1002 Ch. 25 • Economic Depression and DictatorshipFascism was less of an ideology per se than a violent plan of action with
the aim of seizing power. Fascists most often defined themselves by
denouncing who and what they were against, such as parliamentary democ
racy, rather than w hat they were for. Fascists did not put forward “programs”
for authoritarian rule. They saw themselves as building a new social and po
litical order based upon service to the nation. This idea of creating a new
elite also distinguished fascist from authoritarian movements in Spain and
Portugal, where nationalists tried to affirm the domination of traditional
elites, such as nobles and churchmen, and remained suspicious of mass
movements in general.
Fascist movements opposed trade unions, Socialists, and Communists w ith
particular vehemence because all three emphasized class differences they
believed were endemic in capitalist society, espoused working-class interna
tionalism, and based their appeal primarily on the perceived needs of work
ers. Fascists, by contrast, viewed economic and social tensions as irrelevant,
arguing that it w'as enough that all people shared a common national identity,
and that this national community meant more than did economic disparities
between social classes. Fascism w'ould make such divisions obsolete. Mus
solini and Hitler covered up the brutal realities of their rule by promising
with vague rhetoric that the needs of the “national economic community”
would be fulfilled. In the early 1920s, Mussolini had added “international
finance capital” to his list of enemies, a holdover from the rhetoric of his days
as a socialist before the war, trying to convince workers that he spoke for their
interests, too. Like Mussolini, dictators Engelbert Dollfuss in Austria (1892
1934) and Antonio Salazar (1889-1970) in Portugal also added “corpo
ratism” to their list of promises, announcing that associations of employers
and workers would be formed w'ithin each industry. But fascist states
remained capitalistic in nature, w'ith big business accruing great profits and
workers lagging far behind.
There was no single fascist ideology, and not all of the right-wing author
itarian movements in Europe in the 1920s and 1930s can be qualified as
fascist. In Spain, Francisco Franco imposed a military dictatorship like that
of Salazar in neighboring Portugal; both were predicated upon the influ
ence of traditional elites, the Catholic Church, and the army. Yet, while
sharing the anti-Bolshevism of fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, neither the
Spanish nor the Portuguese dictatorship shared the expansionist ideology of
those regimes, and both distrusted the kind of mass movement that helped
sweep the Italian fascists and German Nazis to power. The agrarian pop
ulist authoritarian regimes of Eastern Europe may also be described as fas
cist states, or at least “para-fascist” dictatorships. Some of these also were
aggressive, nationalist mass movements built upon anti-communism, anti
Semitism, and fierce opposition to parliamentary rule. Yet although inspired
in some ways by Italian fascism and German National Socialism, they had
no illusions about expanding their states beyond what each claimed as the
“historic” limits of their nationality. Moreover, Stalin’s Soviet Union, too,