Fascism

Over the last two centuries, state intervention in private life has greatly increased. In Western Europe this process peaked in the interwar period when Fascist regimes attempted “total” control of both the political system and society as a whole. The “Fascistization” of society was a crucial element in the hoped-for (by some) creation of a new Fascist civilization and ultimately a “new European order.” To achieve these goals, national populations had to be mobilized: politically, economically, militarily, but also demographically.

A general though uncoordinated European anti-parliamentary movement of the first half of the twentieth century, Fascism combined radical Nationalism and Revolutionary Syndicalism to synthesize a new sort of right-wing revolutionary movement. It was a movement marked by contradictions – modern and anti-modern, revolutionary and reactionary – and these contradictions came to the fore when the movement became regime and so was forced to make compromises with traditional conservative forces.

Fascism grew out of World War I and it was only a few years after the end of that conflict that Fascists first came to power: in Italy in 1922. They did so with the intention of replacing liberal parliamentary democracy, which they accused of being cumbersome and ineffective, with a new and more dynamic Fascist style of rule. They did not, however, bring with them either a well-enunciated ideology or a long-term political plan. These elements emerged only partially and with time as the regime eliminated or replaced some liberal institutions and preserved others in the pursuit of its goals. One of these emerging goals was the regulation of Italian fertility and migration for combined productive, military, and imperial purposes.