Fascism

"The common elements of fascism — extreme nationalism, social Darwinism, the leadership principle, elitism, anti-liberalism, anti-egalitarianism, anti-democracy, intolerance, glorification of war, the supremacy of the state and anti-intellectualism — together form a rather loose doctrine. Fascism emphasises action rather than theory, and fascist theoretical writings are always weak. Hitler's Nazism had rather more theory, though its intellectual quality is appalling. This greater theoretical content is mostly concerned with race, and it was Hitler's racial theories that distinguished Nazism from ."

"Fear and destructiveness are the major emotional sources of fascism, eros belongs mainly to democracy."

"Sometimes, when I tell people that I study authoritarian personalities, they say things like, "Oh, you mean neo-Nazis and the Klan." When these people are psychologists at conventions or the president of my university, I say "Right," because I know they will probably instantly forget whatever I reply. But I am more forthcoming with others. Most people seem surprised when I say, "No, I study normal folks, not Nazis." Few people, unless they are familiar with the history of fascism, understand that people as ordinary as you and I, and our friends and neighbors, might bring down democracy if the going got tough enough. But we are the people who, driven by fear and cuddling in our own self-righteousness, could create the wave that would lift the monsters among us to power. And once the monsters acquire the powers of the state, their evil explodes. Can one credibly talk about fascism in the North American context as we approach the year 2000? Is it even remotely possible that the horrors of Nazi Germany could someday occur in Canada or the United States? When I talk about prefascist personalities, do I seriously propose that many North Americans could act like Hitler, Himmler, Hoess, and so on? [...] although the Nazis did monsterous things, it is a mistake to think that only ardent fascists and psychopathic killers became Nazis. Adolf Eichmann struck some as a bland person, not particularly anti-Semitic, who basically wanted to advance his career and so worked hard to impress his superiors. His evil was "banal." I can also imagine that many of those who made the arrests and transported the victims to the death camps would have been described as "good, decent people" by their families and neighbors. So would many of those who ran the slave labor camps in which hundreds of thousands of prisoners perished and maybe even the SS soldiers who massacred whole villages. You can be an ordinary Joe, or Lieutenant Calley, and still do terrible things. One of the first things Americans learned about the militias, in an Associated Press story dated April 27, 1995, is that they were "ordinary people who feel pushed.""

"Most people believe the twentieth century was defined by the death struggle of communism versus capitalism, and that fascism was but a hiccup. Today we know better. Communism was a fool's errand, the followers of Marx gone from this Earth; but the followers of Hitler abound and thrive. Hitler, however, had one great disadvantage. He lived in a time when fascism, like a virus, like the AIDS virus, required a strong host in order to spread. Germany was that host, but strong as it was, Germany couldn't prevail. The world was too big. Fortunately, the world has changed. Global communication, cable TV, the internet. Today the world is smaller, and the virus no longer needs a strong host in order to spread. This virus is airborne. ... One more thing; let no man call us crazy. They called Hitler crazy, but Hitler wasn't crazy. He was stupid. You don't fight Russia and America. You get Russia and America to fight each other, and destroy each other."

"Fascism itself, the mystery of its appearance and of its collective energy, with which no interpretation has been able to come to grips (neither the Marxist one of political manipulation by dominant classes, nor the Reichian one of the sexual repression of the masses, nor the Deleuzian one of despotic paranoia), can already be interpreted as the "irrational" excess of mythic and political referentials, the mad intensification of collective value (blood, race, people, etc.), the reinjection of death, of a "political aesthetic of death" at a time when the process of the disenchantment of value and of values, of the rational secularization and unidimensionalization of all life, of the operationalization of all social and individual life already makes itself strongly felt in the West. Yet again, everything seems to escape this catastrophe of value, this neutralization and pacification of life. Fascism is a resistance to this, even if it is a profound, irrational, demented resistance, it would not have tapped into this massive energy if it hadn't been a resistance to something much worse. Fascism's cruelty, its terror is on the level of this other terror that is the confusion of the real and the rational, which deepened in the West, and it is a response to that."

"The [Italian Fascist] regime had created an imaginary Spartan country, in which all men had to make believe they were heroic soldiers, all women Roman matrons, all children Balilla (the Genoa street urchin who started a revolt against the Austrian garrison in 1746 by throwing one stone). This was done by means of slogans, flags, stirring speeches from balconies, military music, mass meetings, parades, dashing uniforms, medals, es, and constant distortions of reality. The Italians woke up too late from their artificial dream, those still alive, that is, hungry, desperate, discredited, the object of derision, cornuti e mazziati, or "cuckolded and beaten up," governed as in the past by contemptuous foreigners in a country of smoking ruins and decaying corpses, in which most things detachable had been stolen and women raped."

"In spite of Bolshevism's and fascism's different attitudes, above all, private property and nationalism, both fascists and antifascists acknowledged common sources and resulting similarities between Bolshevism and fascism, including their revolutionary ideology, their elitism, their disdain for bourgeois values, and their totalitarian ambitions."

"'s chief claim to political creativity lay in the construction between 1925 and 1939 of the Corporate State, a system purporting to be revolutionary yet socially unifying, to guarantee progress and social justice by bringing employers, managers and workers together within a legally constituted framework."

"This reminded me of what Ignazio Silone said in 1945 soon after he returned to Italy from his Zurich exile: "The Fascism of tomorrow will never say 'I am Fascism.' It will say: 'I am anti-Fascism.'""

"The Nazis were only one among a number of German rightist groups to receive unreliable sympathy and subsidy from Rome. During that decade, figures on the right, impressed by talk of a fascist philosophy, or by events in Italy, or, most significantly, by glad tidings of the routing of the Bolshevik devil, took to borrowing the word 'fascist' from Italian and deploying it in their own language, with somewhat uncertain effect. Among them were Miss , a spinster and Field-Master's granddaughter, and Brigadier-General R.G.D Blakeney, once the manager of the Egyptian state railways and now her rival at the head of the 'British Fascisti'."

"People have their fingers broken. To be insulted by these fascists Is so degrading and it's no game."

"Those who are against Fascism without being against capitalism, who lament over the barbarism that comes out of barbarism, are like people who wish to eat their veal without slaughtering the calf. They are willing to eat the calf, but they dislike the sight of blood. They are easily satisfied if the butcher washes his hands before weighing the meat. They are not against the property relations which engender barbarism; they are only against barbarism itself. They raise their voices against barbarism, and they do so in countries where precisely the same property relations prevail, but where the butchers wash their hands before weighing the meat."

"The rout of fascism, in which the Soviet Union played the decisive role, generated a mighty tide of socio-political changes which swept across the globe."

"A number of features of and Nazism/Fascism did show striking similarities, including their revolutionary action and proletarian nation theories, leadership principles, one-party dictatorship, and party armies. Hitler publicly acknowledge his debt to the Bolsheviks when, for instance, proposing to make Munich ‘the Moscow of our movement.’"

"Fascism is an act of contempt, in fact. Inversely, every form of contempt, if it intervenes in politics, prepares the way for, or establishes, Fascism. It must be added that Fascism cannot be anything else but an expression of contempt without denying itself. Junger drew the conclusion, from his own principles, that it was better to be criminal than bourgeois. Hitler, who was endowed with less literary talent but, on this occasion, with more coherence, knew that to be either one or the other was a matter of complete indifference, from the moment that one ceased to believe in anything but success. Thus he authorized himself to be both at the same time."

"Fascism, with its violence, gets rid of everything: it attacks universities, it closes them and crushes them; it attacks intellectuals, represses them and persecutes them; it attacks political parties; it attacks trade union organizations; it attacks all mass and cultural organizations. Therefore, nothing is more violent, more retrograde and more illegal than fascism."

"Capitalist and imperialist countries created the conditions for the rise of fascism in the world."

"What was fascism in Italy, in Germany? The exaltation of racial prejudices. Instead of fighting racial prejudice, which is what a revolution does, fascism exalts prejudice and turns it into hatred."

"Fascism in Italy brought together disparate social forces from a wide range of political backgrounds (socialists, anarchists, revolutionary syndicalists, clerical Catholics, nationalists, atheist republicans, former monarchist officers), united by their discontent with the agitation of workers and peasants and the peace treaty (Versailles Peace Treaty of 1919 at the end of the First World War) . There was also a lack of serious programmatic elaboration because fascism originated as a street movement organised by squadrist actions and “punitive expeditions” carried out in retaliation against leagues, chambers of labour, socialist sections and newspapers."

"They tolerated that Nazism before it was inflicted on them, ... they absolved it, shut their eyes to it, legitimized it, because, until then, it had been applied only to non-European peoples."

"What a man! I have lost my heart! ... If I were Italian, I am sure I would have been with you entirely from the beginning of your victorious struggle against the bestial appetites and passion of Leninism. ... Your movement has rendered a service to the whole world. The greatest fear that ever tormented every Democratic or Socialist leader was that of being outbid or surpassed by some other leader more extreme than himself. It has been said that a continual movement to the Left, a kind of fatal landslide toward the abyss, has been the character of all revolutions. Italy has shown that there is a way to combat subversive forces."

"Italy has shown that there is a way of fighting the subversive forces which can rally the masses of the people, properly led, to value and wish to defend the honour and stability of stabilized society. She has provided the necessary antidote to the Russian poison. Hereafter no great nation will be unprovided with an ultimate means of protection against the cancerous growth of ."

"It [fascism] is not a sign-post which would direct us here, for I firmly believe that our long experienced democracy will be able to preserve a parliamentary system of government with whatever modifications may be necessary from both extremes of arbitrary rule."

"Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of communism . . . As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction."

"Despite all the merely verbal declarations to the contrary, the membership, content, and political tactics of the Falange are in open opposition to the national revolution."

"Whoever does not fight the reactionary measures of the bourgeoisie and the growth of fascism at these preparatory stages, is not in a position to prevent the victory of fascism, but, on the contrary, facilitates that victory."

"Fascism is able to attract the masses because it makes a demagogic appeal to their most urgent needs and demands. Fascism not only inflames their prejudices that are deeply ingrained in the masses, but also plays on the better sentiments of the masses, on their sense of justice, and sometimes even on their revolutionary traditions."

"Fascism begins the moment a ruling class, fearing the people may use their political democracy to gain , begins to destroy political democracy in order to retain its power of exploitation and special privilege."

"I am against Franco and fascism generally. My reasons are that I believe that fascism means a lack of intellectual freedom, a strongly militaristic and repressive social control joined seemingly with the continuance and strengthening of false religious, racial and economic ideologies, and generally speaking, the antithesis of any hope for equitable treatment which other forms of government at least pretend to offer the individual."

"Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion, and it has proved as much an illusion in Russia as in pre-Hitler Germany."

"Fascism and Communism represented the urge of the lower middle class to complete the French Revolution—which had signalized the victory of the 'Third Estate' over the Church, the monarchy, and the feudal aristocracy—by destroying, in turn, the privileges of the new capitalist class brought into being by the Industrial Revolution."

"Fascism appeals alike to those elements among the younger minded middle class who are conservative by temperament and strongly nationalist in spirit, and to those rarer and more dynamic elements who, naturally revolutionary in their outlook, have been disappointed and exasperated by the failure of all leadership from the left to approach any fulfilment of their aspiration."

"We observe that nothing creates fascists like the threat of freedom."

"Stalinism is worse than fascism, more ruthless, barbarous, unjust, immoral, anti-democratic, unredeemed by any hope or scruple, ... better described as superfascist."

"Fascism became an all-purpose term because one can eliminate from a fascist regime one or more features, and it will still be recognizable as fascist. Take away imperialism from fascism and you still have Franco and Salazar. Take away colonialism and you still have the Balkan fascism of the Ustashes. Add to the a radical anti-capitalism (which never much fascinated Mussolini) and you have Ezra Pound. Add a cult of Celtic mythology and the Grail mysticism (completely alien to official fascism) and you have one of the most respected fascist gurus, Julius Evola."

"is still around us, sometimes in plainclothes. It would be so much easily for us, if there appeared on the scene somebody saying "I want to re-open Auschwitz, I want the Blackshirts to parade again in the Italian squares". Life is not that simple. Ur-Fascism can come back under the most innocent of disguises. Our duty is to uncover it and point the finger at any of its new instances — every day and in every part of the world."

"Fascist militia, they said. Yes. But at the level of the individual and human rights what is fascism but colonialism at the very heart of traditionally colonialist countries?"

"I most sincerely wish to go on record as being unalterably opposed to Francisco Franco and fascism, to all violations of the legal government and outrages against the people of Republican Spain."

"There is fascism, leading only into the blackness which it has chosen as its symbol, into smartness and yapping out of orders, and self-righteous brutality, into social as well as international war. It means change without hope. Our immediate duty — in that tinkering which is the only useful form of action in our leaky old tub — our immediate duty is to stop it."

"The commonly accepted theory that fascism originated in the conspiracy of the great industrialists to capture the state will not hold. It originated on the Left. Primarily it gets its first impulses in the decadent or corrupt forms of socialism—from among those erstwhile socialists who, wearying of that struggle, have turned first to syndicalism and then to becoming saviors of capitalism, by adapting the devices of socialism and syndicalism to the capitalist state."

"Fascism is a leftist product—a corrupt and diseased offshoot of leftist agitation."

"Fascism, since that is the word that is used, fascism presents, wherever it manifests itself, characteristics which are varied to the extent that countries and national temperaments vary. It is essentially a defensive reaction of the organism, a manifestation of the desire to live, of the desire not to die, which at certain times seizes a whole people. So each people reacts in its own way, according to its conception of life. Our rising, here, has a Spanish meaning! What can it have in common with Hitlerism, which was, above all, a reaction against the state of things created by the defeat, and by the abdication and the despair that followed it?"

"If fascism could be defeated in debate, I assure you that it would never have happened, neither in Germany, nor in Italy, nor anywhere else."

"Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism have in common that they offered the atomized individual a new refuge and security. These systems are the culmination of alienation. The individual is made to feel powerless and insignificant, but taught to project all of his human powers into the figure of the leader, the state, the "fatherland," to whom he has to submit and whom he has to worship. He escapes from freedom and into a new idolatry. All the achievements of individuality and reason, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century are sacrificed on the altars of the new idols. ... built on the most flagrant lies, both with regard to their programs and to their leaders."

"Fascism never served the interests of Italian business . . . there is no credible evidence that Fascism controlled the nation's economy for the benefit of the 'possessing classes.'"

"Fascism is the cult of organised murder, invented by the arch-enemies of society. It tends to destroy civilization and revert man to his most barbarous state. Mussolini and Hitler might well be called the devils of an age, for they are playing hell with civilization."

"The Fascist accepts life and loves it, knowing nothing of and despising suicide; he rather conceives of life as duty and struggle and conquest, life which should be high and full, lived for oneself, but not above all for others — those who are at hand and those who are far distant, contemporaries, and those who will come after."

"Fascism begins with the rhetoric of dehumanization, humiliation, and reification, right? It starts with the language of brutality, which it normalizes. It legitimates hatred and racism and violence. It views certain groups through rhetoric as enemies of the American people. It operates off of the rhetoric of war, anti-intellectualism, and white supremacy. It operates off of the language of disposability. That language doesn't just simply normalize increasingly the notions of white nationalism, white supremacy, racism, and xenophobia; it also enacts policies and it creates a culture of utter stupidity, a culture of ignorance. And, unfortunately, it functions so as to enable violence against groups labeled as dangerous, other, excess, and a threat to the whitewashed notion of citizenship. [...] Fascism first begins with language, and then gains momentum as an organizing force for shaping a culture that legitimates indiscriminate violence against entire groups — Black people, immigrants, Jews, Muslims, and others considered “disposable.”"

"A good journalist must recognize in Fascism certain ancient virtues of the race, whether or not they happen to be momentarily fashionable in his own country. Among them are Discipline, Duty, Courage, Glory and Sacrifice."

"Fascism is a religion of the state. It assumes the organic unity of the body politic and longs for a national leader attuned to the will of the people. It is totalitarian in that it views everything as political and holds that any action by the state is justified to achieve the common good. It takes responsibility for all aspects of life, including our health and well-being, and seeks to impose uniformity of thought and action, whether by force or through regulation and social pressure. Everything, including economy and religion, must be aligned with its objectives. Any rival identity is part of the "problem" and therefore defined as the enemy. I will argue that contemporary American liberalism embodies all of these aspects of fascism."

"Back in the late 1980s, I published an article entitled “What Is Fascism—And Why Do Women Need to Know?” in Lesbian Contradiction, a paper I used to edit with three other women. It was at the height of the presidency of Ronald Reagan and I was already worried about dangerous currents in the Republican Party, ones that today have swelled into a full-scale riptide to the right. There’s a lot that’s dated in the piece, but the definition I offered for that much-used (and misused) bit of political terminology still stands: The term it­self was invented by Benito Mussolini, the premier of Italy from 1922 to 1945, and refers to the ‘,’ the bundle of rods which symbolized the power of the Roman emperors. Today, I would define fascism as an ideology, movement, or government with several identifying characteristics: • Authoritarianism and a fanatical respect for leaders. Fas­cism is explicitly anti-democratic. It emerges in times of social flux or instability and of chaotic and worsening economic situations. • Subordination of the individual to the state or to the “race.” This subordination often has a spiritual im­plication: people are offered an opportunity to transcend their own sense of insignificance through participation in a powerful movement of the chosen. • Appeal to a mythical imperial glory of the past. That past may be quite ancient, as in Mussolini’s evoca­tions of the Roman Empire. Or it might be as recent as the United States of the 1950s. • Biological determinism. Fascism involves a belief in absolute biological differences between the sexes and among different races. • Genuine popularity. The scariest thing to me about real fascism is that it has always been a truly pop­ular movement. Even when it is a relatively minor force, fascism can be a mass movement without being a majority movement. “Having laid out these basic elements,” I added, one “real strength of fascism lies in its ex­traordinary ideological elasticity,” which allows it to embrace a wide variety of economic positions from libertarian to socialist and approaches to foreign policy that range from isolationism to imperialism. I think this, too, remains true today."

"What I failed to emphasize then—perhaps because I thought it went without saying (but it certainly needs to be said today)—is that fascism is almost by definition deadly. It needs enemies on whom it can focus the steaming rage of its adherents, and it is quite content for that rage to lead to literal extermination campaigns. The creation of such enemies invariably involves a process of rhetorical dehumanization. In fascist propaganda, target groups cease to be actual people, becoming instead vermin, viruses, human garbage, communists, Marxists, terrorists, or, in the case of the present attacks on LGBT people, pedophiles and groomers. As fascist movements develop, they bring underground streams of hatred into the light of “legitimate” political discourse. All those decades ago, I suggested that the Christian fundamentalists represented an incipient fascist force. I think it’s fair to say that today’s Make America Great Again crew has inherited that mantle, successfully incorporating right-wing Christianity into a larger proto-fascist movement. All the elements of classic fascism now lurk there: adulation of the leader, subordination of the individual to the larger movement, an appeal to mythical past glories, a not-so-subtle embrace of white supremacy, and discomfort with anything or anyone threatening the “natural” order of men and women. You have only to watch a video of a Trump rally to see that his is a mass (even if not a majority) movement."

"Why should it matter whether Donald Trump’s MAGA movement and the Republican Party he’s largely taken over represent a kind of fascism? The answer: because the logic of fascism leads so inexorably to the politics of extermination. Describing his MAGA movement as fascism makes it easier to recognize the existential threat it truly represents—not only to a democratic society but to specific groups of human beings within it. I know it may sound alarmist, but I think it’s true: proto-fascist forces in this country have shown that they are increasingly willing to exterminate queer people, if that’s what it takes to gain and hold on to power. If I’m right, that means all Americans, queer or not, now face an existential threat. For those who don’t happen to fall into one of MAGA’s target groups, let me close by paraphrasing Donald Trump: In the end, they’re coming after you. We’re just standing in the way."

