The Rise of Fascism

Bauerkamper and Rossolinski-Liebe 2017

• Arguing fascism is inherently transnational in nature (hoping to unify Europe under itself), merely rooted in national communities, with specific characteristics depending on what comunitiy it is.

• Initially Mussolini’s Italy spreads support to other groups - e.g. BUF through their propoganda / spreading institution Faci Italiani all’Estero.

  • Though this is competed with by the German model, with distinct competition until 1933 when the Germans become dominant - e.g. demonstrated by the BUF becoming Union of Fascists and National Socialists in 1936.

  • E.g. Italian’s abandonment of Austrian independence due to the invasion by the Germans.

• Significant visions of ‘European’ integrity used by the Germans - e.g. defending the ‘fortress’ of Europe against Bolshevism.

  • This view fell apart though - eg German Supremacy not alligning with independence movements - e.g. Hitler using some collaboration with fascist groups until invasion, at which point moving away.

• General idea that fascism has an uneasy collaboration with each other - inherent clashing together.

• As one example of collaboration - the importance of corporatism as an economic system that spreads from Italy to the BUF etc.

Y fine

To do

Generally go back and try and find some numbers or evidence to assist the arguments that people make. Probably do this in early Easter?

Paxton, Comparisons and Definitions 2010

• Comparative study in fascism given almost every European nation (and some outside Europe) engaged in fascist movements.

• Understanding Fascism as a ‘political behaviour’ characterised by a variety of things. Note: Under the Cultural Turn.

• Accepting Nazism as a form of fascism despite the objections of various Germans, given the friendship of the Duce and Hitler.

  • Though differences (e.g. Racism) less than initially seem - colonial laws on race in Italy.

• Arguing the conditions of Europe were significant to this (new democracies, establishment of Socialism and Liberalism etc).

• Arguing thaat violence was more of a thing before Italian fascism and then after German.

• Various prerunning peices of historiography - e.g. that Germany had a Sonderweg (different run of development). Long-term discussions fall to inevitability therefore we must do short term ones.

• In Italy and Germany it was the reducing element of choice in politics (no other non-socialist option) because of the popularity of the fascist options - e.g. Germany 37% of the vote in 1932)

  • Various reasons for this, both the practical condition of the socieities and the position of authoritarian conservative ‘bulwarks’ against fascism.

• The most resilient obstacle to fascist recruitment is other, existing socio-cultural attachments.

• Other conditions to understand the power of fascism is needed: e.g. civil society - knowing that fascist rule should be seen also as unending negotitaion.

  • The limits on this in occupied populations, as competing sites of power were not existant is important for understanding radicalisation under the Nazis.

• The failure of modern movements as a result of compartaively little in the way of ‘crisis’. Little to support fascism from the ground up, compared to the top down.

Eagleton, What is Fascism, 1976

• Traditional Marxist view, that fascism is the ‘ultimate form’ of capitalism.

• Aside from this, though, same view that Bourgeoise class wants to had power to someone who has similar interests.

• Blames war for worker disorganisation so the left fails to stop this, and the power comes from the threatened petty borgeoise.

• Forwards the bastardisation of development theory, that this was a system where the German bourgeois were unable to produce their own ideology, and so the vaccum was open for fascism.

• Protectionism forces expansion for capital movement outwrads.

• Significant autonomy of ideology away from the ideas of Neumann that this is a contested site.

• Blaming the flawed unstanding of ‘social fascists’ of the Soviet Union.

Eatwell, On Defining the ‘Fascist Minimum’, 1996

• pointing out the chicken and egg problem of Concept and Theory when looking at practice and ideology - which do you pick as examples.

• Argues for the ideology of fascism to be considered more to understand fascism on a deeper level and why different movements differ etc.

• Looking at creating a new ‘fascist minimum’ based on the new cultural politics.

• First Sternhall which emphasised the creation as a mix of Marxism mixed in with Social Darwinism pushed by political myths. This was a focus on intellectual development of culture rather than politics.

  • This as being too intellectual and not rationalising a transfer from cultural to practical after WW1.

  • Also failing to understand the deep syntheisations of Fascism - as a collaaborative interpretatino of various ideas and movemnets.

• on Payne which emphasises the 3 points of Fascism. This as being negations, ideologies of nationalism etc, and style in terms of mass movements and symbolism.

  • Issues is that is too basic rather than inside things and focusing on the interwar period.

