Misplaced Pages

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114-753: Christians deliberately adopted extreme and sometimes contradictory political positions in order to publicize his economic ideas. He founded the American Reds and then changed their name to the American Fascists when fascism began to rise. He also founded the Crusader White Shirts, an organization that allied itself with fascist causes. He defended the Nazi Oscar C. Pfaus , and the American Jewish press spoke of him in

228-526: A corporatist system of "National Councils" of experts, selected from professionals and tradespeople, elected to represent and hold legislative power over their respective areas, including labour, industry, transportation, public health, and communications, among others; and abolition of the Senate of the Kingdom of Italy . The Fascist Manifesto supported the creation of an eight-hour work day for all workers,

342-403: A dictatorial leader, centralized autocracy , militarism , forcible suppression of opposition, belief in a natural social hierarchy , subordination of individual interests for the perceived good of the nation or race , and strong regimentation of society and the economy. Opposed to anarchism , democracy , pluralism , egalitarianism , liberalism , socialism , and Marxism , fascism

456-590: A holistic -national radical Third Way ", while Walter Laqueur sees the core tenets of fascism as "self-evident: nationalism; social Darwinism ; racialism, the need for leadership, a new aristocracy, and obedience; and the negation of the ideals of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution." Historian Emilio Gentile has defined fascism thusly: [A] modern political phenomenon, revolutionary , anti-liberal , and anti-Marxist , organized in

570-460: A minimum wage , worker representation in industrial management, equal confidence in labour unions as in industrial executives and public servants, reorganization of the transportation sector, revision of the draft law on invalidity insurance, reduction of the retirement age from 65 to 55, a strong progressive tax on capital, confiscation of the property of religious institutions and abolishment of bishoprics, and revision of military contracts to allow

684-534: A "harmless lunatic". In 1934, Pat McGrady, author of Fascism in America , visited Christians in Chattanooga for New York's Jewish Daily Bulletin and reported that he was mostly ignored there and "quite without honor", unable to get a letter printed in the city's newspapers despite his many attempts. Christians attributed this to a "campaign of silence" by the press but McGrady thought it was because Christians

798-465: A "proletarian nation" that needed to pursue imperialism in order to challenge the " plutocratic " French and British. Corradini's views were part of a wider set of perceptions within the right-wing Italian Nationalist Association (ANI), which claimed that Italy's economic backwardness was caused by corruption in its political class, liberalism, and division caused by "ignoble socialism". The ANI held ties and influence among conservatives , Catholics, and

912-542: A 'police state' and suppressed the media, as a forerunner of fascism. According to David Thomson , the Italian Risorgimento of 1871 led to the 'nemesis of fascism'. William L Shirer sees a continuity from the views of Fichte and Hegel , through Bismarck , to Hitler; Robert Gerwarth speaks of a 'direct line' from Bismarck to Hitler. Julian Dierkes sees fascism as a 'particularly violent form of imperialism '. Marcus Garvey , founder and leader of

1026-737: A budget of $ 2 million. In 2015, the news service merged with Jewish education website MyJewishLearning to create 70 Faces Media , the largest Jewish media group in North America. MyJewishLearning was founded in 2003 and hosted more than 5,000 articles about Jewish life history, culture, and education. Landau, JTA's original publisher, later founded The Palestine Bulletin , an English-language broadsheet published in Mandatory Palestine in 1925. The Palestine Bulletin eventually became The Jerusalem Post . Journalist Daniel Schorr began his career as an assistant news editor for

1140-503: A candidate for Congress from the third Tennessee district. On December 1, 1932, Christians was granted an interview with President-elect Franklin D. Roosevelt at Warm Springs , Georgia, after driving there with his "Minister of Economics", Walter M. Higgins, a Catholic and former salesman for a stocking manufacturer, and insisting that unemployed steel workers were on the point of revolution. Roosevelt listened to Christians' economic ideas and promised to take them into account. According to

1254-601: A constant struggle in which only the strongest would survive. Futurism was both an artistic-cultural movement and initially a political movement in Italy led by Filippo Tommaso Marinetti who founded the Manifesto of Futurism (1908), that championed the causes of modernism, action, and political violence as necessary elements of politics while denouncing liberalism and parliamentary politics. Marinetti rejected conventional democracy based on majority rule and egalitarianism, for

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1368-447: A critical part in economic production for the war effort and thus arose a "military citizenship" in which all citizens were involved to the military in some manner during the war. World War I had resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines or provide economic production and logistics to support those on the front lines, as well as having unprecedented authority to intervene in

1482-759: A defining characteristic of those ideologies. They refer to the combination of populism, authoritarianism and ultranationalism as "a marriage of convenience". Robert Paxton says: [Fascism is] a form of political behavior marked by obsessive preoccupation with community decline, humiliation, or victimhood and by compensatory cults of unity, energy, and purity, in which a mass-based party of committed nationalist militants, working in uneasy but effective collaboration with traditional elites, abandons democratic liberties and pursues with redemptive violence and without ethical or legal restraints goals of internal cleansing and external expansion. Roger Eatwell defines fascism as "an ideology that strives to forge social rebirth based on

1596-517: A demonized " Other ", such as Jews , homosexuals , transgender people , ethnic minorities , or immigrants . These ideas have motivated fascist regimes to commit massacres , forced sterilizations , deportations , and genocides . During World War II , the genocidal and imperialist ambitions of the fascist Axis powers resulted in the murder of millions of people. Since the end of World War II in 1945, fascism has been largely disgraced, and few parties have openly described themselves as fascist ;

