Political systems in Europe

1
Political systems in Europe

• Fascism and National Socialism
• 17.10.2007
• Prof. Vesa Vares

2
Fascism

• new society permanent change
• sense of mass movement and the out-dated nature
  of 19th century Conservatism
• influences to adapt
• ultranationalism
• populism
• socialism
• Social Darwinism
• elite theories

3

• Activism and vitalism with plebeyan features
• easier to regard as a model elsewhere however,
  also the main enemy from the Marxist point of
  view (at least verbally)
• radicalism
• mass mobilization, criticism against Capitalism,
  political and ideological merits

4

• conservatism
• conciliation with the Church, relations with the
  King, nationalism, traditional practices
• no serious domestic threat the system would
  probably have survived after Mussolini in
  peacetime
• foreign policy adventurism Abessinia, Albania,
  Axis
• war against Greece revelead the weakness

5

• to remember what was same with and different
  from National Socialism
• same anti-Liberal, anti-democratic,
  anti-Socialist, anticlerical, anti-Capitalist,
  anti-aristocratic, collectivist, militarist, von
  oben Party, Leader, activist, vitalist, action
  and practice rather than ideology

6

• peculiar to Fascism emphasis on state,
  originally no racism, Empire, orientation towards
  future, conflict between labour and capital, some
  sort of ideology, less repression, corporatism
• corporatism trade-union based democracy
• Italian Social Republic 19431945

7
National Socialism

• NSDAP very small before 1930 Hitler seen as a
  comical figure (Bohemian corporal,
  half-Socialist)
• tactics changed after 1923 a mass party and some
  tactical adaptation in relations with right-wing
  parties
• the Socialist side still pressed by the SA troops
  after 1933 eliminated in 1934

8

• totalitarian system and terror however, a
  nonpolitical middle class citizen could live
  quite normally and peacefully (and the working
  class was better off than in 1933)
• HJ, BdM, KdF, Arbeitsfront etc.
• in economy state control and state regulation
• no chance to domestic opposition only old
  Conservatives as a silent opposition

9

• social policy predecessor of the welfare state?
• racial laws Nuremberg 1935
• religion German Christianity
• extremely traditional and masculine view of the
  sexes, KKK (although in their own view, a
  liberation of the woman)

10

• peculiar to National Socialism the nation as the
  foundation, more totalitarianism and
  mystification, even less ideology, anti-Semitism
  and racism (Blut und Boden), no conflict
  between labour and capital but a harmonious
  society, nostalgia
• important to remember Fascists and National
  Socialists did not invent anything they drove
  old ideas to extremes

11

• for example militarism, nationalism,
  anti-Semitism, criticism against parliamentary
  democracy, subjugation of women, social policy,
  survival of the fittest
• others did not make equally radical conclusions
• some of these survive even until today