Fascism

The fasces, an ancient Roman symbol appropriated for fascism (among other things). It's hard to break, but also too unwieldy to be used (much like fascism itself).

Suppress the dissenters
Fascism

Bundle of rods

* Alt-right
* Nazism
* Neo-Nazism

Fascists

* Richard Spencer
* August Kreis III
* Robert Mugabe
* Douglass Mackey

Groups

* Hungary
* Three Percenters
* 2018 United States mail bombing attempts
* Fox News
* Degenerate
* Conservapedia
* Pronatalism

v \- t \- e

“”It is surprising to hear, even today, from some quarters, that fascism had some merits but made two serious mistakes: the racial laws and the entry into the war. Racism and war were not deviations or episodes from its way of thinking, but the direct and inevitable consequence.

—Italian President Sergio Mattarella in 2018[1]

Fascism is a term applied to a fairly diverse range of historical regimes, but is generally agreed to refer to a system of far-right authoritarianism and totalitarianism characterized by its obsession with the nation and often race, severe regimentation of society,[2] and extreme levels of political violence aimed at purifying and expanding the state. The first real fascist movement emerged in Italy shortly after World War One, and the ideology was largely defined by the writings of Benito Mussolini and the National Fascist Party, who ruled the Kingdom of Italy and came into power in 1922, ruling until 1943.[3][4] After this, the movement diversified and spread across Europe, eventually becoming prominent in regimes such as Adolf Hitler's Nazi Germany and Francisco Franco's Spain. There were also significant but unsuccessful fascist movements in democratic states as well, such as |the Silver Legion of America in the United States,[5] and Oswald Mosley's British Union of Fascists in the United Kingdom. Fascism saw its downfall after World War Two and the subsequent revelation that one of the most prominent fascist states had committed the most horrifying mass murder and genocide in modern history. Unfortunately, despite the misconception among the masses that fascism was simply an old historical phenomenon, the ideology still survives in whole or in parts to this day, such as neo-Nazism and other fascist ideologies and movements, surviving to the present by evolving in whatever nation and time period it manifested in.[6] Indeed, there are still various fascism apologists yearning for the "good old days" of pre-WWII fascist regimes ("Franco did good things,"[7] "Mussolini did good things,"[8] "Hitler did good things."[9]:132[note 1] or the alt-right's "did nothing wrong"). Most of the world already fought a giant war over this trash.

## Contents

* 1 Attempts at a definition
* 1.1 McNeill
* 1.2 Paxton
* 1.3 Stanley
* 2 Ideology
* 2.1 Fascist economics
* 2.2 National renewal
* 2.3 Nationalism and racism
* 2.4 Pseudo-conservatism
* 2.5 Direct action
* 2.6 "Social Darwinism"
* 2.7 In summary: the balance sheet of fascism
* 2.8 Influences
* 3 Para-fascism
* 4 Fascism and conservatism
* 4.1 In practice
* 4.2 In theory
* 4.3 Fascism and the Church
* 4.4 The Catholic church and European fascism
* 5 Broadness of the term "fascism"
* 5.1 Neo-Fascism
* 5.2 Ur-Fascism
* 6 Fascism and the political spectrum
* 6.1 Left-wing fascism
* 6.1.1 Historical and current examples
* 6.1.2 Ecofascism
* 7 Fascist regimes and ideologies
* 7.1 Italian Fascism
* 7.2 Nazism (Germany)
* 7.3 Austrofascism (Austria)
* 7.4 Shōwa Statism (Japan)
* 7.5 Vichy France
* 7.6 Falangism (Spain)
* 7.7 Ustaše regime (Croatia)
* 7.8 Metaxism (Greece)
* 7.9 Integralism (Brazil)
* 7.10 Estado Novo (Portugal)
* 7.11 Stalinism (Soviet Union)
* 7.12 Putinism/Ruscism (Russia)
* 7.13 Trumpism (United States)
* 8 See also
* 9 External links
* 10 Notes
* 11 References

## Attempts at a definition[edit]

It's rather difficult to pin down an exact definition of what fascism actually means, as it was originally a very fluid ideology cobbled together by Mussolini based on whatever he thought would be popular in post-1918 Italy.[10] Historian Ian Kershaw wrote on this issue, that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall."[11]:228 Another difficulty arises from the fact that successful fascist politicians often ignored the promises and documents they made before coming to power.[12] However, fascism has some general characteristics: militaristic and often expansionist nationalism (e.g., irredentism), contempt for the democratic process, contempt for both capitalism and communism (though depending on the movement, it can adapt to survive under a regime with either system), a belief in a natural hierarchy (e.g. caste), and a desire to subordinate individual interests to the will of the dictator.[13] It also often demands a "cleansing" of "inferior" individuals and ethnic groups who are not seen as contributing to a unified society. While early fascists (specifically Italian fascists) initially did not identify with the left-right spectrum, they later declared themselves to be on the far-right spectrum (likely because right-wing politics was much more popular at the time). After this point, fascism became a distinctly right-wing ideology and adopted typical right-wing ideological tenets.

In the 1920s and 1930s, communists came to lump all their radical opponents together under the label of "fascist" (alongside "imperialist"), and conversely to regard their fascist enemies as defenders of capitalism. NSDAP, the German Nazi party, was both radically anti-capitalist and anti-Marxist.[14]:254-255,305 and most of fascism's reputation as a right-wing philosophy came from its staunch anti-communism, nationalism, and reactionary social views. Nonetheless, after 1925, its economic program was broadly populist and called for heavy state-intervention in the economy, albeit both Mussolini's fascists and Hitler's Nazis were supported and funded by capitalists, and their economic policies were distinctly pro-corporatist (although varying fascist movements' relations to capitalism and socialism varied).[15]:16,144

From this line of thinking was born the recent addition to the vernacular of using "fascist" as a snarl word (from both the left and right) to refer to any opponent,[16] a practice which has proliferated to the point that the word fascist has lost all meaning in popular discourse. Some on the right have also used 'cultural Marxist' or 'communist' as a snarl word against any opponent.

According to Jason Stanley, the one invariable element of fascism is a nostalgic appeal to the mythic past, including the idealized patriarchal family.[17]:3-4 The idealization of the patriarchal family is necessary to support the idea of a patriarchal national leadership in fascism.[17]:4 In both Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, the past was intentionally mythical:[17]:5[18]

“”We have created our myth. The myth is a faith, a passion. It is not necessary for it to be a reality. It is a reality in the sense that it is a stimulus, is hope, is faith, is courage. Our myth is the nation, our myth is the greatness of the nation! And to this myth, this greatness, which we want to translate into a total reality, we subordinate everything else.

—Benito Mussolini, 1922

Such mythologizing of patriarchy and the family finds expression in Kinder, Küche, Kirche, misogyny, homophobia, transphobia, and anti-abortion.|||Jason Stanley[17]:7-8,135-137

### McNeill[edit]

Despite difficulties in pinning down just what fascism is, historian John McNeill has attempted to arrive at a semi-quantitative assessment for fascism — using Mussolini and Hitler as standards, and the following categories (using the 'Benito' as the unit of measurement):[19][20]

* Palingenetic ultranationalism
* Militarism
* Glorification of violence and readiness to use it in politics
* Fetishization of youth
* Fetishization of masculinity
* Leader cult
* Lost-golden-age syndrome
* Self-definition by opposition
* Mass mobilization and mass party
* Hierarchical party structure and tendency to purge the disloyal
* Theatricality
* Chaotic administration
* Information and media policy ("Fascists lied constantly, seeking political advantage. They were privately contemptuous of the intelligence of the public. They undermined independent sources of information — and later banned them.")
* Consolidation of power
* Pecuniary and institutional corruption
* Economic policy ("Fascists had no particular economic doctrine aside from preparing for war]]. They wanted to build autarkic economies that could withstand blockade and did not rely on foreign trade except for bilateral deals with weaker countries.")
* Foreign policy ("Fascists in power distrusted international agreements, disdained alliances (except with one another) and sought to revise the international order that, they felt, unfairly held them down.")
* Cultural policy ("Mussolini and Hitler took pains to install fascism in the broader culture and to ally with religious authorities.")
* Racial policy ("Hitler believed in the superiority of a (fictional) Aryan race and considered ethnic groups like Jews and Slavs as inferior.")

Using these categories, McNeill attempted to come up with an assessment of the accuracy of the many people who call Donald Trump a fascist. In 2016, shortly before Trump's winning the US Presidential election election, McNeill assessed Trump as having 26/44 (59%) Benitos,[19] and several weeks before the 2020 election of having 47/76 (62%) Benitos.[20] McNeill assessed Trump as so far "not a genuine fascist," but nonetheless stated that Trump "remains the greatest threat to American democracy since the Civil War."[20] McNeil has not rated Trump following the 2021 U.S. coup attempt, but it would seem that he would only gain at most another 3 Benitos from his 2020 evaluation (2 more for militarism and 3 more for glorification of violence) for a total of 52/76. This perhaps shows weakness in this methodology for either predicting fascist tendencies or for quantifying fascists.

### Paxton[edit]

Robert Paxton gave a definition of fascism in his classic book on the subject, The Anatomy of Fascism:

“”Fascism may be defined as a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion.

—Robert Paxton, The Anatomy of Fascism[21]:218

Individual elements of the definition do not necessarily indicate fascism, but rather the group of the elements. For example, 'energy' is required of all successful political movements. More extreme elements may or may not indicate what some researchers also regard as para-fascism (below). In addition, many of these elements in modern fascist ideologies may not match up with past fascist ideologies, as they are not one-to-one comparisons but rather contrasts based on the historical eras they appeared in.

Here are presented a classical example of fascism,[21]:218 Nazism, and two similar modern examples, Trumpism and Putinism:

Aspect of fascism | Generic | Nazism | Trumpism | Putinism

|
|
|
|

Decline | Good old days, Golden age | World War 1, Holy Roman Empire, German Empire, Roman Empire[22] | Worshipping 1950s and 1960s America[23] | Worshipping the Soviet Union and Stalinism,[24][25][26] the Russian Empire,[27] the Kievan Rus[28][29]
Humiliation | Loss of territory, defeat in war | Treaty of Versailles, Afro-French soldiers participating in occupying the Rhineland[30] | Lost Cause of the South,[31] The Great Replacement,[32] 9/11,[33] end of Jim Crow and beginning of desegregation and integration[34][35] | The collapse of the Soviet Union[36][37]
Victimhood | Victim mentality, Persecution complex | Stab-in-the-back legend | Trump's claims of being targeted by the “deep state” and “internal forces” being a sinister threat,[38] Antifa November 4th conspiracy theories[39] | Putin's claims of Russia being encircled by "unfriendly forces"[40] and his claims of a Western-backed fifth column,[41] and NATO’s expansion in Europe during the Soviet era and the Russian era.[42]
Unity | Different (in)groups uniting under a common goal | Gleichschaltung the subordination of all political and social life under the Nazi Party in the name of national unity.[43] | QAnon, various far-right rallies such as Unite the Right, alt-right, religious right | Night Wolves Motorcycle Club,[44][45] Russian Orthodox Church,[46] Russian mafia[47]
Energy | Mass rallies dedicated to the Grand Poobah, paramilitary marches | Nuremberg rallies | MAGA rallies | Putin rallies (pro-war rallies in Russian-occupied Ukrainian Crimea,[48] 2019 far-right motorcycle rally[49])
Purity | Anti-immigration, anti-religious sentiment, ethnic cleansing, genocide, nationalism, racism | Eugenics, Aktion T4, Kinder, Küche, Kirche, the Holocaust, Racial policy of Nazi Germany | Homophobia, transphobia, American exceptionalism, xenophobia (mostly islamophobia, hispanophobia, and sinophobia), white nationalism, banning abortion[50] And in 2025, plans for mass deportation of immigrants regardless of status[51][52] | Political alliance with Russian Orthodox Church,[53] nationalism, homophobia and transphobia,[54] pan-Slavism in the form of 'Eurasianism'[55]:89

Broadly: opposing "destructive ideology" of the West (feminism, LGBTQIA+ rights, independent journalism, democracy), and supporting women as baby incubators[56]

Mass-based party of committed nationalist militants | Official party para-military wing(s) | Freikorps, Sturmabteilung, Schutzstaffel (including the Waffen-SS) | Militia movement, Oath Keepers, Proud Boys, Three Percenters, Boogaloo movement, alt-right | Corporate security forces armed with Russian military weapons,[57] private militia groups such as the Wagner Group[58]
Uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites | Corporations and elites aiding the Grand Poobah | German industrialists and elites | GOP, corporal elites such as the Koch brothers and Wilks brothers, tech giants such as Elon Musk, Mark Zuckerberg, Tim Cook, Google, Dara Khosrowshahi, and Jeff Bezos[59] | Russian oligarchy[60]
Abandons democratic liberties | Opposition to the rule of law and human rights, and introducing authoritarianism and totalitarianism | Consolidating power from declaring emergency powers after the Reichstag burning[61] | Bullshit voter fraud claims in the 2020 U.S. presidential election, restricting voting rights, refusal to accept election results | Rigged elections,[62] poisoning numerous dissenters,[63] fining and imprisoning opposition politicians,[64] insane brutality by Chechen forces against its own citizenry[65]
Pursues with redemptive violence without ethical or legal constraints goals of internal cleansing | Coup d'état, genocide, state terror, politicide, labor camps, torture, etc. | Beer Hall Putsch, Night of the Long Knives, Kristallnacht, Holocaust | Trump's violence against his political opponents,[66] crackdowns and kidnappings against BLM and Antifa protesters,[67][68] MAGA terrorism,[69] 2021 U.S. coup attempt | Poisonings of opponents both within Russia and internationally,[70] kidnapping and beating gay men in Chechnya,[71] forcing minorities to fight in wars[72]
External expansion | Irredentism, imperialism, expansionism, colonialism (sometimes), annexation, attempted world domination | Lebensraum, Generalplan Ost, World War II | Wanting to invade Greenland and Panama,[73] expansion of US military operations in the Caribbean,[74] Operation Gideon,[75] Suggesting invading "America's 51st state" and Mexico,[76] declaring The Gulf of America[note 2] | Military action against Chechnya,[78] seizure by force of Transnistria (1990), Abkhazia (1990), South Ossetia (1991), and Crimea (2014); proxy war in Donbas (2014); full-scale invasion of Ukraine (2022)

### Stanley[edit]

Jason Stanley described fascism in a functional way in his book How Fascism Works, describing the methodology of fascism in 10 interlinked beliefs:[17]

1. The mythic past

Nostalgic appeal to an intentionally mythical 'good old days', including an extreme form of patriarchy with strict gender roles.
2. Propaganda

The role of propaganda is to conceal the fact that a fascist regime will harm large groups of people, and conceals the regime's true motives.
3. Anti-intellectualism

Opposition to intellectuals and liberal education is necessary to preserve the fiction of propaganda. "When education, expertise, and linguistic distinctions are undermined, there remains only power and tribal identity.":36
4. Unreality

"Fascist politics exchanges reality for the pronouncements of a single individual, or perhaps political party.":57
5. Hierarchy

Hierarchical social organization is justified by fascists with appeals to nature. "Fascist ideology, then, takes advantage of a human tendency to organize society hierarchically, and fascist politicians represent the myths that legitimize their hierarchies as immutable facts.":80
6. Victimhood

"In fascist politics, the opposing notions of equality and discrimination get mixed up with each other." This results in people and groups with greater status, money and power being portrayed as victims.
7. Law and order

Fascist politics represents those at the bottom of the hierarchy as inherently criminally-minded, and those at the top as inherently law-abiding.
8. Sexual anxiety

The perceived threats of fascists are crimes of rape and assault, directed at those lower in the hierarchy, and perceived threats of the existence of sexual minorities. These are based on racialist eugenics.
9. Sodom and Gomorrah

Fascists frequently divide rural dwellers and city dwellers, with rural dwellers idealized as hard working, pure and nationalist. Urban dwellers are portrayed as places where people from all over the world mix and where treachery abounds.
10. Arbeit macht frei

Disfavored groups in the hierarchy are portrayed as lazy, and that if they only worked harder (rugged individualism/social Darwinism) they would achieve something. One aim of this is labor/prison/death camps. Another aim is to turn propaganda into reality, claiming that a disfavored group are criminals, then creating laws that make it difficult-to-impossible to find employment or a living wage, thus driving more people to begging or crime.

