Political Ideologies and the Democratic Ideal Terrence Ball and Richard Dagger New York: Longman Publishing, 1998 Chapter 7: Fascism The sleep of reason brings forth monsters. Goya   [187] Historians may well remember the twentieth century as the age of world wars, nuclear weapons, and a new kind of political regime--totalitarianism. All these developments are connected to political ideologies in one way or another, but none more closely than totalitarianism. For totalitarianism is the attempt to take complete control of a society--not just its government, but all its social, cultural, and economic institutions--in order to fulfill an ideological vision of how society ought to be organized and life ought to be lived. This is what happened in the Soviet Union, for instance, when Stalin imposed his version of Marxist socialism on that country. It is also what happened in Italy and Germany when Benito Mussolini and Adolf Hitler introduced varieties of a new and openly totalitarian ideology called fascism. In fact, Mussolini and the Italian Fascists coined the word "totalitarian." They did this to define their revolutionary aims and to distinguish their ideology from liberalism and socialism, which they saw as advocates of democracy. Democracy requires equality of some sort, whether it be in the liberals' insistence on equal opportunity for individuals or the socialists' insistence on equal power for all in a classless society. Mussolini and his followers regarded these ideals with contempt, as did Hitler and the Nazis. They did appeal to the masses for support, to be sure, but in their view the masses were to exercise power not by thinking, speaking, or voting for themselves, but by following their leaders to glory. As one of Mussolini's many slogans put it, credere, obbedire, combattere--believe, obey, fight. Nothing more was asked, nothing more was desired of the people. By embracing totalitarianism, then, fascists also rejected democracy. In this respect, fascism is a reactionary ideology. It took shape in the years following World War I as a reaction against the two leading ideologies of the time, liberalism and socialism. Unhappy with the liberal emphasis on the individual and the socialist emphasis on contending social classes, the fascists provided a view of the world in which individuals and classes were to be [188 Fascism] absorbed into an all-embracing whole-a mighty empire under the control of a single party and a supreme leader. Like the Reactionaries of the early 1800s, they also rejected the faith in reason that they thought formed the foundation for liberalism and socialism alike. Reason is less reliable, both Mussolini and Hitler declared, than intuitions and emotions--what we sometimes call "gut instincts." This is why Mussolini exhorted his followers to "think with your blood." To say that fascism is in some ways a reactionary ideology is not to say, however, that fascists are simply reactionaries or extreme conservatives. In many ways they are quite different. Unlike Joseph de Maistre and the other Reactionaries discussed in Chapter 4, for instance, fascists do not reject democracy, liberalism, and socialism in order to turn the clock back to a time when society was rooted in ascribed status. with church, king, and aristocracy firmly in power. On the contrary , many fascists have been openly hostile to religion, and few of them have had any respect for hereditary monarchs and aristocrats. Nor have they sought to return to the old, established ways of life. On the contrary, fascism in its most distinctive forms has been openly revolutionary, eager not only to change society, but to change it dramatically. This by itself sets fascists apart from conservatives, who cannot abide rapid and radical change. So, too, does the fascist plan to concentrate power in the hands of a totalitarian state led by a single party and a supreme leader. Nothing could be further from the conservative's desire to disperse power among various levels of government and the other "little platoons" that make up what they take to be a healthy society than the fascist vision of a unified state bending to the will of a single, all-powerfulleader. Fascism, then, is neither conservative nor simply reactionary. It is, as the original fascists boasted, a new and distinctive ideology. To appreciate how distinctive it is, we need to explore its background in the CounterEnlightenment. in nationalism. and in other intellectual currents of the nineteenth century. We shall then examine fascism in its purest form in Mussolini's Italy, following that with a look at other varieties of fascism in Nazi Germany and elsewhere. FASCISM: THE BACKGROUND Although fascism did not emerge as a political ideology until the 1920s, its roots reach back over a century to the reaction against the intellectual and cultural movement that dominated European thought in the eighteenth century--the Enlightenment. The thinkers of the Enlightenment dreamed a dream of reason. Taking the scientific discoveries of the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries as their model and inspiration, the Enlightenment philosophers claimed that the application of reason could remove all the social and political evils that stood in the way of happiness and progress. Reason can light the minds of men and women, they proclaimed, freeing them from [Fascism: the Background 189] ignorance and error and superstition.l The two great political currents that flow from the Enlightenment are liberalism and socialism. Different as they are in other respects, these two ideologies are alike in sharing the premises of the Enlightenment. These premises include: 1. Humanism-the idea that human beings are the source and measure of value, with human life valuable in and of itself. As Immanuel Kant (1724-1804) put it, human beings belong to the "kingdom of ends." Each person is an end-in-himself, in Kant's words, not something that others may use, like a tool, as a means of accomplishing their own selfish ends. 2. Rationalism-the idea that human beings are rational creatures and that human reason, epitomized in scientific inquiry, can solve all mysteries and reveal solutions to all the problems that men and women face. 3. Secularism-the idea that religion may be a source of comfort and insight, but not of absolute and unquestionable truths for guiding public life. The Enlightenment thinkers differed from one another in their religious views. Some, like John Locke and Kant, remained Christians; others, like Voltaire (1694-1778), rejected Christianity but believed in a God who had created a world as well-ordered as a watch, which the "divine watchmaker" had wound and left to run; still others were atheists. But even those who took their Christianity seriously regarded religion as something to be confined largely to private life, and therefore out of place in politics. The irreligious among the Enlightenment philosophers simply dismissed religion as an outmoded superstition that must give way to rational and scientific ideas. 4. Progressivism-the idea that human history is the story of progress, or improvement-perhaps even inevitable improvement-in the human condition. Once the shackles of ignorance and superstition have been broken, human reason will be free to order society in a rational way, and life will steadily and rapidly become better for all. 5. Universalism-the idea that there is a single, universal, human nature that binds all human beings together, despite differences of race, culture, or religious creed. Human beings are all equal members of Kant's "kingdom of ends" who share the same essential nature. including preeminently the capacity for reason. These Enlightenment views are often linked to liberalism, but they provided much of the inspiration for socialism as well. Indeed, modern socialism arose in part from the complaint that liberalism was not going far enough in its attempt to remake society in the image of Enlightenment ideals. Fascism, however, grows out of the very different conviction that the ideals of the [190 Fascism] Enlightenment are not worth pursuing--a claim first put forward in the late eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries.   The Counter-Enlightenment A diverse group of thinkers some call the Counter-Enlightenment mounted this attack on the Enlightenment.2 Among them were the linguist Johan Gottfried von Herder (1744-1803), the royalists and reactionaries Joseph de Maistre (1753-1821) and Louis Gabriel de Bonald (1754-1840), the Marquis de Sade (1740-1814), now notorious as a libertine and pornographer, and racial theorists like Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau (1816-1882). None of them rejected every premise of the Enlightenment, and each had particular concerns and complaints that the others did not share. But they were alike in dismissing the major premises of the Enlightenment as fanciful, false, and politically dangerous. They were united, for instance, in denouncing "universalism" as a myth. Human beings are not all alike, they said; the differences that distinguish groups of people from one another run very deep. Indeed, these differences---0f sex, race, language, culture, creed, and nationality-actually define who and what people are, shaping how they think of themselves and other people. Some of the Counter-Enlightenment thinkers stressed differences of one sort, while others focused on other kinds. For Herder, linguistic and cultural differences mattered most; for Gobineau, it was race; and for de Sade, it was gender. Men, de Sade observed, do not admit women to the "kingdom of ends." They treat them as means, as objects to be used, abused, and humiliated-and this is as it should be. Fittingly, our words "sadism" and "sadistic" come from the name de Sade. The Counter-Enlightenment critics brought similar complaints against the Enlightenment's faith in reason. The problem with rationalism, they said, is that it