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FASCISM-PSEUDONYM
FOR TYRANNICAL DICTATORSHIP
The Greek
philosopher Aristotle wrote that there were three basic forms of
government: Tyranny,
Oligarchy, and Democracy.
In the 20th Century, the world was exposed to tyrannical
government taken to its ultimate expression in the Fascist
Dictatorships of Europe. The world’s Social and Political
scientists are still amazed that such barbaric government terrorism
could have emerged in the most advanced, cultured, democratic,
liberal, sophisticated, and civilized European countries, such as:
Italy, Spain, Portugal, Austria and Germany. After the horrors of
WWII, Fascism became highly marginalized, but by the 21st
Century, Fascism has reappeared in a new and more dangerous form,
called Neo-Conservatism. This essay is intended to demonstrate that
all Liberal Democracies are particularly vulnerable to radical
Fascist National-Conservatism, and that it is happening again, in the
United States of America, in the 21st century!
Ideologies
2000
years
after Aristotle, the philosophy of the Enlightenment
developed new schools of thought or ideas, about
man’s
political and economic relationships with the state and with each
other in society. These bodies of ideas became known as Ideologies.
The great
ideological “isms” of Liberalism of the 17th
and 18th centuries, and Socialism
of the 19th Century, were based on a legitimate,
genuine, and coherent philosophical framework, but they threatened
the existing State and economic ruling class institutions of the
Monarchy, the Church, and its societal system of Feudalism. They were
both fiercely opposed.
The
French
Revolution in the late 18th> Century caused a
counter-revolution or reaction
by the agents, dependants, and beneficiaries of the ruling Royal
class throughout Europe, whose apologists presented a
counter-reformation theory of Conservatism
based on maintaining the Status
Quo of power, privileges, and prerogatives of
existing elites and institutions, with limited concessions to the
people to prevent revolutions and uncontrolled violence, such as was
experienced in France. Conservatism was not so much an ideology, as
it was a set of faux principles that were designed to contest with
Liberalism and Socialism, to preserve the Old
Order.
By the
20th century, the major currents of modern political
culture consisted of; Liberalism,
Socialism, and Conservatism, with Liberalism being the dominant political philosophy guiding
the governmental systems and societies of Europe, and the American
and British governments. Unlike the conservatives, Liberals accepted
the French revolution’s goals of Liberty, Equality,
and Fraternity. These classical Liberals interpreted liberty as individual personal
freedom, preferring limited constitutional government and a laissez
faire capitalist economy to state intervention. Equality, they
believed was opportunity made accessible to talent by education. They
accepted inequality of achievement and thus of wealth and power. Of
greater importance, they believed in the Equal political and Human
Rights of man. (Read
the NFC War on Affirmative Action and the Public Schools)
Conservatives
wanted law and order and the inherited hierarchies of wealth and
birth. They wanted to limit the state to the functions of a “Night
Watchman” who would keep order while traditional
elites ruled through property, churches, armies, and inherited social
influence. By 1930, traditional-Conservatives in Europe still
rejected the main principles of the French Revolution. They preferred
Authority to
Liberty,
Hierarchy
to Equality,
and Deference
to Fraternity.
The
Rise of Authoritarian-Totalitarian Governments
“Five
of the countries of Western Europe had succumbed to movements of this
general type and had been turned into plebiscitary one-party
dictatorships. However divergent their national trajectories, these
five countries, Italy, Germany, Austria, Spain, and Portugal has
succumbed to similar fates.”
Bernt
Hagtvet and Stein Rokkan, Norwegian scholars on Fascism
In the
inter-war period following WWI and into the 1930s, European Liberal
states, their market systems, and democratic parliamentary systems of
government, were reeling from the combined impacts of: the loss of
almost an entire generation of young men in the industrialized
slaughter of the Great War, mass unemployment after de-mobilization
of the armies, war debts and wild currency fluctuations, runaway
inflation, a subsequent worldwide depression, political extremism,
and ferocious seditious propaganda, which combined to create great
social tensions, and violence.
After the
Russian Revolution of 1917, Socialist radical revolutionary
movements, later identified as International Communism, were widely
seen as a threat to Liberalism, Conservatism, and Parliamentary
order. In this cauldron of political ferment, revolutionary movements
of all political types were violently competing for public
acceptance. The ruling class Oligarchy in Europe felt that its
economic and political power was seriously threatened by these
working class movements and began to support right wing Nationalist
movements to survive.
“The
heirs of the French, English, and American revolutions had partly
believed in their own phrases about the Rights of Man, Freedom of
Speech, Equality before the Law, and the like, and had even allowed
their conduct to be influenced by them to some extent. But by the
fourth decade of the Twentieth Century all the main currents of
political thought were Authoritarian. The earthly paradise had been
discredited at exactly the moment it became realizable. Every new
political theory, by what ever name it called itself, led back to
Hierarchy and Regimentation.”
1984, by George Orwell,
1947
Believing
the rhetoric of the Fascists, conservative middle class Europeans
began to accept the notion of Radical
Nationalism as an alternative to Communist
or Liberal
Capitalist systems of government, both of which were
blamed for the violence and decline of their countries. The
people’s
attachment to the values of the Enlightenment, never forcefully
advocated or defined by the Liberal and Social Democrats, was fatally
weakened in Italy, Spain, Portugal, Germany, and Austria where
successful radical Nationalist-Conservative regimes took power. In
this environment, Fascism was born. These Fascist dictatorial forms
of Government became extreme Totalistic examples of Aristotle’s
government by “Tyranny.”
The
Italian Re-Discovery of Government by Tyranny
It was in
the post WWI chaos that the former soldier, schoolteacher, and
radical revolutionary Benito Mussolini and his so-called “new”
ideology of “Fascismo”
made its violent debut on April 15, 1919 with the invasion of the
offices of the daily Socialist newspaper “Avanti.”
(Mussolini had been the Editor of the Socialist Avanti from 1912 to
1914) Four people were killed, and 39 injured. The core of the
Fascist muscle was the “Action
Squads,” who were tough WWI veteran soldiers of
the elite combat troops known as the “Arditi.”
They became the “Blackshirt”
paramilitary groups that terrorized other political opponents
of the Fascists. Reliable estimates of political violence in Italy,
from 1920 to 1926, include five to six hundred Fascists, and three
thousand anti-Fascists killed, and thousands wounded.
(Consider
the American Right Wing Hate Groups, KKK, Neo-Nazis, Minutemen, etc)
Fascism
was officially formed, in Milan, Italy, on Sunday March 23, 1919,
with a gathering of more than a hundred followers including: war
veterans, so-called syndicalists (Corporatists),
and conservative intellectuals. They announced that they were
declaring war on Socialism,
because it was Internationalist
and opposed Italian Nationalism.
From its early beginnings, the Fascist Party had been a coalition of
the “Nationalist-Conservatives
and the “Radical
Populists.” The Fascist
program, issued two months later, was a mixture of International
Militarist-Imperialist expansion and populist domestic
measures, such as: the vote for 18 year olds, women’s suffrage.
the eight-hour workday, worker participation in the technical
management of Industry, the partial expropriation of all kinds of
wealth by a heavy and progressive tax on capital, the seizure of
Church properties, and the confiscation of war profits. The Fascists
promised that they would end crime, make the trains run on time, and
solve all of their nation’s economic and social ills.
By 1921,
they became a political party known as the “Partito
Nazionale Fascista” (PNF) which was a
combination Paramilitary Force and Political Party.
Fascism
was claiming to show the world how a modern state under inspired
Dictatorial
leadership could put an end to a long period of decadence and
usher in the latest in a series of the major revolutions that had
changed the course of European history: the Pagan
Renaissance, the Reformation, the French Revolution, the Industrial
Revolution, and Capitalism.
This emphasis on reform over decadence was to become one of the
standard populist ploys of all future Conservative
Fascist movements. (Consider
NFC Republican Party Eternal Complaints of U.S. Moral Decline)
The
Fascists hated Liberals as much as they hated Socialists, claiming
that they were the Socialists and Communist’s accomplices. They
were able to conclude practical alliances and eventually to merge
with the traditional Nationalist-Conservatives,
because they shared the same basic anti-Liberalism. (Consider the NFC
Republican Party’s 50 year Propaganda War on Liberalism)
This
original Fascism preached a violent rhetoric and practiced violent
action against the International left, anti-intellectualism,
rejection of compromise, and contempt for parliamentary bodies. They
followed a cult of the “Leader”
known respectively in Italy, Spain, and Germany as; “IL
Duce”, “El
Caudillo”
and the “Fuehrer.”
