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Fascism
Core tenets Nationalism – Authoritarianism – Single party state – Dictatorship – Social Darwinism – Social interventionism – Indoctrination – Propaganda – Anti-intellectualism – Eugenics – Heroism – Militarism – Economic interventionism – Anti-communism
Topics Definitions – Economics – Fascism and ideology – Fascism worldwide – Symbolism
Ideas Class collaboration – Corporatism – Futurism – Heroic capitalism – National Socialism – National syndicalism – Populism – Self-sufficiency – State capitalism – State socialism – Statism – Supercapitalism – Totalitarianism – Yellow socialism
Movements Arrow Cross Party – Austrofascism – Brazilian Integralism – British Union of Fascists – Falange – Iron Guard – Italian Fascism – Japanese fascism – Nazism – Rexism – UstaÅ¡e – Revisionist Maximalism Para-Fascist: Austrofascism – Estado Novo (Portugal) – 4th of August Regime – Francoist Spain – Imperial Rule Assistance Organization – Japanese statism – Baathism – Independent State of Croatia – Slovak State – Tacuara Nationalist Movement –
People   Corneliu Zelea Codreanu   Heinrich Himmler   Adolf Hitler   Ikki Kita   Benito Mussolini   Giovanni Gentile   Ante Paveliä�   Konstantin Rodzaevsky   Plínio Salgado
Works The Doctrine of Fascism – Fascist manifesto – Mein Kampf – The Myth of the Twentieth Century – Zaveshchanie russkogo fashista
Organizations Axis powers – Black Brigades – Blackshirts – Blueshirts – Blue Shirt Society – Redshirts – Fascist International – Grand Council of Fascism – Greenshirts – Italian Nationalist Association – Schutzstaffel – Sturmabteilung
History Fascio – March on Rome – Beer Hall Putsch – Acerbo Law – Aventine Secession – Fascist Italy – Nazi Germany – March of the Iron Will – Congress of Verona – Italian Social Republic
Lists Anti-fascists – British fascists – Fascists by country – Nazi ideologues
Related topics Anti-fascism – Clerical fascism – Cryptofascism – Ecofascism – European fascist ideologies – Fascist (epithet) – Hitler salute – Left-wing fascism – Neo-Fascism – Quadrumvirs – Racism – Roman salute – Social fascism – Palingenetic ultranationalism
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Fascism and ideology is the subject of numerous debates. The position of fascism on the political spectrum is a point of contention.

[edit] Definition

Various scholars have sought to define fascism, and the consensus is that fascism is an authoritarian ideology, but not every authoritarian ideology is fascist. Bertrand Russell wrote: "Fascism is not an ordered set of beliefs....there is no philosophy of fascism, but only a psycho-analysis."^[1] George Orwell has called fascism nothing more than an insult that various groups use against their political opponents.^[2]

Originally, fascism referred to a political movement that existed in Italy, which ruled the country from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. The term has also been used to describe a variety of nationalist movements that existed in Europe during the 1920s and 1930s, most notably German Nazism and clerical fascism. Since 1945, several political leaders across the world have been described as fascists, and there are some fringe groups that claim to follow the tradition of pre-1945 fascism (these are usually called neo-fascists).

The identification of specific countries and governments as fascist is nearly always controversial. The only example of a fascist regime that can be considered entirely uncontroversial is fascist Italy. Other countries that have been considered fascist by their supporters or opponents include: Imperial Japan, Spain under Francisco Franco, Portugal under António de Oliveira Salazar, Croatia under the UstaÅ¡e, Hungary under Miklós Horthy, and Romania under the Iron Guard.

[edit] Fascism and the political spectrum

There is no agreement on the position of generic fascism on the political spectrum, as has been described as left, right, and center.^[3][4]

Fascism rejects the idea of class conflict in favor of class collaboration,^[5] and internationalism in favor of statist nationalism.^[6]

In 1932, Italian fascist philosopher Giovanni Gentile described fascism as a collectivist and statist right-wing ideology:

Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th 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 19th century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the State.^[7]

