Talk:Fascism/Archive 14

Talk:Nazism/Revolutionary not Reactionary reasons for deleting the word "reactionary" from the Nazism article and putting the word "Revolutionary" back into this article.

Nazism is only revolution(Ary) in that way, that it is strugglingi it's way back to the Reaction(Ary) times way back in then in the days of Negro Slavery and bigotry. BAH! So it's both, only not changing social order forwards (Communism) but backwards to the hillbilly times. And has this anything to do with fascism in general? Knock it off, it's a sort of sub-sort racial Fascism! --OleMurder 10:36, 27 May 2005 (UTC) --

Fascism and Social Philosophy
This entire article needs to be rehauled. It is massive misinformation. Fascism has nothing to do with governmental forms! Fascism has nothing to do with governmental forms! Fascism is a policy of negative social reproduction. The first actual facist was Lycurgus, the ruler of Sparta at around 800 BC. "Politically" or nominally speaking, Lycurgus ran a timarchy, or militaristic governmental program. But he was fascist to the extent that he encouraged negative social reproduction; no expansion of educational systems, rigid modes of thinking about conduct, and the insulation of society against intellectuals and the arts. (anonymous, of course, 14 May 2005)


 * This has to be the most ridiculous statement I have ever read in my life. Have you read Ezra Pound's Cantos? Plato's Republic? Fascism is the true essence of melding art and society. It is the artist's ideal state. Fascism's only connection to Sparta is that it is anti-democratic and generally advocated some form of eugenics. However, the similarities are no more or less than the system of society proposed in Plato's Republic. Fascism is the political doctrine that the best should rule; it is pure aristocracy. Yet at the same time, fascism is rooted in the modern concept that value itself is subjective to a specific culture. What defines the most ideal ruler in Italy was not the same as in Japan.

I think someone's full of crap, i.e. from 1st paragraph, "Facism has nothin to do with governmental forms!" and 2nd para too, "Facism is the true essence of melding art and society." I don't think either of those claims can be supported.

I'll start with the first paragraph. The definition of Facism as applied to the modern world in which we all live does have something to do with governmental forms. That's how we think about it, that's how we describe it (in English at least), and I'm sure that the majority of the english speaking world would agree with this, not to mention educated folk,like political scientists. It's pretty clear cut and any amount of BS really doesn't change a commonly accepted definition like this one. Sure, we can get philosophical on what a definition is and what makes it true, or even how we recognize definitions based on consensus (since that is what I'm arguing with). It seems stupid to pick at a moot point like this.

On to the second paragraph. Mussolini sensored everybody who opposed him. His symbol was the fascis (or however you spell it). Fascis, fascist... See any similarity in those words? Well, mussolini DID censor those who opposed him. Any artist who decided to oppose Mussolini the facist would be censored. Do you think cesorship is conducive to art? I could waste my time arguing both my points further, but I realy don't think it's necesary in this case.

moved to talk

 * Fascism versus socialism

Fascism developed in opposition to socialism and communism.

While certain types of socialism may superficially appear to be similar to fascism, it should be noted that the two ideologies clash violently on many issues. The role of the state is an example: socialism considers the state to be merely a "tool of the people," sometimes calling it a "necessary evil," which exists to serve the interests of the people and to protect the common good. (Certain forms of libertarian socialism reject the state altogether.) Meanwhile, fascism holds the state to be an end in and of itself, which the people should obey and serve, rather than the other way around.

Fascism rejects the central tenets of Marxism, which are class struggle, and the need to replace capitalism with a society run by the working class in which the workers own the means of production.

A fascist government is usually characterized as "extreme right-wing," and a socialist government as "left-wing". The fascists themselves often rejected their categorization as right-wing, claiming to be a "third force". Fascists, like Marxists, were critical of the capitalist liberal democracies, but unlike the Marxists, their criticisms focused more on the liberal democratic aspects than the capitalism. Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Hayek, and others argue that the differences between fascism and totalitarian forms of socialism (see Stalinism) are more superficial than actual, since those self-proclaimed "socialist" governments did not live up to their claims of serving the people and respecting democratic principles. Many socialists and communists also reject those totalitarian governments, seeing them as fascism with a socialist mask. (See political spectrum for more on these ideas.)

Socialists and other critics of Arendt and Hayek maintain that there is no ideological overlap between Fascism and Marxism; they regard the two as utterly distinct. Since Marxism is the ideological basis of Communism, they argue that the comparisons drawn by Arendt and others are invalid.

Mussolini completely rejected the Marxist concept of class struggle or the Marxist thesis that the working class must expropriate the means of production.

It is also frequently noted that Fascist Italy did not nationalize any industries or capitalist entities. Rather, it established a corporatist structure influenced by the model for class relations put forward by the Catholic Church. Indeed, there is a lot of literature on the influence of Catholicism on fascism and the links between the clergy and fascist parties in Europe before and during World War II.


 * The above is inherantly POV, and is an unacceptable title for a section, as well as manner of discussing this volitile issue. Somebody needs to read The Road to Serfdom. Sam Spade 09:30, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Sam, The Road to Serfdom is not factual but a POV polemic. There's no reason for us to adhere to it. Everything you've removed is factual and generally agreed to by historians and consensus on wikipedia has supported the above statements or similar ones several times (see debates with WHEELER in the past). You should not remove it unless and until you can show that consensus has changed. AndyL 13:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Your POV that Hayek, Hannah Arendt, and other non-marxists possess a non-factual POV is not encyclopedic. Please read NPOV. Our job is to cite experts and their respective POV's, not express the POV of the majority of wikipedians in the narrative. Sam Spade 14:02, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Sam, you know better than to edit unilaterally and against consensus. Discuss on talk first and then edit, not the other way around. BTW, Arendt was of the opinion that fascism developed in opposition to socialism and communism and I doubt she'd disagree with anything in the section so please don't misrepresent her in an attempt to find justification for your ad hoc removal of an already agreed to section.AndyL 14:14, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Hayek, by the way, is a political theorist with a particular POV, not an "expert witness". Though you may be enamoured with him that doesn't make his phiolosophical tracts factual. Cite Hayek in the article by all means but don't remove things just because you think they contradict Hayek's interpretation. 14:17, 16 May 2005 (UTC)


 * It is unacceptable to present a disputed opinion as fact in the narrative. Why you think your postulated "concensus" (majority of wikipedians willing to fuss over this page is more like it) trumps NPOV is beyond me. As far as your premise "Sam, you know better than to edit unilaterally and against consensus", I would be shocked and disappointed if you actually believed that. Sam Spade 14:21, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Fascism like most isms developed to excuse a grab for power and not as something fuctionally different from socialism (of which it is ONE type). 4.250.198.126 14:34, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

"socialism considers" is NONSENSE. People consider. Socialism itself can include or exclude fascism based on how the term is defined. and the term is usefully defined differently in different contexts. 4.250.198.126 14:37, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

All talk of marxism belongs in THAT subsection. Confusing marxism and socialism is shameful. 4.250.198.126 14:39, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Using the limited tool of left versus right to talk about fascism is like using west east to discuss the north pole. The tool is pointless for the task and proves nothing 4.250.198.126 14:41, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Socialism does not require nationalization of anything. Control and power redistribution can be far more subtle. This subsection is hopelessly bad.4.250.198.126 14:45, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Oh, one more thing. Sam sees fit to bring up "The road to serfdom". The road to serfdom for Today's Americans to to replace their civil rights with consumer rights, to believe the rich will act in their interest more than their elected representatives, that property=sovereignty, that "ownership society" is anything but an attempt to replace owner of USA=citizens with owner of USA=the rich. 4.250.198.126 14:58, 16 May 2005 (UTC)

Piffle
It seems to me that in the last 24 hours or so, much solid, well-cited material has been removed and replaced by piffle. I would suggest reverting to the state of the article 24 hours ago, and moving on from there. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:32, May 17, 2005 (UTC)


 * I suggest you review Talk page, Wikiquette, etc... Sam Spade 10:51, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Sam, I am remarking on the state of an article, not on the conduct of the people who edited it. Or are you suggesting that "piffle" is an obscenity? -- Jmabel | Talk 05:20, May 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm suggesting that it is rude. Sam Spade 10:54, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Sam, that is ridiculous. False modesty like yours is a serious source of gridlock on discussion pages, so knock it off. --67.161.115.23 19:16, 6 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Hannah Arendt


You can also just look at Hannah Arendt or The_Origins_of_Totalitarianism. Didn't she invent the term "totalitarianism"? Sam Spade 22:55, 17 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes, I have read Hannah Arendt, extensively. I studied under Elisabeth Young-Bruehl (in fact, I was studying under her at the time Arendt died); Arendt was her advisor on her dissertation, and EY-B's biography of Arendt is pretty much the standard work on Arendt. I'm not sure if she invented the word "totalitarianism"&mdash;it might have been Karl Popper&mdash;but she certainly popularized its use. But what is your point? Arendt, to my knowledge, never argued that fascism is socialism. What she argued is that state communism and fascism converged on a phenomenon that she, Popper, and others called "totalitarianism". This was a similarity, even an identity, of practice, but certainly not of ideology. I'd more or less agree, with the proviso that only the more extreme states of either ideology strongly resemble one another. Which is to say, Stalin's Soviet Union was a lot more like Hitler's Germany than Tito's Yugoslavia was like Pinochet's Chile. (And, I'd add, the latter two were both quite unlike the former two.) -- Jmabel | Talk 05:32, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

Well then, were not disagreeing about any of that, it would seem. I would say that her catagorising State socialism and fascism under the same label (totalitarianism) is germane. Sam Spade 10:53, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Wait, state socialism or state communism? A few too many things are being thrown in the same bucket. Sweden, for example, was arguably state socialist for many years, but no one in their right mind would say it was totalitarian. And even fascism and state communism are only totalitarian in their extreme forms. Yugoslavia and Poland in the 1980s were not totalitarian states, but they were communist states. (By way of contrast, think of Stalin's USSR, or of North Korea today: you can't exactly imagine Solidarity or NSK there.) Neither were most of the various quasi-fascist Latin American dictatorships that Jeanne Kirkpatrick preferred to call "authoritarian". (Again, for contrast, think Nazi Germany: how long would the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo have lasted in Berlin in 1939?) These were still dictatorships, they were often arbitrary and sometimes cruel, but they were not totalitarian, any more than the regime of Napoleon III was totalitarian. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:33, May 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * Don't confuse socialism in the marxist sense and socialism in the European sense used nowadays. Sweden was never socialist in the marxist sense. True, it had and still has a lot of state intervention, but it never departed from the principle of capitalism (indeed, Sweden has many internationally reputed companies and is considered one of the most competetitive economies despite its huge taxation levels). Also, there is a lot of socialist parties in Europe, all of them only mildly left-wing (Spain and Portugal, for instance, have socialist governments right now).Luis rib 18:47, 24 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Poland and Yugoslavia remained authoritarian dictatorships until 1989, however. Solidarity thrived despite state repression, not because of a lack of it. And Yugoslavia only remained together while Tito could crack the whip. As soon as communism crumbled, the oppressed populations demanded independance, starting with Slovenia and Croatia. I would say that these countries were still totalitarian, but that their power had eroded, which is why they seem to us as authoritarian. Luis rib 18:47, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Thoughtful comments, I second your desire for clarity and precision. Sam Spade 21:28, 18 May 2005 (UTC)

Dispute header
I am ready for the dispute header to be removed. Thoughts? Sam Spade 11:20, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I still object to this line:

"Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Hayek, and others argue that the differences between fascism and totalitarian forms of socialism (see Stalinism) are rhetorical rather than actual."

Arendt and Hayek have different views on this matter. This sentence is not accurate. Hayek's views are usually taken serioulsy by right-wing ideologues. Arendt is more mainstream.--Cberlet 22:03, 18 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I obviously don't agree w your definition of mainstream, nor your criticism of Hayek, but lets look at this:


 * "Hannah Arendt, Friedrich Hayek, and others argue that the differences between fascism and totalitarian forms of socialism (see Stalinism) are rhetorical rather than actual."


 * Are you saying that this is in some way inaccurate? How would you like it worded? Sam Spade 00:57, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Sam, I think it's up to you to cite something in Arendt's writings that indicates she has the views you attribute to her. I asked you to do this earlier and you did not. AndyL 05:50, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

IE please cite a quotation in which Arendt asserts that the "differences between fascism and totalitarian forms of socialism (see Stalinism) are rhetorical rather than actual"AndyL 05:51, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Hannah Arendt quotes
The Scientificality of totalitarian propoganda is characterized by its almost exclusive insistance on scientific prophecy as distinguished from the more old-fashioned appeal of the past. Nowhere does the ideological origin, of socialism in one instance and racism in the other, show more clearly than when their spokesmen pretend that they have discovered the hidden forces that will bring them good fortune in the chain of fatality. There is of course a great appeal to the masses in "absolutist systems which represent all the events of history as depending upon the first great causes linked by the chain of fatality, and which, as it were, suppress men from the history of the human race" (in the words of Tocqueville). But it cannot be doubted that either the Nazi leadership actually believed in, and did not merely use as propoganda, such doctrines as the following "The more accurately we recognize and observe the laws of nature and life, ... So much the more do we conform to the will of the Almighty. The more insight we have inbto the will of the Almighty, the greater will be our successes." It is quite apparent that very few changes are needed to express Stalin's creed in two sentences which might run as follows "The more accurately we recognize and observe the laws of history and class struggle, so much the more do we conform to dialectic materialism. The more insight we have into dialectic materialism, the greater will be our success." Stalins notion of "correct leadership," at any rate, could hardly be better illustrated.