"Fascism is characterised by; an all-powerful state and leader; monism — a single party, ideology and centre of power; expansionist nationalism and/or racism, anti-communism, anti-egalitarianism, anti-liberalism, anti-individualism, anti-rationalism, anti-intellectualism; symbol, myth and mysticism; a cult of war, violence and youth; advocacy of private property but hostility to free market capitalism, and a combination of consent and coercion, propaganda and terror. Clearly, fascist ideology is full of 'negations' — that is, it is a highly negative philosophy which opposes as much as it supports. This is unsurprising, given its origins as a fundamental rejection of inter-war liberal democracy and all of its attendant values."

"THIS MACHINE KILLS FASCISTS."

"I'm gonna tell all you fascists, you may be surprised People all over this world are getting organized You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose Race hatred cannot stop us, this one thing I know Poll tax and Jim Crow and greed have got to go You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose ... People of every color marching side by side Marching across these fields where a million fascists died You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose ... I'm going into this battle, take my union gun Gonna end this world of slavery before this war is won You're bound to lose You fascists are bound to lose"

"Should one choose to seek out today's fascism, one is counseled to look to the retrograde former Soviet Union, and the reformist People's Republic of China. They are the natural hosts of a ‘resurgence’ of fascism."

"There is a sense in which the appearance of organized fascism on the political stage seems to solve everything for the left. It confirms our best-worst suspicions, awakening familiar ghosts and spectres. Fascism and economic recession together seem to render transparent those connections which most of the time are opaque, hidden and displaced. Away with all those time-wasting theoretical speculations! The Marxist guarantees are all in place after all, standing to attention. Let us take to the streets. This is not an argument against taking to the streets. Indeed, the direct interventions against the rising fortunes of the National Front - local campaigns, anti-fascist work in the unions, trades councils, women's groups, the mobilization behind the Anti-Nazi League, the counterdemonstrations, above all Rock Against Racism (one of the timeliest and best constructed of cultural interventions, repaying serious and extended analysis) - constitute one of the few success stories of the conjuncture. But it is an argument against the satisfactions which sometimes flow from applying simplifying analytic schemes to complex events. What we have to explain is a move toward 'authoritarian populism' - an exceptional form of the capitalist state which, unlike classical fascism, has retained most (though not all) of the formal representative institutions in place, and which at the same time has been able to construct around itself an active popular consent. This undoubtedly represents a decisive shift in the balance of forces, and the National Front has played a 'walk-on' part in this drama. It has entailed a striking weakening of democratic forms and initiatives; but not their suspension. We miss precisely what is specific to this exceptional form of the crisis of the capitalist state by mere name-calling."

"Nothing's more important than stopping fascism, because fascism will stop us all."

"Encompassing a variety of ultra-nationalist movements, fascism typically venerates devotion to the state and uniting the people under a strong leader."

"The following joke circulated in Italy in the 1920s. According to Mussolini, the ideal citizen is intelligent, honest, and Fascist. Unfortunately, no one is perfect, which explains why everyone you meet is either intelligent and Fascist but not honest, honest and Fascist but not intelligent, or honest and intelligent but not Fascist."

"There is only one form of government that cannot produce good writers, and that system is fascism... a lie told by bullies. A writer who will not lie cannot live or work under fascism."

"‘But are there not many fascists in your country?' 'There are many who do not know they are fascists but will find it out when the time comes.'”"

"Of course, I am against fascism with its spread of color prejudice and race hatred and working class oppression. How could any sensible Negro be otherwise?"

"To satisfy their hunger for meaning and value, they [the masses] turn to such doctrines as nationalism, fascism and revolutionary communism. Philosophically and scientifically, these doctrines are absurd; but for the masses in every community, they have this great merit: they attribute the meaning and value that have been taken away from the world as a whole to the particular part of the world in which the believers happen to be living."

"The fascist arrangement has attempted to create the illusion of a mass society in which the traditional capitalist ruling class would continue to play its leading role."

"The fascist arrangement tolerates the existence of no valid revolutionary activity. It has programmed into its very nature a massive, complex and automatic defense mechanism for all our old methods for raising the consciousness of a potentially revolutionary class of people. The essence of a U.S.A. totalitarian socio-political capitalism is concealed behind the illusion of a mass participatory society. We must rip away its mask. Then the debate can end, and we can enter a new phase of struggle based on the development of an armed revolutionary culture that will triumph."

"In Italy ... rugby has 'long been appreciated for its pedagogical value as a "'maker of men"'. ... Rugby expanded further in the Fascist era as a propaganda tool for conditioning the masses to Fascist aims. Such conditioning combined the physical with the ideological in the making of men to serve the state and its aims."

"By 1939 [Fascist] Italy had the highest percentage of state-owned enterprises outside of the Soviet Union."

"Mussolini and Hitler promised to restore national glory and depicted themselves as the last defense against radical socialism. Neither appealed to racism at first. Not even Hitler, who muted his virulent anti-Semitism in public to attract voters during the late 1920s. New followers told themselves he had mellowed, but his base and his Jewish targets never doubted his true intentions."

"Many powerful right-wing movements of the early twentieth century―National Socialism, Fascism, and their imitators elsewhere―also expressed a nostalgia for the Middle Ages. The Italian poet and Futurist Gabriele D'Annunzio espoused a "socialist romanticism" that helped lay the foundations of the Fascist corporatist state. In France, the leaders of Action Francaise sought to bring about a "counter-Renaissance" and reimpose the hierarchical corporative structure of the ancien regime. In England, Fascist sympathizers like Oswald Mosley lamented the passing of "Merrie old England," swept away by the competitive reality of ethnically mixed modern cities. Even today, some on the European far-right see in the Middle Ages an affirmation of traditional Christian values, and find inspiration in the Crusader response to assaults from Islamic aggression."

"Two things make the future real, the artist's imagination and the worker's hope. Fascism destroys both. Therefore the artist and the worker must unite to destroy Fascism. The Fascist artist is a traitor, the neutral is already dead. Art and anti-Fascism are synonymous."

"The parallels between fascism and Communism as ideologies are significant."

"Yeah, no. Fascism is not kind. It is not decent. It does not care about the individual, because the individual is subservient to the state, and in particular whoever runs that state. It is not compatible with Steve Rogers. Fascism does not fight for "the greater good", it fights for the exaltation of the inhuman, the commemoration of cruelty, and the hatred of the different. Fascism is a loser ideology."

"When and if fascism comes to America it will not be labeled "made in Germany"; it will not be marked with a swastika; it will not even be called fascism; it will be called, of course, "Americanism. … The high-sounding phrase "the American way" will be used by interested groups intent on profit, to cover a multitude of sins against the American and Christian tradition, such sins as lawless violence, teargas and shotguns, denial of civil liberties ... There is an obligation resting on us all to dedicate our minds to the hard task of thinking in terms of Christian objectives and values, so that we may be saved from moral confusion. For never, probably, has there been a time when there was a more vigorous effort to surround social and international questions with such a fog of distortion and prejudices and hysterical appeal to fear."

"The totalitarian states, whether of the fascist or the communist persuasion, are more than superficially alike as dictatorships, in the suppression of dissent, and in operating planned and directed economies. They are profoundly alike."

"I witnessed the rise of fascism in Germany and I know very well that very many young people at that time adhered to fascism out of a sincere indignation at the capitalist system."

"The fascists have reaped what they have sown. The workers will not tolerate anyone defying them on their ground. The experience of Italy and Germany tears too strongly at the heart of all proletarians to allow it to happen again."

"Fascism is a vehicle for weak, insecure people to feel powerful in the most cowardly way possible: By violating and abusing those they believe can’t fight back. It’s the attitude of the rapist and the child abuser, someone who pathetically congratulates himself for being "tough" because of his violence, but who fears taking on someone his own size."

"What distinguishes liberal from Fascist political tactics is not a difference of opinion in regard to the necessity of using armed force to resist armed attackers, but a difference in the fundamental estimation of the role of violence in a struggle for power. The great danger threatening domestic policy from the side of Fascism lies in its complete faith in the decisive power of violence. In order to assure success, one must be imbued with the will to victory and always proceed violently. This is its highest principle. What happens, however, when one's opponent, similarly animated by the will to be victorious, acts just as violently? The result must be a battle, a civil war. The ultimate victor to emerge from such conflicts will be the faction strongest in number. In the long run, a minority — even if it is composed of the most capable and energetic — cannot succeed in resisting the majority. The decisive question, therefore, always remains: How does one obtain a majority for one's own party? This, however, is a purely intellectual matter. It is a victory that can be won only with the weapons of the intellect, never by force. The suppression of all opposition by sheer violence is a most unsuitable way to win adherents to one's cause. Resort to naked force — that is, without justification in terms of intellectual arguments accepted by public opinion — merely gains new friends for those whom one is thereby trying to combat. In a battle between force and an idea, the latter always prevails."

"Repression by brute force is always a confession of the inability to make use of the better weapons of the intellect — better because they alone give promise of final success. This is the fundamental error from which Fascism suffers and which will ultimately cause its downfall. The victory of Fascism in a number of countries is only an episode in the long series of struggles over the problem of property. The next episode will be the victory of Communism. The ultimate outcome of the struggle, however, will not be decided by arms, but by ideas. It is ideas that group men into fighting factions, that press the weapons into their hands, and that determine against whom and for whom the weapons shall be used. It is they alone, and not arms, that, in the last analysis, turn the scales. So much for the domestic policy of Fascism. That its foreign policy, based as it is on the avowed principle of force in international relations, cannot fail to give rise to an endless series of wars that must destroy all of modern civilization requires no further discussion. To maintain and further raise our present level of economic development, peace among nations must be assured. But they cannot live together in peace if the basic tenet of the ideology by which they are governed is the belief that one's own nation can secure its place in the community of nations by force alone. It cannot be denied that Fascism and similar movements aiming at the establishment of dictatorships are full of the best intentions and that their intervention has, for the moment, saved European civilization. The merit that Fascism has thereby won for itself will live on eternally in history. But though its policy has brought salvation for the moment, it is not of the kind which could promise continued success. Fascism was an emergency makeshift. To view it as something more would be a fatal error."

"Fascism is a matter of taste."

"The twigs will be tied together in a neater and stronger bundle if they are all the same size and length. That's fascism. It suggests that you have two contrary organisational principles involved ... One is a kind of linear, mechano-like organisation – tie up all the sticks, make sure they are the same length, and you have a brick wall or something. The other one – anarchy – is a more fractal more natural more human organisational system in that it organises society in much the same way that we organise our personalities. Where it is purely the interplay of neurons – we haven't got a king neuron that tells all the other neurons what to do. It seems to me to be a more emotionally natural way of working with other people."

"Margaret Thatcher had been in power for two or three years. She was facing the first crisis of her, by then, very unpopular government. There were riots all over Britain in places that hadn't seen riots for hundreds of years. There were fascists groups, the National Front, the British National Party, who were flexing their muscles and sort of trying to make political capital out of what were fairly depressed and jobless times. It seemed to me that with the kind of Reagan/Thatcher axis that existed across the Atlantic, it looked like Western society was taking somewhat a turn for the worse. There were ugly fascist stains starting to reassert themselves that we might have thought had been eradicated back in the '30s. But they were reasserting themselves with a different spin. They were talking less about annihilating whichever minority they happened to find disfavor with and talking more about free market forces and market choice and all of these other kind of glib terms, which tended to have the same results as an awful lot of the kind of Fascist causes back in the 1930s but with a bit more spin put upon them. The friendly face of fascism."

"Fascism... was the product of... the... European crisis of the post-First World War political and economic order... Fascist movements... were the immediate aftermath of the First World War, marked by the threat from the left following the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution... and... conflict in... Europe before, during and after the Versailles settlement of 1919–20, and the Great Depression of 1929–33, an economic recession... that... appeared to be the structural and terminal crisis of malfunctioning capitalist economies and polities. Springing up... the various fascisms... were radical hyper-nationalist cross-class movements with a distinctive militarist organisation and activist political style. In a climate of... national and international danger and crisis, they sought... regeneration... through the violent destruction of all political forms and forces... held responsible for national disunity and divisiveness, and the creation of a new national order based on the moral or 'spiritual' reformation of their peoples, a 'cultural revolution' achievable only through the 'total' control of society, and on class collaborative, regulatory forms of socio-economic organisation, often of a corporatist nature. ... ...was part of one general European response to a general European crisis of liberal democracy which matured in the wartime and inter-war years."

"Both political Parties, and the remnants of Liberalism as well, stand bound by the great vested interests of "Right" and "Left" which created them. In Opposition, there is the same profusion of promise; in office, the same apathy and inertia. In post-War England, their creeds have become platitudes; they consistently fail to grapple with the problems of the time. Their rule has led, with tragic inevitability, to the present chaos. Therefore our Fascist Movement seeks on the one hand authority as the basis of all solid achievement; we seek, on the other hand, progress, which can be achieved only by the executive instrument that order, authority and decision alone can give."

"Governments and Parties which have relied on the normal instruments of government...have fallen easy and ignoble victims to the forces of anarchy. If, therefore, such a situation arises in Britain, we shall prepare to meet the anarchy of Communism with the organised force of Fascism."

"Fascist policy is clear cut. We have a right to stay in India and we intend to stay there. We have more than a right; we have a duty to stay there. We have a right because modern India owes everything to British rule."

"Nothing is permanent: certainly not the frozen images of barbarous power with which fascism now confronts us. Those images may easily be smashed by an external shock, cracked as ignominiously as the fallen Dagon, the massive idol of the heathen; or they may be melted, eventually, by the internal warmth of normal men and women. Nothing endures except life: the capacity for birth, growth, and renewal. As life becomes insurgent once more in our civilization, conquering the reckless thrust of barbarism, the culture of cities will be both instrument and goal."

"We want an extraordinary heavy taxation, with a progressive character, on capital, that will represent an authentic partial expropriation of all wealth; seizures of all assets of religious congregations and suppression of all the ecclesiastic Episcopal revenues, in what constitutes an enormous deficit of the nation and a privilege for a minority; revisions of all contracts made by the war ministers and seizure of 85% of all war profits."

"If relativism signifies contempt for fixed categories and those who claim to be the bearers of objective immortal truth, then there is nothing more relativistic than Fascist attitudes and activity. From the fact that all ideologies are of equal value, we Fascists conclude that we have the right to create our own ideology and to enforce it with all the energy of which we are capable."

"Standing by me and helping my work as newspaper man were the Fascisti. They were composed of revolutionary spirits who believed in intervention. They were youths—the students of the universities, the socialist syndicalists—destroying faith in Karl Marx by their ideals."

"My conception always was that Fascism must assume the characteristics of being anti-party. It was not to be tied to old or new schools of any kind. The name "Italian Fighting Fascisti" was lucky. It was most appropriate to a political action that had to face all the old parasites and programmes that had tried to deprave Italy. I felt that it was not only the anti-socialist battle we had to fight; this was only a battle on the way. ... It was therefore not sufficient to create—as some have said superficially—an anti-altar to the altar of socialism. It was necessary to imagine a wholly new political conception, adequate to the living reality of the twentieth century, overcoming at the same time the ideological worship of liberalism, the limited horizons of various spent and exhausted democracies, and finally the violently Utopian spirit of ."

"The citizen in the Fascist State is no longer a selfish individual who has the anti-social right of rebelling against any law of the Collectivity."

"The Fascist State directs and controls the entrepreneurs, whether it be in our fisheries or in our heavy industry in the Val d'Aosta. There the State actually owns the mines and carries on transport, for the railways are state property. So are many of the factories... We term it state intervention... If anything fails to work properly, the State intervenes. The capitalists will go on doing what they are told, down to the very end. They have no option and cannot put up any fight. Capital is not God; it is only a means to an end."

"The Fascist State has never tried to create its own God, as at one moment Robespierre and the wildest extremists of the Convention tried to do; nor does it vainly seek to obliterate religion from the hearts of men as does Bolshevism: Fascism respects the God of the ascetics, of the saints, of the heroes, and also God as seen and prayed to by the simple and primitive heart of the people."

"Above all, Fascism . . . believes neither in the possibility nor the utility of perpetual peace. It therefore discards pacifism as a cloak beneath which are concealed renunciation of struggle and cowardice in the face of self-sacrifice. War alone keys up all human energies to their maximum tension and impresses the seal of nobility upon those peoples who have the courage to face up to it."

"Fascism denies that numbers, as such, can direct human society. It denies that numbers can govern by means of periodical consultations: It asserts the unavoidable fruitful and beneficent inequality of men who cannot be leveled by any such mechanical and extrinsic device as universal suffrage."

"For Fascism, the growth of Empire, that is to say the expansion of the nation, is an essential manifestation of vitality, and its opposite a sign of decadence. Peoples which are rising, or rising again after a period of decadence, are always imperialist; any renunciation is a sign of decay and of death. Fascism is the doctrine best adapted to represent the tendencies and the a people, like the people of Italy, who are rising again after many centuries of abasement and foreign servitude. But Empire demands discipline, the coordination of all forces and a deeply felt sense of duty and sacrifice."

"Yet the Fascist State is unique, and an original creation. It is not reactionary, but revolutionary..."

"You want to know what fascism is like? It is like your New Deal!"

"Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state. And if I dare to introduce to Italy state capitalism or state socialism, which is the reverse side of the medal, I will have the necessary subjective and objective conditions to do it."

"A party governing a nation “totalitarianly" is a new departure in history. There are no points of reference nor of comparison. From beneath the ruins of liberal, socialist, and democratic doctrines, Fascism extracts those elements which are still vital. It preserves what may be described as "the acquired facts" of history; it rejects all else. That is to say, it rejects the idea of a doctrine suited to all times and to all people. Granted that the XIXth century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the " right ", a Fascist century. If the XIXth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the State."

"Fascism conceives of the State as an absolute, in comparison with which all individuals or groups are relative, only to be conceived in their relation to the State."

"When brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State."

"Against individualism, the Fascist conception is for the State; and it is for the individual in so far as he coincides with the State ... It is opposed to Classical Liberalism ... Liberalism denied the State in the interests of the particular individual; Fascism reaffirms the State as the true reality of the individual."

"I declare that henceforth capital and labor shall have equal rights and duties as brothers in the fascist family."

"The struggle between the two worlds [Fascism and Democracy] can permit no compromises. The new cycle which begins with the ninth year of the Fascist regime places the alternative in even greater relief — either we or they, either their ideas or ours, either our State or theirs!"

"We are fighting to impose a higher social justice. The others are fighting to maintain the privileges of caste and class. We are proletarian nations that rise up against the plutocrats."

"Fascism recognizes the social utility of private property, which involves both a right and a duty. ... The National Fascist Party is in favour of a regime that encourages the growth of national wealth by spurring individual initiative and energy ... and it absolutely repudiates the motley, costly, and uneconomic machinery of state control, socialism, and municipalization."

"The superficial distinctions of Fascism, , Hitlerism, are the concern of journalists and publicists; the serious student sees in them only one root-idea of a complete conversion of social power into State power."

"There is little difference between the two, and in certain respects, Fascism and are the same."

"Fascism would like to be conservative, but it will end by being revolutionary."

"The Fascist and Syndicalist species were characterized by the first appearance of a type of man who "did not care to give reasons or even to be right", but who was simply resolved to impose his opinions. That was the novelty: the right not to be right, not to be reasonable: "the reason of unreason.""

"It is usual to speak of the Fascist objective as the "beehive state", which does grave injustice to bees. A world of rabbits ruled by stoats would be nearer the mark."

"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable". [...] Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different."

"The Fascisti are to Italy what the American Legion is to the United States."