Eugen Weber places fascism on the right: "...their most common allies lay on the right, particularly on the radical authoritarian right, and Italian Fascism as a semi-coherent entity was partly defined by its merger with one of the most radical of all right authoritarian movements in Europe, the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI)."^[8] Walter Laqueur says that historical fascism "did not belong to the extreme Left, yet defining it as part of the extreme Right is not very illuminating either", but that it "was always a coalition between radical, populist ('fascist') elements and others gravitating toward the extreme Right".^[9] Stanley Payne notes the alliances and sometimes fusion between fascists and right-wing authoritarians, but stresses the important differences between the two.^[10]

The left-wing influences on fascism are claimed to originate in the fact that several prominent fascist theorists began their political careers as socialists, syndicalists, anarchists, or a combination thereof. Benito Mussolini had been a prominent member of the Italian Socialist Party in his youth. He spent some years writing for a socialist newspaper before World War I, but his support for the war and his strong feelings of Italian nationalism caused him to reject socialism. He spent the war years without a definite political cause, and later began setting the foundations for what became the fascist movement. By the time Mussolini gained power, many of his old comrades on the left were the first targets of his political police.

The Fascist Manifesto's initial promises included nationalization of property, but many of their policies were moderated or removed. A few advocates of laissez faire capitalism, such as Ludwig von Mises, defining socialism as any ideology that advocates a society in which the means of production are socialized, argue that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were socialist countries according to this definition.^[11] Zeev Sternhell sees fascism as an anti-Marxist form of socialism.^[12]

A number of fascist movements described themselves a "third force" that was outside the traditional political spectrum altogether. Many scholars accept fascism as a search for a third way between capitalism and communism.^{[13][14][15][16][17][18][19][20][21]} Roger Griffin argued, "Not only does the location of fascism within the right pose taxonomic problems, there are good ground for cutting this particular Gordian knot altogether by placing it in a category of its own "beyond left and right."^[19] Sir Oswald Mosley, leader of the British Union of Fascists, described his position as "hard centre" in the political spectrum.^[22] Seymour Martin Lipset sees fascism as "extremism of the center".^[12]

[edit] Fascism and Nazism

Nazism, the political movement led by Adolf Hitler in Germany, is widely viewed as a form of fascism. The Nazis shared the extreme nationalism, militarism, anti-communism of the Italian fascists, and Hitler admired Mussolini, going as far as to copy the Roman salute used by Italian fascists and make it the basis of the Hitler salute. However, the Nazis added racism and anti-Semitism to the original fascist ideas. The Italian fascists were not interested in racism at first, but by the 1930s adopted a staunch white supremacist doctrine in Italian African colonies.^[23] In the early 1930s, there were tensions between fascist Italy and Nazi Germany over the increasing possibility of an Austria-Germany merger (Anschluss), which would create a more powerful Greater Germany.

Italian fascism responded to Hitler's rise to power and need for alliance with Germany by increasingly adopting anti-Semitic rhetoric, and eventually anti-Semitic policies. In 1936, Mussolini made his first written denunciation of Jews by claiming that anti-Semitism had only arisen because Jews had become too predominant in the positions of power of countries, and he claimed that Jews were a "ferocious" tribe who sought to "totally banish" Christians from public life.^[24] In 1937, Fascist party member Paolo Orano criticized the Zionist movement as being part of British foreign policy, which aimed to secure a British hold of the area without respecting the Christian and Muslim presence in Palestine. On the matter of Jewish Italians, Orano said that they "should concern themselves with nothing more than their religion" and not bother boasting of being patriotic Italians.^[25]

As a result of anti-semitic laws introduced in 1938, the fascist regime lost its propaganda director, Margherita Sarfatti, who was Jewish and had been Mussolini's mistress. A minority of fascists were pleased with anti-Semitic policy, such as Roberto Farinacci, who claimed that Jews through intrigue had taken control key positions of finance, business and schools. He noted that Jews sympathized with Ethiopia during Italy's war with that country, and that Jews had sympathized with Republican Spain during the Spanish Civil War.^[26] In its alliance with Nazi Germany, the fascist regime aided the Nazis in the deportation of Jews to Nazi concentration camps, labour camps, and extermination camps during the Holocaust. Italy established its own concentration and internment camps across its held territories, but these camps were not like those of Nazi Germany, as families were allowed to stay together and there was no campaign of deliberate mass murder.^[27]

Spanish dictator Francisco Franco, who is often considered a fascist, remained neutral during World War II. Hitler had supported Franco in his rise to power during the Spanish Civil War, and Franco was sympathetic to the Axis, but he refused Hitler's pleas for military assistance.

