FASCISM

by Lurene Helzer

San Francisco State University

May 13, 1991

[College Paper of 1991 for 2017 Reader. Added News Film Clip of WWII's Italian Fascist Dictator Mussolini's Execution by Vengeful Italians who not only Executed Mussolini, but Fascist Italy.]

Also, to give modern readers a glimpse of past age, I added picture of Film Legend Valentino, He was also from Italy, but famous for his film talent and unbelievable good looks. He died young, by then in Hollywood, CA. A Number of his Love-Struck Female Fans of the day Jumped off buildings in Grief.

Odd for 2017 to Understand, but Valentino is a Lost Era of Hollywood.

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Fascism's Thin Air

Mussolini, Fascism and Diplomatic Magic Tricks

American newspaper of 1926 with

headlines about death of famed actor Valentino,

"Black-Shirted Fascisti Help Police Guard Valentino's Bier

"Mussolini Sends Huge Wreath; Great Crowds Continue to Pass Before Coffin; Order Restored Following Riotous Onrush of Mobs."

Pittsburgh newspaper of August 25, 1926

Photo below, handsome Italian Superstar Valentino.

It's a Trivial Detail in 2017, but Italian Fascist Dictator Mussolini Tried Snatching Limelight for Fascist Italy with Valentino's Death.  

Valentino's photo below is show, first, because he's so good-looking!

Also, because he was probably the most famous Italian in those years aside from Fascist Dictator Mussolini.

 I can't picture the two men sharing the same coffee table, so dissimilar they were in character; I never presume two individuals have anything in common simply because they come from the same country. It's such a pity that people so often do, though.

One website found here:

https://federicodecalifornia.wordpress.com/2010/02/17/the-original-superstar-of-a-hollywood-lost-rudolph-valentino-%E2%80%A2-1900-1926/

Valentino
 





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Another Short Film News Section
on Mussolini's End:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12_s028JYOU



Note:

I post this old college paper in 2017 because today's political fanatics call those they oppose in politics fascists, racists or whatever they like.

It sometimes gives me slight fear that history chases its tail for centuries, never learns. 

Regardless, it's a slander most commonly used by the far-Left in 2017.

Slander and libel lack veracity, yet are routinely believed by gullible voters in every country ange age, including the 21st Century.

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Original Text:

ONE




Fascism was less an ideology than a desperate and disorganized attack on capitalism and liberalism, which was wedded with other destructive moods prevalent in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s.

Fascism did not begin with much more than frustrated populations and a nest of ideologies from which the leaders of fascism could draw for their own benefit.

In the speech which Italian Fascist leader Benito Mussolini gave on March 23, 1919, a speech which is recognized as one which marked the birth of the fascist movement, totalitarianism was disallowed, but also promoted:


"We are strongly  opposed to all forms of dictatorship, whether they be of the saber or the cocked hat, of wealth or numbers. The only dictatorship we acknowledge is that of the will and intelligence." 

 (Delzell 11)


This statement should have left the bystander of 1919 feeling confused. 

It is not clear what Mussolini meant to say by pointing to the legitimate dictatorship of "will and intelligence," or what the implications of such a vague dictatorship would be.

But it had a romantic quality which perhaps considerable numbers of Italians found somehow poetic. 

We see this type of magical political sleight-of-hand through much of fascist rhetoric.

In the same speech, Mussolini used other controversial  ideas of the day to his advantage -- like the proverbial devil who cites Scripture for his own purpose.

"Economic democracy -- this must be our motto. And now let us turn to the subject of political democracy...The Senate must be abolished. But while we draw up this death certificate, let us add that in recent months the Senate has proved itself to be much superior to the Chamber. [A voice: "The doesn't take much!"]...We demand universal suffrage for both men and women; a system of voting by list on a regional basis; and proportional representation."

(Delzell 10)

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TWO

We can see how Mussolini threw the elements of ideology together, keeping what was useful and throwing out what was not. 

It was a schizophrenic venture. Often. Mussolini seemed to promote the ideologies he opposed.