flies in the face of all human experience. The prevalence of unreason, of superstition and prejudice, shows that reason itself is too weak to be relied on. Most people, most of the time, use reason not to examine matters critically and dispassionately, but to rationalize and excuse their desires and deepen their prejudices. With this in mind, the Counter-Enlightenment writers often deplored the Enlightenment assault on religion. Some of them wrote from sincere religious conviction, but others simply held that religious beliefs are socially necessary fictions. The belief in heaven and hell, they maintained, may be all that keeps most people behaving as well as they do; to lose that belief may be to lose all hope of a civilized and orderly society. If that means that governme1lt musfsupport an established church and persecute dissenters, then so be it. In different ways, each of these critics challenged the fundamental premises of the Enlightenment. Out of their challenge a different picture of human beings emerged. According to this picture, humans are fundamentally nonrational, even irrational, beings; they are defined by their differences---0f [Fascism: the Background 191] race, sex, religion, language, and nationality; and they are usually locked in conflict with one another, a conflict sparked by their deep-seated and probably permanent differences. Taken one by one, there is nothing necessarily "fascist" about any element of this picture. Combining the elements, however, gives us a picture of human capacities and characteristics that prepared the way for the emergence of fascism. This should become clearer as we look at another feature of fascism-nationalism.   Nationalism Nationalism, as we noted in Chapter 1, is the belief that the people of the world fall into distinct groups, or nations, with each nation forming the natural basis for a separate political unit, the nation-state. This sovereign, self-governing political uliit-is supposed to draw together and express the needs and desires of a single nation. Without such a state, a nation or people will be frustrated, unable either to govern or to express itself. Although nationalistic sentiments are quite old, nationalism itself emerged as a political force only in the wake of the Napoleonic Wars of the early 1800s. As they swept across Europe, Napoleon's armies-the armies of the French nation--created a backlash of sorts, inspiring people in Germany, Italy, and elsewhere to recognize their respective nationalities and to struggle for unified nation-states of their own. This first stage of nationalism is apparent in the works of the linguist Herder and the philosopher Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814). Both appealed to the sense of German nationality, with Fichte laying particular stress on the distinctiveness of the German language-the only truly original European language, he said, for Latin had smothered the originality in the others.3 In the winter of 1807-1808, still smarting from Napoleon's defeat of the Prussian army in 1806, Fichte delivered his Addresses to the German Nation in Berlin. In the Addresses he maintained that the individual finds much of the meaning and value of life in being connected to the nation into which he or she was born. Rather than think of ourselves merely as individuals, in other words, we must think of ourselves as members of the larger and lasting community of the nation. Hence, Fichte said, The noble-minded man will be active and effective, and will sacrifice himself for his people. Life merely as such, the mere continuance or changing existence, has in any case never had any value for him; he has wished for it only as the source of what is permanent. But this permanence is promised to him only by the continuous and independent existence of his nation. In order to save his nation he must be ready even to die that it may live, and that he may live in it the only life for which he has ever wished.4 Longing for membership and meaning, the individual lives, according to Fichte, in and through the nation. And though Fichte thought the German nation was especially worth defending, neither he nor Herder was simply a [192 Fascism] German nationalist. AD nations have value, they said, for all nations give shape and significance to the lives of their people. Against the universalism of the Enlightenment, then, Herder and Fichte argued that every nation brings something distinctive or unique to the world-something for which it deserves to be recognized and respected. Yet neither Herder nor Fichte called for every nation to be embodied politically in its own distinct state. That development came later, most notably in the words and deeds of an Italian nationalist, Giuseppe Mazzini (1805-1872), and the German nationalist "Iron Chancellor," Otto von Bismarck (1815-1878). In the early 1800s, Italy was as fragmented as Germany. Since the fall of the Roman Empire around 500 A.D., the word "Italy" had referred to a geographical and cultural region, but never a politically united country. Divided into kingdoms, duchies, and warring city-states, and often overrun by French and Spanish armies, Italy became the center of commerce and culture during the Renaissance, but it was far from the center of European political power. Niccolo Machiavelli called attention to this in the sixteenth century when he concluded his infamous book, The Prince, with "An Exhortation to Liberate Italy from the Barbarians"-but to no avail. Italy remained divided until the 18005, when Mazzini and others made it their mission to unify the country. Other nations had found statehood-England, for instance, and France and Spain-and now, Mazzini said, it was time for Italy to join their ranks as a nation-state. Italy must be united not only geographically and culturally, but politically as well. A nation cannot truly be a nation unless it can take its place among the powers of the earth. So Italians must be brought together, Mazzini argued, as citizens under a common government. Only then could they achieve freedom and fulfill their destiny as a people. But Mazzini did not confine his nationalism to his native country. Like Herder and Fichte. he supported nationalism as an ideal for all nations, not just his own. Mazzini sometimes suggested that geography testified to God's intention of creating a world of distinct nations. Why else, he asked, did rivers, mountains, and seas separate groups of people from one another and foster the development of separate languages, cultures, and customs? Mazzini even envisioned a world in which each nation had its state. and every nation-state lived in harmony with all the others-all following the example of a politically united Italy. The nineteenth-century nationalists used the press, diplomacy, and occasionally the force of arms to achieve their goal, and by 1871 both Italyand Germany had finally become nation-states. The nationalistic impulse persisted, too, and continues to figure in the politics not only of Europe, but of Africa, Asia, and the American continents. It led to Zionism-the movement to establish a homeland, or nation-state, for Jews in Israel-and has taken a liberal direction in some cases, and a communist or socialist direction in others. That is a story for another chapter, however. In this chapter we shall concentrate on the nationalistic elements in fascism. But first it is necessary to [Fascism: the Background 193] examine two more intellectual currents of the late 1800s elitism and irrationalism.   Elitism As we pointed out in earlier chapters, many nineteenth-century social thinkers regarded theirs as the age of democracy and "the common man." Many applauded this development, others abhorred it, and some, like Alexis de Tocqueville and John Stuart Mill, regarded it with mixed emotions. Democracy did expand opportunities and possibilities for the common people, they said, and to that extent it was good; but it also posed a threat to individuality-the threat of the "tyranny of the majority." Marx and the socialists largely dismissed or ignored this threat. For them, democracy-or socialist democracy, at any rate-would afford everyone an equal chance to live a creative, fruitful, and self-directed life. But this could only happen, they said, in a classless society. But could a classless society ever be created? The socialists assumed that it could, with sufficient effort. But this assumption came under sharp attack in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries by thinkers who emphasized the importance of elites in society. These elite theorists, as they have come to be called, included Gaetano Mosca (1858-1941), Vilfredo Pareto (1848-1923), and Roberto Michels (1876-1936). In one way or another, each contributed to the idea of elitism by concluding that a classless society was impossible. On the basis of historical studies, for instance, Mosca concluded that societies always have been, and always will be, ruled by a small group of leaders, even when it appears that the majority is ruling. Pareto, an Italian economist and sociologist, reached a similar conclusion. Perhaps most strikingly, so did Michels, a Swiss sociologist who undertook a study of the socialist parties and trade unions of Europe, which professed to be working to achieve a classless society. Yet Michels's study revealed that even these parties and unions, despite their proclaimed faith in democracy and equality, were controlled not by the majority of members, but by a relatively small group of leaders. This discovery led Michels to formulate his "Iron Law of Oligarchy." In all large organizations, he said, and certainly in whole societies, power cannot be shared equally among all the people. For the organization or society to be effective, true power must be concentrated in the hands of a small group-an elite, or oligarchy. This is simply the nature of large organizations, and there is nothing that can change it. According to Michels, this "iron law" is destined to defeat the well-meaning designs of democrats and egalitarians. Like Mosca and Pareto, he concluded that elites rule the world: they always have, and they always will. The views of these elite theorists reinforced arguments advanced earlier by the German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche and others. According to Nietzsche (1844-1900), outstanding accomplishments were the work of great men-the Idnd of person he called the Obermensch ("overman" or "super-[194 Fascism] man"). And yet, he complained, all the tendencies of the age are toward a mass society in which these outstanding individuals will find it ever harder to act in bold and creative ways, Elitism should be the rule, Nietzsche suggested; Mosca, Pareto, and Michels concluded that it was. Their notion of the elite may have been different from Nietzsche's, but the two views in combination helped to prepare the way for the explicitly elitist ideology of fascism.   