Fascism is an authoritarian ideology that was popular in some countries during the 20th century.\u00a0 Specifically, it is often associated with the time period of\u00a0World War II\u00a0and countries such as Italy under\u00a0Benito Mussolini\u00a0and\u00a0Nazi Germany\u00a0under\u00a0Adolf Hitler.\u00a0 Benito Mussolini led the first fascist movement in Europe with his rise to power in Italy.\u00a0 Fascism rejects liberal values, such as democracy and individual rights and freedoms. Instead, fascism is the belief that society as a whole has a shared purpose and all actions by the individual must benefit the state as a whole.\u00a0 The word fascism comes from the Italian word fascio and the Italian word fasces.\u00a0 In general, they refer to the idea of a sticks being wrapped around an axe, which was a symbol of authority in\u00a0Ancient Rome.\u00a0 This symbolism shows what Mussolini was trying to achieve with his rise to power and his use of fascism.\u00a0 On the political spectrum, fascism is usually placed on the extreme right.\u00a0 It is important to understand that there are several essential elements of fascist countries based on politics, economics and how they controlled their societies.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first fascist movement in Europe began in Italy with the rise to power of Benito Mussolini.\u00a0 Mussolini formed the Italian Fascist Party in 1919, and after capitalizing on the public discontent at the time Mussolini formed the paramilitary organization known as the \u2018Black Shirts\u2019 who terrorized political opponents and helped spread the influence of the Fascist Party.\u00a0 In 1922, Mussolini seized control of the Italian government in an event known as the \u2018March on Rome\u2019, and after a series of policies that destroyed all Italian democratic institutions, he finally made himself dictator in 1929.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Mussolini\u2019s rise to power in Italy as the fascist leader would eventually inspire Adolf Hitler to bring his own brand of fascism to Germany in the years that followed.\u00a0 In general, Hitler\u2019s brand of fascism was very similar to that of Mussolini in Italy but he focused much more intensely on the idea of racial purity in the events of Holocaust.\u00a0 As such, historians refer to fascism in Nazi Germany as Nazism or National Socialism in order to differentiate\u00a0it from Mussolini’s fascism.\u00a0 Regardless, fascism emerged in the 20th century alongside other authoritarian ideologies including communism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fascist movements also appeared in Spain under Francisco Franco, in Portugal under Ant\u00f3nio Salazar, and in Japan under Hideki Tojo\u2019s military government. As such, the history of fascism is often associated with the dictators of World War II, the Holocaust and the rise of extremism in the early and mid-20th century.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The main principles of fascism focus on authoritarian leadership, nationalism, and government control over all aspects of society. Fascist governments believe that power should be centralized in the hands of a single, strong leader who is said to represent the will of the nation. They reject democracy and individual rights, claiming that people should serve the interests of the state rather than their own self-interest. Historians have identified several significant principles of fascism that focus on political, economic and social factors. These main principles are detailed in the sections below.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Politically, fascist countries are usually an ideological one-party state.\u00a0 For example, in Nazi Germany the\u00a0Nazi Party\u00a0was the only legal political party following\u00a0Adolf Hitler\u2019s rise to power.\u00a0 He famously banned all other political parties following the\u00a0Reichstag Fire\u00a0and his obtaining of emergency powers through the Reichstag Fire Decree and the\u00a0Enabling Act.\u00a0 Furthermore, not only are fascist countries an ideological one-party state, but they are also\u00a0dictatorships.\u00a0 A dictatorship is a form of government in which most or all authority of the country is in the hands of a single individual; the leader.\u00a0 Also, fascist countries are generally based upon the ideas of extreme nationalism or ultranationalism.\u00a0 In a fascist country, the state expects the citizens of the country to follow the leadership of the dictator, even if it requires violence and genocide to do so.\u00a0 Famously, Adolf Hitler wrote about extreme German nationalism in his autobiographical book titled \u2018Mein Kampf\u2019.\u00a0 In it, he talked about the need for Germans to resist the principles of the\u00a0Treaty of Versailles, which was imposed on Germany after\u00a0World War I, and to fight back against the hardships that Germany was forced to undergo.\u00a0 Finally, fascist countries are based upon the ideas of militarism and territorial expansion.\u00a0 Fascist countries usually spend a great deal of time building up their militaries and using its military might to not only control its own citizens but expand its territory into new regions.\u00a0 This idea relates to the term \u2018lebensraum\u2019 which Adolf Hitler discussed in his book \u2018Mein Kampf\u2019.\u00a0 In the book, Hitler identified his strategy to capture more lebensraum (or \u2018living space\u2019) for the German people.