• Griffin who focused on palingenetic populist ultra-nationalism.

  • too based on myth, as something which was more propoganda than uniquely based as part of ideology.

• Presents 4 point ideology.

  • Nationalism

  • Holism (collective over the individual)

  • Radicalism

  • The Third Way.

Griffin, God’s Counterfeiters? 2004

• Using the ‘triad’ of Totalitarianism, Religion, and Fascism as a way of understanding the Extreme Right through different axis.

• On Totalitarianism

  • Demonstrating the difficulties in defining this term in ‘functionalist’ terms (how far did it totalise power) or ‘intentionalist’ (how far did it intend to do this).

  • Coming earlier from Brezezinski who noted the religious element of totalitarianism - the mythic elements of it.

  • Important theorists from Tormey that denote the relationship of ‘weak’ and ‘strong’ forms of totalitarianism, where integreation was either real or perfunctory.

• On Nazism

  • seeing this as part of the ‘New Consensus’ which sees Nazism as constructive rather than merely oppositional.

• On Political Religion

  • Questions over whether this is an instrumental view of something like religion, or a real alternative to organised religion.

• Combining these, showing the views of Brezinzky that totalitarianism can be delineated from authoriatarianism with the linking of political religion in with authoritarian schools of thought.

  • Less accepted in Fascism - where people see this as an ideology in many cases rather than a religion - less ‘absurd’.

  • Seeing the focus on the ‘holistic’ nation as part of this, as an inferior religion.

  • This is despite Goebbels who wrote about the focus on ‘questions of existence’ that nazism had replaced.

Hedinger, Universal Fascism and its Global Legacy, 2013

• Essentially a history of fascist entanglement with Japan. Trying to remove euro-centric notions of fasicsm - West/East as well as East/West.

• Fascism as an internationalised Italian idea, and created by important contextual events in Asia.

  • E.g. Manchurian Incident - fighting in China led to them having to pull out of the League of Nations - Fascism as a response to isolation.

  • Japanese Fascism with a strong focus on modernisation, nationalism, and social justice.

• Failed with a coup that made fascism associated with violence and terror.

  • a change into pan-Asianists, somewhat as an alternative version of Nazi Arianism.

• Real intermixing - the Italians saw Japan as evidence of their strength, though Japan saw it as their own national destiny.

• Arguing this had long lasting implications - greater collaborative interests leading to significant economic borrowings from each side - e.g. Japanese models of occupation in Manchuria.

  • And of personal realtions - e.g. Japanese diplomat Matusoaka who helped author the Axis pact in 1940 meeting Italian compatriots when talking about fascism.

Levy, Fascism, National Socialism and Conservatives in Europe, 1914-1945 1993

• Arguing that fascism must be seen in the context of Europe and the age of mass democracy, with other instances sui generis ‘hybrid’ versions of fascism.

• The tension with all liberals, conservatives, and socialists was clear. Liberals as those who broke down moral strength, conservatives as a failed old guard, and socialists as a threat. Not agreeing with traditional assesments like Sternhall that the economy was socialist, instead being anti-rationalist in nature. Too intellectual.

• Admonishing the ideas of a ‘political religion’ as the movement was secular - missing the point.

• Discussing strong relations between Catholicism and Fascism, rather than the political lements of fascism. E.g. Conway’s demonstration of Catholic politices linking well and feeding followers to the fascists.

• Noting the incoherence between the ruralist and traditional rhetoric of fascism and the modernising and worker-centric reality of fascist movements.

• Tentatively suggesting that fascism came about when there were not logical collaboration between other groups - e.g. farmers and workers who could serve as a bulwark against them.

• Arguing the fascist movements in oter bits of Europe were frequenly utilised by conservatives rather than the other way around, then put down. Fascists later then used authoritarians rather than ‘competing’ visions of fascim - e.g. Hitler suggesting Romania persecute the Iron Guard.

  • This as evidence of ‘nation statism’ of Hitler - willing to engage in whatever was most useful for Germany.

• In nations with strong democratic backgrounds, the posiiton of breaking constitution could be damaging - e.g. Tories abandoning Mosley after he engages in violence. Also war as important - breaking down constitutional legality which facilitates the development of fascism again.

• The formation of the fascist movements was also importantly contingent on historical context - e.g. the creation of the Carlist in Spain due to the influence of the priests.

