In 1915, a political movement emerged in Italy that would eventually reshape the world through a symbol of bound sticks and an axe, known as the fasces. This bundle represented strength through unity, where a single rod could be snapped easily, but the bundle remained unbreakable. Benito Mussolini, a former socialist journalist, founded the Fasces of Revolutionary Action in Milan, transforming the ancient Roman symbol of magisterial authority into a weapon of political violence. The movement began as a small group of interventionist nationalists who believed that World War I was a revolution that had erased the line between civilians and combatants. They argued that the war had created a new military citizenship where every citizen was mobilized for the state, a concept that would become the bedrock of fascist ideology. The fascists viewed the total mobilization of society during the war as the beginning of a new era, fusing state power with mass politics and technology to create a society where the individual was merely a component of the larger collective. This belief in the necessity of a vanguard leadership and the rejection of bourgeois values would later define the movement's relationship with communism and democracy. The early fascists saw themselves as the inheritors of a revolutionary tradition that demanded the destruction of the old liberal order to build a new, authoritarian state. They were not merely conservatives seeking to preserve the status quo but revolutionaries who wanted to create a new man and a new civilization through the purification of society. The movement's origins were rooted in a revolt against materialism, rationalism, and the perceived weakness of democracy, drawing inspiration from the works of philosophers like Plato and the psychological theories of the time. The fascists believed that civilization was in crisis and required a massive, total solution that only a strong state could provide. They condemned the rationalistic individualism of society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society, arguing that the individual was only one part of the larger collectivity. This ideological foundation would later justify the suppression of opposition, the establishment of a one-party state, and the pursuit of imperialist violence as means to national rejuvenation. The fascists saw themselves as the guardians of the nation, tasked with purging it of decadence and restoring its glory through the application of force and the rejection of liberal democracy. The movement's early years were marked by a struggle to define its identity, oscillating between left-wing syndicalism and right-wing nationalism, before settling into a far-right authoritarian ideology that would dominate Europe in the 20th century. The fascists' belief in the necessity of a vanguard leadership and the rejection of bourgeois values would later define the movement's relationship with communism and democracy. The early fascists saw themselves as the inheritors of a revolutionary tradition that demanded the destruction of the old liberal order to build a new, authoritarian state. They were not merely conservatives seeking to preserve the status quo but revolutionaries who wanted to create a new man and a new civilization through the purification of society. The movement's origins were rooted in a revolt against materialism, rationalism, and the perceived weakness of democracy, drawing inspiration from the works of philosophers like Plato and the psychological theories of the time. The fascists believed that civilization was in crisis and required a massive, total solution that only a strong state could provide. They condemned the rationalistic individualism of society and the dissolution of social links in bourgeois society, arguing that the individual was only one part of the larger collectivity. This ideological foundation would later justify the suppression of opposition, the establishment of a one-party state, and the pursuit of imperialist violence as means to national rejuvenation. The fascists saw themselves as the guardians of the nation, tasked with purging it of decadence and restoring its glory through the application of force and the rejection of liberal democracy. The movement's early years were marked by a struggle to define its identity, oscillating between left-wing syndicalism and right-wing nationalism, before settling into a far-right authoritarian ideology that would dominate Europe in the 20th century.