\u00a0 Hitler believed that Germany needed more living space in order to harvest more food to allow the German population to increase at a faster rate.\u00a0 In his book, he stated his desire to use land to the east of Germany to fulfil this purpose, including\u00a0Poland\u00a0and the\u00a0Soviet Union.\u00a0 This desire for more living space by Hitler was a\u00a0major cause of World War II.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While fascism is often confused with other authoritarian or totalitarian ideologies, such as\u00a0communism, it is fundamentally different in how it handles the economy of the country.\u00a0 In general, communist countries are based upon government ownership of the means of production, whereas fascism allows some private ownership.\u00a0 In general, fascist states allow citizens to own and operate their own private businesses so long as the business is operating for the benefit of the state as a whole.\u00a0 For example,\u00a0Oskar Schindler\u00a0was a famous Nazi Party member who is credited with saving over 1,200 Jewish people from the Nazi gas chambers and was celebrated in the 1993 movie Schindler\u2019s List.\u00a0 He was able to save so many people by employing them in his factories, which produced products for the Nazi state.\u00a0 This example shows the underlying economic difference between fascism and communism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The next essential element to understand about fascism is how the leaders of fascists states controlled the societies that they ruled over.\u00a0 At its heart, fascism is about maintaining control for the dictator.\u00a0 As such, fascist dictators used several different techniques in order to maintain control of the citizens in their country.\u00a0 These techniques include: censorship, indoctrination, propaganda, secret police and scapegoating.\u00a0 You can read our\u00a0dictatorship\u00a0article to learn more details about each technique and how it was important to dictatorships.\u00a0 In general, each technique allowed the dictator to control the information that their citizens had access to.\u00a0 For example, in fascist Italy, Benito Mussolini banned media publications that did not support his views or his leadership.\u00a0 This was a form of censorship in which he was able to control the information that Italians were able to access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Next, fascist dictators also made use of secret police in order to terrorize their citizens into obeying and following the rules and expectations of the leader.\u00a0 For instance, Adolf Hitler created the\u00a0Gestapo\u00a0which was a secret police whose main task was to maintain the Nazi regime in Germany and later in the occupied countries.\u00a0\u00a0For his part, Benito Mussolini established his own paramilitary force called the ‘Black Shirts’.\u00a0 The early mission of the Black Shirts was to attack Mussolini\u2019s enemies.\u00a0 Later, in 1927, Mussolini established the Organization for Vigilance and Repression of Anti-Fascism (OVRA).\u00a0 OVRA was essentially, the secret police of Italy that carried out actions against the people of Italy that were considered to be acting anti-fascist.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Third, fascist regimes made extensive use of propaganda campaigns to inform their citizens about issues important to the nation. Propaganda is any information that tries to change your opinion or view on a particular topic. Propaganda took many forms during World War II, including: posters, pamphlets, radio addresses, etc. As well, fascist dictators also tried to establish a cult of personality. A cult of personality is a form of propaganda in which the leader of the country is presented in a positive manner. In fact, a cult of personality usually present the leader as almost god-like in nature. This is evidence in how Mussolini had himself presented to the people of Italy. For example, he was always displayed as a strong and powerful figure that commanded the authority of the people. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Fourth, fascist regimes also made use of indoctrination as another means of controlling their people.\u00a0 Indoctrination involves the dictator using formal means to \u201ceducate\u201d the citizens in the ideology and importance of the leader or leaders.\u00a0 It is important becomes it allows the dictator and his leadership to more easily spread their ideology to the citizens and to help control the ideas and information that the citizenry consumes.\u00a0 For example, in the 1930\u2019s and 1940\u2019s, Adolf Hitler developed the\u00a0Hitler Youth, a youth organization in Germany dedicated to educating young Germans in the ideology and leadership of the\u00a0Nazi Party.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Finally, fascist dictators also make use of scapegoating in order to maintain control in their countries. Scapegoating refers to the concept of blaming specific groups of people for the issues facing a country.\u00a0 Historians often refer to this as \u2018redirecting popular discontent\u2019 since the dictator or the government in charge use it as a means of controlling the anger of the citizens.\u00a0 For example, in Nazi Germany, Adolf Hitler placed a great deal of the country\u2019s economic hardship on Jewish people.\u00a0 Following\u00a0World War I, Germany was made to agree to the terms of the\u00a0Treaty of Versailles, and as a result suffered through a period of intense hyperinflation.