So what exactly is Fascism?

[Futility Personified]

I always understood fascism as the concept of unity through the destruction of other identities into a single identity that everyone else had to subscribe to, but just in case i'm wrong, could someone explain it to me?

[ar734]

Fascism, in the modern sense, is the belief that there is a legal and moral duty to murder international socialists.

[Lacrimi de Chiciură]

Fascism has some essential features:

1) it occurs after a period of failed revolutionary aspirations.
2) it comes to power through a mass movement that uses certain elements of left-wing imagery and rhetoric to hijack the working class movement.
3) it exploits middle class anxieties and fears, e.g. concern about maintaining the patriarchal family and having a strong work ethic, aspirations of upward mobility, feelings of inadequacy, etc.

Fascism is the angry drill sergeant of governments; appearing rebellious on the surface, yet submitting to a system of hierarchy at the same time.

[Highfructosecornsyrup]

Conservatism from Below

[Marxista]

Fascism is (was) an reactionary movement of violent little bourgeoisie, nationalist and strong leaderism. It's impossible describe fascism if we don't understanding the italian movement 10's and 20's post first world war.
Fascism "stole" simbolism of "Arditi D'Italia" socialist, communist, futurist soldier volunteer, who fought against fascism (Arditi del Popolo).

But now you can describe fascism like "lover of leader"

[Hoplite]

As much as I cringe to drag this out on a forum, Germany circa 1940 is a prime example of a kind of dictatorial Fascism.

The society tends to be highly martial. The focus is extensively on exterior and interior threats to the society in order to foster a sense of unity among the citizenry. This enemy will change as the needs of the state change as there is a constant need for some sort of threat.

Private enterprise tends to be indirectly controlled by the state. So long as private enterprise serves the needs of the state and helps advance the state's general story as well as heeding the word of the state if they are told to do something, they'll generally be left alone. Private groups that decide to do their own thing may end up on the state's shit list and in a Fascist country that is not a good thing.

Propaganda is a staple of Fascism, both physical and verbal. There is great talk of things like "purity" "unity" "togetherness" "community" "loyalty" "discipline" etc etc and citizens are impressed from the cradle onwards of the importance of these virtues. Anyone doing anything deemed not in line with any of the main virtues that the state says are important is automatically an enemy. There tends to be a group of citizens at the core of a Fascist society, the "chosen ones." In Germany it was Aryans, in Italy it was the anti-Communists, etc etc. These people are advanced as being superior or better than anyone else and as such they tend to make up the government and law enforcement in a Fascist society.

The role of the individual is minimalistic at best. You are not an individual, you are a citizen of the state and as such you will do what the state requires you to do and you will follow the rules of the state or else you will be removed from the bounds of the state. That doesn't necessarily mean death, but it often does. Individuality is seen as somewhat of a threat because it encourages people to think about themselves before they consider the state or the community. You are a cog in the machine, nothing more.

State control is near absolute. A Fascist government has rules about almost anything and you are expected to follow those rules. There is no such thing as freedom of speech or protection from unlawful search and seizure. Where the law is concerned, you have no rights. The thinking being "if you aren't doing anything wrong, then you should have no reason to fear police coming into your home."

There are a lot more, but reading about Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany are good places to start if you want to see how Fascism actually functions.

Dimitri Kiskikis(sp?) developed a model that he refers to as the scientific model of Fascism. It's supposed to be basically a checklist for a Fascist state. IIRC, the model works by assigning a point value 1-10 (10 being very important) to each category. The higher the final total, the closer to Fascism you get. I may have totally butchered that, so dont take my express word for the explanation of his model.


The idea of class and the importance of agrarianism
Private ownership, the circulation of money, the regulation of the economy by the state, the idea of ethnic bourgeois class, economic self-sufficiency
The nation and the difference between nation and state
The attitude towards democracy and political parties
The importance of political heroes, i.e. the charismatic leader
The attitude towards Tradition
The attitude towards the individual and society
The attitude towards equality and hierarchy
The attitude towards women
The attitude towards religion
The attitude towards rationalism
The attitude towards intellectualism and elitism
The attitude towards the Third World

[Sixiang]

Hoplite's post was a good one for laying out some of the important defining characteristics.

I would say that it seems to be characterized by some form of racism or nationalism, or that some specific group of people is above all the rest. There's also some scapegoat group that gets all the blame (Jews, communists, homosexuals, "gypsies", etc.). It is definitely reactionary.

Question: Is the Ku Klux Klan fascist? Clearly the Neo-Nazis in America are, and the KKK has a lot in common with them. But are they necessarily fascist? I'm curious what anyone's response and reasoning is.

[Dr Mindbender]

Mussolini described fascism as 'hyper-capitalism'

basic tenents of fascism include and can include-

*The amount of political power that resides within big business is dramatically esculated.
*Unions are heavy handedly clamped down on, or banned altogether
*As are communist groups
*Heavy emphasis on nationalism and conversative social values
*Heavy emphasis on militarisation, and gearing the country for war in the name of domestic interests.
*'Blood and soil' race ideas on nationalism, as is the case with national socialism.

[Ms. Max]

Fascism is best described by the words the Nazi's used: National Socialism. The National part being the idea that some nation or race was superior to others and so deserved to oppress or wipe out the others, like survival of the fittest. And the socialist part is not socialist at all, but just the idea of togetherness within the nation, that it was ok to have lower class and upper class because everyone has their place and if they don't like it they get shot. The support base of fascist movements come from the middle classes when they get stressed out during hard economic times, then the conservative ruling class swings in behind and gives them money. That way they can defeat the socialist or communist movements. The most important fascist in the US today is Sarah Palin.