1710-847: A former senior member of the Ku Klux Klan . He tried to raise money from Jews to circulate an edition of the hoax Protocols of the Elders of Zion for the ostensible purpose of exposing the origins of the unjust persecution of the Jews. In 1934, he complained to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency about the "persecution" in Chicago of the Nazi propagandist Oscar C. Pfaus , chairman of the Germanic Alliance. C. F. Fulliam of

1824-399: A militia party with a totalitarian conception of politics and the state, an activist and anti-theoretical ideology, with a mythical, virilistic and anti-hedonistic foundation, sacralized as a secular religion, which affirms the absolute primacy of the nation, understood as an ethnically homogeneous organic community, hierarchically organized in a corporate state , with a bellicose vocation to

1938-494: A mythos of national rebirth from decadence. Fascism was founded during World War I by Italian national syndicalists who drew upon both left-wing organizational tactics and right-wing political views. Italian fascism gravitated to the right in the early 1920s. A major element of fascist ideology that has been deemed to be far right is its stated goal to promote the right of a supposedly superior people to dominate, while purging society of supposedly inferior elements. In

2052-509: A new form of democracy, promoting what he described in his work "The Futurist Conception of Democracy" as the following: "We are therefore able to give the directions to create and to dismantle to numbers, to quantity, to the mass, for with us number, quantity and mass will never be—as they are in Germany and Russia—the number, quantity and mass of mediocre men, incapable and indecisive." Futurism influenced fascism in its emphasis on recognizing

2166-645: A new version of Tsar Nicholas II . After World War I, fascists commonly campaigned on anti-Marxist agendas. Liberal opponents of both fascism and the Bolsheviks argue that there are various similarities between the two, including that they believed in the necessity of a vanguard leadership, showed contempt for bourgeois values, and had totalitarian ambitions. In practice, both have commonly emphasized revolutionary action, proletarian nation theories, one-party states, and party-armies; however, both draw clear distinctions from each other both in aims and tactics, with

2280-565: A not-for-profit American media company. Other sites under the 70 Faces Media company include Kveller, Alma , and Nosher. In 1933, Nobel Prize winner Albert Einstein said in a speech at a dinner in his honor that the JTA was "very close to my heart", and that the JTA was keeping the public objectively informed about the lot of the Jews all countries: "in a graphic and objective manner, and in so doing it has performed an important service ..." In March 1942, in connection with its 25th anniversary

2394-589: A numerical sum of atomized individuals. They condemned the rationalistic, liberal individualism of society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society. The fin-de-siècle outlook was influenced by various intellectual developments, including Darwinian biology, Gesamtkunstwerk , Arthur de Gobineau 's racialism, Gustave Le Bon 's psychology , and the philosophies of Friedrich Nietzsche , Fyodor Dostoyevsky , and Henri Bergson . Social Darwinism , which gained widespread acceptance, made no distinction between physical and social life, and viewed

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2508-669: A pro-interventionist fascio called the Revolutionary Fasces of International Action in October 1914. Benito Mussolini upon being expelled from his position as chief editor of the PSI's newspaper Avanti! for his anti-German stance, joined the interventionist cause in a separate fascio . The term "fascism" was first used in 1915 by members of Mussolini's movement, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action. The first meeting of

2622-608: A system; many of them contradict each other, and are also typical of other kinds of despotism or fanaticism. But it is enough that one of them be present to allow fascism to coagulate around it." Historian John Lukacs argues that there is no such thing as generic fascism. He claims that Nazism and communism are essentially manifestations of populism , and that states such as Nazi Germany and Fascist Italy are more different from each other than they are similar. In his book How Fascism Works: The Politics of Us and Them (2018), Jason Stanley defined fascism thusly: [A] cult of

2736-411: A well made glove fits a beautiful hand." The fusion of Maurrassian nationalism and Sorelian syndicalism influenced radical Italian nationalist Enrico Corradini . Corradini spoke of the need for a nationalist-syndicalist movement, led by elitist aristocrats and anti-democrats who shared a revolutionary syndicalist commitment to direct action and a willingness to fight. Corradini spoke of Italy as being

2850-503: A white shirt and a gun in his belt. More than one observer commented that with his toothbrush moustache he bore a resemblance to Adolf Hitler . An inveterate letter writer in the cause of his "paper and ink revolution", he sent twenty for every one he received, on letterheads showing the Statue of Liberty, crossed American flags, and a torch with a red, white, and blue flame and in green and brown type. In November 1938, Christians figured in

2964-454: Is "a radical variant of fascism"—on the political right by explaining: "The more a person deems absolute equality among all people to be a desirable condition, the further left he or she will be on the ideological spectrum. The more a person considers inequality to be unavoidable or even desirable, the further to the right he or she will be." Fascism's origins are complex and include many seemingly contradictory viewpoints, ultimately centered on

3078-541: Is an international news agency and wire service that primarily covers Judaism- and Jewish-related topics and news. Described as the " Associated Press of the Jewish media", JTA serves Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers and press around the world as a syndication partner. Founded in 1917, it is world Jewry 's oldest and most widely-read wire service. The Jewish Telegraphic Agency was founded in The Hague , Netherlands, as