They were publicly espousing populist rhetoric, but privately
and secretly planning absolute tyrannical dictatorships.
(Consider
the claim of absolute power of the CINC Unitary Executive)
“I
can only be grateful to Providence that it entrusted me with the
Leadership in this historic struggle which, for the next five hundred
or a thousand years, will be described as decisive, not only for the
history of Germany, but for the whole of Europe and indeed the whole
world…”
Adolf Hitler, quoted in “Hitler,
A Study in Tyranny”
by Alan Bullock
The
Italian Fascist Program called for abolition of the upper house in
Parliament, and an assembly to draft a new Constitution for Italy
(implying overthrow of the Monarchy, which never happened). (Consider
NFC Contempt for International Bodies and Efforts to Amend the
Constitution to prohibit dissent and enshrine Discrimination)
Fascists
claimed that Conservatism,
Corporatism and Syndicalism
were the revolutionary Nationalist economic answers to the
capitalist Democracies, Socialists, Social Democrats, and the
collectivist Communists. They dreamed of a Second “Risorgimento”
(movement for the liberation, reform, and unification of Italy of
1870s), because they claimed that the first Risorgimento had left
Italy in the hands of a narrow Oligarchy of Politicians, Royalty,
Church, Capitalists, and landed aristocracy. This was not untrue, but
with the exception of some land reform in Italy, they immediately
allied themselves with these traditional-conservative elites.
In actual
practice, once in power, the Fascists did nothing to carry out
threats against Capitalists, Church, or Royalty, and instead banned
strikes, dissolved independent labor unions, lowered wage earners
purchasing power, violently attacked Socialists, Communists, and
Social Democrats, and showered huge public expenditures on the
armament industries. Fascist regimes confiscated property only from
their political enemies: Communists, Socialists, Liberals, and other
hated minorities, foreigners, and Jews. (Consider
the Corporate Takeover of the U.S. Government Policymaking)
Fascism
v. Communism—The Convenient Bogeyman:
“Mussolini’s
dictatorship is a good dictatorship; and a dictatorship in Italy is a
national necessity… The rise of Mussolini and the Italian
Fascisti should be a lesson to all governments and to all
politicians…The Fascisti showed the world that a nation
doesn’t have to endure the progressiveness that is based on
lies and demagoguery and stupidity and perversity, and that
progresses inevitably to Communism and its necessary accompaniments
of unbearable taxes,… misery, degradation…and chaos.”
Kenneth Roberts,
American Writer, Conservative, Fascist
apologist
The
Fascist movements could not have come to power, survived, and
flourished without acquiescence to, and active support of their
militant minority, by the ruling establishment of the
traditional-conservative
elites in the Government, the Army, the Church, business leaders,
large landowners, and captains of industry, and of greater
significance, their apologists in other Western countries, such as
Henry Luce of Time Magazine in the U.S.
“The
Fascisms we have known have come to power with the help of
frightened Ex-Liberals and Opportunist Technocrats and
Ex-Conservatives and governed in more or less awkward tandem with
them.”
“The Anatomy
of Fascism,” by Robert O. Paxton
This
complicity came in many ways. There was a mutual support of Fascist
violence to crush trade labor unions and businessmen contributed huge
amounts to the Party, which in turn rewarded them with lucrative
contracts. Later, when the Fascist regimes became criminal
operations, there was wider complicity among the middle class
conservatives. Such civilized common people as Magistrates, Police
officials, Army officers, Judges, and businessmen, supported the
aggressive wars of conquest, ignored the criminality against
minorities in the streets, and ultimately the Genocide. (Consider
NFC Republican controlled Congress Failure to Stop Gulag Prisons)
The
Enemy of my Enemy is my Friend:
“If
I had been an Italian, I am sure I should have been entirely with you
from the beginning to the end of your victorious struggle against the
bestial appetites and passions of Leninism.”
Winston
Churchill, Press Statement, January 21, 1927, when Mussolini was
given the Order of Grand Commander of the Bath by King George V in
1923.
In Italy,
Giacomo Matteotti, Secretary of the Italian Socialist Party was
murdered after he exposed evidence to the Parliament, of Fascist
corruption and illegality in the elections of 1924. The outcry over
Matteotti’s murder provided the King and the conservative
establishment the opportunity, to remove Mussolini from power and
crush the Fascist movement, but they chose not to act preferring the
Fascist threat to the Communist threat.
(Consider
the NFC Republican historic obsession with fighting Socialism and
Communism)
Sensing a
lack of resolve by the government, Mussolini mobilized his Militia
units, marched on Rome, and began closing down opposition papers.
Over the following two years, the Fascist dominated Parliament passed
a series of “Laws
for the Defense of the State,” which eliminated
many Constitutional safeguards, replaced elected public officials
with those appointed by the Party, subjected the press and radio to
censorship, re instituted the death penalty, gave Fascist Syndicates a
monopoly of labor representation, and dissolved all political parties
except the Fascist Party. (Consider
NFC Republican Patriot Act, War on Labor Unions, Lust for the Death
Penalty)
Conservatives
readily accepted all of these illegal, unconstitutional, and criminal
actions of the Fascists, especially because they were directed at
Communists, Socialists and Liberals.
The
Catholic Church, in particular, cooperated with the Fascists. The
Lateran Treaty concluded by Mussolini and Pope Pius XI in February
1929, provided mutual recognition and the payment by Italy, of a
substantial indemnity for the government’s seizure of papal
lands in 1870. In the elections held in March 1929,
the Church’s explicit support helped gain a vote of 98% for the
Fascist list of candidates for Parliament.
The
Fascist doctrine of National Expansion by aggressive Foreign Wars of
conquest and domestic National Renewal or Reform required the most
fundamental changes in the nature of citizenship and in the
individual’s relationship to the state. Where Liberalism was
based on a contract between the citizen and the state to protect
individual rights, the Fascist state glorified the state and required
patriotic service by the members for the glory and fulfillment of
National Goals.
What
actions the Fascists actually took were more instructive as to their
fundamental political doctrine, than their early populist rhetoric.
By their actions, we know that the Nationalist-Conservative Fascists
were not a new 20th Century political innovation at all,
but the Tyranny
of the same old Authoritarian
Nationalist-Conservatism, which had opposed Liberal
Democracy from the beginning, striking at a time when their national
Liberal Democratic governments were at their weakest. Militarism and
Hyper-Patriotism were then exploited to regiment the entire
population. (Consider
proof that Neo-Conservatism is in fact Stealth Neo-Fascism)
Italian
Fascism failed to convert all but a minority of the Italian people to
their extreme ideology, and by 1943, as a result of the
Anglo-American invasion and destruction of Southern Italy, some of
the Fascist hierarchy themselves colluded with the King to oust
Mussolini as head of government; and to negotiate an armistice,
eventually entering the war on the side of the allies.
For the
next two years Mussolini headed a puppet government called the
Italian Social
Republic (RSI) which was completely dominated by the
Nazis, and used only for propaganda purposes, until Italy was
liberated.
Fascism
has enjoyed a continuous existence in Italy both as a party-political
and extra-systematic force. During the last 50 years it has evolved
into the “Nuevo
Destra” (New Right) movement and now is sharing
power with the Berlusconi government. (Consider the proof
that the New Axis Powers are: U.S.-Britain-Italy)
Fascism
in Germany
“In
this period I openly admit, I conceived the profoundest admiration
for the great man south of the Alps, who full of ardent love for his
people, made no pacts with the enemies of Italy, but strove for
annihilation by all ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among
the great men of this earth is his determination not to share Italy
with Marxists, but to destroy Internationalism and save the
Fatherland.”
Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf
Of
all the European countries, Germany was the most vulnerable to the
appeal of Fascism. The Germans had a national tradition and heritage
of Ultra-Patriotism, militarism, efficiency, strict discipline,
cultural and social conservatism, and unquestioning obedience to
authority. Germany had also been the victim of post WWI reparations
that caused extreme economic hardships on the people, which they
blamed on their Social Democratic government, instead of the War
Lords that got them into the ruinous war.
“Fascism
draws its best energies from…the rejection of
Liberalism…even
the longing to overcome the Enlightenment and thereby both Liberalism
and Democracy is something encountered throughout the whole of the
West, if not the whole civilized world.”
Johann W.
Mannhardt, Social scientist, early advocate of Fascism for Germany,
1925
Between
WWI and WWII parliamentary governments across Europe had begun to
give way to Authoritarian regimes. Fascist parties such as the Nazi
Party became a phenomenon of failed liberal governments, and damaged
capitalist economic systems. In Germany, the ruling Social democrats
and the Weimar Republic’s identification with the loss of the
war and subsequent national humiliation, coupled with its political
inefficiency, cultural liberalism and failure to crack down on the
armed militias, destroyed its legitimacy for many middle class
Germans.
