Fascism

A Nazi official performing a Roman salute, a common fascist gesture.

Fascism is a reactionary political movement which seeks the openly terroristic dictatorship of capital against working class and socialist movements and the abolition of the liberal system of bourgeois democracy and its nominal freedoms while still preserving the capitalist system. The common characteristics of fascism include corporatism, ultra-nationalism, anti-communism, militarism, racism, reactionism, and chauvinism. The most well-known forms of fascism in the 20th century include Nazism, Italian fascism, Shōwa statism, Francoism, and Salazarism.

After the defeat of fascist states in the Second World War largely by working class and anti-imperialist forces, the original fascist movements, along with other ultra-nationalist tendencies, developed into modern neo-fascism.

Analysis

"Fascism, although in the early stages making a show of vague and patently disingenuous anti-capitalist propaganda to attract mass-support, is from the outset fostered, nourished, maintained and subsidized by the big bourgeoisie, by the big landlords, financiers and industrialists."

— R. P. Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution

Relation to capitalism

Fascism is a method to regulate workers with a repressive state protecting the bourgeoisie and halting revolutionary proletarian movements. When the bourgeoisie can no longer suffice with liberal democracy, they become fascistic. As the Georgi Dimitrov, the Marxist–Leninist–Stalinist who was released from Nazi Germany because he exposed them so thoroughly, said, "The accession to power of fascism is not an ordinary succession of one bourgeois government by another, but a substitution of one state form of class domination of the bourgeoisie — bourgeois democracy — by another form — open terrorist dictatorship."

Role of social democracy

Social democracy has often been a core element in the rise of fascist movements, both being mechanisms to maintain capitalism in times of crisis and socialist revolution. Social democracy divides the working class and labor movements and drives them away from revolutionary change in favor of reliance on bourgeois democracy and reformism from within. Whereas fascism relies on open violence and coercion alongside some amount of deception, social democracy is able to primarily employ deception to assist the bourgeoisie in weakening working class movements. Joseph Stalin described the relationship between fascism and social democracy:

"Fascism is the bourgeoisie’s fighting organisation that relies on the active support of Social-Democracy. Social-Democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism."

— Concerning the International Situation, 1924

Ideology

Theory

Fascism is primarily a movement led by the bourgeoisie for the purposes of facilitating the maintenance and defense of the capitalist system against working class movements, and therefore lacks true ideological content or theory, instead being purely practice. Any and all nominally ideological aspects of fascism are vacillating and constantly changing to meet the needs of the bourgeoisie:

"The reality of Fascism is the violent attempt of decaying capitalism to defeat the proletarian revolution and forcibly arrest the growing contradictions of its whole development. All the rest is decoration and stage-play, whether conscious or unconscious, to cover and make presentable or attractive this basic reactionary aim, which cannot be openly stated without defeating its purpose." —R. P. Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution

Despite this, there are common aspects and beliefs within fascist movements which can be elaborated.

Class collaboration

Fascists denies and attempts to obscure the presence and inherent nature of class struggle and exploitation between exploited and exploiting strata and introduces sentiments of class collaboration with the bourgeoisie. For instance, fascists have claimed that their state is "above" classes:

"[...] Fascism, is totalitarian, and the Fascist State — a synthesis and a unit inclusive of all values — interprets, develops, and potentates the whole life of a people. No individuals or groups (political parties, cultural associations, economic unions, social classes) outside the State. Fascism is therefore opposed to Socialism to which unity within the State (which amalgamates classes into a single economic and ethical reality) is unknown, and which sees in history nothing but the class struggle." —Benito Mussolini

In reality, this is to hide the position of the fascist state as a totalitarian dictatorship of the bourgeoisie and an extreme expression of monopoly capitalism.

Economics

See also: Third position

Italian fascist propaganda detailing the class collaborationist system of "corporatism" present in the regime.

Despite representing a defensive mechanism of the capitalist system, fascists often claim to represent a "third position" — one which is neither capitalism nor socialism, but "corporatism." Fascists claim to uphold an economic system which is able to both resolve class contradictions between the workers and capitalists without abolishing private property, but by "unifying" the workers and owners into corporate syndicates to achieve their vision of national unity. In practice, however, fascist economic policies were largely to the exclusive benefit of the large bourgeoisie, who are able to profit heavily from the fascist war economy and extensive privatization as well as from the brutal terror employed by the fascist state against communist and working class organizations.

Militarism and war

"Fascism believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. War alone brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have the courage to meet it."

— Benito Mussolini, The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism

Fascism is heavily oriented in extreme militarism and advocacy of warfare against other peoples as an extension of its racist and chauvinistic attitudes. Although fascist leaders have sporadically adopted demagogic pacific rhetoric when convenient, fascism inherently necessitates the militarization of the capitalist economy in order to preserve and expand imperialism and to eliminate external working class and socialist threats. Large-scale economic policies and programs such as the Four Year Plan in Nazi Germany were adopted to this end.

Deception towards the working class

Fascism presents its views in ambiguous, vague ways, often changing based on the circumstances. This aspect is inherent to fascism, because of its deceptive, anti-intellectual character and position as defenders of the ruling class.

Varieties

Nazism

Main article: Nazism

Nazism was a major fascist movement led by German dictator Adolf Hitler and represented in the ruling National Socialist German Workers' Party. Placed in power by the German bourgeoisie, the Nazi Party would initiate extreme repression against ethnic minorities and political opponents. The Hitlerite state would ultimately be responsible for well over 20 million deaths in genocides and wars of extermination before being defeated at the conclusion of the Second World War in 1945 by anti-fascist and working class forces led by the Soviet Union.

Italian fascism

Main article: Italian fascism

Italian fascism was a movement which constituted one of the first instances of fascism. It was the ruling ideology of Kingdom of Italy and the Social Republic between 1922 after the March on Rome and dissolution of bourgeois democracy until 1945 when the fascist state collapsed at the conclusion of the Second World War. Its main representative organization was the National Fascist Party, founded by reactionary elements in 1921.

Falangism

Main articles: Falangism and Spanish State

Shōwa statism

Main article: Shōwa statism

Shōwa statism encompasses the fascistic ideology which developed in the Empire of Japan under Hirohito, creating a militarist, monarchical state which began various imperialist wars in Asia during the 1930s and 1940s.

Hungarian fascism

Main articles: Hungarism and Kingdom of Hungary (1920–1946)

Salazarism

Main article: Estado Novo

See also

• Imperialism
• List of fascist states
• Anti-fascism
• Social-fascism

Further reading

• Fascism and Social Revolution, by R. P. Dutt