On the 24th of October 1922, the Fascist Party held its annual congress in Naples, where Benito Mussolini ordered his paramilitary Blackshirts to take control of public buildings and trains and to converge on three points around Rome. The fascists managed to seize control of several post offices and trains in northern Italy while the Italian government, led by a left-wing coalition, was internally divided and unable to respond to the Fascist advances. King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy perceived the risk of bloodshed in Rome in response to attempting to disperse the Fascists to be too high. Victor Emmanuel III decided to appoint Mussolini as Prime Minister of Italy, and Mussolini arrived in Rome on the 30th of October to accept the appointment. Fascist propaganda aggrandized this event, known as the March on Rome, as a seizure of power because of Fascists' heroic exploits. Upon being appointed Prime Minister of Italy, Mussolini had to form a coalition government because the fascists did not have control over the Italian parliament. Mussolini's coalition government initially pursued economically liberal policies under the direction of liberal finance minister Alberto De Stefani, a member of the Center Party, including balancing the budget through deep cuts to the civil service. Initially, little drastic change in government policy had occurred and repressive police actions were limited. The fascists began their attempt to entrench fascism in Italy with the Acerbo Law, which guaranteed a plurality of the seats in parliament to any party or coalition list in an election that received 25% or more of the vote. Through considerable fascist violence and intimidation, the list won a majority of the vote, allowing many seats to go to the fascists. In the aftermath of the election, a crisis and political scandal erupted after Socialist Party deputy Giacomo Matteotti was kidnapped and murdered by a Fascist. The liberals and the leftist minority in parliament walked out in protest in what became known as the Aventine Secession. On the 3rd of January 1925, Mussolini addressed the Fascist-dominated Italian parliament and declared that he was personally responsible for what happened, but insisted that he had done nothing wrong. Mussolini proclaimed himself dictator of Italy, assuming full responsibility over the government and announcing the dismissal of parliament. From 1925 to 1929, fascism steadily became entrenched in power: opposition deputies were denied access to parliament, censorship was introduced and a December 1925 decree made Mussolini solely responsible to the King. The movement's accommodation of the political right created internal factions within the movement. The fascist left included Michele Bianchi, Giuseppe Bottai, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti, Sergio Panunzio, and Edmondo Rossoni, who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize the economy and advance the interests of workers and the common people. The fascist right included members of the paramilitary Blackshirts and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI). The Blackshirts wanted to establish fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco, sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace the liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites. Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. A 2020 article by Daron Acemoğlu, Giuseppe De Feo, Giacomo De Luca, and Gianluca Russo in the Center for Economic and Policy Research, exploring the link between the threat of socialism and Mussolini's rise to power, found a strong association between the Red Scare in Italy and the subsequent local support for the Fascist Party in the early 1920s. According to the authors, it was local elites and large landowners who played an important role in boosting Fascist Party activity and support, which did not come from socialists' core supporters but from centre-right voters, as they viewed traditional centre-right parties as ineffective in stopping socialism and so turned to the fascists. In 2003, historian Adrian Lyttelton wrote: The expansion of Fascism in the rural areas was stimulated and directed by the reaction of the farmers and landowners against the peasant leagues of both Socialists and Catholics. Fascist violence began in 1922, escalating from one of attacking socialist offices and the homes of socialist leadership figures, to one of violent occupation of cities. The fascists met little serious resistance from authorities and proceeded to take over several northern Italian cities. The fascists attacked the headquarters of socialist and Catholic labour unions in Cremona and imposed forced Italianization upon the German-speaking population of Bolzano. After seizing these cities, the fascists made plans to take Rome. The movement's accommodation of the political right created internal factions within the movement. The fascist left included Michele Bianchi, Giuseppe Bottai, Angelo Oliviero Olivetti, Sergio Panunzio, and Edmondo Rossoni, who were committed to advancing national syndicalism as a replacement for parliamentary liberalism in order to modernize the economy and advance the interests of workers and the common people. The fascist right included members of the paramilitary Blackshirts and former members of the Italian Nationalist Association (ANI). The Blackshirts wanted to establish fascism as a complete dictatorship, while the former ANI members, including Alfredo Rocco, sought to institute an authoritarian corporatist state to replace the liberal state in Italy while retaining the existing elites. Upon accommodating the political right, there arose a group of monarchist fascists who sought to use fascism to create an absolute monarchy under King Victor Emmanuel III of Italy. A 2020 article by Daron Acemoğlu, Giuseppe De Feo, Giacomo De Luca, and Gianluca Russo in the Center for Economic and Policy Research, exploring the link between the threat of socialism and Mussolini's rise to power, found a strong association between the Red Scare in Italy and the subsequent local support for the Fascist Party in the early 1920s. According to the authors, it was local elites and large landowners who played an important role in boosting Fascist Party activity and support, which did not come from socialists' core supporters but from centre-right voters, as they viewed traditional centre-right parties as ineffective in stopping socialism and so turned to the fascists. In 2003, historian Adrian Lyttelton wrote: The expansion of Fascism in the rural areas was stimulated and directed by the reaction of the farmers and landowners against the peasant leagues of both Socialists and Catholics. Fascist violence began in 1922, escalating from one of attacking socialist offices and the homes of socialist leadership figures, to one of violent occupation of cities. The fascists met little serious resistance from authorities and proceeded to take over several northern Italian cities. The fascists attacked the headquarters of socialist and Catholic labour unions in Cremona and imposed forced Italianization upon the German-speaking population of Bolzano. After seizing these cities, the fascists made plans to take Rome.
