Nathanael Green's book titled FASCISM: AN ANTHOLOGY contained a collection of essay excerpts to "come to grips" with the political concept of Fascism. These excerpts dealt with disparate Fascist parties and movement and showed that Fascism had wide spread support in Europe and in the US. Some of the essays dealt with the international phenomena of Fascism while others focused on specific national Fascist nationalist movements and trends.
George Mosse's essay made clear that by 1936, every European nation and the US had Fascist parties or movements some of which were splinter movements. Mosse should have been more specific re the international aspect of Fascism. Such examples could have included Mosley's British Union of Fascists, the Belgium Rexists, the French Action Francaise, the Romanian Iron Guard, and other Fascist groups outside of Italy and Germany.
Ernst Nolte's excerpt was taken from his interesting book titled THE THREE FACES OF FASCISM. Nolte emphasized that the one phenomena that united the Fascists was fear of Big Communism. The Fascists were nothing if they were not anti-Communists. Fears of
Big Communism were very real in Central and Eastern Europe. Nolte remembered an attempted Communist revolution in Germany in 1919 which almost claimed the life of the future Pope Pius XII and was only crushed when German troops crushed this attempted revolution. Nolte cited Franz Borkenau (1900-1957) who, interestingly enough, wrote that the biggest purge of Communists occurred in the Soviet via Stalin & co. Except for Lenin's wife, everyone of Lenin's loyal supporters were purged and murdered mostly by the Show Trials in the 1930s. The
German Reichstag Fire in 1934 caused a genuine fear of Big Communism, and the trial of van Der Lubbe, a Dutch Communist, proved that he committed the arson alone.
As Dennis Mack Smith wrote in a following essay, Mussolini & co. used bogus fears of Big Communism in Italy. The Italians were mostly devout Catholics, and the Communist fear was indeed bogus as Smith noted. In fact, Mussolini, as A. Rossi cited, admitted that his rise to power was in part based on such bogus fears. As A.J.P. Taylor noted in his book THE ORIGINS OF THE SECOND WORLD WAR, the revolution that from which Mussolini saved the Italians was bogus and nonexistent.
Often, apprehensively historians have equated Fascism with anti-Antisemitism. This is not true. The Belgium Rexists were not antisemitic and were not racists. Mussolini was not antisemitic and only catered to Hitler with some restrictions on Italian Jews. On the other hand, the alleged virulent anti-Fascist, Joseph Stalin, organized mass arrests and mass murder of Jews along the same lines that Hitler & co. were blamed.
George Orwell wrote that historians and social scientists either clearly define Fascism or stop using Fascism as a political description or stop using the term. This reviewer's view is that Fascism was a response and NOT an ideology. The Fascists responded to the following:
Disillusion to WW I (winners and losers)
Failure to correct the problems of The Great Depression
The perceived disintegration of social norms and stability
Fears of Big Communism
One should note that without the rise of Big Communism, Fascism may not have emerged. As noted in this review, Fascism was not the same as conservatism. Franco disbanded his Falangists as soon as the Spanish Civil War was over (1936-1939). One could read Marx, Engles, Lenin, Trotsky, and company to get the roots of Communism. However, no one can trace any roots of Fascism Vain attempts have been made to claim that St. Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274) and Martin Luther (1483-1546) were precursors of Fascism. However no one can make any accurate claim of Fascist ideology.
This collection of excerpts help eliminate emotional responses to Fascism. During the 1920s and early 1930s Fascism was a political approval word because of the paranoia over Big Communism. One defect of the book was that the historians mentioned in this anthology did not mention Fascist economic policy which was one reason for Fascist success in the midst of The Great Depression. Still this book is a useful tool to gain a better understanding of Fascism which apprehensively conventional historians refuse to seriously consider.
James E. Egolf
October 25, 2015
Loading your book clubs
There was a problem loading your book clubs. Please try again.
Not in a club?
Learn more
Join or create book clubs
Choose books together
Track your books
Bring your club to Amazon Book Clubs, start a new book club and invite your friends to join, or find a club that’s right for you for free.
Flip to back
Flip to front
Enter your mobile number or email address below and we'll send you a link to download the free Kindle App. Then you can start reading Kindle books on your smartphone, tablet, or computer - no Kindle device required.
-
Apple
-
Android
-
Windows Phone
-
Android
To get the free app, enter your mobile phone number.
