GS Mains Model Question & Answer: Fascism as an ideology emerged in between the two World Wars when the capitalist system was engulfed in deep crisis . Discuss.
Q. Fascism as an ideology emerged in between the two World Wars when the capitalist system was engulfed in deep crisis . Discuss. (12.5 Marks)
(General Studies Mains Paper I- History of the world : political philosophies like communism, capitalism, socialism etc)
Model Answer :
Fascism as an ideology and as a form of political rule emerged in between the two World Wars in the 20th century. When the capitalist system was engulfed in deep crisis and faced with the threat from a revolutionary movement of the working class, the ruling classes in Germany opted for an extreme form of rule that abolished bourgeois democracy. Mussolini’s Italy and Japan were also fascist regimes. The conditions of economic hardship caused by the Great Depression brought about an international surge of social unrest. The classic definition of fascism leaves no room for ambiguity: Fascism in power is “the open terrorist dictatorship of the most reactionary, most chauvinistic and most imperialist elements of finance capital.”
In Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany, both Mussolini and Hitler pursued territorial expansionist and interventionist foreign policy agendas from the 1930s through the 1940s culminating in World War II.
The victory of the Allies over the Axis powers in World War II led to the collapse of many fascist regimes in Europe. The Nuremberg Trialsconvicted several Nazi leaders of crimes against humanity involving the Holocaust.