Spanish fascist Franco exhibited the same tendency, as this excerpt from the Spanish "Twenty-Six-Point Program of the Falange" written in 1937 demonstrates:

"We repudiate the capitalist system which shows no understanding of the needs of the people, dehumanizes private property, and causes workers to be lumped together in a shapeless, miserable mass of people who are filled with desperation. Our spiritual and national conception of life also repudiates Marxism."

 (Delzell 275)


Why such contradictions? Why did Mussolini and other fascists simultaneously promote and disparage democracy, democratic institutions and popular ideologies?

The postulates of the fascist program released in May of 1920 provides some clue. 

This program came out after the second congress of the Fasci di Combattimento in Milan on May 24-25 of 1920.

Because of Mussolini and Cesare Rossi's "about- face" on the issues of Republicanism, religion, antimonarchism and anticlericalism,
Mussolini and his fellow fascists retracted on the issue of proportional representation and dropped rhetoric about the dissolution of the Senate.

"The Fasci di Combattimento do not intend -- in the present historical situation -- to
become a new party. Thus, they do not feel tied to any particular doctrinal form, nor to
any traditional dogma," 

[Denzell 14]

Then, in the same document, Fascism not only declared itself a non-party, but a 
non-regime.

"...the question of what kind of regime the country should have is subordinate to the 
present and future moral and material interests of the nation, as understood both in its 
present situation and in its historic destiny. Thus they express no prejudice either for 
or against existing institutions."

(Delzell 15)

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THREE

Spanish Statesman Jose Ortega y Gasset spoke exactly about this condition in 1930, 
only six years before the outbreak of a civil war in his own country, that is, the 
condition of being anti-everything but not pro-anything.


"At first sight, an attitude 'anti-anything' seems posterior to this thing, inasmuch as it 
signifies a reaction against it and supposes its previous existence. But the innovation 
which the anti represents fades away into an empty negative attitude, leaving as its 
only positive content an 'antique.' When his attitude is translated into positive 
language , the man who declares himself anti-Peter does nothing more than declare himself the upholder of a world where Peter is non-existant."


(Revolt of the Masses, 1930, Jose Ortega y Gasset, pg. 95)


Gasset's statement brings light to the confusion of fascism, which was not an ideology 
as much as it was a revolt, an illogical and anachronistic revolt. 

Marxism, rather than being a contender in the European boxing ring of of ideologies, 
became the rope on the perimeter from which rebels could fling themselves toward 
the failings of Liberalism and Capitalism.

Why?


FOUR

Marxism, in itself, contained many of the ideas which the fascists found useful, but it 
did not promote nationalism, which was an essential tool of the fascists.

Similarly, Capitalism became, for the fascists, more socially Darwinistic than ever, but 
simultaneously, less laissez faire than ever.

In summary, the heart and soul of fascism was, more than non-ideological, anti-
ideology by nature.

War became the essence of of ideological purity for the fascists, in spite, or perhaps 
because, of the experiences of World War I.

But what was World War I if not chaos? 

Men existed like sardines in bedewed and  
malodorous trenches with rats for months or years, with life becoming and effort to 
avoid the no-man's-land which lay just yards outside the trench, while Europe's 
political leaders played war priggishly in remote situation rooms, making up the rules 
as they went along.


World War I was almost wholly innovated. 

It subscribed 
consistently to no ideology.

##########


"Under the duress of war, the modern Leviathan was born. The State -- so exquisitely 
circumscribed by decades of liberal theory and practice -- suddenly assumed new 
powers over realms hitherto deemed immune from its control...War socialism, as the 
Germans called the new statist regimentation, went hand in hand with war 
dictatorships and even in democratic countries like England and France, parliaments 
lost much power."

(Garraty 987)


This leads us to believe that, in many ways, World War I was the school of fascism, and 
the political leaders of 1914 to 1918 its architects.


In conversation, most people in this day and age will qickly mention the Treaty of 
Versailles as the flint which lit World War II and its attendant fascism.

It is meaningless to say this without making the point more specific: World War I gave rise to the Treaty of Versailles and much 
of what happened later.

