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A political doctrine opposed to democracy and
demanding submission to political leadership and authority. A key principle of fascism is
the belief that the whole society has a shared destiny and purpose which can only be
achieved by iron discipline, obedience to leadership and an all-powerful state. Fascism
first developed in Italy, under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (dictator of Italy from
1922 to 1943) and later influenced the development of German fascism in the Nazi movement
led by Adolf Hitler (dictator of Germany from 1933-1945) . While fascism increases the
power and role of the state in society and suppresses free trade unions and political
opposition, it preserves private ownership and private property. Fascism is a form of
extreme right-wing ideology that celebrates the nation or the race as an organic community
transcending all other loyalties. It emphasizes a myth of national or racial rebirth after
a period of decline or destruction. To this end, fascism calls for a "spiritual
revolution" against signs of moral decay such as individualism and materialism, and
seeks to purge "alien" forces and groups that threaten the organic community.
Fascism tends to celebrate masculinity, youth, mystical unity, and the regenerative power
of violence. Often, but not always, it promotes racial superiority doctrines, ethnic
persecution, imperialist expansion, and genocide. At the same time, fascists may embrace a
form of internationalism based on either racial or ideological solidarity across national
boundaries. Usually fascism espouses open male supremacy, though sometimes it may also
promote female solidarity and new opportunities for women of the privileged nation or
race. Fascism's approach to politics is both populist--in that it seeks to activate
"the people" as a whole against perceived oppressors or enemies--and elitist--in
that it treats the people's will as embodied in a select group, or often one supreme
leader, from whom authority proceeds downward. Fascism seeks to organize a cadre-led mass
movement in a drive to seize state power. - Matthew N. Lyons (Right-Wing Populism in
America: Too Close for Comfort).
Fascists particularly loathed the social theories of the French Revolution and its slogan:
"Liberty, Equality, Fraternity."
Liberty from oppressive government intervention in the daily lives of its citizens,
from illicit searches and seizures, from enforced religious values, from intimidation and
arrest for dissenters; and liberty to cast a vote in a system in which the majority ruled
but the minority retained certain inalienable rights.
Equality in the sense of civic equality, egalitarianism, the notion that while people
differ, they all should stand equal in the eyes of the law.
Fraternity in the sense of the brotherhood of mankind. That all women and men, the old
and the young, the infirm and the healthy, the rich and the poor, share a spark of
humanity that must be cherished on a level above that of the law, and that binds us all
together in a manner that continuously re-affirms and celebrates life.
This is what fascism as an ideology was reacting against_and its support came primarily
from desperate people anxious and angry over their perception that their social and
economic position was sinking and frustrated with the constant risk of chaos, uncertainty
and inefficiency implicit in a modern democracy based on these principles. Fascism is the
antithesis of democracy. http://www.remember.org/hist.root.what.html |
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