3192-417: Is at the far right of the traditional left–right spectrum . Fascism rose to prominence in early-20th-century Europe. The first fascist movements emerged in Italy during World War I , before spreading to other European countries , most notably Germany . Fascism also had adherents outside of Europe. Fascists saw World War I as a revolution that brought massive changes to the nature of war, society,

3306-476: Is better seen as an elitist ideology. They cite in particular its exaltation of the Leader, the race, and the state, rather than the people. They see populism as a "thin-centered ideology" with a "restricted morphology" that necessarily becomes attached to "thick-centered" ideologies such as fascism, liberalism, or socialism. Thus populism can be found as an aspect of many specific ideologies, without necessarily being

3420-419: Is dead" because of the "decomposition of Marxism". Sorel became a supporter of reactionary Maurrassian nationalism beginning in 1909 that influenced his works. Maurras held interest in merging his nationalist ideals with Sorelian syndicalism , known as Sorelianism , as a means to confront democracy. Maurras stated that "a socialism liberated from the democratic and cosmopolitan element fits nationalism well as

3534-609: Is more aristocratic than democracy." By 1909, after the failure of a syndicalist general strike in France, Sorel and his supporters left the radical left and went to the radical right, where they sought to merge militant Catholicism and French patriotism with their views—advocating anti-republican Christian French patriots as ideal revolutionaries. Initially, Sorel had officially been a revisionist of Marxism, but by 1910 announced his abandonment of socialist literature and claimed in 1914, using an aphorism of Benedetto Croce that "socialism

George W. Christians - Misplaced Pages Continue

3648-571: The fin-de-siècle generation. Bergson's claim of the existence of an élan vital , or vital instinct, centred upon free choice and rejected the processes of materialism and determinism; this challenged Marxism. In his work The Ruling Class (1896), Gaetano Mosca developed the theory that claims that in all societies an "organized minority" would dominate and rule over an "disorganized majority", stating that there are only two classes in society, "the governing" (the organized minority) and "the governed" (the disorganized majority). He claims that

3762-780: The Jewish Daily Bulletin that the organization had 10,000 members. Having inspected the records, however, McGrady could find no evidence of any subscriptions or that any meetings of the organization had been held. Christians described his politics as neither Communist nor Fascist, and deliberately adopted apparently conflicting names and positions in accordance with his belief that a revolutionary leader should promise support to all interests in private and adopt any cause in public that would draw supporters and publicity without accruing too much opposition. He claimed to have started strikes to obtain publicity and to be preparing to send armed men to settle them to gain more. When fascism

3876-499: The 2020–2022 United States racial unrest , have substantiated his concern about how fascist rhetoric is showing up in politics and policies around the world. Roger Griffin describes fascism as "a genus of political ideology whose mythic core in its various permutations is a palingenetic form of populist ultranationalism ." Without palingenetic ultranationalism, there is no "genuine fascism" according to Griffin. Griffin further describes fascism as having three core components: "(i)

3990-508: The American Jewish Congress , was a staff member of the JTA in the early 1930s. Boris Smolar joined the JTA in 1924, and retired as its editor-in chief in 1967. In January 2020, Philissa Cramer, co-founder and editor-at-large of nonprofit news organization Chalkbeat was named JTA's editor-in-chief. Cramer replaced Andy Silow-Carroll, who took the same post at New York Jewish Week in mid-2019 after three years at

4104-457: The Cold War and shifts in fascist organizing techniques, a number of scholars have moved toward the minimalist 'new consensus' refined by Roger Griffin: 'the mythic core' of fascism is 'a populist form of palingenetic ultranationalism .' That means that fascism is an ideology that draws on old, ancient, and even arcane myths of racial, cultural, ethnic, and national origins to develop a plan for

4218-567: The Jewish Daily Bulletin , Christians was subsequently questioned for two days by federal agents who doubted his sanity. It was at that meeting, Christians claimed, that he put it to Roosevelt that he was "only the Kerensky " of an upcoming American "revolution", a moderate who would be overthrown by an American Stalin . The Jewish Daily Bulletin wondered whether Christians saw himself as that Stalin. The idea gained traction in

4332-745: The Latin word fasces . This was the name given to political organizations in Italy known as fasci , groups similar to guilds or syndicates . According to Italian fascist dictator Benito Mussolini 's own account, the Fasces of Revolutionary Action were founded in Italy in 1915. In 1919, Mussolini founded the Italian Fasces of Combat in Milan, which became the National Fascist Party two years later. The fascists came to associate

4446-608: The Spirit of 1914 manifested itself in the concept of the People's League of National Socialism. This National Socialism was a form of state socialism that rejected the "idea of boundless freedom" and promoted an economy that would serve the whole of Germany under the leadership of the state. This National Socialism was opposed to capitalism because of the components that were against "the national interest" of Germany but insisted that National Socialism would strive for greater efficiency in

4560-509: The Universal Negro Improvement Association , insisted that he and his organisation "were the first fascists". In 1938, C. L. R. James wrote "all the things that Hitler was to do so well later, Marcus Garvey was doing in 1920 and 1921". The historian Zeev Sternhell has traced the ideological roots of fascism back to the 1880s and in particular to the fin de siècle theme of that time. The theme