[edit] Fascism and conservatism

Fascists often claimed to defend the social order, traditional values, national culture and civilization against the forces of modernity (particularly liberalism and socialism). At the same time, fascists claimed to offer a radically new approach to politics, and a new form of government that could reshape society.^[28] Thus, fascism attempted to be both conservative and radical. Benito Mussolini stated: "I am a reactionary and a revolutionary."^[29]

World War I produced a great deal of social change in Europe and led to the dissolution of most traditional monarchies, including the German Empire, Austria-Hungary and Tsarist Russia. Conservatism, which drew its strongest supporters from the political, economic and intellectual elites in pre-war Europe, found itself in crisis. The established elites in central and eastern Europe were weakened or rendered powerless by the introduction of universal suffrage, the collapse of traditional social hierarchies, and the creation of nation-states in place of the old multinational empires. At the same time, many segments of the population - particularly the rural peasantry and the skilled professionals - felt threatened by the prospect of industrialization, increased social mobility or the creation of a welfare state. Following the Bolshevik Revolution, many felt that the working class might rise up in a communist insurrection. Normally, those segments of the population would have rallied behind traditional conservatism, but with traditional conservative parties severely weakened in the aftermath of the war, there was a political vacuum on the right.^[30]

This political vacuum was filled by the rising fascist movements. They gained power and support from older conservative classes, and in some cases received direct approval from the traditional conservative parties.^[31] The conservative British newspaper The Daily Mail published a lead article in 1934 under the headline "The Blackshirts have what the Conservatives need".^[32] The rise to power of the Italian fascists and German Nazis was largely funded and supported by aristocratic landlords, wealthy industrialists, army officers, and other groups with strong conservative leanings. The fascists gathered this support by successfully presenting themselves as the last line of defense against liberal democracy, land reform, demilitarization and the collectivization of the means of production.^[33] Many traditional conservatives were persuaded that fascism was the only realistic alternative to liberalism and socialism. A French businessman remarked in 1935, "better Hitler than Léon Blum".^[34]

Fascism was also a mass movement, drawing its rank-and-file members from the general population, particularly the lower middle class, skilled professionals, and the peasantry. Many of these people did not come from conservative backgrounds; some of them had been strongly influenced by classical liberalism.^[35] To its voters, fascism presented itself as a form of new and revolutionary conservatism that could reconcile the interests of the elite with those of the common man. Fascist ideology emphasized the concept of class collaboration, which held that social inequality and hierarchy could be beneficial to rich and poor alike. The fascist model of the corporatism was different from traditional monarchy, yet claimed to be based on the same fundamental principles.

Adolf Hitler stated in 1937: "The main plank in our program is to abolish the liberal concept of the individual and the Marxist concept of humanity, and to substitute for them the Volk community, rooted in the soil and united by the bond of its common blood."^[36]

[edit] Fascism and totalitarianism

Totalitarianism is a term used in political science to refer to an ideology or organization that aims to control every aspect of life. For technological reasons, totalitarianism became an issue only recently. Before the 20th century, communications were not fast enough to allow a central government to collect information on a large number of its citizens in real time, the mass media was not developed enough to allow the existence of all-pervasive propaganda, and weapons were not effective enough to allow a relatively small number of armed soldiers to control a much bigger unarmed population. In the 20th century those technological barriers fell, and totalitarian government became a possibility.

Many authors have argued that totalitarian governments existed in the 20th century, though there is disagreement on which governments were totalitarian and which ideologies created them. Nazism and Stalinism are the two ideologies most often considered to be totalitarian, and Hitler and Stalin are the two people most often given as examples of totalitarian leaders. They both held absolute power in their countries and had personality cults built around them. They both used similar means - extreme forms of censorship, police state tactics, and mass murder. In the early 1920s, Joseph Goebbels and Otto Strasser regarded Stalinism as a Russian form of Nazism and wanted to form an alliance with the Soviet Union.^[37] However, Hitler rejected their proposal at a Nazi Party meeting in February 1926. Nazi Germany and the Soviet Union did form a mutually beneficial non-aggression pact just before the Second World War, but Germany later broke the agreement and invaded the Soviet Union.

