Fascism
Fascism(/ˈfæʃɪzəm/) is a form offar-right,authoritarianultranationalismcharacterized bydictatorialpower, forciblesuppressionofopposition,and strongregimentationof society and of the economy which came to prominence in early 20th-century Europe. The first fascist movementsemerged in ItalyduringWorld War I,beforespreading to other European countries.Opposed toliberalism,Marxism,andanarchism,fascism is placed on thefar-rightwithin the traditionalleft–right spectrum.
- Alphabetizedby author or source
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- The common elements of fascism — extremenationalism,social Darwinism,the leadership principle,elitism,anti-liberalism,anti-egalitarianism,anti-democracy,intolerance,glorification ofwar,the supremacy of thestateandanti-intellectualism— together form a rather loose doctrine.Fascism emphasises action rather thantheory,and fascist theoretical writings are alwaysweak.Hitler'sNazismhad rather more theory, though its intellectual quality is appalling.This greater theoretical content is mostly concerned withrace,and it was Hitler's racial theories that distinguished Nazism fromItalian fascism.
- Ian Adams,inPolitical Ideology Today(1993)
- Sometimes, when I tell people that I studyauthoritarian personalities,they say things like, "Oh, you meanneo-Nazisand theKlan."When these people arepsychologistsat conventions or thepresidentofmy university,I say "Right," because I know they will probably instantly forget whatever I reply. But I am more forthcoming with others. Most people seem surprised when I say, "No, I study normal folks, not Nazis."Few people, unless they are familiar with the history of fascism, understand that people as ordinary as you and I, and our friends and neighbors, might bring down democracy if the going got tough enough. Butweare the people who, driven by fear and cuddling in our own self-righteousness, could create the wave that would lift the monsters among us to power. And once the monsters acquire the powers of the state, their evil explodes.Can one credibly talk about fascism in theNorth Americancontext as we approach the year 2000? Is it even remotely possible that the horrors ofNazi Germanycould someday occur inCanadaor theUnited States?When I talk about prefascist personalities, do I seriously propose that many North Americans could act likeHitler,Himmler,Hoess,and so on?[...]although the Nazis did monsterous things, it is a mistake to thing that only ardent fascists and psychopathic killers became Nazis.Adolf Eichmannstruck some as a bland person, not particularlyanti-Semitic,who basically wanted to advance his career and so worked hard to impress his superiors. His evil was "banal." I can also imagine that many of those who amde the arrests and transported the victims to the death camps would have been described as "good, decent people" by their families and neighbors. So would many of those who ran the slave labor camps in which hundreds of thousands of prisoners perished and maybe even theSSsoldiers whomassacredwholevillages.You can be an ordinary Joe, orLieutenant Calley,and still do terrible things. One of the first things Americans learned about the militias, in anAssociated Pressstory dated April 27, 1995, is that they were "ordinary people who feel pushed."
- Bob Altemeyer,The Authoritarian Specter(1996). Cambridge: Harvard University Press, p. 305
- Most people believe thetwentieth centurywas defined by thedeathstruggleofcommunismversuscapitalism,and that fascism was but a hiccup. Today weknowbetter.Communismwas afool's errand, the followers ofMarxgone from thisEarth;but the followers ofHitlerabound and thrive. Hitler, however, had one great disadvantage. He lived in a time when fascism, like avirus,like theAIDSvirus, required a strong host in order to spread.Germanywas that host, but strong as it was, Germany couldn't prevail. Theworldwas too big. Fortunately, the world has changed. Globalcommunication,cable TV,theinternet.Today the world is smaller, and the virus no longer needs a strong host in order to spread. This virus is airborne.... One more thing; let no man call uscrazy.They called Hitler crazy, but Hitler wasn't crazy. He wasstupid.You don't fightRussiaandAmerica.You get Russia and America to fight each other, and destroy each other.
- Paul Attanasioand Daniel Pyne in words for the character Richard Dressler inThe Sum of All Fears(2002)
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[edit]- Fascism itself, themysteryof its appearance and of its collectiveenergy,with which no interpretation has been able to come to grips (neither theMarxistone of political manipulation by dominant classes, nor theReichianone of the sexual repression of the masses, nor theDeleuzianone of despoticparanoia), can already be interpreted as the "irrational" excess of mythic and political referentials, the mad intensification of collective value (blood,race,people,etc.), the reinjection ofdeath,of a "political aesthetic of death" at a time when the process of the disenchantment of value and of collective values, of the rational secularization and unidimensionalization of all life, of the operationalization of all social and individuallifealready makes itselfstronglyfelt in the West. Yet again, everything seems to escape this catastrophe of value, this neutralization and pacification of life. Fascism is a resistance to this, even if it is a profound, irrational, demented resistance, it would not have tapped into this massive energy if it hadn't been a resistance to something much worse. Fascism'scruelty,itsterroris on the level ofthis other terror that is the confusion of the real and the rational,which deepened in the West, and it is a response to that.
- Jean Baudrillard,Simulacra and Simulation(1981), p. 48
- The [Italian Fascist] regime had created an imaginarySpartancountry, in which allmenhad to make believe they were heroicsoldiers,allwomenRomanmatrons, allchildrenBalilla(the Genoa street urchin who started a revolt against theAustriangarrison in 1746 by throwing one stone). This was done by means ofslogans,flags,stirringspeechesfrom balconies, military music, mass meetings, parades, dashing uniforms, medals, hoaxes, and constant distortions of reality. TheItalianswoke up too late from their artificial dream, those still alive, that is, hungry, desperate, discredited, the object of derision,cornuti e mazziati,or "cuckolded and beaten up," governed as in the past by contemptuous foreigners in a country of smoking ruins and decaying corpses, in which most things detachable had been stolen and women raped.
- Luigi Barzini,inThe Europeans(1983), p. 172
- In spite ofBolshevism's and fascism's different attitudes, above all,private propertyandnationalism,both fascists andantifascistsacknowledged common sources and resulting similarities between Bolshevism and fascism, including theirrevolutionaryideology,their elitism, their disdain forbourgeoisvalues, and theirtotalitarianambitions.
- Cyprian P. Blamires, editor,World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1,Santa Barbara: CA, ABC-CLIO, Inc. (2006) p.p. 95-96.
- Italian fascism's chief claim to political creativity lay in the construction between 1925 and 1939 of the Corporate State, a system purporting to be revolutionary yet socially unifying, to guarantee progress andsocial justiceby bringing employers,managersandworkerstogether within a legally constituted framework.
- Martin Blinkhorn,Mussolini and Fascist Italy,London/New York, Routledge, (2001) p. 29
- This reminded me of whatIgnazio Silonesaid in 1945 soon after he returned to Italy from his Zurich exile: "The Fascism of tomorrow will never say 'I am Fascism.' It will say: 'I am anti-Fascism.'"
- François Bondy,"European Notebook",Encounter,vol. 47 (1976), p. 51.
- The Nazis were only one among a number of German rightist groups to receive unreliable sympathy and subsidy fromRome.During that decade, figures on the right, impressed by talk of a fascist philosophy, or by events inItaly,or, most significantly, by glad tidings of the routing of the Bolshevik devil, took to borrowing the word 'fascist' from Italian and deploying it in their own language, with somewhat uncertain effect. Among them were Miss Rotha Linthorn-Orman, a spinster and Field-Master's granddaughter, and Brigadier-GeneralR.G.D Blakeney,once the manager of theEgyptianstate railways and now her rival at the head of the 'British Fascisti'.
- R.J.B. Bosworth,"Italian Fascism and Models of Fascism" inThe Italian Dictatorship: Problems & Perspectives in the Interpretation of Mussolini & Fascism(1998), pp.206-207
- Peoplehave their fingers broken.
To be insulted by these fascists
Is so degrading and it's nogame.- David Bowie,in "It's No Game (part II)" fromScary Monsters (and Super Creeps)(1980)
- Those who areagainst Fascismwithout beingagainst capitalism,who lament over the barbarism that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf. They are willing to eat the calf, but they dislike the sight of blood. They are easily satisfied if thebutcherwashes his hands before weighing themeat.They are not against the property relations which engender barbarism; they are only against barbarism itself. They raise their voices against barbarism, and they do so in countries where precisely the same property relations prevail, but where the butchers wash their hands before weighing the meat.
- Bertholt Brecht,"The Skill To Manipulate Truth as a Weapon"
- A number of features of Bolshevism and Nazism/Fascism did show striking similarities, including their revolutionary action and proletarian nation theories, leadership principles,one-party dictatorship,and party armies. Hitler publicly acknowledge his debt to the Bolsheviks when, for instance, proposing to makeMunich‘theMoscowof our movement.’
- Cyprian P. Blamires, editor,World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Volume 1,Santa Barbara: CA, ABC-CLIO, Inc. (2006) p. 96
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[edit]- Fascism is an act of contempt, in fact. Inversely, every form of contempt, if it intervenes in politics, prepares the way for, or establishes, Fascism. It must be added that Fascism cannot be anything else but an expression of contempt without denying itself. Junger drew the conclusion, from his own principles, that it was better to be criminal than bourgeois.Hitler,who was endowed with less literary talent but, on this occasion, with more coherence, knew that to be either one or the other was a matter of complete indifference, from the moment that one ceased to believe in anything but success. Thus he authorized himself to be both at the same time.
- Albert Camus,The Rebel(1951)
- Fascism, with its violence, gets rid of everything: it attacksuniversities,it closes them and crushes them; it attacksintellectuals,represses them andpersecutesthem; it attackspolitical parties;it attackstrade union organizations;it attacks all mass and cultural organizations. Therefore, nothing is more violent, more retrograde and more illegal than fascism.
- Capitalist andimperialistcountries created the conditions for the rise of fascism in the world.
- What was fascism in Italy, in Germany? The exaltation ofracial prejudices.Instead of fighting racial prejudice, which is what a revolution does, fascism exaltsprejudiceand turns it into hatred.
- Theytolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them,... they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples.