The Pact With The Cross
In 1929, the fascist regime briefly gained what was in effect a blessing of the Catholic Church after the regime signed a concordat with the Church, known as the Lateran Treaty, which gave the papacy state sovereignty and financial compensation for the seizure of Church lands by the liberal state in the 19th century. However, within two years the Church had renounced fascism in the Encyclical Non Abbiamo Bisogno as a pagan idolatry of the state which teaches hatred, violence and irreverence. Not long after signing the agreement, by Mussolini's own confession, the Church had threatened to have him excommunicated, in part because of his intractable nature, but also because he had confiscated more issues of Catholic newspapers in the next three months than in the previous seven years. By the late 1930s, Mussolini became more vocal in his anti-clerical rhetoric, repeatedly denouncing the Catholic Church and discussing ways to depose the pope. He took the position that the papacy was a malignant tumor in the body of Italy and must be rooted out once and for all, because there was no room in Rome for both the Pope and himself. In her 1974 book, Mussolini's widow Rachele stated that her husband had always been an atheist until near the end of his life, writing that her husband was basically irreligious until the later years of his life. The Nazis in Germany employed similar anti-clerical policies. The Gestapo confiscated hundreds of monasteries in Austria and Germany, evicted clergymen and laymen alike and often replaced crosses with swastikas. Referring to the swastika as the Devil's Cross, church leaders found their youth organizations banned, their meetings limited and various Catholic periodicals censored or banned. Government officials eventually found it necessary to place Nazis into editorial positions in the Catholic press. Up to 2,720 clerics, mostly Catholics, were arrested by the Gestapo and imprisoned inside of Germany's Dachau concentration camp, resulting in over 1,000 deaths. The fascist regime created a corporatist economic system in 1925 with creation of the Palazzo Vidoni Pact, in which the Italian employers' association and fascist trade unions agreed to recognize each other as the sole representatives of Italy's employers and employees, excluding non-fascist trade unions. The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers' strikes and lock-outs and in 1927 created the Charter of Labour, which established workers' rights and duties and created labour tribunals to arbitrate employer-employee disputes. In practice, the sectoral corporations exercised little independence and were largely controlled by the regime, and the employee organizations were rarely led by employees themselves, but instead by appointed Fascist party members. The fascist regime created a corporatist economic system in 1925 with creation of the Palazzo Vidoni Pact, in which the Italian employers' association and fascist trade unions agreed to recognize each other as the sole representatives of Italy's employers and employees, excluding non-fascist trade unions. The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers' strikes and lock-outs and in 1927 created the Charter of Labour, which established workers' rights and duties and created labour tribunals to arbitrate employer-employee disputes. In practice, the sectoral corporations exercised little independence and were largely controlled by the regime, and the employee organizations were rarely led by employees themselves, but instead by appointed Fascist party members. The fascist regime created a corporatist economic system in 1925 with creation of the Palazzo Vidoni Pact, in which the Italian employers' association and fascist trade unions agreed to recognize each other as the sole representatives of Italy's employers and employees, excluding non-fascist trade unions. The Fascist regime first created a Ministry of Corporations that organized the Italian economy into 22 sectoral corporations, banned workers' strikes and lock-outs and in 1927 created the Charter of Labour, which established workers' rights and duties and created labour tribunals to arbitrate employer-employee disputes. In practice, the sectoral corporations exercised little independence and were largely controlled by the regime, and the employee organizations were rarely led by employees themselves, but instead by appointed Fascist party members.
