"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."
Fascism

January 1, 1970

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Original Language: English