- Aimé Césaire,Discourse on Colonialism(1955), p. 36
- What a man! I have lost my heart!... If I were Italian, I am sure I would have been with you entirely from the beginning of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passion ofLeninism.... Your movement has rendered a service to the whole world. The greatest fear that ever tormented everyDemocraticorSocialistleader was that of being outbid or surpassed by some other leader more extreme than himself. It has been said that a continual movement to theLeft,a kind of fatal landslide toward the abyss, has been the character of all revolutions. Italy has shown that there is a way to combat subversive forces.
- Winston ChurchillaboutBenito Mussoliniand Italian Fascism, in a press statement fromRome(20 January 1927), quoted inChurchill by Himself: The Definitive Collection of Quotations(2011) by Richard Langworth, p. 169
- Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of stabilized society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of Bolshevism.
- Winston Churchill,in a press statement fromRome(20 January 1927), as quoted inIntroduction: A Political-Biographical SketchbyTariq AliinClass War Conservatism and Other Essays(2015) byRalph Miliband,with date of quote given inGo Betweens for Hitlerby Karina Urbach.
- It [fascism] is not a sign-post which would direct us here, for I firmly believe that our long experienced democracy will be able to preserve aparliamentary systemofgovernmentwith whatever modifications may be necessary from both extremes of arbitrary rule.
- Winston Churchill,speech to the Anti-Socialist and Anti-Communist Union (17 February 1933), quoted in Martin Gilbert,Prophet of Truth: Winston S. Churchill, 1922–1939(London: Minerva, 1990), p. 457
- Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism... As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction.
- Winston Churchill,The Second World War, Volume 1, The Gathering Storm,Mariner Books (1985) pp. 13-14. First published in 1948.
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[edit]- Despite all the merely verbal declarations to the contrary, the membership, content, and political tactics of theFalangeare in open opposition to the national revolution.
- Santiago Montero Díaz, resigning from affiliation with the Falange, as quoted inFalange: A History of Spanish Fascism,Stanley G. Payne(1961) p. 47
- Whoever does not fight the reactionary measures of thebourgeoisieand the growth of fascism at these preparatory stages, is not in a position to prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitates that victory.
- Georgi Dimitrov,"The Working Class against Fascism", July 1935 speech beforethe Congress of the Communist International
- Fascism is able to attract the masses because it makes a demagogic appeal to theirmost urgent needs and demands.Fascism not only inflames their prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays on the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice, and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions.
- Georgi Dimitrov,"The Working Class against Fascism", July 1935 speech beforethe Congress of the Communist International
- Fascism begins the moment aruling 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,as quoted inStraight Through the Heart: How the Liberals Abandoned the Just Society(Harper and Collins: 1995), p. 243.
- I am againstFrancoand fascism generally. My reasons are that I believe that fascism means a lack ofintellectual freedom,a strongly militaristic and repressivesocial controljoined seemingly with the continuance and strengthening of false religious, racial and economic ideologies, and generally speaking, the antithesis of any hope for equitable treatment which other forms of government at least pretend to offer the individual.
- Theodore Dreiser,inWriters Take Sides; Letters About the War in Spain from 418 American authorsbyLeague of American Writers,1938. Also quoted inVoices Against Tyranny: Writing of the Spanish Civil Warby John Miller; New York: Scribner, 1986.
- Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved anillusion,and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany.
- Peter Drucker,The End of Economic Man: The Study of the New Totalitarians,New York: NY, The John Day Company (1939) pp. 245-246.
- Fascism and Communism represented the urge of thelower middle classto complete theFrench Revolution—which had signalized the victory of the 'Third Estate' over theChurch,themonarchy,and the feudalaristocracy—by destroying, in turn, the privileges of the new capitalist class brought into being by theIndustrial Revolution.
- Vera Micheles Dean,Europe in Retreat,New York: NY, Alfred A. Knopf, Inc. (1939 revised edition) p. 87.
- Fascism appeals alike to those elements among the younger mindedmiddle classwho areconservativeby temperament and stronglynationalistin spirit, and to those rarer and more dynamic elements who, naturallyrevolutionaryin their outlook, have been disappointed and exasperated by the failure of all leadership from the left to approach any fulfilment of their aspiration.
- "James Drennan",William Edward David Allen,BUF: Oswald Mosley and British Fascism,John Murray,(1934). Also quoted inBlackshirt: Sir Oswald Mosley and British Fascism.Stephen Dorril, Viking, 2006 (p.247).
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- We observe that nothing creates fascists like the threat offreedom.
- Roger Ebert,in hisreviewofPleasantvilleinChicago Sun-Times(1 October 1998)
- Stalinismis worse than fascism, more ruthless, barbarous, unjust, immoral, anti-democratic, unredeemed by any hope or scruple,... better described as superfascist.
- Max Eastman,as quoted inThe Road to Serfdom,F.A. Hayek, New York: NY Routledge (2005) p. 28. First published in 1944.
- Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco andSalazar.Take awaycolonialismand you still have theBalkanfascism of theUstashes.Add to the Italian fascism a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinatedMussolini) and you haveEzra Pound.Add a cult ofCeltic mythologyand theGrailmysticism(completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus,Julius Evola.
- Umberto Eco,"Ur-Fascism" (indicating "eternal fascism" ), inThe New York Review of Books(22 June 1995)
- Ur-Fascism is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easily for us, if there appeared on the scene somebody saying "I want to re-openAuschwitz,I want theBlackshirtsto parade again in the Italian squares ". Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Ourdutyis to uncover it and point the finger at any of its new instances — every day and in every part of the world.
- Umberto Eco,"Ur-Fascism" (indicating "eternal fascism" ), inThe New York Review of Books(22 June 1995)
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- I most sincerely wish to go on record as being unalterably opposed toFrancisco Francoand fascism, to all violations of the legal government and outrages against the people ofRepublicanSpain.
- William Faulkner,1938, quoted in 'Frederick Robert Karl,William Faulkner, American writer:a biography'. New York: Weidenfeld & Nicolson, 1989. (p. 630).
- There is fascism, leading only into the blackness which it has chosen as its symbol, into smartness and yapping out of orders, and self-righteousbrutality,into social as well as international war. It meanschangewithouthope.Our immediate duty — in that tinkering which is the only useful form of action in our leaky old tub — our immediate duty is to stop it.
- E. M. Forster,"Notes on the Way",Time and TideMagazine (10 June 1934)' reprinted inThe Prince's Tale and Other Uncollected Writings(1998), London, Andre Deutsch.
- The commonly accepted theory that fascism originated in the conspiracy of the great industrialists to capture the state will not hold. It originated on the Left. Primarily it gets its first impulses in the decadent or corrupt forms of socialism—from among those erstwhile socialists who, wearying of that struggle, have turned first to syndicalism and then to becoming saviors of capitalism, by adapting the devices of socialism and syndicalism to the capitalist state.
- John T FlynnAs We Go Marching,New York: NY, Doubleday, 1944; repreint: New York NY, Free Life Edition, 1973, p. 68
- Fascism is a leftist product—a corrupt and diseased offshoot of leftist agitation.
- John T. FlynnAs We Go Marching,New York: NY, Doubleday, 1944; reprint: New York, NY, Free Life Edition, 1973, p. 68
- Fascism, since that is the word that is used, fascism presents, wherever it manifests itself, characteristics which are varied to the extent that countries and national temperaments vary. It is essentially a defensive reaction of the organism, a manifestation of the desire to live, of the desire not to die, which at certain times seizes a whole people. So each people reacts in its own way, according to its conception of life. Our rising, here, has aSpanishmeaning! What can it have in common with Hitlerism, which was, above all, a reaction against the state of things created by the defeat, and by the abdication and the despair that followed it?
- Francisco Franco,interview withHenri Massis,1938.. Quoted in Massis's bookChefs,Paris,Plon 1939.Also quoted in Richard Griffiths,An Intelligent Person's Guide to Fascism.London:Duckworth Publishing,2000.
- If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else.
- Franz Frison,Irving Debate Protest
- Fascism,NazismandStalinismhave in common that they offered the atomized individual a new refuge and security. These systems are the culmination ofalienation.Theindividualis made to feel powerless and insignificant, but taught to project all of his human powers into the figure of theleader,the state, the "fatherland," to whom he has to submit and whom he has toworship.He escapes fromfreedomand into a newidolatry.All the achievements ofindividualityandreason,from the lateMiddle Agesto thenineteenth centuryare sacrificed on the altars of the new idols.... built on the most flagrant lies, both with regard to their programs and to their leaders.
- Erich Fromm,The Sane SocietyNew York, NY, Rinehart & Company (1955) p. 208
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- Fascism never served the interests ofItalianbusiness...there is no credible evidence that Fascism controlled the nation's economy for the benefit of the 'possessing classes.'
- A. James Gregor,The Search for Neofascism: The Use and Abuse of Social Science,Cambridge University Press, 2006, p. 7.
- Fascism is the cult of organisedmurder,invented by the arch-enemies ofsociety.It tends to destroycivilizationand revert man to his most barbarous state.MussoliniandHitlermight well be called thedevilsof an age, for they are playinghellwith civilization.
- Marcus Garvey,Authors take Sides on the Spanish War(1937)
- The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide; he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but not above all for others — those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after.
- Giovanni GentileinThe Doctrine of Fascism,signed and approved byBenito Mussoliniin 1932; sometimes misattributed to Mussolini.
- Fascism begins with the rhetoric ofdehumanization,humiliation,and reification, right? It starts with the language of brutality, which it normalizes. It legitimates hatred and racism and violence. It views certain groups through rhetoric as enemies of the American people. It operates off of the rhetoric of war,anti-intellectualism,andwhite supremacy.It operates off of the language of disposability. That language doesn't just simply normalize increasingly the notions ofwhite nationalism,white supremacy,racism,andxenophobia;it also enacts policies and it creates a culture of utterstupidity,a culture ofignorance.And, unfortunately, it functions so as to enableviolenceagainst groups labeled as dangerous, other, excess, and a threat to thewhitewashednotion ofcitizenship.[...] Fascism first begins withlanguage,and then gains momentum as an organizing force for shaping a culture that legitimates indiscriminate violence against entire groups —Black people,immigrants,Jews,Muslims,and others considered “disposable.”
- Henry Giroux,as quoted inHenry Giroux on His Latest Book — The Terror of the Unforeseen — and How Neoliberal Capitalism Sets the Stage for Fascism(August 19, 2019),Media For Us.
