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Fascism

2007 Schools Wikipedia Selection. Related subjects: Politics and government

                        Part of the Politics series on
                                                                Fascism

                                                                Definition
                                                    Definitions of fascism
     __________________________________________________________________

                                      Varieties and derivatives of fascism
                                                           Italian fascism
                                                                    Nazism
                                                               Neo-Fascism
                                                                    Rexism
                                                                 Falangism
                                                                   Ustaše
                                                          Clerical fascism
                                                             Austrofascism
                                                            Crypto-fascism
                                                          Japanese fascism
                                                             Greek fascism
                                                     Brazilian Integralism
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                                   Fascist political parties and movements
                                    Fascism as an international phenomenon
                                      List of fascist movements by country
     __________________________________________________________________

                                                        Fascism in history
                                                                    Fascio
                                                             March on Rome
                                                             Fascist Italy
                                                              Nazi Germany
                                                   Italian Social Republic
                                                      4th of August Regime
     __________________________________________________________________

                                                            Relevant lists
                                                          List of fascists
     __________________________________________________________________

                                                          Related subjects
                                                         Fascist symbolism
                                                              Roman salute
                                                               Blackshirts
                                                               Corporatism
                                                      Fascism and ideology
                                                      National syndicalism
                                                         Fascist Manifesto
                                                            Black Brigades
                                                           Actual Idealism
                                              Fascist unification rhetoric
                                                              Adolf Hitler
                                                          Benito Mussolini
                                                       National Bolshevism
                                                            Third Position
                                                                Neo-Nazism
                                                  Grand Council of Fascism
                                                              Anti-fascism
                                                           Fascism Portal
                                                     Politics Portal ·

   Fascism ( IPA: [ˈfæʃɪzm]) is a radical political ideology that combines
   elements of corporatism, authoritarianism, nationalism, militarism,
   anti-liberalism and anti-communism.

   The word fascism stems from the Italian word fascio (plural: fasci),
   which may mean bundle, as in a political or militant group, or a
   nation. The term also comes from the fasces (rods bundled around an
   axe), which was an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of
   magistrates. The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through
   unity; a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is very
   difficult to break.

   Originally, the term fascism was used by an Italian political movement
   that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito
   Mussolini (see Italian fascism). Later, fascism became a more generic
   term that was meant to cover an entire class of authoritarian political
   ideologies, parties, and political systems, though no consensus was
   ever achieved on a precise definition of what it means to be "fascist".
   Various scholars have sought to define fascism, and a list of such
   definitions can be found in the article definitions of fascism.

   Part of the difficulty arises from the fact that today there are very
   few self-identified fascists. The word has become a slur throughout the
   political spectrum since the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II,
   and it has been extremely uncommon for any political groups to call
   themselves fascist since 1945. In contemporary political discourse,
   adherents of some political ideologies tend to associate fascism with
   their enemies, or define it as the opposite of their own views. There
   are no major self-proclaimed fascist parties or organizations anywhere
   in the world.

   The governments and parties most often considered to have been fascist
   include Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, Spain's Falange, Portugal's
   Estado Novo, Hungary's Arrow Cross Party, Romania's Iron Guard, and
   other similar movements that existed across Europe in the 1920s and
   1930s. Some authors reject this broader use of the term or exclude
   certain of these parties and regimes.

Scope of the word Fascism

   The term fascism is sometimes applied (by both supporters and
   opponents) to other authoritarian regimes of the same period, such as
   those of Imperial Japan under Hideki Tojo and Austria under Engelbert
   Dollfuss, or somewhat later, Argentina under Juan Perón and Greece
   under Ioannis Metaxas. Its use for similar, but longer-lived, regimes
   such as Spain under Francisco Franco and the Estado Novo of António de
   Oliveira Salazar in Portugal, is widespread among opponents of those
   regimes, but often disputed by supporters and by some historians. This
   trend toward the term being used only by opponents is even more
   pronounced in the case of more recent authoritarian regimes, such as
   Indonesia under Suharto.

   Although the broadest definitions of fascism may include every
   authoritarian state that has ever existed, most theorists see important
   distinctions to be made. Fascism in Italy arose in the 1920s as a
   mixture of syndicalist notions with an anti- materialist theory of the
   state; the latter had already been linked to an extreme nationalism.
   Fascism in many ways seems to have been clearly developed as a reaction
   against Communism and Marxism, both in a philosophic and political
   sense, although it opposed democratic capitalist economics along with
   socialism, Marxism, and liberal democracy.

