When one talks about this subject, confusion often arises about the difference between Fascism and such related concepts as totalitarianism, dictatorship, despotism, tyranny, autocracy, and so on. As an academic, I might be tempted to wander into that thicket, but as a former diplomat, I am primarily concerned with actions, not labels. To my mind, a Fascist is someone who identifies strongly with and claims to speak for a whole nation or group, is unconcerned with the rights of others, and is willing to use whatever means are necessary — including violence — to achieve his or her goals. In that conception, a Fascist will likely to be a tyrant, but a tyrant need not be a Fascist.
Often the difference can be seen in who is trusted with the guns. In 17th-century Europe, when Catholic aristocrats did battle with Protestant aristocrats, they fought over scripture but agreed not to distribute weapons to their peasants, thinking it safer to wage war with mercenary armies. Modern dictators also tend to wary of their citizens, which is why they create royal guards and other elite security units to ensure their personal safety. A Fascist, however, expects the crowd to have his back. Where kings try to settle people down, Fascists stir them up so that when the fighting begins, their foot soldiers have the will and the firepower to strike first.
Thomas Edison hailed him as the “Genius of the modern age”; Gandhi, as a “superman.” Winston Churchill pledged to stand by him in his “struggle against the bestial appetites of Leninism.” Newspapers in Rome, host to the Vatican, referred to him as “the incarnation of God.” In the end, people who had worshipped his every move hung his corpse upside down next to his mistress’s near a gas station in Milan.
The Fascists grew because millions of Italians hated what they were seeing in their country and were afraid of what the world was witnessing in Bolshevik Russia. In speech after speech, Mussolini offered an alternative. He urged his countrymen to reject the capitalists who wanted to exploit them, the Socialists who were bent on disrupting their lives, and the crooked and spineless politicians who talked and talked while their beloved homeland sank further into the abyss. Instead of pitting class against class, he proposed that Italians unite — workers, students, soldiers, and businesspeople — and form a common front against the world. He asked his supporters to contemplate a future in which those who belonged to his movement would always look out for one another, while the parasites who had been holding the country back — the foreign, the weak, the politically unreliable — would be left to fend for themselves. He called on his followers to believe in an Italy that would be prosperous because it was self-sufficient, and respected because it was feared. This was how 20th-century Fascism began: with a magnetic leader exploiting widespread dissatisfaction by promising all things.
During the peak years of his reign, the great man’s image was displayed on products ranging from hair tonic and baby food to lingerie and pasta. When a would-be assassin shot him on the nose, he slapped on a bandage and went ahead, later the same day, with a speech to a conference of surgeons, telling them that he would not put himself in their hands. He commissioned street banners bearing the declaration IF I ADVANCE, FOLLOW ME; IF I RETREAT, KILL ME; IF I DIE, AVENGE ME!
Adolf Hitler spoke quietly, in a soothing tone. The 43-year-old appealed to the legislators for their trust, hoping that they would not think too hard before voting themselves into oblivion. His goal was to secure approval of a law authorizing him to ignore the constitution, bypassing the Reichstag, and govern by decree. He assured his listeners that they had nothing to worry about; his party had no intention of undermining German institutions. Should they pass the law, the parliament would remain in tact, freedom of speech would be unhindered, the rights of the Church would not be altered, and Christian values would, as ever, still be cherished. The powers requested under the “Law for Removing the Distress of the People and Reich” would be used only to shield the country from its adversaries. There was no need for concern: legislators could count on the Nazis to act in good faith.
Now in his early 30s, Hitler was an undisciplined but mesmerizing orator. The Iron Cross he had earned while in the military steeled his nerve, and his time on the streets gave him an intuitive sense of what delighted audiences — and it wasn’t abstract theories or objective arguments. He used simple words and did not hesitate to tell what he later described as “colossal untruths.” He sought to incite hatred toward those he considered traitors — the “November criminals” whose treachery had cost Germany the war — and he returned each day to what Nietzsche had called the ideology “of those who feel cheated”: anti-Semitism.
Speaking in town squares, beer halls, and circus tents, Hitler employed over and over again the same action verbs — smash, destroy, annihilate, kill.
