FASCISM AND STATE

NAME- UTKARSH SINGH

ENROLL NO. L19BALB015
COURSE- BA-LLB (H.)
SECTION- “B”
SUBJECT- POLITICAL SCIENCE
SUBMITTED TO- DR. SUVIR KAPOOR
ABSTRACT:

The most disturbing development of the interwar era was the emergence of totalitarian
communist and fascist governments. Italian dictator Benito Mussolini coined the word
“totalitarian” to express the state’s role of personifying the “immanent spirit of the nation,”
but the word has come to mean the state’s total control of politics, economics, and society.
In this sense, totalitarianism has been more nearly a “communist” than “fascist”
phenomenon. Fascist Italy, Germany, and Japan all allowed some economic and social
freedoms, and perhaps only in Japan was political rule “total” in the sense that there was no
opposition and virtually all Japanese were prepared to sacrifice themselves for their
emperor.
FASCISM:

Fascism was an authoritarian political movement that developed in Italy and several other
European countries after 1919 as a reaction against the profound political and social changes
brought about by World War I and the spread of socialism and Communism. Its name was
derived from the fasces, an ancient Roman symbol of authority consisting of a bundle of rods
and an axe. Italian fascism was founded in Milan on March 23, 1919, by Benito Mussolini, a
former revolutionary socialist leader. His followers, mostly war veterans, were organized
along paramilitary lines and wore black shirts as uniforms. The early Fascist program was a
mixture of left- and right-wing ideas that emphasized intense Nationalism, productivism,
anti-socialism, elitism, and the need for a strong leader. Mussolini’s oratorical skills, the post-
war economic crisis, a widespread lack of confidence in the traditional political system, and a
growing fear of socialism, all helped the Fascist party to grow to 300,000 registered members
by 1921. In that year it elected 35 members to parliament.

Fascism, and the State:

Fascism believes in the superiority of the nation. “The nation” refers to a collection of people
bound together by race, ethnicity, or culture. Germans and Italians are examples of nations.
The way to achieve national superiority is through the state. The goal of the major fascist
regimes that have existed, like the regimes of the Italian Fascist Party and the German Nazi
Party, was to pursue national greatness. Mussolini intended to “guide the material and moral
progress of the [Italian] community.”  Hitler planned to return the German nation to its
position as “the culture-founder of this earth.” Hitler and Mussolini wanted to place the nation
above all other bases of loyalty, including class relations and religion.

The type of state needed to fulfil this goal is anti-democratic and totalitarian. Such a state is
anti-democratic because it eliminates democratic institutions, like the electoral,
parliamentary, and multiparty systems, that frustrate this goal of national greatness.
Democratic elections are problematic because the masses elect candidates who appeal to the
masses’ self-interest. This does not guarantee that the candidates have the nation’s interest in
mind. This weakens the state and, ultimately, the nation. Parliament is problematic because
the parties in it spend more time arguing than implementing policies. Indeed, Hitler referred
to Parliament as a “twiddling shop” for this reason.  Other parties are problematic because, by
competing with fascist parties to gain power, they prevent fascist parties from pursuing the
ultranationalist goal. The state is totalitarian because it controls aspects of citizens’ lives,
such as their leisure time, education, and political activity, to ensure that the citizens support
the regime’s goal. Fascism, as defined in this paper, is the ideology of nationalism upheld by
an anti-democratic and totalitarian state.

Fascism generally flourishes in countries with strong nationalism and weak democracies.
Strong nationalism attracts people to fascism’s ultranationalist goals. “Weak democracy” has
two meanings, both of which enable fascism to flourish. A democracy is weak in that it is
incompetent and unresponsive. Consequently, citizens become disenchanted with it and are
willing to abandon it for another regime type. A weak democracy also refers to a democratic
tradition that is fairly new and not strongly entrenched. This also enables fascism to flourish
because it is easier to replace this type of democracy with another regime.

TOTALITARIANISM:

Totalitarianism is a form of government in which all societal resources are monopolized by

the state in an effort to penetrate and control all aspects of public and private life, through the
state’s use of propaganda, terror, and technology. Totalitarian ideologies reject the existing
society as corrupt, immoral, and beyond reform, project an alternative society in which these
wrongs are to be redressed, and provide plans and programs for realizing the alternative
order. These ideologies, supported by propaganda campaigns, demand total conformity on the
part of the people.