- The origins of Totalitarianism, pages 345 and 346

Totalitarian movements use socialism and racism by emptying them of their utilitarian content, the interests of a class or nation.

- The origins of Totalitarianism, page 348


 * While the above quotes could be seen to support my previous position, I saw enough statements in a contrary bent to reword the reference to her. have a look. Sam Spade 11:22, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

Sam, which edition of Origins of Totalitarianism are you using?AndyL 15:29, 19 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Harcourt; New edition (March 1, 1973)


 * Sam Spade 23:14, 19 May 2005 (UTC)

I cannot believe that all of you have forgotten that Fascism grew out of the syndicalist movement. Marxism was in dispute at the time and many intellectuals rejected the idea of Marxism as a science that would eventually happen. They saw no sight of a workers solidarity taking place soon.They wanted a huge workers union to take control of the means of production and turn them into corporatives or co-ops. So they agreed on a shoddy interpretation of George Sorels myth of a nation philosophy to rally the workers. This was the only aspect of fascism being manipulative,it wasnt an economic lie. Fascism is post modern jargon that upholds emotional, irrational, and nationalist ideals. Just read the writings of Mussolini, Giovanni Gentile and Sergio Panunzio. Its a mix of Sorel, Nietzche, and Kant. Other varients grew out of this as well. There was National SOCIALISM and NATIONAL SYNDICALISM.

I'm sorry but this nonsense about it being "right-wing", and on the same spectrum with American conservatism is absurd. It was reactionary because syndicalism demands direct action. It was oppressive of other unions because it wanted to be the ONLY workers union. It appealed to whole groups of people because it was nationalist. Read Von Mises work on corporate syndicalism and it will explain alot of reasons why its always mistaken for being "the last reactionary ditch effort of the capitalist class". (anon 19 May 2005)


 * I'm by no means "forgetting" this, and the section The origin and ideology of Fascism acknowledges much of this. However, von Mises put a much stronger emphasis than does almost anyone else. No, I don't think fascism has a lot to do with American conservatism, any more than Stalinism has much to do with British Fabianism. Neither the left nor the right is anything like a monolith. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:49, May 20, 2005 (UTC)

Shah
Was the Iranian Shah fascist? Sam Spade 11:20, 18 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Arguable either way, but that's not the context in which he's mentioned. His regime is mentioned in the context of "Examples of police states in modern times, outside of the Communist world, include&hellip;". And that it certainly was, just like its Islamic successor that everyone seems to agree belongs in the list, and which doesn't strike me as any more (or less) fascist. -- Jmabel | Talk 20:23, May 18, 2005 (UTC)

fascio
I just read fascio! How could any knowledgable, intellectually honest person claim fascism is right wing, or rooted in anything other than socialism! I always knew this was rooted in a desire to distance modern socialists, but I had no idea how blatant the truth was! Every source I have ever read said fascism was based on the roman judges fasces (might makes right), not strength thru unity. This is why I love encyclopedias! :D

Sam Spade 22:02, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Sam, fascio just meant group in the late 19th century and could be applied to left or right wingers. The application of the term evolved in the same way that all "manifesto" means is a document of principles but in common parlance (in the US) it is used pretty much exclusively to mean a left wing program. That there were left wing fascio in the nineteenth century does not make 20th century fascism left wing let alone socialist. Perhaps, instead of cherry-picking, you should read some of Mussolini's statements condemning socialism and, in the "Doctrine of Fascism", explicitly referring to the movement as one of the right?AndyL 22:24, 23 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Heh, you should ask WHEELER about that quote sometime, assuming he's still around... Sam Spade 22:32, 23 May 2005 (UTC)

Yes, WHEELER went into an existential crisis when several of us looked up the original and it said "right" (in Italian) because, like you perhaps, he could not accept it when the facts flew in the face of his pet thesis. Sorry Sam, I saw the original with my own eyes. AndyL 23:29, 23 May 2005 (UTC)


 * "the original"? Like hand written by Il Duce himself? Seriously tho, I assume your smart enough to know the left-right dichotomy is a arbitrary one. The encyclopedic question is his relationship w socialism, and everything I kn ow says he, and all fascists, were socialists. They certainly wern't monarchists, or freemarket capitalists! Corporatism seems awfully (state) socialist to me... Sam Spade 01:12, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

This can be easier than it looks if people would just stop being so ideologically based and look at the facts.

"In face of Liberal doctrines, Fascism takes up an attitude of absolute opposition both in the field of politics and in that of economics"

"Now Liberalism is about to close the doors of its deserted temples because the peoples feel that its agnosticism in economics, its indifferentism in politics and in morals, would lead, as they have led, the States to certain ruin."

Mussolini certainly rejected lassiez faire capitalism and liberalism in general. Oh, and I mean classical liberalism, people, not liberalism as its known today. but....

"Such a conception of life makes Fascism the precise negation of that doctrine which formed the basis of the so-called Scientific or Marxian Socialism: the doctrine of historical Materialism according to which the history of human civilizations can be explained only as the struggle of interest between the different social groups and as arising out of change in the means and instruments of production. "

It also rejected Marxian Socialism as a science. He negated everything that had to do with the rationalism of the enlightment. Anything that did away with nationalism and questioned the role of the state.

"whilst in the great river of Fascism are to be found the streams which had their source in Sorel, Peguy, in the Lagardelle of the Mouvement Socialiste and the groups of Italian Syndicalists, who between 1904 and 1914 brought a note of novelty into Italian Socialism, which by that time had been devitalized and drugged by fornication with Giolitti, in Pagine Libere of Olivetti, La Lupa of Orano and Divenire Sociale of Enrico Leone. "

His influence came from syndicalism, pure and simple. yet....

"Therefore Fascism is opposed to Socialism, which confines the movement of history within the class struggle and ignores the unity of classes established in one economic and moral reality in the State; and analogously it is opposed to class syndicalism. Fascism recognizes the real exigencies for which the socialist and syndicalist movement arose, but while recognizing them wishes to bring them under the control of the State and give them purpose within the corporative system of interests reconciled within the unity of the State."

While he still expoused syndicalist rhetoric he still opted for total control to belong to the state.

"It might be said against this programme that it is a return to the corporations. It doesn't matter! ... I should like, nevertheless, the Assembly to accept the claims of national syndicalism from the point of view of economics ...."

So in essense he was a corporative syndicalist or a national syndicalist. The Flange of Spain were also National Syndicalists.

http://library.flawlesslogic.com/fascism.htm

Oh and to put the nail in the coffin....

"This explains why all the political experiments of our day are anti-liberal, and it is supremely ridiculous to endeavor on this account to put them outside the pale of history, as though history were a preserve set aside for liberalism and its adepts; as though liberalism were the last word in civilization beyond which no one can go."

He hated liberalism to the core and understood that all movements are against liberalism and collectivist in nature. Sorry guys but Fascism obviously began at point A: Marxism, deviated, and was left at point B:Fascism. It didn't begin with any liberal starts at all. He simply rejected the enlightment's notion of socialism, and marxism as a science.

What is the difference between Fascism and Capitalism, since both admit the system of private enterprise ? In brief definition, Capitalism is the system by which capital uses the Nation for its own purposes. Fascism is the system by which the Nation uses capital for its own purposes. Private enterprise is permitted and encouraged so long as it coincides with the national interests. Private enterprise is not permitted when it conflicts with national interests. Under Fascism private enterprise may serve but not exploit. This is secured by the Corporative System, which lays down the limits within which industry may operate, and those limits are the welfare of the Nation.

-Oswald Mosely, 100 Questions http://www.oswaldmosley.com/buf/100questions.htm

Again I ask why is this ideology "right wing"? Sounds like a socialist wet dream, to me.

Oh and to the person who said that conservatism wants to do away with individual rights, is wrong, conservatives uphold individual rights.


 * I see WHEELER's back.


 * Anyway, someone cut out the comment by me (below)AndyL 01:20, 26 May 2005 (UTC):


 * ":"the original"? Like hand written by Il Duce himself?"

Not a reprint and not quoted second hand or mistranslated in another book. AndyL 21:12, 24 May 2005 (UTC)		As in the first edition of the Encyclopedia Italiano (1932?). Not a reprint and not quoted second hand or mistranslated in another book. AndyL 21:12, 24 May 2005 (UTC)

Sanctions against Sam Spade?
Sam Spade continues to rewrite parts of this page despite endless discussion where his views are shown to be ill-informed and Right-Wing POV that damages the integrity of the encyclopedia. IDo others think it is time to seek sanctions to stop this bullying and failure to edit collectively? Sam Spade has a long history of this type of abusive activity on other pages. He is now following me around Wiki abusively editing my edits. --Cberlet 21:49, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I advise you to review conflict resolution. This talk page is not a place to make personal attacks. Sam Spade 21:55, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Please note I have now filed for formal mediation.--Cberlet 22:23, 26 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Sam's right, this talk page is not a place to make personal attacks. As he can attest, the proper place to make personal attacks is email, where you can get away with all manner of vulgar insults without fear of being held accountable! FeloniousMonk 07:17, 27 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Thank you FM, for your insightful comment. Sam Spade 10:19, 27 May 2005 (UTC)


 * And thank you both for choosing wit and humor as your weapons. 4.250.168.100 22:06, 29 May 2005 (UTC)


 * And let's not overlook his fine use of insults and personal attacks combined with attempts to side-step policy and game the system. FeloniousMonk 01:57, 30 May 2005 (UTC)

Fascism is Right Wing
Among serious academic scholars of fascism there is a clear view that Fascism is ultimately a right-wing ideology. It sprang from socialism, but when it added nationalism and trans-class populism it morphed into a right-wing movement. I cite Griffin, Eatwell, and Laqueuer as my sources. They are among the leading scholars of fascism today. Laqueuer is the most likely to see elements of left and right in fascism (as do all serious scholars) but he concludes: "But historical fascism was always a coalition between radical, populist ('fascist') elements and others gravitating toward the extreme Right."

Sam Spade is now trying to start this debate over anew at Neofascism and religion.--Cberlet 00:54, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

"Serious scholars" don't boil serious matters down to bumper sticker philosophy. You yourself are claiming Fascism has both left and right elements. Thus it is NEITHER LEFT NOR RIGHT. The simplistic bumber sticker label fails to be useful in this case. 4.250.168.100 22:12, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

"Among serious academic scholars of fascism there is a clear view that Fascism is ultimately a right-wing ideology. "

Oh yeah among the ones YOU take seriously. Then somehow we have to really have define the notion of right wing all over again, because the usual definition for "right" is less government, less spending and more free markets. It also involves patriotism, not nationalism. Conservative morality, not hate filled bigotry.Strong defense, not militarism, and individuality not collectvism. Why is there so much debate on this? Hitler said it himself that he was a socialist. Why cant we take his own words for it? Mussolini said he rejected the doctrines of liberalism. How would that make him a "right winger" among the likes of Reagan, Bush and Eisenhower?

I quoted from thier own writings and they refute the notion that they're aligned with classical liberalism. Unless ofcourse you guys refer to "right wing" as totalitarian, militaristic and oppressive, than nearly ALL of the Communist left wing regimes out there in the past and present have been or are "fascistic".

"but when it added nationalism and trans-class populism "

So this constitutes it being "right wing"? No, this is what makes it un-Marxian Socialism. Hitler was still a socialist though.

"The actual difference between Socialism and Marxism still remains a mystery to these people up to this day."

-Adolph Hitler, Mein Kampf- The struggle with the red front

http://www.hitler.org/writings/Mein_Kampf/mkv2ch07.html


 * "The actual difference between Socialism and Marxism still remains a mystery to these people up to this day."


 * What does the above have to do with fascism not being right wing? Sounds more like Hitler trying to paint "Jewish" Marxism and socialism with the same brush. AndyL 19:02, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

AndyL are you stupid? Hitler is differentiating Socialism, which he believed in, from one of it's sub-genuses, Marxism, which he rejected. The basic equation here seems to be right-wing = bad, Hitler = bad, therefore Hitler = right-wing. This is shoddy thinking, and no less than this is the refusal to note that in American terms Hitler is hard left, because of his advocacy of gun-control laws, anti-semitism, welfarism, free education, public-works projects etc. etc. I can spend a few hours sourcing all this, but seeing as you know it to be true I wont bother unless challenged. warm beer

Recent Scholarship
Griffin, Eatwell, Laqueuer, and Weber are among the top scholars of fascism in the world. I picked them to cite because they are among the scholars most reluctant to call fascism simply a right-wing ideology, yet in their lengthy discussions they observe that generally fascism and neofascism ends up allying itself with right-wing or conservative forces on the basis of racial nationalism or hatred of the political left, or simple expediency.

Laqueuer: "But historical fascism was always a coalition between radical, populist ('fascist') elements and others gravitating toward the extreme Right." Walter Laqueur, Fascism: Past, Present, Future (New York: Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1996), p. 223.