• Socialogical evidence indivating a solid basis for relationship of fascists and conservatives (the national basis, movement of religious groups, the breaking down of war)

• Arguing that the comparision between the Italians and Nazis is fruitful, their dual idea of biological racism as being self-created rather than cycnical - colonial roots.

• Limitation of Catholic morales on ability of fascism to become radicalised.

• Rationalising the nationalism of the Nazis (despite blood focus) through the argument of Neocleous which demonstrates that the blood was ascribed to the state as the way of protecting the Volk.

• Ultiamtely suggesting the reaction to warfare as the shared ‘cultural norm’ of all three - it was the idea of reactionary modernism from Neocleous - both mythologised and modern focus. Real focus within this on Great War.

This one NEEDS to be fixed

Durham, The Upward Path, 2004

• Deep similarities with other forms of fascism - obsession with elites hitting back at the middle class.

  • Pushing focus on immigration into the US as a form of attack from big business.

  • The issues with ‘Capital’ and forms of coersive government.

• Called for the development of rapid revolution alongside the focus of miscegenation and the fear of the Jews.

• Deeply white supremacy as a movement and concept.

• Politicising Religion - the serving of the ‘Life force’ beyond mortal conception. idea of politicising religion rather than the alternative

• Deep support for Hitler, expressed through their literature.

• Explicitly anti religious compared to National Socialism.

• Deeply expansionary across the world - envisioning each state will have their own societies and traditions. It was a global movement.

COUPLE OF EXAMPLES

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Vivarelli, Interpretations of the Origins of Fascism, 1991

• Suggesing fascism ‘speaks Italian’ and must be studied in situ for the creation of the movement.

• Using the work of Salvemini to demonstrate the violence that wa a key method of creating the movement for fascism - this as being something which ‘reduce(d)’ every other voice into silence.

  • He also talks baout the importance of Mussolini himself, as a cynical opportunist and shewd demagogue who could move you before things.

  • The acceptance of fascism from other elements of the political spectrum.

• Also the weakness of the liberal state, partially caused by the recourse to ptectionism of this. Economy doing poorly, and the liberal institutions seeming bad as a result of this.

• Also on the failure of the Socialists in becoming too extreme.

• Or of Trevor Roper who points out the importance of the antiliberal philosphy and the movement against tradition that characterised fascism.

  • The end of coherent opposition - the end of the ‘ancien regime’ leading to the resort to violence of these figures rather than constructive opposition.

• Noting the importance of the end of the war, but also the contingency that this opened up - it could have turned to democracy rather than anything else.

  • But this was exacerbated as a chance by the revolutionary character of Italian socialism compared to other versions.

Hobsbawm, Age of Extreme, 1994

• Argues the Great Depression was key for the creation of the fascist turn, in that it brought about the insecurity that was needed for ti to be created.

Radu, The Sacralised Politics of the Romanian Iron Guard, 2004

• This form of fascism as deeply connected to ideas of blood nationalism. They wanted to protect against foreign civilisation and thought that the nation was the sum of the dead and living Romanians.

  • This race as inherently Orthodoz in character because the seeds had been sown in the soil. The ‘cult of ancestors’ of the Romanian people the Dacians. This was their version of Aryanism.

• Very drawn to tradition, only those values which were from what used to be was useful.

• The Romanian state had been significant antisemetic anyway when the nation had been conquered by the Habsburgs and the Tsars Jews had moved in.

  • Economic challenges of the interwar period were blamed on them. The fascists saw this as the result of ‘race mixing’ etc rather than anything contingent.

  • The solution to problems was the violent eradication of minority elements through genocide.

• They took the idea of the Romanians being ‘Nordic’ from the Nazis when they started essentially following Nazism.

• The elite were to follow and lead the nation to supremacy. THe masses were simply not ready, the lower classes were ‘amorphous’ and ‘diffuse’. Only those biological specimins could join (see similarities to the SS)

  • Was to replace the collapsing aristocracy who were seen as having given over to ‘Freemasonry’ and ‘Judaism’

  • This is apart from the leader, who was to be non-selected. The leader was essential as the theocratic leader of the group. It was the culmination of ‘hundreds and thousands’ of years worth of teleological process.

• The religious elements of the movement were created partially in practicality the peasant structures of the country. Supported by parts of the Orthodox clergy who sought to estblish the ‘religious resurrection of the nation both through moral purification of man and by putting faith back in the place that it merits’

  • It was not a political movement but a religious one in some imaginations.