- A good journalist must recognize in Fascism certain ancient virtues of the race, whether or not they happen to be momentarily fashionable in his own country. Among them areDiscipline,Duty,Courage,GloryandSacrifice.
- Laird Goldsborough, inFortune(July 1934)
- Fascism is areligionof the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It istotalitarianin that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rivalidentityis part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary Americanliberalismembodies all of these aspects of fascism.
- Jonah Goldberg,inLiberal Fascism(2008), p. 23
- Back in the late1980s,I published an article entitled “What Is Fascism—And Why Do Women Need to Know?” in Lesbian Contradiction, a paper I used to edit with three other women. It was at the height of thepresidencyofRonald Reaganand I was already worried about dangerous currents in theRepublican Party,ones that today have swelled into a full-scale riptide tothe right.There’s a lot that’s dated in the piece, but the definition I offered for that much-used (and misused) bit of political terminology still stands:
The term itself was invented by Benito Mussolini, the premier ofItalyfrom 1922 to 1945, and refers to the ‘fasces,’ the bundle of rods which symbolized the power of theRoman emperors.Today, I would define fascism as anideology,movement,orgovernmentwith several identifying characteristics:
•Authoritarianismand afanaticalrespect for leaders. Fascism is explicitly anti-democratic. It emerges in times of social flux or instability and of chaotic and worsening economic situations.
• Subordination of the individual to the state or to the “race.” This subordination often has a spiritual implication: people are offered anopportunityto transcend their own sense of insignificance through participation in a powerful movement of the chosen.
• Appeal to a mythicalimperial gloryof the past. That past may be quiteancient,as in Mussolini’s evocations of the Roman Empire. Or it might be as recent as theUnited Statesof the1950s.
•Biologicaldeterminism.Fascism involves a belief in absolute biological differences between thesexesand among differentraces.
• Genuine popularity. The scariest thing to me about real fascism is that it has always been a trulypopular movement.Even when it is a relatively minor force, fascism can be a mass movement without being a majority movement.
“Having laid out these basic elements,” I added, one “real strength of fascism lies in its extraordinary ideological elasticity,” which allows it to embrace a wide variety of economic positions fromlibertariantosocialistand approaches toforeign policythat range fromisolationismtoimperialism.I think this, too, remains true today.- Rebecca Gordon,The Right’s Attempted Extermination Campaign of Queer People Is Textbook Fascism(4 July 2023),The Nation
- What I failed to emphasize then—perhaps because I thought it went without saying (but it certainly needs to be said today)—is that fascism is almost by definition deadly. It needs enemies on whom it can focus the steaming rage of its adherents, and it is quite content for that rage to lead to literalextermination campaigns.
The creation of such enemies invariably involves a process of rhetorical dehumanization. In fascistpropaganda,target groups cease to be actual people, becoming instead vermin, viruses, human garbage, communists,Marxists,terrorists,or, in the case of thepresent attacks on LGBT people,pedophilesandgroomers.As fascist movements develop, they bring underground streams of hatred into the light of “legitimate” political discourse.
All those decades ago, I suggested that theChristian fundamentalistsrepresented an incipient fascist force. I think it’s fair to say that today’sMake America Great Againcrew has inherited that mantle, successfully incorporatingright-wing Christianityinto a larger proto-fascist movement. All the elements of classic fascism now lurk there: adulation of the leader, subordination of the individual to the larger movement, an appeal to mythical past glories, a not-so-subtle embrace of white supremacy, and discomfort with anything or anyone threatening the “natural” order of men and women. You have only to watch a video of a Trump rally to see that his is a mass (even if not a majority) movement.- Rebecca Gordon,The Right’s Attempted Extermination Campaign of Queer People Is Textbook Fascism(4 July 2023),The Nation
- Why should it matter whetherDonald Trump’s MAGA movement and the Republican Party he’s largely taken over represent a kind of fascism? The answer: because the logic of fascism leads so inexorably to the politics ofextermination.Describing his MAGA movement as fascism makes it easier to recognize the existential threat it truly represents—not only to a democratic society but to specific groups of human beings within it.
I know it may sound alarmist, but I think it’s true: proto-fascist forces in this country have shown that they are increasingly willing to exterminate queer people, if that’s what it takes to gain and hold on to power. If I’m right, that means all Americans, queer or not, now face an existential threat.<br<For those who don’t happen to fall into one of MAGA’s target groups, let me close by paraphrasing Donald Trump: In the end, they’re coming after you. We’re just standing in the way.- Rebecca Gordon,The Right’s Attempted Extermination Campaign of Queer People Is Textbook Fascism(4 July 2023),The Nation
- Fascism is characterised by; an all-powerful state and leader;monism— a single party, ideology and centre of power; expansionist nationalism and/or racism,anti-communism,anti-egalitarianism,anti-liberalism,anti-individualism, anti-rationalism,anti-intellectualism;symbol,mythand mysticism; a cult ofwar,violenceandyouth;advocacy of privatepropertybut hostility tofree marketcapitalism,and a combination ofconsentandcoercion,propagandaand terror. Clearly, fascist ideology is full of 'negations' — that is, it is a highly negativephilosophywhich opposes as much as it supports. This is unsurprising, given its origins as a fundamental rejection of inter-warliberal democracyand all of its attendant values.
- Moyra Grant, quoted inKey Ideas in Politics(2003) by Nelson Thornes
- THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS.
- Woody Guthrie,a message he would variously write orposton his guitar, beginning in 1941.
I'm gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised
People all over this world are getting organized
You're bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
Race hatred cannot stop us, this one thing I know
Poll taxandJim Crowand greed have got to go
You're bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
...
People of every color marching side by side
Marching across these fields where a million fascists died
You're bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose
...
I'm going into this battle, take my union gun
Gonna end this world ofslaverybefore this war is won
You're bound to lose
You fascists are bound to lose- Woody Guthrie,"All You Fascists",recorded in 1944 (YouTube video)
- Should one choose to seek out today's fascism, one is counseled to look to the retrograde formerSoviet Union,and the reformistPeople's Republic of China.They are the natural hosts of a ‘resurgence’ of fascism.
- A. James Gregor,Giovanni Gentile: Philosopher Of Fascism,Transactions Publishers (2004) p. xii
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[edit]- There is a sense in which the appearance of organized fascism on the political stage seems to solve everything for the left. It confirms our best-worst suspicions, awakening familiar ghosts and spectres. Fascism andeconomic recessiontogether seem to render transparent those connections which most of the time are opaque, hidden and displaced. Away with all those' time-wasting theoretical speculations! The Marxist guarantees are all in place after all, standing to attention. Let us take to the streets. This is not an argument against taking to the streets. Indeed, the direct interventions against the rising fortunes of the National Front - local campaigns,anti-fascistwork in the unions, trades councils, women's groups, the mobilization behind the Anti-Nazi League, the counterdemonstrations, above all Rock Against Racism (one of the timeliest and best constructed of cultural interventions, repaying serious and extended analysis) - constitute one of the few success stories of the conjuncture. But it is an argument against the satisfactions which sometimes flow from applying simplifying analytic schemes to complex events. What we have to explain is a move toward 'authoritarian populism' - an exceptional form of thecapitaliststate which, unlike classical fascism, has retained most (though not all) of the formal representative institutions in place, and which at the same time has been able to construct around itself an active popular consent. This undoubtedly represents a decisive shift in the balance of forces, and the National Front has played a 'walk-on' part in this drama. It has entailed a striking weakening of democratic forms and initiatives; but not their suspension. We miss precisely what is specific to this exceptional form of the crisis of the capitalist state by mere name-calling.
- Stuart Hall,"The Great Moving Right Show",Marxism Today(December 1978)
- Nothing's more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all.
- Fred Hampton,Excerpt fromDemocracy Now
- If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.... They arepatrioticin time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.
- *Quoted byThom HartmanninFascists Compete To Own America, Common Dreams,(30 April 2018)
- The following joke circulated in Italy in the 1920s. According toMussolini,the ideal citizen isintelligent,honest,and Fascist. Unfortunately, no one is perfect, which explains why everyone you meet is either intelligent and Fascist but not honest, honest and Fascist but not intelligent, or honest and intelligent but not Fascist.
- Maurice Herlihy and Nir Shavit inThe Art of Multiprocessor Programming(2012), p. 65
- ‘But are there not many fascists in your country?'
'There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.'”- Ernest Hemingway,For Whom The Bell Tolls(1940), p. 208
- Of course, I am against fascism with its spread of color prejudice andrace hatredandworking classoppression. How could any sensibleNegrobe otherwise?
- Langston Hughes,inWriters take sides; letters about the war in Spain from 418 American authorsbyLeague of American Writers,1938. Also quoted in Brian Dolinar,The Black cultural front: black writers and artists of the Depression generation.Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2012.
- To satisfy their hunger for meaning and value, they [the masses] turn to such doctrines asnationalism,fascism and revolutionarycommunism.Philosophically and scientifically, these doctrines are absurd; but for the masses in every community, they have this great merit: they attribute the meaning and value that have been taken away from the world as a whole to the particular part of the world in which the believers happen to be living.
- Aldous Huxley,Ends and Means: An Inquiry into the Nature of Ideals and into Methods Employed for Their Realization.New York: Harper & Brothers Publishers, 1937.
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[edit]- The fascist arrangement has attempted to create the illusion of a mass society in which the traditional capitalistruling classwould continue to play its leading role.
- George L. Jackson,Blood in My Eye(1971), p. 121
- The fascist arrangement tolerates the existence of no valid revolutionary activity. It has programmed into its very nature a massive, complex and automatic defense mechanism for all our old methods for raising the consciousness of a potentially revolutionary class of people. The essence of a U.S.A.totalitariansocio-political capitalism is concealed behind the illusion of a mass participatory society. We must rip away its mask. Then the debate can end, and we can enter a new phase of struggle based on the development of an armed revolutionary culture that will triumph.
