-Caveat Lector-
Thus spake Mussolini in the 1920s:
"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....
"Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional
untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of
collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and
indefinite progress ...
"Given that the nineteenth century was the century of
Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it may rather be
expected that this will be a century of Authority -- a century of
Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of
individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of
collectivism, hence the century of the State.
"The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State,
its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the
State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or
groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to
the State.
"The Liberal conception of the State is not that of a
directing force, guiding the play and development, both material
and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited
to the function of recording results. The Fascist State, on the
other hand, is conscious and has a will and a personality."
_________________________________________________
FASCISM AND ITS FOUNDER
by W. Leroy Nichols
http://www.ecu.edu/polsci/hough/ln_fac.htm
Fascism is a twentieth century political idea, forged from
its nineteenth century Syndicalist and Social Darwinist roots in
the fires of opportunism following the end of World War I. It
has its own appeal as a popular mass government system, drawing
upon the elements of the irrational and the emotional to stir the
majority of a country's population into supporting the fascist
party in power.
The founder of fascism was Il Duce (The Leader) Benito
Mussolini. He "was born in Dovia di Predappio [near Forli, in
Romagna](1), Italy, on July 29, 1883. He was named Benito for the
Mexican revolutionary Juarez.(2) As a teenager, Mussolini
entered into politics as a socialist. His father, Alessandro
Mussolini, was a blacksmith and a fervent socialist. His mother,
Rosa, was a schoolteacher; and at age eighteen (1901), Benito
Mussolini became eligible to be an elementary schoolmaster. The
next year, he moved to Switzerland looking for work. Mussolini
was expelled from Switzerland when he could not find a permanent
job, and returned to perform his military service in the Italian
army.(3)
In 1908 Mussolini joined the staff of a newspaper in Trent
(in the Austrian held Italian province of Tyrol) and wrote a
novel, later translated into English as "The Cardinal's
Mistress." He was expelled by the Austrian authorities, so he
continued his newspaper career with the socialist newspaper, La
Lotta di Classe (The Class Struggle) in Forli. Although his
socialist ideas were being modified by the philosophy of
Friedrich Nietzsche, the revolutionary doctrines of Auguste
Blanqui, and the syndicalism of Georges Sorel, the young man
still became the Socialist party secretary in Forli.(4)
Opposite his later record as a warmonger, in Italy's 1911
war against Turkey, Mussolini was jailed for his pacifist
newspaper work. He moved to Milan after he became the editor of
"Avanti," the official paper of the socialists. From this
position, Mussolini rapidly became one of the most important
leaders among labor, advocating that "the proletariat should
unite in one formidable fascio (bundle), preparatory to seizing
power."(5)
Mussolini experienced a sudden change of heart in the early
days of World War I, first opposing the war and threatening to
lead a proletarian revolution against both the war and the
Italian government, then later changing his stance about
fighting. He gave up his membership in the Socialist party and
abandoned his editorship of the "Avanti" newspaper.(6)
Fascism is Born
The birth of fascism is a dramatic example of the one true
guiding principle of fascism: seize the moment, take a chance on
the opportunity at hand, and if the opportunity needs a bit of
encouragement, then give violence a chance. Having suddenly
switched his position on Italy's entry into the war, Mussolini
founded a pro-war group, the Fasci d'Azione Rivoluzionaria, and a
new newspaper, "Il Popolo d'Italia." "He evidently hoped the war
might lead to a collapse of society that would bring him to
power. Called up for military service, he was wounded in grenade
practice in 1917 and returned to edit his paper."(7)
Mussolini started the Fasci de Combattimento in 1919, but
failed to win a seat in the elections to parliament. In 1921
Mussolini won a seat in the Italian parliament, in part due to
the armed squads of Fascisti that spread terror among his
socialist rivals.
After making a deal with a group of the nation's top
industrial leaders and landholders about strikebreaking,
Mussolini had sufficient strength to help form a government on
the right. In little more than a year, after a series of
increasingly ineffective prime ministers, Mussolini was finally
invited to form his own Fascist government.(8)
Suddenly the Fascist party needed to provide leadership, yet
by the longest measurement the movement was only seven years old.
While Mussolini was an excellent propagandist (thanks in part to
native ability and in part to his training as a newspaperman),
the intellectual roots of his party suddenly had to bear fruit.
For organizational purposes, the syndicalist idea of the
corporate state was adopted, merging the state, industry, and
labor into a number or corporations. Ideas espoused by a handful
of philosophers hostile to the western, liberal democratic ideal
formed the rest of the veneer of respectability that fascism
claimed: such notions including the heroic leadership of
Friedrich Nietzsche, and the Social Darwinism of Henri Bergson
and George Sorel. (9)
"The intellectual roots of Fascism can be traced to the
voluntaristic philosophers who argued that the will is prior to
and superior to the intellect or reason."
Arthur Schopenhauer (1788-1860) was a German philosopher who
held that the will is the underlying and ultimate reality and
that the whole phenomenal world is the only expression of will.
Human beings have free will only in the sense that everyone is
the free expression of a will and that we therefore are not the
authors of our own destinies, characters, or behavior, he wrote.
He theorized that space, time, and causality were not absolute
principles but only a function of the brain, concepts parallel to
the scientific discoveries of relativistic physics two
generations later.
Friedrich Nietzsche (1844-1900) was a German philosopher and
poet best known for "Thus Spoke Zarathustra." He theorized that
there were two moral codes: that of the ruling class (master
morality) and that of the oppressed class (slave morality). The
ancient empires grew out of a master morality, and the religions
of the day out of the slave morality (which denigrates the rich
and powerful, rationalism, and sexuality). He developed the
concept of the "overman" (superman) which symbolized man at his
most creative and highest intellectual capacity.