The country’s political establishment — big business, the military, and the Church — had initially dismissed the Nazis as a band of loudmouthed hooligans who would never attract wide support. Over time, they saw value in the party as a bulwark against Communism, but nothing more. As for Hitler, they were not nearly so scared of him as they should have been. They underestimated the man because his lack of schooling and were taken in by his attempts at charm. He smiled when he needed to and took care to answer their questions with reassuring lies. He was, to members of the old guard, clearly an amateur who was in over his head and unlikely to remain popular for long. Though they misread Hitler, the young chancellor was an acute judge of them. “The reactionary forces believe they have me on the lead,” he confided to a colleague in February 1933. “I know they hope I will achieve my own ruin by mismanagement… Our opportunity lies in acting before they do. They have no scruples, no bourgeois hesitations… They regard me as an uneducated barbarian. Yes, we are barbarians. We want to be barbarians. It is an honorable title.”
Hitler’s claim to distinction rested not on the quality of his ideas, but instead on his extraordinary drive to turn warped concept into reality. Where others hesitated or were constrained by moral scruples, he preferred to act and saw emotional hardness as essential. From early in his career, he was a genius at reading a crowd and modulating his message accordingly. In conversations with advisers, he was frank about this. He said that most people earnestly desired to have faith in something and were not intellectually equipped to quibble over what that object of belief might be. He thought it shrewd, therefore, to reduce issues to terms that were easy to grasp and to lure his audiences into thinking that behind the many sources of their problems there loomed a single adversary. “There are only two possibilities,” he explained, “either the victory of the Aryan side or its annihilation and the victory of the Jews.”
Hitler felt that his countrymen were looking for a man who spoke to their anger, understood their fears, and sought their participation in a stirring and righteous cause. He was delighted, not dismayed, by the outrage his speeches generated abroad. He believed that his followers wanted to see him challenged, because they yearned to hear him express contempt for those who thought they could silence him. The image of a brave man standing up against powerful foes is immensely appealing. In this way, Hitler could make even his persecution of the defenseless seem like self-defense.
The chancellor’s average height, dark hair, and unathletic body — so at odd with the Aryan ideal — may have added to his support. He referred to himself as a true representative of the people, a working-man, a veteran, without a bank account, investment income, or a mansion. “Workers,” he declared, “you must look upon me as your guarantor. I was born a son of the people; I have spent all my life struggling for you.”
Mussolini’s ego lifted him to the pinnacle of power, then betrayed him. The man had such faith in his instincts, and believed so fully in what he heard himself say, that he failed to either seek or to take sound advice. For much of his tenure, he occupied Italy’s principal cabinet positions himself, as many as six simultaneously. Unlike Hitler, who left the bulk of hard work to others, Mussolini took pride in the art of government.
The Fuhrer urged his senior officers to “close your hearts to pity. Act brutally. 80 million people must obtain what is their right. Their existence must be made secure. I shall give a propagandist reason for starting the war, no matter whether it is plausible or not. The victor will not be asked afterward whether he told the truth.”
The bewildering rush of globalization prompted many to find solace in the familiar rhythms of nation, culture, and faith; and people everywhere seemed to be on the lookout for leaders who claimed to have simple and satisfying answers to modernity’s tangled questions.
The last century was the winter of the West, the victory of materialism and skepticism, of socialism, parliamentarianism and money. But in this century, blood and instinct will regain their rights… The era of individualism, liberalism and democracy, of humanitarianism and freedom, is nearing its end. The masses will accept with resignation the victory of the Caesars, the strong men, and will obey them.
In hindsight, it is tempting to dismiss every Fascist of this era as a thoroughly bad guy or a lunatic, but that is too easy, and by inducing complacency, also dangerous. Fascism is not an exception to humanity, but part of it. Even people who enlisted in such movements out of ambition, greed, or hatred likely either were unaware of, or denied to themselves, their true motives.
Oral histories from the period testify to the hope and excitement that Fascism generated. Men and women who had despaired of political change suddenly felt in touch with the answers they had been seeking. Eagerly they traveled long distances to attend Fascist rallies, where they discovered kindred souls keen to restore greatness to the nation, traditional values to the community, and optimism about the future. Here, in this crusade, they heard explanation that made sense to them about the powerful currents that were at work in the world. Here were the chances they had sought to participate in youth groups, athletic organizations, charity drives, and job-training activities. Here were the connections they needed to start a new business or take out a loan. Many families that had stopped after bearing two children, thinking that number all they could afford, now found the confidence to bear four or five or six. In the congenial company of fellow Fascists, they could share an identity that seemed right to them and engage in a cause that each could serve with gladness and singleness of heart. These were prizes, they believed, worth marching for and even giving up democratic freedoms for — provided their leaders could do as promised and make their fantasies real.