At
that time the Communists and Nazi militias were demonstrating on a
daily basis, that the Social Democrats were not equipped to deal with
the social catastrophes which befell Germany after WWI. It was the
evil genius of Adolf Hitler and the Nazi movement that wagered that
the orderly Germans would take some satisfaction in seeing carefully
directed violence meted out to those demonized as traitors,
terrorists, criminals, and enemies of the people. Governments of all
types, and Liberal Democracies in particular, became paralyzed by
overwhelming crises and difficult choices to either allow the
violence to play itself out or to clamp down on the popular radical
movements, like the Nazi Party. They feared that a violent repression
might start a civil war involving armed militias on both sides. (Consider the NFC
Republican Party’s Impeachment of Clinton and thuggery in
Florida election in 2000)
In
1922, German street violence increased dramatically after Chancellor
Von Papen lifted a ban on the SA Militia (called the Brownshirts) and
authorized the wearing of Militia uniforms.
Neither
Hitler nor Mussolini arrived in power by illegitimate means such as a
“coup d’etat.” Both were actually
invited to take office as head of Government by the Head of State, in
the legitimate exercise of his official functions. (Consider
the 2000 selection Of Bush by the Supreme Court)
Alliance
with the Conservative-Nationalists:
“Fascism
transcends Democracy and Liberalism. Its regenerating action is based
on granite foundations: the concepts of hierarchy, the participation
of the whole people in the state, social justice through the
equitable distribution of rights and duties, the injection of
morality into public life, the prestige of the family, the moral
interpretation of the ideas of order, authority, and freedom.”
Asvero Gravelli, Advocate of
Fascism’s Universal Mission, 1930
The
traditional-Conservatives
and Nationalist
Right brought Hitler into office
quasi-Constitutionally, within a coalition government that the Nazis
did not control at first. The German Right, much like the American
Right in the 21st Century, forsook the role of true
traditional-conservatism, abandoned its own traditions, and made the
gross mistake of supposing that in Hitler, they had found a man who
would enable them to achieve their ends.
Having
depended upon conservative elites to open the gates to him, Hitler
did not abandon them when he assumed total power. Some degree of
power sharing with these pre-existing conservative elements made the
Nazi dictatorship fundamentally different than that of the Bolsheviks
in Communist Russia. Hitler never abolished the Constitution drafted
in 1919 for the Weimar Republic and never totally dismantled the
state bureaucracy in Germany. He simply asserted that he was not
bound by the Constitution or the Laws. (Consider
the fact that Bush is claiming He is not bound by U.S. and
International Law in the War on Terror)
Once
in power, the Nazis, like the Italian Fascists, never attacked wealth
and Capitalism. As for social hierarchy, Fascism’s Leadership
principle actually reinforced it. They left the distribution of
property and the economic and social hierarchy largely intact.
Nazism’s
anti-democratic Nationalist movement was the most radical brand of
Fascism. Its degree of racial scapegoating, expansionism, and
aggressive foreign policies was the most extreme manifestation of
Fascism. The Nazis exploited disenchantment with the
Social-Democratic government, and phony complaints of the decline and
cultural debasement of German society. Their most radical schemes for
the society’s regeneration were not revealed to the German
people until it was too late for any opposition group to be formed.
There were also fatal flaws in the Weimar Constitution and electoral
process, which allowed the Nazi Party to become part of the Coalition
government.
Another
factor was the inability or unwillingness of the political or
military leaders to uphold Democratic principles or to clamp down on
the Nazi orchestrated violence. (Consider the Flaws
in the U.S. Constitution re. Marshall Law; and Militias like the
Minutemen)
After
the Reichstag fire, Hitler demanded and received authority to
set-aside any existing law or right of the people, as needed, to cope
with the National Emergency of Marxist Terrorism, which never ended.
State Terror was then directed at: Marxists, Socialists, Liberal
Democrats, and “asocial”
types, including; Homosexuals, Gypsies, Pacifists, Slavs, and the
Jews. (Consider
the War on Terror and Patriot Act)
The
Holocaust reprisals developed step by step from lesser illegal acts
of wanton property destruction to more heinous crimes. The first step
was to create an atmosphere of fear and hatred of targeted enemies.
Next, came segregation, humiliation, and elimination of their rights.
Next, the population of target minorities, was forced to relocate
into ghettos, forced labor camps, and finally to death
camps, for the total
extermination of targetted men, women, children, and infants. (Consider
the Bush Torture and Prison Scandal)
The
Nazis attempted to impose a “German
Christian” (Christian-Nationalist) Bishop and
Doctrine on the traditional-conservative Protestant churches, but met
with some early resistance. Later they essentially eliminated any
church leaders that criticized the regime. (Consider
the NFC Republican Alliance with the Christian Right)
Foreign
Policy
The
Nazis consistently presented the New Germany as Europe’s
bastion against Communism, and the guarantor of peace, as long as it
was peace on their terms. Consistent with this logic, all acts of
Military aggression were rationalized as Defensive Wars or
“Pre-Emptive”
strikes against imminent threats. (Consider the Bush
regime Doctrine of Unilateralism and Preventive Wars)
Like
the NFC Republicans,
the underlying theme of the Nazi movement was “World
Domination.”
International
“Universal-Fascism”
Fascists
claimed to be anti-Internationalist and opposed to any form of
International cooperation or controls. The original Fascists opposed
the League of Nations as strongly as the modern American Neo-Fascists
oppose the United Nations, and International laws and War Crimes
Courts, because they wished to preserve their freedom to act
unilaterally, and without accountability. They claimed not to have
International Imperial ambitions (such as a New World Order), but
beginning with the earliest Fascist movements in Europe, Fascism has
been aggressively exported to other countries.
“The
word Reich means ‘;Empire;’ the first Reich was that ruled
over by Frederick the Great in the 18th century; the
Second Reich was the one created by Kaiser Wilhelm. The Hitler regime
was called the Third Reich at the Nuremberg rally in 1933.”
John
Laffin, “Hitler Warned Us”
The
most successful 20th Century Fascist movements took hold in
Italy, Spain, Portugal,
Austria, and Germany. All of the other attempts were either;
defeated, aborted, or merged into other Nationalist,
Ultra-Conservative, Militarist or Religious parties.
Theoretically
organized to fight Socialism and the conspiracy of International
Marxism, the Nationalist - Fascist movement’s fundamental
ideology was soon being exported to sympathetic revolutionary parties
in Spain, Germany, and other countries such as: Portugal, Austria,
France, Belgium, Romania, Hungary, Finland, Norway, Iceland, Estonia,
Latvia, Ireland, Britain, South Africa, Australia, and to the
Americas, including to; Chile, Brazil, Argentina, and to the United
States.
Spanish
Fascism:
Spain
is the best example of an authoritarian-Conservative government
following the basic Universal Fascist ideology, but claiming a
uniquely different Nationalist identity. In the complex alliances of
the Spanish Civil War which began in July 1936, Franco
was able to co-opt both the Falange Espanola and the
Ultra-Nationalist-Syndicalists, to survive and
successfully lead his Anti-Republican “Franquismo”
Dictatorship until he retired in 1975. Groups that were
merged with the Franco movement included the “Juntas de
Offensiva Nacional-Sindicalista (JONS) founded by Ramiro
Ledesma Ramos, the Falange Espanola Tradicionalista (FET),
and the “Requetes”, an Ultra-right wing
Monarchist faction. The FET leader, Jose Antonio Primo de Rivera and
others met regularly with other Fascists, including Hitler, Mosely
(England), Degrelle (France) and Codrenanu (Romania), attending the
two conferences of the “Fascist
International” in Montreaux.
“The
National-Syndicalist movement is convinced that it has found the
right way out: neither Capitalist nor Communist…Neither right
nor left! A National regime. The National-Syndicalist regime! Long
Live Spain.”
Jose Antonio Primo De
Rivera, Leader of the FET, murdered in 1936
The
Fascist regimes of Italy and Germany provided funds, weapons and
forces to help the Spanish
Conservative-Nationalists triumph in their Civil War
struggle against their
common enemies, Socialism, Communism, Liberalism, and the Democratic
Republican government of Spain.
Liberals
Have Outlived Their Usefulness:
“There
is nothing more opposed to the mentality, the necessities, and the
tenor of our epoch than the political and economic forms elaborated
by the Liberal-Bourgeois order. These forms have outlived their
usefulness, and other peoples are abandoning them like tools which
are cumbersome to handle and only cause damage.”