Henri Bergson (1859-1941) was a French philosopher of Jewish
parents who was the leading rejectionist of the concept that
scientific principles can explain all of existence. He asserted
that metaphysical principles also apply. He found credence in
applying the biological theories of Darwin which pointed to the
"survival of the fittest" in biological systems) to social
theory.
George Sorel (1847-1922) was a French social philosopher who
had a major influence upon Mussolini. Sorel believed that
societies naturally became decadent and disorganized, and this
inevitable decay could only be delayed by the leadership of
idealists who were willing to use violence to obtain power. His
anti-democratic, anti-liberal views and pessimistic view about
the natural life-cycle of a society were antithetical to most of
his contemporaries. "(10)
As an anti-democratic movement, Fascism still relied upon
popular support from large segment of the population. Where
Communism made a similar appeal for support from the masses of
the laboring class, Fascism turned to the middle class for the
broad public support; backing that up with the alliance with the
top industrial and agricultural leaders.
Turning away from the rational thought of the western
tradition, fascism made its appeal to the irrational and the
emotional. Mussolini, with the help of Italian philosopher
Giovanni Gentile, wrote the following, which is excerpted from an
article on Fascism (Italian Encyclopedia, 1932). In the
following paragraphs, Mussolini attacks pacifism, Marxian
socialism and the class-war, democratic ideology and liberalism.
He goes on to glorify warfare and imperialism in the old fashion
conquer and control mode. Antagonizing all of your potential
rivals by publicly criticizing their method of doing things, and
backing that up by talk (and eventually the action) of war is not
the mark of a rational philosophy. It does show evidence of a
belief in the heroic ideal of the ascendant leader who can always
come through with a victory at the end, irregardless of how long
the odds are against the victory.
"Fascism, the more it considers and observes the future and
the development of humanity quite apart from political
considerations of the moment, believes neither in the possibility
nor the utility of perpetual peace. It thus repudiates the
doctrine of Pacifism -- born of a renunciation of the struggle
and an act of cowardice in the face of sacrifice. War alone
brings up to its highest tension all human energy and puts the
stamp of nobility upon the peoples who have courage to meet it.
All other trials are substitutes, which never really put men into
the position where they have to make the great decision -- the
alternative of life or death ...
"The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of
death and despising suicide: he rather conceives of life as duty
and struggle and conquest, but above all for others -- those who
are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and
those who will come after ...
"Fascism [is] 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....
"Fascism denies, in democracy, the absurd conventional
untruth of political equality dressed out in the garb of
collective irresponsibility, and the myth of "happiness" and
indefinite progress ...
"Given that the nineteenth century was the century of
Socialism, of Liberalism, and of Democracy, it does not
necessarily follow that the twentieth century must also be a
century of Socialism, Liberalism and Democracy: political
doctrines pass, but humanity remains, and it may rather be
expected that this will be a century of Authority -- a century of
Fascism. For if the nineteenth century was a century of
individualism it may be expected that this will be the century of
collectivism and hence the century of the State.
"The foundation of Fascism is the conception of the State,
its character, its duty, and its aim. Fascism conceives of the
State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or
groups are relative, only to be conceived of in their relation to
the State. The conception of the Liberal State is not that of a
directing force, guiding the play and development, both material
and spiritual, of a collective body, but merely a force limited
to the function of recording results: on the other hand, the
Fascist State is itself conscious and has itself a will and a
personality -- thus it may be called the "ethic" State....
"The Fascist State organizes the nation, but leaves a
sufficient margin of liberty to the individual; the latter is
deprived of all useless and possibly harmful freedom, but retains
what is essential; the deciding power in this question cannot be
the individual, but the State alone ..."(11)
It should be noted in closing that not all fascist states
practiced the same variety of fascism. In Germany, it took the
much more racialist overtones of National Socialism, or "Nazi"
ideology. In Japan, the militarist form of fascism combined
Emperor worship with racism for an uniquely Japanese version of
the philosophy. In other countries, most especially across
Europe and Latin America, differing degrees of success occurred
in instituting fascist governments of one form or another.
It is a popular misconception that World War II bought an
end to fascist governments with the defeat of Germany, Italy, and
Japan. Nothing could be further from the truth, with Francisco
Franco having a successful longlasting rule in Spain as a fascist
dictator until his death in the 1970's. Dr. Salazar's government
in Portugal also survived into the seventies in a fascist form,
while perhaps doing the best job of actually implementing the
Syndicalist corporate state into actual practice. Nationalist
party-led South Africa, during the long time of apartheid, had a
limited, and within its' own group of whites, more democratic
form of fascism in place until very recently. Military type
fascist states have only recently gone out of style in much of
Latin America, including the two giants, Brazil and Argentina.
Whether fascism will make a comeback is one of the hidden
questions for the next century.
NOTES
1. Denis Mack Smith Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
University -- http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_mussolini.html
2. Excerpted from Compton's Interactive Encyclopedia. Copyright
(c) 1994, 1995 Compton's NewMedia, Inc. All Rights Reserved
3. Denis Mack Smith Fellow of All Souls College, Oxford
University
4. Ibid
5. Ibid
6. Ibid
7. Ibid
8. Ibid
9. http://www.grolier.com/wwii/wwii_mussolini.html
10.http://aleph.lib.ohio-state.edu/www/FACTS_ROOT_NAZI.HTML
11. The History Guide | Resources | Feedback | Copyright -1996,
1997 Steven Kreis [EMAIL PROTECTED] Steven Kreis
http://www.pagesz.net/~stevek/benito.html
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