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Contradictory national-collectivist ideas were born during the First World War.

 "The nations mobilized their resources, regardless of the property rights that conservative 
nationalism was supposed to defend.

When the war ended and the Jacobin measures 
were allowed to lapse, an ideological residue remained..."

(Allerdyce 106)

But why the revolt against ideology? What is the underlying belief system against 
such movements in history?

French essayist Julien Benda, in his book, The Treason of the Intellectuals, explained that there was "a desire to a abase the values of knowledge before the values of action." 

(Benda 148)



General Francisco Franco of Spain, who led the fascist forces during the Spanish Civil 
War from 1936 to 1939, said on April 18, 1937 that Spain needed "militiamen, 
soldiers of the faith, not politicasters or debaters."

 (Delzell 291)


Franco's statement was typical of the day, when people showed the desire to exalt 
action over intellectualism.

############

Perhaps this is one reason for the distinction of fascism apart from other forms of totalitarianism, tyrannies, despotism and absolutism.

Of course, if you're the hostage or victim, you may not care what it's called.


Still, in fascism, the desire for action exists 
in the population, and the leader, the man on horseback, comes riding into town to fill 
the order. 

FIVE

With the other forms of oppressive government, we are more likely to see 
fear, hatred and regret within much of the citizenry toward the leader. 

With fascism, 
the fear, hatred and regret are pre-existing conditions which pave the way for the 
fascist leader.

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To the people, "isolation and impotence" contribute to this condition. 

It is "closely 
connected with uprootedness and superfluousness which have been the curse of 
modern masses since the beginning of the industrial revolution...To be uprooted 
means to have no place in the world, recognized and guaranteed by others; to be 
superfluous means not be belong to the world at all..."


Hannah Arendt, in the quote above and elsewhere, talks about loneliness as a 
condition in a citizenry which is ready for fascism.


The authoritarianism element of 
fascism  "appears like a last support in a world where nobody is reliable and nothing 
can be relied upon."

###########


Erich Fromm had a similar theory, saying that modern society had been seeking to 
"escape from freedom" and was looking to establish "new, 'secondary bonds' as a 
substitute for the primary bonds which have been lost."

(Allardyce 42)

##########

By the time World War I had ended, people did not quite know one another.


"The greater personal freedom that had burst on the Western world during and after the war -- a breaking down of old conventions, sexual liberation, a frank hedonism -- despite its enormous benefits to the quality of some individual lives  and, above all, to the arts, could be read as indicating a loss of national or public purpose..." 

(Garraty 1052)

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Gasset speaks both amusingly and truthfully to this point. 

He describes a scene on a Spanish street where he sees a fellow Spaniard eagerly assisting a tourist to find his way around.

"But I have never, when hearing or reading of this, been able to repress a suspicion: 'Was my countryman, when thus questioned, really going anywhere?' Because it might very well be, in many cases, that the Spaniard is going nowhere, has no purpose or mission, but rather goes out into life to see if others' lives can fill his own a little."

(Gasset 143)

See Gasset's quote below from the 1930s. It's hard to miss his point:

CONCLUSION

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n4RjJKxsamQ

Link above is well-known song that came out after Cold War, "Winds of Change," by The Scorpions in 1991.



Where are we going today and to what are we committed? 

We have seen how fascism operated through an anti-ideological  philosophy, how its roots were in World War I, which was largely a series of innovations by political leaders, and how the isolation of people from one another prompted them to escape that condition through authoritarian government.

Like Gasset in the early 1930s, the modern man  or woman might look around and see a kind of vast nothingness -- nothingness as a foreign policy, an institution, of government, a way of sexuality and, most alarmingly, a vision of the future.

--End --

Old News Clip of Mussolini's Mob Execution:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gz1llAEWIi4



-- 30 --

Note: January 7, 2021

I posted this old essay for learning, keen eyes.

Life is clean air. Yours

Refuse dictates.

In 2021, Fascism is loot for liars. Costumed pretty for young ears. 

Antifa is Aleph Null. Nothing. 

You? You're Infinity.

--30--

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