[Hoplite]

Fascism is interesting in that it's difficult to place on a political spectrum and there is no real concrete definition of it.

I tend to use the Justice Potter approach to Fascism; "I cant define it but I know it when I see it."

[Rusty Shackleford]

the most outward, un-bourgeois democratic, dictatorship of the most reactionary, most imperialist, most nationalist, and most organized of the capitalist class which has its support base in the petit-bourgeoisie.

*it is racist, anti-communist, anti-union, anti-semetic, reactionary, violent, bigoted, anti-intellectual and overwhelmingly nationalist.*

*this varies from country to country depending on context.

[Devrim]

Dimitri Kiskikis(sp?) developed a model that he refers to as the scientific model of Fascism. It's supposed to be basically a checklist for a Fascist state. IIRC, the model works by assigning a point value 1-10 (10 being very important) to each category. The higher the final total, the closer to Fascism you get. I may have totally butchered that, so dont take my express word for the explanation of his model.


The idea of class and the importance of agrarianism
Private ownership, the circulation of money, the regulation of the economy by the state, the idea of ethnic bourgeois class, economic self-sufficiency
The nation and the difference between nation and state
The attitude towards democracy and political parties
The importance of political heroes, i.e. the charismatic leader
The attitude towards Tradition
The attitude towards the individual and society
The attitude towards equality and hierarchy
The attitude towards women
The attitude towards religion
The attitude towards rationalism
The attitude towards intellectualism and elitism
The attitude towards the Third World


I think this is typical bourgeois academic nonsense. It completely takes fascism out of its historical context, and defines it as a series of attitudes.

FPD got to the crux of the matter earlier in the thread:

Fascism has some essential features:

1) it occurs after a period of failed revolutionary aspirations.
2) it comes to power through a mass movement that uses certain elements of left-wing imagery and rhetoric to hijack the working class movement.
3) it exploits middle class anxieties and fears, e.g. concern about maintaining the patriarchal family and having a strong work ethic, aspirations of upward mobility, feelings of inadequacy, etc.

Fascism is the angry drill sergeant of governments; appearing rebellious on the surface, yet submitting to a system of hierarchy at the same time.

Fascism was built on the back of crushed workers revolutions, revolutions that had to the large part been crushed by 'leftists' of one sort or another, in Italy, Hungry, Germany, and Spain.

Devrim

[Hoplite]

I think this is typical bourgeois academic nonsense. It completely takes fascism out of its historical context, and defines it as a series of attitudes.
I dont think it's wrong to try and peg the characteristics of a particular political idea. How accurate a particular peg may be is up for debate, but I dont see a reason for faulting the attempt.

[Devrim]

I dont think it's wrong to try and peg the characteristics of a particular political idea. How accurate a particular peg may be is up for debate, but I dont see a reason for faulting the attempt.

I think specifically in this instance the problem is that it takes it outside of its historical context, and fails to understand its role within capital.

Maybe you are right though, and it is just a particularly bad way to define it.

Devrim

[Rss]

I remember reading this quote; "Fascism is 4x4 drive of capitalism.".

I liked that quote.

[Marks of Capital]

Italian novelist Umberto Eco wrote in 1995 an interesting article on what he sees as the defining features of Fascism. It is a little descriptive, that is, he defines it without explaining too much of the underlying theory. According to him the features are:
1. A cult of tradition
2. Rejection of modernism
3. Action for action's sake
4. Disagreement is treason
5. Fear of difference
6. Arises from individual and social frustration
7. Provides identity along nationalist lines
8. Feeling of humiliation by wealthy enemies, eternal underdog
9. Life is permanent warfare, pacifism is trafficking with the enemy
10. Contempt for the weak
11. Cult of heroism
12. Machismo, disdain for women, anti-sexual deviance
13. Selective populism
14. Newspeak
[I wanted to post a link, but it won't let me. Title of essay is "Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt," available a number of places online.]

What a lot of people miss is that Fascism was always a Third Way ideology. It is a reaction to the destructive forces of capitalism just as much as left-wing ideologies are.

Dr Mindbender above said that Mussolini defined Fascism as Hypercapitalism. This is actually backwards. Mussolini claimed Fascism was in opposition to Hypercapitalism (or Supercapitalism). From his perspective (I imagine), capitalism was destroying traditions, weakening traditional families, controlled by foreigners. As he said:

Benito Mussolini, Address to the National Corporative Council, 1933

"At this stage, supercapitalism finds its inspiration and its justification in a utopia: the utopia of unlimited consumption. Supercapitalism's ideal is the standardization of the human race from the cradle to the grave. Supercapitalism wants all babies to be born exactly the same length so that the cradles can be standardized and all children persuaded to like the same toys. It wants all men to don the very same uniform, to read the same book, to have the same tastes in films, and to desire the same so-called labor-saving devices. This is not the result of caprice. It inheres in the logic of events, for only thus can supercapitalism make its plans."[Link: Wikipedia article named "Supercapitalism (Concept in Italian Fascism)"]

Another confusing thing about Fascism, is that it had it's own spin on the trade unions. Several posters have said Fascism is anti-union, but that's not strictly true. It is opposed to independent class-struggle unionism, but Fascist regimes often use unions as organs to control the working class. While Hitler outlawed independent unions, most workers were organized into Nazi-sponsored unions.
[Tried to post a link to the Wikipedia article on the German Labour Front, the Nazi-backed union.]

It we are to effectively counter Fascism, we have to keep in mind what it really is, not what we imagine it is.