heightened it. They were intellectual parasites who borrowed the ideas of others to use as the new tools of
power.
Fascism or Fascist ideology were not restricted to Italy or to Germany alone. Fascism was a European
phenomenon which developed as a reaction to the perceived failure of western-style liberal democracies and
industrial capitalism. From France, Belgium and Romania to Austria, England and the United States, Fascism
did manage to receive some support. Fascism was a radicalism of the political right and as such, profoundly
conservative. Its ideology glorified the country over the city, stressed blind patriotism, the family, traditional
values and old customs. We see the same emphasis in the German “Volk.” “The world between the wars was
attracted to madness,” wrote the British philosopher Bertrand Russell (1872-1970). “Of this attraction Nazism
was the most emphatic expression.” Watching Hitler’s chanting crowds, and mass meetings, one could only get
the idea that some kind of madness had come over Germany. In actual fact, most Germans cared less for
Fascist or Nazi propaganda. They like Hitler because he got things done, solved unemployment and restored
the pride of all Germans.
It’s been said that people, not being truly rational, have need of ritual, romance and religion. Perhaps these
needs had been neglected in a rationalized, bureaucratic and mechanical society. Fascism reminded these
people that twentieth century man is in search of religion and religious faith — faith needed to replace a
Christianity now hidden. In Fascism and Nazism, they found a new faith replete with rituals, symbols,
sacraments, the good book as well as a Messiah. In the end, of course, this new faith turned out to be a
disastrous one.