Irrationalism The final element in the cultural and intellectual background of fascism was irrationalism. This term captures the conclusions of a variety of very different thinkers who all came to agree with the thinkers of the Counter-Enlightenment that emotion and desire playa larger part in the actions of people than reason. Among these thinkers was Sigmund Freud (1856-1939), the founder of psychoanalysis, whose observations of his patients-and even of himself-led him to detect the power of instinctive drives and "the unconscious" in human conduct. In a similar vein the American philosopher and psychologist William James (1842-1910) held that most people have a "will to believe." Exactly what they believe is less important to them, James said, than that they believe in something. Psychologically speaking, people need something-almost anything, in fact-in which to believe. For the one thing that human beings cannot endure is a life devoid of some larger purpose or meaning. Another social theorist who contributed to the development of irrationalism--and one who seems to have had a special influence on Mussolini--was the French social psychologist, Gustav Le Bon (1841-1931). In his classic work, The Crowd (1895), Le Bon argued that human behavior in crowds is different from their behavior as individuals. Acting collectively and therefore anonymously, people will participate in acts of barbarism that they would never engage in as lone individuals. The psychology of lynch-mobs, for example, is quite different from the psychology of the individuals who compose that mob. People acting en masse and in mobs are not restrained by individual conscience or moral scruple. A mob psychology, or a "herd instinct," takes over and shuts down individual judgments regarding right and wrong. In a similar spirit, Pareto examined the social factors influencing individual judgment and behavior, concluding that emotions, symbols, and what he called "sentiments" are more important than material or economic factors. And Mosca suggested that people are moved more by slogans and symbols, flags and anthems-by "political formulae" as he called them-than by reasoned argument and rational debate; , All these thinkers-Freud and James, Le Bon, Pareto, and Mosca-were more immediately concerned with explaining how people acted than in leading people to action, Not so Georges Sorel (1847-1922), a French engineer turned social theorist and political activist, Sorel insisted that people are more often moved to action by political "myths" than by appeals to reason, To [Fascism in Italy 195] bring about major social changes, it is necessary to find a powerful myth that can inspire people to act. For Sorel, the idea of a nationwide "general strike" could prove to be such a myth. The "general strike" was a myth, in other words, in that there was no guarantee that it would really lead to the revolutionary overthrow of the bourgeoisie and capitalism. If enough people could be brought to believe in the myth of the general strike, however, their efforts, inspired by this belief, would indeed lead to a successful revolution. What matters most, Sorel concluded, is not the reasonableness of a myth, but its emotional power. for it is not reason but emotion that leads most people to act. And when the people act en masse, they can smash almost any obstacle in their path, This was advice that Mussolini, Hitler, and other fascist leaders quite obviously took to heart. The slogans, the mass demonstrations, the torchlight parades-all were designed to stir the people at their most basic emotional and instinctive levels. But stir them to do what? To create powerful nation states, then mighty empires, all under the leadership of the fascist elite. So it was not only irrationalism, but elitism and nationalism and the attitudes of the Counter-Enlightenment, too, that came together in the early twentieth century in the totalitarian ideology of fascism. To see how fascism combined these elements, we shall turn now to the clearest case of fascism-that of Italy under Mussolini.   FASCISM IN ITALY Because the rise and fall of Italian fascism is so closely associated with one man, Benito Mussolini, it will be convenient to chart its course through an account of Mussolini's life. Some historians even suggest that Italian fascism was little more than a vehicle for Mussolini's ambitions-a loose and incoherent set of ideas that he cobbled together to help him achieve and keep power. There is surely some truth to that view. Mussolini was certainly an opportunist who trimmed and shifted his ideological position to suit his current political needs. Yet even his shifts and inconsistencies reveal a certain coherence to his views, for they emphasize his faith in his own intuition and his conviction that the most important form of power is will power.   Mussolini and Italian Fascism Benito Mussolini was born in a village in rural Italy in 1883, the year that Karl Man died. Mussolini's father was a blacksmith and an atheist, his mother a schoolteacher and a Catholic. As a young man, Mussolini himself was a schoolteacher, but he soon took up political journalism and Marxist socialism. In 1912 he became editor of Avanti! (Forward!), the largest of Italy's socialist journals. As editor he remained a revolutionary socialist, proclaiming that capitalism would fall only after a violent proletarian uprising. Even at this point, however, M ussolini placed more emphasis on the will to engage in [196 Fascism] revolutionary struggle than on economic factors and the contradictions of capitalism. Mussolini's break with socialism came during World War I. Before the war, socialists across Europe had agreed that they would take no part in any "capitalist" war. If the bourgeoisie of France and England and Germany wanted to slaughter one another, so be it; the socialists would urge the working classes of an countries to stay out of the war and wait for the opportunity to create socialist societies once the capitalist powers had destroyed one another. But when World War I erupted in August, 1914, almost all of the socialist representatives in the legislatures of the warring countries voted to support the war effort of their countries. This was a sign, according to some observers, that nationalism was a far stronger force in human life than loyalty to one's social class. [Fascism in Italy 197] Mussolini agreed and began urging Italy to join the war-a stance that cost him his position as editor, since the official socialist policy in Italy was to stay out of the war. Italy did enter the war on the side of England and France, though, and Mussolini was eventually drafted into the army, where he served until a mortar he was loading exploded, wounding him seriously. For Mussolini, World War I proved once and for all that Marx was wrong: Workers do have a fatherland-at least they want to believe that they do. Any political party or movement that denies this is doomed to failure. Socialists, he said, "have never examined the problems of nations [but only of classes. Contrary to Marx], the nation represents a stage in human [history] that has not yet been transcended. . . . The 'sentiment' of nationality exists; it cannot be denied."5 And so Mussolini set out to affirm and take political advantage of the widely shared sentiment of nationalism. He did this by forming first the fasci di combattimento, or "combat groups" that consisted largely of World War I veterans, and then the Fascist Party itself. The party espoused a program that sometimes seemed revolutionary, sometimes conservative, but always nationalistic. Italy had been united for less than fifty years when World War I ended, and many Italians felt that their country , unlike France and England, had not received its fair share of the spoils when Germany and Austria surrendered. Playing upon this resentment, the fascists promised action to end the "bickering" between the various Italian political parties. There has been too much talk, too much debate, they declared; the time has come tor forceful action, even violence, if Italy is to take her rightful place among the major powers of Europe. This emphasis on national unity was apparent in the word "fascism" itself, which derives from the Italian fasciare. to fasten or bind. The aim of the Fascist Party was to bind the Italian people together, to overcome the divisions that weakened their country. "Fascism" also appealed to the glories of the ancient Roman Empire by invoking one of the old Roman symbols of authority, the fasces-an axe in the center of a bundle of rods, all fastened together as a symbol of the strength that comes from unity. To achieve this unity, the fascists said, it was necessary to overcome certain obstacles. One of these was liberalism, with its emphasis on individual rights and interests. No nation can be strong, according to the fascists, if its members think of themselves first and foremost as individuals who are concerned to