To what extend is fascism a blend of nationalism and socialism?

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Cassie Zhang

To what extend is fascism a blend of nationalism and socialism?

On one hand, fascism is a blend of nationalism and socialism since there are considerable numbers of concepts which link fascism to those two doctrines. It is certain that fascists have behaved like nationalists or in most cases, radical nationalists. First of all, fascists love the idea of uniting people into a single entity. Fascists revere the idea of nationhood because of its ability of uniting people who enjoy the common circumstances of birth. The Nazi form of fascism in particular insisted that it was the role of the state to serve the interests of the nation. As a result, fascism values the idea of organic society highly as nationalism does. Both doctrines believe that the common sense of nationality (or gemeinschaft) will bring a people together into a single whole which will stand above the individual; and fascists took this idea further by claiming that one should subordinate his interests and should obey the leader completely.

Second, fascists’ obsession of warfare has demonstrated the nationalist’s characteristics within themselves. Fascism sees the interests of the nation as rivaling against other nations; therefore, there is a need to be engaged in warfare in order to protect the nation from expansionist nations and to maintain the nation’s independence and self-determination of a people, especially in the Nazi form of fascism, they struggled to keep their race pure. More importantly, the love of warfare shows the fascists’ pride of their nation and their desire of expressing the nation’s superiority. For example, Italy invaded Abyssinia in 1936 and Nazi Germany was willing to conquer all Slavic people during the early part of twentieth century; these fascist movements were imperialist and expansionist, both are elements of right-wing nationalism.

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Third, fascism has also associated with the idea of volkism which is a form of cultural nationalism; it can be seen as a romantic ideal which is a desire to retain the traditional territory or to regain possession of it after losing it historically. In Italy, Mussolini and Gentile made up an mythology around Italian history claiming that it was Italy’s destiny to recreate its imperial past. In Nazi Germany, Hitler’s plan of the golden future of Germany also involved the restoration of all its lost territories

Moreover, fascism has also engaged with many socialist ideas. Both ideologies ...

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