1942: Fascism

The year 1942 brought the first definite setback in the history of Fascism. By Fascism we understand not only the Italian movement under the leadership of Benito Mussolini for which the term was coined in 1922, but all movements which are united with Fascism in their absolute rejection of liberalism and democracy, freedom and dignity of the individual, equality of all men and all nations, and which concur in the glorification of war. During the past twenty years Fascism has become a world-wide movement. It came to power in Japan, Germany, Hungary, Rumania, Bulgaria, Croatia, Slovakia, Spain, and to a lesser degree in Vichy France. But even in countries where it did not attain full power, Fascist parties of varying strength existed, so that Fascism could proclaim itself a few years ago a triumphant movement which will determine the fate of mankind, the 'wave of the future.'

With its contempt for peace and the peaceful life Fascism had from the first prepared for war. The prompt mobilization of the whole nation and all its resources for total warfare from the beginning in Fascist countries gave Fascism such an advantage over peaceful democratic nations, that the friends of Fascism not only praised its high efficiency and military superiority, but were convinced of its ultimate victory. These friends of Fascism endeavored to spread a spirit of defeatism in the democracies. The myth of the efficiency of Fascism and of the invincibility of the National Socialist armies and airforce became an important weapon in the psychological warfare, the 'war of nerves,' waged by Fascism against democracy.

In 1942, the very year when Fascism was celebrating the twentieth anniversary of its rise to power in Italy, this pretence was definitely shattered. The democracies regained their confidence and were now convinced not only that the democratic idea was of a higher moral and spiritual order but that democracy was more efficient than Fascism even in the art of warfare. The wave of the future seemed now to be revealed as that which the friends of democracy had always believed it to be, a backwash of the past, a denial of that liberty and equality for which the English, American and French revolutions in the 17th and 18th centuries had striven, and which in the 19th century had become accepted as a general creed by the progressive portion of mankind.

Fascist World Conquest.

Within the past decade Fascist forces in all countries were united, under the leadership of Germany, Japan and Italy, for a world-wide assault on democracy and on free peoples everywhere. By the spring of 1940 it seemed as if the Fascist goal of world domination were almost achieved. At that moment the splendid and unexpected resistance of the democratic British Empire broke the 'wave of the future,' and thereby frustrated Fascist designs for world domination and saved mankind. Most friends of Fascism had believed and proclaimed that British democracy had no chance of survival against the German army and airforce. The myth of this invincibility was insidiously fostered by Fascist propagandists who advised Great Britain to submit to the allegedly inevitable German triumph. Yet England's resistance while England stood entirely alone made the awakening of the democracies and their rearmament possible.

In 1942, two years later, the Fascist new world order was opposed by the United Nations of the world, thirty nations united — in spite of their differences of tradition, government and habits of life — in the determination to defend their freedom and survival against the imposition of the Fascist new order, and to create a peaceful world.

By the end of 1942 the myth of the invincibility of Fascism was definitely broken. Democracy, and faith in democracy, were everywhere in the ascendancy. In the military field the German armies had been unable, during 1942, to achieve even one of their military objectives: they were halted and even pushed back in the Soviet Union, and they were routed by the British and the Americans in North Africa. The German airforce no longer threatened Great Britain. Instead, the British airforce began to make the German and Italian people understand what air bombardments mean. Within one year American industrial mobilization had surpassed that of the Fascist Powers and had proven again what free enterprise and free labor can achieve. The Japanese, after great initial successes, due to the unpreparedness of the United States and the concentration of British forces in Europe and the Near East, were halted at the frontiers of India as well as in the Pacific.

Generally the conviction spread that a world-wide Fascist victory was out of the question. This conviction was especially strong in the small European democracies which had survived in spite of their close vicinity to Germany — as in Switzerland and Sweden. On Sept. 20 municipal elections were held in Sweden. They were a test whether Sweden would cling to an outspoken rejection of Fascist and National Socialist ideas and aims, or whether she would show some signs of Nazi infiltration or of a defeatist collaborationist policy. The answer was clear cut. The Swedish Nazis did not dare to put up any candidate of their own, and a pro-Nazi group which called itself the Socialist party, lost all their seats. The social democrats and the conservatives lost some seats while the agrarians and the Communists made slight gains. All these parties are violently anti-Fascist and all, with the exception of the Communists, democratic. Thus the only truly popular vote held in Europe in 1942, in spite of the neighboring Nazi menace, brought a triumphant reaffirmation of faith in democracy.

