fascism comes only when the working class shows complete incapacity to take into its own hands the fate of society.

Just as communism always begins with an appeal to “humanity” and equality” and ends with inhuman despotism, so does fascism always begin with an appeal to “nationalism” and “individualism,” and ends with a military collectivism far worse than the disease it purports to cure.

Freedom’s utter frustration in fascism is, indeed, the inevitable result of the liberal philosophy, which claims that power and compulsion are evil, that freedom demands their absence from a human community. No such thing is possible; in a complex society this becomes apparent. This leaves no alternative but either to remain faithful to an illusionary idea of freedom and deny the reality of society, or to accept that reality and reject the idea of freedom. The first is the liberal’s conclusion; the latter the fascist’s.

Yet the victory of fascism was made practically unavoidable by the liberals’ obstruction of any reform involving planning, regulation, or control.

Fascism is not to be debated, it is to be destroyed!

"As bitter as it may be, the fact remains: It is the irresponsibleness of masses of people that lies at the basis of fascism of all countries, nations, and races, etc. Fascism is the result of man's distortion over thousands of years. It could have developed in any country or nation. It is not a character trait that is confined specifically to the Germans or Italians. It is manifest in every single individual of the world. The Austrian saying <i>"Da kann man halt nix machen"</i> expresses this fact just as the American saying "Let George do it." That this situation was brought about by a social development which goes back thousands of years does not alter the fact itself. It is man himself who is responsible and not "historical developments." It was the shifting of the responsibility from living man to "historical developments" that caused the downfall of the socialist freedom movements. <i>However, the events of the past twenty years demand the responsibility of the working masses of people.</i>

If we take <i>"freedom"</i> to mean first and foremost the <i>responsibility of each individual to shape personal, occupational, and social existence in a rational way,</i> then it can be said that <i>there is no greater fear than the fear of the creation of general freedom.</i> Unless this basic problem is given complete priority and solved, there will never be a freedom capable of lasting more than one or two generations."

That which the fascists hate, above all else, is intelligence.

Fascism is capitalism plus murder.

Fascism is a caricature of Jacobinism.

Both theoretical analysis as well as the rich historical experience of the last quarter of a century have demonstrated with equal force that fascism is each time the final link of a specific political cycle composed of the following: the gravest crisis of capitalist society; the growth of the radicalization of the working class; the growth of sympathy toward the working class, and a yearning for change on the part of the rural and urban petty bourgeoisie; the extreme confusion of the big bourgeoisie; its cowardly and treacherous maneuvers aimed at avoiding the revolutionary climax; the exhaustion of the proletariat; growing confusion and indifference; the aggravation of the social crisis; the despair of the petty bourgeoisie, its yearning for change; the collective neurosis of the petty bourgeoisie, its readiness to believe in miracles, its readiness for violent measures; the growth of hostility towards the proletariat, which has deceived its expectations. These are the premises for a swift formation of a fascist party and its victory.

Fascism is the stage reached after communism has proved an illusion.

You can not prove that Fascism is anything but a sordid, retrogressive despotism, which crushes the individual liberty and strangles the intellectual life of every country it inflicts with its slimy presence … and Fascism is nothing but a new fad-name for industrial tyranny … the Fascist movement in America is nothing but a move on the part of the money-barons to establish themselves more firmly than ever, to stamp out the last vestige of freedom in the people beneath them

Fear always springs
from ignorance.

I really am a pessimist. I've always felt that fascism is a more natural governmental condition than democracy. Democracy is a grace. It's something essentially splendid because it's not at all routine or automatic. Fascism goes back to our infancy and childhood, where we were always told how to live. We were told, Yes, you may do this; no, you may not do that. So the secret of fascism is that it has this appeal to people whose later lives are not satisfactory.