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Old 02-28-2007, 05:27 PM   #7
TopGearNL
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Originally, the term fascism was used by an Italian political movement that ruled Italy from 1922 to 1943 under the leadership of Benito Mussolini (see Italian fascism). Later, fascism became a more generic term that was meant to cover an entire class of authoritarian political ideologies, parties, and political systems, though no consensus was ever achieved on a precise definition of what it means to be "fascist". Various scholars have sought to define fascism, and a list of such definitions can be found in the article Definitions of fascism.

Part of the difficulty arises from the fact that there are, at present, very few self-identified fascists. Since the defeat of the Axis powers in World War II, the word has become a slur throughout the rest of the political spectrum; since 1945 it has been extremely uncommon for political groups to call themselves fascist. In contemporary political discourse, adherents of some ideologies tend to associate fascism with their enemies, or define it as embodying the opposite of their own views. There are currently no major self-proclaimed fascist parties or organizations anywhere in the world.

The governments and parties most often considered to have been fascist include Nazi Germany under Adolf Hitler, Spain's Falange, Portugal's Estado Novo, Hungary's Arrow Cross Party, Romania's Iron Guard, and other similar movements that existed across Europe in the 1920s and 1930s. Some authors reject this broader use of the term or exclude certain of these parties and regimes.[3]

Fascism attracted political support from diverse sectors of the population, including big business, farmers and landowners, nationalists, and reactionaries, disaffected World War I veterans, intellectuals such as Gabriele D'Annunzio, Curzio Malaparte, Filippo Tommaso Marinetti, Carl Schmitt and Martin Heidegger, conservatives and small businessmen, and the masses to whom they promised work and bread. In countries such as Romania and Hungary (and to a lesser extent in other states), Fascism had a strong base of support among the working classes and extremely poor peasants.
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