German sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "ideas of 1914" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the French Revolution).
According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789"—such as the rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism—were being rejected in favor of "the ideas of 1914" that included "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order.
According to David Thomson, the Italian Risorgimento of 1871 led to the 'nemesis of fascism'.
Julian Dierkes sees fascism as a 'particularly violent form of imperialism'. === Fin de siècle era and the fusion of Maurrasism with Sorelianism (1880–1914) === The historian Zeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the 1880s and in particular to the fin de siècle theme of that time.
By 1909 after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views—advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries.
Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in 1909 that influenced his works.
Initially Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that "socialism is dead" because of the "decomposition of Marxism".
Historian George Mosse similarly analyzed fascism as an inheritor of the mass ideology and civil religion of the French Revolution, as well as a result of the brutalization of societies in 1914–1918. Historians such as Irene Collins and Howard C Payne see Napoleon III, who ran a 'police state' and suppressed the media, as a forerunner of fascism.
Initially Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that "socialism is dead" because of the "decomposition of Marxism".
He advocated segregation of the genders because womanly sensibility must not enter men's education, which he claimed must be "lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic". === World War I and its aftermath (1914–1929) === At the outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Italian political left became severely split over its position on the war.
Angelo Oliviero Olivetti formed a pro-interventionist fascio called the Revolutionary Fasces of International Action in October 1914.
German sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "ideas of 1914" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the French Revolution).
According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789"—such as the rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism—were being rejected in favor of "the ideas of 1914" that included "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order.
He believed that the "Spirit of 1914" manifested itself in the concept of the "People's League of National Socialism".
He denounced the contemporary "supercapitalism" that he claimed began in 1914 as a failure because of its alleged decadence, its support for unlimited consumerism and its intention to create the "standardization of humankind".
According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915.
The term "Fascism" was first used in 1915 by members of Mussolini's movement, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action. The first meeting of the Fasces of Revolutionary Action was held on 24 January 1915 when Mussolini declared that it was necessary for Europe to resolve its national problems—including national borders—of Italy and elsewhere "for the ideals of justice and liberty for which oppressed peoples must acquire the right to belong to those national communities from which they descended".
In 1917, Mussolini, as leader of the Fasces of Revolutionary Action, praised the October Revolution, but later he became unimpressed with Lenin, regarding him as merely a new version of Tsar Nicholas.
In 1918, Mussolini defined what he viewed as the proletarian character, defining proletarian as being one and the same with producers, a productivist perspective that associated all people deemed productive, including entrepreneurs, technicians, workers and soldiers as being proletarian.
In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later.
Mussolini consolidated control over the Fascist movement, known as Sansepolcrismo, in 1919 with the founding of the Italian Fasces of Combat. ==== Fascist Manifesto of 1919 ==== In 1919, Alceste De Ambris and Futurist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created The Manifesto of the Italian Fasces of Combat (the Fascist Manifesto).
The Manifesto was presented on 6 June 1919 in the Fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia.
This behaviour of aggression towards Yugoslavia and South Slavs was pursued by Italian Fascists with their persecution of South Slavs—especially Slovenes and Croats. ==== Italian Fascists in 1920 ==== In 1920, militant strike activity by industrial workers reached its peak in Italy and 1919 and 1920 were known as the "Red Years".
Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon both left-wing organizational tactics and right-wing political views. Italian Fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s.
A major element of fascist ideology that has been deemed to be far-right is its stated goal to promote the right of a supposedly superior people to dominate, while purging society of supposedly inferior elements. In the 1920s, the Italian Fascists described their ideology as right-wing in the political program The Doctrine of Fascism, stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century".
The accommodation of the political right into the Italian Fascist movement in the early 1920s created internal factions within the movement.
The Ku Klux Klan in the 1920s was sometimes called "fascist".
It also called for the fulfillment of expansionist aims in the Balkans and other parts of the Mediterranean, the creation of a short-service national militia to serve defensive duties, nationalization of the armaments industry and a foreign policy designed to be peaceful but also competitive. The next events that influenced the Fascists in Italy was the raid of Fiume by Italian nationalist Gabriele d'Annunzio and the founding of the Charter of Carnaro in 1920.
This behaviour of aggression towards Yugoslavia and South Slavs was pursued by Italian Fascists with their persecution of South Slavs—especially Slovenes and Croats. ==== Italian Fascists in 1920 ==== In 1920, militant strike activity by industrial workers reached its peak in Italy and 1919 and 1920 were known as the "Red Years".
After Fascism's accommodation of the political right, the Fascist movement's membership soared to approximately 250,000 by 1921. ==== Fascist violence in 1922 ==== Beginning in 1922, Fascist paramilitaries escalated their strategy from one of attacking socialist offices and the homes of socialist leadership figures, to one of violent occupation of cities.
After Fascism's accommodation of the political right, the Fascist movement's membership soared to approximately 250,000 by 1921. ==== Fascist violence in 1922 ==== Beginning in 1922, Fascist paramilitaries escalated their strategy from one of attacking socialist offices and the homes of socialist leadership figures, to one of violent occupation of cities.