- George L. Jackson,Blood in My Eye(1971), p. 138
- In Italy... rugby has 'long been appreciated for its pedagogical value as a "'maker ofmen"'.... Rugby expanded further in the Fascist era as apropagandatool for conditioning the masses to Fascist aims. Such conditioning combined thephysicalwith theideologicalin the making of men to serve the state and its aims.
- Timothy John, Lindsay Chandler, John Nauright;“Making the Rugby World: Race, Gender, Commerce”,p.xx
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[edit]- By 1939 [Fascist] Italy had the highest percentage of state-owned enterprises outside of the Soviet Union.
- Patricia Knight,Mussolini and Fascism (Questions and Analysis in History)(2003) p. 65
- MussoliniandHitlerpromisedto restorenational glory and depicted themselves as the last defense againstradicalsocialism.Neither appealed toracismat first. Not even Hitler, who muted his virulentanti-Semitismin public to attractmiddle-classvoters during the late 1920s. New followers told themselves he had mellowed, buthis baseand hisJewish targetsnever doubted his true intentions.
- Many powerful right-wing movements of the earlytwentieth century―National Socialism, Fascism, and their imitators elsewhere―also expressed anostalgiafor theMiddle Ages.The Italian poet and FuturistGabriele D'Annunzioespoused a "socialistromanticism"that helped lay the foundations of the Fascist corporatist state. InFrance,the leaders ofAction Francaisesought to bring about a "counter-Renaissance"and reimpose thehierarchicalcorporative structure of theancien regime.InEngland,Fascist sympathizers likeOswald Mosleylamented the passing of "Merrie old England," swept away by the competitive reality of ethnically mixed modern cities. Even today, some on theEuropeanfar-rightsee in the Middle Ages an affirmation oftraditional Christianvalues, and find inspiration in theCrusaderresponse to assaults fromIslamicaggression.
- Joel Kotkin,The Coming of Neo-Feudalism: A Warning to the Global Middle Class(2020), pp. 16-17
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- Two things make thefuturereal,theartist'simaginationand theworker'shope.Fascismdestroysboth. Therefore the artist and the worker mustuniteto destroy Fascism. The Fascist artist is atraitor,theneutralis alreadydead.Artandanti-Fascismare synonymous.
- John Langdon-Davies,Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War.Left Review. 1937..Quoted inBuchanan, Tom (1997).Britain and the Spanish Civil War.Cambridge University Press. p. 32.ISBN 978-0-521-45569-5.
- The parallels between fascism and Communism as ideologies are significant.
- Mark Lilla,“An Idea Whose Time Has Gone," July 25, 1999,The New York Times Book Review[1]
- When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled "made in Germany"; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, "Americanism.… The high-sounding phrase" the American way "will be used by interested groups intent on profit, to cover a multitude of sins against the American andChristiantradition, such sins as lawless violence, teargas and shotguns, denial ofcivil liberties... There is an obligation resting on us all to dedicate our minds to the hard task of thinking in terms of Christian objectives and values, so that we may be saved from moral confusion.
For never, probably, has there been a time when there was a more vigorous effort to surround social and international questions with such a fog of distortion and prejudices and hysterical appeal to fear.- Halford E. Luccockin "Keeping Life Out of Confusion" (11 September 1938), as quoted in "Disguised Fascism Seen As A Menace" inThe New York Times(12 September 1938), p. 15; also in"Fascism comes wrapped in the flag" (with online facsimile of article)
- The totalitarian states, whether of the fascist or the communist persuasion, are more than superficially alike as dictatorships, in the suppression ofdissent,and in operating planned and directed economies. They are profoundly alike.
- Walter Lippmann,The Good Society(1937); Transaction Publications edition (2005), p. 89
- I witnessed the rise of fascism in Germany and I know very well that very many young people at that time adhered to fascism out of a sincere indignation at the capitalist system.
- György LukácsinConversations with Lukács(Cambridge: 1975), p. 148
- The fascists have reaped what they have sown. The workers will not tolerate anyone defying them on their ground. The experience of Italy and Germany tears too strongly at the heart of all proletarians to allow it to happen again.
- Issue ofL'Humanite(April 24th, 1925)
- Antifa: The Anti-Fascist Handbook
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- Whatdistinguishes liberal from Fascistpolitical tactics is not a difference of opinion in regard to thenecessityof using armedforceto resist armed attackers, but a difference in the fundamental estimation of the role of violence in a struggle forpower.The greatdangerthreatening domestic policy from the side of Fascism lies in its completefaithin the decisive power ofviolence.In order to assure success, one must be imbued with thewilltovictoryand always proceed violently. This is its highest principle. What happens, however, when one's opponent, similarly animated by the will to be victorious, acts just as violently? The result must be a battle, acivil war.The ultimate victor to emerge from such conflicts will be the faction strongest in number. In the long run, a minority — even if it is composed of the most capable and energetic — cannot succeed in resisting the majority. The decisive question, therefore, always remains: How does one obtain a majority for one's own party? This, however, is a purely intellectual matter. It is a victory that can be won only with the weapons of the intellect, never by force. The suppression of all opposition by sheer violence is a most unsuitable way to win adherents to one's cause. Resort to naked force — that is, without justification in terms of intellectual arguments accepted by public opinion — merely gains newfriendsfor those whom one is thereby trying to combat. In a battle between force and anidea,the latter always prevails.
- Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of theintellect— better because they alone give promise of final success. This is the fundamental error from which Fascism suffers and which will ultimately cause its downfall. The victory of Fascism in a number of countries is only an episode in the long series of struggles over the problem of property. The next episode will be the victory ofCommunism.The ultimate outcome of the struggle, however, will not be decided by arms, but by ideas. It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales.
So much for the domestic policy of Fascism. That itsforeign policy,based as it is on the avowed principle of force ininternational relations,cannot fail to give rise to an endless series of wars that must destroy all of modern civilization requires no further discussion. To maintain and further raise our present level of economic development,peaceamong nations must be assured. But they cannot live together in peace if the basic tenet of the ideology by which they are governed is the belief that one's own nation can secure its place in the community of nations by force alone.
It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment ofdictatorshipsare full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, savedEuropeancivilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error.
- Fascism is a matter of taste.
- Vyacheslav Molotov,(Soviet Foreign Minister 1939 to 1949 and 1953 to 1956) inCommunism and the Conscience of the West,Fulton J. Sheen,Bobbs–Merrill, (1948) p. 115.
- The twigs will be tied together in a neater and stronger bundle if they are all the same size and length. That's fascism. It suggests that you have two contrary organisational principles involved... One is a kind of linear, mechano-like organisation – tie up all the sticks, make sure they are the same length, and you have a brick wall or something. The other one –anarchy– is a more fractal more natural more human organisational system in that it organises society in much the same way that we organise our personalities. Where it is purely the interplay of neurons – we haven't got a king neuron that tells all the other neurons what to do. It seems to me to be a more emotionally natural way of working with other people.
- Alan Moore,in"Alan Moore Interview" by Matthew De Abaitua (1998),later published inAlan Moore: Conversations(2011) edited by Eric L. Berlatsky
- Margaret Thatcherhad been in power for two or three years. She was facing the first crisis of her, by then, very unpopular government. There were riots all over Britain in places that hadn't seen riots for hundreds of years. There were fascists groups, theNational Front,theBritish National Party,who were flexing their muscles and sort of trying to make political capital out of what were fairly depressed and jobless times. It seemed to me that with the kind ofReagan/Thatcher axis that existed across theAtlantic,it looked like Western society was taking somewhat a turn for the worse. There were ugly fascist stains starting to reassert themselves that we might have thought had been eradicated back in the '30s. But they were reasserting themselves with a different spin. They were talking less about annihilating whichever minority they happened to find disfavor with and talking more aboutfree marketforces and market choice and all of these other kind of glib terms, which tended to have the same results as an awful lot of the kind of Fascist causes back in the 1930s but with a bit more spin put upon them. The friendly face of fascism.
- Alan Moore,as quoted inThe Beat(March 2006)
- Bothpolitical Parties,and the remnants ofLiberalismas well, stand bound by the great vested interests of "Right"and"Left"which created them. In Opposition, there is the same profusion of promise; in office, the same apathy and inertia. Inpost-War England,their creeds have become platitudes; they consistently fail to grapple with the problems of the time. Their rule has led, with tragic inevitability, to the present chaos. Therefore ourFascist Movementseeks on the one handauthorityas the basis of all solid achievement; we seek, on the other hand, progress, which can be achieved only by the executive instrument thatorder,authorityanddecisionalone can give.
- Oswald Mosley,The Greater Britain,1932. Quoted in Joel H. Wiener,Great Britain: the lion at home: a documentary history of domestic policy, 1689-1973: Volume 4,1974. Chelsea House publishers, New York. Also in Walter L. Arnstein,The Past Speaks: Sources and Problems in British History,Lexington, Mass.: D.C. Heath, 1993.
- Governmentsand Parties which have relied on the normal instruments of government...have fallen easy and ignoble victims to the forces of anarchy. If, therefore, such a situation arises in Britain, we shall prepare to meet the anarchy of Communism with the organised force of Fascism.
- Oswald Mosley,The Greater Britain,1932. Quoted in John Stevenson and Chris Cook,The Slump: Britain in the Great DepressionNew York: Pearson Longman, 2010.
- Fascist policy is clear cut. We have a right to stay inIndiaand we intend to stay there. We have more than a right; we have a duty to stay there. We have a right because modern India owes everything toBritish rule.
- Oswald Mosley,The Greater Britain,1932. Also quoted in "James Drennan",William Edward David Allen,BUF: Oswald Mosley and British Fascism,John Murray (1934).
- Nothing is permanent: certainly not the frozen images of barbarous power with which fascism now confronts us. Those images may easily be smashed by an external shock, cracked as ignominiously as the fallenDagon,the massive idol of the heathen; or they may be melted, eventually, by the internal warmth of normal men and women. Nothing endures except life: the capacity for birth, growth, and renewal. As life becomes insurgent once more in our civilization, conquering the reckless thrust of barbarism, the culture of cities will be both instrument and goal.
- Lewis Mumford,"Introduction" toThe Culture of Cities,1938.