Ramiro
Ledesma Ramos, Spanish Fascist Polemicist, Madrid
1935
Spain
struggled under the poverty and oppressive government of the Franco
regime for decades, and only began to revive when the Americans began
to pour millions into their economy as a result of the occupation of
Cold War bases in Spain, which exist to this day.
Portuguese
Fascism:
In
1930 the Portuguese minister of economics Salazar,
turned Conservative Dictator and his Para-Fascist “Unao
Nacional” party took control of Portugal. The
other Ultra-Nationalist right wing party vying for electoral control
was headed by Rolao
Preto. Preto’s “Nacional
Sindicalismo” movement became a threat to
Salazar and in 1934 he dissolved the “Blue
Shirted” movement and sent Preto into exile in
Spain. The objectives of Preto’s National Syndicalism were not
much different than Salazar’s “Estado
Novo” and Preto’s followers were absorbed
into the Unao Nacional. As in all other Fascist movements the
“Crisis”
of society was the rhetoric of choice.
“A
terrible wave of utilitarianism and baseness is sweeping through the
world, and is threatening to subvert and vulgarize everything,
plunging it into a quagmire of tragic moral degradation…the
revolution is under way, it will redeem man, raising him to the
height of all the divine greatness that is his.”
Rolao
Preto, Portuguese Fascist,
1934
French
Fascism:
Ever
since the second half of the nineteenth century French culture has
provided an ideal breeding ground for countless political
intellectual movements. In the Inter-war period movements on the
right that were attempting to attract a following, included the
royalist “Action Française”, the
“Cercle Proudhon”, “Le Fascieu”,
“Francisme,” the “Parti
Populaire Français”, the
“Reassemblement
National Populaire” (RNP) the “Parti
Social Français,” and others.
“Thus
the solution to the European problem seems to have been found. It is
the creation of the unitary or Fascist state existing above parties
and classes and capable, by basing itself on veterans, workers, and
peasants, of harnessing these prodigious economic forces which have
been unleashed onto the modern world, forces which if unchanneled
would put the whole of Europe at risk.”
Georges Valois,
Fascist Leader of “Le Fascieu”
Georges
Valois, the founder of Le
Fascieu, which had its own Para-Military wing, pursued the
goal of joining forces with a New Spain and New Italy to form a
“Fascist
Latin Bloc” in the Mediterranean. By 1927 Le
Fascieu had 60,000 members, but was disbanded because it could not
attract enough followers to reach electoral standing. The other mimic
Fascist party that attracted a following of about the same size was
the “Parti
Populaire Français.” The most significant
movement and party in these years was the extreme conservative right
wing “Parti
Social Français” (PSF),
which continued on after 1940 as a collaborationist party with the
Nazi occupation.
Fascism
is Decisive and Fanatical:
“A
state only prevails if it is upheld by men who are decisive, you may
even say fanatical, men who in any case have a keen sense and a
concrete vision of what is demanded for the sake of the public well
being, dedicated with all their soul to a future which must be
realized at all costs. These men…will carry the nation with it
and …will be the elite of the revolutionary party. Such a
party was formed in Germany…”
Marcel Deat, French
Fascist, RNP, November 1943
Historians
are still struggling to find an explanation as to how and why Liberal
Republican France could so quickly give way after its defeat in 1940
to the France of
Vichy, and its widespread collaboration with the Nazis in
the occupied zone.
The
collaboration of the French Vichy government simply demonstrated that
any nation that is conquered must conform to the wishes of the
conquerors or be destroyed. However, prior to the occupation, France
also demonstrated the weakness
of all Liberal Democracies to the populist appeals of their age old
Conservative
Anti-Liberal enemies.
Belgian
Fascism:
The
New European Order:
“Europe
is going mad with scandals. Mad with egoism. Mad with revolt against
Heaven. Mad with blood… Corrupt in its morality, debased in
its faith, puffed up with individualism, fanaticism, and pride,
having lost touch with clarity, with the love of God and man,
anaemic, modern Europe is waiting for the final blow, the last
convulsions, the last corpses. The hour is approaching when all
accounts will be settled. The hour is also coming when to save the
world it will need a handful of heroes and saints who will carry the
reconquest.”
Leon
Degrelle, Leader of the REX Fascist Party, 1938
Belgian
involvement in Europe’s Universal fascist trend was based
partially on the revolutionary Flemish Separatist movement and
Catholic efforts
to clean up the country’s social and political life. The “REX”
political movement (from
Christus Rex, or Christ the King) attacked Communists,
Capitalism, and Government corruption. In 1936, Leon
Degrelle, who had a growing admiration for Mussolini and
Hitler, formed the REX
Party, with a platform of radical social reform through
state intervention. After losing in the elections of 1937, Degrelle
and his followers abandoned any lingering commitment to parliamentary
democracy and genuine Christianity, and became an openly Pro-Nazi
party. After the Nazi invasion and occupation of Belgium, the REX
Party collaborated with the Nazis, to the point
of working with the Gestapo and raising volunteers for the Belgian
“Walloon
Legion SS Brigade”, which fought
with the German Waffen SS on the Eastern front.
The
End of the Liberal Epoch:
“We
are witnessing the crystallization of what historians will call the
century of Fascism or national socialism, on a par with the great
periods of the Middle Ages, the Renaissance, the ancient regime, and
the Liberal epoch… Just as at the beginning of the nineteenth
century Liberalism brought a solution to the new problems which the
ancient regime was incapable of envisaging, so Fascism, in the second
third of the twentieth century, is presenting itself as the life-form
most rigorously adapted to contemporary conditions…”
Jose Streel, Belgian Fascist, REX’s leading
Ideologue, 1942
Norwegian
Fascism:
“Nasional
Samling” was founded in 1933 as a movement of
National regeneration based on a platform of anti-Communism,
Christian Corporatism, and traditional-conservative Norwegian values.
The movement was founded by Vidkun
Quisling, whose name has become synonymous with
“traitor,”
as a result of his party’s treacherous collaboration with the
Nazis. In 1937, Quisling called for a “Nordic
World Federation” which declared that as ‘an
old world fails, a new is being born, and calls for the people to
fight the diabolical force of Jewish Liberalism and Marxism.”
“Our
political creed and our political activities must be grounded upon
and permeated by a sane Nationalism, and by a profoundly moral
outlook on the world. Like Bolshevism itself it must be a
Politico-Religious movement, in a sense a Puritan movement.”
Vidkun Quisling, Founder Nasional Samling, Traitor, 1931
When
the Nazis invaded and occupied Norway, Quisling was made titular Head
of State, and Leader of the only legal party. He utterly failed in
converting the Norwegians in his efforts to Nazify the country. He
was shot in 1945 as a traitor.
The
Diabolical Forces of Jewish Liberalism and Marxism:
“The
national decay and collapse of Norway are the result of a set of
debilitating and corrosive forces which over generations have been
able to gather momentum. These currents of corruption are all closely
linked with each other and finally merge in the mighty stream which
we call Anglo-Jewish world capitalism”
Vidkun
Quisling, Norwegian Fascist founded Nasional Samling in 1933, called
for a Nordic World Federation to fight the “Diabolical force
of Jewish Liberalism and Marxism.
Finnish
Fascism:
Finnish
Nationalism was a product of the Civil war between Communists (Reds)
and the Nationalists (Whites) which broke out shortly after the
country had won its Independence from Russia in 1917. A powerful
Nationalist movement
had asserted the need to eradicate Russian and Swedish influence and
create a greater Finland that stretched to the Urals. This
Ultra-Nationalism
contained elements of
Lutheran Fundamentalism and social Darwinism.
“There
are only two kinds of people: the righteous and the Godless. The
divine order and the teachings of the Christian Church know of no
third possibility. In reality there are no ‘centrists’ or
‘humanists’ of the golden middle road.”
Lapuan
Editorial, 1930
In
1929 the Ultra-Nationalist
“Lapua”
movement resorted to violence even abducting the former
President and his wife. The passage of Anti-Communist laws did not
placate the Lapuan hard liners who began to model themselves after
the Fascists in Italy. The total banning of Communism signaled the
end of the Lapua as a genuine mass movement. In 1932, Finnish Fascism
resurfaced as the People’s
Patriotic Movement (IKL), complete with a
Fascist-style youth movement called the Blue-Blacks.