Eatwell talks about the need of fascism for "syncretic legitimation" which sometimes led it to forge alliances with "existing mainstream elites, who often sought to turn fascism to their own more conservative purposes." Eatwell also observes that "in most countries it tended to gather force in countries where the right was weak." Roger Eatwell, Fascism: A History (New York: Allen Lane, 1996) p. 39.

Griffin also does not include right ideology in his "fascist minimum," but he has described Fascism as &#8220;Revolution from the Right.&#8221; Roger Griffin, &#8220;Revolution from the Right: Fascism, chapter published in David Parker (ed.) Revolutions and the Revolutionary Tradition in the West 1560-1991 (Routledge, London, 2000), pp. 185-201.

Weber: "...their most common allies lay on the right, particularly on the radical authoritarian right, and Italian Fascism as a semi-coherent entity was partly defined by its merger with one of the most radical of all right authoritarian movements in Europe, the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI)." Weber, Eugen. [1964] 1982. Varieties of Fascism: Doctrines of Revolution in the Twentieth Century, New York: Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, p. 8.

So even these scholars, who see both left and right influences on fascism, and studiously avoid stating that right-wing ideology is part of the "fascist miniomum," end up admitting that in practice, fascism gravitates to the political right.

Now, having mentioned Laqueur, Griffin, Eatwell, and Weber, I would point out that there are many, many scholars of fascism that are quite willing to call Fascism a right-wing ideology.--Cberlet 19:24, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Because it promises to keep the bosses on top in a syndicalist/corporatist style economic system. Where parties on the right are its weakest, is where Fascism invokes the most appeal, not where the right is in the majority. You're forgetting that nationalist parties existed before the Fascists. They alligned with the Fascists, not the other way around. If nationalism is what only constitutes right wingism, then I can see why Fascists are right wingers, but in essense thats not all what they're about. For example; why didn't the nationalist Kuomintang refuse to make a pack with the Communists in order to fight the nationalist Japanese? Even when Wang Jingwei, who was a member of the left wing side of the "right wing" nationalist Kuomintang wanted to side with Imperial Nationalist Japan. By 1926 the Kuomintang was splitting between left and right as well, and the left wing faction wanted to side with Imperial Japan.The propaganda that spewed from Nanjing was peace throught national salvation. The same rhetoric expoused by Mussolini. Fascism recognizes the real exigencies for which the socialist and syndicalist movement arose, but while recognizing them wishes to bring them under the control of the State and give them purpose within the corporative system of interests reconciled within the unity of the State. - Benito Mussolini, The Doctrine of Fascism

"It might be said against this programme that it is a return to the corporations. It doesn't matter! ... I should like, nevertheless, the Assembly to accept the claims of national syndicalism from the point of view of economics ...."

again Mussolini.

Now lets go to Flange Spain:

'''No. The National Syndicalist Movement is convinced that it has found the right way out: neither capitalist nor communist. Faced by the individualist economy of the bourgeoisie, the socialist one arose, which handed over the fruits of production to the State, enslaving the individual. Neither of them have resolved the tragedy of the producer. To address this issue let us erect the synicalist economy, which neither absorbs the individual personality into the State, nor turns the worker into a dehumanized cog in the machinery of bourgeois production. The national syndicalist solution is the one which promises to bear the most fruit. It will do away once and for all with political go-betweens and parasites. It will free production from the financial burdens with which finance capital overwhelms it. It will overcome the anarchy it causes by putting order into it. It will prevent speculation with commodities, guaranteeing a profitable price. And, above all, it will pass on the surplus value not to the capitalist, not to the State, but to the producer as a member of his trade union. And this economic system will make a thing of the past the depressing spectacle of unemployment, slum housing, and misery.[&#8230;]'''

- National Syndicalist Party, magazine Arriba, number 20, November 1935

'''The National Syndicalist Movement, conscious that it has strength and reason on its side, will keep up the assault on all its enemies: the right, the left, communism, capitalism. For Fatherland, Bread, and Justice.'''

http://feastofhateandfear.com/archives/falangist.html

Exhibit A: Fascist Flange Spain, The National Syndicalist Party.

Fascism is simply, Left Wing Nationalism.

QUESTION 2: Thinking in terms of geopolitics, what primary strategic mistakes did Adolf Hitler make in the Second World War? ''ANSWER: First, we must dispense with the simplistic, black-and-white approach that views communism and national socialism as being at opposite poles from each other. They were competitors far more than they were enemies. This is why the totally unexpected German-Soviet treaty in the summer 1939, for the first time, put the pawns in their right places on the chessboard.

''True fascism is definitely not right wing. (Cf. the analyses of Zeev Stemhell, the Israeli historian.) The "leftist" roots of national socialism are numerous. After leaving prison, I managed to meet and interview the last surviving Strasser brother, Otto. Around 1962, my press brought out two personal interviews with Otto Strasser. The SA (brownshirts) were sometimes nicknamed the "Beefsteaks." In fact, most of the SA were communists who had gone over to Hitler. Brown on the outside, but red inside. In East Germany, about 1950, many of these became red on the outside once again.''

-Jean-Francois Thiriart, Respone to Question 2 http://www.oswaldmosley.com/people/jeanthiriarte.html

Why dont we just just take the Fascists at face value?


 * I understand that folks are passionate about this view, but it is a microscopic position compared to the scores of books that plainly call Fascism a right-wing ideology. As I have shown above, even the most cautious scholars eventually see Fascism starting on the left, merging left and right influences, and then drifting toward the political right.--Cberlet 22:39, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

...and its a position we should challange, especially when it smears people who dont want, or have absolutely no association towards fascist ideology. Classical Liberals/Libertarians/Conservatives get the bulk of the ad hominems towards this awful misconception and bad handling of labels. That is why I challange it and see it as a Marxist heresy. The only thing "right wing" about Fascism is it's nationalism. Today that is mostly all that remains, is the extreme nationalism.

It&#8217;s always exhilarating to debate fascism with Strasserites because they don&#8217;t seem to recall that Hitler&#8217;s Night of the Long Knives stuck a sharp blade through the notion that right-wing fascism could co-exist with the oxymoron of &#8220;nation&#8221; &#8220;socialism.&#8221; All the rest of the socialists had already figured that out. But the fact is, even as we agree that Fascism started out from the left, that does not change the fact that most scholars see Fascism as either a right-wing phenomenon, or a left/right syncretic blend that ultimately drifts to the right. And by the way, at least have the commom courtesy of inventing a name--perhaps Gregor Otto? --Cberlet 23:01, 27 May 2005 (U

So then right means nationalism, correct? It doesnt matter how many socialists Hitler did kill, the point was that they were not nationalists, that is why. To understand the Nazis you had to understand the time. During the time of the depression international commerce had failed in many of the eyes of Germans. They didnt want liberalism or democracy. The Nazis fiercest enemy was western liberal democracy. The Marxists and the capitalists were both jewish inventions to him that would undermine German nationalism. Nazism and Fascism is another anti-liberal crusade that competed with Communism. So can we just underline in essense just what constitutes as right wing? Is it authoritarianship? Or is it smaller government? And no national socialism is not an oxymoron! You seem to argue socialism in a marxist sense. But at the same time, I would like to know just what you guys get out of refering to Fascism as right wing and equating it with all sorts of conservatism, patritotism, and anything remotley capitalistic? (unsigned)

Left vs. Right is at least one dimension too few for this discussion
The first person to devise such a two-axis system was Hans Eysenck in his 1964 book "Sense and Nonsense in Psychology." Starting with the traditional "left-right" spectrum Eysenck added a vertical axis that considered "tough-mindedness" (authoritarian tendencies) and "tender-mindedness" (democratic tendencies). The effect of this new axis is that those who have very different views with regard to authority, but have the same "left-right" view (people like Stalin and Noam Chomsky), can be distinguished. (from Political spectrum ) 4.250.168.100 22:22, 29 May 2005 (UTC)

Sigh, not the stupid two dimensional political spectrum. Yes, the left-right spectrum is vastly oversimplified, and fails to convey a great deal of nuance and difference. But at least it has a real meaning, at least people have understood and continue to understand politics in the light of a relatively simple one-dimensionsal left-right spectrum. Whether or not it really exists (obviously, it doesn't) is secondary to the fact that it has been used as a convenient tool for categorizing political parties for hundreds of years. While the question of what is "really" the left and what is "really" the right is obviously nonsensical, there is nevertheless a basic inherent meaningfulness to the one-dimensional axis, simply because it is how people have chosen to understand politics since the French Revolution. The two-dimensional axis has no such historical validity to recommend it - it is nearly as silly and oversimplified as the one-dimensional axis, but has no particular advantage over it except the fact that it is slightly less oversimplified. Give me the one-dimensional axis, please, at least when discussing historical figures who were viewed by their contemporaries in the light of left-right politics. It was Mussolini himself, after all, who said that the century of fascism would also be a "century of the right." john k 23:00, 29 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I agree with John Kenney, except I would add that the two dimensional model is of historical value in understanding America during the Cold War. The orthogonal axis makes assumptions about the state and private property that were ideologically powerful during the Cold War and are still of importance to many proponents of Capitalism. That said, John is quite right that it does not help us describe or analyze fascism. Slrubenstein | Talk 23:07, 29 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Nice that you all agree, but remember the no original research rule? The major scholars of fascism in academia have a variety of views. Cite some... --Cberlet 03:15, 30 May 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't think the issue is the NOR rule, the question is whether Eysenck is an appropriate source. Did he actually do research on fascism? The title of the book suggests that it is not based on research about fascism. Slrubenstein | Talk 13:54, 30 May 2005 (UTC)


 * Oh, Hmmmm... I think you are right. I missed the point. :-( --Cberlet 15:22, 30 May 2005 (UTC)
 * Well, in all fairness to you, the point was not made very explicitly the first time around, Slrubenstein | Talk 16:04, 30 May 2005 (UTC)


 * What the heck is "historical validity"? There is no article for it, and the article for validity doesn't mention anything about it. --M4-10 19:45, 5 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well Then it was a just another anti-liberal ideology that wanted to kill liberal democracy;like its commie cousin.

The false division between freedom and private property is deliberatle obfucticating. No regime in hisory has combined disrespect for provate property and individual decison making, with the short-term exception of Pinochet's Chile. Pray tell, how can you have individual decison making no-one owns any individual (read private) property? Any decisons would either have to be hypothetical or have no economic consequences Equally how can a government make decfisons on the part of the people, if the state owns no property??? warm beer

New page on neofascism?
I am thinking about creating a new page on neofascism that would supplement the pages on Neo-nazism and Neofascism and religion. This would be a controversial topic, and I would need help. It could explore the issue whether or not the U.S. is diplaying some signs of neofascism (I see both sides of that question, but do not think the U.S. or the Republican Party is neofacist as has been suggested here), but would like to see a disucssion of these charges based on RELIABLE and SCHOLARLY or ACTUALLY PUBLISHED sources. Anyone want to talk about this? I REALLY would like a discussion here for a few days before this page gets set up and a giant edit war breaks out. I will wait out the discussion and jump back in in a few days.--Cberlet 13:48, 11 Jun 2005 (UTC)

please do so NOW or i will. this page is getting out of hand. the article is supposed to bae about FASCISM and that died with mussolini. anything after that is called NEOFASCISM. create the new neo article and remove all that pertains to it from this one to the new one. --espo111 04:20, 12 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Sounds like an ok idea. but one thing that I dont get from people that do believe we're exhibiting "neo fascist" tendencies now, is how they didnt notice that we've always been a rather quasi-nationalist,capitalist,(classical liberal) conservative country. Even Toqueville vouched for that centuries ago. I'm wondering if Marxist ideas didnt sneak into our way of looking at our own history and coming to a sound conclusion? We're just a country that protects our own interests, and it seems that people equate that with "neo fascism".

Plus neo fascism today has more to do with ultra-nationalism and brute jingoism today. Its rather racist than just having anything to with rational logic or coherent ideology. It's not even conservative for any other reason than to hate. Neo Fascists today would be: Neo Nazis, Black Nationalists, Fascist revivalists, Islamic radcials and Mexica Nationalists. --

even though i agree, THIS IS NOT AN ARTICLE ABOUT MODERN AMERICA!!!!!!!! it is about the HISTORY of Fascism. stick to the nature of the article, fascism, Italian Fascism. --espo111 23:03, 13 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * OK, there is no reason to get so excited. Most of the editors here agree this page is for the history of fascism up through the end of WWII. If you want to create the page on neofascism, I would be delighted, and it should look at neofascism in Europe, North America, and other places., not just the U.S. Relax! --Cberlet 01:32, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

- just getting excited because every day some idiot comes in here and adds his political views about curious george and his republicans.

--espo111 03:47, 14 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Fascism & ideology & the political right
The idea that fascism has no ideological basis is widely challenged in recent scholarship (although there is little agreement). We have crafted a compromise regarding fascism as on the political right, please do not rewrite the lead without first coming here to discuss the matter.--Cberlet 18:19, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Rather than revert the whole second paragraph, could you please edit the specific parts that need improvement. Here is my response to the above, and summary of the intent of my changes:
 * The opening paragraph should give a concise definition of Fascism/fascism - the regimes of Franco and Hitler are the two non-italian WWII governments most often identified with being "fascist", so I feel they bear mentioning early on.