Hannah Arendt, in The Origins of Totalitarianism (1951), was the first author to give a lengthy description of a form of government called "totalitarianism", and she asserted that the governments of Nazi Germany and Stalin's Soviet Union fell under this category. However, she believed that Fascist Italy had not been totalitarian, but merely a traditional form of dictatorship which did not submit the state to the party. Other authors, such as Karl Popper, included Fascist Italy in their list of totalitarian governments.

Eric Hoffer claims that mass movements like Communism, Fascism and Nazism had a common trait in picturing Western democracies and their values as decadent, with people "too soft, too pleasure-loving and too selfish" to sacrifice for a higher cause, which for them implies an inner moral and biological decay. He further argues that those movements offered the prospect of a glorious, yet imaginary, future to frustrated people, enabling them to find a refuge from the lack of personal accomplishments in their individual existence. Individual is then assimilated into a compact collective body and a "fact-proof screens from reality" are established.^[38]

There is an ongoing debate on whether all fascist governments and Communist states can be considered totalitarian, or whether only some of them fit this description. It has been argued, for example, that the Soviet Union ceased to be totalitarian soon after Stalin's death. There are also critics of the notion of totalitarianism, who argue that the label "totalitarian" is too vague and tries to bring together governments that use similar methods but have little else in common. Primo Levi, for instance, argued that there was an important distinction between the policies of Nazi Germany and those of the Soviet Union or the People's Republic of China: while they all had their idea of what kind of parasitic classes or races society ought to be rid of, and they all used similar means to dispose of them, Levi saw that they identified their targets by very different criteria. The Nazis assigned a place given by birth (since one is born into a certain race), while the Soviets and Chinese determined their enemies according to their social position (which people may change within their life). Therefore, in Levi's view, revolutionary communists would accept the son or daughter of a wealthy capitalist as a productive member of society if he agreed to change his original social position and oppose capitalism; but to the Nazis, one born a Jew will always remain a Jew, and he is a parasite who must be disposed of.^{[citation needed]} However, according to Michel Foucault, in the 19th century the essentialist notion of the "race" was incorporated by racists, biologists, and eugenicists, who gave it the modern sense of "biological race" which was then integrated to "state racism". On the other hand, Marxists transformed the notions of the "race" and the "race struggle" into the concept of "class struggle."^[39] The theme of social war provides overriding principle that connects the class struggle and the race struggle. For Foucault, these concepts are neither independently derived ideologies nor alternate persuasive views; their etymology is one and the same.^[40]

[edit] Fascism and economics

There has been much debate surrounding the fascist economics, and whether they were capitalist, socialist, or something else entirely.^[41] Fascists usually claimed to reject traditional forms of both capitalism and socialism. They argued that the implementation of fascist ideas into the economic sphere would represent a "third way", and they favoured corporatism and class collaboration.

Fascists believed that the existence of inequality and separate social classes was beneficial (contrary to the views of socialists).^[42] Marxists advocate solidarity between members of the working class (regardless of nation) and believe that conflict between different classes is a positive force. Fascism and Nazism hold the reverse view; they advocate solidarity between members of the same nation (regardless of class), and believe that conflict between different nations is a positive force. Fascists argued that the state had a role in mediating relations between classes (contrary to the views of liberal capitalists). Many opponents of fascism contend that fascist economic policies were not unique as the fascists claimed, but rather fell within the bounds of existing economic systems.

Zeev Sternhell argues that fascism contained technocratic and managerial elements rooted in a national, anti-Marxist socialism, and that it sought "to adapt socialism to modern conditions".^[43] Sternhell argues that fascism "never questioned the idea that market forces and private property were part of the natural order of things".^[44]

Libertarian economists of the Austrian School define socialism as an statist ideology that aims at constructing a society in which the means of production are socialized, and argue that Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy were socialist countries.^[11] Ludwig von Mises and Friedrich Hayek focus on the measures taken by the governments of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany to combat the effects of the Great Depression. Both countries engaged in very strong collusion between business and government, with the result that businessmen had a degree of control over state policy, and the state had a degree of control over the economy. Using this mechanism, fascists and Nazis were able to fix prices, determine the level of wages, and put up barriers to entry in important markets (so as to give their business allies the power to form oligopolies or monopolies). Fascists and Nazis placed high tariffs on imported goods, for the purpose of achieving economic self-sufficiency (autarky), which would enable them to wage war without fear of international economic sanctions.