\u00a0 In turn, Adolf Hitler and other prominent Nazi officials blamed the economic hardship on Jewish people for having cost Germany the war.\u00a0 For example, in the lead up to the\u00a0Holocaust, the Nazi regime produced propaganda images that portrayed Jewish people as the reason for Germany\u2019s issues.\u00a0 All five of these techniques used in fascist countries go directly against the principles of modern democratic countries which are based upon the principle of liberalism.\u200b<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The techniques used by fascist dictators discussed above also highlights another key difference between fascism and other authoritarian or totalitarian ideologies; fascism is inherently based upon the principles of racism.\u00a0 In a fascist state, the government is often very concerned with promoting racial purity.\u00a0 As discussed previously, fascist states often use scapegoating as a means of controlling and directing the anger of their citizens.\u00a0 For example, in Nazi Germany the Jewish (along with other groups) were often persecuted and blamed for the hardships that the country was forced to face.\u00a0 This anti-Semitic technique emerged out of the racist belief in Germany that people of German ancestry where naturally better or more superior to other groups.\u00a0 As part of the\u00a0Holocaust, the Nazi regime classified and discriminated against different groups of people based on certain characteristics, including: ethnic heritage, mental and physical disability and genetic background.\u00a0 In his book, \u2018Mein Kampf\u2019,\u00a0Adolf Hitler\u00a0promoted the idea that Germany should actively seek to create a master race which he referred to as \u2018Aryans\u2019.\u00a0 For Hitler, Aryans were northern Europeans who had certain genetic traits, including blonde hair and blue eyes.\u00a0 Hitler believed that Aryan genetic traits should be promoted and that all others should be restricted or removed from society.\u00a0 In order to achieve this, the Nazis practiced the theory of\u00a0eugenics, which is the idea that certain genetic traits should be promoted while others should be removed through selective reproduction.\u00a0 This belief of racial purity and the use of violence and genocide to achieve it was generally unique to fascist regimes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While fascism and communism share many similarities, they are usually placed on different ends of the political spectrum.\u00a0 For example, fascism is generally placed on the extreme right of the political spectrum while communism is placed on the extreme left.\u00a0 As stated previously, the two ideologies share many similarities.\u00a0 For instance, they are both totalitarian ideologies that are led by strong dictators.\u00a0 The dictatorships in both countries are generally very similar and share several techniques, including: censorship, propaganda, and secret police.\u00a0 Also, both ideologies reject the values of liberalism such as basic human rights and freedoms.\u00a0 This is why they are both placed at the extremes of the spectrum, because they fall outside of the \u2018umbrella\u2019 of liberalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Although they share many similarities, they are also strikingly different.\u00a0 For example, fascism includes elements of racism centered around a notion of racial superiority.\u00a0 For example, Adolf Hitler and the Nazi Party famously carried out the events of the Holocaust in an attempt to create the perfect race, which they referred to as Aryan.\u00a0 Communist nations generally do not contain this element.\u00a0 For instance, although the Soviet Union under Joseph Stalin contained labor camps (referred to as Gulags), they did not imprison people based upon their racial or ethnic heritage and instead focused on threats to Stalin\u2019s power.\u00a0 Another key difference was how each country handled the economy.\u00a0 In the Soviet Union, as in all communist countries, the means of production was owned exclusively by the government.\u00a0 This meant that citizens in communist countries were not allowed to own their own businesses and the government handled all aspects of the economy.\u00a0 In contrast, fascist countries allow some private ownership, so long as the business is geared towards the larger goals of the state.\u00a0 These two differences show why fascism is a right-wing ideology while communism is a left-wing ideology.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Fascism is a political ideology that is based on ultranationalism and dictatorship. This article details the history and main principles of fascism.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"iawp_total_views":13,"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,45,47,21],"tags":[63,15,101,56,22],"class_list":["post-4029","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-government","category-holocaust","category-nazi-germany","category-world-war-ii","tag-government","tag-history","tag-holocaust","tag-nazi-germany","tag-world-war-ii"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4029"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4038,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4029\/revisions\/4038"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4029"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4029"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/crunchlearning.com\/website_ec2cbfb0\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4029"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}