Conventional wisdom holds that what is past is
prologue. In that regard, the West’s
long-running battle with islamo-fascism has a similar clash still in living
memory.
The geopolitical clock was running in
1934. Despite a Europe wracked by the
lingering effects of the 1914-1918 Great War, that summer the five-year
countdown to another conflagration ran inexorably onward. The sands of time draining in history’s
hourglass were pressed from above by the weight of an emerging political
philosophy: fascism. It was bound to
collide with Western democracies.
Fascism is usually seen as an extreme
right-wing, one-party state. However,
fascism shared much with communism since both were highly authoritarian
philosophies—presumably populist but in fact antidemocratic--in which national
priorities prevailed over rights of the individual.
A chart of the political spectrum
frequently portrays fascism on the far right and communism on the far left, but
that is a skewed depiction. In fact,
both belong on the left—communism at the far end--with anarchy properly laid on
the far right. Democracies fall
somewhere in between.
Historically, both philosophies are
outgrowths of 19th century socialism. A distinguishing feature is that
communism is ostensibly international socialism, while fascism is national
socialism. The best example of such philosophical overlap is the Nazis in
Germany—the National Socialist Workers’ Party.
The roots of fascism were Italian
national “syndicalism,” evolved from a form of French socialism. In the turbulent political,
economic and social aftermath of WW I, fascism gained strength in Europe.
In Italy around 1920, future dictator Benito Mussolini
drew upon both sides. He denigrated the
traditional right as backwards and the left as destructive. In order to avoid constant turmoil, fascists
believed in an extremely strong central government, yielding Mussolini’s
“century of authority.”
After fighting among communists,
socialists and anarchists, at least nominally fascist movements took power in
Mussolin's Italy in 1922, Adolf Hitler's Germany in 1933, and Francisco
Franco's Spain in 1939.
Fascism’s appeal was widespread among
many nationalist factions: at least ten other nations followed the Italian and
German paths by 1939, in Europe, Asia, and South America. Other countries sprouted significant fascist
movements, including much of the British Commonwealth. Their emergence reflected growing
disaffection with the naiveté and
pacifism still evident two decades after the armistice of 1918.
The international “peacekeeping”
body, the League of Nations established in1920, had no means of enforcing peace,
and quickly descended into irrelevancy. Including civil wars and revolts, more
than 40 conflicts on four continents arose during the 1930s, though only about
a dozen lasted a year or more. The most
significant were the Spanish Civil War (1936-39) with heavy foreign
involvement, and Japan-China (1937-45.)
Other notable conflicts involved
Paraguay-Bolivia (1932-35), Italy-Ethiopia (1935-36), Palestinians versus the
British (1936-39), and Finland-Russia (1939-40).
Adolf Hitler came to power as
chancellor in 1933 and immediately began expanding the armed forces. In July 1934 parliament passed legislation
making the National Socialists the only legal political party, and the next
month President Paul Hindenburg died, leaving Chancellor Hitler as head of
state.
Hitler wasted little time proceeding
with his agenda. In October 1934, only
nine months after becoming chancellor, he withdrew from the League of Nations
by demanding military equality with France and Britain. After secretly forming the Luftwaffe (partly
in Russia) Hitler announced its existence in 1935.
Fascism’s advance did not occur in a
vacuum. In 1933 members of the Oxford
Union voted that they would “in no circumstances fight for king and country”
because presumably nothing was worth another Great War. The vote came six years after Cambridge
students easily passed a resolution for pacifism.
In March 1936 Hitler seized the
Rhineland, a demilitarized zone between France and Germany established after
World War I. In two days the crisis passed: Germany remained free to pursue its
wider goals. The upshot set a deadly
pattern: the democracies’ perennial unwillingness to challenge aggression.
Thus emboldened, in 1938 Hitler renounced
the Versailles Treaty signed after WW I and ordered his general staff to
prepare for full-scale war by 1940.
A native Austrian, Hitler wanted his
homeland in German Reich, but the Vienna government declined. Faced with possible invasion in 1938, Austria
sought assistance from Britain and France, who refused. Hitler invaded in
March.
Next Hitler set his sights on
Czechoslovakia. He insisted that the Sudetenland—heavily
ethnic German—join the Reich. The Czech
government was willing to fight, however poor its chances, but again France and
Britain opted for “peace,” declining to support the Czechs. Naïve Europeans believed Hitler’s previous
statement that Sudentenland was “the last territorial demand I have to make in
Europe.” The seal was set in September,
and in March 1939 Hitler seized the rest of the nation.
Then in August 1939 Hitler and Stalin
astonished the world by signing a mutual nonaggression pact, only three years
after the anti-Comintern alliance. The path was clear for Germany to direct its
attention against traditional enemies: France and Britain. Neither had demonstrated any willingness to
oppose fascist aggression, convincing Adolf Hitler that pacifism had stripped the
democracies of their courage.
Unlike Italy and Germany, Japanese
fascism did not produce a dominant individual.
But an amalgam of army, government, and industry leaders pushed an
anti-democratic agenda that led to a de-facto fascist state from 1931.
Japan had ten prime ministers through
the 1930s, only four being elected.
Emperor Hirohito had ascended the throne in 1926 but sat as head of
state rather than head of government. It
was a time of extreme unrest, with army and right-wing factions resorting to
assassination on occasion.
In 1931 Japanese forces invaded
Manchuria and established a puppet state, Manchukuo. The League of Nations was incapable of
resolving the dispute, though held Tokyo responsible. Consequently, Japan pressed its military
advantage while withdrawing from the league.
Increasingly aggressive in eastern
China, Japan pressed ahead with full-scale war from 1937. Japan seized Shanghai and Nanking, the
Nationalist capital. In December the
rape of Nanking began with an estimated 300,000 Chinese killed or raped.
Thus was set the stage for the Second
World War, which conceivably could have been averted had the democracies
displayed some intestinal fortitude.
In the 1930s fascism was ascendant in
Europe and Asia. Today, Islamo-fascism
continues its march toward the global caliphate. Yet in the West, even the phrase “radical
Islam” draws venomous responses from the American president and a chorus of
liberal feel-gooders. The West lacks a
21st century Churchill, let alone a Charles Martel, the French leader who
repelled Islam’s hordes at Tours in 732.
We live in historic times: we are
witness to the decline of Western Civilization, a victim of the virus of
political correctness.