Mussolini and Hitler were the embodiments of Fascism, but neither could engineer a fully totalitarian state. There was always a gap between theory and reality, between orders from on high and implementation at lower levels. The governments were never quite as efficient as they wished to appear. In Germany, the Gestapo committed countless hideous crimes but also had to work hard to make average citizens believe the regime had agents on every corner and ears on duty in every building. Behind its intimidating facade, the organization was understaffed, swamped with paperwork, and politically unreliable — half its members were not even Nazis.
As for the two leading men, Hitler, once in power, showed his indolent side, generally starting his day around noon and leaving the details of government to others. Stalin rose with the roosters, worked long hours, and demanded to be kept current on every development, whether economic, political, or military. Hitler was a teetotaler and vegetarian; Stalin drank plenty and ate omnivorously. Hitler preferred oral briefings; Stalin read detailed policy papers — and edited them.
The US arrived at the peace conference in Paris with lofty principles and a short attention span, ultimately rejecting its own proposed League of Nations and withdrawing smugly to its side of the ocean.
A distinctive vocabulary was developed to justify the arrests. Those condemned by show trials were called class traitors, enemies of the people, running dogs, bourgeois pigs, imperialist spies.
In the dream, she is lifted to Heaven when just a child. There, she is greeted by an angel who says, “Take my hand and I will show you your new home.” The angel and Cleo stroll through Heaven’s shining streets, more radiant than anything the small and nervous girl had seen. However, instead of stopping before one of the lovely houses, they keep walking, then walking some more. The lights begin to dim, the houses are smaller now and the streets not so smooth. Finally, they arrive at a tiny hut near the edge of a dense forest with just enough light to see. Cleo asks, “Is this my new home?” The angel replies, “I’m afraid so; you were just barely good enough to get in.”
During the Cold War, many governments thought it sufficient to define themselves by what they were against. When the Berlin Wall fell and the Iron Curtain parted, mere anti-Communism was no longer the credential it had been. To win respect, governments would have to aim higher than “barely good enough.” That, one might hope, would prove welcome news.
Foremost among the ideas Truman referred to was the belief that one’s own nation has attributes and rights above all others. The aggression shown by Tojo’s militaristic Japan, Mussolini’s New Rome, and Hitler’s supposed thousand-year Reich could all be traced, at least in part, to the unbridled nationalism of those countries’ leaders and followers. The world — East and West — had paid unconscionable price to withstand the folly unleashed by their “fanatical brains.” However, this did not mean that as history moved from hot war to cold, the Soviet Union and its adversaries would view nationalism in the same light.
In Communist theology, preoccupation with national identity is a mortal sin, an obsession devised by the rich to distract the proletariat and prevent it from asserting its own interests. In this view, the nurturing of ethnic pride is little more than a tactic for dividing workers, persuading them to don opposing uniforms and slaughter one another for the benefit of arms manufacturers and banks. Thus, Communist regimes, especially in diverse societies like the USSR and Yugoslavia, banned the public display of nationalist sentiments.
As an adult, I have never concealed my pride in being an American, even to acquaintances who consider that kind of chauvinism unsophisticated. The identification we feel toward the places where we live or were born can give us an anchor in a chaotic world and strengthen our connections to family, community, and the generations that preceded and will follow us. At their best, such feelings are a celebration of culture and all that comes with it in the form of literature, language, music, food, folktales, and even the wildlife we associate with our homelands.
In a true democracy, leaders respect the will of the majority but also the rights of the minority — one without the other is not enough. This means that constitutional protections for the individual must be defended, even when those protections become inconvenient to the party on top. Years before taking office, Hitler told his fellow Nazis, “The Constitution only maps out the arena of the battle, not the goal… once we possess the constitutional power, we will mold the state into the shape we hold to be suitable.”