 * In the above you comment on the ideological basis of fascism, whereas I was commenting on the theoretical basis of Fascism in particular. I'm trying to make the point that unlike Marxism, there wasn't a school of thought backing the Fascists.


 * Regarding left-vs-right, I found a brilliant summary you wrote above and attempted to work it into the text in my most recent edit.


 * Thanks -O^O 18:57, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * The wording in the lead went through a big battle. I do not agree with your claim that you are summarizing my views or my edits. Franco is seldom listed as a fascist by modern scholars. Nazism is the proper link, not National Socialism. The idea that there is no "theoretical" basis for fascism is the idea of scholars 30 years ago.--Cberlet 19:46, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I apologize if I missummarized your views or edits. The article will improve through ongoing edits, and I look forward to hearing from more members of this "consensus". -O^O 21:04, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * The consensus was reached through the discussion above on this page. It might help to start there. --Cberlet 21:09, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I have reread all of the above on this page (but not the 16 archive pages). If a clear consensus was ever reached that the first two paragraphs were frozen in form, it is escaping me. Consensus is also a dynamic concept, as additional editors participate on an article, consensus will change.
 * I believe this article can be improved. True to the spirit of wikipedia, I have edited the article. Reverts give little guidance in coming to language acceptable to all, which is why I would prefer to have mutual editing of the article. -O^O 22:27, 15 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Cites Please
Mutual editing on a controversial topic implies actual discussion and the provision of cites.

I challenge the following:

"The term has also been used to describe governments such as National Socialism and the rule of Francisco Franco in Spain." Few recent scholars call Franco's Spain Fascist. Please provide a cite to this claim.

Why "National Socialism" instead of Nazism? It is the wrong reference.

This is an article on early Fascism, thus this phrase is inadequate and vague: "Neofascism is often used as an alternative term to describe post-WWII movements seen to have fascist attributes." What other term is there?

"Italian Fascism, unlike some other contemporary movements, did not grow out of a strict theoretical basis." Please provide a cite to this claim. Few recent scholars of fascism would agree with this.

"Early fascists demonstrated a willingness to do whatever was necessary to achieve their ends, and easily shifted from left-wing to right-wing positions as suited their purposes." This is a dated and now discredited argument. Please provide a cite to this claim.

"This inconsistency makes it difficult to strictly categorize fascism on the traditional political spectrum." Who says this? Please provide a cite to this claim.

Thnaks for providing this information.--Cberlet 01:36, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I don&#8217;t understand why we can't take the doctrine of the Fascists at face value. Why do people come in with these preconceptions of socialism and left wing and evaluate fascism from than angle? I mean if the Nazis said they were socialists, why can't we argue why their doctrine was flawed and not whether they were socialist or not? Who are we to say that they were not? Is there some sort of attempt to avenge the name of socialism or something?

"Few recent scholars call Franco's Spain Fascist". Well, here are some references that seem to say the opposite. Richmond Uni   MI5 Daily Mirror Australian Govt (1946)  Bartleby Bartelby again Uni of Manitoba DJ Clayworth 18:20, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * These cites above are largely popular, journalistic, and partisan accounts. Some of them do not even support your claim, saying, for example, that Franco incorporated some aspects of fascism, which is not disputed, but far different from being considered full-blown fascism. This page has tried to rely on serious scholarship on fascism such as Payne, Laqueur, Sternhell, Griffin, Eatwell, etc. We are aiming for something more compelling and substantial than an essay based on Internet research. As researchers and editors we do not accept what the fascists called themselves because that is not scholarship. I am removing your text until you can provide serious contemporary scholarship on fascism to back up your contentions. Please note that this page is the result of many editors having discussions where there has been substantial--even heated--disagreement. Much of the resulting text has been battled over using cites to contemporary scholars of fascism. If I wrote a page on Fascism it would not read like this, but as a Wiki editor I am delighted to have helped edit a page that aspires to higher standards than material culled from websites.--Cberlet 19:31, 16 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * You appear to have mistaken DJ Clayworth's message as being from me. My response is below.


 * 1: "frequently used to describe Franco" - The statement is not that Franco was fascist, it is that his regime is one that was frequently described as fascist. DJ Clayworth has already provided several references to this. In addition, the article internally uses Franco many times as an example.


 * 2: "National Socialism -v Nazism" - I have removed the redirect.


 * 3: "Neofascism as an alternative" - I have clarified the language.


 * 4: "Italian Fascism growing from theory".


 * "...most fascists affected to scorn philosophical constructs. Deeds were deliberately exalted at the expense of theory; doctrine tended to be invented, if at all, in haphazard,opportunistic fashion." - Alan Cassels Janus: The Two Faces of Fascism


 * "Neither 'totalitarianism' nor 'fascism' is a clean' scholarly concept." - Ian Kershaw: The Nazi Dictatorship


 * I should add, efforts today to place fascism in a theoretical framework do not demonstrate that it grew out of a theoretical framework.


 * 5: "willingness to do whatever was necessary"


 * See Cassels above


 * 6: "difficult to strictly categorize fascism"


 * This sentence characterizes that attempts to categorize (or even precisely define) fascism have been frought with trouble.


 * "if every theory is inadequate, some are more inadequate than others" - R Pearce


 * "any general theoryof fascism must be no more than a hypothesis which fits most of the facts." - G Mosse


 * See also:
 * French Fascism, Both Right and Left: Reflections on the Sternhell Controversy - R Wohl
 * Neither Left Nor Right - Z Sternhell

Please, I kindly ask you to use edits instead of reverts in response to my additions, it makes it much easier to make progress. -O^O 00:04, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I have actually been rewriting and incorporating some of the ideas discussed here into the text. What O^O has been doing is primarily stamping his same text into the same place over and over. Who is really engaging in a discussion here? The are many different positions on Fascism. The idea that it has no ideology has been largely rejected in recent scholarship. The details of the material on Fascism incorporating both left and right belong in that section of the article. It is not appropriate to put idiosyncratic views into the lead paragraphs. They belong in the detailed sections where various competing positions can be explored. The lead should only contain the broadest consensus of recent scholarship. Sternhell's position is one of the tiniest minority views on the subject. Brilliant, yes, but very challenged and disputed.--Cberlet

03:15, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * A right wing dictator would be closer to Chiang Hai Shek, Pinochet,Batista,Somoza, Suharto, Pervez Mushareff, and the ruler of Singapore. They really do not come in the name of any ideology other than ruling thier countries. They did not claim to be socialists or fascists and had straight military rule.

I do not think that Mussolini and Hitler would directly fall into that. User: 205.188.116.136 17 June 2005


 * I'm sorry, but the references I cited included lecturers from several universities, the Australian Government, MI5 and another encyclopedia. Are these "popular, journalistic sources"? I'd like an apology please. DJ Clayworth 13:19, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Let's get serious. It is not appropriate to cite another encyclopedia in an encyclopedia. MI5 is an intelligence agency. One cite was to a study of memoirs about fighting the "fascists" in Spain (The Gallant Cause - Canadians in the Spanish Civil War) that's not scholarship about theories of fascism, even if it is published by a university press). One cite explicitly stated that Franco's government incorporated PARTS of fascism. The material from the University of Richmond appears to be a teaching tool for high school students.


 * Now let's deal with the attempts to plagiarize the material, almost word for word, sentence by sentence, from The Columbia Encyclopedia, Sixth Edition. 2001. This is a violation of Wikipedia policy. Please stop it.


 * Here is the text that is being plagiarized:


 * Fascism is a "totalitarian philosophy of government that glorifies the state and nation and assigns to the state control over every aspect of national life. The name was first used by the party started by Benito Mussolini, who ruled Italy from 1922 until the Italian defeat in World War II. However, it has also been applied to similar ideologies in other countries, e.g., to National Socialism in Germany and to the regime of Francisco Franco in Spain. The term is derived from the Latin fasces.
 * "Characteristics of Fascist Philosophy"
 * "Fascism, especially in its early stages, is obliged to be antitheoretical and frankly opportunistic in order to appeal to many diverse groups."


 * I also note that in promoting the POV that Fascism has no ideology, that other text that talked about fascism and ideology in the The Columbia Encyclopedia was not mentioned.--Cberlet 15:10, 17 Jun 2005 (UTC)

(Moved New Deal discussion down)

Political Spectrum
The discussion on socialism belongs under the section on the political spectrum. Some of the other material posted by Sam Spade is repeated in other sections. The material on Arendt has been repeatedly demonstrated to be a false and misleading interpretation of her work. --Cberlet 21:56, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Ministry of Truth" strikes again!
What, pray tell, is this about? Attempting to sweep anarcho-socialist ugliness under the rug, are we? Sam Spade 21:59, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Look, this is tiresome whining. Get over it. I moved some stuff around. Deleted stuff that was repetitive or not at all relevant. You are simply wrong about Arendt. Discussed previously. Deleted. Stop being a crybaby and claiming you are being censored whan all you did was paste a giant wad of contested material back into the text without bothering to see if it was repetitive to material on the page. --Cberlet 22:04, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Fascism spread across Europe"
Prior to changing, the 1st sentence said that Fascism was a movement led by Mussolini, and the 2nd sentence said that Fascism swept Europe. Leaving the reader to think that the movement led by Mussolini swept Europe? Better to say "similar movements", or try to make the F/f distinction. -O^O


 * That's a good point. Want to take a crack at fixing it?--Cberlet 22:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Ooops, somebody already fixed it.--Cberlet 22:21, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Yes - that was me. -O^O

Thanks--Cberlet 20:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ç

it should be Fascism was a movement led by Mussolini, that served as a generic model for other european governments, sort of a "role model" that is the difference between F ascism and f ascism. --espo111 00:39, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Because, as discussed ENDLESSLY here, that is the view of many scholars, and if you read the current text carefully, the claim is phrased in a cautious way that represents the views of MOST influential scholars of fascism. Also, citing the fascist ideologue Mosley on the subject is not pareticularly persuasive.--Cberlet 20:16, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC) The fascists were hardly syndicalists. They killed syndicalists by the thousands. Sounds kind of like the claim that they were socialist just because they called themselves "National Socialists." --Tothebarricades 20:19, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)"

This is ridiculous. The syndicalist camps split into two factions. The nationalist camp and the anarchist camp. The Nationalists went on to become the fascists and the anarchists fought the fascists in Spain. Its simple. The Flange party leader called his party, the National Syndicalist party. Fascist ideology is based on corporative syndicalism or guild socialism. It was called the Third Way. Mosely accepted it, Mussolini accepted it, Hitler accepted with the creation of the DAF, and Franco also accepted it. The Flange del las JONS is still active today in Spain.So why on Earth can I NOT quote someone who was a fascist? What does it matter about all of these other historians when the people themselves that are claiming to be fascist are spilling thier doctrine out? I dont understand why Fascists seem to be the only ones that "tricked" the people into "phony" politics while everyone else was bumbling but honest? You guys have the worse sense of objectivity I have ever seen. Hitler could resurect from the dead this very night and claim to be a socialist, but you people would just scoff and tell him otherwise. How arrogant! That is the most ridiculous thing I have ever read, that citing a Fascist himself, on his own politics, from his own pen, is not persuasive. There must be something special about the Fascists that not even thier own writings are taken into consideration.

What about these authors? Any careful examination of the birth of Fascist ideology will tell you that the movements began on the left and progressed to use thier politics by a force similar to that of the right.