The AKS and Lapuan activists wore a black shirt with a blue tie. At
its peak the IKS claimed 100,000 members, but growing political
stability resulted in its decline. Some of the IKL leaders served in
the Finnish government during the period of cooperation with the
Nazis. IKL was dissolved in 1944.
Latvian
Fascism:
Latvia
was a Baltic state that gained its independence in the wake of the
Russian Revolution. Its Liberal democracy was snuffed in out in 1934,
by a palace revolution led by Karlis
Ulmanis, and his “Peasant
Union” which was a para-Fascist
regime.
“This
means that once and for all we renounce unreservedly
bourgeois-Liberal prejudice on the National question, we renounce
historical, humanistic, or other constraints, in pursuit of our one
aim…our goal is the Latvian nation; whoever is against its
welfare is our enemy… We renounce the right to individual
freedoms for the good of the nation and the state…”
Gustavs Celmins, Latvian Fascist Leader, 1933
Later
a more fanatical Fascist movement arose called the “Ugunkrust”
(Fire Cross) later renamed the “Perkonkrust”
(Thunder Cross), whose Greyshirts
paramilitary turned Latvia into an authoritarian state
based on a “Corporatist”
Economy. Members of the Perkonkrust took an active part
in the Nazi Death squads
against the Jews, and provided men for the Latvian Division of
the German Sixth Army.
Romanian
Fascism:
In
the 1920s a virulently
Anti-Semitic form of National Socialism was formed in
Romania. The leader of this movement was Corneliu
Codreanu. His Paramilitary terrorist organization was
called the “Legion
of Archangel Michael” and later in
1930 as the “Iron
Guard.” Despite attempts by the Liberal
government and King Carol to crush it, the movement grew to become
the third largest party in Romania. Later when the King was forced
into exile, his successor General
Antonescu created the National
Legionary State, with Iron Guardists appointed to
important posts. The legion continued to compete with the national
government for control, and in 1941 the Legion was crushed after two
days of brutal fighting in which the Nazi forces allied themselves
with Antonescu, and Romania officially became a National Socialist
state and puppet
state of the Third Reich.
“We
are defending Christianity in a foreign land, we are defending a
force which wells up from the force of our people, and spurred on by
our love for the cross, we are obeying here in Spain our love for the
Romanian people.”
Ian Mota,
fanatical anti-semite and translator of the phony document; “The
Protocols of the Elders of Zion”, was killed in the Spanish
Civil War..
Hungarian
Fascism:
“Heil
Hungary! Because we give our lives and blood to Hungarism.”
Ferenc Szalasi, Leader of the Arrow Cross National Socialist
Party, later Nazi Hungarian Head of State
By
August 1919 Hungary was already ruled by a Conservative-
authoritarian right-wing government headed by Admiral
Horthy. The country had a tradition of Ultra-Nationalism
and Anti-Semitism
and there were numerous failed attempts to launch extreme Fascist
movements based on Nazism. The “Scythe
Cross” in 1935 and the “Arrow
Cross Party” in 1937 were the most notable.
The
Nazis later installed Ferenc
Szalasi, the former Leader of the Arrow Cross as Head of
state in 1944.
Non-European
Fascisms
British
Fascism:
As
the British nineteenth century hegemony was already visibly
declining, there arose many admirers of what Fascism and Nazism were
doing for their countries. Groups emulating them included the:
“British
Fascisti,” “The
Imperial League,” the “National
Workers Party,” the “National
Socialist League,” and the
“British
Union of Fascists.” (BUF)
“Democracy
is the very worst form of government and has no chance of survival.
There are two guarantees, for me sufficient; the greatness of Adolf
Hitler and the Greater Glory of Almighty God.”
William
Joyce (Lord Haw-Haw) Director
of Propaganda for the BUF, left England to broadcast propaganda for
the Nazis during the war. Executed for treason after the war.
The
BUF had a
membership of over 50,000 in 1934, benefiting from the support of
conservative elites and
establishment figures in England and Mussolini himself. This
allowed the BUF
to publish newspapers, pamphlets, and speeches heralding
Britain’s
transformation into a single-party authoritarian regime, based on
“Corporatism”
economics and a strongly technocratic ethos. It also came
to uphold a narrowly racist and anti-Semitic concept of British
citizenship. The BUF
tolerated Nazi and Fascist aggression, as long as “British
Imperial Interests” were safeguarded. They urged
that England join in a “Four
Power Bloc of Fascist nations.”
The
BUF deliberately
cultivated an overtly militaristic and ritual style of campaigning,
including: uniforms, rallies, mass meetings, leader cult, racism, and
readiness to resort to violence. The BUF
leaders claimed to believe that Fascism had the power to heal
the divisions of modern society; Christianity, Nietzcheanism,
Capitalism, Socialism, and Russian Communism.
“We
seek war and strife with no nation, but to Russia we say: ‘Hands
off Europe’ and back to the East where you belong…
Britain, by force of material power and potential of moral leadership
becomes the ultimate arena of struggle between the old and the new,
within which the destiny of White civilization will be decided.”
Oswald
Mosley, Leader of the British Union of Fascists
By
the time WWII broke out, top BUF
members were interned, including Oswald Mosley, and it
ceased to be a threat to parliamentarian government in Britain.
Irish
Fascism:
Ireland’s
Nationalist energies which brought about Home Rule had been aimed for
centuries, at gaining political freedom from England. These
Nationalist currents tended to flow in Liberal Nationalist or
Socialist channels. The exception were the “Blueshirts”
officially named the “Army
Comrades Association” (ACA) which
was hostile to the communist elements within the Irish Republican
army (IRA) The party was renamed several times and it had some
success in mobilizing popular hostility to the government. It failed
to attract support and faded from the scene after the 1934 elections.
The
Blueshirts ideology
was a form of
Catholic Corporatism. Eoin
O’Duffy and other leaders of the movement were
increasingly drawn to Fascism and Nazism and by 1935 they dropped the
mask of constitutionalism completely, and founded the openly Fascist
“National
Corporate Party” (called the Greenshirts).
“When
the chaos of the dark ages broke over Europe, Irishmen saved
Christianity even in Italy itself; and we should never forget that
our proudest traditions are cultural and Christian… Ireland
will be ready to stem the tide of communism and materialism…We
must educate them (youth) towards the acceptance of the Corporative
idea.”
Eoin O’Duffy, Leader of the Irish Fascist
Greenshirts
O’Duffy
led the Pro-Franco Irish Brigade in the Spanish Civil war and retired
from politics in 1937.
South
African Fascism:
“The
OB intends, therefore, in accordance with our Christian world-view
and our history, to safeguard the biological and spiritual
composition of our people. The miscegenation of races will not be
allowed, and all elements which do not agree with our world view will
be eliminated.”
Founding
Principles of the OB
Afrikaner
South Africa was rife with white supremacy notions and anti-British
sentiments which were easily channeled into a distinct form of
Ultra-Nationalism. The “Broederbond”
(Brothers Association) was a semi-clandestine patriotic organization
which became a potent ideological force, combining the Dutch reformed
Church with the Boers National characteristics, and their myth of the
“Great Trek of 1838.” The Afrikaner
radicals had held a deep affinity with the Germanic culture, and by
the mid 1930s, the presence of many German émigrés in
South Africa resulted in the flourishing of Nazi overseas business
and political contacts.
An
authentic Fascist movement led to the creation of the “Osse
wabrandwag (OB; Ox-Wagon Sentinel). The
OB vision of South Africa’s transformation into a National
Socialist state attracted 170,000 members led by a Van
Rensburg. A plan to obtain arms from the Nazis for
paramilitary arm called the “Stormjaers”
which would stage a coup to overthrow the government was foiled and
the Pro-Nazi Afrikaner OB movement ceased to be a threat. However,
after WWII the OB
members exerted considerable influence on the policies of
the Afrikaner
Werstandsbeweging Government which resulted, among other
Nationalist Socialist ideas, in the racist
Apartheid policy.
The
apartheid policies pursued so relentlessly by the Republic of South
Africa after 1948 were not radical enough for those Afrikaners who
felt their identity as a Boer nation was still under threat. As a
result the “African
Resistance Movement” (AWB) came
into being in 1973; with a commitment to “Christian
Nationalism,” This party was a
radical Neo-Fascist
movement, lashing out in its propaganda against
Liberals, Blacks, Jews and Communists, and committing
numerous terrorist outrages along Nazi lines, through the
paramilitary activities of its shock troops, the “Storm
Falcons,” and Vigilantes called the “Brandwag.”
Their violence reached a peak in the run-up to Democratic elections
in April 1994. The AWB’s
symbol was the number--
777, as in the Christian Nationalists versus the Beast of the
Apocalypse—666!
