Fascism and Its Legacy
What fascism actually was, how it came to power, why it collapsed, and how its ideas persist in contemporary politics.
What Fascism Was
Fascism is one of the most misused words in political discourse. People use it to mean 'anything authoritarian I dislike,' but historical fascism was a specific ideology with identifiable features. It emerged in Europe after World War I, primarily in Italy under Mussolini (who coined the term in 1919) and in Germany under Hitler's National Socialism.
The historian Robert Paxton defines fascism by its core elements: a sense of overwhelming national crisis, the belief that the nation's enemies (internal and external) must be eliminated, the subordination of individual rights to the community's needs as defined by the leader, and the glorification of violence as a regenerative force. Fascism rejected both liberal democracy and Marxist socialism, offering a 'third way' that combined ultranationalism, state-directed capitalism, mass mobilization, and a cult of the charismatic leader.