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/tg/detail/-/0691044864/qid=1119331891/sr=8-1/ref=pd_bbs_ur_1/104-6901599-7436706?v=glance&s=books&n=507846

http://www.akpress.org/2001/items/roadtofascism

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falange_Espa%F1ola_Tradicionalista_y_de_las_Juntas_de_Ofensiva_Nacional-Sindicalista

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nacional-sindicalismo

http://www.geocities.com/CapitolHill/Lobby/6524/politics/corporatism.html

Fascism and Socialism
Note to Sam Spade. Please actually read the entire article before stamping in duplicative material that has already been extensively debated here. There is a new section on Fascism and the political spectrum that contains most of what you just stamped in. In some cases you actually stamped in whole sentences that are duplicated elsewher in the article. The Hayek sentence for example is in another section. The leftist roots of fascism are discussed at lenght in several sections. Same with totalitarianism and corporatism. --Cberlet 14:12, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Then delete the duplication, not the section which stood the test of time and concensus for over a year. Sam Spade 14:14, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Sam. This is totally contrary to Wiki policy, and you know it. It is up to you to read the entire article and edit based on the current edit, rather than stamping in your dated and exhaustingly debated highly POV section. Most of what you are stamping into the article already exists in other sections of the page, and has been edited by scores of editors. What you are doing is vandalism, not editing.--Cberlet 14:18, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Read Vandalism, and stop repeating yourself. Sam Spade 14:23, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Pasting duplicate sentences into an article is clearly vandalism. --Cberlet 14:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I personally do not agree that causing an article to be redundant falls to the level of vandalism. More importantly, I would remind everyone to Assume good faith - something I see very lacking in this talk page. -O^O


 * It is because I am disputing that good faith is involved with some of these edits that some time ago I asked for official Wiki mediation between me and Sam Spade.--Cberlet 12:47, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * So you admit to assuming bad faith on my part? Sam Spade 21:29, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Sam, I have requested mediation. Please agree and we can have someone help work this through in a constructive manner. Please stop trying to be provocative. Please join in the mediation at  --Cberlet 22:23, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

New Deal
(Moved to continue discussion at bottom of page)--Cberlet 20:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

The claim that the New Deal was a form of fascism is only promoted by a handful of right-wing ideologues. It is not considered a serious critique in academia. And without a cite and posted anaonymously without prior discussion, it has no chance of remaining part of the text for more than a few minutes.--Cberlet 18:44, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Agreed. We shouldn't limit the catchment of valid facts and observations to academica. But editing without prior discussion on a controversial topic like this is futile. --GunnarRene 18:51, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Gabriel Kolko a right-wing ideolog??? Kevin Carson ("The Iron Fist Behind the Invisible Hand") a right-wing ideolog??? Please educate yourselves. Hogeye 19:08, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Kolko noted some parallels, but you are totally misrepresenting his work. Someone please go ahead and revert these edits. The constitute clear vandalism. 172 19:16, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Do you consider anything you don't agree with to be vandalism? Hogeye 19:18, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * I've read Kolko's work on the topic and I don't know how you could interpret it as calling FDR fascist. I consider your edits to be vandalism, and I assure you I have a very negative opinion of FDR (for very different reasons than you, I'm sure) - it's simply an issue of NPOV and original research. --Tothebarricades 19:45, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * Tothebarricades,True or false:
 * 1) Kolko claimed that the New Deal increased the power of business elites.
 * 2) Kolko described the New Deal reforms as "conservative."
 * 3) Kolko characterized the New Deal as nothing more than an effort to preserve the US authoritarian system.


 * This is a strange misrepresentation of Kolko's criticsm, which was that the New Deal found a way to preserve authoritarian capitalism and to suppress more radical left organizing WITHOUT resorting to Fascism.--Cberlet 16:55, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)
 * Yeah, my understanding of Kolko's argument was that the New Deal was sort of a safety valve to preserve capitalism from the rising tide of socialism and radicalism. So I would agree with all three of your points above. Your conclusion is a non sequitur, though - the gaps between Kolko's argument and the "New Deal is fascism" conclusion are filled in by your own ideological assumptions. --Tothebarricades 19:32, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * So basically you agree that Roosevelts industry control boards were fascist, that Roosevelt engaged in fascist policies, yet you won't agree to call him (or the New Deal) fascist. Is this your it follows the definition but I refuse to call it that because Roosevelt didn't refer to himself as a fascist arguments? Hogeye 20:54, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * BTW, Barton Bernstein is another academe who considers the New Deal to be fascist.


 * "Mussolini organized each trade or industrial group or professional group into a state-supervised trade association. He called it a corporative. These corporatives operated under state supervision and could plan production, quality, prices, distribution, labor standards, etc. The NRA provided that in America each industry should be organized into a federally supervised trade association. It was not called a corporative. It was called a Code Authority. But it was essentially the same thing. These code authorities could regulate production, quantities, qualities, prices, distribution methods, etc., under the supervision of the NRA. This was fascism. The anti-trust laws forbade such organizations. Roosevelt had denounced Hoover for not enforcing these laws sufficiently. Now he suspended them and compelled men to combine." - John Flynn, "The Roosevelt Myth."


 * Hogeye 16:47, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I'm sorry, but I've read The Roosebelt Myth and it's a bit out there. Definitely not worth giving attention in this article. Just out of curiosity, are there any other authors who make this claim? --Tothebarricades 19:36, Jun 21, 2005 (UTC)


 * So far we've mentioned Gabriel Kolko, Barton Bernstein, and Kevin Carson. We shouldn't forget Murray Rothbard. Oh yeah, Thomas DiLorenzo, author of "How Capitalism Saved America". Great book!  Billy Bob sez check it out.  Hogeye 20:45, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Well the whole argument about the New Deal is silly. The New Deal was not close to Fascism in practice. But anyways how can you guys still commence to say that Fascism is right wing?

http://www.oswaldmosley.com/tomorrow/chapter3.htm

A right wing dictator is someone who upholds conservative values such as monarch, military or state rule only. There is no ideology really attached to it. The Czar of Russia was right wing. The King of England was right wing. The generals like Chiang Kai Sheck, Lon Nol, Pinochet, Shah of Iran,Batista and Somoza were right wing.

The Fascists were syndicalists. Nationalists that simply rejected international finance and International Commnunism. How much more are we going to have to go around what these people believed in? http://www.oswaldmosley.com/um/syndicalism.html


 * Because, as discussed ENDLESSLY here, that is the view of many scholars, and if you read the current text carefully, the claim is phrased in a cautious way that represents the views of MOST influential scholars of fascism. Also, citing the fascist ideologue Mosley on the subject is not pareticularly persuasive.--Cberlet 20:16, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * The fascists were hardly syndicalists. They killed syndicalists by the thousands. Sounds kind of like the claim that they were socialist just because they called themselves "National Socialists." --Tothebarricades 20:19, Jun 20, 2005 (UTC)


 * From an economic perspective, fascism is the type of statism which maintains the legal forms of private property. IOW it regulates rather than nationalizes (like statist socialism.) Here is an ideology map:

500px|right|thumb|Liberty-Authority X Socialism-Capitalism. Fascism is in the lower right.


 * Folks, there are a million interpretations of fascism. The issue on this page is what are the most persusive and accepted scholarly approaches to the study of fascism and the history of fascism.--Cberlet 21:52, 20 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Salerno says that John T. Flynn described the New Deal as a sort of pre-fascism, a fascist economic system without the totalitarian politics. He also predicted, incorrectly, that it would swiftly lead to full-blown fascism, or that it would be reversed to the pre-1929 norm. Since the claim was not that the New Deal was actually fascism per se, it seems to me this information would be more relevant in the New Deal article. - Nat Krause 16:07, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Note that the New Deal is already mentioned in the article, so the criticism is already included.--Cberlet 16:20, 21 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Reverted this New Deal is allready mentioned in the article. The New Deal comparisons ARE highly controversial. It doesn't warrant a whole section on it. Especially not sourced from anti-war.com. A very POV article about that site, is found here: Justin Raimondo: An American Neo-Fascist (It's the guy selling that "Jews were behind 9/11" book, that neo-nazis and some extreme Democrats adore.)

I also reverted editing of the second paragraph, not because of POV, because it was more verbose than what fits in the introduction. --GunnarRene 20:03, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * HOWEVER: I love it on the Neo-Fascism page as the critique from the right about the U.S. The mention of the New Deal on this page could link to it. It makes more sense there.--Cberlet 20:10, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Possibly, but this is funny: What's Neo (new) about the New Deal compared to Fascism? The New Deal was around at the same time as old big-F Fascism, right? Neo Fascism is about groups emerging after WWII --GunnarRene 20:24, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Right. I took out the New Deal link to Neo-fascism since the New Deal preceeded WWII and neo-fascism is defined earlier in the article as pertaining to post-WWII forms of fascism.  Also, I removed the reference to America First, since that was mainly an anti-war movement, not a pro-Germany or fascist movement as incorrectly implied. Hogeye 21:13, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * See new America First topic Talk:Fascism--GunnarRene 22:56, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Removing "(see Neo-Fascism)" was the only good part about this edit. The rest of it was worthless re-introduction of POV. The only reference to the New Deal should be this: "Some highly controversial parallels have been drawn embracing in fascism not only Nazi Germany, but also certain parts of Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal in the United States, and Juan Peron's populism in Argentina." That's IT. Then, the fascistic parallells can be taken to New Deal and you can have your revert wars over there. It's bad enough with the right vs. left reverts here. --GunnarRene 21:38, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Are you saying that it is "highly controversial" to deem Nazi Germany as fascist? It could be interpreted that way. It is not controversial that the New Deal was fascist - if you use  the economic (fascism=corporatism) definition of fascism. Hogeye 22:17, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * No, I'm not saying it is "highly controversial" to deem Nazi Germany as fascist. It said "not only" to contrast the common extention of fascism to cover nazism with the far less common extention to the New Deal. --GunnarRene 22:31, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Sure, ironic, but in terms of scholarly Fascist studies, few academics take the Flynn critique seriously. But as an ongoing criticism of big government as fascistic by libertarians and ultraconservatives, it is still a current argument.  The article that was quoted is from March 6, 2000. --Cberlet 20:54, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * It's not the date of criticism that counts. But if they argue that the policies of New Deal continue today (Neo New Deal-ism?), then it could be argued that this belongs in the Neo Fascism article. --GunnarRene 21:07, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * This is exactly what is being argued in the article and by some today on the political right and libertarians. So it fits.--Cberlet 22:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

"Some controversial examples of fascism are" is vastly different to "Some highly controversial parallels have been drawn". The former (by Hogeye) states that they ARE examples of Fascism, though controversial. The latter, original, is more neutral. Also, adding New Deal to the introduction of both the article and the section makes it rather superfluous to mention the controversy, doesn't it? You can't have it both ways. Either New Deal is something that is uncontroversially held to be fascism, or it's a case of controversial parallels being drawn. --GunnarRene 21:27, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * The latter has a different meaning: It implies that the controversial claims are about whether the New Deal "parallels" fascism, when the claim is that the New Deal is an example of fascism. So I will change it to, ""Some contested examples of fascism are..."  Hogeye 22:21, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * What I understood it to mean is that it was controversial wether it was an example of fascism, and that the parallells were used to try to prove that it was an example of fascism. --GunnarRene 22:34, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I tried an edit that attempts to be NPOV. The Mussolini quote on corporatism is a hoax quote.  No serious scholar of Fascism considers the New Deal an example.--Cberlet 22:11, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * New Deal ( I meant America First --GunnarRene 22:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)) stands between two overt fascist-support groups. America First belongs there chronologically, but perhaps not ideologically. --GunnarRene 22:31, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I don't know how to fix this, especially since some recent edits seek to whack the left and apologize for the right. Way too POV. --Cberlet 22:40, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Yeah, it's a tough one. I think most of the edits were worthy of being reverted, but the language in some parts of the article is actually clearer now. At least there's no more changing of the lead. I'm starting a new topic on America First, keep discussing New Deal in this one. --GunnarRene 22:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Another luminary that considers the New Deal to be fascist: Robert Higgs - author of the classic "Crisis and Leviathan" used in many university level political science programs. Higgs calls the New Deal "war fascism" and goes into detail about Roosevelt's cartels, price-fixing, etc. Later in the book he uses the term "participatory fascism" to describe post-WWII US economic policy. Hogeye 18:34, 9 November 2005 (UTC)

America First
Copied (and moved) some of the talk from New Deal into this new topic --GunnarRene 22:52, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Right. I took out the New Deal link to Neo-fascism since the New Deal preceeded WWII and neo-fascism is defined earlier in the article as pertaining to post-WWII forms of fascism.  Also, I removed the reference to America First, since that was mainly an anti-war movement, not a pro-Germany or fascist movement as incorrectly implied. Hogeye 21:13, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * America First definately warrants mention, especially if we're lumping New Deal in with the Fascists, then the people who campaigned against stopping Fascism should be mentioned as well. --GunnarRene 21:27, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * It's entirely misleading in an article about fascism. Analogy: In an article about Saddam Hussein, a statement like, "The American anti-war movement, took a pro-Saddam view of the world during the 2000s, and fought to keep Iraq's dictatorship after the US invasion of Afghanistan."  Portraying the America First movement as pro-fascist is like portraying the US peace movement as pro-Saddam.  Hogeye 22:17, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Your analogy isn't perfect. At the time, the US wasn't in the war (except for convoys). It was Britain (and other European nations) that was at war with Germany. --GunnarRene 22:31, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * New Deal ( I meant America First --GunnarRene 22:49, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)) stands between two overt fascist-support groups. America First belongs there chronologically, but perhaps not ideologically. --GunnarRene 22:31, 22 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * If you guys are going to connect the America First Party with the Fascists, maybe you should try it with other parties and individuals at the time. Civil rights leader and Stalinit W.E.B. Du Bois has applauded Nazi Germany for its fine mix of socialism and capitalism. Stalin made a pact with him to split Eastern Europe, and Hitler met with the Mufti of Jerusalem. Should we connect Fascism with the Civil Rights movement, Stalinism and or Soviet Bolshevism and Palestinian Nationalism? No. So I feel that the attempts at making America appear AmeriKKKa are growing old.--unsigned - 64.95.219.15

Here's an excerpt from THEY FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT: The Legacy of the America First Committee:

"The America First Committee was the response of a disparate coalition to the propaganda blitz – and the apparent desire of the American President to get us out of the depression by getting us into the war. The committee was founded on September 4, 1940, a mere 15 months before the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor. The AFC grew out of a student antiwar organization, led by R. Douglas Stuart, Jr., son of the first vice president of the Quaker Oats Company. After linking up with general Robert E. Wood, chairman of the board of Sears, Roebuck & Co., the AFC went national, set up a Chicago headquarters, and began running newspaper ads attacking the warmongering policies of the Administration. With a speakers bureau, a variety of publications, local chapters, and rallies in cities and towns all across America, the AFC eventually grew to 850,000 dues-paying members organized in 450 chapters.

