why did fascism emerge?

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Why did fascism emerge?

MARCH 5, 2008

STUDENT ID: 081404078

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Abstract

In this essay I discuss the different factors that contributed to the emergence of Fascism

in the global political arena in the years 1919 to 1945. I begin the essay with an

explanation of what Fascism actually is and where it existed. Then I discuss each factor

taking two or three examples. The factors that contributed to the emergence of Fascism

are World War One, the Treaty of Versailles, the economic crisis, and the anti-

communist sentiment. After having given examples of each factor, I go on to conclude

by stating that all contributed to the emergence of Fascism and it is very difficult to say

which actually contributed more or less.

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World War One resulted in social, political and economic devastation in Europe. People

had never faced such a severe situation ever before. Ruin, insecurity of the bourgeoisie,

and the questioning of the failed liberal principles led people to believe they needed a

strong anti-communist party. The Great War, the Peace of Paris, the economic

depression and the spread of socialism paved the way to a new form of right-wing rule,

Fascism. This political movement only prevailed from the end of World War One to the

end of World War Two. Nevertheless, it is of crucial importance to analyse and evaluate

each of the factors, in order to know the degree to which each of the issues affected the

emergence of Fascism as a form of rule.

Before delving further into the discussion, it is important to understand the meaning of

Fascism actually meaning and where it was present. Mussolini coined the term fascismo

in Milan on the 23rd of March, 1919. According to the Merriam-Webster Dictionary,

Fascism is a political philosophy, movement, or regime 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 (Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary, 2009). It is usually

non-democratic, non-liberal, racist and monopolistic in nature. Also, special attention is

given to the appearance, power and leadership. Propaganda is used on a massive scale in

order to achieve their goals. Fascism was seen in Brazil (Plnio Salgado), Germany

(Adolf Hitler), Italy (Benito Mussolini), Japan (Fumimaro Konoe), Romania (Corneliu

Zelea Condreanu) and Spain (Jos Antonio Primo de Rivera). Nevertheless the primary

examples are Germany, Italy and Japan.

One of the causes that led to the emergence of Fascism was the effect of World War

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One and the Peace of Paris on the different nations. As Stanley G. Payne states,

Fascism was newer and more original, for it was a direct product of the war itself.

Neither a fascist party nor a fascist doctrine existed as such before 1919 (Payne 1980,

pg.3). The war was of substantial importance but the Peace of Paris dictated the terms to

the defeated and listed the gains of the victorious.

The Treaty of Versailles was considered to be harsh by many countries but was

particularly referred to as a diktatin Germany. According to the War Guilt Clause,

Germany held sole responsibility for the outbreak and devastation of the Great War, and

therefore had to pay a sum of about 6.6 million pounds. Also, the Rhineland was to be

demilitarised,Anschluss was forbidden and the German colonies were divided among

the imperial powers of France and Britain. In addition, Germany was prohibited to have

an army that crossed the number of 100,000 men, was banned from having aLuftwaffe

and was forced to have a limited navy. The German people saw this as a ruthless and

inconsiderate truce. This united the German nation against the pitiless victors of World

War One.

Italy, although on the victorious side, was not very satisfied either with the outcome of

the Treaty of Versailles. Other than the fact that they gained substantially less than they

expected, Vittorio Orlando, the Italian delegate at Versailles, was put aside while

discussions between the Big Three were going on. The Italian people saw this as a

humiliation and as a broken promise. They did not get what they were promised in the

Treaty of London. But still, Italians saw their government as being frail, malleable and

lacking in pride.

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Just like Italy, Japan was not very pleased with the decisions taken at Versailles. It is

true that Japan received German territories in the Pacific, but the Japanese people

remained unsatisfied. Japan wanted to expand, but not throughout dispersed zones of

the Pacific but into the Manchurian province of China. Therefore, Japan was not very

pleased with the outcome of World War One.

World War One was the most brutal war humankind had been faced so far. Political

leaders of the victors did not know how to react to it and, while cruelly penalizing the

defeated side, they did not give as much as expected to the victors. This sparked

resentment and nationalism at the same time, as each nation had a reason to unite and

fight a common enemy or pursue a common goal.

World War One and the Peace of Paris definitely played its role in the emergence of

Fascism. However, the economic crisis of the 1920s and 1930s was also of crucial

importance to understand why Fascism became an option in Europe. According to the

bourgeoisie, liberalism was ailing: fascism and Nazism moved in to administer the

coup de grace (Goodwin 2007, pg.188). Strong totalitarian regimes with powerful and

charismatic leaders were seen to be the solution out of the crisis.

Even after the continuous attempts by the United States to lower and help Germany pay

the reparations led to catastrophe. The massive currency devaluation which hit

Germany in 1923 undermined social stability and caused widespread social and

economic resentment (Henig 1985, pg.9). The 1929 Wall Street crash worsened the

situation because the United States could no longer loan money to Germany, and instead

pressurized Germany to pay it back. By January 1933, around 6 million people were

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unemployed in Germany. People became anxious and restless. The situation was grim

and things seemed to get worse. As RAC Parker mentioned, resentment and fears

generated by economic crisis and alleged political injustices explain mass support for

this nationalistic and authoritarian party [Nazi Party] (Parker 1989, pg.2).

In Italy the situation was similar. Even before the Great War Italy was a poor nation.