• The hope was to realise national unity as a reality through the ‘primacy of the political over the economic’.

  • They espoused anti-capitalist ideas but still lauded the ‘decorous bourgeoise’ which was the essential form of the nation.

  • This melded with their anti-democratic nature which was based on the dominance of the bourgeoise.

• Idealism of the countryside due to the hopes for middle class and for the ‘pure’ ethnicity.

• Limited support from the working class - limited propoganda at the start, then moved into more explicitly leftist ideals.

• Strong anti-communism as apart of this, though they were also more anti-ideology bar their own. Anti-communism as the most significant thought of the movement - fear of the ‘Jewish product’ of the USSR.

Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 2002

• Treating fascism as specifically not an ‘abstraction’ and based on practical creation of fascism. Fascism as a history rather than an ideology, to take it as a face value. Looking at differences in ideology and creaaiton.

• Blaming the Left as agroup that opposed the continuation of the states, which prompts right wing groups to lash out in undemocratic fashion, and conservative groups to rationalise this behaviour. Anger at having to defend democracy - e.g. in Hungary in 1919 the counter revolutionary groups having to hit back at socialist governments.

• The Economic considerations of the breakup of Hapsburg - protectionsim and war debts. Also the cretaion of ethnic states, which only served specific nationalities within states.

  • general questioning around europe of democracy and capitalism as systems themselves. fascism an international phenomena due to depression - the period of exporting ‘universal’ fascism.

• arguing that the foudnations of fascism in Socially darwin counterculture socialism which was also anti-rational as a whole. Sorel as founding this into fascism.

  • This was the foundation of Mussolini in the pre-wra element. reaction against reason in the language of Neiche.

• The nation at war as having proven the point of these nationalists liek Mussolini and Hitler. WHole nation no longer responsible to the electorate - the uniting as the model of the fascists, getting things done.

  • The idealisation of the war in the radicalised and violent soldiers. The creation of the ‘combatant’ myths. The Socialistm of the soldiers and of the producers.

  • The centrality of offers as leaders, merit through self-sacrifice to the nation.

• Italy as an example - the disaster of the failing due to the socialists that did not want war and the desire for greater unity thorugh production of the war effort.

• Arguing there were 2 legacies of the war - the decline in the belief of rational progress, and the formation of nationalisation.

  • This was also combined with a fear of the ethnic minorities who were seen as limiting the potential for the national state to mobilise.

• Removed the leading systems, especially autocracy as a singular figure to blame for the systems coming to power.

  • In this some democracies come to power (e.g. Germany underlined by the use of force) rather than a conservative belief in democracy.

• Fascism as a reaction to modernism - the use of the past as a tool to push into the future with their movement. A response to the ‘between’ nature of the state. Better to say this is not a response to this, but a way of using the anxieties of such a time to gain power.

  • But this as specific form of modernisation - it was economic rationalisation for war.

Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 2002 Case Studies

Austria - Heimwehr

• Right wing paramilitary forces grew in 1927 due to national strkes supported by the SPD part in control.

• Given financial and political support from Mussolini as part of Fascist internationale.

• 1930 won 6% of the vote, and argued they should be seen as fascist due to intention to overthrow the government. This is hypocritical - previously mentions the reliance on ideas as a reduction of Sternhall

• Attempted to increase the power of the group in 1931 through a coup, though the national group could not coalesce on policy, and only part were radical enough. Merged with the Austrian Nazis after the invasion in 1936.

Germany

• Freikorps had become semi-political rather than extraparliamentary as the Austrain version largely had, given the employment of them in the postwar era.

• Postwar refoundation of the DAP in 1919/20 - the workers party, and part of one of hundreds of groups. Meant to be reforming and stabilising the small man capitalism against the big time parasitic socialism.

• Essentially suggesting the failure of the war had been the problem of the Jewish minority in the state, popular in Bavaria after the Bavarian socialist republic.

  • Bavarian state refused to prosecute for fear of the communism.

• Message spread through economic crisis as the postwar government devalued the currency and printed money - escalated until total currency failure in 1923, though note that there was a failed nationalist revolution by the Freikorps in 1920.

  • Arguing this was essentially an impact of radicalising and polarising politics to the left and the right.

  • Revolutions were only stopped by the strength of the state which intervened to prevent revolution - e.g. the failure of the March on Berlin as the police fired on the paramilitary units.

