This is the first installment of essays on the huge complex topic of fascism. I will get to Hitler and Franco of Spain (1936 -75) along with other fascist regimes in subsequent blog posts as well as ideologues who contributed to fascist ideology.<\/p>\n
Merriam-Webster defines fascism as a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of Italy’s Fascisti led by Mussolini) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.<\/p>\n
Author of Fascists,\u00a0<\/em>Michael Mann says fascists embrace the nation-state. Racial homogeneity is the basis of the nation where the people rule and such rule may entail the violent exclusion of minority ethnic groups up to ethnic cleansing or genocide. More powerful modern states accompany fascism as they become governed by authoritarian regimes than cleanse minorities and opponents from the nation. The violent purification of the the fascist state comes from above and below. Radical paramilitary movements or citizen armies serve their fascist nations. Sources of power making fascism possible are ideological, economic, military, and political. Fascism, says Mann, is the pursuit of a transcendent and cleansing nation-statism through paramilitarism.<\/p>\n History shows fascism interwoven with 19th Century European nationalism and the political and ideological responses to Marxism’s failings (at least as idealized by Marx and Engels).\u00a0 Foreshadowings of fascism sprouted long before Mussolini and Hitler. 1848 saw the publication of\u00a0 The Communist Manifesto by Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels. France’s February 1848 Revolution was driven by nationalist and republican ideals among the French general public, who believed the people should rule themselves. It ended the constitutional monarchy of Louis-Philippe\u00a0and led to the creation of the French Second Republic. This government was headed by Louis-Napoleon who, after only four years, established The Second French Empire which was essentially proto-fascistic, an example of fascism not ordinarily acknowledged as such.<\/p>\n The June Days Uprising of 1848 was staged by France’s workers in response to plans to close the National Workshops, created by the Second Republic in order to provide work and a source of income for the unemployed\u00a0 with pay just enough to survive. T<\/sup>he National Guard, led by General Louis Eugene Cavaignac, was called out to quell the protests. Over 10,000 people were either killed or injured, while 4,000 insurgents were deported to Algeria. This marked the end of the hopes of a “Democratic and Social Republic”.<\/p>\n The anti-parliamentary Constitution of 1852 gave all executive power to Louis-Napoleon, heir and nephew to Emperor Napoleon I “who had sprung armed from the French Revolution like Minerva from the head of Jove”.\u00a0The people of the Empire lacked democratic rights and relied on the benevolence of the emperor rather than on the benevolence of politicians. He was to nominate the members of the council of state, whose duty it was to prepare the laws, and of the senate, a body permanently established as a constituent part of the empire. On December 2, 1852, France conferred almost unanimously by a plebiscite the supreme power upon Napoleon III. The Legislative Body was not allowed to elect its own president or to regulate its own procedure, or to propose a law or an amendment, or to vote on the budget in detail, or to make its deliberations public.<\/p>\n One of the pioneers of fascism was a German nationalist, Heinrich von Treitschke (1834-1896). He favored German colonialism, opposed the British Empire, Catholics, Poles, and socialists within Germany. He hoped to see Germany united into a single state with a parliamentary government, and all the smaller states swept away.\u00a0He supported colonialism: “Every virile people has established colonial power. All great nations in the fullness of their strength have desired to set their mark upon barbarian lands and those who fail to participate in this great rivalry will play a pitiable role in time to come”. Treitschke believed in brutal competition among races, of the Germans versus the Lithuanians, ‘Old Prussians versus the Poles. He\u00a0recognized that the preservation of the nation must inevitably lead to the destruction of others. Social evolution, the \u201csurvival of the fittest\u201d was a struggle between peoples as much as it was one between individual men and women. Having witnessed the destructive power of nationalism, Treischke believed that \u201cwar\u2026 will endure to the end of history, as long as there is multiplicity of States. He felt that his land’s soil was fertilized by\u00a0 \u00a0noble German blood. An outspoken Anti-semite,<\/p>\n