"Not only was [Fascist] Italy the first Western country to recognize the Soviet Union in 1924, but the new Soviet art first appeared in the West that year at the , Italy's premiere art show."

"During its earlier years fascism was hostile to the Catholic church and several priests were assassinated and churches burned by the fascists. This was due partly to the fact that the papacy has never been reconciled to the unification of Italy because it was deprived of its temporal power."

"Fascists have no interest in winning that battle. They don't care about respecting free speech or the ; they've openly declared their murderous intent towards (and other undesirables) and they'll pursue that goal by any means necessary."

"Fascism issued from the 'Bolshevik' wing of Italian socialism, not from any conservative ideology or movement."

"Market society was born in England—yet it was on the Continent that its weaknesses engendered the most tragic complications. In order to comprehend German fascism, we must revert to Ricardian England. The nineteenth century, as cannot be overemphasized, was England's century. The Industrial Revolution was an English event. Market economy, free trade, and the gold standard were English inventions. These institutions broke down in the twenties everywhere—in Germany, Italy, or Austria the event was merely more political and more dramatic. But whatever the scenery and the temperature of the final episodes, the long-run factors which wrecked that civilization should be studied in the birthplace of the Industrial Revolution, England."

"[F]ascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state."

"Such terms as communism, socialism, Fabianism, the welfare state, Nazism, fascism, state interventionism, egalitarianism, the planned economy, the New Deal, the Fair Deal, the New Republicanism, the New Frontier are simply different labels for much the same thing."

"Fascism is a form of radical authoritarian nationalism which argues that liberal democracy and leftism obsolete and degenerate. Fascists instead argue that prosperity and security can only be found through struggle and call for the complete mobilisation of society under a totalitarian regime to prepare the nation for armed conflict. Fascism was born in the aftermath of the First World War and the social changes it caused. While fascism largely ceased to be a viable ideology following World War Two, parties and movements that meet the criteria of fascism can be found in the present-day."

"It is the mechanistic-mystical character of modern man that produces fascist parties, and not vice versa. The result of erroneous political thinking is that even today fascism is conceived as a specific national characteristic of the Germans or the Japanese."

"If, by being revolutionary, one means rational rebellion against intolerable social conditions, if, by being radical, one means "going to the root of things," the rational will to improve them, then fascism is never revolutionary. True, it may have the aspect of revolutionary emotions. But one would not call that physician revolutionary who proceeds against a disease with violent cursing but the other who quietly, courageously and conscientiously studies and fights the causes of the disease. Fascist rebelliousness always occurs where fear of the truth turns a revolutionary emotion into illusion. In its pure form, fascism is the sum total of all irrational reactions of the average human character. To the narrow-minded sociologist who lacks the courage to recognize the enormous role played by the irrational in human history, the fascist race theory appears as nothing but an imperialistic interest or even a mere 'prejudice.' The violence and the ubiquity of these "race prejudices" show their origin from the irrational part of the human character. The race theory is not a creation of fascism. No: fascism is a creation of race hatred and its politically organized expression. Correspondingly, there is a German, Italian, Spanish, Anglo-Saxon, Jewish and Arabian fascism. Race ideology is a pure biopathic expression of the character structure of the orgastically impotent man. The sadistically perverse character of race ideology is also betrayed in its attitude towards religion. Fascism is supposed to be a reversion to paganism and an archenemy of religion. Far from it - fascism is the supreme expression of religious mysticism. As such, it comes into being in a peculiar social form. Fascism countenances that religiosity that stems from sexual perversion, and it transforms the masochistic character of the old patriarchal religion of suffering into a sadistic religion. In short, it transposes religion from the ‘other-worldliness’ of the philosophy of suffering to the ‘this worldliness’ of sadistic murder."

"The structure of fascism is characterized by metaphysical thinking, unorthodox faith, obsession with abstract ethical ideals, and belief in the divine predestination of the fuhrer. These basic features are linked with a deeper layer, which is characterized by a strong authoritarian tie to the fuhrer-ideal or the nation. The belief in a ‘’ became the principal mainspring of the tie to the ‘fuhrer’ on the part of the National Socialist masses, as well as the foundation of their voluntary acceptance of slavish submission."

"Strangely, it is always America that is described as degenerate and 'fascist', while it is solely in Europe that actual dictatorships and totalitarian regimes spring up."

"Fascism was born to inspire a faith not of the Right (which at bottom aspires to conserve everything, even injustice) or of the Left (which at bottom aspires to destroy everything, even goodness), but a collective, integral, national faith."

"In Turin the members of the Communist Party, during the Resistance, had to endure 8 hours of torture. [Fascists] would pull your eyes out with teaspoons, they'd rip your nails out with tweezers. And you had to stay silent for eight hours, and only after that you were allowed to confess and give the names of your comrades, and that was a Party guideline, to ensure the comrades' flight in those eight hours."

"The fundamental distinction between Fascism and other right-wing movements was its total rejection of bourgeois civilization... [Fascism] rejected the whole of liberal civilization—capitalism and the market system, individualism and , the belief in progress and the faith in politics as a way of meeting society's needs without violence."

"The most obvious novelty of Fascist movements is their revolutionary dynamics. True Fascists were unchecked by respect for tradition, institutions or ideas, and had an ambivalent relationship with traditional forces and groups."

"For liberalism, the individual is the end, and society the means.... For Fascism, society is the end, individuals the means, and its whole life consists in using individuals as instruments for its social ends."

"Not everyone who wants to be a fascist is one. A mere nationalist cannot be one, because he has not the slightest idea of socialism."

"Fascism is the system of government that izes the private sector, centrally plans the economy to subsidize producers, exalts the police State as the source of order, denies fundamental rights and liberties to individuals, and makes the executive State the unlimited master of society."

"Russia was the example for fascism. [...] Whether party 'communists' like it or not, the fact remains that the state order and rule in Russia are indistinguishable from those in Italy and Germany. Essentially, they are alike. One may speak of a red, black, or brown 'soviet state', as well as of red, black or brown fascism... fascism is merely a copy of ."

"Fascism was a monster born of capitalist parents. Fascism came as the end-product of centuries of capitalist bestiality, exploitation, domination, and racism—mainly exercised outside Europe. It is highly significant that many settlers and colonial officials displayed a leaning towards fascism. Apartheid in South Africa is nothing but fascism. It was gaining roots from the early period of white colonization in the seventeenth century, and particularly after the mining industry brought South Africa fully into the capitalist orbit in the nineteenth century. Another example of the fascist potential of colonialism was seen when France was overrun by Nazi Germany in 1940. The French fascists collaborated with Hitler to establish what was called the Vichy regime in France, and the French white settlers in Africa supported the Vichy regime. A more striking instance to the same effect was the fascist ideology developed by the white settlers in Algeria, who not only opposed independence for Algeria under Algerian rule, but they also strove to bring down the more progressive or liberal governments of metropolitan France."

"What is seldom commented upon is the fact that many Africans were the victims of fascism at the hands of the Portuguese and Spanish, at the hands of the Italians and the Vichy French regime for a brief period in the late 1930s and the early 1940s, and at the hands of the British and Boers in South Africa throughout this century. The fascist colonial powers were retarded capitalist states, where the government police machinery united with the Catholic church and the capitalists to suppress Portuguese and Spanish workers and peasants and to keep them ignorant. Understandably, the fascist colonialists wanted to do the same to African working people, and in addition they vented their racism on Africans, just as Hitler had done on the Jews."

"Like most colonial administrations, that of the Italians in Libya disregarded the culture of the Africans. However, after the fascist Mussolini came to power, the disregard gave way to active hostility, especially in relation to the Arabic language and the Moslem religion. The Portuguese and Spanish had always shown contempt for African language and religion. Schools of kindergarten and primary level for Africans in Portuguese colonies were nothing but agencies for the spread of the Portuguese language. Most schools were controlled by the Catholic church, as a reflection of the unity of church and state in fascist Portugal. In the little-known Spanish colony of Guinea (Rio Muni), the small amount of education given to Africans was based on eliminating the use of local languages by the pupils and on instilling in their hearts "the holy fear of God." Schools in colonial Africa were usually blessed with the names of saints or bestowed with the names of rulers, explorers, and governors from the colonizing power. In Spanish Guinea, that practice was followed, resulting in the fact that Rio Muni children had to pass by the José Antonio school—the equivalent of saying the Adolf Hitler school if the region were German, for the school was named in honor of José Antonio, the founder of the Spanish fascist party."

"Fascism is not defined by the number of its victims, but by the way it kills them."

"In [Fascist] Italy and [Nazi] Germany the official unions have been made compulsory by law, while in the United States, the workers are not legally obligated to join the company unions but may even, if they so wish, oppose them."

"Donald Trump has encouraged a new sort of alliance in the world, an alliance of fascists, authoritarians, dictators. It's striking to contrast this emerging global coalition of thug-ery to a movement formed out of the rubble of World War II. It was known as the Non-Aligned Movement."

"There's much that we can learn from the struggle of the Partisans, the society that they sought to build and the horrifying end to the story of Yugoslavia. These lessons resonate strongly in our current moment in history."

"Fascists were not conservative in any very meaningful sense...The Fascists, in a meaningful sense, were revolutionaries... [F]ascism and communism are clearly more like each other than they are like anything in between."

"Hitler tried and failed to begin a German national revolution in Munich in November 1923, which led to a brief spell in prison. Though the substance of his National Socialism was his own creation, his coup d’état was inspired by the success of the Italian fascists he admired. Benito Mussolini had taken power in Italy the previous year after the “March on Rome,” which Hitler imitated without success in Munich. Italian fascists, like Hitler and his Nazis, offered the glorification of the national will over the tedium of political compromise. Mussolini, and Hitler following him, used the existence of the Soviet Union within domestic politics. While admiring the discipline of Lenin and the model of the one-party state, both men used the threat of a communist revolution as an argument for their own rule. Though the two men differed in many respects, they both represented a new kind of European Right, one which took for granted that communism was the great enemy while imitating aspects of communist politics. Like Mussolini, Hitler was an outstanding orator and the one dominant personality in his movement. Hitler had little trouble regaining the leadership of the Nazi party after his release from prison in December 1924."

"Although Ilyin dressed up his idea of contemplation in several books, it really was no more than that: he saw his own nation as righteous, and the purity of that vision was more important than anything Russians actually did. The nation, “pure and objective,” was what the philosopher saw when he blinded himself. Innocence took a specific biological form. What Ilyin saw was a virginal Russian body. Like fascists and other authoritarians of his day, Ilyin insisted that his nation was a creature, "an organism of nature and the soul," an animal in Eden without original sin. Who belonged within the Russian organism was not for the individual to decide, since cells do not decide whether they belong to a body. Russian culture, Ilyin wrote, automatically brought “fraternal union” wherever Russian power extended. Ilyin wrote of "" in quotation marks, because he denied their separate existence beyond the Russian organism. To speak of Ukraine was to be a mortal enemy of Russia. Ilyin took for granted that a post-Soviet Russia would include Ukraine."

"Fascism is the falsehood that the enemy chosen by a leader must be the enemy for all. Politics then begins from emotion and falsehood. Peace becomes unthinkable, since enmity abroad is necessary for control at home. A fascist says "the people" and means "some people," those he favors at the moment."

"The symbol Z, the rallies, the propaganda, the war as a cleansing act of violence and the death pits around Ukrainian towns make it all very plain. The war against Ukraine is not only a return to the traditional fascist battleground, but also a return to traditional fascist language and practice. Other people are there to be colonized. Russia is innocent because of its ancient past. The existence of Ukraine is an international conspiracy. War is the answer."

"Today people commonly use the word "fascism" instead of "national socialism." Presumably this is what you are asking. No. Hitlerism had racism as its essential dogmatic foundation. But in a multiethnic country, such an ideology has no chance of success. And Russia has never had such a movement. But if we speak about the rampage of militant chauvinism, then it exists--and in bloody form--in several republics of the former U.S.S.R., but certainly not in Russia. And if one were to count all the instances of violence perpetrated on nationalist grounds and in local wars, all of them took place outside of Russia and were not perpetrated by Russians."

"Fascism began as a revision of Marxism by Marxists, a revision which developed in successive stages, so that these Marxists gradually stopped thinking of themselves as Marxists, and eventually stopped thinking of themselves as socialists. They never stopped thinking of themselves as anti-liberal revolutionaries."

"If the Fascist ideology cannot be described as a simple response to Marxism, its origins, on the other hand, were the direct result of very specific revision of Marxism. It was a revision of Marxism and not a variety of Marxism or a consequence of Marxism... It was the French and Italian Sorelians, the theoreticians of revolutionary who made this new and original revision of Marxism, and precisely this was their contribution to the birth of the Fascist ideology."

"Fascism rebelled against modernity inasmuch as modernity was identified with the rationalism, optimism, and humanism of the eighteenth century, but it was not a reactionary or an anti-revolutionary movement in the Maurrassian sense of the term. Fascism presented itself as a revolution of another kind, a revolution that sought to destroy the existing political order and to uproot its theoretical and moral foundations but that at the same time wished to preserve all the achievements of modern technology."

"That is why so many Sorelians, like many people on the Left both before and after the war, slid into fascism. When these leftists of all shapes and colors came to the conclusion that the working class had definitely beaten a retreat, they did not follow it into this attitude. Their socialism remained revolutionary when that of the proletariat had ceased to be so. Having to choose between the proletariat and revolution, they chose revolution; having to choose between a proletarian but moderate socialism and a nonproletarian but revolutionary and national socialism, they opted for the nonproletarian revolution, the national revolution."

"Thus, it was quite natural that a synthesis would arise between this new socialism [fascism], which discovered the nation as a revolutionary agent, and the nationalist movement, which also rebelled against the old world of conservatives, against the aristocrats and the bourgeois, and against social injustices and which believed that the nation would never be complete until it had integrated the proletariat. A socialism for the whole collectivity and a nationalism that, severed from conservatism, proclaimed itself as being by definition the messenger of unity and unanimity thus came together to form an unprecedented weapon of war against the bourgeois order and liberal democracy."

"Thus, the historical circumstance of the half century preceding the Second World War gave rise to the essence of fascism: a synthesis of organic nationalism and anti-Marxist socialism, a revolutionary ideology based on a simultaneous rejection of liberalism, Marxism, and democracy."

"[Fascist ideology was] a variety of socialism which, while rejecting Marxism, remained revolutionary. This form of socialism was also, by definition, anti-liberal and anti-bourgeois, and its opposition to historical materialism made it the natural ally of radical nationalism."

"Fascism presented itself not only as an alternative, but also as the heir to socialism."

"Unity, in Fascist terms, means uniformity; freedom of conscience means insubordination; co-ordination means coercion."

"The peoples of Yugoslavia do not want Fascism. They do not want a totalitarian regime, they do not want to become slaves of the German and Italian financial oligarchy as they never wanted to become reconciled to the semi-colonial dependence imposed on them by the so-called Western democracies after the first imperialist war."

"Stalinism and fascism, in spite of a deep difference in social foundations, are symmetrical phenomena. In many of their features, they show a deadly similarity."

"The similarities of the economics of the New Deal to the economics of Mussolini's corporative state or Hitler's totalitarian state are both close and obvious."

"There isn't any difference in totalitarian states. I don't care what you call them, Nazi, Communist or Fascist..."

"In all the countries where fascism became victorious, we had, before the growth of fascism and its victory, a wave of radicalism of the masses — of the workers and the poorer peasants and farmers, and of the petty bourgeois class. In Italy, after the war and before 1922, we had a revolutionary wave of tremendous dimensions; the state was paralyzed, the police did not exist, the trade unions could do anything they wanted — but there was not party capable of taking the power. As a reaction came fascism. In Germany, the same. We had a revolutionary situation in 1918; the bourgeois class did not even ask to participate in the power. The social democrats paralyzed the revolution. Then the workers tried again in 1922-23-24. This was the time of the bankruptcy of the Communist Party — all of which we have gone into before. Then in 1929-30-31, the German workers began again a new revolutionary wave. There was a tremendous power in the Communists and in the trade unions, but then came the famous policy (on the part of the Stalinist movement) of social fascism, a policy invented to paralyze the working class. Only after these three tremendous waves did fascism become a big movement. There are no exceptions to this rule — fascism comes only when the working class shows complete incapacity to take into its own hands the fate of society."

"The last resource of the bourgeoisie is fascism, which replaces social and historical criteria with biological and zoological standards so as thus to free itself from any and all restrictions in the struggle for capitalist property."

"Donald was incompetent, but others in Donald's administration were anything but. What they built was a lean and ruthless machine for advancing fascism. With the help of some luck, complicit institutions, an unprepared media, and a party of willing converts, that machine largely succeeded."

"At the dawn of Mussolini's government, there were 267 parliamentarians affiliated with Freemasonry: more of a lodge than a chamber. Freemasons of different rites were other important names in the history of Fascism: trade unionist Edmondo Rossoni, Grand Minister Araldo di Crollalanza, Jurist Alfredo De Marsico; Peppino Caradonna, Bernardo Barbiellini Amidei, Aldo Finzi, Balbino Giuliano, and Costanzo Ciano, father of Galeazzo, Alberto Beneduce, future head of IRI, and Giacomo Acerbo, author of the electoral law that bears his name; Ezio Maria Gray, who would later become a member of the MSI, Armando Casalini, and many others."

"What fascism proposes is a dream and what fascism gives you, is a nightmare."

"If we define an American fascist as one who in case of conflict puts money and power ahead of human beings, then there are undoubtedly several million fascists in the United States. There are probably several hundred thousand if we narrow the definition to include only those who in their search for money and power are ruthless and deceitful. ... They are patriotic in time of war because it is to their interest to be so, but in time of peace they follow power and the dollar wherever they may lead."

"American fascism will not be really dangerous, ...until there is a purposeful coalition among the ists, the deliberate poisoners of public information... Fascism is a worldwide disease... [its] greatest threat to the United States will come after the war... within the United States itself."

"The dangerous American fascist is the man who wants to do in the United States in an American way what Hitler did in Germany in a Prussian way. The American fascist would prefer not to use violence. His method is to poison the channels of public information.."

"The really dangerous American fascists are not those who are hooked up directly or indirectly with the Axis. The FBI has its finger on those."

"With a fascist the problem is never how best to present the truth to the public but how best to use the news to deceive the public."

"We have no right to disown our own shame in the upbringing of the beast from whom we have so lately been delivered. There was no country in Europe without its fascist party, and this at a time before the label appeared likely to prove safe or profitable."

"Do we have a free press today? Sure we do. It’s free to report all the sex scandals it wants, all the stock market news we can handle, every new health fad that comes down the pike, and every celebrity marriage or divorce that happens. But when it comes to the real down and dirty stuff — stories like... corporate corruption, or CIA involvement in drug trafficking — that’s where we begin to see the limits of our freedoms. In today’s media environment, sadly, such stories are not even open for discussion. Back in 1938, when fascism was sweeping Europe, legendary investigative reporter George Seldes observed that “it is possible to fool all the people all the time — when government and press cooperate.” Unfortunately, we have reached that point. p. 156"

"Fascism had its origins in communism, and communism exhibited facets of fascism from its inception. Since the broke up, its logical course is toward fascism."

"It would seem...that man has been shocked by the war into forgetting how to be a . This suspicion is confirmed by the spread of Fascism, which is a headlong flight into fantasy from the necessity for political thought. There is nothing more obvious about the post-war situation than that it is novel, springs from causes which have not yet been analysed, and cannot be relieved until this analysis is complete and has been made the basis of a new social formula. Yet persons supporting Fascism behave as if man were already in possession of principles which would enable him to deal with all our problems, and as if it were only a question of appointing a dictator to apply them."