protect their own rights and interests. Another obstacle was socialism, with its emphasis on social classes. Mussolini, the former Marxist, particularly attacked Marxian beliefs about class divisions and class struggle, which he regarded as enemies of national unity. Italians must not think of themselves either as individuals or as members of social classes, he said; they must think of themselves as Italians first, foremost, and forever. Mussolini and his followers adopted black shirts as their uniform and set out to seize power. They ran candidates for office, they used the press, and they sometimes simply beat up or intimidated their opponents. In October 1922, Mussolini-now known to the fascists as Il Duce, the leader-announced that the Fascists would march on Rome, the seat of the Italian gov- [198 Fascism] ernment, and seize power if it were not given to them. The March began on October 27. It seems clear that the Italian army could have sent the "Blackshirts" scurrying, but the Italian king overestimated the strength of the fascists and overruled the prime minister's declaration of martial law. On October 29 he invited Mussolini to form a government as the new Prime Minister of Italy. Once in office, Mussolini moved to entrench himself and his Fascist Party in power. He ignored the Italian Parliament; outlawed all parties but the Fascist; struck a compromise with the Catholic Church; gained control of the mass media; and stifled freedom of speech. He also set out to make Italy a military and industrial power so that it would again be the center of a great empire. Indeed, Mussolini made no secret of his ambitions for Italy-ambitions that included war and conquest. In his speeches and writings, M ussolini often spoke of war as the true test of manly virtue, and he had warlike slogans stencilled on the walls of buildings throughout Italy. "War," one of them proclaimed, "is to the male what child-bearing is to the female!" " A minute on the battlefield," according to another, "is worth a lifetime of peace!"6 Mussolini made good his threats by engaging in a number of military adventures, notably the conquest of Ethiopia in 1935-1936. His imperial ambitions soon led him into an alliance with Adolf Hitler and Nazi Germany, however, and from there into World War II, which Italy was woefully unprepared to fight. In July 1943 the king, with the support of the Grand Council of Fascists, relieved Mussolini of his dictatorial powers and placed him under house arrest. That September German troops rescued Mussolini and established him as head of a puppet government in northern Italy. But in April 1945, as the war was coming to an end, Mussolini and his mistress were captured and shot by antifascist Italian partisans. Their bodies were taken to Milan and strung upside down over one of the city's squares. Thus ended the career of Il Duce.   Fascism in Theory and Practice While Mussolini was in power, he encouraged the belief that Italian fascism rested on a philosophical or ideological basis. The fascists had a plan for transforming Italy, he said, a plan that grew out of a coherent view of the world. Included in that view were distinctively fascist conceptions of human nature and freedom. For the fascist, an individual human life only has meaning in so far as it is rooted in and realized through the life of the society or the nation as a whole. Fascists reject atomism and individualism, in other words, and subscribed to an organic view of society. The individual on his or her own can accomplish nothing of great significance, they said. It is only when the individual dedicates his or her life to the nation-state, sacrificing everything to its glory, that the individual finds true fulfillment. [Fascism in Italy 199] The Italian fascists also stressed the value of the state, which they saw as the legal and institutional embodiment of the power, the unity, and the majesty of the nation. To be dedicated to the service of the nation was thus to be dedicated to the state-and to its great and glorious leader, Il Duce The state was to control everything, and everyone was to serve the state. As the Italian people were reminded over and over, "everything in the state, nothing outside the state, nothing against the state." This meant that freedom for the fascists was not, and is not, individual liberty, but the freedom of the nation, the integrated, organic whole that unites all individuals, groups, and classes behind the iron shield of the all powerful state. Individual liberty, in fact, is an obstacle to freedom because it distracts people from their true mission to "believe, obey, fight" Freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, freedom to live as one chooses-these are all "useless liberties," according to the fascists. The only freedom that truly matters is the freedom to serve the state. In terms of our triadic definition of freedom, then, the Italian fascists conceived of liberty as shown in Figure 7. 1. True freedom, in the fascist view, is found in serving the state, and there is nothing more fulfilling than doing one's part, however small, to promote its glory. But how was the glory of the state to be achieved? Through military conquest, Mussolini said, and conquest required the discipline and loyalty of the Italian people. This Mussolini and the fascists attempted to win through massive propaganda efforts, always designed to appeal to the emotions and instincts of the people. The people were a mass, a "herd" incapable of leading [200 Fascism] themselves. They needed a elite to guide them, and they especially needed a dictator with an almost mystical ability to know where their true interests lay. Hence the people were told in schools and in speeches and in slogans emblazoned on walls, that "Mussolini is always right!" Everything --newspapers, radio-schools--was to be used to instill this conviction in the people. In 1936 for instance, the compulsory reader for eight-year-olds in Italian schools contained the following. The eyes of the Duce are on every one of you. No one can say what is the meaning of that look on his face. It is in eagle opening its wings and rising into space. It is a flame that searches out your heart to light there a vermillion fire. Who can resist that burning eye, darting out its arrows? But do not be afraid: for you those arrows will change into rays of joy. A child, who even while not refusing to obey, asks "Why?" is like a bayonet made of milk. . . . "You must obey because you must, said Mussolini, when explaining the reasons for obedience.7 But indoctrination and propaganda are not enough to convert a people into a modern military machine: they also needed weapons, fuel and food. To this end Mussolini tried to encourage industrial production in Italy. He did this through the policy of corporativism, according to which property was to remain in private hands even as it was put to public use. To prevent disputes between owners and workers from disrupting business and production, the Ministry of Corporations was supposed to supervise economic affairs. The economy was divided into 22 sectors, or corporations, each of which was administered by representatives of ownership, labor, and the Ministry of Corporations. The representatives of the ministry were supposed to look after the interests of the public as a whole, and the three groups were supposed to work together in harmony for the good of all Italians. In practice, however, the fascist representatives of the Ministry could do pretty much as they pleased. They were often pleased to accept bribes and to do as those who paid the bribes--usually the owners--suggested. The two decades of fascist rule in Italy proved to be a time of remarkable corruption. Partly for this reason Mussolini was unable to realize his military ambitions. Nor, despite all the talk about totalitarianism, was Mussolini able to convert Italy into a society in which the Fascist Party and the state truly controlled all aspects of life. That was his aim, however, and that is surely the important point. To the north of Italy, another variety of fascism appeared in the 1920's with the same totalitarian aim--and came much closer to succeeding.   FASCISM IN GERMANY: NAZISM Hitler and Nazism Just as Italian fascism was closely associated with Benito Mussolini, so its German counterpart, Nazism, was inextricably linked with Adolf Hitler. Hitler was born in Austria, near the German border, in 1889. Moving to Vienna when he was 18, Hitler tried unsuccessfully to establish himself as an artist. He remained there for several years, living practically as a vagrant until World War I began. Hitler then joined the German Army and served with distinction, twice winning the Iron Cross for bravery. He was in the hospital when the war ended in 1918 and shortly thereafter his political career began. When Germany surrendered to end World War I, German troops were still on French soil, and many Germans believed that surrender was unnecessary. Germany had not been defeated on the battlefield, they charged, but betrayed by traitorous politicians. Hitler shared these sentiments. After his release from the hospital, Hitler remained with the army as a spy. In this role he attended the meetings in Munich of a tiny group that called itself the German Worker's Party. Somehow Hitler saw an opportunity in this group, [202 Fascism] which he joined in 1920. He soon became the leader of the party under its new name, the National Socialist German Workers' Party-or Nazis, as they were called from the abbreviation of the first two words. The party grew quickly under Hitler's direction. To give an impression of discipline and strength, the Nazis established a paramilitary organization, the brown-shirted Storm Troopers, which they used to break up meetings of the Socialist and Communist Parties. In 1923, perhaps hoping for the same luck Mussolini had enjoyed with his March on Rome the year before, Hitler launched