   It viewed the state as an organic entity in a positive light rather
   than as an institution designed to protect collective and individual
   rights, or as one that should be held in check. It tended to reject the
   Marxist notion of social classes and universally dismissed the concept
   of class conflict, replacing it instead with the struggle between
   national ethic and agenda, on the one hand, and individualistic
   liberalism, on the other. This meant embracing nationalism and
   mysticism, and advancing ideals of strength and power as means of
   legitimacy, glorifying war as an end in itself and victory as the
   determinant of truth and worthiness. An affinity to these ideas can be
   found in Social Darwinism. These ideas are in direct opposition to the
   ideals of humanism and rationalism characteristic of the Age of
   Enlightenment, from which liberalism and, later, Marxism would emerge.
   Fascism is also considered to be a form of collectivism.

   Fascism is also typified by totalitarian attempts to impose state
   control over all aspects of life: political, social, cultural, and
   economic; in the examples given, by way of a strong, single-party
   government for enacting laws and a strong, sometimes brutal militia or
   police force for enforcing them. Fascism exalts the nation, state, or
   group of people as superior to the individuals, institutions, or groups
   composing it. Fascism uses explicit populist rhetoric; calls for a
   heroic mass effort to restore past greatness; and demands loyalty to a
   single leader, leading to a cult of personality and unquestioned
   obedience to orders ( Führerprinzip). Hannah Arendt classed Italian
   fascism as an ordinary authoritarian ideology, and included only
   Stalinism and Nazism as totalitarians.

   Fascism attracted political support from diverse sectors of the
   population, including big business, farmers and landowners,
   nationalists, and reactionaries, disaffected World War I veterans,
   intellectuals such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Curzio Malaparte, Filippo
   Tommaso Marinetti, Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger to name a few,
   conservatives and small businessmen, and the masses to whom they
   promised work and bread. In countries such as Romania and Hungary (and
   to a lesser extent in other states), Fascism had a strong base of
   support among the working classes and extremely poor peasants.

   The word has become a slur throughout the political spectrum since the
   failure of the Axis powers in World War II, and it has been extremely
   uncommon for any political groups to call themselves "fascist" since
   1945. In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some political
   ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it
   as the opposite of their own views. In the strict sense of the word,
   Fascism covers movements before WWII; later movements qualified
   themselves as Neo-fascists.

Definition

   Many diverse regimes have identified themselves as fascist, and
   defining fascism has proved complicated and contentious. Historians,
   political scientists, and other scholars have engaged in long and
   furious debates concerning the exact nature of fascism and its core
   tenets. Since the 1990s, however, there has been a growing move toward
   some rough consensus reflected in the work of Stanley Payne, Roger
   Eatwell, Roger Griffin, and Robert O. Paxton. See Fascism and ideology.

   The Italian Fascisti were also known as Blackshirts for their style of
   uniform incorporating a black shirt (See Also: political colour).

   Merriam-Webster defines fascism as "a political philosophy, movement,
   or regime (as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race
   above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic
   government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social
   regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition".

   Two particular definitions reflect the fact that Fascism has always
   arisen from an extreme right-wing ideology:

   (1) "A system of government that exercises a dictatorship of the
   extreme right, typically through the merging of state and business
   leadership, together with belligerent nationalism." --American Heritage
   Dictionary (Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1983)

   (2) "Extreme right-wing totalitarian political system or views, as
   orig. prevailing in Italy (1922-43)." --The Pocket Oxford Dictionary
   (Oxford University Press, 1984)

   A recent definition is that by former Columbia University Professor
   Robert O. Paxton:

          + "Fascism may be defined as a form of political behaviour
            marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline,
            humiliation, or victim-hood and by compensatory cults of
            unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of
            committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but
            effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons
            democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and
            without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal
            cleansing and external expansion."

   Paxton further defines fascism's essence as:

          + "1. a sense of overwhelming crisis beyond reach of traditional
            solutions; 2. belief one’s group is the victim, justifying any
            action without legal or moral limits; 3. need for authority by
            a natural leader above the law, relying on the superiority of
            his instincts; 4. right of the chosen people to dominate
            others without legal or moral restraint; 5. fear of foreign
            `contamination."

