Fascism

Fascism (in Italian, fascismo), capitalized, was the authoritarian political movement which ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini. Similar political movements spread across Europe between World War One and World War Two and took several forms such as Nazism and Clerical fascism. Neofascism is generally used to describe post-WWII movements seen to have fascist attributes.

Definition

The term fascism has come to mean any system of government resembling Mussolini's, that in various combinations:

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• exalts the nation and party above the individual, with the state apparatus being supreme.
• stresses loyalty to a single leader, and submission to a single nationalistic culture.
• engages in economic totalitarianism through the creation of a Corporatist State, where the divergent economic and social interests of different races and classes are combined with the interests of the State.

As a political and economic system in Italy, fascism combined elements of corporatism, totalitarianism, nationalism, militarism and anti-Communism. In an article in the 1932 Enciclopedia Italiana, written by Giovanni Gentile and attributed to Benito Mussolini, fascism is described as a system in which "The State not only is authority which governs and molds individual wills with laws and values of spiritual life, but it is also power which makes its will prevail abroad... For the Fascist, everything is within the State and... neither individuals nor groups are outside the State... For Fascism, the State is an absolute, before which individuals or groups are only relative..."

Related Topics:
Nationalism - Militarism - Anti-Communism - 1932 - Giovanni Gentile

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Mussolini, in a speech delivered on October 28, 1925, stated the following maxim that encapsulates the fascist philosophy: "Tutto nello Stato, niente al di fuori dello Stato, nulla contro lo Stato." ("Everything in the State, nothing outside the State, nothing against the State".) Therefore, he reasoned, all individuals' business is the state's business, and the state's existence is the sole duty of the individual.

Related Topics:
October 28 - 1925

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Unlike the pre-World War II period, when many groups openly and proudly proclaimed themselves fascist, since World War II the term has taken on an extremely pejorative meaning, largely in reaction to the crimes against humanity committed by the National Socialist Nazis, who were allied with Mussolini during the war.

Related Topics:
Crimes against humanity - National Socialist - Nazi

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Today, very few groups proclaim themselves fascist, and the term is often used to describe individuals or political groups who are perceived to behave in an authoritarian or totalitarian manner; by silencing opposition, judging personal behavior, promoting racism, or otherwise attempting to concentrate power. Fascism may be understood as being anti-liberalism, anti-socialist, anti-Communist, anti-democratic, anti-egalitarian, anti-rationalist etc., and in some of its forms anti-religion and anti-monarchy.

Related Topics:
Liberalism - Socialist - Communist - Democratic - Egalitarian - Rationalist - Religion - Monarchy

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