[SFPOM] Principles of Fascism and The People's Response V

Day 4,478, 01:25 • Published in USA USA • by Max Tse Tung


MUSIC

Principles of Fascism and The People's Response V



This will be my last entry on fascism in South America and we will be continuing our examination of the history of fascist movements and will end with a final analysis of fascistic economic systems. Enjoy.






In the last article, we left off in Chile examining US involvement in the rise of Augusto Pinochet. We will pivot to Peru.



Fascism in Peru

In 1931, The Unión Revolucionaria was founded by Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro, which was a fascist-ultranationalist party created as the State-Party to Luis’s dictatorship. He would be assassinated in 1933 and the party would come under the control of Raúl Ferrero Rebagliati who sought support from the masses and set up an Italian-style Blackshirt movement.

The party would inevitably be defeated at the ballot in 1944 and would fade away. After the demise of the movement, the leading fascist group became the Peruvian Fascist Brotherhood but would also fade into obscurity with the entry of Peru into World War 2 on the side of the Allies.



Economic Elements of Fascism

Some scholars consider one of the distinguishing characteristics of a fascist system to be a lack of formal economic logic or ideology and that these systems will often vary widely in their tendencies and policies. There are no specifically fascist economic policies but there are some general trends and common policies put into place by fascist countries.

The very first fascist movements that existed came about at the end of World War 1 and supported ‘National Rebirth’ and derided Liberalism, Socialism, and Materialism for (in their view) causing the decadence and social strife experienced in their time. These groups were often characterized by their strong support of the use of violence (in part because many of the adherents had participated in total war for years) and support for strong authoritarian leaders.

One belief amongst fascists was that after National Rebirth the economy would enter a golden era. Fascists often espouse wildly contradictory and incompatible economic ideas. Most fascist parties would implement whatever economic policies supported their particular goals and fascist regimes that last for decades often dramatically change their economic policy over time.

Fascists come to power by exploiting the economic and social fears of a given society and thrive when polarization is at its height. In Europe and South America fascists exploited the divide in parliamentarian systems between the supporters of Laissez-faire Capitalism and Marxian Socialism to gain power over unstable governments. They would argue that the weak parliamentarian democracies were flawed because of this divide. Often Fascist regimes come to power when the Capitalist class is on the verge of being toppled and can be (but isn’t always) funded and supported by the wealthy elite. Fascists would ally with the economic elite to ensure their place in the social order and to put down revolts by the people in exchange for the elites putting their influence and interests behind a broad Nationalist movement.

This means the fascist regimes very often protect inequality and privilege and often exhibit formal control over their economy through the state.





Fascism is often characterized economically by adherence to ‘Third Positionism’ which is the belief that there is a third ideological and economic ‘way’ between the Capitalist Western Bloc and the State Socialist Eastern Bloc. These fascists opposed International Socialism and Free-Market Capitalism. They claimed to have a realistic alternative to Laissez-faire Capitalism and Communism. They supported Corporatism and class collaboration and believed that social hierarchy and class systems were positive aspects of society. This was contrary to the views of the socialists and liberals.

Fascist Economies usually have an element of economic dirigism which is when the government subsidizes favorable corporations and exerts directive influence over investment as opposed to merely playing a regulatory role. Fascist economies are based on Private Property and Private Initiative but this was still subject to the whim of the state. These governments supported profit but only in the interests of the nation.



Fascism operates under a Social Darwinist framework of human relations and the goal of their society was to elevate the strong and to destroy the weak. This translated in practice to promoting the interests of successful and wealthy businessmen and the destruction of trade unions and other working-class organizations. These governments would declare trade unionism illegal and instead propped up labor organizations under the control of the government. Membership would be compulsory and the full government control would effectively eliminate any influence workers could have over the economy. Strikes would be banned and those who collectively stopped working would be jailed or executed.

Sometimes a fascist regime will privatize state-owned enterprises such as in Italy and Germany. This was usually done as a reversal of actions taken by previous democratic governments. This meant going against the economic trends of the time, in which, the west was rapidly nationalizing private industry. Often privatization would be used to secure lucrative deals with wealthy industrialists and to increase needed government revenue in order to balance budgets.

Fascists would ban or discourage foreign trade and supported protectionist policies. They were worried that too much trade would make the nations dependent on foreign capital which they believed to be a corrupting influence. A major goal of fascist regimes is Autarky or economic self-sufficiency.






Make sure you stay on the lookout for my final entry into this series in part 6 where we will explain the various fundamental principles of fascism as laid out by a multitude of different scholars and some wonderful Anti-Fascist tactics used to combat the ideology.






To be continued…





I want to hear from my readers on this, what aspects of Fascism do you think should be covered in this series? Let me know!


~Chairman Max Planck~