   Mussolini defined fascism as being a left-wing collectivistic ideology
   in opposition to socialism, liberalism, democracy and individualism. He
   said in The Political and Social Doctrine of Fascism:

          + "Anti-individualistic, the fascist conception of life stresses
            the importance of the State and accepts the individual only in
            so far as his interests coincide with those of the State,
            which stands for the conscience and the universal will of man
            as a historic entity.... Liberalism denied the State in the
            name of the individual; fascism reasserts the rights of the
            State as expressing the real essence of the individual. And if
            liberty is to be the attribute of living men and not abstract
            dummies invented by individualistic liberalism, then fascism
            stands for liberty, and for the only liberty worth having, the
            liberty of the State and of the individual within the State.
            The fascist conception of the State is all-embracing; outside
            of it no human or spiritual values can exist, much less have
            value. Thus understood, fascism… interprets, develops, and
            potentiates the whole life of a people.... Fascism is
            therefore opposed to that form of democracy which equates a
            nation to the majority, lowering it to the level of the
            largest number; but it is the purest form of democracy if the
            nation be considered – as it should be – from the point of
            view of quality rather than quantity, as an idea, the
            mightiest because the most ethical, the most coherent, the
            truest, expressing itself in a people as the conscience and
            will of the few, if not, indeed, of one, and tending to
            express itself in the conscience and will of the mass, of the
            whole group ethnically molded by natural and historical
            conditions into a nation, advancing as one conscience and one
            will, along the self-same line of development and spiritual
            formation. Not a race, or a geographically defined region, but
            a people, historically perpetuating itself; a multitude
            unified by an idea and imbued with the will to live, the will
            to power, self-consciousness, personality...."

          + "Granted that the 19th century was the century of socialism,
            liberalism, democracy, this does not mean that the 20th
            century must also be the century of socialism, liberalism,
            democracy. Political doctrines pass; nations remain. We are
            free to believe that this is the century of authority, a
            century tending to the 'right', a Fascist century. If the 19th
            century was the century of the individual (liberalism implies
            individualism) we are free to believe that this is the
            'collective' century, and therefore the century of the State."

   Fascism is associated by many scholars with one or more of the
   following characteristics: a very high degree of nationalism, economic
   corporatism, a powerful, dictatorial leader who portrays the nation,
   state or collective as superior to the individuals or groups composing
   it.

   Stanley Payne's Fascism: Comparison and Definition (1980) uses a
   lengthy itemized list of characteristics to identify fascism, including
   the creation of an authoritarian state; a regulated, state-integrated
   economic sector; fascist symbolism; anti-liberalism; anti-communism. A
   similar strategy was employed by semiotician Umberto Eco in his popular
   essay Eternal Fascism: Fourteen Ways of Looking at a Blackshirt. More
   recently, an emphasis has been placed upon the aspect of populist
   fascist rhetoric that argues for a "re-birth" of a conflated nation and
   ethnic people.

   Most scholars hold that fascism as a social movement employs elements
   from the political left, but many conclude that fascism eventually
   allies with the political right, especially after attaining state
   power. This is even more complicated when discussing Nazism, which as a
   socio-political movement began as a form of National Socialism, but
   altered its character once Hitler was handed state power in Germany.
   See: Fascism and ideology. A minority of scholars and political
   commentators argue that fascism is a form of corporatist socialism
   similar to that in other countries with extensive state regulation of
   the economy. See Fascism and ideology and Economics of fascism.

   After the defeat of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany in World War II, the
   term has taken on an extremely pejorative meaning, largely in reaction
   to the crimes against humanity committed by the Nazis. Today, very few
   groups proclaim themselves fascist, and the term is often used to
   describe individuals or political groups who are perceived to behave in
   an authoritarian or totalitarian manner; by silencing opposition,
   judging personal behaviour, promoting racism, or otherwise attempting
   to concentrate power and create hate towards the "enemies of the
   state". Because of the term's use as a pejorative, there is a great
   deal of controversy surrounding the question of what political
   movements and governments belong to fascism.

Italian Fascism

Early history

   Fascio (plural: fasci) is an Italian language word which was used in
   the late 19th century to refer to radical political groups of many
   different (and sometimes opposing) orientations. A number of
   nationalist fasci later evolved into the 20th century movement known as
   fascism.

