10 min read · 2,021 words
I want to preface this with saying, like any rational and empathetic human being, I am against fascism. This is not an argument for fascism, but an argument that living under a fascist regime will be shockingly more comfortable than we’d like to believe. With that comfortability comes complacency, and with complacency comes the further propagation of fascism.
Often when we call something fascist it's more vibe-based than anything. Unlike socialism or communism which adhere to much more rigid definitions, fascism is a looser concept.
A core tenet of communism and communist-based ideologies is an idea of unity and togetherness; communist ideologies are more likely to label themselves as "communist" to promote a shared left-wing unity, to promote comradery. Fascist ideologies don't do this. One of their core tenets is an idea of uniqueness, that they are special and unique. Identifying with a shared ideology kinda defeats that purpose.
So how do we define fascism? If fascist regimes are often hesitant to call themselves fascist, then what criteria do we use to determine if a political system is fascist? Typically, definitions include some combination of the following:
No comment made on relations to modern political systems the reader may be familiar with.
We often hear about fascism from the perspectives of the victims and oppressed. It is important that we do hear about these perspectives, as it allows us to better understand the struggles and brutalities that one may suffer under a fascist regime. However, we seldom hear about the perspective of the average Joe under fascism. When we think of life under fascism, we often equate it to the lives of the victims, not the lives of the average person. It skews our perspectives; when fascism is knocking on our doorstep we let it in because life is not like the life we read about in history class, so we don't identify it as fascism.
For most people to be able to properly identify fascism, we must identify what the lives of most people were like under such regimes.
We in the Americas often equate the Nazis with World War II, mistaking their periods to be wholly overlapping. That is not the case; the Nazi party gained power in 1933, had six years of political reign before the invasion of Poland, and a further two before the involvement of the Soviet Union. The Nazi party was, at the time, a decently popular party with a solid base of internal support. To be able to understand the contemporary appeal of the Nazi Party and how they rose to power, we must understand the period of time in Germany right before the Nazi uprise—the Weimar era.
After World War I, from the ashes of the German Empire rose the Weimar Republic—an attempt at a post-empire German democracy. Due to the aftermath of the first World War, the Weimar Republic began in economic shambles and was further heavily stunted by the great powers of Europe in order to prevent a second German Empire (hindsight is 20/20). The Weimar Republic dealt with some of the greatest inflation and highest rates of unemployment the world had seen, further compounded with the effects of the Great Depression. Life was not great.
The Nazis came in and blamed it all on the Leftists and the Jews. "They're the bad guys! They're stealing your fortunes!" After a little bit of couping and a lot of social manipulation, the Nazis secured total power over the German political system. They began their crusade against the Jews, the Leftists, and the "outcasts" of society. (Henceforth called the "Victims").
The average person saw prosperity in this time. While the Victims were publicly oppressed, Germans saw unemployment go from 6 million people to a mere 1 million.1 Massive public works projects such as the Autobahn2 were built, alongside general housing and infrastructure. The Nazis implemented the "Strength Through Joy" program which gave "racially acceptable" ethnic Germans cheap vacation and loads of leisure time, as well as organizing programs for the arts and culture.
Real wages stagnated, but after the era of the Weimar Republic any stability felt like heaven on earth. That combined with protecting small businesses against "Jewish competition", the average German felt economically safe and secure. Ever since the Nazis came to power and that pesky "Jew problem" was being dealt with, it seemed like life had improved.
While a great deal of this economic recovery was real, it was largely in part due to the seizing of assets of the Victim population, slave labour, and later, external conquest. The cushy life of the average contemporary German was built on the blood of the oppressed.
Rising to power 11 years before the Nazis, the Italian Fascists (from whom the name of the ideology derives) gained power in similar conditions.
Despite winning WWI, Italian territorial gains were lackluster at best. This enraged the Nationalists, who believed that 600k Italians were dead for completely nothing. War debt was massive and the Italian Lira was in a freefall. Inflation was tearing through the savings of the middle class, and returning soldiers were left unemployed.
The Two Red Years, from 1919 to 1920, had the Italian communists rising to power. Seizing the means of production and distributing wealth to the people, they spent their time trying to improve the lives of the Italian working class. The middle and ruling classes were terrified of this "bolshevism"3 and decided they needed to put an end to it.
Benito Mussolini, an ex-socialist, aligned himself with the middle and ruling classes, and with his paramilitary squad (Il Fasci di Combattimento, or "The Fighting Squad"), he quickly rose to prominence and, funded by the upper classes, set about destroying the communists.
In late October of 1922, Mussolini set his Fasci to the streets of Rome, the Italian capital.4 The king of Italy folded nearly immediately, and without resistance named Mussolini and his party the new leaders of Italy.