"I am for the legal government of Republican Spain against Franco, since Spain herself, at a properly conducted election, chose that Government and rejected the party which now supports Franco. I am also against Fascism; the reforms of Diocletian were a work of genius and made many people temporarily happy, but failed in the end and added greatly to human misery. I see no reason why this inferior modern copy of them should succeed."

"In 1977, Klaus Theweleit published a book in which he sought to understand the germination of fascism in interwar Germany. His method was to study the fantasy life of that era's conservative revolutionaries, by reading the diaries, novels and letters of the men who joined the Freikorps militias, and fought against insurgent communists during the early days of the Weimar Republic."

"In the fantasies they committed to paper, the men associated the women they despised with floods of liquid and slime, and with dirt – substances that would threaten to overwhelm the defences of their ill-formed psyches. The solider male felt that he could only guarantee “his own survival, his self-preservation and self-regeneration”, through acts of violence against such women. (Another way of maintaining their fragile sense of self is by slotting themselves into enveloping external structures like the armed forces or fascist youth organisations.) In the soldier males’ journals we see them taking great pleasure, and building fraternal camaraderie, by murdering women, pairs of lovers and leftists of all genders. We also see that many of them cannot reconcile acts of physical love with the nature of their own desires. When it came to these men, their murderous acts and their sexual problems were not coincidental, they were interrelated. In explaining how, Theweleit takes exception with the left’s then-dominant explanation of fascism – that it was a result of pure irrationality, or repressed homosexuality. Some said it could be countered by the left mounting a renewed defence of progress and reason, or by beefing up alternative institutions that mirrored those of the fascists. For Theweleit, this misses the central dynamic that propels the fascist male towards violence. Fascism derives its power from channelling the protean, potentially liberating force of human desire towards hatred, distorting it into a desire for death and blood. All of its institutions, its rituals, and the (male) bonds it promotes are bent to this purpose. We cannot beat fascists by aping their structures, any more than we can hope to rationally persuade them. The problem goes deeper. On this theme, he says that classical fascism was not as distinct as we might want it to be from the culture surrounding it. It is not a departure from European history, but an intensification of some of its more pervasive traits. At one point he asks, “Can we not draw a straight line from the witch to the sensuous Jewish woman? Is the persecution of the sensuous woman not a permanent reality, one that is not economic in origin, but which derives from the specific social organisation of gender relations in patriarchal Europe?” Later, more succinctly, he comments that his soldier males are “equivalent to the tip of the patriarchal iceberg, but it’s what lies beneath the surface that really makes the water cold”."

"Dr. Reich vastly offended many people by his sociological theory, which holds that fascism is just an exaggerated form of the basic structure of sex-negative societies and has existed under other names in every civilization based on . In this theory, the character and muscular armor of the average citizen — a submissive and frightened attitude anchored in body reflexes — causes the average person to want a strong authority figure above them. Tyranny, in this model, is not created by s alone but by neurotic masses who want tyrants."

"This means that if someone acts like a fascist, has fascist beliefs, repeats fascist talking points, and hangs out with other fascists, the fact that they publicly denounce fascism should be worth absolutely nothing to you, and shouldn’t even enter into your consideration of whether they’re a fascist. After all, “I’m not a fascist” is exactly what a fascist would say."

"The biggest threat to America today is not communism. It's moving America toward a fascist theocracy, and everything that's happened during the Reagan administration is steering us right down that pipe ... I really think that. ... When you have a government that prefers a certain moral code derived from a certain religion and that moral code turns into legislation to suit one certain religious point of view, and if that code happens to be very, very right wing, almost toward Attila the Hun..."

"The claim that the United States cannot possibly bring about the fall of clerical fascism in Tehran is as silly as similar claims directed at Ronald Reagan when he set about bringing an end to the evil Soviet Empire. Indeed, skepticism about our determination to defeat Soviet Communism was far more justifiable than doubts about the thoroughly plausible path to end the Iranian mullahcracy."

"Khamenei & Co. do not think we will respond, do not fear Western action, and believe this is a historic movement for the advance of their vision of clerical fascism."

"During the winter and spring of 1933, the Nazis made a strenuous effort to present themselves as in harmony with conservative German and n traditions, or even as the natural result and outgrowth of these traditions. The nazis made the conservative Prussian past serviceable to their need for political legitimation to an extent hitherto unprecedented. Long before the Second World War, Prussian values became National Socialist values, judged to epitomize the German character, and help up as models to emulate: austerity, thrift, tenacity in the pursuit of one's goals, a preparedness for personal sacrifice, and a willingness to lay down one's life in the service of a higher cause that would win out in the end, even in the face of overwhelming odds. Above all, there was the concept of duty; it was imperative to "fulfill" one's duty of the ' and the . Among other things, made the Prussian past and the values it imputed to it palpable in the form of Grand historic films that enjoyed mass audiences. It was already during the period of the seizure of power that conservatives lost the Deutungshoheit, that is, the prerogative to interpret the great traditions and historical figures of the past, to the Nazis. From 1933 onwards, the Nazis acted as self-appointed guardians of the national heritage. And they did this with greater aplomb, audacity, and-in many instances-more skill than conservative propagandists during the Weimar Republic before them."

"For those seeking a more rigorous understanding of 'fascism', confusion reigned, since the differences among a whole host of rightist movements and parties, and an increasing number of rightist regimes, tended to be subtly nuanced and constantly shifting. On the basis of what has been examined so far, it is clearly reasonable to confirm the existence of a distinction, at the level of ideas and movements, between the radical or 'fascist' right and the conservative right, even when the latter gave birth to authoritarian movements of its own. However, for the reasons just discussed, not merely was a boundary between fascists and authoritarian conservatives never drawn with total clarity, but it became more blurred with every year that passed. Matters become more difficult still, however, when we come to examine the fascist-conservative relationship in the context of those regimes to which fascist or national socialist movement made a major contribution or, indeed, which they actually created."

"In April 1937 Franco, as effective of , fused the Falange with the , monarchists and the rest of the right to form the single party of his regime: a process, though differently conducted, somewhat similar to 's fusion with Nationalism and Clerico-Fascism after 1922. The product, like the Italian Fascist regime, was a compromise between radical fascism and conservative authoritarianism, in this case with unambiguous military and Church support. [...] The vital feature of all these and other regimes, whatever their provenance and outward characteristics, is that in all of them conservative interests and value-systems proved either dominant or capable of coexisting with an official 'fascism'. This is not suggest that in italy during the 1930s or Spain during the early 1940s, conservatives, whether driven by monarchism, Catholicism, or material interest, were not often irked by fascist display, vulgarity and office-holding or, indeed, anxious lest full-scale 'fascist revolution' might yet be unleashed. The fact remains that no serious conservative attempt to overthrow Mussolini occurred until wartime defeat transformed political realities, while monarchist machinations against Franco regime were both unsuccessful and dictated more by self-interest than ideology or principle."

"It cannot seriously be denied that as movements, parties and political ideologies, conservatism and fascism occupied very different positions within the early and mid-twentieth century European right, converging at some points and conflicting at others. In certain circumstances, especially characteristic of the 1919–45 period, convergence outweighed conflict, and the uneasy coupling of fascism and conservatism spawned a new kind of political regime. With fascists often showing a tendency to succumb to a cosy conservatism, and conservatives sometimes embracing the rhetoric (or more) of fascism, such regimes exhibited a kaleidoscopic variety of tendencies of which the rarest was what might be termed 'pure' fascism. In many cases, genuine—that is so say self-consciously radical—fascists were a negligible force and any 'fascist' elements at most merely cosmetic. Elsewhere, notably in Spain, assorted conservatives proved capable of displacing radical fascism. In fascist Italy, surely the paradigmatic fascist regime, conservatives co-existed with fascists, survived largely unscathed, and when given the opportunity overthrew the Fascist regime. Only in Germany did the conservative right come close to being devoured by the tiger it had chosen to ride."

"Subjective perceptions, whether favourable or unfavourable, help us to understand the nature of the political debate bun not necessarily the nature of fascism or, least of all, any possible connections with conservatism. Discussion of their relationship is complicated by the fact that neither is easy to define. The common tendency to use the term 'fascist' as a political epithet and 'conservative' as a synonym for retrograde or reactionary does not help. But scholars who usually avoid such loose language also find it difficult to come up with generally acceptable definitions, probably because fascism lacks a clearly recognizable fountainhead in the world of ideas and conservatism encompasses attitudes and phenomena that go beyond ideology and politics."

"Between the misdeeds of Hitler and those of Stalin, in my opinion, there exists only a quantitative difference... I don't know if the Communist idea, if its theory, already contained a basic fault or if only the Soviet practice under Stalin betrayed the original idea and established in the Soviet Union a kind of Fascism."

"The war we fight today is more than a military conflict; it is the decisive ideological struggle of the 21st century. On one side are those who believe in the values of freedom and moderation – the right of all people to speak, and worship, and live in liberty. And on the other side are those driven by the values of tyranny and extremism; the right of a self-appointed few to impose their fanatical views on all the rest. As veterans, you have seen this kind of enemy before. They're successors to Fascists, to Nazis, to Communists, and other totalitarians of the 20th century. And history shows what the outcome will be: This war will be difficult; this war will be long; and this war will end in the defeat of the terrorists and totalitarians, and a victory for the cause of freedom and liberty."

"The American people know that the principal difference between Mr. Hitler and Mr. Stalin is the size of their respective mustaches."

"For conservative and nationalist discourses, these marginalized Others were frequently objects of fascination and revulsion. Yet the horror provoked by Jews, homosexuals, and, in some areas, Gypsies cannot be explained simply by reference to the marginal; it was the way those at the margins of society made the bordelines of gender and nationality blur and shift that threatened to tear apart the very fabric of the patriarchal nation-state as it had been constituted. This threat was perhaps especially acute in Germany, whose identity as a unified nation was so tenuous."

"Conservatives and fascist ideologies adapted the notion that Jews were alien to the national community to a cultural critique that attributed the inauthenticity of contemporary mass culture to Jewish influence. Jews, not having a fixed location, could not share in cultures rooted in the community of blood or soil and were therefore reduced to the imitation of other cultures, to artifice."

"For many liberal of the 1930s fascism seemed not so much intrinsically wrong as wrong-headed, offering solutions that were at once too extreme and inadequate to address the crises of modernity."

"While all these untoward events were taking place, amid a ceaseless chatter of well-meant platitudes on both sides of the Atlantic, a new and more terrible cause of quarrel than the imperialism of czars and kaisers became apparent in Europe. The Civil War in Russia ended in the absolute victory of the Bolshevik Revolution. The Soviet armies which advanced to subjugate Poland were indeed repulsed in the Battle of Warsaw, but Germany and Italy nearly succumbed to Communist propaganda and designs. Hungary actually fell for a while under the control of the Communist dictator, Bela Kun. Although Marshal Foch wisely observed that “Bolshevism had never crossed the frontiers of victory,” the foundations of European civilisation trembled in the early post-war years. Fascism was the shadow or ugly child of Communism. While Corporal Hitler was making himself useful to the German officer class in Munich by arousing soldiers and workers to fierce hatred of Jews and Communists, on whom he laid the blame of Germany’s defeat, another adventurer, Benito Mussolini, provided Italy with a new theme of government which, while it claimed to save the Italian people from Communism, raised himself to dictatorial power. As Fascism sprang from Communism, so Nazism developed from Fascism. Thus were set on foot those kindred movements which were destined soon to plunge the world into even more hideous strife, which none can say has ended with their destruction."

"All the M-L's "United Fronts" care about is a strict political approach to defeat fascism and prevent them from attaining state power, while being able to usher the in instead. They organize liberals and others into mass coalitions just to seize power, and then crush all radical and liberal ideological opponents after they get done with the fascists. That is why the Stalinist "Communist" states resemble fascist s so much in refusing to allow ideological plurality — they are both totalitarian. For that matter, how much difference was there really between Stalin and Hitler?"

"Mussolini and Hitler promised to restore national glory and depicted themselves as the last defense against radical socialism. Neither appealed to racism at first. Not even Hitler, who muted his virulent anti-Semitism in public to attract voters during the late 1920s. New followers told themselves he had mellowed, but his base and his Jewish targets never doubted his true intentions."

"The Russian Revolution's impact on sections of the and the rise of the Labour Party profoundly disturbed important sections of the Conservative right and it was in these circles that first came into existence in 1923, when , who had served in the Women's Reserve Ambulance during the war, formed the , subsequently the British Fascists (BFs). Set up to oppose a feared communist uprising, the British Fascists organised in paramilitary units and was eventually to split during the 1926 General Strike over the government's insistence that the the British Fascists would have to drop the military structure before their assistance could be accepted in breaking the strike. An earlier split had taken away some of the most militant members, while the 1926 split deprived it of elements who prioritised anti-socialism over any specifically fascist affiliation. Later in the 1920s, yet another group, the , would bring together elements convinced that the BFs, rather than being truly fascist, had failed to break decisively with conservatism."

"To the Western Left, of course, there always seemed a profound difference between communism and fascism. Until as late as the 1980s, Jürgen Habermas and others zealously upheld the dogma that the Third Reich could not legitimately be compared with Stalin's Soviet Union. But were not Stalin and his German counterpart in reality just two grim faces of totalitarianism? Was there any real difference between Stalin's 'socialism in one country' and Hitler's National Socialism, except that one was put into practice a few years before the other? We can now see just how many of the things that were done in German concentration camps during the Second World War were anticipated in the Gulag: the transportation in cattle trucks, the selection into different categories of prisoner, the shaving of heads, the dehumanizing living conditions, the humiliating clothing, the interminable roll-calling, the brutal and arbitrary punishments, the differentiation between the determined and the doomed. Yes, the regimes were very far from identical, as we shall see. But it is at least suggestive that when the teenage zek Yuri Chirkov arrived at Solovetsky, the slogan that greeted him was 'Through Labour - Freedom!' - a lie identical to the wrought-iron legend Arbeit Macht Frei that would later welcome prisoners to Auschwitz."

"To understand this relationship we may start with what has become an accepted observation: Stalinized Bolshevism and National Socialism constitute the two examples of twentieth-century totalitarian regimes. Not only were they comparable, but they form a political category of their own, which has become established since Hannah Arendt."

"By the end of the 1920s and the beginning of the 1930s, Stalin had created a regime that had abandoned every principle that had presumably typified left-wing aspirations and had given himself over to notions of ‘socialism in one country’ — with all the attendant attributes: nationalism, the leadership principle, anti-liberalism, anti-individualism, communitarianism, hierarchical rule, missionary zeal, the employment of violence to assure national purpose, and anti-Semitism — making the Soviet Union unmistakenly ‘a cousin to the German National Socialism.’"

"The monstrous evils of the twentieth century have shown us that the greediest money grubbers are gentle doves compared with money-hating wolves like Lenin, Stalin, and Hitler, who in less than three decades killed or maimed nearly a hundred million men, women, and children and brought untold suffering to a large portion of mankind."

"In this respect, the war between Nazi Germany and the Soviet Russia, a war between two essentially identical systems which were clearly growing constantly more alike in the exterior forms of rule,…"

"Stalinism and fascism, in spite of a deep difference in social foundations, are symmetrical phenomena. In many of their features they show a deadly similarity."

"It was in Nazi Germany that Bolshevism was perfected; there, political power truly absorbed all spheres of existence, from the economy to religion, from technology to the soul. The irony, the tragedy, of history was that both totalitarian regimes, identical in their aim for absolute power over dehumanized beings, presented themselves as protection from the danger presented by the other."

"In Fascism, as in Communism, the idea of the future was based on a critique of bourgeois modernity… It rose from a variety of currents and from authors of very different origins, all of whom demonized the bourgeoisie. The doctrine was cast as post-Marxist, not as pre-liberal."

"Socialism, unlike Marxism, does not repudiate private property."

"We National Socialists see in private property a higher level of human economic development that according to the differences in performance controls the management of what has been accomplished enabling and guaranteeing the advantage of a higher standard of living for everyone. Bolshevism destroys not only private property but also private initiative and the readiness to shoulder responsibility."

"During the 1930s Romanian fascism was highly complex: it consisted of several movements and layers which varied in intensity from to the genuine article. By far the most important, however, was the Legion and , Codreanu providing the sort of charismatic leadership which was more commonly associated with Hitler and Mussolini. His ideas also had much in common with Nazism. [...] Most of this cut little ice with those in power: the monarchy, the army officers and politicians. They were less concerned about mobilization of opinion that about the accumulation of power and about dealing with opponents; increasingly, Condreanu came to be seen as dangerous radical who would destabilize the regime. Although some observers claim that Carol was a 'monarcho-fascist', this term is not particularly appropriate. Carol was never inclined to any systematic ideology and remained traditional and conservative in his policies. This also applied to Michael and the Conducator, Antonescu. Yet, when the latter did finally succeeded in destroying the Legion, he ruled, in Payne's words as 'a right radical nationalist dictator with the support of the military'. Strangely, this was preferred by Hitler since Antonescu offered more security as a Romanian satellite. This was understandable because Hitler's main concern in 1941 was the military use of Romania rather than its complete ideological conversion. Hence, a conservative regime which had been radicalized by its contact with fascism was an ideal balance. In any case this radicalized conservationism proved to be one of the most extreme of all the European states in its policies toward the Jews."

"The ‘totalitarian’ label is part of in another way as well – in so far as it covers both Communist and Fascist regimes, and is thereby intended to suggest that they are very similar systems. More specifically, the suggestion is that Communism and Nazism are more or less identical. This may be good propaganda but it is very poor political analysis. There were similarities between Stalinism and Nazism in the use of mass terror and . But there were also enormous differences between them. Stalinism was a ‘revolution from above’, which was intended to modernise Russia from top to bottom, on the basis of the of the means of production (most of those ‘means of production’ being themselves produced as part of the ‘revolution from above’); and Russia was indeed transformed, at immense cost. Nazism, on the other hand, was, for all its transformative rhetoric, a movement and regime, which consolidated capitalist ownership and the economic and s which Hitler had inherited from Weimar. As has often been observed, twelve years of absolute Nazi rule did not fundamentally change, and never sought to change fundamentally, the social system which had existed when Hitler came to power. To assimilate Nazism and Stalinism, and equate them as similarly ‘totalitarian’ movements and regimes of the and the is to render impossible a proper understanding of their nature, content and purpose."

"The distinction between conservatism and is in part a matter o belief and temperament, in part a matter of experience. In interwar Europe, many erstwhile radical conservatives supported fascist regimes, whether out of conviction or circumstance, before frequently becoming disillusioned with the radical regimes they had supported. After the defeat of the Axis powers some of the most acute conservative analysis and critique stemmed from those who had been radical conservatives but now saw no plausible alternative to the liberal democratic welfare state."

"The division between left and right in history is both evident and real. For example, the few detailed histories of specific anti-fascism that exist describe a conflict unrecognisable beside the subtle arguments of these liberal historians. The struggles between fascists and anti-fascists have been violent, lethal and real. The study of them makes it clear that the liberal historians have ignored the decisive importance of anti-socialism to the fascists. They have also overlooked the facists that in every country, socialists and communists have proven to be fascism's staunchest enemies, and that the political left has always been the first victim of fascist rule."

"The alleged symmetry of fascist and socialist thought rarely amounts to anything more than a recognition that both groups have sought to change society and used political parties to affect this change. The fact that fascism and socialism differ in terms of ideas and traditions, have distinct sources of support and radically different relationships to the capitalist status quo, all seem to be neglected. The historians also glide gently over the obvious fact that fascism acquires its allies from the right and not the left."

"The great problem with understanding fascism simply as an ideology is that many of the ideas that characterise fascism are not in themselves distinctive. Some of these ideas are purely nationalistic, and there have been many nationalists who were not fascists. Similarly, many conventional conservative parties have had racist supporters."