## Ideology[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Ideology

“”All within the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state.

—Benito Mussolini[79]:48

Fascist ideology centres on national unity behind a single revered dictator and for the idea that citizens must serve the state (as opposed to most forms of liberal democracy, which have an inverse view of this relationship). Fascism is largely remembered for its oppressive treatment of citizens, infringements on personal freedoms, and ruthless crushing of opposition. It usually requires a cult of personality around a single central figure, hero worship, and a strong emphasis on a particularly militaristic view of national security. A running theme in fascist regimes is the concept of palingenetic ultranationalism, or that there must be an "organic" revolution that will lead to a national rebirth to a purer era that will do away with decadence and weakness within the nation. Rarely are there many specifics given on what this may look like or how to reach this "rebirth," but it is nevertheless strongly identified with fascism, to the point where some say it is the primary difference between fascist regimes and other right-wing dictatorships.[80]:11-29 In this way, fascism could be considered an extreme (or just different) take on reactionary political philosophies.

### Fascist economics[edit]

Hitler takes part in a public works project for a propaganda photoshoot.

During fascism's "theoretical" phase, fascist thinkers tried to present the ideology as a happy medium between the excesses of capitalism in the West and the hideous persecution seen by the Soviet Union's brand of communism.[81]:315-328 Fascists argued that a nation's economy could be bettered by allowing the government the means of indirect control, such as through domination of cartels and businesses, and requiring capitalists to use their property in the "national interest."[82] In Italy, Mussolini's economic plans finally manifested themselves as a sort of corporatism; his government grouped businesses and trade unions into government-controlled corporations, which handled everything from labor contracts to production quotas.[83] In the Dictionary of Political Thought, Roger Scruton describes corporatism like this:[84]:145

“”The economy was divided into associations (called ‘syndicates’) of workers, employers and the professions; only one syndicate was allowed in each branch of industry, and all officials were either fascist politicians or else loyal to the fascist cause. According to law the syndicates were autonomous, but in fact they were run by the state. The ‘corporations’ united the syndicates in a given industry, but made no pretence at autonomy from the state.

In other words, Mussolini's quasi-socialist pretensions were simply another means to achieve totalitarian control over Italy's economy.

This holds true elsewhere for all aspects of fascist economics. Despite some socialistic rhetoric, fascists by-and-large remained loyal to the traditional class divisions of old; they favored the interests of the rich over the interests of the poor. While Mussolini was by no means a free-market capitalist, he maintained friendly relations with those overseas, especially in the United States by allowing foreign investment ties.[85][86] As historian John Weiss noted, "Property and income distribution and the traditional class structure remained roughly the same under fascist rule. What changes there were favored the old elites or certain segments of the party leadership."[87] Referring to Nazi rule in Germany, historian Roger Eatwell said, "If a revolution is understood to mean a significant shift in class relations, including a redistribution of income and wealth, there was no Nazi revolution."</ref> Even Mussolini prior to World War Two allowed business owners to do whatever they wanted, and he also cut business taxes, slackened work conditions laws, and reduced mandatory wages.[87]

### National renewal[edit]

France's "National Revolution." Let's replace that awful "internationalism" and "democracy" with "courage" and "order"!

“”We observe that nothing creates fascists like the threat of freedom.

—Roger Ebert, reviewing the 1998 film Pleasantville[88]

Fascists also believe that liberal democracy is obsolete and that the full mobilization under fascism is the only way to prevent national or even civilizational decline.[89]:237-237 Fascists view their assumption of power as a "course correction"[90] that is needed to prevent the collapse of their way of life. This collapse is usually viewed as being caused by certain undesirable groups of people such as liberals, Jews, or leftists. Fascism promotes the regeneration of the nation by purging it of decadence.[91]:168 This is why fascists aestheticized modern technology, especially as it relates to industrial efficiency and wartime violence.[92]:63

A particularly revealing case study of this phenomenon is Vichy France. During the reign of Philippe Pétain, the government enacted a series of reforms under an ideological program called the "National Revolution" which aimed to reverse a perceived decline of the French nation due to liberal decadence, a perceived disrespect for traditional values, and (of course) the evil Jews.[93][94]:166-189 None of this was forced on the French by Nazi Germany; this was the culmination of decades of monarchist and conservative resentment after the French Revolution, which came to a head after France's humiliation in the opening campaigns of World War Two.

This is why fascist movements tended to emerge after instances of national suffering. The Nazis wanted to reverse the horrid conditions Germany suffered after the Great War (which they viewed as being caused in large part by the Jews); the Italians wanted much the same. The Spanish Civil War was preceded by decades of social tension between conservative monarchists and the urban working class.[95] In each case, far-right elements of society came into conflict with other groups, whom they then blamed for causing whatever problems they perceived as affecting society. They then took power and exacted retribution, which took the form of bloody massacres and purges.

Unfortunately, this is perhaps the most enduring aspect of fascism. The far-right still like to fearmonger about fading "traditional values" and "morality" and point to what they claim is a civilizational decline being caused by the increasing influence of modern liberalism.[96][97][98][99] It's the same shit. It's always been the same shit.

### Nationalism and racism[edit]

A concentration camp during Italy's genocidal campaigns in colonial Libya.

“”Of course, I am against fascism with its spread of color prejudice and race hatred and working class oppression. How could any sensible Negro be otherwise?

—Langston Hughes[100]

The logical next step from the fascist concept of a needed national renewal is a general sense of extremist nationalism. The concept of the nation was of central importance to fascists, and Mussolini's break with socialism came about due to the fact that socialists held class in higher regard.[101]:191-192 Fascists historically viewed the nation as a singular entity that binds people together through shared heritage and culture.[102]:80-107 Fascists wanted to replace internationalist class conflict with nationalist class cooperation.[103]

Fascists were and are typically racist, usually holding that non-European races are inherently inferior (or in the case of Japanese fascism, non-Japanese); they historically also almost always promoted some form of imperialism.[104]:11 Nazism, meanwhile, can be most characterized by its obsession with the concept of race, much of which stems from the strict pseudoscientific racial hierarchy described in Hitler's Mein Kampf.[105]

Nationalism also led fascists to be hostile towards immigrants, particularly left-wing immigrants. This was most noticeable in France when Nazi policies were driving refugees into France; fascist thinkers in France criticized the government for accepting immigrants out of "foolish sentimentality" and for turning France into a "depository for trash."[103] There was also the usual longstanding fearmongering over the idea that immigrants were actually infiltrating France to act as spies, an attitude that likely contributed to the antisemitic Dreyfus affair.[106]

### Pseudo-conservatism[edit]

Three uniformed of the League of German Girls, a Nazi organization for German girls and women.

Fascists appear to share some similar social views with conservatives on a surface level.[107] Fascist Italy, for instance, cracked down on pornography, prostitution, homosexuality, and birth control as degenerate sexual deviancy, although local authorities were sporadic in their enforcement of these laws.[108]:46-47 Nazi Germany viewed homosexuality as degenerate, and persecuted homosexuals by sending them to concentration camps.[109]

Gender roles were strictly enforced under Mussolini's government, with the man himself saying "War is to the man what maternity is to the woman."[110]:205 The state gave financial incentives to women to birth as many children as they could; this was part of an effort to boost birthrates and expand the Italian population.[111]:27 After all, more babies eventually means more soldiers. The Nazis also encouraged traditional gender roles for women, even going so far as to borrow Mussolini's idea and bestow medals upon women who gave birth to four or more children. The fascists' solution to unemployment was to boot women out of the workplace, with Mussolini saying that working was "incompatible with childbearing."[112]:15

The Nazis had a complicated relationship with abortion; they were fine with it if the fetus was known to have a genetic defect or was from a non-Aryan parent, but they were unrelentingly opposed to the practice otherwise. In certain cases, abortion was compulsory.[113]:30

However, despite these seeming similarities in social views, fascism heavily differed from conservativism in that fascism was a modernist and revolutionary ideology.[114] Conservatives tend to use tradition and religion as the basis for their political views, while fascists based their views on secular or pseudoscientific philosophies, and fascists also deviated from the moral principles of traditional society.[115]:24 Fascists did not view religion as an important source of moral principles, and instead replaced it with ultranationalism and a cult of personality.[91]:10 Furthermore, while conservatives in interwar Europe generally wished to return to the pre-1914 status quo, fascists did not and instead embraced World War I as a catalyst for radical change.[91]:9 Rather than preserving or returning to the past, fascists sought to replace the old social order with a new uniquely fascist social order. Thus, fascism was anti-conservative as much as it was anti-liberal and anti-communist.[21]:11

### Direct action[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Direct action

Nazi "Brownshirts" (Sturmabteilung) in Berlin.

Fascist dictatorships are usually not just content with a silent, obedient population, but expect the people to actively come out and support the regime (i.e., the "energy" and "national militant" aspects described by Paxton[21]:218). A successful fascist dictatorship will rely more on public opinion than on sheer oppression. This is another point where fascism differs from other right-wing dictatorships, which usually rely on little more than oppression and which try to shut down public opinion.

This is because fascism emphasizes "direct action," up to and including political violence, as a core method of achieving its aims.[115]:106 Fascism exalts the concept of the "endless struggle," for without struggle, they believe society will decay and collapse due to its own decadence. This set of beliefs is a big part of why most fascist parties formed their own private death squads before coming to power; it was their way of committing acts of political violence and of mobilizing the citizenry.

### "Social Darwinism"[edit]

"60,000ℛℳ is what this person suffering from a hereditary defect costs the People's community during his lifetime."

See the main article on this topic: Social Darwinism

“”Fascism is the cult of organised murder, invented by the arch-enemies of society. It tends to destroy civilization and revert man to his most barbarous state.

—Marcus Garvey.[116]

A variant of social Darwinism is a component of fascist belief, one that is group-oriented rather than individual-oriented, and one that is not based on laissez-faire economics.[117] The variant has been called "collectivist Darwinism" or "individualist Darwinism."[118] Central to the ideology is the concept that nations and races must rid themselves of those individuals rendered weak by disease, mental illness, or political or social "degeneracy" in order to survive in a world defined by constant struggle.[18]:59

Naturally, this led to a number of fascist atrocities aimed at ridding society of its weakest members. Most infamous is Aktion T4[119] run by Nazi Germany, which was an effort to euthanize people with physical and mental disabilities, as well as those afflicted with severe illness or old age. The Holocaust can also be seen as an extension of this, as the Nazis believed that Jews were actively harmful to the functioning of their organic society, thus necessitating mass murder. Meanwhile, the fascist need to create greater numbers of "strong" people led to the population growth programs seen above, where fascists would encourage women of their preferred national race to give birth to as many children as possible.

### In summary: the balance sheet of fascism[edit]

In Introducing Fascism: A Graphic Guide, Stuart Hood provides what he likens to a "balance sheet" of fascism — which is to say, a non-exhaustive list of traits and attitudes that make out the core of the historical fascist regimes:[120]:88-89

> Fascist regimes in Italy, Germany, Spain and Japan were superficially varied, drawing on different histories and traditions. But they had some or all of the following in common:

>   1. A political philosophy which was a compound of radical ideas and mysticism, of left-wing-sounding slogans and conservative policies.
>   2. A strong state with a powerful executive which did not require democratic consultation before acting, combined with a hatred of bourgeois democracy.
>   3. Hatred of Communism and Socialism as political movements based on the idea of class differences and class antagonisms. Against this idea, Fascism aimed to substitute a corporative state that denied a divergence of class interests between capital and labour.
>   4. The formation of a mass party on paramilitary lines which drew its recruits in part from the discontented and disenfranchised working-class.
>   5. Admiration of power and the deed which found expression in the cult of violence. Training for war and violence gave free rein to sadistic and pathological characteristics.
>   6. Authoritarian programmes which emphasized conformity, discipline and submission. Society was militarized and directed by a messianic leader.
>   7. The cultivation of irrationality — the impulse was more important than logical thought. Irrationality led to a cult of death — witness the Spanish Fascist slogan: Arriba la Muerte! — Up with Death!
>   8. Nostalgia for the legendary past. For instance, in Italy's case, the Roman Empire. In Germany, an appeal to primitive myths of the Nibelungen. The initials SS were written in runic letters from Viking times. Japan resurrected the medieval code of the samurai.
>   9. Aversion to intellectuals whom Fascism accused of undermining the old certainties and traditional values.
>   10. Fascism claimed to honour the dignity of labour and the role of the peasantry as providers of the staples of life. With this went an idealized picture of rural life — the healthy countryside versus the decadent city.
>   11. Machismo. Women were relegated to traditional female roles as housewives, servants, nurses, and as breeders of "racially pure" warriors for the state war machine.
>   12. Fascism was frequently subsidized by big industrialists and landowners.
>   13. Fascism's electoral support came overwhelmingly from the middle-class — in particular the lower middle-class affected by economic crisis.
>   14. Fascism needed scapegoat enemies — "the Other" on whom to focus society's aggressions and hates.

### Influences[edit]

“”In truth, we are relativists par excellence, and the moment relativism linked up with Nietzsche, and with his Will to Power, was when Italian Fascism became, as it still is, the most magnificent creation of an individual and a national Will to Power.

—Benito Mussolini[121]:27

It's been effectively argued (originally by Isaiah Berlin) that fascism drew upon the "Counter-Enlightenment" movement, a movement he pinned primarily to Continental German philosophy and subjectivism.[122]:1-24 Opposing the Enlightenment ideal of rationalism and democracy but by post-World War One also opposing a return to older forms of feudalism, this movement came to be heavily influenced by Friedrich Nietzsche and his concept of the Will to Power, Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel's mysticism and belief in cultures as being organic units that "create" reality, and Johann Gottfried Herder's radical cultural and moral relativism. The movement was characterized by a belief in vitalism (a desire for a spiritual rejuvenation that often opposed both contemporary monotheism and atheism/agnosticism) and anti-rationalism, and a view of liberalism and modern civilization as decadent to the bone.