Hungary

• Similar ideals in Hungary to Germany - e.g. the Treaty of Trianon in 1918 reducing military capacity and dismembering the empire.

• Horthy, an old admiral took power, and appointed a PM thta turned the nation into an oligarchy with unfree elections to keep the government in power. Deeply right wing government in all ways because of the formation of the state a sa counterrevolution from the right.

• Key opposition of Gombos who was also right-wing but more nationalistic, linked with hitler. Left the governmnet in 1923

  • Similar ideas - blaming the Jews for left wing revolution during war nad blamed them for weak currency. To be anti-semetic was to solve the economic issues (‘Jewish’ Capitalism).

  • Level of pragmatism - Middle Classes supported the prospect to profit from the de-Jewing of the economy.

• Diminishing electoral prospects limited the ability of the party - they moved into the authoritarian government in 1928. A conservative bulwark to the right, and minimal support from the middle class.

Romania

• Victor in the war, but still anger at the limitations on the state’s ability to do antisemitism and punish the Jews in the economy.

  • Visions of violence as an essential part of gaining redemption - it was needed to be violent to gain more redemtption.

• Formation of ‘new man’ and European integration - could fight and die in other fasit wars against broad idea of bolshevism writ large.

GO BACK OVER AND JUST SORT OUT THE LITTLE THINGS IN THIS BIT

Morgan, Fascism in Europe, 2002 Italy / France example

Italy

• This was more of a movement rather than a political party and access, it was to be a national rather than a portion of the state as a party is. It was a fasci a ‘fighting’ organisation that was willing to use Violence to acheive its aims.

• Designed to appeal to the ‘new’ constituency of the war.

  • And within this only particularly the old officer core who appreciated the heirarchical manner of the trench and saw this as a future model for the state, with the state and the elites being themselves.

    • But most soldiers and officers appealed to their own veterans organisation which were democratic in nature. This is where we may talk of Vivarelli’s contingency points.

      • It only truly began to appeal to the national community when they started employing violence and breaking up labour disputes - won the middle classes who feared revolution - and the lower classes who needed employment through fascist syndicates. This was in the crisis of 1919-20 where the representative government was paralysed by a lack of coalition as no group could command a majority.

      • It was a program of economic efficiency through minimising disruption and promoting private property, accepted by the middle classes.

  • Backed up through violence and combat

This is contrasted to reality in Germany where Attempted Fascist movements - e.g. the march on Berlin were stopped by the parliamentary government, who also used the army to stop violence from the Left.

France

• This was the Le Faiseau which split from a larger Action Francie led by Valois which was a group that pushed for corporatist economy and the dictatorship of the combatant. It was more mixed and separated from the already corporatist conservative movements.

  • This was a more ‘dynamic’ form of conservatism.

• Formed as a response to socialist majorities in 1924 (due to the land policies). But this was met in reality by 1926 centre right majorities which restored confidence in the state and currency, there was not enough crisis to do these things well.

• Most members were dual with the conservative movement. The difference was the myth of he nation at war, which justified the paramitiary idea. The issue was lack of funding due to anti-big business perspective.

Fascism as building myths off of war experience but not inherently that of combatants - the largest Veterans organisation in Italy was democratic in its style.

Fascism as most likely in places with minimal national unity, and so when war came opposition could be given to those who did not fall into war. Conservatism to the East, with authoritarian structures, meant the groups could not win as the Authoritarian limited, and the strength of democracy that prevented coups in the West. A ‘goldilox’ zone.

Payne, A history of fascism, 1995

Theories of Fascism

• Suggesting this is a complex system, produced by ‘historical, political, national, and cultural conditions’.

• Basis of social darwinism mixed with neoidealism, vitalism, and activism.

• National anguish as essential, especially with a facism role model that allowed people to emulate practices along with engaging in autochonous practice.

• No specific need for one thing, all interrelated and contingent.

• Economic failing over emphasised in secondray literature - the US employment rate same as Germany in the Weimar republic, it was the concept of this as due to foreign or domestic undesirable reasons - e.g. Jewry or war profiteering.

CHECK THIS ONE

Eco, Ur-Fascism, 1995

• Italian Fascism not being ‘totalitarian’ as it was weak in terms of ideology, (and reliance on the Church). mussolin as reverting to god.