Mussolini's Fascism

   Mussolini claimed to have been the founder of fascism. Italian fascism
   (in Italian, fascismo) was the authoritarian political movement which
   ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini.
   Fascism in Italy combined elements of corporatism, totalitarianism,
   nationalism, militarism, and anti-Communism. Fascism won support as an
   alternative to the unpopular Liberalism of the time. It also won
   support of Italians who were anti socialist.

Nazism and fascism

   Benito Mussolini giving the Roman salute standing next to Adolf Hitler
   Enlarge
   Benito Mussolini giving the Roman salute standing next to Adolf Hitler

   The extent and nature of the affinity between Fascism and Nazism has
   been the subject of much academic debate. Although the modern consensus
   sees Nazism as a type or offshoot of fascism, there are some experts,
   like Allardyce or Organski, who argue that Nazism is not fascism,
   either on the grounds that the differences are too great, or because
   they disagree that fascism can be generic.

Differences

   Nazism differed from Italian Fascism in the emphasis on the state's
   purpose in serving its national ideal on the basis of a national race,
   specifically the social engineering of culture to the ends of the
   greatest possible prosperity for the Germanic race at the expense of
   all else and all others. In contrast, Mussolini's Fascism held that
   cultural factors existed to serve the state, and that it wasn't
   necessarily in the state's interest to serve or engineer any of these
   particulars within its sphere. The only purpose of government under
   Fascism was to uphold the state as supreme above all else, and for
   these reasons it can be said to have been a governmental statolatry.
   Where Fascism talked of "State," however, Nazism spoke of the " Volk"
   and of the Volksgemeinschaft (the "national community").

   While Nazism saw both party and government as a means to achieve an
   ideal condition for certain chosen people, fascism was a squarely
   anti-socialist form of statism that existed as an end in and of itself.
   The Nazi movement, at least in its overt ideology, spoke of class-based
   society as the enemy, and wanted to unify the racial element above
   established classes. The Fascist movement, on the other hand, sought to
   preserve the class system and uphold it as the foundation of
   established and desirable culture , although this is not to say that
   Fascists rejected the concept of social mobility. Indeed a central
   tenet of the Corporate State was meritocracy. However, Fascism also
   heavily based itself on corporatism, which was supposed to supersede
   class conflicts.

   Mussolini and Hitler weren't always allies, as France under Pierre
   Laval tried to ally itself with Italy against Germany, leading to the
   1935 Stresa Front (UK, France, Italy). This seemed to be especially the
   case in 1934 when Engelbert Dollfuss the Austrofascist leader of
   Austria was assassinated by Nazi Brown shirts on Hitler's orders in
   preparation for a planned Anschluss, which prompted Mussolini to move
   troops to the Austrian-Italian border in readiness for war with Hitler.
   Also when Hitler and Mussolini first met Mussolini referred to Hitler
   as 'a silly little monkey' before he was forced by the Western Allies
   into an agreement with Hitler.

Similarities

   Nevertheless, despite these differences, Kevin Passmore (2002 p.62)
   observes:

     There are sufficient similarities between Fascism and Nazism to make
     it worthwhile applying the concept of fascism to both. In Italy and
     Germany a movement came to power that sought to create national
     unity through the repression of national enemies and the
     incorporation of all classes and both genders into a permanently
     mobilized nation.

   Hitler and Mussolini themselves recognized commonalities in their
   politics. The second part of Hitler's Mein Kampf, "The National
   Socialist Movement", first published in 1926, contains this passage:

     I conceived the profoundest admiration for the great man south of
     the Alps, who, full of ardent love for his people, made no pacts
     with the enemies of Italy, but strove for their annihilation by all
     ways and means. What will rank Mussolini among the great men of this
     earth is his determination not to share Italy with the Marxists, but
     to destroy internationalism and save the fatherland from it. (p.
     622)

Anti-Communism

   Fascism and Communism are political systems that rose to prominence
   after World War I. Historians of the period between World War I and
   World War II such as E.H. Carr and Eric Hobsbawm point out that
   liberalism was under serious stress in this period and seemed to be a
   doomed philosophy. The success of the Russian Revolution of 1917
   resulted in a revolutionary wave across Europe. The socialist movement
   worldwide split into separate social democratic and Leninist wings. The
   subsequent formation of the Third International prompted serious
   debates within social democratic parties, resulting in supporters of
   the Russian Revolution splitting to form Communist Parties in most
   industrialized (and many non-industrialized) countries.

