Is fascism inevitable?

[Strategos' Risk]

Doing more ruminations on Kaiserreich again.

Supposing that Mussolini never created fascism as we know it, would the ideological trends of WWI and afterwards still lead to the creation of a similar ideology? If not, what would take its place?

 

[archaeogeek]

Doing more ruminations on Kaiserreich again.

Supposing that Mussolini never created fascism as we know it, would the ideological trends of WWI and afterwards still lead to the creation of a similar ideology? If not, what would take its place?

D'Annunzio, not Mussolini.

 

[I Blame Communism]

Nothing is inevitable until it happens!

(There's life in the old girl yet... )

Various things still exist without the Fascisti becoming prominent in Italy (Austrian "National Socialism", anti-Enlightenment intellectuals, fear of socialism, etc) and I think it's more likely than not that some sort of movement loosely (loosely) analogous to fascism takes over somewhere. But it will pick some things out of the ideological grab-bag that Mussolini and Hitler (who were themselves different) did not, and not pick things that they did.

For examples of what I'm thinking of, EdT's Fight and be Right is excellent [/shameless plug]: you've got several *fascist countries, but none are quite like our fascism. The "Integralism" of Mussoliniless Italy seems to be a mixture of political Catholicism, Strasserism, and flamboyance (featuring the aforementioned D'Annunzio). The absolutist Russian regime falls somewhere between Stalin and an Orthodox version of Franco. Unionist Britain keeps up the pretence of parliamentary democracy.

Something like fascism is pretty likely in that climate, but just how like fascism do you have to be to be called *fascist?

 

[Strategos' Risk]

That's a damned good question. The trouble is that the tumultuous 30s to 40s has caused us to neatly divide up the world into three vague ideological umbrellas, with little nuance. Integralism or Falangism could have appeared in Iberian or Latin America even if fascism proper did not in Italy or Germany. The politics/economic system used by caudillos such as Peron or Vargas certainly involved heavy collusion between the state and corporations- yet we hardly hear them labelled fascist. And Militarist Japan was certainly dictatorial, but was it fascist? Perhaps there are no easy ideological labels, that to some extent the umbrellas formed were just based upon the political blocs of nations.

Frankly, I blame World War II.

 

[Dan Reilly The Great]

I'm with IBC, with the rise of nationalism in the 19th century going into the 20th, you are pretty likely to get some kind of fascism analogue, the only question is just how 'fascist' you want it to be.

 

[Jape]

I think in an industrial society, with freaquent warfare *fascism of a form in all but inevitable, just as socialism in all its forms is an obvious reaction to the Industrial Revolution.

Arguably the seeds of Fascism were sown by the Romantic movement which harked back to a nostalgic fantasy and attacked the cold logic and anti-establishment thinking of the Enlightenment.

Popular Nationalism is also an obvious predecessor. The National-Liberal school of thought is also a very early example of Nationalism and Progressive political thought being combined. People say that 19th century nationalism was a left-wing idea so it doesn't count as syncretism but ultimately the tenents of it remained into the apparently right-wing movements of the 20th century.

Hell could you count the Jacobins as literal National-Socialists?

Actually I think a big reason for Fascism was Marx and his combination of Enlightenment logic with socialist ideas. Before him, many socialist thinkers were either utopians, often with Romantic leanings, or more 'organic', seen as part of the radical-liberal tradition. His dogmatic system of thought helped produce a dividing line between Marxist radicals and non-Marxist radicals. This 'other' category included religious groups, anarchists, syndicalists, guild socialist, statist social democrats, social nationalists etc. all were influential on Fascism in their own ways.

However the more directly Romantic influenced groups arguably started with the Portuguese Integralismo, which sort an absolutist monarchy aided not by aristocrats but technocrats, however much like Action Francaise it was realtively classical in its economic approach.

WWI and the growth of interventionist economics helped move this on and even in the late 19th century you had nationalists calling for major social reform not so much to help or placate the masses but in order make the monolithic nation-state stronger and more unified

 

[yourworstnightmare]

The National Populist movements could be described as Fascist related. The National Syndicalists led by Mussolini are pretty much Left Wing Fascists.

 

[aktarian]

Probably. Reactionary policies are natural response to liberalism and socialism, which are in turn natural response to growing wealth of middle class and growth and declining living conditions of lower class (or industrial workers).

Combine that with nationalism, which is really 19th century invention, throw in disatisfaction with position of one's country in the world (either perception of being denied proper place, anger over lost war, irridentism....) and you haveall the ingredients. How you prepare the meal is another question but you are bound to make soemthing that resembles fascism.

 

[Mr Qwerty]

Fascism, in the general sense, is probably the default form of human government. Given enough stress, it'll come back.

 

[jkay]

I think it could've easily been commie, too. It had to be something extreme because of massive unhappiness with WWI - which most Italians didn't want into in the first place, and turned out to be a useless bloodbath for them.