4674-646: The University of Wales wrote in 2000 that "fascism" is the "most misused, and over-used word, of our times". Fascist is sometimes applied to post-World War II organizations and ways of thinking that academics more commonly term neo-fascist . Despite fascist movements' history of anti-communism , Communist states have sometimes been referred to as fascist , typically as an insult. It has been applied to Marxist–Leninist regimes in Cuba under Fidel Castro and Vietnam under Ho Chi Minh . Chinese Marxists used

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4788-768: The field artillery of the National Guard in New York. However, the 1930 census does not record him as having served in World War I , and he later declined to say where he was during the conflict. Christians was the owner of the American Asphalt Grouting Company, a firm that owned a process that stopped dams from leaking. He made a fortune from the business but lost about $ 200,000 in the Wall Street Crash of 1929 and in 1930

4902-549: The red flag from the city courthouse. Christians was arrested in 1942, after the United States entered World War II , and charged with sending seditious material to officers of the U.S. Army. He was convicted in the first trial of its kind during the war and sentenced to five years in prison, with a recommendation by the judge that he not be released until after the war was over. From his jail cell, Christians repudiated his methods but not his beliefs. George Christians

5016-432: The 'new man. ' " Griffin himself explored this 'mythic' or 'eliminable' core of fascism with his concept of post-fascism to explore the continuation of Nazism in the modern era. Additionally, other historians have applied this minimalist core to explore proto-fascist movements. Cas Mudde and Cristóbal Rovira Kaltwasser argue that although fascism "flirted with populism ... in an attempt to generate mass support", it

5130-617: The 1920s was sometimes called fascist . Historian Peter Amann states that, "Undeniably, the Klan had some traits in common with European fascism—chauvinism, racism, a mystique of violence, an affirmation of a certain kind of archaic traditionalism—yet their differences were fundamental ... [the KKK] never envisioned a change of political or economic system." Early influences that shaped the ideology of fascism have been dated back to ancient Greece . The political culture of ancient Greece and specifically

5244-423: The 1920s, Mussolini and Giovanni Gentile described their ideology as right-wing in the political essay The Doctrine of Fascism , stating: "We are free to believe that this is the century of authority, a century tending to the 'right,' a fascist century." Mussolini stated that fascism's position on the political spectrum was not a serious issue for fascists: "[F]ascism, sitting on the right, could also have sat on

5358-463: The Bolsheviks emphasizing the need for an organized participatory democracy ( Soviet democracy ) and an egalitarian , internationalist vision for society based on proletarian internationalism , while fascists emphasized hyper-nationalism and open hostility towards democracy, envisioning a hierarchical social structure as essential to their aims. With the antagonism between anti-interventionist Marxists and pro- interventionist fascists complete by

5472-414: The Fasces of Revolutionary Action was held on 24 January 1915 when Mussolini declared that it was necessary for Europe to resolve its national problems—including national borders—of Italy and elsewhere "for the ideals of justice and liberty for which oppressed peoples must acquire the right to belong to those national communities from which they descended." Attempts to hold mass meetings were ineffective and

5586-468: The Italian Fasces of Combat ". The Fascist Manifesto was presented on 6 June 1919 in the fascist newspaper Il Popolo d'Italia and supported the creation of universal suffrage , including women's suffrage (the latter being realized only partly in late 1925, with all opposition parties banned or disbanded); proportional representation on a regional basis; government representation through

5700-540: The JTA from 1934 to 1941. Haskell Cohen was the sports editor for the JTA for 17 years; he is best known for later as the NBA director of public relations creating the NBA All Star Game in 1951. Harold U. Ribalow was later the sports editor of the JTA. In the 1960s, novelist and lawyer Eleazar Lipsky was the JTA's president. Lillie Shultz , later a journalist and the chief administrative officer of

5814-438: The JTA received congratulatory messages from U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt ("I trust through long decades to come that this medium of information will serve the world with fidelity and courage by the widest possible dissemination of the truth"), and U.S. Secretary of War Henry Stimson , British Ambassador Lord Halifax , Director of the U.S. Office of War Department of Facts and Figures Archibald MacLeish , Director of

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5928-492: The JTA's coverage of the Mavi Marmara activist ship . JTA is officially apolitical and non-denominational in its coverage of Judaism and Jewish-related topics. JTA is considered the " Associated Press of Jewish media". JTA's main competitor is the more conservative Jewish News Syndicate , launched in 2011. JTA is still world Jewry 's oldest and most widely-read wire service. JTA is an affiliate of 70 Faces Media ,

6042-699: The JTA. In November 1937, the Gestapo (the secret police of Nazi Germany) closed JTA's Berlin bureau, charging it with "endangering public safety and order." In 1940, the JTA spawned the Overseas News Agency (ONA). Although designed to appear like a normal news agency, it was in fact secretly funded by the British intelligence service MI6 . ONA provided press credentials to British spies, and planted fake news stories in US newspapers. Meyer Levin

6156-522: The Right stands for the maintenance of an economic structure, albeit an unjust one, while the Left stands for the attempt to subvert that economic structure, even though the subversion thereof would entail the destruction of much that was worthwhile." The term fascist has been used as a pejorative , regarding varying movements across the far right of the political spectrum. George Orwell noted in 1944 that

