World Fascism: A Historical Definition

The issue of fascism is considered to be quite berated and misinterpreted throughout the entire twentieth century. The fascism of pre-war period has been described trough the prism of the public democratic mass media and innumerable performances of political discussions.

Nowadays the genesis of the fascism appears to be discounted; moreover, it is used as an insulting appellation in order to discredit assorted political competitors, while most of them have nothing to do with fascism. The purpose of this essay is to investigate the reasoning of why the trenches of World War I an important site for the study of fascism and to decimate the modern delusion.

First of all, it is a common but crucial mistake to consider the original roots of fascism as counterrevolutionary. Moreover, Benito Mussolini in Italy and Sir Oswald Mosley in Britain, the leading supporters of the fascism at the beginning of the 1920s, formerly came from the left socialist parties. In order to be correctly interpreted, the issue of fascism should be observed from the period that comes directly after the World War I.

The fascism is considered to be a result of the revulsion of 1914-1918. The confidence in the improvements that was broadly advertised throughout the nineteenth century had caused an erroneous impression of safety and protection among the population of Europe. The World War I appeared to be an enormous consternation; moreover, the impact of it was devoutly demolishing. The war resulted in the worldwide pessimism, which consequently revealed everything hidden under the cover of the previous regime.

The old order was ruined; the spirit of European nations was broken into confusion and the renewed policy of social democracy failed to submit actual assuredness in the future. “Those most betrayed by these events were the soldiers from the fighting front who had witnessed the madness of unnecessary butchery and had then returned to another world of prevaricating politicians who lacked the vision and courage to build the land fit for heroes” (Blamires 442). As a result, the fascism was generated out of the trenches. The soldiers were aware of the influence of integrity and the force of deeds; they carried this knowledge with them into the domain of radical politics.

Adolf Hitler and Benito Mussolini were the former soldiers themselves, they “openly stated that was constitutional their most meaningful experience. After the war, they found violence and war to be political elements of the first order. When this ideology of violence was fused with extreme right-wing nationalism and imperialism and non-Marxist leftist tendencies of revolutionary syndicalism, fascism, as we know it today, crystallized” (Finchelstein 18).

As a conclusion, we have established the connection between the emergence of fascism and the trenches of the World War I in this essay. Moreover, even before the war ended, Benito Mussolini tried to capture the important role in the civilian life of former soldiers and veterans after their return from the military actions. The leader even established his own newspaper, where he admired the ‘aristocracy of the trenches.’

Works Cited

Blamires, Cyprian. World Fascism: A Historical Encyclopedia, Santa Barbara, California: ABC-CLIO, 2006. Print.

Finchelstein, Federico. Transatlantic Fascism: Ideology, Violence, and the Sacred in Argentina and Italy, Durham, North Carolina: Duke University Press, 2009. Print.