Fascism

IX

Fascism after World War II

After the world became fully aware of the enormous human suffering that occurred in Nazi concentration camps and extermination centers, many people came to see the defeat of fascism as a historic victory of humanity over barbarism. World War II discredited fascism as an ideology, and after the war most of the world saw levels of sustained economic growth that had eluded most countries in the years after World War I. The economic and political turmoil that had spurred fascist movements in the years after World War I seemed to have disappeared. At the same time fascism could not take root in the conditions of tight social and political control in the USSR. Government controls also prevented fascism from gaining a foothold in Soviet client states in Eastern Europe.

But fascism proved resilient, and new movements adapted the ideology to the changed political environment. Some support for a revival of fascism came from the movement's supporters who were disappointed by the defeat of the Axis powers. In addition, a new generation of ultranationalists and racists who grew up after 1945 hoped to rebuild the fascist movement and were determined to continue the struggle against what they saw as decadent liberalism. During the Cold War, in which the United States and the Soviet Union vied for global dominance, these new fascists focused their efforts on combatting Communism, the archenemy of their movement.

Since 1945 fascism has spread to other countries, notably the United States. In several countries fascist groups have tried to build fascist movements based on historical developments such as fear of immigration, increased concern over ecological problems, and the Cold War. Along with the change in ideology, fascists have adopted new tools, such as rock music and the Internet, to spread their ideas. Some fascist groups have renounced the use of paramilitary groups in favor of a 'cultural campaign' for Europeans to recover their 'true identity.'

Fundamentally, contemporary fascism remains tightly linked to its origins in the early 20th century. Fascism still sets as its goal the overthrow of liberal democratic institutions, such as legislatures and courts, and keeps absolute political power as its ultimate aim. Fascism also retains its emphasis on violence, sometimes spurring horrific incidents. For instance, fascist beliefs motivated the 1995 bombing of the federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, that killed 168 people and wounded more than 500 others. In Germany, fascist groups in the early 1990s launched scores of firebomb attacks against the homes of immigrants, sometimes killing residents. In 1999, inspired by Nazi ideals of ethnic cleansing, fascist groups conducted a series of bomb attacks in London. The attacks were directed against ethnic minorities, gays, and lesbians.

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After World War II, only South Africa saw the emergence of a significant fascist movement that followed the prewar pattern. In South Africa the white supremacist paramilitary movement Afrikaner Weerstandsbeweging (Afrikaner Resistance Movement) organized radical white South Africans to create a new hard-line racial state. Most white South Africans supported the system of racial and economic exploitation of the black majority known as apartheid, but only a small fraction went so far as to support the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. The movement carried out repeated acts of violence and sabotage in the 1980s and especially the 1990s, but remained a minor political force. South Africa’s political reforms in the 1990s led to the further reduction in support for the Afrikaner Resistance Movement. In other countries, widespread hostility to fascism made it impossible to create a mass movement coordinated by a paramilitary political party, as Nazi Germany's National Socialists or Romania's Iron Guard had been. As a result, fascists have relied on a number of new strategies to keep the prospect of national revolution open.

X

New Fascist Strategies

Fascist groups have developed many new strategies since World War II, but they have virtually no chance of winning control of the government in any country. Citizens in all countries hope for political stability and economic prosperity, and do not see fascism as a realistic way of achieving these goals. Even in countries where ethnic tensions are strong, such as in some areas that were once part of the USSR or under its control, there is no mass support for visions of a reborn national community based on self-sacrifice, suppression of individualism, and isolation from global culture and trade.

A

Reliance on Dispersed Small Groups

One of the most important new fascist strategies is to form small groups of ideologically committed people willing to dedicate their lives to the fascist cause. In some cases these minor groups turn to terrorism. Since 1945, fascists in Western Europe and the United States formed many thousands of small groups, with memberships ranging from a few hundred to less than ten. These small groups can be very fragile. Many of them are dissolved or change names after a few years, and members sometimes restlessly move through a number of groups or even belong to several at once. Although the groups often use bold slogans and claim that their forces will create a severe social crisis, in practice they remain unable to change the status quo. These groups remain ineffective because they fail to attract mass support, failing even to win significant support from their core potential membership of disaffected white males.

