A political theory advocating an authoritarian hierarchical government (as opposed to democracy or liberalism).
Political ideology that denies all rights to individuals in their relations with the state; specifically, the totalitarian nationalist movement founded in Italy 1919 by Mussolini and followed by Hitler's Germany 1933.
Fascism was essentially a product of the economic and political crisis of the years after World War I. Units called fasci di combattimento (combat groups), from the Latin fasces, were originally established to oppose communism. The fascist party, the Partitio Nazionale Fascista, controlled Italy 1922–43. Fascism protected the existing social order by forcible suppression of the working-class movement and by providing scapegoats for popular anger such as minority groups: Jews, foreigners, or blacks; it also prepared the citizenry for the economic and psychological mobilization of war.
The atrocities committed by Nazi Germany and other fascist countries discredited fascism, but neo-fascist groups exist today in the US, Latin America, and many W European countries.