- We want an extraordinary heavytaxation,with a progressive character, oncapital,that will represent an authentic partial expropriation of allwealth;seizures of all assets of religious congregations and suppression of all the ecclesiastic Episcopal revenues, in what constitutes an enormous deficit of the nation and a privilege for a minority; revisions of all contracts made by the war ministers and seizure of 85% of all war profits.
- Benito Mussolini,quoted in "Fasci Italiani di Combattimento" (Italian Combat Fasci),Il Popolo d'Italia(6 June 1919); published inRevolutionary Fascism(2011), by Erik Norling, p. 92
- Ifrelativismsignifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity. From thefactthat all ideologies are of equalvalue,we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable.
- Benito Mussolini,in "Diuturna"[" The Lasting "] (1921)
- Standing by me and helping my work as newspaper man were theFascisti.They were composed of revolutionary spirits who believed in intervention. They were youths—the students of the universities, the socialist syndicalists—destroying faith inKarl Marxby their ideals.
- Benito Mussolini,My Autobiography,New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1928. Reprinted in Benito Mussolini,My Rise And Fall, Volumes 1-2Da Capo Press,1998 (p.40).
- My conception always was that Fascism must assume the characteristics of being anti-party. It was not to be tied to old or new schools of any kind. The name "Italian Fighting Fascisti" was lucky. It was most appropriate to a political action that had to face all the old parasites and programmes that had tried to deprave Italy. I felt that it was not only the anti-socialist battle we had to fight; this was only a battle on the way.... It was therefore not sufficient to create—as some have said superficially—an anti-altar to the altar ofsocialism.It was necessary to imagine a wholly new political conception, adequate to the living reality of thetwentieth century,overcoming at the same time the ideological worship of liberalism, the limited horizons of various spent and exhausted democracies, and finally the violentlyUtopianspirit of Bolshevism.
- Benito Mussolini,My Autobiography,New York, C. Scribner's Sons, 1928. Reprinted in Benito Mussolini,My Rise And Fall, Volumes 1-2Da Capo Press,1998 (p. 68-9)
- The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity.
- Benito Mussolini,My Autobiographyby Mussolini, New York: NY, Charles Scribner's Sons (1928) p. 280.
- The Fascist State directs and controls theentrepreneurs,whether it be in our fisheries or in our heavy industry in theVal d'Aosta.There the State actually owns theminesand carries ontransport,for therailwaysare state property. So are many of thefactories... We term it state intervention... If anything fails to work properly, the State intervenes. Thecapitalistswill go on doing what they are told, down to the very end. They have no option and cannot put up any fight. Capital is not God; it is only a means to an end.
- Benito Mussolini,Talks with Mussolini,Emil Ludwig,Boston, MA, Little, Brown and Company (1933), pp. 153-154, Interview took place between March 23 and April 4, 1932[2]
- The Fascist State has never tried to create its own God, as at one momentRobespierreand the wildest extremists of the Convention tried to do; nor does it vainly seek to obliterate religion from the hearts of men as doesBolshevism:Fascism respects the God of theascetics,of thesaints,of theheroes,and also God as seen and prayed to by the simple and primitive heart of the people.
- Benito Mussolini,The Doctrine of Fascism,June 1932. Quoted in Charles Floyd Delzell,Mediterranean Fascism, 1919-45Springer, 1971.
- Above all, Fascism... believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetualpeace.It therefore discardspacifismas a cloak beneath which are concealed renunciation of struggle and cowardice in the face of self-sacrifice. War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and impresses the seal of nobility upon those peoples who have the courage to face up to it.
- Benito Mussolini,The Doctrine of Fascism,June 1932. Quoted in Jeffrey Thompson Schnapp, Olivia E. Sears, Maria G. StampinoA Primer of Italian Fascism,University of Nebraska Press,2000 (p.53).
- Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can direct human society. It denies that numbers can govern by means of periodical consultations: It asserts the unavoidable fruitful and beneficent inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device asuniversal suffrage.
- Benito Mussolini,The Doctrine of Fascism,June 1932. Quoted in Marco Piraino, Stefano Fiorito,Fascist identity: political project and doctrine of facism.Lulu.com, 2009. (p. 107)
- For Fascism, the growth ofEmpire,that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation ofvitality,and its opposite a sign ofdecadence.Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; any renunciation is a sign ofdecayand ofdeath.Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But Empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice.
- Benito Mussolini,The Doctrine of Fascism,June 1932. Quoted in Paul O'Brien,Mussolini in the First World War: The Journalist, the Soldier, the Fascist.Bloomsbury Publishing,2014.
- Yet the Fascist State is unique, and an original creation. It is not reactionary, but revolutionary...
- Benito Mussolini,“The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism”, Jane Soames, authorized translator, Hogarth Press, London, (1933), p. 23
- You want to know what fascism is like? It is like yourNew Deal!
- Benito Mussolini,as quoted inMr. New York: The Autobiography of Grover A. Whalenby Grover Aloysius Whalen, G.P. Putnam's Sons (1955) p. 188
- Three-fourths of theItalian economy,industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state. And if I dare to introduce to Italystate capitalismorstate socialism,which is the reverse side of the medal, I will have the necessary subjective and objective conditions to do it.
- Benito Mussolini,quoted inThe Oxford Handbook of the Italian Economy Since Unification,by Gianni Toniolo, editor, Oxford University Press (2013) p. 59. Mussolini's speech to the Chamber of Deputies on May 26, 1934.
- A party governing a nation “totalitarianly"is a new departure in history. There are no points of reference nor of comparison. From beneath the ruins ofliberal,socialist,anddemocraticdoctrines, Fascism extracts those elements which are still vital. It preserves what may be described as "the acquired facts" of history; it rejects all else. That is to say, it rejects the idea of a doctrine suited to all times and to all people. Granted that theXIXth centurywas the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the "right", a Fascist century. If the XIXth century was the century of the individual (liberalism impliesindividualism) we are free to believe that this is the "collective"century, and therefore the century of the State.
- Benito Mussolini,in "The Doctrine of Facism(1932); as translated inFascism Doctrine and Institutions,official Fascist government publication (1935)
- Variant translations:
- It may be expected that this will be a century of authority, a century of the Left, a century of Fascism.
- "The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism," first authorized translation into English (1933) byJane Soames,p. 20; reprinted inThe Living Age(November, 1933), p. 241 "The Doctrine of Fascism"p. 20 in the 1933 original“The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism”
- If it is admitted that the nineteenth century has been the century of Socialism]],LiberalismandDemocracy,it does not follow that the twentieth must also be the century of Liberalism, Socialism and Democracy. Political doctrines pass; peoples remain. It is to be expected that this century may be that of authority, a century of the "Right," a Fascist century.
- Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived in their relation to the State.
- Benito Mussolini,in "The Doctrine of Fascism"(1932), as quoted inThe New York Times(11 January 1935)
- When brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism andtrade unionism,giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State.
- Benito Mussolini,"The Doctrine of Fascism" ( "La dottrina del fascismo" ). The 1935 edition from Vallecchi: Editore Firenze, p.15
- Againstindividualism,the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State... It is opposed toClassical Liberalism... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual.
- Benito Mussolini,"The Doctrine of Fascism" (1935 version)
- I declare that henceforthcapitalandlaborshall have equal rights and duties as brothers in the fascist family.
- Benito Mussolini,as quoted inThe Fate of Trade Unions Under Fascism(1937), Ch. 3: "Italian Trade Unions Under Fascism", p. 35
- The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises. The new cycle which begins with the ninth year of the Fascist regime places the alternative in even greater relief — either we or they, either their ideas or ours, either our State or theirs!
- Benito Mussolini,as quoted in "Fundamentals of Critical Argumentation" (2005) by Douglas Walton, p. 263
- We are fighting to impose a higher social justice. The others are fighting to maintain the privileges of caste and class. We are proletarian nations that rise up against the plutocrats.
- Benito Mussolini,quoted in “Soliloquy for ‘freedom’ Trimellone island", on the Italian Island of Trimelone, journalist Ivanoe Fossani, one of the last interviews of Mussolini, March 20, 1945, fromOpera omnia,vol. 32. Interview is also known as "Testament of Benito Mussolini, orTestamento di Benito Mussolini.Also published under “Mussolini confessed to the stars”, Publishing House Latinitas, Rome, 1952. (Intervista di Ivanoe Fossani, Soliloquio in “libertà” all'isola Trimellone, Isola del Trimellone, 20 marzo 1945)
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[edit]- Fascism recognizes the social utility ofprivate property,which involves both a right and a duty.... TheNational Fascist Partyis in favour of a regime that encourages the growth of national wealth by spurring individual initiative and energy... and it absolutely repudiates the motley, costly, and uneconomic machinery of state control, socialism, and municipalization.
- National Fascist Party,programme, adopted by the Third Congress, Rome, 1921. Quoted in Charles Floyd Delzell,Mediterranean Fascism, 1919-45Springer, 2 Jul 1971 (p.33). Also in Martin Blinkhorn,Fascism and the right in Europe, 1919-1945New York:Longman,2000. (p. 129)
- The superficial distinctions of Fascism, Bolshevism, Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion ofsocial powerinto State power.
- Albert Jay Nock,Our Enemy, The State,Caldwell, Idaho, Caxton Press (1950), first published in 1935.
- There is little difference between the two, and in certain respects, Fascism and Bolshevism are the same.
- Francesco Saverio Nitti,Bolshevism, Fascism and Democracy(1927) p. 130
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- Fascism would like to be conservative, but it will end by being revolutionary.
- Angelo Oliviero Olivetti,“Nel labirinto,”Pagine liber,May-June, 1922, p. 163.Zeev Sternhell,Mario Sznajder, Maia Asheri,The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution,Princeton University Press, 1994, p. 190
- It is usual to speak of the Fascist objective as the "beehive state", which does grave injustice tobees.A world of rabbits ruled bystoatswould be nearer the mark.
- George Orwell,The Road to Wigan Pier(1937), Ch. 12
- The Fascisti are to Italy what theAmerican Legionis to theUnited States.
- Legion Commander Alvin Owsley, 1923, quoted in "The Untold History of the United States" (2013) by Oliver Stone and Peter Kuznick, St. Ives:Edbury Press, p. 52
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[edit]- Not only was [Fascist] Italy the first Western country to recognize the Soviet Union in 1924, but the new Soviet art first appeared in the West that year at the Venice Biennale, Italy's premiere art show.