• Attempting to come up with a list of implications that makes something fascist

  • Cult of primeval truth

  • Rejection of Modernism

  • Irrationalism

  • etc

Esposito, Fascism - Concepts and Theories, 2017

• Arguing the term fascism should be used when it is heuristic for understanding comparisons and understandings of various things.

• Engages in methodological empathy - the Italian state was trying to improve the racial whole of the state - it was to be an ‘anthropological revolution’ which was going to bring forward a new model of man according to the 1928 Foreign Affairs document.

• Arguing fascism is not a monotonal idea, but instead tehy have differing elements and understandings depending on what group and movement it is reffering to.

• First thesis as marxist and then moving into ideas of ‘totalitarianism’ with Neumann describing forces as totalising, and then developed under Gentile who argues that it was ‘pretending’ to be totalising.

• Eatwell as someone who focused on fascism as being dependent on ‘diachronic transformations’ - something that could change depending on the situation it manifested in.

• Italian fascism as being deeply violent - killing 300k in Ethiopia, and antisemetic - especially in the context of flagging popularity in 1935.

Passerini and Merjian, Gender, Historiography, and the Interpretations of Fascism, 2001

• Gender is an important frame for fasism, both because women were suboridinated, but also symbolically as hte feminine was appropriated in the construction of the dicttaor - the figure of the mother as a legitimising strategy of the leader.

• Mussolini portrayed as both male and female in many ways - as a crude understanding of gender as masculine or female motherhood rather than a continuum.

• The dictator was sacralised in his embrace of various gender creations.

• Mama Mussolini - the mother of the nation and yet the symbol of virulence.

Antiliff, Fascism and Modernity, 2002

• using art as a way into understanding the confusing relationship of the nazis and modernity - frmaing the ‘mythic past and a technological future’.

  • awkward relationship - e.g. the banning of Modern Art in 1934 though an explicit framing of Nazi developments in modernism - the autobaun.

  • Anti-rationalism as part of modernism.

• The anti rational national ideas of Nazism found power in modernism and its spiritualism, regenderataionism, primitivism, and avant-gardism'

• This as based on the Sorelian view of myths for fasicm - the inspiration and giving of power to the masses in the form of belief. Fascism as finding its footing in the ‘anti-materialist’ ideasa of Sorel.

  • The German countryside was the Sorelian myth. The ‘asthetic idea’ of the pseudoscientific and corporatist ideas of the Nazis

  • Replacing rational modernity for mythologised past.

• Mythic significance also given to the soldier and the leader, servents to a new cause - the leader as that of a religion.

Brustein, 1996

On Incentives and Disincentives:

• People joined the party when they saw it as a net benefit.

• As part of joining, you need to swear an oath of allegiance to Hitler directly, and to the party more broadly though freedom was given to each branch to do what what in the interest of that locale.

• For Civil Servants

  • significant incentive - 1930 hinted that Nazi civil service would only employ party members, though less rational than in Italy where people were directly given lands.

  • Related white-collar jobs, e.g. party speaker of which 6k did the training for by 1933 - strong employment prospects.

• For Working Class

  • SA as a real stronghold of working class employment - c60% perpetually unemployed.

• Note similar to other parties (e.g. SPD and KPD or Church had similar programmes)

On Social Networks

• Very significant incentive to joining - reinforcing mutual perceptions that this was the best option - e.g. Staubing 6 police officers join on the same day. Can be associated geographically - Lower Saxony has smaller famrs - we get social heterogeneity so people do not assocatiate and join together.

On Disincentives:

• Significant reasons not to join - e.g. cost of membership, or the persecution. Bavaria e.g. 1932 banned Nazi rallies and uniforms.

Proof - Civil Service numbers skyrocket after Hitler becomes chancellor and no longer is there risk.

Brustein, 1996,

• Suggesting Nazis come to power because they could convince more people than other could that they had the solution to the economic depression, and that they were appointed the head of the government because they were the largest party, not because of the failure of conservatives to think they could control.

On Middle Class Economic Reasons

Old Middle Class - e.g. artisans and famers

• Generally a group against finance, as smallholders had more frequent and more predatory relation to moneylenders.

• Significant struggle for small tenant farmers - lte 1920s, 25% population and only 8% of the income. Struggling due to a fall in price of agricultural product in 1925 - significant levels of remorgaging actions and houses in short-term predatory loans.

• Group struggling with liberalisation of trade policy which flooded the market with Polish produce in 1927, which reduces their incomes and access to credit given people doubt their capacity to make profit later down the line.