The most difficult competitor for any worker is a machine that can do the same job essentially for free. This unequal contest between our inventions and our workforce has depressed salaries and robbed millions of the dignity that comes from regular employment — and along with it the precious sense of being useful and optimism about what lies ahead.
Among the nations scoring less well was the US, which for the first time was rated a “flawed democracy,” not a “full” one. The analysts didn’t blame Donald Trump for this fall from grace but rather attributed his election to Americans’ loss of confidence in their institutions. “Popular trust in government, elected representatives, and political parties has fallen to extremely low levels,” the report concluded, adding, “This has been a long-term trend.” The number of Americans say they have faith in their government “just about always” or “most of the time” dropped from above 70 percent in the early 1960s to below 20 percent in 2016.
A further reason for discontent with democracy is that public officials are having a harder time communicating their intentions and actions. The old days of one person broadcasting a story to many have been supplanted by networks that connect all to all; each day, there are more people with megaphones on the street. This expansion of awareness has benefits, but can also stir resentment among people who see what others have and they do not. Respect for the rights of others is a lofty principle; but envy is a primal urge.
Meanwhile, advances in technology have provided both the blessing of a more informed public and the curse of a misinformed one — men and women who are sure they know the truth because of what they have seen or been told on social media.
Disinformation campaigns are hardly novel. During the American War for Independence, the rebel minister to Paris, Benjamin Franklin, used his printing press to circulate stories he had made up about British atrocities.
This transition has led “we the people” — including editorial writers, columnists, talking heads, and bloggers — to demand more of our governments. That would be fine if we only matched the request by asking more of ourselves. Instead, we are spoiled. Even those too lazy to vote feel it their birthright to blast our elected representatives from every direction. We complain bitterly when we do not get all we want as if it were possible to have more services with lower taxes, broader health care coverage with no federal involvement, a cleaner environment without regulations, security from terrorists with no infringement on privacy, and cheaper consumer goods made locally by workers with higher wages. In short, we crave all the benefits of change without the costs. When we are disappointed, our response is to retreat into cynicism, then start thinking about whether there might be a quicker, easier, and less democratic way to satisfy our wants.
The little lives of my friends went on, under National Socialism as they had before, altered only for the better, and always for the better, in bread and butter, in housing, health, and hope, wherever the New Order touched them… I remember standing on a Stuttgart street corner in 1938, during a Nazi festival, and the enthusiasm… after so many years of disillusion, almost swept me, too, off my feet. Let met tell you what it was like in Germany: I was sitting in a cinema with a Jewish friend and her daughter of thirteen, while a Nazi parade went across the screen, and the girl caught her mother’s arm and whispered, “Oh Mother, Mother, if I weren’t a Jew, I think I’d be a Nazi!”
A joke quickly made the rounds that Chavez deserved 30 years in prison - one for plotting the coup and 29 for not succeeding.
In a true police state, street crime goes down — and kidnappings for ransoms were hardly the problem in the Third Reich that they came to be in Venezuela.
If that means playing a little rough, so be it. He notes sarcastically that some think the Russian bear should “start picking berries and eating honey. Maybe then he will be left a lone. But no, he won’t be! Because someone will always try to chain him up. As soon as he’s chained, they will tear out his teeth and claws.”
Virtually every state in Europe is the product of a nationalist movement that flowered in the 19th century or earlier. Wilson’s doctrine of self-determination gave a boost to the idea that wherever there dwell a people, there should be a state — however impractical that concept would be to implement in a region where the movement of people and the wondrous spontaneity of romance have conspired to link some very different family trees. The whole notion of pure blood is laughable, but that does not stop tribal instincts and their accompanying national mythologies from exercising a powerful sway over behaviors, as WW2 so tragically demonstrated. It took the shock of that war to create a reaction strong enough for countries to embrace regional integration, but that choice has always been more compelling logically than emotionally.
The EU’s advantage is that disentangling Europe from the single currency and a shared regulatory structure would be extraordinarily disruptive and expensive. Those nostalgic for the region’s good old days are not remembering; they’re daydreaming.
The Achilles’ heel of the European project is that it has always been a top-down enterprise; a lot of people never warmed to it.
