist movement, consistency and coherence are not striking characteristics of fascist thought.

Instead of resorting to first principles and presenting their case in a didactic manner fascists are happy to draw on a patchwork quilt of ideas that suit their practical goals of achieving unchallenged political power.

But there are seven features which all fascist movements have shared, albeit often without the same emphasis.

Those seven features are:-

Radicalism

Opposition to liberalism

Support of the cult of the leader

Nationalism

Totalitarianism

Anti-Marxism

A tendency to glorify violence and struggle for its own sake.

The radicalism of fascism seems to be associated with the conditions for its successful emergence which has usually occurred at times of extreme crisis.

Fascism has sought to respond in the manner that the times dictated: drastic problems, fascists argue, require dire solutions.

Fascists see themselves as embarking on a remarkable new enterprise that will completely alter the political landscape.

Hitler wanted the German people to leave behind forever their former political party loyalties.

All fascists pour scorn on parliamentary and constitutional politics.

Their opposition to liberalism is total. Parliaments in the view of fascists are more designed to resist change than to implement it. Liberalism is tainted with weakness and represents the worst kind of vacillation.

Thirdly, fascists dismissed the notion of representation on the grounds that it was divisive and open to abuse. They took the view that the masses required leading rather than representation.

Fascists propose to do away with the element of chance and uncertainty that representation brings by installing their leaders permanently. In their view the spirit of the people could best be embodied in the leadership of a charismatic leader.

For Italian fascists Mussolini was simply 'l'Uomo' - the man. Paternalistic, authoritarian leadership could replace the continuous weakness of parliamentary government.

A key feature of fascism is its extreme nationalism. Fascists are anxious to stress not only the uniqueness of their own nation but its superiority to others.

Mussolini, for example, saw the Italians claim to Abyssinia as overriding any claims Abyssinians themselves might have to govern their country.

Hitler similarly wanted Germans to assert themselves in Europe as a nation whilst not being prepared to accept any similar assertion of identity by the Poles, the Czechs and the Slovaks.

Rather than the more orthodox nationalist view which sees individuals connected with their nations through elections and representations, fascists preferred to see the individual connected with the nation through a mystical bond of unity.

State as supreme power

The unequivocal answer that fascists give to the problem of the disunity of society in its liberal phase is that society as a whole should be made subordinate to the state.

They cannot accept the liberal dichotomy between the public and the private. For fascists everything is potentially of public concern and open to regulation by the state.

As the falangist Primo de Rivera put it, !nothing that goes against" the "precious and transcendental unity" of the state "can be accepted as being good".

It was the individual's privilege to be subsumed by the whole. The good as envisaged by the charismatic fascist leader overrode any personal good.

Totalitarianism was a feature that fascism shared with Soviet Communism. As under communism, in fascist states there was but one political party that dominated political, social and economic life.

Despite this similarity fascism was marked by a deep animosity towards Marxism. It both emulated and despised Communism and where fascist came to power they hunted out Marxists as the public enemy.

Hitler saw as the main strength of his idea of the German Volk that it provided a powerful counter-attraction to the Marxist idea of the international brotherhood of man. Hitler looked upon Marxism as a cancerous disease spreading from the east.

Finally, there is a military air to fascist doctrine. Fascists self-consciously see themselves as mobilizing the masses for a coming battle.

They take readily to uniform and the leaders encourage within the ranks of their parties the formation of paramilitary organizations.

Hitler's Sturmabteilung, Mussolini's squadristi and, in Britain, Mosley's blackshirts embodied this fascist paramilitary tendency.

And once in power fascist parties showed themselves to be extraordinarily warlike in their intent.

The strain of romantic violence in the movement led to the most barbarous of wars.

© Professor Howard Williams 2004
Department of International Politics
University of Wales, Aberystwyth