  • this also reduced their ability to continue the social basis of farming communities - the breaking up of farms due to indebtedness limits social cohesion of communities.

  • Benefit under the Weimar Government in the conservatives in 1931 is for large Eastern Junker owned property.

• Alternative parties had limited ability / messaging to support those that needed - Centre party advocating deflationary policy and the liberalisation of trading protections. the SPD voting for free trade, and rationalising the merging of other small farms with this being a point of capitalism.

• NSDAP supported private property and the moral necessity of farming for the health of the ntaion - 1926 votes against Communist bill appropriating land even for large owners aand in Mein Kampf pushing the importance of a robust farming sector. Policies against department stores who were limiting power of artisans. 1931 in their party newspaper.

  • 1930 agricultural policy pushes for an increase in credit availability for farmers with enforced lower interest rates aand impartible inheritances to restore the practices of generational farming for Aryans. Accept the existance of good and bad capitalism - giving power to those small owners who benefit from things.

On other places

• The German and the Italian leftist or socialist parties fail to do things well, they push against all forms of land ownership rather than parts of things. E.g. the KDP or the Italian socialists who push for the eradication of all private property, which is not popular if you perceive yourself as someone upwardly mobile.

  • This is the same with Luebbert who argues that the failure of fascism is when there is no coalition between farmers and artisans - Fasicts could win over these people.

Theory that post 1928 Hitler moves into a more pro-property, but that this is contested (importance of farming in Mein Kampf 1925)

Morgan 2002 Fascist Totalitarianism

Disucssing Totalitarianism in the terms and understandings of fascist themselves, rather than the cold war context that it is usually associated with because the term is difficult to recognise within itself.

• This understanding is tied to bringing the nation back to what the state should have been during the war - it was as Mussolini discussed in 1934 bringing Italians back ‘warlike attitudes’ - this justified the external power through internal organisation.

• Italians forming an ethical state - a government and party designed to fashion the mentality and inner selves of their citizens as well as their external ideas. In Germany the focus was on the Volk and the racial laws that would unify people through a shared ‘history and destiny’ - all of these ideas mobilising society for war as the basis of fascist totalitarianism.

  • Goal of internal understandings thta the people must be genuinely supportive of the state’s policies - sa Goebells wrote the state can be acceptedrather than must be accepted in 1933

  • In this respect the state must have been genuinely coersive and consentual in style. E.g. this wsa the 1939 Welfare campiagns - people were de facto required to contribute to the movement though there were attractive elements - people wanted welfare

• Though this organised spontaneity was chaotic:

  • Though Mussolini is Il Duce, there is massive individual power of individuals in the early 1920s, with this de facto being an atomised group rather than a regime he ran - only acheived in the late 1920s when Turtai centralises the PNF.

  • The Leadership was essential as a form of egalitarianism and anti-bourgeoise sentiment, given the leaders are regular parvenus rather thana elements of traditionalist power. The Charaisma of the individuals essential to forming the acolyte of the power.

• Power as deeply authoritarian - e.g. Il Duce controlling 7/14 ministries individually or Hitler not even holding council meetings after 1938. Though there was more threat to Mussolini - the cult of personality wasa mdae at least partially in the 1930s in comparison to the Pope as another popular figure in people’s rekoning.

  • Mussolini forming policy outcomes on small things and not having enough time to form actual policy changes. Hitler different - only broad strokes of policy and deeply contradictory - e.g. 1934 law giving managers power over their workers cut out by a later 1934 ruling that gives Ley the power to ensure it is the party who essentially micro manage worker controls.

  • Power either intentionalist that this is was a deliberate divide and rule system or that this was instead leaders having to work toward the fuhrer as a method of gaining personla power - meaning power is centralised in the figure of Hitler rather than shared between anyone.

• Italy often seen as less totalitarian because there were no dual mandates but instead the state was supreme over the party, though this is ‘one dimentional’ given the party was still essential within the state for fascising the state.

  • e.g. the Fascist state which gives the party the official control over appointing and dissolving governments Fascist Grand Council, taking over the real power of the state which was traditionally given over to the Monarch. Or the 1926 forming of intersyndicalist regional organisations to determine wage levels - economic policy.

  • Or taking over wellfare movements e.g. National After Work Agency in 1939 having 4m members

  • Party de facto rather than de jure.