6270-569: The United States had joined the war, Christians was arrested under the Smith Act which aimed to counter sedition . He was only the second person to be charged under the act, after Rudolph Fahl of Denver who was arrested simultaneously. It was alleged that Christians had sent communications to the officers of Fort Oglethorpe , Georgia, and Camp Forrest , Tennessee, that might demoralize the army. His literature stated that even in wartime it

6384-590: The alliance chapter in Muscatine , Iowa, wrote to Christians saying that as "Heil Hitler!" was popular in Germany, "let me salute you as you will be saluted in days to come. Hail! Christians." In 1936 he founded the Crusaders for Economic Liberty in Chicago with the American fascist and anti-Semite Lois de Lafayette Washburn . Christians posed for photographs with a form of crusader's cross or cross potent on

6498-452: The ancient Greek city state of Sparta under Lycurgus , with its emphasis on militarism and racial purity, were admired by the Nazis. Nazi Führer Adolf Hitler emphasized that Germany should adhere to Hellenic values and culture – particularly that of ancient Sparta. Georges Valois , founder of the first non-Italian fascist party Faisceau , claimed the roots of fascism stemmed from

6612-459: The business community. Italian national syndicalists held a common set of principles: the rejection of bourgeois values, democracy, liberalism, Marxism , internationalism , and pacifism , and the promotion of heroism , vitalism, and violence. The ANI claimed that liberal democracy was no longer compatible with the modern world, and advocated a strong state and imperialism. They believed that humans are naturally predatory, and that nations are in

6726-427: The democratic mystification of the popular will that created an impersonal collective subject. He claimed that a powerful monarch was a personified sovereign who could exercise authority to unite a nation's people. Maurras' integral nationalism was idealized by fascists, but modified into a modernized revolutionary form that was devoid of Maurras' monarchism. French revolutionary syndicalist Georges Sorel promoted

6840-500: The destruction of local movements in order to attract personal publicity. In his 1943 book Under Cover: My Four Years in the Nazi Underworld of America , Christians was described by John Roy Carlson (Arthur Derounian) as "an odd combination of comedian and sinister revolutionist", strongly anti-Catholic but not anti-Semitic. In 1940, in an editorial piece titled "Shirts marked Down", The Daily Independent wrote that since

6954-483: The development of fascism. Leon Trotsky would later formulate a theory of fascism based on a dialectical interpretation of events to analyze the manifestation of Italian fascism and the early emergence of Nazi Germany from 1930 to 1933. In 1917, Mussolini, as leader of the Fasces of Revolutionary Action , praised the October Revolution, but later he became unimpressed with Lenin, regarding him as merely

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7068-492: The economy and advance the interests of workers and the common people. The "fascist right" included members of the paramilitary Blackshirts and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI). The Blackshirts wanted to establish fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco , sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace

7182-405: The economy. Plenge advocated an authoritarian rational ruling elite to develop National Socialism through a hierarchical technocratic state. Fascists viewed World War I as bringing revolutionary changes in the nature of war, society, the state and technology, as the advent of total war and mass mobilization had broken down the distinction between civilian and combatant, as civilians had become

7296-546: The end of the war, the two sides became irreconcilable. The fascists presented themselves as anti-communists and as especially opposed to the Marxists . In 1919, Mussolini consolidated control over the fascist movement, known as Sansepolcrismo , with the founding of the Italian Fasces of Combat . In 1919, Alceste De Ambris and futurist movement leader Filippo Tommaso Marinetti created " The Manifesto of

7410-456: The far-right. Historian Stanley G. Payne 's definition is frequently cited as standard by notable scholars , such as Roger Griffin , Randall Schweller , Bo Rothstein , Federico Finchelstein , and Stephen D. Shenfield , His definition of fascism focuses on three concepts: Umberto Eco lists fourteen "features that are typical of what [he] would like to call 'Ur-Fascism', or 'Eternal Fascism'. These features cannot be organized into

7524-653: The first Jewish news agency and wire service , then known as the Jewish Correspondence Bureau on February 6, 1917, by 25-year old Jacob Landau . Its mandate was to collect and disseminate news affecting the Jewish communities around the world, especially from the European World War I fronts. In 1919, it moved to London, under its current name. In 1922, the JTA moved its global headquarters to New York City. By 1925, over 400 newspapers, both Jewish and non-Jewish, subscribed to

7638-536: The government to seize 85% of profits. It also called for the fulfillment of expansionist aims in the Balkans and other parts of the Mediterranean, the creation of a short-service national militia to serve defensive duties, nationalization of the armaments industry, and a foreign policy designed to be peaceful but also competitive. Jewish Telegraphic Agency The Jewish Telegraphic Agency ( JTA )

7752-445: The helm. The JTA is a not-for-profit corporation governed by an independent board of directors. It claims no allegiance to any specific branch of Judaism or political viewpoint. "We respect the many Jewish and Israel advocacy organizations out there, but JTA has a different mission—to provide readers and clients with balanced and dependable reporting", wrote JTA editor-in-chief and CEO and publisher Ami Eden. He gave as an example of

7866-467: The human condition as being an unceasing struggle to achieve the survival of the fittest . It challenged positivism's claim of deliberate and rational choice as the determining behaviour of humans, with social Darwinism focusing on heredity, race, and environment. Its emphasis on biogroup identity and the role of organic relations within societies fostered the legitimacy and appeal of nationalism. New theories of social and political psychology also rejected

