Not Poetry.. Fascism Poem by Rommel Mark Dominguez Marchan

Fascism has actually existed for centuries. Fascism as an ideology in a nutshell is the belief that the government is a sort of 'super-corporation' where all other sectors of the economy are its subsidies. The term Fascism itself has become something of an empty word, since its association with Naziism, anti-semitism, and white supremacy (which are not necessarily fascist values, as demonstrated by Imperial Japan) has led to the term 'fascist' becoming a derogatory term used across the political spectrum for various reasons. But a closer inspection reveals that Fascism is actually a patchwork system of many different ideas of Italian, French, German and British ideologies conglomerated into one political movement.

Proto-Fascism began as a splinter faction of the Italian Socialist Party. In 1914, the party was bitterly divided over what to do about World War I. One faction clung to the tenets of Karl Marx, and maintained that the Great war was Capitalist grandstanding. The other group was deeply influenced by Italian nationalism, stemming from the traditional Italian hatred of Austria as well as the Italian Futurists, an art movement that glorified war, industry, and energy.

Benito Mussolini, who then was a young Socialist, was actually one of the Marxists. Prior to 1914 he was known for his violent opposition against war, such as Italy's 1911 war against Turkey and Libya. In his youth Mussolini was well known as one of the most ardent idealists of Marxism in his party. However, with the rising tide of nationalism in Italy, Mussolini was not prepared to loose his popularity, and thus changed sides over to the nationalistic Marxists. Mussolini became instrumental in getting Italy to enter the war through use of French funded propaganda.

Mussolini enjoyed tremendous popularity during WWI, but one unexpected event changed that: The Russian Revolution. The popularity of Communism exploded, and the Communists took control of Italy. Mussolini's socialists dwindled into obscurity until the 1920s. Italian Communism failed spectacularly, Italy was rocked by economic hard times. Mussolini and his socialist party experienced a resurgent popularity. Mussolini wanted to distance himself from the Marxists who had ruined Italy, and thus decided to rename his party. He wanted to tap the powerful nationalism of the Italians, and he chose to do so by associating himself with ancient Rome. He styled his new 'Fascist' party after ancient Roman fasces, which were ancient Roman symbols of the power of the state.

However, Mussolini faced a dilemma. Traditional Marxist socialism had failed spectacularly in Italy, and he was looking to rebuild Italy with a party essentially comprised exclusively of Socialists. Fascist scholars looked to Socialism's past, and salvaged an old form of British socialist utopianism called Guild Socialism. The Italians (again, wanting to distance themselves from their political foes) called it Corporativism, or Corporatism.

Fascism was Socialist in origin, vehemently anti-capitalistic, ultra-nationalistic, and anti-communist. It became explosively popular throughout the world, including Germany, France, Japan and especially in the United States, which traditionally disdained Marxism due to it's history of terrorist tactics (President McKinley had been assassinated by a Marxist anarchist) . Some would even point out that many tenets of FDR's New Deal bear a striking resemblance to many of Mussolini's doctrines.

Fascism also became the de jure political system of the United Socialist German Workers Party, which was headed by the Charismatic Adolf Hitler. Fascism appealed to Hitler, who saw it as a 'third way' to Anglo-Saxon Capitalism and Russian Communism. The unflinching Ideology of the Russians convinced Hitler to seek partnership with the West, and Hitler began touting Fascism as an evolution of Capitalism to France, Britain, and the United States. However, he also found a partnership with Josef Stalin and the two signed a military alliance. After years of boorish diplomacy, Hitler had decided that Germany was strong enough to defeat his enemies, the Communists and the Capitalists, and it started first with the unprovoked invasion of Poland, then the brilliant military campaign against France, then the insidious backstabbing of Russia as the Communists engaged in their own. Of course, The Axis powers lost the war, and Fascism as an ideology became associated with the more coarse elements of Naziism, the hatred and the racial bigotry, while people mostly forgot about Fascism's actual tenets, which is chillingly causing them to resurface in the west under pseudonyms other than the now thoroughly disgraced term Fascism