the "Beer Hall putsch." This was an attempt to overthrow the government of the German province of Bavaria in the hope that this would topple the whole German government and bring the Nazis to power. The Putsch (or coup d'etat) failed, however, and Hitler was arrested and tried for treason. Yet for his part in this armed uprising against the government, Hitler received only a five-year prison sentence and served only nine months of it. During his imprisonment, he wrote the first part of his autobiography, Mein Kampf, or My Battle. In that book Hitler made clear the basic outlines of his ideology. Germany has a great destiny, he wrote, if only the German Volk (folk or people) can join forces and throw off those enemies who divide and betray them-particularly the communists and Jews. But the German people will not be able to do this without a single party and supreme leader to forge them into a united and invincible force. As he said in Mein Kampf, The psyche of the great masses is not receptive to anything that is half-hearted and weak. Like the woman whose psychic state is determined less by abstract reason than by an indefinable emotional longing for a force which will complement her nature. and who, consequently, would rather bow to a strong man than dominate a weakling. [so] likewise the masses love a commander more than a petitioner and feel inwardly more satisfied by a doctrine tolerating no other beside itself, than by the granting of liberalistic freedom with which . . . they can do little . . . .8 This was Hitler's notion of the Führerprinzip-the leadership principle-according to which the masses and the Fuhrer, or leader, were bound together. The relationship, as Hitler's words indicate, is erotic and even "sadistic" in the original Sadean sense. Like the Italian fascists. slogan, "war is to the male what childbearing is to the female," Hitler's words also reveal the fascist pre-occupation with masculinity , which the Nazis and fascists associated with strength. action, and dominance. Once out of prison, Hitler returned to his political agitation, relying on a combination of ordinary political campaigning and strong-arm tactics. By 1933 the Nazis were the~est 0( Several parties in the German Reichstag or Parliament, although they did not control a majority of the seats. When Hitler was appointed Chancellor , he quickly proved even more adept than Mussolini at converting his position as head of government into an outright dictatorship. He then moved to create a Third Retch (empire) in Germany, one that would surpass the first two--the Holy Roman Empire and the [Fascism in Germany: Nazism 203] German Empire that Bismarck had consolidated by 1871. This would be a "Thousand Year Reich," and throughout this millenium Germany would be the political and cultural leader of Europe. To accomplish this, Hitler planned to do two things. First, provide Germany with Lebensraum, the "living space" it needed to become a great empire. With this in mind, Hitler looked eastward-to Poland and the Soviet Ukraine in particular-as the future "breadbasket" of Germany. The lands to the east were to be conquered, and their people-who were inferior, the Nazis declared, to the Germans-were to be enslaved. Hitler set this part of his plan in motion when he invaded Poland on September 1, 1939, thus beginning World War II. The second of Hitler's plans was to eliminate all enemies standing in the way of the Thousand Year Retch. These included the communists, both in Germany and elsewhere, and the Jews. In attempting to fulfill this plan, Hitler in 1941 invaded the Soviet Union, with which he had signed a nonaggression pact, and undertook the "Final Solution" to the "Jewish Problem." This led, during World War II, to the systematic murder of some six million Jews and other supposedly "inferior" peoples. World War II ended for Germany in the spring of 1945 with English and American armies moving toward Berlin from the west and the Soviet army entering it from the east. In the last days of April, while confined to his bunker in Berlin, Hitler married his mistress, bade farewell to his staff, and, with his new bride, committed suicide. To avoid meeting the same humiliating fate as Mussolini and his mistress, Hitler left orders that their bodies be burned. Thus ended the career of Der Fuhrer.   Nazism in Theory and Practice In most respects Nazism in Germany closely resembled fascism in Italy. There was the same hatred of liberalism and communism, for instance; the same attitude toward the masses, who were to be molded to the will of the great leader through propaganda and indoctrination; the same reliance on an organic conception of society; the same appeal to military might and the need for discipline and sacrifice; the same emphasis on nationalism; and the same totalitarian spirit. Neither Hitler nor Mussolini had much interest in economic matters, moreover, at least not as long as they thought that their countries were producing enough weapons and other war materiel. The inclusion of the word "socialist" in the name of the Nazi Party has led to some confusion on this point, but Hitler certainly was not a socialist in any ordinary sense of the term. As he explained in a speech, Every truly national idea is in the last resort social, i.e. he who is prepared so completely to adopt the cause of his people that he really knows no higher ideal than the prosperity of this-his own-people, he who has so taken to heart the meaning or our great song "Deutschland, Deutschland uber alles," that nothing in this world stands for him higher than this Germany, people and land, land and [204 Fascism] people, he is a socialist . . . [He] is not merely a socialist but he is also national in the highest sense of that word.9 For Hither, then, "socialism" was merely another name for nationalism. The "nation," moreover, did not include everyone born within the borders of Germany, but only those born into the racial group to which the German Volk belonged. From the beginning Nazism relied, and continues to rely, on the idea that race is the fundamental characteristic of human beings. Race was not important for the Italian fascists--not, that is, until pressure from Hither led Mussolini to take some steps against Jews in Italy. Fascism was not, and need not be, a racist ideology, in other words; Nazism was and is. Indeed, racial theory is at the core of Nazism--so much so that we can define Nazism in terms of the simple formula, fascism + racism = Nazism. This belief is especially clear in the Nazi views of human nature and freedom. For Hither and his followers, the fundamental fact of human life is that human beings belong to different races. There is no such thing as a universal human nature, in their view, because the differences that distinguish one race from another mark each race for a different role or destiny in the world. There was nothing really new in this, for Hither was not an original thinker. The themes in Mein Kampf are recycled from earlier racial theorists, such as Joseph-Arthur de Gobineau, Houston Stewart Chamberlain, and Ludwig Woltmann. According to Gobineau, race was the key to the rise and tall of great civilizations. Like many other people over the centuries, Gobineau wondered why once-mighty empires such as Rome lost their power and collapsed. The answer he hit upon was miscegenation, the mixture of races. A people rose to power, Gobineau concluded, when its racial composition was pure and vigorous. But as it expanded its control over conquered peoples-as it became an empire-the original racial stock was weakened by interbreeding with other races. The result was an interior people, one that was incapable or maintaining its identity and power. And the result or that was the loss or the empire. Furthermore, the races were not created equal. The white race is superior to the yellow, Gobineau slid, and the yellow is superior to the black. This is the pattern of nature, as be saw it, and it ought to be observed in society as well. Ideas like Gobineau's were much in the lir in the late nineteenth century, as were the ideu or the Socla1 Darwinists. As advanced by Herbert Spencer and William Graham Sumner. Social Darwinism was not a racist doctrine. But its emphasis on the struggle tor survival lent itself to a racist interpretation. All one bad to do was to say that the struggle for survival was not a struggle between individuals, as Spencer and Sumner said, but a broader struggle between entire races of people. This was, in fact, the position that Ludwig Woltmann took. In two books--Historical Materialism: A Critique of the Marxist World-View (1900) and Political Anthropology (1903)-Woltmann argued that what is missing from Marxist theory is the most central concept of all: race. Why, Woltmann [Fascism In Germany: Nazism 205] asks, have the greatest achievements in art, music, literature, philosophy, and industry been concentrated in Western Europe? It is because the superior Germanic or Aryan race resides there. This race has evolved farther and faster than "lesser" races because the European climate is neither as harsh and unyielding as the Arctic nor as lush as the Tropics. Eskimos cannot create philosophy or great music because they must spend most of their time and energy in wresting a livelihood from a frigid and infertile environment. Polynesians and Africans, by contrast, live in a climate in which fish are plentiful and fruit falls from the trees. Only in Western Europe is the climate neither excessively harsh nor extraordinarily fecund. This climate has produced a race that, over millenia, has transformed nature, created culture, and exhibited its superiority to the rest of the world. But now, Woltmann warned, this race faces several threats. Chief among these is the population crisis. Woltmann believed that Malthus's law--that population grows at an ever increasing geometric rate while food supplies grow only at a steady arithmetical rate-portends