"In the course of its life, fascism shuffles together every myth and lie that rotten has ever produced like a pack of greasy cards and then deals them out to whoever it thinks they will win. What is important is not the ideas themselves, but the context in which they operate. Many of the ideas of fascism are the commonplaces of all , but they are used in a different way. Fascism offers from the traditional parties like the Conservative Party no so much in its ideas but in that it is an extra-parliamentary mass movement which seeks the road to power through armed attacks on its opponents."

"Hitler had a red flag. And Stalin had a red flag. Hitler ruled in the name of the workers’ class, his party was called the workers’ party. Stalin also ruled in the name of the workers’ class; his power system officially bore the title of ‘dictatorship of the proletariat.’ Hitler hated democracy and struggled against it. Stalin hated democracy and struggled against it. Hitler was building socialism. And Stalin was building socialism. Under the title of socialism Hitler saw a classless society. And Stalin, under the title of socialism, saw a classless society. In the midst of the classless society built by Hitler, and in that built by Stalin, flourished slavery in the truest sense of the word."

"Hitler never intended to defend ‘the West’ against Bolshevism but always remained ready to join ‘the Reds’ for the destruction of the West, even in the middle of the struggle against Soviet Russia."

"The only man for whom Hitler had ‘unqualified respect’ was Stalin the genius’, and while in the case of Stalin and the Russian regime we do not… have the rich documentary material that is available for Germany, we nevertheless know since Khrushchev’s speech before the Twentieth Party Congress that Stalin trusted only one man and that was Hitler."

"By the time of the disintegration of the Soviet Union, Marxist theoreticians had begun to evaluate fascism in a totally unanticipated fashion . . . More than that, as Marxist theorists were compelled to reinterpret fascism in the light of empirical evidence and political circumstances, the fundamental affinities shared by Marxist and fascist regimes became apparent."

"Fascism, Nazism and Stalinism have in common that they offered the atomized individual a new refuge and security. These systems are the culmination of alienation. The individual is made to feel powerless and insignificant, but taught to project all of his human powers into the figure of the leader, the state, the ‘fatherland,’ to whom he has to submit and whom he has to worship. He escapes from freedom and into a new idolatry. All the achievements of individuality and reason, from the late Middle Ages to the nineteenth century are sacrificed on the altars of the new idols. ...built on the most flagrant lies, both with regard to their programs and to their leaders."

"Fascism is perhaps best defined as a pathological conservatism: the elements of conservatism warped and twisted into a parody of themselves, by concentration on certain selected symbols (particularly the nation), which are mystified and deified."

"Russia was the example for fascism... Whether party ‘communists’ like it or not, the fact remains that the state order and rule in Russia are indistinguishable from those in Italy and Germany. Essentially they are alike. One may speak of a red, black, or brown ‘soviet state’, as well as of red, black or brown fascism."

"[T]he totalitarian states, whether of the fascist or the communist persuasion, are more than superficially alike as dictatorships, in the suppression of dissent, and in operating planned and directed economies. They are profoundly alike."

"Born of war, both Bolshevism and Fascism drew their basic education from war. They transferred to politics the lessons of the trenches: familiarity with violence, the simplicity of extreme passions, the submission of the individual to the collectivity, and finally the bitterness of futile or betrayed sacrifices."

"What characteristic distinguished Germany and Italy, where fascism took power, from countries like France and Britain, where fascist movements were highly visible but remained far from power? We need to recall that fascism has never so far taken power by coup d'état, deploying the weight of its militants in the street. Fascist power by coup is hardly conceivable in a modern state. Fascism can not appeal to the street without risking a confrontation with future allies —- the army and the police —- without whom it will not be able to pursue its expansionist goals. Indeed fascist coup attempts have commonly led to military dictatorship, rather than to fascist power (as in Romania in December 1941). Resorting to direct mass action also risks conceding advantages to fascism's principal enemy, the Left, still powerful in the street and workplace in interwar Europe. The only route to power available to fascists passes through cooperation with conservative elites. The most important variables, therefore, are the conservative elites' willingness to work with the fascist, along with a reciprocal flexibility on the fascist leaders' part, and the depth of the crisis which induces them to cooperate."

"Neither Hitler nor Mussolini took the helm by force, even if they used force earlier to destabilise the liberal regime, and later to transform their governments into dictatorships. They were invited to take office as head of government by a head of state in the legitimate exercise of his official functions, on the advice of his conservative counsellors,under quite precise circumstances: a deadlock of constitutional government (produced in part by the polarisation that the fascists abetted); conservative leaders who felt threatened by the loss of their capacity to keep the population under control, often at a moment of massive popular mobilisation; an advancing Left; conservative leaders who refused to work with that Left, and who felt unable to continue to govern against the Left without further reinforcement."

"What the Nazis have introduced in Germany is a form of graduated Bolshevism, directing their first attack not against the capitalist class as a whole, but against Jewish capitalists, excoriated on racial rather than economic grounds…Nor is there reason to expect that the Nazis will stop at this point."

"The modern State claims all of these powers, and, in the matter of theory, there is no real difference in the size of the claim between communists, fascists, and democrats."

"In prison for his part in the 1923 putsch, Hitler rethought the Italian example in the light of his own failure and concluded that he could only win power through the ballot box. Electoral propaganda was at first directed primarily at industrial workers, in the hope of detaching them from the KDP. But in the 1928 elections showed unexpected gains amongst the Protestant peasantry, who had suffered badly from the agricultural crisis. From then on was more targeted at conservative voters, and this paid off with electoral breakthrough in 1930."

"Despite the relative breadth of their appeal, the Nazis, with 37 per cent of the vote in July 1932, didn't have enough seats in parliament to govern. In a new election in November, they lost two million votes. Moreover, although conservative politicians, like the business, military, and land-owning elites, were hostile to the Republic, they distrusted the Nazis as 'brown Bolsheviks', and preferred an authoritarian government run by themselves. The problem was that the elites, rightly or wrongly, felt that no government could survive without mass support. This conviction testified to the extent to which 'democratic' assumptions had penetrated even the reactionary right. It also reflected the army's fear that it couldn't maintain order against both Communists and Nazis. For want of alternatives, the conservatives made Hitler chancellor on 30 January 1933. Like Mussolini, Hitler alone bridged the gap between parliamentary and street politics."

"How many individuals, movements, and regimes we categorize as 'fascist' depends on definition. If we define fascism simply as a desire to manipulate the mass, or a dictatorship, then a great many would qualify. If we add the criteria of racism and/or antisemitism, a different set would be included. The impossibility of agreeing on a definition means that attempts to identify 'true fascism' can never be decisive. However, this difficulty does not prevent us from examining similarities and differences between various movements or actual interactions and borrowings—'entanglements', as scholar call them. I shall ask how and for what purposes the terms 'fascist' and 'national socialist' were used. Tracing entanglements allows us to see that relation of fascists were strongest with conservative groups, dictatorial or parliamentarian."

"What Fascism does not countenance is the collectivistic solution proposed by the Socialists. The chief defect of the socialistic method has been clearly demonstrated by the experience of the last few years. It does not take into account human nature, it is therefore outside of reality, in that it will not recognize that the most powerful spring of human activities lies in individual self interest and that therefore the elimination from the economic field of this interest results in complete paralysis."

"Sections of the European right voluntarily entered into complicity with fascism when they believed that their social and economic interest were seriously threatened by the left."

"We should not, however, fall into the common error of imputing a false parallelism between the two great warrior ideologies."

"Marxism has led to Fascism and National-Socialism, because, in all essentials, it is Fascism and National Socialism."

"The concept of conservatism cannot easily be described by traditionalistic definitions and refuse to pose as just another 'ism'. The Pope on his return to Rome in 1814 outlawed all street lighting because it was in his view a 'revolutionary innovation'. In stating this opinion he gave a remarkable definition of what conservatism wants to avoid. Conservatism is, however, not necessarily opposed to change. Modern , though frequently called , may have a quite progressive . The Fascist regimes in Germany and Italy became the most violent rationalistic modernisers of their respective countries in spite of ideological commitments to an . Modern definitions of right-wing extremism are still based on the traditional criterion for differentiating between conservatives and reactionaries: conservatives try to maintain the , right-wing extremists want to restore the . A second criterion has been added, however: the envisaged restoration may, if necessary, be achieved by the use of force. This latter criterion may be better applied to fascism and neo-fascism than to traditionalist reactionary movements."

"The Mussolini regime's inability to overcome its rightist compromises, together with its doctrine and origins dissimilar from those of the Nazis, precluded any full convergence between the Mussolini and Hitler regimes. In turn the Hitler regime, in its rejection of Marxism and materialism and the formal principle of bureaucratic totalitarianism, did not take the same form as Russian communism. in spite of theories by critics about a supposed common totalitarianism. Some of the similarities and parallels include: Frequent recognition by Hitler and various Nazi leaders (and also Mussolini) that their only revolutionary and ideological counterparts were to be found in the Soviet Union."

"From the point of view of fundamental human liberties there is little to choose between communism, socialism, and national socialism. They all are examples of the collectivist or totalitarian state … in its essentials not only is completed socialism the same as communism but it hardly differs from fascism."

"[F]ascism and communism are not two opposites, but two rival gangs fighting over the same territory—both are variants of statism, based on the collectivist principle that man is the rightless slave of the state."

"As an economic system, fascism is socialism with a capitalist veneer. (...) Fascism embodied corporatism, in which political representation was based on trade and industry rather than on geography. In this, fascism revealed its roots in syndicalism, a form of socialism originating on the left."

"Fascism has no long pedigree of theory, like Socialism, Liberalism, Communism and other products of the intellectual laboratory. Fascism is real insurrection, — an Insurrection of feeling, — a mutiny of men against the conditions of the modern world."

"The line between fascism and Fabian socialism is very thin. Fabian socialism is the dream. Fascism is Fabian socialism plus the inevitable dictator."

"[Fascism is] a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti conservative nationalism. As such it is an ideology deeply bound up with modernization and modernity, one which has assumed a considerable variety of external forms to adapt itself to the particular historical and national context in which it appears, and has drawn a wide range of cultural and intellectual currents, both left and right, anti-modern and pro-modern, to articulate itself as a body of ideas, slogans, and doctrine. In the inter-war period it manifested itself primarily in the form of an elite-led "armed party" which attempted, mostly unsuccessfully, to generate a populist mass movement through a liturgical style of politics and a programme of radical policies which promised to overcome a threat posed by international socialism, to end the degeneration affecting the nation under liberalism, and to bring about a radical renewal of its social, political and cultural life as part of what was widely imagined to be the new era being inaugurated in Western civilization. The core mobilizing myth of fascism which conditions its ideology, propaganda, style of politics and actions is the vision of the nation's imminent rebirth from decadence."

"Fascist social welfare legislation compared favorably with the more advanced European nations and in some respect was more progressive."

"Where socialism nationalized property explicitly, fascism did so implicitly, by requiring owners to use their property in the ‘national interest’—that is, as the autocratic authority conceived it."

"What is Fascism? It is socialism emancipated from democracy."

"America made a god of unregulated anarchy in private enterprise. This, she falsely believed, was the only alternative to Socialism. Both in her success and in her failure, in her dizzy prosperity and in her cataclysmic depression, there is an instructive lesson. Throughout the boom she achieved, on a basis purely temporary, what organised planning and Corporate institutions can set on a permanent footing. The very energy of American libertarianism is the best argument for Fascist institutions."

"Standing by me and helping my work as newspaper man were the Fascisti. They were composed of revolutionary spirits who believed in intervention. They were youths—the students of the universities, the socialist syndicalists—destroying faith in Karl Marx by their ideals."

"My conception always was that Fascism must assume the characteristics of being anti-party. It was not to be tied to old or new schools of any kind. The name "Italian Fighting Fascisti" was lucky. It was most appropriate to a political action that had to face all the old parasites and programmes that had tried to deprave Italy. I felt that it was not only the anti-socialist battle we had to fight; this was only a battle on the way. ... It was therefore not sufficient to create—as some have said superficially—an anti-altar to the altar of socialism. It was necessary to imagine a wholly new political conception, adequate to the living reality of the twentieth century, overcoming at the same time the ideological worship of liberalism, the limited horizons of various spent and exhausted democracies, and finally the violently Utopian spirit of Bolshevism."

"Three-fourths of the Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state. And if I dare to introduce to Italy state capitalism or state socialism, which is the reverse side of the medal, I will have the necessary subjective and objective conditions to do it."

"A party governing a nation “totalitarianly" is a new departure in history. There are no points of reference nor of comparison. From beneath the ruins of liberal, socialist, and democratic doctrines, Fascism extracts those elements which are still vital. It preserves what may be described as "the acquired facts" of history; it rejects all else. That is to say, it rejects the idea of a doctrine suited to all times and to all people. Granted that the XIXth century was the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the XXth century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism, democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the " right ", a Fascist century. If the XIXth century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies individualism) we are free to believe that this is the "collective" century, and therefore the century of the State."

"When brought within the orbit of the State, Fascism recognizes the real needs which gave rise to socialism and trade unionism, giving them due weight in the guild or corporative system in which divergent interests are coordinated and harmonized in the unity of the State."

"Fascism recognizes the social utility of private property, which involves both a right and a duty. ... The National Fascist Party is in favour of a regime that encourages the growth of national wealth by spurring individual initiative and energy ... and it absolutely repudiates the motley, costly, and uneconomic machinery of state control, socialism, and municipalization."

"Despite the fact that only the Nazi included into the title of their party designation ‘National Socialist’, fascism generally presented itself as socialist."

"Spend most of the day reading fascisti leaflets. They certainly have turned the whole country into an army. From cradle to grave one is cast in the mould of fascismo and there can be no escape … It is certainly a socialist experiment in that it destroys individuality. It destroys liberty."

"Fascism in Italy was the work of the revolutionary Socialists, who, after opposing the war, were converted to its support as an extreme Radical movement, actually favourable to the cause of Socialism."

"The British ruling class were not altogether wrong in thinking that Fascism was on their side. It is a fact that any rich man, unless he is a Jew, has less to fear from Fascism than from either Communism or democratic Socialism. One ought never to forget this, for nearly the whole of German and Italian propaganda is designed to cover it up."

"Fascism, at any rate the German version, is a form of capitalism that borrows from Socialism just such features as will make it efficient for war purposes. Internally, Germany has a good deal in common with a Socialist state. Ownership has never been abolished, there are still capitalists and workers, and — this is the important point, and the real reason why rich men all over the world tend to sympathize with Fascism — generally speaking the same people are capitalists and the same people workers as before the Nazi revolution. But at the same time the State, which is simply the Nazi Party, is in control of everything. It controls investment, raw materials, rates of interest, working hours, wages. The factory owner still owns his factory, but he is for practical purposes reduced to the status of a manager. Everyone is in effect a State employee, though the salaries vary very greatly. The mere efficiency of such a system, the elimination of waste and obstruction, is obvious. In seven years it has built up the most powerful war machine the world has ever seen. But the idea underlying Fascism is irreconcilably different from that which underlies Socialism. Socialism aims, ultimately, at a world-state of free and equal human beings. It takes the equality of human rights for granted. Nazism assumes just the opposite. The driving force behind the Nazi movement is the belief in human inequality, the superiority of Germans to all other races, the right of Germany to rule the world. Outside the German Reich it does not recognize any obligations."

"It will be seen that, as used, the word ‘Fascism’ is almost entirely meaningless. In conversation, of course, it is used even more wildly than in print. I have heard it applied to farmers, shopkeepers, Social Credit, corporal punishment, fox-hunting, bull-fighting, the 1922 Committee, the 1941 Committee, Kipling, Gandhi, Chiang Kai-Shek, homosexuality, Priestley's broadcasts, Youth Hostels, astrology, women, dogs and I do not know what else. Yet underneath all this mess there does lie a kind of buried meaning. To begin with, it is clear that there are very great differences, some of them easy to point out and not easy to explain away, between the régimes called Fascist and those called democratic. Secondly, if ‘Fascist’ means ‘in sympathy with Hitler’, some of the accusations I have listed above are obviously very much more justified than others. Thirdly, even the people who recklessly fling the word ‘Fascist’ in every direction attach at any rate an emotional significance to it. By ‘Fascism’ they mean, roughly speaking, something cruel, unscrupulous, arrogant, obscurantist, anti-liberal and anti-working-class. Except for the relatively small number of Fascist sympathizers, almost any English person would accept ‘bully’ as a synonym for ‘Fascist’. That is about as near to a definition as this much-abused word has come. But Fascism is also a political and economic system. Why, then, cannot we have a clear and generally accepted definition of it? Alas! we shall not get one — not yet, anyway. To say why would take too long, but basically it is because it is impossible to define Fascism satisfactorily without making admissions which neither the Fascists themselves, nor the Conservatives, nor Socialists of any colour, are willing to make. All one can do for the moment is to use the word with a certain amount of circumspection and not, as is usually done, degrade it to the level of a swearword."

"The word Fascism has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies "something not desirable". The words democracy, socialism, freedom, patriotic, realistic, justice have each of them several different meanings which cannot be reconciled with one another. In the case of a word like democracy, not only is there no agreed definition, but the attempt to make one is resisted from all sides. It is almost universally felt that when we call a country democratic we are praising it: consequently the defenders of every kind of regime claim that it is a democracy, and fear that they might have to stop using that word if it were tied down to any one meaning. Words of this kind are often used in a consciously dishonest way. That is, the person who uses them has his own private definition, but allows his hearer to think he means something quite different."

"Given the opportunity, Mussolini would have been glad as late as 1920-21 to take under his wing the Italian Communists, for whom he felt great affinities: greater, certainly, than for democratic socialists, liberals and conservatives. Genetically, Fascism issued from the 'Bolshevik' wing of Italian socialism, not from any conservative ideology or movement."

"Fascism was created by the nationalization of certain sectors of the revolutionary left, and the central role in its conceptual orientation was played by revolutionary syndicalists who embraced extreme nationalism. Revolutionary syndicalists, especially in Italy, were frequently intellectuals or theorists who had come out of the Marxist and Socialist party matrix but had struggled to transcend limitations or errors that they believed they found in orthodox Marxism."

"Bolshevism and Fascism were heresies of socialism."

"It is true that the welfare-statists are not socialists, that they never advocated or intended the socialization of private property, that they want to 'preserve' private property-with government control of its use and disposal. But that is the fundamental characteristic of fascism."

"Fascism grew out of the conservatism of the Social Democrats on the one hand and the narrow-mindedness and senility of the capitalists on the other hand. It did not embody those ideals that had been advocated by its predecessors in a practical way, but solely in an ideological way (and this was the only thing that mattered to the masses of people whose psychic structures were ridden with illusions). It included the most brutal political reaction, the same political reaction that had devastated human life and property in the middle Ages. It paid tribute to so-called native tradition in a mystical and brutal way, which had nothing to do with a genuine feeling for one’s native country and attachment to the soil. By calling itself’ socialist’ and ‘revolutionary’, it took over the unfulfilled functions of the socialists. By dominating industrial magnates, it took over capitalism. From now on, the achievement of ‘socialism’ was entrusted to an all-powerful fuhrer who had been sent by God. The powerlessness and helplessness of the masses of people gave impetus to this fuhrer ideology, which had been implanted in man’s structure by the authoritarian school and nourished by the church and compulsive family. The ‘salvation of the nation’ by an all-powerful fuhrer who had been sent by God was in complete accord with the intense desire of the masses for salvation. Incapable of conceiving of themselves as having a different nature, their subservient structure eagerly imbibed the idea of man’s immutability and of the ‘natural division of humanity into the few who lead and the many who are led’. Now the responsibility rested in the hands of a strong man. In fascism or wherever else it is encountered, this fascist fuhrer ideology rests upon the mystical hereditary idea of man’s immutable nature, upon the helplessness, craving for authority, and incapacity for freedom of the masses of people. Admitted that the formula, ‘Man requires leadership and discipline’, ‘authority and order’, can be justified in terms of man’s present anti-social structure, the attempt to eternalize this structure and to hold it to be immutable is reactionary. The fascist ideology had the best of intentions. Those who did not recognize this subjective honesty failed altogether to comprehend fascism and its attraction for the masses. Since the problem of the human structure was never brought up or discussed, let alone mastered, the idea of a non authoritarian, self-regulatory society was looked upon as chimerical and Utopian."