Chilean
Fascism:
Latin
America’s history of domination by propertied, religious, and
military Conservative elites has been so powerful that there was
little opportunity for genuine Fascist Nationalist movements to grow.
The Peron regime in Argentina seems to constitute an exception, but
it lacked the radical racism and Ultra-Nationalist thrust to be a
full fledged Fascist regime, although there have been many radical
right-wing groups, whether paramilitary or populist which have
besides their Anti-communism shared many characteristics with
Universal fascism. There are two exceptions to this rule including
the “National
Socialists” in Chile, and the “Brazilian
Integralist Action.”
“Forty
years of the trappings of Democracy have been enough to bring Chile
to the edge of the abyss.”
Carlos Keller, MNS propagandist,
1934
Chile’s
Movemiento
Nacional (MNS) was formed by the Hispano-German Jorge
Gonzalez von Marees in 1932 with the backing of many
émigré Germans. It was crushed by a right-wing regime
when its attempted coup was suppressed by government troops in 1938.
It was disbanded in 1941 after Gonzalez was interned on suspicion of
insanity.
Brazilian
Fascism:
The
“Brazilian
Integralist Action” movement was the most
successful of the pre-war Fascist movements in Latin America. By the
end of 1934 it had attracted an active membership of over 200,000 and
was holding mass rallies, building up a vast cellular structure, and
a network of party organizations on a scale equal to the NSDAP
in Germany. Its paramilitary force wore Green
shirts with Black and Blue armbands.
“The
soul of a people awakens through courage, through faith, through
continuous regimentation, through permanent indoctrination, through
perfect discipline, through ceaseless struggle against soporific
Liberals and literary prejudices, against depersonalizing
cosmopolitanism…”
Plinio
Salgado, Leader of the Fascist Brazilian Integralist Action movement
The
movement was suppressed by the Para-Fascist
Vargas regime in 1937. After several revolts which were
easily quelled the following year, Salgado went into exile in
Portugal in 1939.
Japanese
Fascism:
Although
Japan joined the Axis powers in November 1936, its own Authoritarian
regime was headed by an Arch-conservative
ruling elite for whom ultimate authority resided in the
divinity of the Emperor. Following the worldwide depression, and
driven by its Militarist-Conservative
military, Japan embarked on an aggressive scheme of conquest and
colonization to create a “New
Asian Order”under its hegemony, culminating in
the major blunder of attacking the U.S. at Pearl Harbor in December
1941.
As
in other countries, with an existing authoritarian-Conservative
government there was no room for a true Fascist movement
to grow. The only record of an attempt was made by Nakano
Seigo. Seigo joined forces with Adachi Kenzo in 1932 to
form a group called “Kokumin
Domei” (National Alliance). In 1932 he formed
another group which was called the “Tohokai”
(Far East Society). The group held a series of rallies where
supporters wore Black shirts and an armband fusing a cross with a
circle resembling a Celtic cross. Seigo secured meetings with
Mussolini and with Ribbentrop and Hitler in 1937, where he became
fully convinced that National Socialism was the right path for the
future of Japan.
“Although
Social Democracy developed out of Liberalism, it is a form of
government which suppresses individual freedom, enslaving the
masses…”
Nakano
Seigo
Although
Seigo gathered thousands of followers, he never reached the mass
needed for a revolutionary effort to overturn the traditional
Militarist-Conservative elites. He later made
personal attacks on the Tojo regime in 1940, after the government
welded together all political parties into a single political
organization called the “Imperial
Rule Assistance Association.” After Japan had so
dramatically declared war on the U.S., any criticism of the Tojo
regime became intolerable and Nakano was forbidden to make public
speeches or publish articles. After he was placed under house arrest
in 1943, he committed
suicide by disembowelment.
American
Fascism:
“America
needs at this moment a moral leader, a National moral leader. The
outstanding National moral leader of the world today is
Mussolini.”
Henry Luce, Time Magazine
Henry
Ford, Charles Lindbergh, Henry Luce, and many other prominent
establishment Corporate and conservative Americans became fascinated
with Fascism and supported Hitler, Mussolini, and Franco.
To
this day most Americans have no idea of the extent to which Fascism
was being exported to the world during the pre-war period. These
“Universal
Fascisms” all had unique characteristics
peculiar to their own country, but they all followed the same
underlying objectives of replacing Liberal Democratic governments
with Authoritarian
and Totalitarian dictatorial single-party governments.
In
the U.S., groups such as the German-American Bund and Italian Fascist
organizations attracted large audiences to their mass meetings until
the invasions in Europe began. After Pearl Harbor, membership in such
organizations collapsed, as Americans of all political persuasions
began to appreciate the real danger which Fascism held for the world.
Fascism
developed successfully in European countries for two decades because
its true criminal nature was not understood, and because the
Conservative elites
in the corporate, government, and religious institutions viewed
Fascism as an opposing force to Socialism and Communism. That
attitude has re-emerged in the 21st century. (Consider the
NFC Republican Anti-Liberal Hate Rhetoric)
Some
Common Features of The Fascist State
Fascism
is Totalitarian:
“The
man of worth will sacrifice his immediate welfare to the needs of his
career. Similarly, the Corporate State must not be considered solely
as a means of good government. It is also the means of
self-expression of the nation as a Corporate whole in the attainment
of its national destiny.”
Alexander Raven Thomson,
British Union of Fascists, (BUF), 1936
The
Fascism that evolved in Pre-WWII Europe was a “totalistic”
movement in that the citizen was expected to sacrifice all for the
“Total
State.” Fascism eventually gave rise to a breed
of fanatical and cynical henchmen who crushed the Liberty of the
people it converted or conquered, by an orchestrated combination of
suppression of dissent, repression of the opposition, orchestrated
state sponsored violence, social engineering, and total control of
the economic and social life of its citizens. Fascism destroyed
Democratic institutions, suppressed cultural, intellectual, and
religious freedoms, and brutally imposed its view of the world on all
nations it occupied or dominated.
Fascists,
then and now, see the nation-state as an entity in which the people
are an integral and indivisible part, for which they must sacrifice
their individuality (Hyper-Patriotism) and give total and
unquestioning loyalty. They believe the state decays under weak or
Liberal leadership and can only be regenerated by strong
authoritarian leadership; whereas the Liberal Democrats see the
nation-state as simply an instrument of the people, which can and
must be designed to serve the people and controlled to prevent abuse
of their individuality, Freedom and Civil Liberties.
Fascist
movements pursue the “dystopia”
of a homogeneous, disciplined, and perfectly co-ordinated National
community. This requires the creation of a highly centralized state
with draconian powers to carry out its programs of aggressive
expansionist foreign policy, economic hegemony, obedient and
Hyper-Patriotic citizens, and intolerant programs of social
engineering. Fascists have historically subverted the rule of law,
substituting the rule of despotic men. (Consider the Bush
Patriot Act and the Torture Scandal.)
Fascism
Relies on the Myth of a National Moral Values Crisis
The great
myth all Fascist movements employ is the false vision or perception
of a “crisis”
of the nation, to justify a program of extraordinary measures and
strong leadership to rescue the nation, especially from Liberalism
and Democracy. Fascist rhetoric always includes calls for an urgent
reawakening, re-birth, regeneration, and rejuvenation from the false
specters of senility, decadence, sickness, decline, disintegration,
collapse, debilitation, and morally bankrupt “Libero-Democratic”
system of government. (Consider
the Christian Nationalist Moral Majority agenda.)
Typical
Ultra-Right Vitriol Against Liberal Decadence:
“We
live under a state that is terminally sick, in the manner of a
political and spiritual AIDS…What many people regard as the
‘lunatic left’ for instance, is a growth that first
needed fertile soil for its germination. The soil existed in the
atmosphere of Liberalism that preceded the growth. And in the system
of values, which in that atmosphere had gained widespread acceptance
in our society.”
John
Tyndall, British founder of six Ultra-Right Groups, and the British
National Party (BNP) in 1982
Fascism
is Pseudo-Populist
Every
Fascist movement has claimed to represent the common man, but once in
power, they fundamentally acted on behalf of the wealthy ruling
class, and powerful industrial, corporate, church, and political
conservative elites. They, in fact, became the uppermost of the
hierarchical elites. (Consider
the
Republican Contract with America, and Gun Rights grandstanding.)