It was a grand coalition, encompassing conservative Republicans, such as William R. Castle, Undersecretary of State in the Hoover administration, the liberal Chester Bowles, and the populist progressive Senators Philip La Follette and Burton K. Wheeler, and the Socialist Norman Thomas." Hogeye 23:11, 23 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Ha. Sounds like the grand coalition that makes up the anti-war crowd today. Far Right isolationists, progressives, quasi-fascists and socialists.


 * Let's chill out the partisan rhetoric, please. During my lunch break I poked through about a zoen books in our library, and the outcome is that it is dicey to suggest the entire America First movement was pro-fascist, but it is easy to document that some leaders were.  So I tweaked the language, and tossed in a reference to the work of George Seldes.--Cberlet 18:14, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)

I dont want to start connecting dots but have you guys ever heard of Francis Bellamy? He was the guy who created the Pledge of Alligence. Apparently, he was what you would call a militaristic socialist. A socialist with nationalistic pride. I look at it as a prelude to Fascist ideology and National Socialism. I hear he was even the first to use the Roman straight arm salute. Anyways, just adding this to the bunch to better understand how you can be socialist and nationalist. http://www.taemag.com/issues/articleid.17380/article_detail.asp


 * Here's a great article: The Mystery of Fascism by David Ramsay Steele Hogeye 22:35, 24 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * There is a rich historic record about SOME of the leaders and funders of the America First movement being pro-fascist. If you would like an extensive cited paragraph detailing this fact on this page, just keep deleting the mild reference to "some" leaders.--Cberlet 01:37, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * I think the current statement is just fine. It addresses my earlier concern that America First was being characterized as a pro-fascism group rather than an anti-war group. Good job, Cberlet! Hogeye 15:46, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * Credit should go to Nat Krause who actually solved the problem with a crisp and NPOV edit.--Cberlet 16:00, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

References anyone?

 * I want those references anyway! Kim Bruning 01:49, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * From Right-Wing Populism in America by Chip Berlet and Matthew N. Lyons, Guilford Press, p. 146:
 * (Begin quote)
 * Like these other anti-interventionist organizations, the America First Committee was a magnet for profascists, forcing the leadership to make repeated gestures disavowing fascism and antisemitism. The AFC removed Henry Ford from the leadership in late 1940, barred Gerald L. K. Smith from membership, and protested efforts by the German-American Bund to recruit on its behalf. Nevertheless, fascists and fascist sympathizers were members and leaders of many AFC chapters, and often shaped the tenor of AFC events. Garland L. Alderman, Secretary of the fascist National Workers League, chaired the Pontiac, Michigan, AFC chapter. AFC organizer Don Lohbeck became Gerald L. K. Smith’s office manager. S. A. Ackley moved from the AFC to lead the Chicago branch of the Anglo-Saxon Federation. Laura Ingalls (later convicted of failing to register as a German agent) frequently spoke at AFC events. Walter Schellenberg, a high-ranking officer in the German SS, sat on the speakers platform at an AFC rally in Madison Square Garden on March 22, 1941. The Committee also worked with antisemitic journalists, such as Japanese agent Ralph Townsend of The Herald, and accepted contributions from antisemites.


 * The aviator Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh was the AFC’s most popular speaker. Lindbergh, who accepted a medal from Hitler’s government in 1938, favored an alliance with Germany. He rationalized Nazi aggression by asserting “the right of an able and virile nation to expand—to conquer territory and influence by force of arms as other nations have done at one time or another throughout history.” “If the white race is ever seriously threatened,” he argued, “it may then be time for us to take our part for its protection, to fight side by side with the English, French, and Germans. But not with one against the other for our mutual destruction.” In September 1941, he created a furor by declaring on an AFC platform in Des Moines that “the three most important groups which have been pressing this country toward war are the British, the Jewish, and the Roosevelt administration.”


 * Lindbergh’s comment in Des Moines echoed Nazi propaganda such as the 1940 book War! War! War! by “Cincinnatus,” which blamed “World Jewry, Roosevelt and the British-Jewish Empire” for dragging the United States toward war, and emphasized Jews’ supposed dominance of England. This book was promoted by the German embassy and disseminated widely as part of an effort to prevent Roosevelt’s reelection in 1940.
 * (end quote)


 * Also many other sources such as Seldes, but this book is more easily available through libraries. There is also a well-footnoted online essay: here. --Cberlet 14:28, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Another except from THEY FOUGHT THE GOOD FIGHT: The Legacy of the America First Committee:


 * The third major reason for the failure of the America First Committee was that the isolationists fell victim to the Smear Bund and government repression. The campaign against the isolationist movement, coordinated out of the White House and conducted by a plethora of government agencies and private groups working in tandem, was an exercise in character assassination unparalleled in the history of this country. At the head of the Smear Bund was the President himself, who did not lose any opportunity to link the AFC with the Nazis and their agents in America. Before Pearl Harbor, this campaign was conducted by the professional smear artists, such as John Roy Carlson, the newspaper columnist Walter Winchell, the pro-communist front groups, such as the "Friends of Democracy," along with the interventionist organizations such as William Allen White's committee and the Fight for Freedom group. Supplementing these efforts were covert operations carried out by British intelligence against the AFC and designed to aid the interventionists. The President was eager to get something on the AFC, and he badgered J. Edgar Hoover to investigate the committee's income in an attempt to link them to the Nazis. FBI agents infiltrated the AFC, attended meetings, examined Committee records, and came up with nothing – much to the President's chagrin.


 * The lesson of history is there to be learned, if and when we are ready and willing to learn it. The AFC was smeared relentlessly by the opposition, and yet its chief spokesman and most famous partisan, Colonel Charles A. Lindbergh, was allowed to make a widely publicized address in which he singled out "the Jews" as one of the main organized groups pushing us into war. John T. Flynn was outraged, he had done it without anyone vetting the speech in advance, and Norman Thomas quit the committee as a result: the interventionists, for their part, were delighted, and they took full advantage of the opening provided by Lindbergh. The AFC was smeared as being pro-Nazi, and its effectiveness considerably reduced.

Hogeye 16:20, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)


 * And this is one reason I did not cite Carlson. :-) --Cberlet 16:36, 25 Jun 2005 (UTC)

Misc
Some minor comments on the ends of the Fascism internationally section. Nothing was actually changed except for the Hungarian article since articles on Gombos and Horthy state that Hungary began to move into a fascist mindset in the 30s, though not as radical as the 44-45 regime (which is why it is sometimes overlooked). Apart from that, please mention here any errors I've made. Thanks!


 * Now that George W Bush has declared all liberal to be terrorist sympathizers is it time for us to declare him a neo-fascist?


 * No, because it is not an accurate use of the term, and even if it was, it would go on the Neo-Fascism page. --Cberlet 1 July 2005 16:01 (UTC)

Could you guys lay off the Bush cracks? He has nothing to do with Fascism.


 * ??? Bush's collusion with Bechtel, Halliberton, various oil companies, and munitions corporations is classic corporatism. Face it - he's a fucking fascist.  But to be fair, both factions of the War Party are fascist. Hogeye 1 July 2005 22:55 (UTC)


 * Corporatism is not corporations. Get a library card. The term Fascism has real meaning.  --Cberlet 2 July 2005 01:02 (UTC)


 * Right. Corporatism is the unholy collusion of State and crony firms.  Like the USEmpire and Bectel, Halliberton, certain oil and munitions firms. Bush is definitely a fascist; the USEmpire is a fascist State. Hogeye 4 July 2005 17:51 (UTC)


 * Various Wikipedia policies prevent me from giving this last statement the reply I feel it deserves, so I will stick to saying that, while I despise Bush, I disagree with your definition of corporatism, which I will charitably presume is an honest misunderstanding of how the fascists used this term. As Cberlet said, get a library card. And use it. -- Jmabel | Talk July 4, 2005 18:41 (UTC)


 * While empire certainly is what the US is and has been for well over a century whether Bush is fascist or not we do not know. What with all the secrecy of the national security state.  We know for one thing, they are not democratic.  Government secrecy is antithetical to democracy. Only time/history will tell for sure. -Zz (3 Sept 2005)

Corporatism has the meaning of a guild or a syndicate in the Fascist sense. It does not mean corporation as in Enron. I know that many people have been using that idiotic line that Mussolini spilled about how Fascism should really be called corporatism. B

ut what Mussolini meant was the Catholic style corporate system that was similar to guild socialism. The Fascist movement was spawned from syndicalism. (anon 4 July 2005)

Indeed. Salazar's Estado Novo in Portugal was based on the premise that each job category or industry got organized and managed its sector in joint manner - like the medieval guilds. Incidentally, several of these guilds still survive Portugal (like the doctors/physicians association, the lawyers association,...). Luis rib 4 July 2005 17:59 (UTC)

The association of corporations or guilds that were established under Mussolini were bascially structured around the pre-industrial, pre-enlightment idea of guilds and corporates. Fascism and many aspects of National Syndicalism, sought to bring this back. In order to combat the twin dangers of leftist socialism(Marxism) and Liberalism(capitalism), the Fascists were hoping to bring back something close to neo-feudalism, where the Fascist party would use the nation state as its subject to bring about a corporate state. It eliminated the need for finance and for entrepreneurship. The trade unions that were established under the guilds would oversee that the means of prodcutions were distributed rightly to the people(by force if needed). But it eliminated choice, the workers or bosses right to leave thier guild, and forced to endure the collective thinking of the nation state. It was right wing socialism. Left wing nationalism.

The corporatism page now has a section on modern corporatism that confuses the term with corporations. I think this is a mistkae, but it means we have to be clear that we are refering ony to the earlier Italian deifinition.--Cberlet 02:05, 11 July 2005 (UTC)

What of Suharto's Indonesia? Or Pinochet's Chile? As scholars you certainly would not assume just because a country or regime does not identify itself as fascist, therefore it is not fascist. Or that it be from a specific historic time only. Or geography for that matter. That an ideology or means of control could not mutate. Maybe I'm just more surprised that they were not even found in the discussion so far. Since there have been people referring to them as such for years. Afterall, "US Gov't Is Soft on Fascism" has not been just political retoric. Perhaps I am not read up enough, but I'm definately not naive enough to assume brown shirts in the streets, a secret policy coming to the door of political opponents, targeted groups, or violent supression of labor unions are needed for fascism to exist. Those could be symptoms, but definately not the defining charateristics. I am also confused about this supposed corporatism, which I will read up on and maybe come back and delete this. That the organizations in Mussolini's/Italy's fascism were ones in which the bosses of industry and unions of industry were merged into one, i.e. corporate unions/non-independent unions, same thing. Like one degree of seperation. Just because people can't be legally beat does not make it not fascism. Violence is not what marks fascism. That is way more than clear. I even came across someone recently who was trying to say Nazi Germany was not fascist. What? This person must have been on crack or something. It's like WW2 holocaust deniers. Only slightly less sinister. -Zz (3 Sept 2005)

-are people trying to say that a fascism that mutates, or a regime that is fascist in nature but does not call itself fascist are labeled neo-fascist? As if fascism could only appear at one time in history. Any variation, even slight is thus "neo". Maybe I'm missing something, because that sounds uber-simple and probably from someone in political denial.

COINTELPRO Has been called fascistic. Maybe rather a potential tool of fascism/ regime that fascist. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 24.164.254.78 (talk &bull; contribs) 7 Sept 2005.

Dubious link
The recently added [http://aetherometry.com/AS1-06.html What is Fascism? by Dr. Paulo Correa and Alexandra Correa] doesn't impress me at all. I'll admit that I couldn't bring myself to read much of it. I'd be interested in others' opinions; also if the person who added it could explain what they think it brings to the picture. -- Jmabel | Talk July 8, 2005 22:19 (UTC)


 * You can see my opinion here: http://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Fascism&diff=17965351&oldid=17898927 --Pjacobi July 8, 2005 22:42 (UTC)


 * It turned up again. I am removing it again. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:55, September 9, 2005 (UTC)

This is ironic..
How can fascism be described as 'anti-socialist' and also equate nazism to fascism? After all, The de facto Nazi party was officially known as National Socialist German Workers Party.

I move to completely redesign the 'de facto' chart of the global political spectrum. A straight line from left to right is overly simplistic. An XY chart would be much more precise.

Anti-left wouldn't necessarily be right and anti-right wouldn't necessarily be left.