Totalitarian forms of organization enforce this demand for conformity. Totalitarian societies
are hierarchies dominated by one political party and usually by a single leader. The party
penetrates the entire country through regional, provincial, local and “primary” (party-cell)
organization. Youth, professional, cultural, and sports groups supplement the party’s political
control. Paramilitary secret police ensure compliance. Information and ideas are effectively
organized through the control of television, radio, the press, and education at all levels.
Totalitarianism is modernity’s stepchild, fuelled by the mass reaction to the economic and
political failures of many democratic regimes, and made technically possible on a national
scale through modern mass communications and transportation that allow mass mobilization,
surveillance, and repression.

NAZISM:

Nazism refers to the totalitarian Fascist ideology and policies espoused and practiced by
Adolf Hitler and his National Socialist German Worker’s Party from 1920-1945. Nazism
stressed the superiority of the Aryan, its destiny as the Master Race to rule the world over
other races, and a violent hatred of Jews, which it blamed for all of the problems of Germany.
Nazism also provided for extreme nationalism which called for the unification of all German-
speaking peoples into a single empire. The economy envisioned for the state was a form of
corporative state socialism, although members of the party who were leftists (and would
generally support such an economic system over private enterprise) were purged from the
party in 1934.

CORPORATISM:

The organization of a society into industrial and professional corporations serving as

organs of political representation and exercising control over persons and activities within
their jurisdiction. “Historically, corporatism was first advanced in 1891 by Pontiff Leo
XIII in his encyclical letter  Rerum Novarum, influencing Catholic business associations.
Gabriele D’Annunzio and Alceste de Ambris included much of corporative ideology in their
Constitution of Fiume.” 1Adam Müller advanced his opinions as a remedy to the risks of
the equalitarianism of the French Revolution and the laissez-faire economics of Adam
Smith. In Germany, there was a clear aversion amid leaders to enable unlimited capitalism,
due to the feudalist and aristocratic practice of bestowing state concessions to the rich and
potent. In Italy during Fascism, industry owners, workers, tradespeople, specialists, and
others were organized into 22 associations, or unions, known as “corporations ”, fitting to
their trades, being given representation in a governmental organization known as the
Camera dei Fasci e delle Corporazioni. Corporatism is often associated with Italian Fascism.
In that meaning, Corporatism is the union of representatives of labour/trade unions, the

1
(Sitniko, 2013)
government, and companies with the goal of creating a unified industrial policy which works
towards the best interests of labour, management, and the government (in theory, the
government represents society as a whole). In practice, the exact opposite occurred, with the
government strong-arming labour into doing whatever the companies want, closing
independent unions and replacing them with state-run ones that were toothless.

 Corporatism was applied in modern times in most fascist states, but far from being
independent or serving as counterweight to the state, these trade organisations became largely
directed by the state. Corporatists often argue that there was much more security and stability
in these before the advent of economic liberalism, which lead to the creation of the proletariat
during the 19th century.

FASCISM AND RACIALISM:

Racism is the belief that because people are a different colour, or from a different country
that they are inferior. It can take many forms. For example, it is racist to deny a black or
Asian person a job simply on the basis of the colour of their skin. Nazism has often been
distinguished from fascism on account of its murderous and territorially expansionist racism.
Certainly, anti-Semitism did not feature in early Italian Fascist ideology, which focused more
on delineating a new socioeconomic Third Way. However, the fascist quest for economic
power was intimately linked to the belief that Italy had the right to rule over a great empire.
Moreover, fascism later turned to anti-Semitism, partly in an attempt to halt the atrophy of
fascist domestic radicalism. In France and Romania fascists did not seek territorial expansion,
but war was seen as endemic in a world in which superior nations ruled over lesser people.
Moreover, whilst socioeconomic radicalism featured in their programmes, anti-Semitism was
never far from the surface in France, whilst in Romania it was pervasive. These cases show
that although there were different conceptions of nation, and especially race, among fascists,
they were intricately interwoven in both thought and practice. “Racism is a very powerful
force, which is why fascist groups make use of it to boost their support. In Ireland there are
no fascist parties but in Europe neo-fascist parties include the British National Party,
National Alliance in Italy, and the National Front amongst others. They target minority
groups of members, the main groups they target are black and Asian people.”2

2
(Eatwell, 2004)
NAZI RACE THEORY:

The racial policy of Nazi Germany was a set of policies and laws implemented in Nazi
Germany (1933–45) based on a specific racist doctrine asserting the superiority of the Aryan
Race, which claimed scientific legitimacy. This was combined with a eugenics
programme that aimed for racial hygiene by compulsory sterilization and extermination of
those who they saw as "sub-humans", which culminated in the Holocaust.

