Fascism

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regime.

As all totalitarian leaders, Mussolini, Hitler, Tojo and Stalin all used violence to impose their regime and ideology. Mussolini used the black shirts to intimidate enemies and act as vigilantes. He also had a party militia, which used violence against enemies, controlled the police, muzzled the press and censored academic activity. The same way, Hitler suppressed all his opponents using the SS (Schutzstaffel) which was like a party militia created to control all regular and secret police and which used terror to impose the Nazi ideology and rule over Germany. Also the anti-Semitism of the Nazi party brought in 1935 the Nuremburg Laws, which stated that the Jews were no longer citizens and intermarriage of Jews and Germans was no longer allowed. Moreover, in 1938 there was Kristallnacht or night of shattered glass during which people broke in and robbed Jewish homes. As the violence escalated Jewish males were sent to concentration camps and Jews in general were banned from all public buildings or retail stores. Another dictator who used violence was Tojo, especially during the Nanking massacre or the Rape of Nanking which was an episode of mass murder and mass rape committed by Japanese troops against the residents of Nanking which left 50,000 to 300,000 dead in 6 days starting on December 13, 1937. Finally, Stalin who was also a totalitarian leader even though he was communist also used force and violence to impose his dictatorship. His biggest and most well known campaign of terror was the Great Purge, which lasted from 1936 to 1938. It was a series of campaigns directed by Stalin against especially the kulaks: peasants with some land and who could sustain themselves pretty well. He also made the use of terror, repression, and of the secret police but also of show trials and forced confessions after which the victims were either executed or sent to the gulag to serve as forced labor even though they might have done nothing, Stalin just needed workforce. In his paranoia, he also purged all of his top officers. In total there was approximately 1 million victims.

Thus, the common characteristics of fascism and totalitarianism involves all that is common to both the fascist and the communist regime, including being provoked by wars and an instable government, ruled by a single party while all others are suppressed and finally, the use of violence to impose on each individual their regime. As both communist states and fascist states can be totalitarian once both regimes become too extreme they become more and more similar in the way to rule and impose their power over the population. As Dr. Vladimir Tismaneanu said: "How was it possible for ideologies so different in their origin and rhetoric to result in mass murder? I see nihilism at the core of both revolutionary programs. Communism, as the great French historian Francois Furet said, is pathology of the Enlightenment. Fascism is pathology of the Counter-Enlightenment. They are both exacerbated, inflamed, pathological expressions of the attempt to impose through violence elitist fantasies of historical grandeur."