"Fascism began as a rejection of the idea that reason could be used to understand society and resulted, Sternhell argues, in the formation of a ‘new generation of intellectuals [which] rose violently against the rationalist individuals of liberal society’. These intellectuals absorbed the synthesised socialism and nationalism and thus created a new ideology, ‘a socialism without the proletariat’, which duly became fascism. This ideology Sternhell describes as being ‘a synthesis of organic nationalism and anti-Marxist socialism,…’"

"Fascism is used by the bourgeoisie when the latter consider itself no longer able to fight off the peril of a socialist revolution. Fascism is, therefore, organic to the logics of capitalism and represents a more authoritarian handling that bosses temporary use, when necessary, in order to maintain their rule."

"Fascism is a deformity of capitalism. It heightens the imperialist tendency towards domination which is inherent in capitalism, and it safeguards the principle of private property. At the same time, fascism immeasurably strengthens the institutional racism already bred by capitalism, whether it be against Jews (as in Hitler’s case) or against African peoples (as in the ideology of Portugal’s Salazar and the leaders of South Africa). Fascism reverses the political gains of the bourgeois democratic system such as free elections, , parliaments; and it also extolls authoritarianism and the reactionary union of the church with the state. In Portugal and Spain, it was the Catholic church—in South Africa, it was the Dutch Reformed church."

"Like its progenitor, capitalism, fascism is totally opposed to socialism. Fascist Germany and Italy attacked both the other capitalist states and the Soviet Union, which was still the only in the world by 1939. The defeat of fascism was therefore a victory for socialism, and at the same time it preserved the other capitalist nations from having to take the historically retrograde step of fascism."

"Fascism was a monster born of capitalist parents. Fascism came as the end-product of centuries of capitalist bestiality, exploitation, domination, and racism—mainly exercised outside Europe. It is highly significant that many settlers and colonial officials displayed a leaning towards fascism. Apartheid in South Africa is nothing but fascism. It was gaining roots from the early period of white colonization in the seventeenth century, and particularly after the mining industry brought South Africa fully into the capitalist orbit in the nineteenth century. Another example of the fascist potential of colonialism was seen when France was overrun by Nazi Germany in 1940. The French fascists collaborated with Hitler to establish what was called the Vichy regime in France, and the French white settlers in Africa supported the Vichy regime. A more striking instance to the same effect was the fascist ideology developed by the white settlers in Algeria, who not only opposed independence for Algeria under Algerian rule, but they also strove to bring down the more progressive or liberal governments of metropolitan France."

"Marxists could be converted to national socialism, as indeed quite a number of them were, similarly, national socialism could sign treaties with Communist, exchange ambassadors, and coexist with the, if only temporarily. Nothing like this, however, applied to the Jews."

"[Fascist ideology was] a variety of socialism which, while rejecting Marxism, remained revolutionary. This form of socialism was also, by definition, anti-liberal and anti-bourgeois, and its opposition to historical materialism made it the natural ally of radical nationalism."

"Fascism presented itself not only as an alternative, but also as the heir to socialism."

"The movement in Germany is analogous mostly to the Italian. It is a mass movement, with its leaders employing a great deal of socialist demagogy. This is necessary for the creation of the mass movement. The genuine basis (for fascism) is the petty bourgeoisie. In Italy, it has a very large base — the petty bourgeoisie of the towns and cities, and the peasantry. In Germany, likewise, there is a large base for fascism."

"If there is one thing all Fascists and National Socialists agreed on, it was their hostility to capitalism."

"Fascism appears in the world precisely after the October Revolution; fascism appears in the world as a tool against Marxism-Leninism. Capitalist and imperialist countries created the conditions for the rise of fascism in the world; and the whole fascist campaign, since its first appearance in Europe, was based on anti-communism, on communists' slaughter and on the destruction of the Soviet Union."

"And in their common hostility to democratic parliamentary government, the Fascists and Communists often found themselves appealing to the same kinds of alienated people. A good many Fascists (beginning with Mussolini himself) came from the ranks of left-wing Marxism and syndicalism, and when the Fascist regime was overthrown in 1943-45 it was not hard for a certain number of ex-Blackshirts to swing to left-wing political extremism."

"Neither Stalinism nor Fascist totalitarianism would have been possible without the transmogrified Marxism, that infilled both."

"[Italian] Fascism was a variant of classical Marxism, a belief system that pressed some themes argued by both Marx and Engels until they found expression in the form of ‘national syndicalism’ that was to animate the first Fascism."

"Fascism's most direct ideological inspiration came from the collateral influence of Italy's most radical 'subversives' — the Marxists of revolutionary syndicalism."

"Fascism is a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultra-nationalism."

"The first Fascists were almost all Marxists—serious theorists who had long been identified with Italy’s intelligentsia of the Left."

"Fascism cannot be comprehensively understood without an understanding of Marxism."

"The initial press commentary in Moscow on the formation of the first Mussolini government was not overwhelmingly anti-Fascist, despite the Duce’s talk of a ‘revolutionary rivalry’ with Lenin. Fascism was sometimes perceived not inaccurately as more of a heresy from, rather than a moral challenge to, revolutionary Marxism."

"Fascism is merely a copy of bolshevism."

"In the form that it emerged at the turn of the century and developed in the 1920s and 1930s, the fascist ideology represented a synthesis of organic nationalism with the antimaterialist revision of Marxism."

"Fascism began as a revision of Marxism by Marxists,…"

"Social democracy is objectively the moderate wing of fascism.... These organisations (ie Fascism and social democracy) are not antipodes, they are twins."

"If the Fascist ideology cannot be described as a simple response to Marxism, its origins, on the other hand, were the direct result of very specific revision of Marxism. It was a revision of Marxism and not a variety of Marxism or a consequence of Marxism...It was the French and Italian Sorelians, the theoreticians of revolutionary syndicalism who made this new and original revision of Marxism, and precisely this was their contribution to the birth of the Fascist ideology."

"It is well known that Sorellian Syndicalism, out of which the thought and the political method of Fascism emerged—conceived itself the genuine interpretation of Marxist communism."

"Thus, by 1925, both Leninism and Fascism, variants of Marxism, had created political and economic systems that shared singular properties . . . Both sought order and disciple of entire populations in the service of an exclusivistic party and an ideology that found its origins in classical Marxism ... Both created a kind of ‘state capitalism,’ informed by a unitary party, and responsible to a ‘charismatic’ leader."

"The intellectual origins of Fascism share central tenets with the Non-Marxist Left."

"Where mass-mobilizing ‘revolutionary Marxists’ have come to power, and remained in power sufficiently long to create a viable political system, what they have generally succeeded in creating is a reasonable analogue of the Fascist state."

"Strasser and his associates had responded to the socialist appeal of the times, but ‘not as to the call of the proletarian class but of proletarian nations.’"

"As early as 1930, Fascist theoreticians had begun to speak of an internazionale fascista, a pan-fascist union of kindred have-not or proletarian, nations. By 1935, Fascist maintained that Fascism recognized that the ravages of war and depression in Europe could only be undone by international ‘antiplutocratic’ reconstruction and argued, as a consequence, that Fascism was to be both ‘patriotic and international at the same time.’"

"Michels, like Olivetti, conceived Italy’s proletarian nationalism to be revolutionary, indeed, Marxist in essence. More than that, Michels was prepared to identify national interests and national sentiments as factors of primary historical and socialist importance—a conviction that was to provide the vindication for our century’s first national socialism."

"In October and November 1937, Mussolini spoke of a ‘necessary alliance’ with Germany and Japan in anticipation of what he conceived an inevitable conflict between the ‘proletarian nations’ and the ‘sated’ industrial powers."

"Mussolini insisted that Fascism was the only form of ‘socialism’ appropriate to the ‘proletarian nations’ of the twentieth century."

"We are the proletarian people in respect to the rest of the world. Nationalism is our socialism. This established, nationalism is founded on the truth the Italy is morally and materially a proletarian nation."

"[I]f the League of Nations must be a solemn ‘swindle’ of the rich against the proletarian nations to fix forever the actual conditions of the world equilibrium, let’s look each other well in the eyes. I understand perfectly that arrived nations can establish these awards which ensure their opulence and their actual dominant position. But this is not idealism: this is profit and interest."

"Some of the similarities and parallels include: Frequent recognition by Hitler and various Nazi leaders (and also Mussolini) that their only revolutionary and ideological counterparts were to be found in the Soviet Union . . . [and the] espousal of the have-not, proletarian-nation theory, which Lenin adopted only after it had been introduce in Italy."

"The pamphlet, we hope, will be read widely by those who have attained to manhood and womanhood since 1914. ...YET TO MAKE THEIR CONTRIBUTION TO THE MARCH TOWARD FREEDOM AND EMANCIPATION OF THE WORKING CLASS ...The great battles were won before their day, and their young lives have been overshadowed by the Great War and its terrible aftermath. ...[T]he better conditions they enjoy were obtained as a result of action in a State with a democratic form of government, by trade unions, and other organisations which are not permitted to function in fascist countries. ...[T]he triumphs of fascism here as elsewhere would result in the scrapping of that great political and social structure upon which rests the material well-being and spiritual freedom of our people. It would mean a new inquisition where the persecuted and oppressed would be those who... sought to make available for all... standards... possible by intelligent action in an enlightened community."

"[T]he nineteenth century ended with the outbreak of War in 1914. That was a century in which human ingenuity excelled, and the coming of the big industries made possible... living and working conditions... beyond the reach of previous generations. ...[T]he working class attained to a new dignity as a result of collective efforts through trade unions, cooperative... [and] friendly societies, and... political action. The brutality which accompanied the mechanisation of industry, with its unbridled exploitation... gave rise to the movements which have now become accepted facts... [W]ith organisation and collective action... humanising working and living conditions became successful, and untold benefits accrued... [A]s a result... the worker reaped the reward of his increased , and won the full rights of citizenship..."

"[T]riumphs of fascism... would result in the scrapping of that great political and social structure upon which rests the material well-being and spiritual freedom of our people. ...[T]he persecuted and oppressed would be those who... sought... standards... [made] possible by intelligent action in an enlightened community."

"FASCISM MEANS THE SUPPRESSION OF ALL DEMOCRATIC MOVEMENTS."

"[W]e can, if we choose, preserve ourselves from the evils which have befallen the workers in Germany and Italy. They have lost the right to live their own lives, and are... pawns... of a decadent capitalism. ...[F]ascism is the enemy of the working class: it seeks to enslave us and our children."

"[[Progress|[P]rogress]] is possible only if we retain our right to think and our freedom to act."

"The instruments of working-class endeavour are the trade unions, the Labour Party, and the co-operative movement. They are the protection... against oppression, and... our only insurance against fascism, nazi-ism, and kindred terrors."

"This pamphlet... gives fair warning that... fascism... would destroy our democratic institutions, deprive us of our freedom, and reduce... standards of living. It would... so fetter the... people that... restoration of democratic institutions would be possible only by... a sea of blood."

"This freedom... these creative opportunities... this democracy... are our heritage, and we are their custodians. ...[E]ach... generation has made its contribution to raising human standards and human values. WE REFUSE TO BELIEVE THAT THE PEOPLE... WILL ALLOW IT ALL TO BE BURIED IN A FASCIST GRAVEYARD."

"It is to such men and women that the Labour Movement makes its appeal. , J, C. Little. January 7th. 1937."

"[O]ur purpose... is to expose a plot... aimed at your safety... comfort, and... liberties. We shall show how this plot would harm you—if... the conspirators succeed...—by... example of another country where the plotters have been successful. That country is Germany."

"The German trade union movement... had over eight million members in 1930. Now there is no trade union movement..."

""They can never do here what they did in Italy," said these German men and women... And then—it became too late..."

"Before the Nazis smashed it, the German trade union movement was the largest in the world, with the exception of the Russian unions."

"[T]he Christian Trade Unions were broken up and dissolved by the Nazis, just as arbitrarily and brutally as were the other unions."

"The fascists,... the servants of the big industrial employers, were out to smash anything which had the faintest flavour of trade unionism, and the 1 \frac{1}{4} million Christian trade unionists... organisations [were] broken up just as ruthlessly as... small unions..."

"[W]hatever the political attitude of a trade union—whether Socialist, non-party, Catholic, Conservative or Syndicalist—the fascists are out to destroy it if it bears the least trace of INDEPENDENT WORKING-CLASS EFFORT TO INFLUENCE WAGES, HOURS AND WORKING CONDITIONS."

"[T]he German trade union movement. ...In May, 1933, the fascists seized it in order to smash it. Now it exists no more..."

"Shall we not be wiser... by determining that our unions shall never be broken... by getting together NOW and acting... as vigilant watch-dogs to guard our organisations against the wreckers?"

"After the Nazis... seized power, they proceeded to destroy the German trade union movement. Everywhere, brownshirted bands of fascists entered the headquarters of the trade unions, seized the furniture, typewriters and cash. The machinery, presses, etc., of the labour papers were smashed..."

"The funds of the unions... were confiscated. Some leaders were killed, often after... revoltingly brutal torture, and others were thrown into prison or condemned to... the concentration camps... These... people... were not punished for any specific offence—they had violated no laws, they had committed no crime. Their only offence... to represent the interests of their fellow trade unionists, to maintain... standards of wages and conditions and to better them. They were not "Reds," for the most part... just... ordinary trade unionists. But they represented the... view of the workers, and... in the eyes of the fascists... [were] obedient flunkeys of the employers... [a] sufficient crime."

"[B]efore the Nazis destroyed them, [there] were the Betriebsräte, or FACTORY COUNCILS. The German Republic, by a law passed in 1920, established and recognised these... in all industrial concerns. These... were elected... by the workers by a FREE AND SECRET BALLOT... to represent their interests."

"[W]orkers' councils met independently—no employers... attended their meetings. The councils exercised a certain amount of control over working conditions... maintenance of the health of the workers, safety from accident and disablement... and also saw to it that there were no breaches by the employer of the agreements... regarding wages, hours, overtime..."

"Thus we see that, under the Republic... [t]he wage-earner did not feel that his wages, hours and working conditions could be changed... at the whim of the employer. He felt... to some extent, safeguarded, both by his trade union, on a national scale, and by his factory council in the... place of work."

"This is the function of trade unionism—to establish... decent conditions... and to preserve those... against... attempts to lower them. ...[T]o work towards an ever improving standard for the workers. ...The trade unions exist to help them get a larger share, and to produce under healthy, safe and decent conditions."

"But... workers' councils in Germany... exists no more. In its place... a mockery of the old councils which the fascists abolished. The German workers now have no protection—they are at the mercy of the employers. Their trade unions have gone, and in their place... the Arbeitsfront, the Labour Front... Their factory councils have gone, and in their place, the Nazis have set up the Vertrauensräte or "Confidence Councils.""

"Purely upon the surface, the present councils bear a faint resemblance to the former factory councils. ...The present councils... further the designs of the employers."

"[F]or the present councils, the candidates are not put forward by the unions... there are no unions. Nor... by the workers... The list... is drawn up by... THE EMPLOYER and THE NAZI LOCAL LABOUR CHIEF, a specially trusted... fascist..."

"[A] "council"... elected from a list... hand-picked by the employer and a fascist party lieutenant, cannot... represent the... workers. ...[T]he employer... puts up... names of workers... agreeable to himself... those "boss's pets" who could never get on... the old councils."

"[T]he former factory councils functioned... independently of the employer—he had no voice in their discussions, nor was he present at... meetings. Not so in the case of these "Confidence Councils"... of the fascists. ...THE EMPLOYER IS... CHAIRMAN OF THE "CONFIDENCE COUNCIL"!"

"[T]he employer is chairman of the council... he who convenes the meetings, leads the discussions... [I]n fascist Germany, the employer is... "leader" of the factory... a miniature Hitler... [H]e leads the workers... into the ditch of exploitation and poverty. ...[T]here are hundreds of thousands of German workers who see through this confidence trick, although Nazi tyranny prevents open exposure..."

"The old councils had the power to make independent decisions. They could take up individual cases of workers, with regard to wages, hours, unjust dismissals... [T]hey had the power of the unions behind them to enforce... decisions... But the... new councils... have no such power. They are merely "advisory bodies"... they can talk, but cannot enforce... And... the range of their discussion has been severely limited. ...Some of the council members are even spies of the fascist secret police ...to report on any member who dares voice any grievance of the workers."

"In the first elections held for the Confidence Councils, in 1934, the workers... voted overwhelmingly against the lists in their entirety. ... [T]he fascists ...in the 1935 elections ...permitted voting ...only for candidates in the list ...as before. As they had this time included a few names of candidates who enjoyed a certain measure of confidence among the workers, the voting was consequently not so obviously hostile ...but ...strongly against the lists. In 1936, the elections were "postponed"... [i.e.,] did not take place at all."

"Most people in Germany are of the opinion that there will be no more elections to the Nazi factory councils."

"[T]he Labour Front (Arbeitsfront)... has no similarity... with any... previous organisations of... workers. It is officially connected with the fascist government and... fascist party; It exerts no efforts to improve the lot of the workers. The workers have no control over it."

"After the trade unions were broken, their ample funds... stolen, were paid... in part, into the coffers of this dummy organisation."

"German trade unions were... "taken over " by the Labour Front. This means that, after their headquarters and funds had been seized, and many leaders and officials killed or imprisoned, the membership of the former trade unions was automatically transferred to the Labour Front, whether they liked it or not. ...[E]very former trade unionist is compelled to continue paying his contributions—but... to the Labour Front."

"The objects of the Labour Front, it is announced, are "educational." It has abandoned... defending the workers' interests. In the early days of German fascism... a few working-class people, unemployed and others, who really thought that National-Socialism... was something more than a name by means of which the fascists sought to win over some of the less intelligent workers. These young fascists were sincere... and did not at first realise... they had been the dupes of... unscrupulous political careerists, financed by the capitalists and banks."

"Among... British fascists one may... sometimes find young men and women... sincere... idealistic, and... shortsighted. Well, these young Nazis—workers, unemployed, or clerks, for the most part—were soon undeceived. It became evident that the main object of the Labour Front was to provide "eye-wash" for the workers while the bosses picked their pockets, and... to provide... jobs... for... minor bosses of the Nazi Party."

"The shock came for these... believers in... Hitler... when... [he] announced, in July 1933, "The revolution is ended. I shall deal ruthlessly with any so-called second revolution." ...Soon these young people found themselves kicked out of their jobs, expelled from the fascist organisations—except for a few... bribed with official jobs. ...[T]hat was the end of any attempt to make the Labour Front live up to its name."

"Dr. Ley...[the Labour Front's] chief, stated... 1933, in... Der Deutsche, official organ of the Labour Front, "it has always been clear that the trade unionist conception must be eradicated" ...[H]e proceeded ..."I have succeeded ...in rooting out from the organisation this trade unionist mode of thought." Thus the supreme leader of the Labour Front himself admits... this body fulfils none of the functions of a trade union. ...[I]ts main activity is the issuing of Nazi propaganda, besides which it aims at organising certain sports and leisure activities..."