Hayek and von Mises saw most of these policies as being socialist, because the policies exercised what they believed to be excessive control over the means or production. However, this argument is rejected by all self-described socialists; they typically only support state interventions that are seen as promoting equality or advancing the interests of the working class. Some types of socialists, such as libertarian socialists and most anarchists believe in minimal state intervention or no state intervention in the economy at all. The latter believes that states and hierarchical governments should not even exist. Socialists are particularly opposed to the government granting favors to big business and other private property interests. Socialists also view Fascism as belonging to the economic and political right because, unlike socialists, Fascists are absolutely opposed to egalitarianism and see the class system as natural and even beneficial.^[45] Fascists and Nazis also believe in uploading forms of capitalism they term "Heroic Capitalism" and "Dynamic Capitalism" by use of class collaboration and corporatism to avoid an internationalist finance version of capitalism they term "Supercapitalism". Fascists and Nazis believe "Supercapitalism" would stir class tensions which they believe would be used by Communists to bring about a Marxist state.^[46] Fascists ultimately believe in a private property business system under the guidance of the State, which Hitler expressed in private by saying: 'I absolutely insist on protecting private property ... we must encourage private initiative'.^[47] Socialists are opposed to supporting any form of capitalism.

Other commentators [who?] argue that fascist economic policies were essentially capitalist, perhaps even more so than the policies of other nations in the same time period. These views are usually based on the fact that fascism had a very close relationship with big business. Fascist leaders often received significant financial support from business leaders and passed laws to the benefit of large companies. Fascists also banned strikes and trade unions, and imprisoned or executed socialist leaders. Nazi Germany and fascist Italy started a war against the Soviet Union with the aim of destroying communism.

[edit] Economics in fascist Italy

Italian fascists often expressed their support for private enterprise. However, they also asserted the right of the government to use coercive power, if necessary, to force private owners to act in accordance with the national interest. David S. Pena argues that the Italian fascists used this doctrine to command the Italian economy while maintaining private property.^[48] The Italian Charter of Labour, introduced by the fascists, contained the following statement:

The corporate State considers that private enterprise in the sphere of production is the most effective and useful instrument in the interest of the nation. In view of the fact that private organisation of production is a function of national concern, the organiser of the enterprise is responsible to the State for the direction given to production.^[49]

In 1923, soon after he was appointed as prime minister, Benito Mussolini promised that "the government will accord full freedom to private enterprise and will abandon all intervention in private economy." From 1922 to 1925, Mussolini allowed Finance Minister Alberto De Stefani to pursue a generally laissez-faire economic policy.^[50] Some state assets were privatized, and inheritance tax was abolished along with other direct taxes.^[51] However, De Stefani was replaced with Giuseppe Volpi in 1925, and from then on laissez-faire and free trade were progressively abandoned in favor of corporatism. Once Mussolini acquired a firmer hold of power after 1926, laissez-faire economics were progressively abandoned in favour of government intervention, free trade was replaced by protectionism, and economic objectives were increasingly couched in exhortations and military terminology.^[52]

The Italian government increasingly promoted monopolies and partnerships between private companies and the state, and Mussolini continued to make statements in support of private property and private enterprise, claiming that his principles had not changed. In 1934, he proclaimed that "Corporative economy respects the principle of private property. Private property completes human personality."^[53] By 1939, Italy had the highest percentage of state-owned enterprises after the Soviet Union.^[54]

Regarding the issue of free market economic arrangements, Italian Fascists made ambiguous and sometimes contradictory statements. Italian Fascist politician Alfredo Rocco stated:

Fascism maintains that in the ordinary run of events economic liberty serves the social purposes best; that it is profitable to entrust to individual initiative the task of economic development both as to production and as to distribution; that in the economic world individual ambition is the most effective means for obtaining the best social results with the least effort.^[55]

However, Mussolini stated in The Doctrine of Fascism:

Fascism is definitely and absolutely opposed to the doctrines of liberalism, both in the political and economic sphere. ... The Fascist State lays claim to rule in the economic field no less than in others; it makes its action felt throughout the length and breadth of the country by means of its corporate, social, and educational institutions, and all the political, economic, and spiritual forces of the nation, organised in their respective associations, circulate within the State.

