Could Fascism have succeeded under a different leader?

We were discussing this one day in class....
Fascism itself had some great ideas (mind you, so did Communism)...but it failed because of the ways that Mussolini acted. For a breif period of time Italy was doing well under a Fascist Government, but in the end it failed.
I'm interested to hear what your opinions are...I think it could be an interesting discussion.

 

Welcome to the forum, I see you are dealing with fascism at school. I would say there are some fundamental aspects you appear to have missed. Fascism, as with Communism, is extreme state control. As with democracy, the state controls, but a key difference is who decides the state? With democracy you elect your representatives who in turn represents your interests and wishes in the governing assembly. With fascism you are told from whom you may select a representative and they are told what influence they may have. The state is therefore a self appointed and self perpetuating ruling elite who imposes decisions they consider appropriate. You the citizen are told these decisions are in your best interests but you have had no say in them or in appointing the people who made them. You also have no course of redress if you disagree. Moreover you are expected to agree and be grateful. If you fall foul of the system or incur its displeasure, the system will punish you by unilateral decision, or remove you altogether.

This is like direct rule by monarchy. The ruler is not elected and their word is law. If you have a monarch/dictator you find good and whom you agree with, you would probably agree life was good.

In respect of ‘had Mussolini been a different person’, a key factor is how they would enforce their decisions on you? Fascism seeks to tell you not only how to act but how to think, and in that you are obliged to agree. If you disagreed or questioned in fascist Italy, you were beaten and/or imprisoned or simply ‘disappeared’. The media was controlled as was the education system, so there was only one point of view – and that was official.

If I decide I want to increase your weight I can feed on a diet of chocolate and fries. You probably don’t mind these from time to time, but not exclusively. You are capable of eating other things, you would like to eat other things, but I am making sure there is nothing else for you to eat and if you won’t eat I’ll force you to eat and if I find you eating something else or saying you want to eat something else or encouraging others to eat something else, I’ll punish you. You have no say in the matter or in my right to do this. Now do you see fascism?

No.9

 

Since fascism is based on negative things like xenophobia, militarims, the right of the strong, death penalty, a brutal state etc I doubt that it will have success under any leader. One can blame how much one wants at the leader but in the end it's the fascist ideology which one is to blame. Communism, on the other hand, is not based on negative ideas but positive and thus have a greater chance of succeeding.

Here's a great link to an article written by the great expert Roger Griffin:

http://www.brookes.ac.uk/schools/humanities/staff/FAECRG2.htm

Best regards/ Daniel

 

Thank you No. 9 and Daniel...
I guess I did miss some of the more important aspects of fascism..woops
I agree that, since fascism was extremely "evil" (I guess that would work lol)...that it would probably fail wherever it was.
Thanks again!

 

charlie – I can’t agree in all respects with your summary of fascism and, having read through Roger Griffin’s article, I think I can see where these conceptions originate. By no means do I dismiss Griffin as I agree with him in part. However, I would say describing him as a '‘real expert" inappropriate as he remains someone who has considered the events upon which he levies his opinion.

When he sticks to clear factual events there is little argument. However, there are some ‘odd’ claims on his part which are not rationalised. Examples; He states Italy and Germany were the only countries where fascism became the state power. What about Spain? He states; ”the Fascist Party led by Benito Mussolini initially faced competition from another fascist movement led by war hero Gabriele D’Annunzio.” Hmm, the older D’Annunzio was the first to adopt the Black Shirt and the first to adopt the old Roman straight arm salute, but, he and Mussolini were friends and Beni looked up to him and sought his advice and later gave him a high fascist position. Misleading and tenuous to say Beni faced ‘competition’ from him with the implication of acrimonious rivalry? But, if that was the case, I’d like some rational please.

I can’t see fascism is innately racist or xenophobic? There may be an argument for nazism (with which I differentiate), but there again, the original example we had also included ‘ubermensch’ and ‘untermensch’ (superman and subhuman), and now we get into Nietzsche?

I find Griffin ‘politics’ a lot in places. Too often, for my liking, he states fascism comprises XYZ, then goes on to say ‘but not in every case’. If you consider all his ‘ahs’, ‘buts’ and ‘then again’, the impression is he’s making statements then perforating them. As they say; ’lead, follow, or get the f/ck out the way’ Still someone worth reading though.

No.9

 

Well, fascism is indeed hard to define. I, however, never claimed that fascism always is racist but I do stick with my statement that it's always xenophobic. Perhaps you could give me an example where it isn't so I may understand your point.

Best regards/ Daniel

 

I believe Facism would have worked had it not been for Mussolini's imperial desires and his relationship with Hitler. Had he stuck it out without Hitler like Franco, I believe Facism would have been around today. My opinion.

 

charlie –

If you say that xenophobia is a condition of fascism, then it needs to be manifest in all cases of fascism. Also, do you take the view that nazi Germany and fascist Italy were the same? Perhaps on the basis that fascism is a term applied to all authoritarian, non-Marxist single parties they may be said to be. However, many religions can be said to be Christian because they acknowledge Jesus as the son of God, but they are by no means all Church of Rome and strongly protest they are different and one is not the same as another.

When Hitler came to power (11 years after Mussolini), right from the beginning part of his platform was a policy based on Aryan racial "purity" with a priority of dealing with the ‘Jewish question’. Mussolini brought the world fascism in the 20th century, he ‘wrote the book’. However, Mussolini did not have a ‘Jewish question’ to address like Hitler, and fascist Italy did not have an automatic ‘closed door’ policy to foreigners in respect of expelling them on the grounds they were foreign.