The Empire Of Blood
In the 1920s, Fascist Italy pursued an aggressive foreign policy that included ambitions to expand Italian territory. In response to revolt in the Italian colony of Libya, Fascist Italy abandoned previous liberal-era colonial policy of cooperation with local leaders. Instead, claiming that Italians were a superior race to African races and thereby had the right to colonize the inferior Africans, it sought to settle 10 to 15 million Italians in Libya. This resulted in an aggressive military campaign known as the Second Italo-Senussi War also known as the Pacification of Libya against natives in Libya, including mass killings, the use of concentration camps and the forced starvation of thousands of people. Italian authorities committed ethnic cleansing by forcibly expelling 100,000 Bedouin Cyrenaicans, half the population of Cyrenaica in Libya, from their settlements that was slated to be given to Italian settlers. The March on Rome brought fascism international attention. One early admirer of the Italian fascists was Adolf Hitler, who less than a month after the March had begun to model himself and the Nazi Party upon Mussolini and the Fascists. The Nazis, led by Hitler and the German war hero Erich Ludendorff, attempted a March on Berlin modeled upon the March on Rome, which resulted in the failed Beer Hall Putsch in Munich in November 1923. The conditions of economic hardship caused by the Great Depression brought about an international surge of social unrest. Fascist propaganda blamed the problems of the long depression of the 1930s on minorities and scapegoats: Judeo-Masonic-bolshevik conspiracies, left-wing internationalism and the presence of immigrants. In Germany, it contributed to the rise of the Nazi Party, which resulted in the demise of the Weimar Republic and the establishment of the fascist regime, Nazi Germany, under the leadership of Adolf Hitler. With the rise of Hitler and the Nazis to power in 1933, liberal democracy was dissolved in Germany and the Nazis mobilized the country for war, with expansionist territorial aims against several countries. In the 1930s, the Nazis implemented racial laws that deliberately discriminated against, disenfranchised and persecuted Jews and other racial and minority groups. Fascist movements grew in strength elsewhere in Europe. Hungarian fascist Gyula Gömbös rose to power as Prime Minister of Hungary in 1932 and attempted to entrench his Unity Party throughout the country. He created an eight-hour work day and a forty-eight-hour work week in industry; sought to entrench a corporatist economy; and pursued irredentist claims on Hungary's neighbors. The fascist Iron Guard movement in Romania soared in political support after 1933, gaining representation in the Romanian government, and an Iron Guard member assassinated Romanian prime minister Ion Duca. The Iron Guard was the only fascist movement outside Germany and Italy to come to power without foreign assistance. During the 6th of February 1934 crisis, France faced the greatest domestic political turmoil since the Dreyfus Affair when the fascist Francist Movement and multiple far-right movements rioted en masse in Paris against the French government resulting in major political violence. A variety of para-fascist governments that borrowed elements from fascism were formed during the Great Depression, including those of Greece, Lithuania, Poland and Yugoslavia. In the Netherlands, the National Socialist Movement in the Netherlands was at its height in the 1930s due to the Great Depression, especially in 1935 when it won almost eight percent of votes, until the year 1937. In the Americas, the Brazilian Integralists led by Plínio Salgado claimed as many as 200,000 members, although following coup attempts it faced a crackdown from the Estado Novo of Getúlio Vargas in 1937. In Peru, the Revolutionary Union was a fascist political party which was in power 1931 to 1933. In the 1930s, the National Socialist Movement of Chile gained seats in Chile's parliament and attempted a coup d'état that resulted in the Seguro Obrero massacre of 1938. During the Great Depression, Mussolini promoted active state intervention in the economy. He denounced the contemporary supercapitalism that he claimed began in 1914 as a failure because of its alleged decadence, its support for unlimited consumerism, and its intention to create the standardization of humankind. Fascist Italy created the Institute for Industrial Reconstruction (IRI), a giant state-owned firm and holding company that provided state funding to failing private enterprises. The IRI was made a permanent institution in Fascist Italy in 1937, pursued fascist policies to create national autarky and had the power to take over private firms to maximize war production. While Hitler's regime only nationalized 500 companies in key industries by the early 1940s, Mussolini declared in 1934, Three-fourths of Italian economy, industrial and agricultural, is in the hands of the state. Mussolini's speech to the Chamber of Deputies was on the 26th of May 1934. Due to the worldwide depression, Mussolini's government was able to take over most of Italy's largest failing banks, who held controlling interest in many Italian businesses. The IRI reported in early 1934 that they held assets of 48.5 percent of the share capital of Italy, which later included the capital of the banks themselves. Political historian Martin Blinkhorn estimated Italy's scope of state intervention and ownership greatly surpassed that in Nazi Germany, giving Italy a public sector second only to that of Stalin's Russia. In the late 1930s, Italy enacted manufacturing cartels, tariff barriers, currency restrictions and massive regulation of the economy to attempt to balance payments. Italy's policy of autarky failed to achieve effective economic autonomy. Nazi Germany similarly pursued an economic agenda with the aims of autarky and rearmament and imposed protectionist policies, including forcing the German steel industry to use lower-quality German iron ore rather than superior-quality imported iron. 