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tweakabelle -> RE: After the shock, here come the crazies.... (7/27/2011 7:55:00 PM)
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The claim that ""the modern fascist movement emerged from left wing movements." is true only in Italy. However, from the very start, the split was marked by violence and antagonism on both sides and by 1919, 5 years after the initial split, Mussolini was proclaiming "war on socialism". At this time, Italian fascism was a tiny obscure regional movement. Fascism developed into a mass movement in Italy during the period after 1920 by allying itself with anti-worker/Socialist/Union forces.
German fascism – the Nazis – grew out of the German Worker’s Party, which was inspired by the ultra-nationalist Pan-Germanic League. Spanish fascism, the Falangist movement, was founded in 1933 by Primo de Riviera, the son of a former Prime Minister and owes its rise to Franco’s co-option of the movement. Both Nazis and Falangists were fiercely anti-Bolshevik (Communist) and anti-Socialist from their formations.
The fate of fascism is not tied to Hitler or even German fascism (Nazism). Hitler was the pre-eminent fascist, but his death in 1945 did not mark the end of fascist rule in Europe. Fascism, primarily an ultra-nationalist cause, took various forms in the different European countries where it attained power. Fascist Spain remained neutral during World War II, while clearly sympathising with the Axis Powers. Spanish fascism remained in power through Franco until 1975. A notable feature was the 1937 merger of the conservative Carlist party and the Falangists/fascists.
The fascist route to power in Spain Germany and Italy in the 20s and 30s was marked in each case by constant fierce violent struggles with the forces of the left - the unions, workers, socialist and communists. The most well-known of these is the Spanish Civil War 1936-39. Even in countries where fascism failed to attain power, such as the UK, there were violent confrontations. Moseley's Fascists fought running street battles with Leftist and anti-Fascist forces.
When Fascists succeeded in attaining power, the left was always among the very first targets. This is true even in Hitler's Germany, where the destruction of the left was completed long before the 'Final Solution', the systematic genocide of the Jews, was implemented. The Nazi’s Twenty Five points are populist rather than socialist – the Nazi’s had physically obliterated any socialist presence in German politics. Another feature of fascist rule was the alliance between economic elites and fascism. Whilst fascism was theoretically corporatist in nature, it managed to co-exist quite happily with the reigning capitalist regimes when it attained power. Krupps, Siemens anybody?
Fierce violent antagonism - often a fight to the death - between fascism and the Left has been has been a constant feature wherever fascism has reared its ugly head in the West. It is happening today in Western Europe where the recent revival of ultra-right and fascist groups is a source of constant friction.
This history of intense violence and uncompromising opposition between the Left and fascism is constant from within a year or two of fascism's emergence on the political landscape. This violent antagonism is such a constant that it is easily argued that it's an outstanding, defining feature of the relationship between fascism and the Left historically. Any imputed similarity between the two would be vehemently rejected by both.
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