## Para-fascism[edit]

Para-fascism is a form of fascism that shows extreme right-wing populism but lacks certain elements of fascism. Para-fascism is controversial as to whether it can be interpreted as a common fascism in academia.

By the definition of Aristotle Kallis, para-fascism can be defined as "a larger category of regimes that adapted or aped ‘fascist’ formal and organizational features, but did not share the revolutionary ideological vision of genuine fascism."[123]:220

A modern-day example would be Ron DeSantis, the governor of Florida, who has the "arrest whistleblowers for telling the truth about my actions" style of authoritarianism, the embracing of autocratic rule, the scapegoating of the LGBT community as child abusers,[124] and the weakening of democracy to fully entrench one-party rule in his state. He even delved into mild totalitarianism by banning the teaching of gay or trans people's existence for under-10 year olds.[125] But he is merely the governor of a state who still has to run for elections that he could very well lose. He is a preview of just how bad a post-Trump Republican Party can be.[note 3]

## Fascism and conservatism[edit]

Chancellor Hitler (left) and President von Hindenburg (right), in Potsdam (1933).

“”Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain economic democracy, begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege.

—Tommy Douglas, Canadian politician.[126]:243

### In practice[edit]

“”In this way, by way of the back door, by means of a shabby political deal with the old-school reactionaries he privately detested, the former tramp from Vienna, the derelict of the First World War, the violent revolutionary, became Chancellor of the great nation.

—William L. Schirer[127]:184

It is clear that fascists received some support from conservatives who saw them as allies in opposing communism. In a climate of increased polarization and instability, in which a communist takeover was viewed as a serious threat, conservatives formed coalitions expecting that the fascists would eventually be co-opted or abandon their radicalism. Hence, Hitler was allowed to form a government by Paul von Hindenburg on the advice of Franz von Papen (who were both conservatives),[127]:182-184 Mussolini was appointed prime minister by the conservative Italian King,[128] and Spain's monarchists supported the Falange during the Civil War. In Italy,[129] conservatives were somewhat successful at moderating the more radical elements of fascism, with the original corporativist economic policy being scrapped in favor of a more economically liberal policy; in Spain, the conservatives in the coalition eventually won out with Franco being succeeded post-mortem by the hereditary King Juan Carlos I, who led Spain to democracy[130] (and the failed Fascist Coup to overthrow it). In Germany, by contrast, Hitler elbowed the conservatives aside quickly after the death of Hindenburg, creating a much more totalitarian government.

Though there are (and have been) many large and significant factions of conservatives opposed to fascism (such as The Bulwark and the Lincoln Project), quite a few American paleoconservatives and neoconservatives have used tactics and rhetoric similar to paleofascist regimes and groups, and many later dropped these optics and embraced these tactics, making them more or less fascists by proxy.[131]

### In theory[edit]

Many political philosophies called fascism in retrospect (Austrofascism, Spanish National Catholicism, etc.) were just radicalized, populist spins on conservatism. There were two exceptions to this: Italian fascism and Nazism. Conservatism does not share the revolutionary or radical nature of fascism, and does not in general make populist appeals as fascism does.[note 4] Also, the original fascist program sought restructuring of the economy along corporatist lines, which is not generally supported by conservatives.

There was also the problem of the "public" versus the "private" spheres of society. Conservatives (pre-Moral Majority conservatives, at least) usually wanted the government to respect the private sphere: family and religious life were places that conservatives did not want the government interfering. Fascism and Nazism, however, tried to place all social life under the influence and control of the State, causing some within the Catholic Church to go against them.[132][133]

### Fascism and the Church[edit]

Mussolini (left) and Cardinal Pietro Gasparri (center) at the signing of the Lateran Pact

“”Your Excellency! The priests of Italy invoke over your person, your work as the restorer of Italy and the founder of the Reich and the Fascist government the blessing of the Lord and an eternal halo of Roman wisdom and virtue, today and forever! Duce! The servants of Christ, the fathers of the peasantry honor you loyally. They bless you. They swear loyalty to you. With pious enthusiasm, with the voice and heart of the people we call: hail the Duce!

—Father Menossi, January 12, 1938, Palazzo Venezia, to which seventy-two bishops and 2,340 priests broke out into shouting: "Duce! Duce! Duce!"[134]:23

So why was the Catholic Church ever involved in this? Well, during the early 20th century, there were two major ideologies of various flavours floating around: Liberalism and communism. Liberalism and the ideas of freethought were very much against the structured order that an organized religion requires to thrive in, especially with ideas such as freedom of speech and all the "immorality" provided, so that was right out. Communism, despite (or because of) its similarities to a religion,[note 5] mandates atheism, which is something the Church would have difficulty compromising on (there have been religious forms of communism, but they didn't catch on). So along comes a third ideology, fascism, with the ideas that we should return to the glory days of thousands of years past, we should have a very ordered and rigid society, authority should be adhered to without question, and dissenters should be forced into line or "dealt with"; this worked perfectly for the Church. The Catholic Church endorsed fascism for a time, until it became clear that the fascist leaders never had any intention of becoming subservient to the Church. So the Church has always been opposed to fascism. In the United States Catholic priest Charles Coughlin had been a vocal proponent of Nazism until 1940 when the Vatican finally reigned him in, and shortly before the United States entered World War II.

### The Catholic church and European fascism[edit]

“”We shall always remember with gratitude that which has happened for the benefit of religion in Italy, even if the good deeds performed by the party and the regime were not smaller — indeed, they may even have been greater.

—Pope Pius XI, 1931[134]

The late Christopher Hitchens relates the dreadfully close and well-documented eager collaboration between the faithful members of the Catholic Church and the openly fascist right-wing extremist parties of Europe, writing:[135]:235-237

> Fascism — the precursor and model of National Socialism — was a movement that believed in an organic and corporate society, presided over by a leader or guide. (The "fasces" — symbol of the "lictors" or enforcers of Ancient Rome — were a bundle of rods, tied around an axe, that stood for unity and authority.)

> Arising out of the misery and humiliation of the First World War, fascist movements were in favor of the defense of traditional values against Bolshevism, and upheld nationalism and piety. It is probably not a coincidence that they arose first and most excitedly in Catholic countries, and it is certainly not a coincidence that the Catholic Church was generally sympathetic to fascism as an idea. Not only did the church regard Communism as a lethal foe, but it also saw its old Jewish enemy in the most senior ranks of Lenin's party.

> Benito Mussolini had barely seized power in Italy before the Vatican made an official treaty with him, known as the Lateran Pact of 1929.[136] Under the terms of this deal, Catholicism became the only recognized religion in Italy, with monopolistic powers over matters such as birth, marriage, death, and education, and in return urged its followers to vote for Mussolini's party. Pope Pius XI described Il Duce ("the leader") as "a man sent by providence." Elections were not to be a feature of Italian life for very long, but the church nonetheless brought about the dissolution of lay Catholic centrist parties and helped sponsor a pseudoparty called "Catholic Action" which was emulated in several countries.

> Across southern Europe, the church was a reliable ally in the installment of fascist regimes in Spain,[137] Portugal, and Croatia. General Franco in Spain was allowed to call his invasion of the country, and his destruction of its elected republic, by the honorific title La Crujada, or "the crusade." The Vatican either supported or refused to criticize Mussolini's operatic attempt to re-create a pastiche of the Roman Empire by his invasions of Libya, Abyssinia (today's Ethiopia), and Albania: these territories being populated either by non-Christians or by the wrong kind of Christian (Oriental Orthodox or Eastern Orthodox Church). Mussolini even gave, as one of his justifications for the use of poison gas and other gruesome measures in Abyssinia, the persistence of its inhabitants in the heresy of Monophysitism: an incorrect dogma of the Incarnation that had been condemned by Pope Leo and the Council of Chalcedon in the year 451.

> In central and eastern Europe the picture was hardly better. The extreme right-wing military coup in Hungary, led by Admiral Horthy, was warmly endorsed by the church, as were similar fascistic movements in Slovakia and Austria. (The Nazi puppet regime in Slovakia was actually led by a man in holy orders named Father Tiso.) The cardinal of Austria proclaimed his enthusiasm at Hitler's takeover of his country at the time of the Anschluss. In France, the extreme right adopted the slogan of "Meilleur Hitler Que Blum" — in other words, better to have a German racist dictator than an elected French socialist Jew.

> Catholic fascist organizations such as Charles Maurras's Action Française[138] and the Croix de Feu campaigned violently against French democracy and made no bones about their grievance, which was the way in which France had been going downhill since the acquittal of the Jewish captain Alfred Dreyfus in 1899. When the German conquest of France arrived, these forces eagerly collaborated in the rounding up and murder of French Jews, as well as in the deportation to forced labor of a huge number of other Frenchmen.

> The Vichy regime conceded to clericalism by wiping the slogan of 1789 — "Liberté, Égalité, Fraternité" — off the national currency and replacing it with the Christian ideal motto of "Famille, Travail, Patrie." Even in a country like England, where fascist sympathies were far less prevalent, they still managed to get an audience in respectable circles by the agency of Catholic intellectuals such as T. S. Eliot and Evelyn Waugh.

> In neighboring Ireland, the Blue Shirt movement of General O'Duffy (which sent volunteers to fight for Franco in Spain) was little more than a dependency of the Catholic Church. As late as April 1945, on the news of the death of Hitler, President Eamon de Valera put on his top hat, called for the state coach, and went to the German embassy in Dublin to offer his official condolences.

> Attitudes like this meant that several Catholic-dominated states, from Ireland to Spain to Portugal, were ineligible to join the United Nations when it was first founded. The church has made efforts to apologize for all this, but its complicity with fascism is an ineffaceable mark on its history, and was not a short-term or a hasty commitment so much as a working alliance which did not break down until after the fascist period had itself passed into history.

Catholics nowadays will point to the many Catholics, both lay people and clergy, who resisted the evils of fascism (especially in Nazi Germany) and were almost always persecuted thusly. How this lets the higher-ups in the Church — who were totally cool with Nazism — off the hook is a mystery.

## Broadness of the term "fascism"[edit]

“”It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else.

—George Orwell, What is Fascism?[139] foreshadowing the use of Nazi analogies

Stuart Hood comments on the apparent definitional wideness of the term "fascism" in contemporary society, writing;[120]

> "Fascist" has become an all-purpose word. We often use it to describe people and things we don't like. It is applied indiscriminately to figures of authority, to modes of behaviour, to ways of thinking, to kinds of architecture.

> But this catch-all use of the word raises obvious questions. Are all people who could be defined in these terms really "Fascists"? Are all right-wing parties or groups, all conservative right-wing governments, necessarily "Fascist"?

Random yet typical everyday examples he provides of this loosely defined, vernacular usage of the term "fascist" include:[120]

* People who insist that sexual liberation led to AIDS.
* People who, in a broad stroke, would systematically dismiss art as being "crap."
* People who think the educational system is in a liberal mess due to lack of old-fashioned discipline.
* People who think there are "too many darn immigrants" in their country.
* People who think law enforcement is fascist by necessity.[note 6]

As is apparent, while some of these examples could be recognizable, the point stands that the term has been allowed to slide away from the actual specifics of fascist ideology. In response to this bewilderment of definition, Hood suggests a tentative ballpark definition for the wider term:[120]

> What "Fascists" have in common is that they are the enemies of liberal or left-wing thought and attitudes. They can be seen as threatening, aggressive, repressive, narrowly conservative and blindly patriotic.

### Neo-Fascism[edit]

Neo-Fascism is a widespread phenomenon in today’s world, occurring from the wave of right-wing populism drummed up by xenophobes and bigots of all kinds (like Donald Trump in America). The fascism today (though still undeniably fascism) is quite different from the old fascism seen in Europe and Japan during World War 2. Many neo-fascist movements operate under democratic institutions to gain power (with the exception of Russia, which was already a dictatorship for decades), only to then use said power to dismantle all democratic institutions from within.

Below are a few examples of countries with high risks of backsliding into fascism due to having significant reactionary political activity.

* Germany if the Alternative for Germany ever takes power[140]
* Hungary under Viktor Orban[141]
* India under Narendra Modi[142][143][144]
* Israel under Benjamin Netanyahu[145]
* Italy under Giorgia Meloni [146]
* Japan if the Sanseito Party takes power[147]
* Malaysia[148]
* Philippines under Rodrigo Duterte[149]
* Russia under Vladimir Putin post-2022 [150]
* United States under Donald Trump[151]

### Ur-Fascism[edit]

Umberto Eco's 1995 essay "Eternal Fascism"[152] put forth 14 common features of Fascism, a "fascist nebula," which "cannot be organized into a system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it":[153]:16-18

1. The cult of tradition. “One has only to look at the syllabus of every fascist movement to find the major traditionalist thinkers. The Nazi gnosis was nourished by traditionalist, syncretistic, occult elements.”
2. The rejection of modernism. “The Enlightenment, the Age of Reason, is seen as the beginning of modern depravity. In this sense Ur-Fascism can be defined as irrationalism.”
3. The cult of action for action’s sake. “Action being beautiful in itself, it must be taken before, or without, any previous reflection. Thinking is a form of emasculation.”
4. Disagreement is treason. “The critical spirit makes distinctions, and to distinguish is a sign of modernism. In modern culture the scientific community praises disagreement as a way to improve knowledge.”
5. Fear of difference. “The first appeal of a fascist or prematurely fascist movement is an appeal against the intruders. Thus Ur-Fascism is racist by definition.”
6. Appeal to social frustration. “One of the most typical features of the historical fascism was the appeal to a frustrated middle class, a class suffering from an economic crisis or feelings of political humiliation, and frightened by the pressure of lower social groups.”
7. The obsession with a plot. “The followers must feel besieged. The easiest way to solve the plot is the appeal to xenophobia.”
8. The enemy is both strong and weak. “By a continuous shifting of rhetorical focus, the enemies are at the same time too strong and too weak.”[note 7]
9. Pacifism is trafficking with the enemy. “For Ur-Fascism there is no struggle for life but, rather, life is lived for struggle.” This endless struggle therefore leads to an "Armageddon complex."
10. Contempt for the weak. “Elitism is a typical aspect of any reactionary ideology.”
11. Everybody is educated to become a hero. “In Ur-Fascist ideology, heroism is the norm. This cult of heroism is strictly linked with the cult of death.”
12. Machismo and weaponry. “Machismo implies both disdain for women and intolerance and condemnation of nonstandard sexual habits, from chastity to homosexuality.”
13. Selective populism. “There is in our future a TV or Internet populism, in which the emotional response of a selected group of citizens can be presented and accepted as the Voice of the People.”
14. Newspeak. “All the Nazi or Fascist schoolbooks made use of an impoverished vocabulary, and an elementary syntax, in order to limit the instruments for complex and critical reasoning.”

According to Eco, having one or more of these traits doesn't mean that a society is fascist, but that the odds increase that it will fit the definition of fascism. How these odds are computed remains to be established.