EDIT: in that case, Hitler prolly would've been the founder of the fascist movement, and it might've had a German name. It would've made little military difference which side Italy was on - most Italians hadn't been convinced by their WWI failures to care any more in the 2nd war, given their sadly comic record on the ground.

 

[I Blame Communism]

I think it could've easily been commie, too. It had to be something extreme because of massive unhappiness with WWI - which most Italians didn't want into in the first place, and turned out to be a useless bloodbath for them.

EDIT: in that case, Hitler prolly would've been the founder of the fascist movement, and it might've had a German name. It would've made little military difference which side Italy was on - most Italians hadn't been convinced by their WWI failures to care any more in the 2nd war, given their sadly comic record on the ground.

One can't just substitute communism for fascism, in Germany, Italy, or anywhere else. It was only rowdy adolescants and hard-boiled thugs for whom radicalism and violence was enough to justify itself. Hard-left parties got their support from workers and their backing from Comintern. Fascist parties had anxious lower-middle-class "little men" at the centre of their coalition and got their backing from big money.

Fascism, in the general sense, is probably the default form of human government. Given enough stress, it'll come back.

It would appear that "the general sense" is no sense at all. Fascism is a particualr thing, a phenomenon of the 20th century. It is not a generic term for any government we don't like.

 

[Mr Qwerty]

It would appear that "the general sense" is no sense at all. Fascism is a particualr thing, a phenomenon of the 20th century. It is not a generic term for any government we don't like.

Well, then, it sounds like we need to get our definitions of the word straight before arguing. And no, I don't just mean "any government I don't like".

 

[yourworstnightmare]

Hmm, definitions are tricky. Best would probably be something like One Party State lead by a ultra-Nationalist movement that's both anti-Socialist and anti-Capitalist, that follow an ideology with emphasis on worshiping the leader.

 

[Joseph Solis in Australia]

Since Fascism is a reaction of the rise of socialism in Europe after WWI. Fascism is inevitable because big businesses will not let the workers to control the production and the easy solution is seize the government before the Socialists will penetrate.

Globalism + Socialism = Communism
Corporatism + Socialism = Fascism
Nationalism + Socialism = Nazism

 

[Ioannes]

One aspect not mentioned of some (many? most?) Fascist governments was a pathological obsession with ethnic/racial categorization and "purity" of their particular category. Of course, the German Nazis are most famous for this, as well as their pathetic imitators in the US. But it was a part of other movements at this time.

IMO, this is an almost inevitable outgrowth of the 19th century fixation on these subjects and the corresponding pseudo-scientific Eugenics movement.

 

[Geekhis Khan]

Well, as others have pointed out, authoritarian nationalist collectivist ideas were myriad and possibly inevitable as of the end of WWI in some form or another.

Fascism, the weird Italian mishmash of socialism, syndicalism, authoritarianism, nationalism, republicanism, futurism, romanticism, and militarism, was a specific product of the OTL chain of events, and any time in its history could have morphed into something else Left or Right or Other.

Even before WWI Italian political ideas were heading towards areas associated with Fascism, however. Corradini's authoritarian nationalism, Pannunzio's nationalist-leaning radical syndicalism, ideas towards nationalist state socialism, Gentile's Actualism philosophy, futurism... The use of the term Fasci to describe a group (it's equivalent to the German 'Bund' or English 'Union') predates Fascism.

So Italy-wise you could certainly see some near-parallel arize, or even something called "Fascism" that's vastly different from OTL's Mussolinian party.

 

[Hendryk]

I think in an industrial society, with freaquent warfare *fascism of a form in all but inevitable, just as socialism in all its forms is an obvious reaction to the Industrial Revolution.

Arguably the seeds of Fascism were sown by the Romantic movement which harked back to a nostalgic fantasy and attacked the cold logic and anti-establishment thinking of the Enlightenment.

This. Fascism is largely a byproduct of the advent of the politicization of the masses in an authoritarian or weak democratic context. Said politicization is itself a consequence of mass literacy, the industrial revolution, and most directly total war. When the people become politicized, if no robust democratic institutions are in place to channel their involvement as well as their demands, the result is one form or another of fascism.

 

[Don Lardo]

Fascism is largely a byproduct of the advent of the politicization of the masses in an authoritarian or weak democratic context. Said politicization is itself a consequence of mass literacy, the industrial revolution, and most directly total war. When the people become politicized, if no robust democratic institutions are in place to channel their involvement as well as their demands, the result is one form or another of fascism.

THIS.

A cogent and succinct post which definitively answers the OP's question in one paragraph.

 

[lord caedus]

I'm a bit late, but the "fascist minimum" (the essential parts of fascism that political theorists & scientists have been trying to define to separate fascism from other authoritarian right-wing movements), according to Robert Griffin is "palingenetic ultranationalism". Simply put, this means that a fascism believes in a national "rebirth" but only one that fits their strong ultranationalist believes.