- Stanley G. PayneA History of Fascism 1914—1945,Madison: Wisconsin, University of Wisconsin Press, 1995, p. 223, (first signedde jurerecognition).
- During its earlier years fascism was hostile to theCatholic churchand several priests were assassinated and churches burned by the fascists. This was due partly to the fact that the papacy has never been reconciled to the unification of Italy because it was deprived of its temporal power.
- Maurice Parmelle,Bolshevism, Fascism, and the Liberal-Democratic State,London: UK; Chapman and Hill, LTD, New York: NY, John Wiley and Son, Inc. (1935) p. 190.
- Fascists have no interest in winning that battle. They don't care about respectingfree speechor theright to a fair trial;they've openly declared theirmurderous intenttowardspeople of colour(and other undesirables) and they'll pursue that goal by any means necessary.
- Eleanor Penny,as quoted inNoam Chomsky: Antifa is a 'major gift to the right'by Maya Oppenheim, 22 August 2017,The Independent
- Fascism issued from the 'Bolshevik' wing of Italian socialism, not from anyconservativeideology or movement.
- Richard Pipes,"Russia Under The Bolshevik Regime" (1995), p. 253
- Market society was born in England—yet it was on theContinentthat its weaknesses engendered the most tragic complications. In order to comprehend German fascism, we must revert toRicardianEngland.The nineteenth century, as cannot be overemphasized, was England's century. TheIndustrial Revolutionwas an English event.Market economy,free trade,and thegold standardwere English inventions. These institutions broke down in the twenties everywhere—in Germany, Italy, orAustriathe event was merely more political and more dramatic. But whatever the scenery and the temperature of the final episodes, the long-run factors which wrecked that civilization should be studied in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England.
- Karl Polanyi,The Great Transformation(1944), Ch. 2: Conservative Twenties, Revolutionary Thirties
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- [F]ascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—both are variants ofstatism,based on thecollectivistprinciple that man is the rightlessslaveof the state.
- Ayn Rand,Capitalism: The Unknown Ideal,New York: NY, Signet Book from the New American Library (1967) p. 180
- Such terms as communism, socialism,Fabianism,thewelfare state,Nazism, fascism, state interventionism,egalitarianism,theplanned economy,theNew Deal,theFair Deal,the New Republicanism, theNew Frontierare simply different labels for much the same thing.
- Leonard E. Read,Elements of Libertarian Leadership(1962), pp 62-63
- It is themechanistic-mysticalcharacter of modern man that produces fascist parties, and not vice versa.
The result of erroneous political thinking is that even today fascism is conceived as a specificnationalcharacteristic of theGermansor theJapanese.- Wilhelm Reich,in his Preface (August 1942), to the Third Edition ofThe Mass Psychology of Fascism(1933), p. xiii.
- If, by beingrevolutionary,onemeansrationalrebellionagainst intolerablesocialconditions, if, by beingradical,one means "going to the root of things," the rational will to improve them, then fascism is never revolutionary. True, it may have the aspect of revolutionaryemotions.But one would not call thatphysicianrevolutionary who proceeds against adiseasewithviolentcursing but the other who quietly,courageouslyandconscientiouslystudiesandfightsthecausesof the disease. Fascist rebelliousness always occurs wherefearof thetruthturns a revolutionary emotion intoillusion.
In its pure form, fascism is the sum total of allirrationalreactions of the averagehumancharacter.To the narrow-mindedsociologistwho lacks the courage to recognize the enormous role played by the irrational in humanhistory,the fascistracetheory appears as nothing but animperialisticinterest or even a mere 'prejudice.' Theviolenceand the ubiquity of these "race prejudices" show their origin from the irrational part of the human character. The race theory is not a creation of fascism. No: fascism is a creation of race hatred and itspoliticallyorganized expression. Correspondingly, there is aGerman,Italian,Spanish,Anglo-Saxon,JewishandArabianfascism. Race ideology is a pure biopathic expression of the character structure of the orgastically impotent man.
Thesadisticallyperversecharacter ofraceideologyis also betrayed in its attitude towards religion. Fascism is supposed to be a reversion topaganismand an archenemy ofreligion.Far from it - fascism is the supreme expression of religiousmysticism.As such, it comes into being in a peculiar social form. Fascism countenances thatreligiositythat stems from sexualperversion,and it transforms themasochisticcharacter of the oldpatriarchalreligion of suffering into a sadistic religion. In short, it transposes religion from the ‘other-worldliness’ of the philosophy of suffering to the ‘this worldliness’ of sadisticmurder.- Wilhelm Reich,in his Preface (August 1942), to the Third Edition ofThe Mass Psychology of Fascism(1933), p. xiv.
- The structure of fascism is characterized bymetaphysicalthinking, unorthodoxfaith,obsession with abstractethicalideals,andbeliefin the divinepredestinationof the fuhrer. These basic features are linked with a deeper layer, which is characterized by a strongauthoritariantie to the fuhrer-ideal or thenation.The belief in a ‘masterrace’ became the principal mainspring of the tie to the ‘fuhrer’ on the part of theNational Socialistmasses, as well as the foundation of their voluntaryacceptanceofslavishsubmission.
- Wilhelm Reich,The Mass Psychology of Fascism(1933), p. 80.
- Strangely, it is always America that is described as degenerate and 'fascist', while it is solely in Europe that actual dictatorships and totalitarian regimes spring up.
- Jean-Francois Revel,as quoted in"Europe's Anti-American Obsession"inThe View From Abroad(2003)
- Fascism was born to inspire a faith not of the Right (which at bottom aspires to conserve everything, even injustice) or of the Left (which at bottom aspires to destroy everything, even goodness), but a collective, integral, national faith.
- José Antonio Primo de Riverafounder of theFalange,on the nature of fascism as quoted inFalange: A History of Spanish Fascism,Stanley G. Payne(1961) p. 31
- In Turin the members of theCommunist Party,during theResistance,had to endure 8 hours of torture. [Fascists] would pull your eyes out with teaspoons, they'd rip your nails out with tweezers. And you had to stay silent for eight hours, and only after that you were allowed to confess and give the names of your comrades, and that was a Party guideline, to ensure the comrades' flight in those eight hours.
- Marco Rizzo,Video,16 February 2013
- The fundamental distinction between Fascism and other right-wing movements was its total rejection of bourgeois civilization... [Fascism] rejected the whole of liberal civilization—capitalism and the market system, individualism and rationality, the belief in progress and the faith in politics as a way of meeting society's needs without violence.
- J.M. Roberts,Europe 1880-1945 (A General History of Europe),London and New York, Longman (1984) p. 420. First published 1967.
- The most obvious novelty of Fascist movements is their revolutionary dynamics. True Fascists were unchecked by respect for tradition, institutions or ideas, and had an ambivalent relationship with traditional forces and groups.
- J.M. Roberts,Europe 1880-1945 (A General History of Europe),London and New York, Longman (1984) p. 419. First published 1967.
- For liberalism, the individual is the end, and society the means.... For Fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends.
- Alfredo Rocco,“The Political Doctrine of Fascism,” speech delivered at Perugia, Aug. 30, 1925. Speech printed inThe Primer of Italian Fascism,Jeffrey T. Schnapp, editor, University of Nebraska Press (2000) p.112.
- Not everyone who wants to be a fascist is one. A mere nationalist cannot be one, because he has not the slightest idea of socialism.
- Pierre Drieu La Rochelle,as quoted inNeither Right Nor Left: Fascist Ideology in France,Zeev Sternhell(1983) p. 226
- Fascism is the system of government that cartelizes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts thepolice Stateas the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive State the unlimited master of society.
- Lew Rockwell,Against the State: An Anarcho-Capitalist Manifesto,Auburn: AL, LewRockwell.com (2014) p. 131
- Russia was the example for fascism. [...] Whether party 'communists' like it or not, the fact remains that the state order and rule in Russia are indistinguishable from those in Italy and Germany. Essentially, they are alike. One may speak of a red, black, or brown 'soviet state', as well as of red, black or brown fascism... fascism is merely a copy of bolshevism.
- Otto Rühle,The Struggle Against Fascism Begins with the Struggle Against Bolshevism.The American Councillist Journal -Living Marxism,4 (8).
- Fascism was a monster born of capitalist parents. Fascism came as the end-product of centuries of capitalist bestiality, exploitation, domination, and racism—mainly exercised outside Europe. It is highly significant that many settlers and colonial officials displayed a leaning towards fascism.ApartheidinSouth Africais nothing but fascism. It was gaining roots from the early period of white colonization in the seventeenth century, and particularly after the mining industry brought South Africa fully into the capitalist orbit in the nineteenth century. Another example of the fascist potential of colonialism was seen when France was overrun byNazi Germanyin 1940. The French fascists collaborated with Hitler to establish what was called theVichy regimein France, and the French white settlers in Africa supported the Vichy regime. A more striking instance to the same effect was the fascist ideology developed by the white settlers in Algeria, who not only opposed independence for Algeria under Algerian rule, but they also strove to bring down the moreprogressiveorliberalgovernments of metropolitan France.
- Walter Rodney,How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.East African Publishers. 1972. p. 200.ISBN 978-9966-25-113-8.
- What is seldom commented upon is the fact that many Africans were the victims of fascism at the hands of the Portuguese and Spanish, at the hands of the Italians and theVichy Frenchregime for a brief period in the late 1930s and the early 1940s, and at the hands of the British andBoersin South Africa throughout this century. The fascist colonial powers were retarded capitalist states, where the government police machinery united with the Catholic church and the capitalists to suppress Portuguese and Spanish workers and peasants and to keep them ignorant. Understandably, the fascist colonialists wanted to do the same to African working people, and in addition they vented their racism on Africans, just as Hitler had done on the Jews.
- Walter Rodney,How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.East African Publishers. 1972. p. 249.ISBN 978-9966-25-113-8.
