On Fascism

By Colette LaViollette

There is a tendency for us on the Left to reduce fascism to little more than a
buzzword. It has been used so extensively by almost everyone that its become
extremely difficult to pick out exactly what fascism is. Theres also a tendency to
disregard fascism as an ideology, underthepremisethattreatingfascisminaserious
manner only legitimizes it. Although there is a kernel of truth in that sentiment,
treating fascism as an ideology makes it easier to attack on all fronts, not justinthe
street. So without further ado, here is a beginners guide to fascism.

Fascism Explained: Nationalism and the New Man

To quote Roger Eatwell in his book Fascism: A History, fascist ideology isaformof
thought that preaches the need for social rebirth in order to forge aholistic-national
radical Third Way- though in practice fascism has tended to stress style, especially
activism and the charismatic leader, more thandetailedprogram,andtoengageina
Manichaen1 demonization of its enemies.

Fascism's nationalism focuses on a collective and united identity of a given people,

usually rooted in some form of founding myth. It also includes the 'Otherization' of
people who don't fit into that holistic national identity, such as the Jews in Germany
(and pretty much everywhere to be honest), Africans and Southern Italians in Italy,
Roma in Central/Eastern Europe, Russians in the Baltics, et cetera. It uses Social
Darwinism to classify the True Nationals as the deserving inheritors and progenitors
of humanity's future, and the Others as a hindrance to the progress of humanity.
However, it is key that the prominence of this dualistic view varied acrossthevarious
fascist states of interwar Europe. In Italy, the birthplace of fascism, they were less
pronounced, although they were definitely still there. Germany obviously put this
racism at its core, and Corneliu Codreanus Legion of the Archangel Michael (also

1
Manichaeism is a dualistic religious system from the 3rd century that posits an overarching
conflict between light and darkness.
called the Iron Guard) in Romania went further still, calling for the wholesale
elimination of enemies of the Tara (Fatherland) in order to bring about a spiritual
renaissance with God.

Another key aspect of the fascist worldview was the creation ofaNewMan(women
played an extremely subservient role in fascist sociopolitical theory). This, too, is
considered a standard hallmark of a fascist government, but it, like nationalism,
varied in form. In Italy and Germany, the view ofaNewManwasprimarilyphysical.
In Italy, sport became one of the most used propaganda techniques by the fascist
government, especially after Italy won the 1934 World Cup, which it also hosted. In
Germany this came after the Berlin Olympics and became a pervasivethemeinNazi
society, especially amongst youth, where participation in one of the two youth
organizations was compulsory for boys and girls and a massive propaganda effort
was employed to encourage physical fitness.

In Iron Guard Romania, it took on a more spiritual, and more terrifying, form.
Codreanu stated as the Guards end goal, The spiritualresurrection!Theresurrection
of nations in the name of Jesus Christ! According to Stanley Paynes A History of
Fascism: 1914-1945, Violence and murder were absolutely necessary for the
redemption of the nation; if the acts which this required placed in jeopardy the
individual soul of the militant whocarriedthemout,hisnecessarysacrificewassimply
the greater. His punishment would consist of the earthly punishment for his deed
(which he ought not to avoid) as well as the possible loss of eternal life, theultimate
sacrifice fortheFatherland,whichmustbeacceptedwithjoy.Aprincipaleffectofthis
political theology was a unique death cult, unusually morbid even for a fascist
movement Codreanu pointed out that a dozen different political programs already
existed in Romania, and he proclaimed the need instead for a new spirit, a
cultural-religious revolution whose goal was creation of the omul nouthe new man
sought in varying ways by all revolutionary movements, but one that for the Legion
would beconsubstantialwithitsinterpretationoftheRomanianOrthodoxChurchand
the national community.
The new man philosophy also fits into the aforementioned holistic nationalism. The
new man was to be of True National stock, and the promulgation of Other children
was to be discouraged, if not annihilated. This lead to another common thread of
fascist policy, which was the severe restriction on birth control and the deification of
the family. In Italy, there were taxes levied against bachelors and stipends for every
child birthed in order to encourage marriage. In Germany, medals were awarded to
mothers who birthed large numbers of children. The place of womeninfascistsociety
was essentially a replication machine for more fascists. Although the Italian fascists
had included equal votes for women and gender equality in the 1919 platform, they
largely discarded these once attaining power. When asked about this, Mussolini
himself said that woman was unable to synthesizetwoideastogethertocreateanew
one.