From what I read it seemed ok, and it pertains to issue of where is fascism in the political spectrum. Wijiwang 08:58, 14 July 2005 (UTC);

Yes, the Nazis were National Socialists - this was considered a quite distinct idea from Socialists. Sigh... john k 21:03, 14 July 2005 (UTC)

You know, Captain Kangaroo wasn't a kangaroo, either. -- Jmabel | Talk 00:39, July 16, 2005 (UTC)

I believe that National Socialism was supposed to imply a form of socialism that was for the benefit of the nation state. In a sense that you can have capitalism but it must benefit the state and not the individual. It goes back to the root word of socialism, before it was written into a dialectic science from Marx. In its essense it really is "real" socialism. (anon 19 July 2005)

Hitler, Nazis, & Protestants
As Jmabel has observed, doesn't this material really belong on the Nazism page?--Cberlet 19:49, 22 July 2005 (UTC)

I agree, this section really isn't appropriate. The entire article is almost getting too long as it is, so I think we should weed out anything that strays from the main topic. By the way, I think the preceding section on fascism & Catholicism needs to be reworked a bit -- it should be made clearer what ideas were shared versus what policies were favorable toward fascism. (e.g. As currently written, it's not clear at all what documents such as Rerum Novarum actually say that anticipates some Fascist ideas.) --Varenius 20:03, 23 July 2005 (UTC)

If no one contests this, I will shortly remove both this section and the one on Fascism & Catholicism from the main article. Those interested should consider revising these two sections and incorporating them into the Nazism and Clerical Fascism articles respectively (I will not do this myself). --Varenius 20:22, 1 August 2005 (UTC)


 * Please, though, cut them to temporary pages somewhere (and note it here), or paste them into the talk sections of the appropriate articles when you cut. Or if that is too much work for you, please just leave a note here and ask someone else to make the cuts who won't lose the material. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:45, August 2, 2005 (UTC)


 * * Will do -- thanks for the pointer, Jmabel. I will wait a little longer for any additional comments before doing the cuts. --Varenius 00:00, 3 August 2005 (UTC)


 * The section as it stands, uncited, and of dubious relation to the topic at hand, seems more appropriate to an informal newsgroup than an encyclopedia. Even if it is moved, it will need scholarly research and proper citation before it can be considered an academic asset. If this is done, it will draw no complaints from me. --JECompton 06:43, 23 October 2005 (UTC)

What about McCarthy??

 * Highly insulting and biased the part on Brazil's alleged fascist regime. It was a right-wing govt alright, but calling it fascist is way beyond the line, and insulting to those who see in Getulio a man devoted to improve the lifes of the poor and the working class.

Biased because, how come Brazil is pointed at as fascist and the USA of McCarthy is not??LtDoc 03:16, 25 July 2005 (UTC)

USA McCarthy? Oh c'mon, now its getting a bit silly. Is everything fascist now? Fascism constituted the brief beliefs of an absurd movement led by Mussolini and Hitler. They mixed in left wing syndicalism/soc with right wing nationalism. Lets be open about this and stop labeling everything fascist. The ideas of Fascism are clearly expressed by people like Jose Maria of the Spanish Flange, Benito Mussolini of the Fascista Party, Hitler of the Nazis and Oswald Mosley of the Union of British Fascists. And if we can please for once take their works at face value, like we take the Communists works at face value, we can easily come to the conclusion that Fascism was a hair brained idea from former socialists/syndicalists turned nationalists.

You guys have to understand, why it was fascistic in the sense of strict control. It is because under their strict elimination of finance (lassiez faire capitalism) and left wing Marxism, they had to invoke a harsh central government that forced the ideals of the nation on the individual citizen. For example, if you guys would at least read some of the works of the Fascists (before denouncing it) you would know that their idea of utopia was one of corporative syndicalism. In a corporate state, finances would be eliminated and it would invoke damages on entrepreneurship, forcing the boss to remain in his or her corporate. The profits would no longer be maximized by the individual shareholder, but be redistributed into the corporate state. These corporations would be run by representatives of the workers, to meet the needs of both employees and employer, thus eliminating class conflict. Now the reason FOR a strong state was to keep this practice in place. You were forced to remain in your place, the workers were forced to be cogs of the state, and the corporative state eliminated choice for the consumer. The consumer, being the real boss in capitalist system, was forced to buy whatever the state imposed on him as the national well being. This was the aspect of nationalism that the Fascists invoked. It wasn’t just to have nationalism because! It was to invoke the corporative state first then to be nationalistic towards the Fascist state.

This concept was borrowed from George Sorrell who said that the myth of a nation was more powerful than the idea of workers solidarity. So that’s what Mussolini meant when he said that he was going to design a "nation of proletariats" and where they differed with the Marxists was the idea of class struggle when it was really the "struggle of nations". (anon 25 July 2005)

Confusing transitional phrases
In the following paragraph, the last sentence is confusing:


 * When Mussolini ordered the closure of Catholic Action in May 1931, Pius XI issued an encyclical, Non abbiamo bisogno. This document stated the Catholic Church's opposition to the dissolution, and argued that the order "unmasked the 'pagan' intentions of the Fascist state". Under international pressure, Mussolini decided to compromise, and Catholic Action was saved. Still for many Catholics the encyclical's disapproval of any system that puts the nation above God or humanity remained and was in fact never rescinded.

Why "still" at the beginning of the last sentence? Nothing here says the Church backed down. Similarly, why "in fact"? It seems like it "doth protest too much". Why, for that matter, just "for many Catholics" if it remains doctrine? Why not just something like "The encyclical was not rescinded, and remains Church doctrine, disapproving of any system that puts the nation above God or humanity"? -- Jmabel | Talk 07:03, August 11, 2005 (UTC)

Simple poor writing, I wasn't even a member then. It did seem to me like much of the article on Fascism, as it was written when I wrote that, was based on the premise that Pope Leo XIII's "Rerum Novarum" virtually created Fascism. This was something I'd never heard of before and I'd taken classes on Fascism at a secular University. I did know of connections, but main one I'd always heard cited was that many of the early Fascists were Catholics and that the strong anti-Socialist/anti-Liberal viewpoint of many nineteenth century Catholics encouraged thinkers toward Fascism. If any encyclical by Leo XIII were to be linked to Fascism I think it'd be Immortale Dei or Libertas which were critical of liberalism and to a degree democracy. "Rerum Novarum" was one of his more liberal encyclical.--T. Anthony 08:24, 30 August 2005 (UTC)

United States
I think the passage beginning "There is a widespread allegation (supported by research by political scientists such as Dr. Britt)&hellip;" arguing that the United States is now fascist is an embarrassment. I have no love for the Bush administration, and I think there are probably a few people in the administration who could be reasonably (if not solidly) accused of fascistic leanings, but that's a matter of polemic. The United States is certainly not a fascist country.

I am not going to wade into the edit war over this right now. I would greatly appreciate having several other long-time contributors to Wikipedia weigh in here on the talk page and establish consensus first. -- Jmabel | Talk 19:12, August 18, 2005 (UTC)


 * The Britt material is already summarized on the Neo-Fascism page, where it belongs. This is not a page about neofascism. It is not appropriate to put most of the Britt article into any article on Wikipedia. The neofascism page summarizes much material on neofascism and links to the longer articles and essays by several writers.  Furthermore, Britt is not an academic, nor does he have a PhD -- and for the record he has never claimed either -- it is an internet creation. Google is not a way to conduct serious research. Finally, few actual scholars of history or political science take seriously the claim that the US is or was fascist, and none of the leading scholars of fascism has made that claim. --Cberlet 22:10, 18 August 2005 (UTC)

The accusation that the USA and the UK are both neofascist states is a common accusation in left-wing circles. The evidence given for this is - restrictions on free speech, jailing and internment of dissidents, brutal treatment of enemy prisoners, militarism, use of propaganda and misinformation, appeals by the government to patriotic and nationalist feelings, demonisation of the enemy as evil or lunatic.

Of course all governments, whether left, right or centre, use these tactics in wartime or when under attack by terrorists or insurgents. Which might be used as an anarchist argument - all governments are at least potentially fascist.

However - I think this critique confuses fascism with authoritarianism. Fascism is, IMO, a force fundamentally opposed to liberal democracy, and derives from the ideas that political power should be in the hands of powerful individuals, that democracy and regard for the rule of law are weaknesses, and that some races or nations are destined to rule the earth through superior intellect and mental and physical strength.

Maybe some people in the Bush administration feel that way. But at present the US is not fascist except by some definition that would include virtually every government as at least quasi-fascist.

Of course the "other side" in the War On Terror is often described as fascist - "Islamofascist". Again whilst there may be common factors between radical Islamists in the Bin Laden mould and fascists - exaltation of violence and advocation of gangster methods, extreme religious and social conservatism, demonisation of the enemy, contempt for democracy, hostility to the Jews - the roots of Islamism are very much distinct from those of Fascism.

It's amusing when on a talkboard discussing the WoT when someone refers to a need to fight the "fascists" - one has to ask - "which ones"?

Reminds me somewhat of the FDR/America First debate above - somewhat odd that people are trying to label "fascist" a man who fought fascism, and denying that at least some people in AF were fascist sympathisers. Which makes me wonder when someone will claim that Hitler and Mussolini were not fascists.

138.253.102.162 10:23, 22 August 2005 (UTC)

If any of you guys ever catch the doumentary series by A&E on Hitler titled the Rise of Hitler, Mussolini makes a cameo in episode 4, where it speaks of Hitler's partnership with Mussolini and El Duce gives a speech where he is decrying every form of government as futile except for Fascism. Mussolini clearly states that both Bolshevik Communism and the Liberal Economy(meaning lassiez faire) are both futile and do not compare to Fascism. So this should put a stop to the horrible clamor that the US and UK are some how Fascist states, then and NOW. On another note, Hitler also said something very very interesting that should change some of the things written in here. In one of his speeches he said that many think they worship the state, but that is a false concept of Nazism. The whole concept of Nazism is the total control of the NAZI PARTY of the STATE. The Nazi Party is supreme, NOT THE STATE. The Nazi Party or the Fascist Party are the guardians of the national unity of the people. They USE the state to keep the party or union in tact. So in essence thier party is the union. That is why they suppressed other unions whether labor or political. Not because they were "right wing" capitalists but because they were true to thier corporative syndicalist roots. The Parties were the unions! The unity was found in the party, not the state! It completes George Sorrell's intrepretation of a massive union that takes control of the state for the national benefit. ...So unless the GOP plans on making themselves the official guardian of American values, imposing themselves as the keepers of the state, then talking about being the sole union and that union taking control of the government for the national benefit on every aspect of the people's right...then you can say that its Fascist. But the GOP is not doing that. They have no speak what so ever of union talk, or a syndicalist mantra.

People need to stop confusing right wing neo-liberals with Fascists. They are just two different things.

I have to object to the weird list of police states that are deemed to have similarities to Fascism. Police state does not mean Fascist. Each of those countries listed had means, whether legit or not to institute police states. We shouldn't be too quick to assume that a liberal democracy is somehow a universal concept that everyone agrees with and must agree with.

You know if we are going to list police states and such, we might as well make a whole list of nations that would take up nearly half the page. Just look at the police states in Africa and the Middle East alone. That's why I think it is a bad idea to just list police states and somehow being fascist. It keeps that stereotype around that Fascism was simply about police state control. It had an ideology and it wasnt just for show.

Cut
I cut this; it had recently been added as the tird paragraph of the article:


 * In the Libertarian view, fascism is defined by keeping the ownership of property private (unlike what the communists want), but regulating the use of that private property by the state and limiting the ability of the owners to decide what they want to do with their property.

It is (barely) imaginable that a (cited) specifically libertarian perspective on facsism might have a place in this article. It most certainly would not be as the third paragraph. -- Jmabel | Talk 04:06, August 23, 2005 (UTC)

Islamo-Fascism
If we're going to use the clerical fascism thing. We might as well go into the varying similarities between Fascism and Islamism. Has anyone ever read the book Terror and Liberalism by Paul Berman? It is an amazing book that goes into the influence of Fascism, Anarchism and utopian-Stalinism on Radical Islam. The whole premise is that Western politics were the major kick to revive the desire for the old Muslim caliphate and demand unity among the believer of Islam. The rhetoric is so close to that of the Fascists and anarcho-syndicalists at the time of pre-WWII.


 * This is discussed on the neofascism and religion page.--Cberlet 20:31, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Fascism as an international phenomenon (Romania)
Actually, the Antonescu regime sent no Jews to German death camps. Most deaths occured in Bessarabia, Transnistria, and occupied Soviet territory. This includes the deported Romanian jews that died. The deaths that occurred in Romania itself are mostly related to the Iasi pogrom and to the legionary rebellion (at which point the pro-german Ion Guard was ousted from power and the leaders fled to Germany).

Concerning the anti-semitism of the regime, well, it did not "increased as the war against soviets continued". On the contrary, the anti-semitic actions peaked in the initian stages of the war (1941-1942), and then slowly decreased, so that by 1943 deportations of Romanian Jews ceased, and surviving deported Jews were allowed to return. This is shown by a number of memoirs from that period (including the ones of the chief-rabbi of the time, rabbi Safran). The causes are probably related to the internal (royal house, orthodox church, etc.) and international pressure (the US insisted on the status of the Jewish communities) that became more and more important as the front approached the Romanian border.

However, this does not mean that the anti-semitic actions stopped. Jews were subject to specific, huge taxes and levies. Other rules were forbidding Jews to work in the civilian economy and subjected them to forced labor. Antonescu has no excuse for this, and the responsibility is mainly his.

&mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 129.88.43.234 (talk &bull; contribs) 28 Aug 2005.

In the above "Ion Guard" ==> "Iron Guard". And (for the benefit of those who don't know the history) refers to the same people as "legionnaire", from the Guard's older name, Legion of the Archangel Michael.