- Like most colonial administrations, that of theItalians in Libyadisregarded theculture of the Africans.However, after the fascist Mussolinicame to power,the disregard gave way to active hostility, especially in relation to theArabic languageand theMoslem religion.The Portuguese and Spanish had always shown contempt for African language and religion. Schools of kindergarten and primary level for Africans in Portuguese colonies were nothing but agencies for the spread of thePortuguese language.Most schools were controlled by theCatholic church,as a reflection of the unity of church and state infascist Portugal.In the little-knownSpanish colony of Guinea(Rio Muni), the small amount of education given to Africans was based on eliminating the use of local languages by the pupils and on instilling in their hearts "the holyfear of God."Schools in colonial Africa were usually blessed with the names of saints or bestowed with the names of rulers, explorers, and governors from the colonizing power. In Spanish Guinea, that practice was followed, resulting in the fact that Rio Muni children had to pass by the José Antonio school—the equivalent of saying the Adolf Hitler school if the region were German, for the school was named in honor ofJosé Antonio,the founder of theSpanish fascist party.
- Walter Rodney,How Europe Underdeveloped Africa.East African Publishers. 1972. p. 249.ISBN 978-9966-25-113-8.
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[edit]- Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them.
- Jean-Paul Sartre,"On the Execution ofJulius and Ethel Rosenberg",Libération(22 June 1953)
- In [Fascist] Italy and [Nazi] Germany the official unions have been made compulsory by law, while in the United States, the workers are not legally obligated to join the company unions but may even, if they so wish, oppose them.
- Gaetano Salvemini,The Fate of Trade Unions Under Fascism(1937), Ch. 3: "Italian Trade Unions Under Fascism", p. 35
- Donald Trumphas encouraged a new sort of alliance in the world, an alliance of fascists, authoritarians, dictators. It's striking to contrast this emerging global coalition of thug-ery to a movement formed out of the rubble ofWorld War II.It was known as theNon-Aligned Movement.
- There's much that we can learn from the struggle of thePartisans,the society that they sought to build and the horrifying end to the story ofYugoslavia.These lessons resonate strongly in our current moment in history.
- Fascists were notconservativein any very meaningful sense...The Fascists, in a meaningful sense, were revolutionaries... [F]ascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between.
- Arthur M. Schlesinger, Jr.“Not Right, Not Left, But a Vital Center”,New York Times Magazine,(April 4, 1948)
- Hitlertried and failed to begin aGerman national revolutioninMunichin November 1923, which led to a brief spell inprison.Though the substance of his National Socialism was his own creation, hiscoup d’étatwas inspired by the success of the Italian fascists he admired. Benito Mussolini had taken power in Italy the previous year after the “March on Rome,”which Hitler imitated without success in Munich. Italian fascists, like Hitler and hisNazis,offered the glorification of the national will over the tedium of political compromise. Mussolini, and Hitler following him, used the existence of theSoviet Unionwithin domestic politics. While admiring the discipline ofLeninand the model of theone-party state,both men used the threat of acommunist revolutionas an argument for their own rule. Though the two men differed in many respects, they both represented a new kind ofEuropean Right,one which took for granted that communism was the great enemy while imitating aspects of communist politics. Like Mussolini, Hitler was an outstanding orator and the one dominant personality in his movement. Hitler had little trouble regaining the leadership of the Nazi party after his release from prison in December 1924.
- Timothy D. Snyder,Bloodlands: Europe Between Hitler and Stalin(2022)
- Fascism is the falsehood that the enemy chosen by a leader must be the enemy for all.Politicsthen begins fromemotionandfalsehood.Peace becomes unthinkable, since enmity abroad is necessary for control at home. A fascist says "the people" and means "some people," those he favors at the moment.
- Timothy Snyder,The Road to Unfreedom,pp. 278–279
- Fascism began as a revision of Marxism by Marxists, a revision which developed in successive stages, so that these Marxists gradually stopped thinking of themselves as Marxists, and eventually stopped thinking of themselves as socialists. They never stopped thinking of themselves as anti-liberal revolutionaries.
- David Ramsay Steele“The Mystery of Fascism”, Libertarian Alliance (England) Jan. 29, 2002http://www.la-articles.org.uk/fascism.htm
- AlthoughIlyindressed up his idea of contemplation in several books, it really was no more than that: he saw his ownnationas righteous, and the purity of that vision was more important than anything Russians actually did. The nation, “pure and objective,” was what the philosopher saw when he blinded himself.
Innocence took a specific biological form. What Ilyin saw was a virginal Russian body. Likefascistsand otherauthoritariansof his day, Ilyin insisted that his nation was a creature, “an organism of nature and the soul,” an animal inEdenwithoutoriginal sin.
Who belonged within the Russian organism was not for the individual to decide, since cells do not decide whether they belong to a body.Russian culture, Ilyin wrote, automatically brought “fraternal union” wherever Russian power extended. Ilyin wrote of “Ukrainians” in quotation marks, because he denied their separate existence beyond the Russian organism. To speak ofUkrainewas to be a mortal enemy of Russia. Ilyin took for granted that a post-Soviet Russia would include Ukraine.- Timothy D. Snyder,The Road to Unfreedom,2018. Read it onlinehere.
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~Timothy D. Snyder
- The symbol Z, the rallies, thepropaganda,the war as a cleansing act of violence and the death pits around Ukrainian towns make it all very plain.
Thewar against Ukraineis not only a return to the traditionalfascistbattleground, but also a return to traditional fascist language and practice.Other people are there to becolonized.Russia is innocent because of its ancient past. The existence of Ukraine is an international conspiracy. War is the answer.
- Today people commonly use the word "fascism" instead of "national socialism."Presumably this is what you are asking. No.Hitlerismhad racism as its essentialdogmaticfoundation. But in amultiethniccountry, such an ideology has no chance of success. AndRussiahas never had such a movement. But if we speak about the rampage of militant chauvinism, then it exists--and in bloody form--in several republics of the formerU.S.S.R.,but certainly not in Russia. And if one were to count all the instances ofviolenceperpetrated onnationalistgrounds and in local wars, all of them took place outside of Russia and were not perpetrated byRussians.
- Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn,Interview With Aleksandr Solzhenitsyn on the New Russia and Ukraine (May 1994),by Paul Klebnikov, in the (9 May 1994), issue ofForbesmagazine
- If theFascist ideologycannot be described as a simple response toMarxism,its origins, on the other hand, were the direct result of very specificrevision of Marxism.It was a revision ofMarxismand not a variety of Marxism or a consequence of Marxism... It was the French and ItalianSorelians,the theoreticians of revolutionarysyndicalismwho made this new and original revision of Marxism, and precisely this was their contribution to the birth of theFascistideology.
- Zeev Sternhell,The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution(1989) p. 5
- Fascism rebelled againstmodernityinasmuch as modernity was identified with therationalism,optimism,andhumanismof the eighteenth century, but it was not a reactionary or an anti-revolutionary movement in theMaurrassiansense of the term. Fascism presented itself as a revolution of another kind, a revolution that sought to destroy the existing political order and to uproot its theoretical and moral foundations but that at the same time wished to preserve all the achievements of modern technology.
- Zeev Sternhell,The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution(1989) p. 7
- That is why so manySorelians,like many people on the Left both before and afterthe war,slid into fascism. When these leftists of all shapes and colors came to the conclusion that theworking classhad definitely beaten a retreat, they did not follow it into this attitude. Their socialism remained revolutionary when that of the proletariat had ceased to be so. Having to choose between theproletariatandrevolution,they chose revolution; having to choose between a proletarian but moderate socialism and a nonproletarian but revolutionary and national socialism, they opted for the nonproletarian revolution, the national revolution.
- Zeev Sternhell,The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution(1989) p. 27
- Thus, it was quite natural that a synthesis would arise between this new socialism [fascism], which discovered the nation as a revolutionary agent, and thenationalist movement,which also rebelled against the old world ofconservatives,against thearistocratsand thebourgeois,and againstsocial injusticesand which believed that the nation would never be complete until it had integrated the proletariat. A socialism for the whole collectivity and a nationalism that, severed from conservatism, proclaimed itself as being by definition the messenger of unity and unanimity thus came together to form an unprecedented weapon of war against the bourgeois order andliberal democracy.
- Zeev Sternhell,The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution(1989) pp. 27-8
- Thus, the historical circumstance of the half century preceding theSecond World Wargave rise to the essence of fascism: a synthesis of organic nationalism andanti-Marxist socialism,a revolutionary ideology based on a simultaneous rejection of liberalism, Marxism, and democracy.
- Zeev Sternhell,Neither Left nor Right: Fascist Ideology in France(1983) p. 27
- [Fascist ideology was] a variety of socialism which, while rejecting Marxism, remained revolutionary. This form of socialism was also, by definition, anti-liberal and anti-bourgeois, and its opposition tohistorical materialismmade it the natural ally ofradical nationalism.
- Zeev Sternhell,Neither Left nor Right: Fascist Ideology in France(1983) p. 268
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- Fascism presented itself not only as an alternative, but also as the heir to socialism.
- Jacob Talmon,The Myth of the Nation and the Vision of Revolution: The Origins of Ideological Polarization in the 20th Century,University of California Press, 1981. p. 501.
- Unity,in Fascist terms, means uniformity;freedom of consciencemeans insubordination;co-ordinationmeans coercion.
- Dorothy Thompson,"Let the Record Speak", Boston: MA, Houghton Mifflin Company (1939) p. 20 (newspaper column: “Political Dictionary,” March 19, 1936)
- The peoples of Yugoslavia do not wantFascism.They do not want atotalitarianregime, they do not want to becomeslavesof theGermanandItalianfinancialoligarchyas they never wanted to become reconciled to the semi-colonial dependence imposed on them by the so-calledWestern democraciesafter thefirst imperialist war.
- Josip Broz Tito,as quoted by Jasper Ridley,Tito: A Biography(Constable and Company Ltd., 1994), p. 155.
- Stalinism and fascism, in spite of a deep difference in social foundations, are symmetrical phenomena. In many of their features, they show a deadly similarity.
- Leon Trotsky,The Revolution Betrayed: What Is the Soviet Union and Where Is It Going?Labor Publications, Inc., Detroit, MI, 1991, pp. 237-238, Chap. 11, “Whither the Soviet Union.” First published 1937.
