The Russian Revolution and the Rise of Fascism Essay

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As Paxton (2005) points out, the Russian Revolution was directly responsible for the rise of Fascism in Italy and Germany. The Russian Revolution, comprised of and led largely by a Jewish demographic, represented a threat to the nationality and national interests of European states. Fascist movements were not limited to Italy and Germany—they appeared in England, France, Spain and elsewhere—but Italy and Germany emerged as the primary Fascist states because of the force of leadership that emerged in each nation respectively: Mussolini in Italy, and Hitler in Germany. Both were at the forefront of the conservative, nationalist movement that pushed back against the rising tide of Communistic socialism, which the conservative nationalist parties vehemently opposed. The Russian Revolution was, in essence, a rejection of everything Old World, as Fitzgerald (2000) showed. The representatives of Fascism were fighting specifically for that Old World—and they were using every possible avenue they could control to wage that war. This paper will examine the relationship between the Russian Revolution and the rise of Fascism and show that essentially Fascism happened because Communism came to roost in Russia and was threatening to do the same throughout Europe.

In what way did the Russian Revolution spark the rise of Fascism? Paxton (2005) states clearly that Fascism appeared wherever there were “attempts at Bolshevik revolution—or fear of it—during the period when communism seemed likely to spread beyond its Russian home base” (p. 81). This was especially true in the strongholds of Fascism in Europe, where “Germany, Italy, and Hungary had all had particularly close calls with the ‘red menace’ after the war” (Paxton, 2005, p. 81). Fascism represented an ideology directly opposed to that of the communists. During the Weimar Republic between the wars, for example, Jewish influence had been particularly pronounced in Germany (Paxton, 2005). Had the Jewish influence, the decimation of Germany, and the destruction of the country’s culture not been the case, Hitler would have had no reason for rising up. The communists wanted revolution; the Fascists sought preservation.

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The Blackshirts in Italy, the NSDAP in Germany, and the extreme Right in France (unsuccessful, however, in achieving its goal), all illustrated that Fascism was a movement of a mass of people against a countering trend by the revolutionary Left.

There were very real geopolitical and socio-political factors involved in the rise of Fascism that led many ordinary men and women, workers, politicians, and elites to support the leaders who demonstrated a penchant for Fascism. Fascism was viewed, Paxton (2005) indicates, as the last hurrah of the working man who still believed in the Old World values and of the Old World patriarchs (the elites who did not want to see their countries taken over by Soviet-style separatists—i.e., Jews). Paxton’s argument is that Fascism had very clear and distinct social, cultural and emotional roots: it was connected to the culture of the past—to everything from the music of Wagner to the philosophical works of Schonerer and Chamberlain and Georges Sorel. Fascism had an intellectual basis that was opposed to the liberalism represented by the Leftist (largely Jewish) revolutionary sect that had taken power in Russia and that was rising up in Hungary, Germany, Italy and Spain (where a major civil war soon got underway to determine the fate of the Spaniards).

Marx described the relationship between Communism and the rise of Fascism well when he wrote: “the modern bourgeois society that has sprouted from the ruins of feudal society has not done away with class antagonisms. It has but established new classes, new conditions of oppression, new forms of struggle in place….....

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References

Fitzgerald, S. (2000). Everyday Stalinism. UK: Oxford University Press.

Hobsbwam, E. (1996). The Age of Extremes. NY: Vintage.

Marx, K. & Engels, J. (1848). Manifesto of the Communist Party.

Paxton, R. (2005). Anatomy of Fascism. NY: Vintage.
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The relationship between the Russian Revolution and the rise of fascism is distinct and marked. Both movements were revolutionary in their own way, and both were provoked to a certain extent by a Marxist inspiration. Lenin was one of the leaders of the Russian revolution and he was a committed Marxist. He did not want Russia to participate in any part of the war, but was the one who surrendered to German invasion. When Lenin died, the gap that was left open in his death was quickly taken over by Stalin. Fascism was… Continue Reading...

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