Fascism

Fascism ( FASH-iz-əm) is a far-right, authoritarian, and ultranationalist political ideology and movement that rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe. Fascism is characterized by support for a dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy, militarism, forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy, subordination of individual interests for the perceived interest of the nation or race, and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to communism, democracy, liberalism, pluralism, and socialism, fascism is at the far-right of the traditional left–right spectrum. What constitutes a precise definition of fascism has been a longrunning and complex debate among scholars.

The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I before spreading to other European countries, most notably Germany. Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society, the state, and technology. The advent of total war and 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. The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines, providing logistics to support them, and having unprecedented authority to intervene in the lives of citizens.

Fascism views forms of violence—including political violence, imperialist violence, and war—as means to national rejuvenation. Fascists often advocate for the establishment of a totalitarian one-party state, and for a dirigiste economy, which is a market economy in which the state plays a strong directive role through market intervention with the principal goal of achieving national economic self-sufficiency, or "autarky". Fascism emphasizes both palingenesis—national rebirth or regeneration—and modernity when it is deemed compatible with national rebirth. In promoting the nation's regeneration, fascists seek to purge it of decadence. Fascism may also centre around an ingroup-outgroup opposition and demonization of "Others" such as various ethnicities, immigrants, nations, races, political opponents of fascist parties, religious groups, and sexual and gender minorities. In the case of Nazism, this involved racial purity and a belief in a master race. Such demonization has motivated fascist regimes to commit massacres, forced sterilizations, deportations, and genocides. During World War II, the genocidal and imperialist ambitions of the fascist regimes of the Axis powers resulted in the murder of millions of people.

Since the end of World War II in 1945, fascism has been largely disgraced, and few parties have openly described themselves as fascist; the term is often used pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptions neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied to contemporary parties with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements.

Etymology

The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio, meaning 'bundle of sticks', ultimately from the Latin word fasces. This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci, groups similar to guilds or syndicates. According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later. The fascists came to associate the term with the ancient Roman fasces or fascio littorio, a bundle of rods tied around an axe, an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate, carried by his lictors. The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break.

Prior to 1914, the fasces symbol was widely employed by various political movements, often of a left-wing or liberal persuasion. For instance, according to Robert Paxton, "Marianne, symbol of the French Republic, was often portrayed in the nineteenth century carrying the fasces to represent the force of Republican solidarity against her aristocratic and clerical enemies." The symbol often appeared as an architectural motif, for instance on the Sheldonian Theater at Oxford University and on the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C.

Definitions

Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote, "Trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall." Each group described as "fascist" has at least some unique elements, and frequently definitions of "fascism" have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow. According to many scholars, fascists—especially when they are in power—have historically attacked communism, socialism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from the far-right.

One of the schools of fascism studies understands fascism as a movement based on the myth of national rebirth, called palingenesis. Prominent members of the school include Stanley G. Payne, Roger Griffin, and Roger Eatwell, who defined their theories as the "new consensus". Payne's definition of fascism focuses on three concepts:

1. "Fascist negations" – anti-liberalism, anti-communism, and anti-conservatism.
2. "Fascist goals" – the creation of a nationalist dictatorship to regulate economic structure and to transform social relations within a modern, self-determined culture, and the 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.

Eatwell defines fascism as "an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on a holistic-national radical Third Way". Roger Griffin follows the description of Payne, calling fascism "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism", and adds an emphasis on the "mythic core" of fascism which he defines as a "palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism". According to Griffin, fascism as an ideology includes: "(i) the rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism, and (iii) the myth of decadence". Thus, palingenetic ultranationalism constitutes the minimum, without which a "genuine fascism" is not possible according to Griffin, and fascism draws on ancient and arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop the fascist "new man"; and acts as a "political religion" seeking to establish a community based on a new culture. Griffin explored this 'mythic' or 'eliminable' core of fascism with his concept of post-fascism to explore the continuation of Nazism in the modern era. Additionally, other historians have applied this minimalist core to explore proto-fascist movements.

While the theories of "new consensus" authors have proven to be very influential, they have also failed to establish a historiographic consensus and received criticism from other scholars, often as a static and isolated from context "ideal type" or set of ideas disregarding the dynamic, contradictory and syncretic nature of fascism and its context. In particular, the critics pointed out the failure to address the contradiction between anti-conservatism and anti-communism, since fascism preserved the latter while achieving power through alliance conservatism, or that the majority of fascists sought to synthesize fascism with traditional religions and cultures instead of replacing them. Griffin's 'minimal' criterion of national rebirth also received criticism as too broad, applicable to non-fascist movements, or arbitrary, not applicable to certain regimes which may be considered fascist, and also as a rework of the 'totalitarian' model of understanding fascism.

Walter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as "self-evident: nationalism; social Darwinism; racialism, the need for leadership, a new aristocracy, and obedience; and the negation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution".

Kershaw argues that the difference between fascism and other forms of right-wing authoritarianism in the interwar period is that the latter generally aimed "to conserve the existing social order", whereas fascism was "revolutionary", seeking to change society and obtain "total commitment" from the population.

In his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), Jason Stanley defined fascism thusly:

[A] cult of the leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation ... The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors.

Stanley says recent global events as of 2020, including the COVID-19 pandemic and the 2020–2023 United States racial unrest, have substantiated his concern about how fascist rhetoric is showing up in politics and policies around the world.