Nazi policies labelled centuries-long residents in German territory who were not ethnic
Germans such as Jews (understood in Nazi racial theory as a “Semitic” people of Levantine,
origins, Romani’s (also known as Gypsies, an Indo-Aryan people of Indian
subcontinent origins), along with the vast majority of Slavs (mainly
ethnic Poles, Serbs, Russians etc.), and most non-Europeans as inferior non-Aryan sub
humans (i.e. non-Nordics, under the Nazi appropriation of the term "Aryan") in a racial
hierarchy that placed the Herrenvolk ("Mater Race") of the "people's community" at the top.

FASCISM IN A GLOBAL AGE:

Fascism emphasizes youth both in a physical sense of age and in a spiritual sense as related to

virility and commitment to action The Italian Fascists' political anthem was
called Giovinezza ("The Youth"). Fascism identifies the physical age period of youth as a
critical time for the moral development of people who will affect society.

Walter Laqueur argues that:

The corollaries of the cult of war and physical danger were the cult of brutality,
strength, and sexuality....[fascism is] a true counter-civilization: rejecting the
sophisticated rationalist humanism of Old Europe, fascism sets up as its ideal the
primitive instincts and primal emotions of the barbarian.3

3
Walter Laqueur (1978). Fascism: A Reader's Guide : Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography. U of California
Press. p. 341
 Italian Fascism pursued what it called "moral hygiene" of youth, particularly
regarding sexuality. Fascist Italy promoted what it considered normal sexual behaviour in
youth while denouncing what it considered deviant sexual behaviour. It
condemned pornography, most forms of birth control and contraceptive devices (with the
exception of the condom), homosexuality and prostitution as deviant sexual behaviour,
although enforcement of laws opposed to such practices was erratic and authorities often
turned a blind eye. Fascist Italy regarded the promotion of male sexual excitation
before puberty as the cause of criminality amongst male youth, declared homosexuality a
social disease and pursued an aggressive campaign to reduce prostitution of young
women. 4

Mussolini perceived women's primary role as primarily child bearers and men, warriors
—once saying: "War is to man what maternity is to the woman". In an effort to increase
birth-rates, the Italian Fascist government gave financial incentives to women who raised
large families and initiated policies intended to reduce the number of women
employed. Italian Fascism called for women to be honoured as "reproducers of the
nation" and the Italian Fascist government held ritual ceremonies to honour women's role
within the Italian nation. In 1934, Mussolini declared that employment of women was a
"major aspect of the thorny problem of unemployment" and that for women, working was
"incompatible with childbearing". Mussolini went on to say that the solution to
unemployment for men was the "exodus of women from the work force".

The German Nazi government strongly encouraged women to stay at home to bear
children and keep house. This policy was reinforced by bestowing the Cross of Honora of
the German Mother on women bearing four or more children. The unemployment rate
was cut substantially, mostly through arms production and sending women home so that
men could take their jobs. Nazi propaganda sometimes promoted premarital and
extramarital sexual relations, unwed motherhood and divorce, but at other times the Nazis
opposed such behaviour.5

4
Walter Laqueur (1978). Fascism: A Reader's Guide : Analyses, Interpretations, Bibliography. U of California
Press. p. 341. 
5
Allen, Ann Taylor, Review of Dagmar Herzog, Sex after Fascism: Memory and Morality in Twentieth-Century
Germany Archived20 September 2006 at the Wayback Machine H-German, H-Net Reviews, January 2006
Conclusion:

Neither extreme right parties, nor radical Islamic groups, are fascist. Indeed, in regard to the
extreme right, or nation-populist, parties, democracy appears to be an effective antidote to
fascism. However, just because democracy has proven to be successful against fascism in this
particular situation, it does not guarantee that democracy will always be successful. One cannot
predict with certainty what democratic conditions will be like in the future or what types of political
parties will exist. Similarly, while the ideology of radical Islamic groups is not currently compatible
with fascism, or even clerical fascism, there is always a possibility that the radical Islamic
paradigm will evolve so that it does become fascist in some way. Ultimately, just because
fascism does not presently exist in these scenarios does not mean it never will.
 BIBLOGRAPHY

WEBSITES

 https://www.livescience.com/57622-fascism.html
 https://www.econlib.org/library/Enc/Fascism.html
 https://time.com/5556242/what-is-fascism/
 https://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/books/every-age-has-its-own-
fascism/article24848858.ece

ARTICLES

 JSTOR
 BRILL