Introducing Fascism

Fascism in the interwar years had many national varieties. It was chameleon-like, drawing on different local right-wing and radical traditions

In 1926, the American Eugenics Society advocated the sterilization of the insane, the retarded and epileptics

rgery was used to convict one Jewish individual of “conspiracy” - Dreyfus. Another far more dangerous forgery emerged in 1903 to convict all Jews of a “worldwide conspiracy”. This was The Protocols of the Elders of Zion concocted by Russian agents in the Tsarist secret police working in Paris during the Dreyfus Affair

In 1897, the novelist Emile Zola (1840-1902) wrote his internationally famous J’Accuse (I Accuse)

ocialism had its roots in the 18th century intellectual movement of the Enlightenment and the French Revolution.

he intellectual traditions behind Fascism are ultraconservative.

Italy was the first country to have a party that called itself Fascist. The Italian word fascio (pronounced “fasho”) means a bundle-of firewood, for instance. It was first used in the 1890s by workers in the notorious Sicilian sulphur mines

They can be seen as threatening, aggressive, repressive, narrowly conservative and blindly patriotic.

What “Fascists” have in common is that they are the enemies of liberal or left-wing thought and attitudes