[edit] Economics in Nazi Germany

The term Nazism is an abbreviation of National Socialism, and Nazis originally described their views as socialist, although they strongly rejected all previous forms of socialism, particularly Marxism and communism, calling them Jewish ideologies. Whether the word socialism in National Socialism was an accurate description or merely propaganda meant to attract the votes of workers is a matter of debate. Conan Fischer argues that the Nazis were sincere in their use of the adjective socialist, but they believed it to be inseparable from the adjective national, and meant it as a socialism of the master race, rather than the socialism of the "underprivileged and oppressed seeking justice and equal rights".^[56] Henry A. Turner argues that Hitler was a devout anti-socialist, and that the Nazis were merely nationalists using the adjective socialist out of convenience.^[57] Hitler did not believe that it was possible to support the common interests of humanity, as the Marxist socialists claimed to do, because he argued that such common interests did not exist.^[58]

Hitler despised Karl Marx as a Jew and condemned Marxism as a Judeo-Bolshevist conspiracy, pledging to block its rise in Germany. He believed that the nation's downfall was due to Marxism and its Jewish influence. These actions prompted some prominent conservatives and capitalists to fund and support the Nazis because they saw them as a bulwark against communism. When the Nazis worked in close collaboration with big business, frequently at the expense of both small business and the working class, this was seen by most socialists as a highly capitalist economic policy. The economic interventions of the Nazi government, which were often designed to consolidate social inequality, were likewise seen as capitalist by those on the political left. The high tariffs and trade barriers imposed by the Nazi government had been a common feature of conservative economic policy in Europe for several centuries.

The Nazi Party did not have a clear economic program, and different factions within the party had different and often contradictory views regarding economic policy. Some claimed to be on the side of workers, others claimed to be on the side of business, and there were many who said different things at different times.^[59] Hitler tolerated this confusion because he believed that the economy was unimportant, and because he hoped that he could gather support from opposing interest groups if the Nazis told each group what they wanted to hear.^[60]

At first, Hitler tried to redefine the word socialism in National Socialism as identical nationalism. In a 1922 speech, Hitler said:

Whoever is prepared to make the national cause his own to such an extent that he knows no higher ideal than the welfare of his nation, whoever in addition has understood our great national anthem, Deutschland, Deutschland über alles, to mean that nothing in the world surpasses in his eyes this German people and land, land and people - that man is a socialist.^[61]

Also in 1922, Hitler explained his use of the words national and social by claiming that they referred to the same concept; that any support for "the people" (implied by the word social) had to come in the form of support for a specific nation or national community:

'National' and 'Social' are two identical conceptions. It was only the Jew who succeeded, through falsifying the social idea and turning it into Marxism, not only in divorcing the social idea from the national, but in actually representing them as utterly contradictory. That aim he has in fact achieved. At the founding of this Movement we formed the decision that we would give expression to this idea of ours of the identity of the two conceptions: despite all warnings, on the basis of what we had come to believe, on the basis of the sincerity of our will, we christened it National Socialist. We said to ourselves that to be 'national' means above everything to act with a boundless and all-embracing love for the people and, if necessary, even to die for it. And similarly to be 'social' means so to build up the state and the community of the people that every individual acts in the interest of the community of the people and must be to such an extent convinced of the goodness, of the honorable straightforwardness of this community of the people as to be ready to die for it.^[62]

According to historian Henry A. Turner, Hitler grew more cynical later in life, abandoning his attempt to redefine socialism and expressing regret for having integrated the word Socialist into the party name. At a meeting of Nazi leaders in 1929, Hitler said: "Socialism! That is an unfortunate word altogether. [...] What does socialism really mean? If people have something to eat and their pleasures, then they have their socialism."^[63]

Hitler frequently made calls for unity among all Germans regardless of class, while arguing that inequality was natural.^[64][65] Support for Nazism was to be found in all segments of the population; approximately 40 percent of NSDAP members and voters came from the working class, while the majority came from the middle class and consisted largely of white-collar employees.

Industries and trusts were not nationalized in Nazi Germany, with the exception of private rail lines (nationalised in the late 1930s to meet military contingencies). The only private holdings that were expropriated were those belonging to Jews. These holdings were then sold or awarded to businessmen who supported the Nazis and satisfied their ethnic and racial policies. Military production and film production remained in the hands of private industries whilst serving the Nazi government, and many private companies flourished during the Nazi period. The Nazis never interfered with the profits made by such large German firms as Krupp, Siemens AG, and IG Farben.