7980-420: The ideal German society as a Volksgemeinschaft , a racially unified and hierarchically organized body in which the interests of individuals would be strictly subordinate to those of the nation, or Volk." Kershaw noted that common factors of fascism included "the 'cleansing' of all those deemed not to belong—foreigners, ethnic minorities, 'undesirables ' " and belief in its own nation's superiority, even if it

8094-474: The late 18th century Jacobin movement, seeing in its totalitarian nature a foreshadowing of the fascist state. Historian George Mosse similarly analyzed fascism as an inheritor of the mass ideology and civil religion of the French Revolution , as well as a result of the brutalization of societies in 1914–1918. Historians such as Irene Collins and Howard C Payne see Napoleon III , who ran

8208-477: The leader who promises national restoration in the face of humiliation brought on by supposed communists, Marxists and minorities and immigrants who are supposedly posing a threat to the character and the history of a nation ... The leader proposes that only he can solve it and all of his political opponents are enemies or traitors. Stanley says recent global events as of 2020 , including the COVID-19 pandemic and

8322-473: The left. The accommodation of the political right into the Italian Fascist movement in the early 1920s created internal factions within the movement. The "fascist left" included Michele Bianchi , Giuseppe Bottai , Angelo Oliviero Olivetti , Sergio Panunzio , and Edmondo Rossoni , who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize

8436-446: The legitimacy of political violence in his work Reflections on Violence (1908) and other works in which he advocated radical syndicalist action to achieve a revolution to overthrow capitalism and the bourgeoisie through a general strike . In Reflections on Violence , Sorel emphasized need for a revolutionary political religion . Also in his work The Illusions of Progress , Sorel denounced democracy as reactionary, saying "nothing

8550-475: The liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites. Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy . A number of post-World War II fascist movements described themselves as a Third Position outside the traditional political spectrum. Falange Española de las JONS leader José Antonio Primo de Rivera said: "[B]asically

8664-432: The lives of citizens. Fascism rejects the view that violence is inherently negative or pointless but rather views imperialism , political violence , and war as means to national rejuvenation. Fascists often advocate for the establishment of a totalitarian one-party state , and for a dirigiste economy (a market economy in which the state plays a strong directive role through economic interventionist policies), with

8778-549: The lives of citizens. Fascists viewed technological developments of weaponry and the state's total mobilization of its population in the war as symbolizing the beginning of a new era fusing state power with mass politics , technology and particularly the mobilizing myth that they contended had triumphed over the myth of progress and the era of liberalism. The October Revolution of 1917, in which Bolshevik communists led by Vladimir Lenin seized power in Russia, greatly influenced

8892-525: The mountain of the center. ... These words in any case do not have a fixed and unchanged meaning: they do have a variable subject to location, time and spirit. We don't give a damn about these empty terminologies and we despise those who are terrorized by these words." Major Italian groups politically on the right, especially rich landowners and big business, feared an uprising by groups on the left, such as sharecroppers and labour unions. They welcomed fascism and supported its violent suppression of opponents on

9006-504: The nation from decadence. Kershaw argues that the difference between fascism and other forms of right-wing authoritarianism in the interwar period is that the latter generally aimed "to conserve the existing social order", whereas fascism was "revolutionary", seeking to change society and obtain "total commitment" from the population. In Against the Fascist Creep , Alexander Reid Ross writes regarding Griffin's view: "Following

9120-441: The notion of human behaviour being governed by rational choice and instead claimed that emotion was more influential in political issues than reason. Nietzsche's argument that "God is dead" coincided with his attack on the " herd mentality " of Christianity , democracy , and modern collectivism , his concept of the Übermensch , and his advocacy of the will to power as a primordial instinct, were major influences upon many of

9234-490: The organization was regularly harassed by government authorities and socialists. Similar political ideas arose in Germany after the outbreak of the war. German sociologist Johann Plenge spoke of the rise of a "National Socialism" in Germany within what he termed the "ideas of 1914" that were a declaration of war against the "ideas of 1789" (the French Revolution). According to Plenge, the "ideas of 1789"—such as

9348-420: The organized nature of the organized minority makes it irresistible to any individual of the disorganized majority. French nationalist and reactionary monarchist Charles Maurras influenced fascism. Maurras promoted what he called integral nationalism , which called for the organic unity of a nation, and insisted that a powerful monarch was an ideal leader of a nation. Maurras distrusted what he considered

9462-517: The outbreak of World War I in August 1914, the Italian political left became severely split over its position on the war. The Italian Socialist Party (PSI) opposed the war but a number of Italian revolutionary syndicalists supported war against Germany and Austria-Hungary on the grounds that their reactionary regimes had to be defeated to ensure the success of socialism. Angelo Oliviero Olivetti formed

9576-409: The placement of national interests above those of the individual. Fascist regimes often advocate for the overthrow of institutions that they view as "liberal decay" while simultaneously promoting traditional values. They believe in the supremacy of certain peoples and use it to justify the persecution of other groups. Fascist leaders often maintain a cult of personality and seek to generate enthusiasm for

9690-406: The politics of greatness, power, and conquest aimed at creating a new order and a new civilization. Historian and cultural critic Ruth Ben-Ghiat has described fascism as "the original phase of authoritarianism, along with early communism, when a population has undergone huge dislocations or they perceive that there's been changes in society that are very rapid, too rapid for their taste". Racism