a racial war for increasingly scarce resources and Lebensraum. The world is rapidly reaching the point at which population will outstrip the resources available to support human life (as illustrated in Figure 7.2). The competition for scarce resources will not pit one individual against another, but one race or Volk--the Aryans--against all others. The Darwinian struggle for survival will be along racial lines, and the [206 Fascism] Aryans had better brace themselves for the coming competition. They must toughen themselves by repudiating "soft" or "sentimental" ideas of racial equality, interracial harmony, the "brotherhood of man," and other liberal and socialist claptrap. These "Jewish" ideas weaken the resolve and sap the strength of Aryans, and those who hold and teach them must be censored--or silenced forever. These ideas reappear in Hitler's Mein Kampf--and in Nazi military and political practice~ They supply the rationale for the German invasion of Poland and the Soviet Union, which extended Aryan Lebensraum into the oil and wheat fields of Russia and the Ukraine~ These ideas justify censorship and book bumings, the banning of "Jewish" ideas from German classrooms and libraries, and the silencing of critics~ Most notoriously of all, these ideas rationalize the systematic enslavement and murder of millions of Jews and other "inferior" peoples, including Slavs, Gypsies, homosexuals, the handicapped, and other forms of "lebensunwertes Leben" ("life unworthy of life")~ Those people who led a life worth living were the racially pure Aryans~ But what is this Aryan race? Hitler was notoriously vague on this point. He took the idea of an Aryan race from Woltmann and others, who themselves drew on the studies of a number of nineteenth-century scholars, especially linguists~ In studying various languages, these scholars had found evidence that not only the European languages, but also those of the Middle East and some of India shared a common source~ Some scholars concluded that these languages, and all the civilizations of India, Europe, and the Middle East, must have emerged from a single group of people, which they referred to as the Aryans.1O Gradually the notion grew that the Aryans were an extraordinary race, the fountain of most of what was civilized and worthwhile in the world. On the basis of this speculation, the Nazis decided that it was the destiny of Aryans to rule others, to subjugate the inferior races so that culture could advance and reach new and glorious heights. Hitler claimed that the Aryan race was the source--the "culture-creating" source-of European civilization. And the Germanic people were the highest or purest remnant of the Aryan race. Thus the destiny of the German Volk was clear: to dominate or even exterminate "lesser" peoples and thus establish the glorious Thousand Year Reich~ The Nazis also drew upon this racial view of human nature in developing their conception of freedom~ Like the Italian fascists, they opposed the liberal view that freedom is a matter of individual liberty, favoring instead the idea that freedom properly understood is the freedom of the nation or Volk~ But the Nazis gave this their characteristic racial twist~ The only freedom that counts, they said, is the freedom of the Volk who belong to the "master race~" Freedom should be the freedom of Aryans because that is nature's plan. But there are obstacles in the way of the Aryan race's realizing its destiny. There is the obstacle, first, of the "inferior" races who are doing what they can to drag the Aryans down to their own level~ And there is also the obstacle presented by certain ideas and ideals--specifically, the humanist ideas of the Enlightenment~ These were "Jewish ideas," according to Hitler, ideas that [Fascism in Germany~ Na~ism 207] made even Aryans soft and squeamish~ Because these ideas of universal brotherhood and equality are embedded in liberalism and Marxism, it followed for Hitler that these ideologies are not merely obstacles, but enemies to be rooted out and destroyed. This was the rationale for censorship, for book burnings, for toughening the minds of the young to make them into willing servants of the Fuhrer and the Volk. Every individual, in the Nazi view, is merely a cell in the larger volkisch organism. The destiny of the organism is also the individual's destiny. Gottfried Neese, a Nazi party ideologist, illustrates this reliance on organic metaphors when he says that the people form a true organism-a being which leads its own life and follows its own laws, which possesses powers peculiar to itself, and which develops its own nature. . . This living unity of the people has its cells in its individual members, and just as in every body there ate certain cells to perform certain tasks, this is likewise the case in the body of the people~ The individual is bound to his people not only physi~ cally but mentally and spiritually. . . .11 Outside the Volksgemeinschaft--the racially pure "folk community"nothing worthwhile exists~ In seeking to create and sustain such a community, therefore, one must not be distracted by softness or compassion or pity. "Inferior" peoples must be regarded as subhuman animals or "vermin" to be destroyed without a moment's thought or hesitation. Only in that way can the Aryan people be free to achieve their great destiny. For Nazis, then, "freedom" takes the form shown in Figure 7.3. [208 Fascism]   FASCISM ELSEWHERE Although fascism has been most closely identified with Italy and Germany in the period from World War I to World War II, it was not confined to those two countries. Fascist parties and movements spread throughout Europe in the 1920s and '30s, from Romania to France and England, and made a brief appearance in the United States in the 1930s. Aside from Italyand Germany, however, the only European country in which fascism came to power was Spain under the regime of General Francisco Franco. Franco's forces won the Spanish Civil War (1936-1939) with the aid of both Italy and Germany. Once the Civil War was over, though, and especially when World War II began to go against the fascist powers, Franco ousted the more ardent fascists from his government and moved in the direction of a conservative, even reactionary, dictatorship. Franco was more concerned, that is, with maintaining firm authority in a quiet Spain than in mobilizing mass support in order to win glory and a new empire for his country. Fascism also enjoyed some success outside Europe, notably in Argentina in the 1940s and '50s under the leadership of Juan Per6n, an army officer who won a large following among the Argentine working class. There have been elements of fascism in South Africa, too. In that country the official policy of apartheid, or racial separation, was often justified by invoking ideas about the organic unity of a racially superior Afrikaner Volk. Apartheid literally means "apartness," and there are two senses in which the South African government pursued a policy of "apartness" until recent years. The first is segregation of the races. Beginning in 1948, when the Afrikaner Nationalist Party first won control of the government, the people of South Africa were officially divided into four racial groups: African, Asian, Coloured (that is, of mixed descent), and White. Although the Africans were easily the largest part of the population-more than 72.' of the total, according to the 1980 census-the ruling Nationalist party denied them voting rights and virtually shut them out of the country's regular political process until President De Klerk began to dismantle apartheid in the early 1990s. Until then, marriage between whites and nonwhites had been prohibited, "pass laws" had required black Africans to obtain permission to enter white urban areas, and the government had attempted to confine black Africans to ten territorial .homelands" located in some of the poorest and most barren areas of South Africa. White South Africans, especially descendants of Dutch and German colonists known as Afrikaners, typically justified this policy by appealing to the belief that racial differences are fixed and unchanging features of life. Each race has its own distinct characteristics, on this view, and no good can come from attempts to bring the races together. Each race can best develop along the lines nature intends only if it remains separate from the others hence the notion that the different races of South Africa were pursuing .separate development." Separate, but not equal. For one race, the white, is sup- [Fascism Today 209] posedly superior to the others. Not only must whites keep apart from other races, but they must also exercise the leadership necessary to make "separate development" possible for all. This brings us to the second sense in which apartheid has meant "apartness" in South Africa. Many Afrikaners have believed that they are a special people, chosen by God to carry out His plan in their country. One Afrikaner leader stated this view in 1944: In every People in the world is embodied a Divine Idea and the task of each People is to build upon that Idea and to perfect it. So God created the Afrikaner people with a unique language, a unique philosophy of life, and their own history and tradition in order that they might fulfill a particular calling and destiny here in the southern comer of Africa. We must stand guard on all that is peculiar to us and build upon it. We must believe that God has called us to be servants of his righteousness in this place.l2 So the Afrikaner Volk, who compose the majority of the white population, are a special people with a special calling. They are a breed apart from others, and if they are to accomplish their mission they must remain apart~ To their sense of the racial superiority of whites in general, then, white Afrikaners added a belief in their national destiny as a distinctive people or Volk. These, as we have seen, were among the key ingredients of Nazism in Germany, and, except for the racism, of fascism in Italy. Even now, with apartheid ended and Nelson Mandela heading the government of South Africa, the members of groups like the Afrikaner Resistance Movement defend their attempts to restore the old system by appeals to racism and nationalism. In these respects their views-and the system of apartheid in general-bear more than a passing resemblance to fascist and Nazi doctrine.   