Fascism
Enlists Religious Fanaticism
Hitler—the
Great Protestant Spirit:
“A
totalitarian Hitler, who possesses a great Protestant spirit, is
demanding Freedom and Autonomy from the United States and Great
Britain, who dominate it through the power of money…It is the
decadence of Liberalism which is responsible…Hitler
understands the absolute evil of Social Democracy, based as it is on
a parliamentary system, where everything is decided by the
majority…Although Social Democracy developed out of
Liberalism, it is a form of government which suppresses individual
freedom, enslaving the masses.”
Nakano Seigo,
Japanese Fascist, Waseda University, November 1942
Fascists
have always chosen a politically convenient Christian religious sect
to help them control the masses. They use the language of sacrifice,
beliefs, resurrection, spirituality, mysticism, morality, values, and
redemption; and they attack skeptics, non-believers, other faiths,
and humanists. While the Fascists of the last century professed a
loyalty to Christianity,
their actions proved that they were in fact Anti-Christs. This
phenomenon is repeating itself in America. (Consider
the Bush Faith Based Regime)
“The
idea of man and the idea of society cannot be dealt with separately.
What Fascism is contending with is the Christian idea of man and
society as a whole. Its central concept is that of the person. It is
the individual in his religious aspect. The consistent refusal of
Fascism to regard the individual in this aspect is the sign of its
recognition that Christianity and Fascism are completely
incompatible. This explains the devious paths which it has been
driven to explore.”
Karl
Polanyi, Austrian Sociologist, Anti-Fascist, 1935
Fascism
is actually the destroyer of all genuine religious faith. Fascists
use religious fanatics to achieve their aims, who are actually
Anti-Christian. (Consider
the CNF
Christian-Nationalist Crusader movement.)
Fascism
is Anti-Democratic
Virtually
every Fascist movement has equated Socialism, and Communism with
Liberal Democracy. This tactic is primarily intended to discredit the
American system of Liberal
Democracy, because this system has until recently
proven that it is flexible enough to avoid the trap of ideological
absolutes, found in Communism, Fascism, Militarism, Imperialism, and
other far-Right and far-Left Conservative movements.
Until the
NFC Republicans
gained power, American
Liberal Democracy had been the envy of the entire world,
which had sought to copy and emulate us for our Liberties, our modern
culture, our economic opportunities, and our religious and other
freedoms. The greatest risk facing humanity today is that Liberal
Democracy, in the most powerful nation in all recorded
history, is again being undermined by a Fascist type movement called
Neo-Conservatism.. (Consider
the Un-American violation of traditional Parliamentary rules by the
NFC Republican controlled Congress.)
Fascism
is Anti-Rational
Fascists
universally oppose the rational Enlightenment of the 18th
Century philosophers. They dispute scientific truth, philosophical
reason, true Christianity’s respect for the dignity of man
(humanism), political pluralism, Liberty, and Freedom of all people. (Consider the NFC
Intelligent Design v. Science, and Global warming issues.)
Fascism
Relies on Propaganda
To
regiment the whole people behind their policies, the Fascists create
elaborate machinery for manufacturing consensus through propaganda
and indoctrination, with verbal violence, political repression and
calculated terror directed against alleged enemies, both internal and
external, of their New Order. (Consider the
entire Right Wing Propaganda Network.)
Fascism
is Racist
Russia’s
Liberal Democratic Party—Example of Stealth Neo-Fascism:
“Two
civilizations cannot go on living together in North
America…White
America will be violently swallowed up by Non-white ethnic
groups…(Anglo-Saxons) will find themselves facing the huge
mass of black, yellow, and red dwellers on this earth…Only
with Russians will they (Germans) be able to find genuine support in
their struggle against the rottenness of North American
civilization…Russia and Germany together will be able to
insure the violent end of the United States and the establishment of
a healthier racial balance on the continent of Europe…For the
first time in history it will also be possible to create a state
along sexual lines: Homosexuals should permanently get their own
little corner of lust where they will feel genuinely at home. Various
regions of Holland or even Amsterdam could be converted into such
self-nurturing states…”
Sokol
Zhirinovskogo (Zhirinovsky’s Falcon) Article published in 1992,
Zhirinovsky’s Neo-Fascist Liberal democratic Party obtained 23%
of the vote giving it 64 Deputies in the 1993 Russian elections.
Fascist
Ultra-Nationalisms are inherently racist as they reject
all but those they include in the “Nation”
or “Culture.”
Typical enemies have included: Jews, Blacks, Gypsies, Homosexuals,
other nationalities, different religions, skin color, language, and
political affiliation. They have an “Apartheid”
mentality, calling for exclusive membership in their Nation or
culture. (We are a
Christian Nation) They have a burning hatred of
“mixed”
or homosexual marriages, and “Cultural”
bastardization. (Consider
NFC Republican efforts to make English the Official Language of the
U.S., and NFC Republican Constitution Marriage Amendment.)
“There
is the deepest imaginable gulf in outlook on life dividing us from
the mentality which accorded every living creature as one of their
‘Human Rights’ the right to procreation, even where the
unfortunate results of this attitude could only live at the cost of
their own distress and as a burden to, or even to the detriment of
society as a whole.”
Walter Gross, Nazi Office of Racial
Policy, 1941
All
Fascism is racist and all racists tend to be Fascist. Their
social-engineering prejudices have in the past led to programs such
as; Segregation,
Apartheid, Lynchings of Blacks, Eugenics, Racial Hygiene, Euthanasia,
and Genocide, of what they consider culturally or
genetically inferior people, such as: the Mentally disturbed, Jews,
Gypsies, Slavs, Homosexuals, etc. They are intolerant and reject
multi-cultural, multi-racial, multi-religious, and diverse sexual
lifestyles of society. They engage in campaigns of propaganda and
violence against immigrants of all types, especially those who are in
the country without formal permission.
With the
excuse of the resurgence of Terrorism, the “New
Right” or Neo-Fascist political parties in many
countries are causing a retrenching into their cultural, ethnic, and
geographical identities and National boundaries. (Consider
the NFC continuing Wars on Blacks, Latinos, and Immigrants.)
Fascists
Despise Liberalism and Democracy
Fascism-Desperate
Last Stand against Liberal Democracy:
“Fascism
was the best bulwark against Communism and was also a struggle
against the destructiveness of Liberalism. But now they know that
Fascism is a life and death struggle, a desperate last-ditch stand.
They know that Fascist victory is the only chance to establish a
‘third order’. A ‘third world’; and that
defeat of Fascism will condemn men henceforth
to know nothing except the sterile confrontation of Liberal
Democracies…”
Maurice Bardeche,
French Post War Fascist, Holocaust denier, Delegate to Malmo
Conference of 1951, to establish a Pan-European Fascist Movement,
1961
Liberalism
and all of its features: pluralism, tolerance, egalitarianism,
individualism, gradualism, compromise, utilitarianism, pacifism,
representative government (parliamentary Democracy), the separation
of government powers, the doctrine of Natural rights, the Open
Society, cosmopolitanism, and world cooperative bodies, and Liberty
itself.(Consider
the NFC Republican’s Contempt for International Law and the
U.N.)
Organized
Street Violence is Not Always a Feature of Fascist Movements:
“The
coming of Fascism in England, we hope, need not be accompanied, as in
Italy, by violent Revolution, so that English men and women must
above all begin by learning to dissociate in their minds Fascism and
the various violent and dictatorial accompaniments that happen to be
associated with it in Italy.”
James
Strachey Barnes,
Member Royal Institute of International Affairs, Britain’s most
prominent apologist of Fascism
Universal
Neo-Fascism is Alive and Well and Growing in the 21st
Century
What
most Americans do not know is that Fascism did not die in 1945 with
the demise of Mussolini and Hitler and their criminal dictatorships.
I am not referring to the bizarre conduct of small Neo-Nazi groups
that periodically demonstrate their ignorance and bigotry on the
streets of Europe and America. I am referring to educated,
sophisticated intellectuals and political propagandists who have
patiently been working to revive a serious Neo-Fascist political
system in many countries of the West.
After
the end of the war, thousands of former Fascists and SS War criminals
were able to escape justice for several reasons. The allies,
anticipating the Cold War with Russia, decided to capture and exploit
as much German technology and experts as possible in fields as
diverse as Missiles and Interrogation. In Germany and Japan a small
percentage of the high level authorizers of War Crimes were
prosecuted, and executed, but between 1945 and 1955, more than 700
Nazi scientists and Intelligence operatives were smuggled into the
U.S.with the help of the Intelligence community. In addition to
providing the government with valuable missile and other armament
technology, such as “Operation
Paper Clip,” the policy eventually spawned more
notorious programs such as Operation
ARTICHOKE (extreme interrogation and torture methods)
and MK-ULTRA
(mind control experiments).