   At the end of World War I, there were attempted socialist uprisings or
   threats of socialist uprisings throughout Europe, most notably in
   Germany, where the Spartacist uprising, led by Rosa Luxemburg and Karl
   Liebknecht in January 1919, was eventually crushed. In Bavaria,
   Communists successfully overthrew the government and established the
   Munich Soviet Republic that lasted from 1918 to 1919. A short lived
   Hungarian Soviet Republic was also established under Béla Kun in 1919.

   The Russian Revolution also inspired attempted revolutionary movements
   in Italy with a wave of factory occupations. Most historians view
   fascism as a response to these developments, as a movement that both
   tried to appeal to the working class and divert them from Marxism. It
   also appealed to capitalists as a bulwark against Bolshevism. Italian
   Fascism took power with the blessing of Italy's king after years of
   leftist-led unrest led many conservatives to fear that a communist
   revolution was inevitable ( Marxist philosopher Antonio Gramsci
   popularized the conception that fascism was the Capital's response to
   the organized workers' movement). Mussolini took power during the 1922
   March on Rome.

   Throughout Europe, numerous aristocrats, conservative intellectuals,
   capitalists and industrialists lent their support to fascist movements
   in their countries that emulated Italian Fascism. In Germany, numerous
   right-wing nationalist groups arose, particularly out of the post-war
   Freikorps, which were used to crush both the Spartacist uprising and
   the Munich Soviet.

   With the worldwide Great Depression of the 1930s, it seemed that
   liberalism and the liberal form of capitalism were doomed, and
   Communist and fascist movements swelled. These movements were bitterly
   opposed to each other and fought frequently, the most notable example
   of this conflict being the Spanish Civil War. This war became a proxy
   war between the fascist countries and their international supporters —
   who backed Francisco Franco — and the worldwide Communist movement
   allied uneasily with anarchists and Trotskyists — who backed the
   Popular Front — and were aided chiefly by the Soviet Union.

   Initially, the Soviet Union supported a coalition with the western
   powers against Nazi Germany and popular fronts in various countries
   against domestic fascism. This policy was largely unsuccessful due to
   the distrust shown by the western powers (especially Britain) towards
   the Soviet Union. The Munich Agreement between Germany, France and
   Britain heightened Soviet fears that the western powers were
   endeavoring to force them to bear the brunt of a war against Nazism.
   The lack of eagerness on the part of the British during diplomatic
   negotiations with the Soviets served to make the situation even worse.
   The Soviets changed their policy and negotiated a non-aggression pact
   known as the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact in 1939. Vyacheslav Molotov claims
   in his memoirs that the Soviets believed this was necessary to buy them
   time to prepare for an expected war with Germany. Stalin expected the
   Germans not to attack until 1942, but the pact ended in 1941 when Nazi
   Germany invaded the Soviet Union in Operation Barbarossa. Fascism and
   communism reverted to being deadly enemies. The war, in the eyes of
   both sides, was a war between ideologies.

   Even within socialist and communist circles, there were debates about
   the nature of fascism. Communist theoretician Rajani Palme Dutt crafted
   one view that stressed the crisis of capitalism. Leon Trotsky, an early
   leader in the Russian Revolution, believed that fascism occurs when
   "the workers' organizations are annihilated; that the proletariat is
   reduced to an amorphous state; and that a system of administration is
   created which penetrates deeply into the masses and which serves to
   frustrate the independent crystallization of the proletariat."

Fascism and religion

Clerical fascism

   Some expressions of fascism have been closely linked with religious
   political movements. This combination is referred to as Clerical
   fascism, a prime example of which is the Ustashe in Croatia.

Fascism and the Roman Catholic Church

   A controversial topic is the relationship between fascist movements and
   the Roman Catholic Church. As mentioned above, Pope Leo XIII's 1891
   encyclical, Rerum Novarum included doctrines that fascists used or
   admired. Forty years later, the corporatist tendencies of Rerum Novarum
   were underscored by Pope Pius XI's May 25, 1931 encyclical Quadragesimo
   Anno restated the hostility of Rerum Novarum to both unbridled
   competition and class struggle. Apologists claim the criticism of both
   socialism and capitalism in these encyclicals was not fascist but
   rather closer to Christian Democracy.