Like the stability the Germans enjoyed under the Nazis post-Weimar, Italians enjoyed relative economic stability under Mussolini. Even during the Great Depression, they were able to tank it using public works projects. The Fascist Italian state crushed unions and strikes; wages were set by the government. Labour was crushed but employment remained somewhat stable.
Mussolini's gains were often more show than substance, roads were modernized but not in any meaningful way, the façades of buildings were brought to a modern look, and some new towns were built at the cost of coerced labour and malaria deaths. The famous adage that he "made the trains run on time" was fundamentally false, as the initiative was started pre-Mussolini and the trains didn't even run fully on time—but the propaganda and cult of personality Mussolini had built around himself made Italians feel safe and secure. Even if progress was minimal, any progress made was heavily propagandized and glorified.
In every town, Mussolini built Fascist Headquarters that doubled as community centers. He promoted boys' leagues and girls' leagues to spur the young, and brought about cultural unity and reform. He also allowed the Catholics control over marriage and the education system, promoting a "return to tradition" and pleasing the religious.
For the average Italian, it felt like there was progress being made, thanks to the Fascists. As long as you weren't a communist or critical of the state, you enjoyed at least a sense of progress and pride after the turmoil of the First World War.
Francisco Franco's fascist leadership in Spain followed a different path, but eventually arrived at the same results. Fearing a communist takeover, the Nationalists banded together and with the combined forces of the military and Spain's brutal colonial force, as well as help from Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy, ended up winning a civil war against the communist forces.
The next twenty years, from 1939 to 1959, were known as "the Years of Hunger". Franco isolated Spain, failed at providing a self-sustaining economy, and plunged the country into mass hunger and starvation (government rations provided 1000 calories per day of nourishment). The GDP didn't return to pre-civil war levels until 1951.
When Franco decided to end Spain's isolation in 1959, it truly was a prosperous time. GDP growth was at 7%—the highest in the world, second only to Japan. Industry was modernized, housing was built, wages rose, and urbanization skyrocketed. In the 1960s few families had cars, fridges, or TVs, while just ten years later they often had all three.
Highways were built, airports were expanded. Tourism boomed. Literacy and education rose, for both blue and white collar workers. For citizens who were complicit, they enjoyed great material comforts. Franco promoted materialism and Futbol over politics, and people came to stop caring about politics in favor of their comfort—it's but a small price to pay.
Like the other fascist regimes, there was a return to traditional gender roles and religion in Francoist Spain. Minority languages such as Basque, Catalan, and Galician were banned. If you were areligious or incorrectly political you were an enemy of the state. But for those who sucked it up, spoke Spanish, and abided by Franco's rules, you lived a moderately safe and comfortable life.
If we look at the lead-ups to fascism, we can see some common patterns. Often, fascism was preceded by
During the buildup, we see leftists being persecuted, followed by minority groups, while everyone who doesn't fit those descriptors sees
Fascist regimes seem not to last long, being ended by the death of their leader (as was the case with Francoist Spain) or by external forces (as were the cases with Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy). During that time, however, irreparable damage is done to the oppressed classes, in the case of the Nazis nearly wiping out Yiddish culture or with Spain dealing heavy blows to the Galician, Catalan, and Basque peoples.
Today's model citizens easily become tomorrow's victims. In Nazi Germany, the list grew quickly from political opponents to the Jews and Romanis, then further to the Slavs and disabled people (Aktion T4), then further still to the "asocial" (anyone deemed non-conformist). The "average person" may be safe today, but that does not ensure any future safety.
Fascism sees success by making the general public's lives comfortable while destroying the lives of the oppressed. For the average person, they will likely not suffer under fascism. As long as one doesn't go too against the grain, they will live what seems to be a prosperous life.
While you enjoy economic prosperity, your neighbors will suffer. You may be comfortable, but the cost of this comfortability is the lives of your peers.
For most of us, fascism will seem comfortable. We may not see it coming, as what we've been taught life under fascism is like comes from the lives of the victims. Most of our lives won't be like that. We will see progress and enjoy economic stability, and see it not as propaganda but as real improvement. We will become placid and content. Our contentment will cut resistance and lead to the further propagation of fascism, to the further suffering of our fellow, more unfortunate countrymen. Today we pay for our comfortability by turning a blind eye to injustice. Tomorrow, we may be the victims.
These statistics, coming from the Nazis themselves, cannot wholly be trusted as they very well could be manipulated. There definitely was a significant drop in unemployment, but we cannot be 100% sure it was that large of an improvement.
Germany's largest and arguably most important highway. Famous for large sections having no speed limits. Prior to writing this article, I did not know that the Nazis had built the Autobahn.
Referring to the bolsheviks, the communist revolutionaries seizing power in Russia at the time.
An event called the "March on Rome".