Despite their weaknesses, these small fascist groups cannot be dismissed as insignificant. Some of them have been known to carry out acts of violence against individuals. In 1997 in Denmark, for example, a fascist group was accused of sending bombs through the mail to assassinate political opponents. In the United States, fascists have assaulted and killed African Americans, Jews, and other minorities, and set off scores of bombs. Small fascist groups also present a threat because the fliers they distribute and the marches and meetings they hold can create a local climate of racial intolerance. This encourages discrimination ranging from verbal abuse to murder. In addition, the small size and lack of centralized organization that weakens these groups also makes them nearly impossible for governments to control. If a government stops violence by arresting members of a few groups, the larger fascist network remains intact. This virtually guarantees that the ideology of fascism will survive even if government authorities clamp down on some organizations.

B

Shift to Electoral Politics

In addition to organizing through small groups, some fascists have tried to participate in mainstream party-based electoral politics. In contrast to the first fascist movements, these new fascist parties do not rely on a military branch to fight their opponents, and they tend to conceal their larger fascist agenda. To make fascist ideas seem acceptable, some parties water down their revolutionary agenda in order to win voter support even from people who do not want radical change and a fascist regime. Instead of emphasizing their long-term objectives for change, the fascist parties focus on issues such as the threat of Communism, crime, global economic competition, the loss of cultural identity allegedly resulting from mass immigration, and the need for a strong, inspiring leader to give the nation a direction.

Italy, for example, saw this type of quasi-democratic fascism with the 1946 formation of the Movimento Sociale Italiano (MSI), which hoped to keep fascist ideals alive. In the mid-1990s the MSI managed to widen its support significantly when it renounced the goals of historic Italian Fascism and changed its name to the National Alliance (Alleanza Nazionale, or AN). Although the AN presents itself as comparable to other right-wing parties, its programs still retain significant elements of their fascist origins. During the 1990s several other extreme-right parties gained significant mass support, including the Republicans (Die Republikaner) in Germany, the National Front (Front National, or FN) in France, the Freedom Movement (Die Freiheitlichen) in Austria, the Flemish Bloc (Vlaams Blok) in Belgium, and the Liberal Democratic Party in Russia. All of these groups have some fascistic elements, but reject the revolutionary radicalism of true fascism.

C

Emphasis on Cultural Change

Since World War II, some fascist movements have also shifted their goal from the political overthrow of democratic governments to a general cultural transformation. These movements hope that a cultural transformation will create the necessary conditions to achieve a radical political change. This form of fascism played an important role in the formative phase of the New Right. In the 1960s and 1970s New Right intellectuals criticized both liberal democratic politics and communism, arguing that societies should be organized around ethnic identity. Unlike earlier fascist movements, the New Right agenda did not require paramilitary organizations, uniforms, or a single unifying leader.

As a result of their emphasis on culture and ethnicity, the New Right argues that it is important to maintain a diversity of cultures around the world. But since it favors the preservation of ethnic cultures, the New Right strongly opposes the mixing of cultures that is increasingly common in the United States, Canada, and Europe. As a result, New Right thinkers attack the rise of global culture, the tendencies toward closer ties between countries, and all other trends that encourage the loss of racial identity. These thinkers argue that people who oppose racism in fact want to allow racial identity to be destroyed and are therefore promoting racial hatred. Known as differentialists, these fascists proclaim their love of all cultures, but in practice attack the multiculturalism and tolerance that lies at the heart of liberal democracy. Some political scientists and historians therefore argue that differentialism is really just a thinly disguised form of racism and fascism. Since the 1980s some leading New Right intellectuals have moved away from the fascist vision of a new historical era. However, the ideas that form the basis of the New Right movement continue to exert considerable influence on fascist activists who wish to disguise their true agenda. One example is 'Third Positionists,' who claim to reject capitalism and communism in their search for a 'third way' based on revolutionary nationalism.

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