After seizing these cities, the Fascists made plans to take Rome. On 24 October 1922, the Fascist party held its annual congress in Naples, where Mussolini ordered Blackshirts to take control of public buildings and trains and to converge on three points around Rome.
The Nazis, led by Hitler and the German war hero Erich Ludendorff, attempted a "March on Berlin" modeled upon the March on Rome, which resulted in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in November 1923. === International impact of the Great Depression and the buildup to World War II === The conditions of economic hardship caused by the Great Depression brought about an international surge of social unrest.
On 3 January 1925, Mussolini addressed the Fascist-dominated Italian parliament and declared that he was personally responsible for what happened, but insisted that he had done nothing wrong.
The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers' strikes and lock-outs and in 1927 created the Charter of Labour, which established workers' rights and duties and created labour tribunals to arbitrate employer-employee disputes.
As Mussolini typically put it in early 1934, "from 1929...
By the late 1930s, Mussolini became more vocal in his anti-clerical rhetoric, repeatedly denouncing the Catholic Church and discussing ways to depose the pope.
Fascist propaganda blamed the problems of the long depression of the 1930s on minorities and scapegoats: "Judeo-Masonic-bolshevik" conspiracies, left-wing internationalism and the presence of immigrants. In Germany, it contributed to the rise of the National Socialist German Workers' Party, which resulted in the demise of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the fascist regime, Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler.
In the 1930s, the Nazis implemented racial laws that deliberately discriminated against, disenfranchised and persecuted Jews and other racial and minority groups. Fascist movements grew in strength elsewhere in Europe.
In the 1930s, the National Socialist Movement of Chile gained seats in Chile's parliament and attempted a coup d'état that resulted in the Seguro Obrero massacre of 1938. During the Great Depression, Mussolini promoted active state intervention in the economy.
In the late 1930s, Italy enacted manufacturing cartels, tariff barriers, currency restrictions and massive regulation of the economy to attempt to balance payments.
Nazi Germany similarly pursued an economic agenda with the aims of autarky and rearmament and imposed protectionist policies, including forcing the German steel industry to use lower-quality German iron ore rather than superior-quality imported iron. === World War II (1939–1945) === In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, both Mussolini and Hitler pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas from the 1930s through the 1940s culminating in World War II.
Paxton says: "In fascism's heyday, in the 1930s, many regimes that were not functionally fascist borrowed elements of fascist decor in order to lend themselves an aura of force, vitality, and mass mobilization".
The first years were characterized by a repression against the anti-fascist ideologies, deep censorship and the suppression of democratic institutions (elected Parliament, Constitution of 1931, Regional Statutes of Autonomy).
Hungarian fascist Gyula Gömbös rose to power as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1932 and attempted to entrench his Party of National Unity throughout the country.
With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933, liberal democracy was dissolved in Germany and the Nazis mobilized the country for war, with expansionist territorial aims against several countries.
The fascist Iron Guard movement in Romania soared in political support after 1933, gaining representation in the Romanian government, and an Iron Guard member assassinated Romanian prime minister Ion Duca.
During the 6 February 1934 crisis, France faced the greatest domestic political turmoil since the Dreyfus Affair when the fascist Francist Movement and multiple far-right movements rioted en masse in Paris against the French government resulting in major political violence.
While Hitler's regime only nationalized 500 companies in key industries by the early 1940s, Mussolini declared in 1934 that "[t]hree-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state".
The Institute for Industrial Reconstruction, a state-operated holding company in charge of bankrupt banks and companies, reported in early 1934 that they held assets of "48.5 percent of the share capital of Italy", which later included the capital of the banks themselves.
As Mussolini typically put it in early 1934, "from 1929...
Hitler called for irredentist German claims to be reclaimed along with the creation of German Lebensraum ("living space") in Eastern Europe, including territories held by the Soviet Union, that would be colonized by Germans. From 1935 to 1939, Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs.
Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 resulting in its condemnation by the League of Nations and its widespread diplomatic isolation.
the new political and economic forms of the twentieth-century are fascist' (Mussolini 1935: 32). Fascists criticized egalitarianism as preserving the weak, and they instead promoted social Darwinist views and policies.
In 1936, Germany remilitarized the industrial Rhineland, a region that had been ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles.
A variety of para-fascist governments that borrowed elements from fascism were formed during the Great Depression, including those of Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia. In the Americas, the Brazilian Integralists led by Plínio Salgado claimed as many as 200,000 members although following coup attempts it faced a crackdown from the Estado Novo of Getúlio Vargas in 1937.
The IRI was made a permanent institution in Fascist Italy in 1937, pursued Fascist policies to create national autarky and had the power to take over private firms to maximize war production.
In the 1930s, the National Socialist Movement of Chile gained seats in Chile's parliament and attempted a coup d'état that resulted in the Seguro Obrero massacre of 1938. During the Great Depression, Mussolini promoted active state intervention in the economy.
In 1938, Germany annexed Austria and Italy assisted Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims on Czechoslovakia by arranging the Munich Agreement that gave Germany the Sudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war.
At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain.