[edit] See also

• Definitions of fascism
• Doctrine of Fascism
• Economics of fascism
• Fascio
• Fascism
• Fascist socialization
• Fascist symbolism
• Japanese nationalism
• The Manifesto of the Fascist Struggle
• Neo-fascism
• Neofascism and religion
• Neo-Nazism
• The New Deal and corporatism
• George Seldes, early reporter of US fascism.
• Horst-Wessel-Lied, a German song that encapsulates much of Fascist ideology.

[edit] References

[edit] General bibliography

• De Felice, Renzo Interpretations of Fascism, translated by Brenda Huff Everett, Cambridge ; London : Harvard University Press, 1977 ISBN 0-674-45962-8.
• Hughes, H. Stuart. 1953. The United States and Italy. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
• Payne, Stanley G. 1995. A History of Fascism, 1914-45. Madison, Wisc.: University of Wisconsin Press ISBN 0-299-14874-2
• Eatwell, Roger. 1996. Fascism: A History. New York: Allen Lane.

[edit] Bibliography on Fascist ideology

• De Felice, Renzo Fascism : an informal introduction to its theory and practice, an interview with Michael Ledeen, New Brunswick, N.J. : Transaction Books, 1976 ISBN 0-87855-190-5.
• Laqueur, Walter. 1966. Fascism: Past, Present, Future, New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Griffin, Roger. 2000. "Revolution from the Right: Fascism," chapter in David Parker (ed.) Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560-1991, Routledge, London.
• Baker, David, "The political economy of fascism: Myth or reality, or myth and reality?" New Political Economy, Volume 11, Issue 2 June 2006 , pages 227 - 250
• Schapiro, J. Salwyn. 1949. Liberalism and The Challenge of Fascism, Social Forces in England and France (1815-1870). New York: McGraw-Hill.
• Laclau, Ernesto. 1977. Politics and Ideology in Marxist Theory: Capitalism, Fascism, Populism. London: NLB/Atlantic Highlands Humanities Press.
• Sternhell, Zeev with Mario Sznajder and Maia Asheri. [1989] 1994. The Birth of Fascist Ideology, From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution., Trans. David Maisei. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press.
• Fritzsche, Peter. 1990. Rehearsals for Fascism: Populism and Political Mobilization in Weimar Germany. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0-19-505780-5
• Gentile, Emilio. 2002. Fascismo. Storia ed interpretazione . Roma-Bari: Giuseppe Laterza & Figli.

[edit] Bibliography on international fascism

• Coogan, Kevin. 1999. Dreamer of the Day: Francis Parker Yockey and the Postwar Fascist International. Brooklyn, N.Y.: Autonomedia.
• Griffin, Roger. 1991. The Nature of Fascism. New York: St. Martin's Press.
• Paxton, Robert O. 2004. The Anatomy of Fascism. New York: Alfred A. Knopf.
• Weber, Eugen. [1964] 1982. Varieties of Fascism: Doctrines of Revolution in the Twentieth Century, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, (Contains chapters on fascist movements in different countries.)

[edit] Further reading

• Seldes, George. 1935. Sawdust Caesar: The Untold History of Mussolini and Fascism. New York and London: Harper and Brothers.
• Reich, Wilhelm. 1970. The Mass Psychology of Fascism. New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux.
• Gentile, Emilo. 2003. The Struggle for Modernity: Nationalism, Futurism, and Fascism. Praeger Publishers. ISBN 0-275-97692-0
• Black, Edwin. 2001. IBM and the Holocaust: The Strategic Alliance between Nazi Germany and America's Most Powerful Corporation Crown. ISBN 0-609-60799-5

[edit] External links

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Fascism and ideology

• The Doctrine of Fascism signed by Benito Mussolini (complete text)
• The Political Economy of Fascism - From Dave Renton's anti-fascist website
• Fascism and Zionism - From The Hagshama Department - World Zionist Organization
• Fascism Part I - Understanding Fascism and Anti-Semitism
• Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt - Umberto Eco's list of 14 characteristics of Fascism, originally published 1995.
• Site of an Italian fascist party Italian and German languages
• Site dedicated to the period of fascism in Greece (1936-1941)
• Text of the papal encyclical Quadragesimo Anno.
• Profits über Alles! American Corporations and Hitler by Jacques R. Pauwels