9804-731: The press and in Washington after William A. Wirt , an opponent of Roosevelt's New Deal who was at Warm Springs at the same time as Christians, alleged that there were communists in the American government who were seeking to undermine the Roosevelt administration and the New Deal, allegations that led to the Bulwinkle investigation in the United States House of Representatives in 1934. In December 1938, Christians told

9918-418: The press that "revolution" was bound to come to America, and that the American people were in the mood for it. He had timed it for the president's recent visit to Chattanooga before that was cancelled. He planned to cut the power (he had a patent for an electrical fuse), saying "lots of things can happen in the dark", after which his men would seize the town and fly the red flag from the court house, before taking

10032-560: The principal goal of achieving autarky (national economic self-sufficiency). Fascism's extreme authoritarianism and nationalism centres around the own group, but that can manifest as a belief in Manifest Destiny , revival of historical greatness (like Mussolini seeking to restore the Roman Empire) or in case of Nazism, racial purity or a master race which blended with some variant of racism or discrimination against

10146-687: The proceedings of the House Special Committee on Un-American Activities of the United States Congress which noted the large number of organizations with which he was associated or had founded. These included the American Reds and the American Fascists, the Liberty Party, the Crusaders for American Liberty, the Crusader White Shirts, and the Fifty Million Club for Economic Liberty. Christians was once

10260-425: The question of whether Christians was really a fascist, a moot one. In 1935, Jay Franklin of Vanity Fair cited Christians as an example of the inability of American radicals to capitalise on the weakness of an antiquated government due to their inability to lead, to follow, or to co-operate, opining of him that what could have been a mass movement was reduced to a one-man-show by his policy of double-crossing and

10374-491: The rebirth myth, (ii) populist ultra-nationalism, and (iii) the myth of decadence." In Griffin's view, fascism is "a genuinely revolutionary, trans-class form of anti-liberal, and in the last analysis, anti-conservative nationalism" built on a complex range of theoretical and cultural influences. He distinguishes an inter-war period in which it manifested itself in elite-led but populist "armed party" politics opposing socialism and liberalism, and promising radical politics to rescue

10488-456: The regime by rallying massive crowds. This contrasts with authoritarian governments, which also centralize power and suppress dissent, but want their subjects to remain passive and demobilized. Scholars place fascism on the far right of the political spectrum . Such scholarship focuses on its social conservatism and its authoritarian means of opposing egalitarianism . Roderick Stackelberg places fascism—including Nazism , which he says

10602-472: The rights and properties of the people into the hands of whoever may be strong enough to grasp control of a despairing nation. Despite his intelligence, McGrady identified in Christians a deep ignorance of the principles of Fascism and of its practice in Germany and Italy, fostered, he thought, by the narrow sources on which Christians was able to draw in Chattanooga in understanding world affairs. This made

10716-428: The rights of man, democracy, individualism and liberalism—were being rejected in favor of "the ideas of 1914" that included "German values" of duty, discipline, law and order. Plenge believed that racial solidarity ( Volksgemeinschaft ) would replace class division and that "racial comrades" would unite to create a socialist society in the struggle of "proletarian" Germany against "capitalist" Britain. He believed that

10830-533: The same breath as American anti-Semites; but the journalist John Roy Carlson , who spent years undercover in the American right , wrote that Christians was anti-Catholic but not anti-Semitic . In 1938, Christians described himself as so "red" (communist) that he made Russian "reds" look yellow, and planned a new American revolution for a visit by President Roosevelt to Chattanooga , which would take place under cover of darkness and during which his men would raise

10944-479: The start of the European war (World War Two), the price of Black, Brown, and Red shirts had been reduced and the "1001 leagues, legions, associations, federations, friends of this and that, committees, knights" and similar organizations were in retreat. Leaders were arrested or inactive and with respect to Christians, in Chattanooga the locals "simply refuse to recognize him as a Fascist Menace". In March 1942, after

11058-551: The state capitol of Nashville and moving on California, Chicago, New York, and Washington. He explained that the plan did not go ahead because by the time the President did visit in November, conditions were less suitable for a revolution. Christians was investigated by U.S. Army military intelligence who described him as having "a brilliant mind but of erratic temperament", and as posing no threat. Raymond Moley described him as

11172-454: The state, and technology. The advent of total war and the mass mobilization of society erased the distinction between civilians and combatants. A military citizenship arose, in which all citizens were involved with the military in some manner. The war resulted in the rise of a powerful state capable of mobilizing millions of people to serve on the front lines, providing logistics to support them, and having unprecedented authority to intervene in

11286-537: The symbol of Falangism is five arrows joined by a yoke. Historian Ian Kershaw once wrote that "trying to define 'fascism' is like trying to nail jelly to the wall." Each group described as "fascist" has at least some unique elements, and frequently definitions of "fascism" have been criticized as either too broad or too narrow. According to many scholars, fascists—especially when they're in power—have historically attacked communism, conservatism, and parliamentary liberalism, attracting support primarily from

11400-460: The term had been used to denigrate diverse positions "in internal politics". Orwell said that while fascism is "a political and economic system" that was inconvenient to define, " as used , the word 'Fascism' is almost entirely meaningless. ... almost any English person would accept 'bully' as a synonym for 'Fascist ' ", and in 1946 wrote that " 'Fascism' has now no meaning except in so far as it signifies something not desirable." Richard Griffiths of