What the people in charge of fascist family planning didnt account for was morbid
resourcefulness. Since birth control was extremely limited if not outright illegal,
backstreet abortionsbecamerathercommon.Therelativelynaturalpopulationgrowth
rate of the first 19 years of Fascist Italy, despite the heavy propaganda and legal
stress on having kids, can be partially attributed to the 30% abortion rate.

Fascism Explained: Industrial Dictatorship

Fascisms economic side is probably the most confusing and misleading aspect of it.

According toEatwell,Intellectualfascistswereoftentotermthemselvessupportersof
a Third Way, neither left nor right, neither capitalist nor communist; they sought to
achieve individual prosperity, but linked to communal goals.Thetermisinsomeways
misleading, as it could be taken to imply that fascism was a form of centrism, or
conservatism. Both would be totally false descriptions for an ideology that sought to
launch a social revolution, albeit one that owed moretotherightthantheleft.Yet,it
is a useful shorthand for fascisms syncretic way of thinking.
At its beginnings, fascism was inspired by socialism, although heavily bastardized to
fit into its reactionary worldview. A lot of fascisms early sympathizers were
syndicalists and trade unionists, although they fell off the bandwagon once they
understood what it truly was. Fascism seemed to have a lot of socialist trappings,
including a heavy emphasis on the worker and peasant and the proletarian. In Italy
these trappings went awayratherquicklyoncepowerwasachieved,butinGermanyit
nearly led to the split of the NSDAP, with Hitler wanting to take a more corporatist
route (as Ill describe in the next paragraph) and people like the Strasser brothers
and even Joseph Goebbels advocating for a National Bolshevism, which was itself a
reaction to the economic rightward drift of the NSDAP under Hitler and married
socialistic economic policies with fascist sociopolitical worldviews; this side lost out
when Hitler consolidated power during the Night of the Long Knives.

Fascism's economic policy is strong free-market structures with an authoritarian

government, probably best described as corporatism. In both Italy and Germany
government simultaneously controlled the economy and gave away entire sections of
it to huge corporate conglomerates. Labor law was entirely determined by these
employers. In Germany, the massive enlargement of the military resulted in a
reduction of the labor force that was balanced by the use of slave labor in war
production. In Italy a Ministry of Corporations position was created but state control
over said corporations didnt work out, and private industry ruled as they pleased.

Its key to remember that although in terms oflaborlawandproductioncorporations

largely did as they wanted, the state still executed a massive role, especially in
infrastructure and public spending (the German Autobahn is frequently cited as an
example). These factors are a death-knell to the argument that fascism and German
National Socialismwereactuallysocialistic,whentheclosestthosegovernmentsgotto
left-wing economics were in their early ideological phase. It also counters the
argument that fascism has some semblance to the nightmare that is
anarcho-capitalism, since the twos sociopoliticalworldviewsarediametricallyopposed
to each other (fascisms total state control on the lives of the people is in direct
opposition to anarcho-capitalisms Mad Max-esque, devil-may-care attitude) and
economically share some surface characteristics but upon closer inspection, this also
falls apart, since even in its corporatist phase there was some semblance of social
welfare spending in fascist governments, as well as the aforementioned government
control.

Bibliography

Eatwell, Roger. The Birth of Fascist Ideology. Fascism: A History, Chatto & Windus,
1995, p. 14.

Payne, Stanley G. Four Major Variants of Fascism. A History of Fascism, 1914-1945,

Routledge, 1995, pp. 280281.