Hitler called for irredentist German claims to be reclaimed along with the creation of German Lebensraum ("living space") in Eastern Europe, including territories held by the Soviet Union, that would be colonized by Germans. From 1935 to 1939, Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs.
At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain.
In 1939, Germany prepared for war with Poland, but attempted to gain territorial concessions from Poland through diplomatic means.
Between 1939 and 1941, prior to his rise to power, Perón had developed a deep admiration of Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on Italian Fascist policies. The term neo-fascism refers to fascist movements after World War II.
While Hitler's regime only nationalized 500 companies in key industries by the early 1940s, Mussolini declared in 1934 that "[t]hree-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state".
Nazi Germany similarly pursued an economic agenda with the aims of autarky and rearmament and imposed protectionist policies, including forcing the German steel industry to use lower-quality German iron ore rather than superior-quality imported iron. === World War II (1939–1945) === In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, both Mussolini and Hitler pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas from the 1930s through the 1940s culminating in World War II.
In 1940, Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis.
Mussolini was aware that Italy did not have the military capacity to carry out a long war with France or the United Kingdom and waited until France was on the verge of imminent collapse and surrender from the German invasion before declaring war on France and the United Kingdom on 10 June 1940 on the assumption that the war would be short-lived following France's collapse.
Plans by Germany to invade the United Kingdom in 1940 failed after Germany lost the aerial warfare campaign in the Battle of Britain.
In 1941, the Axis campaign spread to the Soviet Union after Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa.
Between 1939 and 1941, prior to his rise to power, Perón had developed a deep admiration of Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on Italian Fascist policies. The term neo-fascism refers to fascist movements after World War II.
The war became prolonged—contrary to Mussolini's plans—resulting in Italy losing battles on multiple fronts and requiring German assistance. During World War II, the Axis Powers in Europe led by Nazi Germany participated in the extermination of millions of Poles, Jews, Gypsies and others in the genocide known as the Holocaust. After 1942, Axis forces began to falter.
Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. After the fall of the Fascist regime in Italy, when King Victor Emmanuel III forced Mussolini to resign as head of government and placed him under arrest in 1943, Mussolini was rescued by German forces.
In 1943, after Italy faced multiple military failures, the complete reliance and subordination of Italy to Germany, the Allied invasion of Italy and the corresponding international humiliation, Mussolini was removed as head of government and arrested on the order of King Victor Emmanuel III, who proceeded to dismantle the Fascist state and declared Italy's switching of allegiance to the Allied side.
Mussolini was rescued from arrest by German forces and led the German client state, the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945.
Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945. On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian communist partisans.
George Orwell wrote in 1944 that "the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless ...
Mussolini was rescued from arrest by German forces and led the German client state, the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945.
Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945. On 28 April 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian communist partisans.
On 30 April 1945, Hitler committed suicide.
Beginning in November 1945 and lasting through 1949, numerous Nazi political, military and economic leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes, with many of the worst offenders being sentenced to death and executed. === Post-World War II (1945–present) === The victory of the Allies over the Axis powers in World War II led to the collapse of many fascist regimes in Europe.
Chinese Marxists used the term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet Split, and likewise the Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists and social democracy (coining a new term in "social fascism"). In the United States, Herbert Matthews of The New York Times asked in 1946: "Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?".
In Argentina, Peronism, associated with the regime of Juan Perón from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was influenced by fascism.
Beginning in November 1945 and lasting through 1949, numerous Nazi political, military and economic leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes, with many of the worst offenders being sentenced to death and executed. === Post-World War II (1945–present) === The victory of the Allies over the Axis powers in World War II led to the collapse of many fascist regimes in Europe.
In Argentina, Peronism, associated with the regime of Juan Perón from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was influenced by fascism.
In Argentina, Peronism, associated with the regime of Juan Perón from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was influenced by fascism.
In her 1974 book, Mussolini's widow Rachele stated that her husband had always been an atheist until near the end of his life, writing that her husband was "basically irreligious until the later years of his life". The Nazis in Germany employed similar anti-clerical policies.
In Argentina, Peronism, associated with the regime of Juan Perón from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was influenced by fascism.
After World War II and a period of international isolation, Franco's regime normalized relations with the Western powers during the Cold War, until Franco's death in 1975 and the transformation of Spain into a liberal democracy. Historian Robert Paxton observes that one of the main problems in defining fascism is that it was widely mimicked.
[the KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system." Professor Richard Griffiths of the University of Wales wrote in 2005 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times".
In 2008, AN joined Forza Italia in Berlusconi's new party The People of Freedom, but in 2012 a group of politicians split from The People of Freedom, refounding the party with the name Brothers of Italy.
In 2008, AN joined Forza Italia in Berlusconi's new party The People of Freedom, but in 2012 a group of politicians split from The People of Freedom, refounding the party with the name Brothers of Italy.
In 2013, after the murder of an anti-fascist musician by a person with links to Golden Dawn, the Greek government ordered the arrest of Golden Dawn's leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos and other Golden Dawn members on charges related to being associated with a criminal organization.
On 7 October 2020, Athens Appeals Court announced verdicts for 68 defendants, including the party's political leadership.
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