Both Hitler and Mussolini had a quest to make their respective countries and their people ‘great’. There is difference though in who they defined as ‘their people’ and in Hitler’s case, how he defined ‘his country’. What would have been the problems for say Sven the Swedish baker in 1936 Milan and 1936 Berlin if they displayed pictures of the respective leaders in their shops and made any party contributions they were asked to. Certainly in Milan they would have had no problems, nor would they in 1942. If they overtly opposed the regime then there would have been problems, but this would have been true for an ethnic national.

All the examples I find, where there is talk of fascists and foreigners it actually relates to Jews and especially Jews in Germany. Judaism is a religion, not a nationality. It was not until 14th July 1938 that the Italian fascists issued a manifesto on Jews in Italy. As Mussolini seized power in 1922 this was clearly not a fundamental issue of fascism and this was specifically about Jews and not foreigners. Of some 45’000 Jews only @ 6’500 were not Jewish Italians, and it was not until after 8th September 1943 that the Germans began the roundups and deportations of Italian Jews, which lasted until the end of the war.

Have you noticed, even today, how the same category of citizen is referred to in different terms depending on the writers viewpoint and his target audience? For example, if a British writer is writing about the farming community in France and England, chances are he will not think twice about reference to French ‘peasants’ while the same person in England will be a ‘farm worker’ or ‘country folk’? So too someone in Iraq may be referred to as a ‘Nationalist fanatic’, while someone in say the USA as a ‘true patriot’?

Mussolini’s fascism, and that of Franco, did not seek to persecute what they defined as non ethnic. Rather they did persecute those in their country who opposed, did not support or were a threat to the new fascist ideals. I see the policy of ethnic purity and thereafter ethnic cleansing to be a hallmark of nazism, not fascism, between which I make a distinction.

No.9

 

I more or less agree with you, the biggest ‘less’ is re Italy still being fascist today. A conditional ‘less’ is re Italy’s Imperialism, reasoned like this. Mussolini usually ‘talked the talk’ without the means to ‘walk the walk’. With Imperialism he was still thinking old policies of the previous century from which much of Europe, and specifically the British Empire, had evolved to another phase.

Just before W.W.I, Italy fought the Turks for what became Libya. Chiefly they sought to protect and capitalise on their investments there and prevent them being lost to the Germans. Mussolini went back to Abyssinia in part in an act of attrition, in part to remove it as a source of International ridicule, and in part to seek to boost his image among Italians. As a country it was pretty worthless and cost Italy much more than they got out of it. There were long running issues of ‘reclaiming’ east and west along the north Italian coast. Nice and Savoy (French) were out of the question. Expansion east (Trieste) had possibilities as did various islands in and territories across the Adriatic.

The issues which emerged over Abyssinia did produce condemnation but more along the lines of that being the proper official line for a country to take, rather than something that really upset anyone to any great extent. Britain wasn’t really intent on falling out with him to any extreme degree, but they ended up at odds largely (if not exclusively) due to the clash of personalities between Mussolini and Anthony Eden, (later Lord Avon), Britain’s foreign secretary. Mussolini had no intentions (or capability) of expanding into central Europe. His desires in the Adriatic were frowned upon but in reality not that disturbing to the European majors?

Accessing Italy’s state of the nation in 1939, my feeling is that Italy should have stayed neutral.

Whether Mussolini would have continued to rule until his death, like Franco, I think would have been dependent as to what extent fascism would have ‘softened’ towards its citizens post-war. And, to what extent Italy would have profited from trade and services with the Allied powers and predominantly America, which should not have been too hard. Failing a marked improvement in living standards, with the rise of the USSR to a superpower after the war, and, the extent of the underground Communist Party in Italy, I think there would have been extensive civil unrest which would have toppled the fascists who would not have been supported by the US. Due to the strength of the Italian American lobby in the US, America would not have been allowed to be inactive.

No.9

 

Good points No. 9. Looking at the state of economy in Italy from the time the Facists came to power in 1923 to the time Mussolini threw in his lot with Hitler (1940), the Italians have improved their infrastructure and were gearing up for the next step in international trade. It is at this point that Mussolini started to look else where and associate with Hitler. The Italian way of life did significantly improve but you have asked the magic question, how would Italy have faired had it stayed neutral how would the post war economy rate. Thanks for some good feedback.

 

Wow guys, I didn't think that when I posted this topic it would get so many replies...all of which are excellent points...it's definately raised some questions in my mind, and should make for an interesting debate in social class ....

Il Duce

 

I do think though that when the World was in the Great Depression, Italy and Germany's Fascist Economys were booming.

 

Il Duce, my young friend.....what started as an innocent question, has blossomed into a full fledge debate on the definition of Fascism. In the end I believe, as Marxism does to, that Fascism takes hold in a period of decline, with ideology that unites people against a common enemy, the only difference (In why) between socialism and Fascism is the "Enemy".

Marxism is centered on capitalsim and worker's rights, while Facism will, in the end, take ANY common enemy that will unite a nation and spark a revolution, which is usually the class struggle (Marxism)it rejects in favour of national unity, but could be ethnic (Jews) or democracy for that matter.

In the end, both center the power in a "select" few, that after a period of enlightenment and without constant propaganda, state/internal enemies, censorship and trampling of human rights will decline also.

Do I believe Mussolini could have continued to rule ala Franco had he made other decision's...possibly....but only if he stuck to his original plan of making Italy a great nation and delivered somewhat. People will follow a charismatic leader as long as he affect's change for the better, not for the power it entails.

In a true democracy we (The people) can affect change every four years, in a fascist state you better get it right the first time, or you better be the "Select" few. I say this Il Duce after reading your profile, and to caution you that alot of the negative things said above are true.

 

JOL,
I didn't necessarily mean if Mussolini himself could have continued on...I just wondered if Fascism itself could.
But interesting points either way!

Il Duce