FASCISM TODAY Although it is difficult to gauge the strength or popularity of fascism today, it is clear that fascism is not altogether dead and gone-not even in the two countries in which it seemed so thoroughly defeated. The Fascist Party is outlawed in Italy, as is the Nazi Party in Germany, but neofascists and neo-Nazis manage to ron for office, and occasionally stir up trouble, under different names. In Italy in 1992, for example, Allesandra Mussolini, granddaughter of Il Duce, won election to a seat in the Italian Parliament as a member of the neofascist Italian Social Movement (later renamed the National Alliance). In Germany neo-Nazi organizations have claimed responsibility for firebombing attacks and other assaults that have killed Vietnamese, Turkish -guest workers-' families, and others. These attacks and the revival of fascism in general seem to be the result of a renewed nationalism that has been brought to the fore by resentment of foreign workers, refugees, and immigrants. In France, for instance, the neofascist National Front, led by Jean-Marie Le Pen, has [210 Fascism] won control of some municipal governments with campaigns that blame immigrants for high rates of unemployment, crime, and welfare expenses. Nor has fascism revived only in Europe. In the Middle Eastern country of Iraq, Saddam Hussein's regime seeks to build a society based on nationalism, militarism, and totalitarian control. The militaristic and totalitarian elements of the regime became well known during the Gulf War of 1990-1991, which followed the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait. The nationalistic element, however, has received less attention in the West. Saddam Hussein's connection with nationalism has come through a political party, the Ba'ath Party, which has been active in several middle eastern countries. Since its founding in the 1950s, the Ba'ath Party has preached panarabism-the belief that all Arabs belong to a single nation, or people, destined to live in a single united state. In this way the Ba'ath Party has hoped to restore the strength and identity of an Arab people that finds itself divided into several different states and religions; in fact, ba'ath means resurrection. The Ba'ath Party claims that this resurrection will benefit all Arabs, whether they are Muslim, Christian, or some other religion, for it gives them "a special mission in the world and a right to independence and unity."13 Arab nationalist sentiment is not enough by itself to produce fascism. But nationalism is a key ingredient in fascism, and when it is complemented by militarism and the attempt to establish totalitarian control, as in Iraq in recent years, then fascism follows.l. In the United States, too, the Nazi Party and other groups with fascist leanings-the Ku Klux Klan, the AI)'an Nation, and assorted "skinheads"sometimes make their presence felt. Some, though certainly not all, of the "militia" movements in the United States have neo-Nazi leanings. Their members claim that the country has been taken over by Jews and the United Nations, which ~n the ZOO (Zionist Occupation Government) in Washington, D"C, Thi.s illegitimate government is bent on disarming white citizens, leaving them defenseless against blacks, Hispanics, and other nonwhites, and it is therefore the duty of patriotic whites to overthrow the ZOG. Thi.s is the thinking that has animated a number of milita-led bombings of federal facilities-most famouslyand dest~ctively, the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. One of the convicted bombers, Timothy McVeigh, kept and often quoted from The Turner Diaries-a book whose contents provide a startling insight into the thinking of members of Various radical-right, neo-Nazi, militia groups.15 The Turner Diaries is a work of fiction. It purports to be the diaries of Earl Turner, a militant member of a neo-Nazi group called the Organization that, in the -Great Revolution" of the late twentieth century, overthrew the Jewish-led -System.-the U.S. government-and in the twenty-first century inaugurated an all-white,'racially pure New Era. During the Old Era, according to the Diaries, the System discriminated against patriotic white Americans by confiscating their guns, promoting policies of affirmative action, encouraging nonwhite foreign immigration and interracial marriage, and putting Jews, African-AmeIicans, and other minorities in positions of author- [Fascism Today 211] ity in schools and universities, the mass media, and the FBI and other government agencies. This revolution pitted "patriotic" white Americans against an antiwhite government bent on disarming and "mongrelizing" the white race by allowing interracial marriage and other fonDS of "race-mixing,. such as integrated schools and churches. Opposing this antiwhite System is the Organization-a group of right-wing, antiliberal, white men and women who have not been "brainwashed" by the "liberal media." One of the characters in the Diaries, a white woman named Katherine, rejects her liberal leanings after being given some books on race and history and some Organization publications to read, For the first time in her life she began thinking seriously about the important racial, social and political issues at the root of the day's problems. She learned the truth about the System's "equality" hoax. She gained an understanding of the unique historical role of the Jews as the ferment of decomposition of races and civilizations. Most important, she began acquiring a sense of racial identity, overcoming a lifetime of brain washing aimed at reducing her to an isolated human atom in a cosmopolitan chaos.16 Here, in a nutshell, is the essence of Nazi, and now neo-Nazi, ideology: racial differences are innate and indelible; they lie at the root of all social and political problems; people of different races cannot live together in peace or harmony; the Jews, however, promote social and political chaos by preaching-and forcing people to practice-racial "equality"; white people who are brainwashed by Jewish propaganda have no sense of "white" identity, seeing themselves as the atomized individuals depicted by classical liberal and Enlightenment thought. The key to the whole problem," Turner writes, is .the corruption of our people by the Jewish-liberal-democratic-equalitarian plague, . . ..17 This plague. is first and foremost ideological, caused by white people accepting "Jewish. and "liberal. ideas, and it can be cured only by rejecting these ideas and replacing them with "correct. ideas about white identity and racial pride. Putting her newfound ideology into practice, Katherine joins Turner and the other Organization members in fighting the System. They raise money to buy weapons by robbing Jewish-owned businesses and killing, with obvious enjoyment, the owners and employees. They make a fertilizer bomb and blow up the FBIs national headquarters, killing scores of agents and civilians alike. They also bomb the offices of the Washington Post and other "liberal" newspapers and television stations. They mount a mortar attack on the U.S. Capitol: "We saw beautiful blossoms of flame and steel sprouting everywhere, . . . erupting now inside and now outside the Capitol, wreaking their bloody toll in the ranks of tyranny and treason."18 On the same day, "the Organization used a bazooka to shoot down an airliner which had just taken off for Tel Aviv with a load of vacationing dignitaries, mostly Jews. There were,. Turner adds with evident satisfaction, "no survivors."19 Later, during the "Day of the Rope," the Organization publicly hangs hundreds of thousands of black and white race traitors" from trees, lampposts, and overpasses as a warning to [212 Fascism] those who might be tempted to "betray" the white race by defending, dating, or marrying members of other races. Throughout The Turner Diaries the emphasis is on difference-not only between races, religions, and nations, but between the sexes as well. Liberalism and feminism are reviled for denying the importance of innate and deep-seated differences: Liberalism is an essentially feminine, submissive world view. . . . "Women's lib" was a form of mass psychosis which broke out during the last three decades of the Old Era. Women affected by it denied their femininity and insisted that they were "people," not "women." This aberration was promoted and encouraged by the System as a means of dividing our [white] race against itself.20 And what of democracy? The Diaries condemns constitutional democracy: "the American people voted themselves into the mess they're in now," and the Jews have taken over the country fair and square, according to the Constitution." The Constitution does not and cannot protect the integrity and identity of the "white race" and should therefore be scrapped. Elections aren't the answer: "Where [do you] think new elections can possibly lead now, with this generation TV-conditioned voters, except right back into the same Jewish pigsty"2l In place of liberal democracy, The Turner Diaries advocates autocratic role by a racially pure elite. This was finally achieved with the Organization's victory in the Great Revolution "in the year 1999, according to the chronology of the Old Era-just 110 years after the birth of the Great One." The unnamed Great One who was born in 1889 is, of course, Adolf Hitler . Although Hitler died in his Berlin bunker in 1945, his ideas live on in the dreams and schemes and plans-and practices-of neo-Nazi groups in North America and