Although Eco stated that Nazism was anti-Christian and neopagan,[153]:9 and that Franco's ultra-Catholic regime was not Nazism but was still fascism because removing one element from the nebula still results in a recognizably fascist regime.[153]:12 Regarding point 9 of the nebula, it has been noted by Naomi Klein and Astra Taylor that the Armageddon complex allows for the merging, such as with the MAGA cult, of Christian fundamentalism with fascism and with libertarian billionaires and their supporters (e.g., Peter Thiel and Elon Musk) who have dreams of oligarchic exits from the the end times catastrophes.[154]

## Fascism and the political spectrum[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Horseshoe theory

“”Man and fascism cannot co-exist. If fascism conquers, man will cease to exist and there will remain only man-like creatures that have undergone an internal transformation. But if man, man who is endowed with reason and kindness, should conquer, then Fascism must perish, and those who have submitted to it will once again become people.

—Vasily Grossman[155]

There is a considerable dispute in some circles over whether fascism is a left- or right-wing idea. This dispute consists mainly of attempts to deny that one's own side of the political spectrum has anything in common with fascism, or alternatively to slime people on the opposite side of the political spectrum by claiming such commonalities. These tactics have been carried rather far, as mentioned above, with "fascist" becoming a general insult or accusation hurled around loosely, usually inappropriately and often childishly, to criticise anyone or anything we find even slightly overbearing or restrictive.

The first bunch of people to make these sorts of claims were communists attempting to bunch fascists together with supporters of capitalism by claiming that the fascists were merely the hired guns of the bourgeois oppressors; completely ignoring that fascism, besides being anti-communist, was also to some extent anti-capitalist, supporting limited welfare programs and other non-laissez-faire economic ideas. In Germany in particular, the right-wing parties had never been on board with extreme capitalism anyway; significant state intervention on behalf of big business had been the norm since the days of Bismarck. In the Nazis' case, Hitler stated that he wished to remove the influence of the "capitalist class," whom he believed to be largely Jewish and/or Jewish-controlled, and partially restore the traditional pre-capitalist ruling system; these ideas were partially implemented when the Nazi officials stole Jewish-owned property for the enrichment of the German people and/or themselves.[note 8]

However, in practice, the fascists and Nazis didn't really change much of the economic status quo from before they took power. After all, they had come to power with the support of conservatives who wanted a strong "law-and-order" regime to keep down the communists, social democrats and trade unions. A large influx of conservatives forced the fascists and the Nazis to moderate or abandon anti-establishment programs — as when the anti-clerical Mussolini signed the Lateran Treaty with the Catholic Church, or when Hitler appointed the pro-capitalist Hjalmar Schacht as economics minister — and marginalized or eliminated more economically-radical factions within the fascist movements, as when Hitler purged the brothers Strasser during the Night of the Long Knives.

More recently, some conservative luminaries such as Jonah Goldberg (and also some conservative non-luminaries) have been claiming that liberals and everyone else to the left of them are "fascists." This tactic usually relies on taking the straw man broadsides heaved at liberalism by wingnuts and finding commonalities between them and some fascist program; for example, noting that Nazi Germany had large public works projects, and since liberals also favor public works projects while conservatives do not, liberals must also be fascists.[note 9]

The Political Compass generally rates fascists as in the economic center, well to the left of today's right-wing politicians but well to the right of socialist figures. Generally, economics is considered of secondary importance to fascists anyways, except as an extension of their nationalistic and reactionary cultural views, hence the populist economics.

### Left-wing fascism[edit]

The term left-wing fascism (also known as left fascism or red fascism) denotes real or perceived tendencies in extreme left-wing politics that are otherwise commonly attributed to the supposed polar-opposite ideology of fascism.[158] In fact, fascism has always been wrapped up in leftist-sounding language — it's "a workers movement," "a populist struggle for justice," et cetera — while much of radical leftism has always endorsed the methods of authoritarian regimes, especially by excepting acts of terror from condemnation as long as they're done in the name of radical leftism (e.g., the Great Terror of 1936-1938).

The first appearance of the term "red fascism" (fascisti rossi) has been attributed to Italian anarchist Luigi Fabbri in his 1922 book La Contro-Rivoluzione Preventiva.[159]:112[160] Fabbri used the term in reference to the excesses of Bolsheviks, and the belief that "…the dictatorship of the proletariat being a meaningless expression that may as well signify dictatorship over the proletariat…"[160]

That being said, however — the term has gained popularity among cranks, who will gleefully settle for complete non-sequiturs while bashing progressivism and feminism.[161] Anything to generate those echo chamber clicks!

Left-wing fascism could be considered a sort of "inverse third positionism." Common qualities taken on by these extreme leftists that could be viewed as having what are essentially "fascist" traits include:

* Vehemently supporting nationalism, as opposed to supporting the proletarian internationalism of communistm (e.g. Socialism in One Country, Third World Socialism, or critical support for any nominally anti-Western nationalist movement)
* Hijacking progressive anti-colonial efforts to push for ethnocentric dictatorships taking the place of the former colonial masters, e.g., the case of Romanian communist ethnocentrism and their position within the Austro-Hungarian Empire[162][163]
* A reliance on ethnic scapegoating (sometimes delving into pure racialism), and at the most extreme, not-so-subtle support for genocide (examples being Holodomor and Uyghur genocide and apologia, denial, and/or revisionism for it), or the numerous ethnic cleansings in the Stalinist Soviet Union.[164] This can be viewed as the "purity" aspect of Paxton's definition of fascim.
* Celebrating a brutal "will to power" wherein violence is considered an expression of 'just protest' and is seen especially as a tool with which to "rejuvenate" a certain people/culture.[165]:125[166]:24-25
* Rampant paranoia, whereby the far right's perceived threat of "cultural Marxism" is given a different coat of paint and experienced on the far-left as an equivalent but with ordinary socialist contempt for bankers expanded to conspiracist anti-semitic views of Jews as being associated with banking (e.g., the Rothschild family).[167]:35-43
* Wide overlap with numerous far-right conspiracy theories[168]:217

#### Historical and current examples[edit]

Movements that have been accused of embodying some, or most, traits of left-wing fascism include:

* George Galloway and much of what he touches[169]
* Trotskyism, Leninism, Stalinism, Maoism, and Juche[170]:116[171]:33-37[note 10]
* Lyndon LaRouche's movement
* National communism
* Third International Theory

Countless third-world dictatorships (often drawing on irredentism, tribalism, and millennialist theocracy) have also come to embody this ultimately null difference between the authoritarians on both the far right and far left, including those of:

* Idi Amin
* The Ba'ath Party in Iraq and Syria.
* Jean-Bédel Bokassa
* Muammar al-Gaddafi
* The Kim dynasty in North Korea
* Robert Mugabe
* Francisco Macías Nguema
* Pol Pot

#### Ecofascism[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Hard green

Ecofascism is essentially the mixture of the authoritarian/totalitarian aspects of fascism mixed in with standard green politics wrapped in hard-right politics. The progenitor of ecofascism is Nazi Germany which passed laws protecting animals and promoted Blood and Soil as part of their ideology. This seems to be more prevalent in Europe, where several political parties exist such as the Nouvelle Droite (or European New Right) of Alain de Benoist, "Third Way" in the United Kingdom (a "green" splinter from the neo-fascist National Front), the Ökologisch-Demokratische Partei (Ecological Democratic Party, a right-wing splinter from the German Green Party), and groups espousing third positionism. Another was Savitri Devi, an avowed neo-Nazi who espoused animal rights, and who thought that animal slaughterhouses were worse than Nazi war crimes. The closest example of this from the U.S. is probably Virginia Abernethy, a Vanderbilt University professor who is both a widely cited expert on population and ecology and a self-avowed white separatist.[note 11] Another American example would be the Wolves of Vinland, a group of Norse neopagans who have been described both as "eco-punks" and as white nationalist.[173][174]

A notorious example of an avowed ecofascist was Brenton Harrison Tarrant, the Australia-born shooter behind the Christchurch terrorist attacks in New Zealand that killed 51 people and injured 50 more. In his manifesto The Great Replacement (named after the French far-right theory of the same name by writer Renaud Camus), Tarrant declared that he was "an Ethno-nationalist, Eco-fascist" [175].

An early example who might count per today's standards (before either "fascism" or "environmentalism" were even coined as terms) was American Madison Grant, a conservationist, eugenicist and rabid racist who advocated an early idea like The Great Replacement. Grant wrote The Passing of the Great Race, a 1916 book that Hitler later praised as "my Bible." In fairness though, his conservationism was motivated mostly by wanting to keep around certain animals for hunting.

## Fascist regimes and ideologies[edit]

“”The fascism of the 1920s and 1930s, [Ivan] Ilyin's era, had three core features: It celebrated will and violence over reason and law; it proposed a leader with mystical connections to his people; and it characterized globalization as a conspiracy rather than as a set of problems.

—Timothy Snyder[55]:16

Below are several prominent examples of historical and modern fascist regimes and ideologies. Some of these regimes have been disputed as to whether or not they truly fit the mold of fascism, but many historians state that these regimes have characteristics which at least make them de facto fascist. This list may not include certain fascist regimes (such as Norway under Vidkun Quisling or Hungary under Gyula Gömbös).

### Italian Fascism[edit]

Flag of the Kingdom of Italy
(1861-1946).

“”Mussolini did not have any philosophy: he had only rhetoric. He was a militant atheist at the beginning and later signed the Convention with the Church and welcomed the bishops who blessed the Fascist pennants. In his early anticlerical years, according to a likely legend, he once asked God, in order to prove His existence, to strike him down on the spot. Later, Mussolini always cited the name of God in his speeches, and did not mind being called the Man of Providence.

—Umberto Eco, "Ur-Fascism" (1995)[152]:3

Fascist Italy, beginning in 1922 under Mussolini, is commonly considered the first fascist regime, and his methods of ruling and gaining power became an influence on Hitler and other fascists since the birth of fascism.[176]:182 Fascist Italy is most characterized by its focus on Italian nationalism (particularly on the historical Roman Empire[177]), irredentism towards historical Italian territory, and its corporatist economic and social structure. Mussolini's take on fascism is probably the version best defined by the phrase "third positionism," but his corporatist ideals quickly broke down into the government forcing labor groups to do what the industrialists wanted.

Fascist Italy was also a colonial power in Africa, and some of its worst crimes (mostly war crimes) occurred there. Much of Mussolini's influences took direct inspiration from Ancient Rome; he explicitly wanted to recreate the Roman Empire and believed that fascism would bring about a "Third" Rome (after the original Ancient Rome and the Holy Roman Empire afterwards). His speeches explicitly echoed the Risorgimento (Italian resurgence or reunification) with his talk of a "Third Rome."[178]:136 Terza Roma (Third Rome) was also a name for Mussolini's plan to reclaim the lands of Ancient Rome.[179]

### Nazism (Germany)[edit]

See the main articles on this topic: Nazism and Nazi Germany

Flag of Nazi Germany
(1933–1945).

“”The common elements of fascism — extreme nationalism, social Darwinism, the leadership principle, elitism, anti-liberalism, anti-egalitarianism, anti-democracy, intolerance, glorification of war, the supremacy of the state and anti-intellectualism — together form a rather loose doctrine. Fascism emphasises action rather than theory, and fascist theoretical writings are always weak. Hitler's Nazism had rather more theory, though its intellectual quality is appalling. This greater theoretical content is mostly concerned with race, and it was Hitler's racial theories that distinguished Nazism from Italian fascism.

—Ian Adams[180]:178

Widely regarded as the most infamous strain of fascism in history, the National Socialist German Workers Party came to power in Germany after Hitler was named chancellor in 1933.[181] From there, the regime consolidated complete control over German society. It became known for the myriad outrages committed against Germany's Jewish population beginning with fearmongering, evolving to political violence, and culminating with the Holocaust. [182]

The Nazi regime was also the most obsessed with race,[183] establishing and implementing a strict racial hierarchy based on Hitler's ideas. This resulted in the passage of the Nuremberg Laws,[184] which criminalized interracial marriages, stripped racial minorities of citizenship rights, and defined Jews and Roma as "enemies of the race-based state." One of Hitler's other cornerstone ideals was the concept of lebensraum[185] ("living space"), a form of irredentism, which was his motivation to expand the German state through conquest, particularly through the fertile lands of Eastern Europe. This policy also played into the annexation of Austria and Czechoslovakia, as well as the beginning of WWII when Germany invaded Poland.

Nazism, while a subset of fascism, did have some notable differences from its parent ideology. For example, while Hitler was obsessed with racial purity and racial hierarchies, Mussolini did not support racialism and antisemitism until fairly late in his rule,[186] and seems to have mostly been doing this to help cement his alliance with the Nazis. Mussolini instead saw the nation rather than race as the rallying point for fascist unity; Hitler saw both concepts as one and the same. That being said, fascists post-WWII do tend to be racists and antisemites.

### Austrofascism (Austria)[edit]

Flag of the Fatherland Front (1933-1935).

Before being annexed by Nazi Germany, Austria had its own unique indigenous fascist movement and regime. This regime was led by the Fatherland Front (German: Vaterländische Front),[187] and was led by Engelbert Dollfuss. He was the leader of the regime until he was assassinated in 1934 by Austrian Nazis who were against Dollfuss's regime and wanted to be annexed by and absorbed into the German Reich.[188] The regime began in 1933 after Austrian fascists who longed for a Catholic state fought against socialists on the streets of Austria,[189] which gave them more than enough of an excuse to grab power. This form of fascism was another heavily pro-corporate variation (alongside Salazarism and Falangism). The regime finally fell in 1935 after Dolfuss’s death followed by the initiation of the Anschluss from Nazi Germany.

### Shōwa Statism (Japan)[edit]

The Rising Sun, the flag most commonly associated with the Empire of Japan (1889–1945).

The national ideology of Japan during its era as the Japanese empire, Shōwa Statism believed that the emperor (Emperor Hirohito was also referred to as Emperor Shōwa) was a divine descendant of gods, and thus he and Japan held divine power and were superior to all other nations, leading to them oppressing and murdering civilians from nations of various ethnicities (Chinese, Korean, etc). Though undoubtedly far-right, many scholars debate whether or not Shōwa Statism was truly fascism, though it certainly aped many features as fascism in Europe.

Shōwa Statism is written as "国家主義" (Kokkashugi; "statism") in Japanese, "國家主義"(Guójiā zhǔyì) in Traditional Chinese and "국가주의" (Kukajuui) in Korean. Imperial Japan from the 1920s onward became dominated by the 皇道派 (Kōdōha; "Imperial Way") faction which established a totalitarian military dictatorship until its forcible dissolution in 1936.[190][191] This ideology, whilst distinctly Japanese, holds many parallels to fascism, from the glorification of violence to the social Darwinist survival-of-the-fittest militarism and the "great race" propaganda (this time as "Japanese Spirit"), where they held themselves above all others. Fascism's machismo cult of personality was even given a distinctly Japanese (and theocratic) spin, as they had birthed-from-god emperor worship, itself a longstanding Japanese tradition from centuries of shōgun rule.[192] Although it lost power, the Imperial Way Faction's followers retained great influence over Japanese politics, and Japan remained a military dictatorship throughout the pre-WWII Shōwa period of Japan.