During the 1860s it suffered a ruthless civil war between the industrial north and the

agricultural south. And besides, it had only completed its unification in 1870 after the

French troops left Rome. Italy was in a devastated situation post-World War One. The

lira had been devaluated to become one-fifth of its value after the war. The return of the

soldiers and the halt in trade led Italy into ruin. Hence, without delaying it too much, in

March 1919, Mussolini was proclaimed Il Duce in order to re-establish the status quo

of before the war.

In Japan however, the crisis did not affect a great deal. The economy only declined by

8% and by 1933 Japan had already found solutions to the crisis. Nevertheless, in 1934,

Japan diverted its economy to spend in arms and munitions. This allowed Japan to have

supreme status in the Pacific and to later pursue its violent imperialistic policies. The

economic crisis therefore did not affect Japan as much as it did to the rest of the

countries involved in World War One, but that does not mean it did not contribute to the

emergence of Fascism.

Therefore it is clear that the devastation of World War One coupled with the 1929 Wall

Street crash led to economic distress throughout the world. We can see that this paved

the way for an extreme left or extreme right regime to take over. John Weiss believed

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that war, inflation, and the Great Depression certainly polarized social attitudes into

extremes of left and right and opened vast opportunities to the radical right; but the

basic social conflict was as old as the rise of liberalism (Weiss 1967, pg.4). The reason

why Fascism emerged rather than an extreme left-wing form of rule was because of the

fear of the bourgeoisie to be ruled by the proletariat.

Another factor which exemplifies the emergence of Fascism is the anti-Communist and

anti-Socialist sentiment that prevailed post World War One. Following the Great War,

extreme left-wing and extreme right-wing parties seemed to be the best option,

especially after the common belief that liberal democracy failed. The 1917 Russian

Revolution had proven to be a successful take-over of power by the leftists. After that,

the bourgeoisie in the rest of the countries was scared of rule by the proletariat and

therefore most aristocrats, capitalists, industrialists, and intellectuals supported Fascist

movements. The fear and insecurity that communism created led to the creation of the

1936 Anti-Comintern Pact. The leading Fascist states, Germany, Italy, and Japan

created the Rome-Berlin-Tokyo axis in order to fight communism.

In Germany, as in the rest of Europe, socialist movements took place post-World War

One. The German Communist Party (KPD) and the German Socialist Party (SPD) had

considerable influence over the German people. Hitler and the Nazi Party did not gain

power until 1933, which shows how much power socialists had. The main reason they

failed to gain control was because these two parties were divided on how to achieve a

left-wing government. On one hand the KPD, after been influenced by the 1917

Leninist takeover believed that the best way to achieve a communist regime was

through social revolution. They allowed the Nazi Party to gain power and believed that

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social revolution would then take place. On the other hand the SDP believed that they

should seize power when the Nazi Party attempted a coup, so it would be totally

legitimate, just like had happened in 1920. Both were wrong and failed. The Nazi Party

took control and eliminated any threat that questioned their seizure of power. Hence,

Fascism can be seen as a counter-revolutionary movement to communism.

Likewise, in Italy, the Partito Socialista Italiano (PPI) had won one third of the votes in

the post-war elections of November 1919. However, the aristocrats, capitalists,

industrialists and intellectuals supported the Fascist movement and Mussolini quickly

seized power in Italy. The anti-Communist sentiment led to success of Fascism in Italy.

Mihaly Vajda argues that it was only the growth of national socialism in particular in a

mass movement and its seizure of power that turned fascism into a phenomenon of

world-historical importance (Vajda 1976, pg.62). It is therefore possible to argue that

Fascism resulted as an alternative to socialist and communist movements.

Mussolinis Fascism was the first to achieve success. It is often argued that Nazism and

Japanese Fascism are different to Mussolinis Fascism but they express the same

mixture of nationalism, anti-capitalism, voluntarism, and active violence against both

bourgeois and socialist enemies (Paxton 2005, pg.7). It is also clear that World War

One, the Versailles Treaty, the economic collapse and the anti-socialist and anti-

communist sentiment led to the emergence of Fascism. However it is ambiguous

whether one of these factors is more important than another to discuss the emergence of

Fascism. Sociology, psychology, political science and history need to be confronted

with detailed researches of other disciplines, and theory can thus integrate individual

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efforts so that the real progress can be made in the analysis and the debate on the

origins, function and telos of fascism (Kitchen 1976, pg viii).

Having studied various cases and having analysed the similarities between different

factors that contribute to the emergence of Fascism, it is possible to claim that World

War One, the Treaty of Versailles, the economic depression, and the anti-communist

sentiment have all led to Fascism prevailing in global politics between 1919 and 1945.

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Bibliography

"fascism." Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary. 2009. Merriam-Webster Online. 6

March 2009. http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/fascism

Goodwin,B. 2007. Using Political Ideas. 5th Edition. John Wiley and Sons, Ltd.

Henig, Ruth, 1985. The Origins of the Second World War. 1st edition. London and New

York: Methuen.

Khanna, V. N., 1996.International Relations. 4th edition. New Dehli: Vikas Publishing

House Pvt. Ltd.

Kitchen, Martin. 1976. Fascism. 1st edition. The Macmillan Press Ltd: London and

Basingtoke.

Parker, R. A. C., 1989. Struggle for Survival: The History of the Second World War.

Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Paxton, R. 2005. The Anatomy of Fascism. Harmondsworth: Penguin Books.

Payne, S. G.Fascism: Comparison and Definition (Madison: University of Wisconsin

Press 1980).

Vajda, Mihaly. 1976.Fascism as a mass movement. 3rd edition. Allison and Busby:

London.

Weiss, John. 1967. The Fascist Tradition. 1st

edition. Harper and Row: New York,

Evanston, and London.

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