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. From 1935 to 1939, Germany and Italy escalated their demands for territorial claims and greater influence in world affairs. Italy invaded Ethiopia in 1935 resulting in its condemnation by the League of Nations and its widespread diplomatic isolation. In 1936, Germany remilitarized the industrial Rhineland, a region that had been ordered demilitarized by the Treaty of Versailles. In 1938, Germany annexed Austria and Italy assisted Germany in resolving the diplomatic crisis between Germany versus Britain and France over claims on Czechoslovakia by arranging the Munich Agreement that gave Germany the Sudetenland and was perceived at the time to have averted a European war. These hopes faded when Czechoslovakia was dissolved by the proclamation of the German client state of Slovakia, followed by the next day of the occupation of the remaining Czech Lands and the proclamation of the German Protectorate of Bohemia and Moravia. At the same time from 1938 to 1939, Italy was demanding territorial and colonial concessions from France and Britain. In 1939, Germany prepared for war with Poland, but attempted to gain territorial concessions from Poland through diplomatic means. The Polish government did not trust Hitler's promises and refused to accept Germany's demands. The invasion of Poland by Germany was deemed unacceptable by Britain, France and their allies, leading to their mutual declaration of war against Germany and the start of World War II. In 1940, Mussolini led Italy into World War II on the side of the Axis. During World War II, the Axis Powers in Europe led by Nazi Germany participated in the extermination of millions of Poles, Jews, Roma, Sinti and others in the genocide known as the Holocaust. In 1943, after Italy faced multiple military failures, the complete reliance and subordination of Italy to Germany, the Allied invasion of Italy and the corresponding international humiliation, Mussolini was removed as head of government and arrested on the order of King Victor Emmanuel III, who proceeded to dismantle the Fascist state and declared Italy's switching of allegiance to the Allied side. Mussolini was rescued from arrest by German forces and led the German client state, the Italian Social Republic from 1943 to 1945. Nazi Germany faced multiple losses and steady Soviet and Western Allied offensives from 1943 to 1945. On the 28th of April 1945, Mussolini was captured and executed by Italian communist partisans. On the 30th of April 1945, Hitler committed suicide. Shortly afterwards, Germany surrendered and the Nazi regime was systematically dismantled by the occupying Allied powers. An International Military Tribunal was subsequently convened in Nuremberg. Beginning in November 1945 and lasting through 1949, numerous Nazi political, military and economic leaders were tried and convicted of war crimes, with many of the worst offenders being sentenced to death and executed.
The Shadow Of The Cross
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 Trials convicted several Nazi leaders of crimes against humanity involving the Holocaust. However, there remained several movements and governments that were ideologically related to fascism. Francisco Franco's Falangist one-party state in Spain was officially neutral during World War II, although Franco's rise to power had been directly assisted by the militaries of Fascist Italy and Nazi Germany during the Spanish Civil War. The first years were characterized by a repression against the anti-fascist ideologies, deep censorship and the suppression of democratic institutions (elected Parliament, Spanish Constitution of 1931, Regional Statutes of Autonomy). After World War II and a period of international isolation, Franco's regime normalized relations with the Western powers during the Cold War, until Franco's death in 1975 and the transformation of Spain into a liberal democracy. Historian Robert Paxton observes that one of the main problems in defining fascism is that it was widely mimicked. Paxton says: In fascism's heyday, in the 1930s, many regimes that were not functionally fascist borrowed elements of fascist decor in order to lend themselves an aura of force, vitality, and mass mobilization. He goes on to observe that Salazar crushed Portuguese fascism after he had copied some of its techniques of popular mobilization. Paxton says: Where Franco subjected Spain's fascist party to his personal control, Salazar abolished outright in July 1934 the nearest thing Portugal had to an authentic fascist movement, Rolão Preto's blue-shirted National Syndicalists. ... Salazar preferred to control his population through such organic institutions traditionally powerful in Portugal as the Church. Salazar's regime was not only non-fascist, but voluntarily non-totalitarian, preferring to let those of its citizens who kept out of politics live by habit. However, historians tend to view the Estado Novo as para-fascist in nature, possessing minimal fascist