FASCISM

The Communist International in 1933 defined fascism in power as "the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic, most imperialist elements of finance capital." Others have interpreted fascism as a middle-class radical movement, a cultural revolution, a state power independent of classes, and as a reaction to or a force for modernization.

Fascism is an ultra-right movement that emerged in a period of crisis in European society. Like other right-wing parties and movements before World War II, fascism opposed democracy, liberalism, socialism, and communism and emphasized support for hierarchy, nationalism, militarism, aggressive imperialism, and women's subordination. In seeking power, fascist movements were organized around a charismatic leader, used the techniques of mass politics to win support from the middle strata of war veterans, shop owners, artisans, and white-collar workers, and sought to control the streets with the use of paramilitary bands. When they came to power, fascists ended parliamentary systems and terrorized their opponents. The Nazi variant claimed a race-based superiority for "Aryans" and embraced a virulent anti-Semitism both to designate a scapegoat for Germany's problems and to be able to bribe supporters with property and positions taken from German Jews.

The first fascist movement was that of Italy's Benito Mussolini, who came to power with the aid of conservative elites seeking to put down the revolutionary workers' movement arising after World War I. The international influence of fascism greatly increased when the Nazis assumed power in Germany in 1933 in the midst of the Great Depression. Significant fascist movements arose in Hungary, Austria, and Romania, and smaller fascist movements, such as the Falange in Spain, became important with support from Germany and Italy. Germany's power led many authoritarian leaders in Europe to ally with the Nazis. Support for the fascist example existed in Latin America, but only Argentina favored the Axis in World War II. The third Axis power, Japan, was authoritarian, militaristic, nationalist, anticommunist, and aggressive, but its attempt at a fascist mass politics, the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, had limited impact.

Fascism had limited appeal in the United States in the 1930s, but, given its growth internationally, liberals and leftists were worried about the potential for it. Important cultural manifestations of this fear were Sinclair Lewis's play It Can't Happen Here, performed simultaneously by seventeen Federal Theatre Project troupes in 1935, and such films as Anatole Litvak's Confessions of a Nazi Spy (1939) and Frank Capra's Meet John Doe (1941).

Small, distinctly fascist organizations in the United States included the Silver Shirt Legion and the Defenders of the Christian Faith, but more important were ethnic-based groups. Mussolini received favorable press coverage in the United States before his alliance with Adolf Hitler, and there was majority support for his government in Italian-American communities on nationalist grounds. Most Italian-American newspapers supported Mussolini, and fascist organizations were influential in the community. However, Italian Americans opposed the anti-Semitic decrees issued by Mussolini in 1938. The German-American Bund, which emphasized anti-Semitism, anti-communism, and alleged unfair treatment in the United States of German Americans, gained a degree of control over some German-American community groups. Recalling the negative attacks on everything German in the World War I period, German-American organizations were slow to criticize the Nazis. In 1938, with increased criticism of Nazi anti-Semitism and fears rising that Nazism was an external and internal danger to the United States, German Americans spoke out against Nazism.

Important movements that may be regarded as semi-fascist include the National Union for Social Justice led by Father Charles Coughlin. Emerging as an important radio personality in the early Depression years, Coughlin's organization was anti-communist and organized around devotion to him personally. Coughlin was stridently anti-Semitic and hostile to the Allied cause in World War II. Whether the movement led by Huey Long can also be characterized as fascist or semi-fascist is in dispute. Long was authoritarian in his conduct of the government of Louisiana, anti-communist, and demagogic in his calls to make "Every Man a King" and "Share Our Wealth." On the other hand, Long opposed the oligarchy in Louisiana, called for taxing the rich, and did not appeal to racism in a region in which movements of the political right usually emphasized racism.

Important Americans who lent support to fascism included Henry Ford, who disseminated the Protocols of the Learned Elders of Zion forgery in the 1920s, employed the leader of the Bund, and accepted a medal from Nazi Germany in 1938. Famed aviator and isolationist Charles Lindbergh likewise accepted a medal, as did IBM president Thomas J. Watson, although Watson returned his in 1940.

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