User blog:4th of Augustball/What my definition of Fascism is.

This blog post was created for the sole purpose of differentiating Fascism for other similar ideologies and coming up with the definition of Fascism I believe is true (and hopefully one you will believe in as well).

Merriam Webster defines Fascism as: a political philosophy, movement, or regime (such as that of the Fascisti) that exalts nation and often race above the individual and that stands for a centralized autocratic government headed by a dictatorial leader, severe economic and social regimentation, and forcible suppression of opposition.

I can expand on this definition by seperating Fascism's core belief to better give it a solid definition: Nationalism. I seperate Nationalism into 2 sections, Irredentism/Traditionalism and Imperialism. Irredentism mainly focuses on reuniting with territory that is either of historical, cutural or religious significance (example: Greece reunifying with Constantinople/Istanbul) or the reunification of territory with the same/similar ethnic groups of said country (example: Serbia unifying with Srpska).

Imperialist Nationalism (which is where Fascism fits in) is where a nation activly oppresses other nations for the good of the "superior" culture found within their nation. This fits in exactly with what Benito Mussolini's Italy and Adolf Hitler's Germany wanted to do (except for the fact that Nazism cranked it up to 11). The countries I have just mentioned took over other countries for the"good" of their race by oppressing others and stealing their resources for the motherland. Other countries such as Metaxas's Greece, Franco's Spain and Salazar's Portugal either attempted to unify themselves with long lost territories/ethnically similar territories or preserve what the country already had (including their colonial territories). Hence why certain ideologies similar to Fascism (such as Metaxism and Francoism) are not Fascist.

Again if anyone can dispute this and would like to discuss this further, I will have no quarrels discussing this topic with you (provided you keep a cool head and answer politely).