tendencies. Other historians, including Fernando Rosas and Manuel Villaverde Cabral, think that the Estado Novo should be considered fascist. The term neo-fascism refers to fascist movements that generally originated after World War II. According to Jean-Yves Camus and Nicolas Lebourg, the neo-fascist ideology emerged in 1942, after Nazi Germany invaded the USSR and decided to reorient its propaganda on a Europeanist ground. In Italy, the Italian Social Movement led by Giorgio Almirante was a major neo-fascist movement that transformed itself into a self-described post-fascist movement called the National Alliance (AN), which has been an ally of Silvio Berlusconi's Forza Italia for a decade. In 2008, AN joined Forza Italia in Berlusconi's new party The People of Freedom, but in 2012 a group of politicians split from The People of Freedom, refounding the party with the name Brothers of Italy. In Germany, various neo-Nazi movements have been formed and banned in accordance with Germany's constitutional law which forbids Nazism. The National Democratic Party of Germany (NPD) is widely considered a neo-Nazi party, although the party does not publicly identify itself as such. In Argentina, Peronism, associated with the regime of Juan Perón from 1946 to 1955 and 1973 to 1974, was influenced by fascism. Between 1939 and 1941, prior to his rise to power, Perón had developed a deep admiration of Italian Fascism and modelled his economic policies on Italian fascist policies. However, not all historians agree with this identification, which they consider debatable: Although it is incorrect to define Peronism as Nazism, and it is debatable to conceptualize it as fascism, the truth is that in the University the Catholic sectors that received the support of the General did much to make the students consider as fascist to Perón. or even false, biased by a pejorative political position. Other authors, such as the historian Raanan Rein, categorically maintain that Perón was not a fascist and that this characterization was imposed on him because of his defiant stance against US hegemony. After the onset of the Great Recession and economic crisis in Greece, a movement known as the Golden Dawn, widely considered a neo-Nazi party, soared in support out of obscurity and won seats in Greece's parliament, espousing a staunch hostility towards minorities, illegal immigrants and refugees. In 2013, after the murder of an anti-fascist musician by a person with links to Golden Dawn, the Greek government ordered the arrest of Golden Dawn's leader Nikolaos Michaloliakos and other members on charges related to being associated with a criminal organization. On the 7th of October 2020, Athens Appeals Court announced verdicts for 68 defendants, including the party's political leadership. Nikolaos Michaloliakos and six other prominent members and former members of parliament (MP) were found guilty of running a criminal organization. Guilty verdicts were delivered on charges of murder, attempted murder, and violent attacks on immigrants and left-wing political opponents. Marlene Laruelle, a French political scientist, contends in Is Russia Fascist? that the accusation of fascist has evolved into a strategic narrative of the existing world order. Geopolitical rivals might construct their own view of the world and assert the moral high ground by branding ideological rivals as fascists, regardless of their real ideals or deeds. Laruelle discusses the basis, significance, and veracity of accusations of fascism in and around Russia through an analysis of the domestic situation in Russia and the Kremlin's foreign policy justifications; she concludes that Russian efforts to brand its opponents as fascist is ultimately an attempt to determine the future of Russia in Europe as an antifascist force, influenced by its role in fighting fascism in World War II. According to Alexander J. Motyl, an American historian and political scientist, Russian fascism has the following characteristics: An undemocratic political system, different from both traditional authoritarianism and totalitarianism; Statism and hypernationalism; A hypermasculine cult of the supreme leader (emphasis on his courage, militancy and physical prowess); General popular support for the regime and its leader. Yale historian Timothy Snyder has stated, Putin's regime is ... the world center of fascism and has written an article entitled We Should Say It: Russia Is Fascist. Oxford historian Roger Griffin compared Putin's Russia to the World War II-era Empire of Japan, saying that like Putin's Russia, it emulated fascism in many ways, but was not fascist. Historian Stanley G. Payne says Putin's Russia is not equivalent to the fascist regimes of World War II, but it forms the nearest analogue to fascism found in a major country since that time and argues that Putin's political system is more a revival of the creed of Tsar Nicholas I in the 19th century that emphasized Orthodoxy, autocracy, and nationality than one resembling the revolutionary, modernizing regimes of Hitler and Mussolini. According to Griffin, fascism is a revolutionary form of nationalism seeking to destroy the old system and remake society, and that Putin is a reactionary politician who is not trying to create a new order but to recreate a modified version of the Soviet Union. German political scientist Andreas Umland said genuine fascists in Russia, like deceased politician Vladimir Zhirinovsky and activist and self-styled philosopher Aleksandr Dugin, describe in their writings a completely new Russia.