Japan during this time was rabidly expansionist, and it became mired in a war with China from 1937-1945, then invaded most of Southeast Asia for oil reasons.[193] The Japanese people had long resented the Western imperialist powers running roughshod over Asia, and sought to establish their own empire as an Asian counterweight.

Japanese military expansionism resulted in numerous atrocities and war crimes such as the crimes of Unit 731[194] and the Rape of Nanking.[195]

Today's ultranationalist Nippon Kaigi effectively inherits Shōwa Statism,[196] a group deeply linked to the Japanese right-wing party, the LDP. The only difference is that Japan's ultranationalists, past and present, are anti-Korean/anti-Chinese racists, but Japanese ultranationalists in the 21st century are pro-Americanists, unlike in the past.

### Vichy France[edit]

Personal flag of Pétain, commonly used as a symbol of Vichy France (1940–1944).

See the main article on this topic: Vichy France

While a puppet regime under the Nazis, the Vichy regime used its own initiative to implement many elements of the fascist state. This cannot be entirely handwaved away with the "they needed to please Germany" excuse. Under Philippe Pétain, the French government enacted a social program called the Révolution nationale,[197]:142-165 which was intended to roll back French social progress made after the original French Revolution. Indeed, Vichy France was built on the longstanding social resentment that had been held by French conservatives towards their more cosmopolitan countrymen.

Philippe Pétain became the leader of a French personality cult, with a song dedicated to his glory becoming the unofficial national anthem.[198] He led France into becoming a totalitarian dictatorship until the end of his regime in 1944.

Although French complicity in the Holocaust is often excused as being the result of German coercion, French conservatives had long held antisemitic beliefs; this can be seen in incidents such as the Dreyfus affair. The Vel' d'Hiv Roundup is one infamous incident in which French police acted on their own to mass arrest and deport more than 13,000 Jews to the German death camps. The raid was planned and carried out primarily by French citizens, with little to no involvement by occupying German troops.[199]

### Falangism (Spain)[edit]

Flag of the Spanish Falange Party.

Falangism (Falangismo) was the ideology followed in Francisco Franco's domination of Spain; it emphasized social conservatism and religious nationalism (especially Catholic identity) far more than most other forms of fascism.[200]:10 Falange is the Spanish word for "phalanx," a shieldwall tactic used by the Spartans and Alexander the Great, which required extreme discipline from the soldiers to execute properly.[201]

The Falangist ideological economic system was built on Mussolini's corporatist ideas;[104]:466 the Spanish version was called national syndicalism but was intended to work in essentially the same way, and in its later form merged with Catholicism.[104]:261 However, before and during the Spanish Civil War, it became necessary to accommodate the ideas of their monarchist ("Carlist") and conservative allies when the movements merged, so the Falangists largely abandoned their supposedly anti-capitalist beliefs.[202] Thus, in practice, Franco's fascist regime more resembled an ultra-conservative brand of totalitarianism than it did anything created by the Nazis or Mussolini.

Franco's apologists like to claim that he shielded Spain's Jews from the Holocaust. However, it was discovered in 2010 that Franco had ordered the creation of a secret archive of Jewish names which was later handed over to Heinrich Himmler.[203] Franco's regime would have cheerfully cooperated with the Holocaust had the alliance with Nazi Germany been finalized; as it was, Franco decided not to join the war due to concerns over his nation's readiness.

Falangism was not a solely Spanish phenomenon, as it gained followers outside of Spain throughout the Latin American world (including non-Spanish speaking nations such as Brazil, Guyana, Suriname, and French Guiana), as well as the Philippines and Lebanon, with varying levels of success and implementation in those countries.[204]

### Ustaše regime (Croatia)[edit]

See the main article on this topic: Ustaše

The flag of the Independent State of Croatia controlled by the Ustaše (1941-1945).

“”At Crkveni Bok, an unfortunate place, over which about five hundred 15- to 20-year-old thugs descended under the leadership of an Ustasha lieutenant colonel, people were killed everywhere, women were raped and then tortured to death, children were killed. I saw in the Sava River the corpse of a young woman with her eyes dug out and a stake driven into her sexual parts. This woman was at most twenty years old when she fell into the hands of these monsters. All around, pigs devoured unburied human beings. "Fortunate” residents were shipped in terrifying freight cars; many of these involuntary "passengers" cut their veins during transport to the camp [Jasenovac]"

—General Edmund von Horstanau, Hitler's Plenipotentiary to Croatia, describing the horrifying brutality of the Ustaše on their victims.[205]:166-167

A particularly cruel strain of fascism was formed in the Balkans, specifically the former Yugoslavia, a fallen country synonymous with ethnic strife and infamous for bloody ethnic clashes for much of its existence. Serbia was the hegemon of the region and many resented their reach over Croats, Slovenes, and Bosniaks. Eventually, in the outset of the Second World War, Croatian fascists, the Ustaše, directly inspired by Hitler and Mussolini, rose up through a combination of ultra-nationalism, extreme religious fundamentalism, and pathological disdain for Serbs especially.

Ustaše were utterly bugfuck irrational crackpots, absolutely fanatical even for fascists. The Ustaše believed in Nazi race theory, viewing Serbs, Jews, and Roma as subhumans who deserved little more than outright extermination, thereby making them active participants of Nazi ideology. Even Bosniaks, whom they viewed as "Muslim Croats," not Slavs, and thus did not persecute on the basis of race, were still persecuted on the basis of politics, as many Bosniaks refused to obey the Ustaše.[206] The Ustaše were a uniquely Croatian brand of fascism, combining Nazi eugenics with Roman Catholicism and Croatian nationalism, alongside direct inspiration from and actual training by Mussolini's Italy.[207]:125

Under their dictator, Poglavnik Ante Pavelić, they set up death camps for Serbs, Jews, Roma, and dissident Croats and Bosniaks who opposed their rule. Their most infamous death camp was Jasenovac, where one hundred thousand people, mostly Serbs, were murdered in horrifying ways, from removal of hearts and sawing off heads to disembowelment and eye-gouging, and their bodies would be thrown to a nearby river. The Ustaše were so horrifyingly brutal, even the Nazis were disgusted at the barbarity, using words like "slaughter," "atrocities," "butchery" and "terror," cataloguing hundreds of thousands of deaths overall, not just at Jasenovac. German Captain Konopatzki called an Ustaše massacre of Serb civilians in Eastern Bosnia "a new wave of butchery of innocents." Lieutenant Colonel von Wedel wrote that in western Bosnia, Ustaše killed women and children "like cattle" in a series of "bestial executions." Major Walter Kleinenberger, officer with the German 714th division, complained that Ustaše brutality "was in defiance of all laws of civilization. The Ustaše murder without exception men, women and children."[208]

### Metaxism (Greece)[edit]

The flag of the Kingdom of Greece under the Metaxas regime (1936–1941)

“”Greece since the 4th of August became an anticommunist State, an antiparliamentary State, a totalitarian State. A State based on its farmers and workers, and so antiplutocratic. There is not, of course, a particular party to govern. This party is all the People, except of the incorrigible communists and the reactionary old parties politicians."
| Original in Greek:

Η Ελλάς έγινε από της 4ης Αυγούστου Κράτος αντικομμουνιστικό, Κράτος ολοκληρωτικό. Κράτος με βάση αγροτική και εργατική, και κατά συνέπεια αντιπλουτοκρατικό. Δεν είχε βέβαια κόμμα ιδιαίτερο να κυβερνά. Αλλά κόμμα ήτανε όλος ο Λαός, εκτός από τους αδιόρθωτους κομμουνιστάς και τους αντιδραστικούς παλαιοκομματικούς.

—Ioannis Metaxas, bragging about establishing his 4th of August Regime in 1936.[209]:553

A less talked about but still relevant form and regime of fascism, Metaxism (Μεταξισμός) is the Greek (Hellenic) flavor of this reactionary ideology. It is also the proclaimed ideology of the existing far-right neo-Nazi party Golden Dawn[210] and its splinter parties. Metaxism advocates for Hellenic racial purity, cultural homogeneity and dominance in the Balkans, removal of immigrants and minorities from Greece and the usual reactionary shit. The person after which the ideology is named after, military officer and Greek dictator Ioannis Metaxas, (1871–1941) declared that his regime was the "Third Greek Civilization," a common theme among fascists to reference the nostalgia of a distant but glorious past (like Hitler did with the Third Reich — German for "Third Realm"). Like his German and Italian contemporaries, Metaxas adopted the title of Archigos (Αρχηγος), Greek for "leader" or "chief."

Key to their ideology is its classical influences. Metaxas thought Hellenic nationalism would galvanize "the heathen values of ancient Greece, specifically those of Sparta, along with the Christian values of the Medieval empire of Byzantium."[211] Ancient Macedonia was glorified as the first political union of the Hellenes.[212] As its main symbol, the youth organization of the regime chose the labrys/pelekys, the symbol of ancient Minoan Crete.

Traditional Greek values of "Country, Loyalty, Family and Religion," which Metaxas praised repeatedly, were deliberately reminiscent of ancient Spartans, whose violent and blood-soaked warrior culture that modern popular culture glorifies and Metaxas damn-near deified. The regime promoted the perceived Spartan ideals of self-discipline, militarism and collective sacrifice, while Byzantium was Metaxas' example of his ideal government, emphasizing a centralized state and devotion to the monarchy and Greek Orthodox Church.[212]:177-178 Propaganda presented him as the "First Peasant" of the people, the "First Worker" of the state, and the "National Father" of the Greeks, bringing to mind Ancient Rome's early emperors using "Princeps" or "First Citizen" rather than emperor as their preferred titles. Metaxas claimed that his "Third Hellenic Civilization" combined the best of ancient Greece and the Greek Byzantine Empire of the Middle Ages.

Although it is common that fascists help each other to gain power, like how Hitler and Mussolini helped Franco to win the civil war in Spain, there was fascist infighting in the Second World War: Mussolini occupied Albania and invaded the northwest of Greece, in a bid to expand his power, which was in conflict with Metaxas and the Greek fascists. With great irony, because of the Italian invasion, Metaxas felt he had no choice but to align with the Allies against the Axis, but he died of illness on January 1941, shortly before the German invasion and subsequent fall of Greece. The Greek government was replaced by the Hellenic State, an Axis collaborationist puppet government. Deeply unpopular among Greeks, the Hellenic State had three prime ministers in four years: Georgios Tsolakoglou, the general who signed the unconditional surrender of the Hellenic Army to the Germans; medical doctor Konstantinos Logothetopoulos, who was himself sacked; and Ioannis Rallis, whose deep experience in politics allowed him to crack down on Greek resistance much more efficiently than his predecessors. All three were arrested alongside hundreds of other Greek collaborators after the fall of the Hellenic State.[213]

### Integralism (Brazil)[edit]

Integralism (Ação Integralista Brasileira) was a fascist-inspired far-right movement that was created by writer and doofus Plínio Salgado.[214] It was most active in the 1930s-1940s but after they were betrayed by dictator Getúlio Vargas (and attempted a coup d'etat, which failed miserably) they continuously lost importance in Brazilian politics. During the military dictatorship, a few former Integralists joined ARENA (National Renewal Alliance), the official government far-right party, and during the beginning of the New Republic, they were an influence on PRONA (Party of the Reconstruction of the National Order), an ultra-nationalist party that was mildly relevant. Currently, they basically exist as nostalgia porn for Brazilian neoconservatives. They're especially remembered for their symbology: an upper-case Greek sigma (Σ) as their main symbol, their salute "Anauê" (an indigenous-sounding word of no known meaning) and the over-usage of green and blue. Like European fascists, they were anti-communism, anti-liberalism, pro-social conservatism, (extremely) anti-semitic, ultra-nationalists and pro-authoritarianism. However, different from European fascists, Integralists were (at least superficially) fine with black people and race mixing, with registers of black integralists and Plínio Salgado criticizing the Nazi "racial purity" policy. In spite of that, it is important to notice that integralists used a lot of European and indigenous cultural references and almost no African ones despite their relevance to the formation of Brazilian culture; this tendency to over-romanticize European and indigenous culture, while actively ignoring African-American culture is actually quite common among Brazilian nationalists, not just Integralists, as exemplified by José de Alencar's famous book Iracema.[215] Also like European fascists, Integralists loved pseudoscience and national mysticism, with many believing the myth that Phoenicians had come to Brazil many centuries before the Portuguese and had influenced the native peoples; Gustavo Barroso, a famous writer and Integralist, wrote many books on "the hidden history of Brazil". In 2019, a terror attack happened against Brazilian comedy group Porta dos Fundos (literally "Backdoor");[216] the attack was claimed by a small Integralist cell and was supposedly motivated by Porta dos Fundos' jokes against Jesus and Christianity. A Molotov cocktail was thrown at the comedy group's headquarters; no one was hurt.

### Estado Novo (Portugal)[edit]

Flag of the second Portuguese republic

Estado Novo is another example of a fascist regime that isn’t often focused on. The state was run by António Salazar, the Catholic dictator who turned Portugal into a militaristic and religious quasi-fascist state. The Portuguese fascist regime was a visible example of pro-corporation elements present within fascism. Having developed from another previous authoritarian regime referred to as the Ditadura Nacional, the Estado Novo was installed in 1933 (during the same time other fascist dictatorships took power). This particular fascist state was heavily pro-corporate[217] and Christian fundamentalist, viewing Catholicism as an integral part of its heritage, identity, and culture.[218]

Similar to its contemporary Falangist Spain, this religious dictatorship persisted into the mid 20th century, eventually falling to democratic revolutions during the 1970s. The revolution was led by leftists who were increasingly disillusioned with the authoritarian regime and wanted to end the system.[219]

### Stalinism (Soviet Union)[edit]

See the main articles on this topic: Stalinism and Joseph Stalin

The flag of the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, Stalin Era (1936-1955)

“”Stalinism [took on] a regressive course, generating a species of red fascism identical in its superstructural and choreographic features [with its Fascist model].

—Bruno Rizzi, founder of the Communist Party of Italy (PCI), in 1938[220]:193

Although many adherents of socialism and communism would reject labeling the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics (USSR) as fascist, such as British communist and pro-Soviet apologist Seumas Milne,[221] many opponents would certainly make comparisons between the regime (as well as other authoritarian communist and socialist regimes) and ideology of that state with fascism. Among them: bloodsheds and genocides perpetrated under Vladimir Lenin and Stalin, gulags, the silencing of any opposition, the lack of any democratic representation, expansionism and imperialism, discrimination against minorities, cult of personality (especially under Stalin) and totalitarianism. One of the greatest crimes against humanity, the Holodomor, [222] was committed by the Soviet state under Stalin.[note 12]

The Soviet Union is many times credited with defeating Nazi Germany under Hitler, but before Hitler's invasion of the USSR, the partitioning of Poland and the Baltic States happened as part of the Molotov–Ribbentrop Pact,[223] a treaty of non-aggression between Hitler and Stalin. In essence, Stalin and the Soviets enabled and cooperated with the Nazis in order to expand the influence of communism. In addition, the Soviet Union was previously in talks to become the fourth axis power before the Nazis invaded Russia and broke the peace treaty. Interestingly enough, neo-Nazis today use an anti-semitic dog whistle that was originally founded in the USSR: "rootless cosmopolitan",[224] an anti-semitic accusation levied against Jews in the USSR accused of being capitalists and traitors of socialism, inspired by the conspiracy of the (non-existent) Doctors' plot. The term "red fascism" may also be used by anarchists and democratic socialists to distance themselves from the horrors of the Soviet past. Ironically, ruscists (Russian fascists) have pointed to that era of brutal authoritarianism as a time of great Russian pride, claiming that the invasion of Ukraine in 2022 was a call to defeat Nazis within the country.[225]

### Putinism/Ruscism (Russia)[edit]

See the main articles on this topic: Putinism, Ruscism, and Vladimir Putin

“” The fact of the matter is that fascism is a redemptive excess of patriotic arbitrariness.

