University of Idaho
Fascism
The word descends from the Latin ‘fasces’, the bundle of sticks used by the Romans to symbolize their empire. This should clue you in that Fascism attempts to recapture both the glory and social organization of Rome.
Most generally, “a governmental system led by a dictator having complete power, forcibly suppressing opposition and criticism, regimenting all industry, commerce, etc., and emphasizing an aggressive nationalism and often racism.”
Unlike communism, fascism is opposed to state ownership of capital and economic equality is not a principle or goal. During the 1930s and WWII, communism and fascism represented the extreme left and right, respectively, in European politics. Hitler justified both Nazi anti-Semitism and dictatorship largely on the basis of his working to fight-off communism.
The church also played a major role in all of the European fascist countries (Germany, Italy, Spain, Portugal) as the authority on religious and moral issues, which was opposed to the threat of "godless communists".
Mussolini, the Italian father of Fascism, writes that: “..Fascism 🇮🇸 the complete opposite of…Marxian Socialism, the materialist conception of history of human civilization can be explained simply through the conflict of interests among the various social groups and by the change and development in the means and instruments of production.... Fascism, now and always, believes in holiness and in heroism; that is to say, in actions influenced by no economic motive, direct or indirect. And if the economic conception of history be denied, according to which theory men are no more than puppets, carried to and fro by the waves of chance, while the real directing forces are quite out of their control, it follows that the existence of an unchangeable and unchanging class-war is also denied - the natural progeny of the economic conception of history. And above all Fascism denies that class-war can be the preponderant force in the transformation of society....
After Socialism, Fascism combats the whole complex system of democratic ideology, and repudiates it, whether in its theoretical premises or in its practical application. Fascism denies that the majority, by the simple fact that it is a majority, can direct human society; it denies that numbers alone can govern by means of a periodical consultation, and it affirms the immutable, beneficial, and fruitful inequality of mankind, which can never be permanently leveled through the mere operation of a mechanical process such as universal suffrage....”