They were not expecting the fine print to include rules that would regulate so much of daily life — from the size of cucumbers to the definition of chocolate to the right of poultry farmers to kill and eat their own ducks. The EU marriage between region and state still make economic sense, but the passion has cooled. EC president admits, “One of the reasons European citizens are stepping away from the European project is that we are interfering in too many domains of their private lives.”
Our biggest regret is that leaders underestimated the resentment men and women would feel at being told what to do by officials whose judgment they question and for whom they have never directly voted. Within our well-traveled group, the overall value of integration is understood, but for those working on a farm in Poland or at a factory in Bratislava, allegiance to Brussels does not come naturally, if at all.
This approach to consulting with the people takes what would ordinarily be considered a democratic tool — the plebiscite — and uses it to spread and validate a falsehood. By asking questions based on a lie, it makes the lie a central part of national conversation. Like other vile tactics, the misuse of plebiscites was perfected by the Third Reich, which employed it often to attach a small thread of legality to Hitler’s rule. “The most effective form of persuasion,” said Goebbels, “is when you are not aware of being persuaded.”
The complexity of immigration as an issue begins with a basic human trait: we are reluctant to share. “Once you have given citizenship to these Latins,… do you think there will be any space for you, like there is now… at games or festivals? Don’t you realize they’ll take over everything?”
The fundamental purpose of foreign policy is elementary: to convince other countries to do what we would like them to do. To that end, there are various tools at our disposal, which range from making polite requests to sending in the Marines.
Since 2017, surveys show a marked decline in respect for the US. In Germany, belief that the American president can be counted to do the right thing shrank from 86% under his predecessor to 11% under Trump. In France, 84 to 14; in Japan, 74 to 24; in South Korea, 84 to 17.
Fascism feeds on social and economic grievances, including the belief that the people over there are receiving better treatment than they deserve while I’m not getting what I’m owed. It seems today that almost everyone has a grievance: the underemployed steelworker, the low-wage fast-food employee, the student up to her ears in debt, the businessperson who feels harassed by government regulations, the veteran waiting too long for a doctor’s appointment, the fundamentalist who thinks war is being waged against Christmas, the professional with her head brushing against a glass ceiling, the Wall Street broker who feels unfairly maligned, the tycoon who still thinks he is being overtaxed.
Obviously, personal gripes — legitimate or not — have been part of the human conditions ever since Cain decided to work out his jealousy on his brother. What is an added concern now is the lack of effective mechanisms for assuaging anger. As described above, we all tend to live in media an information bubbles that reinforce our grievances instead of causing us to look at difficult questions form many sides. Rather than think critically, we week out people who share our opinions and who encourage us to ridicule the ideas of those whose convictions and perspective clash with our own. At many levels, contempt has become a defining characteristic of American politics. It makes us unwilling to listen to what others say — unwilling, in some cases, even to allow them to speak.
In the political realm, broadly respected leaders are rare precisely because, in trying to establish a middle ground, they leave themselves open to attack from the extremes. Candidates with the best chance to win general elections can’t get past the primaries. Legislators who try to work across the aisle are unappreciated by one side and castigated for disloyalty by the other.
Whoever fights with monsters should see to it that in the process he does not himself become a monster.
Bill Clinton observed that when people are uncertain, they’d rather have leaders who are strong and wrong than right and weak. Throughout history, demagogues have often outperformed democrats in generating popular fervor, and it is almost always because they are perceived to be more decisive and sure in their judgments.
In times of relative tranquility, we feel we can afford to be patient. We understand that policy questions are complicated and merit careful thought. We want our leaders to consult experts, gather as much information as possible, test assumptions, and give us a chance to voice our opinions on the available options. We see long-term planning as necessary and deliberation as a virtue, but when we decide that action is urgently needed, our tolerance for delay disappears.
In those moments, many of us no longer want to be asked, “What do you think?” We want to be told where to march. That is when Fascism gets its start: other options don’t seem enough.
Power is, as we know, an addiction prone to abuse. Even those who enter public life with the best of intentions are susceptible to its pull. We ought, therefore, to be mindful of our bad habit — which is to look for and expect easy answers when the most serious problems we face are anything but. We might want to remember the explanation that Hitler gave, in 1936, for his popularity: “I will tell you what has carried me to the position I have reached. Our political problems appeared complicated. The German people could make nothing of them… I, on the other hand,… reduced them to the simplest terms. The masses realized this and followed me.”