Peer 1 Aoxiang Following World War I, some difficulties led to the rise of fascism. It responded to ...
Peer 1 Aoxiang Following World War I, some difficulties led to the rise of fascism. It responded to the expansion of liberal democracy and socialism/communism. Under fascism, people were forced to submit to the state, and the needs and desires of the state were prioritized over individuals (Petrocelli, Fascism in the 1930s, slide 2). People supported fascism because they felt that the government had failed to address the economic and social problems they were facing at the time. Leaders such as Mussolini took advantage of people's desperation to gain support and turn against the socialists whom they had initially supported (Petrocelli, Fascism in the 1930s, slide 5). Fascism was primarily defined by a commitment to a strong leader who would issue demands that people would comply with and that the state would be revered. Ethnocentrism, militarism, and ultranationalism were also prevalent components of fascism, as explained by (Petrocelli, Fascism in the 1930s, slide 3). Fascism's constituent parts produced extremely harmful outcomes since many people died during its rise to power. The results of fascism are detrimental in the sense that it is mapped with a lot of injustices to the citizens and persecution of opponents. As illustrated by Allosso & Williford (350-351), Mussolini, the mai, the center of command, disbanded all political parties in Mussolini's case. Restricted press freedom so the state would not be afraid to conduct more civil offenses, and the press would never expose his nefarious acts. Because labor unions were suppressed, employees had no voice to advocate for themselves and were forced to accept the government's choice. Jews were excluded from government jobs and branded as disloyal, which led to widespread discrimination. Jews were excluded from government jobs and branded as disloyal (Petrocelli, Fascism in the 1930s), which led to widespread discrimination and hatred. The holocaust in Germany by the Nazi government is as a result of fascism. Hitler's opponents and the Jews in Germany would not have been persecuted if there had been a democratic government at that time. Communists, socialists, and other political opponents of the Nazi government faced imprisonment and persecution because the Nazis wanted to be in complete control (Petrocelli, Holocaust by National Holocaust, slide 9). A great lesson we can learn from the holocaust is never to disregard the significance of democracy, which might look insignificant until it is lost. Poor leadership creates disunity among individuals, and it is such that divide and rule and rule and rule that fascists employ in exercising their power and authority. We also learn the importance of advocating for leaders who have the interest of all the citizens at heart. People need to be educated about leadership and the benefits of advocating for the right leaders to avoid such happenings in the future. Freedom and human rights are something that people should not take for granted; people have to stand up for themselves and ensure that they do away with individuals or groups that want to popularize selfish ambitions that may harm the people. Going forward, people should learn to support democracy and learn to respect each other. When democracy and respect are withheld, it is impossible for fascists to win.. (523 words) Peer 2 Fuyu The rise of fascist ideologies across the world was significantly correlated with the growing disillusionment over liberal democratic and socialist ideologies. In nations such as Germany and Italy where undesirable aspects of the social system such as unemployment and poverty were rife despite embracing parliamentary systems of governance, fascism offered a radical choice of a system of governance concentrated mostly on one leading figure, who essentially acted as an anchor of hope for the people. The potent danger of fascist ideologies can be identified from the common elements that embody its beliefs and practices. Notably, fascism was commonly associated with the veneration of the state, devotion to a strong and central leader, ethnocentrism, ultra-nationalism, and militarism (Petrocelli, “Fascism in 1930s,” Slide 3). The extreme power of the military and pervasive or xenophobic hatred of other nations together with the potential for a totalitarian leader to become too ambitious meant that the states were essentially volatile and without an efficient state control mechanism such as a working parliamentary system, the fascist state had very few to no avenues of controlling against crises. This was the case for Italian fascist leader Benito Mussolini who, after attaining control over the country, would go on to impose total control over Italian social and economic life, outlaw all the other oppositional parties, and subsequently crown himself as the supreme leader, “Il Duce,” of Italy (Allosso and Williford Chapter 8). Following such sweeping control over a nation, fascist leaders such as Mussolini and Adolf Hitler sought to expand their ambitions to international politics through strategies such as violent expansionism to neighboring nations, and with little in terms of opposition, the leaders would get what they wanted and thus become a catalyst to the disruption of the existing world order. Although the story of the persecution of European Jews began very early during the Crusades, the Holocaust was one of the darkest stages in the history of the Jews’ occupation of Europe. Before the Holocaust, a mounting anti-Jewish sentiment flourished uncontrollably across Europe and mostly in the fascist nation of Germany where the leader, Adolf Hitler, together with other members of the NAZI party expressed public disdain for the Jewish population (“Lectures Slides on the Holocaust by National Holocaust Museum,” Slide 11). This eventually led to a systematic belief that considered Jews unworthy of German citizenship and later even unworthy of life, a trend that made German collaborators of the Nazi party all too willing to take part in the Holocaust. An important lesson here is the power of sustained injustice and xenophobia where people end up blindly supporting murderous ideologies. Looking back into the past, we can learn that failure to amend historical injustice and hatred toward other communities eventually leads to a culmination of hate that can be extremely dangerous if the entire population is, over time and frequently, exposed to the idea that a particular community is bad and deserves to be despised with no reason whatsoever.