—Ivan Ilyin, a Russian fascist philosopher.

The Z symbol, the current de facto symbol of Putinist Russia

After the fall of the Soviet Union, Russian nationalism began to grow as citizens of the new Russian federation saw the union as part of the "good old days"[226] and a time when there was a great source of Russian pride. But this distinctly Russian mutation of fascism took its time to grow. While many still remember the Nazi invasion of the USSR, Russian fascists and Russian neo-Nazis nonetheless became very popular among the hyper-masculine corners of Russian society, which was frankly devastated by the 1990s. Nationalistic men who had nothing turned to modern-day fascism to give them a sense of belonging, and more to the point, someone to hate, someone to scapegoat, and eventually, someone to crush in accordance with the regime's wishes. This means that Russian rightists are just as homophobic, transphobic, anti-feminist, and anti-Muslim (among other things) as American rightists.

Russian fascists only truly gained power after Vladimir Putin became President in 2000, who eventually chose to use them as a pro-regime sledgehammer whenever his rule was threatened or his popularity waned amid protests against his policies. Unlike the chaotic Boris Yeltsin years, Putin offered the public a simple social contract: leave the politics to the politicians and the government will leave you alone. What this meant was to turn the Russian population functionally apolitical, allowing them to be susceptible to one of the most effective propaganda machines in modern history. The corresponding post-truth thought, as well as the dismantling and eroding of democratic institutions over time effectively turned Russia into a dictatorship before Putin even finished his first term.

It only truly took hold after the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 22, 2022, when Putin used a mix of imperialist mythology,[227] reality-defying scapegoating, plain old whining (about Russia's neighbors joining NATO), and outright lying to paint Ukraine as a neo-Nazi puppet state of the West. But the invasion's fuck-ups were so severe, the repeated losses were so great, and the incompetence was so monumental, Putin's propaganda network collapsed overnight, and his image as the untouchable strongman weakened for the first real time in decades. In response, Putin cracked down on a totalitarian level not seen since Stalin; he arrested people doing something as as simple as holding paper saying "No War,"[228] (because it's not a war, just a "special military operation"), or just a blank piece of paper.[229] Despite Putin and the Kremlin’s repeated lies of denazifying Ukraine, the Russian military has utilized Neo-Nazis in its war effort. This is a direct case of schizofascism in action. Ruscists themselves are fascists while accusing dissidents and other opponents of being fascists instead.

Russia’s massive territory and racial homogeneity, mixed with imperialist, irredentist, revanchist, and territorial ambitions and humiliation after the fall of the Soviet Union and the subsequent glorification and lionization of the Soviet era created the perfect recipe for a fascist dictatorship and movement to emerge. Much like its Soviet predecessor, Russia treats its ethnic minorities abysmally and often uses soldiers from these minority groups as cannon fodder, leading to accusations of Putin’s Russia having a racial angle to some of their human rights abuses.[230]

### Trumpism (United States)[edit]

See the main articles on this topic: Trumpism and Donald Trump

Symbol of QAnon

There was always an undercurrent of fascistic behavior and ideological leanings within the United States that foreshadowed the rise of Mussolini and Hitler later in the 20th century (such as the Ku Klux Klan). Hitler was himself was directly inspired by American racism,[231]:2,9 eugenics, white supremacy, and the system of Jim Crow and anti-miscegenation laws. These directly influenced the formation of Nazi Germany's Nuremburg Laws that were used to persecute German Jews.[232]:78-88 Anti-miscegenation laws, which prohibited interracial marriages in 30 of 48 states, were adopted by the Nazis to legislate against interracial marriage with Jews, precisely because the United States was the harshest against interracial marriage, with some states threatening severe criminal punishment, again something the Nazis were "very eager" to emulate.[232]:78-88 "As for race mixing between the sexes, the United States stood at the forefront there as well. America was a beacon of anti-miscegenation law, with thirty different state regimes — many of them outside the South, and all of them … carefully studied, catalogued, and debated by Nazi lawyers."[233]:12 The Nazis felt that the American legal use of the one-drop rule was too extreme,[233]:77 so their Nuremberg Laws, taking its cues from America, began to systematize the criminalization of marriage and sex between Jewish and German people.[233]:83

KKK propaganda sheet music from 1923

In Mein Kampf, Hitler himself called America the "one state" making progress toward "the creation of the kind of order he wanted for Germany," specifically progress toward a primarily racial conception of citizenship,[234] by "excluding certain races from naturalization."[235]:658 In 1935, the National Socialist Handbook on Law and Legislation, a basic guide for Nazis as they built their new society, would declare that "the United States had achieved the "fundamental recognition" of the need for a race state."[234] Hitler was particularly fascinated by manifest destiny, even saying "One thing the Americans have and which we lack is the sense of vast open spaces,"[236]:15 echoing how America's manifest destiny called for and actually succeeded in stealing as much land as possible for white settlers from everyone else. He wrote approvingly of how white settlers in America "gunned down the millions of redskins to a few hundred thousand."[237] German lawyer Heinrich Krieger, an exchange student in at the University of Arkansas School of Law, became “the single most important figure in the Nazi assimilation of American race law,” as he sought to "deploy historical and legal knowledge" in the service of "Aryan racial purity."[238] The Nazis saw the United States as ultimately a kindred spirit in the thrall of white supremacy and the weaponization of race against undesirables.[238][237][239]

The Ku Klux Klan, an entirely American movement, was made up of ex-Confederates who absolutely refused to accept a reality and world where Blacks were free men, and explicitly sought not only to return to the "good old days" of Blacks being lesser, but actively enacted a campaign of mass terror, brutality, and violence against Blacks, as they carried out hundreds if not thousands of anti-Black lynchings all over the nation. Klansmen found common cause with Mussolini, as the Klan-aligned newspaper, the Imperial Night Hawk, asserted that Mussolini’s fight to crush "communism and anarchy" was "an entirely worthy cause."[240] The Klan, Nazism, and Italian fascism all were movements that emerged from the crucible of war in times of "economic difficulty, class polarization, and political impasse."[240] Each mobilized men and women from a broad spectrum of the population "but had particular attraction for the petite bourgeoisie."[240] Each of these movements also "enlisted the active backing or toleration of important members of the established elite and gained strength from the legitimacy thus bestowed."[240] They also "exerted particular appeal for members of the police and armed forces," who in turn provided aid and cover for the movements’ extralegal terror.[240] All three exploited working class anxieties to their advantage against their scapegoats while pretending to be a friend to labor and the workers. Finally, all three movements had similar organizational styles in their "conscious emphasis on the irrational," on "liturgical rituals," and on "public displays of power."[240] There were many differences, from the Klan's reverence of Protestantism, lack of a true personality cult, disregard for dictatorship (at least rhetorically), fading sense of economic hardship by the mid-1920s (thereby depriving it of "resentment politics"), and equal fading of its sense of urgency as labor's power declined amid the Red Scares.[240] "Without extreme conditions, extreme measures enjoyed less legitimacy."[240]

The rise of fascism in the United States is evident through a "politics of resentment" rooted in authentic American piety and nativism that sometimes leads to violence against some of the very same "internal enemies" once targeted by the Nazis, such as homosexuals and defenders of abortion rights. Fears of fascism grew particularly during Donald Trump's presidency, as his habit of scapegoating entire groups, glorification and direct incitement of violence, imagined grievances, anti-intellectualism, appeals to a false golden age, authoritarian crackdown on protesters and activists, dehumanizing language towards minorities, and machismo personality cult all paralleled that of Mussolini. But this also included policies such as concentration camps on the border, kidnapping peaceful demonstrators, teargassing protesters, giving non-consensual hysterectomies to immigrant detainee women (a borderline-genocidal act), and employing Homeland Security as an unaccountable paramilitary secret police force. It's not for nothing that actual neo-Nazis love Trump.[241][242] Trump's attempted self-coup on January 6, 2021 on the backs of fascist mob violence has made it clear, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that it really can happen here, and it must be confronted and subdued before it ever has a chance at power ever again.

## See also[edit]

* Jingoism
* List of forms of government
* Nationalist pseudohistory
* Personality cult
* Police state
* Radical traditionalism
* Revolution
* Social Darwinism
* Third Position
* World War II \- the war fascism started.

## External links[edit]

* The Strange, Strange Story of the Gay Fascists by Johann Hari (Oct 21, 2008, 06:16 PM EDT; Updated May 25, 2011) Huffington Post, an essay on rampant homophobes with fascist beliefs who turn out to be in the closet

## Notes[edit]

1. ↑ Yes, Donald Trump is alleged to have said this by then-White House Chief of Staff General John F. Kelly.
2. ↑ Google immediately bent the knee in advance Trump's fascism.[77]
3. ↑ #BanTheReupublicanParty
4. ↑ In the 20th century, at least.
5. ↑ Karl Marx is the wisest man of all and is never wrong, the Communist Manifesto is the best book ever written and one may not make any criticisms of it, the economics of communism have never been found to be flawed, the global revolution will occur and we will have an eternal worker's paradise, and those who don't advocate for communism are living in a false consciousness.
6. ↑ Be they Freemen or lifestyle Anarchists.
7. ↑ In light of this, Eco also speculates: "Fascist governments are condemned to lose wars because they are constitutionally incapable of objectively evaluating the force of the enemy."
8. ↑ For a detailed study of this phenomenon with specific regard to fine art, see the book and film, The Rape of Europa.[156][157]
9. ↑ Take WWII, where all the Allies were doing it. (We await the first conservative to call Churchill the spawn of Mussolini.)
10. ↑ "Tankieism" may be the most common gateway drug to full-blown left-fascism, and vice-versa.
11. ↑ Really. She's even on the board of the American Third Position party.[172]
12. ↑ It's a matter of debate as to whether the Holodomor actually qualifies as a genocide, which by legal definition requires intent, as some historians state that Stalin was motivated merely by stubborn denial of his own incompetence rather than disdain for Ukrainians as an ethnic group, though he was racist and indeed targeted certain ethnic groups in the USSR.