"Even under the Hitler terror, with spies everywhere among the workers, and with starvation at every worker's elbow, the unconquerable of the working class emerges frequently at the expense of the Labour Front. Jests, whispered from man to man... related to the various Labour Front departments... "The Patriotism Department tells us to love our Fatherland but all we own of it now is what we have under our finger-nails," ...And, as for the Travel Department ..."My wife gets all the travelling she can stand now, going around all day trying to get a quarter-pound of margarine.""

"[T]his Labour Front is enormously rich, because membership is... compulsory. In December 1935, Dr. Ley said: "We hope and believe that no one will find work in Germany who is not a member of the Labour Front" and a German court has held that an employer is within his rights in dismissing a worker who refuses to join the Labour Front. ...[A]s the Labour Front includes in its membership shopkeepers, professional men and EMPLOYERS ...it has over 18 million members. Every one... pays his contributions... And what is done with... this money? There is no insurance to pay out... when the fascists smashed the trade unions they abolished... sickness and death benefits and other insurance schemes, although they didn't return the money which thousands of workers had contributed... Some... Labour Front money goes in propaganda, quite a lot... to maintain a horde of idle officials, but the bulk... is turned over to the fascist state... for armaments. It is... a thinly disguised... compulsory extra taxation."

"EMPLOYERS... belong to the Labour Front. This should destroy the last plea of the fascist propagandist that the Labour Front performs any function... comparable with... a trade union."

"Not only workers belong to the Labour Front... but... employers, company directors, managers, superintendents... [I]magine the Federation of British Industries, or any other employers' organisation, being allowed to affiliate with the Trades Union Congress! Capitalists are members of the Labour Front. ...[T]his would mean ...directors of our railway companies would become members of the executive committee of the ! Or that wealthy mine-owners would sit in high places with voice and vote at the conferences of the Miners' Federation... [T]hat is what the British Fascists mean when they talk about 100 per cent, trade unionism... the kind which kow-tows to the employer and hands him the keys of the office—and... !"

"[N]ot only are the big employers MEMBERS of the Labour Front, they are its LEADERS. In the Leipzig Agreement... issued in... 1935, defining the nature and status of the Labour Front... "either the chairman or vice-chairman of ALL district or special branches of the Labour Front must be an industrialist." An industrialist—a capitalist. And if... not an employer, then... a member of the Fascist Party appointed by Labour Front headquarters."

"[A]lthough... German fascists destroyed the workers' organisations, the trade unions, they did not apply the same methods to the EMPLOYERS' ORGANISATIONS. While the workers... are now nakedly exposed to attacks upon their wages, hours and conditions, with no organisation... to protect them, the Employers have their strong Organisation of Industrial Concerns. This... has preserved intact its funds from pre-Nazi days. The fascists... did not dare lay a finger on the funds or organisations of the big capitalists. And for very good reason: it was the secret money gifts of these big capitalists which helped the fascists to trick and terrorise their way to power. It is true that they made a bluff at "dissolving" the organisation of the German employers, in the earlier days... when they... needed to fool... their... followers who had been duped into a belief in their "socialist" promises They "dissolved" it one day—without touching its funds—and it reappeared the next day, under another name, and is still going strong!"

"We can see... the fascists... in Germany... have destroyed the workers' organisations, the trade unions, leaving the workers defenceless; while the employers are still strongly organised in a representative, active body. Thus the fascists have turned over the workers, unprotected and gagged, to the mercies of the employers. They... have acted as strike-breakers on a national scale.... betrayers of the common people, delivering them to their exploiters."

"[B]ehind the employers stands the fascist State, with... new laws... courts, police, secret police, storm-troopers, concentration camps. In fascist Germany, as in fascist Italy, the workers have been robbed of the right to strike... It is illegal—a crime—to strike in Germany or Italy, or to "incite" others to strike. If workers endeavour to express, in an organised manner, any protest against evil conditions, they can be transported to a concentration camp... for years."

"Fascist law binds the worker to the employer, just as the serf of the soil, in feudal days, was bound to serve his lord. The millowner, factory-owner, mine-owner, multiple shop proprietor, or other employer is given sole power... [T]he "Law to Regulate National Labour" (Gesetz zür Ordnung der nationalen Arbeit) of January 20th, 1934, Paragraph two... the man who ALONE has the right to make decisions in any concern is the EMPLOYER. He is called "the Leader () of his factory." The workers are his "followers.""

"And, supposing you, as a German worker, don't like the way the "leader" of your factory runs things, and you want to find a job elsewhere... [W]e see a reversion to the practices of the Middle Ages, when the serf was not allowed to leave the service of the feudal lord. All through the [labour] laws... in fascist Germany runs this increasing... RESTRICTION OF FREEDOM TO MOVE ABOUT. Agricultural labourers are prevented from coming to work in the towns, and town workers from going to the country. There exists a system of compulsory labour... [T]he workers' freedom of movement is limited by the introduction of the Workers' Passport (Arheitsbuch)... [for] all workers earning less than 8,000 marks (about £650) per year. ...[O]nly highly paid administrative posts in industry...[were] above this figure. Fascist Party officials... are exempt... as are government officials. The police... inspect these passports at any time. Unsatisfactory entries... by the employer... particularly... referring to... political opinions, or showing... a "discontented" worker—practically debar him from... employment. So... however poor the conditions, he cannot risk leaving..."

"[F]ascists or Nazis... deprived... workers of... open, independent action. Their unions have been destroyed as well as the working-class press. All... parties, except the Nazi, or fascist... have been forbidden. Thousands of working-class leaders and... trade unionists are in prison or concentration camps. Many... killed for... [being] active on behalf of the working class. ...[W]orkers are forbidden to organise and... express... discontent. Their factory councils have been abolished. Except for the courage... in their hearts, their secret will to... freedom, and... "underground" resistance, they are defenceless."

"Why have the fascists stripped the workers of their defence? ... THE WORKERS' ORGANISATIONS AND PRESS STOOD BETWEEN THE WORKERS AND THE EMPLOYERS, THEY WERE A WALL OF DEFENCE AGAINST WAGE-CUTS, LONGER HOURS, HARSHER WORKING RULES, WORSE CONDITIONS GENERALLY. So, said the employers, they had to go. And the employers hired the fascists to do the dirty work..."

"Nazis maintain a continual barrage of propaganda... to camouflage the facts. ...[A]ll the figures at our disposal come from OFFICIAL FASCIST SOURCES."

"German fascists claim... they have kept wages stable... Even with their power to doctor figures, the Nazis have not the face to claim that wages HAVE RISEN. But have they even remained on the pre-fascist level?"

"[D]istinguish between real... and nominal, or money, wages. We reckon real wages in accordance with their purchasing power. If... you can only buy half what you bought last week—because prices have gone up—your wages have... been cut in half."

"[I]f... deductions are made compulsorily from your wages... about which you have not been consulted... this amounts to a wage reduction... although... receiving the same sum."

"[T]he fascists in Germany have been rearming... Hitler and his pals are out for war... [T]o make war, they are increasing... armaments at break-neck speed. This means... more workers... employed in... armaments and munitions... [where] the few slight increases in wages have occurred... in one or two branches... But...looking into the wages of ALL... German workers... whether wages AS A WHOLE... And...prices—what those wages can buy. ...[T]he only stable factor is the MONEY WAGE, and even that has declined recently in some industries. Both the and compulsory and semi-compulsory deductions... introduced by the Nazis, have substantially reduced REAL WAGES."

"[L]ook... at the REDUCTIONS IN MONEY WAGES... under Nazi rule. Between 1929 and 1932 wages had been drastically reduced. But even so (using only Nazi figures) in the iron industry, the chemical industry and the building industry there have been slight reductions in money wages since 1935- Iron- workers' hourly wages were 92 pfennigs in 1935 and they fell to 91.3 in 1936. The 1935 average hourly wage of chemical workers was 82.5 in 1935—in 1936... 81.7 pfennigs. Building workers'... 84.7... per hour in 1935, and by 1936... 83.6. [T]he papermaking industry: skilled workers'... dropped from 71.2 in 1935 to 70.7 in 1936, and unskilled workers'... 59.6 to 57.6—a.... very nasty drop for... already less than... subsistence wage."

"[W]e again see a disparity between... arms... and other fields. The German Statistical Research Institute—the Nazis'... official institute, from whom we take... [all] figures... gives the daily average... 1935 as 7 hours per day. BUT... that average is made by adding up all the hours... in all industries... then dividing... by the number of workers. ...[W]e see... in the arms industry... eight, nine or... ten hours per day—while in... "consumption goods" (food, drink, clothing, smoking, furniture, etc. ...to make life human) ...only five or six hours. ...[Y]et there are millions ...who badly need food and clothing. ...[S]omething wrong somewhere!"

"Short time is on the increase in many industries... while short time (five or six hours per day, four or five days per week) is spreading there is no corresponding increase in hourly wages, and thus... workers... are earning less and less... But the Nazis boast their wages PER HOUR are unaltered, and thus, until you look into it, everything in Naziland is lovely."

"[T]he figures of state insurance... [are] very difficult to "cook." They show the percentages of the population earning various rates of wages in 1929 (pre-fascist) and 1935 (under Hitler). ...[T]here has been a considerable drift from the higher-wages ...into ...lower wages are earned. It's reckoned in weekly wages. ...[F]rom 1929 to 1935 (three years pre-fascist and three years of fascist rule), the percentage of the German people receiving HIGH WAGES HAS DECREASED, and... receiving LOWER WAGES... INCREASED. ...German workers now ... are earning less while working than they would have received in unemployed benefit in 1932, before the fascists came to power and severely slashed the unemployment assistance rates."

"[C]ompulsory deductions is a sore point with the German workers... one of the methods by which the fascists reduce wages without... appearing in... official figures."

"Here is a list of the compulsory deductions from German workers' wages... compulsory contributions to insurance, church taxes, rates, etc... 14.2% Payments to Labour Front and Nazi Public Assistance... 1.9% ayments to Party funds, air defences, etc... 1.6% Deductions for newspapers, radio in factory, Nazi Party journals, etc... 3.3% Payments to various state organisations : Sports Clubs, Ex-Service Men, etc... 1.0% Payments towards sundry other purposes : Nazi Party celebrations, etc... 1.3% Total 23.3%"

"23 per cent... is deducted from the wages... almost a quarter. ...[T]hese figures do not appear in the Nazi official wage statistics—they give... wages BEFORE... deductions..."

"The above figures were given officially at the last meeting of the treasury officials of the Labour Front. And they do NOT include the further deductions which are made each year for " Winter Help.""

"A worker who is no Nazi must... [pay] to keep a Nazi paper going. ...[T]his helps ...understand how the Nazi Press keeps its "marvellous circulation.""

"[W]orkers have no union, no protection, the employer is lord."

"A... Nazi paper, the Arbeitsmann, official organ of the " Labour Service," had a circulation of only 65,000 copies up to the spring of 1936. This did not leave enough profit for the officials... or for the Nazi treasury. Therefore, a "campaign" was launched... regular subscribers rapidly rose to 240,000. The Labour Service workers were compelled to subscribe... under threats of punishment, curtailment of home leave, punishment drill... Many were not permitted to go to their homes for the Whitsun holidays until they had signed... This is a taste of Nazi tactics. ...[T]hat is what the workers get if they allow the fascists to get into the saddle."

"REAL wages must be reckoned in accordance with what they will buy, with prices. If prices rise, and wages are stationary, it is the same thing as a wage-cut."

"According to the German government... Statistisches Reichsamt... the in Germany has risen by 5 \frac{1}{2} per cent... between... 1933 and... 1936. But... it...[is] higher, as concerns... workers, for this is an average... and includes... luxury products... workers could never buy. ...[F]ood has risen EIGHT per cent... clothing TWELVE per cent."

"The Arbeiter Correspondent, October 1936, an official German paper, admits the rise in food costs... "The general price level... has... during the last few months taken an upward course... From the greengrocer to the boarding-house proprietress, from the butcher to the milliner, all say they must charge more." The reason... Germany is making more guns and less clothes... importing more raw material for war industry and less food. And the cost... for... a huge army of fascist officials. Another reason... the high on ed foodstuffs."

"The German economic review Wirtschafi und Statistik ("Economics and Statistics") admits... consumption of meat is falling lower and lower. ...Germany is suffering from a famine in fats ...Even if a housewife can afford ...a quarter-pound of —about twice as dear as in England—she may have to wait ...for hours outside a shop . ...The reason? Butter used to be imported from Denmark. Now the fascists are using that money to import materials for ...munitions. ...And the system introduced ...1937 is the most recent measure imposed by the Nazis."

"[S]hortage of fats, rising food prices and the decline in real wages and in housing must adversely affect... health... Let British... mothers note how the fascist rule has affected the health of the children... from the "German Statistical Yearbook " of 1935 ...prevalence of and among the children... mortality ...had risen 50 per cent, in ...three years ...and from measles 77.4 per cent."

"[S]econd only to Hitler—double-chinned, fat-bellied General Goering... told the Germans to use more jam instead of butter."

"[F]igures issued by Dr. Vogler, official head of the Building Industry in Germany. First, comparing 1935 with 1928, he finds that only 87 per cent, as much building work is now taking place, and only 73 per cent, as much allotted to building. ...WHAT KIND of building is being done now, as compared with the earlier year. ...[T]wo classes of building have declined—housing and industrial... while one class has gone up—"." In 1928, 36 per cent... was for housing—in 1935... 17 per cent... Fascism means slums and overcrowding! Industrial ...factories, textile mills, etc.—in 1928 ...33 per cent ...in 1935 ...only 15 per cent.... Fascism means industrial decline. But "public works" leapt from 31 per cent... in 1928 to 68 per cent... in 1935. These " public works" are NOT schools, s and libraries—it's easier to burn books than build libraries—but barracks, aerodromes and fortifications. Fascism means, not homes for workers... but places for them to fight and die in."

"The production of private motor cars and champagne has increased enormously since the fascists came to power and installed their thousands of fat, easy-living officials in cushy jobs—for which the workers... pay."

"But... hear the British Blackshirts on the street corner boasting of how the German fascists have "reduced" unemployment! ...[T]he supreme achievement of fascism, according to them. It is strange, therefore... wages have gone down, fewer houses are being built, and conditions have worsened generally."

"[I]mprovement is not BECAUSE of Nazi rule—unemployment had begun to decrease BEFORE the Nazis came in, owing to certain economic causes, and would have continued—PROBABLY AT A GREATER RATE—had they not come to power."

"The world-wide trade depression was... beginning to lift before the Nazis came to power. Between August and December 1932 (under the Republic), 121,000 more people found work. Then Hitler came to power. The process continued and he grabbed the credit."

"[T]he main present cause of re-employment is the tremendous expansion of the Nazi armaments industry. Thousands more... making guns—but thousands... put on part-time... making other goods. The Nazis do not mention this."

"Another method of "solving" unemployment, under the Nazis, is... "land-helpers" ...115,000 ...young men and women, aged ...16 to 25, city-bred ...bound by the State in contract to farmers to work ...for ...bed and board and a couple of pence ...The contracts last six months. No young worker ...can choose the part of the country to which he or she is sent. Conditions on some farms are frightful. And it is virtually slave labour, for, if one of them ...runs away he forfeits ...unemployment benefit. Many workingclass mothers are terrified when their daughters are sent away ...because of the dangers to morals ..."

"In May 1935 COMPULSORY LABOUR for both sexes was introduced. ...[i]t was estimated that between 200,000 and 250,000 young people had registered for "Voluntary Labour Service" ...Once ...on their register, the Nazis passed this law transforming "voluntary labour"—meaning ...forced only by hunger and social pressure to register—into compulsory labour ...Since then they have published no figures."

"The great increase in the ... allows for several hundred thousand...men coming off the unemployment register... enabling the fascists... magnificent achievement in "reducing unemployment." And... there are thousands of workers in the punishment camps because they... [were] loyal to their trade unions or political parties. The withdrawing of young people under 25 and of women—"woman's place is in the kitchen!"... also... freeing the unemployment register of thousands... what has become... these... is... conjecture. For many... women there were no kitchens to go into."

"[T]he fascists have... substantially reduced the rates of unemployment relief and... deprived thousands of the right to that relief, but... also made it much more difficult to secure relief and remain on the register. The worker's contribution is heavy, amounting to 3 per cent, of his full wages... twice what it was in 1928, and the... time which must elapse after loss of employment has been lengthened... The Nazis are working in a direction... contrary to... Britain, where agricultural workers are now being admitted to unemployment relief. ...[T]he fascists in Germany have excluded agricultural workers, as well as workers in forestry and fisheries, formerly eligible... By all these means they have manipulated their register to make it appear that they have begun to "solve" the problem of unemployment."

"[Y]ou will hear British fascists quoting figures, referring to Germany or Italy, of the International Labour Office of the League of Nations, as though... arrived at by an independent agency. They do not tell you that ...[i]t merely ACCEPTS THE FIGURES SUPPLIED IT BY THE VARIOUS GOVERNMENTS, INCLUDING THE FASCIST GOVERNMENTS. It has no machinery for testing them... Thus, I.L.O. figures, regarding Germany, are the German Nazi government's own figures..."

"Last September (1936), 300 men on public assistance in the town of Breslau were ordered.... to report at the railway station.... They were not told where they were being sent, nor for how long. They were taken to Koenigsberg, in East Prussia... They were segregated in a camp, their letters were all censored, they worked under military discipline and received nothing beyond bed and board for full-time work. Such cases occur frequently."

"there is in Germany what is called the "underground movement," the maintenance in secret of working-class party organisations, and even trade union bodies. Handbills are thrust under the doors of working-class dwellings, overnight placards — secretly printed — are pasted on the walls, and appeals are chalked on walls. ...A working-class movement such as that in Germany—which... produced men like André", who was recently executed, the writer, , and the indomitable Thaelmann and Mierendorff, among others, who have been in prison, without trial, for years — can never finally be defeated, although this movement has received a severe set-back. But the struggle against fascism in Germany goes on. We can help that struggle by fighting fascism here in Britain."

"British fascists adopted uniforms similar to those of the German fascists... those of the German hooligan Black Guards who so brutally beat and tortured working people. They have added to the name... —the additional title of National-Socialist Party... and... are following the example of the German fascists... resentment against the Jews. ...[T]hey tell the unemployed, and others whose lot is unhappy, that the Jews are responsible. ...[T]hey seek to divert ...attention from ...true facts, just as did Hitler and his followers."

"[W]hat we have described stands also for conditions in Italy, and in certain other countries where fascism... has considerable power. It is to establish a similar tyranny that the Spanish "Nationalists," under General Franco, are seeking to overthrow the Spanish Government, which recognises the right of the workers to organise in trade unions and to endeavour to improve their conditions."

"[W]herever fascism makes its appearance, rearmament proceeds at a feverish rate, and the country is... fast driven on to war. The fascists cannot remedy poverty at home ...So their energies are turned OUTWARD ...towards war and conquest. Fascism leads directly to war."

"[S]uppression of the trade union movement in any country aids the war-makers, because the international trade union movement can be a tremendous factor in the prevention of war, and the suppression of trade unions in any one country means the loss of a vital link in the chain of the anti-war forces of labour."

"[F]ascism means... the death of trade unionism... the worsening of working conditions, and the restriction of the freedom of the workers. It means that all the years of effort and self-sacrifice which have been devoted to building up our trade union movement will be made fruitless by the plotting of people who—whether... knaves or well-meaning dupes—are... tools of those great interests who have always desired the destruction of trade unionism—high finance and capital."

"The British fascists... declare... they are on the side of the working people. Hitler and the German fascists said the same... The British fascists talk about "100 per cent, trade unionism," but... is the money-grabbing fake of the . The Italian and the German fascists all talked about being friends of trade unionism—before they came to power. Now there isn't a trade union left in either of those countries."