   In the early 1920s, the Catholic party in Italy (Partito Popolare) was
   in the process of forming a coalition with the Reform Party that could
   have stabilized Italian politics and thwarted Mussolini's projected
   coup. On October 2, 1922, Pope Pius XI circulated a letter ordering
   clergy not to identify themselves with the Partito Popolare, but to
   remain neutral, an act that undercut the party and its alliance against
   Mussolini. Following Mussolini's rise to power, the Vatican's Secretary
   of State met Il Duce in early 1923 and agreed to dissolve the Partito
   Popolare, which Mussolini saw as an obstacle to fascist rule. In
   exchange, the fascists made guarantees regarding Catholic education and
   institutions.

   In 1924, following the murder of the leader of the Socialist Party by
   fascists, the Partito Popolare joined with the Socialist Party in
   demanding that the King dismiss Mussolini as Prime Minister, and stated
   their willingness to form a coalition government. Pius XI responded by
   warning against any coalition between Catholics and socialists. The
   Vatican ordered all priests to resign from the Partito Popolare and
   from any positions they held in it. This led to the party's
   disintegration in rural areas where it relied on clerical assistance.

   The Vatican subsequently established Azione Cattolica (Catholic Action)
   as a non-political lay organization under the direct control of
   bishops. The organization was forbidden by the Vatican to participate
   in politics, and thus was not permitted to oppose the fascist regime.
   Pius XI ordered all Catholics to join Catholic Action. This resulted in
   hundreds of thousands of Catholics withdrawing from the Partito
   Popolare, and joining the apolitical Catholic Action. This caused the
   Catholic Party's final collapse.

   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. For Catholics, the encyclical's disapproval of any
   system that puts the nation above God or humanity remains doctrine.

   Aside from certain ideological similarities, the relationship between
   the Church and fascist movements in various countries has often been
   close. An early example is Austria which developed a quasi-fascist
   authoritarian Catholic regime some call the " Austro-fascist"
   Ständestaat between 1934 and 1938. There is little debate over
   Slovakia, where the fascist dictator was a Catholic monsignor; and the
   Independent State of Croatia, where the fascist Ustashe identified
   itself as a Catholic movement. The Iron Guard in Romania identified
   itself as an Eastern Orthodox movement (with no connection to Roman
   Catholicism), and had particularly strong leanings toward clerical
   fascism. (See also Involvement of Croatian Catholic clergy with the
   Ustaša regime.)

   The Vichy regime in France was also deeply influenced by the
   reactionary Catholic-influenced ideology of the Action Française. This
   group had actually been led by an agnostic and condemned by the
   Catholic Church in 1926. Many of its members were reactionary Catholics
   so this condemnation damaged the group, but then in 1938 the
   condemnation was lifted. Conversely, many Catholic priests were
   persecuted under the Nazi regime, and many Catholic laypeople and
   clergy played notable roles in sheltering Jews during the Holocaust.

   While some historians wrote that the Catholic organization Opus Dei and
   its founder Josemaría Escrivá supported the fascist regime of Spanish
   dictator Francisco Franco, some recent historians state that Escrivá
   was staunchly non-political, and the connection between Opus Dei and
   Franco's fascist regime was a black legend propagated by the Falange
   and by some clerical sectors.

   Fascist movements like Rexism in Belgium and the Christian Social Party
   also combined fascist and conservative populist Roman Catholic elements

Fascism and the Protestant churches

   Protestantism in Italy and Spain was not as significant as Catholicism
   and the Protestant minority was persecuted. Mussolini's sub-secretary
   of Interior, Bufferini-Guidi issued a memo closing all houses of
   worship of the Italian Pentecostals and Jehovah Witnesses, and
   imprisoned their leader. There were some instances of people being
   killed because of their faith.

   The connection between the German form of Fascism, Nazism, and
   Protestantism has long been debated, with some saying that the
   Protestant denominations, especially the German Lutheran Church, was
   close. According to some scholars, especially Richard Steigman-Gall
   (The Holy Reich: Protestantism and the Nazi Movement, 1920-1945) the
   relationship was collaborationist. Hitler, in his manifesto, Mein
   Kampf, listed Martin Luther as one of Germany's great historic
   reformers. In Luther's 1543 book On the Jews and Their Lies, Luther
   advocated the burning of synagogues and schools, the deportation of
   Jews, and many other measures that resemble the actions later taken by
   the Nazis.