## References[edit]

1. ↑ The surprising reason Mussolini’s home town wants to build a fascism museum by Michael Birnbaum & Stefano Pitrelli (January 31 at 6:39 PM) The Washington Post.
2. ↑ Fascism Merriam-Webster
3. ↑ Mussolini, Doctrine of Fascism by Steven Kreis (May 13, 2004) The History Guide (archived from April 1, 2012).
4. ↑ Modern History Sourcebook: Benito Mussolini: What is Fascism, 1932 by Paul Halsall (Aug 1997) Fordham University.
5. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Silver Legion of America.
6. ↑ The Future of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton (April 6, 2017) Slate.
7. ↑ Master of the Games: Olympic Chief's Expansion Goals Left Little Zeal to Pursue Abuses by Roger Cohen & Jere Longman (February 7, 1999) The New York Times (archived on 13th April 2024). International Olympic Committee President Juan Antonio Samaranch quoted in Franco.
8. ↑ President Antonio Tajani offers his apologies for comments on Mussolini (16:36 March 14, 2019) European Interest. European Parliament President Antonio Tajani quoted on Mussolini.
9. ↑ Frankly, We Did Win This Election: The Inside Story of How Trump Lost by Michael C. Bender (2021) Twelve. ISBN 153873480X.
10. ↑ Is This Fascism? by Kevin Passmore (01.20.17) Slate. (archived from 21 Oct 2020)
11. ↑ To Hell and Back: Europe, 1914-1949 by Ian Kershaw (2016) Viking. ISBN 0143109928.
12. ↑ What Is Fascism? by Jessie Szalay January 24 2017) LiveScience.
13. ↑ Fascism by Robert Soucy, Britannica.
14. ↑ Hitler: A Biography by Ian Kershaw (2008) W. W. Norton. ISBN
15. ↑ The Routledge Companion to Fascism and the Far Right by Peter Davies & Derek (2002) Routledge. ISBN 0415214955.
16. ↑ The Elusive Definition of 'Fascist' by Dominic Green (December 18, 2016) The Atlantic
17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 17.2 17.3 17.4 How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them by Jason Stanley (2018) Random House. ISBN 9780525511830.
18. ↑ 18.0 18.1 Fascism, edited by Roger Griffin (1995) Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780192892492.
19. ↑ 19.0 19.1 How fascist is Donald Trump? There’s actually a formula for that. Grading the billionaire on the 11 attributes of fascism. by John McNeill (Oct. 21, 2016 at 3:00 a.m. PDT) The Washington Post.
20. ↑ 20.0 20.1 20.2 How fascist is President Trump? There’s still a formula for that. Not that much, at least compared to the 20th century’s leading fascists. by John McNeill (August 21, 2020 at 9:07 a.m. PDT) The Washington Post.
21. ↑ 21.0 21.1 21.2 21.3 The Anatomy of Fascism by Robert O. Paxton (2005) Knopf. ISBN 1400040949.
22. ↑ Mussolini’s ‘Third Rome’, Hitler’s Third Reich and the Allure of Antiquity: Classicizing Chronopolitics as a Remedy for Unstable National Identity? by Helen Roche (2019) Fascism 8:27-152. doi:10.1163/22116257-00802004.
23. ↑ A majority of Donald Trump supporters think everything has been terrible since the 1950s: A research poll shows just how many Americans yearn for a return to the idealized, white-bread decade by Matthew Rozsa (October 25, 2016 2:43PM) Salon.
24. ↑ Stalin Museum: Putin’s Russia Immortalizes Bloody Dictator by Halya Coynash (12.03.2015) Kharkiv Human Rights Protection Group.
25. ↑ Russia's New Stalin Center evokes pride, and revulsion by Anna Nemtsova (May 17, 2021, 4:33 AM PDT) NBC News.
26. ↑ Vladimir Putin’s Russia is rehabilitating Stalin. We must not let it happen by Irina Sherbakova (10 Jul 2019 01.00 EDT) The Guardian.
27. ↑ Putin’s history lecture reveals his dreams of a new Russian Empire, Atlantic Council, February 12, 2024.
28. ↑ Fact-checking Putin’s claims that Ukraine and Russia are ‘one people’, University of Rochester, March 3, 2022.
29. ↑ How Moscow has long used the historic Kyivan Rus state to justify expansionism by Christoph Mick (March 8, 2022 11:44am EST) The Conversation.
30. ↑ The Holocaust’s forgotten black victims – the ‘Rhineland Bastards’, Germany’s loss in World War 1. Dream Deferred.
31. ↑ The Potency of Trump’s ‘Lost Cause’ Mythmaking, The New York Times, March 20, 2024. (Archived)
32. ↑ How the 'replacement' theory went mainstream on the political right by Domenico Montanaro (May 17, 2022 • 5:00 AM ET) NPR.
33. ↑ Trump fans the flames of post-9/11 terrorism, MSNBC, September 12, 2023.
34. ↑ “Racists,” “Class Anxieties,” Hegemonic Racism, and Democracy in Trump’s America by Eduardo Bonilla-Silva (2018) Social Currents 6(1):14-31. doi:10.1177/2329496518804558.
35. ↑ Postelection surrealism and nostalgic racism in the hands of Donald Trump by Donna M. Goldstein & Kira Hall (2017) Journal of Ethnographic Theory 7(1):397-406. doi:0.14318/hau7.1.026.
36. ↑ Putin rues Soviet collapse as demise of 'historical Russia' by Andrew Osborn & Andrey Ostroukh (December 12, 2021) Reuters.
37. ↑ How Russia has come to loathe the West by Maria Lipman (13 March 2015) European Council on Foreign Relations.
38. ↑ Explainer: Trump and the politics of the Messiah by Emily McFarlan (August 23, 2019) National Catholic Reporter.
39. ↑ "Angry, Scared, Armed People": The Nov. 4 conspiracy theory about antifa has some scary historical echoes. by Rebecca Onion (Nov 03, 20176:11 PM) Slate.
40. ↑ The Kremlin Weaponising Victimhood (August 05, 2021) EUvsDisinfo.
41. ↑ Disinfo: Navalny is a member of a Western-backed fifth column acting inside Russia (May 10, 2021) EUvsDisinfo.
42. ↑ How NATO's expansion helped drive Putin to invade Ukraine by Becky Sullivan (February 24, 20229:45 AM ET) NPR.
43. ↑ Gleichschaltung: Coordinating the Nazi State (Last Edited: Jan 23, 2020) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
44. ↑ Putin’s Angels: Inside Russia’s Most Infamous Motorcycle Club by Damon Tabor (October 8, 2015 3:00PM ET) Rolling Stone.
45. ↑ This hardcore Russian biker gang is about to invade Poland by Dan Peleschuk (2015) The World.
46. ↑ Russian Orthodoxy and Politics in the Putin Era by Gregory L. Freeze (February 09, 2017) Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
47. ↑ Gangs and Gulags: How Vladimir Putin Utilizes Organized Crime to Power his Mafia State by Dylan McIlvenna-Davis (December 16, 2019) Berkeley Political Review.
48. ↑ Putin celebrates anniversary of Crimea annexation at stadium rally amid Russia’s onslaught of Ukraine by Tara John et al. (4:09 PM EDT, March 18, 2022) CNN.
49. ↑ Amid mass protests in Moscow, Vladimir Putin showed up at a right-wing nationalist motorcycle rally in Crimea by Ellen Ioanes (Aug 12, 2019, 9:43 AM) Business Insider.
50. ↑ Trump vows to veto any federal abortion ban — after previously refusing to commit by Lisa Kashinsky and Megan Messerly (10/01/2024 10:50 PM EDT) Politico.
51. ↑ Senate Approves Unprecedented Spending for Mass Deportation, Ignoring What’s Broken in our Immigration System (July 1, 2025) American Immigration Council.
52. ↑ How the Supreme Court Made Legal Immigrants Vulnerable to Deportation: The court decisions are an abrupt turnaround for a population that entered the country legally and shared detailed information about their whereabouts with the government. by Hamed Aleaziz (May 31, 2025) The New York Times.
53. ↑ Is the Russian Orthodox Church serving God or Putin? by Caroline Schmitt (04/26/2017) Deutsche Welle.
54. ↑ Dismantling LGBT+ rights as a means of control in Russia by Elene Kurtanidze (April 30, 2021) Freedom House.
55. ↑ 55.0 55.1 The Road to Unfreedom: Russia, Europe, America by Timothy Snyder (2018) Tim Duggan Books. ISBN 0525574468.
56. ↑ Have babies for Russia: Putin presses women to embrace patriotism over feminism by Robyn Dixon, Francesca Ebel & Natalia Abbakumova (July 30, 2024 at 6:35 a.m. EDT) The Washington Post.
57. ↑ Russia votes to allow private armies for energy giants by Luke Harding (5 Jul 2007 18.54 EDT) The Guardian.
58. ↑ Russia’s Militia Groups and their Use at Home and Abroad by Marlène Laruelle (2019) Russie.Nei.Visions 113\. ISBN 9782365679602.
59. ↑ Million-Dollar Donors Flooded Trump’s Second Inauguration by Anna Massoglia (July 1, 2025) Brennan Center for Justice.
60. ↑ How 'shock therapy' created Russian oligarchs and paved the path for Putin by Greg Rosalsky (March 22, 2022) NPR.
61. ↑ Emergency powers helped Hitler’s rise. Germany has avoided them ever since. by Jeffrey Herf (February 19, 2019 at 6:00 a.m. EST) The Washington Post.
62. ↑ Russians protest against election fraud by Norman Hermant (Posted Mon 5 Dec 2011 at 1:36pm Monday 5 Dec 2011 at 1:36pm; updated Mon 5 Dec 2011 at 8:39pm) ABC News (Australia).
63. ↑ Before Navalny, a long history of Russian poisonings by Patrick Reevell (August 26, 2020, 4:32 AM) ABC News.
64. ↑ Russian politician sentenced to over 8 years for criticism of war in Ukraine (Dec 9, 2022 2:43 PM EDT) Associated Press via PBS News Hour.
65. ↑ “Like Walking a Minefield”: Vicious Crackdown on Critics in Russia’s Chechen Republic (August 31, 2016) Human Rights Watch.
66. ↑ The times Trump has advocated for violence by Ivana Saric (May 2, 2022) Axios.
67. ↑ Federal Officers Use Unmarked Vehicles To Grab People In Portland, DHS Confirms by Jonathan Levinson et al. (July 17, 2020 • 1:04 PM ET) NPR.
68. ↑ Peaceful Protesters Tear-Gassed To Clear Way For Trump Church Photo-Op by Tom Gjelten (June 1, 2020 • 11:50 PM ET) NPR.
69. ↑ The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States by Seth G. Jones (November 7, 2018) Center for Strategic & International Studies.
70. ↑ Before Navalny, a long history of Russian poisonings by Patrick Reevell (August 26, 2020, 4:32 AM) ABC News.
71. ↑ Russia: Anti-Gay Purge in Chechnya (May 26, 2017 12:00AM EDT) Human Rights Watch.
72. ↑ ‘Putin is using ethnic minorities to fight in Ukraine’: Activist by Mariya Petkova (25 Oct 2022) Al Jazeera.
73. ↑ Trump will not rule out force to take Panama Canal, Greenland by Steve Holland & Joseph Ax (January 8, 2025) Reuters.
74. ↑ Trump doubles U.S. military assets in Caribbean, bolstering drug fight after Maduro indictment by Matt Spetalnick & Phil Stewart (1 April 2020) Reuters.
75. ↑ Trump denies ties to Americans linked to Venezuela ‘coup plot’, Al Jazeera, May 6, 2020.
76. ↑ PAINFUL TRUTH: First Mexico, then Canada by Matthew Claxton (Oct 15, 2023) Agassiz-Harrison Observer
77. ↑ Google Maps blocks Gulf of America reviews after rename criticism by Liv McMahon (13 February 2025) BBC.
78. ↑ Russian imperialism was never gone. We just stopped seeing it. by Dawn Nowacki (Fall 2024) Linfield Magazine.
79. ↑ Propaganda and Dictatorship (2007) by Marx Fritz Morstein (1936) Princeton University Press. Speech to Chamber of Deputies (9 December 1928).
80. ↑ Staging the Nation’s Rebirth: The Politics and Aesthetics of Performance in the Context of Fascist Studies by Roger Griffin (1996) In: Fascism and Theater: Comparative Studies on the Aesthetics and Politics of Performance in Europe, edited by Günter Berghaus. Berghahn Books. ISBN 1571819010.
81. ↑ "Fascist Ideology" by Zeev Sternhell. In: Fascism: A Reader's Guide, edited by Walter Laquer (1992) University of California Press. ISBN 0520036425.
82. ↑ Fascism by Sheldon Richman. The Library of Economics and Liberty.
83. ↑ Corporatism Britannica
84. ↑ The Palgrave Macmillan Dictionary of Political Thought by Roger Scruton (2007) Palgrave Macmillan, 3rd edition. ISBN 1403989524. Archived on November 1 2023.
85. ↑ When We Loved Mussolini by Adam Tooze (August 18, 2016) The New York Review Of Books (archived on September 8 2016).
86. ↑ The United States and Fascist Italy: The Rise of American Finance in Europe by Gian Giacomo Migone, translated by Molly Tambor (2015) Cambridge University Press. ISBN 1107002451.
87. ↑ 87.0 87.1 Conservative economic programs by Robert Soucy (Last Updated: Jun 11, 2025) Britannica.
88. ↑ Pleasantville: Movie Review by Roger Ebert (October 23, 1998) Chicago Sun-Times.
89. ↑ State, Society and Mobilization in Europe During the First World War by John Horne (2002) Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521522668.
90. ↑ The Problem of Fascism in Everyday Life Scientific & Academic publishing G. V. Loewen 2012 ( archived on 18 May 2021)
91. ↑ 91.0 91.1 91.2 World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1 by Cyprian Blamires (2006) ABC-CLIO. ISBN 1576079406.
92. ↑ Fascism by Mark Neocleous (1997) University of Minnesota Press. ISBN 0816630402.
93. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Révolution nationale.
94. ↑ France: The Dark Years, 1940–1944 by Julian Jackson (2003) Oxford University Press. ISBN 0199254575.
95. ↑ Spanish Civil War Britannica.
96. ↑ National Renewal is Fascism (December 13, 2015) BanJews.com (archived from December 30, 2016).
97. ↑ Is modern society in decline? by David H. Bailey (Updated 9 December 2022) SMR Blog.
98. ↑ America must reverse its moral decline letter to the editor by Rebecca A. Kesselring (Jun 16, 2018 at 3:16 pm) The Morning Call.
99. ↑ America’s Accelerating Decay by Dennis Prager (April 7, 2015 4:00 AM) National Review.
100. ↑ The Black Cultural Front: Black Writers And Artists Of The Depression Generation by Brian Dolinar (2014) University Press of Mississippi. ISBN 1628461713.
101. ↑ Young Mussolini and the Intellectual Origins of Fascism by A. James Gregor (1979) University of California Press. ISBN 9780520037991.
102. ↑ Nationalism in Europe, 1890–1940 by Oliver Zimmer (2003) Palgrave. ISBN 0333947207.
103. ↑ 103.0 103.1 Fascism: extreme nationalism Britannica.
104. ↑ 104.0 104.1 104.2 A History of Fascism, 1914–1945 by Stanley G. Payne (1995) University of Wisconsin Press. ISBN 0299148742.
105. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Nazism and race.
106. ↑ The Dreyfus Affair by Joellyn Zollman. My Jewish Learning.
107. ↑ 8 - Conservative–Fascist Relations and the Autocratic Reverse Wave by Kurt Weyland (05 February 2021) Cambridge University Press.
108. ↑ Population Politics in Twentieth Century Europe: Fascist Dictatorships and Liberal Democracies by Maria Sop Quine (1995) Routledge. ISBN 041508069X.
109. ↑ Gay Men under the Nazi Regime (Last Edited: May 28, 2021) United States Holocaust Memorial Museum.
110. ↑ Being a Character: Psychoanalysis and Self-Experience by Christopher Bollas (1993) Routledge. ISBN 9780415088152.
111. ↑ Mussolini and Italian Fascism by Hamish MacDonald (1999) Stanley Thorne. ISBN 0748733868.
112. ↑ Women and Fascism by Martin Durham (1998) Routledge. ISBN 0203002253.
113. ↑ The Origins of Nazi Genocide: From Euthanasia to the Final Solution by Henry Friedlander (1995) University of North Carolina Press. ISBN 9780807846759.
114. ↑ Fascism’s Modernist Revolution: A New Paradigm for the Study of Right-wing Dictatorships by Roger Griffin (2016) Fascism 5:105-129.
115. ↑ 115.0 115.1 Fascism and Political Theory: Critical Perspectives on Fascist Ideology by Daniel Woodley (2010) Routledge. ISBN 9780415473545.
116. ↑ Authors take Sides on the Spanish War (1937) Left Review.
117. ↑ Mistaking Eugenics for Social Darwinism: Why Eugenics Is Missing from the History of American Economics by Thomas C. Leonard (2005) History of Political Economy 37(Suppl. 1): 200–233. doi:10.1215/00182702-37-Suppl_1-200.
118. ↑ Origins of the myth of social Darwinism: The ambiguous legacy of Richard Hofstadter’s Social Darwinism in American Thought by Thomas C. Leonard (2009) Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization 71: 37–51. doi:10.1016/j.jebo.2007.11.004.