Decline of Fascism in Italy.

Most characteristic of the breakdown of Fascism was the situation in Italy. There Fascism had first risen to power. For twenty years it had been praised for its efficiency in armament and management, for the building-up of a powerful Italian army, navy and air force. When Fascist Italy entered the World War in June 1940 she expected the world-wide triumph of Fascism and easy gains. Yet British resistance in Great Britain and in the Near East frustrated these hopes. The Italian army was defeated in Greece, in Italian East Africa and in Libya; the Italian fleet proved no match to that relatively small part of its fleet which the British could spare for the Mediterranean; British air planes destroyed important Italian industrial centers without Italy's air force being able to make itself felt, and the whole Italian empire in Africa was lost. Successful Anglo-American operations in North Africa threatened Italy herself with the specter of invasion. Italy had become a vassal of Germany without gaining in the process any territory or any increased security. Under these conditions the morale of the Italian people was reported at a low ebb. The Fascist party was discredited in the eyes of the people and all its efforts to regain its strength proved in vain. In May and August many members were ousted from the party on charges of economic speculation, or of refusal to take part in Fascist activity. On Dec. 19 Premier Mussolini, on the proposal of Aldo Vidussoni, the Fascist party secretary, signed a decree naming a new national directorate of the party. The number of vice-secretaries was raised from three to four, members of the party directorate from 17 to 21. This reorganization was aimed at the home front, especially at the growing labor unrest. The failure of Fascism in Italy had become only too evident by the end of 1942.

Fascism in Other Countries.

The hold of Fascism on Germany was infinitely stronger than the hold of Fascism on Italy. That can be explained not only by the greater efficiency of German administration, but also by the fact that National Socialism appeals to certain historical traditions of Germany. Yet even in Germany the first signs are visible that parts of the German population have begun to doubt the wisdom of Fascism, the more so as the often-promised triumphant German victory over 'decadent democracy' seems to withdraw more and more into a distant future. In most European countries, in Poland, Czechoslovakia, Norway, Denmark, Yugoslavia, Greece, Netherlands and Belgium, Fascist influence has not gained in spite of Nazi occupation. Only in France has the Vichy government of Pétain, Laval, and Darlan helped to promote Fascist feeling. There are also strong Fascist movements among the Boers in South Africa, and in Argentina, where the Spanish governmental party, the Falange, has kept Nazi and Fascist influences alive. In other Latin American countries, however, democracy has gained.

Fascism in Japan.

In a number of articles by the New York Times correspondent in Tokio, Mr. Otto D. Tolischus, which appeared at the end of August, it was made clear that Japan had aligned herself with European Fascism not for economic reasons, but for psychological reasons. In Japan a Fascist tradition has long been very strong, and at least as deeply rooted in Japanese history as German Fascism in German history. Many western observers have regarded the Fascist trend in Japan as too fantastic to be taken seriously. Nevertheless the conviction is deeply ingrained in the Japanese mind that by divine origin Japan is the center of the universe and that it is a part of 'cosmic truth' that Japan is the absolute life-center of mankind and that peace can only be assured by reorganizing mankind into one all-embracing family under Japanese guidance. The counterpart of the Fascist party in Japan is the Imperial Rule Assistance Association, of which Premier Tojo is President and Lieut. Gen. Kisaburo Ando, Executive Vice-President. The Japanese parliament has become a rubber stamp for the military Fascist rule. The similarity of German and Japanese Fascism was stressed in a Berlin broadcast on February 4th according to which Wotan, the old German god, and Amaterasu, the Japanese goddess of the sun and ancestor of the Japanese imperial house, are similar in character and meaning and represent an actual bond between Germany and Japan.