Networks
of former Nazi SS and other Fascists, sometimes with the active help
of the Catholic Church, helped to smuggle many into South America and
throughout the world. Most went into hiding under assumed names, but
many became active in resurrecting the Fascist ideology in their
adopted land.
In
the 60+ years since the defeat of European
Fascist-Nationalism and Japanese
Militarist Conservative-Nationalism; the fundamentally
evil ambitions of Fascism have again spread to many countries,
assumed new less obviously threatening forms, and have been
internationalized into a worldwide Conservative “Universal
Neo-Fascist”
movement, freed of its association with historical Fascism
and Nazism by a calculated program of historical revisionism.
They
now claim to have abandoned paramilitary violence and seek to gain
power through the high road of democratic electoral politics.
However, all of these movements are using misleading populist
rhetoric and benign labels to gain absolute power. These Neo-Fascist
Conservative movements in Europe and the United States all
hold deeply illiberal concepts of Nationhood, the State, and the
Individual. Some in Italy, Spain, and the U.S. have hidden agendas
which have slowly begun to emerge. They
are all classic enemies of Liberalism, Egalitarianism,
Multi-ethnicity, pluralism, and Democratic principles.
By
the 1950s, Fascists in Europe had already begun to re-emerge in
electoral politics, this time avoiding the marginalizing rhetoric of;
state terrorism, imperial expansion, war, demonization of the Jews,
and emphasizing instead, issues such as: anti-communism,
anti-Liberalism, anti-Immigration reform, tax relief, welfare
restrictions, reform of political corruption, corporate
de-regulation, privatization, government efficiency, etc.
The
early Neo-Fascist Congresses to launch what was called “The
European Social Movement” were held in Rome in
1950, and in Malmo, in 1951.
During
these organizing years, a Byzantine network of postwar Neo-Fascist
organizations evolved after the Malmo International Congress of 1951.
Swiss Neo-Fascist
and French
Euro-Fascist Rene Binet organized a conference in Zurich,
of hard line racists, who had split from the Non-Nazi Fascists at the
Malmo Conference. They went on to create the “Le
Nouvel Ordre Europeen” (New European Order)
based in Switzerland, which published a periodical called
“L‘Europerelle.”
The European Neo-Fascist publication called “Europae”
was also published by the Barcelona branch of “CEDADE,”
a Universal Neo-Fascist organization formed in 1965 by Spanish
Neo-Fascists and Axis power fugitives.
“Nation
Europa” was set up in the German Federal
Republic in 1950 by former
SS officer Arthur Ernhardt and has established itself as
the major German forum for Ecumenical
Fascism and the “Europe
a Nation” principle. It regularly publishes
articles in support of far right and Neo-Fascist parties and
movements in Germany such as the “Republikaner
Party” and the “Deutsch
Volksunion” and from other countries, such
as LaPen’s “Front
Nacional” in France. It foments anti-immigrant
prejudices with its regular column on Aliens.
In
Britain, the Neo-Fascists formed the “White
Defense League” in 1958, the “British
National Party” in 1960, and the “National
Socialist Movement” in 1962. Colin
Jordan and John
Tyndall, two of England’s most active Neo-Fascist
agitators founded the “World
Union of National Socialists” in 1962, which was
affiliated with American ;“National
Socialist White People’s Party” led by
George Lincoln
Rockwell, until his assassination in 1967. Their magazine
published in the U.S. was called the “Europae.”
“The
inherent materialism of Liberalism and Marxism is nothing other than
the dissolution of the soul, the abandonment of all human motivation,
which cannot be rationalized in terms of personal interest or
immediate existence.”
Michael Walker, Scorpion, 1986
The
magazine “Scorpion,”
founded in 1981, is the most important British organ for the New
Right, serving as a mouthpiece for the Neo-Fascists vision
of a European Empire of spiritual values warding off the same old
enemies of classical fascism.
“Twenty-one
years after the physical defeat of Nationalist Socialist
Germany…
against the overwhelming array of men and materials marshaled against
her by the Bolshevist-Democratic alliance, the appearance of this
journal in 1966 reflects that revival of National Socialism which is
a feature of the day.”
Colin
Jordan, National Socialist World, 1966
The
monthly “Spearhead”
is a publication that was edited by British
Neo-Fascist John Tyndall to reflect a cross section of
contemporary British Nationalist opinion in the 80s and 90s. The
magazine carried many pieces denying Adolf Hitler’s involvement
in the Holocaust, which was an early strategy of the Neo-Fascists to
erase the stains of Fascism’s spiritual leader.
“By
the mid-thirties, the size and power of the SS had mushroomed.
Himmler and Heydrich now controlled all German police forces
including Goering’s creation, the Gestapo, whose very name
today turns many to zero at the bone; particularly, cynics might add,
when the bones in question belong either to reds, pornographers, or
Hollywood film producers...it is Hollywood we must thank for
depicting Nationalist Socialist Germany as one vast concentration
camp.”
John Day,
Neo-Fascist writer, Spearhead, February 1987
In
1963, the openly racist “Federation
Ouest-Europeene”
(FOE) was established in France by Neo-Fascist
Yves Jeanne, Francois Dior, and Colin Jordan. The goal of
this organization was to keep the Nazi dream alive in Francophone
Europe, which eventually emerged in the purely
cultural campaign against Liberalism fought by the French
“New Right”
including the Neo-Fascist programs of LaPen’s
“National Front.”
For
the more pathologically driven Fascists and racists the world over,
it is the Third Reich, rather than Fascist Italy, which has become
the role model for the perpetuation of their struggle against the
“degeneracy
of Liberalism.” Nazism with its unprecedented
radical policies of foreign aggression and domestic cruelty provides
a bottomless reservoir of hatred and fantasies of world domination.
As a result of “Universal
Fascism” re-entering electoral politics, they
have undergone a significant makeover to launder away the historical
stains of the original fascist tyranny. One method has been
attempting to rewrite history. This effort of “Historical
Revisionism” includes “Holocaust
Denial” and the attempted rehabilitation of
Fascist leaders. For example; Mussolini has been portrayed in Italy
as a hero of modernization, and anti-Communism drawn into a ruinous
war by political miscalculation.
“They
are more concerned to appear respectable. Anti-Semitism although
often present is less pronounced. Immigrant workers are frequently
blamed for economic problems, such as unemployment. Anti-Communism
takes the place of Anti-Capitalism. Fascist mass movements, if they
reappear, will probably be more restrained and civilized, but they
will be no less menacing. When the manipulation of mass opinion is no
longer sufficient to maintain the consensus, then the state
repression of the opposition groups may well be deemed necessary.
Against this need not imply the physical brutality of previous
regimes, but may well be of a more subtle and insidious nature.”
Martin
Kitchen, Socialist Writer, London, 1976
In
practice, perpetuators of the Fascist dream have had to temporarily
abandon paramilitary violence and play by parliamentarian rules once
again. The new face of Fascism, or Neo-Fascism,
is more often cast as an earnest Neo-Conservative
concerned with Liberals failure to deal with national security
threats, government waste, cultural decadence, especially sexual
perversion, threats to the corporate world, by over-regulation,
excessive taxation, widespread crime and violence, drug abuse,
immigration reform, and phantom threats to Christianity.
The
“New
Right,” the “Conservative
Revolution,” and the “Third
Position” have all been fronts for the
regeneration of far right Ultra-National
Neo-Fascist movements with the same ideological
objectives of original Fascism, cleaned up and dressed in the
respectable mantle of Neo-Conservatism.
In
1987, Fascism researcher O’ Maolain published an inventory of
the various specimens of Fascism in his book; The
Radical Right: A World Directory. O’Maolain
found that by the mid 1980s, thousands
of groupings with an apparent kinship with Fascism or
Nazism were in existence worldwide. His inventory ranges from
publications and publishing houses to pressure groups; from
paramilitary terrorist groups to electoral parties; from very small
to fully-fledged political organizations; ranging from purely
cultural campaigns against
Liberal Democracy fought by the French
“New
Right,” to Fascist arch-typical regimes in
countries such as Chile, Argentina, Pakistan, Syria, and South
Africa.
The
New Right
The
New Right is made up of scores of Neo-Fascist
intellectuals from every corner of the European and
Anglo-Saxon world; but credit for the term “New
Right” or “Nouvelle Droite”
goes to French
Neo-Fascist Alain De Benoist who was actually awarded a prize
by the Academie Francaise in 1978, for his anthology of short essays
called “Vu
de Droite,” which cumulatively delegitimizes
many assumptions of Liberal Democracy. Marco
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