11514-459: The term is often used pejoratively by political opponents. The descriptions neo-fascist or post-fascist are sometimes applied to contemporary parties with ideologies similar to, or rooted in, 20th-century fascist movements. Some opposition groups have adopted the label anti-fascist (often shortened to antifa ) to signify their stance. The Italian term fascismo is derived from fascio , meaning 'bundle of sticks', ultimately from

11628-710: The term to denounce the Soviet Union during the Sino-Soviet split , and the Soviets used the term to denounce Chinese Marxists, in addition to social democracy , coining a new term in social fascism . In the United States, Herbert Matthews of The New York Times asked in 1946: "Should we now place Stalinist Russia in the same category as Hitlerite Germany? Should we say that she is Fascist?" J. Edgar Hoover , longtime FBI director and ardent anti-communist, wrote extensively of red fascism . The Ku Klux Klan in

11742-412: The term with the ancient Roman fasces or fascio littorio , a bundle of rods tied around an axe, an ancient Roman symbol of the authority of the civic magistrate , carried by his lictors . The symbolism of the fasces suggested strength through unity: a single rod is easily broken, while the bundle is difficult to break. Similar symbols were developed by different fascist movements; for example,

11856-413: The virile nature of violent action and war as being necessities of modern civilization. Marinetti promoted the need of physical training of young men saying that, in male education, gymnastics should take precedence over books. He advocated segregation of the genders because womanly sensibility must not enter men's education, which he claimed must be "lively, bellicose, muscular and violently dynamic." At

11970-635: Was a war correspondent in Europe during World War II, representing the Overseas News Agency and the JTA. Its cable service improved the quality and range of Jewish periodicals. Today, it has correspondents in Washington, DC , Jerusalem , Moscow, and 30 other cities in North and South America, Israel, Europe, Africa, and Australia. The JTA is committed to covering news of interest to the Jewish community with journalistic detachment . As of 2014, JTA had

12084-411: Was a crank of the type found in every town and with whom newspaper editors were all too familiar. Nonetheless, he thought that Christians was not as much of a "nut" as some made out, saying: He is a clever fellow with a fine appreciation of the limits of our broad liberties of speech and action which he strains in promoting his personality and an economic scheme which, if effective, is enough to surrender

12198-636: Was a key feature of German fascism, for which the Holocaust was a high priority. According to The Historiography of Genocide , "In dealing with the Holocaust, it is the consensus of historians that Nazi Germany targeted Jews as a race, not as a religious group." Several historians, such as Umberto Eco, Kevin Passmore, and Moyra Grant, stress racism as a characteristic component of German fascism. Historian Robert Soucy stated that "Hitler envisioned

12312-437: Was based on a revolt against materialism , rationalism , positivism , bourgeois society, and democracy . The fin-de-siècle generation supported emotionalism , irrationalism , subjectivism , and vitalism . They regarded civilization as being in crisis, requiring a massive and total solution. Their intellectual school considered the individual as only one part of the larger collectivity, which should not be viewed as

12426-638: Was born in Eldred , New York, on 5 August 1888, to a German father and a Dutch mother from New York. He received a technical education at the Brooklyn Polytechnic Institute . In 1916, he married Marie L. Stokes in Hamilton, Tennessee. In 1917, Christians was resident in Chattanooga, Tennessee, when he was drafted into the U.S. Army . His draft documents recorded his occupation as construction manager and that he had served as private in

12540-488: Was glad not to have harmed anyone. Of his economic theories, he said that he had brought them to the attention of the American people and it was up to them what they did with them. Christians died in Chattanooga on June 27, 1983. Fascism Fascism ( / ˈ f æ ʃ ɪ z əm / FASH -iz-əm ) is a far-right , authoritarian , and ultranationalist political ideology and movement, characterized by

12654-557: Was not biological racism like in Nazism. Fascist philosophies vary by application, but remain distinct by one theoretical commonality: all traditionally fall into the far-right sector of any political spectrum , catalyzed by afflicted class identities over conventional social inequities. According to the Council on Foreign Relations , many experts see fascism as a mass political movement centered around extreme nationalism, militarism, and

12768-461: Was on the rise in the early 1930s, he re-branded his American Reds, whose emblem was a red flag with the stars and stripes on top, as the American Fascists, but in 1938 was still claiming to be "so red the Russian Reds are pale yellow in comparison". In practice, Christians associated himself most closely with far-right and anti-Semitic organizations. His "Secretary of State", C. A. Hester, was

12882-683: Was permitted to ask questions and posed a series of them, among which was "Are we fighting to make Roosevelt the dictator of the world?" Christians was convicted of four counts of sedition in June, in the first trial of its kind during the war and sentenced to five years imprisonment. The judge, Leslie Darr , recommended that he should not be paroled until after the end of the war. From his cell, Christians told reporters that he felt that his work had been done and that his conviction had concluded his "paper and ink revolution for economic liberty". He also said that he regretted his "objectionable" methods and that he

12996-446: Was working as an electrical engineer. As a result of the loss of his fortune, he became a campaigner for economic reform and developed a philosophy based on "human effort instead of gold" that encompassed the abolition of the gold standard , the repudiation of the national debt , and a refusal to pay taxes . In the early 1930s, Christians founded the Crusader White Shirts in Chattanooga , Tennessee, claiming in 1934 to Pat McGrady of

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