Axis of Storms

How Is Fascist Ideology Defined?

Fascism, in the classical sense, is a national revolutionary ideology which seeks the ethnic-cultural palingenesis of European nations. Its theory of history is centered on the belief in the perpetual struggle between nations as a part of the natural order, transposing the Marxist concept of economic based class struggle with a form of national[ist] class struggle ["socialism of the nations"] in which underdeveloped proletarian nations seek their own emancipation from an hegemonic global hierarchical structure—by means of implementing programs of rapid industrialization and modernization of the national infrastructure—imposed upon the world by a "plutocracy" of democratic-capitalist-socialist states.

In practice, Fascism combines the methods of national syndicalism, corporatism, and totalitarianism [Corporate-Ethical State] as the means of assimilating its citizens into a monolithic national class, to facilitate the abolition of all socio-economic divisions or perceived class distinctions based on material conditions while unifying the masses into a shared "national consciousness" based on a higher moral law, and thus preparing the whole of the nation for its inevitable struggle against the internationalist 'plutocratic order' via combination of militarism and industrial modernization.
National Socialism splinters off from Fascism by replacing its theory of history of the struggle of nations with the struggle of races while focusing more on the revival of Northern European folk culture in general and its rescue from the predatory institutions of international finance. Many fascist intellectuals heavily promoted the cult of Romanità, viewing themselves as the architects of a "Third Rome", a philosophical conception that has influenced the modern 'Third Rome ideology' of many ultranationalist, far-right European political groups today, especially in countries with pre-existing Third Rome claims, most notably Russia. Fascism is a revolutionary nationalist ideology that originates from early 1920s Italy. Below are a few notable quotes from some of the chief architects of fascist ideology.

Some academic interpretations of Fascism and Totalitarianism:
Fascism: a revolutionary species of political modernism originating in the early twentieth century whose mission is to combat the allegedly degenerative forces of contemporary history by bringing about an alternative modernity and temporality (a 'new order' and a 'new era') based on the rebirth, or palingenesis, of the nation. Fascists conceive the nation as an organism shaped by historic, cultural, and in some cases, ethnic and hereditary factors, a mythic construct incompatible with liberal, conservative, and communist theories of society. The health of this organism they see undermined as much by the principles of institutional and cultural pluralism, individualism, and globalized consumerism promoted by liberalism as by the global regime of social justice and human equality (egalitarianism) identified by socialism in theory as the ultimate goal of history, or by the conservative defense of 'tradition.'

The fascist process of national regeneration demands radical measures to create or assert national vitality and strength in the spheres of art, culture, social cohesion, the economy, politics, and foreign policy. In the acute crisis conditions which prevailed in Europe after 1918, fascists saw the natural vehicle for this regeneration, once a critical mass of popular support was achieved, in a nationalist movement with both a mass base and paramilitary cadres that in the transition to the new nation would use propaganda and violence to create the new national community. The charisma of fascist leaders depended on their success in performing the role of modern propheta who offered his followers a new 'mazeway' (world-view) to redeem the nation from chaos and lead it into a new era, one that drew on a mythicized past to regenerate the future.

Fascism can thus be interpreted on one level as an intensely politicized form of the modernist revolt against decadence. Its modernist dynamics in the inter-war period are manifested in the importance it attached to culture as a site of total social regeneration, its emphasis on artistic creativity as the source of vision and higher values, its adherence to the logic of 'creative destruction,' its conviction that a superseded historical epoch was dying and a new one was dawning, and the virulence of its attacks on materialism, individualism, and the loss of higher values allegedly brought about by modernity. They also condition the way it operates as a modern revitalization movement, the extreme syncretism of its ideology, and its draconian acts designed to bring about the cleansing, regeneration, and sacralization of the national community, and create the new fascist man.

Constructed in this way the distinctiveness of fascism can be encapsulated in the shorted definition: 'fascism is a form of programmatic modernism that seeks to conquer political power in order to realize in totalizing vision of national or ethnic rebirth. Its ultimate end is to overcome the decadence that has destroyed a sense of communal belonging and drained modernity of meaning and transcendence and usher in a new era of cultural homogeneity and health. Roger Griffin, The Nature of Fascism and Modernism and Fascism: The Sense of a Beginning under Mussolini and Hitler

Totalitarianism: an experiment in political domination undertaken by a revolutionary movement, with an integralist conception of politics, that aspires toward a monopoly of power and that, after having secured power, whether by legal or illegal means, destroys or transforms the previous regime and constructs a new State based on a single-party regime, with the chief objective of conquering society; that is, it seeks the subordination, integration, and homogenization of the governed on the basis of the integral politicization of of existence, whether collective or individual, interpreted according to the categories, the myths and values of a palingenetic ideology, institutionalized in the form of a political religion, aiming to shape the individual and the masses through an anthropological revolution in order to regenerate the human being and create a new man, dedicated in body and soul to the realization of the revolutionary and imperialistic policies of the totalitarian party, whose ultimate goal is to create a new civilization beyond the Nation-state. — Emilio Gentile, The Origins of Fascist Ideology 1918-1925

Additional explanations of Fascism as a philosophy:

The Manifesto of Fascist Intellectuals by Giovanni Gentile
The Doctrine of Fascism PART I: Fundamental Ideas

The Doctrine of Fascism PART II: Political and Social Doctrine

The Doctrine of Fascism by Benito Mussolini (AUDIO)

Ideology of Fascism (VIDEO)

Additional analysis of Totalitarianism as a political concept:

Giovanni Gentile and the Rationale of Totalitarianism

Sergio Panunzio and the Fascist Interpretation of Totalitarianism

Comparative Totalitarianism