   The overwhelming majority of Protestant church leaders in Germany made
   no comment on the Nazis' growing anti-Jewish activities. Many
   Protestants opposed the governments of the Weimar Republic in the 1920s
   which they saw as coalitions between the Socialists and the Catholic
   Centre party. In 1932, many German Protestants joined together to form
   the German Christian Movement which enthusiastically supported Nazism,
   and sought to join Church and State. 3,000 of the 17,000 Protestant
   pastors in Germany were to join the movement. Hitler wished to unite a
   Protestant church of 28 different federations into one nationalist
   body. Pastor Ludwig Müller, the leader of the German Christian
   Movement, was soon appointed Hitler's advisor on religious affairs. He
   was elected Reich's Bishop in charge of the German Protestant churches
   in 1933. Many churches and ministers attempted to purge Christianity of
   "Jewish influences" and tried to institute the Nazis' Positive
   Christianity viewpoint on religion.

   An "Aryan Paragraph" was introduced to the constitution which stated
   that no one of non-Aryan background, or married to anyone of non-Aryan
   background, could serve as either a pastor or church official. Pastors
   and officials who had married a non-Aryan were to be dismissed. Much of
   the Lutheran establishment and most of the Reformed churches in Germany
   had welcomed Hitler's promise to oppose Bolshevism and social
   instability.

   The new measures began to raise some opposition to the German
   Christians from a minority of Lutherans and Evangelicals who had become
   increasingly disillusioned with unethical practices of the Nazis and
   disliked state interference in church affairs. Dietrich Bonhoeffer, a
   Lutheran pastor and theological liberal, was strongly opposed to the
   Nazis. Though there is some debate as to his actual involvement in
   planning the assassination attempt of Hitler, he was found guilty and
   executed for his alleged part in the conspiracy. A small group of
   Protestant clergy under Martin Niemoeller and Dietrich Bonhoeffer
   separated from the main churches to form the Confessing Church. The
   group had limited effect, however, as it was forced to meet secretly
   and was largely dispersed by the Nazis by 1939 at the latest, and the
   effect of Protestantism on inhibiting Nazism in Germany was limited at
   best.

Fascism and Islam

   See Mohammad Amin al-Husayni for ties between the Grand Mufti and WWII
   fascists. For contemporary issues, see Neofascism and religion; and the
   disputed term Islamofascism.

Fascism as an international phenomenon

   There are a number of regimes and movements that are alleged to have
   been either fascist or sympathetic to fascism. It is often a matter of
   dispute whether a certain government is to be characterized as fascist,
   authoritarian, totalitarian, or a police state. See also Fascism and
   ideology and Economics of fascism.

Fascism and sexuality

   The references in this article would be clearer with a different and/or
   consistent style of citation, footnoting or external linking. Please
   see the relevant discussion on the talk page for further details.

   There has been a revival of interest in recent times, among many
   academic historians, with regard to the so-called "cult of masculinity"
   that permeated fascism, the attempts to systematically control female
   sexuality and reproductive behaviour for the ends of the State. Italian
   fascists viewed increasing the birthrate of Italy as a major goal of
   their regime, with Mussolini launching a program, called the ' Battle
   For Births', to almost double the country's population. The exclusive
   role assigned to women within the State was to be mothers and not
   workers or soldiers. Fascists have generally been opposed to the
   concept of women's rights per se, preferring the traditions of chivalry
   to guide male-female relations.

   According to Anson Rabinbach and Jessica Benjamin, "The crucial element
   of fascism is its explicit sexual language, what Theweleit calls 'the
   conscious coding' or the 'over-explicitness of the fascist language of
   symbol.' This fascist symbolization creates a particular kind of
   psychic economy which places sexuality in the service of destruction.
   According to this intellectual theory, despite its sexually-charged
   politics, fascism is an anti-eros, 'the core of all fascist propaganda
   is a battle against everything that constitutes enjoyment and
   pleasure'… He shows that in this world of war the repudiation of one's
   own body, of femininity, becomes a psychic compulsion which associates
   masculinity with hardness, destruction, and self-denial."

Neo-Fascism

   Contemporary, meaning after World War II, fascist movements and
   allegations of neofascism are covered in a number of other articles:
     * See: Neo-Fascism; Neo-Nazism; Neofascism and religion; Fascism and
       ideology; Christian Identity; Creativity Movement; Ku Klux Klan ;
       National Alliance; Nouvelle Droite; American Nazi Party; Alain de
       Benoist; William Luther Pierce; George Lincoln Rockwell;
       Producerism.

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