119. ↑ Euthanasia Program and Aktion T4 (Oct 7, 2020) Holocaust Encyclopedia.
120. ↑ 120.0 120.1 120.2 120.3 Introducing Fascism: A Graphic Guide by Stuart Hood (2013) Icon Books. ISBN 1848316127.
121. ↑ The Seduction of Unreason: The Intellectual Romance with Fascism from Nietzsche to Postmodernism by Richard Wolin (2006) Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691125996.
122. ↑ Against the Current: Essays in the History of Ideas by Isaiah Berlin (2001) Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691090262.
123. ↑ ‘Fascism’, ‘Para-fascism’ and ‘Fascistization’: On the Similarities of Three Conceptual by Aristotle Kallis (2003) European History Quarterly 33(2):219-249. doi:10.1177/02656914030332004.
124. ↑ Ron DeSantis GLAAD.
125. ↑ Florida's governor signs controversial law opponents dubbed 'Don't Say Gay' by Jaclyn Diaz (March 28, 20222:33 PM ET) NPR.
126. ↑ Straight Through the Heart: How the Liberals Abandoned the Just Society by Maude Barlow (1995) HarperCollins. ISBN 0002553066.
127. ↑ 127.0 127.1 The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich by William L. Schirer (1960) Simon & Schuster.
128. ↑ The Fascist King: Victor Emmanuel III of Italy by Richard Brunies (July 14, 2021) National WW2 Museum.
129. ↑ Spain’s "Semi-Fascism" by Stanley G. Payne (Feb 07, 20175:01 PM) Slate.
130. ↑ Spain’s Post-Franco Emergence from Dictatorship to Democracy Association For Diplomatic Studies and Training
131. ↑ Trump and the Republican party exemplify these five elements of fascism by Robert Reich (17 Jun 2023 06.05 EDT) The Guardian.
132. ↑ Non Abbiamo Bisogno: Catholic Action in Italy by Pope Pius XI (1931) Papal Encyclicals Online.
133. ↑ Mit Brennender Sorge: Encyclical of Pope Pius XI on the Church and the German Reich to the Venerable Brethren the Archbishops and Bishops of Germany and Other Ordinaries in Peace and Communion with The Apostolic See by Piux XI (March 14, 1937) Libreria Editrice Vaticana.
134. ↑ 134.0 134.1 God and the Fascists: The Vatican Alliance with Mussolini, Franco, Hitler and Pavelić by Karlheinz Deschner (2013) Prometheus Books. ISBN: 9781616148379.
135. ↑ God Is Not Great: How Religion Poisons Everything by Christopher Hitchens (2009) Twelve. ISBN 0446697966.
136. ↑ The Lateran Treaty of 1929: Understanding the relationship between Italy and the Holy See by Roberto Regoli (February 2023) EWTN Vatican.
137. ↑ An unresolved past – the Spanish Catholic Church and Franco’s regime by Freddie Scott (21 January 2022) EARS.
138. ↑ Charles Maurras: The Beginnings of the Action Française Springer Link by Samuel M. Osgood
139. ↑ "George Orwell: What is Fascism?".
140. ↑ Germany’s surging far right provokes a reckoning by Ishaan Tharoor (January 23, 2024 at 12:00 a.m. EST) The Washington Post.
141. ↑ Isolated Orban Seeks to ‘Occupy’ EU as Part of Far-Right Surge by Zoltan Simon (March 15, 2024 at 1:20 PM UTC) Bloomberg.
142. ↑ Singh, Amit (2022-10-31). "🌊 Hindutva fascism threatens the world's largest democracy". The Loop. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
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144. ↑ Stanley, Jason (2025-07-01). "Jason Stanley on how fascism works in India". Himal Southasian. Retrieved 2025-09-25.
145. ↑ Who are the ministers leading Israel’s new far-right government? (29 Dec 2022) Al Jazeera.
146. ↑ Giorgia Meloni: Italy's far-right wins election and vows to govern for all by Paul Kirby (26 September 2022) BBC News.
147. ↑ The Transformation of the Far Right in Japan: From Fascism to anti-Korean Hate Crimes by Naoto Higuchi (Apr. 26, 2021 9:32) Center for Research on Extremism, University of Oslo.
148. ↑ Malaysia Sees Far-Right Islamists Rise as Election Ends in Hung Parliament by By Gavin Butler & Alastair McCready (November 21, 2022, 6:41am) Vice.
149. ↑ The far-right rises in the Philippines by Celestino Manrique II (March 9, 2017) Get Real Post.
150. ↑ Philosopher Jason Stanley: 'Russia is explicitly fascist' by Aaron James Wendland (August 21, 2023 7:12 pm) The Kyiv Independent
151. ↑ The Rise of Far-Right Extremism in the United States by Seth G. Jones (November 7, 2018) Center for Strategic & International Studies.
152. ↑ 152.0 152.1 Ur-fascism by Umberto Eco (June 22, 1995) The New York Review of Books.
153. ↑ 153.0 153.1 153.2 How To Spot A Fascist by Umberto Eco (1995) Vintage via Internet Archive.
154. ↑ The rise of end times fascism by Naomi Klein & Astra Taylor (13 Apr 2025 07.00 EDT) The Guardian.
155. ↑ Life and Fate by Vasily Grossman, translated by Robert chandler (1980) Vintage Books. ISBN 0099506165.
156. ↑ The Rape of Europa: The Fate of Europe's Treasures in the Third Reich and the Second World War by Lynn H. Nicholas (1995) Vintage. ISBN 0679756868.
157. ↑ The Rape of Europa (2006) IMDb.
158. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Red fascism.
159. ↑ La Contro-Rivoluzione Preventiva: Saggio di un Anarchico sul Fascismo] by Luigi Fabbri (2009 reprint [1922]) Zero in Condotta. ISBN 8895950119.
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161. ↑ Why Modern Leftists Are Fascists by Jon Trask (March 27, 2015) Return of Kings (archived from April 30, 2015).
162. ↑ Understanding National Stalinism: Romanian Communism in a Historical-Comparative Perspective by Vladimir Tismaneanu, Wilson Center.
163. ↑ On the Political Contribution of Ethnomusicology: From Fascist Nationalism to Communist Ethnocentrism by Marin Marian-Bălaşa (2007) Journal of Musicological Research 26(2-3):193-213. doi:10.1080/01411890701351608.
164. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Population transfer in the Soviet Union.
165. ↑ What Is Communism? by Earl Browder (1936) Workers Library Publishers.
166. ↑ Political Will and Personal Belief: The Decline and Fall of Soviet Communism by Paul Hollander (1999) Yale University Press. ISBN 9780300076202.
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168. ↑ Winners and Losers: Social and Political Polarities in America by Irving Louis Horowitz (1984) Duke University Press. ISBN 0822304953.
169. ↑ Pseudoleftism and the Self-Destruction of George Galloway (June 4, 2014) Democratic Revolution, Syrian Style (archived from December 21, 2014).
170. ↑ Contemporary Sociological Theory: Continuing the Classical Tradition by Ruth A. Wallace & Allison Wolf (1991) Prentice Hall, 3rd edition. ISBN 0131725866.
171. ↑ Beyond Totalitarianism: Stalinism and Nazism Compared by Michael Geyer and Sheila Fitzpatrick (2009) Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521723973.
172. ↑ Dr. Virginia Abernethy joins American Third Position Board of Directors by James Edwards (June 28, 2011) Occidental Observer (archived on July 1 2011).
173. ↑ Eco Punks: The Wolves of Vinland badasses dare you to re-wild yourself by Eric Wallace (05 May 15) Blue Ridge Outdoors (archived from November 19, 2015).
174. ↑ A Chorus of Violence: Jack Donovan and the Organizing Power of Male Supremacy (March 27, 2017) Southern Poverty Law Center.
175. ↑ Eco-fascism: justifications of terrorist violence in the Christchurch mosque shooting and the El Paso shooting by Bernhard Forchtner (13 August 2019, 6.48pm) Open Democracy
176. ↑ Hitler, 1889–1936: Hubris by Ian Kershaw (1999) New W.W. Norton & Company, ISBN 2000.
177. ↑ Mussolini's Battle For The Roman Past: The Ancient Redesigned by Duncan F. Grimm (November 7, 2012) History Department, Trinity College.
178. ↑ Mussolini: Profiles in Power by Martin Clark (2005) Routledge. ISBN 058206595X.
179. ↑ Discorso pronunciato in Campidoglio per l'insediamento del primo Governatore di Roma il 31 dicembre 1925 by Benito Mussolini (December 31, 1925) Fascismo e Libertà(archived from June 24, 2004).
180. ↑ Political Ideology Today by Ian Adams (2001) Manchester University Press, 2nd edition. ISBN 0719060206.
181. ↑ Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Rise to Power, 1918-1933 Holocaust Encyclopedia.
182. ↑ Anti-Jewish Legislation in Prewar Germany Holocaust Encyclopedia.
183. ↑ How did the Nazis construct an Aryan identity? (Updated February 14, 2020) South African History Online.
184. ↑ The Nuremberg Race Laws Anne Frank House.
185. ↑ Lebensraum and Anschluss Lumen Learning (archived on November 6, 2020).
186. ↑ The Origins and Development of Racial Anti-Semitism in Fascist Italy by Gene Bernardini (1977) The Journal of Modern History 49(3):431-453.
187. ↑ Austrofascism: Revisiting the 'Authoritarian State' 40 Years On by Julie Thrope (2010) Journal of Contemporary History 45(2):315-343. doi:10.1 177/0022009409356916.
188. ↑ Murdered by Hitler: The Other Austrian Dictator Sky History (UK).
189. ↑ The February Uprising by Paul Patscheider (12.02.2024) Tribune.
190. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Imperial Way Faction.
191. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on February 26 Incident.
192. ↑ The Formation of Emperor Worship in the New Religions: The Case of Fujidō by Miyazaki Fumiko (1990) Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 17,(2/3):281-314.
193. ↑ Japan's Territorial Expansion 1931-1942 (Dec 8, 2014 | 20:16 GMT) RANE Worldview.
194. ↑ ​Human Experimentation at Unit 731​ Pacific Atrocities Education.
195. ↑ Nanjing Massacre USC Shoah Foundation.
196. ↑ Nippon Kaigi: Political Nationalism in Contemporary Japan By Thierry Guthmann (2024) Routledge. ISBN 9781032574356.
197. ↑ France: The Dark Years, 1940-1944 by Julian Jackson (2003) Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780199254576.
198. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Maréchal, nous voilà !.
199. ↑ France Reflects on Its Role in Wartime Fate of Jews by Scott Sayare (July 28, 2012) The New York Times (archived on July 28, 2012).
200. ↑ Fascists and Conservatives: The Radical Right and the Establishment in Twentieth-Century Europe by Martin Blinkhorn (1990) Routledge. ISBN 0049400878.
201. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Phalanx.
202. ↑ Falange Britannica.
203. ↑ General Franco gave list of Spanish Jews to Nazis by Giles Tremlett (20 Jun 2010 18.06 EDT) The Guardian.
204. ↑ See the Wikipedia article on Falangism in Latin America.
205. ↑ Ein General im Zwielicht die Erinnerungen Edmund Glaises von Horstenau. Band 3: Deutscher Bevollmächtigter General in Kroatien und Zeuge des Untergangs des "Tausendjährigen Reiches" by Peter Broucek (1988) Böhlau. ISBN 3205087496.
206. ↑ Balkan Strongmen: Dictators and Authoritarian Rulers of South-Eastern Europe, edited by Bernd J. Fischer (2007) Purdue University Press. ISBN 1557534551.
207. ↑ Yugoslavia: A History of Its Demise by Viktor Meier (1999) Routledge. ISBN 0415185963.
208. ↑ "Wehrmacht Perceptions of Mass Violence in Croatia, 1941-1942" by Jonathan Gumz (2001) The Historical Journal 44(04):1015-1038. doi:10.1017/S0018246X01001996.
209. ↑ Το Προσωπικο Του Ημερολογιο by Ιωάννης Μεταξάς (2005) Gkovostis. (Metaxas' diary)
210. ↑ Former Golden Dawn MP denies being a neo-Nazi (03.10.2019 • 18:04) ekathimerini.com.
211. ↑ A Concise History of Greece by Richard Clogg (1992) Cambridge University Press. ISBN 0521372283.
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213. ↑ The Untold History of Greek Collaboration with Nazi Germany (1941-1944) by Markos Vallianatos (2014) Pelekys. ISBN 1304845796.
214. ↑ Doria, Pedro. Fascismo à brasileira: como o integralismo, maior movimento de extrema-direita da história do país, se formou e o que ele ilumina sobre o bolsonarismo. São Paulo: Planeta, 2020. book review by Sergio Schargel (2023) Latinoamérica 76:239-243. doi:10.22201/cialc.24486914e.2023.76.57587.
215. ↑ Iracema by José de Alencar (1865).
216. ↑ Integralistas: o que é grupo citado por supostos autores de ataque ao Porta by Marcelo Oliveira (26/12/2019 16h48) UOL.
217. ↑ The Political Economy of Portugal's Later "Estado Novo": A Critique of the Stagnation Thesis by Eric N. Baklanoff (1992) Luso-Brazilian Review 29(1):1-17.
218. ↑ The Political and Ideological Origins of the Estado Novo in Portugal by Ernesto Castro Leal and Translated by Richard Correll (2016) Portuguese Studies 32(2):128-148. doi:10.5699/portstudies.32.2.0128.
219. ↑ Your guide to the Carnation Revolution by Emma Slattery Williams (September 30, 2021 at 5:27 PM) BBC History Extra.
220. ↑ The Fascist Persuasion in Radical Politics by Gregor James (2015) Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691618534.
221. ↑ The battle for history by Seumas Milne (12 Sep 2002 04.59 EDT) The Guardian.
222. ↑ Holodomor History Holodomor Museium.
223. ↑ What Was the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact? by Matt Whittaker (Dec 21, 2023) The Collector.
224. ↑ What Is Rootless Cosmopolitan by Tony Karon (archived from 29 May 2018).
225. ↑ How the Russian Media Spread False Claims About Ukrainian Nazis by Charlie Smart (July 2, 2022) The New York Times (archived on 6 January 2024).
226. ↑ The Political Use of Soviet Nostalgia to Develop a Russian National Identity by Maria Markova (Jul 14 2020) E-International Relations.
227. ↑ History Stokes Putin’s Dream of a ‘Greater Russia’ by Samuel McIlhagga (April 4, 2022) New Lines Magazine.
228. ↑ Anti-war protester arrested in Russia for holding up a poster saying 'two words by Aude Dejaifve (01/04/2022) The Observer.
229. ↑ Russia Arrests Multiple People for Holding Up Blank Signs by Isabel van Brugen (Updated Mar 17, 2022 at 5:55 PM EDT) Newsweek.
230. ↑ Russia Is Using Ethnic Minorities As Cannon Fodder In Ukraine, Novara Media, September 27, 2022.
231. ↑ Hitler & America by Klaus P. Fischer (2011) University of Pennsylvania Press. ISBN 0812243382.
232. ↑ 232.0 232.1 Caste: The Origins of Our Discontents by Isabel Wilkerson (2020) Random House. ISBN 0593230256.
233. ↑ 233.0 233.1 233.2 Hitler's American Model: The United States and the Making of Nazi Race Law by James Q. Whitman (2018) Princeton University Press. ISBN 0691183066.
234. ↑ 234.0 234.1 Why the Nazis Loved America by James Whitman (21, 2017 2:00 PM EDT) Time.
235. ↑ Mein Kampf by Adolf Hitler
236. ↑ Black Earth: The Holocaust as History and Warning by Timothy Snyder (2015) Tim Duggan Books. ISBN 1784701483.
237. ↑ 237.0 237.1 How American Racism Influenced Hitler: Scholars are mapping the international precursors of Nazism. by Alex Ross (April 30, 2018) The New Yorker.
238. ↑ 238.0 238.1 What America Taught the Nazis: In the 1930s, the Germans were fascinated by the global leader in codified racism—the United States. by Ira Katznelson (November 2017) The Atlantic.
239. ↑ Hitler's American Dream: The dictator modeled his racial campaign after another conquest of land and people—America’s Manifest Destiny by Timothy Snyder (March 08, 20174:18 PM) Slate.
240. ↑ 240.0 240.1 240.2 240.3 240.4 240.5 240.6 240.7 America’s Brush With Fascism: The second KKK shared a disquieting kinship with European fascist movements. Why did it fail to take over American politics? by Nancy K. MacLean (March 20, 201712:14 PM) Slate.
241. ↑ Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez Is Right to Warn of Fascism in the United States: Three fascism scholars explain why the term remains taboo in American culture—and how that must change. by Federico Finchelstein, Pablo Piccato, and Jason Stanley (August 20, 2020) The New Republic.
242. ↑ Fascism in America? Recalling the Know-Nothings and Individual Responsibility by Justin Humphreys (January 17, 2017) Public Seminar.