"The British fascists are compelled sometimes to give... a faint appearance of sympathy with the working man, because otherwise they would get no support... But their real feeling towards organised labour is evident in articles... in their journal, rankly abusing and libelling officials of the , for which they were ordered to pay considerable damages. The fascists will stop at no mean tactics to secure followers; they will even use the term "Socialist" to fool the workers into supporting them. Hitler and his men... called themselves "National-Socialists" — and thousands of Germans now miserably realise... what that was worth. Nothing of a Socialist nature has been attempted in Italy or Germany—the capitalists and banks there are stronger than ever... and... heartily support the fascists."

"[U]nless we put our fellow-workers, our friends and families, on their guard, the fascists might increase in strength. The time to fight this evil is NOW—we must not wait until it is too late, as did the German trade unions."

"In a trade union anti-fascist publication entitled Fascism, published by the — to which the great transport workers' unions of Britain and other countries are affiliated — a writer states as follows:"Between trade unionism and National-Socialism (fascism) no compromise is possible; under National-Socialist dictatorship there is no room for free workers' organisations. To-day, after three years of fascism in Germany, there is no more difference of opinion on this point, but when in 1932 the (German) unions had to decide whether or not to engage in open struggle for their existence, they hesitated and yielded, in the hope that some miracle would save them. Their yielding proved fatal.""

"WE CAN BEGIN RIGHT NOW TO COMBAT FASCISM. The first step is EDUCATION—we must tell the truth about fascism at every opportunity: at our branch meetings, on the job, in the pub or on our way to the football game—wherever we come together with other workers."

"We can see that others secure copies of this pamphlet, that our branch or Co-op Guild places an order for it."

"[O]ur best defence against fascism is to STRENGTHEN OUR OWN ORGANISATION. Let us work towards an increased membership for our trade unions, the Labour Party, the Co-operatives, and all working-class organisations ; and, above all, everywhere within these organisations let us preach vigilance, VIGILANCE, VIGILANCE."

"We must be vigilant, for the conspirators would destroy all that we have built up, and make of our country, a barracks, a prison and a shambles."

"We can defeat fascism... if we are determined and if we spread the facts. And if we stand unitedly together, whatever our respective opinions or organisations, in this fight."

"YOU who have read this pamphlet — trade unionist, cooperator, or wife, son or daughter of trade unionist or cooperator — it is YOUR job to help this fight."

"[Y]ou will easily find other workers who are carrying on the anti-fascist agitation. JOIN IN WITH THEM. HELP THEM. DO YOUR BIT."

"We must not sleep, we who believe in liberty, for the jackals may creep upon us unawares. We must not see England, Scotland, Wales—countries which we love, although conditions are by no means perfect within them—turned into grim lands where those who labour must move at the crack of the whip, wielded by the fascist agents of the exploiters of labour."

"[[Liberty|[L]iberties]] are threatened. Let us hasten to defend them, here and now."

"If we do this we shall be able to banish the evil plague which has already fastened upon the German and Italian people, and make our country a country really of freedom, where the people may work out their own salvation, and control their own destinies."

"On 7 June 1934, at the notoriously violent (BUF) rally at West London’s Olympia stadium, a young anti-fascist seaman... climbing on the roof... and crawling along the girders... above BUF leader Sir Oswald Mosley, where he remained shouting anti-fascist slogans. ...Eyewitnesses described unprecedented political violence... by fascist thugs... armed with... weapons. ... ...made it his business to speak out, actions that would lead to one of the most extraordinary legal battles of the period. ...Mosley founded the BUF whose 'Blackshirts' were frequently involved in street violence. ...Marchbank ...took on the aristocratic fascist leader in the courts ...Marchbank was reported to have said: “We strongly object to... assembling in the guise of a military machine with the object of overthrowing by force the constitutional government of the country.” ...Mosley ...sued for slander. ...Following ...legal victories, the [Almagamated Engineering Union] AEU and NUR general secretaries wrote a joint introduction to an LRD pamphlet aimed at trade unionists, called Fascism – Fight It Now."

"The world today is faced with a dangerous manifestation of... fascism. ...[T]here is marked agreement as to its objective characteristics."

"[F]ascism means the seizure and control of the economic, social, political, and cultural life of the state by a small group. Free speech, free press, free worship, and public meetings are ruthlessly suppressed. Blind obedience to the leader is demanded... and the slightest wavering means death or imprisonment... Restrictive policies may be carried on against... [one's] entire family. A fascist regime is... militaristic and nationalistic."

"[T]here are many strong symptoms of fascism in our own democratic society. ...[T]his movement in the United States masquerades under other names ...but ...its peculiar characteristics are alarmingly evident."

"At my request, the Legislative Reference Service of the has prepared a study of Fascism in Action as an aid to the American citizen in protecting himself and his children against this most dangerous movement of modern times."

"[F]ascism... means... [e]very person must think and act at the command of a higher authority. Every school, church, home, and business is carefully controlled by the dominant party. The concentration camp or death await the citizen who offers opposition..."

"To many, fascism, particularly as it operated in Germany, seemed a model of order and efficiency. ...But the cost to the individual was heavy. The price was abolition of representative government, of individual liberty, of the rights of free speech, free assembly, free religion, a free press, and the principle of equality before the law."

"Fascist Germany and Japan used the boasted efficiency of fascism to build mighty war machines to crush the "inefficient" democracies, but... Democracy and efficiency, even military efficiency, are not incompatible, and the democracies decisively defeated the fascist powers..."

"[F]ascism is today an everpresent danger to our democracy. We must consider... how to recognize its manifestations but also... combat it."

"[T]he best means of fighting fascism is to recognize it, no matter under what title it masquerades. Not all "hate" organizations are necessarily fascist, but they have... trends toward such..."

"[P]ersistent and fearless exposure will kill pro-fascist organizations and discredit the individuals who have formed them. However... exposure may attract new adherents."

"$100,000,000 per year is donated to propaganda organizations, some of which show very definite fascist tendencies."

"Many... feel that all agreements between American firms and foreign firms should be made public. This would... expose attempts of foreign fascists to work through American sympathizers."

"[O]ur educational system offers an excellent weapon, provided that we offer its advantages to all... regardless of... economic status or... location."

"Education... must utilize home influences... newspapers... radio, and other... public communication."

"must be given increased emphasis."

"A prime necessity in the defeat of fascism is... ."

"The Nation must continue to offer livelihood and hope to its citizens or they may become the prey of any demagog who offers them the promise of something better which is in reality a fascist regime."

"There must be a positive policy and a definite program for raising the national income and distributing it equitably so that people can buy the products of our economy. Some... consider this one of the most essential means for the destruction of incipient fascism."

"The working class has more to fear from fascism than any other group."

"[O]ne of the early acts of every fascist regime is the abolition of all labor organization outside government control."

"[M]ake certain that the existing government operates honestly and efficiently."

"Democracy and efficiency are compatible, but insinuations that we must choose between democratic participation ...and efficient government often emanate from fascist sources."

"Dr. Douglas M. Kelley has recently written 22 Cells in Nuremberg, a study in psychiatric terms of the Nazi defendants in the . ...[H]e describes his discovery, upon returning to America... that the same prejudices expressed in the same terms... were current in this country. He said:We can find the same ideas thinly veiled in our public press today. Even worse, we find some of our top political men, members of our highest governing bodies, making statements which would do credit to Rosenberg, Hitler, or Goebbels. ...I am convinced that there is little in America today which could prevent the establishment of a Nazi-like state."

"[T]here are dangerous tendencies toward fascism in the United States today, the present study can perform an important function in instructing the reader in the recognition of these tendencies. To be forewarned is to be forearmed."

"It lies within our power to defend our chosen democratic way of life against the attack of fascism, and the study Fascism in Action is offered as a weapon in that defense."

"This study of Fascism in Action... its scope and method were to conform in general to the earlier study, Communism in Action (H. Doc. No. 754, 79th Cong., 2d sess.), prepared at the instance of Representative Everett Dirksen, of Illinois."

"This study is appropriate because of the many similarities between fascism and communism, some of which Representative , of Illinois, has recently listed as follows: 1. [W]iping out of all independent trade-unionism... [T]hose... permitted, exist only under the tolerance of the totalitarian state... as its servile adjuncts. 2. [[wikt:elimination#Noun|[E]limination]] of political parties except the ruling... Party. 3. [[wikt:subordination#Noun|[S]ubordination]] of all economic and social life to the strict control of the ruling, single-party bureaucracy. 4. [[Suppression|[S]uppression]] of individual initiative... liquidation of... free enterprise, and a tendency toward government control of supers. 5. [[wikt:abolition#Noun|[A]bolition]] of the right to freedom of speech, press, assembly, and religious worship. 6. [[wikt:diminution#Noun|[R]eduction]] of wages and... living standards. 7. [[Slavery|[S]lave labor]]... and... concentration camps. 8. [[wikt:abolition#Noun|[A]bolition]] of the right to trial by jury, , the right to independent defense counsel, and the innocence of the defendant until proven guilty. 9. [[wikt:glorify#English:_baseless_magnification|[G]lorification]] of a single Leader or or ... all-powerful and subject neither to criticism nor removal through the ballot. 10. [U]tilization of... social demagogy—...[e.g.,] of race against race and class against class—the elimination of all opposition, and the concentration of power... dictatorship. 11. [[wikt:subordination#Noun|[S]ubordination]] of... life and... needs... to the... expanding military machine seeking world conquest. 12. ...Nation-wide espionage to which the entire population is subject. 13. [[wikt:sever#English:_legal_termination|[S]ever]]ance of social, cultural, and economic contact between the people of the totalitarian state and those of other countries, through... censorship, travel restrictions, etc. 14. [[wikt:disregard#Noun|[D]isregard]] for the rights of other nations and... treaties. 15. [M]aintenance and encouragement of s abroad. 16. [[wikt:diminution#Noun|[R]eduction]] of parliamentary bodies to... automatically approving all decisions of the one-party dictatorship and... omnipotent Leader."

"While communism is... atheistic and intolerant of religion as an "opiate for the people," fascism does not... set itself against religion... but... attacks specific religious groups and practices..."

"Communism frowns on private property, and nationalizes industries, banks, agricultural land, and all... property which may represent wealth. ...[F]ascism ...reprivatizes previously nationalized businesses, encourages s, and develops large private property holdings, especially in industry ...to simplify ...fascist control of the economy... [L]arge property holders... become members of the ruling elite."

"Communist agriculture tends to be state owned, operated, and directed, principally... collective farms, while fascist agriculture generally is built around an agriculture class, owning or leasing its land and producing according to a state program."

"[T]here is no fascist equivalent for the Communist program of (formerly the Third International), though the Axis alinement in the Second World War potentially had international aspects."

"Nowhere is the similarity of fascism and communism more clearly revealed than in their very close cooperation for aggression upon other states."

"Fascism... is... a philosophy and a way of life which requires... followers serve the state with an unwavering faith and... unquestioning obedience. It makes fanaticism a virtue and weaves ideological concepts about the doctrines of race supremacy, the leadership principle, rule by an elite class, government under a single political party, the acquisition of living space, a totalitarian state, and the use of force as an instrument of national policy."

"The roots of modern fascism, especially the German, and to a less degree the Italian, may be traced to nineteenth century thought. However, it is economically a contemporary manifestation of mercantilism; politically an for world conquest; and spiritually a quasi-religious cult with special symbols and ritual."

"In a narrow sense fascism is... the operation of the political, economic, and social institutions of the fascist state... [which] mobilizes all physical, social, and spiritual resources and activities... into a regimented whole. Primary emphasis is placed on power."

"In the following pages, when fascism means the movement in general or as a whole, it is spelled with a small "f"; when applied to Italy, it is spelled with a capital "F"."

"What... are the principles... that gave rise to fascism..?"

"All fascist thought starts from... [an] idea... that "a people" form a "natural community" which "becomes conscious of its solidarity and strives to form itself, to develop itself, to defend itself, to realize itself." The nation and state... become the vehicles by which a people reaches its goals."

"In theory... the and state are conceived as... inseparable... The state is a function of the people... It is the form in which the people attains to historical reality..."

"[T]he state is the most important power in all fascist thought and action. Everything must be subordinated to the state and... assist in promoting state ends... the... fascist program and world outlook (Weltanschauung)... [T]his reduces... to government by party leaders and small influential groups... as Junkers military officials, industrialists, and revolutionary juntas."

"[F]ascist philosophy regards the state as... in a conflict to achieve its ends. ...Hitler ...spoke to the workers of the Rheinmetall-Borsig plant ...December 10, 1940...We are involved in a conflict in which more than the victory of any one country or the other is at stake; it is rather a war of two opposing worlds."

"[F]ascism is a fighting philosophy... a power state seeking at all times to achieve the greatest possible physical might. ... Neither Mussolini nor Hitler was... inhibited in telling the world about the powerful military machines they were building. Even in peacetime they spoke of storm troopers, the battle of grain, and the labor front."

"[F]ascist leaders... use every instrument which will coerce people into obeying... propaganda and thought control... are... means of rationalizing acts of government... [and] devices for maximizing power."

"[T]he individual, his rights, privileges, freedom, and even existence itself are of secondary importance."

"Compare... the democratic concepts... All men are created equal... endowed by their Creator with... Inalienable rights... life, liberty... pursuit of happiness. To secure these rights governments are instituted... deriving... just powers from the consent of the governed. ...[A] Nation "conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men ore created equal." The state is not the master but the servant of the individual."

"In a speech... February 12, 1947, Senator Robert A. Taft summarized the democratic viewpoint...Liberty... means first, liberty of the Individual to choose his own occupation in life and to live and conduct his business as he sees fit so long as he does not thus interfere with the liberty of others; and second, the liberty of communities to govern themselves, to decide what the scope of their government activities shall be and how their children shall live and be educated. Equality means equal opportunity to get started in life, and equal justice under law before impartial s."

"Human life takes on great value only when it serves a state purpose. ...[T]he fascist citizen ...has a role to fill ...prescribed ...by the state. He is regimented... He must obey the injunctions of the state and its leaders... The state decides his living standards... He must submit to regulations, restrictions, and substitute diets... [of] the fascist controlled economy. Life consists of a multitude of duties and s... Failure to do one's part is... punishable by penalties designed to achieve obedience and conformity. ...[W]oe to him who criticizes or opposes the government or its representatives."

"[[Religion|[R]eligion]] does not escape regimentation. Because it causes the citizen to feel reverence for a Higher Power or Supreme Being above the state and... fuehrers; because it teaches faith, hope, charity, peace, humility before God but... defiance of earthly authorities when in conflict with Divine precepts; and because it preaches dignity of the individual... [it] becomes the object of attack."

"[I]n Nazi Germany... General Erich von Ludendorff9 exclaimed "I reject Christianity because it is international, and because, in cowardly fashion, it preaches Peace on Earth." Oswald Spengler... speaks of "Catholic Bolshevism more dangerous than the anti-Christian" and argues that "all communist systems in the West are in fact derived from Christian theological thought."10 Alfred Rosenberg felt that "both the Catholic Church and the Evangelical Confessional Church, as they exist at present, must vanish from the life of our people."11"

"[T]here are degrees of religious regimentation and sometimes a workable arrangement may be reached between... Church and state as... in Italy, Japan, and Spain. But... primary consideration is the state and... [permitted] religious freedom... is determined by the state and its leaders."

"Professor ... [i]n 1868... wrote, "A state is unable to commit any crime." This... paraphrased..l.l doctrines of Johann Gottlieb Fichte (1762-1814)... who said:in relations with other States neither law nor right exists, except the right of the strongest. These relations place in the hands of the prince responsible to Fate the divine right of the Majesty of Destiny and of the Government of the world."

"During the sixteenth century, Niccolo Machiavelli... in... The Prince (1513): "The Prince must know how to do wrong." This idea the fascist state joins with the thought that political frontiers are... power-political situations... a temporary front line held... during the lull between wars.14 Nations... must grow or wither, expand or decline, but... cannot stand still.15 The struggle for... space and power is unavoidable and everlasting. ...[T]he state and ...leader must do everything, regardless of... [ethics], which... promote... interests of his State. The leader "must not fear to kill nor to bear the brand of infamy."16 Treaties which stand in the way... must be regarded as "scraps of paper"... falsehood and deceit are... instruments of international politics."

"How thoroughly these principles were applied by Hitler... he... with only apparent inconsistency, could say in 1935... "National Socialism has no aggressive intentions against any European nation";17 in 1936, "we have no territorial demands to make in Europe"18 (shortly thereafter to foment the international crisis over the Sudeten lands of ); in 1938, "we do not want any Czechs"19 (annexation shortly thereafter); in January 1939, "in these weeks we are celebrating the fifth anniversary of the conclusion of the nonaggression pact with Poland. Between them and us peace and understanding shall reign"20 (unannounced invasion came 8 months later); in September 1938, "we have called upon the constructive elements in all countries to fight in common against "21 (to be followed in 1939, by a nonaggression pact hailed as a "triumph for common sense").22"

"The economic ideal of fascism... is economic autarchy. No imports, keep out the foreigner, substitutes (Ersatz), expansion by conquest, colonization, amalgamation, barter arrangements, agreements... are... favored... The era of free world trade and individualism is regarded as past. The future, they say, belongs to the giant totalitarian fortress economy."

"Such ideas go back hundreds of years to... seventeenth and eighteenth century English mercantilists... Philipp Hoernigh... (Austria a Ruler of the World If It Wills It)... Kameralists in Prussia... to Colbert and other mercantilists in France, Italy, and Spain."

"Friedrich List... is frequently held... most responsible for popularizing modern fascist or totalitarian economics. Returning from the United States where he had come under the influence of the... nationalism of Henry Clay and the protectionism of Alexander Hamilton, List in 1842, published The National System of Political Economy in which he insisted that Germany needed complete and economic isolationism coupled with expansion over... the North and Baltic Seas to the Black Sea and the Adriatic."

"When List's ideas... joined... geopolitical teachings of Haushofer... [their] program... called for a greater German Reich... [concentrating] all strategic technological skills and productivity. All other European states were to be colonies providing s, and when... [needed,] low-paid labor.26 ...Ernst Hasse spoke ...1905 of filling Germany's ...heavy and dirty work by "our condemning alien European stocks, the Poles, Czechs, Jews, Italians ...to these helot's occupations."27"

"[A]reas beyond fascist political dominance... for international economic relationships is... . It is waged in times of peace, as well as during... hostilities, only in less violent form."

"The economy... is one of mercantilism, economic autarchy, corporate aggrandizement coupled with colonialism and imperialism, a self-sufficient area thoroughly organized and controlled, continuously waging ."

"The economic doctrines of fascism... run... counter to democratic principles. Basic freedoms... as freedom of occupation, free competitive markets, free international flow of goods, services and capital, and free private enterprise... are... greatly restricted or eliminated."

"[F]ascism... is deeply rooted in ancient ideas and institutions. Politically, it has drawn generously upon the theories of absolutism, the supreme right of kings, dictatorship and tyranny, ideas older than the ancient Pharaohs, Nebuchadnezzar, Alexander the Great, and Caesar."

"[F]ascism reverts to a mercantilism, the supposed destruction of which, by Adam Smith in... Wealth of Nations... is often considered... the beginning of scientific economics."

"[F]ascism is an effort to turn back the spread of Christian concepts of the brotherhood of man — against all liberal, humanitarian ideas which have pioneered the emancipation of the underprivileged, racially, culturally, and socially."

"In subsequent chapters we shall see how it actually worked out..."

"Fascism in Action: Documented Study and Analysis of Fascism in Europe. House Document 401, 80th Congress, ist Session, 1947. 206 p. 45¢ 80-1:H, Doc. 401. The tenets of fascist totalitarianism as they affect politics, economics, and the life of the individual. Illustrated by frequent references to original sources."