Europe. These groups are especially eager to attract young recruits. Their methods range from "white power" rallies to the racist religion of the Christian Identity Church, from rock music concerts and compact discs by Rahowa (Racial Holy War) and other neo-Nazi bands to Web sites on the Internet. They are active in the American military, in prisons, and increasingly in high schools and youth groups. Their numbers are small but apparently growing among alienated and disaffected white Americans. It would be a mistake, however, to conclude that all of the so-called militia groups in the United States take their inspiration from Hitler and the Nazis. According to one estimate, there are more than 850 militia groups in the United States today.!t The members of these groups share a suspicion of the United States' government and a fondness for firearms, but many of them are neither racist nor nationalist. Nor are they bent on establishing a totalitarian government. As the word "militia" suggests, the members of these groups often believe that they must remain vigilant, on guard against government attempts to seize more and more power. They typically insist that political power should be concentrated at the local level, not at the national, so that citizens acting in townships and counties can control their own affairs and [Conclusion 213] live free from the meddling control of "big government." When power is concentrated in the hands of judges, representatives, and bureaucrats who are distant from the ordinary people, they argue, individual liberty is likely to be smothered. Comparing themselves to the "Minutemen" and "Sons of Liberty" who took up arms in the American Revolution to defend the liberty of the American people against the oppressive designs of the British government, members of many militia groups claim to be fighting against a government that is too large, too remote, and too powerful for the good of the people. In that respect, certainly, these militia groups are very different from Mussolini's Fascists and Hitler's Nazis. Fascists celebrate power and seek to concentrate it in the state, in a single party, even in a single leader. For the true fascist, there must be nothing outside the state, nothing against the state, and everything for the state. That is a view that many militia members cannot accept. But others can and do.   CONCLUSION Fascism as an Ideology One feature of fascism is clear. No matter what the form, fascists have always tried to win mass support by appealing to people in the simplest, most emotional terms. This becomes evident as we look at how fascism and Nazism perform the four functions of a political ideology. Explanation. Why are social conditions the way they are? Fascists typically answer this question with some account of heroes and villains. Usually they concentrate on the scoundrels or traitors who conspire to keep the nation or Volk weak in order to serve their own personal interests. They look for scapegoats, in other words, and blame all problems on them. This is what the Nazis did to the Jews, for instance, and what neo-Nazis or "white supremacists" do to blacks, or Hispanics, or other "inferior" and "foreign" groups. Evaluation. Whether a situation is good or bad, according to fascists, will usually depend on some evaluation of a nation's or Volk's unity and strength. If the people are fragmented, at odds with one another, then it is time to hunt down the villains who are tearing the Volk or nation apart. If the people are united behind their party and their leader, on the other hand, then all is well. Orientation. What is one's place in the world, one's primary source of belonging or identification? According to the Italian fascists, it is the nation; to the Nazis, the nation defined in racial terms. In either case, the individual should recognize that he or she is of no significance as an individual, but only as a member of the organic whole--the nation-state or the race-that gives meaning and purpose to his or her life. Program. What is to be done? Again, the answer is simple--believe, obey, fight! Follow one's leaders in the struggle against the enemies of the nation or race, and do whatever is necessary to bring glory to one's people by [214 Fascism] helping to establish it as a leading power in the world. Give everything to the state, keep nothing from the state, and do nothing against the state.   Fascism and the Democratic Ideal In its strongest forms, then, whether it be Italian fascism, German Nazism, or neo-Nazism, fascism is a totalitarian ideology. Of all the political ideologies, it is the only one to reject democracy altogether. It does respond to the democratic ideal, to be sure, but it responds with contempt, For the fascist, democracy is merely another name for division and weakness in a world where unity and strength are what truly matter. NOTES 1. For a clear statement of this view, see Immanuel Kant, "What Is Enlightenment?" in Terence Ban and Richard Dagger, eds., Ideals and Ideologies: A Reader, 3rd ed. (New York: Longman.1999), selection 17. 2. We take the term -Counter-Enlightenment" from Isaiah Berlin's essay, "'the Counter-Enlightenment" in Berlin, Against the Current: Essays tn the History of Ideas (Harmondsworth: Penguin, 1982), pp. 1-24. 3. Hans Kohn, Nationalism: Its Meaning and History (Prlnceton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1955), p. 36. 4. As reprinted in William Y. Elliot and Neil McDonald, eds., Western Political Heritage (New York: Prentice.Hall, 1949), p. 797. 5. Quoted in A. James Gregor, Contemporary Radical ldeologies (New York: Random House, 1968), p. 131. 6. Quoted in William S. Halperin, Mussolini and Italian Fascism (Princeton, NJ: D. Van Nostrand, 1964), p. .7. 7. Both passages quoted in Denis Mack Smith, "The Theory and Practice of Fascism. - in Nathanael Greene, ed., Fascism: An Anthology (New York: Thomas Y. Crowell, 1968), pp. 109-110. 8. Adolf Hitler, Mein Kampf, trans. Ralph Manheim (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1943), p. 42; also in Ideals and Ideologies selection 48. 9. Quoted in Gregor, Contemporary Radical Ideologies, p. 197. 10. According to Shlomo Avineri, "F. Von Schlegel's book, The Language and Wisdom of the Indians, appearing in the twenties [i.e., 1820s] first expounded the Aryan view in Germany arguing for a national and racial affinity between the Germans and Indians on the basis of the linguistic relationship between Sanskrit and Old Gothic. Schlegel- the first to ooin the phrase, 'the Aryan peoples."' Avineri, "Hegel and Nationalism," in Walter Kaufmann. ed., Hegels Political Philosophy (New York: Atherton Books,1. 1970), p. III. 11. Quoted in Raymond E. Murphy, et al., "National Socialism," in Readings on Fascism and National Socialism (Chicago: Swallow Press, 1952), p. 65. 12. Quoted in Leonard Thompson, The Political Mythology of Apartheid (New Haven: Yale University Press, 1085), p. 29. 13. Albert Hourani, A History of the Arab Peoples (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press. 1991), p. 405. [For Further Reading 215] 14. See the discussion of Saddam Hussein's regime in Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future (New York: Oxford University Press, 1996), pp. 161-163. Laqueur notes (p. 163) that "Saddam has even become a cult figure among German neonazis, Le Pen's followers, and the Russian neofascists." Roger Griffin argues that Iraq's "official ideology" is "uncannily akin to Nazism in some ideological aspects," but cannot be considered truly fascist because "it rejects the notion of mass politics from below and represses genuine populism in a way quite unlike Nazism . . . ." Griffin, The Nature of Fascism (London: Routledge, 1993), p. 178. 15. Andrew MacDonald (pseudonym for William L. Pierce), The Turner Diaries, 2nd ed. (Arlington, VA: National Vanguard Books, 1985). 16. Ibid., p. 29. 17. Ibid., p. 42. 18. Ibid., p. 61. 19. Ibid., p. 62. 20. Ibid., p. 42, p. 45. 21. Ibid., p. 173. 22. Estimate of the Southern Poverty Law Center, reported in Mark Shaffer, "Militias Find Recruiting Easy," The Arizona Republic (September 29, 1997), p. B1. FOR FURTHER READING Aho, James. The Politics of Righteousness: ldaho Christian Patriotism. Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1990. Arendt, Hannah. The Origins of Totalitarianism Cleveland and New York: Meridian Books, 1958. Barkun, Michael. Religion and the Racist Right: The Origins of the Christian Identity Movement. Chapel Hill, NC: University of North Carolina Press, 1994. Bullock, Alan. Hitler: A Study in Tyranny, rev. ed. New York: Harper &: Row, 1964. Griffin,Roger. The Nature of Fascism. London: Routledge, 1993. Kohn, Hans. The Idea of Nationaltsm: A Study in Its Origin and Background. New York: Collier. 1967. Laqueur, Walter. Fascism: Past Present, Future. New York: Oxford University Press, 1996. Mack Smith, Denis. Mussolini. New York: Alfred A. Knopf, 1982. Miller, Judith, and Laurie Mylroie. Saddam Hussein and the Crisis in the Gulf New York: Times Books, 1990. Mosse, George. The Crisis of German Ideology: Intellectua1 Origins of the Third Reich. New York: Grosset &: Dunlap, 1964. Nolte, Emst. Three Faces of Fascism: Action Francaise, Italian Fascism, National Socialism, trans. Leila Vennewitz. New York: Holt, Rinehart &: Winston, 1965. Payne, Stanley G. A History of Fascism,1914-1945. Madison, WI: University of Wisconsin Press, 1996. Pfaff, William. The Wrath of Nations: Civilization and the Furies of Nationalism. New York: Simon &: Schuster, 1993. Southern Poverty Law Center. False Patriots: The Threat of Anti-Government Extremists. Montgomery, AL: Southern Poverty Law Center, 1996. Stemhell Zeev, et al. The Birth of Fascist Ideology: From Cultural Rebellion to Political Revolution. trans. David Maisel. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1993. Thompson, Leonard. The Political Mythology of Apartheid. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1985.