- The similarities of the economics of theNew Dealto the economics of Mussolini's corporative state or Hitler's totalitarian state are both close and obvious.
- As quoted byNorman ThomasinThree New Deals: Reflections on Roosevelt's America, Mussolini's Italy, and Hitler's Germany, 1933-1939,Wolfgang Schivelbusch,Metropolitan Books, 2006 pp. 28-29.
- There isn't any difference in totalitarian states. I don't care what you call them, Nazi, Communist or Fascist...
- Harry S. Truman,(Comment on May 13, 1947), Public Papers of the President of the United States,Harry S. Truman. Containing the Public Messages, Speeches, and Statements of the President, January 1 to December 31, 1947(Washington D.C., 1963), p. 238
- In all the countries where fascism became victorious, we had, before the growth of fascism and its victory, a wave ofradicalismof the masses — of the workers and the poorer peasants and farmers, and of thepetty bourgeoisclass. In Italy, after the war and before 1922, we had a revolutionary wave of tremendous dimensions; the state was paralyzed, the police did not exist, the trade unions could do anything they wanted — but there was not party capable of taking the power. As a reaction came fascism. In Germany, the same. We had a revolutionary situation in 1918; thebourgeoisclass did not even ask to participate in the power. Thesocial democratsparalyzed the revolution. Then the workers tried again in 1922-23-24. This was the time of the bankruptcy of theCommunist Party— all of which we have gone into before. Then in 1929-30-31, the German workers began again a new revolutionary wave. There was a tremendous power in the Communists and in the trade unions, but then came the famous policy (on the part of the Stalinist movement) ofsocial fascism,a policy invented to paralyze theworking class.Only after these three tremendous waves did fascism become a big movement. There are no exceptions to this rule — fascism comes only when the working class shows complete incapacity to take into its own hands the fate of society.
- Leon Trotsky,Fascism: What It Is and How To Fight It(1944)
- The last resource of the bourgeoisie is fascism, which replaces social and historical criteria with biological and zoological standards so as thus to free itself from any and all restrictions in the struggle for capitalist property.
- Donald was incompetent, but others inDonald's administrationwere anything but. What they built was a lean and ruthless machine for advancing fascism. With the help of some luck, complicitinstitutions,an unpreparedmedia,and a party of willing converts, that machine largely succeeded.
- Mary L. Trump,The Reckoning: Our Nation's Trauma and Finding a Way to Heal(2021), 1st Edition, New York: St. Martin's Press, p. 139
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- What fascism proposes is adreamand what fascism gives you, is anightmare.~Paul Verhoeven]]
- Paul Verhoevenas quoted by Ezra Marcus in“Is Starship Troopers, a fascist satire, coming true?”,Interview Magazine,(November 8, 2017)
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- The dangerousAmericanfascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did inGermanyin a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information..
- Henry A. Wallace,quoted byThom HartmanninFascists Compete To Own America, Common Dreams,(30 April 2018)
- The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with theAxis.TheFBIhas its finger on those.
- Henry A. Wallace,quoted byThom HartmanninFascists Compete To Own America, Common Dreams,(30 April 2018)
- With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public.
- Henry A. Wallace,quoted byThom HartmanninFascists Compete To Own America, Common Dreams,(30 April 2018)
- American fascism will not be really dangerous until there is a purposeful coalition among the cartelists, the deliberate poisoners of public information... Fascism is a worldwide disease... greatest threat to the United States will come after the war... within the United States itself.
- Henry A. Wallace,quoted byThom HartmanninFascists Compete To Own America, Common Dreams,(30 April 2018)
- If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful.... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead.
- Quoted byThom HartmanninFascists Compete To Own America, Common Dreams,(30 April 2018)
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- We have no right to disown our own shame in the upbringing of the beast from whom we have so lately been delivered. There was no country in Europe without its fascist party, and this at a time before the label appeared likely to prove safe or profitable.
- Rex Warner,inThe Cult of Power,The Bodley Head, (1946), p. 142
- Do we have afree presstoday? Sure we do. It’s free to report all the sex scandals it wants, all the stock market news we can handle, every new health fad that comes down the pike, and every celebrity marriage or divorce that happens. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff — stories like...corporatecorruption,orCIAinvolvement indrug trafficking— that’s where we begin to see the limits of our freedoms. In today’s media environment, sadly, such stories are not even open for discussion. Back in 1938, when fascism was sweeping Europe, legendary investigative reporterGeorge Seldesobserved that “it is possible to fool all the people all the time — when government and press cooperate.” Unfortunately, we have reached that point. p. 156
- Gary Webb,Into the Buzzsaw: Leading Journalists Expose the Myth of a Free Press(2002)
- Fascism had its origins in communism, and communism exhibited facets of fascism from its inception. Since the Soviet empire broke up, its logical course is toward fascism.
- Harry V. Willems, Southeast Kansas Library System, Iola,Library Journal,(1 March 2000)
- It would seem...that man has been shocked by thewarinto forgetting how to be apolitical animal.This suspicion is confirmed by the spread of Fascism, which is a headlong flight into fantasy from the necessity for political thought. There is nothing more obvious about the post-war situation than that it is novel, springs from causes which have not yet been analysed, and cannot be relieved until this analysis is complete and has been made the basis of a new social formual. Yet persons supporting Fascism behave as if man were already in possession of principles which would enable him to deal with all our problems, and as if it were only a question of appointing a dictator to apply them.
- Rebecca West,"The Necessity and Grandeur of the International Ideal" (1935), reprinted in Rebecca West,Woman as Artist and Thinker,edited by Helen Atkinson, Lincoln, Neb.:iUniverse,2005.
- I am for the legal government of Republican Spain againstFranco,since Spain herself, at a properly conductedelection,chose that Government and rejected the party which now supports Franco. I am also against Fascism; the reforms ofDiocletianwere a work of genius and made many people temporarily happy, but failed in the end and added greatly to humanmisery.I see no reason why this inferior modern copy of them should succeed.
- Rebecca West,"Authors Take Sides on the Spanish War" (1937), edited byNancy Cunard,reprinted inThe Spanish Front: Writers on the Civil War(1986), edited byValentine Cunningham
- In 1977,Klaus Theweleitpublished a book in which he sought to understand the germination of fascism in interwarGermany.His method was to study thefantasylife of that era's conservative revolutionaries, by reading thediaries,novelsandlettersof the men who joined theFreikorpsmilitias, and fought againstinsurgentcommunistsduring the early days of theWeimar Republic.
- Jason Wilson,"What do incels, fascists and terrorists have in common? Violent misogyny",The Guardian,(4 May 2018).
- In thefantasiesthey committed to paper, the men associated the women they despised with floods of liquid and slime, and with dirt – substances that would threaten to overwhelm the defences of their ill-formed psyches. The solider male felt that he could only guarantee “his own survival, his self-preservation and self-regeneration”, through acts of violence against such women. (Another way of maintaining their fragile sense of self is by slotting themselves into enveloping external structures like the armed forces or fascist youth organisations.)
In thesoldiermales’journalswe see them taking great pleasure, and building fraternal camaraderie, by murdering women, pairs of lovers and leftists of all genders. We also see that many of them cannot reconcile acts of physical love with the nature of their own desires. When it came to these men, their murderous acts and their sexual problems were not coincidental, they were interrelated.
In explaining how, Theweleit takes exception with the left’s then-dominant explanation of fascism – that it was a result of pure irrationality, or repressed homosexuality. Some said it could be countered by the left mounting a renewed defence of progress and reason, or by beefing up alternative institutions that mirrored those of the fascists.
For Theweleit, this misses the central dynamic that propels the fascist male towards violence. Fascism derives its power from channelling the protean, potentially liberating force of human desire towards hatred, distorting it into a desire for death and blood. All of its institutions, its rituals, and the (male) bonds it promotes are bent to this purpose. We cannot beat fascists by aping their structures, any more than we can hope to rationally persuade them. The problem goes deeper.
On this theme, he says that classical fascism was not as distinct as we might want it to be from the culture surrounding it. It is not a departure from European history, but an intensification of some of its more pervasive traits.
At one point he asks, “Can we not draw a straight line from thewitchto the sensuousJewishwoman?Is the persecution of the sensuous woman not a permanent reality, one that is not economic in origin, but which derives from the specific social organisation of gender relations inpatriarchalEurope?”
Later, more succinctly, he comments that his soldier males are “equivalent to the tip of the patriarchal iceberg, but it’s what lies beneath the surface that really makes the water cold”.- Jason Wilson,"What do incels, fascists and terrorists have in common? Violent misogyny",The Guardian,(4 May 2018).
- Dr. Reichvastly offended manypeopleby hissociologicaltheory,which holds that fascism is just an exaggerated form of the basic structure ofsex-negativesocietiesand has existed under othernamesin everycivilizationbased on sexual repression. In this theory, thecharacterand muscular armor of the average citizen — a submissive andfrightenedattitudeanchored in body reflexes — causes the average person to want astrongauthorityfigure above them.Tyranny,in this model, is not created by tyrants alone but by neurotic masses whowanttyrants.
- Robert Anton Wilson,inEverything Is Under Control: Conspiracies, Cults, and Cover-Ups(1998), p. 361
- This means that if someone acts like a fascist, has fascist beliefs, repeats fascist talking points, and hangs out with other fascists, the fact that they publicly denounce fascism should be worth absolutely nothing to you, and shouldn’t even enter into your consideration of whether they’re a fascist. After all, “I’m not a fascist” is exactly what a fascist would say.
- Natalie Wynn,Decrypting the Alt-Right: How to Recognize a F@scist,(1 September 2017)
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[edit]- The biggest threat to America today is notcommunism.It's moving America toward a fascisttheocracy,and everything that's happened during theReaganadministration is steering us right down that pipe... I really think that.... When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very, very right wing, almost towardAttila the Hun...
- Frank Zappa,Crossfiredebate on censorship (1986).
See also
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External links
[edit]- The Doctrine of Fascism(1932)byBenito Mussolini
- Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt (1995)byUmberto Eco
- Readings on Fascism and National Socialismedited by Alan Swallow – Project Gutenberg
- Authorized translation of Mussolini’s “The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism” (1933)