I would agree with most of what you wrote here. Certainly, Antonescu, while a fascist, was never comfortable with the Iron Guard, and one can only presume that he was far happier to defeat them in a few days of battle than he would have been to remain in coalition with them if they had not rebelled.


 * As I said before, I am not sure that the definition of fascist applies to Antonescu himself. It clearly applies to the national-legionary regime (which had a quite light, but clear ideology), but far less to the military dictatorship that followed. This does in no way diminish his rensponsibility for what happened under his rule, but mixing things is never a good thing.


 * I agree with this statement - Antonescu himself and the military dictatorship of the latter part of this rule, should probably not be described as fascist. john k 15:07, 4 October 2005 (UTC)

The phrase "Increased as the war against soviets continued" (not sure who wrote that) was probably a reference mainly to Bessarabia, where things were as bad as any one place in Europe. Conversely, Wallachia had one of the highest Jewish survival rates in Europe, as did the part of Transylvania that remained under Romanian control. For Western Moldova, I believe the Iaşi pogrom was the worst of it, though it wouldn't surprise me to learn that in the course of four years slightly more Jews may have been killed in the region than were killed in a matter of days in Iaşi. As to Bessarabia, I honestly don't know the degree of Antonescu's responsibility. As I understand it, Romanian soldiers on that front participated in the killings as much as German troops; is this a misunderstanding and, if so, do you have some citations on that? And is there any evidence of to what degree these troops were under Antonescu's control, as against that of the German command?


 * The problem with the Antonescu is that its most criminal decisions remain unknown. For instance, crossing the Dniestr river against the opinion of romanian high command ("marele stat major", of which he had to sack may members), or losing almost as many soldiers in the military-pointless attack of Odessa as the germans lost in the same period on the entire eastern front. There are also unclear aspects in the chain of command (as germans were in charge military until 1943).

I am now in the process of moving, so my books are all packed and I don't have much time, but I'll be back soon.

Anyway, I think the section on Romania probably does need some edits. Answers to the two questions I asked in the previous paragraph would probably be relevant to what it should say; also, the distinction should be drawn between the Iron Guard (who only held any government power for about four months) and what followed. -- Jmabel | Talk 03:46, August 30, 2005 (UTC)


 * Ok, JMabel, I'll write a documented answer as soon as I have the time (in one week time, probably). Of course, as I already pointed out, you should clearly start by reading the memoirs of Alexandre Safran for an inside view of the period. BTW, as it seems that we will collaborate on romanian issues, it would be better if we get to know each other better Dpotop.

General definition of Fascism
I believe that once you keep scrolling down the page, the definition of Fascism gets a little too general. I mean we're going into anything that resembles a police state as fascist, when this is a total misconception of Fascism (capital F). I mean we could classify every nation in the world before and after Mussolini's Italy, that wasnt classical liberal or communist, as "Facsist". I just feel that the world does not really share our universal idea of liberal markets and free governments, so we can't just label every government as fascist. Even though they may very well be authoritarian and brutish, it doesnt mean they are Fascistic in the original sense. I just dont want this page to sink to the slang term of fascist to describe every political ideology. - Anon &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 64.95.219.15 (talk &bull; contribs) 27 Sept 2005.

Fascism has nothing to do with
Fascism has nothing to do with Catholicism, nor conservatism, nor liberalism. I know Wikipedia is anti-republican, but to allow this garbage to be presented as fact in an "encyclopedia" is absurd. &mdash;The preceding unsigned comment was added by 166.73.21.146 (talk &bull; contribs) 27 Sept 2005.


 * I agree the article is slanted to make Catholicism far more significant to Fascism then is warranted. Fascism, as the article indicates, began with very anti-clerical positions. It's idea of the state as the center of life is specifically un-Catholic as the Catholic Church traditionally believes itself to be a multi-national belief system to be held above any nation. Mussolini wrote a novel called "The Cardinal's Mistress" or some such and was agnostic. The Action Francaise was condemned by the Pope. I worked on that some, tempering some clearly ill-informed judgments concerning Rerum Novarum, but to a degree you have to accept the systemic biases that exist here for now. Most Wikipedians who describe themselves as Catholic are adamantly ex-Catholic. The attitude of adamant ex-Catholics to the Church is commonly like that of ex-smokers to the tobacco industry. I'm hoping in time more members join and a greater balance is achieved in articles concerning my religion. (By balance I mean more including of good with bad, I'm not saying I want Inquisition-apologists or the reactionary lunatic fringe)


 * As for the rest it might justly be deemed a troll. I think the treatment of conservatism and even the Republicans, I think this person was meaning upper-case R republican, is generally fair. There is a knee-jerk group who would equate both those with Fascism, but I don't recall that being in this article or being allowed to stay unchallenged in many articles. In fact conservatism is clearly the antithesis of Fascism as Fascism is generally based on pretty radical change. There is no section in this article that has "Republicans" or "Conservatives" in the title AFAIK.--T. Anthony 05:23, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Are you ignoring the existence of clerical fascism? I mean, I would agree that many forms of Fascism were either anti-clerical or, at best, came to an understanding with a church which was very much outside the movement (as Mussolini did).  But what about the Ustasha?  What about Father Tiso's regime in Slovakia?  What about Dollfuss and Schuschnigg in Austria?  The Action, as well as being denounced by the Pope, was also fiercely Catholic.  The various Spanish Nationalist groups made much of their Catholicism.  I don't think it can be indicated that Fascism is either a pro-Catholic (or Catholic) phenomenon or an anti-Catholic one - it had a complicated relationship with Catholicism. john k 15:12, 4 October 2005 (UTC)


 * No I'm not. I'm not denying many Fascists were strongly Catholic, I'm just saying the article tends to indicate Catholicism is a major component in their even being an idea called Fascism. Which is rather odd as in general the original idea of Fascism came from ultra-nationalists and former socialists who had little to do with the Catholic Church. Later you get Fascist regimes that treated Catholicism as an important component of their beliefs, the clerical fascists, but there's already an article for clerical fascism. There's also an article for Integralism which is a Fascistic ideology I would agree was inspired by various historical Papal statements. That said I didn't remove the idea that Catholicism helped create Fascism as I admit it's out there and deemed historically valid. It is actually more irksome that there are large amounts of Wiki articles that discuss Nazism relationship to Catholicism, but almost totally ignore the Protestant or other religions which openly advocated Nazism. I've tried to correct that some.--T. Anthony 00:43, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * At the risk of responding to a troll: "anti-republican"? That is the single weirdest accusation against Wikipedia that I have seen. What, are we defenders of the divine right of kings? -- Jmabel | Talk 22:07, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

Feel free to ignore this troll. He's another incarnation of a vehemently right-wing POV vandal that several folks have been dealing with for something going on a week now. For some reason, he hasn't been perma-banned yet.--chris.lawson 23:25, 29 September 2005 (UTC)

The evolution of fascism
After reading through the Fascist Manifesto, a thought occurred to me. I posted it in the discussion for that article, but I feel it has a significant relevence to this article. Here is what I wrote:

It seems similar to the situation of communism. After the russian civil war, the Russian Communist Party became less and less communist and yet their terrible crimes against humanity have become synonomous with what they claimed to believe. Many communists today would argue that the USSR was not a good example of Communism. I wonder if it could equally be argued that Fascism was not represented properly by Italy of Germany? It seems that Fascism was originally intended to be some sort of corporatism, with standard democratic rights, could it be argued that instead of the meaning of Fascism changing when Italy changed that Italy lost through corruption its more acceptable elements of fascism and degenerated into a form of totalitarianism? It seems that if this were true that our present day nations are alot closer to being fascist than Italy or Germany ever were, as so conveniantly argued by several writers, but not in the way they mean. It also means that fascism should not be demonized in the way it is, it should not be thought of a synonomous with totalitarianism. I personally dont support the original fascism as shown in documents like the Fascist Manifesto, but I condemn the fact that its original meaning has been so changed. Perhaps if beyond all chance that my reasoning is correct then this should be mentioned somewhere on the article on Fascism itself

Any thoughts? Real World 05:35, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * It may be that the foundational Hegelian notion that nations and races were entities with rights is itself intrinsically morally corrupting, because like all forms of collectivism, it justifies the sacrifice of individual to the collective under some kind of central judgement of what is best for the collective. It should be no wonder that nonconforming individuals are abused and murdered.  Such fascist thinking is very powerful, all sides in WWII for instance, thought the good of the collective could justify conscription.  In more recent times (1970s) Senator Ted Kennedy proposed mandatory national service, and in the recent presidential election candidate John Kerry reaffirmed the "duty" culture, and proposed mandatory public service for high school graduation.--Silverback 05:52, 5 October 2005 (UTC)


 * This seems highly dubious to me. Fascism was never really about an ideological program in the same way that Communism was, so the fact that fascism "betrayed" its original "principles" is not terribly significant - there were never any real principles to begin with, besides worship of power.  As to communism, it seems to me that Lenin and Stalin did a fair job of carrying out the vision of Marxism-Leninism, even if this was a rather different beast from the Marxism of Marx. BTW, is Silverback really saying that mandatory national service is fascism?  Every European country has mandatory national service.  Are they all fascist?  God, I hate this libertarian nonsense. john k 06:09, 5 October 2005 (UTC)
 * I think every nation is fascist to the extent that it thinks it has a sovereign right to exist that supercedes the rights of individuals. I also think this notion of fascism is intrinsic to the original scholarly apologias for fascism.  Fascism was just a more virulent and self-justifying form of nationalism.  I say this as someone who has pledged allegiance to a multi-colored piece of cloth.--Silverback 07:17, 5 October 2005 (UTC)

Out-of-place paragraph
I cut the following paragraph from The origin and ideology of Fascism, where I believe it was out of place.

"Corporatism (fascism) is a form of class collaboration put forward as an alternative to class conflict, and was first proposed in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which influenced Catholic trade unions that organised in the early twentieth century to counter the influence of trade unions founded on a socialist ideology. Theoretical underpinning came from the medieval traditions of guilds and craft-based economics."

My only objection to the content of this paragraph is that to start by saying "Corporatism (fascism) is&hellip;" suggests that the two terms are synonymous, which they are not. I believe that the rest of what this says is all already in the article in more appropriate places. If anyone thinks any of this is missing, please indicate what. In any event, it certainly does not belong between the link to Fascio and the mention of the Fasci Siciliani. -- Jmabel | Talk 06:43, 19 October 2005 (UTC)

The most important impulse to the appearance of fascism was that the pope invented a way to stop the waves of democracy and socialism.

The most important source of fascism must be declared in a section called the origin and ideology..

Corporativism and fascism are synonyms, or at least very closely related concepts. The pope called it corporativism, Mussolini preferred the fancier name fascism.

Roger4911 07:16, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * This may be your opinion, but unless you can find a scholarly cite backing it up, and write the text more carefully, then it is just your opinion, and has no place in the text. I do not think it is accurate to suggest that Fascism is just another name for Corporativism.--Cberlet 19:43, 19 October 2005 (UTC)


 * Given that Roger has cited nothing but his own opinion to justify the equation of corporatism with fascism, and that he has not indicated that there is anything here that is not covered elsewhere in the article, I have cut this from The origin and ideology of Fascism. It was somewhat modified since I originally objected to it, so I am reproducing the latest version of it here. Again, if any of the following other than the equation of corporatism with fascism is actually missing from the article, I would be amenable to its restoration in an appropriate place.


 * [start removed material]
 * Historically, corporatism or corporativism (fascism) is a political system in which legislative power is given to corporations that represent economic, industrial, and professional groups.


 * Ostensibly, the entire society is to be run by decisions made by these corporate groups. It is a form of class collaboration put forward as an alternative to class conflict and was first proposed in Pope Leo XIII's 1891 encyclical Rerum Novarum, which influenced Catholic trade unions which were organised in the early twentieth century to counter the influence of trade unions founded on a socialist ideology.
 * [end removed material]

Jmabel | Talk 05:27, 20 October 2005 (UTC)

I think corporatism is an element of Fascism, but the poster is right that stating it is fascism is a bit much. Corporatism had some influence on the New Deal and systems rarely deemed fascist. Plus I would think if an encyclical of Pope Leo XIII influenced Fascism it'd be more Immortale Dei or Libertas. Rerum Novarum says many things which actively contradict Fascism.--T. Anthony 05:01, 21 October 2005 (UTC)
 * The wikipedia article makes is clear it the use of the term today is pejorative, referring to mere lobbying and its effects. However, even its historical association with fascism does not seem intrinsic to fascism, since it doesn't receive mention in the chief intellectual apologias for fascism, but rather corporatism, was a mere practical expediency of the fascist leadership, which apparently were intellectually bankrupt when it came to thinking of other ways to rule.--Silverback 08:25, 23 October 2005 (UTC)


 * You raise good points. To be honest the only place I've seen Rerum Novarum linked to the creation of Fascism is here. I'd never read that theory before and I took classes on the subject. One of my history profs even stated, "Repression of Catholics was correct, because if you do not oppress them they oppress you" so I think the idea would've came up. (Which the linking of Catholicism to Fascism did, but generally they were meaning a larger cultural thing not any single document)--T. Anthony 12:08, 23 October 2005 (UTC)